Minka
MINKA
I move downstairs and head toward the kitchen for breakfast the next morning, showered, dressed, pressed, and ready for my day in court. Because it’s Friday, and today better be my day. The alternative, of course, is for my day to be Monday. Which would mean spending the weekend with my New York family and not at home with the one person I want to be with.
Not acceptable.
“Morning.”
Startled, I glance up and find Micah perched at the counter, his back bowed and his feet on the footrests at the bottom of the stool. He’s dressed for his day, black suit, black shirt, silver tie, and hair slicked back with moisture that says he only recently got out of the shower, too.
His eyes are dark green this morning, serious and foreboding. But his ability to be scary to others has never been something he’s tried on me. So I drop my gaze again and head toward the coffee machine. “Morning. Tiia not up yet?”
“She already left for the shop.” He rests his elbows on the stone counter and watches me closely, the warmth of his gaze burning against the back of my neck. “She’s discovered a cache of treasures in Italy she’s obsessed with, so she wanted to get a head start on researching that.”
“Sounds…” Boring to me. But different folks, I suppose. Different st rokes. Not everyone is interested in dissecting human brains. “Interesting,” I lie. “Did you send Harrison with her?”
He scoffs, soft and breathy, so when I set the cup under the coffee spout and glance over my shoulder, I catch him shaking his head. “Harrison is yours. Tiia has her own. You went to bed early last night.”
I hit the button on the side of the coffee machine and turn back to rest against the counter. “You’re watching me entirely too closely if you’re paying attention to my bedtime.”
He only shrugs, sipping his coffee and glancing left and right, as though to ensure we’re alone. “I’m an observant guy, and you’re my brother’s wife. It’s my duty to keep track of everyone for their own safety.”
“Uh-huh.” I drag the corner of my lip between my teeth and inhale the scent of caffeine first thing in the morning. “Well, I figure you could do with a little less responsibility on your plate, seeing as how busy you are. Don’t worry about watching me. I’ve survived just fine my whole life, most of those years right here in New York. I don’t need a babysitter.”
“Seems you do.” Micah Malone is not a particularly smiley kind of guy. But his lips curl now, ever so subtly, so I narrow my eyes simply to catch the movement. “How long did it take for Archer to figure you out?”
My coffee finishes pouring, so I push off the counter and spin to snag my cup and the creamer Micah has yet to put away. “What about me did he have to figure out? I swear,” I drop a dollop of cream into my mug, “if you call me socially disabled, I’m gonna hurt y?—”
“Preston James…” he practically fucking purrs. “New York. Justin Dowel. Copeland City.”
Slowly, setting the creamer down and crushing my mug between my hands, I turn and do what he did—look left, then right, to ensure we’re alone.
“Laramie Fentone,” he continues with a sly smile. “Copeland City.”
I remain passive and calm. Neutral face. Serene outer, despite the stormy way my heart thunders.
“Excuse me?”
“Just naming names,” he sips again, smug behind the lip of his mug. “Like I said, I’m an observant guy.”
“I don’t know what you mean by those names.” I mean, obviously I fucking do! I killed those men. “Do you have something to say, Micah Malone? Or are you speaking for the sake of speaking? That seems like more of a Felix thing to do.”
“I haven’t told him.” His eyes lighten just a little. Mossy green, instead of hunter’s shade. “Felix, that is. I figure it’s one of those things best kept private. But I just…” He shrugs again. “I dunno. I feel like Archer must know. He’s smart enough to have figured it out.”
“You’re wrong about?—”
“If I can see it from all the way over here on the east coast, and he’s obsessed with you the way he is… You share a bed, an apartment, and a marriage certificate. And you possess a sense of morality that would make it impossible for you to marry without telling him the truth. No way you could hide it from him. So now I just wonder: did he figure you out? Or did you confess?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” My heart jerks in my chest, painful whipping motions that could lead a weaker organ into failure. But on the outside, I show him nothing but a controlled, cool front. “You’re talking about things you have no knowledge of. You sound silly.”
He drinks his coffee and looks left when footsteps echo on the tile. “I’ve killed men too. So it’s not like I’m condemning you for what you’ve done. I think I know you well enough to be certain you did your research before you took to your blade. Those were not senseless murders and innocent victims.”
“Micah—”
“I’m not asking about them. In fact,” he sits taller, straightening his spine, “I don’t give a single fuck about those pedophile bastards. I’m only wondering when Archer figured it out.”
