Scare Crow (17 page)

As I crouched over, retching, panic rose and I rose with it, holding on to whatever
I could. Oblivious to time and space. Indifferent to Victor or his security. I managed
to grab a bus back to school and found myself at the clinic, feeling the wetness of
blood in my under
wear.

The nurse behind the counter was closing the plate glass as I walked through the automatic
doors. Elevator music played in the backgr
ound.

“We’re closed,” she told me, but I held the plate glass open. I caught a glimpse of
my reflection. My hair was half in, half out of a ponytail, I had mud all over me
from my scuffle with Mike, and my hands were covered in red p
aint.

There was a doctor behind her, his back turned as he put files away. He was the medical
student who had somewhat patched up my broken fin
gers.

“Hey,” I shouted like the madwoman I resem
bled.

He jumped and spun on his heels. It seemed to take him a minute to figure out who
the hell I
was.

I didn’t have a minute. “I’m preg
nant.”

The nurse’s eyes rounded and jumped from me to the med student. She likely assumed
I was accusing him of getting me preg
nant.

“I’m bleeding. I think the baby is hurt.” I was shivering in the T-shirt that Mike
had given me. This was not T-shirt wea
ther.

The doctor in training bade the nurse good night and led me through the building into
the basement off
ices.

“How far along are you?” he asked so
ftly.

I wanted to cry, but I didn’t. “I don’t know. I’m not really
sure.”

He unlocked a door, and we walked through an empty waiting room to the back. He brought
me to a small dimly lit room and made me lie down, pulling my shirt up. Cold gel was
squirted onto my belly, and a lever hooked up to an ultrasound machine foll
owed.

“This is the second time I’ve seen you, and you’re coming in even more banged up than
the first time,” he observed, keeping his eyes trained on the sc
reen.

I tried to look at the screen, but he had turned it away from me. He stopped and turned
sternly my
way.

“You need to relax. It’s hard to see anything if you don’t r
elax.”

He went quiet again, one hand on the keyboard, the other swaying with the lever on
my stomach. I could hear him breathe and tried to match his pattern to calm my
self.

Breathe, Emily, breathe. One breath in. One breath out. One breath in. One breath
out.

The swaying on my belly slowed down, and he started clicking on the l
ever.

I closed my eyes. Oh God. Breathe in. Breathe out. Don’t cry. Breathe in. Breathe
out.

There was no more clicking, no more swa
ying.

I stopped breat
hing.

The doctor kept the lever on me and clicked one last time on the keyboard, turning
the soun
d on.

Boum-buh-boum. Boum-buh-boum. My eyes flew open. I knew exactly what that sound was.
As if I had heard it all my life. As if I had been waiting all my life to hear it
a
gain.

The doctor had turned the screen so that I could see it. There was a tiny blinking
light in the middle of a wiggly sq
uash.

The doctor pointed to the screen. “That’s the heart. The head. The arms. The
legs.”

It had arms and legs. It had a head. It had a beating h
eart.

“The baby is fine. Based on the measurements, you’re about four months pregnant,”
he continued and sighed. “You, however, don’t look well. Have you been taking any
vita
mins?”

I smiled at the screen. “Can’t keep anything down la
tely.”

He wrote something on a pad of paper and handed it to me. “These will help. But more
than anything, you need to rest … and take better care of yourself. You need regular
medical attention, from a do
ctor.”

I could tell from the sound of his voice that there was something else he wanted to
say. But I couldn’t take my eyes away from the screen, and I couldn’t stop smi
ling.

Eventually, he pulled the lever off my belly. And remained quiet as he put the equipment
away. I pulled my shirt down, letting my fingers flutter over the skin of my sto
mach.

He helped me up and excused himself for a minute. I looked at the empty screen again,
wanting more. Then my eyes went to the corner next to the bed, where a visitor chair
had been placed close for excited family members, for expectant fat
hers.

I stared long and hard at the chair, imagining Cameron sitting there. But there was
no one sitting there fo
r us.

The doctor walked me out of the darkened building and hesitated. It was raining the
kind of cold rain that gets sucked through your skin all the way to your b
ones.

“Do you need a ride?” he aske
d me.

I stepped out into the rain. “No, I’m fine.” I would be fine. We would be fine. But
I needed to be more careful from now on. I couldn’t ris
k us.

He nodded and handed me a pamphlet before running out into the
rain.

