TWO - ROMAN
One year.
Well, almost.
Three hundred and fifty-five days, to be exact.
Not that I’d been counting…well, maybe I had been just a little. Except I wasn’t crossing days off the calendar to some important life event or counting down to an upcoming fun-filled date. Not even close.
“Refill?” my waitress asked, holding up a stainless-steel carafe.
I glanced down at my nearly empty cup. It wasn’t like I had shit else to do, but a third cup of coffee seemed like a bad idea. Even for me.
“Uh, no, thanks. I’m good for now.”
“Can I get you anything else?” Her tone was borderline impatient. I’d been taking up this table for at least two hours.
I flicked my gaze to the worn-out silver name tag pinned to her left upper chest. Not that I needed to. I’d been in this restaurant at least four days a week for the last eleven and a half months. I knew her work schedule.
“No, thanks, Nancy. I’m good for now.”
She placed my check face down on the table. “Until next time.”
Little did either of us know there wouldn’t be a next time.
I’d discovered this little coffee shop/diner during my first week in Nashville.
It was within walking distance of where I’d be living for the foreseeable future, and it had free Wi-Fi.
There was the added bonus of being located on one of the busiest streets in the city and the best place to watch unsuspecting patrons come and go about their morning routine.
Mostly, it was hungover businessmen discussing the stock market or the latest sports stats, stay-at-home moms coming in from their morning yoga class, chatting about their shitty marriages and kids’ latest milestones over a vanilla soy latte, and college kids studying for various degrees they’d probably never use in hopes they’d make an actual difference in the world someday.
These people were oblivious.
It’s been said that the average person will cross paths with thirty-six murderers in their lifetime.
Thirty-six. That’s a lot. Yet not a single person here was any the wiser that a man who probably had more blood on his hands than their local general surgeon would essentially be sitting less than ten feet from them at any given moment of their mundane morning.
These people have no idea just how above average they are.
I pulled a crisp twenty from my wallet and laid it on top of the handwritten check. I didn’t need to look. My order was always the same. The total had never changed.
As I stood to leave, I felt my phone vibrate against my thigh. I pulled it out, and the name IVAN flashed across the screen.
I swiped the green Answer button and held the speaker against my ear as I sat back down and waited. I hadn’t seen or heard from him in almost a year, but I knew he hadn’t changed and never would. One thing about Ivan was he always had to have the first and last word. Today would be no different.
I stared out the picture window at the rain-covered street.
The rain had finally stopped after what seemed like too goddamned long, but the evidence of it remained.
Cars passed, throwing rainwater onto the sidewalks.
Patrons rushed back and forth, hugging close to the building, trying to avoid being splashed from all directions.
After what felt like a lifetime, a familiar voice finally broke through the speaker. “Hey. You answered. I’m surprised.”
I waited for a few seconds to respond. “I’m good. Thanks for asking. How can I help you?”
He let out an awkward laugh. “What makes you think I’m calling for help?”
“Because you’re not calling to wish me a late happy birthday.” I had no idea what Ivan was about to throw at me, but my best guess was it wasn’t good, and I wasn’t going to like it.
“Fair. And you’re right. I’ve, uh, got a bit of a situation on my hands.”
The last time he presented me with a situation, shit did not end well for a lot of people.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I need your help. There. I said it. Happy?”
“At no point does your admission to needing my help give me butterflies. I’m still pretty fucking salty about the last time you needed my help.”
“Well, there’s nothing I can do about it now. I’ve moved on from that, and so should you.”
“I’m listening.”
He sighed into the phone. “If you’re wondering, the answer is no. This isn’t like that. This job is…different. I need to hire you for your protective services.”
I scoffed. Couldn’t wait to see what kind of offer he was about to present. “And you can’t get someone else to do it?”
“I would if I could, but you know how it is in this business. As much as I hate to admit, you’re still the best man I got on roster.
Really, you’re the only man who can handle this.
” I could hear the frustration in his voice.
It sounded more like he was at the end of his rope and was either about to let go or hang himself with it.
“That’s not very reassuring.” Ivan had a lot of men at his disposal. To think I was the only person he knew who could handle this, whatever the fuck that meant, didn’t give me much hope for whatever clusterfuck he’d gotten himself into this time.
“No shit. How you think I feel? Things have been getting a little more…convoluted, we’ll say. I need someone reliable, someone I can trust. Ya know?”