Felix strides into the kitchen in a perfectly tailored black suit much the same as his brother’s. “What did Archer figure out?”
My eyes swing back to Micah’s, wild and ridiculously obvious to the man who smirks.
But Micah easily deflects. “His current case. Mayet said he thinks he knows who is killing those cops.”
“Oh, yeah.” Uncharacteristically serious, Felix moves to the coffee machine and makes his own. “Dude is smart. I bet he has the fastest solve-rates in that entire city. Though it’s hardly fair that he has an advantage over everyone else.” Grinning, he grabs the carton of creamer and prepares to pour a little into his mug. “He has real life experience on both sides of the coin. Anyone can be a damn good cop when you have an investigator’s brain and a criminal’s DNA.”
“I’m leaving.” I take my coffee and my pounding heart, and I start toward the hall Felix came from. “I’ll grab breakfast in the city, and if I’m lucky, I’ll be on the plane back to Copeland before either of you are done with your workday.”
“You’re being rude, Doctor Cutie.” Felix calls along the hall, so his words hit my back with gentle pats. “I like spending time with my little sister, but you’re out here like a robot, incapable of showing emotion.”
“She has emotion,” Micah rumbles arrogantly, “she’s just skilled at bottling that shit up.”
I sit in the back of a Malone town car with Theodore Harrison minding his own business. His presence is a reminder that I’m being protected, but his silence is an assurance that he knows I’m not here to chat. And though I wish I could wait him out, sneak away to the bathrooms of the courthouse and make this phone call in privacy, ironically, it’s far safer I do it with Micah’s guard as a witness and not, say, a state fucking prosecutor in the stall beside mine.
Taking out my phone and checking the time, I feel bad knowing it’s still early in Copeland. But not so bad that I put the device away again. Dialing, I bring the phone to my ear and wait… and wait… and wait, while I study the side of Harrison’s face. The short stubble on his chin and the slight upturn of his lips that implies he’s entirely pleased with his life and career.
Finally, the line connects and voices echo all over.
“?”
“Hey,” my reason for calling drops away within a single beat of my heart, “where are you?”
“Crime scene.”
“Another cop is dead?”
At that, Harrison’s head moves just a fraction of an inch in my direction. Listening, but discreet.
“No. But an attempt. Shooter’s in the wind, no one is hurt. Are you driving?”
“Yeah, heading to Manhattan. Fletch and everyone okay?”
“Everyone we love is fine,” he soothes. “Everything is fine, I promise. You call for a specific reason, or because you’re bored during your travels? Either is fine, but maybe I could call you back in twenty if it’s the se?—”
“Micah knows.”
Silence hangs for a long, torturous beat, so all I hear is the chatter and rumble typical of a crime scene. Until eventually, when I’m not sure I could stand another moment of quiet, he asks, “Micah knows what?”
“He knows ! He just named names over morning coffee, Archer. I can’t say the things he knows, because I have an audience right now, but I know you’re smart enough to figure this out.”
“Hang on, Fletch.” Holding on to his cool like it’s a loaded gun, he excuses himself from their scene and moves so the shuffle of his feet on the ground reverberates into our call. Then I catch the distinct sound of a car door opening and slamming shut. “What the fuck, ! You told him?”
“Oh sure! Because he’s my best friend and I love to gossip. No, Archer! I didn’t tell him. He said he knows because he’s observant .” I drag the word out, mocking it in hope to dispel a scrap of the tension sludging through my veins. “Did you say something to him?”
“No, I didn’t say shit. I’m not in the business of gossiping either. Fuck!” He bases his palm on the steering wheel. “What else did he say?”
“Just that he’s observant, and he wondered when you figured it out. He said I wouldn’t have married you without you knowing, therefore, you’re in on it too. He asked if I confessed or if you knew.”
“Jesus.”
“He said he hasn’t told anyone else. That he’s not going to. I guess he just felt smug knowing something he shouldn’t, so he wanted to let me know how smart he was.”
“And what did you say?”
“That he didn’t know what he was talking about. Then I left, got in the damn car, and now I’m talking to you. What the hell am I supposed to do with this? The bigger our circle gets, the more lips that tend to flap. There’s a reason we’re not spilling these secrets over to Tim or Aubs.”
