Chapter 20 Minka #2
“I asked for a pair of tweezers to—” I swallow my confession, choking it down before it gets me into trouble.
“Um. For reasons. And when Doctor Raquel handed them to me, she said she was glad I was finally taking care of my brows. Now I’m on camera for that dumb Body-In-The-Bag documentary.
I swear, if I end up on Netflix and have weird eyebrows, I’m going on a rampage. ”
“Your eyebrows look perfect to me, Minnnka.” The breeze on his end of the line quietens, and the smooth roll of thick wheels on the road slows. Then he turns, which tells me he’s heading through the gates and is a mere five minutes ahead of me. “Why’d you need the tweezers, anyway?”
“Oh, shoot! We’re going through a tunnel.” I make weird sounds in the back of my throat that would pass as static… to a deaf person. “I think I’m gonna lose you, Detective.”
“Why did you need the tweezers, Chief?”
“Dammit, I can’t hear you. I’m just a few minutes from the house. I’ll see you soon.”
“Minka—”
“Byeeee!” I kill our call, comforted by the fact that he’s back on Malone property, safe and secure. Locking the screen and lowering my hand, I reach forward and scratch my freshly Band-Aided knee.
“Confronting Estefan Cordoza.” Harrison whistles under his breath, swaying his head from side to side. “Defying your husband. Lying to him about a tunnel. And don’t think I haven’t heard how you speak to Felix.”
“Do you have a point, Mr. Harrison, or are you hoping to become my next victim?”
He chuckles, steering us away from the business district of downtown Copeland City and aiming for the residential area instead.
“Making an observation, perhaps. What came before all this, Chief? Before Copeland. Before marriage. Before the Malones. What happened in your life that allowed you to feel so emboldened now?”
I fold my legs crisscross style and tuck my feet beneath my thighs. Anything to relieve the pressure on my tired hips. “You say I’m emboldened. I say I’m intolerant of bullies.”
“Well—”
“We’re just humans. Every one of us. We all bleed red, we all came from a mom and a dad, and many of us, too many of us, don’t have them around anymore.
” I firm my lips into flat lines and lift just one shoulder, shrugging.
“Maybe it’s naivety. Maybe it’s recklessness.
But there are very few people in this world whose opinions and safety matter to me.
I’ve had pleasant dealings with Estefan Cordoza in the past, but if he died tomorrow…
” I drop my shoulder again. “I wouldn’t cry about it.
If he wishes to maintain a relationship with me, business or otherwise, then I need that relationship to sit upon respectful foundations.
It doesn’t mean I’ll cuss him out at the dinner table, and I won’t embarrass him in a board meeting.
But if he wants something from me, he’s hardly in a position to dictate the terms and treat me like crap at the same time. ”
“You aren’t afraid of dying?”
“I…”
Shit. That’s a good question. One I’m not sure I’ve ever truly considered.
Contemplatively, I nibble on my bottom lip, careful not to bite too hard or leave a mark.
“I study death for a living, analyzing it, day in, day out. I know more about it than most humans ever will.” I release my lip and meet his gaze.
“No. I’m not afraid of dying. I’m more afraid of someone I love dying.
Which is why I agreed to the autopsy in the first damn place.
I’m afraid of the suffering my loved ones will feel if I die.
But most of all, I’m afraid of living a life where I’m not my authentic self. ”
Curious, he watches me in the mirror and brings us onto the hill, weaving our way toward the top.
“If I cower and cry because someone is being mean to me, I’m not being true to myself.
If I become an obedient lapdog, just because Cordoza demands submission, then I’ve failed who I was born to be.
And if I choose silence and obedience, just because society expects that from women, then I wouldn’t be the smart-mouthed pain in the ass Archer married. ”
Harrison chuckles, dropping his chin into a gentle, bouncing nod. “Fair.”
“Felix received a crash course in independent women when I came along. But I think it was good practice for him. Especially considering he married the antithesis of everything he thought he wanted. Timothy the Second would have absolutely hated her.”
“You don’t like her, Chief?”
“Debbie?” I scoff. “I adore her. She’s smart, successful, and comes with a stubborn streak a mile wide.
She allows Felix no room for bullshit, and she holds him accountable.
To himself,” I clarify. “She makes him a better man, because she makes him want to be a better man. And then she went and made a daughter, effectively growing his Kryptonite right there in her stomach. He won’t step out of line now. Not for the rest of his life.”
