Chapter 14 #2
Nico shrugs. "There is a surprising amount of downtime when one is crisscrossing the globe hunting a deranged psychopath. Poetry is a guilty pleasure of mine."
"I'm not sure you fully comprehend the meaning of 'guilty pleasure' there, buddy," A deep, rough, male voice says.
Nico frowns. "Then please enlighten me, Rev."
"Gentlemen, not the time," Sophia interrupts, very much like a teacher settling a squabble between kindergarten boys. "Let us move on to the reason you reached out, Nico."
"There has been a development, and not a positive one, I fear.
" He glances at me, for some reason. "Jakob has been taken by Pugli, and we suspect he has been shot.
That is the bad news. The good news is that he is alive, last we saw, and I was able to place a tracker on the vehicle he is in.
" He pauses again. "We all owe him far more than merely our lives, which Miss Bennett has pointed out to me.
I know he was very clear in not wanting us to interfere, but Miss Bennett has made an excellent point: we owe him more than just gratitude for saving our lives.
I do not need to enumerate the many ways he has shown us generosity and loyalty.
He redeemed us all from our various personal hells.
Now it is we who must rescue him from his.
We swore an oath—loyalty to the brotherhood above all, yes?
He is our brother, even though none of us have ever seen or spoken to him.
Loyalty, in this case, demands that we disobey his wish to handle this by himself.
He did not let any of us deal with our demons alone. He will not, either."
"Nicolai," a woman's voice says—soft and quiet and accented—again, I can't place it, but that is not surprising, I suppose. "My love."
Nico's face positively melts at the sound of her voice. He answers in…who knows—some other language. God, I feel like an ignorant American around this man, who speaks a dozen languages better than I speak one.
They exchange words for a few minutes, and then there's a sense of farewell in the way he speaks, in the lingering softness in his eyes before his expression hardens once more.
Sophia's voice returns. "I thought you'd need a touch of home, Nico. Motivation, as it were."
"I did, indeed, Sophia. You are most thoughtful." A pause. "I will send coordinates, but our current location is outside of Rochester, New York, heading southwest."
Another hard, powerful male voice comes through the phone. "We got the jet spoolin' up, Nico. Be there just as fast as that fucker can go."
Another, different voice. "Try not to have all the fun without us, would you?"
"Wait!" This is a female voice, again, not the same as Sophia or Nico's wife or whatever she is to him. "Brys?"
I take the phone. "Yes, hi, this is Brys."
A giggle—several giggles. "We have a question we're hoping you can answer."
"Girls." Sophia's voice, scolding. "Not the time."
"Oh, hush, you. The men are still getting all their guns together. We have a second, right, Nico?"
"A moment or two, yes. We are driving, and they are not showing signs of stopping anytime soon. Ask your question." He looks at me. "It will likely be rather invasively personal."
"Would I ask an invasively personal question, Nico?"
He snorts. "Yes, Terra, you would."
"Fine, I would. But she's one of us now, so she's gotta get used to our ways."
One of them?
"Um?" I say. "I'm not sure I qualify as one of you."
"You hooked up with the mysterious Boss-Man. We wanna know what he's like."
"I—" Not wanting to lie, but also not wanting to betray Jakob's confidence, since he seems like a very, very, very private person, I hesitate as to how to answer. "I wouldn't say we hooked up," I say, eventually. "Terra, is it?"
"Yep, that's me!" She's chipper, energetic, with a thick Boston twang. "Nosy ass bitch extraordinaire."
"I don’t know him well—we met under extreme duress, and it has only been a matter of days. But I can say pretty confidently that he is a private person. I do not feel comfortable discussing those kinds of personal details…especially over the phone with someone I've never met."
"I mean, I ain't askin for dick pics or a description of how he fucks. None of us but Sophia has ever even laid eyes on him. We only heard his name for the first time a few days ago. We're curious. You met him. You gotta give us something. Please."
"I have spoken to him," a new male voice says, this one accented as well—Spanish? Brazilian? "He is educated, intelligent, articulate, and insightful. He cares about Sophia very, very much—as a sister, he told me. He cares about all of us. He is also rather tall."
I snort a laugh. "He is all of that, yes. Including tall."
"This isn't enlightening at all,” Terra says, annoyed. "No sordid details what-so-fuckin’-ever. You suck."
I laugh—I can't help it. "He is the best kisser I have ever met, and it's not even close."
Sophia clears her throat. "Terra."
"Soph?"
"You can interrogate Miss Bennett at a later date, although I have a feeling you will have limited success."
"Yeah, yeah. You're no fun." A sigh. "Fine. Brys, I can't wait to meet you. None of us know Jakob, but a man who can do all that he's done for the guys? He's gotta be quite a man."
Another woman's voice joins, now. "And a woman who can grab the attention of a man like that is our kinda gal."
There's a chorus of feminine agreement to her statement. How many of these people are there?
And why is Sophia assuming I'll even be around later to be interrogated?
"Keep your distance, Nico," yet another new male voice says, this one so deep, so powerful, and so…
big…I wonder what the owner of the voice must look like.
"Don't gotta tell you how dangerous fuckin' Pugli is. You know he doesn’t go nowhere without a fuckin'…
what's the word? Bunch of butt-lickers who follow him around like ducklings. "
"Yes-men? Entourage? Retinue?" One of the other male voices chimes in. "Butt-lickers works for me, though."
"I was thinkin' retinue," Big Voice says. "Cuz I think that fucker thinks he's some kinda fuckin' king or some shit."
