2
AFTER
“Is there a problem, Dad?” Nena asked, watching her older sister pace the floor of Nena’s quaint little home. Elin rarely came to this part of Miami, but today was an exception. She must have been pretty upset to make the trek from Coconut Grove to Citrus—“slumming it,” as Nena’s upper-crust sister liked to say. In the next breath, after the insult, Elin would comment that Nena’s home was the calmest place she knew. It was peaceful because Nena made it so. When she walked through her front door, she was no longer Echo, only Nena.
From their secure line, Noble Knight’s smooth voice, laced with an edge of irritation, came through the speaker so both his daughters could hear. “The problem is that this is the job you’ve been given, and it needs to be done,” he said. “Handling the attorney now will be a show of good faith to our incoming Council member. We need the deal he’s bringing us to go through with no complications.”
Elin glared at Nena but said nothing. But the mark’s a federal attorney, Nena was thinking. And what did Dad mean by “show of good faith”？ Since when did the Tribe dispatch people as a “show of good faith”？ She didn’t like it one bit, but who was she to question their father? He’d never given her a reason to doubt him, not since she was fifteen and he and her mum had adopted her off the streets. Still, the thought niggled in her mind.
“This mark seems out of the norm, no?” Nena asked when they’d ended the call. “Out of the norm for us. I mean, we’re not mercenaries.”
“Why the second-guessing?” Elin countered, rifling through her bag. “Do you have something better to do than the job? Sit out in the hot-ass sun in your backyard? Or go play with your best bud with the crude name.”
“Keigel,” Nena supplied helpfully. He was her neighbor three doors down and also the head of a large local gang. “I ask because this guy isn’t our typical mark.”
Elin let out a burst of exasperated air. “I could use a smoke. You’re stressing me the hell out.” Elin produced her pack of cigarettes and a lighter. “Honestly, I don’t know. Maybe the guy’s a perv or crooked. That seems to be the standard to get the—” She completed the sentence by slicing a well-manicured finger across her throat.
Nena leaned forward from her perch on the couch, resting her elbows on her knees. “You’re quite rude. You know that?”
“You wouldn’t have me any other way.” Elin broke out into a magnificent grin and wouldn’t stop until her sister shook her head in defeat.
“Is this guy really more crooked than the man he’s prosecuting?” It had been all over the news. Alleged money launderer Dennis Smith was to be tried on RICO charges and witness intimidation.
“You know how it all goes down,” Elin said. “Council makes the decree and sends up the names; I work the intel at Network; Dispatch carries out their orders. We never question the Council’s reasons.” She shook her head in concession. “Anyway, Smith’s dealings are questionable at best, and while the Tribe wouldn’t normally get involved, they’re doing it to secure our new Council member. Politics.”
“Politics isn’t what the Tribe is supposed to be about,” Nena griped.
“Yes, well, plot twist, this member happens to be the father of the man I’m screwing, so there’s that.”
Nena scoffed. “Screwing? Is this an arrangement? A traditional pairing like back home? Did the man’s father present goats and liquor to Dad?”
Elin shot her a middle finger. “No. He brought a country.” She deflated, suddenly looking tired. Or perhaps annoyed. “The Council wants Lucien Douglas, and Douglas wants Smith—for whatever reason—to remain prison-free. It’s easier to take the lawyer out and keep the man happy. And it’s cheaper and less time consuming than buying off a jury.”
The words were cold and callous coming from Elin’s lips. To be killed just because it was the easier choice. It didn’t make the Tribe sound inspirational when the advancement of the African diaspora was supposed to be their ultimate goal. It made them sound selfish, greedy . . . wicked.
“Dispatching this federal attorney, this Cortland Baxter, sounds a bit self-serving, yeah?” Nena ventured.
Elin gazed at the cigarettes longingly, then gave her sister a pouting look, but Nena shook her head. Elin released a frustrated sigh and shoved them back in her bag. “Douglas has close ties with one of the countries that have been hard to bring on the team. So if making the new guy happy means the African Tribal Council secures this country so we can shore up imports and exports from the coast, then yeah, the Tribe is self-serving.”