Page 34 of B.D.E
“I’m deeply sorry for your loss sir. I’ll give you some time to figure out?—”
“My son… where’s my son?”
“Daddy!” Marcus cried out as he walked out of the waiting room and spotted me. My legs gave out at the same time he made it to me. I dropped to my knees, grabbing him and wrapping my arms around him.
“Daddy, there was a bad man with a gun in the store. Mommy told me to go in the bathroom and hide and wait for you. Is mommy ok, daddy?”
His little hand was pressed to my chest, waiting for me to tell him that everything was alright. That mommy was just in another room, and we could go see her soon. He was waiting for me to lie… but I couldn’t. I couldn’t lie to him this time. My mouth opened but no words came out. My throat felt tight like it was clamping shut on every breath. I could barely see him through the tears clouding my vision. I wrapped him tighter in my arms and kissed the top of his head.
“No, son,” I finally whispered. “She’s not okay.”
His little body jerked like I’d hit him. Like he knew exactly what that meant.
“No...” he cried, the word dragging out of his throat in a broken sob that shatter me all over again. I held him there on the cold hospital floor, rocking both of us like that would somehow rewind time and undo the nightmare we’d just stepped into. Isabella… the love of my life was gone. My baby boy was shaking, trying to hold it in, trying to be strong like me and it made me hate myself because strength didn’t save her. My strength meant nothing now. I was one of the best cold-blooded killers in the world and I couldn’t even protect her from being killed. From being murdered in cold blood. I failed her.
It took me thirty minutes to calm Marcus down and get him to sleep so that I could go see her. I handed him over to a nurse that offered to watch him while we were there. I’d already dismissed security, promising to kill him just as soon as I left him for letting this happen. The room was cold when I stepped in. She laid there covered in a white sheet up to her collarbone, her skin was pale, and she looked at peace. I took one step, then another, until I was standing beside her. My hand hovered, then settled on hers. Her body was still slightly warm from theblood that had just stopped flowing through her body. Her ring was still on. I dropped my head and kissed her knuckles.
“I’m so sorry, Isa.” My voice cracked. “I promised to always protect you. I promised to keep you safe and I failed. ¿Cómo puedo seguir con la vida sin ti en ella, mi amor?”
I sat in the room holding her hand for what felt like hours before a nurse came in with pity in her eyes and told me they needed to move her to the morgue for an autopsy. I leaned down, kissed her forehead, then gently pulled the sheet back over like she was just sleeping. My chest felt like it was cracked wide open, but I didn’t shed a tear. When I walked out of that room, I left the old Gideon behind. The man she knew… the man she loved, died right there beside her. From that moment on, I wasn’t her Gideon. I was vengeance wrapped in flesh. A walking storm with nothing but rage in my heart and a vow to never rest… not until I found the muthafucka who took her from us.
Present Day
I lit a cigar and leaned back on my chair, blowing the smoke out towards the ceiling. The flashbacks of Isabelle lingered like an old wound that would never close. That day had changed everything. One minute, I had a family, a purpose… a reason to walk away from this dark lifestyle. The next, I was cold and numb inside. Her death carved a hole through my soul and filled it with vengeance. I didn’t just lose my wife… I had lost the light that kept me human and when I held Marcus that night at the hospital, I made a silent vow. Whoever took Isabella from me would pay in blood.
It took years, but a few months back, the truth had finally surfaced. One of the investigator I had on payroll—Guzman,called me with a breakthrough in my wife’s cold case. He said that a DNA match popped in the system from the evidence at the robbery scene. I remember sitting in the exact spot in my office when he told me.
“Gideon… we found the son of a bitch. The guy who shot your wife. His name is Clifton Carter.”
Carter. I knew it had to be some type of ridiculous joke he was playing on me, and I was ready to go and kill him dead, until he swore that it was the truth. The name damn near knocked the breath out of me. That bastard had gotten locked up on another charge not long after Isabella was murdered, but the system never connected him until now. The problem was, Clifton Carter DNA showed up from a sample taken… from the morgue. The nigga had died last year from Covid and the bullshit system has only recently put the files in. Karma had a funny way of keeping bloodlines alive, so that’s when I shifted my focus… because Clifton Carter had a son.
Ghost. The boy that I had raised. I took him in when he ran away from the fucked up foster care system. I fed him, trained him, and gave him tools to survive. I turned him into my own personal weapon, and he was a damn good one too. Never once knowing he was the son of the man that had destroyed my whole existence. Now he was the last piece of my sweet revenge. The knock on the door pulled me out of my thoughts.
“Come in,” I barked.
Marcellus stepped in. He had been my right-hand man for the last two decades and he was as loyal as the come. He knew how to keep his mouth shut and his eyes open… a rare combination if you ask me. He walked over to my office bar and poured himself a rink, then took a seat across from me.
“What’s the word?” I asked flatly.
“Still no sign of him, boss or that dumb ass nigga you sent to ole girl’s café. I’m sure he’s dead by now, but we went back and tossed the place. They were gone.”
“Make sure you burn that shit to the ground, too.”
“I’m on it, boss.”
I nodded once.
“But check this, boss. A couple of the guys said that Fatback came by the spot yesterday and he was fucked up. Said somebody had beat the shit out of him and knocked he teeth out.”
I raised a brow. “Yeah. But what does that have to do with anything?”
“When they asked him who done it, he got all nervous and hush hush. Wouldn’t even tell them niggas who beat him like that. You think it was Ghost?”
I pondered on his question as I took a long pull from the cigar.
“Nah. If that was Ghost, Fatback wouldn’t still be breathing. Ghost doesn’t do witnesses… I taught him that.”
Marcellus stared at me. “You ready to talk about why we’re even hunting Ghost? What am I missing, boss.”
