On the Edge of Love (Mama's Brood Book 1) Page 4

  Terry and Coen sat down, Terry joining Bride and Price already seated on the couch, while Coen, being the old woman he was, sat in one of the rocking chairs. Big Country and Lynx sat in the two recliners. Big Country was almost horizontal in his chair, eyes half-closed and arms folded across his chest.

  “How’s Juarez?” Almaya asked Lynx.

  “He’ll be out for a little bit, but he’s fine. Won’t be our sharpshooter for a while though.”

  She turned to look down at Zeus. “Should I be concerned about you?” He wasn’t sure what she was asking, so he sure as shit wasn’t going to respond. She leaned back in the love seat and sighed. “I know Juarez has a bit of a temper, but you must be less reactive, Zeus. I know you’re capable.”

  “Don’t really think I am,” he said, placing the cleaned blade pulled from Juarez’s shoulder on the floor beside him. He retrieved a sharpening stone, cloth, and oil from his pocket and attended to the knife’s care.

  “He’s filled with remorse, Mama. He just ain’t one to show it,” Big Country said.

  It was a weirdness that everyone in this group referred to the older woman as Mama. As if she were their real mother, they her children.

  One of the few things he knew about his mother was that her name was Zahira, not Almaya.

  “You remember our deal, don’t you, Zeus?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I remember.”

  She sighed when he didn’t say anything else.

  “He’ll do the job you gave him, Almaya. He won’t betray that,” Terry said.

  If that’s what they need to believe, he thought as he slid the blade over the stone at an angle.

  “Can part of this deal you’ve got with him include him not attacking his own team members?” Lynx asked.

  “Nope,” Zeus said.

  “No disrespect, Mama, but can you please explain to me why he’s here one last time?” Lynx. Again.

  “Because, with Cizan in Guatemala, I needed someone that could match his skills.”

  “Basically replacing one psycho for another,” Coen muttered.

  Zeus paused. No, he wouldn’t throw the blade at Coen. He’d have to go through the cleaning and sharpening process all over again.

  “Lynx, did you find any information at the warehouse that could help us discover why Kragen had Sabrina kidnapped?” Almaya asked.

  “Outside of the one man Sabrina identified, there was no identifying information on the bodies, in the truck, or in the warehouse. I took pics and prints so we could run them through Gambit when we’re done talking.”

  “Thank you, Lynx,” Almaya said.

  Terry looked at the older woman for a moment as if trying to communicate with her silently. Zeus didn’t know much about them, but he knew when two people were fucking each other. From what he’d seen over the last few days, he guessed they had been for a long time. Years. He shuddered at the unnaturalness of long-term relationships.

  “Sabrina, can you tell us about your day leading up to your abduction?” Terry asked. “Did you notice anything out of the ordinary in the morning before you went to work? On the way? Once you were there? After you left?”

  “It was a normal day until they broke into my apartment. I got up, got dressed, got caffeine at the café—”

  “Do you go to the same place every morning?”

  She nodded. “On the weekends sometimes twice. Can’t beat the addiction.”

  “Know what you mean. Mine is porn,” Big Country said.

  “Luckily I don’t know what you mean,” she said in disgust.

  Zeus frowned. What was wrong with porn?

  “I’m helping my supervisor with the graphics layout for a project she’s completing,” Sabrina continued.

  “What is it you do at your job?” Terry asked.

  “Nothing worth kidnapping and beating me over. I’m an administrative assistant for a small nonprofit art gallery.”

  “Bet the pay sucks.” Lynx snorted.

  “It allows me to live my life,” she said defensively.

  Zeus shot Lynx a warning look.

  “Why does a nonprofit gallery need security?” Terry continued.

  “We don’t really. There are three floors of offices in the building. The gallery occupies half of the third floor. On the other side of the hall are a suite of law offices. They practice environmental law for the most part. On the second floor is an architectural firm and a nonprofit. First floor is a notary, a pediatrician’s office, a dentist’s office, and a florist shop. I think security is there to mostly monitor access to the building. They aren’t like real security; they don’t carry guns or do rounds or anything. There’s usually just one or two people working on the morning and evening shifts.”

