The girl seemed skeptical, but when Noe promised her that no one would touch her, she appeared to relax. She had a lot of faith in my little thief and Noe was just as impressed by the teen. The fragile looking young woman was smart, far smarter than someone with her privileged background needed to be. When she caught wind of what was going on back in the city, she tracked down another kid who was good with computers and asked him for help getting her message to Noe. She didn’t want to be able to be tracked if Noe had been compromised, so he came up with the book cipher. He was also standing in Nassir’s opulent, extravagant office looking a lot lost and a little like he was going to get sick. He wanted to help Julia, which was admirable, but he had no idea what kind of shark-infested waters he offered to dive into by being a helping hand. They were both just kids; I couldn’t blame either of them for being overwhelmed by everything that was going on.
In fact, watching him rub her back and protectively hover over her while she listened to Key softly tell Julia Grace that there were lots of options when she was ready to decide what she wanted to do with the baby, I realized he was more of a man, more of a standup guy than I had ever been. My dad was still behind bars because of the choices I made, and no matter what I did, neither my mother nor my sister were coming back. The last member of my family was on the hook because of me, and it was about time I did something to rectify the situation.
“Do you need me for anything else?” I’d paid for the kids to get back to the Point, and even with Keelyn taking care of Julia, I was still going to owe Nassir a thousand more favors for taking the girl under his wing. The man didn’t do anything out of the kindness of his heart. Mostly because he didn’t have one. That was probably why we got along as well as we did.
Noe gave me a questioning look that I wasn’t ready to give her answers for. “I have something I need to take care of, and I’d rather do it knowing you’re safe and sound with Nassir.”
That sent her eyebrows shooting up, but she didn’t question me further. She’d been doing that a lot the last couple of days, looking at me like she wanted to say something, but staying silent. We were as close physically as two people could be. I was all over her every chance I got and she was all over me. We were like two people who were starving, ravenous, and greedy. We couldn’t get enough, and I hated that it felt like we had to have our fill of each other because we both knew it was only a matter of time before the food ran out. I could touch her however I wanted, take her without complaint, but ever since we agreed that revenge against Goddard belonged to his stepdaughter, she had been drifting away. She wasn’t challenging me, pushing me, and fighting me every second of every day. She wasn’t poking and prying at all my soft spots she’d uncovered over the last few weeks. Her hands always found their way to the mechanical heart on my chest, but I didn’t miss that she no longer seemed interested in fixing it.
“How long are you going to be gone?” She sounded carefully curious instead of concerned.
“Just a couple of hours.”
Nassir grunted and leaned back in his fancy leather chair. It was black. All it needed was a couple of skulls and some flames and he would look like Lucifer sitting on his throne of fire and lost souls.
“My lawyer is on the way over. He’s going to represent the girl. When we’re done here, Key is going to take her and her little friend to one of her safe houses. We’ll keep them stashed there with a security detail until Goddard is behind bars. The cop agreed to keep us updated on Goddard’s status. We’re all lucky his lady likes me as much as she does.” He sounded amused and I didn’t miss the way his wife rolled her eyes. “Not much you can do here until the legal ball gets rolling.”
Nassir’s wife had made it her mission upon coming back to the Point and going into business with the dark, dangerous man she slept with at night, to make sure that anyone who felt trapped here had a way out. She was the only person who could get you out of the Point alive and intact with very little effort. She was the downtrodden and destitutes’ only savior. She was the only one who could cut the ties this place wrapped around its citizens. It was an odd combination, she and him. She was like an avenging angel dressed in very little wearing sky-high heels. He was the devil incarnate, dressed better than any A-list actor on Oscar night. No one questioned their connection because it was impossible to miss. She didn’t move without his eyes tracking her, and he didn’t breathe without her watching the steady rise and fall of his chest. It had been blown wide open by a bullet not too long ago, so there was no surprise that she appreciated the fact Nassir was still around to give everyone hell.
The teenager looked at Noe with wide eyes and her small hand clamped down on her forearm. “You’re not leaving me, right?”
Noe looked at Julia almost the same way I looked at her when she asked me for help, uncertain and unsure. She’d already put her neck on the line for this girl and it had gotten her kidnapped and tortured. But once again proving she was so much better than me, she patted Julia’s hand and told her, “Of course, I’ll stay with you. I’ll even go with you to the safe house.”
Nassir gave me a knowing look. “I’ll keep an eye on your girl. If you’re not back by the time she’s ready to go, I’ll pull Booker from the club and have him escort her. He seems fond of her.”
The taunt hit its target as I narrowed my eyes at him. “I owe you. Both.”
Nassir lifted a midnight eyebrow and smirked at me. “You do.”
It was my turn to smirk when Key shifted from where she was standing and leaned over so that her hands were flat on her husband’s desk. She shook her head and told me, “We’re happy to help, aren’t we, honey?” She didn’t give Nassir a chance to answer before she stated, “This one is on us, Stark. We need all the good karma we can get. The lawyer is on retainer and he’ll be excited to represent a client who’s easier to deal with than my husband, for once. Go, do what you have to do.”
I turned to say something, anything, to Noe but she wouldn’t look at me. Her head was bent close to the teenager’s, but it was clear she was actively avoiding looking at me. I couldn’t tell where her head was at, but it wasn’t on how things were going to play out between us when all of this was over. Revenge had gone cold, and so had whatever was building between the two of us.
Leaning forward so I could tap knuckles with Nassir, I paused when he muttered quietly, “You’ve never been one I’ve had to worry about, Stark. Don’t become more trouble than you’re worth.”
It was a warning, one I wanted to heed, but with the way things were going it felt like trouble was endless.
“We need each other, boss. Best not forget that.” I wouldn’t have challenged him before Noe. She reminded me that I was one of a kind and irreplaceable. Not many men could stand in Hell next to the Devil himself and not get burned. I was one of them.
Those black eyebrows shot up and the smirk was back. “I don’t know if I like you when you’re firing on all cylinders.”
I shrugged and made my way over to the elevator that was the only way up into the office. I wasn’t too concerned with what anyone liked or didn’t like about me. Well, anyone besides the little thief who still wouldn’t look at me. I cared a whole hell of a lot what she thought about me, I just wished she would pick an emotion and stick with it. I was having a tough time following the swings of being her favorite person to being one she could hardly stand to be in the same room with.
There was one other person’s opinion I cared about and I needed to go see him. It had been too long, and there were questions I needed to ask that I was done letting him avoid.
I needed to see my father.
My truck ate up the distance between the city and the outskirts where the prison was located. I’d made the trip more times than I could count when I was finally free of the iron grip of the DoD. It was always hard to see my dad. The way he’d aged, the way he’d changed. He was haggard and hateful in the way only a man who had lost everything—his family, his career, his patriotism, his sanity, and his freedom—could be. He was never happy to see me when I came for a visit, and I had a feeling that after today he would ask me to stop coming altogether. If a teenaged girl could face the man who had taken everything from her, if a teenaged boy could walk into the unknown by her side because he thought it was the right thing to do, then the least I could do was tell my dad the truth.
The reason he was still behind bars was because of me. Because I couldn’t be who he wanted me to be. I couldn’t be who my mother wanted me to be. And I sure as shit was never going to be what the government wanted me to be.
Getting through security sucked. I hated being searched and poked and prodded. I hated answering their stupid questions. I hated that I was forced to go through all of this to spend thirty measly minutes with my father. It always left me feeling violated and dirty. If it was that unsettling for me, I couldn’t imagine what endless hours under that kind of observation and scrutiny had done to my remaining parent.