26. Blair
TWENTY-SIX
blair
THE NEXT DAY
I handed my jacket, bag and phone to Liam once we entered the church.
“Have you heard from Esi?” I asked, mentally counting the days she’d been gone while fixing the sleeves on my silk blouse. “How long has it been?”
Liam huffed and I lifted an eyebrow in his direction.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, adjusting my coat and bag over his arm before answering my questions. “I haven’t heard from her even though I’ve called.”
Ah.
He was upset because she’d gone missing in action on him.
Typically Esi and I didn’t stay in touch day to day, sometimes we went weeks without seeing and speaking to one another. This life did that to friendships like ours, but with everything happening between our families her silence worried me a little.
“Use my phone to text her,” I told him, moving toward the open sanctuary doors. “Send the same message three times. If she doesn’t respond in ten minutes book me a flight to Miami.”
I could multitask.
Unseat my father, check up on Esi, and be back in enough time to shadow Violet. The church board meeting Blake clued me in on was in full swing when I entered the sanctuary.
“We need answers,” I caught one of the deacons expressing before my father spoke.
“I understand your concerns…” he walked back and forth at the front. “My wife’s passing was a shock. I needed a sense of normalcy and first Sunday was meant to be that. I didn’t plan for—”
He lied so easily.
“You hadn’t planned for the truth to be revealed,” I chimed in, allowing my voice to carry as I approached from the far left aisle. “What you expected was to go on and pretend my mother never existed.”
His eyes were wild when they met mine, the facade I knew all too well cracking for a brief but noticeable moment.
“This is a closed meeting.”
The urge to mock my dad like when I was a kid filled me but I held it together for the sake of what I came here to do.
“Not to church members…” I tipped my head, wondering if he really wanted to play this game with me. “Sure, I can’t vote on anything but what I can do is attend and speak at this meeting. I think the board would love to hear about your affairs, the babies those affairs produced, how you covered up the sexual abuse your nephew—whose really your son—has been inflicting on members since he arrived, including me. Your own daughter. What I think they need is a strong reason to remove you and I’m that reason.”
“She’s right,” Blake said, ignoring our father’s death glare and surprising me. “I love my father, but I’m concerned for the well-being of this congregation if what he’s been covering up manages to leak.”
Mmm.
“Do you think you’ll escape scrutiny?”
The question irritated Blake and while I didn’t want our dad making a point no one could ignore, it was a valid question. And I wanted the answer.
“I don’t intend to hide,” he said without pause. “I’m man enough to admit my mistakes but there’s a clear difference between us. I’m a faithful husband and father, who hasn’t abused the members of this church or anyone for that matter. My only crime is staying silent.”
Why did I feel weird about this, about Blake’s sudden change in behavior?
Between today and first Sunday, it’s the most I’d ever heard him speak.
“Nathaniel Phillips is not fit to be the pastor of this church,” I added quickly, piling it on. “I think now is the time to take a stand. Your silence makes you complicit.”
“You should do what’s right and step away,” Blake threw out there, somehow in sync with me. “If the board votes you out, it’ll look much worse than a… retirement.”
There was a moment where I thought he might show his true colors but then our eyes met and the shift was immediate.
“I’ll make the announcement this Sunday.”
I took that opportunity to glance back at Liam, who approached the second our eyes met, my phone out for me to take.
All good. Talk soon.
Her vagueness bothered me but the rules were simple.
“All good” meant she wasn’t in immediate danger but couldn’t speak.
“Should I book that flight or…”
“If…” I shook my head and pressed the phone into his palm. “ When she needs us, she’ll find a way to let us know. Until then, I need you focused.”
He nodded and unexpectedly yanked me back, maneuvering his body in front of mine.
My first reaction was to snatch away but Liam’s grip only tightened, forcing me to look up and actually evaluate our surroundings.
“Your husband isn’t always around, I see,” my father threatened softly as he passed us to leave the sanctuary.
