Canary by Tijan
Carrie
“Your girl is nuts in the head,” Raize’s guy noted. “You should put her down.”
Raize yanked the wheel to the left, and we careened down another road. No one was chasing us, but he was driving like they were. “You shut the fuck up,” he growled. “Let’s talk about you. What were you thinking?”
The guy’s laugh was a cackle. “Right. I ain’t fucking stupid. You’re Raize. Only reason you’re walking into that place, asking for a meet with Oscar is if you’re going to end him.”
Raize cursed under his breath. “I didn’t go in there planning on killing him.”
“So what changed?”
Raize didn’t answer. He kept driving, taking us to the outskirts of town, rather than back to the house.
I shot him a look, wondering what he was doing. He caught my eye and shook his head, just the slightest motion.
“I needed to know if he was the one who sent Macca or if it was Estrada,” he explained.
This door guy/Raize’s-Something?—I had no clue what to call him. Was he Ally Guy?
Whoever he was, he was quiet a moment, then started laughing. “Bullshit. He threatened whoever this chick is to you, and you went apeshit on him. I could feel you making your decision. You could’ve waited it out. You didn’t need to throw it down, tell him you knew he was the one who sent Macca. But no, in a very un-Raize-like way, you killed first.”
“I got his phone,” Raize murmured.
“What?”
“I got his phone. He unlocked it, and I went for it.”
The guy cursed, scooting low in his seat. He rested his arm on the window, his fingers catching the handle above. “That’s why you killed him? For his goddamn phone?”
I kept quiet.
Raize went quiet, too.
The guy was still muttering to himself. “You killed Oscar, Raize. Oscar! You know who’s going to come after you? After me? I knew if you started shooting, I’d have to choose. You or Oscar, and you damn sure know I ain’t picking Oscar over you. We been through too much for this asshole to divide us. But man, Oscar? You started a war. I hope the fuck you know what you’re doing.”
Raize jerked the wheel once more, pulling off into a field, and he kept going until we reached an isolated spot. A group of trees blocked us from the road when he turned the engine off.
No one moved.
“What are we doing here?” the guy asked in a low voice. “You got shit to bury? Because you ain’t putting a bullet in my head. No way, man. After what I just did for you—”
“Shut up, Basil.”
Basil.I had a name.
Raize opened his door and got out, going to the back of the truck and putting down the tailgate. He dug through his pockets, laying out everything he’d grabbed. When I followed him, he started for my pockets. I stood there, feeling weird about him digging through my sweatshirt, but in an odd way, I found it pleasant.
That was super-duper odd.
Duper.
I’d never used that word before in my life.
What was going on with me?
“She’s in shock.”
That was it. I must still be in shock.
“What are we doing here?” Basil leaned a hand on the back of the truck, watching us. “Can we talk about this mute one here, while we’re at it? If I’m joining your team, I need to know what I’m signing up for.”
I frowned at him. “Your name is Basil?”
His eyebrows shot up. “That’s what you’re focused on? Carrie? Like that’s your real name.” He nodded toward Raize, who was studying everything on the truck bed. “What’d this one call you before Carrie?”
I put my hands in my now-empty sweatshirt pockets and rolled my shoulders back. That was an easy one. “Girl.”
I caught the corner of Raize’s mouth lifting up, just a bit before resuming its normal flat line.
Basil straightened from the truck and put his hand in his own pockets, his head tipping back. “Right. Girl. Carrie. I’m sure names are so important to us now, but you can call me Abram. Abram Basil. Raize and I used to work together, long time ago. How’d you and he meet up?”
Raize paused, his eyes sliding my way.
“He won me in a poker game.”
Abram’s eyebrows shot up. “What? Since when do you play poker?”
Raize turned to regard Abram. He looked at me over his shoulder. “Stop giving him information.” He turned back to Abram. “Stop trying to needle her. She’s not wired like that. You won’t get a reaction.”
“What will get a reaction from her?”
“Kill someone. She doesn’t like that.”
Abram pursed his lips together. “I’ll take that into consideration. Nice officially meeting you, Raize’s girl.”
A low growl came from Raize.
