Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Joy knocked on Ace’s door then pushed it open after being instructed to enter. As always, the man looked good. He sat leaned back in his chair with his muscled legs spread. He was dressed up in a crisp white button down shirt and charcoal gray dress pants with a vest and tie to match.
He had his desk phone pressed to his ear and held a finger up to give him a minute. Joy nodded and silently sat in the chair across from him. As she opened up her laptop and got situated, she became privy to one side of the conversation.
She listened intrigued and slightly aroused as he barked orders and demanded answers.
“When did this happen?… So why am I just now hearing about it?…And where the fuck were you?… No, I'll take care of it. Get me some answers or that yo ass.”
He slammed the receiver down on the phone base and scrubbed a hand down his face.
Finally, he turned to Joy, giving her his full attention and a tight smile. “Good morning,” he greeted with a sigh.
“Doesn’t sound like it,” Joy replied. One side of Ace’s full lips lifted in response.
“One of my clients on retainer got arrested last night and they still haven’t given him his call. How about you ride with me up to the precinct so I can deal with this and we’ll have our meeting in the car. Cool?” he asked, standing to throw his suit jacket over his shoulders. Joy stood too.
Joy nodded. “Yeah that’s cool. I just need to grab my purse.”
“Aight go get it and meet me downstairs in five,” he said.
Four minutes later, they approached a blacked out Escalade.
“Joy, this is my driver and security, Ray. Ray, this Joy,” Ace introduced.
“Nice to meet you,” Joy smiled. She recognized him from the night on the roof.
The man was large and seemed to be in his late 30s but his melanin skewed the results.
He was dapper in his suit but like Ace, it didn’t hide the air of danger around him that had nothing to do with the tattoos on his hands and along the side of his neck, leading to his bald head.
“Likewise ma’am,” he replied before closing them in and pulling into New York traffic in the direction of the precinct.
Ace pulled an iPad from his Louis Vuitton briefcase and began tapping away at it. Joy took her laptop from her Celine tote bag and waited for further instructions.
“Go into the NYPD arrest logs to see if they’ve booked Michael Black,” Ace said.
Joy did as instructed but came up empty.
“No results,” she reported.
Ace cursed. Joy eyed him, watching as he pulled a lighter engraved like an Ace of Spades playing card out of his pocket. He absentmindedly flipped the top of his lighter open and closed while he stared out the window in thought.
Joy turned her attention back to her laptop. Looking deeper into the name she’d searched revealed that he was tied to the same organization at Blue.
“If he was arrested last night and hasn’t been booked yet, they’re probably trying to turn him,” Ace mused aloud.
“Or he already has,” Joy shrugged.
He turned to her, the lighter shutting with a loud clank. “What you mean?”
“It’s a common tactic they used in HPD. Refuse to allow them to call a lawyer until they either snitch or agree to spy. Then they start the official clock for booking and filing charges. Until then it’s like you don’t exist. They can do whatever if there’s no record of you being in their custody.”
Ace looked at her, horrified but not surprised. “I hope that isn’t the case. For his sake.”
Ace and Joy talked briefly during the car ride about Blue’s case.
Joy filled him in on the information she was able to get from the prosecutor and together they strategized about how to use what they had and what they knew to ensure Blue’s release during his bail hearing which had been set for a few weeks from then.
When they pulled up to the precinct, Ace unbuckled his seatbelt and Joy did the same.
“You can stay here,” Ace stopped her.
“I can help,” Joy insisted. She planned to stick to Ace like white on rice. He was clearly skilled at what he did and she needed to see how he did it. When she went home, this would be one of the many ways she showed her worth.
Shaking his head, Ace relented.
“Fine. But when we get in here, stay close and don’t say nothing.”
Joy saluted.
She removed her desert eagle from her waist, clearing the chamber and sliding it under the seat. When she looked up, she saw Ace doing the same with a glock. Their eyes met and they shared a brief knowing grin before Ace hopped out of the car and Joy followed.
