23. Smith
Chapter 23
Smith
W e don’t head back to the penthouse. I don’t have any more business in Miami, and I need to take her to DC to hand her over.
Need to. Should do.
But… won’t.
I’m not really a “do things on someone else’s schedule” kinda guy.
Not that there’s a schedule. Or at least one I’m privy to.
I think whoever wants her believes she won’t be a problem to find.
Instead of the penthouse, we head to a jazz bar, a low-key place in the depths of Little Havana. It’s dark and smoky with a different type of vibe than you’d find in New York.
“Why are we here?” she asks.
I slide my fingers around her hip, pulling her back against me where we sit in a shadowy corner. The cushions on the bench are worn and tattered along the seams, the tabletop splattered with sticky glass rings .
But from here, I can watch the door, stay mostly hidden, and try to figure out if we were followed.
I pull her onto my lap, loving the feel of her tight ass, warm and shapely in the confines of the dress. “I like the jazz scene.”
She listens to the trumpet as someone starts on the sax, picking up the loose melody being created. Her nose wrinkles, spoiling her air of sophisticate and landing her in her correct age group, the era painted with techno beats, rappers, and annoying as fuck pop. “You like this?”
“Yes. Jazz is a passion, one I don’t get to indulge in that often.”
I don’t tell her I float through one or two jazz dens in Jamaica, Queens, and on the Lower East Side.
“Really, Grandpa? You like this?”
“Yes, brat, I do. Even the open mic nights. Some of it’s pretty good.”
She looks at me a moment with a slightly dreamy expression that knocks me for a loop. I’m not sure what that look is or why it’s suddenly appeared. Does she think she’s seeing a small slice of what makes me tick?
I want to break it to her that everything she sees is me, on a certain level. She’s suspicious of everything I tell her and rightly so. I’d be on my toes, too, if someone held me captive before threatening to turn me in to the authorities.
She just nods and the waitress comes over. I order Cuban rum. “For the nostalgia.”
Anger flashes, replacing the dreamy look.
Shit, I’m a dick. An old, asshole of a dick, bringing up what happened there.
Calista shakes head, the red hair swishing. “I wish I could kill with my bare hands.”
“This isn’t a movie, Calista,” I say. “There was no way you were getting out of that basement and away from those fucks. ”
“I wanted to see them bleed.”
“I’d have paid to see you do that.”
The waitress returns with the drinks, and I hand her a couple of twenties.
Calista’s head tilts as she focuses on the stage where a woman in a fur stole and floor-length glittery dress joins in the instrumental ensemble with vocals.
Without looking at me, she says, “Well?”
I know what she wants. “Well, what?”
This time her head snaps around, her eyes shooting out a fiery glare. “What do you think I mean by ‘well’?”
I ease her off my lap. Then I reach into my inner pocket, pull out the slender cigarette case, and light one up.
She frowns as I blow smoke into the air. The room’s already got that smoky haze, the scent of cigarettes, weed, and even cigars. Calista’s face is flushed with outrage and annoyance. I take another drag.
The cigarettes are for the game, smoking gives me a thing to do when watching someone and weighing them up. It occupies my hands, and I can stretch out moments while reading the room or specific people in it.
That’s what I did downstairs at the club.
I’m smoking right now because I want desperately to kiss her, seduce her slowly, taking my time with her. I want to explore every inch and savor all of the newly discovered places, as well as slide into the ones I already know.
“I don’t know.”
Her fingers grip and jerk on her glass. “What?—?”
“What I mean is, I don’t know how it went. If it had been a game of chess, we’d have been in a stalemate.” I blow out a stream of smoke, not really wanting the cigarette, but it makes me keep my hands to myself. “He wanted to see what I had, but more than that, wanted to know what I knew. And…” I shrug. “I don’t know. Something was off. Could be he thought I was the one selling, looking to buy, and either he’s still very much CIA, or he’s off on his own. He’s good enough that I couldn’t tell.”
