Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
PAXTON
Having friends in high places can be rather helpful. I’m calling in a few favors to get the information that I need so I can get things lined up before she lands. That’s okay; I have been stockpiling them.
I had an idea of where Naomi was off to. If she wanted to dig more into me, then the best place to do so would be on the West Coast. It’s where I have spent an abundance of my time. It also gives me a home field advantage.
I hadn’t set myself up in California only because it could be lucrative for me and a nice fuck you to everyone else who hadn’t managed to take over a huge chunk of the docks’ imports and exports, but also, it put Naomi at a greater distance from me.
It hasn’t been easy to bide my time, but I knew it was what I had to do.
I had to play this all very carefully. Normally waiting and idling time is my specialty.
Sloane says I have the patience of a saint.
Dealing with my father, I’m sure, plays into that.
The man was often getting in his own way and pulling triggers far too quickly.
At a young age, I’d learned to watch everything and pay attention to all the details.
Learning to read the tells that people have and how they respond to things has been one of my greatest assets.
The devil is really in the details. Honing in on the skills, I was able to build my own wealth outside of my father. It started with hitting a few poker games and went on from there. You can bet on all kinds of shit, and the more you know, the easier it is to place those bets.
Which football players have drug problems or injuries?
You could even wager on who was hard up for money.
One bet after another, I was making a killing.
It didn’t only supply me with money, but it helped further my understanding of people and the things they do, the whys, which can be the most important.
My father became the easiest to predict over time. I could lead him right into a trap of his own making. Slowly I started to dismantle the world he’d built around him. Studied all the people he both feared and respected. Those who had deals and understandings with him.
That is what led me right to Naomi all those years ago. I’ll never forget that day. I’m sure she hasn’t either, except she has no idea I was the man who fought at her side.
I’d traveled up the coast with only one target in mind.
War Marino. My father hated how much he depended on War and the control he could hold over his docks and him.
It had started with War’s own father decades ago, but like all things, in time, the Marinos didn’t want to dabble in the darker aspects of the sex trade and dirty drugs.
And the fact often is, the dirtier you are, the more money you can make.
When War took the reins over from his own father, things started to shift. He pulled back some of the protection they’d once given my father from others that tried to move in on what he had.
War made it clear: Clean up shop, or he would keep taking action. My father was never quite sure what that action would be. It could only be one of two things: He’d take it for himself, or he’d leave my father to the vultures.
That had him cleaning things up for a while. I knew myself that it would only last so long. It went against my father’s nature. The Marinos would have to take action at some point, and I needed to make sure I was the one that would pull that trigger, lining up all the dominoes in their place.
I knew that back then and had to form a real understanding of who the Marinos were and how I’d need to do that.
I knew the only way to truly do that was to have eyes on them myself.
To learn everything about all of them, from how they took their coffee to how often they took a shit.
The plan had been to go unnoticed. I was only there to simply observe until my hand was forced that day.
Years ago
In the time I’d been watching War and his family, it became clear rather quickly that his oldest daughter was likely to follow in her father’s footsteps.
Naomi was the most like him in the personality department.
Very controlled, calculated, and showed an enormous amount of restraint when it came to her emotions.
The Marinos had been interesting to follow. They were quite different from other Italian families I’d grown up around in power. War was more than willing to let his daughter step up even with having three younger sons.
That had me shifting my attention to her, Naomi.
If I were to play the long game, that meant she would be key.
I was struck by her instantly. She wasn’t an average teenage girl by any means.
She was different, and that meant she thought differently.
It tracked a somewhat similar pattern to her father, but not always.
There were a lot more moving parts in Naomi’s life, and by that, I mean the people around her she was growing up with. A slew of cousins. Who you surround yourself with is a key marker to how you might change and grow. I had accounted for all the factors that needed consideration.
What I hadn’t accounted for was Naomi’s patterns wavering. It was hard for me to understand or get a full grasp on them. It drove me crazy at first and then amused me. At that time, I could only speculate that those tendencies fluctuated due to her internal struggles with her identity.
She became an obsession, and I was verging on stalking, or maybe I was already there.
Naomi more often than not stayed in the city at her father’s home there.
During that time, she took many different classes, but none of them were the normal curriculum for her age.
They were more in life skills. I respected War for noticing she was different and allowing her to explore her potential.
Every day Naomi would train. I watched the girl run miles at a time.
The determination in her at such a young age was impressive and also relatable.
Except she wanted to please her father, and I wanted to end mine.
The goals were different, but the destination was the same. In the end we’d be taking over.
Naomi is smart and never formed a steady pattern. She could run at all sorts of times of the day and in different locations. It took me a month to get down to the rhyme and reason of her schedule enough that I could predict her moves. It had become a game she didn’t know we’d been playing.
It doesn’t matter how hard you try not to form a pattern; your nonpattern will form one.
That day it had been lightly snowing as she made her way down to the riverfront, where there was a long trail. I’d guessed this one right; only my timing was slightly off.
