by Mary Calmes
It wasn’t easy to make so much inventory disappear, but Trevan had done it, slowly, carefully, methodically, saying no when people made inquiries, sounding sincerely apologetic when he told them that sadly, his inventory had already been sold. That was the same story month after month, that the weapons had all been bought at one time and Trevan didn’t have any more to sell. After a year of being told no, people stopped asking, but as far as Eastman and Fanton knew, they were still in the gun business. What they didn’t know was the warehouses that used to stockpile AK-47s and RPGs now were full of dog food and lumber, automobile parts and office supplies. They were all rented out, and now, finally, he’d sold all of them, the last sale going yesterday with all the money funneled to New York through an account that was set up when Fanton first hit town. Trevan didn’t take a dime. Stealing money wasn’t the point. What he’d succeeded in doing was dismantling the business he had helped grow.
But now I couldn’t stand around being his guardian angel anymore and so had made provisions for him. It was why Fortney was dead. I needed to get things moving.
“Darius?” Trevan whispered, using my birth name.
“We’re fine,” I assured him, returning my attention to Eastman.
He fisted his hands in front of him, breathing through his nose, before he turned back to Trevan. “You are a very fortunate man, Trevan.”
“Yessir, I know,” he agreed solemnly. “Do you want to talk business now?”
“The only business I want to talk about is where are all my fucking guns?” he roared, pushed to the breaking point.
“They’re not your fucking guns. They’re Mr. Fanton’s fucking guns, and they’re gone, every last one of them,” he replied, pulling an envelope from the breast pocket of his suit jacket and passing it to Seta. “Inside you’ll find all the deed transfers and the rest of the paperwork that documents the sale of all the warehouses and the rest of the commercial property here in Detroit.”
“What are you talking about?” Eastman barked.
Trevan leaned forward, holding his gaze. “No one ever checks in this business. Gabriel had that motto that you hear in business all the time: inspect what you expect. But not you guys. Nobody ever came to the warehouses, nobody ever wanted to take a tour with me. All you guys cared about was that the money came in. And yeah, it was less, but not a hundred thousand dollars less.”
“I don’t understand what….” Eastman turned to Seta, snatching the piece of paper Seta had extracted from the envelope from his hands. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that everything is gone.”
“I don’t understand.”
“There are no guns,” he explained, “and now there are no warehouses.”
He stared at Trevan blankly.
“First, I got rid of the weapons and had us selling anything that was overstocked at rock bottom prices,” he continued. “I sold furniture, lumber, farm equipment, power tools—I mean, really, it looked like a Home Depot or a Lowe’s—it was nuts.”
“You’re not making any sense.”
Trevan huffed out a breath. “I had to move ten times more garden fertilizer and dog food and cat litter than I did guns, but I kept the money close enough that no one asked me any questions. You only wanted to talk to me after Mr. Fanton heard that no one was buying guns from his guy in Detroit anymore, only in other cities.”
Eastman nodded, wiping sweat from his forehead, looking more and more nervous by the second.
“Yeah, that’s what I figured,” Trevan said with a nod. “So I haven’t moved any guns in over a year.”
Eastman was even paler than usual and looked unsteady in his chair. Seta’s face was screwed up like he was constipated or ready to pass out, the way his eyelids kept fluttering. Both of them were reeling.
“As I said, in that envelope you’ll find bills of sale. All the warehouses have been sold off and belong legally not to the people who work there—because I know how you guys work and didn’t want them strong-armed—but by large corporations, some not even in this country. So if you did try and talk to the people there, you’d see that in each case, the warehouses are impossible to get back by any other means besides legal and with a large amount of cash changing hands.”
Both men were staring at him utterly horrified.
“And I mean a fuckton of it,” Trevan added. “Not that I can see Mr. Fanton wanting to spend a lot of money getting back something he used to own.”
No one said a word.
“Seems counterintuitive,” Trevan continued. “But I guess if Mr. Fanton asks, you can tell him that under your watch, all of his warehouses and the business that went along with it… were shut down in Detroit.”
The prolonged silence from the two men wasn’t surprising. They’d been completely blindsided, it would take long minutes for them to come up with any sort of intelligent rebuttal.
“Or just don’t tell him anything and say you have to pull out of Detroit for other reasons.”
I did a slow pan to Trevan, because he could stop talking at any point now. There was no reason to go rubbing what he’d done in their faces. One of them might just stand up and try and shoot him on general principal, and then I’d have to stop them, and then we’d be in the middle of a bloodbath just because he couldn’t stop poking the bear.
“What?” Trevan asked after a moment, realizing I was scowling at him.
“Are you done?” It was a question, but I was also prodding him.
“I was just trying to think of what he could say,” he said defensively. “You know I always try and think of all the alternatives.”
It was true; he did. But now was not the time. I shook my head. “Wrap it up.”
Trevan cleared his throat and looked back at Eastman. “I wanted to be out after Gabriel was killed. I told you that a million times.”
