“IT LOOKS LIKE your plan is gonna work,” Nikolai said to me over the phone.
“Elaborate,” I ordered.
“Hey, have you forgotten I’m the mob boss? I give the orders around here,” Nikolai laughed.
“You’re going to have a hard time acclimatizing when you get out. Unless you pay someone, they aren’t going to wait on you,” I laughed.
“Trust me, that’s one thing I’ll look forward to. Not having anyone follow me around or trying to kiss my ass would be a positive. Now, jokes aside, I sold the idea to my leaders and they agreed to go ahead with it. I’ve also made contact with the Ichor cartel, they said they were interested and would meet up. I, of course, made it a condition that their head and board must be present. And I also asked that the neutralitor be the one to set an impromptu time and place to prevent any takedowns. So when I know it’s going down, I’ll let you know,” he said, filling me in.
The neutralitor was an independent, third-party contractor who made money off mediating meetings between two enemies. He controlled everything, where they met and the time, ensuring a safe location so that both parties could set aside their mistrust and make a deal.
“I’ll be waiting,” I said.
“No, when I mean I’ll let you know, you aren’t coming, you’re going to tell Sentry and he and his men are the ones who are going to do the takedown. If you’re involved then there’s a chance Mikhail will be, too, and we agreed to keep him out of it. So, you stay out of it, okay? Or this whole thing is off,” he threatened.
I took a frustrated breath out. “Fine. Sentry won’t like it but I’ll pass the message along. And I also added a condition to your deal with him on your behalf. You’ll get full immunity once they catch the head of the Ichor cartel. There’s no point in being a free man if you have to hide your face to keep from getting taken down by the law,” I pointed out.
“You didn’t have to,” Nikolai bit out.
“I know. I did it for Mikhail, not you,” I replied. In truth, I’d done it for them both, but at least this way Nikolai wouldn’t feel indebted to me.
“I still don’t like it,” he said stubbornly.
“Doesn’t matter, because the deal’s been finalized. So, deal with it and move on,” I ordered ending the call.
“IF IT GETS awkward I need you to make it not awkward. Use your charm or something, okay?”
“Okay.”
“And if I pinch you it means get me the hell out of there, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Stop saying okay! I need support,” I stressed.
“Älskling, tagga ned,”
“Don’t tell me to bring down my spikes!” I yelled in panic.
“Hey,” Hendrik said, his hands coming down on either side of my neck. “If you don’t want to do this, you don’t have to.”
“No, I want to. Besides, we’re here already,” I said nervously.
“Alright then, let’s do this,” he said releasing me, then took my right hand in his.
I squeezed the life out of his hand as he led me down to where my mother and her boyfriend were seated. She looked the picture of beauty like always, long, mahogany brown hair, slim figure, and her boyfriend was handsome wearing a suit that looked very, very expensive.
Her eyes tracked my every move, noting that I was holding Hendrik’s hand. I could have sworn she frowned, but it vanished like it had never been there, and she smiled.
“Honey, I’m so glad you came,” she said, getting up. While I was getting better with having people touch me, I didn’t trust her yet, so I guided Hendrik into her opened arms. I was thankful beyond words that he took the heat off me, because if he hadn’t been willing to be pushed, I wouldn’t have been able to push him an inch.
“Of course, I said I would,” I replied taking a seat. “This is Hendrik, he’s my friend, I hope you don’t mind that I brought him along.”
My mother laughed but didn’t say anything. She kissed Hendrik’s cheek and introduced herself. “It’s lovely to meet you! And this is my new man, Jude, we’ve only been together for three weeks but he already means so much to me,” she said with a loving look at him.
Jude smirked, and I wondered if he was as love whipped as she was. “So, how did you two meet?” I asked once they’d all taken their seats.
“I met her at a work party event,” Jude explained. “I asked her out and she turned me down, at first.”
Mother laughed, throwing her head back, exposing the long column of her throat. “No woman should ever give in too easy, darling, and besides, you were way too confident. I had to wound your pride just a little bit for thinking me so easy,” she teased.