She was a tiny thing, her dark hair pulled back, concealing her curls.
I watched as she stopped at a bench to adjust her thin jacket and put on her gloves before heading down the trail that disappeared into the trees, which made it somewhat isolated.
Of course you could come across others, but there was also a chance you wouldn’t.
I waited to give space between her and me, letting her fall from my sight. But I hadn’t been the only one watching her. I spotted two men in their twenties take notice of her. One was short and stocky in gray sweats with a baseball cap. The other was lanky in jeans and a hoodie.
The stocky one tossed down the cigarette he was smoking, nodding to whatever the man next to him was saying before they started off behind her.
I knew they weren’t on a fucking stroll and their intentions weren’t good.
One could bet that they might be meeting with another person, a dealer, but I hadn’t encountered any of that on this trail before. That meant they were following her.
“Fuck,” I muttered to myself. I had a mask rolled up to only cover my hair and the tops of my ears. I pulled it down to cover my face fully as I stalked after them. Naomi might not know my face, but I was sure I was on War’s radar due to my father.
I picked up speed and slipped further down the narrowing path, the trees making me lose sight of the two men momentarily. Unease crept up my spine, and I trusted my instinct and said, “Fuck it,” running full-out, not caring that they would hear me coming.
I heard a loud grunt followed by a small scream that had my blood running cold.
An unexpected panic flooded through me, a feralness I’d never felt before hitting me.
Nothing could happen to her. It didn’t matter if she figured out who I was.
All that mattered right now was her. I needed to keep her safe regardless of the cost.
It didn’t matter if I didn’t get to bring down my father or anything else. That moment blew the lid off whatever had been brewing inside of me about who and what Naomi was to me.
When I rounded the bend, I saw the fucking stocky douchebag on top of her. The lanky one was just coming to his feet, blood gushing down his nose. I went for him first. Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw Naomi flip the man on top of her as they struggled.
The lanky one spotted me as I closed in on him, his eyes widening, taking a few stumbling steps backwards and putting his hands up. They weren’t looking for a fight, but they’d miscalculated their target.
“We were—” That’s all he got out before I swung on him, nailing him in the stomach hard.
He barreled forward, and I jammed the barrel of my gun into his gut and fired.
The close contact helped to muffle the sound.
He dropped, and I leaned down and pressed the gun against him. “Please don’t.” He coughed up blood.
“She’s mine,” I told him before I pulled the trigger again, ensuring that he was down for good before turning and going for my second target.
Naomi had flipped him once, but he was back on top again.
There was blood on the corner of her mouth and a cut on her right side.
She’s a tiny thing, and no matter how hard you train and practice, brute force in close contact, when you are half their weight, isn’t going to end well without a weapon, and I spotted hers.
She had him by the throat, her fingers digging into his windpipe.
Her other hand was reaching for a knife.
He was straddling her, trying to get her hold off his throat as I stalked toward them, drawing his attention.
Naomi stayed focused on the threat in front of her, pure determination in her eyes.
“The fuck?” I thought he tried to say, his words strangled by the hundred-pound girl under him.
I could have killed him right then. It would have been so easy, but instead I simply nudged the knife with my foot right into her waiting hand.
Our eyes momentarily locked for a half second before she swung the knife, dropping her other hand from his throat and lodging it there.
Blood sprayed out, coating her, but that didn’t slow her down. She kept her momentum and kept pushing so he collapsed beside her, the knife still in her hand as she sprang to her feet. She had a slight limp on her right side where I’d spotted the cut as she squared off with me.
I stepped back, letting her know I wasn’t a threat, but she didn’t give a shit. Smart girl. “I killed the other one.” I lifted the front of my sweater to show her my gun and then let it drop back down to cover it.
“Who—” She sucked in a breath. “Who are you?”
“No one.” I took another step back. We stared at each other for a long moment.
“Take the mask off,” she ordered. I bit back a laugh. A tiny thing with only a knife issuing orders, knowing I had a gun and was easily twice her size, maybe three.
“I’m not going to do that.” I kept my voice low, knowing this would not be the last time I spoke to her. There was a slight shake to her hand holding the knife.
“I’ve never killed anyone before,” she muttered, more to herself than me. I highly doubted this would be her last kill. “You should go.”
“I know,” I told her. I didn’t want to go, but I was sure her father and his men would be here shortly. “See you around,” I said before dropping the gun on top of the dead man. Not sure how they’d go about cleaning this up.
“Thank you,” I heard her say before I disappeared from her sight, but not her from mine.
“Sir, we are taking off…” the tall blond flight attendant says, jerking me back from my thoughts. She gives me a coy smile. “Is there anything I can get you?”
“No.” I dismiss her with my hand. “I don’t want to be bothered until we’re landing.”
She gives me a nod and disappears back behind the curtain. I pull my laptop out and get to work. I might be an hour behind her, but by the time she lands, I’ll be twenty steps ahead.