Vendetta Nation (Enigma Black Trilogy #2) (2 page)

“Do you think she’s coming back?” she’d asked. “Why hold onto something that brings you so much pain?”

Because letting go of this would be like letting go of her permanently
, he’d kept to himself.

“Get rid of it,” she’d all but demanded, matter-of-factly. “You’re building a new life—a life with someone who truly loves you. Keeping that ring is only going to hold you back in the past.”

“I know I should have returned it a while ago,” he’d explained. “Truth is, I locked it away and only recently dug it out. That’s why it was sitting on my dresser. Believe me, Paige, it’s not like I want to keep the thing. I really don’t need to carry around the constant reminder of the utter humiliation that day brought me.”

“Well, she sounds like a real piece of work, if you don’t mind me saying.”

Chase winced, aggravated. “She wasn’t a piece of work. Celaine had no idea that I was going to propose to her that night, and she’d come to break up with me, regardless. She had every right to end the relationship, and just because she chose to go that route, that doesn’t make her a bad person. It makes her…honest.”

“Do you still love her?” There had been a slight quiver in her voice.

He’d locked eyes with her for several seconds before replying with the only lie he’d ever told her. “No.”

Satisfied, she’d hugged him tightly, taking the ring from his hand. “Tomorrow?” she’d asked him.

“Tomorrow,” he’d nodded.

Today was tomorrow.
Jingle, jingle
, a small bell announced his arrival into the decaying shop. Despite its minuscule size, it was overrun with unwanted, yet discernibly valuable contents. In the age of fear, the pawn industry was just about the only profession still flourishing.

“Can I help you?” A tall man with a scraggly goatee who Chase guessed was the infamous ‘Shaun’ appeared from the back room.

“Business appears to be booming, eh?” Chase inquired.

“Yeah, people are getting rid of their junk left and right. Too bad they aren’t buying any in return, though.”

Great
, Chase pondered,
so much for recovering even a fraction of what I paid for this thing
. He removed the ring from his pocket, setting it down on the counter for Shaun to inspect.

“Whoa, this is a beauty,” Shaun stated. “What is this…three carats?”

“Four.”

“Four. My, oh my. I…I can’t give you even remotely what this is really worth. You realize that, right?”

“I figured as much.”

“You and the wife going through some financial strain?”

“Not exactly.” Chase felt slightly put-off by the line of questioning he was being made to endure to get rid of a ring, and he was beginning to regret not just leaving it on the counter and walking out the door. Shaun’s puzzled stare only made him realize further that he wasn’t going to be able to leave the shop without first providing some sort of explanation. “It was an engagement ring—a failed engagement ring.”
Please, let’s be done with this
.

“Jeez o’ pete! What was she expecting, the Hope Diamond? Well, I guess the fact that she didn’t just pocket it and leave you high and dry speaks volumes for her integrity, at least. Any woman I know would have grabbed that sucker up and skipped town. She must have been one of the good ones.”

“She was.”

“Okay. I’ll just need your identification and…” A ring from the back room announced an incoming phone call. “I’m sorry, I should take that,” Shaun said, leaving both the counter and Chase to his frustrations.

“Of course, just as we were about to finally wrap this up,” Chase muttered under his breath.

“What! What do you mean you’ve been there for the last week?” Shaun’s voice echoed loudly with enraged concern. Not wanting to eavesdrop, but really having no other choice, Chase stood at the counter, twirling the ring between his fingers. “When’s the court date? What? Okay…okay. I’ll close up shop and be right over there.” Shaun hung up the telephone and emerged, visibly shaken.

“Everything all right?” Chase asked.

“No…no, this goddamned administration! Nothing’s all right anymore. We’re all being condemned to Hell.”

“What’s going on?” Chase asked, trying to show some interest in his voice.

“My brother,” Shaun began. “They’ve detained him in Pennsylvania. He was traveling with some friends when one of them made some smartass comment about a bomb being aboard the van they were in when they stopped at a border crossing. They’ve been in prison there for the last week. No phone call, no hearing, no nothing.”

“Goodbye, Habeas Corpus.”

“Tell me about it. That bastard Brooks has bitten off more than he can chew this time.” Shaun began pacing behind the counter in somewhat of a daze. “Mark my words, there will be a revolt, and it will happen soon.”

“You may not want to say that out loud.” Chase hesitated, peering out the window.

“Screw them!” Shaun raised his voice, pointing outside. “They’re all puppets, the lot of them.”

Please, oh please, get me the hell out of here
, Chase mused.

Thankfully, with an emergency at hand, Shaun was in a hurry to get down to business. “A thousand—I’ll give you one thousand for it.”

That’s less than five percent of what I paid for it
. “I’ll take it,” he sighed.

Shaun nodded. Scooping the ring up, he took it with him into the back room. In shock, Chase remained at the front of the shop. A thousand dollars was far less than what he had anticipated receiving, but it would nonetheless make the remaining payment on the ring he’d had custom- made for her—his best friend; his love; his tragic engagement.

*****

Later that evening, as Chase lay in bed staring out the window, a knock sounded at his door. A small smile spread across his face with the knowledge of who the knock belonged to, interrupting the dark thoughts that had been encroaching his mind. Opening the door, he lit up at the sight of Paige.

“You don’t hate me, do you?” she asked.

“Hate you? Why would I hate you?”

“About last night…I’m sorry. You bought the ring, and it obviously still holds some importance to you. Celaine obviously still holds some importance to you and…and I’m sorry I got so upset about that, Chase. It wasn’t my place to get as aggravated as I did. Take as much time as you need, really.”

He laughed. “Time’s up, I returned it today.”

“Really?” A wide grin cracked her porcelain face.

“Really,” he said, taking her into his arms.