Still nothing from Eastman or Seta. I was certain that the magnitude of what Trevan had been able to accomplish right under their noses was a hard pill for the men to swallow. But so many people were just like them—watching the money and nothing else.
“I was happy. Everything was going well and I would have stayed and been loyal, and not first legitimized your business and then simply ended it, if you hadn’t killed Gabriel,” Trevan informed them. “The fact that you did what you did to him made me want to hurt you in the only way I could.”
Shock covered Eastman’s face.
“The last of the money coming through will be in the account at the end of this month. After that, there’s nothing else,” Trevan explained, sucking in a quick breath. “You can, of course, try and rebuild that part of the business here in Detroit, but after all this time of me saying no… I’m not sure who would want to traffic guns with you or trust you to—”
“I get it,” Eastman said icily, cutting him off. “You’ve burned the house down.”
“Yes.”
“Mr. Fanton will bury you,” he dared to threaten the man I’d been watching over for almost three years.
“He won’t,” Trevan assured him. “He’ll be too busy wondering about your incompetence. He’ll wonder why you never checked on me, not even once.”
“You—”
“It’s true,” he insisted. “He won’t look past you to me. He’ll assume you killed me for what I did to you, and he won’t even check why you didn’t.”
Eastman swallowed hard. “Even if that’s true, he’ll come for you once I’m out of Detroit.”
“But I won’t be here by the time he figures that out, and even if he comes looking for me in my new city….” Trevan sighed before tipping his head toward me. “You know.”
Eastman glanced at me, solid and present beside the man he wanted to not only kill anymore, I was sure, but annihilate.
“So, are you and I done?” Trevan asked.
“Oh yeah, kid, you’re done.”
I would have rolled my eyes—it was so stupid and over the top—but I just wanted to get out of there without killing a
nyone. It would be a hassle I didn’t care enough about.
Rising from the table, Trevan walked from the patio toward the door, the slow rise and fall of his walk a smooth, seamless glide. He really was a beautiful kid, a blend of his African-American father and Cuban mother with chiseled features and warm brown eyes. I’d always found him handsome in a distracted way. I’d seen him as someone to watch over, to protect, from the start, and after our association moved from acquaintance to friendship, I saw him as a little brother and nothing more. People misjudged him all the time, thought he looked tough and wary, like a street thug instead of the enterprising businessman he truly was. I had never done that because from the first moment we’d met, I’d seen him use his brain and not his brawn.
He, on the other hand, had seen me first as scary, then beautiful—his word, not mine—and finally, now, sort of a mixture of both.
“It’s your eyes,” he told me once, sitting beside me in my car, “it’s the gold with the green, against that dark skin of yours. Seriously, where the hell did those come from?”
“My mother’s eyes were hazel,” I told him, smiling as I thought of her.
“It’s funny,” he said softly, still looking at me. “I bet if you weren’t so scary looking that you’d have women all over you all the time.”
We never talked about who I’d want all over me, so he had no idea I was gay just like he was. He and I might have the conversation someday, but it wasn’t necessary at the moment.
Trevan was first on the elevator, and I turned to face the room, my back to him, as the doors whooshed shut in front of me.
Halfway down, he put his hand on my shoulder. I didn’t turn to look at him. I couldn’t. I had to be ready if we stopped before we reached the bottom.
“Did you hear him? I’m out,” he said excitedly.
“I heard him.”
He sucked in a breath. “I want to talk to you.”
“Hold on,” I cautioned, reaching in my pocket to use my audio scrambler before nodding. “G’head.”
“Promise me,” he insisted.
“Promise you what?”
“That everything will be okay.”
“It will.”
“You’re positive? I mean, I’m not trying to second-guess you or—”
“I know.” I did. He trusted me in all things.
“I’m just worried. “
I was aware.
“You’re sure my mother and everyone else will be safe here even if I go with you to Boston.”
“Oh, you’re going to Boston regardless,” I said implacably. “We agreed, and I already put first and last months’ rent down on the brownstone on Newbury Street for Landry’s business. It’s got a nice two-bedroom apartment on the second floor complete with hardwood floors and lots of natural light that Landry will love and a small terrace that you can sit out on.”
He sighed deeply. “It sounds awesome, but you didn’t have to do—”
“I did. It was my idea for you guys to move to Boston with me, so I had to put my money where my mouth is.”
“Yeah, but you’re not responsible for me and Landry.”
“The hell I’m not.”
Trevan was quiet for a moment. “You haven’t told me what your new job is.”
“I know.”
“You didn’t—I mean, you didn’t take it just because you wanted to protect us, did you?”
“Not only, no. But you and Landry were a consideration.”
“But you made the decision mostly for you, right?”
“I did. It was time for a change.”
“I’m still a little scared to move. I’ve lived in Detroit my whole life.”
“You’re going to love Boston, I have no doubt.”
He took a deep breath—I heard the inhale behind me. “Okay. No more going back and forth about it. I’ll go there with Landry and let you watch over us some more since it seems like something you like to do, and I don’t want to deprive you of the pleasure.”
