Talaya, p.8
Talaya, page 8
“I sure hope you have something more to tell the media than what we know so far,” Slay said and earned a sharp glance from Neshawn.
“We’re going to control the narrative,” she told him.
Roark nodded. “Yeah, that’s exactly what we need to do.”
“What somebody in here needs to do is tell me what the hell is going on.”
All eyes went to the doorway once again as the woman who’d made that statement slowly walked into the room.
“Aunt Birdie.” Roark acknowledged her first and hurried across the room to relieve the guard who had been standing on her right side.
Another guard was on her left, both of them had been holding her by the elbow as she took one step at a time.
“Why didn’t you call?” Roark asked. “One of us would’ve come to get you if we’d known you wanted to come out.”
“Don’t lie, Roark. It’s beneath you,” his aunt snapped. “That little hellion you call a sister left me home on purpose. I heard her moving about at that insulting hour of the morning and I knew it wasn’t because she was getting ready for work. She works from home most mornings. And she hadn’t been out last night. We had dinner together and played cards until she grew tired of me beating her.”
They were near the couches now. His aunt dressed in a cream-colored pantsuit, two long strands of pearls at her neck, matching earrings at her ears. On most of her fingers were the silver and diamond rings she always wore, while a gold chain strap held a matching cream-colored box-size purse at her side.
“Ridgley,” she called to him the moment Roark and the guard had helped get her situated on the couch. “Come over here and let me look at you.”
“I’m fine, Aunt Birdie,” he said but wisely began making his way over to where she sat. When he was close enough, he leaned in to kiss his aunt on the cheek.
She sniffed and reached up her hands to clasp his face and hold it in front of her. “On your way to drunk, from what I can smell.”
“Better tell Roya to put on a pot of coffee as well,” Neshawn said from behind him.
“Is that how this accident happened?” Aunt Birdie continued as if she hadn’t heard Neshawn speak. “You were in your cups and got behind the wheel?” She shook her head and sucked her teeth. “That’s something I would’ve expected from you when you were a teenager, but you’re an adult now. About to be married. You cannot be out here endangering your life, Talaya’s life, or anyone else’s.”
Ridge eased out of her grasp in what he could manage to be as respectful a way as possible. “I wasn’t driving,” he told her as he stood up straight. “And I hadn’t been drinking at the time.”
Aunt Birdie’s heavily penciled in brows arched. “Then what the hell happened? All I saw on the news was a banged-up truck. They said you and Talaya were in that one. The car was pretty messed up too, caught fire, did it?” She huffed. “Is somebody going to tell me what the hell happened or do I have to go down to the police department to find out for myself?”
Somebody, most likely everybody in the room, was thinking the exact same thing Ridge was. That if Aunt Birdie would just be quiet long enough for someone to talk; she might learn what happened. Luckily for him, Pierce picked this exact moment to arrive.
Ridge’s house felt like a revolving door with people mostly coming in like it was open to the public. He took solace in the fact that he knew Que and his guys were at the door and outside making sure they knew exactly who they were letting in. There was no doubt some of the media had followed them home.
The room seemed too small, even though Ridge knew it was more than big enough for this small circle of people. He really just wanted them to all go. He wanted there to be quiet so he could think, so he could figure out what steps he needed to take next to protect Talaya. She was his priority in all of this. If anything happened to her because he hadn’t been diligent enough, focused enough on her, or simply strong enough to keep her safe, he didn’t know what he’d do.
“Everybody’s gonna want to take a seat for this,” Pierce said as he entered the room.
At that exact moment, the lift opened and Suri stepped out. She wore very short shorts and a too tight t-shirt that Ridge hoped like hell she’d been wearing in the house when she got the call and hadn’t wanted to take the time to put on real clothes before coming out. Either way his teeth clenched at the sight of his little sister bearing way more skin than he found acceptable as she too walked into the reception room.
