A Commitment to Love, Book 3 (10 page)

“This morning.”

“With him?”

“I assume so.”

“I was hoping to come over here before she left.” She shrugged. “That’s okay. I’m here. Everything is going to be okay. We’re going to work this out. You got the money, and I have the plan.”

“Plan?”

“Yes.”

A liquid buzz settled down on me. I rubbed my temples with my free hand. “I’m not understanding this, Sophia.”

“You know what the solution is. You know it. You’ve been trying to fix this, since you all came back from Italy. You think I don’t know what’s going on? I know a lot more than you. Trust me. You thought Benny was done. No. He was just starting.”

“And now you decide to say something?”

She wagged her finger at me. “This is my daughter. You brought her into this beef with Benny. Don’t blame your dilemma on me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“But do you know the solution?” she asked.

“I think I do. Get her back.”

“No.”

“That’s all I want.”

“You need to concentrate on the bigger picture. Jasmine will come back, if who’s dead?”

“Benny.”

Heat glazed over her eyes. “Then why is he even alive?”

“I tried.”

The heat left her gaze and she smiled. “I’m sure you did. I just can’t believe you never came to me. I’ve been waiting for months. You never did. Sometimes, your moves are hard to guess.”

My moves?

The cognac had begun to do its job. A chemical euphoria drifted over me. I rubbed my face and promised to drink some more, once Sophia left.

She captured my attention. “I can help you kill Benny.”

Silence hung in the air for almost a minute as we stared at each other, her with confidence, me dumbfounded.

“What?” I asked, as if unsure I’d already become drunk and was simply imagining everything.

“I can help you kill Benny.”

This is too convenient. Too well-timed. What’s going on?

“How can you help me?” I asked.

“I know him. I know how he thinks. I read everything he writes and—”

“He writes?”

“He does these weird … journals. It’s notebooks and notebooks of his studies, nightmares, memories, and just jumbled thoughts.”

“Journals? How do you know all of this?” I paused. “Look, Mrs. Montgomery, I don’t think—”

“Chase, be quiet.”

Now I see where Jasmine gets the bossiness.

“Benny is complex. He has a set system of traditions in his head.” She tapped her own. “I don’t even know how to explain it. He has ideas of customs and rules of society, and when he thinks they’ve been violated, he kills. He’s the type of guy where, if you step on his shoe in the train, and don’t say sorry, he is liable to follow you out of the train, stalk you for days, and then late at night, while you sleep, choke you until there is nothing left inside of your body. That is a true story by the way.”

I had nothing left to say.

“I understand Benny better than he gets himself,” she confessed. “How the hell do you think I’ve been able to stay alive around him for so long?”

“I thought you two were maybe a fling or—”

“Let’s not lie.” She frowned. “I know what you’ve heard. I stripped and met Benny there. We had sex, and he felt bad and returned to his happy little wife. They lived wonderfully together, but then him being such a good man, well he couldn’t just let me starve with his kids inside of me, so he spent his years taking care of two households.”

Sophia took another gulp. “If I didn’t have this glass in my hand, I would’ve clapped. He’s full of it.”

“There’s another story?”

“Doesn’t matter. You need to worry about
your
story, and whether it ends a chapter or three too soon. Jasmine is my daughter, but she’s stupid. All that money he spent at Harvard. It was wasted.” She rolled her eyes. “Book smarts don’t punk street smarts. And everybody, rich or poor, got to walk these streets. Isn’t that right, sweetie? You’re walking those streets right now, looking for your lady. So I ask you, what’s the solution?”

“Kill him.”

“And who can help?”

“You.”

“Good.” She strolled over to me and clicked my glass with hers. “To killing the bastard once and for all.”

She finished the glass with that same odd elegance. Now I figured out how Jasmine had beguiled me so much. She was a younger and more luxurious model of her mother. Sophia may have thought Jasmine was stupid, but that wasn’t the case.

I may need Sophia’s help, or I may not. This could just be a play for something else, more money, whatever. She loved Benny. I’m sure of that. Why would she help kill him? For her daughter maybe? That made sense. Was she scared of him? I can’t picture her being scared.

Sophia possessed this addictive merging of grace and toughness. There was no denying she’d had a rough life. Although her skin and complexion were clear and appeared silky to the touch, her eyes and expression said ‘Don’t fuck with me.’

I remembered the first time meeting her. Jasmine had raced away from me, and I was trying to do anything I could to get her back. I got in touch with Sophia, took her and those seven grandkids out of the South End ghetto, and moved them into the suburbs. I placed the children in private school, hired a nurse to help Sophia with her disabled grandchild, and made sure a cleaning lady came three times a week.

Later Sophia called and asked for a car. I purchased one. Then she requested a driver. Once Jasmine and I reunited, Sophia suggested I open up college funds for all of her grandchildren.