“Felix doesn’t know?” Temper makes way for calm. For consideration. “Did he tell Felix?”
“No. He specifically said he hasn’t. And when Felix walked into the room, Micah changed the subject.”
“So you had a whole fucking conversation about this?”
“Under duress! And I remained passive the whole time. I admitted nothing. Now I’m trying to pass this information on to you, while sitting in a car with staff loyal to the men we’re discussing. What the hell, Archer!?”
“They’re loyal to us all. This isn’t a them and us situation, . We’re them. We’re all Malone.”
“Sure. So if I tell them to slit Felix’s throat?”
Audibly uncomfortable, Harrison shuffles in his seat. The dude is listening to everything I say, and soon, he’ll report back to Micah all the things I’ve admitted. Confirming he was right, even without names mentioned or crimes detailed. Then to Felix, the slitting his throat threat I so casually make.
“Where do their loyalties lie when Felix and I are not on the same side of an argument?”
“You and Felix are not arguing. I mean, except for the fact you’re bickering every single fucking time you speak. But that’s family. That’s not serious.”
“Archer!”
“It’s okay.” He breathes out a hefty exhale and turns his head, so I hear the bristle of his collar against his stubble. “Micah is a good man. The fact that he told you isn’t a threat. It’s just… honesty. He knows, and now you know he knows.”
“And what exactly will he do with that information?”
“The same as we’ll do with the knowledge he tortured and murdered a man last week. He does things, Mayet. He hurts people. We both know it. Doesn’t mean we’re tossing him to the cops.”
“You are the cops!” Frustration rolls through my belly and bursts out to make a mess of us both. “Archer, he’s a mafia criminal, you’re an ex-mafia criminal, and now word of my crimes is spreading. Should we simply go to prison and hang out in the yard during free time?”
“You’re being dramatic. And they don’t let men and women co-mingle anyway. This isn’t a huge deal,” he decides. “He’s a Malone. Malones belong to a world where loose lips aren’t an option. Don’t admit it to him, he won’t tell anyone else. It’ll be something between the both of you, but it’ll be something that goes unsaid. How far are you from the courthouse?”
“I don’t know! Like?—”
“Ten minutes,” Harrison mumbles, proving he hears too much. “Perhaps eight if traffic remains light.”
Snarling, I bring my attention back to the phone. “Did you catch that?”
Archer snickers, entirely too fucking blasé about a topic he almost ended our relationship over less than a year ago. “He’s not gonna tell anyone either. Listen babe, I have to go.”
“Arch—”
“I’m working, but I promise I’ll call you when I clear a second. Don’t sweat the Micah stuff, okay? I’ll call him later and set some shit straight. He won’t mention it again.”
“Effectively admitting he’s right. ”
“You already admitted it! All over this call,” he chuckles. “His men are listening to you, so they’re gonna drop you off, go back to the house, he’ll ask how the drive went, they’ll tell him you called me and lost your shit. That’s a confession, even if you don’t say it to his face. But even with all those extra ears, no one but him knows the truth. Your secrets are still safe, and I’ll talk to him, like I said, to make sure he’s on the same page as I am.”
“And what page is that?”
“The kind that dies with that information still tucked safely away. He won’t be a problem for you. You saved his life, remember?”
Did I? I remember sticking needles in his ass and feeding him anti-inflammatories for a few days.
“That’s a debt he’ll always remember. So don’t worry about it.”
“Archer—”
“I have to go. Love you.”
“Archer!”
The call goes dead. The line cuts out and my husband remains a whole country away from me. “Dammit!” I drag the phone from my ear and growl when a rock lands in my inbox. “He didn’t tell me where the shooting was. Or who the target was.”
“I could find that information out for you if you wish, Doctor Mayet.” Harrison remains on his side of the car, tucked away so he doesn’t accidentally touch me. “I heard the part where Detective Malone is investigating a new shooting.” He takes out his phone and shows me the blackened screen. “I could get the details before we reach our destination.”
“Oh great. You’re one of those types. Give a man the internet, and he can find anything out about anyone.”
“Doctor—”
“No! It’s fine.” I stare out at the city as we pass through moderate traffic. “And forget everything you heard during this drive. Tell Micah nothing.”
I see his reflection in my window, his lips curling up at the side and the way they quiver as he fights a full-blown smile. “Yes, Doctor Mayet. I won’t say a word.”
Liar.