“Amir texted me to let me know he was outside with the rest of the team,” Suri said walking right past where Pierce had stopped a couple steps from both couches, and moved around until she could sit down next to Aunt Birdie. “You should’ve stayed at home. I was going to bring you the news once I had all the details.”
Aunt Birdie rolled her eyes. “You shouldn’t have left me there like I was a toddler who needed a babysitter. This is family business and I should be here to get the news firsthand. After all, I’m the matriarch now.”
That she was. Aunt Birdie was the oldest living Donovan female by blood and not marriage, at the moment. She was, for all intent and purposes, the head of the entire family and she had no problem reminding them of that fact.
“Well, this handsome guy here was just about to fill us all in on the details,” Neshawn said as she sat back on the couch and crossed one leg over the other. She wore a knee-length hunter green skirt and some strappy nude color heels, but with the motion of her leg, that skirt went up just a couple inches and Pierce followed it.
“Then get on with it why don’t you,” Suri snapped.
Ridge did rub his temples now because the pain was becoming excruciating and the noise almost to the point of unbearable. But he had to hear what Pierce wanted to say.
Pierce had raised a brow as he’d turned his attention to Suri, but after a few seconds of total silence in the room, he cleared his throat. “For the sake of brevity and to give Ms. Donovan all the details I’m sure she wants, I’ll provide the facts and save the discussion for afterwards.”
“Good,” Ridge said trying not to sound too stern or impatient. “Give us the facts.”
Pierce nodded and began to speak as if he were giving an official briefing to one of his superiors at Interpol. “At four seventeen a.m. a white 2019 Mercedes CLA-Class entered the intersection of Gordan Place and Pitt Street at a high rate of speed. During that same time, a charcoal gray Bentayga entered the same intersection and that vehicle slammed into the passenger side of the Mercedes. Behind the Bentayga was a black Range Rover driven by Delonte Jackson, whom you all know as Dino. The Bentayga was driven by…”
“Me,” Sage spoke up. “I was driving the first truck with Ridge and Talaya in it.”
She looked at Ridge with sad eyes then and he frowned. The act only increased his pain level but he was trying to convey to her once again that she had no reason to feel guilty, because he knew that was the only reason she’d interjected.
“Yes,” Pierce said with a nod. “You, navigating in your duties as lead guard to Ridge, were operating the vehicle that collided with the Mercedes.” Pierce folded his arms across his chest. “When medical help and law enforcement arrived on the scene only Sage, Ridge, Talaya, and Delonte were at the scene. The driver of the Mercedes had fled.”
“Bastard,” Aunt Birdie murmured and pursed her lips.
“Do we know who the driver was?” Roark asked. “Why’d he drive out into that intersection when Sage had the right of way?”
Pierce nodded. “We’ll have to wait another couple of hours to get the camera footage from the private homes in that area and the city surveillance, but I know it will corroborate Sage’s statement that her light was green and she had the right of way to proceed through the intersection.”
Roark nodded. “So, like I said, why did this…whoever it was drive through the intersection? Were they drunk? Was there any evidence of drinking in his car?”
“The car caught fire about forty minutes after everyone was taken to the hospital. Two officers were injured and the press got it all on camera,” Pierce said. “But not before I had my guys in place on the scene and they checked the vehicle out.”
Both Que and Sage would’ve known to contact Pierce. In addition to being a former FBI profiler and now an agent with Interpol, he was a close family friend who’d been on hand for the last few crises they’d experienced.
“My man,” Ridge said with a very slow, and very stiff nod of his head.
Pierce met his gaze. “Hold that thought,” he said. “My guy pulled the VIN number and we traced it. The owner of the vehicle is listed as Cordell DuPont.”
“Shit,” Ridge cursed and then took a step toward Pierce. “Shit.” He put his hands up to cover his face and then sighed before dragging them down. “Shit!”
