Page 29 of Between Passion and Revenge, Part One (The Griot Chronicles #1)

He doesn’t look put together or in charge—he looks like a regular paper pusher who got thrown into some bullshit, but when I glance at his badge, it makes even less sense. I’m not an expert on the FBI’s position tiers, but I know Deputy Director is a few levels removed from the president.

What the hell is going on here?

I turn my back to McAdams and head for the door.

“This isn’t over, Sandoval,” the man grinds out.

And when it comes to that, I completely believe him.

Riale’s face gives nothing away when I exit the FBI headquarters and stroll toward his blacked-out SUV. But because I know him, I decipher the message in his eyes.

Don’t say a goddamn thing until I tell you to.

When he brings me back to my apartment, motioning for me to be silent, I feel a little like a pressure cooker about to blow my top as I wait for him to mess with the strange device in his hand.

“Jammer’s on,” he says, his voice strained. I can feel his agitation rolling off him in waves.

That’s all the signal I need to lose my shit.

“ Fuck! ”

The kitchen stool at the bar gets the brunt of my wrath as I fling it into the opposite wall.

I slap my hands on the cool countertop.

“Feel better?” Riale drawls.

I don’t look at him, nor do I respond.

“What the fuck happened, Riale? How did they get that evidence? You both were supposed to have taken care of this!”

With the world devolving around me, I feel about nine years old, having just been caught doing something terrible, and have to face down the firing squad.

But I’m not the one in the line of fire.

Shae.

Riale exhales loudly before leaning into the wall, crossing one ankle in front of the other.

“And you. You a fuckin’ narc or something?” My voice starts to rise at the end of the sentence, and there’s a fine tremor that shoots from my biceps to my fingertips, arcing like lightning down my limbs.

Riale releases a short sigh.

“No, nigga! What the fuck you take me for?”

“Hell if I know, Riale! I’ve been completely blindsided here, and I need to know—” I wipe the back of my hand over my mouth.

“Need to know what, Storm?” Riale says. He sounds tired.

“I need to know she’ll be safe. I’ll do whatever I need to do to keep her safe.”

Riale blinks slowly as I hold his gaze.

“You’re worried about your girl but not your father. Interesting.” He taps his chin as he leans against the wall, his ankles crossed.

“I’m worried about everything. I don’t want any of this on my doorstep, and I for sure can’t tolerate any of this blowing back on Shae.”

My head starts to spin, and my hands shake as I come down from the adrenaline rush.

“They won’t go any further than what they did today,” Riale says, his tone cool. “You’ll be fine.”

“Oh? How do you know?”

I shake my head, squeezing my eyes shut. Shae. Protect Shae.

“I just know, all right? On top of the fact that McAdams was operating way beyond his pay grade, they don’t have anything on you or your dad.”

“They know what happened with that motherfucker from the club. They have the evidence—the brick, the forensics, fucking CCTV footage.”

“They don’t have any evidence, Storm,” he presses.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

He lunges away from the wall, his face flashing with anger.

“It’ll be cleaned up by the end of today. You don’t have anything to worry about, nor does your father. Not that he should be given that grace.”

His words land like a shout in my kitchen, and I try to latch on to what he’s saying.

“Why not?” I ask, my voice sounding thin as I try to talk past my constricted vocal cords. “Why doesn’t my dad deserve grace? I know he’s stepped on some heads to get to the top, but….”

My friend grunts, running his palm over his low fade and looking down at the ground.

Riale’s words are measured as he speaks.

“Have you ever wondered why—really wondered why—your father didn’t put you in place to take over?

Why he put Lakeland, a man who spends ninety percent of his time on the golf course, as his next in line?

Because I know and you know that it should have been you. ”

A muscle ticks in my jaw.

“Your father is using you. Just like he used Rainn.”

At that bomb, I snap my head up to stare hard at Riale. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Riale stays silent.

I rush up on him, getting in his face. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean, Riale?”

Still calm, always fucking calm, Riale pushes me back with a firm hand to the chest.

Something in me snaps, and I wail off, punching my best friend in the face. When my knuckles make contact with his cheek, he grunts, his head snapping to the side, but my fury only doubles.

This is not how it’s supposed to go. This is not the fuck how this is supposed to go. At all.

“That’s your one shot, Sandoval,” he says, touching his lip and checking his fingers for blood.

I turn away from him, stalking back to the island. “You’re talking reckless about my pops, man.”

“Storm.”

“Don’t ‘Storm’ me, nigga?—”

“Storm, get your head out of the fucking clouds and see Chuck Sandoval for who he is!”

At those words, I swipe my arm across the counter, shooting the glass fruit bowl to the hardwood floor where it breaks into a million shards.

“Well, since you know every fucking thing, why don’t you tell me who the hell my father is.”

Riale chuckles, but there’s no humor in it. “Well, for starters, your father is a goddamn human trafficker.”