She swallows. I watch as her delicate throat moves, watch as her chest lifts with a breath and she dances her fingers over her glass. “Maybe he is one of the good guys.”
“And yet he threw you under the bus?”
I casually toss the card he gave me on the table. Lonnie Jenkins. Specialized Security. And then there’s a number.
“Maybe.” Calista doesn’t touch it. “He could be good.”
For a moment, the world shakes, and suddenly, I can’t breathe. With numb fingers, I stub out the cigarette. Is she… did she?
But I catch the betrayal and doubt and hope on her face. There’s not any indication of a broken or crushed heart. She wasn’t ever into him. No, she’s upset because she thinks maybe she was taken for a ride.
I don’t know if she was. The man’s good. Slick. Talented. And I can see them letting her cut teeth with an experienced agent because that’s what her fucking Johnny CIA is. He’s experienced and probably doesn’t even need a handler.
I touch her shoulder as the music comes to a crescendo, and she shudders, rubbing into the small caress like a pet curling into her master.
I’m a hunter, not a man looking for a pet, human or otherwise. And then I smile. I suspect she’d gut me for thinking that.
“Whatever he’s up to, I’ll find out.”
“Why?”
I shrug. “Curiosity. I want to help. Take your pick. I will need you to hand over what you have. ”
“I can’t do that.”
She can’t, but she will. I know that. She’s lost, scared, and wants something to cling to, to trust, and in her eyes the CIA isn’t about to help. But maybe I can. Even if she’s exonerated of whatever they think she did, her career there is dead in the water.
That’s the best-case scenario.
Suddenly, the real reason we’re here hits me hard—it was meant to be a detour to get her talking. In here, we have privacy and discretion. It’s a safety net for her and she needs that if she’s going to open up to me.
And I need her to. One thing I didn’t expect from her agent was to get questions about sex trafficking in a club that has a reputation of high-end girls working voluntarily.
“Were you investigating trafficking?”
She goes too still, like she did when I asked about it the last time.
“The Collectors isn’t a name thrown around,” I add.
“I’m not sure about exactly everything they do, and no, we weren’t investigating them. I didn’t work in the trafficking areas.”
I push. “What about Estonia?”
“I thought you read my file?”
“Most was redacted. Humor me.”
She opens and closes her mouth, shifts, and I bring a hand down to rest on her thigh to settle her.
“You want to know why I’m interested?” I ask.
She wants to get beneath my layers so I’m going to let her in. Even deeper than I have before. And fuck, I hate that I’m doing it, that I’m exposing myself, but she needs to hear it.
To trust me.
“My kid, Dakota, pretty much hates me. I got someone to raise her after her grandparents died, a man named Alejandro. She thinks of him as my friend, but the truth is, I handpicked him to protect her. He’s got a daughter her age, and they both lived with him in New York.”
My lips twist for this next part.
“Dakota came to Miami for a cruise and fell in with the wrong crowd. She caught the eye of a Collector and was kidnapped. They had her marked for use and abuse. Terrible things, fucking horrible things.”
She claps a hand over her mouth. “Oh my God…”
“Dakota was saved by my friend, Orion, and we destroyed as much of the group as possible, but I have a vested interest in taking down whoever is left. I want to fucking bring down every last motherfucker. Did… did they…” Shit. I push the words out, even though they taste like shit on my tongue. “Touch you? Hurt you? Is that why you’re so interested in finding them?”
She shakes her head. “My mother.”
The words punch hard because so much makes sense to me now.
“I want…” She pauses, her fingers clenched into tight balls. “My brother and I don’t know who our father is, but I’ve got suspicions. Henry doesn’t care, but I do. Mom was groomed at fifteen, then got knocked up, had us, and…”
“Calista.”
Her eyes cloud over. “After my mom had us, he got her back in with him, then in with others in his group. I think they were the Collectors. I don’t know that much about them; there isn’t much in the CIA databases. I found more on the dark web about them, and… and the trafficking.” She nods at me. “Way worse than that, too. But this man… he… he dabbled with people marked as members of the Collectors. And I want him dead.”
