Liquid Courage Page 15
That fucking stubborn woman was putting herself in harm’s way, again.
Without me!
When would she fucking realize that she didn’t have to do it alone?
Once I got her home safe, I was turning her smart ass red.
That is, if I didn’t crash my bike first. My back was killing me…
Dion was going to be sooo pissed when he listened to his messages.
But I really had no choice. The second I heard Pita’s voice and the fear in it, I was already on the freeway.
Sure, I could have hauled ass back to Dion, explained the situation and fought over how to best stuff him in the car. But time was of the essence since Pita’s been calling for two days! Dion couldn’t even sit up, let alone endure a car ride and possible gang fight. And not to sound like a total dick, but I couldn’t afford to have him slowing me down either.
This entire situation was my fault.
I lied to Pita from the beginning and I’ve lied to Dion too. And now the past was fucking me right in the face.
Mercy, I fucked up. I found him. He wants…you.
The first half-hour of my drive was with tears in my eyes. The last half-hour, my eyes have been dry with retribution in its place. If I could clear this fucking construction bullshit, I could get to Pita!
And of course, it’s Michigan so the roads are never done, which meant I sat here fuming an extra twenty minutes he did not have.
I stared at my phone debating on doing as Dion suggested and calling the police.
Then I thought of Pita and decided against it. Finally clear of the mess, I flew down the highway, closer to my exit. As I drove, I armed myself so when I arrived, I didn’t waste time in the damn driveway like a rookie.
Taking the corner so hard even Dion probably would have pissed his pants, I find a spot on the lawn and claim it. Not bothering to be stealthy, I adjust both holsters as I scaled the stairs.
There was no point in knocking, he knew I was coming.
This was proven when the door was opened and the man behind it motioned me inside with a nod of his head.
Standing at the base of the steps, he waited for me with six of his boys, all heavily armed, all flanking him.
He’d need more than six flunkies for the shitstorm I was about to cause…
“Mercy,” he welcomes in clear annoyance and a touch of fondness. “I was beginning to think you weren’t going to show.”
“Bad cell reception,” I shrug it off. “You know how it is, Michael.”
“My name is Stang,” he sneers. “And you are a serious pain in my fucking ass, Mercy.”
“I can’t call you Stang with a straight face, so let’s move on,” I suggest. “I want to see Pita.”
“Who?”
“The kid, asshole, I want to see the kid. He’s the reason I’m here, no?”
When three of his boys step to the side it’s to show me, Pita tied to a rolling office chair of all things. Hiding my reaction to his bruised face and terrified eyes, I focus on Michael. “You worked him over? Are you fucking kidding me?”
For just a moment I saw pain in his expression and like a flash, it was gone. “A couple of my boys did.”
“Those boys going to be punished?”
“It’s been handled,” he warns.
“So, I’m just going out on a limb here and assume it was your boys that blew my shop up and strapped C4 to my chest.”
“Naw,” he shakes his head. “Not us. Though, I will say that’s pretty fucked up.”
Oddly enough, for a criminal he wasn’t a liar. He didn’t need to be.
“The two-punch to my face?” When the idiots responsible glanced at each other and grinned, I nearly shot them both. “And the drive by, that has your stench all over it.”
“Needed to make a point,” he grins showcasing his grill. “Made sure you weren’t hurt, just…aware.”
“The question is why?”
“You and me,” he says stepping into my space and staring down at me. “Had an agreement.”
“Still do, last time I checked,” I remind him.
“Evidence says otherwise,” he motions to Pita who closed his eyes in shame.
“I take it the rules of the game just changed,” I say relaxing my fingers.
“It changed when you started digging.”
That’s when his boys crowded around him and that’s also when I drew raising my gun in alignment with his fucking forehead. “Pointing a gun at me is going to get you dead, Mercy.”
“Give me Pita.”
“The fuck kind of name is Pita?”
“My very own personal pain in the ass,” I announce proudly and also threateningly.
