Page 52 of Once A Crime Lord

“Marcus, it’s Blade. Expect some visitors,” Blade said into his phone. “Yeah, Gavin and Lyla are fine. We’re taking them home. Expect Gavin to be absent from work for a while. Who? Carmen? Yeah, she left before the shooting. I don’t know who with. Some fucking actor or some shit. I gotta go.”

She closed her eyes and willed this day away. She was physically and emotionally maxed out. All she wanted was to lie in a quiet, dark room with her baby and pretend the outside world didn’t exist. No matter which way she turned, disaster was inevitable.

Blade spoke rapid, furious Spanish on the phone. She understood enough to realize he was filling in for Gavin, speaking to his men who were in cleanup and contain mode. They would erase or disturb surveillance cameras at the hospital, parking garage, and even the hotel where Jonathan was. Gavin had the power to erase a person’s identity and could kill in plain sight without being caught.

She looked back at his large, lifeless body and shivered. When he woke, there would be hell to pay. Not only would she have to answer for Jonathan, but she was the reason he had to be sedated. Didn’t he realize the difference between justice, self-defense, and outright murder? She clutched the door handle because she needed something to hold onto. How could her life go so wrong in so little time?

When they pulled up to the mansion, she opened the front door and was greeted by Beau who barked and licked her hand. She smoothed a hand over his head and then looked past him to Aunt Isabel who had Nora on her lap. Nora babbled excitedly when she saw her.

“How was your day, dear?” Aunt Isabel asked.

Before she could think of a response, the guards walked in with Gavin. Aunt Isabel’s face went ashen with fear. She leaped to her feet.

“Is he hurt?” Aunt Isabel asked.

“Sedated,” she said as she took Nora from her.

Aunt Isabel opened her mouth and then shut it. As the widow of an enforcer, she knew not to ask.

“Where’s Carmen?” Aunt Isabel asked.

“She went out with Kody Singer.”

“The actor?”

“Yes.”

She kissed Nora on the forehead. The smell of baby powder clashed horribly with the stench of cold sweat and dried blood.

“Here.” She handed Nora back to her aunt. “I need to see to Gavin.” She looked up the stairs, but the guards were nowhere to be found. “Where’d they go?”

Aunt Isabel pointed, and her stomach clenched. She headed toward the basement. She had been here twice in her life. The first was to witness Gavin beat a traitor to death, and the second was to find her father in a similar condition. She felt a sense of déjà vu as her damp hands slid over the iron railings. Unforgiving fluorescent lights revealed a concrete room with suspicious splotches on the floor and Gavin sprawled on a cot with a thin mattress. The guards nodded to her as they passed.

Blade stripped off Gavin’s bloody jacket, revealing his double shoulder gun holster and guns in his waistband. Blade lifted Gavin’s pants leg to reveal two more guns and his empty knife sheath. He removed Gavin’s shoes and socks and investigated them thoroughly.

“In his shoe?” she asked skeptically.

Blade held up a thin switchblade. “Gavin’s always prepared.”

“No kidding.” She wrapped her arms around herself as she watched Blade systematically disarm Gavin, even taking his belt. “What was in the first syringe?”

“Water.”

“You knew he would use it on you.”

“I suspected.”

“You know him well,” she said and swallowed. “Do you think he would have...?” She couldn’t finish her sentence.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know and sedated him anyway?”

“All I know is you can make him do anything.” He fixed her with a piercing expression. “You should have let Gavin kill him.”

“I can’t—”

“He’s a dead man walking. Gavin will kill him. There’s no getting around that.”

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