Page 65 of Hidden Justice
Pain, as thick as a post, spears my heart. “He’s in The Guild and the family. He’s not going anywhere and neither am I, so get used to it.”
“Fine. Go the way of Dada. Make that colossal mistake.”
I spray his toes.
He jumps back.
“What does that mean?”
“It means Dada has spent more time mooning over her informant than doing the job, and it’s costing The Guild and the family. Ask Jules.”
Another set of toes with nails neat and trimmed and painted black appears next to Tony’s.
Juliette, aka Jules.
I stand, take her in for a moment, confused and wary. “Don’t you usually train with Dada?”
She shrugs and fists her hands at her sides. “She says she’s sick, but I just saw her pigging out in the break room.” She points at Tony. “Now I get to train with Monkey Man. Again.”
Tony feigns hurt, putting a wounded hand to his chest. “Monkey Man’s gonna kick your ass, Jules.”
Break room? Dada has to know Tony already has his hands full with Jules’s twin, Rome. Their birth names were Romeo and Juliette—God, some parents are so fucked up. Good thing they opted, like Bridget, to change their birth names at adoption. Sixteen now, they were adopted eight years ago. He’s only the second male adopted into the Parish fold. Tony loves the kid.
A quick visual sweep and I spot Rome working the heavy bag. He’s grown into a big kid. Muscular. And though he’s Jules’s twin, he shares little in common with her. She’s blonde and golden-skinned, he’s dark-haired and pale.
Needing to say something because Jules is looking at me like I’ve got the answers to this situation, I say, “I’ll talk to her.’
Jules turns her head slightly, as if to avoid a bad smell.
Yeah, fine, that was lame, but what else can I say? It’s not like Dada answers to me.
“Monkey Man has his next victim,” Tony says. Letting his arms drag to his sides, he begins making monkey noises.
Jules looks worried and pissed. “Tell Dada she sucks.”
Will do.One you-suck-Dada” coming up. Sub-headlined with,What’s this I hear about you and your Brothers Grim informant?
Still a sweaty mess, I slip on my shoes and heel-toe my way down to the break room. What the hell is up with Dada? She abandoned training her little sister—which is bad enough—but getting close to her informant?
With a wave of my wrist, the door opens and a softly spoken computer warning issues from above, “Authorization for forty minutes in Lounge B. No weapons allowed. Please do not abuse this privilege. Thank you.”
Security around here is too damn much. Like all the slackers—of which there are none—would be tempted to hang out in a boring break room watching CNN. Yep, nothing more fun than plastic seats pushed up against round, white-laminate tables.
The red spikes of Dada’s size-nine Jimmy Choos are propped against said tables near a bottle of imported water when I enter. To my surprise, she is leaning back watching TV. Her indigo skirt has slid up, revealing her long, dark, beautiful legs.
Smells good in here, like freshly baked bread and marinated chicken. Before I sit down in a chair across from her, I see her reach for the remote. Her eyes flick nervously to the television screen bolted to the wall.
Before she turns it off, I take a look at the soccer player running across the screen, recognize him from prior mission briefings, and choke out, “Is that your informant, back when he played?”
“Yes. Why?” Turning off the TV, she slides her feet off the table and sits up straight. She’s trying to act like it’s no big deal, but she fingers the thick, woven-leather bracelet on her wrist. A nervous habit tied to her childhood.
Dada’s story isn’t too dissimilar from many of my siblings. You don’t rescue children from great situations. You rescue them from shitty ones. Kidnapped as a child, she spent years as one man’s prisoner. He lavished her with jewelry and presents, as if that could make up for his abuse. Momma rescued her at twelve. She’d been giving birth. The bracelet she wears is in memory of the child. The boy who died. The comfort she gets from that bracelet tells me everything I need to know about her unease.
I wave toward the now silent television. “This doesn’t look like research. It looks like a crush. Like you’ve blurred the lines and fallen for your informant. A man who helps the slavers get around by providing them papers.”
Dada’s honey gold eyes widen, then narrow. “You know as well as I that he became involved with them while trying to rescue a former student. You also know, he was the one to inform us of Walid’s move to Jordan.”
I scramble back through my memory for details on this guy. In Mexico, he goes by John, but that’s not his name. It’s Sean Bradford, former Welsh soccer player turned art teacher in El Salvador. And, yeah, he got involved with Walid to rescue a student taken from under his nose. So, he’s not an awful guy, but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t switch sides if it meant saving his own skin.