Elijah
“Where are you taking me?” she asks as I pull up to the harbor.
“In our bed. Against the wall. Pressed against the tiles in the shower. Every-fucking-where humanly possible on God’s green earth.”
She cowers slightly in her seat, but as I soak in the sight of her it’s not fear in her eyes, but more one of questioning. It’s as if she’s testing me to see if I’m a man of my words, or I’m just bluffing. I guess it makes sense, seeing that she’s Mike’s daughter. The guy bluffs more than a poker pro and he clearly never backs it up. The sorry sack’s been playing with an empty hand his entire life until he met me at least, and then tried to take me to empty along with him.
“Well, I hope your bed has a blankie,” she squeaks out innocently, like a lost child.
“A blankie?” One eyebrow raises at a word so effeminate I can’t believe I was even able to pronounce it. Hell, just thinking it in prison would have got me shanked.
“A super-soft blanket that I can cuddle while I sleep,” again but more confidently she pipes up.
“Who says you’ll be getting any sleep?”
“I work a lot. Today’s my only day off and I didn’t sleep in today so I was planning on taking a big nap today. I might just pass out at any moment.”
Bluffing, just like her old man. Her pupils are dilated, and I caught her staring at my groin twice on the ride down here.
“You can cuddle with me,” I offer.
“You’re too big.” As soon as those words are spoken I see the pink hue of her cheeks blush. Cute.
“I’ll put my arm around you. We’ll make it work.”
My words are off-handed, but I’m not kidding. I need her in my arms, always. It doesn’t matter if she’s sitting on my lap, in my bed, on the couch watching her favorite movies…I don’t care. I need her close to me at all times, and not just to protect the collateral, which she’s currently serving as.
Truth be told she’s anything but. No way Mike comes up with the cash and even if he does I’m never giving her back. She was mine the first moment I laid eyes on her, about ten seconds before the Fed’s came busting in and next thing I know I’m serving time.
I remember it like yesterday. Mike and I had been smuggling Cuban cigars on speedboats for years, getting them into the States for resale. Sure, the Cuban ban on cigars was lifted back in 2014, but that was just for personal use and only allowed up to a hundred bucks a pop when you entered U.S. Customs. There are single cigars that sell for well more than that, enough that it was worth purchasing a high-speed cigarette boat, loading it up in Havana, and then high-tailing it to Miami to deliver to underground buyers like high-stakes illegal poker places, gentlemen’s clubs, even congressman got in on the action, which I strictly told Mike was an area we wanted to avoid.
And sure enough, when the governor, who’d turned into one of our best clients, was up for re-election and his numbers were fading with voters, he popped us and I got made the example of. Or more accurately I allowed it as no way in hell I was letting that little princess, Emma, find her way into foster care while her dad and I served time.
I took the rap with the understanding Mike would keep a cool mil on ice for me until I got out. A mil was nothing, we were pulling in the same in profits every month. So to get out only to find him living in that apartment, that rundown box, told me right away he’d already blown through everything. Not only that he’d put his daughter to work when he should have broken off a piece of that money and put her through college. I could wring that man’s neck right about now. No way his daughter ever goes back to that situation, to him, even if he does miraculously find a way to rob a Brink’s truck in the next week. And not get caught in the process.
The only reason why I gave him seven days was I figured that was enough time for Emma to decide if what she wanted was the same thing I need. I want her to make this decision of her own free will, and if she doesn’t…well then, she’s still mine anyway.
I haven’t been able to get that image of her out of my mind. It was the first time I’d ever been to where Mike lived in all our years of knowing each other. We always met in public places like parks or shopping malls, and we’d always walk and talk business, making sure neither of us knew where the other lived or that the cops could link us to the other’s address. We just looked like two guys out for a walk.
Until he invited me over to his house for his daughter’s birthday party which coincided with her high school graduation.
I barely even knew he had a daughter, and the invitation wasn’t even really about her. It was just a cover to get me over there to move a large shipment we’d brought in, as it had to be out by morning and his car was in the shop.
As we sat in the b
ackyard I lit up a Cohiba, and the second I did that angel in the white dress stepped out onto the grass in those small, thin shoes that ballerinas wear. Her hair was up and as those blue eyes of hers danced around the garden in Mike’s back yard, I tracked her with my own dark orbs like a hunter, the cigar between my lips falling right onto my linen shirt.
I couldn’t take my eyes off her, and all I could think about was putting my hands on her. Everywhere.
“Freeze,” filled the air that day and I swear it was because I thought her dad was yelling at me because my shirt had caught fire, only to see a dozen A.T.F. agents point guns at my face and another dozen blocking all the exits.
Now, eighteen months later, and countless nights jerking off in solitary confinement, I’m where I was always meant to be. With her by my side, protecting her just as I’d protected her father, making a deal with the feds telling them the cigar smuggling was all my idea and I’d just brought in Mike because he was a down-on-his-luck friend with a daughter to feed.
“I don’t even know your name.”
Daddy. That’s what you can call me.
“Elijah,” I offer, getting out of the car I hot-wired and quickly moving over to her side of the car to help her out.