Page 31

Aris

“How many times will it come to this,” Declan hisses as he presses a gun to my temple. “One of us with a gun cocked on the other. I didn’t think you were still fucking alive.”

I put my hands in the air and clench my teeth. I’d hardly made it into the Org’s stronghold when Declan popped out of the shadows. I’d just pushed through the tunnel window, as planned, and was headed to meet up with Reggie in the east wing. How did he fucking know I was there? Did he run into me by accident?

“We saw each other last night, didn’t we?”

“I mean before last night, mother fucker,” he growls. “How does it feel to be on the receiving end?”

“You would know. Why are you asking me?”

“Always the fucking smart ass. You haven’t changed, Sol. I mean, besides the name…and the streak in your hair. But how? I saw them put you in the ground. I saw your wife mourn your death.”

I chuckle. “You didn’t attend a viewing, did you?”

“Is the casket empty?”

“Oh, no. Someone’s in there. It’s just not me.”

“That’s some sly shit right there,” Declan says. “Now, turn around and start walking. There are some people I’d like for you to meet before I put a bullet in your head.”

I freeze. Not knowing if I should run or try to take him out and continue the mission. If he takes me to The Org council, it’ll blow the whole plan. My men will get caught and executed. I can’t let that happen.

“I said, move!” He growls and slams the heel of the gun into the back of my head. I see stars for a moment and brace myself against the concrete wall to keep from passing out.

“Fine,” I grunt.

The corridor that leads upstairs is at least long enough to give me time to come up with plan B. If Shawn and Reggie were coming in through the east wing, and Thor and another to the west, perhaps my known presence would be a good thing. Could cause a distraction. I’ll roll with it. I don’t have much of a choice with a gun pressed to my head.

“Who’s with you?” Declan asks as he shoves me down the hallway and to the bottom of a set of spiral stairs. “I know you’re not here alone.”

“I came to kill you, Declan. I work alone.” I step up the first few stairs. He’s moved the gun from my head to my back.

“That’s a fucking lie, Solomon,” he says. “I know about your little operation. What do you call yourselves? The Delinquents? The Degenerates?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say and climb the last two steps. There’s no door at the top of the stairs and Declan nudges me to the left.

“Okay, play coy. That’s just fucking fine,” he mutters.

The stark contrast between the dark, musty basement we just left and the elaborate, elegant office we are entering grabs my attention. There are bookshelves that line the walls, from floor to ceiling, and chandeliers at either end of the room. Ornate, high piled red rugs cover half of the marble floors. And…there’s a desk in the center of the room. With a chair turned away from us. Someone’s sitting in it, facing the window.

“There you are, Solomon,” a woman’s serpentine voice coos. “I knew you’d come sooner or later.”

The chair spins around on its axis and she faces me. The CEO, the leader of The Org…my mother-in-law, Judith H. Beckner.

“It’s not Solomon anymore, Judith,” I hiss. “And you are no longer Judy.”

“I’m not?” She sticks out her bottom lip. “Why do you say that?”

“You’re not the person I thought you were.”

Declan still stands behind me, the gun wrenched into my spine.

“You can go, Governor,” she says. “I can handle him.”

Declan hesitates but lowers the gun and says, “I’ll stand right outside the door, Ma’am. Just call. And I’ll fucking end him.”

“Like you ended him before?” She releases a cold, harsh giggle that sounds straight from Hell. “Please, Declan. We both know you’re a pussy. And you don’t have the balls to kill…or the strength…to kill Solomon.”

“That’s not my name,” I growl. “How could you do this to your family, Judith? To your daughter? To your grandchildren?”

“Do what?” She snaps. Her feet plant on the floor and she rises from her leather tufted throne. “Give them a legacy? Protect them from annihilation? What exactly am I doing to them, Solomon?”

“That’s a fucking joke, Judith,” I chuckle snidely. “Your daughter wasn’t just abducted once, but twice. By your own men. I don’t call that protecting her.”