“Thank you, that’s very thoughtful.”
“That’s what people say,” he assured me. “That Trevan is a thoughtful guy.”
I scoffed.
“Can I ask a question?”
“Can I stop you?”
“Probably, yeah, but I know you won’t anymore. You’ve changed so much in the past few years. It’s like night and day, actually.”
When I first met him, I had been much more closed off, not sure where my boundaries were. I had maybe ten people in the world who could really say they knew me back then, but slowly, over time, my circle grew along with my caring and my patience and my desire to know others. I was still not ready to host a dinner party, and I could kill all conversation in a room if I wasn’t careful, but I was less suspicious these days and more apt to give someone the benefit of the doubt. It was new for me.
“Are you safe?”
“Always,” I promised.
“Your friends are looking out for you?”
“Yes.”
“And you can count on them?”
“I can.”
He squeezed my shoulder. “Aren’t you ever scared?”
“There’s no point.”
“To fear?”
“Yes.”
“So what, then?”
“Whatever happens will have an effect. You deal with the ripple.”
He let me go. “You’re amazing.”
“No,” I said, exhaling slowly as the elevator came to a stop at the lobby. “Just prepared.”
The elevator door opened and—really, that many guns trained on me and Trevan was ridiculous. Who did they think we were?
“I take it back,” Trevan gasped from behind me. “This—this is overkill.”
He wasn’t wrong.
“Jesus,” Trevan gasped, bumping me from behind, clasping the back of my overcoat.
“Calm yourself,” I whispered, glancing around for whoever was in charge of the SWAT team in front of us. When I found who I was looking for, only then did I have a moment of… not fear, that wasn’t what made me shiver, but of startled recognition. He looked gobsmacked himself.
“Darius?” he rasped as he came up behind a man holding an M-4 assault rifle on me.
I hadn’t heard my name from his lips in over sixteen years; it was both comforting and scary at the same time. “Efrem,” I greeted the only man I’d ever loved.
We stood there, staring, and all I saw was green. His eyes—I knew them so well, knew every fleck of indigo, how they looked hooded with passion and blazing with anger. It was thrilling and terrifying to face them again.
Trevan peeked out from behind me. “Are we under arrest?”
Even with the gun pointed at me dead center, I could not keep from smiling. Only my days turned out like this. Seriously. Only mine. Good thing I was all about embracing life changes, never fighting them.
“What a weird day,” Trevan breathed out behind me.
Again, he was not wrong.
Chapter Two
ELEVEN MONTHS ago, I was walking through the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen in early May. No one who knew me would have ever thought to look for me there; it was basically a family amusement park, after all, so I was surprised when an old friend suddenly appeared. She was standing beside one of the lampposts in the year-round Christmas market and waved during the moment it took me to realize who I was seeing.
“Sello?” I said hoarsely, stunned and wary at the same time. In my business, surprise visits from old friends could be less than welcome.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, her face screwed up with distaste.
“I love it here,” I replied, almost defensive. “It’s so festive.”
She grimaced, panning around, taking in the strings of light, hanging lanterns, decorated spruce trees, and stalls filled with food and ornaments.
“It’s even better close to Christmas when the snow is on the ground,” I sighed. “It’s like walking in a winter wonderland.”
&
nbsp; “You’re not kidding.”
“They’ve got really good rides too.”
“Are you reliving your childhood?” she asked as a small crowd of people walked between us. Neither of us had taken a step toward the other.
“It’s comforting,” I assured her.
“It’s terrifying,” she corrected, gesturing around her.
“They have an amazing gingerbread shop,” I offered cheerfully.
She squinted at me.
“How about a waffle cone?”
“No, thank you.”
“Roller coaster?”
She took a step closer and I took one back.
“Why did you do that?”
“Why are you here?” I asked pointedly, crossing my arms as I looked at her, letting her know I was tense, ready, but not opening my coat, not reaching for the Beretta 92FS Combat pistol in my shoulder holster.
“Oh,” she said suddenly, like a thought just hit her. “I’m not here to kill you,” she announced, looking right, then left at the milling crowd. “Not that I could. Is this why you like it here? You feel safe?”
I nodded. As much as the historic buildings, lush scenery, and immaculately maintained gardens soothed me, the fact that it was a world-class amusement park packed wall to wall with people was a great way to walk around and not worry.
“So, may I speak to you?”
“About?”
She pointed at me. “May I come over there?”
I wasn’t sure, still studying her, seeing nothing at all that pinged of danger. She seemed happy to see me and a bit anxious like she was chomping at the bit to deliver some news.
“Please. It’s important.”
I knew Sello Mogale from when I was with the CIA serving with the South African National Defense Force. We bonded quickly because she liked that I was sarcastic and outspoken and, in her words, kind of an ass. I’d been drawn to her because she was smart, funny, kind, and above all, exceedingly competent. It was not every day one found people who knew what they were doing and excelled at their job. Whenever I encountered those individuals, I tried really hard to keep them in my orbit. I considered Sello a friend and knew she felt the same.
