Chapter 75

He was sorry? Oh, well. No problem then. “I don’t give a shit how sorry you are. What the fuck did you think you were doing? You betrayed us, the League. Momma. You betrayed the woman that rescued you from the gutter.”

“No.” He shook his head. He lifted his eyes to her. “She took me from the streets and made me kill people. That’s not saving me.”

“So what, you decided to join forces with a human-trafficker to teach her a lesson? Even if it meant betraying me?”

“No. I wanted to keep you safe. Take out these fucks myself.” He closed his eyes, opened them. “Momma. I told her you were too emotionally involved to execute the operation. She ignored my letter.”

“What?” The fucking letter. The thing must’ve been ten pages long. A fucking manifesto.

“Had to stop you. Then I’d do my plan. Take ’em out separate. Understand?”

She was beginning to. She didn’t like it. “You warned the Brothers Grim about us, sent them to Jordan to keep my mission from moving forward?” He nodded. “When that didn’t work, you sent the drones, so Momma would become afraid, let you move forward with your plan?” Again he nodded. “When that didn’t work, you gave them Sandesh.”

His shoulders tensed. He looked down at Sandesh then shook his head. “Dusty—the guy with the USA hat—tried to stop that.”

Dusty, a.k.a. American Ninja Warrior. “How the hell did you develop this bromance with that guy?”

Tony crossed his arms. “He’s legit.” He began speaking quickly. His south Philly rising. “FBI. Met him by accident. At a bar. Believe that?”

No. She didn’t. She’d look into it later.

“So you joined forces with some FBI guy. You had money. He had skills?”

“Basically. He was sick of traffickers getting ignored for drugs. Took what the government calls a hiatus. Came to work for me. He got in here. Worked his way up. Helped keep everything running. Until that shit at the massage parlor. After that, Aamir, the smart one, stepped in. He knew Walid had a leak here. Still, I thought I had it covered. I thought it would all end with Jordan. Only an unfeeling, uncaring lunatic would send her daughter to Jordan without back up, knowing the Brothers were suspicious.”

He spit the last. Literally. Spit flew from his lips. He was furious. And not just at Momma. At himself.

“You’re saying you did all of this—betrayed our family, my trust, the woman who rescued you—to keep me safe? But why?”

“Why?” His dark eyebrows scrunched together. “’Cause you’re the good one, Justice. With you I can laugh, feel, breathe. And that woman…that monster you call Momma—”

“Watch it, Tony. Watch it. I’m still not sure I won’t shoot you.” Her hands tightened on the rifle.

He began to laugh. “I wish you would. That’d make it easier.” He let out a long gust of air, sucked in an even longer breath. “She was gonna let you get yourself killed.”

He swayed, leaned a hand against the back of the couch. “It’s like you didn’t matter. Well, fuck, you mattered to me.”

Tears started to fall down his face. He was shaking. Angry. Sad. Broken?

“Really? You and Bridget conspired with Cooper, tracked me, and left the computer with a drug addict. That bit of brilliance almost got me killed.”

He shook his head, worked his lower lip between his teeth like he was going to bite it off. “Tracking was my mistake. Bridget didn’t know I’d set that up.”

Bridget. Justice had never suspected it could’ve been the two of them. Never.

“Needed to keep track of you. To not risk you, the family, the school. Know how hard that was? How much I had to work? I even saved that Juan guy for Dada. I did that.”

“Oh. Well. Brava. Way to go. Would you like your silver star pinned to your chest now, or would you like to wait for the ceremony?”

“Smart-ass,” Tony said. And he said it like it was a compliment, like it was love.

“And Coop? You brought him in on this knowing what he did. Knowing he was a drug addict?”

“Cooper?” He seemed confused now, groggy. “Told him he was helping. Told him it’d keep you safe. He was really trying, J. You know he was sober, right?”

He lifted his head, met her gaze. His hands shook against the couch. He fisted them.

“No. He was high as hell every time I saw him.”

“Nah. Think I’d of let him within a hundred feet of you if he was still using? No f’in way.” Tony’s eyes slid over to Sandesh, then back to her. He sighed like he had nothing else to lose. “I love you, J. Loved you from the moment you rescued me.”

Justice felt something in her chest crack. She held it back, held back the pain. No. Tony was a liar. “Like the way Cooper loved me? He left me to be tortured. He left Hope to die.”

Tony shook his head. “Lies. That’s what she does. Makes it so you only want the League. But your dad wasn’t all bad.”

He had to be kidding. Or crazy. “Yeah. He was. All bad.”

“No. Didn’t you ever wonder how Mukta found youse? Some rich woman in the Northeast found two girls in Virginia?”

“The League.”

Tony leaned heavily on the couch. He was really trembling now, like a sudden fever had overcome him. “Come on, you know better. The League isn’t all powerful. Coop went to her. After being forced to leave you with his mother-in-law.”

“Forced?”

Tony’s eyes drooped. Then his head. He shook himself. Head and eyelids rose. “Court gave her custody. Man didn’t have a chance. An American Indian drug addict versus a white middle-class woman. No contest.”

What? Her father had been forced to leave her? To give her to that crazy woman? It didn’t matter. It didn’t change things. “He could’ve taken us. He could have run to the reservation. He knew what she was.”

Tony shook his weary head. “Wouldn’t a worked. Did what he could. Drugged as he was, found his way to Momma, a woman he knew adopted kids. And Leland. Told ’em about you.”

“Cooper? Cooper was the one who told Momma about me and Hope?”

Tony nodded. His eyes told a thousand things, a thousand secrets she had never guessed. She’d had it all wrong.

He sniffed. Coughed. “Yeah. He hung outside her office for three days, begging her and Leland to help. They finally listened. A day too late for Hope. But not for you. My. Justice.” He reached over and hit his chest. “This tattoo. ‘All for one.’ Is for you. You’re the one. You with the good heart. You really want to save people. Not Momma. Never her.”

Justice had to force her throat to swallow past the root of growing panic. “She rescued us. She rescued you.”

“No. You did. They set it up. They took even that from me. But you didn’t know that. You did what they knew you would.”

“What? Who set it up? Took what from you?”

Her throat went into lockdown. Alarms sounded in her head; doors closed in her heart; prisons sprang to life in her soul.

She lowered her gun. The salt of her tears kissed her lips. “Tone, why are you shaking?”

He looked up at her. He blinked. He jerked his head. “Oh. The patch.” He waved his hand. “Smeared it. Got no reason to live anyhows.”

He stumbled left and fell over.

Justice screamed. She ran to him. “What did you do?” Skirting the dead guard, she fell to Tony’s side. She grabbed his shoulders. “What did you do? You stupid idiot!”

Sandesh reached across Tony, pulled her hands away. “Careful. Don’t touch.”

“He’s got your back.” Tony tucked his hands into his armpits. He gasped for breath. He’d landed oddly. His right leg bent back, caught under his ass. His body began to convulse. His teeth to chatter.

How did she fix this? How did she stop it?

Tony looked up at her. “I did good too? Right, J? Not all bad.” His hazel eyes, the haunted eyes that had once looked out from the face of a starving twelve-year-old boy, pinned her. Begged her. Her heart broke into a thousand irreparable pieces. It hurt to breathe.

“Yeah, Tone.” She spoke over sobs. “You did a lot of good. You were my best friend. I love you. I will always love you.”

He closed his eyes. “Don’t cry, J.” He smiled. A smile that twitched at the edges, then went flat.