Page 17

Chapter seventeen

Damien

‘Alkaline’ – Sleep Token

The Next Day

The night air is cool, and the scent of freshly bloomed flowers and leaves paints the air. It’s refreshing. A stark contrast to the normal scent of trash and smog the city gives. The rooftop to the Basement doesn’t have a great view, but the roof line is shorter than the buildings on either side, so it gives me a secluded area to finish my days’ work. I’m excited about our new headquarters. Where I’ll have a bigger office, and we’ll be able to expand our operations like we need, but I might actually miss this small space. Sitting out here with my whiskey and being able to smoke and listen to music gives me a good chance to unwind after a long day.

Fighting with Carter about keeping the store was definitely a good argument to have. It may not make a lot of money, but it’s a good front and it’ll give us a good space for a quick hideout in the city. Plus, I spent a lot of time and money gathering all of the merchandise and knowing that my girl would probably faint walking into a store like mine is all the reason to keep it.

Taking a few moments to myself is necessary with this line of work. Most of the time, like now, I need to work while I take that moment, but a break from the gunfire, screams, and loud engines help put everything into perspective. Their manufacturing locations become more apparent, dates and times of distribution routes have more reason, and everything seems to fall into place.

I'm reading over reports of today’s findings and going over Carter’s notes from the Dust meeting last night. They didn’t manage to catch the face of Dranan Hugo, but they managed to identify a few of the major dealers and manufacturers. I occasionally look up to the laptop screen in front me and watch my hacking software work it’s magic. Finding any and all traces of their names on things like bank accounts, online transactions, real estate, court records, and anything else I can find electronically.

The transcripts from the meeting relay every word spoken. They talk about sending people out to follow our men, and other ways to find our operations. They did talk about the guns Cooper was supposed to supply. I say ‘supposed to’ because they can’t locate them. That either means Cooper didn’t tell anyone where he hid them, or the slimy bustard never brought them at all. Which wouldn’t surprise me. A man, as stupid as he was, would be simple-minded enough to try and betray an organization like Dust.

We’ve gone back over everything. Tried to retrace Cooper’s steps from the airport in Richmond to here, but somehow once he gets off of the plane, it’s like he vanishes. There’s no trace of him until Carter caught him on the drone watching over Ashia’s apartment. His name isn’t anywhere on any rental car companies, public transportation, Uber or taxi services, and we couldn’t find any credit card transactions from him since Seattle. No wonder we couldn’t see him coming.

If he can hide his movements so well, and obviously hide this merchandise just as well, then we may have a bigger problem than I originally thought. Cooper may not have been in town before that night, but someone was helping him. Someone who knows the area and Dust just as much, if not more, than Cooper.

“Damn, you’re still listening to that band?” I react to Carter’s voice and look up to see him walking through the roof access door. Keeping my attention on him, I reach over to turn the music down some.

“Of course, I am. ‘Sleep Token’ is her favorite.” I grin as he holds out a stack of paper to me. “Is this the information on Emmett?” He nods and I put down the meeting transcripts to read over what Carter found. Taking a long sip of whiskey as my eyes rake over the information. My concentration doesn’t break, even as I notice Carter taking a seat across from me in the corner of my eyes.

“I’m not sure why you are even thinking about working with him, D. I doubt any of their clientele is involved with Dust, and even if they were, I doubt they would be stupid enough to spill their guts to their barber.” He crosses his arms and sits back.

“You’d be surprised. Plus, it’s not just about that.” I say sternly.

“I get it. Ash lives and works there, but I just don’t see how paying him for minimal information, if any at all, would benefit us.”

“Cut Me Down is positioned right in the middle of downtown. They probably see more there than we think and can report to us.” I finally look up to see Carter’s questionable gaze.

“So, it has nothing to do with Ashia?” We stare at each other intensely. Stuck in our own stubborn war. Carter has a way of getting under my skin. We both see and talk to each other almost on a constant basis, and he always has my back, but when it comes to business decisions, we tend to disagree.

I understand that while, yes, this does in fact have everything to do with Ashia, there are also other reasons why working with Emmett could be beneficial. I just have to make him see that. It’s not just the fact that Emmett is struggling with money and obviously doesn’t have the monetary capabilities to maintain my girl’s apartment like he should. Things like giving her a decent set of locks, fixing the creaky floor boards, or even maybe a new coat of paint. It’s also because Ashia would be much better off if she didn’t have such a good heart and give him half of her earnings, unlike her coworkers. I understand that Emmett is a friend of the Andersons, and he helped Ashia achieve her state licensing, but that's not an excuse for taking advantage of her. I don’t want to pull the arrogant ‘this is my organization’ card with Carter, but I’m not really willing to negotiate on this topic.

