Deceptive Innocence, Part Three (Pure Sin)

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  contents

  chapter one

  chapter two

  chapter three

  chapter four

  chapter five

  chapter six

  chapter seven

  chapter eight

  chapter nine

  chapter ten

  chapter eleven

  chapter twelve

  chapter thirteen

  chapter fourteen

  chapter fifteen

  acknowledgments

  about the author

  chapter one

  Everything outside of this limo is familiar to me: the run-down apartment buildings, the little grocers, the scattered homeless, the dealers, the neighbors who despite their struggles always manage to maintain a sense of community that is completely foreign to the truly wealthy. This is a world that I can easily manipulate and survive in. It’s an oddly comforting place. It’s my home. Harlem.

  If I could just open the door to this limo I would be home.

  But no one is going to let me do that. Not Micah, who is on my right, flipping through my phone and looking at my texts and call records. Not Javier, on my left, scratching at his stubble while his free hand casually rests on the butt of his gun.

  “What’s this?” Micah holds up my phone and flashes me the picture I took of one of Lander’s illustrations, the one that depicts the man with sharp teeth snarling down at a sleeping man. Underneath it is an anagram I’ve yet to work out. But I don’t need to know the anagram’s solution to understand the darkly aggressive energy of that drawing. I understand it because I understand the artist. Lander’s work reflects his passion, his meticulous attention to detail, his darkness, even his humor.

  It’s possible that I’ve seen Lander for the last time. I may never again feel the warmth of his skin as I rest my head on his shoulder. I may never again hear his whispered compliments as he slides off my clothes.

  And with that I may be robbed of the opportunity, in my quest for revenge, to rip my new lover’s life to shreds.

  I may have lost everything. Failing would mean losing my mom all over again.

  Micah’s still holding up the picture and I turn my eyes away. “It’s just a doodle,” I say, allowing him to think I’m the one who created it.

  Micah raises his eyebrows and looks at the picture again. “Not bad. You didn’t tell me you were an artist, Sweet.”

  “And you didn’t tell me you were a kidnapper.”

  “Yes, well, I also failed to mention that I piss standing up, but you can assume as much,” he says with a chuckle. “Some things just come with the territory.”

  “I don’t understand—” I begin, but Micah cuts me off.

  “You know, I’ve been saying those three words a lot lately. I told you a long time ago that I would help you get any job you wanted. You’re a good-looking woman and smart as hell. I could have set you up at a nice art gallery where you would have waited on respectable wealthy gentlemen until one of them made you his wife. I could have gotten you modeling gigs, or if you wanted to use what God gave you, I could have made sure you were the highest-paid call girl in New York. I would have made sure that every client treated you right.”

  “So you think being a personal assistant is beneath me, but serving or fucking wealthy men is not?”

  Javier’s eyes slide in my direction. Javier speaks very limited English, but everybody knows the word fuck.

  “It’s my experience that fucking wealthy men is something most women enjoy,” Micah notes mildly.

  I straighten my posture and meet Micah’s eyes. “You told me that I could fabricate any work history I wanted.”

  “I did. I did,” Micah confirms. Outside I can hear the calls of young men as they stumble out of a bar.

  “You also said I could use you and your people to back up any professional references I chose to invent,” I continue. “I made up a career history, one that qualified me for a personal assistant position. I didn’t try to convince an employer that I passed the bar or went to med school. I didn’t tell a property development firm that I knew how to build a building that could withstand a storm. I chose not to apply for a job where my lack of real qualifications could lead to someone dying or spending their life in prison. So what exactly is your problem?”

  I can see the beginning of a smile pulling on the edges of Micah’s lips. “Here you are, in a confined space, surrounded by men with guns, and you’re giving me attitude. Like I said, you lack a healthy fear of death.”

  I flinch slightly at that. I don’t want to die. Not yet. In a month or two . . . maybe. Maybe someday soon I’ll see death as a relief. But that’s later. After I do the things I need to do. After I get my mother justice.

  Still, if I must die now, I refuse to spend my last minutes on earth kissing the asses of the men who are going to kill me. I simply will not do it. And so I can’t help but be emboldened by the futility of my situation.

  Micah powers down my phone and slips it into his jacket pocket. “I would have understood . . . if you had wanted to pretend to be a lawyer or a doctor. I would have counseled against it,” he says with a light laugh. “But still, I would have understood. You’ve always struck me as a go-big-or-go-home girl. I respect that. But a personal assistant? Not your style, Sweet. So I got a little worried.”

  Javier shifts slightly in his seat so that now his leg is lightly touching mine. The noxious quality of my own vulnerability is overwhelming. These two men could do anything to me. And all I can do is curse them until they cut out my tongue.

  “I was so worried,” Micah continues, “that I thought maybe you were under duress of some kind . . . or maybe you had lost your senses. So, out of concern, I assigned you a . . . a secret chaperone.”

  “A chaperone,” I repeat.