Abram grinned. “There’s the reaction I was looking for. Surprised it came from you, though. You going to tell me what the hell we’re doing out here? You don’t trust me to take me to your headquarters?”
Raize leaned back against the truck bed, his arms folded. “I need your phone.”
Abram didn’t move.
I didn’t move. I knew he wasn’t asking for mine.
When this clicked with Abram, he stepped back and his hands shot out of his pockets. “Say what?”
“Your phone.” Raize wasn’t fucking around. His eyes were steady on his friend.
Washe a friend? I was guessing since Raize hadn’t shot him yet.
Raize leaned forward. “I’ve not worked with you for years. You put down with us in there, but that don’t mean shit, and you know it. You could’ve been Estrada's man on Oscar, and now you see an opportunity to find what exactly I’m here to offer Estrada. I gotta know if I can bring you in or not.”
“And if I refuse?”
“You walk from here, and I’ll kill you the next time I see you.”
See? Killing was not something Raize cared about.
Such an asshole.
I shifted back, ignoring the look Raize sent my way.
Abram smirked. “You’re right. She hates the killing—don’t even like you threatening it. Your girl is loony. I’m saying it again, you should put her down. She’s a liability for you, amigo.”
Raize shifted, blocking me from his friend’s view. “And I’ll tell you again, shut the fuck up when it comes to her. She ain’t your business.”
I looked down as silence settled over us, except for Abram shuffling his feet in the dirt.
“I either give you my phone or I walk? Those are my two options?”
“It’s not a bullet in your skull.”
A shiver went down my spine. Raize was just… so… dead. He was back to being nothing.
“I can’t give you my phone.”
“Then start walking.”
“Is this really how you’re going to play me out? All these years? I throw down for you, and now I’m not okay with you going through my phone?”
“We have different employers.”
“You don’t know my employer!”
“Then tell me.”
I closed my eyes, holding my breath for him.
I didn’t want this guy to die, despite him saying the opposite about me, but I could feel Raize coming to a decision. If Abram said the wrong thing, he wasn’t going to walk away, despite what he’d been told. And he knew it, too. I felt that in the air as well.
It was sweltering, pressing down on us.
I reached out, not knowing my hand was going to move before it happened, before my fingers touched Raize’s back. I felt him shift, his body going hard as I trailed my fingers down, looping them into the back of his jeans and I hung there.
Two days ago, I’d never have thought to do this, but I was.
I had touched Raize of my own accord, and it settled me.
Was that why I did this?
No. I was trying to touch him, affect him. I was asking for his friend’s life. He stepped forward, dislodging my hold.
“Who’s on your phone, Abram? Who don’t you want me to see?”
Suddenly, a growl erupted from Abram, and Raize shifted, his arm flashing up.
I jumped back, biting down on a scream, and braced, expecting to hear another gunshot.
“Look through it, you fucking asshole!” Abram yelled instead. “You piece of shit, making me choose!” He paced and flailed as he kept shouting. “You threatening to take me out? Who do you think you are? You’re not above my paygrade. You goddamn—I helped you back there. I chose you over Oscar. You. I chose you and who are you choosing—”
“Shut up.” Raize moved back to the truck.
I lifted my head to see Abram swinging his fists in the air. He paced back and forth, fists forming and unclenching. He shot daggers at Raize.
He growled, “You fucking asshole. Don’t have any feelings in you.”
Raize stopped thumbing through the phone. A sudden stillness came over him, and Abram felt it, too.
Both of us watched Raize again. A hot breeze blew over us, brushing the back of my neck, but I barely felt it. Different world, different life, I would’ve welcomed that breeze. Here, I worried what was trailing behind it.
Raize looked up at Abram. “You’re working for Estrada himself.”
Abram sighed, looking utterly defeated. “About keeled over when you threw that out, but yeah. Oscar reached out for a meet. I’m assuming he was going to tell us about you, about Macca. I knew nothing about any of that until Oscar dropped Macca’s name. We never sent Macca. He hasn’t been working for Estrada for two years. He’s sloppy. You know that.”
Raize glanced my way before returning to the phone.
The air lightened, or maybe that was just me. I could breathe easier.