“Don’t worry, you’ve nursed it back to recovery,” he replied suavely. Then turning to me, he said, “Cressie has told me so much about you, about how proud she is about you being accepted into Thorne University on a scholarship.”
“I was really surprised. I didn’t think I would get it, my dad I were looking at local colleges,” I shared. Seeing the hurt feeling on my mother’s face I quickly changed topics. “My program involves me actually seeing and treating a patient. I don’t think I’ve ever loved doing something so much,” I admitted.
“I’m happy you’re in such a good place and so close to me,” my mother gushed. “We can make up for lost time.”
I smiled back not as elated, but I agreed it was a chance to have her in my life again.
Once we’d ordered and not soon after the food had arrived, and just as I’d begun to relax my mother began interrogating Hendrik. “What do you do? Do you also attend Thorne?” she asked.
I tensed up, but Hendrik put his hand on my knee telling me to relax and that he had this.
“Yes, I currently work at a law firm,” Hendrik replied enigmatically.
“In what field? I could actually use some advice about purchasing an estate to develop,” Jude enquired with interest.
I took this as my chance to make a small escape. “Please, excuse me, I’m going to go to the bathroom,” I said, getting up from the table.
“Oh, I’ll come with you,” my mother said.
I shot Hendrik a do something look but he didn’t do a thing. Short of telling her not to, he could have tripped her as a last resort but then again he didn’t support violence against women so that wasn’t going to happen.
I walked quickly before she’d gotten up so I could avoid talking to her one on one, but she cornered me while I was washing my hands.
“So, Emerson, tell me how you’re really doing,” she pressured, standing between the bathroom door and me.
“I’m honestly good,” I asserted.
“You’re still speaking to Doctor Fleur, aren’t you?” she said with concern.
“Yes. She told me to give you another go, actually.”
“I knew she was a smart woman. So, do you like Jude?”
“He’s funny and charming. I’m happy that you’ve found someone just like Dad has.” I closed me eyes as I realized my slip up. Crap, crap, crap!
Her eyes grew hazy. “Oh, I didn’t know your father had moved on with someone else. That’s good. He and I would never have worked out our differences. I think we’ve been gone long enough, honey,” she urged.
She left so fast. She didn’t wait for me, and I saw that I had hurt her again. I took a minute to compose myself then went back out there. It made it a bit easier to know I was going back out there to Hendrik, too.
I was exhausted by the time we got back to his apartment, which I’d been staying at ever since Evelina’s funeral. I wasn’t so tired though when I thought of him and me in his bed.
“Go to bed, Älskling,” he urged as he kissed the top of my head.
“Why don’t you join me?” I invited.
“You’re still mourning,” he said, shooting me down.
“Well, then how about I canoodle with you on the couch?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I don’t do canoodling,” he said with a smirk.
Being shot down on all fronts I made my way to his bedroom and closed the door quietly behind me, when really I wanted to start an insurgency and say to hell with the peace treaty.
IT WAS A week later and still I hadn’t breached the peace treaty, but I had made use of his gift.
“You came,” Micah said as I entered his room.
“You didn’t think you’d scared me off last time, did you?” I teased.
He smiled a small smile and I soaked it up.
“So, I thought instead of talking we’d do something different this time,” I said.
“Like what?” he asked with feigned boredom, but I could tell he was intrigued.
“Sometimes it’s easier to communicate through music. I was allowed to bring my iPhone along with me. We’re going to take turns at playing songs. I don’t want you to tell me how you feel, I want you to show me. I’ll listen to the words and try and guess. Wanna give it a go?” I asked enthusiastically.
“You’re weird,” he commented giving me a weird look.
“Yep, I am, and I love it,” I laughed. “Okay, how about I go first?”
He rolled his eyes, but nodded nonetheless.
I scrolled through the songs and clicked Imagine Dragons’s Believer and pressed play. Micah closed his eyes as the drums came on, pounding, and listened until the song was over.