Things fall into place with alarming speed .
“According to my research, he’s dead, but…”
Fuck. I try and tell myself not to get involved. But the words come before I can bite them back.
“Who is he, this supposedly dead, but maybe not dead guy? I have contacts.”
“Jon Trenton.”
Something in my chest tightens. I know the name but I stay silent.
“I… I saw an article about his wife opening a center in Manhattan. And I looked him up, dug into things. He’s supposedly dead but he has accounts, secret accounts that only have his name as the owner. Trenton is the only person who can access them. His wife can’t claim them, not without some kind of a legal blowup.”
I shrug and keep my face neutral because the name, there’s something about it that’s familiar. Maybe because I read about the disgraced businessman’s death. How he was broke at the time of his death, his business had crumbled around him. “I read that he was dead.”
“People fake shit, you know that.”
“I do.”
“If he’s linked to the Collectors, then…” She breathes in. “We’re looking for the same thing. Th-that’s what the Estonian thing was, a contact/hacker who supposedly had information. But I don’t know what. I never got that far.”
This is a way in. So I leave it where it is and don’t push. Not because I care, but because too much can break someone. So instead, I let it lie.
For now.
We listen to the music, and out of the corner of my eye, as I gather her closer, I can see a man come in and stand near the bar.
He’s generic .
And he’s not looking in our direction. He’s also not paying attention to the music, either.
He’s here for us.
I lean down into her and kiss her ear. She makes things in my chest sing as she raises her head, lips on offer.
The dynamic between us is as thrilling as the chase. It’s softness and submission, sharp bites and soothing purrs, innocence and carefully crafted moves.
“Someone’s watching.”
I order another round of drinks. More people will be in soon as the music changes for the late-night coked and boozed-up crowd.
“We wait?”
“Until the scene changes.”
“Seems like,” she says, “that’s happening now.”
“If he didn’t recognize you, I’d rather keep it that way. Right now, I’m out with my new piece.”
Her smile flirts. “So you want to drag that piece home and fuck it when it isn’t moody and intimate?”
“You got it.” I lean in. “You’re not bad. For a piece.”
“Your misogyny is showing.”
I laugh. “Thank you.”
“Not a compliment.”
“You say that now…”
But she snuggles in, playing her part perfectly. After the drinks arrive, she says, “I know you have a heart in there, Smith, because you love your daughter. Why don’t you make moves to fix the relationship?”
“I told you things weren’t on good terms,” I mutter.
“Yeah.”
“She’s marrying my friend, who wants me there, and she—I don’t think she does. And I’d rather not go.”
“Bullshit. ”
“Excuse me?”
Calista pulls back as more people pour into the place. The lighting starts to brighten, the music gets a little chirpier. “I don’t buy that crap for a second.”
“It isn’t your business. But,” I say, giving her something, “I wasn’t there for her growing up. It was the safest thing for her, but I wasn’t a constant in her life. I protected her by being the asshole missing father. And no, I don’t think I’m going to the fucking wedding.”
She stares at me, not moving. “You want to go.”
“No. I don’t.”
“You do.”
The music picks up, and I stand, dropping some cash on the table. “Come on, we have to go. Now.”
It’s time to leave Miami, so we head to a private airfield and board the waiting plane.
“Is this one going to blow up?” Her smart mouth makes me smile.
“Nah, I limit blown-up planes to one a week. Otherwise, it turns into a paperwork nightmare.”
She rolls her eyes, then turns to climb the stairs up to the plane.
Calista curls up and falls asleep in one of the plush leather recliners almost immediately. Watching her in that state is endlessly fascinating. I let my mind wander, play over the evening to see if anything jumps out about her Johnny, but I keep returning to one thing.
What I said at the jazz club.
About Dakota .
I said it to get closer to her and gain her trust. That was the plan.
But it festers in my mind because I realize that it was the most honest I’ve been with anyone in a long time.
A very long time.
And it’s the type of honesty I never thought I’d share again.