SUCKING IN A breath, I released it slowly to get rid of the heaviness. I could still feel the weight. The place looked familiar for a reason. I was on the wrong end of a hospital bed.
“Eric? What are you doing up? Get back in bed.” Aimee came into view and wagged her finger at me.
“It’s just a stab wound. It’ll heal.” I touched the bandage on the left side of my back. I wasn’t sure why I did it—maybe to remember. “I’m glad you didn’t dope me up on pain meds. I need to be coherent.” I walked over to the IV machine—despite her protests—and shut it off. I promptly ripped off the Tegaderm dressing and removed the needle from the back of my hand. Steadying myself, I regulated my breathing to prevent passing out.
“I am not discharging you,” Aimee warned. “It’s on you if you tear your stitches.”
“I’ll own that.” I searched around the room for my belongings. “Where the fuck is my phone?”
“Did your wife do this?” she asked quietly. “You know how things are. I’m supposed to report this.”
“She didn’t do this. It was my failed attempt at being a sous chef,” I told her. “Wounded pride. I’ll be all right.”
The way she stared blankly at me, I could tell she thought I was insulting her intelligence. I couldn’t give any fucks at the moment. “Well, the men out there want to know what…”
She trailed on with a diatribe against my wife. Ignoring her, I glanced through the vertical window by the door, sizing up the scene outside my room. The men who stuck out the most totaled four. Because I didn’t recognize them, I assumed Victor sent two of his “newer” men to guard me. There wasn’t much information he couldn’t get, and I’m sure he knew about what had occurred between Nikki and me. He likely thought I’d exact revenge against her and easily yield to his coaxing and become his bitch-boy to do whatever he wanted me to do. He would be wrong.
“I need you to leave,” I said, turning to Aimee. “Tell the head nurse out there I’m still sedated, make sure you say it loud enough for the entire room to hear.”
“Eric—”
I threw on a worried and frantic expression to tug at her heartstrings. “Goddamn it, Aimee! My wife is in trouble, okay? I need to get to her before something happens to her.”
That got her. She turned completely pliant. “Of course, Eric. Anything.”
After she left the room, I foraged around, finally finding my phone in the bathroom of all places. I really should’ve used a burner phone, but the situation was rife with inconvenience.
“Dom,” he choked into the phone, likely because he was in the middle of getting high.
I checked the time above the bed. “Aren’t you supposed to be watching, Nikki? Don’t tell me you’re smoking a splif while on a job I gave you.”
“I thought you were comatose,” he replied dimly, “or some shit.”
I was far from in the right mood to play on the merry-go-round with words. “Are you still watching her?”
“No, bro. I’m crashing at your place in Webster since you said I could stay here. I don’t know why I can’t live it up at the place next door to Nikki. You still own that place, right?”
“Dom, fucking focus,” I shouted through the phone. Patience was a luxury I couldn’t afford to have.
“You need to chill, bro. She has some pretty heavy hitters hiding her because she slipped me and my boy. We were sitting on the house for days, but got nothing.”
“Days?” I looked at the time again, hoping to find answers. “How long have I been in the hospital?”
“Four days, I think. You were out cold when I found you, swimming in your own blood.”
Even with a four-day head start, she couldn’t have gone far. “Do a search. First, call rental companies in the area. Look for reservations under maybe Nicole, Dominique, Liari. Look for any woman who has checked out a vehicle in the last twenty-four hours who are thirty and under. I’ll meet you out front in an hour.” I added more as a reminder to myself than directions to him, “I know someone I can press for information.”
“Hello to you, too, man. I mean, shit. I’m glad you’re alive and everything but—”
“Something else I need,” I cut him off. I eyed the men standing watch outside through the small window in the door. Aimee was speaking with the nurse at the desk, but none of the men seemed motivated to leave. “I need you to get rid of the eyes I have on me, and you might need Pete to get it done.”
I wasn’t going to be Victor’s bitch boy. I wasn’t going to be anyone’s. Fuck being the man Nikki wanted me to be.
Redemption was stabbed to death with a fucking butcher knife.
I PACED THE HALL, connecting the oncology ward to the bariatric wing. Anticipation was a bitch. I looked at my watch, having waited for Janet to finish her shift for almost an hour.
She appeared down the hall alone, busily looking down at her phone. Before she could look up, I put my hand over her mouth and forced her inside the visitors’ waiting room.
Winking, I asked, “Did you miss me, sweetheart?”
Tears strolled down her cheeks as she shook her head.
“That sincerely damages my feelings, because I missed you. You can make up for pissing me off. You can do something for me.”
She stared at me for a long time. Closing her eyes, she hit the back of her head against the wall repeatedly while sobbing through my hand.
“Janet,” I growled. “I don’t have time for your mental breakdown. I promise you, if you do exactly what I tell you to do, I won’t hurt you.”
Staring at me, she slowly nodded.
“Good.” I gave her a warm smile and let her go.
“Why can’t you leave her alone?” she asked, choking on her words. “What you’re doing is going to—”
I put my hand over her mouth again, this time covering her nose. Pressing my palm against her face, I restrained her breathing. “Do you remember not even sixty seconds ago what I said? Here’s a refresher: I said if you complied, I wouldn’t hurt you. Your decision to get a backbone has very fucking bad timing. I’ll tell you this, if you don’t do what you’re told, I’m going to come to your house, and I’m going to kill you in your sleep. Got me?”
She squeezed her eyes tightly as bigger tears flowed before finally nodding.
I let my hand linger, slowly pushing in until I saw the panic in her eyes, and she started to struggle for air. I held my hand there until she began to gain the comprehension she momentarily lost and stopped fucking with me. Smirking, I released her. “Good girl.”
She sucked in too much air at once and retched on it.