Liam released me once he was out of sight.
“Didn’t mean to grab you that tight, but I don’t like him,” he said, eyes tracking each member as they left. “I don’t care how confident you are. He’s sneaky and dangerous.”
I nodded, knowing my father better than anyone.
He conceded to save face and game plan, nothing less or more.
“Him, too,” Liam added as Blake approached more cautiously than our dad had.
“I almost thought you wouldn’t show and miss your opportunity.”
Liam angled himself so that I was slightly behind him, not hiding his disdain.
“It was an opportunity I created for myself,” I said, feeling a little antsy all of a sudden. “What game are you playing at?”
“My actions have you spooked…” He held his hands up in mock surrender. “I get it, I do. But I’m trying to show I’d rather be on your side than his, Blair. I want to introduce you to the network before he plants a seed you won’t be able to dig up.”
The network had been my father’s best kept secret.
He only ever did business with them individually, never meeting with any of the members at or near the church. I learned over time he used his deal to distribute guns in and around five points with the O’Sullivan’s as a cover.
We lived below our means all my life, never had security or a home bigger than the average middle class family. It was all to look like a small time dealer if someone came knocking but the truth was a much different story.
“Corporations or families?”
“More like freelancers with power,” he replied immediately, looking around then waving for us to follow. “Come to my office.”
I ignored Liam’s attempt to get my attention and obliged, too intrigued to refuse.
He took us down the administrative hall to an office that only ever belonged to the church’s youth director. But sure enough his name was on the door, that very title etched beneath it.
“When did this happen?”
He tapped the mounted nameplate before pushing the door open.
“Three years ago,” he said nonchalantly. “Same year Caden was barred from entering the church during business and service hours.”
I frowned.
Was that supposed to move me?
“So, he’s terrorizing out of sight now,” I mumbled, entering behind Liam but coming to a stop when I noticed his gun drawn on the man standing at the left side of Blake’s desk.
His skin was what my mother had called blue-black, so dark and camera ready.
I couldn’t exactly see what he was wearing beneath his calf length coat but he was tall, enough that if I weren’t in heels I’d have to look up. The clean pair of wheat Timbs on his feet, screamed trouble.
“Has anyone ever approached you about being the face of their brand?” I found myself asking, earning a glare from Liam.
My fearlessness bothered him.
The stranger barely glanced at the gun, pinning charcoal black eyes on me instead.
“I’ve heard a lot about you, Ms. Phillips,” he said coolly, his voice a deep undercurrent I expected. “Yet, no one mentioned you were exactly my type. Our meet and greet could’ve happened much sooner.”
“Blake, who the fuck is this?”
I pointed at the mystery man, my face balled up at his blatant disrespect.
“Demetrius Cannon,” he answered before my brother could, holding his big ass hand out for me to shake. “Your future husband and representative of the Ahmeti family.”
The Ahmeti family were affiliated with the Albanian mafia. He was the problem we’d been talking about—the middle man between Landell and a host of issues, Meechie.
He found me on purpose, I thought.
“Can you tell your guard to lower his weapon?” Demetrius asked. “I didn’t plan on dying today and came unarmed.”
I didn’t give Liam the order.
“Why shouldn’t I let him put a bullet in your head and save my husband the time?”
It was hard to get a read on him, other than his non-threatening energy.
He wasn’t here to kill or be killed, that part was true.
“Killing me would bring more problems than you could imagine,” he said with conviction, eyes on the door quicker than I could turn to see who’d opened it. “Don’t take my statement as anything but the simple truth.”
Sean’s presence didn’t surprise me once his irritated eyes met mine.
There was only so much of my defiance Liam would let slide, going blind into a meeting and ending up with the man my husband wanted to kill in front of me wasn’t one of them.
But when his grandfather stepped in behind him, I had a feeling this wouldn’t go how any of us expected.
Were we about to make a deal with the enemy?
The question slipped my mind in an instant when Sean’s lips possessively met mine.