Red (Black #2) (21 page)

“You want her body?”

His anger is evident in his response. “I will kill you!” he screeches through the phone.

“Come alone, Grover. Come to the place where it all started.” He knows where I’m talking about. “You have ten minutes.” I hang up the phone and look down. I remember everything—I remember holding her in my arms, remember her words and the way she looked at me, the way she loved me. Now I’m worried, I am worried I won’t get that back, that I can’t get her back. That I’m so broken, so damaged, that I ruin everything around me. Destroy everything around me. I can’t though, I can’t ruin everything. I have to fix it. I need to learn, learn to stop drowning.

He came, and he came alone. He gets off his bike, gun in hand and walks toward me. He steps to the edge, not too far from me. Looking down then he looks back at me. Then around…
for her
.

“Where is she, Black?” A shrug of my shoulders. He raises his gun at me. “You said you would bring her, she loved you.”

“She loved you, Grover.” I watch as Jake walks up behind him, so silent that you wouldn’t be able to hear him. He places the barrel of his gun to the back of his head. Grover freezes, his eyes expanding. He tries to move fast by twisting his body around. The thing about Jake is he is fast, so very fast. Grover is instantly knocked to the ground and Jake kicks his gun away then steps on his hands, digging his steel cap boots in making his hands bleed.

He looks up at me, he has a glint in his eyes, he thinks I care for him, that I won’t do what I’m about to do to him. He’s wrong, no matter how good she thinks I am, there’s an evil so deep that begs to be released, and it’s about to be released all over him. In a slow, silent way.

“You won’t do it, you can’t. I’ve seen you with them. You love… love hard. You can’t do it.” His hands are bleeding, drops of blood drip onto the ground he’s kneeling on. He smirks like he thinks he’s right.

“You would think that, wouldn’t you?” I smirk slightly at him. Jake walks over to me, leaving Grover on the ground, and uncovers what’s behind me. Grover takes a fast intake of breath. Then he looks to me, and Jake taps my shoulder.

“Remember what we talked about?” I nod my head, he’s leaving. “In another life, brother,” he says, and I watch as he walks away. Wondering when I will see him again. If I even will.

“He loves her,” Grover pipes up. His words make me angry, not a good position for him to be in.

“What do you know about love?” I fire back at him.

“I know love, Black, I know it. You have it now, you will do anything to hold onto it.”

“I will, I have.”

“That’s why I know you won’t do what you have planned for me. She wouldn’t want you then, would she?” He’s testing me, he is trying to bargain with his life. It won’t work.

“You see, there’s something in me, something that most don’t have. And it’s black, Grover. How do you think I got my name? Why do you think they don’t use my first name? It’s not because it’s part of my name, it’s simply because I’m dark. Darkness surrounds darkness, blackness surrounds black.” He tries to stand, I am now in front of him. He pleads with me with his eyes, they ask for forgiveness. That’s something I cannot give him.

He took away my life.

He took away her.

He took away him.

That is unforgivable. And it won’t be forgiven, no matter what.

“Don’t Black, don’t put me in that.” His hand reaches out and grabs hold of my leg. I kick him off, a grown ass man, someone who’s ruthless, kneels on the ground below me and begs for his life.

What a piece of shit.

I slam my gun into the back of his head, knocking him out. He falls head first to the ground. I walk to the safe, which is now a coffin, and open it. The door is steel, it’s heavy, and the perfect size. Sax walks over, looks in it and shakes his head.

“You really going to go through with this?” he asks pointing to it.

“I am.” It’s the least he deserves. He follows me to an unconscious Grover, picks up his feet while I grab his arms.

“It’s over, hey?” he asks and I raise an eyebrow at him. “With Rose,” he says.

“It’s not.”

“To her it is. She can’t handle it anymore, Black. Her heart can’t take it.”

“You’re going to give me a job, and I will stop this.”

He laughs at me. “You want to work for me? In security?” He shakes his head. “Could you even listen to orders? You don’t seem the type to want to take orders from anyone.”

“It’s the only plan I have right now. Well, it’s the only legal plan I have.” We stop just over the safe and drop him in. His head hits hard against the steel and he wakes. Sax pulls a gun keeping it trained on his head.

“You carry guns on your job?” I ask him looking at his loaded gun. He nods his head. “Then it’s a perfect fit,” I say, looking back down to Grover.

“Black, don’t do this. If I don’t come back tomorrow, they will have a hit on your girl’s head.” Sax’s eyes shoot to mine, fear in them.

“Grover, you don’t have anyone. No one wants business with you, they only dealt with you because of me. That’s the last time you will threaten my family.” My blood is boiling, I know it’s a lie. He doesn’t have anyone, but the point is, he shouldn’t be threatening them at all. He knows they’re my only weak link—she’s my only weak link.

