CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX ASHTON
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
ASHTON
Three months later and Elijah was directing Shorty Easter to my new place of business. It was just one of many. I’d moved it farther north of the city, and we owned a good acreage on the Hudson River. This particular new building was a warehouse, one that no body of government was aware of. Yet.
It was also the perfect place for me to fulfill my second promise to Molly.
Elijah brought him inside. We were both ignoring his protests as he put him in a chair and whisked off the bag from over his head.
Shorty quieted, blinking a few times for his gaze to adjust to the change. It was daylight outside, the sun fully shining down, and in here, all dark except for a few lamps in the corner.
“Ashton Walden?” Shorty’s hair was greasy, as always.
He had his usual homeless-esque attire on.
A cargo jacket with holes for the elbows.
The pocket was pulled off. The ends of his jacket were shredded and frayed.
His jeans were just as bad, and I couldn’t see what kind of shirt he had on under the jacket.
He had money. That was always in the pictures sent to me.
A good wad of it, always kept in one of his back pockets.
Maybe that’s the reason for the jacket? That pocket zipped up in the back.
It was one of the only pockets that remained intact.
We were nearing the end of September, but after getting briefed on him regularly over the last month, I’d come to realize he had a penchant for this jacket.
The temps were still hot, but he never went without it.
Even during the summer, after he’d been released from jail—which I knew he’d taken a deal and turned evidence on what he knew about Nea for the reduced jail term.
“What am I doing here?” He was twisting around, trying to guess his location.
I only had Elijah here.
Shorty had been bagged before coming in, and he’d be bagged when he’d be leaving here, but he would not be returning back to the city.
“What’s going on?”
I tossed a thick file on the table in front of him.
“What’s that?” His tone was scared, nervous. But I knew Shorty. He always scurried out of whatever predicament he landed himself in. He never needed to be nervous. I had full faith in his cockroach abilities, as Molly liked to put it.
“You lied to my grandfather.”
“What? I’d never. What’s this about?” He was starting to sweat, twisting around more frenzied.
There were only two doors to leave this particular warehouse.
He came in through one. The other was behind me.
And as he kept looking for any other exit routes, Elijah moved closer. His gun was on full display.
“This is a nice greeting to your future pops-in-law, don’t you think?”
I’d let him talk. For now. I only raised an eyebrow.
He went back to eyeing Elijah, his gaze falling to the gun.
“Yeah, yeah. I mean, I wasn’t really ingratiated”—he sneered as he said that last word—“when I found out about my little girl and you, but I got ears. Ears to the streets. I know people, know people you don’t even know, and the word around town is that you’re in love.
You actually love my little girl.” He laughed, some of the nerves easing from him. “The fellas I know—”
“Shut up.” My tone was low, calm.
Shorty knew me. He knew this wasn’t a good sign, and he quieted, his gaze locking right onto me.
“You told my grandfather that Molly’s mother was homeless. That wasn’t the truth.”
His eyebrows went low, and his gaze went to the file. He wet his lips, but he didn’t move to pick it up. From how I tossed it, pictures slid out from inside the file. There was a glimpse of one of those pictures, a woman.
“Look familiar to you?”
He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “Those people weren’t good to Molly’s mother.”
“Those people were goddamn saints compared to you.” I went over and flicked the file. More pictures spread out from it, and he was getting a front seat viewing of them.
“She has a grandmother. A grandfather. She has uncles, aunts. She has cousins.” I leaned over him.
“She could’ve had brothers and sisters. She might’ve had nieces and nephews by now.
But you lied. You took her away from her family.
Molly’s mother. She was kind. Nice. I told her the truth, Marcus.
You piece of shit. I told her the truth about her mother. ”
His head jerked up, his eyes dilated but panicking. “You wouldn’t. That means—”
“My mom was an addict. I have no problem if people know that truth.”
He was back to looking for an escape route. His Adam’s apple on a continuous bobbing motion up and down.
I straightened back up, stepping out of his space. “I’m not going to kill you. You don’t have to worry about that.”
