“There aren’t any negatives. It’s the twenty-first century, it’s all digital now.”
I look up from the dossier, staring at Camilo. But it’s not mockery, it’s just a statement of fact. “Then I want the originals deleted. I don’t want any copies out there, you hear me?”
“Sure,” Camilo responds, shrugging, without a hint of curiosity. “Our guy on the inside is Agent George Matthews. He’s solid, we can trust him. No fucking way he wants what we have on him coming out.”
“Good. Get him to find out who the agent in charge is. I want to know who’s sending this…woman.”
“Already ahead of you.” He points at the dossier. “Next page.”
I slide the sheet of details on Agent Divine out of the way, but the moment I see the name at the top of the second sheet, I feel a growl slip from my lips.
“Apollo?” Camilo’s voice comes to me like he’s talking underwater, echoing in the suddenly cloying space. “You don’t look so good.”
I don’t respond right away. I can’t. My head feels light, buzzing in my ears, like someone just socked me with a baseball bat.
I should have fucking known, but I thought…
“This piece of shit’s still going?” I ask, pushing my chair back, standing, needing to get some air. “I thought he’d be retired by now. Or dead,” I add as I walk in a daze toward the window. I slide it open, the mechanism working so frustratingly slowly I almost punch the glass out. “He must be in his fucking seventies.”
“Sixty-seven,” Camilo mutters, his voice still distant in my head. “You know this motherfucker?”
I snort with contempt. “I knew him when he was just a special agent. He’s Deputy Assistant fucking Director now? That’s a fancy fucking title for a sewer turd like him. Andrew Jackson. I never thought I’d have to hear that name again outside a history book.”
Motherfucker.
So he wants to push my buttons? Make an enemy of me all over again? He should have stayed away, should have counted his blessings. I’ll fucking destroy him. I’ll—
“You have something personal with this guy?”
I turn on my heel and glare so hard at Camilo, I actually see him shrink back in his chair. It’s not his fault, I remind myself, clenching my fists so hard my knuckles ache as I hold myself back from launching punches at the nearest face, which just happens to be his.
“Artemis,” I grunt. “He fucking killed her.”
“Who’s Artemis?”
I’m taking deep breaths, trying to keep myself calm. I turn back to the window, fumbling with the mechanism again, forcing it open and leaning on the sill to stick my head right out into the air, needing oxygen. “She was my baby sister. By eight minutes.”
“You’re a twin? How come I never—”
“Nobody talks about her. Nobody ever fucking talked about her! I wasn’t even allowed to mention her name. Fuck… They were ashamed, OK? Jackson had her arrested and my parents…they disowned her. My own sister and they…”
“For getting arrested?” Camilo’s suddenly right there, behind me. Brave motherfucker that he is. Doesn’t he realize what danger he’s in right now? I could tear his limbs off. “I don’t get it, Apollo. I mean, weren’t they running a crime syndicate already?”
“The arrest was a farce,” I say dismissively. “Some trumped-up charge of prostitution. They had no evidence and Missy walked out of there the same day.” I shake my head. “But Jackson knew which buttons to push. Whatever our lawyer told my parents he’d found out in the interview room, it was enough to turn their backs on her. Fuck, she was just sixteen. Out on the streets. Who knows what happened to her before her body showed up six months later?”
Suddenly, it feels like the whole thing happened yesterday. The look on my mother’s face when she told me what the phone call was about. My father trying to track down whoever did it. They might have put her in that position themselves, but nobody crosses a Volos and gets away with it.
I learned that lesson too well.
My dad found the guy that helped her overdose. Made that fucker pay. But I knew he was as much a victim as my sister. My dad blamed himself deep down, and so did I. My mom was just weak, unable to stand up to her husband. I hated her for a long time, but I never blamed her. I blamed him, it made me hard and cold toward him and the moment I got the chance I took over the family and forced him into a retirement that killed him.
But now I’m reminded that there’s one motherfucker who got away with it all. And apparently made a career for himself.
“I’m going to destroy him,” I mutter to myself. “Jackson will know what my sister felt like. I’ll take away everything he has and make him wish for death.”
“That’s not a good idea, Apollo,” Camilo says. I’d almost forgotten he was here with me. I don’t even turn to look at him, I can’t, I can’t trust myself. “Look, I get it, he’s pond scum, but you know the kind of heat killing an FBI agent will bring us. This girl, you know what she looks like, so just turn her down when she comes on to you.”
I laugh, shaking my head. “I’m not going to kill him, son. Have no fear of that.”
“OK, good, because—”
“I’m going to destroy him. And I’m going to start with this innocent little girl.” I think about that face again, that body. How much I’ll enjoy hearing her beg. “I’ll fuck her. In every sense of the word. I’ll destroy her flesh and break her mind. I’ll send what’s left of her back to Jackson a gibbering wreck. And after that? After that, it’s war.”