“Fits,” he laughs loud.
“Give him to me.”
“How’d you find me?” he asks cocking his head to the side.
“I never lost you,” I explain. “But I wasn’t in your fucking business either.”
“No?” he challenges pointing at the kid. “He works for you right? Shit, I had to stuff a rag in his mouth to get him to shut up about you. Being his boss, maybe you can explain how the fuck he found me?”
When I looked at Pita, I knew. I fucking knew. And it wasn’t the kid’s fault, it was mine.
With orders to yank the rag out of his mouth, one of his boys slapped Pita upside the head and in return, I pushed my barrel deeper into Michael’s skin. “I’m the only one who gets to do that. The next motherfucker that touches him gets a bullet, Michael. You know I’m serious. You also know this problem has a solution, so decide how you want this to play out and do it yesterday.”
“Stand down,” he orders his boys and facing Pita says, “Always knew you were smart. Tell me, am I everything you remember, little brother?”
Ignoring Michael, Pita whispers to me, “I had to know, Mercy.”
Now I understood why he was pissed off and avoiding me. He’d found out that I was keeping him from his brother and felt betrayed. I suppose that without him knowing the facts, he had a right to feel that way.
“Put your girl in a lot of danger for nothin’,” Michael says and I heard the sadness in his voice. “I gave you up so you’d have a chance. You fucked up that chance by digging and showing up where you ain’t wanted.”
“Watch how you speak to him,” I warn as hurt blossomed over the kid’s face.
“Seems to me you ain’t been hard enough on him, Mercy. You promised to take care of him, guide him toward becoming a good man. Yet here he is! Poking his nose in my business!”
“We had a deal, asshole. I let you walk, I get Pita. Only now you have Pita and I want him back. The reasons he came to be here are irrelevant but the fault lies with me. I never told him about our deal, I thought I was sparing him unnecessary pain. Plus, he’s a computer genius,” I remind him. “And clearly missed his brother, which I’m sure he’s regretting looking into right about now,” I say leveling him with a glare. “He may only be nineteen, but already has what it takes to be a great man. I swear to you, any one of you try and stand in the way of him becoming that man, I’ll paint the walls red, starting with you Michael. Pita belongs to me.”
“Alright,” he says on a cocky grin. “Always did like you, Mercy. Even if you got more balls than sense, I trust you.”
“You want trust? I’m trusting you to keep to our agreement so I don’t have to kill the kid’s only living relative.”
“You’re my kind of crazy, you know that?”
Rolling my eyes, I waited while Michael had his boys untie mine.
And even when it was done, I didn’t lower my gun.
Trust, it seems was only running one way today.
The first time I saw her, I decided that I wanted to be just like her.
So, I followed, filmed, and hero-worshipped her from a distance. Then out of nowhere, she yells for me to come out of the bushes and offered me an opportunity to hang out with her.
From that moment on, if Mercy said something, I took it as fact.
Then she got me out of that hell hole, helped me find a place, and kept me on the side of right. She encouraged me to use my brain and trusted me enough to put her business in my hands.
I abused that trust when I was looking places I shouldn’t and ran across the file she had on my brother, Michael.
Michael, who always believed only the strongest survived. The guy who if he saw something he wanted, took it. The big brother I wanted to love me, to teach me. Michael, who was ten years older than me, gave me away the first chance he had. I hated him for it but it took seeing him again to remember what he said and being a man, I could appreciate why he did it. For all his faults, he didn’t want me to follow down his path and set me up so I had a chance.
I know you don’t trust me and that’s cool. You just gotta trust her. Remember that.
Her, being Mercy.
Yet at the first opportunity, I turned away from her, lied to her, and instead of trusting her, assumed she betrayed me like he had. The first time I showed up and got my ass beat, I told his boys I worked for Mercy. I had no idea my own brother would have his boys hurt her. Fuck, they shot at her too!
And despite how horribly I treated Mercy, she walked into danger, for me.