“DuPont,” Sage said, her voice quiet as she made her way closer to where Ridge now stood. “As in the couple that came to see you last year. Michelle DuPont who we have on camera as being at the holiday party year before last.”
Ridge looked at her. “The DuPonts who fell off the grid after that meeting so we were never able to figure out what the hell they were doing in my office in the first place,” he said.
“And that’s not all,” Pierce added.
This couldn’t get any worse. How could Ridge be any more to blame for this happening than having those two in his office, in his grasp, but letting them go? He had told them to get out of his office. He’d let them walk away, only for them to turn around and do…what? What had this accident been about? And who the hell were these people?
“I told you last year that we traced the DuPonts’s business back to someone named Edward DeWayne Ewing. Well, when we did a preliminary search on the guy, I found out that Ewing is a part of a conglomerate of sorts, owning and running a variety of entities from that exploration company where the DuPonts work to a couple of banks, some restaurants and three major construction companies. Because everything looked business related, and Cade and I got a lead on the Brennan Cult multi-agency task force we put this on the back burner for a minute. The priority of course, being trying to get all those deranged killers who’d attempted to recruit Talaya off the streets.”
Ridge couldn’t argue with that last statement. Pierce and Cade had both been good at keeping him informed about the status of that particular investigation.
“But,” Pierce continued, “in his spare time, one of our analysts started following the money that went in and out of Ewing’s holdings. They watched how money from the smaller companies circled back to Ewing and zeroed in specifically on where the large sums of money that were going into those smaller holdings originated from. You are not going to believe who the hell these people are connected to.”
“Who?” Roark asked before Ridge could form the question.
“In the late twenties, early thirties, they were known as the Moonshine Boys, a bunch of gangsters who added millions of dollars to their other racketeering operations by bootlegging and running thousands of speakeasies from Houston to a few other spots in the southeastern part of the States.” Pierce held up a hand to keep anyone from asking the obvious question, which was—what the hell did any of this have to do with them presently?
“Edward DeWayne Ewing is actually a third. He’s the son of Eddie Ewing, Jr., who was the son of Eddie Ewing, III, one of the original Moonshine Boys. Eddie the third apparently learned from his father and grandfather because he and his partner Warren Madrid now run the notorious MB Mafia in the States.”
“Shit,” Slay said. “I’ve heard of them. Knew a sports agent who got caught up owing them some money for his coke habit, then tried to repay them by betting on a few championship football games. He had his clients throw the games as a favor for getting their family members cars, homes, and shit like that. When he got caught, the MBs had his throat slit in jail and his body cut up and put in one of the industrial dryers in the laundry room. Then they burned his house down to further send the message to anybody who knew they were linked to the scandal, that they better keep the mafia’s name out of their mouths.”
Neshawn gasped, a hand going to her chest as she tried to process all that she’d heard. Ridge wasn’t so sure she should’ve been present for this debriefing, but it was too late to consider that now. And if she was going to continue managing their image through this mess, it made sense that she knew everything that was going on.
“Do y’all have some tea?” Aunt Birdie asked out of the blue.
His aunt had been uncharacteristically quiet as she’d listened to everything Pierce had to say. She hadn’t even chastised Ridge for his cursing, something she’d always done regardless of how old he was. Nor had she chastised Slay because Aunt Birdie was as old school as they came; she didn’t give a damn whose child you were, if you were wrong, she was going to correct you.
“See, I knew this was going to be too much for you,” Suri said. She came to a stand and then looped her arm through Aunt Birdie’s to help her stand. “We can go into the kitchen and get you some tea. And you probably need to eat. I know you didn’t get anything before you left.”
“We’re supposed to have brunch today,” Aunt Birdie said when she was finally standing straight up. With her free hand she wiped down the front of her clothes then looked directly at Ridge. “You go on upstairs and lay down with Talaya. Y’all can sleep until I get Paisley over here to help Roya start preparing the brunch. We all need to eat and we all need to be together.”
