Chapter 9
Retired
CORMAC
She lied to me.
I can't explain how I know, but I do.
She didn't react to me the way any sane person would to an armed stranger breaking into their home.
I've had people on the street walking by me show more terror than she did as I was holding her only method of self-defense. She used my name, my real name, not the nickname they've given me. The one they’ve pointedly never used when discussing me.
And she said she knew of my crimes, but somehow hadn't been following it closely enough to know that I was released last week? I just don't buy it. She's hiding the truth from me, and I'm going to figure out what it is.
"Hello?" Skyler pulls me from my deep thoughts. "Earth to Fomori."
I sigh, looking at him from the corner of my eye, "I'm listening, I swear."
"You fucking better be. I put together a whole powerpoint for this," he grins maniacally. "So this is when we met. I saved your ass from getting arrested for beating the fuck out of that guy for putting his hands on Stella."
"Stella, the bartender," I fill in what I think I remember he's told me.
"Yes and no," he clicks next on the projector, moving to a picture of him cutting the ribbon of Mingle for the grand opening, and there beside him is the woman in question.
"Stella, the bartender, the manager extraordinaire, the take no prisoners bitch who keeps the bar running when we're doing behind the scenes shit. The woman I love like a sister."
I hold back an incredulous laugh, "She is your sister."
"That is true, yes. But our other sister? She's the fucking worst."
"Your stepsister?" I ask, rubbing my temples to try to remember all the shit he's taught me the last few days.
With a snap, he says, "That's the one," before moving onto the next slide, his projector tilting precariously on a barstool and shining on a sheet hanging from the above bar shelving.
"Now, beyond Mingle, we own a handful of other companies throughout the states, all through the corporation, leaving us completely anonymous.
As far as anyone knows, the only thing you are directly involved with is Balor Meads & Spirits.
You specifically asked for that because you didn't want your name getting big or some shit. "
That, I do believe. Beneath many of the things I worked to accomplish before all this, I worried deep down that, if I became too successful, things I'd prefer stay buried might come to light.
Those things, of course, being my psychotic father and his proclivity for getting his hands into anything and everything sordid.
I'm fortunate that my mom had the foresight to give me her last name instead of his, but unfortunately, that didn't save me from him. Even when she petitioned the court with my medical records, it changed nothing.
Up until the second I fought back, I was under constant threat from him and his friends. And once I started fighting, I guess I just never stopped, taking the fight from my own tormentors to others.
"What was it?" I finally ask Skyler, ignoring his rambling about the growth and projections over the last few years since Balor opened Mingle and grew its other companies.
After throwing a handful of popcorn into his mouth, he raises a questioning brow, speaking with his mouth full, "What was what?"
"What finally made me snap?"
His expression doesn't falter, even for a moment, before he answers with the same conversational tone he's discussed all our illegal activities in since my return.
He tilts his head toward the ceiling in thought, "Our activities were already questionable at best. This little organization we built to dismantle operations was doing some real good, ya know?
I mean at the cost of us being part of those systems, but still, better us than people who rope kids into it all.
And then, ya know, it just changed. You changed. We changed."
"And I just started killing people?"
With a lazy shrug, he clicks to the next page of his presentation, "I guess.
Anyway, tonight you'll get to see the best part of Mingle.
It's highly exclusive, invitations are only sent out after an extensive background check to ensure we have either leverage to keep them quiet, or they're untouchable by the police. "
With no reason to believe it, only a crawling under my skin, I know he's hiding something from me. Some horrid truth he needs to cover with laughs and distractions.
"Sounds like a lot of work for a fucking fight club," I comment as he gleefully flicks through photos of men beating each other bloody, tossing more popcorn into his mouth as he chuckles.
"It's so much more than that. It's an experience, an exclusive foray into the darker parts of yourself, without any risk of danger or consequences.
" His voice is full of passion as he explains, "Most people go their whole lives without embracing the violent voice that whispers to them at night, this gives them a healthy outlet. "
"Do we ever join the fights?"
Shaking his head, he stands to turn off the projector and rip down his makeshift boardroom. "You don't. You've already got your violent outlet."
