1001 Dark Nights: Bundle Fourteen Read online

  Marcus had bought that loyalty not with money but with something only men like him and Brady knew was much more precious.

  “Mr. Sloan, we don’t know dick about that guy.”

  “If you think that’s true, you haven’t been paying attention,” Marcus told him, his tone not harsh, simply informative. “He hasn’t been on the scene long but he’s made quite an impact in the time he has.”

  “I’ve heard about him. I’ve heard he gets the job done. I’ve also heard his dad is a cop. Veteran. Years on the force. His brother is also a cop. So is his best friend, Chavez. And Chavez’s younger brother, no one knows what that guy is. All they know is that Hector Chavez is a wild card and anyone with links to a wild card like that makes me uneasy.”

  “Nightingale’s other best friend is Darius Tucker.”

  Brady gave a nod but said, “He’s still untested.”

  “Then we’re going to test him.”

  Brady held his gaze only a moment before he nodded.

  Marcus continued to issue orders.

  “You’re on me, as usual. I want Louie on the streets. The other men stay on task. But keep Vince from this.”

  Brady’s mouth got hard and he nodded.

  Marcus’s man Vince had his uses, they were valuable, but both Marcus and Brady had had reservations for some time about the man.

  Louie seemed able to keep him in check, however, so those valuable uses could be put to work without causing hassle or headache.

  With no further words, they moved out of the club.

  Brady opened the back door to the black sedan limousine that was waiting only feet from the entrance of Smithie’s. Marcus folded in.

  Brady closed the door, rounded the car, and sat in the front seat next to Marcus’s driver, Ronald.

  Through this, Marcus pulled out his phone.

  He flipped it open and made the call.

  “Yes, Mr. Sloan,” his secretary Kelly answered.

  “Smithie has a dancer. Her name is Daisy. Find out her address and send her a bouquet of daisies. A large one.”

  “Daisies?”

  “Daisies. A lot of them.”

  “I’ll do that right now, Mr. Sloan.”

  “Every day.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Send her a bouquet every day. Starting today. Not the same color. But the same size.”

  “Right. Every day. Not the same color but large.”

  “Very large.”

  “Of course, Mr. Sloan. Anything else?” she asked.

  “Not right now.”

  “Okay, then. I’ll take care of it.”

  “Thank you, Kelly.”

  “My pleasure, Mr. Sloan.”

  He flipped his phone shut and drew a breath in through his nostrils.

  He was trying unsuccessfully not to allow what he saw on that tape to run through his head.

  As he was unsuccessful at this, he flipped his phone open again and made another call.

  “Marcus,” Shirleen Jackson answered.

  “You or your nephew find him, you bring him to me.”

  There was a moment of silence before she replied, “That’s not the deal we just made with Smithie.”

  “I’ll handle Smithie.”

  “You got chops, Marcus, but the angry black man who just stormed outta my house is not a man I’m thinkin’ even you can handle.”

  “They’re close,” he shared with her.

  “Know that. He didn’t say it but I think I got it. But that only makes it worse. Bottom line, she’s a Smithie’s girl and she got raped in his own goddamned parking lot. Doesn’t matter to him she came back because she forgot something so he didn’t know she was on the premises. Only matters to him that his shit-for-brains security guy left the cameras so his waitress girlfriend could give him a handjob in the handicapped bathroom stall. This means he was gettin’ off when he should have been at his post, catchin’ that shit and shuttin’ it down so it didn’t happen. Wasn’t Smithie who got a handjob but he’s takin’ that all on his shoulders. He’s feelin’ a weight and that shit is heavy. So like I said, this is not a man who can be handled and I’m not thinkin’ that’s gonna change any time in, hmm…I don’t know, say the next century.”

  “How many children does Smithie have, Shirleen?” Marcus asked.

  “I can’t keep tabs. Brother keeps addin’ to his army,” she muttered.

  “Regardless, I’m sure they’d prefer him running his club and not serving twenty to life.”

  Shirleen had no comment to this.

  “You find him, you bring him to me.”

  “Can we play with him first?” she requested.

  “Be my guest.”

  “Marcus Sloan, always generous.” She was again muttering then she ended it. “Later.”

  “Good-bye, Shirleen.”

  He flipped his phone shut and drew in another breath.

  It was then he allowed himself to envision what was on that tape.

  He was interrupted in this when Brady dropped the phone he had to his ear, turned his head, and looked into the back at Marcus.

  “You have a meet with Nightingale at two,” Brady told him.

  In other words, in twenty minutes.

  “Excellent,” Marcus replied.

  Brady turned forward.

  Marcus breathed.

  * * * *

  Daisy

  “Aren’t these pretty?”

  I didn’t look.

  I kept staring out the window of my apartment, seeing nothing.

  “Daisy, hon,” LaTeesha, one of Smithie’s four women, got closer to me. (Yeah, he had four, and yeah, he worked that, and yeah, I got that—Smithie had that big of a heart, not one of them or not any of the gazillion kids he had felt what they got from him was lacking.)

  “You’re sweet, bein’ here with me, sugar. But I’m feelin’ the need for alone time.”

