Hero (31 page)

I’ve been standing in the room watching Norman for almost a minute. He looks up from his work suddenly and slides his reading glasses down his nose. He studies me, probably trying to figure out if I’ve been drinking. Suddenly I’m the boy again who needs looking after. “Is she gone?” I ask.

“Yes,” Norman says. “She left this morning. Any news on the Cartel?”

I peel my shoulder from the doorjamb and check my watch as I cross the room to the desk. “No unusual activity. I was on Carlos Riviera most of the afternoon, but his crew didn’t move. When I left they were still there.”

“Master Parish,” he pleads when I pick up the phone. “Let it go. She’s not your responsibility anymore.”

I hesitate only a moment before dialing. I stick the receiver between my ear and shoulder as I remove Cataline’s itinerary from my back pocket and unfold it. Norman’s sigh is loud, but I hear all his sighs lately, no matter the volume. When I connect with an agent, I say, “I need to confirm that a passenger made it on your flight. Jennifer Dean.”

I wait as she places me on hold, feeling Norman’s eyes on me. “I’ll let it go,” I say, glancing up at him, “once I know she’s safe and settled in her new life.”

“Sir,” the woman on the line says, “can you verify the name again?”

Adrenaline floods my system immediately. “Jennifer Dean.”

“I’m sorry, sir. We have no record of her boarding the flight.”

Everything in my body constricts so tightly I think my arteries might snap. “Check again, and also try the name Cataline Ford.” Anxiety-fringed anger builds inside me. My breathing is labored, and my fists are curled, one around the phone and one into itself.

“Sir, nobody by either name got on the plane. It doesn’t appear that she ever showed—”

I launch the phone against the wall as Norman jumps from his seat. “Fuck,” I shout, plunging my hands in my hair. “She didn’t get on the flight. Where’s Carter?”

“To my knowledge, he hasn’t returned.”

“He should be back by now.”

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” he says, but after all these years, I can sense the concern in his voice. “Earlier she asked why she had to comply at all. Maybe she decided against our wishes.”

“Wishes? They weren’t wishes, Norman. They were orders.” I pound my code into the keypad and scan my fingerprint so the wall rises. “There’s no way Carter would allow it, not without my explicit permission. Something’s wrong.”

Down in the basement, I assemble my armor. My head is swimming, and it’s a new feeling for me.

“They need her, Master Parish,” Norman says from behind me. “While she’s bait for you, they have no reason to kill her.”

“Kill her, no. But everything up to that, yes. I don’t even know where they’d have her.”

“You need to remain calm,” he says. “You have no plan.”

I press the heels of my hands against my forehead. My only plan is a marathon killing spree. I force myself to take a lungful of air. When I exhale, Norman and I sit down to decide where to start.

———

Voices in the background call for me to stop, but I throw the door open so hard it bounces against the wall. Police Chief Strong looks up from the paperwork on his desk and leans back in his chair.

“Sir, should I cuff him?”

“No,” Strong tells the officer in the doorway. “Give us a minute.”

The man closes the door behind him. Three large strides and I’m looming over the chief’s desk. “I need all your intel on the Riviera Cartel.”

“You blew our cover on that case, Hero. FBI took everything.”

“Bullshit. I’ve already checked their usual positions, but I need more.”

He shakes his head. “Even if I knew, I wouldn’t tell you. You’ve got to let them handle the Cartel. Riviera’s gotten even more aggressive since you offed their boss, and they want blood.”

“They have something of mine, and I won’t stop until I get it back.”

“You think you can walk in this station and walk right back out? I can’t let you do that.”

“The fuck you can’t. I don’t have time for this shit.” Before I turn to leave, I rest my knuckles on his desk. “If I find out you’re lying to me, I will destroy your life. Starting with this station and ending with your family.”

His face contorts. “You’re threatening my family?”

“That is no threat. It’s a goddamn guarantee.”

