I spent a good chunk of my money on the best coffee I could find, it should smell divine. I straightened and found my own chair, across from them, Everett and Evelyn standing against the wall, one near the entryway, the other closer to me, like a pair of watch dogs.
“Olivia, you’re smart enough to know that being loan sharks isn’t all we do.”
Lucy came to join me, sitting right up against my leg as I looked between the two. I glanced at Evelyn and back, scratching Lucy’s head. “I know that real loan sharks, at least from the information I was able to find, don’t allow their clients to pay via sex,” I stated, feeling Everett’s eyes burning into the side of my head. “And, as I mentioned before, clients going after you is shocking. The masks to protect their identities,” I nodded towards Everett, “having ‘sisters’ to protect them.”
I searched his eyes for a few seconds before shaking my head. “Yes, I understand that loaning money isn’t all you do.” I adjusted myself in my chair. “So, what are you then? Who are you? What am I allowed to know in order to continue on with this?”
He took a drink of his coffee before setting it down. “You write books.”
“I do.”
“So first I need assurances that whatever we speak in this room will not end up in one of your books.”
This was it. Confirmation that I was going to die. They had secrets they couldn’t risk getting out, but now they had to tell me for whatever reason they had to tell me. Once I knew thisinformation, I was a liability.
But…but with what Everett had done. Did that mean I got to live? So then what would happen? Malachi would tell me this information and then find out what Everett had done. What came after that?
His eyes were so blue, I realized as I slowly spiraled, but not icy blue like Everett’s, or the chilling devilish blue of Azrael’s, his were…I don’t know. I couldn’t explain it. Looking at them now, it was like I was looking at an entirely different being. Someone I recognized but didn’t. It was like every ounce of him was begging me to trust him, but there was something else there, something familiar and dark.
Maybe I was just making it up. I wasn’t sure. I couldn’t trust my own mind, my own thoughts. I couldn’t trust anything. “I assure you that there will be no truth in my books,” I told him. “But I write psychological thrillers. My job is to write about the darkness of this world. I can’t promise that whatever you are going to say won’t, in some form or another, end up in my book, but I can promise you that nobody in this world will think it anything but fiction.”
He watched me carefully for a moment before glancing to Everett.
My eyes found his as well, watching as the icy blues turned to Malachi. They exchanged a mountain of information within that voiceless exchange before Malachi finally turned back to me. “Very well. I can understand a writer and her prospects,” he smiled, his warmth returning. “I could never douse the inspiration of the artists of this world.”
I nodded, keeping my hand on Lucy. Was this some sort of trick? A test? I couldn’t completely be sure. All I knew was that I now had a secret weapon that he didn’t know about. His son.
There was only one question that remained. Was this sacred thing he had done more sacred than his loyalty to his father?
Part of me doubted that.
Another part of me held the delusion that yes, yes this thing was far more powerful than the loyalty between he and his dad.
But was that the writer in me talking? The romanticizer? Or was it something far deeper that couldn’t be explained in words alone?
“You should first know that the Kingsmen’s are an alias we use when coming to Colorado Springs,” he began formally. “A name well known around these parts as a loan shark, but that is certainly not what we are known for around the world.”
I kept my expression smooth and folded one leg over the other as I lifted my chin. “So, who are you? Would I know of you?” I figured as much in the last two weeks when I was left with nothing but the information I had and my own mind.
Evelyn had given me enough to bloom an entire world of make believe regarding their family. It wasn’t hard to draw a few conclusions while they were away.
He chuckled. “Perhaps, you’ve done your research. We live in the deepest depths of the criminal world, Olivia, ruling it, controlling it. They know me as Malachi Adler, Everett is my son, adopted like the others, as Evelyn is my daughter. Diedra works for me. My wife in this city. She remains here, running the business and, when need be, we either come for a short visit, or a long one depending on the necessity. You’ve caught us on a long one.”
I glanced to the beautiful woman and back. She had taken on a warmth too, a soft smile, a relaxed posture. And why wouldn’t she be relaxed? She was his fake wife. She was probably protected too.
Adler. Yeah, I had read the name before. On some obscure blog on some backwoods site a couple of years ago. He wasn’t a Crime Boss or even a Crime King. He was a god in the criminal underworld, of that, I was sure.
And look at me, getting involved with them.
Malachi cocked his head to one side, his smile remaining. “You have heard of us?”
“Your name came up once, years ago,” I confirmed. “Yes, I know who you are.” He wasn’t just dangerous, he was the nightmares crime lords had in the middle of the night. Now I understood why his sons wore masks. They couldn’t risk being identified, but eventually…
My eyes found Everett’s. Eventually they would be. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but eventually, they would be caught, their faces plastered across the underworld, completely recognizable.
I felt a little more understanding as to why he was so strict about when he took it off now.
My eyes returned to Malachi. “So, the Delepski’s have been following me. Not a client or a customer, I assume.”