“When you’re done choking on oxygen, call Nikki. Give her a time and a place to appear within the hour. You’re going to do what I’ve instructed you to do while I stand here and guide you along every step of the way. Be a little bit more convincing than you were last time, and try to avoid using a code word to tip her off. If you need a little extra push, just ask, that’s what I’m here for. If you do this and do it well, all will be forgiven and forgotten. Can you do what I’m telling you to do, Janet?”
Sobbing and sniveling, she looked down at the ground. Then came the louder cries.
“Janet?”
“I don’t know where she is, I swear. I only have her number, but I think—I think she’s out of the state. She won’t come back even if I beg her to. I can’t do it, Eric.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Do you think we magically just became friends?”
“I’m sorry, Dr. Brenton.”
“Dial her number anyway.”
With her hands shaking, she dialed Nikki. I kept my eye on the number and retained it inside my memory bank. When the phone began to ring, I yanked the phone from her, pressed the button for the speaker, and held it up in the middle of the both of us.
“Breathe, Janet,” I whispered as the phone continued to ring. “Convince Nikki to meet with you at the diner on Goodman.”
“Janet?” Nikki answered.
I immediately put my hand around her neck making her gasp.
“It’s me, Nikki,” Janet sobbed. “I really need to see you. I-I need your help. I need to hide. Or get away.”
I pressed my body against hers, shaking my head.
Janet looked in my eyes as her body trembled against me. “I’m really scared, Nikki. Can you meet me at the Highland Park Diner on Goodman?”
“Diner on Goodman?” Nikki repeated.
“I know you’re not here,” Janet said to her, “but whenever you can get here it would be a big help. C-can you come alone?”
I bit my lip hard because she’d just fucked up. I pressed mute on the phone, hissing, “You have no fucking finesse whatsoever.”
“What do you want me to do? I-I can fix it.”
“You never lie to her, right?” I asked. “Lie to her.” I pressed the screen to disengage the mute button and held up the phone again.
“Janet…is Eric still in the hospital?” Nikki asked.
I mouthed the name Victor Meíja.
“It’s Victor, Nikki. He cornered me about you and Eric. He asked me questions I didn’t know how to answer. I may have slipped up. I told him about the letter.”
Nikki ended the call.
The look I gave Janet was enough to make her cower. “Did you drop the ball even after I warned you not to? What fucking letter, Janet?” I watched her like a hawk, taking in her reaction to my question.
“I don’t know what’s in it. Mrs. Givens made me promise not to read it, and I never did. I gave it to Nikki and whatever it said, changed her. She made a private phone call. That’s all I know.” She held up her hands in defense. “I swear.”
“Which is odd to me,” I hummed, “because you are like most people. Nosy and voyeuristic by nature. You mean to tell me you carried a letter for over a year and never once looked at it? Why would you mention it to Nikki when you’re unaware of the contents?”
She shook with tears as she shut her eyes again. “I swear, Dr. Brenton. I never read it. I swear. I only said something about it so she would meet you. Please, please let me go.”
Her hands trembled. Tears overflowed onto her round cheeks. There was no clear indication that she was lying to me. I put my faith in my way to see through people and believed that she was telling me the truth.
I jerked my head in the direction of the door. “I’ll have your phone returned to you when I’m done with it.”
She opened her mouth to say something.
I put a finger to her lips and shook my head. “Really not in the fucking mood. You’re a very sweet person. I’d like to keep my word about the whole not killing you thing. It might actually hurt me a little if I had to.” I nodded at the door. “Go.”
She didn’t try my patience and did what I told her to.
IT TOOK A LOT of time before I got my head together to place the call to the man I was more than a little pissed at. I would do anything I had to in order to get to Nikki.
GIVEN A TIME AND a place—well, an intersection—I waited in the ball-freezing cold for a car to come around. An hour into waiting, Victor’s Maybach finally pulled up. The backdoor opened, revealing Victor in the back, staring straight ahead.
Looking both ways, I prepared to put on the act that many believed; the one that could sell lies for more than a person could afford and have them give up their first born to purchase it.
There would be no questions and no anger. I would play the part of the little boy who hero-worshipped him with stars in his fucking eyes.
I slid into the seat and closed the door. “Aren’t you going to say I told you so?” I asked as the driver began to pull into traffic.
“I like to gloat, my boy. But it wouldn’t feel the same this time around.”
“I know you’re aware of what she did to me. Needless to say, I want to fucking kill her.”
He studied me, and I knew what he was looking for. I gave him exactly what he wanted. A cocky, sick smile spread across his face. “She’s under heavy guard. What do you plan to do? Massacre every agent who stands in your way?”
“Give me a little credit. I still have resources. I’ll put them to sleep for a little while.”
“And her? What do you plan to do to her?”
“It won’t be anything quick. I can tell you that.”
“My boy!” He clapped like a happy seal and sat back. He nodded into the rearview mirror. His driver pulled off to the side of the road. “Give me an hour and I’ll give you her location. For security reasons, I can’t give you my men. You’re doing this alone, so don’t be messy. I won’t be able to help you if you treat this like you did Preston.”
“To get her, I’ll be neat. When I have her, Preston will look like a PG-rated movie.”
Throwing his head back, he laughed. “I always knew you’d see the light. Better late than never, eh? I’ll see you soon, my boy.” His eyes darted to the door.
The moment my foot stepped on the curb, he had something else to say. “I’m calling this in very soon. And you know what I want, don’t you?”
“You can have it as long as I get her.” I bent down and scanned his face. “How is it the left hand knows what the right hand is doing when they are attached to completely different bodies?”
He looked straight ahead. “Charlie thinks he can infiltrate my crew and take me down by sending a Trojan horse. Let’s say I stole a move from his playbook.” He pointed at me and nodded. “We’ll be in touch.”