Chapter 59

Standing in the doorway between his walk-in closet and his essentials-only bedroom, Sandesh undid his bow tie. It looked like crap.

Damn. He was nervous. He hated the idea of using Justice’s party to publicly sneak off with her.

It wasn’t a bad idea. He just wasn’t into making that kind of spectacle. The party would be filled with feds and people and paparazzi. He and Justice getting hot and heavy on the dance floor and sneaking off together would start a lot of press and rumors. Fortunately, not one of them would suspect that they’d really run off to Mexico to kill a human-trafficker.

He turned his head. “Don’t eat in my bed.”

Sprawled out across Sandesh’s gray comforter, Victor dug into the bag of Lay’s salt and vinegar chips. “Chill, dude. You want the information or not?”

Beautiful. Tied it wrong again. “Yeah. What did you find out?”

Victor shoved a handful of chips into his mouth, chewed. He shrugged. “On Mukta. Basically, what you’d expect. Attacked with acid, then adopted by two aid workers, a wealthy lesbian couple. They trained her in the art of business. She’s got a shit ton of degrees. Maybe she got interested in all that science when she was a kid. She had a couple of serious surgeries on her face. That’s where she met her right-hand man, Leland.”

“Really? She met him in the hospital? Was he sick?”

“No. Had a younger sister with leukemia. She was at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia when Mukta was there having one of her surgeries. Leland and Mukta met then.”

“The sister?”

“She survived. Gotta love CHOP. Anyway, fast-forward a couple dozen years. Sister marries. Has a kid. Has a couple of domestic disturbances on record. Nothing major. Then one day, she up and goes missing. The police suspect the husband. No proof. The husband takes the kid and disappears.”

Sandesh moved into the bedroom. “This guy killed Leland’s sister? What happened to the man? What happened to the kid?”

Victor dusted crumbs from his shirt, which fell all over Sandesh’s bed. “Well, this is where it gets interesting. The father disappeared with the kid, but he resurfaced six years later when he reported his son, then eleven, missing. The kid had run away from home. Six months after that, the father is dead. Suicide. Apparently, his conscience had gotten the better of him. In his suicide note, he admitted to abusing his son and killing his wife. He told the police where to find the sister’s-slash-wife’s body. Later, the kid was found and adopted. By the Parish family.”

Sandesh felt goose bumps down to his toes. “Tony? Tony was the kid. But Justice told me she was responsible for his adoption. She’d found him in an alley.”

Victor stopped with a chip midway to his mouth. “Why lie about it to her?”

He wasn’t sure. But this was the kind of shit that made him crazy. Did Tony know that Leland was his uncle? “Maybe because he was the first boy. They probably figured he’d be accepted even less if people knew he was related to Leland. They’re big into unity.”

Victor stuck the chip into his mouth. “They’re big into something.”

Sandesh met his eyes, waiting for the other shoe to drop. “Meaning?”

“The records on the father’s suicide suggested he had been in a fight earlier that day. Apparently, there were bruises all over his body.”

Sandesh froze. He knew exactly what Victor suggested. Maybe the reason the family had lied about Tony was because they didn’t want to be associated with the death of the father. Could be right. And he didn’t feel right telling Victor otherwise. He was his partner and as much in this as Sandesh, though he knew little. “So what do you think?”

“Yeah.” Victor reached into the bag. “Well, I think the Parish family is into some strange shit. And I have to wonder how long it will take the FBI to start piecing it together. After the attack two weeks ago, they’re still investigating the school, right?”

“Yep.”

“Does this have anything to do with why you were chased from Zaatari?”

Sandesh waited a moment before responding. “Do you really want in on this?”

“No. No I don’t. Do you?”

Sandesh detected a splinter of annoyance in Victor’s voice. Couldn’t be helped. He was crossing all kinds of lines here.

Victor crunched down on another chip. “Why you going to this party?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Forget the fact that there were bombs dropped on the place not too long ago. And that the students flooded out faster than water from a broken damn. Getting caught up with these people endangers the IPT. The mission.”

Sandesh shook his head. “What I’m doing is necessary to keep the mission safe.”

Victor put the Lay’s bag on the nightstand. “It’s not worth the money, man. Walk away. Learn whatever the fuck you needed to learn. Get back to letting go of the bad shit and back to making some good shit happen.”

The tie was as good as it was going to get. Sandesh pulled on his tuxedo jacket. He ran a hand through his hair and disregarded the judgmental look on Victor’s face. “Look, Justice is the good shit. And her family…most of her family are the good guys.”

“Is this love or business?”

Both. And more. “I’ve got to go.”

“Sure. Hurry along. Chase after that chick like a groupie tailing a tour bus. But you better hope that bus isn’t lined with explosives. Because this kind of stuff gets a guy killed.”

* * *

The night doorman held open the front door as Sandesh exited his building. “Good evening, Mr. Ross. Your limo has arrived.”

“Thanks, Al.” Normally, he would’ve driven himself, but Mukta had insisted on sending a car. And she’d made a good point. He didn’t want his own car hanging out on campus while he and Justice flew to Mexico.

Sandesh skirted construction tape—they were always doing some construction here—to get to the limo.

He introduced himself to the driver, slipped inside the car, and closed the door.

The driver walked around the car and got in. Sandesh eyeballed the guy behind the partition. A limo driver who trusted his passenger to shut his own door? It was a new day in America.