“Why do you need to carry a gun if you have security?” she asked, eyeing him as she kept up with his long strides.
Ace pulled a pair of Cartier shades from the inner pocket of his jacket.
“Can never be too safe, Rose,” he winked before covering his eyes.
Joy nodded and together they walked into the precinct.
When they stepped through the door, she noticed how the officers milling about all turned their attention to Ace or tried to pretend they weren’t. Some averted their gazes. Some scowled at his back. Others left the lobby entirely.
Joy supposed you weren’t a favorite of law enforcement when you’re known for getting notorious criminals off.
Ace seemed unbothered though, his head high and his steps sure like a man who belonged wherever his feet were.
“Can I help you?” the uniformed woman at the reception desk asked with an attitude.
Ace lowered his shades and opened his mouth to speak when another officer approached.
“I got them Brenda,” he said. With one final glance at the woman that made her shrink into herself, Ace turned his attention to the officer.
Joy followed closely behind Ace and the officer as they walked through the precinct and spoke in hushed voices.
“And who is that?” Joy heard the officer ask, his eyes moving to her.
“My co-counsel,” Ace answered smoothly. “She’s cool.”
The officer escorted them to an interrogation room where they were holding Ace’s client, Marco.
“I need all of these cut off. I’d like some privacy with my client,” Ace demanded pointing to the cameras catching the room from two angles.
The officer acknowledged his request then left.
“What’s going on Marco? You aight?” Ace asked, pulling a chair out for Joy to sit then doing the same for himself.
Marco eyed Joy warily and she met his gaze unflinchingly. He was a big man and wore a blue tracksuit that was dirty and was covered in fresh scars and bruises all over his face. He didn’t answer Ace’s questions, instead keeping his attention on Joy.
“Who the fuck is this?” Marco snarled.
“Who the fuck are you talking to?” Ace asked in a clipped tone as he clasped his hands together on top of the cold metal table. His voice was eerily calm and cold, making Marco snap his gaze from Joy’s and up to Ace’s. He didn’t get a chance to answer before Ace continued.
“Watch your tone. Answer my questions.”
Calmer and with a lot less bass in his voice, Marco went on to recount the events since his arrest. They stopped him doing 85 in a 60 but when they searched his car, they found product and a gun in his car.
“Once they realized who I was, they started asking me questions about my operations,” Marco said.
“What kind of questions?”
“Who supplied me, if I knew who the boss was.”
Joy felt Ace stiffen beside her and watched as he and Marco shared a brief moment of eye contact before Marco continued.
“They roughed me up and wouldn’t let me call my lawyer until I gave them something.
Said the DA might be lenient on me if I gave them something they could use,” he said.
“But I didn’t give them nothing though,” he hastily added.
Joy watched Marco closely. He was shifty and jumpy throughout his retelling of the events, often stuttering and giving information that was inconsistent with what he’d said previously, having to go back and correct himself.
“And I’mma be fucking honest, it’s too much weird shit going on lately to have this bitch with crazy eyes in here staring me down,” Marco exclaimed in this middle of answering one of Ace’s questions, unable to bear the weight of Joy’s intense stare any longer.
Joy’s eyes narrowed on him. “Fuck you just call me?” Her voice dropped and her hands itched to wrap around his neck for the disrespect.
“You fucking heard m?—“
She stood abruptly, just enough to reach across the metal table and grab a handful of his shirt. Once she’d snatched him closer, she put her hand on the back of his head, slamming him face first onto the table. When he tried to fight her, she did it again.
Subdued and slightly delirious from the force to his head, Marco did nothing but snarl at Joy brought her face close to his, still keeping a tight grip on his shirt. “I’m here to help you nigga so let’s not name call,” she warned through gritted teeth.
Joy watched blood flow from his nose and she fought tooth and nail against the clouding in her vision and ache in her knuckles to knock his teeth down his throat.
“Rose,” Ace’s calm voice cut through the ringing in her ears and she felt his hand run slowly against her hip, coaxing her out of her angry stupor and urging her to release Marco.