“Black, are you sure he’s bluffing?” Sax asks, his gun trained on Grover in the steel coffin.

Smirking down at him I answer, “He is. Say goodbye, Grover. Think of me as you suffocate, think of me as your last memories consume you, and think of this… the bullet I put through your daughter’s head, the way her eyes opened in surprise, the way she dropped to the floor.
She’s now ashes burnt to a crisp. No one will ever find her, no one will ever mourn her, no one will ever care. The same as no one will mourn you… Oh, and since you want to see your daughter so badly, she’s in there with you. Can you feel her ashes on your fingertips? That’s her, and just like you asked, I’ve delivered.”
He tries to jump for me, but as I push the steel door closed he just misses losing his fingers as it slams shut.

He bangs and screams when we lock it. He’s wasting the limited air he has, he will die very soon and painfully.

Sax helps me push it to the edge, the drop is high. We get half way and stop. Well, he stops. “Is this it? Is this all you need to do?” I nod my head, nothing else needs to be done. I can try again after this. “You’re going to attempt to win her back, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” I say, then we push. Standing there in silence, the coffin drops from the edge, the loud bang echoes in the lake as it slams into the water.

A weight is lifted.

There are no more demons.

Only angels, and I plan to get her back.

I plan to have her back.

Even if it’s the last thing I do.

My world was crumbling, everything was suffocating me. Tearing me down, bit by bit. I wanted to scream, I wanted to hurt those that inflicted this pain on me, but most of all I wanted to escape, escape into something I knew, something I haven’t touched for over five years. Though, I knew it could make me forget, selfish I know. I want to slap myself for thinking of that as a way of escaping. Why couldn’t I be someone who just got drunk to escape or ever went for a run? Those things are what normal people do isn’t it? Why wasn’t I normal?

I walk into my son’s room, he’s asleep and it’s just like nothing even happened. Like his life wasn’t at risk. He doesn’t see it that way, he sees Liam as his savior, a God. I wish I saw him as that. I wish when I saw him now that it was all birds singing and butterflies. Instead, now its dread, thinking that something’s about to come, something bad.

I’ve been ringing Jake non-stop with no luck. He hasn’t answered his phone. It goes straight to voicemail. Sax hasn’t heard from him and I’m worried. I don’t want to call Liam to ask, I refuse to be the first one. It’s always me pushing things with him, making him realize he’s capable of more. Because he is, so much more. Two weeks though, it’s a long time to not hear from him. Especially, when for five years I spoke or saw him every single day.

“Stop moping,” Casey says from the kitchen, Sax is in there cooking. Casey is eating whatever is in front of her. I don’t know how she hasn’t put on weight. She eats so much, like non-stop when she’s pregnant, and she seems to be pregnant all the time. I don’t think I’ve had a girls night, or drinks, or even gone out at night time for over six years. And before that, I can’t even remember as I was so high.

“I am not moping.” She pulls a face at me, sticking her tongue out.

“You are, you need to go out. You need to have a night just for you.”

“With who? My pregnant best friend? Who’s always pregnant?” I raise my eyebrows at her in question.

“You have work friends, people you have met from your charity. Pick some, just do it.” I watch as Sax smiles at what his wife is saying, she can be pretty persuasive, even when she doesn’t mean to be, or as I like to call it, peer pressure. “Tomorrow night, it’s a Saturday, make plans. We will watch the kids.”

“Hold up, woman,” Sax says dropping the salad into a bowl. He tries to be serious, but how serious can you be while making a salad.

“You hush, I’m hungry, so is the baby,” she says rubbing her belly and smirking at him. He does as she says, shaking his head.

“What do you people wear?” She coughs and chokes on her food, holding up her hand and telling me to wait, then laughs.

“You can’t be serious?”

“I’m not sure if I’m ready, I don’t think I can leave the kids.” The guilt is still there, I know he wasn’t hurt, but he’s my baby. And even if it didn’t traumatize him, it did me.

“They will have me, plus Mister Bodyguard here to protect them. Nothing will happen, and we will be here when you rock up in the early hours of the morning.” I shake my head I don’t know if I can do it. Casey has a look of determination on her face though and I know she will win, she always does.

She barges in without knocking. I watch her waddle—yes, she waddles now. And she comes to a stop in front of me. I’m sitting on my sofa in my pajamas, the kids are in bed and I’m eating popcorn. Her face is serious when I look up because she’s blocking my view.

“Up,” she says, pointing for me to get up. I stay where I am and turn behind me to see Sax standing there holding a garment bag and another bag. He looks bored.

“Where are your kids?” I question her.