“Just a suggestion,” Sophia had said, but her eyes held an edge as if she’d crush my world if I didn’t oblige.

I never told Jasmine any of that. She hated that I paid her own bills. There would be no way Jasmine would love me clearing her family’s debt. Finally, after a few more of Sophia’s uneasy visits at my corporate office, I simply opened up an account that offered her a reasonable yearly allowance.

“Mmmmhmm. This Louie is good.” Sophia returned to the bar to get more. “Come on, Chase. You should take a glass for the road.”

“What?”

“Field trip time.”

“Excuse me?”

“We’re going to Benny’s garden, sweetie.”

“His garden?”

“Benny likes to study things. He’s got this apartment that we all call the Penthouse. It’s in the tower. Do you know anything about the tower?”

“No.”

She chuckled to herself. “Then this should be fun.”

“I’m not interested in having fun. All I want to do is find Jasmine.”

“Focus.”

“Focus?”

“Yes, focus. And when you find her, what are you going to do? Beg her to come back? Benny will shoot you in the center of your forehead before you even mutter ‘I.’ Focus. I know you’re used to being in charge, but it’s time to follow. Jasmine is safe. Benny won’t hurt her. He’s got both of my babies now.”

“Troy?”

“Yes. I don’t know where they are, but he’s trying to play daddy. Let him have his family time in these last days, because when we come for Benny, we need to do it quick and fast. This isn’t a movie. If you get that man in front of you and you’re holding gun, shoot it. There’s no need for discussion. You carry out a monologue and your intestines will be wrapped around your throat, while he spends the rest of the day taking his time as he cuts you.”

My body had hardened to a stiff brick. “I think I got it.”

“Good. Let’s go. My driver can take us.” With her newly filled glass, she strolled out of my office.

What the fuck just happened? What’s going on?

C
HAPTER
6

Jasmine

T
he
flight took eight hours.

Once we’d gotten on his plane, I went straight to the back, pulled a blanket and pillow out of the overhead bin above my seat, sat down, covered myself, and cried one more time.

I’d never gone through something like this before. It wasn’t heartbreak, just emptiness. My love hadn’t been broken, Benny had viciously snatched it away. And he did so by shedding other’s blood, torturing people, and then bedazzling a corpse.

It’s going to work out. I’ll be okay. Chase will be okay. I’ve gotten over others before. I remember that pain. It leaves after time.

But this wasn’t the same hurt. It sliced through to the bone, caused my walk to be unstable, my mind to be restless, my chest to ache, and head to spin anytime I pictured Chase’s face.

When we landed, Benny had to shake my body to wake me up. For some odd reason, I opened my eyes, and thought those hard, rough hands were Chase’s. When I saw Benny’s face, I jerked back in confusion, and then all of yesterday’s events ran through my mind.

In no time, we got off the plane and climbed into a new rental.

“What do you think of London?” Benny asked as we rode in the back of another classic Rolls Royce.

“London is fine.”

“Do you like the car? I think I’m going to call her Silver Shadow.”

I don’t care.

“It’s fine.” I stared out of the window. I’d never been to London, yet no excitement came my way. It was a rush of nervousness and anxiety.

“You’ll love this city. It’s cold and hard sometimes, but it’s full of rich food and history.”

At ten in the morning, London was alive with traffic and people taking care of business. In the back of his car, Benny and I traveled through the streets, and I had no idea where we were. A few double decker buses rode by, the perfect symbol of movie London.

Gray clouds hovered over, threating the chance of rain. No sun sat in the sky. Skeletal trees dotted the blocks, which were rows and rows of connected three to four level houses and buildings that seemed to never divide and have their own middle-space.

It could’ve been my mood, but I wasn’t impressed. It was all dark roads and gray sidewalks, cars upon cars, and the threat of cold rain. Although in March, people wore jackets and hoods. In Oshane City, springtime had come. I only wore a light jacket at night. Here, that wouldn’t be the case.

“These are the popular dragons.” Benny pointed to silver dragons with red, spread-out wings and a crimson tongue. They stood on one rear leg with the other lifted against a shield. “They’re boundary marks for the City of London. That’s why they’re holding up the city’s coat of arms.”

“Sounds good.”

“They mark the boundaries of—”

“You already said that.”

He cleared his throat. “They mark the city boundaries at Aldersgate, Aldgate, Bishopsgate, Blackfriars Bridge, Holborn, Farringdon, London Bridge, and Moorgate.”

With a bored expression, I mumbled, “Amazing.”

“You’re not impressed?”

“No.”

“Due to heartbreak?”

“Due to mourning Lucy’s death, heartbreak, and the fact that I’m with someone who’s mentally unstable and has decided to kidnap me.”

“I figured since being with Chase, you would be used to a kidnapping here or there.”

“I have a lot more to worry about right now than dragons holding up shields.”