"Funny," I mutter.
A smirk dancing along his face, he turns the lights back on, looking at his watch, "Usually you just sit in the crowd and watch your girlfriend watch the fights, you creeper."
I don't want to admit to Skyler that, as it turns out, she's not my girlfriend and confess that I'm even more of a creep than he knows. If we're really that close, shouldn't he already know that Brigit and I are slightly less acquainted than I first believed?
"Have you seen her yet?" he pries.
Before I can answer the question, a loud knock rattles the steel front door.
Skyler frowns, his face mirroring the confusion on mine, before shutting his computer and opening the door, where a uniformed officer stands, staring at us impassively.
"Are you gonna let me in?" he asks, a smug smile pulling at his lips.
I narrow my eyes, looking at Skyler where he's standing between us. "Why would we let you in?"
"Oh, shit, they scrambled your eggs good," he laughs, pushing past an unnervingly stoic Skyler. "Can't remember a thing huh?"
"Bits and pieces," I shrug, lying. "It's slowly coming back."
I don't know who this guy is, but he's coming here armed and uniformed in the middle of the day, and something about the way he's looking at me makes my fucking skin crawl.
He wears the expression of a schoolyard bully that has everyone but you in on a joke and is just waiting for the right time to drop the punchline.
If he's turned perpetually, maniacally grinning Skyler into a statue of a man, there's not a single doubt in my mind that he's not to be trusted.
"Hmm. Well I'm Officer Steele," he paces through the bar with his hands clasped behind his back. "We're friends."
"Yeah, I don't think I'm the type to keep cops as friends," I can't explain the animosity I feel towards this man, like my instincts are screaming something that my conscious mind can't yet comprehend.
A single, mirthless chuckle escapes him into the air before he responds, "I'm the exception, not the rule. I just wanted to come by and see how you're settling back into your life and if you’re ready for an assignment.”
Assignment?
Like this fucking asshole is our boss or something?
I raise a brow, not answering him, instead waiting for him to continue and tell me what it is he thinks he can fucking order me to do.
Pulling a folded manila envelope from the pocket inside his jacket, he holds it out to Skyler. "We have reason to believe a local loan officer is just your kind of dirty.”
Skyler raises a brow, “If you have the intel, you take care of it. We're retired."
Now the officer really laughs, throwing his head back before locking eyes viciously on Skyler, "Retired? No. Just because somebody went and nearly got themselves buried doesn’t mean you get out of our deal.
There’s not quite enough concrete evidence for a search warrant, but I know you two have your little ways around that and you’re going to fucking use them. ”
The glare rolling off of me has to be utterly glacial. I can feel the cold blister of hatred with every word he speaks, barking orders like we’re his to command.
"Leave it on the bartop," Skyler says, looking at his nails, feigning boredom with this conversation to get rid of the prick. "I'll have a look and see what I can do."
"Great," he slams it on a table, the contents spilling out from the force. He slinks to the door, painting a golden streak across the deep purple and gray floor as it opens. "Nice to see you, Fomori."
As soon as he disappears into the bright day, Skyler groans in annoyance, grabbing the papers left behind, and scurrying towards the office. I snag his computer and the sheet, carrying them and following shortly behind until he closes the office door behind us.
"I was really hoping we'd get a little more time before we saw Ben, but it is what it is and what it is is a fucking nightmare in the shape of a cop," he sighs, sinking into one of the couches pressed against the wall.
"Why does he give us assignments?" I press.
Throwing a dramatic arm over his eyes, he responds, "The problem started maybe two years ago now. Officer Benjamin Steele caught us disposing of a body and basically let us off, so he didn't have to admit that two fucking criminals were responsible for stopping the guy.
"I never liked him, and to be frank, you liked him even less. But he’s not completely useless.
When we stumbled upon a huge scheme to rob a weapons dealer warehouse last year and sell the artillery to some really dangerous people, he took the credit and fudged the report, looking the other way while we disposed of the bodies you dropped. Otherwise, we would have been toast.”
My mind spins with the new information, "So, my... my known victims weren't the only ones."