I didn’t know who Marshall Leitner was; what he looked like; where I could find him, or whether ‘Marshall Leitner’ was even his real name. All I knew for sure was that I wanted him to suffer. Then, I wanted him to die. To be able to kill someone as defenseless and good-natured as Lucy Pierce so callously took a special breed of evil—an evil that needed to be eradicated from society. Before, I’d sympathized with the rebellion. Now, I was beginning to wonder whether their motives were truly as noble as I had once deemed them to be. But interwoven throughout all my unanswered questions was one grain of certainty: whatever their reason or motive for Lucy’s death, I would uncover it.

“What about Becca?” Ian asked, tearing me away from the dark depths of my subconscious.

“What about Becca?” I answered, confused.

“Is she seeing anyone?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Your lack of serious observational skills never ceases to amaze me. Tell me, have you ever looked
above
chest level on Becca? Or, oh, I don’t know, at her left hand, for instance?”

“Why would I want to look at her hands?” He threw a balled-up t-shirt out of the closet and into his bedroom. I watched as it traveled through the air, landing on the floor near where I sat on his bed.

“Are you really telling me that you have no idea what I’m getting at?” I asked, my eyebrow raised to help to drive the obvious home.

“What, is she married or something?”

“Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner. Tell him what he’s won, Alex…A clue!”

“So, you’re telling me there are no other available women in this place but you and Kara?”

“No.” I picked the t-shirt up from off the floor without making eye contact with him. “Just Kara.”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry.”

“A-okay, Casanova.”

“This place just keeps on getting better and better.”

“It’s the gift that keeps on giving. A real blow to the libido,” I laughed.

“Tell me about it.” He continued scouring through the closet, pulling out shirts that were entirely too big for him. “Either they expect me to bulk up on steroids or they left your former partner’s training clothes in here.”

Blake
—the thought of him made my soul weak. I’d tried for months, to stubborn avail, to cast aside my memories of him. “Yeah, I think it’s pretty safe to assume that you’ll never be able to fill his shoes, let alone his shirts,” I finally replied.

“No doubt. The man was a beast. Oh, what’s this?” Ian pulled out a blue button-up dress shirt that, like The Epicenter-issued training shirts, was several sizes larger than the man holding it. “And to the trash we go…”

“Do it and die,” I said, my teeth gritted together.

“What?” he asked in shock mixed with amusement.

“Just give me the shirt, okay?”

“Okay…”

Blake’s shirt came sailing across the room in my direction, its short flight disrupting the fabric just enough to enable the release of its hidden secrets. As it fell into my arms, I caught a familiar scent of cologne. A familiar scent of Blake.

“May I ask you something?” Ian looked at me thoughtfully.

“I suppose.”

“Is what Cameron said true?” he hesitated. “Did you and Blake have something going on? Did he really die because of you?”

My body became rigid with guilt. Holding the shirt on my lap, I twisted its buttons between my fingers as if the very act of doing so would somehow release the tension imprisoned within me. “That was more than just
something
,” I replied. “Something implies a singular object. You’ve just asked me three loaded questions, all capable of opening their own Pandora’s Box.” I looked up at him from my inspection of Blake’s shirt, knowing he wouldn’t let me off the hook that easily. Reluctantly, I continued in order to put myself out of my misery. “Everything Cameron says is subjective. How he views the world—right or wrong, truth or lies—may not be how most people view the same situation. No, Blake and I didn’t have anything going on other than a friendship and a bond that eventually you and I may share as well. Where that bond would and wouldn’t have taken us had he lived, I can’t tell you as I don’t own a crystal ball. Did I cause Blake’s death? Yes…yes, I did.” I saw that Ian’s face had changed from one of mild interest to one of concern. “Blake died because of my lack of self-control and selfish decisions. Those decisions are ones I will have to live with for the rest of my life. He wasn’t just my partner, he was one of the best people I’ve ever known, and his death was entirely my fault.”

Ian picked a box up from off the closet shelf, closed the door and joined me on the bed. “You two became close as partners,” he spoke. “He had feelings for you and
his
ultimate decision to save you is what got him killed. It was
his
choice to protect you, not yours.”

A familiar wetness infiltrated my eyes. “When I looked into his eyes right before he slipped away, he seemed so at peace; as though, for the first time in years, he could relax. He had no worries. His only concern was with me being here without him.”

“Good Lord, the man had it bad.” Ian ran his hand through the hair on the back of his head in thought. “Don’t worry, you don’t have to worry about that happening with me. If you do something stupid, I’ll let you reap the consequences of your actions, and you most definitely don’t have to worry about me developing feelings for you outside of our little partnership here.”

“Darn, and to think I prettied myself up for nothing,” I laughed. “Alas, how will I ever cope with being literally the only woman who Ian Grant has ever turned down?” I put the back of my hand against my forehead, feigning despair. “How will I ever go on living?”

“Are you done?” he asked, annoyed.

“I think so,” I said, letting my hand fall back down on my lap. “For now, anyway. What’s in the box?”

Ian removed the lid from the box perched atop his lap, taking out a camera that resembled somewhat of a historical relic. “It was my dad’s,” he answered proudly. “And it was one of the few things I was able to salvage after he passed. Before my mother went on her rampant disposal of everything that’d once been associated with him.” He fumbled with the lens cap until it popped off, where he promptly inspected the lens, using his shirt to wipe off film that had collected on its surface. “I found it tucked away in the storage shed in our backyard, and I hid it at a friend’s house. Man, was my mom pissed. She wanted to sell it and dispose herself of his memory, but I wouldn’t let that happen. Hell, the only reason why she even kept
me
around was because she had to. That’s why I hauled ass out of there as soon as I turned eighteen, grabbing this camera and a duffel bag. I gave her exactly what she wanted. Absolutely no trace left of my father.”