19. ABRAHAM
AbrAHAM
“HI.”
“Hello there.”
The air in my space shifted. Body heat infiltrated. A flash of a memory, one of breath tickling my chest while that voice whispered secrets into my ear, passed but didn’t stay.
“Shit. Please don’t be dead.”
Inhaling expensive body wash, a warm sugary perfume, and hair cream, my morning wood hung heavy and my skull pounded with the kind of post-deprivation hangover I hadn’t been used to in years. I didn’t open my eyes. “Yes?”
“Sorry to bother you,” Nineah whispered. “It’s just… well, it’s ten thirty and you’re the world’s quietest sleeper, apparently. I was concerned.”
Ten thirty?
That explained the headache.
I sat up in bed. I hadn’t slept this late since high school.
Not even when I used to hustle rich white lieutenants in Texas Hold ‘Em until two in the morning before I had to be in formation at five.
Cracking my neck on both sides, I ignored an ache in my left knee and hands, shoved the covers aside, and went to my go bag on top of the dresser.
Fishing out a T-shirt and pants, I then quickly pulled them on, along with my watch and chain.
Turning around, I caught Nineah staring at the floor, her ears bright red.
“I don’t know why you’re blushing,” I said, palming my phone. “You’ve seen a dick before.” A fact I hadn’t given six fucks about with my ring on her finger, but apparently now that she was technically a free agent, I had a personal beef with anyone who’d ever gotten close enough to speak to her.
She cleared her throat. “Is that what you call it?”
She wasn’t flattering me—there was a genuine undercurrent of fear in her tone—but that didn’t stop the jolt to my balls.
Having ditched her pajamas in favor of a shower, Nineah looked marginally better in one of her tight little yoga sets and a thin layer of makeup.
Her toes had also been clipped and painted with a pale purple color and it was such a Nineah thing to do, my next swallow went down bitter.
“We’re going to have to establish some ground rules,” I told her.
“First of all—don’t engage in conversations you’re not ready for.
Second—I meant what I said. I’m not a girlfriend and I’m not a boy toy.
I’m a man that knows everything from the way your size six feet look working up and down a shaft to the shade of pink between your legs.
Remember that next time you feel like catching an attitude. ”
Nineah sucked in a sharp, horrified inhale.
Good.
Shoving Silver’s burner in my pocket, along with my wallet, I ignored the electrifying sickness that had a way of setting fire to my scruples as well as that scent that made me want to suck on her like I was the one with the sugar addiction.
“If you were going for shock value, you succeeded,” she squeaked.
If I were going for shock value, I’d have showed her pictures she wasn’t going to find in that old ass camera she carried around.
But I wasn’t trying to shock her and I definitely wasn’t goading her into a headspace I needed to steer clear of if I wanted to make it out of here with some semblance of my dignity.
This woman was poisonous to my system in the way that she’d set in quickly if I didn’t have the self-preservation to intervene.
“I need to make a few calls and you need to take your meds,” I told her. “You should probably get some more rest, too.”
She frowned. “What calls? To Matty?”
I ignored her. “Make a grocery list. I’ll go pick up some things, later.”
“Hey!” she said, weaving around me as I started for the foyer.
“I don’t know if this is a kink of yours or if you think just because I took a swim with the grim reaper for a hot minute you can talk to me like one of your smooth-brained E2s, but let me remind you, amnesia or not, this isn’t a dictatorship.
If anything, my seniority with FX means I outrank you.
Now up to this point, I have been nothing but patient with your sullen moods and cagey disposition, which quite frankly, has earned me a slightly longer leash considering the circumstances.
And that’s not to say I’m ungrateful for everything you’re doing, because I’m very grateful.
But I haven’t spoken to anyone I know in days, my body feels like I’ve been dropped from a crane at twenty stories, and if it weren’t enough that I’ve just been told that every non-shitty life experience I’ve ever had may as well have never happened, I’m isolated with the one person who could actually tell me about any of it, but has decided to gatekeep everything except for the scraps of information he dispenses at will.
So forgive me for being so fucking annoying that sharing a space with me for five goddamn minutes is such an inconvenience, but considering if the roles were reversed you’d have already contemplated painting the walls with your brains, I think I deserve like a teaspoon of grace. ”
“Are you done?”
She opened her mouth, then closed it.
“For three days, I didn’t know where you were,” I said, trying to keep a lid on my rage.
“Not if you’d been taken or harmed, or if you were even alive.
And being that it’s three in the morning back in DC, I’m not calling our boss or anyone else for that matter.
I’m going outside and I’m going to take a walk until it kills the urge to drink my way through the next several days because I am not sullen, I’m not annoyed, I’m not in a bad mood—I am furious.
And I need a fucking minute. Is that alright with you? ”
Her throat moving as she swallowed, she nodded.