Snapping out of it, she let him go and stood completely, huffing to slow her breathing.
“Go to the car Joy, I’ll be right out,” Ace demanded and his authoritative tone left no room for debate. Picking up her purse, she started for the door.
“Yeah get the fuck on before I fuck you up bitch,” Marco called at her back.
Joy turned and was about to lunge but Ace caught her at her waist.
“You shut the fuck up before I let her go. You. Go,” Ace diffused the situation. Joy stared at Ace but she was looking through him. Her mind was on getting her hands back on Marco but the way he rubbed his hands up and down her arms soothed her.
“I got it, Rose. Just go to the car for me aight?”
Slowly, she came out of her haze. She looked into Ace’s face for signs of disdain or fear and found neither. Once she felt she’d regained control of her mind and body, Joy freed herself from Ace’s grasp and rushed out of the precinct and back to Ray and the awaiting car.
Embarrassment replaced the anger heating her veins as soon as the sun hit her face.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
Joy cursed as she speed walked to the car. The post-episode headache was already setting in and so were the self loathing and embarrassment.
She snatched open the car door and slid in. Frustrated tears fell as she chastised herself. The memories of the day of her incident came to her in a flood.
I’m not crazy, she thought. But she felt crazy.
From the moment they put her in the back of the police car at the Chapman’s mansion, she felt crazy. People treated her like she was crazy. Trying to act like she wasn’t angry only made her feel crazier.
“So… What now?” Joy asked, still not looking up from her interlocked fingers on her lap.
Her new, raspier voice felt foreign to her ears.
There were still small specks of dried blood and dying skin buried under her nails from her tussle with Jermaine.
Byron lifted himself off the wall, hands in his pockets.
He dragged the chair that the doctor had just occupied closer to her and took her hands.
She looked up at him, the threat of tears stinging her eyes but she wouldn’t dare let them fall.
Byron Thibodeaux despised outward expressions of weakness and she couldn’t further disappoint him.
He sighed. “Since your… episode was so public, the DA had no choice but to charge you. Our attorney was able to use your diagnosis to get a deal for an insanity plea.”
Insanity?
Joy’s rage began to brew at the word. Their defense was that she was crazy? Her reaction was a bit overboard perhaps but no less justified in her eyes. Look no further than her damaged vocal chords and the bruises on her neck and cheek.
“You won’t do any jail time but you’ll need to spend a few months rehabilitating so they can be sure you aren’t a ‘danger to society’,” he said the last part with air quotes.
This caused Joy to sit up straighter and snatch her hands away, dread already forming a pit in her stomach. “Rehabilitating? Rehabilitating where?” she asked, trying to keep her voice even. Melodramatics wouldn’t help her case.
Byron just waved her off. “An inpatient facility near Galveston. They specialize in… people like you. Who have mental disorders that make them violent. I think it might do you some good.”
People like me? She thought.
Until then, it had been people like us. The two of them, a team. The King and his princess. The General and his soldier. Doctor Frankenstein and his monster.
Joy’s heart sank.
“So you’re sending me away,” she said. It wasn’t a question. She knew his mind was made up and his decision was final. Her father sighed and placed his hand on her shoulder causing her to look up at him.
“Just for a little while princess. Whatever happened that night…” he trailed off.
“Right now, you’re a liability. Your temper is too hot and your mind is weak.
We have no use for weak minded soldiers.
We gotta make sure you can control yourself before we bring you back.
One episode can burn down everything we’ve built.
Everything we’re building. You understand right? ”
She nodded.
Byron kissed the top of her head and gave her a weak smile.
“Don’t worry about it princess. They’ll get you back to normal and back to work in no time.”
She nodded again this time adding a small smile and her father gave her one last glance before turning and taking his leave.
Joy’s face balled up in a sob and the strain caused an excruciating pain that brought her attention to the bandage covering the deep cut on her head.
She fingered the bandage and it suddenly occurred to her that her father never asked if she was okay.