Becoming Rain
Page 96
Sinclair’s made the call.
He thinks he’s found his break.
“Oh . . . right.” Luke gives his head a slight shake. “I’m so sorry. With everything else going on, I completely forgot. I hope everything’s okay?” Just like that, he believes me. He trusts me.
No . . . Not yet. I close my eyes as the moment I’ve been dreading is finally here. This is it for Luke and me. In a few hours, he’s going to know everything. He thought this was bad? Everything is about to get a whole lot worse.
“You’ll call me? Let me know how things are?” he asks, cupping my cheek with all the affection of a boy in love.
A lump forms in my throat. “Give us a minute, Jack?”
The hardness in Warner’s eyes fades for a fleeting second. He nods once and moves away. On his phone again. Making plans for the systematic destruction of Luke’s entire life.
This is my job . . . this is why I’m here.
And Luke does deserve this for his part in crimes that hurt others.
I wish I believed that. Maybe then I wouldn’t feel like I’ve led a young lamb into a mountain lion’s den.
I started out wanting to bury every last person who was involved with Wayne Billings’s murder in the name of a red Ford truck. I still feel that way. But at some point, I allowed myself to care.
Maybe even to fall in love.
Maybe that’s why I can’t resist this overwhelming urge to stop Sinclair from stretching Luke’s neck out on a chopping block.
“It’ll be fine. Your dad will be fine. Okay?” He wraps his arms around my body, cradling me in warmth. I absorb the last small amount of comfort I’m ever going to feel from them while I curl my arms up in between us, sliding over his chest, taking in those curves.
My fingers reach for my pendant and switch the wire off. “Luke, I need you to listen to me carefully. Everything you’ve ever told me about Rust, the car stuff, everything, stays between you and me, okay?”
A frown flickers across his forehead. “Yeah, of course.”
“No . . . no matter who asks you. You don’t know anything, got it?”
I spot Warner’s head pop up in my peripheral vision, aimed my way, a deep frown marring his face. Surveillance has let him know that the wire is off. I squeeze tight against Luke’s body and whisper, “You’ll get through this, I promise.”
“Ready to go?” Warner made quick time back.
“Yeah.” I pull away from Luke and smile. “I’ll call you later.”
I feel Luke’s eyes on us as we make our way to Warner’s undercover car.
“Surveillance lost you for a second,” Warner states, matter-of-factly.
“I guess it must have gone off when he hugged me.” I hear the bitterness in my voice, and pull out my sunglasses to cover the tears forming in my eyes.
Chapter 55
LUKE
“I’ll pick something up on the way. Just heading home to have a shower and grab Licks.” I need my dog with me. “I’ll see you in a few hours.”
“You know what you should get? A giant bucket of fried chicken. Uncle Rust would love that.” Ana’s laughter carries over my car’s speaker.
“One bucket, coming up.” I smile, thinking about how Rust would show up to our house with a bucket on Sundays and the four of us would play Monopoly. He’d never let anyone win. Said that wouldn’t help us in the long run. It’s been a long time since I’ve spent any real time with Ana, or my mom. I think I need to change that. They seemed to really like Rain, but I wonder if that was just circumstance. Rust had warned me that my mom would be a hard one to win over for any woman.
My mind is so wrapped up in thoughts of Rain and my family that I don’t notice the black sedan pulling up next to my private garage. Time seems to just hang in the moments that I stare at my reflection in the tinted windows. Waiting.
When the sound of an automatic window opening hits my ear, my heart slows, each hard beat bringing with it increasing dread. Expecting to see the nozzle of a gun pointed at me. Maybe the same one that killed Rust.
In those few seconds, I see Rain’s face flash before my eyes.
But the person behind the glass isn’t Vlad or Andrei or anyone with a semiautomatic. It’s a salt-and-pepper-haired guy with silver streaks along his temples and a sharp black suit.
Holding up an FBI badge. “Get in.”
I assume there’s protocol for what the FBI is supposed to say—introductions, at least. But I get the impression this guy doesn’t give a shit about any of that.
“But my dog—”
He cuts me off. “We’ll make sure Licks is fine.”
A sinking feeling hits my stomach. The FBI knows the name of my damn dog.
This can’t be good.
“So you’re telling me you have no idea who this guy is?” demands Special Agent Joshua Sinclair, jabbing at the black-and-white picture taken at the funeral today.
The fucking Feds were at Rust’s funeral.
“His name is Vlad,” I say calmly.
“Yes, we’ve already established that. Now I want you to tell me how he knew Rust.”
I shrug. “He did business with him.”
“What kind of business?”
“You’ll have to ask Vlad that.”
Air hisses through Sinclair’s gritted teeth as he inhales sharply. We’ve been playing this game—where he lays out pictures of every Russian mobster who shook my hand only hours earlier and asks me about them—for nearly an hour, three times over. The two hours before that they left me sitting in this FBI interrogation room to stew in my own terror, a giant wall-to-wall mirror across from me and countless faces hidden behind it.