Pita belongs to me…
Until her, I’ve never belonged to anyone. Not my parents or my own brother. But Mercy, who owed me jack shit, stepped in and made a difference in my life.
The second my hands were free, I bolted from my seat wanting to get to her. Only Michael stopped me, to share his final warning. “You trust her. Not me, her. She’s your family, not me.”
Meeting his eyes, I promise, “You won’t ever hear from me again.”
I saw it hurt him but didn’t much care. He was nothing to me now. “Do good things.”
“Fuck off.”
“Yeah,” he smiles slapping me on the back hard. “You’re gonna be alright.”
Pushing past him, I made it to Mercy who wouldn’t even look at me. Staring down the room she asks, “I want the prick who put his hands on Pita to step forward.”
“Mercy, fuck,” Michael sighs and that’s when the room fell silent. Then all the guns came out. Starting with hers.
The only up side to owning a motorcycle was not having to sit in traffic when you could go around it. Because she took my truck, I know construction slowed her down which hopefully bought me some time.
Parking next to my truck which she parked on the grass, I fell off the fucking thing straight onto my back.
When I heard her scream “—Mercy and fuck in the same sentence asshole!” I ignored the pain and forced myself to get up.
Scaling the steps, I heard multiple voices, including Pita’s all trying to calm her down.
The kid was okay, thank fuck.
Busting through the door I wasn’t exactly sure what I’d stumble into.
But Mercy with a gun in each hand wearing an evil smile wasn’t even on the list.
With several guns now trained on me, Pita whistles to Mercy, “You are in so much trouble, Boss.”
“Yeah well, you’re grounded,” she says with bite.
“Why’s Dion hunched over?”
“His back locked up,” she informs him evenly.
“Kinky,” Pita grins at me.
“Who the fuck is this guy?” asks a man who looks a hell of a lot like Pita.
“That’s Dion,” Pita offers helpfully. “Mercy’s man. Owns the Foxxx Den and rocks a suit.”
“Yeah?” another guy says. “Maybe he should try keeping his bitch on a leash.”
Pita’s eyes went wide, the guy who looked like an older version of Pita sighed knowing what was to come, his boys even taking a step back when Mercy froze. Slowly turning to face the idiot, she repeats, “keep his bitch on leash?”
Laughing, he says, “and a muzzle for that mouth wouldn’t hurt either.”
“Huh,” she smiles wide. “You must be the clever one.”
With zero notice and moving quicker than any of us expected, Mercy adjusted her aim and shot him.
No sooner did that asshole hit the hardwood, his gun misfired hitting Pita and sending him to the ground.
Like she was possessed, Mercy flew forward and began beating the guy with the butt of her gun.
Yelling to me, she says, “Get Pita!”
Pita’s look-alike glanced at the kid in worry but moved toward Mercy. Stepping in front of him I warn, “Lay a hand on her and I’ll remove them from your body.” With a nod, he takes Mercy’s side who was now standing over the shooter with her gun pointed down at his face. Knowing what was to come, I crowd the kid so he can’t see.
“Let me look,” Pita begs trying to push me away.
“You’re hit, Pita,” I remind him. “Let me check you over.”
“I’m fine, it’s just a graze. I want to see Mercy!”
“No one hurts my family,” she whispers in fury.
“No one hurts my blood,” the guy who I realized now was Pita’s brother, agrees.
Another round was fired and the kid latched onto me, tight.
When she nodded at the kid’s brother I realized the shot didn’t come from Mercy’s gun and was glad for it. She didn’t need that shit on her conscience.
“D-dion,” Pita says on a stutter.
“Told you not to look,” I groan at the nightmares he’d have.
“She claimed me,” he says in a small voice.
“Because she adores you.”
“Pretty sure she adores you more.”
Smiling at the brave front the kid was putting on, I assure him, “It’s not a contest, kid. That woman has enough love for a small fucking country.”
We were both sharing a laugh when she shrills, “Oh my God, Pita!”