"Butt-lickers with fuck-off big guns, though, I'm guessin’.”
"Nic? Any word on what kinda hardware these bastards are carrying?"
"Unknown for certain,” Nicolae answers, “but assume at least some automatics and mainly sidearms."
"Armor?"
He looks at me. "The man who accosted you. Was he wearing a vest? Did he have a weapon other than his handgun?"
"No vest, and only the pistol. But pistol feels like a misnomer. That thing could have been featured in The Guns of Navarone."
"Referencing the deep cuts," someone says. "Knows poetry and classic films?"
"Sax, shut the fuck up. You don't know how to fuckin' read, you dumb lunk. And your idea of a classic film is fuckin'…Ace Ventura."
"'That’s what turns me on about'cha,'" I quote, "'your attention to detail.'"
"Fuck me. She can quote Ace Ventura?
"Do you need a minute, Si? Some lotion? A Kleenex?"
I shoot a look at Nico, because I can't keep up with whatever the hell this banter is.
He just shrugs, grinning.
"Gentlemen, enough." I clear my throat into the silence.
"My point is that the man who assaulted me was wielding a handgun the size of a howitzer.
But he did not have a rifle or a bulletproof vest. But I can say that most of the other men who have been pursuing Jakob and me thus far have worn bulletproof vests and have been carrying machine guns.
So, if it matters for preparation, I would prepare to fight off an army of well-armed and well-trained soldiers.
They all had the air of former military, if not former special forces, such as yourselves. "
"Sorry to be pedantic, Miss Bennet," this voice is new, again, and smooth, deep, rich, articulate. "But when you say machine guns?"
I sigh. "I don't know anything about guns, Mister…?"
"Solomon."
"I know less than nothing about guns, Solomon. They were not rifles in the sense of hunting rifles, or the kind of rifle my new friend Nicolae here used to kill that guy who was about to kill me. They had clips, straps that clipped to their vests, and they shot a lot of bullets very fast."
"Assault rifles," Solomon corrects. “Mags, and body armor. Assault rifles have magazines, and bulletproof vests aren't a thing. Bullet-resistant—"
"Sol, bruh, the lady don't need a terminology lesson, bud. Save it."
"Thank you, whoever you are," I say, humor in my voice.
"Name's Saxon. Sol is my older brother. The twit who thinks I don't appreciate classic films is our other brother, Silas."
"Pardon," Nico says, cutting in. "I hate to break up this very amusing exchange, but our quarry is slowing. We must be attentive, now.”
"Go," Sophia says. "Stay out of sight until we arrive and can formulate a plan to end this shitshow once and for fucking all."
"Hear! Hear!"
"Amen to that!"
"Fuckin' right!"
"Byeseeyousoonnewbestie!" Terra says it all in a rush, too loud, as if she snatched the phone and yelled it into the microphone right before the call ended.
Once the call is over, Nico again removes the battery, tosses the SIM card out the window, and tosses the phone back into the cupholder.
"I have a question," I say.
Nico eyes me with a quirked eyebrow. "Yes?"
"If that," I point at the flip phone, "is what you use to make calls, and you discard the SIM and eject the battery after every call, then what's going on there?" I point at the smartphone in the holder clipped to the vent next to the steering wheel.
"Oh. Yes." He indicates the glove box. "There is a third-party wireless hotspot in there, providing Wi-Fi for that device. It does not have a SIM card, and thus cannot make or receive cellular calls, and therefore cannot be traced or triangulated."
"Geez. So you're a tech wizard special forces badass who speaks a dozen languages, and, not for nothing, you're pretty damn attractive."
He shrugs. "I do what must be done. I have lived my entire life off-grid, as they call it. I am no tech wizard, but I do know my way around some technology. It isn't so impressive."
“Maybe not that, but the rest is."
"You are very kind, Miss Bennett."
"So, how many of you are there, anyway? I caught a few names, there—Sophia, Solomon, Silas, Saxon, and Terra."
"The full roster is: Rev and Myka, Chance and Annika, Kane and Anjalee, Silas and Naomi, Saxon and Terra, Solomon and Scarlett—Maria, now—myself and Tatiana, and Inez, or I should say Sophia, and Lorenzo."
I blink. "That's a big family."
He nods. "It is. We are very fortunate to have found each other."
"My next question is…what is Terra's deal? She's acting like it's a forgone conclusion that I'm gonna be…like…I dunno. I dunno! It's weird and presumptive, and I don't understand."
"You are part of a pattern. We get in trouble, go on the run, try not to die, meet someone who ends up being drawn into the situation, fall in love, and they then become part of the family."
"And she's assuming I'm next? Like me and Jakob are…?”
“Well, he did kiss you."
"Why was Sophia so surprised? She didn't seem to believe that he'd kissed me."
"I could not answer that, as I do not know. He is very, very reclusive. If I had to guess, I would say that it's rather out of character for him. Which means you must be special to him, somehow. Perhaps in a way neither of you yet understands.”
“Oh."
Special to him?
God, I wish. I wish I were special. I wish that what we'd shared was the beginning.
I know I shouldn't think that way. He doesn't want that. He can’t give me that. He made that pretty clear.
Doesn't mean my heart doesn't want what it wants, anyway, though.
And my heart wants Jakob Kasparek. Or Caleb Indigo. I don't care what his name is. I just…
I want him.
It's stupid.
Dangerous.
Foolish.
And true.