Chapter 22
Buse, Nevada
My phone buzzed and I glanced at the number. It was restricted. Thinking it might be one of my Brothers calling from a burner, I decided to climb out of bed and answer it in the bathroom so I wouldn’t disturb Maddy. After the party, and everything she’d been through the last week, she needed the rest.
Slipping into the john, I closed the door and sat on the toilet. “Hello.”
“German,” Framingham greeted, and I could hear in his voice the late stages of drunkenness.
I knew it was coming, but I wasn’t fully prepared for this conversation. Pipe must have told Alec about Maddy and me. It was time to pay the piper and take the epic ass-chewing I knew I was going to get, and absolutely deserved.
Scrubbing a hand down my beard, I decided to bypass the pleasantries and expose the two-ton elephant in the room. “Yup. And I’m guessing you called to talk about Maddy.”
Framingham sighed. “I don’t have much time, and I’ve got a lot to say.”
That wasn’t good. “All right,” I returned, sitting up a little straighter.
“Pipe did tell me about your relationship with my daughter, but I already knew,” he revealed without anger. In fact, his voice was so flat it was actually a bit unsettling. “My housekeeper, Gretchen, informed me all about it.”
Fuck! I hadn’t given the quiet woman much thought, but now I realized how obvious we must have been. “All right,” I said, waiting for his tirade to begin. “I’d like to say I’m sorry, but I’m not. I love your daughter, sir. And I’m not about to apologize for the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Framingham sipped his drink, and I could hear the ice plink noisily against the glass. “I’m not asking for you to apologize, son. I’m calling to ask that you take care of my little girl.”
A shot of pure adrenaline worked through my veins at his dark words. “What’s going on?”
“Besides the cancer eating my prostate?” Framingham retorted dryly. “The feds are five minutes away from my front door and about to knock it in.”
This call had just gone from uncomfortable to absolute chaos in two seconds flat. I switched over to business mode then. “What can I do to help?”
Framingham chuckled a hopeless sound. “Nothing, German. Nothing but listen and pass on this message to my beloved daughter.”
Those were the words of a desperate man. And they were far too final for my liking. “Listen, the Club’s got great lawyers. Don’t talk to the cops and don’t do anything stupid,” I warned the drunk man.
“There isn’t going to be any need for lawyers,” he spoke ominously.
“Why’s that?” I demanded, my heart beginning to beat faster. I’d heard men talking like this in the service on several occasions. It never ended well.
“Because there isn’t going to be a trial. Like I mentioned earlier, my doctor called to inform me a few days ago that I have stage four prostate cancer. I’ll be lucky to live another month, let alone through a federal trial that could take years to sort out,” Framingham confessed.
Fuck! Like me, Maddy had lost her mother to cancer, and now it was about to claim her father as well! This was going to break my beautiful girl into pieces.
“I can tell by your silence you know I’m right, kid. Plus, I’m guilty as hell. Even if I miraculously beat the cancer, I’m looking at decades behind bars. I’m a numbers guy. And I’ve run the numbers, German. There’s no upside to this situation. I’m fucked.”
“How bad is the case against you?” I queried, hoping maybe there was some loophole we could exploit. Anything to save my girl’s one remaining parent.
“They’ve got me dead to rights on several counts. One of which is spying on the government. I committed the ultimate sin and got caught red-handed doing it. Unfortunately, Ken saw to that from beyond the grave.”
The feds must have found all they needed to fuck over Framingham on Michem’s computer after his mob hit. “God damn it!” I swore, realizing with charges like that, you’d need the devil himself on your side to be exonerated.
“God has nothing to do with this. Just the arrogance of man, I’m afraid,” Framingham quipped. “I was experimenting with some new software that could have earned the company billions. Now I’m about to have nothing and pay the ultimate price for my unforgivable hubris.”
Needing to do damage control, I asked the questions I had to know in order to protect the Club. “Did you have Ken killed?”
“No. The sad thing is, Ken came to me for help when he knew he’d fucked up with the mob. I offered to hide him and facilitate the debt repayment, but the Russians didn’t want the money. They wanted their pound of flesh for his betrayal. Little did I know it would be in the form of Ken’s life and Maddy’s attempted kidnapping.”
I was furious. Framingham had been responsible for why Maddy was targeted all along! I could understand why he didn’t tell the cops. But why the fuck didn’t he tell the Club so we could better protect his flesh and blood?
“I know what you’re thinking,” Framingham said, interrupting my thoughts. “I didn’t even realize the two incidents were related until I found out about Ken’s death. Why would I? The mob was after Mitchem, not me! But it turns out my old friend had unearthed some compromising video footage on the cartel in addition to his theft. And when the Russians tortured him, he must have dropped my name and they decided I needed to be silenced alongside him. Maddy was the means of ensuring my cooperation.”
“You should have told us!” I said through gritted teeth. Angry at Framingham, as much as with myself, for not figuring it out sooner.
“I should have done a lot of things,” the man shot back. “Like be a better husband to my wife when she was alive and walk my daughter down the aisle one day when she gets married. But there’s nothing I can do about those things now. And that’s my cross to bear.”
He sounded like a dead man talking. And that had me on edge. “As bad as this is, Alec, don’t go and make it worse. There’s always another way.”
“Shut up and listen, German,” the man instructed then. “I’ve only got about a minute left before the feds break through my gate.”
I actually began to sweat as I looked at my watch and noted the time. “I’m listening.”
“Tell my daughter I love her. That she was the best thing that ever happened to me. That if I could do it all over again, I would have gone to Europe and sold the company five years ago like I knew I should have.”
“Be a man and tell her yourself!” I growled, furious he should put me in this position. That he should abandon Maddy like this.
Framingham ignored me and launched into his next point. “She’s got a trust. It’s from her mother’s death benefits. It’s in her name and the feds can’t touch it. If she’s good with the money, as I know she will be, she’ll be able to finish school and make a nice life for herself one day.”
“Don’t do this,” I tried one last time, knowing exactly where this conversation was headed.
I could hear shouting in the distance now. “Take care of my baby girl, German. She’s going to need a rock like you after the shitstorm I’ve created in her life.”
“Alec!” I growled, desperate for the man to see reason.
“This call can’t be traced, and it’s set to disconnect in ten seconds,” Framingham announced coldly. “Give an old man some peace, even if he doesn’t deserve it,” he petitioned, his voice breaking on the last word.
“I promise to take care of Maddy until my dying day,” I replied, knowing fate was already set in motion and nothing I did now could change it.
“Thank you,” he sighed before I heard the tail end of a gunshot and the line went dead.
My heart thudded out of control as I realized the magnitude of what had just transpired. And what I had to do, now that Alec had done what he’d done.
Wandering back to the bedroom like I’d just awoken from a nightmare, I settled down on the couch and watched as Maddy slumbered peacefully. My chest contracted when I realized this was going to be the last night of peace she’d have for a long time.
Leaning back, I sat there, trying to form the words I knew I’d have to say when she awoke. Hating, more than anything, having to be the one to hurt her like this.
Maddy arose three hours and seventeen minutes later. As soon as she did, she smiled. When I didn’t smile back, her complexion went pale.
Taking in my hard expression and haunted eyes, she bolted upright, clutching the sheets to her chest. “What’s wrong?”
Standing, I walked over to the bed, climbed onto the mattress, and pulled her into my arms. She was trembling before I even had a chance to speak. “I have to tell you something.”
Immediately, she dissolved into tears as I did my best to both break her heart, and protect it, in the very same breath.