Chapter 37
37
I sat in the waiting area with a straight back, my eyes focused on the digital clock hanging on the wall above the information desk. He wasn’t dead…anymore. The paramedics had to resuscitate him before bringing him here to the hospital where they rushed him into surgery. Lots of blood lost, an injured lung, severe hypoxia. They said he might even end up on a ventilator. I probably should’ve been sad or worried, but I was pissed.
Completely pissed.
“Got here as soon as I could. Your sister is mad I wouldn’t let her come with me.”
Ray.
I lifted my eyes to him. “Why’d you tell her?” I asked, my voice sounding monotone in my own ears.
“It’s on the news, Memphis. Every damn station is talking about a home invasion and the local man who was shot. They’ve released Bo’s name. I ain’t had to tell her shit,” he replied.
“Who the fuck leaked his name? Shit!”
“Don’t know. What you need me to do? Finish him off? I got scrubs and everything. I can get the twins to work on disabling cameras?—”
“I need you to help me find out who did this.”
In my periphery, I could see him nod. “Okay, you wanna thank them or something? If you’d asked me, I woulda done it. Shit, I started to do it on my own, but I was tryna let you handle it.”
I turned to face him, shaking my head. “He’s a piece of shit in a lot of ways, but he’s mine…for better or worse. I’m the only someone who has the right to kill him.”
He frowned, blinked a few times, and sighed. “You still love the motherfucker. I mean, as twisted as all this shit between you and him has been, I can see that he has real feelings for you, too. I honestly thought you still hated him.”
“I do.”
“But you love him?”
“Listen, if this shit is on the news, his damn family will be here any minute. We don’t have long to talk.”
“Okay. What you need?”
“Fuck,” I muttered upon seeing his mother, brother, and son rushing toward me. “Just stay with me for now. Later, we’ll put together a plan to find out which one of these motherfuckers—” I nodded toward my in-laws. “—tried to have my husband killed.”
His mother looked harried, like she’d just seen or heard a ghost. I almost believed she was worried about her son.
Heavy on the almost .
“Memphis, why didn’t you call me to let me know what’s going on with my boy?!” she shrieked, her arm looped with Tavares’s. They and Zaccai were now standing over me.
“I don’t have your number,” I replied. The fact that I even answered her was a testament to how stressed I was because fuck her .
“Well, Bo does. Where’s his phone?”
I lifted one of the two phones sitting in my lap. “Right here.”
She stared at me, and I stared right back.
Finally, she asked, “You didn’t think to use his phone to call me?”
“She probably doesn’t have his passcode,” Zaccai cut in with a smirk.
I ignored him and didn’t bother to answer his mother. It was taking all my strength not to snap both their necks.
“I’m Ray Nation, Memphis’s brother-in-law,” came out of nowhere.
I glanced at Ray to see the glare he was shooting at Zaccai, who undoubtedly knew him. Zaccai still worked for The Agency, and I could see the absolute lust for power in his eyes now that his brother was down. He had me fucked up if he thought he was going to usurp my dominion.
Zaccai looked at Ray and led his mother away from us as she tried to say something else to me.
“You know Zaccai?” I asked Ray.
“He definitely knows me. I recognize his voice. He was my handler.”
So that’s what Bo had him doing? Damn, he didn’t even put him in administration, but then again, I was sure he didn’t trust Zaccai enough to give him a more elevated role.
Ray and I sat there in silence for a long while before he spoke again. “My money is on Zaccai being behind this.”
With my eyes fixed on the clock again, I said, “Same. I just need proof. I don’t wanna spill the wrong blood.”