Unfinished Heroes: Sebring Part 33

His princess.

The adult one.

"s.h.i.t," he whispered.

She got in her Range Rover and drove away.

And she did that not once looking up.

Not once.

That was good.

If she'd looked, he wouldn't have been able to stop himself going after her.

It was better this way for everybody.

Especially Olivia.

7:19 p.m. That Next Friday Nick stared at the texts on his phone.

Are you okay?

Missed yesterday. Tonight?

Sebring, is everything okay?

After that, nothing.

His head shot up and his mouth got tight when he saw Turner had slid on the stool next to him. He'd slid off that stool five minutes ago to use the bathroom. He'd returned and Nick was so deep in thought about Olivia, he didn't feel him come back.

"Responses kinda slow, Sebring," Turner murmured, eyeing him closely.

Nick didn't reply. He looked away from his friend, lifting his drink to throw the rest of it back, his eyes catching on a woman's at the end of the bar who was looking at him.

She gave him the smile that was his opening.

He looked away and threw back his whisky.

He returned his attention to Turner.

"I need another way to get at Harkin and Shade," he told him.

Turner held his gaze, his lips now thinned.

They unthinned so he could ask, "Are you serious?"

Nick saw the bartender pa.s.s, got his attention and jerked up his chin before tipping his head to Eric.

The bartender nodded.

Nick looked back to Turner. "Olivia's not gonna work."

"Because she doesn't know d.i.c.k that'll help you or because you like havin' your d.i.c.k in her too much to use her to help you?" Turner asked.

"We're not discussing that," Nick stated. "You don't have any ideas, all right. You got thoughts on Olivia you feel like sharing, that's not happening."

"Seems there's a pattern with you, work a job, get p.u.s.s.y during it, you fall for it."

Nick turned fully to Eric.

"Careful," he warned.

Turner tilted his head to the side mockingly. "Careful, me talkin' trash about Hettie or careful me talkin' trash about Olivia f.u.c.kin' Shade?"

"You hear me say we're not talkin' about this?" Nick asked.

"I hear you say we're not talking about Olivia f.u.c.kin' Shade," Eric returned.

"Yeah, that's what I said," Nick confirmed.

Turner's expression shifted from seriously annoyed to p.i.s.sed before he clipped, "Jesus, brother. She's Olivia f.u.c.king Shade." He got close and bit out low, "The daughter of the man who ordered Hettie executed."

Nick's response was just as low. "I might be wrong but I think I remember that better than you."

"Seems to me, you protectin' that b.i.t.c.h, you mighta forgot it."

"Careful," Nick repeated, this time in a whisper.

Turner leaned back. "Are you f.u.c.king serious? Hettie was yours but she was also a member of my team. She got whacked under my watch. And you get that, Nick. I know you do since you were a member of that team too."

Their drinks were dropped on the bar and Turner glanced at the bartender as they were.

Nick didn't take his eyes off Turner and only spoke when the bartender was gone.

Then he asked, "You know what Tom Leary did to earn his acid?"

"Denver lore, brother," Eric gritted out, still p.i.s.sed. "Leary a walking, talking lesson to any soldier who done Shade wrong."

"Yeah, I know that. But do you know why he earned his acid?"

"Not thinkin' Shade gave a s.h.i.t what the lesson was for, just that the lesson was learned and not just by Leary but anyone who'd clap eyes on him."

"Olivia's back is burned to s.h.i.t."

Nick watched Eric's head twitch violently.

"What the f.u.c.k?" he asked quietly.

"Not acid. No clue what it was but it left scars and a lot of them. A f.u.c.kuva lot more than Leary earned. Look at Olivia's, feel it in my s.c.r.o.t.u.m, the pain that had to come with gettin' those scars."

Turner's brows went up. "Her father?"

"Could be an accident. Could be a lot of s.h.i.t. That is, could be if her father wasn't Vincent Shade and known for doin' that c.r.a.p. But she said she 'earned' them. You have an accident, you ever use that terminology?"

Eric turned to his vodka rocks and lifted it, muttering, "No."

"She never smiles," Nick said as Turner took a drink.

His friend gave his gaze back to Nick but he didn't speak.