“She wasn’t abducted. Tacy went willingly, Sol. Didn’t you know your wife, your sweet little Tacy, is a cold-blooded killer? Hasn’t she told you about the men she killed when she was only seventeen? The blood bath she created?”

“I know about the incident, yes. But she’s not cold-blooded. And she most certainly didn’t go willingly into her captor’s basement. Tied to a fucking pole and made to piss in a bucket beneath her.”

“Well…that wasn’t supposed to happen,” Judith says and produces a key from the desk drawer. “You and I both know in this business, things can go awry in a hurry.”

“In this business?” I keep my hands at my sides. But I’m thinking of the blade I have hidden in my boot. “I’m not in any business the likes of yours.”

Judith chortles and dangles the key in front of her. “Do you know what this is, Solomon? This is the key to the city. No, the Mayor doesn’t have it. Neither does the Governor. I have it. I own this city. I own the state. And soon, I’ll own the country.”

“You plan on running for president, Judith? No one would vote in an old bag like you.”

“I don’t have to be in the spotlight to be in charge. It doesn’t work that way. I have others who are my face. Which is how it’s always been in this country. The president doesn’t run things, Solomon. The Org does.”

“So, Dickhead Declan has no real power, for instance?”

“Declan Harvey should have been Governor from the jump,” she hisses. “But you had to be the good guy and get in the fucking way.”

She’s dancing around my questions. The intense heat of anger threatens a dark metamorphosis within me. But I can’t let it overpower me. Too much anger and I’ll totally lose control. And I can’t lose control right now. I must stay as calm as possible and think of a way out of this. Where are my men? Where are The Rebellis?

“Are you going to kill me or what, Judith? Enough of the fucking games.”

“I’m not going to kill you…yet,” she says. “I need you to convince Tacy to join the family business. She is, after all, my successor.”

I let out a howl of laughter that nearly shakes the crystals dangling from the chandeliers. “Oh Judith, you never were a comedian but that was pretty funny.”

She scowls at me, throws the key back in the drawer, and I hear the click of a gun. She holds it at me and says, “I’ll bet you’re getting used to this, aren’t you, Solomon?”

“My life being threatened at every waking second? Sure, I’m used to it,” I reply. “Just still trying to get used to the fact that my mother-in-law is the CEO of the worst thing to ever happen to the city. Or the state. My own fucking mother-in-law. The snake. The woman who wants to kill off those she deems inferior.”

“It’s the inferior who are tearing down our ability to manifest utopia. This world would be a much better place without the likes of them. The lesser races, handicapped idiots, the gays.”

“You’re fucking sick, you know that? Just because people are different than you and your idea of perfection, you want to eradicate them. What makes you think you’re so damn perfect, you old fucking fart?”

She chuckles again and aims at my chest. “Shut up, Solomon. Or I’ll blow you away myself. And then I’ll kill your wife and children.”

“You’d kill your own flesh and blood? The child you gave birth to. Your own grandbabies? I find that hard to believe…”

“I’ll take out anyone who steps in the way of our vision. A new world. A superior race of people with no illness or sexual perversions. People with intelligence. Vitality. And the will to erase anyone who threatens it. That includes family. How do you think my father rose to the top? You have to bulldoze over the lesser, use them as steppingstones, on your way to the top of the fucking pyramid.”

Vomit rises in the back of my throat. The realization that I married into the Org’s founding family hits me. But that doesn’t matter now. I swallow it back down. I love Tacy and my children. They are my entire world, and if I don’t take out The Org, they’ll never know true peace and goodness. No one will.

My phone vibrates and Judith motions for me to answer it. “Go on. Let’s see who it is.”

“Hello?” I act as if I don’t know who’s calling.

“Are you in?” Shawn whispers. “We’re ready for phase two, Boss.”

“Oh no, I’m not looking to extend my car’s warranty,” I say and wait.

“Boss? Oh…oh,” Shawn says. “Where are you?”

“I already purchased the one year,” I say. I’m trying to keep him on the phone long enough for him to track my location.

“Okay, just keep talking Boss, we’re tracking you now.”

“I’ve had a few problems, yeah. Engine seems to backfire,” my way of warning him I have a gun pointed at me.