He blinks at me. “Who are you? Do you hear yourself? You’re supposed to be the good guy.”

“I never agreed to be the good guy. My job is to protect, and that’s what I’m doing.”

“It doesn’t matter anyway. We’ve got to book you, Hero. Mask off and everything.”

I slam a fist on his desk and point at him. “You don’t have to do shit. You know what I do for this city.”

“What you do is make a mockery of this force.”

“That what this is about? You’re embarrassed because you can’t keep up?”

“You know it isn’t. You do good, but you don’t deal with the wreckage. People trying to impersonate you and getting themselves killed. Unsolved murders that I foot the bill for. Less confidence in the city’s police force, which means a rise in petty crime. And in the case of the Cartel, you got the FBI so close we got no more wiggle room.” He jumps up from his desk as I back away. “I mean it. This is the end.”

Only Cataline is on my mind, and his orders are meaningless barking in the background as I exit the office. Two men grab my arms, but I shrug them off. Outside on the station steps, people have congregated.

“Stop,” Chief Strong shouts from behind me. “You’re under arrest, Hero.”

The crowd’s collective gasp grates in my ears. From the top step, I scan over their wide eyes and covered mouths. Somewhere I register that the officers are securing my arms behind me, but I’m glued to the spot. There’s an undercurrent of excitement as the crowd grows. A voice yells, “You can’t do this!”

Everyone erupts in angry chants. I hear them all, no matter how noisy it gets.
Saved my son from drowning, nothing without him, should be thanking him for his service
. . . .

I’ve never stopped to look at those I’ve helped. To me, they’re just the benefactors of a predator who feeds his darkness with scum. Seconds pass before a symphony of clicking shutters begins, and the news van of a competing media company drives up.

Suddenly I’m in handcuffs, men pulling me backward. I yank my wrists apart, and metal snaps. The force of it sends one officer flying into a far-away column. Norman’s in the back of the crowd by the car, lines deepening in his face.

“I don’t know what the hell this is,” the chief says, “but you need to come with us right away. If you run, we’ll have no choice but to fire.”

I bullet down the steps with handcuffs dangling from my wrists, and the crowd parts automatically. A gun’s hammer cocks behind me, but the shot doesn’t come until I’ve cleared the mob. It lands in my upper thigh, merely an annoyance.

I outrun the policemen easily. I don’t need to look back to know I’m leaving fearful faces behind. I block them from my mind, along with the song of sirens behind me.

My driver has the car idling where we planned earlier, an alley not far from the station. He takes off as soon as I slide into the backseat next to Norman.

“What could I do?” I ask when Norman looks at me.

“You had no choice,” he says. “It’ll be fine. Others have witnessed your strength before.”

“Not like this. Nobody’s watched me take a bullet and live to tell about it.”

“Except the Cartel member in the warehouse.”

“He’s good as dead. Who’s going to believe that was merely adrenaline? I can only use that excuse so many times.”

“We’ll deal with the backlash after we have Cataline.”

I nod with a tight jaw and look out the window.

“And maybe then, it’s time to consider ending this.”

“Ending what?”

“All of this, sir.”

I look out the window, not even willing to entertain the thought.

“Master Parish?”

“What?”

“I asked where you’d like to go now.”

“I don’t fucking know.”

“Best we go back to the mansion and wait, sir. They’ll be in contact when they’re ready for us.”

“How am I supposed to do that? I can’t just sit by knowing they have her.”

He shakes his head. “What choice do you have?”

My only form of escape eludes me. No matter that I close my eyes and will myself to calm, I can’t sleep. I don’t know how much time has passed before Guy returns, but when I hear the door, my eyes fly open.

Though the low sun lights the room, he flips on a dying bulb. He’s still bare chested, and I furtively admire the colorful tattoos spanning his shoulders and arms. Behind him, the boy from earlier enters with a tray of things.

“
Buenas, querida
,” Guy says, walking until his shins almost touch my kneecaps. “You look nice in that position, but you can stand.”

