Power (Romantic Suspense) (48 page)

“I lost her with this war.”

Rising, Butterfly beamed. “This life isn’t for her. You didn’t lose her. You won me.”

“Did I?”

“Yes.”

“She’s too soft for the streets.”

“Yes,” I agreed, “She’s too soft for the streets.”

Butterfly examined my face as if hoping to see some deception around my lips or somewhere lurking in my eyes. “Why are you really here?”

“To end the war between us.”

“I want more than dick.”

“Tell me what you want, baby.”

“Respect.”

“You made me come here with my tail between my legs, begging you to end this. Of course you have my respect.”

“No one even knows about this,” she whined. “If I stop the war, they’ll praise your name.”

“The streets will know by dawn that it was you that won.”

She opened her mouth for a few seconds and closed it.

Does she believe me?

Chapter 33

Mary Jane

An intellectual bought a pair of pants. But he could hardly put them on because they were too tight. So he got rid of the hair around his legs.

–Philogelos (The Laughter Lover)

N
oah
, please be safe.

Anxiety merged with anger. I didn’t trust Butterfly. She could be luring him into a messed up trap that he couldn’t escape from. She could take him away from me.

I can’t sit here and think about this. It’s making me go crazy.

Lovesick, I sat back in the car without speaking. There was nothing else to say. He’d left. I understood why, but I remained pissed.

Don’t get yourself killed, Noah.

Where was he now? Had he spotted her? Was the plan to try to kill her now or wait? When would I see him again? Questions plagued my head throughout journey through Din City and out of it. Once we hit the country, the storm diminished. Crusher continued to play his Disney songs. Fuji and the singer both slept.

I studied the beautiful singer as she shook on the seat and woke up in horror every few minutes. It was like she remained in a constant state of terror. What had Butterfly put her through? Where had all those scars come from and why? Who would hurt a woman that could sing so well that tears welled up in the eyes?

Please, God, don’t let anything happen to Noah.

Tension built in my chest the closer we moved toward Noah’s parents. Was I really going to meet them covered in ragged clothes? An attire resembling someone who’d just battled a haunted house. Bits of paper stuck to my wrinkled jeans. Blood drops decorated my shirt. I had no idea whose blood it was. Maybe Aristotle’s or some of Noah’s other men who’d ended up dying there.

Will I ever be able to go back to my regular life after all of this?

I’d been kidnapped, taken to some religious birthday party full of satanic craziness, doted on like a princess, shopped for like a queen, guided to an underwater restaurant, stabbed in that underwater restaurant, passed out in a hospital, kidnapped later by crazy women, a witness to Noah’s massacre in a brothel, fucked out of my mind, and later, fought a haunted house.

I’d been pretty busy.

This is probably just a regular year for Noah.

Once we arrived at Noah’s parents, we passed the main house and headed almost a mile away to a cottage at the back of the property. The lights were off in the main house. A sigh of relief escaped me. I would’ve rather met his mother with clean clothes on and less anger in my heart. And still I hadn’t relaxed.

Don’t fucking get killed, Noah!

The sky remained dark, although the sun threatened the landscape with a glow of golden light rising from the horizon.

As soon as Crusher parked, Fuji woke up, dragged himself out of the limo, and offered his hand to help me out. “There’s only two bedrooms. Noah uses it a lot so his parents really don’t come around, even when they see his limo here. We’re giving Harmony and you the bedrooms. We’ll be sleeping in the living room. One of us will be watching over you both at all times.”

“Harmony?”

“Crusher calls the singer
Harmony
.”

“His obsession with her is worrying me.” I glanced over my shoulder as Crusher went into the limo’s back and carried a sleeping Harmony out.

Fuji shrugged. “He won’t hurt her. Trust me on that.”

“How do you know that?”

We approached the front of the cottage. Fuji pulled out a long chain of keys, found a long green one, and stuck it into the doorknob. “Because if Crusher wanted to kill her, she’d be dead already. The fact that she’s been alive this long is a good sign.”

“Women don’t really work with you all. Has he killed them though?”

“Yeah. He killed his mom, but that was sort of different.”

“What do you mean different?”

“Just different.” Fuji gestured at Crusher as he approached. “Let’s talk about it later.”

“Or maybe never.”

Fuji nodded. “Or maybe never.”

A shiver ran through me as Crusher drew near. I stood there, staring at him in horror. Fuji opened the door. Crusher raised his eyebrows at me, whistled
Under the Sea
, and took Harmony inside the cottage.

“He freaks me out,” I whispered to Fuji.

“He’s always freaked everyone out, but in the end, he’s pretty much a teddy bear sort of serial killer.”

“You’re really bad at keeping people calm.” I walked in.

The cottage was different from the condo. Noah had a Feng Shui theme going on with his place—no clutter, warm, earthy colors, Buddha statue, and plenty of big windows for natural light to flow through the entire space. At the cottage, stacks of boxes crowded the walls and scattered across most of the carpet. The furniture appeared old and worn out as if his father and mother had brought their old stuff along from their first house—a faded flower print couch, wooden coffee table with ring stains on the surface, a scratched book shelf full of dusty encyclopedias, and a huge, brown velvet recliner decorated in cigarette burns and black smudges.

“His parents use this place more for storage than anything else,” he said.