  “Daisy—”

  I turned to look at her, my mouth open to say something, when I stopped and stared at the huge bouquet of flowers she held in her hands.

  Daisies.

  “Smithie?” I asked, still staring at the flowers.

  “Marcus Sloan.”

  My eyes shot to hers.

  “Uh…pardon?”

  She smiled gently. “They’re from Marcus Sloan.”

  “Marcus Sloan?”

  She misunderstood me, thinking I didn’t know who he was when I didn’t. Not really. But I’d heard of him. And, of course, seen him at the club since I noticed he’d come in every once in a while after that first time I’d seen him with Ashlynn.

  “He’s Smithie’s partner. Silent partner.” She said that last quickly, and I knew the way it came at me the “silent” part was very silent. “He…he’s…” She seemed to struggle before she went on, “A good man. Kind-hearted. He helped me and Smithie with some things once and I’m grateful he did. Don’t know what we would’ve done if he hadn’t. My guess is that he heard what happened and—”

  Oh no.

  Nononononono.

  No.

  My chest closed up so I had to force out my, “Please.”

  She set the daisies aside and crouched down beside me, taking my hand.

  The instant she touched me, I pulled my hand free.

  “Darlin’ child,” she whispered, the words broken, like she was going to cry.

  “I need some alone time,” I whispered back.

  “Okay, baby, then you go into your room and I’ll stay right here so if you find you’re not feelin’ the alone, I’m real close so you don’t gotta be.”

  “Thank you but by alone, honey, I mean alone.”

  She scooted closer in her crouch and her voice dipped low and even sweeter.

  “Hon, I know you think you know what you want right now but you don’t. You need me here. And I’m gonna stay here, Daisy. You need to be alone, I’ll give you that how I can. You wanna be in here, I’ll go to the kitchen. You wanna lie down in your room, I’ll be out here
. But I’m not leaving.”

  The tears hit my eyes and they stung.

  I looked to the window, and to control the tears, my tone was ugly when I rapped out, “Do whatever you wanna do.”

  “Daisy?”

  “What?” I snapped.

  “I could turn back time, I would, baby.”

  She said that like she really meant it.

  I looked back to her and hissed, “That makes two of us.”

  She bit her lip, wet trembling against her bottom lashes, and nodded.

  I again looked out the window.

  I felt her presence leave me but it didn’t leave my apartment.

  And I stared out the window knowing I was done.

  My daddy beat me. Then he left us with just what he gave us when he was with us. Nothing. My momma gave not one shit about me. Every man I’d had in my life (outside Smithie, and long ago, a man I barely remembered, just his shoulders, his eyes, and his name, Stretch), had treated me like trash.

  And I was finally getting it.

  Finally.

  They treated me like trash because that was what I was.

  The kind of girl some loser you once gave a lap dance to who was ejected because the motherfucker was way too fucking handsy jumps you in a parking lot, lands his fist in your face until you can’t think straight, and violates you on asphalt.

  I didn’t move from that chair not because it was comfortable.

  I didn’t because it hurt too much to move and I’d already learned that there was nothing, sitting or lying down, that felt good on my scraped-raw back and ass.

  Yeah.

  That’s where trash belonged.

  Thrown to the asphalt just like what it meant.

  Nothing.

  Miss Annamae had been wrong.

  Everyone else had been right.

  I got treated all my life like I’d been treated because that’s who I was.

  I wasn’t even trash.

  I was nothing.

  And coming to this understanding, I stared out the window not seeing anything and I didn’t even try to build castles in my head. I didn’t surround myself with a moat, heavy doors solidly bolted to keep the bad away, knights in armor always close to protect me, pennants flying to the glory that was me. The princess high atop a turret in a stronghold, a glorious, magnificent, grand castle made of impenetrable stone, safe and protected where no one could hurt her with words or fists or anything.

  You didn’t keep trash safe.

  You threw it away.

  But nothing?

  Nothing was just…

  Nothing.

  * * * *

  I woke when I was lifted and immediately started struggling no matter the pain—throbbing in places, acute in others—that tore through me.

  “Shh, darlin’, quiet now, it’s only me.”

  I went slack in Smithie’s arms.

  He carried me to my bed. LaTeesha was already there, folding back the covers.

  She straightened and turned to Smithie and me as Smithie bent and laid me out on my sheets.

  “You want me to help get you in your jammies?” LaTeesha asked gently.

  In answer, I turned my back on her.

  I heard her sigh.

  I felt Smithie pull the covers up over me.

  He tucked them lightly around me and then I felt his lips touch my temple.

  I pressed my head into the pillows to get away.

  “Baby girl—” he started to whisper in my ear.

  “Not now, honey,” LaTeesha advised her man. “Not now.”

  “Fuck,” he murmured as I felt him move away.

  The light went out.

  I didn’t hear the door close and I reckoned this was because one of them came back. I heard a muted sound like they’d put a very full glass of water on the nightstand.

  Only then did I hear the door close.

  So only then did I feel it was safe to turn carefully, doing this to my belly so I didn’t rest any weight on my scrapes, and I looked through the dark.

  There was a shadowed bouquet of daisies on my nightstand.