  “Was the guy you identified in the warehouse working yesterday morning?” Terry asked.

  “He was there for the morning shift. He opened the door for me.”

  “Was that unusual?”

  “Not really. Aaron liked to play like he ran the building. He liked to flirt sometimes, but it usually came off as kind of corny. He was a little interpersonally challenged. His conversations always seemed forced, unnatural, but not just with me. It was like he was practicing homework some life coach or therapist had given him. For the most part, though, he seemed harmless.”

  “Until he and his friends break into your house, beat you, and kidnap you,” Zeus added.

  “Tell us about when you left work,” Terry said.

  “I ride my bike to work. I live by the lake and work in the uptown area, so I was home around fifteen minutes after leaving the job. My studio apartment is located in the back on the first floor of a four-unit building. After I got settled, I went to the kitchen and ate my leftover Chinese food. After I ate, I was putting my dishes in the sink when there was a knock on my back door. My back door leads from the kitchen to the communal patio garden in the backyard. I thought it was my friend Randy who usually stops by in the evening.”

  Zeus made a mental note: Do bodily harm to Randy if I need to make a point about who Sabrina currently belongs to.

  “I opened the door and blam, a fist to the face. I remember fighting, but it was two of them. The last thing I remember before I went unconscious was hoping Randy was okay.” She looked down at Zeus. “Then I woke up with this big beast standing there about to rape me.”

  Zeus went back to sharpening his blade when they all looked at him. Disbelief, disgust, anger. He usually wouldn’t care about their reactions, but he didn’t rape women and felt the need to clarify for Sabrina’s sake. Plus, there was no way in hell the woman was going to consider letting him fuck her if she thought he was a rapist.

  “I wasn’t about to rape you. Was adjusting myself. I got hard looking at you and the way I was positioned in my jeans was getting uncomfortable, so I reached in and—”

  “Really don’t need to hear anymore,” she said.

  “As long as you know I wasn’t about to rape you. I don’t rape.”

  “Well, that’s something.”

  “But we’ll have sex before I—”

  “Jesus, Zeus,” Coen said. “Can you be sane for one minute? You don’t tell a woman you’re going to—”

  “But I am.”

  “You were unconscious for the entire trip from Oakland to Point Richmond?” Almaya interrupted.

  “You can feel the lump on the back of my head if you need proof.”

  Zeus paused again. He didn’t like that they were aggravating her with all their questions. He put the stone and cloth on the floor, his grip tightening on the hilt of his blade.

  “Keep it together, Zeus. No one’s harming Sabrina. We’re all just having a conversation,” Terry said calmly.

  Zeus didn’t give a shit about what Terry said. He felt the slight press of Sabrina’s leg against his arm and shoulder. Not an accident, she did it on purpose. A lover’s caress. A promise of something more when the time was right. He picked up his tools and resumed sliding the edge of the blade against stone.


  “You used to be a paramedic in New Orleans?” Lynx asked.

  Zeus felt Sabrina tense against him. “How do you know where I lived?”

  Almaya pointed toward the other area of the living room. The sunken lower level had an oval table at its center, a surveillance center on one wall, a computer area on another, and a decompression area toward the back. The decompression area was Zeus’s favorite place here…after the weapons and training rooms.

  “We did a brief background check on you using Gambit, our computer system. It gave us some basic information, but nothing that readily links you in any way with Kragen and his organization.”

  “I already told you I don’t know—nor have I had anything to do with—this Kragen.”

  “Which makes this even more terrifying for you, I’m sure. It’s bad enough to be hunted, and it’s even more devastating when it’s for reasons of which you’re unaware,” Almay said. “The Brood needs to discover why, because, trust me, you are not the endgame. Kragen’s affiliations are global. He ordered a handful of his staff to the Bay Area less than a week ago. Yesterday evening, Big Country shone the light on a communication from one of Kragen’s team, informing him his gift had been delivered to warehouse seventy-seven in an industrial area near the Port of Richmond. Kragen is scheduled to retrieve you at six this morning.”