“Got you. We’re coming,” he says.

“Thanks for the offer,” I say and force a grin at Judith just to throw her off.

“Hang up the fucking phone, Sol,” she growls. “Now!”

Declan bursts into the office and points his gun at me immediately. Now I have two guns to worry about.

“Call the boys,” Judith barks at him. “Scan both wings and meet back here. Whoever you find, bring them to me.”

Declan glares at me with hooded eyes. All that time he spent coveting the position of Governor and now look at him. He has no real power. He’s a lowly henchman.

“Now!” Judith yells. “Fucking idiots!”

It takes all of two minutes, which feel like a lifetime, when ten Org guards burst into Judith’s office. One young man’s holding Shawn at gunpoint. A woman with red hair has a knife to Thor’s throat.

“That’s it?” Judith barks at me. “That’s all you brought?”

She paces the floor. Shawn and Thor are panting, eyes darting back and forth. At me, then at her, at Decan, at the guards surrounding us.

“Want us to kill them?” The woman asks.

“Not yet,” Judith stills.

“What are we waiting for, Ma’am?” The young man asks.

“For the others,” Judy remarks.

Fuck. She knows there’s more than the three of us. It would be stupid for her to think less. She is the god damn CEO, after all.

“There are others, right, Solomon?” she asks as she walks up to me and stares into my eyes. Judith Beckner is a short woman. No bigger than five foot two. A leviathan in a mouse’s body.

“It’s just us, Judith.” My jaw tenses and I try to keep a poker face. I don’t want her reading any movement or facial expression I make. Where are Reggie and Clyde? And the others?

“Here’s how this is going to go. I’m going to give you one more chance to tell me where the others are, and if you don’t cooperate, you and your men here die. Then I’ll kill the others when we find them, because we will, and then your family dies.”

I roll my eyes. “You’re a lot of talk without much walk, Judith.”

Bang. A gun goes off and something sharp and cold rips through the top of my foot.

“FUCK!” I peer down and see a small scarlet geyser seeping through a hole in the top of my boot.

“I’m not fucking around, Sol!”

“Stop!” I shout at her and keel over. But Declan wrenches back my shoulders and jams his gun into my back again. I’m getting fucking sick of this. And now the pain in my foot is crippling.

Then, as all seems lost, the voice of an angel rings out behind me.

“Let him go, Mother,” Tacy demands. Oh my God! Why is she here?

All ten guards turn towards an opening in the wall, where the bookshelf used to be, and point their weapons at my beautiful wife. Even with a black and blue eye, stitched lip, and a limp, she is radiant. Full of life. She is clutching our gun from home, pointing it directly at her own mother.

“Jesus, Tacy, what the fuck are you doing here?” I ask.

“Lower your weapons!” Judith yells at the guards. “Declan keep yours on Sol. The two with the delinquents, stay poised. But everyone else stand the fuck down! This is my daughter!”

Guns, bats, and blades are lowered as Tacy steps further into the room. She’s dragging one of her feet and her breathing is labored. The poor woman needs medical care but hasn’t had much time to seek it.

“Mother, this is insane. Why are you doing this?”

“Drop your gun please, Tacy.”

Tacy obliges but keeps the gun at her right side. She is poised and ready.

“You know why I’m doing this, Tacy. This is our legacy. Your children’s legacy. We must continue your grandfather’s work and build a better world.”

Tacy glances at me. “I don’t give a fuck about grandfather’s twisted ass theories of eugenics. That shit is outdated. It went out of style after the World Wars. It’s crazy, racist, ableist bullshit.”

“Tacy, you know I want what’s best for you and the kids. That’s why when Solomon ran for Governor and started putting his nose into shit he shouldn’t have, I knew we needed to get rid of him. He would never be on our side. He would never understand our family’s work.”

“Because Solomon was a good man. He still is a good man. He cares about people…all people. That’s why he ran for Governor.”

“No, he ran for Governor to feed his own narcissistic ego.”

