Chapter 12
Olivia
“Daddy, what’s going on?”
“Olivia, come here.”
“Daddy!?”
“Come out with your hands up, Rocco!”
“Is that the police!?” I exclaimed.
“Baby bear, please,” my father whimpered.
Never in my life had I heard my father make that noise. My burly, gray-haired, rough and tumble father. Whimpering for my presence. I heard the sirens gathering on our lawn. The lights flashing through the windows of our rickety home. I ran to my father and wrapped my arms around his neck, feeling him bury his stubbled face into my neck.
“I love you so much,” he whispered.
“Daddy, what’s going on? Why are they asking you to come outside?” I asked.
“You’ve got sixty seconds, Rocco! Or we’re comin’ in after you!” the police officer yelled.
“Another crew set us up, baby bear. They set us up real good. But, don’t worry. I’m going to get out of there. I’m innocent, baby bear. I promise. And when I testify, I’m going to come back. Okay?” he asked.
“Daddy, please don’t go anywhere. You didn’t do anything wrong!”
“Thirty seconds!” the police officer yelled through the bullhorn.
My father cupped my cheek as tears fell down my face. I cried into his hand, trying to memorize everything about him. His smell. His touch. The feel of his hands. I wrapped my arms around him and held him close, counting down the seconds in my head.
Twenty- five, twenty- four, twenty- three.
“I want you to be a good girl for your grandmother, okay? She’s going to look after you so you can finish up and graduate,” my father said.
“And you’re going to be there. Because you promise you didn’t do anything?” I asked.
“Twenty seconds!” the police officer roared.
My father looked me into my eyes. Looked at me with those green eyes I had inherited. His face filled with determination. And I knew that was never a good thing for anyone on the receiving end of his issues.
“I promise you, I’ll be there for your graduation,” my father said.
“Ten seconds, Rocco! Don’t make us do this to your daughter!” the officer exclaimed.
“You’re doing this, you coward! Not him!” I yelled.
“Sh-sh-sh-sh… it’s going to be okay, baby bear. I love you so much,” my father whispered.
My father stood up from the floor and winked at me one last time. Then, with tears in his beautiful green eyes, he turned and walked away from me. I heard the police officer counting down the seconds in the bullhorn.
Five.
My father walked his way to the front door.
Four.
He reached for the knob as I tucked myself away into a corner.
Three.
I heard my grandmother yelling from the curb that she needed to get to her granddaughter.
Two.
My father threw open the door and locked his hands behind his heads.
One.
“I don’t know how I’m going to do it, Daddy, but I’m going to find a way to get you out of this!” I shrieked.
They tackled my father to the ground. One officer punched him in the face, even though he wasn’t resisting. I heard my grandmother calling out for him. Yelling at the officers to stop touching my father as they cuffed him and put his bloodied face into the cement of our porch. One officer pressed his knee into the back of my father’s neck. Causing him to choke and cough as his eyes looked at me with fire and fury. My grandmother pushed through the ruckus and ran for me. Wrapped her arms around me and tried to pull me away from the sight.
“Daddy! No! Please!”
The sound of my shrieking teenage voice slowly pulled my eyes open. Those three words bounced off the corners of my mind as a tear slipped down my cheek. I never did get to fulfill my promise to my father. Then again, neither did he. The evidence didn’t matter in court. His testimony and those of others didn’t matter, either. The jury saw him as guilty the second they saw his tattoos. His missing tooth. His leather cut. Heard his name and who he was connected to. For all they knew, they were prosecuting him for shit he’d done in his past. Shit they’d never be able to catch him on.
They tossed him into jail on the day of my high school graduation.
I swiveled my chair around in my office and stared at the dusty wall. I committed my entire college career to finding a way to get my father out of prison. I got my bachelor’s degree in Psychology with a concentration in Human Behavior in three years. I took summer courses. Winter break courses. Not once did I take a break while my father was in prison rotting his innocent life away. I took on a master’s in Criminal Psychology while juggling an internship at the local police precinct, which rolled over into the required internship in order to apply for the FBI. I trained my mind with school and trained my body early every morning with the gym. Swimming. Weight training. I made myself fast. Strong. A decent free-climber. An expert marksman. I did everything I could have possibly done to get myself into the FBI as quickly as I could so I could tackle my father’s case.
And the day I was accepted as a Special Agent was the day my father’s rival gang killed him in prison.
“Agent Banks?”
The voice of Sheriff Barnes pulled me from my thoughts and I quickly wiped away at my tears.
“Yes, sir?” I asked.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Mhm. Just waking myself up. Long night.”
“You stayed up with those files, didn’t you?”
When I knew my face was dry, I slowly turned my chair back around.
“I did what every agent with those in my possession would have done,” I said.