"Not true, twice. f.u.c.ked her countless times, had her at my place every night for weeks. Ate dinner with her. Watched mindless TV. Saw her smile twice and both of them barely counted. Felt her smile but didn't see them. She'd never let me in, Eric. Not because she's protecting her father, because, if she does and she gets caught, what'll she get? She knows. I saw those scars so I f.u.c.kin' know. I'm not gonna fail in my mission but the slim chance I do and she gets caught between him and me, he'll make her pay. And I'm not gonna be responsible for that."

"She's part of his business, Nick," Turner reminded him.

"She hates her mother. I get a sense she's relatively tight with her sister but that only goes so far. But she never talks about him. It's like he doesn't exist. And it's not because we were both keepin' s.h.i.t to ourselves because that's the way it is with people like us. She's the most inaccessible person I've ever met. But if she opens up even minutely, lookin' into her eyes when it's there, it's like falling into a pit of misery."

"Jesus," Turner muttered.

"Yeah," Nick muttered back, remembering that look in Olivia's eyes and shifting to the bar to grab his drink.

"If it's her father who did that to her, why doesn't she leave?" Turner asked.

Nick threw back a healthy pull before answering.

"The entirety of the small of her back to along the top of her hips. Not a lot of s.p.a.ce but too much for what happened to it." He turned his eyes to Turner. "Mutilated, man. Not even a centimeter of healthy skin. That at the hands of Daddy. Whatever she did to earn it, she learned. That lore in Denver?" He shook his head but said, "She learned it. f.u.c.k yeah, Eric. She learned. But she learned privately. And she's s.h.i.t scared of it happening again. She's bound, man. A prisoner in tight skirts and expensive shoes who lives in a mansion."

"You take him down, you're not gonna save her," Eric stated.

"I won't walk over her to take him down either."

"She's gonna know it's you," Eric pointed out.

Nick felt his mouth get tight and turned back to his drink.

She was. There was no stopping it.

"Nick," Turner called.

Nick looked to his friend. "She will. And she'll definitely get where I was at when I started things with her. But she'll also know I didn't end it that way. And she'll know it was her that earned that respect. It might not be much, but it'll be something."

"Buddy, she's your best way in there," Eric reminded him.

Nick threw back more whisky and didn't respond.

"Murder has no statute of limitations," Eric went on. "You testify against Harkin, he'll get the death penalty, takin' out a federal agent."

Nick looked again to his friend. "Not that I haven't shared this with you a hundred f.u.c.kin' times but maybe this time you'll let it sink in. I come out as the confidential informant I was and openly rat on Harkin, Shade feels nothing. And it's not just Harkin but Shade who's gotta pay. And Georgia Shade is a wildcard, but she's a Shade. She'll be about retribution. And I'm not big on the idea of entering WITSEC, if that's even offered to me for the low-level player that is Harkin. I'm also not big on puttin' my family's a.s.ses on the line. That happened once because of Vincent Shade, I'm not gonna let it happen again. I don't disappear into witness protection and a miracle happens and no Shade wreaks vengeance, a rat in my business, I'll lose every client I got. And I kinda like to eat, Eric."

Eric's lips thinned again, not a big fan of anyone talking to him that way, but he still got Nick so he also nodded.

Nick turned away and said no more.

Eric fell silent with him.

Minutes later, Eric broke the silence.

"I think of a way in, we'll talk."

"Appreciated," Nick muttered into his gla.s.s, lifted his eyes and caught the bartender's attention.

He got another drink.

So did Eric.

He caught the girl at the other side of the bar looking at him two more times.

He went home alone.

11:17 That Night Nick stood at his kitchen counter, his fingers wrapped around another gla.s.s of whisky, a framed photograph held in his other hand.

The picture was of Hettie. A woman who looked like a girl. A pretty girl. A mature girl.

But a girl.

When she was alive, Nick had thought she'd always look like a girl and would do just that until the day she died. He'd thought this thinking that day would be decades in the future.

But in the end, in a way he hated, it had turned out he was right.

Blonde hair, it had been thin-ish but it was soft. Big blue eyes. Freckles on her nose.

She could act like a dork. She was sometimes klutzy. She had no problem being a big goof.

She could also take down a two hundred and fifty pound man who was six inches taller than her.

She looked so far from FBI it was hilarious.

Which made her perfect for undercover work.

He stared at her picture in its frame, something he'd had out for years. Something he'd put away when he'd started inviting Olivia over.

And he stared at her picture realizing that over the years, she'd become a part of the decor. He hadn't paid much attention to the fact, in one pad or the other, she'd been on the chest he now had at the wall between his bedroom and the workout room for years.

She was a memory.