He opened his eyes, a little crease between his brows as he thought. “I think you feel like you’re sad and angry, and that you want to get better. You’re fighting something inside, you hurt, and you want it to go away. Are you trying to say you believe that if you fight it you can be happy?”
I smiled because he got it completely. “Yeah. I’m sick of giving into my fears, and I’m sick about being angry because I can’t stop things from happening. I can’t control everything. The only way for me to be better is to fight,” I confirmed. “Now, it’s your turn,” I said, handing him the phone.
He looked at me uncertainly, so I sent him an encouraging smile, which he returned, then scrolled through the songs.
I held my breath, wondering what he would come up with. He pressed play, and immediately I identified the song to be R.I.P. 2 My Youth by The Neighbourhood.
I bit my lip as I absorbed the lyrics and deciphered what he meant by them.
“That’s pretty dark, bud. Okay, so I think that you’re trying to say that because of what happened to you, you don’t feel safe anymore. You’re no longer a kid because you’ve had to see or experience something that no kid should. You’re scared because you’re in the dark. You don’t know what to do. Am I right?”
He nodded his head then quietly handed the phone back. I looked through and found the perfect song that reminded me of Hendrik. I clicked on Switchfoot’s Dare You to Move.
Micah moved his head to the beat and I followed suit, letting the lyrics and the beat rush through me. Once the chords drifted away, it was silent again.
“I like that song,” Micah whispered like he was telling me a secret.
“I do, too,” I said.
“You’re saying that you want to push yourself, daring yourself to do things you’ve never done before. To get out of your comfort zone,” he said slowly.
I nodded my head and handed the phone back to him.
He scrolled through, sent me a scared look then clicked play. Brother by Matt Corby played. This time I closed my eyes as I tried to understand what he was trying to tell me.
Then I remembered that none of his family had seen him. Was this his way of telling me that he had a brother? That he was calling for him to come and see him?
“Do you have a brother, Micah?” I asked. When he didn’t answer, I decided to push him a little. “Do you think that you hurt him and that’s why he’s staying away?”
Micah suddenly got up and threw my phone against the wall. Then he threw his chair with a bang to the ground. “Micah, calm down. Please,” I urged. I didn’t touch him in case I set him off more, and I didn’t move because I wasn’t afraid of him. I was afraid for him. I didn’t want him to hurt himself because of what I said.
The door banged open, as two nurses entered, one holding a syringe. I knew what they intended and I couldn’t let it happen.
“No!” I said barring their way. “Please, just give me a second. I can calm him down, I promise,” I threw out as one nurse still walked forward.
“Wait,” the other one said latching onto her arm, “give her a chance.”
“Thank you,” I whispered gratefully.
Micah was on the floor, rocking himself back and forth but I couldn’t hear what he was saying. I bent down on my knees beside him and heard that he was saying, “I’m sorry” over and over again.
“Hey, Micah, it’s okay. You lost control, it happens. No one got hurt, that’s all that matters. Breathe it out, get all the anger out. There are sixty seconds in a minute. Count them down and I promise you once they’re up that ugly feeling inside of you will pass. You can trust me. I’ll count them down with you,” I urged. “One, two,” I began.
On three he joined me, and by the time we hit sixty he was back under control. He leaned against me, all of his energy depleted. I picked him up in my arms and put him in his bed.
“I think it’s best you leave.” The more disapproving nurse said sternly.
“Of course. And that wasn’t his fault. I triggered him,” I said. Then I turned to Micah, “Everything’s okay, just rest. I’ll be back next week,” I soothed. His eyes opened, he gave me a tired smile, and then his eyes drifted back shut.
I walked past the two nurses and out to the hallway.
“Wait,” a woman yelled.
I turned around and saw it was the nurse who had given me the chance to calm Micah down.
“I’m sorry, we were just going to do our job,” she said, wringing her hands.
“I understand, but sometimes there’s a better way than knocking someone out,” I said kindly. “Would you mind doing me a favor?”
“That depends,” the nurse said uneasily.
“Would you mind calling me if Micah gets out of control like that again?”
