Pawns & Kings Page 20

  But there was still the issue of my parents not wanting to accept Terry for who he was. I didn’t care what my parents thought about him. I just wanted us to be together. But Terry believed that eventually we would need their blessing. He didn’t think it was necessary in order for us to be together, but he knew it was what would make me happy, and he was right. He knew me too well. I had always envisioned that my parents would not only approve of the man that I was going to be with, but also like him. But at this point I couldn’t care less if they liked Terry. He was my man I was going to stand by him no matter what.

  The female officer returned to her desk just as I was finishing the last page of the restraining order. When I was done, I signed it and handed it to her.

  “Good. I’m going to go submit this right now and it will go into effect in twenty-four hours,” she told me. “If you wait here for a few minutes then I can walk you back to the front.”

  “That would be great,” I said. Then, “Is there a bathroom that I could use?”

  “Sure. It’s right over there,” she said, pointing to a hallway in the distance.

  “Thanks,” I said before I stood and headed in that direction. Once I found the bathroom, I went into the single stall. I hated using public restrooms, but I really had to go. Once I was finished I washed my hands and took a moment to fix my hair and make-up in the mirror. When I walked out of the bathroom and stepped into the hallway, I got the shock of my life. Directly in front of me was a glass door with large white letters that said:

  EVIDENCE ROOM

  AUTHORIZED PERSONEL ONLY

  But it wasn’t the words that gripped me and made me freeze in the spot where I was standing. On the other side of the door was Allen. He was looking around suspiciously as he opened a file cabinet and began to finger through it. Once he found what he was looking for, he removed a manila envelope. He was carrying a computer bag over his shoulder, so he tucked the envelope away inside of it. He closed the file cabinet and headed for the door.

  As soon as he saw me standing there staring at him, he began to approach me. I was so polarized by what I had just seen that I couldn’t run, scream, speak, or do any of the other things that my mind was telling me to do. Allen could tell that I was about to scream so he put his hand over my mouth and pushed me back into the bathroom without anyone noticing.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” he asked through clenched teeth as he gripped my arm tightly. “I’ve been calling you.”

  “I know, and you need to stop,” I told him as I tried to wiggle my wrist out of his grasp. “I just got a restraining order put on you and it goes into effect in twenty-four hours.”

  He laughed and said, “You really think that a restraining order is going to keep me away from you.” He continued to laugh in my face while I scowled at him. “You belong to me. And it’s going to stay that way until death do us part.”

  “Allen, I just saw you take something from that file cabinet. What were you doing in there?” I asked him.

  “I was protecting us,” he said.

  “Protecting us? What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about the murder scene that we were both apart of.” I instantly knew that he was referring to that night at the old abandoned warehouse. He and D.J. forced me to call Darius and make him come there so that they could kill him, but Francisco’s son was the one who ended up dead. I tried to forget that night and put it far behind me, but it seemed that the memory of it wouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon.

  “They found a female’s DNA at the scene,” he told me. “Now, who do you think that DNA belonged to?”

  I looked away from him as fear began to grip me. Being connected to a murder was the last thing that I wanted or needed. I was suddenly beginning to feel sick.

  “Now, lucky for you, they also found the DNA of two males,” he told me. “And I’m willing to bet that one of those sets of DNA belongs to D.J. The other one belongs to either me or Darius. Since there’s no way for me to know if the DNA belongs to me or not, I’m destroying all of the evidence. And if you know what’s good for you, then you will keep your mouth shut.”

  “Why should I?” I spat.

  “Because if you don’t and the DNA belongs to Darius, then it will be your fault when he’s arrested and convicted of murder. I know you don’t want that to happen,” he said with disgust. “And not only that, but if you try to take me down then you’re going down right along with me. I’m doing this for the both of us, Leah. And I’m doing this because I love you.”

  “You don’t love me, Allen. The only person that you love is yourself,” I told him.

  Allen sighed and I could tell that I was frustrating him. “Do you want to keep your freedom or not?” he asked me. “All you have to do is keep your mouth shut and wait for this to all blow over. Me and D.J. already have everything planned out.”

  “Well, I don’t want to be apart of any plan that you two have going on. Do you remember what happened last time?”

  “Leah, you need to forget about all of that. This shit has gotten way more serious,” he said. “Now the first thing we’re gonna do is destroy the evidence. Then we’re going to take care of Detective Willis. That’s the only way that we all walk clean.”

  “Wait a minute, what do you mean take care of Detective Willis?” I asked. I could tell by the look on his face that he was kicking himself for saying too much. “Allen, if you’re thinking about doing something crazy…”

  “What?!” he said viciously as he stepped toward me.

  “Then stop thinking it!” I told him, not backing down from him at all. Allen had done many things to me, but at that point I was no longer afraid of him, at least that was what I wanted him to think. I was more afraid of what was going to happen when Allen was caught and it was determined that I had any connection to his twisted plan.

