I let a few days pass without contacting D. I knew he would not contact me. It was a matter of pride. I had not gone there to seduce him in order to get him back. I had done it to show him that I could be as cold and unfeeling as he. He needed to see me as being just as ruthless as he, and being able to have sex with him on his terms and then walking away as if it meant nothing was the only way I could think of to get that in quick results.
Of course, I didn’t have the luxury of letting things lie for too long. I was running out of time. Thanks to Samuel, I now knew exactly who was after D and when they intended to take him down. It had been carefully laid out for me in the documents I had been provided. The DEA was choosing to ignore it, let the lesser members do their dirty work by taking D down permanently. Then, they would move in on those who intended to take his place before they could gain strength and bring the club to its knees.
Initially, I had still questioned Samuel’s motives for giving me the information. It was a huge risk for him. Why would he care about what happened to D? I knew what he had told me, but I had my doubts. The paranoid part of me had to wonder if it wasn’t a set up, but for what purpose? In the end, I had accepted that he truly just didn’t believe D deserved what was to come. I doubted he had expected I would take matters into my own hands. I was sure he had just thought I would warn D and stay out of it. He was wrong.
I looked at my watch. Almost time to go home. I was grateful. My job had become a thorn in my side since my return. Whereas before I had enjoyed crunching numbers, found solace in burying myself in dollar signs and decimals, I now found it tedious. I longed to be free of my keyboard and the four walls that held me prisoner for eight hours each day. I would stay there for now, but soon I’d have to find something that suited my changing spirit.
Making my way out to the garage, I was once again surprised to find myself cornered by Samuel Robinson near my car. He looked distraught, perhaps even angry.
“Why are you stalking me again, Samuel?”
“You know how it is, Janessa. I just can’t get my mind off you.”
“I doubt that seriously.”
“You shouldn’t, but I know a lost cause when I see one, burned bridges and all that.”
“Okay. Right. Now, why are you here?”
“I need to get a message to D. Plans have changed. Moved up.”
“What do you mean, moved up?”
“The DEA has decided to arrest Suarez for your father’s murder tomorrow, well, actually, for several murders that we’ve been able to pin on him since receiving the original video. We now have iron clad evidence linking him to all the crimes, not just the video. Conviction is a given unless something goes heinously awry.”
“Okay. What does that have to do with D and the other problem?”
“Suarez is a sleaze ball of the highest regard. When he sees he is going down for the murders, he is going to sing like a canary. He’ll rat out everyone he knows to save his own skin.”
“I still don’t follow.”
“The moment he gets arrested, those guys will put their plans into motion and take D down. With him dead, Roberto can pin everything on him and walk away without damaging anyone else in the crew. He’ll be able to cut a deal without really bringing any pain to the club, and the club will take care of him while he is behind bars.”
“But no one else had anything to do with my father’s murders.”
“Wrong. They were all in on it together. Suarez might have done the clean-up, but the same crew intent upon taking down D was behind it all. They made loans to people and doctored the facts to make it look like complete payouts, as you already know. It was their way of stealing from him in a manner that would take a while for him to figure out. They would have probably gotten away with it if they had just stuck to that, but they got greedy and began skimming from other places that were more visible. That was when D began seeing red flags and checking into things.”
“I don’t understand why they killed my father. He paid the money back and they pocketed it. Seems like killing him would have been another red flag.”
“Maybe to the authorities that have been monitoring them, but not to D. He would have never even had a reason to question the payouts if not for you. Until you told him what happened with your father, there was no reason for him to look. Those would have looked like normal transactions on the books.”
“Then why?”
“Nothing more than paranoia, Janessa. Someone got afraid that your father would come back for more money, that he might come directly to D, and that would have raised a red flag. Not only would he have realized that something was afoot, but he would have had a witness to tell him which member made a previous loan to him. They killed your father and any others they made loans to after the money was paid back. Just cleaning up loose ends in preparation for making their final move.”
“So, my father was a liability to them.”
“Unfortunately, that is all it boils down to.”
“You want to keep D alive because you need to eliminate Suarez’s easy get-out-of-a-life-sentence card.”
“That is part of it. The other part is that I genuinely do feel I owe him something. When you bury yourself as deeply as I did in the Black Aces, the lines get a little blurred, Janessa. I don’t think I have to explain that to you, do I?”
“No, you don’t.”
“So, let’s just say that I owe him for a few things and that somewhere along the line I developed a certain kinship with him.”
“I understand.”
“Then help him, Janessa. No matter how you feel about him at this point, he needs to know everything, and I think you might just be the only one he can truly hear it from. They are going to take down Roberto tomorrow at four p.m. The ball is in your court.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
Samuel nodded and then walked away, disappearing into the shadows once again. I wondered what all of this would mean for him if it was found out that he had leaked information to me in order to save D. Breaking my momentary trance as I watched his large frame recede into the nothingness of the parking garage, I climbed into my car and headed home.