“If it means I don’t have to sedate him, then I’ll do it,” the nurse agreed.
“Thank you!” I ripped out a piece of paper from my textbook and jotted down my number.
She took it and slipped it into her pocket then walked back to Micah’s room.
“HEY, EMERSON, WAKE up,” Hendrik urged, waking me up.
“What’s wrong?” I asked groggily, seeing it was still dark outside.
“Your phone kept on ringing, I thought it was urgent so I picked it up. It was a nurse calling from Hale Institution. She said that your patient had a relapse and that you should go to him.”
“Crap! Okay,” I said as I threw the covers off me. I was so panicked I couldn’t function properly.
“Let me help,” Hendrik urged as he picked out some clothes and helped me put them on when I almost fell over trying to do it myself.
When my clothes were on all the right body parts, I rushed to the elevator and Hendrik was at my heels.
“I’ll drive you,” he said.
We were almost there when my phone rang. I quickly answered it.
“Hi, I’m so glad I got ahold of you. Micah had a relapse,” the nurse from earlier today said.
What? Why would she be calling me again as if she hadn’t already?
“Ah-I’ll be there soon,” I got out in shock.
“Who was that?” Hendrik asked.
I didn’t answer. I needed to check something first. I quickly checked my call log and I saw that this was the first time the nurse had called me, which meant that Hendrik had lied.
“Hendrik . . . the nurse just rang me now to tell me about Micah. And I just checked my call log; I never received a call from her before now, which means . . . If I didn’t then how did you know? Unless . . . You were the one who got the call,” I said slowly.
“Emerson . . .”
“No, wait! Oh, God, you’re him, aren’t you? Micah played the song brother to me. You’re him. You’re his brother. All this time, he’s been waiting for you to visit him, he’s been calling you, and you couldn’t hear his cry,” I said with disgust.
Hendrik flinched as if my words were a physical blow to him.
He stopped in the emergency zone behind the Institution and didn’t say anything.
“Well? Don’t you have anything to say?” I yelled at him.
“Please, I can’t go inside and help him even though it’s killing me. But you can. I’ll tell you everything after. Please just help him first,” he pleaded.
“Why don’t you come with me?” I said less angry, seeing how torn up about it he was.
“I can’t, please just go,” he pushed.
“Fine, but I want to know everything when I get back,” I warned as I got out and slammed the door shut.
WITH SHAKING HANDS I parked the car. “Helvete!” I cursed. I hadn’t wanted her to find out like this. And I wished I could go and see Micah but it would ruin everything. I had to stick to the plan.
My phone vibrated in my pocket, and as much as I wanted to ignore it, I couldn’t. I pulled it out and when I saw who it was I answered it.
“The meet is happening now. Call Sentry and tell him to mobilize his unit, I’m texting you the address as we speak,” Nikolai said.
“Nikolai, be careful,” I said quickly.
“Always. Make sure you stay away as promised,” he responded, ending the call.
Just as I got off the phone relaying Nikolai’s message to Sentry, Emerson came out of Hale Institution. She looked pale, withdrawn, and furious.
She got inside and turned to me. “Micah’s settled now,” she shared even though she was angry with me. She was giving me peace of mind when most people wouldn’t. She was rare and I was lucky she’d been put in my path.
“There better be a damn good explanation for why you have abandoned your brother,” she said crossing her arms.
“There is, all I ask is for you to listen,” I begged.
She nodded her head and I took that as her consent.
I took a deep breath in then exhaled. After this I might not see her smile that sweet smile to me again. But she was owed the truth.
“Micah isn’t my brother, he’s my stepbrother,” I burst out. Emerson’s face was blank, not giving a thing away so I continued. “After my father died my mum found another guy, Stellan, and got remarried but he and I never got along. I did searches on him but turned up nothing, he was clean so I let go of that bad feeling I had about him. He made my mum happy so when she asked me to stay away I did. And then I found out she was pregnant. She was having my brother, and I tried to heal the breach but Stellan wouldn’t have any of it. My mum refused to go against him, so when he was born I got in touch with his nanny, and she lets me see him in secret.