The driver pulled away from the building. Interior limo lights cast a faintly bluish glow on the sleek leather interior. Sandesh rolled his shoulders. Damn he was tense. There wasn’t much that could get under his skin, but being compared to a groupie pretty much did it.

Victor didn’t know the truth though. He’d never sat at dinner with a bunch of kids rescued from impossible situations and given chances for better lives. He’d never seen those kids, even in the face of a school bombing, empowered and strong. Who would they have been if not for Mukta? Who would Justice have been? Would she even be alive?

Victor didn’t know. If he did, he’d understand.

Honestly, it would be a hell of a lot better to be led around by his dick. At least he’d have single-mindedness. Right now, every doubt in his mind played Russian roulette with his determination. Was the plan good enough? Would it work? Was there another way?

He shook himself from his thoughts. Where was this guy going? He pressed the button to lower the partition. “Driver,” he said, “You missed the turn for 76. Has the venue been changed? I thought the affair was at the Parish home.”

The driver didn’t answer right away. After a minute, he said, “Sorry, sir, we have one other guest to pick up before we get there.”

The partition went back up.

Okay. Weird. Not that he cared, but he was fairly certain when you sent a car for someone it didn’t turn into a bus ride. Still, Mukta did things differently. He liked that about her. And having someone to share the ride might actually make the drive less about what was going on in his head.

The driver turned toward the Ben Franklin Bridge exit. Sandesh leaned forward. This was wrong. Courtesy be damned, there was no way Mukta would send a car that had to circle this far back in the wrong direction.

Sandesh pressed the partition button. Nothing happened. The car sped up. His heart rate increased. He shifted into the seat opposite of him, lifted his hand, knuckle knocked. “Hey, buddy.”

Nothing.

The car slowed for traffic. Sandesh reached for the handle. Locked. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. No signal. Oh…kayy.

If this guy did work for Mukta, his night was about to suck royally.

Raising his foot, he drove the heel of his shoe into the side window. He hit it one, two, three times. It splintered like a web.

Security glass. Barely cracked.

Rubber-soled pieces-of-shit shoes. His leg ached. Damn. He longed for the days when leaving his home without a gun would’ve felt as comfortable as leaving the house naked during a snowstorm.

He kicked again and again.

The limo banked to the right. He slipped sideways. He braced himself. The limo veered off the exit and into a run-down area close to the docks. Place could double as a landfill.

Rusted metal fence. Trash everywhere. Large, dented storage containers. A bulky, bolt-rusted, four spread-legged crane, with a precariously dangling claw. The thing looked like one serious wind could push it over.

As they veered around equipment, Sandesh noticed a car followed close behind them. This was getting serious. What was it Gracie had told him about Walid? He thought that Sandesh was the key to everything.

The attack on the school had switched Sandesh’s focus from worrying about himself to the school. Stupid. Should’ve done both.

The limo jerked over a pothole and slammed to a hostile end alongside a steel storage container.

The crunch of tires sliding against stones, and the car pulled up behind them. Two men got out. They stalked toward the limo with a ready-to-bust-heads set to their shoulders.

Chances they were friendly? Nada. Each headed toward a different door. Wouldn’t be easy to fend off two attacks. But it was even harder to coordinate two attacks.

One of them would be first.

He looked around for a weapon. A wayward glass. A bottle from the mini-fridge. A toothpick. Nothing. Damn it. The limo-driver released the doors with a click.

Sandesh loosened and readied. Both doors flung open. But not simultaneously. The faster man came inside, led with his gun. Mistake.

Sandesh grabbed his wrist, locked his gun arm, pulled. He twisted the gun hand, aimed, fired at the second guy. The guy had already jumped back.

The first guy yanked. But Sandesh had secured his feet on the doorjamb. Using the leverage, he jerked the guy forward and head-butted him.

Crack. The guy’s nose broke like an egg. Hot blood poured out. Sandesh’s stomach gave a reflexive roll. Fuck. Gusher.

Gusher guy made a whiny, distressed sound and loosened his hold on the gun. Sandesh punted up with his pointy, worthless, POS-soled shoe. The guy grunted, released the gun, fell across his foot. Sandesh kicked him off. The guy stumbled back.

Rolling out of the limo, Sandesh crouched, kept the long car as a barrier between him and guy two.

Where was guy number two?

The limo took off. Raising the semiautomatic, Sandesh shot at the back window. The glass barely splintered.

Guy two still nowhere to be seen. Guy one on the other hand?

Hands covered in blood, Gusher charged. Sandesh was painfully aware of the amount of pressure he put on the trigger—next to nothing—the snap of the shot—loud—the recoil that rode up his arm—forever.

Gusher went down.

The driver spun the limo around with a squeal of tires and burnt rubber.

Sandesh darted left. The limo swung in the same direction.

It followed him the way a dog follows a sheep. Slow. Leading. They obviously wanted him alive.

At the last moment, the limo veered past him, doubled back. It came straight at him this time. Still slow.

There was a ladder on the storage container. Taking a running leap, Sandesh vaulted up. He slammed into the steel container. His fingers latched on to the ladder. The rusted metal sliced his knuckles.

At the top, he got a knee up, pulled himself onto the container. Both of his hands bled. Barely noticed. He crawled to the center edge, took out his cell.

The limo had backed up and now headed straight for the container. He was going to smash it?

Sandesh spread out like an X, held on.

The limo hit with a slam that rocked his body. And a vibration that shook his skull. Stupid fuck. What good did that do? He rolled. Just in time to see the guy suspended by a crane fire the Taser.