CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR TRACE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
TRACE
I was walking into my downtown office when my phone started ringing.
“Hello, Mr.West.” The doorman gave me a nod, opening the door for me. I was pulling my phone out, ready and needing a full day in the office, when I saw who was calling.
Uncle Steph calling.
I stopped a few feet inside. The front desk receptionist was waiting for me.
She always had a greeting for us as we came in, and I’d been rarely coming in during normal hours.
I’d been working remotely, but I wanted a normal day in the office.
I wanted to talk to my colleagues, hear the bullshit stories about how much money they’d traded the day before.
Half was bullshit. Half was testing if we’d heard anything.
Half was just connecting to each other. Most of the guys who did this job lived for it.
They drank, ate, shit stocks, but some were like me.
They did the deep dive research, and when one of us was found, we’d always get “visitors” dropping by to “shoot the shit” or wanting to grab a drink.
But if my uncle was calling, I knew none of that would happen.
“Mr.West?”
I held a hand up to the receptionist but didn’t move any closer. I knew. I just knew—work or family.
She stood from her desk, still watching me, and after a moment, she frowned just slightly. Stepping out from the desk, she smoothed down her skirt and shirt and began to cross the lobby toward me. A few other guys were coming in, going around me.
“Hey, buddy! Long time no see.”
“What’s up? Two o’clock lunch?”
“Tristian, my man! Drinks on me tonight. You in?”
I didn’t answer them as my phone fell silent, and suppressing a curse, I moved to the side and hit the call-back button.
“Mr.West?”
I held a hand up. “One minute, please.”
She coughed just as my uncle answered. “My nephew! My boy. How are you?”
“Mr.West.” She raised her voice, inclining her head toward me.
I frowned, saying into the phone, “One second, Uncle Steph.” Pressing the phone to my chest, I raised an eyebrow at her. “Yes?”
“You have a visitor.”
“A visitor?”
She gave me a tight nod. “In your office. She was very insistent.”
“She?”
“Yes, she. She informed me that you share blood, and her name is Remmi.”
This day went from bleak to even bleaker, but I could see the evidence of Remmi. She liked to lay a path of destruction wherever she went, and it made sense now why the receptionist came out to tell me of her presence.
I grimaced. “If she threatened you in any way, I apologize on her behalf.”
The receptionist gave a tight nod and an even tighter but grim smile before heading back for her desk.
I lifted the phone back up, saying, “I’m usually happy for a call from you, Uncle, but I’ve been informed of a disaster waiting in my office for me.”
He began chuckling. “I heard, but listen. I need you to come around today.”
“When?”
“Earlier than later. We need to revisit our talk we had a while ago, about my health and what that might mean for you. And about other matters too.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck! I was very aware my uncle’s line was tapped. FBI continuously listened in, and because of that, we had a code. A very serious code we used on certain phone lines, but he just broadcasted to whoever was listening in that they needed to start looking my way.
Why? Why would he do that?
There was a reason. I loved my uncle, but there was a reason for everything he did.
“I need to deal with Remmi, and then I’ll come around.”
“Let’s do lunch. I’ll cook.”
“Sounds great.” It didn’t sound great.
We hung up, and when I got to my office, I was in a mood.
For one moment, I stopped, and I was back in the car with Jess on Saturday.
That drive to her place was a bubble. A brief moment in time where we were in between who she was and who I was, and we were able to connect for a shared purpose.
I felt like I’d been given a gift because she wasn’t tense with me.
It was like she gave herself permission during that drive to be herself, and it’d been the best car ride I’d ever been on.
We laughed. We talked. We were friends, and when I drove to her place, she was quiet for a long time.
She didn’t leave the car, so I pulled over on the street.
She had an hour to get to work, and I offered her a ride.
I’d been expecting her to say no, and I think she was going to, but after a moment’s hesitation, she accepted.
While she went upstairs to dress, I waited in the car.
It was her request. She came back fifteen minutes later, but when I started to put the car into drive, she stopped me.
“Can we not? This is ...” She looked out the window and swallowed her words before looking back to me. Such sad eyes. “Can we stay a little longer like this?”
We did. There was no conversation this time.
But a moment, a pocket of time, it was just the two of us.
I wanted that back so badly right now.
“What are you doing?”
My office door was opened, and Remmi stood in the doorway, an air of irritation swimming around her.
Her dark eyes were heavily made up. She was wearing black leather pants and a black sweater that wrapped tightly around her body, and she had on those hoop earrings she always wore during college.
I didn’t know why I was cataloging any of this.
Maybe for extra time. Because I knew I’d be going from one fight to another fight right after this.
They might not look like fights. They might not sound like fights, but they were.
There was a push-pull dynamic going on under the surface.
Remmi would want something. I would probably not want to give it, the same with Uncle Steph, but in his instance, I always gave it.
I gave it because I had to, and I had never wanted to see what would happen if I didn’t do what Uncle Steph wanted. Looking at Remmi right now, I don’t know the reason, but today was the very first day I was starting to question when that day would happen.
“Hello, sister.”