  “Lucky for you, we were able to mobilize a team to scoop you before he got there,” Price said.

  “Unlucky for us, Zeus was a part of that team and killed your captors instead of subduing them so we could learn what they knew,” Coen said.

  Zeus looked at the overly-fucking-sensitive man he should start calling Cry Me a River instead of Coen. “Haven’t learned the art of subduing. Don’t plan to. If someone comes at me intending death, I give myself two options, kill or die. I always choose the first and thank the spirit of the blade that keeps me alive at the end.”

  “Sounds reasonable,” Bride muttered. First words she had said since he’d entered the room.

  “That argument doesn’t have much to do with reason,” Price countered.

  “Long as we know the rules he operates by,” Big Country chimed in.

  Zeus shrugged. “They change. One time this street kid put a gun to my head and I told him to shoot me because I was feeling curious to see what the next life would look like.”

  When no one responded, Zeus went back to sharpening his blade.

  “And you thought he would be a good addition to the team, Mama?” Price asked.

  “I’m really starting to miss Cizan,” Coen said under his breath.

  “WHY DID YOU leave New Orleans, Sabrina? Why change to a career so different than the one you’d been in?” Terry asked.

  Sabrina took a moment before responding to him. The man might have seemed friendly enough, but these questions about her, their need to know felt like a threat. She didn’t talk much about her past because it usually involved lying. With this group she knew instinctively that staying as close to the truth as possible would be her best defense.

  “I needed a change. I wasn’t happy in New Orleans, and as a paramedic there I was… I’ve probably seen as much death and violence as anyone in this room. A little after moving to New Orleans, depression set in, I gained weight, and I…I wasn’t happy.”

  “So you move to Oakland, a city that has a near nonexistent murder rate?” Lynx said sarcastically. “Like healthy eating, I take it the statistics haven’t made their way down South.”

  She shrugged. “I heard good things about California. All sun and surf, laid-back lifestyle. I didn’t want the glitz of LA. San Francisco was where I headed, but it was too expensive…and cold. The diversity of people and places in Oakland ended up being just what I needed. I got recertified as an EMT here, but when I really thought about it, I didn’t want to go back to that work. I came here for change. I like photography, so when I saw the job listing for the gallery, it felt…right. I like my life in Oakland.”

  “You don’t have any family there?” Mama asked.

  “I don’t have family anywhere. I was put in the foster care system when I was a kid.”

  “What happened to your birth parents?”

  “Overdose. My dad too early to even have a memory of him.”

  “No foster parents you were close to?”

  She snorted. “I’ve been living on my own, supporting myself, since I was fourteen. Emancipated at sixteen.”

  “No siblings?”

  “Had an older half sister who died, but she left me alone long before her death. So no.” Her sister Samantha’s suicide in New Orleans almost three years ago was what had led to her decision to move to California.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Sabrina frowned at the older woman, wondering exactly which part of her story had elicited the apology. It didn’t matter, really. She’d heard a thousand sorries in her life. Most of them wouldn’t have been necessary if someone had thought to stop bad things from happening instead of offering useless sympathy after.

  The other woman was probably well intentioned, but Sabrina didn’t need another person’s good intentions, especially when it helped them justify interfering in her life. She’d had enough of that bullshit. She knew all she really needed to know. Someone, someone new, was after her; she could handle it. Though not impossible, it was damn unlikely that Ernesto and his people had anything to do with a big-money organization like the one Kragen seemed to be a part of.

  “I appreciate that you rescued me, possibly saved my life, but I can take care of myself from here on out. All I need you to do is drop me back in Oakland.”

  “How exactly do you plan on taking care of yourself?” Terry asked.

  She didn’t like having to explain herself. This was her life, and for the first time in a long time, she was living it however she chose.

