Chapter Twenty-Six #4
The same goes for Templeton. If we’re being honest, the guy has always rubbed me wrong. I don’t particularly like him, although that could be said about many people who work for me. But I asked Johansson to find someone to work beneath him, and that’s who he picked.
Figueroa, I knew back in Colombia, as a doctor of the cartel, if you will, though he’s not actually a doctor, medical or otherwise. I believe he was studying to be a nurse when he got roped into helping Arturo Alvarez, and the rest, as they say, is history.
But alas, if I were going to put The Carver’s brain under a microscope and really pick it apart, I needed someone just right. Someone who wouldn’t be afraid to get their hands dirty, but also skilled enough that it wouldn’t matter how dirty they got.
Naturally, the first person I thought of was Dr. Melvin Strange—the author of my favorite book ever.
Beneficial Brainwashing.
I read it a few years back, and it was just… so messed up. Scientifically fucked.
As if the author was saying, Here are all the most elaborate ways to stick your dick right inside someone’s mind and just pound the ever-loving shit out of it. But you know… don’t.
I loved it, and I immediately called Johansson to ask if he or his guys had ever heard of it. Of course, Johansson’s already read it. Figures. That cholo knows everything there is to know about breaking and entering in people’s heads.
I told him to put it on the reading list for his team, then promptly looked up this Dr. Strange to see if he’d written anything else. Unfortunately, that was it. We’ve been trying to track him down for years, since long before I even had a job for him.
And, as luck would have it, a contact finally came through at the perfect moment.
Felix Darcey is beyond restless. He has been since he got here. Understandably, there’s an adjustment period, but as soon as he was acclimated, he killed an inmate who’d been here for three fucking days.
He needs a project as much as I need to satisfy my love of behavioral science by hiring doctors to study my inmates like lab rats.
Hey, Russo never said I couldn’t have an asylum.
He only said Alabaster Pen needed to be a prison, which it is.
It just also happens to have an asylum in it now, as of about seven years ago at this point.
We were expanding, bringing in a steady stream of inmates, when the idea hit me like a zap of electroshock therapy right to the temples.
Make the east side of the prison into the asylum I always wanted!
The building was made for it, honestly. Word is the architect who designed this building had Blackwell’s in mind, which I can totally see.
So when Yari made the call, and actually got him on the line, I was practically crawling out of my skin.
Naturally, it took some going. Dr. Lemuel Love, PhD is a professional, after all—more so than all of my doctors combined. He doesn’t simply take sketchy-sounding job offers from strangers over the phone. But I knew we had our man when he called back, asking all kinds of grumbly, robotic questions.
It was really him. The Dr. Melvin Strange.
Eep!
The salary I had to offer to get him here is no second-hand Subaru, but it’s fine. I’ll just take it out of the budget we don’t have.
In fact, I’m headed to a board meeting as we speak, to inform them of Dr. Love’s scheduled arrival and request some additional funding I know they won’t give me.
“Dr. Love signed his NDA,” Yari tells me, practically beaming.
He’s excited for me, and it’s cute. Yari really is the best possible assistant for me, which is odd considering that he has no connections to the cartel whatsoever, and was an escort for most of his adult life.
To think, my drunken one night stand turned into a flourishing professional relationship. Turns out, all I needed to finally nail down the perfect assistant was to nail down the perfect assistant. Nudge nudge wink wink.
Peeking across the backseat of the SUV, I show him a pleasant grin. “I am so excited to meet him.”
“What do you think he’ll be like?” Yari asks, almost dreamily.
I have to try not to laugh. Let’s not get carried away here. “Based on how he sounds on the phone, very buttoned up doctor. But we know there’s another side to him, if that book is any indication… That’s the part I want to uncover.”
“I hope you two become friends,” he chirps. “You could use one.”
I shoot him a look. “I don’t get to have friends, Yaricito. You know that.”
“Psshh.” He waves me off, back in his phone. “I think you need a friend to keep you from going full Voldemort.”
That time a small one sneaks out. “I have the next best thing… Employees.” I smirk, and he rolls his eyes. “You, Kent, Paulino, Max… Jonathan.”
There wasn’t supposed to be a pause in between those, but there was, and of course he noticed it.
Damn kid’s like an auditor. He misses nothing.
“When’s the last time you just sat and shot the shit with Jonathan?” He lifts an accusatory brow. Perfectly trimmed, with those two lines in the left one, like he’s a G or something.
My lips twitch. “That’s not fair. I don’t shoot the shit with Kent either.”
“You know what I mean,” he mutters. “If Jonathan’s really your friend, maybe you should let him know it.”
“First of all, I didn’t say he was my friend, I said he was my employee,” I grumble, becoming annoyed by this conversation.
It happens pretty effortlessly any time Officer Chevelle is involved. Things have been tense between us for years, and I refuse to think about what it means.
“As are you, don’t forget that, chico.”
“Yes, sir.” He shifts subtly, and bites his lip. I squint at him.
I might need to fuck him later. We’ll see how the rest of the night goes.
We reach the office in Midtown late in the evening; our usual private suite in the lawyer’s office.
These meetings always take place after hours, since it’s all very hush-hush.
For as much as I own this city, I sort of come and go like a phantom, appearing here and there for various business dealings, popping up to threaten people when I need to, then vanishing into the night.
I like it that way. Hiding in plain sight only works if you do the plain sight part well.
I attend the occasional event or function, but I make it a point to remain as mysterious as possible.
I’ve earned the ability to get away with literal murder, and I pay handsomely to ensure my name wouldn’t dare be uttered by anyone.
Unless they’re summoning me like Beetlejuice.
