Chapter 33
Ricochet
My foot slammed against the door, ripping the deadbolt and lock apart, sending the door crashing open into Trent’s apartment.
I stepped in casually, as if shattering a door was a normal way to enter a building.
“Oh Trent, come out and play!” I said in a sing-song voice. Smokehouse snickered from behind me.
Trent had been sitting on his couch. He shot up as I strolled in, Smokehouse and Hellfire at my back. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?!” he yelled.
I stopped a few feet past the entrance and surveyed him.
He was standing there in his underwear, disgusting tighty-whities.
I glanced down at the coffee table in front of him.
There were lines of coke laid out, a mess now since he had hit the table when he jumped up.
He was holding a card in his hand and had power under a reddened nose. Literally, caught him in the act.
“What in the fuck are you even supposed to be? Besides a useless piece of shit?” I stared condescendingly at the man who’d attacked my family last night.
This was the man that had caused so much trauma, nearly killed my sister, and almost forced his own son to kill him.
And this was all he was? A strung out cokehead. I shook my head, disgusted with him.
“Get the fuck out of my house. You just don’t fucking learn do you, Gage? Get out or you’ll be identical to your twin sister, I’ll make sure of it.” He was pointing at me as if to threaten, but his hand was starting to shake.
I narrowed my eyes on him and silently counted to ten in my head, calming the rage and ensuring that I stuck with the plan.
When I reached ten I spoke. “You know, Trent, a few days ago I would have killed you for talking shit. Still tempted to, if I’m being honest.” I started to walk toward him.
He backed away, stumbling over the mess on the floor.
“I’m serious, don’t fuck with me right now.”
“I’m serious, too,” I snapped at him. “So serious I brought my friends to make sure I didn’t give in to temptation and wring your scrawny, pathetic neck.
” I pointed my thumb over my shoulder. “Thing is, I made a promise to the people I care about. Do you have those Trent? People you care about? People who you love so much that you won’t kill a piece of human garbage, because doing so would send you to jail, breaking their hearts?
I do, Trent. I have people that I love, the same people that you should have loved.
I won’t ruin their lives any further by ending up in jail.
I’m not going to jail over you, Trent. You, however, are. ”
Trent wiped his nose and sniffed hard, amping himself up. “Fuck that. I work for the DA. I fix his problems. He wouldn’t dare arrest me, I know too much.”
“Wanna bet?” I asked, a smile tugging at my lips.
Trent was done arguing, he charged at me.
I stuck my left arm out, catching his shoulder while simultaneously bringing my right arm up and over in a vertical haymaker.
I caught the side of his face with my fist, sending him slamming to the ground with a satisfying crunch of bone.
I looked at him, limp on the floor. “Come on Trent, I said I wasn’t going to kill you, I didn’t say I wouldn’t fuck you up. Get up. Do better, you coked up loser.”
Trent shoved off the ground and lunged again, wrapping his arms around my waist. I grabbed his head with both hands and drove my knee into his face.
Another crunch. He must have a broken nose and jaw by now.
This felt good. He might not be feeling the pain now, thanks to the drugs, but when he sobered up, it would be painful.
That’s what I wanted, to give him a small taste of what Gwen and Jordan were feeling.
This time he didn’t get up. Smoke was already wiping off any surfaces that I went near. We knew better than to get our prints all over the place. Nodding, I said. “Alright. Since he’s down and out, let’s go to the next phase of the plan.”
We tied his hands and feet together, gagged him and shoved him into the trunk of Gwen's car. I shut the door behind us, leaving it unlocked. Why would I make it harder for the cops when they eventually got here?
* * *
The ride to the DA’s office only took a few minutes.
It was located downtown, which made the next part harder.
We had to roll Trent into a tarp to make sure that no one saw us going in with him.
Explaining why I was carrying an almost naked, beaten half to death coke head was not something I needed right now.
Getting into the building was easier than I thought it would be.
Smokehouse just looked at the secretary at the door and said, “We’re here to see DA Fremont, we’re his painters,” and kept walking right past her.
The secretary’s eyes bugged out of her head when she saw three large, tattooed, men walking past her desk.