One time she called me to come over when my mum and Stellan had left to travel on a business trip. I went over and Stellan must have found out about our meetings because he was there when I got to Micah’s room. Micah was curled up in a ball beaten and there was blood everywhere. At first I thought he was dead because there was just so much of it. I didn’t think it was possible that he could still be alive. But when I focused I saw his chest go up and down and I realized he was still alive,” I said, breathing out brokenly.
“Hendrik, God,” Emerson cried out with tears in her eyes.
“Älskling, please, let me finish.” She bit down on her lip to stifle her sob and nodded, but stubborn to the bone she grabbed my left hand and held on.
“I saw red when I noticed my mother sitting on his bed completely unaffected, and Stellan was laughing beside her with Micah’s blood on his hands. I lost it. I grabbed him and pushed him against the wall. I punched him, but he didn’t stop laughing,” I said reliving it.
“I couldn’t get his laughter out of my head. So, I kept on hitting him until he eventually stopped. We fell to the ground, and when he stopped trying to hit me back I still didn’t stop. I only stopped when I heard Micah say my name. And it was only because I heard how scared he was, because I was the one scaring him. When I looked down, and the red faded, I saw that Stellan was half dead. There was blood all over my hands. And then I realized that some of it was mine because my mum was at my shoulder clawing on me, yelling at me to get off her husband. I stepped back, and instead of her checking on Micah, she went to Stellan,” I spat out with disgust.
Emerson gave me a squeeze, and I controlled the urge to punch something. “A minute later an ambulance came, I tried to go with Micah but police were there, too, they arrested me. My mum lied and said that I had been the one who had hurt Stellan and Micah. I was arrested and taken down to the station. I was interrogated for ten hours and in all that time they wouldn’t let me know if Micah was okay or if I’d killed Stellan. They believed me when I said I’d been defending my brother, but they said I’d still committed a felony, and that charges were being laid against me by both my mother and Stellan.”
This time I squeezed Emerson’s hand because the hard part was coming up next. “Deake Sentry, the head of the FBI, took over my interrogation and he told me that he would get the charges dropped if I helped him with something. But only once the job was done. He knew all about me, and how I’m the Leverager.”
“What did he want you to do?” Emerson asked.
“He gave me a name, your name, and told me that you were coming to Thorne University and that I had to get as much intel on you as possible,” I said.
“What? Why?” Emerson asked, taking her hand out of mine.
“I didn’t know at the time, he said he would let me know more when your classes started,” I said. Then I told her about Senator Caynes, the Ichor cartel and about what had happened to Sentry’s men.
“What does any of that have to do with me?” she said with confusion. Her nails were biting into her palm and I wanted to take her hands into mine. I’d rather let them dig into me but I knew she wouldn’t want me touching her right now.
I didn’t want to tell her because she’d tried to move on and this would be opening up old wounds, but I couldn’t protect her from the truth. “Emerson, whoever the new drug lord is, he started distributing this new experimental drug. It incapacitates a person once it’s taken and it wipes the person’s memory clean. Sentry gave me your name because he told me that your medical records when you were admitted to the hospital showed that it was in your system. Which means that you were injected with it at the time of your assault,” I delivered honestly.
Her ebony eyes widened as the realization hit her. Her gaze fell on the car door and I knew she was going to try and make a run for it. So, I picked her up and put her on my lap. She hit out at me blindly, but I didn’t stop her.
“You lied to me,” she yelled as her hand made contact with my cheek. It stung, but I didn’t apply pressure. I deserved it.
“Fight back!” she screamed, when she hit my other cheek. When I didn’t, she went completely silent and her hands came up and applied pressure to my cheeks, easing the sting.
Her eyes were wounded, but I could see she’d regained control and that she was sorry she’d hit me.
“It’s okay,” I soothed.
“No, it’s not,” she sobbed, her tears running over. “Why did they target me?” she cried.
“I don’t know, but trust me, I’m going to find out,” I swore.
