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Michael startles when I walk into his room, sitting up so quickly that he winces. He opens his mouth to speak but lets it close when I hold up a hand. “Give me your phone.” I tell him, holding my palm out expectantly.
Confusion crosses his face, which is unshaven, but he doesn’t hesitate, reaching to the stand on the other side of him and retrieving his phone for me. When he presses it into my outstretched hand, I can tell that he’s got a million questions he wants to ask me, but he can’t get a single one of them out. I wouldn’t listen even if he was capable.
When Jackson’s voice sounds around the small hospital room, Michael knows he’s dead in the water. I see the recognition in his eyes just before it turns to desperation. He reaches desperately for the pad of paper next to his bed, but I stop him with a shake of my head.
“Didn’t expect to hear from you so soon, Mikey boy.” Jackson’s tone is light and breezy with his own amusement. It fades quickly when I speak.
“It’s been a while, Jackson.”
There’s a silence on the other end of the line as Jackson searches his memory for the voice, trying to piece together where he recognizes it from. “Boudreaux?”
“The one and only.” I bite out, eyes flashing to Michael, who looks like a scolded child right now, his mouth opening and closing wordlessly.
“Good to hear from you, Remy!” Jackson says, recovering quickly. “How was your party?”
Jackson knows his men were hired for security at the wake; he’s aiming to piss me off by referring to it as a party, but he’s overestimating my affection for my father. He’s actually not too far off base. “Why don’t you ask your men how they liked it?” I suggest, “I think most of them will tell you it was a good night. Well, all except one.”
“Ah,” Jackson makes a noise of agreement. “There were casualties then?”
“Just the one.” I say calmly. “Where should I have his body sent?”
“How kind of you to ask.” Jackson quips, sounding bored. “Do whatever you do with them.”
“You’ll handle the fall-out then?”
Jackson doesn’t hesitate. “Of course! I have measures in place for this sort of thing, you know? It’s a dangerous job, shit happens.”
“Mm.” I agree. “So, Jenny won’t ask any questions about what happened to her husband’s body?”
This time, he does hesitate. There’s a long pause on the other end of the line as he grapples with the knowledge that I know. “Jenny will be glad to know he won’t be coming home. She won’t have to explain the bloodstains on the mattress where he fucked his mistress.”
Killed for cheating on the daughter of a man with more money than sense? It’s a touch on the nose, but Jackson hasn’t exactly made a name for himself by being discreet. “Very well. And when will my property be returned to me?”
“Your property?” Jackson laughs. “My men wouldn’t have taken any of your possessions.”
“And yet, something is missing.” I bite back, waiting for him to fill in the blanks. I have to be vague on the phone—God only knows who could be listening. Jackson Holland has had the feds breathing down his back more than a time or two, but like a cat with nine lives, he’s remained unscathed up to this point.
“Ah,” I imagine him nodding at his big glass desk in his big glass office like a caricature of an important man. “Yes, I did hear that someone slipped away when my men got the jump on them.”
“Your men got the jump on them?” I mimic, glancing at Michael for confirmation. He nods in earnest, eyes wide.
“Look, I’m sorry that things went down the way they did.” Jackson sighs. “It was nothing personal. Costa Rica is a large country; laws are different there. People go missing all the time. It was the perfect opportunity.”
“So, you let me pay for your services to perform a hit on one of your own men and… what? I was just a casualty of your own affairs?”
“Now, Remy,” Jackson tsks. “You got caught in the crossfire, kid. It was an unfortunate side effect that one of your captives got away, but you can always replace them. I’ll front you the cost of a new one.”
I nearly laugh at the blasé tone of voice as he suggests that people are expendable. He thinks Wes was one of my possessions—I fed into that theory by claiming Wes as ‘my property’. Jackson assumes I am like the rest, that I collect people to suit my needs and then dispose of them when they no longer serve me. He thinks I’m like him, and as much as I want to set him straight, it’s better that he thinks I’m just another one of them—dead inside, so entrenched in this world that they’ve sacrificed their humanity to long ago.
“Some people can’t be replaced,” I snap, pinching the bridge of my nose where a headache is starting between my eyes.
It was bad enough thinking that Michael had sold his loyalty to someone else, but it’s worse knowing that Wes’ escape was just a casualty of Jackson’s plot to punish his son-in-law’s infidelity, as if he’s an authority on healthy marriages. My mood darkening, I nearly throw the phone when he laughs. “Of course they can. I’ll even send you my secretary to prove it.”
“Your secretary?” I sneer, unable to keep myself from sounding incredulous.
“She’s great at everything she does, and she does everything.” He chuckles to himself.
It takes a moment to even collect my thoughts, so by the time I open my mouth, Jackson is rushing me off the phone. “I’ve got your address, so I’ll have her sent tonight. I’ve got a meeting right now, but this was great, Boudreaux. Let’s talk again soon.”