I wasn’t sure she even heard Smoke’s excuse.
“Uh…um…do you have an appoint- Hey! You can’t go in there!” By the time she got around the desk we were shutting ourselves inside the DA’s office.
He didn’t even blink when he saw us. “I’m going to have to call you back,” he said into the phone before setting the handset back into the cradle on the desk in front of him. “Gentlemen.” His blue eyes were shrewd, cool. Nothing shook this man.
I dropped Trent on the ground, letting him unroll from the tarp. He groaned when he hit the ground, but was still unconscious. Smoke rolled the tarp back up to take with us when we left.
Walking over, I plopped down in the chair across from Fremont. “Name’s Gage Barrett.” Recognition flashed in his eyes. “I see you’ve heard of me.” I leaned forward, my elbows on my knees as my gaze bore into his. “Well, we have a problem.”
“What kind of problem?” He stared down at his assistant as though that didn’t necessarily constitute an issue for him.
“Trent Baker.” I pointed to him.
Fremont spared another unamused glance, then looked back at me “What about him?”
“He’s going to be arrested soon. Arrested for possession of cocaine. Arrested for domestic violence. For nearly beating his ex-wife to death,” I said, eyes locked onto him.
“Wanna bet?” he replied, unblinkingly.
I sat back and stretched my arm over the chair. “You see, somehow I knew you’d say that. Didn’t I say that would be his response, guys?”
Smokehouse and Hellfire acknowledged at the same time. “Sure did.”
“I know Trent is some kind of lackey for you. Maybe he’s a fixer, or he obtains or plants evidence as needed.
I really don’t care about the details. I don’t care about your political ambitions or what dirty deeds you have going on.
What I care about is my family. My sister, her kids, my future wife.
Trent tried to kill them. I’m giving you the opportunity to make it right. And you can further elevate your career in the process.”
His eyebrow raised at this. “I’m listening.”
“You’re another of the generic ‘tough on crime’ DAs. You’re going to lean into that, hard. When you discover that your own assistant was using and distributing coke, that he was a woman abuser, that he nearly killed his ex-wife, well, you had to act.
You won’t tolerate that from anyone, especially not in your own back yard.
” Here I leaned forward again. “That’s why when he came crawling into your office, demanding help and threatening you, you personally oversaw his arrest.” We both looked at Trent, neither one of us impressed with what we saw.
I continued, “And why you’ll also head up the prosecution.
Conflict of interest be damned, you’ll personally see justice served.
You’ll ensure the maximum sentence. And finally, you’ll ensure that he ends up in the General Population of the prison, where they treat women beaters with extra love. ”
I smiled at the thought of Trent being beaten every day in prison before adding, “Because the alternative would be a disaster. A DA trying to cover for his own staff. Who was caught with enough cocaine to kill a herd of elephants. A staff member who beat his ex-wife so badly she nearly died? The media would crucify you. I can guarantee that.”
Fremont looked at Trent and sighed, then turned to me. “You leave me with a bit of a problem. Trent was a very useful assistant. And he knows…things I don’t want known.”
Was a useful assistant. I thought. You’ve already given up on him.
“Sounds like putting him in Gen Pop works for both of us then.” Neither of us would say it out loud, but Trent’s odds of survival in Gen Pop were about zero.
And that’s without the DA bribing someone in the prison to make sure of it. The problem was just about resolved.
“True enough,” Fremont said. “This still leaves me needing to replace a…formerly reliable asset. I’ll not forget the burden you placed on me.”
“I would expect nothing less.” With that, I stood up and walked between Smokehouse and Hellfire, who fell in line behind me. We walked out without saying another word until we were back at Gwen’s car.
“You think it worked?” Hellfire asked.
“Oh yeah, Trent’s done for.” I said. A malicious smile crossed my face. If I couldn’t kill him personally, this was the next best thing.
“What about that last part, what did he mean by ‘won't forget’,” Smoke asked.
“It means that the drama isn’t over. Lockout expected as much, Fremont confirmed it. But that’s tomorrow's problem. We have better things to do until then.