Page 30 of Remember When We
The reason wasn’t me, so it was none of my concern.
As for that kiss, I just needed to forget it and chalk it up to one of those strange occurrences I couldn’t explain.
Better to think of it like that.
I had too much on my plate to worry about and who knew what tonight’s stir would cause with Frankie.
It actually made me physically sick to think about it.
The man seemed to have some obsession with wanting me to fail.
I couldn’t let him win. I just didn’t know how I was going to get through all of this and get him out of my life.
It seemed like no matter what he’d always be there; everywhere and anywhere.
Chapter 8
Gio
* * *
Last night was branded into my mind, in my memory.
I couldn’t’ sleep. I just kept thinking about what must have happened to Lyssa when I left eight years ago.
I left to give her a chance to be who she was supposed to be. Become the dream she’d wanted, but last night told a different story. One I was actually afraid to find out. And, I wasn’t the guy to be afraid of anything. Not me.
Finding out she suffered however had me shit scared, because it took everything in me to leave her here and now knowing it had been the wrong thing …
Knowing I made the wrong choice again would kill me.
“Hey, try to focus. This place looks off.” Dante whispered, leaning close.
He wasn’t wrong. The place looked more than off and saying that was putting it mildly.
“I got my eyes open.” I nodded. I was miles away in my mind consumed with thoughts of Lyssa, brain fried from that kiss I couldn’t stop myself from giving her. My eyes were open, had been since we parked our bikes and had to travel the rest of the way on foot so as not to draw attention to ourselves.
Myself, Dante, and Gibbs were in the depths of what we classed the worst of the bad areas. We called it The Den, named so because of the amount of thieves and gangsters who hung out here. It was in the crevice between Chinatown and Franklin Square.
The place was shady as shit and the kind of place you’d go to if you wanted black market stuff. Serious shit like a kidney or a limb. Fuck, they even had the hook up for some types of surgical procedures I didn’t know existed. Things like screwing up your finger prints and even screwing up your blood type. It was shit I didn’t get into, because you knew those types of things would eventually kill you. It just bought you some time and freedom if that was what you desired.
One of the guys on my list had directed Gibbs here.
It was a guy from one of Marshall’s support groups who Marshall did a favor for once.
He never said what the favor was, but I knew the guy as someone Marshall worked with after high school. His name was Willis. He’d cleaned up a lot since that time, but may have given us valuable information. He contacted someone here he thought could give us some more information.
A woman called Jade. We got here five minutes ago. Knocked on a door with some Chinese characters on it that was tucked away in between some market stalls and were led inside to a waiting room that looked like a doctor’s surgery. It looked like this place was for herbal remedies, it just wasn’t advertising as such.
If anyone asked me what this place was, I wouldn’t have been able to tell them.
The fucked up thing was I could read some Chinese, but the language on the character Miss Jade used was not anything modern. It was old as shit.
And when I say old, I meant really old like ancient, like a dead language so that only people who knew or could read that language would know what she was truly up to. Clever—very Clever.
Gibbs kept silent the whole time. He’d been observing.
I hadn’t worked with him before now so I didn’t really know what his process was, but it seemed that’s what he did. He observed and deduced an opinion.