Everything about this conversation so far reeked of absolute disaster.
I only knew this because I knew Ivan. He had a knack for getting himself into situations he couldn’t get out of alone.
Not to mention, he’d called me because he couldn’t trust anyone else on his crew, and that wasn’t very reassuring.
But as shitty as he’d made my life once before, I didn’t think it could get much worse. “I guess tell me where and when.”
“Yesterday woulda been great, but in reality, I need you by tonight.”
“Ivan. You can’t be serious.”
“Unfortunately, I am. I’m on a schedule tighter than a camel’s ass in a sandstorm.”
“Where would you like me by tonight?”
He paused for a few seconds, then answered. “Here.” His response was barely an audible mumble, like he didn’t have the balls to even tell me.
“Here? As in Emerald Haze here?”
“Yeah. That’d be the one.”
Seeing as how I’d left that place, sending me back to Mississippi sounded like a really stupid fucking idea. Even for him.
“Are you serious, Ivan?” I lowered my tone so the guy sitting at the table directly across from me hopefully wouldn’t hear me about to lose my shit.
He briefly glanced up at me over the newspaper in his hands before seemingly going back to reading as if he hadn’t just been eavesdropping.
“You want me back there, knowing how you sent me away? Are you sure that’s a good idea? ”
Emerald Haze was the last place I wanted or needed to go. Putting me back to work there sounded like a bigger pain in the ass than the way he’d gotten rid of me the first time.
“Dead serious. This is where I need you, unfortunately. If I had any other choice, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Sorry to inconvenience your daily latte routine.”
“Dick.”
“I’ve been called worse. But all things considered, you and I are still the only two who really know what happened. And we’re gonna keep it that way.”
“God damn, Ivan. I somehow find that hard to believe.”
“Trust me. If anyone else knew, don’t you think there’d be a witch hunt for you by now?”
Okay, I had to give him that. If Ivan had only called me only as a last resort, some serious shit was about to go down, or already had, and he couldn’t fix it.
“I can’t fucking believe this,” I mumbled under my breath.
“How you think I feel? I’m chasing my tail around here, and I don’t like it. Things are getting out of control. I can already feel another ulcer growing.”
“I don’t know, Ivan. This sounds—”
“Look, I know this isn’t the most convenient—”
“It never is,” I deadpanned, cutting him off.
We’d had a sort of symbiotic relationship—I did their dirty work, almost no questions asked; they compensated me very well.
The better I became at my job, the more they realized just how much they needed me.
I guess to my benefit, I was of better use to them alive than dead.
“I’ll at least make it worth your time.”
“How’s that? ’Cause I’m quite enjoying my quiet mornings and caramel lattes.”
“I’ll double your pay from last time.”
“That’s a lot of money.” And not at all the offer I’d expected. He’d paid me enough for my last job I didn’t need to work. Not for him or anyone else. At this point, I was just doing it out of sheer boredom. Hush money is a beautiful thing.
“Yes, it is.”
“Why so much?”
“Because this won’t be easy.”
“Has it ever been?” The question was rhetorical. How this particular job could be any harder than the last one was beyond me. “What makes this one so difficult?”
“Because.” He paused. “This one is different.”
“Different? Different than what? Execution? Extortion? Because I recall very distinctly, once upon a time ago, you treated me like your bitch boy and threatened me with my life if I didn’t comply. That’s the only reason I agreed to last time. It got me the fuck away from that place.”
I glanced around the coffee shop. It was still packed, but morning patrons had stopped pouring in and were down to a slow trickle. I was sure the guy ten feet away was getting an earful.
“Yeah, well, lucky for you, your role will be changing. Though things could be a bit more difficult, depending on how you look at it.”
I held my phone against my ear with my shoulder and scrubbed my hands down my face. My scruffy beard against my palms reminded me how badly I needed to shave.
The thought of going back to Emerald Haze for any reason made my stomach turn. But if shit was about to hit the fan, the stakes were much higher than Ivan’s pea brain could even fathom. It wasn’t his life I gave a fuck about.
“I don’t think anything I do could possibly be any worse than the last hit. How long’s this gonna take? Any idea?”
“Let’s get through this weekend. How’s that sound?”
“Sounds really fucking expensive.” There was no way Ivan was going to pay me that much money for a few days’ worth of work without it costing me something just as valuable in return. “What’s this going to cost me?”
“Potentially, your life.”