  “Yes, just someone to follow you at a discreet distance to make sure that you were all right. Don’t worry, they weren’t following you every day. You’re not that high on my priority list . . . But you can imagine my surprise when I discovered that you’re not only working for Travis Gable but also ‘dating’ his brother, Lander.”

  “I can date who I please.”

  “Of course you can, Sweet.” Micah pats my knee reassuringly. “Of course you can . . . Still, I found it all a bit odd. There are a lot of rich men in New York. Men who are known for being more generous and more gullible than the Gables. So why them?”

  It’s not a question, not really, and I don’t answer, just keep my eyes on my fists, which are now clenched in my lap. Outside I hear the distant wail of a siren, a sound that everyone in this neighborhood associates with an approaching danger rather than an impending rescue.

  “Anyway, I started doing some research,” Micah continues, “and, well, here’s a funny coincidence, but it would seem that the Gables knew the man your mother killed.”

  “My mother didn’t kill anyone,” I hiss through clenched teeth.

  Micah throws up his hands as if to ward off my anger. “I meant no offense. Nonetheless,” he says casually, “when I looked over the news reports about the case I found myself hoping that she did.”

  My eyes shoot up and meet his. “Why?”

  “He deserved it. Your mum was a good woman. If that Nick Foley wanted her, he should have treated
her better. He should have put the two of you up in a nice place; he had the money for it. He shouldn’t have had her cleaning up after his wife. Scrubbing the missus’s toilets, removing her hair from the floor of the shower he shared with her, washing her perfume from his sheets. That’s just bad taste, Sweet.”

  “He didn’t deserve to die,” I whisper.

  “Didn’t he? He was extraordinarily disrespectful. He humiliated her, degraded her. He treated her more like an indentured servant than an employee. Like she was his property to fuck and discard as he pleased without ever thinking about the needs of her and her daughter. Are you honestly suggesting that shit doesn’t piss you off? Let me tell you something: if your mum didn’t kill that bastard, then whoever did pull the trigger did her a favor.”

  “A favor? Whoever pulled that trigger let my mother take the fall for his crime!”

  “Or her crime,” Micah says slowly. “Even if it wasn’t your mother, the killer could have been a woman. The missus maybe? Or another scorned lover? No reason to assume your mother was his one and only mistress. I seriously doubt she was.”

  I shake my head. I don’t want to hear this. But Javier’s hand is still on his gun and the limo keeps moving.

  “But you don’t think it’s a woman,” Micah says calmly. “You think the Gable family was involved.”

  For a moment the world gets very, very quiet. I can’t even hear my companions breathing as the car bounces over the potholed streets.

  “A lot of other people thought that too, Sweet,” Micah continues, his voice dripping with sympathy and tinged with condescension. “The papers didn’t buy it, but the rumors were there. There were a few coincidences that guided suspicion in that direction. The cops checked into it . . . and discovered nothing.”

  “You trust the cops?”

  Micah smiles. “About as much as I trust the stock market. There are a few good stocks and a lot of bad ones, and there’s a whole bunch of corrupt bullshit going on behind the scenes that nobody gets to see. Still, I gotta admit, while they harass innocent people all the time, they’re not in the habit of sending innocent people to prison. Occasionally it happens, but it’s rare. And if the cops had any evidence, boy they would have loved to have sent even one of the Gables to prison. It would have been quite an impressive bust, a career maker for some blue-collar detective eager to bust a banker. But there was nothing, Sweet. I checked. As for Travis, well, I do a little business with him.”

  “Wait, you—”

  Micah holds up his hand to stop me. “All aboveboard of course. But if I thought Travis was capable of doing what you seem to think he’s done, I would have brought him into my operation.”

  “Micah!”

  “Sorry, Sweet, but it’s true. See, there are a lot of people who are capable of giving themselves over to violence. For those people, violence is a drug that they get a euphoric high from. And like all addicts, they end up using their drug recklessly and in excess so that in the end they make a big mess out of everything. I’d wager you’ve met a lot of people like that in your life, am I right?”

  I give a curt and impatient nod, silently urging him to get to his point.

  Micah continues, “But to set someone up as effectively as you seem to think your mother was set up? A man who uses violence as a drug couldn’t do that. He would have slipped up, made some careless mistake in the heat of the kill. He would have shot Nick at an angle that would have been impossible for someone of your mother’s height or shot him when your mother had a clear alibi. It’s the rare individual who is capable of mastering violence and applying it with discretion and care so that it can grant specific results. A man who can turn every gunshot and punch into a business decision? That’s a man I can use. But Travis is not that man. Neither is Lander nor their father, Edmund. The sad truth is, they’re simply not that ruthless.”

  I press my lips together and stare at the closed partition blocking off our driver. I think about Lander raining down blows on a man who was already on the ground. I think of Travis cutting his wife to pieces with his words. These are violent men. I don’t know if Lander has the ability to wield his anger in the way Micah appreciates, but I’d bet everything I have that Travis does.

  And I know that if Micah is doing business with the Gables, what they are or are not capable of is completely irrelevant. Micah will do everything he can to make sure that I don’t tamper with his interests. If that means he has to kill me, that will happen.