The meeting kicks off as it does. There’s food and drinks, but I don’t eat with these gringos. I’d rather grab Colombian food from the little place uptown with Yari and eat it in the hotel.
I’ve just finished telling them about Dr. Love and all of his qualifications. I don’t think they really care, so in an effort to wrap this up, I get to the part I know we all love… The money.
“I need another three million,” I say.
The accountant finally looks up from his sashimi.
“That’s not going to be possible right now, I’m afraid,” Russo Sr. says, as if it’s really his fucking call.
“Why not?” I ask, tone bored. “I’ve held up my end of the agreement, making all of your problems disappear like I’m fucking Houdini.” My face slopes in the governor’s direction. “How’s your son?”
His eyes immediately harden. He knows why I’m asking this, and it’s not because I care about the well-being of his offspring.
It’s because I did him a favor a few years ago and took in a kid that really didn’t need to be in prison. I mean, some of them don’t—Lexington Deon was more of a blunder from a poor teenager who’s too smart for his own good.
But Byron Kang really does not deserve to be in any prison, let alone mine.
Okay, maybe some light stalking, but as a first offense, that’s nothing. A protection order, max. Not even, if the parties being stalked don’t want to press charges, which I’m certain Michelangelo Russo would not.
And yet, I have #62 because Antonio Russo doesn’t approve of his son’s lifestyle. I.e. being gay more than the rape fantasies, I’m sure.
It’s highly offensive to me. I guarantee no one else in this room knows about Byron and Michelangelo’s tryst. If I felt like being spiteful, I could let it slip out, and Russo Jr. knows that.
“Look, we might be able to move some things around,” he says, deliberately ignoring my question. Transparent prick. “But we can’t allocate funds for a shrink to study The Carver. It’s frivolous and unnecessary. Not to mention you have two doctors already.”
“They’re really more suited to the other inmates,” I say blithely.
“Like Kieran O’Malley, for example. They’ve been doing a number on him lately.
” My eyes fling to District Attorney Feldman, who’s become awfully shifty all of a sudden.
“Imagine if he’d gone to trial?? He easily could have pled insanity.
I mean, that boy is clearly loco.” I fold my hands on the table.
“How much did the O’Malley’s give you to fix it? I’d heard seven figures…”
“We can find the budget,” Feldman cuts me off nervously.
I smirk as he waves off the accountant’s look of obvious concern.
“But again, it can’t be for Love,” Russo says. “We’ll have to call it building maintenance or renovations or something. You’re finally fixing that guard tower, right?”
He gives me an obvious look, and I roll my eyes. “Yes, yes, of course.”
As if the people who’ll be fudging the paperwork are actually in the room right now…
Idiota.
Russo Jr. sits back, letting out a breath. “Thank you, Ivory. As always, we are grateful for the work you do.” His condescending tone makes me want to stab him in the trachea. But I refrain. For now. “Speaking of inmates, how is Dascha Reznikov settling in?”
My mind goes to Alexander’s son, the pretty Russian bank robber with his vast plane of emotional issues. “It’s the Pen,” I say by way of answer, shrugging. “He’s miserable, like the rest of them.”
Russo grins, that smug puta thing I’d really love to see wiped off his face. “Good.”
Maybe someday…
The meeting wraps up and Yari and I leave, stopping for our takeout on the way to The Plaza. But I’m up in my head. Thinking about my island and my prisoners.
About Dascha, and Byron Kang, and Lex Luthor Deon. The ones who really shouldn’t be there, though in a way, I’m glad they are.
That sounds bad, I’m sure, but I’m a bad person, so it tracks. The point is that if I had a heart pumping actual blood in my chest, I might feel glad that they have one another.
My first thought when Byron arrived was that he needed companionship. I figured having Warren Xavier around might give him the opportunity for a proxy—in the same general way I used Warren at Edge.
He’s good at it, after all…
My thoughts drift to the hallway that time… When Jonathan used Warren for his own proxy purposes.
Yes, he’s very good at it.
But now, I’m beginning to think Byron needs something else. Something more substantial than a body who’s using him far more than he could ever use it. Byron will never get that from my prison.
It’s a shame really, but what can you do?
Considering my earlier conversation with Yari brings me away from memories of soft flesh beneath my fingertips, back to my pet.
I wonder what Jonathan is doing right now…
Tapping my phone screen back to life, I consider texting him. But then I frown it away. That would be weird. We don’t text like that… For no reason, just to chat.
Like I said to Yari, we’re not friends.
We used to be. Not close by any stretch of the imagination, but closer than we are now.
Maybe I could do something for him… Something other than putting a collar around his neck and whipping him with my belt when he’s bad. He can’t act like he doesn’t like it, because I know he does. But still… I can’t act like I’m doing it all for him.
If I were to do something expressly for him, it’d have to revolve around his mother. She’s the only person in this world he truly cares for, unconditionally.
A conversation comes back to me, from years ago… Man, we’ve been in each other’s lives for a long time.
Jonathan had asked me if I could have my men stop selling to his mother.
I agreed, in a sort of flippant way, and I did have Mateo instruct his men to lose her contact info.
But I’m pretty sure they just passed her off to Alejo’s guys when she started panicking, because, like I told him at the time, it’s a means to an end.
A junkie will always find a way to score.
The idea sticks in my brain, though. Maybe I could pull them all. Really do more, to hold up my end of the bargain. As a… friend.
I’m considering how I would even word this to Mateo without sounding insane when Yari squeaks.
My brows knit. “What is it?”
His eyes lift to mine, and he blinks over the wide, shiny teal. “Some of Dr. Love’s background came in… He has this patient, named Trevel Fenwick, who’s dating a Colombian girl, last name Alvarez.”
My pulse is instantly racing.
“And she has a twin brother.”