“Leave it with me… Danny?” Rick turns away as the call connects with his second. “I want eyes on a runaway. Sending you the details now.”
No one has the right to sound that concerned about her, except me.
“… I want her found and brought to me by sunrise.”
Over my dead body.
Next thing I know, I’m closing the distance between us, snatching the cell from his hand and chucking it across the foyer. It hits the wall and smashes on impact, sending shards of metal crap everywhere.
“What the fuck?” yells Rick.
We’re eyeball-to-eyeball now, barely a foot between us—my six-four giving me a minor advantage over his six-two, the width of my chest and biceps giving me even more. Despite this, I don’t underestimate him for a second. Men like Rick never fight clean.
“I don’t need your help locating her, Sanders,” I say, articulating every word to drive my point home. “That’s my fucking job.”
“Then what the hell are you doing in my house?” He slams his palms into my chest, shoving me away. “I’ll give you ten seconds to get the hell out of here before my gun is so far up your ass you’ll be cleaning bullets with your teeth.” He pushes me again, and I take it without stumbling. It takes a lot to bring me down.
“Is that all you got, Brooklyn?” I sneer.
“Go fuck yourself.” Another shove. “Slink back into Dante’s shadow where you belong. Playing with the big boys doesn't suit your job description.”
“Tell every dealer in the state to keep a thirty-yard distance,” I say, pushing back on him to even up the posturing.
“From who? Miss Phantom?” Rick steadies himself, his eyes now fresh warning slits, but I’m done paying attention. “You’re the asshole who lost her, remember?”
“I mean it, Sanders. If I hear one of your fucking friends has sold her coke again, I’ll—”
“You’ll what? Applaud us for bringing a snort or two of joy into what’s left of her life?” He shakes his head at me, his smirk re-merging like some kind of messed up sunshine. “Don’t forget who dragged her into hell in the first place, Joseph. She was having fun pouring drinks in my club and kissing boys in cars before you and Dante brought your war to her doorstep. Have you told her why she was taken yet?”
“This is a polite request,” I say, struggling to keep my cool—almost tasting the cheap thrill of his blood messing up his Persian Mashad rug. “The next one won’t be so pleasant.”
Rick scoffs at my threat. “Does the King of Colombia know you’re pissing all over his business relationships like this?”
“Leave Dante out of it. This is between you and me.”
A heavy silence follows. A new war of attrition.
“Christ, I need another drink,” says Rick, yielding first.
That makes two of us.
I trail behind him into a study lined with literature I’ll never read, and watch him pour a couple of whiskeys. I take his conciliation offer without thanks, knocking it back in one.
“Tell me something, Grayson,” he says, leaning back against the studded mahogany desk, swilling his drink and watching me closely. “Why the John Lennon circa Jealous Guy act? Are you hoping to sample her pussy like a fine wine, or drag her back to your cave by her hair like the goddamn animal I know you really are?”
“Get the message out to both your dealers and suppliers,” I say tersely, returning the empty glass to the sideboard. “And the same goes for you. Stay the hell away from her. She’s my problem, not yours.”
But Rick’s sensed a weakness. He’s a tiger again, swatting for the kill.
“Is it the guilt that gets you hard or the thrill of unbreaking the broken?” he muses. “Or maybe she reminds you of your dearly departed—?”
“I’m done here.” I swipe my hand across my jaw and turn for the door. “Enjoy the rest of your evening.”
“So soon?” His sarcasm trails me out into the foyer. “Such a pity when I have a spare whore upstairs who’s been dying to suck your dick for the right price.”
“All out of dollars.”
“Blonde hair, big blue eyes, a body made for sin…” Rick’s mouth is positively curling with malice. “Dante’s brother, Emilio, was convinced you liked them doe-eyed and docile, but I’m not so sure. I reckon you need them as fucked up as you are, you kinky piece of shit.”
You have no idea.
I’m reaching for the front door when he appears next to me with a vulturine look on his face.
“You are everything that is wrong inside of her, Grayson,” he purrs, aiming his words low and off-center to my chest. “You represent the very hell she’s running from... What makes you think you can do her any kind of right?”
“Because that’s what I’m good at, asshole,” I mutter, stepping outside and slamming the door shut in his face. I make shit right. Be it with my gun, my dick or the fucked-up wasteland that used to be my heart.
9
Anna
I arrive at Rafael Núñez International Airport at around seven a.m., local time, with nothing but my black overnight bag, two hundred dollars in pesos and a fake smile that’s making my teeth hurt. My sense of shock is so strong I can’t stop shaking. It’s everything. It’s the aftermath from leaving the way I did, from the attempted rape, from my shadow’s equally violent reprieve...
I wish I felt guilt, but I don’t. My final scraps of that emotion were slammed up against the wall in that alleyway. Their rough fingers violated the last fragment. Eve once told me that some crimes deserved a different kind of justice. I used to think it was another of her crass justifications for loving a man like Dante Santiago, but the tightrope between morality and sin was shortened the second they stole me. It narrowed to zero the first time they took turns to—
No, no, no. I need my moon, not my memory.
The seatbelt sign pings off and I lose myself to the shuffle and scramble, choosing to leave the events of last night behind on the polyester seat covers. As such, I disembark to a dawning sense of freedom. Whenever I lost control in Miami, Joseph Grayson was the constant that slowed the motion. Now he’s a thousand miles away, out of reach, redundant, and my blood is pumping with a brand-new cocktail of recklessness.
My first hurdle is to navigate the airport terminal. These places are like mini citadels, all flowing with their own rivers of foreignness. I move with the herd toward the drab, gray cubicles of border control, and then I’m swept along on a tide of exhaustion and Spanish, out through the baggage displays where I’m deposited on the sanitized white beach of a busy arrivals hall.
My second hurdle is to find a taxicab sign. I glance around, ignoring all the shitty thoughts flitting through my brain:
I have no plan.
I have no destination.
The flight was short, but the climb seems endless.
Friends and family are swarming like honeybees around everyone, except me. Their excited chatter makes my losses more acute. Their laughter makes my pale skin and golden hair even more obvious. It’s not like I needed another flashing arrow above my head or anything… My tight black jeans and sweater already scream ‘lost tourist’ amid a sea of pastel shorts and T-shirts.