Chapter 23
TWENTY-THREE
EMORY
In Emory’s office, the desk lamp cast misshapen shadows around the room, and Mirabelle sat coiled up like a spring in the desk chair. With her legs wrapped tight over one another, she hugged her knees to her chest.
“What’s going on?” Emory asked.
Jack leaned against the edge of the desk next to a half-spent bottle of whiskey. He wouldn’t be the one to say it—whatever it was—so he glanced at Mirabelle who regarded Emory with familiar heat. It simmered behind her eyes first, then fired up the breath from her lungs.
“We shouldn’t have been there today! This wouldn’t have happened!”
Emory shut the door and met her searing accusation with hushed austerity. There was no need to raise voices in a house of restless souls.
“You’re not that na?ve, Mirabelle. It could’ve happened here and could’ve been a lot worse. What happened to Gio—”
“Could’ve been avoided!” Mirabelle sprung open, her legs and arms unwrapping all at once. “Scumstache is a rat. He sold us out. He murdered Gio! I want him dead!”
“Enough,” Emory said, and his distorted shadow moved across the room as he paced to the window behind his desk. “Disco and Corey are looking for him. When they find him, we’ll make him talk. Once we have answers, we can take the fight to the Velascos.”
With two fingers, Emory separated slats of the blinds and peered through the crack. He didn’t know what he expected to find. The night revealed nothing of consequence, just a streetlamp struggling to fill the dark, not unlike the last time he saw his brother.
“Miri doesn’t know what Viktor told us,” Jack said. “You need to tell her.”
Emory turned from the window. Mirabelle was already staring at him.
“Tell me what?” she asked with a haunting stillness, as if something in her already knew.
Emory took Mirabelle’s hands as he knelt in front of her. Malformed and twisted, the shadows at the edge of the room seemed to darken. He hadn’t rehearsed how he might tell her the news, and perhaps that was for the best.
“Ivan. He’s—”
“Alive,” Jack cut in with biting precision. “He’s alive.”
Mirabelle’s petrified gaze darted between Emory and Jack. “How?” she whispered.
“I don’t know,” Emory replied honestly. “All I know is he wanted it this way. He knew we’d drop our guard if we thought he was dead.”
“This was him,” Mirabelle said as angry tears flooded her cheeks. “It’s always been him. I told you he wasn’t gone, Emory! I told you, and you never believed me. Why couldn’t you believe me?”
Emory accepted the blame with a solemn nod. “I will find him and end this for good.”
The assurance fell flat. Ivan promised pain and would deliver in spades. It was only a matter of time. Mirabelle yanked her hands from Emory and cradled her knees, child-like as she rocked in her seat.
“Why can’t he just leave us alone?”
All their lives, she’d asked Emory that same question and always the same way—through tears and exhausted from unrelenting terror.
When she was four and Ivan snapped her arm, she asked Emory why.
When she was six and found her bunny, Cotton Ball, a mess of blood, guts, and white fur in her bed and Ivan in a fit of laughter, Mirabelle sobbed so hard she couldn’t breathe and asked Emory why. He’d never had an answer.
Emory stood and sat at the edge of the desk next to her. “I won’t let him get to you. He’ll have to get through me first.”
“And me,” Jack vowed on the other side of her. “It’s what’s kept him away. He knows Em and I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Emory exchanged a glance with Jack. Neither man really knew what kept Ivan away or why he’d slithered back. Mirabelle nodded vacantly and stretched her legs. Liquid sloshed as Jack grabbed the whiskey bottle.
“You need to tell Em what you told me.” Mirabelle pointed to the bottle at his lips. “And you need to lay off that. You’ve had enough.”
“It’s never enough,” Jack sighed but put the bottle down. “Cal Havick is missing. He hasn’t shown up to work. His phone goes straight to voicemail. Big Johnny said the Portland police can’t reach him. The dude just vanished.”
Emory quietly listened, though a source at the Portland Police Bureau had already slipped him that information.
Mirabelle craned her neck to Emory. “If she lost both her parents…”
Her voice trailed off as if speaking the possibilities might manifest them.
“Someone probably talked sense into him, told him to lie low. Jack, see what else Johnny can dig up, and we’ll go from there.”
“Amelia can’t know about this,” Mirabelle said.
Emory disagreed with a firm shake of his head. “She has a right to know. I’ll deal with today’s fallout first, then see what I can find out about Cal.”
“Em, she can’t—”
“I said I’ll deal with it!” Emory snapped and shoved off of the desk. “Amelia will stay with us until it’s safe for her to go home. Until then, I’m bringing her into the fold.”
Jack snickered at that. “So, what, she’s one of us now?”
“Jack, stop,” Mirabelle pled.
“No, I wanna know. You brought her here for one reason. Isn’t that what you said? What’s that reason now, Em?”
The tip of Jack’s tongue flicked lasciviously across his top lip, and he winked with no humor, only spite. Emory’s fists clenched until his knuckles popped, and his breaths shallowed to hot spurts through gritted teeth. Keep your head.
“We both know what Ivan would do to her,” Emory replied with icy restraint. “I’m not letting her leave. She’s mine, so she stays with me.”
