46. ABRAHAM
AbrAHAM
IT WAS AFTER TWO when the hotel door opened and a flash of blue silk caught the moonlight. I sat back in the hotel room’s recliner, a drink in my hand as Nineah shut the door behind her and leaned her back against it.
“Nice dress.”
She didn’t bother to hide the hurt in her voice or the exhaustion. I didn’t know when the last time she’d slept was, but Berlin was a nine-hour flight and she’d been in the country for less than two days.
“Where are you coming from?” I asked, ignoring her comment.
Leaning over to pull her heels from her feet, Nineah then sank to the floor, resting her back against the dresser and to my surprise, answered me. “The Centene. My sister’s twenty first birthday was today.”
“How long does she have?”
Unsurprised by the question, she checked the thin platinum watch she only wore on formal occasions.
“As long as she eats a balanced diet and maintains some semblance of an exercise regimen, I imagine approximately sixty to seventy more years.” I watched the woman in custom couture flop onto her back, unscrewing a miniature of a name brand vodka she’d retrieved from somewhere.
“I made a deal with the devil. My silence for my life.”
“Not taking your meds?”
“Those, Mr. Lawton, are the perks of being an immortal fuck up,” she said before swallowing the contents in one gulp. “It can’t go any lower from here.”
Christ.
“Self-destruction, then. Mature response.”
She must’ve raided the mini bar before leaving earlier because she was already opening her second bottle. “You know me. So well-known for my sound decision making.”
I watched her chug through two more of the bottles, sip from one that made her cough several times before discarding it, then pick up another with a clear liquid. I thought about stopping her, but remembered her comment about me saving her from herself and remained where I was.
“Not telling you what to do or anything, but you might want to state what it is you want while I can still hear you, as I plan to drink until my face goes numb.”
“You found your sister.” It wasn’t a question.
When Kevin had sent over the details of the designer, I’d called to ask about an estimated wait time for open commissions, to which the designer had informed me that only his apprentices were accepting commissions at the moment.
When I asked to see portfolios, photos of the Ma Maison had been included in one Hana Gavrielle’s.
A quick google search of her full name hadn’t amounted to much, but a completely absent digital footprint was impossible for such a front-facing family.
European tabloids had caught several photos of her, her mother, her father, and oldest brother, as well as article accounts of the young CFO and Oxford graduate who’d taken over for his father following his passing a few years prior.
They weren’t a household name in the states, but well-known enough that I recognized the company name.
What I hadn’t known was that the labor building their data centers was brokered by the very fucker I’d been watching for months.
Photos.
Dates.
Wiretapped conversations.
Everything I’d been collecting on one man had led to his most consistent client and liaison to the Lin Empire—Head of security, Darrel ‘Dash’ Brooks.
I must’ve seen him meet with Hawke dozens of times and had not one fucking idea what I was looking at until I saw him photographed with the family, specifically the mother.
“Yep.” Nineah popped the ‘P’ holding a tiny bottle of a green liquid up.
“Safe and sound. In four hundred thousand dollars’ worth of couture.
That’s what six lives paid for—Custom Zuhair Murad,” she slurred.
Just then, a fit of haunted giggles bounced off the thin walls of her hotel suite.
Rolling onto her side, she smiled up at me.
“You know all this time, I had this fantasy in my head about rescuing a little sister from group homes and creepy foster brothers. It’d never once occurred to me that she wouldn’t be just as desperate for a family as I was.
Turns out, not only am I a fool, but a bastard.
Excuse me—The bastard of a cheating asshole who will apparently go down in history as a fucking gold medalist of the capitalist Olympics.
And I’m…” she rolled her eyes, though there were tears streaming down them now and she’d stopped laughing. “Anyway, what did you want again?”
Retrieving the envelope from the inside of my jacket, I offered the copies of the passports and ID cards I’d taken from Halstead, as well as the amended documents Vanessa had sent over two nights ago.
“There’s a contact in your phone under Luther.
He’s your attorney. You’ll want him to review these.
I’m not pursuing anything from you, but there’s still the matter of our home.
You’re welcome to buy me out if you’d like to remain there, but if not, I’m thinking I’d like to put it on the market as soon as possible. ”
Nineah didn’t reach for the items.
“I always assumed you’d filed because of me,” I continued.
“Because I hadn’t handled our grief well, or been there for you how you needed.
But I realize now that you weren’t ending a chapter, but rather correcting a mistake.
You did what you needed to do. I want you to know, I don’t fault you for that. ”
“Abraham,” she whispered.
“I took the oath. I accepted the risks. That night all those years ago, I planned that mission, I executed it, and circumstances out of my control determined the outcome, not unlike many other times before. That’s war.
But guilt? I’ve seen that shit rip through someone unlike any weapon I’ve ever come into contact with.
I don’t want that for you. I don’t want it for me.
” Taking the black tungsten band from my pocket, I set the envelope on the floor and the ring on top.
“If anyone deserves to be free, it’s you. ”
Staring at the documents, she cleared her throat. “Is that what you want?”
“It is.”
Her gaze met mine, the corner of her mouth lifting into a melancholy smile and she nodded. “Then for what it’s worth, I’m really glad it was you.”
“It’s worth everything.”
Stumbling to her feet, my wife stood. Crossing the room, intent clear, she crawled onto my lap and I let her.
Then, reaching for the clip that held her hair in its updo, I gently pulled it out and her curls bounced free.
She closed her eyes as I stroked her scalp and breathed in her perfume, and for several minutes, neither of us spoke.
Her hands moving up my chest to my shoulders, she leaned in and kissed me, sliding her tongue over mine, her message clear.
One last time.
It wasn’t just a terrible decision, it was a reckless one.
But what was one more poor choice in a sea of them?