“Stepping out of line.” He ponders my words, turning them over on his tongue. “You don’t mind a moment of friendly debate, do you, Chief?”
“Debate is rarely friendly, Mr. Harrison. Fortunately, I always have the energy to argue.”
He snorts. “You say you wouldn’t—you couldn’t—lay down and shut your mouth, because that would do the real Minka Mayet a disservice. But Felix Malone was born to live outside the lines. Are you not expecting him to lie down and shut up now that Ms. Cannon says so?”
“Felix is who he always has been. He was born to be decent, family-protecting, brave, and good. His sexual proclivities and loudmouth don’t change that.”
Harrison’s cheeks flame bright red. God forbid I say sex.
“He’s not less now that he’s married. He’s the same person he always was, but with fewer women in his bed and a newfound ability to slow down and think before he spouts off misogynistic ridiculousness.
He has a baby girl now, and she gives him a reason to be a better man.
He’s stronger than ever, and having Christabelle and Zora in his life makes him a better leader than he ever could have been without them. ”
“And Archer?”
Narrowing my eyes, I wait as we pull off the road and through the gates that secure our home.
“He’s not being asked to lie down either, Mr. Harrison.
He is a free man to do as he pleases, and I am a free woman to do the same.
It just so happens we choose to spend our freedom loving each other.
I don’t ask him to submit, and he doesn’t ask the same of me. ”
“He’d like for you to be a little less brave, I suspect. A little more obedient.”
“Because he worries about me, not because subservience turns him on. There’s a difference.”
“And you don’t care enough to do everything within your power to reduce the stress he experiences?”
“Sure, I do. Which is why I maintain boundaries with the likes of Cordoza, wield a blade with expert precision, and collect my soldiers, just as Felix and Estefan collect theirs. At the end of the day, I accept a ride in a fancy SUV with a man I know works for the family, purely so I can get home as quickly as possible. Because the sooner I walk through that door, the sooner Archer will see that I’m alive and well.
He worries, Mr. Harrison, but he would be bored out of his brains if I suddenly became the submissive vagina on legs society thinks I should be.
” I glance out the window and smile as we come to a stop at the front door.
Unsnapping my seatbelt, I hook my arm through the strap of my bag.
“It was nice debating with you. Maybe we could do it again sometime.”
“Indeed.” He cuts the engine and slides out of his side, beating me to my door and dragging it wide. “I don’t know if you care, Chief Mayet, but I caught an update on that case you testified on in New York, too.”
“Oh, yeah?” I exit the car and drop on to aching feet. Fixing my clothes and moving my bag to the crook of my elbow, I stop fussing and meet his eyes. “The DV case where the vic was pushed down the stairs and left to die? That one?”
“Yes, ma’am. Husband is going to prison.”
“Good.” I step away from the car and start walking around it. “I did my job, then.”
“Seven to ten,” he presses. “With the possibility of parole with good behavior.”
I skid to a stop, slipping in the loose gravel as the heavy stares of more guards—so many fucking guards in my life today—burn the side of my face.
Rage spikes in my blood, boiling me from the inside.
But slowly, carefully, I turn back and meet Harrison’s gaze.
“Quite a light sentence, wouldn’t you agree? ”
“Yes, ma’am.” He drops his chin. “I think so. Seven is better than freedom, but I can’t help but feel it’s not nearly enough.
Seven provides him just enough time to create connections with other inmates, learn new skills, and reenter society more dangerous than he was before. Do you think there could be a retrial?”
I turn on my heels and head toward the house.
“Doubtful. Can’t get a new trial without new evidence, and we have no new evidence to convince a judge to change his mind.
The best we can hope for is a stray bus running that man down on the day of his release, smearing his gray matter on the road and sending him where he belongs.
” I flash a wide grin and shove through the small wrought-iron gate by the front door, then I cross the threshold into icy cold air and a headache-inducing wall of sound.
Felix chatters to Zora. And Zora screams her little lungs out anyway. Cato loudly declares what the baby needs—a new diaper—and Steve, bless that old, tired man, adds his opinion. She needs milk.
Cato skids into the kitchen doorway in white socks, basketball shorts, and no shirt at all. Locking eyes with me, his lips swing wide. But before he can speak, before he can so much as ask how my day was, I plug my ears and turn up the stairs.