I looked down at the pamphlet. “Domestic Violence & Pregn
ancy.”

I crumpled it and threw it in the nearby garbage before heading back
home.

****

The wind and the rain blew the door open for me as I came throug
h it.

Hunter was sitting on the stairs, with his phone in hand. He shot up when he sa
w me.

“Griffin has been looking everywhere for you. He’s out with Meatball, walking through
the sc
hool.”

I ran past him up the stairs and into my room. I grabbed papers I had hidden under
my mattress and went searching for my ethics note
book.

When I finally found it, Griff and Meatball came jumping through the doorway. Both
were gasping for br
eath.

Griff had me in the fold of his arms before I could apologize and tell him he was
right. That I couldn’t fight two men who wanted to rule the underw
orld.

“Okay,” he said in my
ear.

I pulled away enough so that I could see his face. “
Okay?”

“I’ll help you with whatever you need,” he said in a voice that was scared and defeated.
“But you have to tell me everything, Em. I just can’t do this any
more.”

I threw my arms around his neck and let myself get scooped up closer to
him.

“I’m so sorry I scared you, Griff. I’ll never do that again,” I said to him as we
were cheek-to-c
heek.

He chuckled a bit. “Never ever say n
ever.”

I dropped back down to the floor and took his hand. Then I dragged him out of my room
and opened the door to his room without knoc
king.

“Uh, Em, what are you d
oing?”

Joseph was sitting at his computer and swiveled his chair, surprised by our brazen
e
ntry.

“Telling you everything,” I said to G
riff.

I marched us up to Jo
seph.

He took one look at me. “Why are you soaking
wet?”

I handed him the printout from his computer. “I lost my job at the library because
of
you.”

He took a moment to read the lines on the page. His expression went blank, his face
pa
llid.

Then I handed him the sodden business card that Carly had given me. It had once contained
the information of an accountant for the underworld who was to help me get Cameron’s
m
oney.

“I need to find this person,” I told Jo
seph.

It took a moment for him to register that I was blackmailing
him.

He took another look at the card. “But there’s barely anything on here. How am I supposed
to find this pe
rson?”

I slit my eyes. “You seem to have a way of getting the information that no one else
has acces
s to.”

Griff stood by me, watc
hing.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
CAMERON

CRACK

We were gathered in an old tin mill in Chicago when Manny walked in. And there were
three things I noticed. First, her bra strap was peeking out from under her shirt,
which looked big enough to fit a toddler (this was the second thing I noticed). Third,
she was stalking toward me with a look that I could only compare to a lioness during
mating season. She was stunning, and she kne
w it.

Carly growled from the second Manny had made a beeline for me until she was within
earshot. And then she growled a little bit more before giving Manny and me some privacy.
Manny kept a smirk on her face as she watched Carly l
eave.

“You need better help,” she sne
ered.

“I was told that you wanted to talk to me about somet
hing?”

“What I said was that I needed to see you. But I’ll settle for talking to
you.”

She was inching forward, her chest pulling her in, trying to close the space between
us. “That’s close enough,” I told her, keeping a stern
tone.

She glanced around the room as a few of the captains had filtered in. It was early
still, and those of them who were being tailed by the feds took a bit longer to safely
get to meet
ings.

The captains weren’t oblivious to the fact that Manny was attracted to me or to the
fact that we’d had a meaningless fling some time ago. (Secretly, they all wished they’d
had the same chance.) But that was all over, and I wasn’t about to risk any further
distrac
tion.

Manny was all about distractions. She rocked back on her heels and laced her hands
behind her back, making every seam of her tiny T-shirt exert. A pigeon in
heat.

“Been seeing anyone lately?” This was the question she would ask me every time we
saw each other la
tely.

I knew what she was really asking me: Have you seen
her
lately? A question I had already answered and was done answe
ring.

“Oh, there have been a couple broads here and there.” I gave her my most arrogant
smirk. “But you know me. I like to string them along for a while. I’ve never met anyone
who was worth keeping ar
ound.”

She winced. This had, of course, been for her detriment. Though I had always been
clear to her that what we had was just another fling and that I would never have feelings
for her, she wasn’t getting it. I hoped this last punch would be enough to quiet her
quest
ions.

I started to walk away until she held me
back.

“I still need to talk to you,” she said, having regained her business
edge.

I arched my brows and waited, my patience running
thin.