Mine.
Jack and Mirabelle both pondered the possessive. Emory used it so seldomly to describe women. They were never his; he rarely wanted them to be. He and Amelia had hardly shared a kiss, and yet he’d gone ahead and marked her as his own.
Jack lifted a finger and opened his mouth to spit fire again, but Mirabelle intervened.
“Both of you stop. It’s fine. Amelia will stay here until this ends. For tonight, she can sleep in my room with me. She’s too scared to be alone.”
Amelia was many things—contrite and listless—but afraid to sleep alone wasn’t one of them. Emory let it go and nodded his assent. With a sudden push, Jack hopped from the desk, snatched up the whiskey, and retreated to the door with a sway.
“Hey, you’re not going anywhere tonight,” Emory called after him. “You’ve had too much.”
Jack stopped halfway to the door and turned over his shoulder.
“I’ll stay,” he said but was looking at Mirabelle. “Night, y’all.”
An anguished smile flashed across his lips but disappeared, and so did Jack down the hall. The sound of his boots grew faint until that faded too. Mirabelle stood and wrapped her arms around Emory’s middle, her body still trembling.
“It’s gonna be okay,” Emory said. “Ivan’s fucked up, but only human. A bullet to the head will end him just fine. Then we can finally move on.”
“I hope you’re right.” Mirabelle’s voice fractured with fatigue and dread in equal measure, and she extracted herself from Emory to fetch Amelia.
After she left, Emory shut the door and waited until the house fell silent.
In a halo of lamplight, he sat at his desk and opened his laptop.
A search of Cal Havick brought up his official portrait seated in front of the American flag in a pressed suit.
He didn’t smile but stared into the camera, cocksure and determined.
Emory scrolled the call history on his phone. He knew better than to save the number in his contacts and held his breath as the call connected.
A man answered, his voice groggy with interrupted sleep. “Agent Bright.”
“It’s Emory. I’m cashing in.”
Sheets rustled on the other end of the line. A beat later, Kingsley Bright replied, “I can’t help you.”
Charity didn’t exist in Emory’s line of work, and he didn’t offer his services for free. He’d helped Bright once and accepted as payment a favor in return at a time of his choosing. Bright had either forgotten or grievously misjudged Emory’s bookkeeping.
“And here I pegged you as a man who keeps his word,” Emory said and clicked onto Cal’s personal Instagram page.
The last post—a family picture taken at Amelia’s graduation—was almost two months old. In it, Cal beamed with pride next to his daughter. She was as gorgeous as ever in a cap and gown, but Emory saw clearly the heartbreak in her eyes. It seemed unconscionable that Cal hadn’t seen it too.
When Bright refused a rebuttal, Emory continued, “I know you have your claws in Cal Havick.”
“What makes you think that?”
Emory expelled a husky laugh. Bright’s offended incredulity never failed to amuse him.
The man should’ve known the depths of Emory’s connections.
His reach had only expanded since they last spoke.
Along the West Coast, it wove through the corrupted core of law and order, all those sacred institutions men like Kingsley exalted.
“Intuition,” Emory said.
A door creaked on the other end of the line. When he spoke again, Bright’s voice echoed, still tetchy but no longer hushed.
“His daughter, Amelia, is missing.”
“My condolences,” Emory said with no sympathy to spare.
“I’m trying to help him.”
“Don’t.”
“Emory, whatever this is, whatever you’re doing, it’s not going to end well for you.”
Emory’s desk chair groaned as he leaned forward and rested one forearm on his knee. His temper flared with Bright’s warning. He wouldn’t take kindly to threats.
“I could say the same about your predecessor. Kranski.”
Bright released a heavy breath then snapped, “What do you want?”
“I need you to keep an eye on Cal. Make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid.”
“Like what?”
Emory scoffed at the question. Cal’s stubborn ambition had eclipsed better judgment. He wasn’t rash, just obstinate, and Bright would do well to cull those tendencies in his new friend.
“Like overturning stones that are better left alone. He won’t like what he finds underneath.”
“If he thinks you know where Amelia is, he’ll want to talk to you.”
“Then redirect, Agent Bright.”
“Do you know where Amelia is?” Bright pressed, ever the dutiful law enforcement officer, gathering leads wherever he could.
Emory smiled. “No, but I wish him the best of luck getting her back.”
Cal Havick wanted Amelia to be another man’s problem, so he spoke it into existence but couldn’t dictate how it manifested. Heart, body, mind, and soul, Emory would gladly claim Amelia as his own and watch with delight as Cal choked on his words.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Bright muttered. “Do you want to protect him or antagonize him? Because you can’t do both. Not when we both know the Velascos are trailing him.”
Emory glanced at his laptop screen and Amelia standing next to her father. The girl was built for love, so eager to pour it into someone else. He thought of the man she deserved and wondered if he was worthy. He could be, but it had to start somewhere.
“I’ve always liked you, Kingsley,” Emory said, “but can I trust you?”
“My word is good.”
“Keep Cal close. I’ll reach out to him when the time is right.” Emory drew a long breath and closed his laptop. “Don’t make me regret this.”