Velle invited me behind the counter to sit and eat and chat about what had been going on since I’d left.
I’d left the area when I was young. And I’d been so fucking angry at the time.
I don’t think I stopped and thought about what I’d given up by leaving. I mean, I hadn’t even tried to keep in touch with the only family that had ever tried to help me out as a kid.
Velle was right.
I’d lost a bit of myself in all my years away.
Sure, I’d maintained parts too. Like the part of me that snuck into Brandon Adams’s house to put a bullet in him. A non-fatal one, of course, but I was going to go ahead and blame Bellamy for that.
But coming back reminded me that this world and these people were a bigger part of me than I let myself remember. I needed to not only recognize that, but to act accordingly. I needed to give back. I needed to keep a finger on the pulse of the area.
Maybe a part of me didn’t stay connected because there was one particular ghost that still haunted me in this area, one I didn’t want to run into.
That said, I was probably getting a little too old to be worried about that kind of thing anymore, either.
I was going to have to deal with it all sooner or later.
“So what kind of trouble are you in?” Velle asked, shaking his head as I opened my second pack of Yodels.
“The kind that could have me dead. Or very likely wishing I was,” I told him, sighing hard.
“And?” he prompted.
“And I can’t sneak up on him to handle it. There’s a lot of security. I almost had him. But the job got… interrupted. Now I just need to figure out how to handle it without getting close since he will know it’s me. And, you know, not get my family killed in the process.”
“Hire out?” Velle suggested. “That’s a nice jacket you got on,” he said, nodding at me. “Real leather, right?”
“Ah, yeah,” I said, brows furrowing.
“If you can afford that, you can afford to go out there and give one of the guys out there a reason to do the job for you.”
That was true.
I mean, I wasn’t sure if I trusted one of the neighborhood guys with such a high-profile target. It would probably be a suicide mission for them.
But I could see about hiring out.
Hitmen weren’t as common as movies and TV liked to make it seem. But they did exist. And you could find them and have them do your dirty business for you if you had to. That way, the target would never see it coming while you sat pretty somewhere else in the world, creating an ironclad alibi should you need it.
It was a good plan.
And I was relatively safe in Baltimore while I tried to find someone to do it.
So once I got some security trailing my family, I could breathe a sigh of relief.
“You’ve given me an idea,” I said, hopping up, tossing my wrappers into the trash. “I am going to go see what I can get in the works. I always knew you were good for something,” I said, nudging Velle’s shoulder in a sibling sort of way.
“You gonna be around for a bit?” Velle asked.
“Yeah.”
“Good. Come visit me while you’re here, okay? Maybe come see Dad.”
“I will. Absolutely,” I promised him.
I went back to the hotel feeling a bit more hopeful.
And went right to work calling around to get security for my family.
“I’m sorry, did you say the Saeed family?” the man on the phone, Kingston Rivers, repeated back to me.
“I did,” I agreed, frowning, wondering if they were the right crew if they couldn’t keep a couple basic facts straight.
“Nasir, Rusul, and Ayaneh,” Kingston added, and I didn’t remember using their first names like that, but I could have without realizing.
“Yes,” I agreed. “Is there a problem?” I asked.
“A, ah, problem? Ah, no,” he said, sounding scattered. “And you said you don’t want them to know they are being watched.”
“Correct,” I agreed.
“Okay,” Kingston said, sounding no less confused. “Yes. Yeah, we can do that. But, I, ah, I’m going to have to get back to you about the billing,” he said.
“Whatever the billing is, is fine,” I assured him. I had money stashed away. I would spend every last penny of it keeping my family safe if I needed to.
“Okay. Miss Saeed, we will be in contact with you as soon as we have the paperwork to e-sign.”
“Great. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it,” I said, especially since the other private security places were booked until the end of the month, and I couldn’t risk waiting that long.
Hell, I didn’t even want to be gone that long.