  “Allen, this is not going to turn out good,” I told him. “If you go through with this and something happens to Detective Willis then I’m going to tell the police everything.”

  Allen grabbed me by the neck and pushed me up against the wall. I tried to scream but he was squeezing my throat so tightly that I couldn’t.

  “Bitch, I wish you would,” he said, his voice low and intense. “Are you stupid or something? If you tell them everything then that means we all go down. Me, you, D.J. and Darius.”

  I wanted to tell Allen that if I told the whole truth then he and D.J. would be the only ones going down. He seemed to have forgotten that I was only a pawn in his conspiracy to kill Darius. And once I told the police about the domestic violence, it would be clear to them that I was an unwilling accomplice. But trying to explain all of this to Allen at the moment was pointless. Besides, he was already upset and I didn’t need to walk out of here with any bruises.

  After Allen determined that I didn’t have anything else to say he released me and took a step back.

  “Go home, Leah. I’m gonna come pick you up later so that we can finish this conversation.”

  I didn’t say anything. I just walked past him and out of the bathroom. It amazed me how Allen was still under the impression that he was the one in control. It hadn’t even occurred to him that I could have him arrested since we were right there in the police station and he had just put his hands on me. I was tempted to cause a scene just so that I could force Allen to have to spend at least a few hours in jail. But if I did that there was no telling what he would do in order to get back at me.

  I chose to leave the police station. I walked out into the parking lot and headed for the black Denali where Terry was waiting for me. As soon as I got inside he looked over at me.

  “Everything good?” he asked, obviously noticing my mood. Instead of responding I just continued to stare straight ahead through the windshield. “What’s wrong, baby? Did you file the restraining order?”

  “Yeah, I did,” I said, still not looking at him. “Then I saw Allen.”

  I could see Terry’s whole bod
y tense out of the corner of my eye.

  “That nigga is in there?” he asked. I simply nodded my head. “Did he put his hands on you?” He could obviously tell by my mood that something happened. I didn’t respond because I didn’t know what Terry would do if I told him about the encounter.

  Terry discerned that my silence meant that something had occurred. Without saying anything else, he opened the glove compartment and took out one of the guns that was in there. He slammed the glove compartment shut and then opened his door.

  “Terry, no! What are you doing?” I said, grabbing his arm with both hands to keep him from getting out of the car.

  “I’m going to handle this nigga once and for all,” he said as he tried to snatch away from me, but I kept my grip on him.

  “So you’re going to walk into a police station with a loaded gun?” I said.

  “What am I supposed to do? Just sit by and wait for him to hurt you even more than he already has?” he said. “How the hell did he even know that you were going to be here today anyway?”

  “He didn’t,” I said. “Terry, I think that Detective Willis is in real danger.”

  “Detective Willis?” Terry said confused. “What are you talking about and what does he have to do with Allen?”

  I sighed and said, “I saw Allen stealing evidence. He says that they found our DNA at the crime scene. So now he’s talking about killing Detective Willis because he’s the detective who’s working the case. Allen and D.J. think that’s the only way that they won’t take the fall for killing Francisco’s son.”

  “Shit, man,” Terry said dejectedly as he sat back in his seat. I could tell that he was trying to figure out what needed to be done in order to stop them.

  “What should we do?” I asked. He and I both knew that whatever decision we made to stop D.J. and Allen’s plan could also affect Darius and I, so whatever we did, we had to be smart.

  “I don’t know what we should do,” Terry said. “Whenever Darius gets back I’ll have to talk to him about it.”

  “I thought he was supposed to be back by now,” I said, confused.

  “He was,” Terry replied. “Derek said that his plane left when it was supposed to, but then it went off the grid after that.”

  “So he doesn’t know where he is?” I said, suddenly alarmed. “That’s not good, Terry.”

  “I know,” Terry said. “But this is exactly why we tried to tell his ass not to go to Miami alone. Now we ain’t got no way of finding him or knowing if he’s in any danger. All we can do at this point is wait.”

  We were in a scary situation. I thought that finding out about Allen’s plan was pretty bad, but not knowing where Darius was or if he was okay was even worse. There was so much going on and none of us knew what to do, but we knew that if Darius were here he’d know exactly what to do.

  Chapter XXVIII- Darius

  “What the hell did you just say?” I took a step closer to this man and tried to be subtle as I took a good look at his face. There was no way that he could be who he said he was. That was impossible.

  “Darius, I know I have some explaining to do. But all I’ve ever wanted is for you to have what you deserved to have, son.”

  Unable to control my anger any longer, I pulled out my gun and rushed toward him. I pushed him back against the desk, causing him to lean almost all the way back, and then pressed the gun into his temple.

  “You better tell me who the hell you are right now or I swear to god…”

  “I told you who I am,” he said, his tone surprisingly calm.

  “And you’re a damn liar!” I said, raising my voice.