“Oh.”

“Your room will be this way. It’s where Noah usually sleeps.” Fuji guided me around the recliner and pointed at an opened bedroom.

Before I walked inside, he checked it out, looking under the bed, peeking into the bathroom, and stepping into the closet for several seconds. “Okay. Get some rest, MJ.”

“Where’s Noah?”

“He didn’t tell me that part. He figured you and I would do something to mess it up.”

“Who knows what he’s doing?”

“Crusher and 305.”

I frowned. “305 isn’t with us. If he was here, I could probably get it out of him.”

“Which is probably why 305 isn’t here.”

“And Noah knows I won’t spend too much time talking to Crusher.”

Fuji offered a weak smile. “Crusher won’t say shit. He’s too loyal to Noah.”

Sighing, I slumped onto the bed and lay down. “How long are we going to be here? When will we hear from him again?”

“I don’t know, MJ.”

“What do you know?”

“That we’re supposed to stay in the cottage and keep our phones on.”

I scanned the room. Tons of boxes stood next to an old dresser dented at the corners and missing a few handles on its drawers. Someone had written
photo albums
on all three of the boxes. I rose and headed over to them.

“You should get some sleep, MJ.”

“For what? We don’t even know what we’ll be doing tomorrow. If anything, at least if I stay up now, I’ll be sleeping during the day and getting us both in less trouble.”

“Not a bad plan.” Fuji yawned. “Let me go and see who’s on watch first. It’ll probably be me, since Crusher drove the whole way.”

“I could do the first watch.” I picked up one of the boxes and brought it over to the bed. “Just give me a gun.”

“You’re not getting a gun. In fact, I’m not listening to you ever again.”

“What? Why not?” I opened the box and pulled the first album out.

“What are you doing, MJ?”

“Entertaining myself.”

“Noah may not want you to look at his old pictures.”

“Too bad. I’ll respect his parents and not mess with their old memories, but if I see some baby pictures of Noah, I’ll be a happy woman.”

Fuji rolled his eyes. “I’m going to deal with Crusher. Please, stay out of trouble.”

“My middle name is
stay out of trouble
.”

Ignoring me, Fuji left me with Noah’s old albums.

Minutes passed. The pictures served as a tiny distraction from my stress. With every flip of the album’s pages, I tried to clear my mind of all the worry.

Where is he now? In her arms or far away and safe in his bed? What is going on in his mind? Is he as scared as I am?

Back in the day, Noah’s parents had taken a picture of everything. They must’ve had tons of Polaroids and other cameras nearby. Images stuffed the boxes. Even as a baby, Noah captured my senses. I paused for several seconds staring at his chubby face and bright blue eyes. During that time, his gaze didn’t hold that ice-cold glare. Instead, the blue flowed with warmth and innocence. His black strands curled around his rosy cheeks.

Oh, God. Noah had blushing cheeks and little curls. I’m totaling going to joke on him about this. I’m going to pinch those little cheeks of his and baby talk to him.

An image of Noah dead and bleeding in the street hit me. My heart stopped for a second. I had to shake the vision away from me. There was no need to worry. My man was a monster. A beast. He could beat Butterfly. He could destroy anyone.

The minutes continued to pass. A rooster cock-a-doodle-doodled off in the distance. I continued to skim through Noah’s childhood. One image showed his little face covered in orange baby food. Another displayed him on a tricycle. Others chronicled his first steps, first day of school, and first award ceremony. Strange thoughts came to me as I checked out more of his pictures. I found myself wondering how a boy, with such a normal looking childhood, could become the top gangster of an entire city.

I flipped back at some of the other pages. “He doesn’t look like he was abused or anything.”

I browsed more. “What’s different, Noah? What was it about your life that made you who you are?”

I must’ve looked at some of the pictures three or four times. Only one thing continued to stick out. While his parents always looked happy and loving, a distance always remained between him and his parents. I might’ve been being too picky. There wasn’t much else to go on. But still, on each image, Baby Noah or Kid Noah, was always two or three feet away from his parents as if the couple had an invisible bubble or wall around them.

Am I being crazy?

The older Noah looked in the picture, the more space existed between them. How odd it would be to take a picture like that? When I took a picture with my mom or other family members, we remained mashed together in some half hug and huge smiles on our faces.

Did they love him? Well, they had to love him. It’s clear that they did.

On one of the images, I drew a circle around the space between him and his parents.

Maybe they just loved each other, a little bit more than their son. Not to say that they were bad parents. It’s just that there looks like a space right between them that even a camera could capture. Did he fill that space with the streets? Is that why he turned away from love during his life? How many times had he turned away from his parents’ love, probably jealous and confused?

A yawn dragged out of me.

“Or maybe I’m just over thinking this.” I shut the album and picked up another. This one had to be put together by Noah. It was a photo journal creation from the scattered brain of a teen. Folded pieces of playboy magazine shoots had been hidden in between the sheets. Others pages had advertisements for guns and knives taped to them.

I flipped the page and spotted a group picture. On a trash-littered street corner, Noah stood in the center of other kids with a cigarette between his little fingers. Although still young, his gaze held that frosty edge. His clothes were cleaner than the rest, but his expression said he was dirty on the inside. That he’d seen some things that changed his whole mind about life.