Abram would keep breathing for another day.
He shook his head, rolling his eyes. “You’re seeing everything, Raize. Everything. I need something back. I want to work with you, but if you don’t reciprocate, then we got a problem.”
“I’m working for the Russians in Philly now.”
Abram was quiet. Then, “Marakov?”
Raize nodded, his thumb going back to the phone. He pressed a few buttons before he tossed it back to Abram. “I need to take Oscar out,” he said. “All of his operations.”
That perked my ears. Those girls—they could be set free.
Abram glowered, going through his phone. “You’re such a dick. You sent this shit to your phone, didn’t you? Normal guys would die for doing that.”
Raize ignored him. “Tell me the rest of Oscar’s operations. Set up a meet with my employer and Estrada.”
“Right. Yeah.” Abram’s tone was mocking. “I’ll just, you know, marry the Pope at the same time.” His eyes went mean. “What are you smoking? You left Estrada. He will kill you if he knows about you. Those were the terms, Raize. You leave and never come back. You’re violating those terms.”
Oh.
OH!
Oh.
This was why Raize had to be forced to come back down, and it was because of me.
He watched me, waiting for my reaction, but I just blinked at him. What did that mean? For him to throw down like that for me?
A new intensity sparked between us. This was a whole new level. We weren’t going to survive it, whatever this was.
I just wanted to find my sister. She’d been taken in by the Russians. We were going to get killed by the cartel in Texas, and I’d never get back to Philadelphia—if that’s even where my sister was.
I grimaced, remembering the searing panic I’d felt when we left those girls back there, how I thought my sister could be in one of those rooms.
I felt Raize’s eyes on me, but he was replying to Abram. “Estrada still wants to know if Jorge killed his brother, right?”
“Yeah, but he’ll never find out. He needs proof before he can make any move, and if he did, we’re talking about the Estrada Cartel splintering in half. That ain’t gonna happen.”
“But he still wants to know?”
Abram waited a moment. “He still wants to know. He thinks it, but I don’t think he knows it for sure.”
“Set up the meet with Estrada. I have a bargaining chip for him.”
Me. He was talking about me.
Shit. Shit!
They’d ask me a question about someone’s life and… Okay... The pain wasn’t there, not as much as usual. Thank God, my numbness was sliding back in place. I’d been feeling so much, too much.
Because of Raize.
He had to be the reason I was feeling things, remembering things, because he was making me feel like I was safe to feel, remember.
I wasn’t.
I could not forget that.
“You sure about this?” Abram’s voice quieted.
“I’m sure.”
“You go in, you’re going to need men at your back. Estrada knows you, knows what you can do. He’ll have planned for that.”
“I know. Make the call, Abram.”
He walked away, putting his phone to his ear.
I could feel Raize’s gaze back on me.
“He’s going to come back, saying he needs to take a trip,” he said softly. “His boss will want to see him up close and personal before deciding what to do, and then he’ll make a decision. Abram will text me a time and place, and we’ll go. I don’t want Cavers to know anything about this meeting, and that means Jake can’t either. I’m going to make a call to my boss and ask for more men. But I have to know, before I walk in with you at my side, if you’re going to go fucking crazy again?” He ground out the last three words.
I winced.
He wasn’t asking why I went crazy. I didn’t think he cared. He just wanted to know if I’d be a liability.
“I’ll be fine,” I said faintly.
“I mean it.”
I lifted my head, my eyes finding his. He was angry, his guard not in place for the moment. I could see everything. He was seething. I felt his intensity seeping into me.
I didn’t like this feeling of being tethered to him, but I also knew when that went away, that wouldn’t be good either.
I swallowed over a knot. “I don’t like the name Carrie.”
“What?”
“Carrie. That’s what you called me back there. I don’t like that.”
“What do you want to be called then? Girl?”
I kinda liked Girl, but it wouldn’t work anymore. Raize and I were beyond that sort of cold, stranger work relationship. He needed me to live, and I needed him to live.
“There was a girl. Her name was Ashley, but I’d like to go by Ash.”
He stared at me, then sighed. “Fine. Ash.”
Good. Ash. I liked my new name.