“Well, got some more files for you. Found some in the archives. It’s all we’ve got on them, and this is more history than anything. Though, some relevant information might be mixed up with them. If you ask me, I think a couple of my guys are on their payroll.”
I reached out my hand for the files. “What makes you think that?”
Sheriff Barnes handed them over. “I don’t know. Sometimes things get misplaced. Things go missing. I get close to nailing them to the wall with something and then it all goes askew.”
“Maybe that’s because there isn’t anything to nail on them more than it is something attempting to sabotage you.”
“Or maybe a couple of my guys are on their payroll,” he said.
I nodded as I took the files. I didn’t like Sheriff Barnes. Something about him rubbed me the wrong way. He reminded me of the police officers that arrested my father. High on pride, control, and more than willing to treat men like my father as less than dirt. I plastered on a smile and nodded my thanks as he released the files to me, then he turned on his boots and quickly left my office.
I really needed to keep my eye on that man.
I set the folders down onto my desk and grabbed my coffee. I really enjoyed the fact that they came in such big cups in Redding. Then again, it seemed my coffee was getting bigger and bigger these days. I flipped open the file on top and quickly scanned the information. Nothing major. Just basic information and some background on a man by the name of Dean. Apparently, he was the longest-running member of the club. Was responsible in cleaning up the club’s act back when he first joined.
My assumption was that he was the President now. Since the file stated he was still an active member.
My mind kept pulling me back to my father. Back to the look in his eyes when that officer first put his knee into the back of his neck. I wrapped my hand mindlessly around mine, rubbing it as phantom empathetic pains rushed up and down my spine. I knew my father had been telling the truth. I knew he wasn’t guilty of the drug-running charges against him. We lost my mother that way. She indulged in pot just after she had me, when her postpartum depression became too much. But, when that high didn’t satisfy her any longer, she moved to harder things. Stronger things. Nastier things.
She overdosed on heroin when I was eleven years old. And my father was never the same since.
My eyes gravitated back to the folders in front of me. I flipped them open, taking in the information on all the members of the club. If they had this, why the hell hadn’t I gotten them before the initial interview with Colt? The sheriff told me he hadn’t known they were there until just now, but could I really trust that? I set all the folders aside and finally found Colt’s. I flipped it open, but the pickings were slim. His face. Only the name the club had given to him. A couple of pictures of him around town with the guy I recognized as Dean. The man was almost fifty years old. Almost two decades older than I was.
I ran my fingertips along his picture as I sipped my coffee.
Were the Black Hornets really like my father’s club? Or were they really in the drug business and trying to pull the wool over my eyes? Was Colt really someone I could trust to tell me the truth? I already knew they’d only feed me partial information. I grew up in this lifestyle. I heard my father talk about all sorts of things. And one of the main distraction tactics clubs sometimes used was feeding the bare minimum to people like me so we’d turn our heads while they concocted something else. I’d really have to keep my eye on them and make sure they didn’t fuck this up. Make sure Colt didn’t fuck this up for himself.
Shit. Maybe I shouldn’t have trusted him after all.
My phone vibrated against my hip and I pulled it out of my clip. I opened it up without a second thought and put it to my ear as I took another sip of my coffee. I wasn’t in the mood for a call from my boss. Or another one of my agents. Or anyone, really.
“This is Agent Banks,” I said.
“It’s Colt.”
I could be in the mood for a call from him, though.
“It’s interesting. I didn’t think I’d hear from you until tonight,” I said.
“Well, I talked with my guys and got some information for you.”
“Perfect. Can you meet up at the park across town?” I asked.
“You want to meet at a park.”
“I like the ducks,” I said, shrugging.
“Yeah. I guess the park’s fine. The city one, right? With the lake?”
“I’ll be on a bench beside it with my coffee and some bread crumbs.”
“Should I bring a picnic basket?” he asked.
A slow shiver worked its way down my spine.
“I’ll see you at the park in an hour. We can knock all this out at lunch. But you know your twenty-four yours restarts after the end of our meeting. So, you’ll have to touch base with me—.”
“Tomorrow around lunch. I know how this works,” Colt said.
It didn’t make me relieved to hear that comment. He knew how this worked? Had he been cut other deals in the past?
Holy shit, had I cut a deal with a guilty man?
“I’ll see you in an hour,” I said.
“I’ll come with the information you want,” Colt said.
I hung up the phone and stood from my chair. I clipped my phone back into its holster on my hip, then slipped the file folders on the men into the only drawer in my desk I could lock with a key. I picked up my things and grabbed my coffee, then locked my office and started for my car.
“Lunch break already?” Sheriff Barnes asked.
“Meeting up with someone for some information. I’ll be back after my working lunch break,” I said sarcastically.
Then, I pushed out of the station and headed to the grocery store to pick up some bread.