  I stared at them and I did it focusing only on the darkened shapes of the blooms until my eyes closed and I fell asleep.

  * * * *

  And when I woke up hours later, those daisies were the first thing I saw.

  * * * *

  And as the days passed, every one, there came a huge bouquet of daisies.

  I went to bed wandering through an apartment filling up with brightness.

  And I went to bed with the scent of flowers in the room, the sight of shadowed petals the last thing I saw.

  And that bright, hopeful, happy beauty was the first thing that hit me every morning.

  Chapter Three

  Snow White

  Daisy

  “What happened to your face?”

  I looked to the kid standing beside me where I sat on the bench in Washington Park, a place I’d gone to escape my apartment, my thoughts, my life.

  And those daisies.

  Even I couldn’t feel like shit in a house filled with daisies.

  I didn’t think of daisies.

  I looked at a kid who was young, in his early teens, maybe even younger than that, Hispanic and already a very good-looking boy. He had another boy with him, black, gangly. I could see the other one would be tall and he wasn’t yet growing into what he’d become, but the promise of it was there. He was standing further away, shadowed by the shade of a tree, not bold enough to approach, so I turned my attention back to the one who’d gotten close.

  “It’s not polite to ask a question like that, sugar,” I told him.

  “I hope you fucked him up right back,” he said and I wished I was able to share that I had.

  I looked closer at him.

  “Fuck, you didn’t get the shot at fuckin’ him up,” the kid muttered, his face turning hard, and my attention grew sharper.

  When it did, I noted he needed a shower. A haircut. A change of clothes.

  Food.

  And he saw things others wouldn’t see.

  Primarily, whatever my face had told him that other kids his age would never have seen. Hell, even most adults wouldn’t have read it on me.

  Damn, he was a runaway.

  I cocked my head. “When’s the last time you had somethin’ to eat, boy? And by the way, kid your age shouldn’t say fuck. Comprende?”

  His face got even harder before his eyes darted beyond me, his body grew tight, and his friend said urgently, “P, let’s go.”

  He didn’t delay. They both took off and vanished quickly, even in an open park on a sunny day.

  It was then the sun was blocked from hitting me and I turned my attention swiftly that way, bracing, preparing to launch myself from the bench and run if I had to.

  I stayed still as I saw Marcus Sloan standing there in another impeccable suit, hands in his trouser pockets, eyes cast down to me.

  “Daisy,” he murmured.

  Please, God, let this not be happening.

  My face was still a mess, as evidenced by that kid coming up and mentioning it to me.

  And I was…

  Well…

  Me.

  “Mr. Sloan.”

  “Marcus,” he corrected me.

  Okay, this was happening.

  I lifted my chin a little and kept it there but said nothing.

  He had sunglasses on, smoky ones that were handsome on him and probably cost a mint.

  Headlining Smithie’s I could afford glasses like those (well not those, those were for a man, but the like for girls).

  Years of scraping by, I’d made it.

  Stripping.

  Smithie was giving me paid leave. I was going back as soon as the bruising was out of my face and the scabs were gone from my body.

  I was doing this because I had a Porsche to pay for, for one. And what did it matter what I did, for another. I got paid a load dancing around for schmucks with hard-ons. No reason not t
o keep doing it.

  And yeah, not even after what had happened to me. I knew without a doubt that wasn’t why I’d had some asshole rape me. Assholes did that kind of shit to women no matter what she did for a living, mostly because they were assholes.

  Still, even behind his shades, I knew Marcus Sloan was studying me.

  I didn’t like it but Miss Annamae’s training kicked in and I said, “Thank you for the flowers.”

  He inclined his head but said nothing.

  “They’re real nice but you can stop sending them,” I told him.

  He still said nothing.

  Whatever.

  I looked around our area of the park and back at him.

  “You take a stroll through Wash Park often?” I asked.

  He spoke then.

  “I’d like to take you out to dinner tonight.”

  I stared up at him, not wearing any sunglasses, so my expression was probably not hard to read. Even if I’d had them on, my mouth dropping open would have given me away.

  I snapped it shut and straightened my back. This caused only a hint of pain as the tightness of the scabs reminded me they were there.

  “Thank you, but you’ve made your point with the flowers. And you have nothing to worry about. I’m coming back to work and I’m not blaming anyone for what happened, except the asshole who did it to me.”

  He nodded but even doing it, he said, “With that, I’m afraid it’s clear that I haven’t made my point with the flowers.”

  What?

  “What I’m trying to say, Mr. Sloan—” I began to explain.

  “Marcus.”

  “Marcus,” I snapped and watched his very fine lips twitch.

  Whatever.

  I carried on.

  “You and Smithie will have no problems from me.”

  “I didn’t suspect we would.”

  “Good,” I returned. “So thank you for…” I lifted a hand and flitted it through the air, watching his shades move to it and stay locked on it in a way that made me feel funny, “your kindness, but there’s no need to take it further.”

  When I dropped my hand to my lap, he rocked back on his heels, his shades returning to me.

  He didn’t say anything for a long time, he just looked at me, and I fought squirming.

  Finally, he spoke.