  When they ushered me into this car, Javier had taken my purse from me and placed it on the seat across from us, right next to a small black duffel bag containing God knows what. But no one has bothered opening my purse. They don’t know about the gun that hides inside it. Then again, they might not care. It’s too far away for me to reach without getting up, and they’re certainly not going to let me do that.

  “I don’t know who killed Nick Foley,” Micah says. “If you want, I’ll look into it a bit more. See what I can dig up. In the meantime feel free to serve Travis, fuck Lander, kiss up to Edmund, whatever. All that’s fine.”

  “What are you going to tell them?” I ask, although I’m not sure I want to hear the answer.

  “Nothing,” he replies jovially. “The Gables may not be ruthlessly violent, but they don’t make life easy on their enemies, and I told your mum I would look after you. So, for now, I’m keeping my mouth shut. “

  “Really?” I ask, genuinely surprised and relieved, but also more than a little confused.

  “Sure! Maybe you want to see if you can take them for some cash or use them to gain a little power. Or perhaps you want to mess with Travis’s marriage or Lander’s heart. If so I won’t interfere. Make ’em cry, see if I care. But, Sweet?” And with this he takes my chin in his hand, forcing me to hold his gaze. “Don’t do anything that interferes with their ability to perform their professional duties at the bank. Do not mess with my investment. That won’t work out well for you.”

  Without taking his hand off the gun, Javier places his other hand on my thigh.

  “He likes you,” Micah says nonchalantly. “He told me as much. He said he’d pay good money for a turn with you. A lot of men would. If you like, I can still set you up to take care of some of my more respectful business associates. Like I said, I’ll make sure none of them hurt you. I can even advise them to . . . to put some effort into it, give you a little fun. Normally my cut is seventy percent, but your mum was good to my niece, so for you I’d bring that all the way down to ten. So you see, there would be very good money in it for you and it’s a lot less complicated than playing cat-and-mouse games with the Gables.”

  Carefully, I pull Micah’s hand away from my face and turn to look at Javier as he begins to caress me. “¡Quita tus manos de mi!” I hiss.

  Javier looks up at Micah, who gives a slight nod. With some reluctance Javier removes his hand.

  “Have it your way, Sweet,” Micah says with a sigh. “It was just a suggestion. But I really do want to help you.” He reaches forward and takes the duffel bag off the seat and puts it in his lap. When he opens it he reveals bundles of money.

  “There’s fifteen thousand dollars in here,” Micah says, holding up a handful of hundreds. “It’s all for you. I should think it’s enough to cover the rent for the shithole you live in for quite some time.”

  “Why are you paying me, Micah?” I say coolly.

  “Because,” Micah says with a light laugh, “I’m very good to my friends. Of course, when someone makes the mistake of becoming my enemy, well, then I’m not so nice. But you don’t have to worry about that because you’re never going to make that mistake, are you, Sweet?”

  I swallow hard and stare down at the floor.

  “I believe I asked you a question.”

  “I won’t make that mistake,” I say quietly.

  He smiles and again relaxes back in his seat. “It’s like I said, you’re beautiful and smart. Such a wonderful combination.”

  He gets my purse and p
uts it on top of the duffel bag, then pulls my phone from his jacket again. “I’m just going to put your cell in your handbag . . .” he begins, but when he opens my purse he sees my gun. He pulls it out carefully and studies it. Beside me Javier grins.

  “What an adorable little pistol,” Micah muses. He checks the chamber and then takes out all but one bullet before putting the gun and the loose bullets back into my purse. “Every woman should have protection,” he says. “Of course, both Javier and I have our own guns. Tell me, do you think that if we were enemies you would be able to shoot one of us and then reload before the other shot you?”

  “Of course not, but it’s a silly question, Micah,” I whisper. “I would never attempt to do something like that. We’re friends.”

  “Yes, Sweet,” he says, patting my knee. “We truly are.”

  chapter two

  It’s almost two in the morning. I should be home. I should be restrategizing. I’ve put years into this plan, and I cannot just sit back and allow Micah to screw it all up. I need to think! And when Micah dropped me off back at my apartment that’s what I tried to do. I tried to think. I tried to focus . . .

  . . . but I couldn’t stop shaking.

  If Micah doesn’t think the Gables are methodically violent, then he doesn’t know them. Of course, it’s possible that they hired a hit man to kill Foley, but they were definitely the ones behind the murder. But then, Micah isn’t interested in the truth. He’s interested in his business. And he knows that I’m not in the position to question him.

  At least not to his face.

  And if . . . no, not if, when I proceed with my plan, will Micah find out? What will he do to me? Will there be pain?

  He’s right about one thing: I’m not afraid of death. But I am not so ambivalent about the process of dying.

  There have been lots of moments over these last few weeks when I’ve felt anxious, maybe even a little scared. But tonight, when I sat between Micah and Javier, I was frightened. And I haven’t been frightened since the night they took my mom away.