“You’re in deep shit, kid,” I grin moving a little to the left so she can get to him.
Giving me fake puppy eyes, he begs, “Don’t let me go, Dion. She scares me.”
Falling to her knees beside him, she gently reaches for his shirt to lift it. It’s the first time I have ever seen her hands shake and to make shit worse, the kid chose that time to moan. So that’s how he was going to play it…
“Pita,” she says urgently. “Can you hear me? Open your eyes, please!”
Going all in, the kid pretends to rouse and while part of me wanted to stop him, the other wanted to see how this ended. “Mercy?” he says groggily.
“This is my fault,” she sniffles. “Pita, I’m sorry. I should have told you the truth. Where does it hurt? Let me see.”
Fighting a grin, he asks, “Do you really not know my name?”
“Forget your name, you’ve been shot!”
“How many vlogs have you watched?” he presses.
“You’re raking me over the coals right now? You need a medic and a tetanus shot! Oh fuck! Are you even up to date on your shots?”
“Either you have or you haven’t,” he continues. “I took a bullet, woman, you owe me the truth.”
“Oh, that was dirty,” she says wiping her eyes. “Fine. I might have watched one or two.”
“One or two?” he counters adding a moan.
“Okay okay! I watched them all at least twice!”
“So, which is your favorite?”
“Pita, you go septic and die!”
“I’m willing to risk it,” he assures her. “Will you forgive me?”
“Of course, I forgive you,” she cries out. “You’re the little brother I never wanted.”
“You are hell on a man’s ego, boss.”
“You deserve it. I was terrified, Pita. That could have been so much worse. Look at your poor face! You’re not a PI yet, kid. What were you thinking?”
“But –”
“But,” she interrupts. “With the proper training…”
Sitting straight up he smiles at Mercy and says, “I knew you loved me.”
Noticing he wasn’t nearly as bad as she expected, she huffs, “I toler
ate you.”
And then the kid’s grin got bigger.
Remember when I said years ago I made two decisions that would change my life?
I told you about the first but this is how the second happened. I’d already given my boss and human resources my notice but still had one outstanding case I was determined to close.
A high-profile case involving stolen cars. The short version is, a group of young adults were responsible for acquiring vehicles that didn’t belong to them. I’m talking, Gone in 60 seconds kind of stealing. When my tip paid off, I followed the leader called ‘Stang' with the intent of busting him and going out with a perfect record.
Only after watching him for a bit, did I realize he wasn’t going to steal the homeowner’s car. He was looking for something. Getting closer, I saw it was someone. A much younger, tinier, innocent version of him.
While he’d known I was behind him, he didn’t tense or run for it. Instead, he pointed at the picture window and asked, “See that kid in there?”
“Yes.”
“He’s my baby brother,” and facing me I didn’t see a thief, I saw a young man yearning for his baby brother not to go down the same path he did. “He’s supposed to do big shit, have a shot. ‘Cept his fucking foster parents treat him like shit and cash his checks. I thought cutting him loose was the right thing to do. Thought the system would help him and I was wrong.” Not letting me speak he continues. “I’ll let you take me in. I’ll even take all the heat if you do me one favor.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
With tears in his eyes he said, “Take care of my brother. Get him the fuck outta there.”
In front of a stranger’s home, I made a deal. “I didn’t see you tonight, Michael. In fact, I’ve been at home this whole time researching how to remove a minor from the system. I’ll take care of your brother if you make me a promise.”
“I’m listening.”
“Don’t come for him.”
“Don’t let him come for me neither.”
We shook on it and he walked away.
From that day on, I kept an eye on his brother from a distance. I worked every angle with the system that I could. I hated his foster family and I’d anonymously call in information hoping it would get him placed elsewhere. When that didn’t work because the system was bogged down, I started inserting myself into his life hoping he’d notice me. And Pita, being Pita, noticed. I let him film me pretending not to see him. Then one day, I blew his cover and took the chance in speaking to him.