“I’ve got some documents I need you to see,” Pierce said to Ridge.
“Not today,” Aunt Birdie said, her tone curt and final. “Today is for our family brunch and for giving thanks to the good Lord for keeping Ridge and Talaya through that ordeal.” She took a step with Suri right by her side. “We need to thank Him for keeping all of us, for all this time.”
Nobody said another word until Aunt Birdie was out of the room and even then, there were a few more tense moments before Ridge spoke. “Neshawn, schedule the press conference for tomorrow. Sage, I want you and Dino to get with all of our in-house security and assign new details. I don’t want Talaya alone for one second when she’s out of this house. I want two guards on her at all times, in the same vehicle as she is and one in her office while she’s working. Review her schedule this afternoon and make sure wherever she has to go is a secure location. Vet everybody who’s going to be around her.”
Sage nodded. “Got it.”
“And coordinate with Que so he knows what Talaya and Ridge’s schedules are as well. I’ll take care of tightening up Suri and Aunt Birdie’s details as well as Tamika’s,” Roark said.
“And yours,” Ridge added. He didn’t want any of his family hurt behind whatever the hell was going on. If a muthafucka was bold enough to run a car into them, he was capable of anything and Ridge planned to be ready. And if somehow all this shit was connected to a ninety-year-old mafia, they had a bigger problem than any of them had ever imagined.
“All good ideas,” Pierce said. “And although I may be a grown ass man, fluent in five languages, with a long list of unmentionable things I’ve done on behalf of protecting the citizens of the United States and now the United Kingdom, I’m not about to cross your aunt today, or any other day. I’ll make sure all these documents are sent to you through a secure server and we can set up a time to meet in your office tomorrow to go over them.”
Roark stood with one hand in the front pocket of his pants. “That’s a good idea. Copy me on that email. I’ll go call Tamika and tell her that brunch is going to be here today.”
“And I’ll go collect my woman so we can get out of y’all hair,” Slay said when he stood and came over to clap Ridge on the shoulder.
Ridge gave his friend a weak smile. “You’re just scared of Aunt Birdie.”
Slay shook his head. “No lies told there, my brotha. No lies at all.”
Now, Ridge did laugh even though inside he wanted to rage. He wanted to lash out and punch somebody. To punch Cordell DuPont and whoever ordered him to target his family. He wanted to use his hands, his strength and yeah, his brains, to do whatever he could to keep his family safe.
Talaya had a therapy session in an hour. She also still felt a little nauseous from the mild concussion she’d received after being thrown across the backseat of the truck and knocking her head against the window during yesterday’s early morning accident. Ridge suggested she stay home today. No, he’d insisted and they’d sort of had their first argument because of her refusal.
Well, it was probably more so because of what she’d neglected to tell him before the accident that had incensed him and rightfully so. Still, she’d stood her ground.
“What did you just say?” Ridge asked as he stood in front of the wall mirror inside their closet.
She cleared her throat and took a deep breath. Releasing it quickly, she spit the words out. “I’ve gotten a couple of text messages and a phone call. I was going to ignore them because I just thought it was the Cult again and I’m done letting them dominate my life. But, considering everything that’s happened, I figured I should tell you.”
He stepped out of the closet, one hand still on his half-completed tie as if it were now frozen there since she’d made her announcement. It was no surprise to her that he looked good. Ridge was fine as hell whether he was wearing basketball shorts and a sweaty t-shirt, jeans, sweatpants, or a tailored suit. He wore everything well and her mouth still watered each time she saw him. The gray pants and white dress shirt would’ve been bland if he wasn’t wearing them. Even the charcoal gray tie he hadn’t finished tying added to the fine ass package that was Ridge Donovan. His locs were pulled back in a black band, his silver Breitling watch sparkled on his left wrist. And his brow was etched with lines as he frowned in her direction.
“Did Dino know?” he asked, breathing hard through his nose in an action that was obvious he was trying to rein in his temper.