“The barber shop could be another good hideout for us. With its location, it could mean a quick escape if need be. There’s the alleyway behind it, which makes it a good switch-off point. Plus, one of the tenants is about to move out, so we can use that apartment space.” I can’t help but grin as Carter scoffs amusingly.

“What brought you to that conclusion? There isn’t anything in those papers that says that.”

“Call it a hunch.” I shrug my shoulders and stick a cigarette in my mouth. Lighting it and taking a long drag as I think of Ashia walking around my house like it’s hers. Her hips swaying back and forth as she walks around. Those big brown eyes widening as she takes in the vast space. Carter just scoffs and shakes his head.

“How is she doing since the other night?” He asks sincerely. His voice laced with concern.

“She’s alright, I think. She hasn’t really mentioned Cooper.” I say dismissively.

“Oh, so she’s more concerned with you stalking her then?” He says playfully and reaches out to take my whiskey glass and takes a sip.

“Is it really stalking? For a while, she was calling me her admirer.” I wiggle my eyebrows as a smirk blooms on my face and steal my glass back.

“Oh, it’s stalking. Admiring was your first step. Sending flowers, writing cute little notes, and fantasizing. You then quickly escalated to hacking into government databases to find information, broke into her apartment, hacked her phone and location, followed her everywhere she went, and now you’ve invited yourself to stay in her apartment. It’s definitely stalking.” I laugh loudly at that and look down as I cross my arms. Cleary unable to deny it. Carter chuckles as well, even though he fully understands the seriousness of the situation. “Stalking is a pretty serious offense, you know. I’m not sure Matt could get you out of that.”

“He won’t have to. She likes me.” I say with a cocky grin curling at the edge of my lips. “Plus, she can’t prove anything.” He looks at me with an eyebrow raised and squints his eyes.

“You told her almost everything you did.”

“Objection. Hearsay.” I playfully slam my fist down on the table like lawyers do, and Carter flings his head backward. Cackling out boisterous laughter.

“Do you even know what that means?” He asks as he drags his hand down his face.

“Mostly.” I laugh. “Nah, I'll be fine. She may not admit it yet, but she does like me.” His face sinks slightly at my statement.

“How sure are you about that, D? Because if you end up in jail, I don’t know what the hell we’re going to do.” He retorts. His tone much more serious than before. Dragging my good mood down with it.

“Calm your virgin dick, Carter. I’m not going to jail.”

“You’re a real pain in my ass. What does that have to do with anything?” I laugh again. A little more heartedly this time.

“You’re right. My bad.” He shakes his head and clears his throat.

“I just hope you know what you’re doing, D.” I take a deep breath, pulling my serious side back out. Just for him.

“I’m not going to lie, I don’t. I don’t have a clue what I’m doing. All I know is that I have never felt so compelled to have something. I have never felt more right about anything else in my life. Maybe that means that I’ve finally lost it, and I’m going to start seeing ghosts soon, but even if I have to drag her down to insanity with me, she is mine. She is mine to protect, to hold, to tear down, and build back up. She’s all mine, and there’s nothing that is going to change that. Including your opinion.” We resume our staring war, and it’s not but a few seconds before he breaks. Turning and shaking his head before looking back at me with a rock-hard stare.

“You really like her? She’s really everything you thought she’d be?” I answer him, without hesitation.

“Absolutely.” He stares back at me for a few moments before both of our phone’s buzz with notifications. We both pick up our phones, as if in sync, and quickly read the clean-up notification for a spot on the edge of downtown. Carter types the notes in before responding about calling it in to the police.

“Have you told her about Cooper’s connection to Dust yet?” I shake my head and lean back in my chair.

“No. I haven’t. I don’t want to say anything until we know more. She’ll just get scared if we don’t have all of the information.”

“She’ll be mad if you wait too long to tell her.” He looks up from his phone to glare at me. “I may not be as sexually active as you, but I have way more experience when it comes to relationships. Girls get mad when we hide shit.”

“Well, add that to list of everything else she’s mad about.” His eyes widen slightly.

“Oh, so she is mad at you? I take it Mel wasn’t the only one to give you a hard time about that large payment?” I hold my hand up and flip him off before taking another drag from my cigarette.

“She’s mad at the world. I can’t say I blame her.”

“Yeah.” He pauses and takes a deep breath. “Fuck, those photos…” A deep sense of dread and anger erupts in my gut. Is that what he sees when I talk about her? Her past, her trauma, her scars? Is he so surface level that he doesn’t see what I do and can't look past them? If, or when, she sees him again, if that’s how he looks at her, she’ll know it in a heartbeat and become nervous and embarrassed around him, and I can’t have her feeling that way. I lean in close, bracing myself with one hand gripping the edges of the table.

“Don’t you ever let her know that you know about what happened to her.” I say sternly and stare at him like my look alone could kill him. He shakes his head.

