RETRACE (4 page)

“I gotta check this one out. What table?” Jake asks. There’s a collective snort from both my co-workers at the bar.

“Eight, boss,” Eileen sings.

“Fuck you, Jake,” I say, amused.

My attention is flung to a higher than the empire state group of trouble that’s making its way to where I sit. I stand up to “greet” them, walling their path to the bar.

“Gentleman, we are at full capacity,” I say in a voice that tells them it won’t be a smart move to argue with me.

“Hey Mr. Tough Guy, we won’t take long.” A guy that smells worse than a distillery stands in my face. I roll my eyes. There’s always one idiot to start the festivities. I take half a step back and cross my arms over my chest. “Like I said, I’m sorry, but we are at full capacity tonight.”

“Fuck you, pussy,” a relatively built guy that I wouldn’t peg as intoxicated as the rest says while pushing my chest as though bumping into a wall. Before he can even say, “I’m a fucktwad,” I have him in a tight grip, holding his hand backward. I bring my free hand to his throat, pressing just enough to have him gasp for air, but not enough to cause any damage. His friends eye me hesitantly.

“I release you, and you and your friends will turn around and quietly leave, or I’ll have to show you what happens if I press harder.” And to give him a prelude of the joy I can bring him, I press just a bit harder. He lets out choking stutters as I shove him forward. He wobbles for a few steps and quickly balances while gasping. He sends my way a look coated with poison. I nod at them.

“Have a lovely evening, gentlemen.”

“Hey Reeves, I think I’m going for her.” Jake’s comment brings me back to our earlier conversation. I plop back onto the stool. “Miss Talisker is damn
hot
.”

I tug the button and speak, “we all know you take pride in your masculinity, Jake. But you’re still a pussy. Don’t let me get back there and kick your ass.” I smile at Jake’s strained chuckle. My smile swiftly dissolves as I notice a very familiar angelic blonde heading my way. I press the earpiece again, “Jake, get someone to cover for me.”

By the fourth time, Bill, Billy, blargh, or whatever his name is, the guy that’s been inching my way, almost pushes me off the chair, I jump up to stand. When he asks me if I’d like to dance, I first take a step back where we don’t have to exchange oxygen anymore and politely refuse the tempting offer. What can I say, I’m not the biggest fan of the intoxicated, conceited, and reproducing Horny Trinity.

“Refill anyone?” I ask.

“We can have the waitress bring us refills,” says Toni, a wide shouldered brunette with the most delicate voice. She is Alex’s roommate, so I’ve been told. I wonder if it’s only a room sharing situation between them, given Alex’s constant small gestures toward her “roomie.”

“I’m going anyway, I need to stretch my legs.” I add a thin smile to my words, sending a stay-back warning glare to the guy that eyes me as if he is about to dry hump my leg.

“Don’t take long,” says Mr. Horny, sending me what I believe he might think is his best production of a sexy smile. I inwardly shudder.

As I make my way through a maze of tables toward the bar, a handsome, hard-jawed guy, clad in a badass leather Jacket, rewards me with a smile after a blatant top to toe scan. He sends his hand to a black device that’s peeping from his ear and says something, ending it with a devilish grin. He throws his head back laughing next. Not a beat passes and his demeanour turns severe. I just shrug and move on.

Some alone time is needed, I think to myself as I take a seat on a stool by the bar. I send my original table a peek, waiting to be served.
They are
a bunch of cool people. Alex, Toni, J.D., who’s apparently a semi-famous comics illustrator, and Paul, which took me a few moments to make sense of his connection to the artsy gang. With him being the ultimate nerdy programmer type, by look and nature. Nonetheless, he somehow just fits in. I like him, Paul, he is quiet and polite and intriguingly clever. He is one of those guys who just knows everything, but shows it in a humble way. My eyes jolt back once Sir Creepy catches my stare.

I tap my fingers on the hard surface. A disturbing thought nestles in my mind. I might have totally sent to hell the opportunity I’ve been given at the dance studio. The look in Mrs. Perry’s eyes plays in my head and I cringe. I might have taken it a bit too far, letting loose like that in front of the girls and the parents. My chest presses just enough to signal for my gut to clench. Not only do I really want the job, I’m counting on it. I can’t afford losing it. I have some money set aside for emergencies, but that’s exactly what it is, emergency dough. Especially with the indulgent apartment I’ve rented. The only thing I swore I wouldn’t cut back on, and I didn’t. God, I’m so screwed if I let this job slip through my fingers.