“I’ve been able to make a deal with Mexico. The biggest deal we’ve ever had. Unlimited
drugs, unlimited weapons. We could be running everything we want through their borders,
and they won’t sto
p us.”

Manny had been responsible for keeping the peace with the Mexican cartel while ensuring
our treaty was respected, a job that her father before her had excelled at. Manny
had bigger plans than her fa
ther.

I stared at her. “Did you have this conversation with the cartel before or after they
started distributing beyond the agreed bor
ders?”

“I didn’t discuss this with the cartel,” she said with a defensive tone and took a
moment. “I’ve been talking directly with Ju
lièn.”

Manny knew she wasn’t authorized to make these kinds of dealings on her own. If it
was for the benefit of the Coalition, she had to come to me first. If it was for her
own benefit, she had no business being there in the first p
lace.

There were three Mexican cartel families: the Munoz, the Vasquez, and the Castillos.
All three were extremely explosive, to each other and to outsiders like us. Because
of their volatility and their constant struggle for power within Mexico, we had never
been able to get them into the Coalition. So we had come to a treaty with the families,
allowing them each a section of the States to deal in, in exchange for keeping their
drug war from spreading too
far.

I crossed my arms. “You’re on a first-name basis with the Mexican presi
dent?”

She slit her eyes and smiled. “No one else would have ever been able to make that
kind of a
deal.”

This gibe had been against me. It had always been clear that Manny didn’t just have
feelings for me; she had feelings for my power. She wanted both of us so badly she
was willing to do anyt
hing.

“You’re walking a very thin line,” I warned her quietly. “While you were busy making
backroom deals with the president, the cartel has been making themselves comfortable
on our turf. You need to do your job and ensure that our treaty is being followed,
without setting off a
war.”

“This deal would make everything easier fo
r us—”

“Nothing’s ever easy,” I hi
ssed.

Manny’s jaw tightened. “You just wish you were the one who had been able to make this
kind of
deal.”

I took her aside and glanced around the room. “If the captains get wind of the fact
that you’re making dealings on the side without authorization … you’re putting yourself
in serious da
nger.”

Her lips thi
nned.

The rest of the captains filtere
d in.

She nodded and stepped
away.

We sat around the table, and I started the mee
ting.

As we went through the day’s agenda, I kept Manny in my peripheral vision. She fidgeted
in her seat and spun her pen between her fingers, feigning the slightest of interests
in the conversation to
pics.

Kostya ended the agenda with our decision to sell our shares in Chappelle de Marseille
and fund Advantis. Apart from the regular grunted response, this garnered very little
interest from anyone around the table. Anyone bu
t me.

I took a quick glance at the faces around the table and asked if anyone had anything
else they wanted to add, as I always did. Then I waited, my peripheral vision still
on M
anny.

The leader of the Southern West Coast street gangs piped up, looking slightly uncomfortable.
“Wasn’t sure when this was going to be addressed,” he said, and he had a paper sent
around to me. It was a printout from the front page of the
Callister City Standard
. It was dated with today’s date, with a caption of “Vandals Put Damper on a Hero’s
Welcome” and a picture of a red spider spray-painted on a white sedan—Shield’s s
edan.

I passed the paper to Spider, who was sitting behind me. He glanced over the picture
and placed the paper next to him, his expression stoic. All eyes were on Spider and
me. Manny smi
rked.

“I meant to bring this to you before the meeting,” Viper said respectfully and eyed
Manny. “But you were
busy.”

Yes
, I thought,
Manny was busy distracting me so that this would have to be seen and heard by all
the captains, before I could kill and bury it.
Manny was working all angles today—first by trying to disrespect my authority, then
trying to attack my most trusted
man.

“Obviously, Spider didn’t do that,” I said, chuckling darkly at the picture of the
pretty spray-painted spider. “He isn’t that arti
stic.”

“Still,” Viper said, “the coincidence of someone else painting a spider on Shield’s
vehicle … is kind of crazy. Especially after the hot vote—at your demand—to dispose
of Sh
ield.”

I wished Viper would have had time to bring this to my attention so that I could think
about the best way to deal with this. Even though Spider had had nothing to do with
this, the coincidence was certainly uncanny. And it would be used as fuel to Shield’s
assertions to the captains that Spider and I were planning to kill him (which of course
I was), which were found to be groundless. Until
now.

As far as I knew, Shield had painted this spider on his car himself in order to swing
the captains’ vote his way, to show that I was brewing up a war that the captains
had already decl
ined.