The guards shift their feet. I hear the click of weapons. Someone yawns.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Who in the back is bored by this little rendezvous?” Judith asks. She strolls to the back of the office, locates the bored guard, a young woman with tattoos and bleach blonde hair, and bam. Puts a bullet in the woman’s head without even thinking twice.

All the color drains out of Tacy’s face. We all figured her mother is a murderer. Now we see it all firsthand.

“Mom! What the fuck?” Tacy screams, as tears fall from her eyes. “How could you? To one of your own people?”

Judith rushes over to Tacy, pockets the gun, and reaches out to hug her. “I’m protecting us, Tacy. Now come to your mother.”

Tacy’s countenance changes drastically. Something dark swims in her eyes and I shake my head no at her.

Don’t do it, Tacy, I mouth at her.

As Judith’s arms meet Tacy’s shoulders, Tacy returns the embrace, then, as if in some sort of death dance, she turns and shoves Judith with such force the old woman flies backwards, breaking the single pane window and falling out. There is a shriek and then a thump.

I meet Tacy’s eyes. She’s breathing heavily and her pupils are dilated.

There’s a shuffle of feet and a cacophony of groans and shouts as the room erupts in violence. Shawn and Thor thrash, punch, and kick, and take out as many guards as they can.

Thor grabs a lamp and slams it down on a woman’s head, knocking her unconscious. He lowers her to the ground but rips the gun from her hand. I pull the blade from my sock and slash at Declan who’s dropped his gun on the floor. He jumps backward, just missing my blow and tumbles onto his back. I attack.

“Please! Wait!” He sticks out a hand and begs. “I’ll just leave. Please don’t kill me. I don’t want to die, Brother.”

I crouch down to his level and sheath my knife. “I’m not going to kill you, Declan. But we are not brothers. We never were. Now, get on your feet and let’s finish this.”

Declan rises, gun in hand, but I quickly knock it back out of his hands. We throw fists at one another, landing punch after punch, until we’re both dizzy and panting heavily.

“You always wanted to be like me,” I growl and knock one of Declan’s teeth out. The white nub shoots across the room and disappears. Declan grasps at his bleeding gums, then glares at me in pure fury. I hit him again and he falls to the floor.

“I never wanted to be like you, Solomon. I just wanted what you had,” he says and spits blood on the marble floor. He pushes himself back up and we continue our fight.

There are a few guards left, but Thor and Shawn have nearly taken all of them down. Tacy and another young woman are going at it, but Tacy’s hardly keeping it together. She’s too injured to win this fight. I drop my guard for a minute, and Declan is on top of me with a knife to my throat.

“Now I think I just wanted two things. To fuck your wife and to see you die,” Declan hisses through clenched teeth. He pushes the blade into my flesh and a shot rings out.

I look at Tacy. She’s holding the gun in her hand. Blood pours from the side of Declan’s face, and I push him off me. He rolls to the side, gurgling and choking on a bullet. I stand over top of him, press my foot to his chest and press my weight ever-so-slightly into him.

“Now you’ll never accomplish either of your goals, will you?” I stomp as hard as I can, crushing Declan under my boot. His ribs crack and a fountain of red gushes from his mouth and nostrils. His eyes roll back in his head. “And…it’s Lazaris. Not Solomon, you piece of shit.”

The remaining guard, the only one still conscious, bolts out of the door, leaving my men, Tacy, and I in the wake of the battle.

Tacy’s eyes are wide, and she is trembling intensely as she makes her way to the gaping, broken window. A light rain is coming down outside, as Tacy climbs into the nook and peers down.

“Be careful,” I say and join her. The rain pours harder as I lean over her shoulder. Judy’s broken body lies on the ground, three stories down, with her legs and arms splayed out. She’s lying in a puddle of crimson.

“She’s dead,” Tacy says with a shaky breath. “We’re finally safe.”

“Well, not exactly,” Shawn says as he reaches into a guard’s pocket for a gun. “The Org runs with or without a leader. The guards are sure to warn the rest. We need to do something. Now.”

“We burn this place to the ground. Their records are here. Their research lab is in the east wing. With this place in ashes, they’ll lose half their intel.”