“No. Never. That’s much too personal.” We’re silent again for a moment and my mind begins to wander to memories of this morning. She was in the shower. Singing to herself quietly. Clearly not wanting me to hear, but I couldn’t help but stand in the doorway and listen. Then, once I went to hop in with her, what I saw rattled me a little. She was staring at the wall like she was deep in thought, almost as if she didn’t even realize she was singing. Her gaze was blank and unmoving, like whatever memory she was trapped in locked her inside. The moment I stepped under the water she flinched, as if she expected me to grab her up and start swinging my fist at her.

It broke my heart to see her like that. Even after the initial shock wore off and her face softened, I didn’t even need to feel her chest to see how hard her heart was pounding. Was she thinking of Cooper? What was her mind so tuned into in that shower? I wanted to ask, but held back. Not wanting to push her any further than necessary, but looking back now, I regret it.

I want to know everything. Every snip of information that I couldn’t read or find. Every single moment of pain she had to endure. I want to know how her brain works. Where her memories surface from and what triggers them. It’s going to be a long, messy journey to free her mind, but if I'm anything but stubborn, I'm also determined. I just hope I can crawl into the voided spaces of her mind without breaking her completely.

“I think she’s afraid of me.” I say softly, hating to admit that out loud.

“Well, not to sound like an ass, D, but yeah. She has every reason to be. You shot her ex in the head, literally right in front of her. You stalked her for weeks and have killed two other people just because they threatened her.” I stick my hand out and point upward to insert my rebuttal.

“To be fair, she only knows about one of those.” He scoffs.

“Not the point, man.”

“I would never hurt her.” I stare at him intensely. Looking into his eyes to make sure he knows I'm telling the truth. Hoping that he’ll see the verity in my gaze.

“I know that, but she doesn’t. Right now, all she knows about you is that you run a vigilante organization, you’ve been stalking her, and that you kill people almost every day. If you want to win her over, you need to be YOU. Be yourself. If you two are really supposed to be this fated couple like you believe, then that’s all you need to do. The fact that she didn’t run to the police the night you killed Cooper is astonishing.” I shake my head frantically, not wanting to believe that I might be wrong, and that I've done nothing but terrify an innocent woman.

“She won’t. She feels something for me too. She just has to let herself.” I take a deep breath, and finally read through the rest of Emmett’s information before handing it back to Carter. “I'll get his contract ready and talk to him in the next few days. Keep those in his file for me?” He nods and takes the stack while I take the opportunity to pace the rooftop.

The usual noises from the city flood my ears. Car horns and engines running, emergency vehicle sirens, thumping from nearby bars, and groups of people talking on the streets floods my ears. Though, that's not what I watch and listen for. It’s the out of place. The squeals from women that don’t have underlying amusement, the shuffles of unsteady movements like one would see in a struggle, and the too quiet and shifty figures that slither their way in the dark to get their next fix.

I have men patrolling the streets, but we don't catch everything. When an incident is reported to 911 dispatchers, we only have a few minutes at most to intervene and handle it ourselves if need be. So, we try to catch the crimes before they're reported, and then either report them ourselves once they’re handled, or kill them if necessary. There’s so much in this city that gets passed over or excused, that it’s not often we can trust the local PD to handle anything.

As I'm deep in thought, movement from the alleyway across the street grabs my attention. My head snaps to pinpoint the movement at the sound of a scared yelp, drawing my gaze to a younger woman, probably late twenties from what I can see. A dark figure, in the blocky shape of an average man, obstructs most of my view of her, and is clearly holding her against the brick wall of the alley. Not a large man from what I can tell from here, but bigger than her, and for most women that’s all it takes to become a victim.

The unmistakable glint of steal shines from the moon light, and I watch as he moves a gun from his side to her head. Her eyes widen so much that I can see the whites of them from here. That is, before she slams her eyes shut and looks away as he forces her skirt up to her hips. My blood immediately begins to boil and I can feel the anger vibrate my spine.

I storm back over to the table. Glancing up at Carter as he continues to work on his phone. Most likely coordinating with our men as I grab my rifle and walk back over to the edge of the roofline. I lift my weapon and peer through the scope. Making sure I have a clean shot before I lock my stance into place. The angle I'm standing at is a little awkward, but I need to be sure I have the right vantage point. Because the moment he moves his head just right, his brains are going to pain the concrete.

“Carter, call in a 911 dispatch for the alleyway at North-East twelfth street and Elm.”

“You got it.” He says blankly and precisely. Like any other command I give him. I adjust my stance slightly, shifting my weight appropriately between both feet and wait for the man to move his head away enough from the woman. “Wait, that’s across the street.” He says, now confused, and I can feel the weight of his stare on the back of my head. The rapist moves his head back just enough so I won’t hit the woman, and it’s like my body launches it’s own small rush of adrenaline.

“Yep.” I pull the trigger and watch as the man falls to ground.