I analyzed the faces at the table and made a quick deci
sion.

“Well,” I sighed, “I think that for the time being, until we can determine the meaning
of all this and how this so-called coincidence occurred, Spider will remain out of
sight and away from all of our business. Ag
reed?”

Grunts of approval went around the
room.

I did not hear a peep from Spider, but I knew he would be fuming by the time the meeting
e
nded.

“Anything else?” I asked the table before we ex
ited.

Some of the captains had already started gathering their things and mumbling with
their neigh
bors.

Manny placed her pen on the table, leaned forward, and cleared her throat. “I have
something to bring to the table,” she announced, her voice firm. A look of surprise
flitted around the captains’ faces. With most of them having been in the Coalition
from the very beginning, Manny was still fairly new to the table, and with the still-questionable
demise of Manny’s father, this move came as unexpe
cted.

She had their atten
tion.

Manny went through the plans for manufacturing
and
distributing our own products. Dope. Weapons. Cutting the cost of the middleman.
Ensuring that she dropped Julièn’s name as many times as possible. When she was done,
she leaned back in her chair with a satisfied sneer on her
face.

I watched as the old boys, the ones who had been with the Coalition from the beginning,
eyed each o
ther.

There was total silence around the table. But not for
long.

The leader of the biker gangs was the first to break the silence with a bellow. His
nickname was Slobber because of his lack of hair on top and his overgrown moustache,
which fell at the corner of his mouth like he was drooling
hair.

“Let me guess,” Slobber said, not even attempting to hide his smirk. “In exchange
for this deal of a lifetime, the Mexican president wants his
cut?”

Manny stared back at him, trying to keep her composure as the old boys quietly cackled.
The only ones who remained stagnant were two of the newly inducted street-gang capt
ains.

“Julièn’s at it again,” Kostya mum
bled.

I let this go, just for a little while, before bringing order back. Then I gave Manny
a condescending smile. “Julièn,” I explained, “has been trying to get in on the action
for years, but the cartel wants nothing to do with him. He can’t even control the
drug wars in his own country and wants to partner with us, making all these promises
he’ll never be able to keep. Tell me, what does he want out of this deal? Because,
we all know, nothing comes without a p
rice.”

Silence from M
anny.

“Exclusivity? Am I right? He wants us to single-source through Mexico?” I looked Manny
in the eye. “We haven’t worked a long time just to build up reputable sources. If
we drop all of them, they
will
find another way to bring the merchandise in. Not only would we be doing business
with Julièn—someone who can’t deliver on his promises—but we’d be at war with our
part
ners.”

Manny looked blankly a
head.

“Anything else?” I asked one more time at the t
able.

Some of the captains were chuckling among themselves as they pushed their chairs
back.

“Manny, a word,” I called as the rest of the captains filtered out. I passed some
of the remaining paperwork back to Spider and waited for him to close the door behind
him.

Manny stood erect behind her chair and watched me move around the t
able.

I grabbed her by the hips and brought my lips close to her ear. “If you ever disrespect
me, try to upstage me like that again, I will have your throat
slit.”

She placed her hands on top of mine, pushing them deeper into her hips. She closed
her eyes, leaned in, and kissed me hard on the lips. A rattlesnake’s venomous
bite.

When Manny and I walked out of the meeting room, Spider and Carly were already
gone.

One of the guards took me back to our place in Houston. We had an apartment in a high-rise.
From the outside, the building looked like a roach motel. Inside, it was w
orse.

The smell of cigarettes and sweat and mixed spices hit my nostrils as soon as I walked
into the atrium. There were fliers and muddy floors over by the area designated for
the post boxes, though most of these were being held shut by wires or other contraptions.
There was miscellaneous garbage piled next to perfectly empty
bins.

Five elevators would take residents anywhere between the building’s twenty-eight floors—though
only two of them were actually working. An old lady dragged herself onto the same
elevator, wheeling her grocery cart of various junk and empty, stolen garbage bags
behind her. This explained why all the garbage cans were sitting e
mpty.

A kid had attempted to spray-paint a gang sign on one of the elevator walls. This
made me chuckle, given that I had just sat at a table with the captain who led this
street gang … as well as the other two rival street gangs in this state. Kids needed
to feel like they were fighting for something, feel like they belonged somewhere.
Too bad they were fighting each other to make money for the same organization.
Ours.