  “I’ll lie low for a while. If push comes to shove and I feel like I’m in danger, I’ll call the police.”

  She didn’t appreciate the laughter that met her statement. Even Zeus grunted in derision. It wasn’t like she’d actually call the police, anyway. She was just saying what she thought she needed to, to get them to let her go.

  “How about, until you come up with a better plan than ours, we watch over you?” Terry said.

  “What’s your plan?”

  “Keep you here safe until we find out why Kragen’s in the Bay Area, find out what he wants with you—”

  “Kill him,” Zeus interjected.

  “And yes, Zeus, eventually eliminate the threat he represents.”

  “Kill him. Simply stated.”

  It wasn’t so simple. She only had their word that this Kragen was behind her kidnapping, and though she felt the crime should be punished, she wasn’t ready to have his death on her conscience. “I have a life and a job that comes with a lot of responsibilities. I appreciate your desire to help, but I won’t hide out until you solve your mystery.”

  “You don’t seem to appreciate the level of danger you’ve found yourself in,” Price said.

  She had some idea. She’d just woken up beaten in a warehouse about fifteen miles from her home.

  “Kragen is not a nice man,” Mama explained. “He rapes; he kills; he tortures; he exploits. And when he doesn’t feel the need to do these things personally, he has enough money and power to have others do them for him. His organization has ties to legitimate companies and government contracts the world over. The Oakland PD will not be able to protect you.”

  “But you will?”

  “I will,” Zeus corrected.

  “We will.” Mama frowned at Zeus.

  Sabrina gritted her teeth and closed her eyes, rubbing her temple. It wasn’t just her bodily injuries or the stress of having somebody after her. It was them. This Brood. Their personalities, their tensions, their constant energy were causing her senses to overload. She had a low tolerance for social interactions. Every nerve she had was hyperalert from attempting to maneuver safely through the undercurrents
swirling around her. She wanted to sleep and blot them all out but was unwilling to leave herself vulnerable again.

  She opened her eyes as Zeus reached behind him and secured the scalpel-sharp blade near the small of his back.

  “Who are you all, anyway? Not police. Not FBI. Possibly ex-military.”

  “We,” Terry said, spreading his arms magnanimously, “are the good guys.”

  She snorted. The others laughed outright at the absurdity of the declaration. The only one of them who could possibly pass for good was Coen. In her opinion, not even Mama or Terry pulled it off. Despite their ease and concern, there was something hard about them. They both seemed a bit too complex to fit the simple description of “good guys.”

  “Though I didn’t birth them,” Mama said, “these are my brood. My later-in-life adopted children, if you will. Each of them is special to me. Each has special skills, special sensibilities. None of them are good in the standard meaning of the word, but they have been committed to helping me in my endeavors.”

  “Which are?”

  “Maybe it’s not the best idea to tell the stranger who Kragen wants bad enough to have snatched from her home a lot about who we are, Mama,” Price cautioned.

  The older woman shrugged, watching Sabrina with praying-mantis stillness. “I’ll take a chance on her. She doesn’t strike me as one ready to share secrets.”

  “Did you forget Kragen has a pretty sadistic way of handling people who don’t want to share their secrets?” Lynx asked.

  Mama waved the concerns of both men away. “Stopping soulless men and women from destroying the lives, innocence, and souls of others is what we’re about,” she told Sabrina. “Sometimes, like now, we act independently, choosing to go after people and organizations others either turn a blind eye to or truly don’t know about. Sometimes we contract out to others for our various services.”

  “Like contracting with the government?”

  “Well, that question’s a little dicey,” Terry said.

  “A lot of times governments employ the people who need killing,” Zeus said, reaching for her leg and draping it over his shoulder as if it were his pet python. He reached under the pant leg and stroked her bare skin. She’d noticed he needed to keep his hands busy. It must be a testament to how tired she was that she didn’t object. The repetitive motion actually eased the tension in her body instead of causing her revulsion.