  “You have every right to be upset,” he said, seemingly unfazed by the fact that my gun was cocked, loaded, and pressed against his skull. “But I told Marcia to give you my necklace so that you would know how true the engraving is. Real Kings Never Die.”

  When he said those words, it was like someone had punched me in the stomach. My first thought was, how would he know about my father’s chain and the engraving unless he was actually who he was saying that he was? I pulled my gun away from his head, let him go and allowed him to stand upright. I backed away from him until the back of my leg hit a chair that was sitting in the middle of the floor.

  I didn’t take my eyes off of him, not even for a second. There were so many things that I wanted to say, so many questions that I wanted to ask, but I didn’t even know where to start. But on top of all of that, there was one thing that was throwing me off.

  “You’re supposed to be dead,” I said.

  “I know. And to the rest of the world, I am,” he said as he turned and walked to the other side of the room where a mahogany cabinet was. He opened the glass door that covered the front of it and removed a bottle of Vodka. He grabbed two glasses and brought them over to the desk. He filled both glasses and then extended one to me. I looked at the outstretched glass for a brief moment before looking back at his face as if he were crazy.

  “Take it. Once I start telling you what I have to tell you, you’re going to need a drink,” he said.

  “If what you have to tell me is that important, then I want to be good and sober so that I don’t miss anything.”

  He stared at me for a moment then said, “Very well, then.” He sat my glass on the desk and at the same time he downed the contents of his own glass. “So, what do you want me to tell you first?” he asked, speaking to me as if this wasn’t our first ever conversation.

  “I want to know where the hell you’ve been for the past five years.”

  He refilled his glass and held it in his hand as he spoke. “You know, when I started my own company I had no idea how dangerous my line of work would become,” he said. “The truth is that I wasn’t prepared to handle the way this game works, so I went into hiding. Had I not done so, then they would have killed me.”

  “They who?”

  “The Syndicate,” he replied while walking back toward the dark corner that he had originally been in when I first came into the room.

  “The Syndicate? What the hell is that?” I wanted to know.

  “They’re a secret organization run by some of the richest men in the world,” he told me. “The way they see it, it’s up to them to decide who’s allowed to be rich and who isn’t. And if you make it to a certain status, they force you to give them access to your money. If you refuse, they kill you and take it anyway.”

  “How did you get tied up with them?” I asked.

  “When I first hit the one hundred million dollar mark, they contacted me,” he began to tell me. “At that time, the leader of the organization was Junyi Kim, an Asian guy. He was the third richest man in the world at the time.”

  “Was? What happened? Did they kill him?” I asked, becoming more intrigued by the minute.

  “Yeah, at least that’s what they said,” he replied. “But there were always rumors floating around about him not really being dead. The Syndicate supposedly killed him so that they could divvy up his portion of what he had invested in the organization. But I’m willing to bet that the amount that he invested was pennies compared to what he was keeping for himself. He’s probably hiding out somewhere in the Middle East and living real nice.”

  “Well, I guess you two have something in common since you’re here in Cancun living pretty nice too,” I said. “You still haven’t told me why they wanted to kill you though.” I watched as he refilled his glass with Vodka before setting the bottle on the sill of the window that he was standing by. The more I observed him, the harder it was for me to figure him out. He appeared to be content with the situation as it stood now. Even his body language showed a lack of urgency. Even though he was in hiding, he still didn’t have a care in the world.

  “The Syndicate wanted to kill me because I pulled my investment out of their organization without warning,” he said. “I knew that they were up to no good and I got a tip that the FBI were going to be getting involved really soon. But I became really suspicious when I found o
ut that a member of my company’s Board of Directors was not only playing ball with The Syndicate, but he was the one behind the plan to take me out.”

  “And who was that? Ziegler?”

  “No. It was Francisco,” he said. “Francisco was the chairman of my Board of Directors. We felt like it was a good look for the company because of his international ties. But he was coming after me and my empire all along, and he was going to use the Syndicate to tear it all down.”

  “But that doesn’t make sense,” I said. “Did Francisco have a reason to have an aught against you, or was it all about his greed?”

  He paused for a second before taking a sip of his Vodka. “It was his greed,” he said, but I wasn’t sure that I believed him. Greed could drive people to do a lot of things, even kill, but from day one Francisco’s plot seemed to be rooted in revenge. If it wasn’t then I don’t think that he would have resurfaced now. But what did my father do to make Francisco desperate for revenge?

  “So you faked your own death?” I asked.

  “That’s right,” he said. “I did it for two reasons. One, so that I could get The Syndicate off my ass while I reset some of my assets. And two, because I wanted you.”

  He allowed his words to sink in before speaking again.

  “I wanted you to be able to enjoy the life that I had built for you. It was always supposed to be yours, but I could never find a way to give it to you without doing an injustice to my family. I realize now that I should have never kept you a secret for all of those years. It’s because of my selfishness that we lost a lot of valuable years together. And I hope that you can find it in your heart to forgive me.”