He thinks he’s found his break.
“Oh . . . right.” Luke gives his head a slight shake. “I’m so sorry. With everything else going on, I completely forgot. I hope everything’s okay?” Just like that, he believes me. He trusts me.
No . . . Not yet. I close my eyes as the moment I’ve been dreading is finally here. This is it for Luke and me. In a few hours, he’s going to know everything. He thought this was bad? Everything is about to get a whole lot worse.
“You’ll call me? Let me know how things are?” he asks, cupping my cheek with all the affection of a boy in love.
A lump forms in my throat. “Give us a minute, Jack?”
The hardness in Warner’s eyes fades for a fleeting second. He nods once and moves away. On his phone again. Making plans for the systematic destruction of Luke’s entire life.
This is my job . . . this is why I’m here.
And Luke does deserve this for his part in crimes that hurt others.
I wish I believed that. Maybe then I wouldn’t feel like I’ve led a young lamb into a mountain lion’s den.
I started out wanting to bury every last person who was involved with Wayne Billings’s murder in the name of a red Ford truck. I still feel that way. But at some point, I allowed myself to care.
Maybe even to fall in love.
Maybe that’s why I can’t resist this overwhelming urge to stop Sinclair from stretching Luke’s neck out on a chopping block.
“It’ll be fine. Your dad will be fine. Okay?” He wraps his arms around my body, cradling me in warmth. I absorb the last small amount of comfort I’m ever going to feel from them while I curl my arms up in between us, sliding over his chest, taking in those curves.
My fingers reach for my pendant and switch the wire off. “Luke, I need you to listen to me carefully. Everything you’ve ever told me about Rust, the car stuff, everything, stays between you and me, okay?”
A frown flickers across his forehead. “Yeah, of course.”
“No . . . no matter who asks you. You don’t know anything, got it?”
I spot Warner’s head pop up in my peripheral vision, aimed my way, a deep frown marring his face. Surveillance has let him know that the wire is off. I squeeze tight against Luke’s body and whisper, “You’ll get through this, I promise.”
“Ready to go?” Warner made quick time back.
“Yeah.” I pull away from Luke and smile. “I’ll call you later.”
I feel Luke’s eyes on us as we make our way to Warner’s undercover car.
“Surveillance lost you for a second,” Warner states, matter-of-factly.
“I guess it must have gone off when he hugged me.” I hear the bitterness in my voice, and pull out my sunglasses to cover the tears forming in my eyes.
Chapter 55
LUKE
“I’ll pick something up on the way. Just heading home to have a shower and grab Licks.” I need my dog with me. “I’ll see you in a few hours.”
“You know what you should get? A giant bucket of fried chicken. Uncle Rust would love that.” Ana’s laughter carries over my car’s speaker.
“One bucket, coming up.” I smile, thinking about how Rust would show up to our house with a bucket on Sundays and the four of us would play Monopoly. He’d never let anyone win. Said that wouldn’t help us in the long run. It’s been a long time since I’ve spent any real time with Ana, or my mom. I think I need to change that. They seemed to really like Rain, but I wonder if that was just circumstance. Rust had warned me that my mom would be a hard one to win over for any woman.
My mind is so wrapped up in thoughts of Rain and my family that I don’t notice the black sedan pulling up next to my private garage. Time seems to just hang in the moments that I stare at my reflection in the tinted windows. Waiting.
When the sound of an automatic window opening hits my ear, my heart slows, each hard beat bringing with it increasing dread. Expecting to see the nozzle of a gun pointed at me. Maybe the same one that killed Rust.
In those few seconds, I see Rain’s face flash before my eyes.
But the person behind the glass isn’t Vlad or Andrei or anyone with a semiautomatic. It’s a salt-and-pepper-haired guy with silver streaks along his temples and a sharp black suit.
Holding up an FBI badge. “Get in.”
I assume there’s protocol for what the FBI is supposed to say—introductions, at least. But I get the impression this guy doesn’t give a shit about any of that.
“But my dog—”
He cuts me off. “We’ll make sure Licks is fine.”
A sinking feeling hits my stomach. The FBI knows the name of my damn dog.
This can’t be good.
“So you’re telling me you have no idea who this guy is?” demands Special Agent Joshua Sinclair, jabbing at the black-and-white picture taken at the funeral today.
The fucking Feds were at Rust’s funeral.
“His name is Vlad,” I say calmly.
“Yes, we’ve already established that. Now I want you to tell me how he knew Rust.”
I shrug. “He did business with him.”
“What kind of business?”
“You’ll have to ask Vlad that.”
Air hisses through Sinclair’s gritted teeth as he inhales sharply. We’ve been playing this game—where he lays out pictures of every Russian mobster who shook my hand only hours earlier and asks me about them—for nearly an hour, three times over. The two hours before that they left me sitting in this FBI interrogation room to stew in my own terror, a giant wall-to-wall mirror across from me and countless faces hidden behind it.