“Then what?” he asked, harshly. “I know you, Walden. This ain’t a lovely get-to-know-your-future-in-law chat. You’re winding up to deliver something—”
“You’re out.”
Now he shut up.
“Your story isn’t even anything remarkable.
You saw a girl. You loved the girl. You wanted to take the girl away and make her just for yourself.
You didn’t want to share, so you controlled her.
You manipulated her. You twisted her sense of reality where, like so many sad, abusive stories, she slowly left her family and friends behind, and her life became about you.
You and her child. But then she made a mistake, and she became friends with my mother, and that was the end of any hope Molly had in having her mother around for the rest of her life.
” The table was shoved back, and I placed a hand on each side of Shorty’s chair, on his armrests, until he was trying to lean all the way down to get away from me. But it wouldn’t work.
I was in his space.
I liked making people uncomfortable, but making him squirm? I’d remember this day for years to come. This shit, I ate up.
“My mother took her mother away, so I gave her the truth in return. And then I had my PI look into her mother because I started thinking one day how fucking easy you lie about everything. Why would her mother be any different. I was right. You lied through your teeth. I want you to know that while you took away the chance for Molly to know the rest of her family, I gave them back to her. They’re good people.
Farmers. One’s a doctor. One’s a social worker.
A couple nurses. Teachers. Molly met them. ”
He’d been back to looking around, always trying for a way out, but at the last statement, he stopped everything. His gaze jerked up to mine.
I stared down at him, drilling fucking holes into his skull. “They love her. We’ve been to visit three times already. They’ll be at our wedding one day.”
His eyes were filling with hate. He did not like hearing any of that, and he sneered up at me. “How’s that going to go? When they find out you’re Mafia?”
“They live in South Dakota. It’s not that big of an issue.
” I waited a moment because maybe I shouldn’t relish this next part?
But I did. I would. That was the darkness inside of me, the dark that would never leave because it was so intertwined with who I was.
“I’m the one who asked Molly to get you to find Kelly’s killer. Did you ever put that together?”
His face was etched in stone, but now he let out a grunting sound. It sounded forced. “Course. Only made sense with you railing her.”
My fingers dug into the armrests. A whole new level of cold entered my body. “Why am I not surprised that’s how you talk about your daughter?”
He swallowed, looking away. Sweat broke out over his forehead; some of it started to slide down his face. “What do you want, Walden? You only ‘summon’ someone if there’s an order you’re going to hand out. I’m aware of my deal with your family. I still owe you.”
“No.”
He frowned, his eyes darting to mine. “What?”
I pushed back from his chair, but I still loomed over him, just staring down at him. “You owe us seven million—that’s with interest.”
“What? That’s—” He quieted himself because he knew there was no reason to argue.
He did, and we both knew it.
“I’m cutting you off.”
His eyebrows dipped down again. “What’s that mean?”
“That means you’re done. You’re no longer in the employ of the Walden family. Your debt will remain intact and will acquire interest, but we both know you’ll never pay that off, so I’m giving you an alternative. Leave.”
He didn’t say anything.
“I righted your wrong. I returned Easter Lanes officially to Molly. But she asked me for one thing, and that’s for you to disappear from her life.
That’s what I’m doing right now. I’m putting an order out that if you are seen on any of the Walden premises, that you can be removed the old-fashioned Mafia way.
You can take that how you’d like, but I don’t want you in my city.
If you leave, never come back, you can remain alive.
If you come back ... you’re out, Shorty.
” I motioned to Elijah, who came forward.
“What if she changes her mind? What if she wants to see her father one day?”
I motioned for Elijah to put the bag over his head. “Then that’ll be her decision. Not yours. Elijah will take you anywhere you want, anywhere except New York City. I hope to never see you again, Shorty.”
A muffled protest was my response as I left.
Avery was standing at the SUV, and he opened the back door for me. “Compound?”
I got inside. “Compound.”
I had one more item to extinguish.