“Another Talisker?” asks the attractive blonde server with the impressive showcase under her tight black tee. I frown, wasn’t the other bartender serving me before? How would she know what I ordered? She tilts her head to the side, gifting me with an urging smile.

“Um, no thanks. Just ice water, please.” She nods. I can’t unglue my stare from the word Jake’s splattered between the two small peaks her nipples form under the tight shirt. Guess she’d need a Brinks truck to take her tips home. Sliding my drink toward me, Spiky runs her eyes quite openly over me, smiles a little secretive smile, and shifts her stare to the other side of the bar. Mine follow suit. Reaching the point her attention was drawn to, my eyes land on my G.I. Joe. “
My
…” I inwardly roll my eyes.

I get the chance to thoroughly study him as I watch him talk to a real life Tinkerbell. Reeves is handsome in a non-beautiful way. Beautiful constitutes delicacy and flawlessness, even features, but he got none of that. He is attractive in a raw, somewhat fierce, masculine kind of way. Hard, square jaw, sharp planes, high, bristled cheekbones, but it’s his smouldering eyes that hold the warning, sexy vibe he exudes. I gaze at them both; his companion appears ridiculously fragile with him towering more than a head above her. It seems as if he might be scolding her. His eyes, some indistinct cyan shade I hadn’t gotten the chance to validate yet, glare at her with a rare blend of irritation and gentleness. She nods, hugging herself, gently rocking back and forth on her pink Mary Jane’s while returning his pointed stare. Her soft, golden locks sway, fluttering the middle of her white camisole as she nods again.

The edginess disappears from his tense stare. He runs a hand over his lightly scruffy cheek, ending the rub on his dark buzzed hair. He tells her something, crossing his arms over his chest, causing his curved bicep to bloat proudly. He moves his black jean and heavy boot-clad leg to rest on the foot ring of one of the stools and speaks again to the spectacle of delicate prettiness before him. Her lips twist, and her eyes downcast in response. I’m too far to precisely zero in on her eyes, but from where I sit they seem to have turned glossy. A bolt of alarm crosses
his
face and he inches to envelope her in his arms. Her petite figure is swallowed in his embrace. He crouches for his chin to rest on the crown of her head and closes his eyes. Something streaks through me, a sudden jolt of jealousy which at first I can’t make any sense of. I take a sip of my water and look at them out of the corner of my eyes. At second glance I realize where the envy came from, it’s the sense of protectiveness and care his hug emits that causes my heart to tug. I’d do anything to feel secured again, to allow someone to make me feel this way.

But I know it’s not in the stars for me. I gave up on that. Nothing can take away the pain I’ve been harboring, and the rooted guilt I nurture. I inhale deeply, shake away the thoughts that cloud my mind, and signal to the bartender for another drink. Scotch this time.

I place the bulky goblet on the table I left earlier, returning the smiles that greet my return. Luckily my persistent suitor found another victim with whom he now occupies the dance floor and I get a chance to enjoy a light conversation with J.D. and Paul.

I run by a 7-Eleven for eggs and a gallon of O.J., before getting to the new apartment to wait for the movers, knowing full well how in about an hour my stomach will cause riots if I don’t eat a sufficient amount of food. I maintain my body like the oiled machine that it is. I treat sport like a religion, training 6 days a week. Healthy food is a subsidiary creed. Keeping in shape is a prerequisite in my line of work, together with alertness and strength. I can’t let myself slip in either of them.

Having about twenty minutes before the moving bedlam starts, I turn to make breakfast. While the six egg omelet sizzles in a pan, I down half a gallon of O.J. and read the news online. The little talk I had with Katie yesterday intrudes my news skimming. I halt and look out the window. It feels like a rock the size of the moon has been lifted off my chest after ironing out our misunderstanding. I was so glad she agreed with my resolve on the subject that we could never have anything physical between us. She swore it was a one-time mistake on her part and she’d never pull something like that again. Even if hell froze over I wouldn’t look at Katie any other way but as family, a little sister. I don’t know what came over her the other day, but I sure hope it would never happen again.

My thoughts wander to the keen spectator we had last night.