“Good.” Before I did something stupid like double back and apologize or worse, let her huge brown eyes goad me into dragging my thumb across her mouth, I stepped around her and into the foyer.
Pulling on my boots and jacket, I went out into the abnormally brisk July morning and started in no particular direction.
Though Riga was the largest city in the Baltics, it was less than ideal for hiding in plain sight.
Two Black travelers, one of them covered in bruises, the other in burn scars, wasn’t a sight the locals or tourists were going to forget.
The sooner I could get Nineah back to the States, the better and not just because she was triggering the fuck out of me.
Call it omniscience or preternatural instinct, but my skin had been crackling like a live fence since Vienna.
Shit, maybe even before then. I still didn’t have a lead on the second set of passports, I hadn’t heard from Silver in hours, and the more I followed my suspicions down the well of what-ifs, the less inclined I was to believe Nineah’s secrets wouldn’t blow up in my face.
A third alternative I’d begun to entertain back at the hospital, was slowly graduating into a genuine option… I could walk away.
Nineah didn’t need me. I could dump her at FX HQ and Matthias would protect her. Pending two and a half more weeks, my obligation had come to its expiration date and I knew better than to accept responsibility for a woman who’d lied to my face for months.
It was the smart choice.
My analytical brain that’d been calculating and discarding odds over the last seventy two hours was telling me it was the right choice.
Even still, like Nineah had an itch that could only be scratched by putting her fingers to a keyboard, I’d never been able to leave an op without seeing it through.
Be it my defective wiring or my ego, I didn’t like to leave my shit open ended, but even I had my limits and I had to admit to myself, I was very close to hitting them.
I didn’t know how far I’d walked the historic Centrs in Riga, but eventually I recognized the familiar twinge in my knees and decided to head back.
Passing the other lodgings, ignoring the lingering stares of a few tourists, I strode into the cafe I’d seen on my way to get Nineah’s dinner last night and started working on my apology.
Taking my shit out on her was not going to erase my rage any more than digging through old photographs would restore her memory.
If I wanted her cooperation, I was going to have to buy it the old fashioned way—with trust.
At the counter, I selected a number of breakfast items, a few pastries that resembled the ones she gravitated towards when she’d exhausted some other cavity-inducing fixation, and two coffees.
The young attendant who’d yet to make eye contact accepted my card, bagged the food, and yelled out my coffee order to another worker.
While I waited, I checked my cell notifications. There were two unread messages, one from Agosto, the other from Kevin. Skipping the first and going straight for the second, I opened it and read.
I got him.
Saul Tymon. 301 Eele St. Exeter, NH. 03833.
That was fast.
I responded instantly.
You’re certain that’s the builder?
“Kafijas!”
Pocketing my cell, I grabbed the coffee carrier from the barista, and threw ten euros in the jar. “Paldies.”
Ten minutes later, I made it back to the rental and set the food on the table at the same time my phone buzzed with another message from Kyle.
All the luxury designers use the same ten delivery services out of New England.
Only three orders of that expense went out to the DMV two winters back from three separate companies.
Two were retrofitted for commercial use by a rental company.
Only one was registered as private property, owner details unknown.
Fuck, that was him.
Copy.
Swiping out of the thread and into my web browser, I typed the name into the search engine and sure enough, the first page for Tymon Yachts came up.
I went onto the site’s gallery and scrolled through the photos, but the Ma Maison was not among any of the documented projects.
I memorized the link, cleared the history, then set the phone on the table.
Picking up the coffee, mentally preparing for the diet groveling I’d have to do to convince my own wife I didn’t spend a majority of my life sulking like a bitch, I headed into the hall. Pausing outside her room, I knocked.
“Come in,” her muffled voice sounded through the door.
Perched on the desk chair, her wet hair hanging over one side, she peered into a small travel mirror as she slowly picked a wide tooth comb through the ends of her curls.
Or she attempted. Her shoulder mobility prevented her from raising her arm high enough.
Clearly frustrated with the task, she gave up, tossing the comb on the desktop.
I raised the coffee as a peace offering. “Want help?”
Her nose wrinkled with distaste.
“I’ve combed your hair before.”
“Under duress?”
Coming up behind her, I set the latte down and picked up her comb.
Parting her wet curls into two sections, I flipped one side over the other shoulder and began on the left while Nineah drank.
I worked in silence, stealing inhales of her scent and occasional glances at her in the mirror.
The scratch on her left cheek had nearly healed and the bruising at her temple was fading, but it still put a knot in my chest every time I looked at her.
Divorced or not, my guilt ran as deep as my pain.
For not seeing hers sooner, for not doing enough before we’d ended up here in the first damn place.
I knew that weight wasn’t all mine to carry.
Nineah reserved just as much responsibility for those final months as I did.
But in this moment, I couldn’t find my resentment, only regret.
“Be still.”