I blink at him. Once. Twice. Images of my father teaching me to play chess in his office flashing to the front of my memories.

So with that in mind, I laugh. I guffaw.

I release the insane, unhinged tension that’s ballooned over the hours since the Feds picked me up.

“I’m serious, Storm.” Riale’s voice is quiet in the face of my hilarity. “Not always, but the last few years, he’s got tied up in a bad way with some people out of D.C.”

“Riale. C’mon, man. My dad is a lot of things, but you’re trying to tell me that he’s some wannabe Pablo Escobar?”

Riale doesn’t respond, but I feel dread replace the amusement.

“Riale….”

He lunges forward, meeting me at the island.

“Listen, Storm. I know a lot. I’ve been working for your dad for more than a decade, now. I have access to information you don’t. You know how I was in China this summer? I was there because your father had a shipment that needed to get from Asia to the Caribbean, undetected.”

I take a step back.

“A shipment…of people? And you helped him with that?”

His face morphs, fury and disgust finally cracking through his expression.

“ Fuck no ,” he presses. “I have never and would never help him with that shit. But I knew what was happening, and I knew if I weren’t there, someone else would be. So I went. And I sabotaged the shit out of the operation. Which brings us to now.”

I shake my head, letting the rush of information settle into some kind of order in my mind.

“You’re working with the Feds?” I rasp, and suddenly, I feel very fucking tired.

“No. But I’m working with some people to make sure this shit stops here.”

“So you’ve turned on my father,” I grind out.

“And I’d do it again in a heartbeat if it meant what those victims are going through never happens to anyone else. It’s children, Storm. Girls and boys. Hundreds of them. He’s moving hundreds of them and making a shit-ton of money while doing it.”

The world starts to take on weird shapes as I hear his words, and I look around the too big apartment paid for by my father.

My father, who I am now learning, likely used money made off the skin trade to purchase.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” I say, rushing to the kitchen sink before expelling the contents of my stomach.

Once the heaving stops, I run the faucet, rinsing my mouth out with the cool water and bracing myself as the vomit swirls down the drain.

“This is horrific,” I say, staring at the stainless-steel sink for a moment before turning to face Riale. “And that is my father.”

Riale goes quiet, back in control of himself again, as he always is.

“Are you willing to live with this knowledge and let it continue, Storm?” He delivers the question with calm detachment, as if he were one of the therapists my father forced me to go to after Rainn died.

I’m bombarded with memories, images from my past, the times when my dad wasn’t the cold, aloof man he’s become more and more over the years.

I remember the man who, at one time, loved me like a father should.

Or, at least, close to what a father should.

How can I possibly accept this alternative version of who my dad is?

And at the same time, if what Riale tells me is true, how can I live with myself and let this continue?

It can’t be true.

“I don’t know, Riale,” I answer honestly, looking at the floor. “I don’t know what to think or say or do.”

He’s quiet for a beat before he says, “What about Shae?”

At that, cold panic covers my body like a wet, itchy blanket, and the act of breathing becomes impossible.

Shae.

She’s mixed up in all of this. Mixed up because of me.

“They won’t hesitate to use her, Storm. They will make an example out of her and make sure she bears the brunt of the consequences from your father’s sins. Shae is innocent. Kind. So damn good for this world. But you’d rather see her locked in a cage for the rest of her life?”

The idea is so repulsive, so repugnant, that the words have me wanting to set fire to the apartment.

They have me wanting to rage down the street.

They have me wanting to kill my father with my bare hands.

They have me wanting to fall to the ground and weep.

“You think the Feds would still go after her?”

Riale’s face turns grim.

“I’m not talking about the Feds.” And at that, a chill descends on the room, and by the set of his jaw, I know he’s not going to explain what he means by that at all.

“If you choose inaction, Shae will suffer the most. Are you prepared to do that to the woman you love?”

My heart stutters in my chest, racing and tripping over the rhythm.

“Who says I’m in love?” I mumble through cold lips.

Riale’s expression doesn’t change. “Don’t say stupid shit, Storm.”

And he’s right. Because even though it’s a horrible time to recognize it, I do love Shae. I love her beyond understanding. And I’d rather die a thousand deaths than have something happen to her.

“So. What are you gonna do?” Riale says, and finally, I see another crack in his facade. One of sympathy. One of regret.

And one of support.

What will you do, Storm?

I go still, closing my eyes, calling up my father’s face…and then Shae’s.

“I need some proof, Riale. I can’t just take something this big at face value.”

I face him then, giving him my full attention as I decide where I stand…which is to put this off until tomorrow after getting more information.

Proof.

Once I see it with my own eyes, then I’ll believe.

Then, I’ll allow myself to entertain the idea of destroying my father.

Riale nods, acceptance and disappointment plain on his face. I’m sure he sees a similar expression reflected on mine.