“Let’s do it,” I agree.

The four of us turn to run out the office, when sirens just outside the building draw our attention back to the window.

“What’s going on?” Thor asks, runs over, and looks outside.

“We have the building surrounded,” a voice booms through a megaphone. Rotating red and blue lights flood the office.

“The cops,” Shawn says. Well, obviously.

“Come out with your hands up. No weapons. You have three minutes,” a cop shouts through a megaphone.

I count the cop cars. There are eight in total. And two swat vans.

“They’re going to think we’re part of The Org. Part of the fucking problem,” Thor observes. “We have to get out of here.”

“I mean, maybe we deserve to go to jail,” Tacy says with a shaky voice. “There’s a dead woman on the sidewalk below.”

I gently squeeze her shoulder. “Steady, Babydoll. Remember why you did what you did. It wasn’t out of malice. It was out of defense. To save us. It was noble.”

“The three of us have to turn ourselves in,” I say to Shawn and Thor.

No one disagrees with me, and we make our way out the office door, down a corridor and descend the spiral staircase. This place is opulent with enormous paintings of men in suits and women in dresses plastered all over the walls. And the initial B carved in stone on each pillar.

“Set down your guns,” I say. “And knives.”

I look at my wife, who’s still clutching the gun. “You too, Tace.”

“Oh. Right,” she says and drops the weapon with a clang.

We push our way through the heavy glass doors and enter the night. The police’s lights are blinding at first, and I blink rapidly until my eyes have adjusted.

There’s lots of yelling and the police making demands. I open my mouth, but the words don’t come out. I’m frozen.

And then a familiar voice rises above the din.

“They’re with me! Stop! Don’t shoot!” It’s Reggie.

“They’re not the ones you want,” Clyde backs him up.

I look to my left and Reggie’s standing next to a Deputy. “That’s Lazaris…or…Solomon, as you all might remember him. His wife, Tacy Rountree, and our men Shawn and Thor.”

“Drop your weapons!” A sheriff shouts and the group of officers obey.

I let out a long exhale and someone ushers me to the back of an ambulance. Tacy goes in a different direction. A paramedic throws a blanket around my shoulders, but I make a mad dash towards my wife, and it falls off me immediately.

“Tacy!” I sidle up beside her, just as a paramedic eases her onto a stretcher.

“Hi,” she says and touches my face. “We did it. Didn’t we?”

She is so beaten and tired, and yet strangely feral and otherworldly. Like a fairy queen who’s just defeated her mortal enemy.

I nod and kiss her hand. “Yes, we did.”

“But The Org’s stronghold…it’s still there,” she points out.

“I know, but don’t worry about that, Babydoll. We’ll take care of it,” I assure her. “Just go to the hospital and focus on healing. Okay? Your face is swollen. I’m worried about your cheekbone.”

As they load her in the back of the ambulance, a blast rings out and shakes me to my core. I turn to look at the building. A cloud of black smoke billows out the top floor’s windows as brilliant red flames lick the roof. Someone lit it on fire.

“Looks like someone took care of it,” Tacy says and the ambulance doors close.

There’s an air of fear and more sirens join the thrall as fire engines pull up. Men in navy blue and yellow jumpsuits rush to put out the flames.

But the explosion and the fire that broke out wasn’t easy to control. It was almost as if someone had set a chemical lab on fire. In the end…the stronghold was burnt to ashes and the CEO and Governor dead. The rest of The Org members who were in the building bolted but were immediately arrested. Reggie had given all our evidence to the FBI.

The Org’s revolting plans of population control were exposed to the public and things began feeling somewhat normal. Duselizab was pulled from the market and banned. There was a purging of the government in our region and state – anyone who had any dealings with the CEO or shareholders of The Org, or Declan Harvey, was fired. Some even went to jail.

I moved back home with my children and wife. Sure, my story was blasted all over national news. The man who came back from the dead. Lazaris King, vigilante. Rebel. Redeemer. And I felt my mission was complete…and the city and our state had found peace. At least…most of us had. Just not Tacy.