Nia.

She didn’t notice me observing her for a while after Katie and her friends hit the dance floor. I was leaning on the wall behind the bar, behind my laboring colleagues, watching her. There’s something about her eyes, I couldn’t get
my
eyes off her. My lips twitch at the corner remembering Dan’s smirk when I poured myself a finger of Talisker once I’d decided I was done working for the night. He shook his head at me with a shit eating grin.

“You don’t want to pull any crap with me tonight,” I told him above the rim of the glass.

“That I know,” he said. “I saw you talking to Katie…”

I narrowed my eyes at him, stressing the fact that he shouldn’t even imply anything about Katie and me.

He just sighed in surrender and murmured, “I just wish that for once you weren’t as blind as you are when she is concerned.” Well, that he got downright straight, when it comes to
her
I’m blind, and I will without a doubt ever be. No matter what Katie pulls out of her hat, I’d always be there for her, day or night.

When the movers finally spread into several rooms and start getting the apartment in shape, I get a message that makes my blood freeze in my veins on the spot.

Jake: Hunter is here, he wants to see you.

7.5 minutes is the exact amount of time it takes me to show up at Jake’s office.

“Take a seat Agent Mitchell.” No one has called me
that
for a while, at least not since I left the bureau. But then again I wouldn’t expect any less from the Big Kahuna. Although it’s been a while, almost three years, since I’ve been under his command. I study him for a long moment, reverentially, the man was, and still is, a mortal god.

“I prefer standing,” I answer sharply. Jake eyes me with warning. The clean-cut, elder gentleman with the piercing blue eyes and a suit sitting in Jake’s ragged chair, curtly gestures at the chair before him.

“Please sit,” he deadpans and I follow his request.

“How are you doing?” He asks, his voice heavy with years of smoke trailing through his vocal cords. I sigh, not sure what to tell him. This man knows me almost better than I know myself, whatever I choose to say should be nothing but truth.

“Better,” I say, impassive.

“I read the last report on you. You quit therapy,” he states. His voice wears a pinch of disappointment. I wince. He is the last person I’d ever want to disappoint. We trade pointed stares for an additional moment. “I’ll cut to the chase,” he says and I can feel Jake’s eyes assessing my reaction. “There’s a reliable tip on A.Z.’s recent activity.”

I jolt to a stand but Hunter doesn’t ask me to sit again. The air gets stuck in my lungs and my palms roll into two tight fists hearing this name. Hunter, nor either of us, will ever use suspects’ full names. Even though Jake’s office is checked daily for bugs. “He was spotted on U.S. soil a couple of days ago.”

“Will you be collaborating with Jake’s people for the investigation? I’d like to be a part of the team if that’s possible, sir,” I say, looking at him square in the eyes. He slowly shakes his head, and for a brief moment I see a glimpse of pain in
his
measured stare. “I can do it.”

He rubs a hand over his goatee and his blue eyes look up my way. “Reeves, Son, I trained you, I know what you’re capable of. I know how you function better than anyone.”

Jake drops his stare to his busy hand that repeatedly slides his phone in circles over the table.

“Even if I were to collaborate with Jake, I wouldn’t assign you to the team. I’m not sending
you
after him. It’s not that you are not capable of executing the job. Hell, you are one of the best I’ve ever had.” He lights a cigar, sucking thick smoke in, twice. He raises his eyes back to mine. “We both know it’ll be a suicidal mission, and I want
you
, and everyone involved,
including the target,
alive.”

I clasp my teeth tighter as I keep listening to him. My heart is beating wildly, rage is streaming through my veins at the thought of the motherfucker who killed Ben, free and within reach. Jake crosses his leg over his thigh, leaning back in his chair, waiting for either of us to speak.

Tense, I wait for Hunter to go on.

“I’ll keep you in the intel loop.” He offers the best settlement he can, and it’s a mighty huge one. That, I know.

“Sir, I appreciate it. Thank you.”

“I might need you to work with the investigation team, though. Brief them on the old case.” He sucks his cigar again and speaks through the smoke cloud.

My brows knit together, “I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but why aren’t you using agent Blithe for that?
She’s
still in the bureau as far as I know.” I’m not sure why he wouldn’t just use my former handler, Agent Daria Blithe, she knows the old case inside out, if not better than I do.