She nodded her head and brought it down to lie on my chest. I ran my hands up and down her back trying to give her comfort even when I’d been the one to strip her of it. Sentry was right and wrong. I’d hidden it from her to protect her and she was safer not knowing but she wasn’t better off not knowing.
“What about Micah?” she whispered against my throat. “It can’t have been a coincidence that he’s my patient.
“No, it’s not,” I admitted. “I paired you with him. I helped out your professor with something on the condition, that Micah was your patient. I’m not able to see him…not until my charges are dropped, but through you I could hear about his progress. I’m not just doing this for myself, Emerson, it’s also for Micah. The court made him a ward of the state and they put him up at Hale Institution. I made a deal with Sentry to not only drop the charges against me, but to help me get custody of Micah once I was finished helping him out.”
“But there’s just something I don’t understand,” she said, lifting her head, ensnaring me with her ebony eyes.
“What is it?”
“I know you, Hendrik. You could have arranged to see Micah without anyone knowing, but you haven’t. I mean, if you really cared about him you would have moved heaven and hell to see him. Why haven’t you?” she asked.
I shook my head, “I couldn’t risk someone catching me, it would impact my chances of getting custody of him,” I lied.
“No, that’s not it.”
“It doesn’t matter!” I said, lifting her up and putting her back in her seat. Before I could stop her, she made a grab for the keys.
“It does matter, because you need to face whatever it is that’s stopping you from seeing him. How are you even going to look after him when you won’t even go and see him?” she said as she moved the keys from out of my reach.
“Fine! The last time he saw me I almost killed his father in front of him! I was covered in his father’s blood. Covered. I’m scared, okay! I’m scared that he thinks of me as a monster,” I said, looking away.
“No, Hendrik, he thinks of you as his protector. I haven’t known him for long but I do know he misses you, and you never miss something that you’re scared of.”
“It scares me just how good you are,” I whispered.
“What?” she said with confusion.
“I just admitted to lying to you for my own personal gain and here you are trying to make me feel better about myself,” I said, completely and utterly astounded. “You unman me with your generosity.
“I’ve tried being bitter and angry and I didn’t like the person I was. You lied to me but for a good reason. I can’t be angry for you wanting to protect Micah, because if I were in your footsteps I’d have done the exact same thing,” she stressed. “And besides, the way I see it, we’re even. I don’t owe you any future payment,” she quipped lightheartedly.
“Min lilla sky,” I murmured with a smile.
“What does that mean? It’s not fair when you go all Swedish on me,” she complained.
My phone rang again, and when I saw it was Deake, I put up a finger to put our argument on hold. Emerson sent me a feigned glare, but it barely had any heat to it.
“Sentry, how’d it go?” I answered.
“Mostly a success. Nikolai came through, I had my doubts but we did it. We’ve got the head of the Ichor cartel in custody. We took alive whomever else we could,” Sentry said with reluctant happiness.
It was the reluctant part that I didn’t like.
“Wait, what do you mean by mostly a success?” I asked, not getting a good feeling.
Sentry paused, and then replied, “Nikolai didn’t make it . . . He died in the crossfire. I’m so sorry, Hendrik.”
My eyes grew wet and devastation filled me. Mikhail was going to be destroyed by the news.
“I want it known that he was part of this, that he was on our side,” I demanded.
“I won’t let his last act be covered up. The way I see it, he was an FBI informant, he died being one of us,” Sentry emphasized.
“Thank you,” I muttered.
“No, thank you for coordinating this, without you, none of it would have been possible. Now it’s time for you to finish the job. Come down to my headquarters, it’s time we pieced everything together; you’ve earned the right to listen in on the investigation. I intend on getting answers, you and Emerson deserve them, too.”
“We’re coming now,” I said, ending the call.
“I need the keys, Emerson,” I said holding out my hand.
She relinquished them to me without a fight.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Sentry just took out the boards of both the Ichor cartel and the Valentijin mob. He has the drug lord of the Ichor cartel in custody. It’s time for the both of us to get answers.”