Marcus’s gaze moved to the man.
“This was not the question I asked,” he said slowly.
“He’s…I think…” the man moved uncomfortably in his chair and said no more.
“I won’t ask again,” Marcus told him quietly.
“I…I heard someone say, uh…he and Lenny… That is, I heard they went to go see Shirleen Jackson and Darius Tucker.”
Lenny, Marcus knew in keeping tabs, was one of Smithie’s bouncers. Good kid, working his way through college providing security at a strip club. Marcus had met him once, and if he’d gotten a whiff of what he needed from the man, he’d have recruited him. But Smithie shared Lenny wanted to devote his life to finding a cure for cancer, something he’d lost a grandmother and aunt to, so he was studying biology in hopes one day to do that.
He might be studious but he was also a large, dark-skinned black man with a talent for security.
And if he’d seen what Marcus just saw, now he was a man with a mission that might put his future plans in jeopardy.
That did not factor to Marcus.
Only one thing factored.
And Shirleen Jackson and her nephew Darius Tucker, both colleagues of Marcus’s, though they played different games on different turf, were a good start.
But only a start.
He turned on his foot and moved from the room, his man Brady following him.
Once they’d cleared it, they walked through the silent strip club, now closed when it should be open, lit only by its copious red neon.
When they were halfway to the front door, Marcus kept moving and didn’t look to Brady even as he ordered, “I want a meeting with Lee Nightingale.”
“Uh, sir?”
He stopped when they arrived at the door, his hand on the handle, and looked to Brady.
“Liam Nightingale. He’s recently opened an investigations firm in LoDo. Get me a meet. Immediately.”
“For what?” Brady asked.
“I’ll explain that when I sit down with him,” Marcus answered.
Brady got closer.
His man was tall, lean, cut, pretty-boy features, light-brown hair, all of this hiding his ability to get a variety of jobs done in a variety of creative ways. In other words, however he needed to do it to get it done.
He was uncomfortable, not with what he said next. Marcus had no problems with the people he trusted around him speaking their minds and Brady knew that.
He was uncomfortable with Marcus making any moves that might be unsafe.
This didn’t happen often. In fact, it happened rarely and only when the need arose. But Brady was protective in more ways than it being part of his job description to protect his boss.
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).