“Spanish?” I ask.

“I picked it up when I was younger. I do it without thinking, since I spend so much time in Mexico.”

My gaze wanders over the script and images that paint the skin so close to my face. On his forearm is the tattoo Frida noticed: a small, oxblood rose with “Riv” curling through the center.

“Like them?” he asks.

My eyes jump back to his. “No.”

“Shame.” He licks his lips while running one finger down my throat and hooking it under the neckline of my sweater. He drags it across my collarbone, and goose bumps pebble over my skin. “I’d love to mark you with something.”

Even though I’m cornered, I try to step back. “Can I eat?”

He glances over his shoulder and nods. The boy passes him handcuffs and leaves the room. Guy drops and dangles them in front of my face. “Arms above your head.”

“Why?” I ask quickly. “I can’t go anywhere.”

He waits silently until I give in and extend my fingertips toward the sky. He’s tall enough that he can easily lock a cuff around each of my wrists. “You think Calvin overreacted by hiding you these past few months,” he says as he works, “but he understands that when we want something, we can be ruthless.”

“You saved me from those men, though.”

 “I saved you,” he says, pulling up on the shackles so I’m forced onto my toes, “for myself. Because you have something I need.” When he drops his hands, mine remain. I tug and look up to see they’ve been hooked over a rusty nail protruding from the wall. My feet are arched and my midriff peeks from under my sweater, but he says, “Perfection.”

He bends down to the tray and returns with a colorful, hand-painted bowl of strawberries. Their happy red and sweet smell are out of place in this dour room of dust and concrete. He presses the tip of one to my lips until they part. I bite down, just grazing his fingertips with my teeth, and he discards the stem at our feet. Without removing his amused eyes from my face, he feeds me another one.

After the third, he trades the bowl for a bottle, gently tipping it to my lips. Water floods and drips over my chin, but I lap it up to wash away the grime settled in my mouth.

He screws the lid back in place and picks up another strawberry. I go to bite, but he pulls it away so my teeth snap at nothing. “Now for what I need,” he says. “Tell me about Hero.”

“I don’t know anything.”

“I know he’s Calvin Parish, and I’ve seen him fight. I saw him take a bullet without flinching—out of his armor. Carter swore he didn’t know how he did it. Seeing how easily he gave you up, I believe him. So, what do you know?”

I shake my head. “Nothing. If he wouldn’t tell Carter, why would he tell me?”

“If you tried, I believe any man would give you all his secrets.” He bunches the fabric of my sweater in one hand and lifts it, letting his knuckles graze up my stomach. When his fingers slip underneath, a touch both rough and tender, my nipples harden. His other hand trails the strawberry up the same path until it’s between my breasts. “You’re very responsive,” he says when I shudder.

“Why are you doing this?”

He lowers his mouth to my ear. “Hero killed the Cartel’s leader. The mindless idiots out there,” he says, nodding backward, “want revenge. They don’t know what I saw, though. I’m the only one who knows his identity and his capabilities. Tell me the truth. You have my word it’ll remain our secret.”

“Did you send those men after me?”

“In the forest? Yes. With Carter’s help, obviously. But they didn’t know anything other than their assignment.”

“Why do you want this information?”

“I don’t need revenge. I don’t see the past. I see the future. I see opportunity. In my world, power is greater than currency.”

“What does that have to do with Hero?” I ask, nearly drunk with truth. After all the information Calvin withheld, I’m basking in Guy’s every word.

As he speaks, he runs the fruit along the curves of my breasts. “I recognize some of myself in Hero. He’s a man with mission, purpose, driven by something to the point of obsession. But now I know that physically, he’s more than that. Men put bullets in his chest, yet he didn’t fall. I want that.”

“You wouldn’t use it for good.”

“Good,” he says. “What is good? All my life I’ve struggled to survive. Nobody’s ever shown me good that I haven’t forced from them. Let me ask you, is Calvin Parish good?”