“Where are you? At the mansion?” I asked. It was only a few hours outside of the city, and I would be able to get there by the time morning broke if I moved fast enough.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” I promised him. I needed to get there ASAP, but I’d been drinking – maybe I could play for a little more time before I hit the road. “Is Terrence with you?” I had no idea what to expect from the man who really ran the show, how much he’d seen, how much he knew, and how much of my story he would be able to directly contradict with what he had found out, but I had to pray for the time being he was willing to overlook all of it.
“Yes, he is.”
“Okay, tell him I’m on my way, and I’ll be there as soon as I’m able,” I told him, and I hung up the phone before I could let anything else slip. I turned back to Rafael, raising my eyebrows at him, asking him silently if it was good enough. He nodded and reached out to put a hand on my shoulder.
“I know this isn’t easy,” he told me gently. “I know it’s tough for you, putting all of this behind you and carrying on. But we’re getting closer and closer to bringing down this family for good, you hear? And we’re going to be able to do it if you just hang on a bit longer.”
I nodded. I had to stick this out. I had fought to get this position, to prove I could handle something as enormous as this, and I wasn’t going to fuck it up now. I had just allowed myself to get a little distracted, what with the woman who had briefly dipped into my life and then out again. But I wasn’t going to make a habit of it. She was behind me now, and I was ready to keep on moving.
“I should get out of here,” Rafael told me, and I could sense some reluctance as he told me that – he didn’t want to have to go so soon. We had barely seen each other in the last year, and now, I was going back to deep undercover work, cutting me off from all the friends and colleagues who had filled out my life before.
“If I stick around much longer, I’m going to blow your cover,” he continued. “I’ll get a car sent over here – let yourself sober up some before you go out there, okay?”
I nodded again, putting down the beer before I could take another sip on instinct. I wanted to get drunk. I just wanted to check out of reality for a little while, but I had to go back to it. I needed to face up to what was behind me, what was in front of me. This meeting with the Vogons had been a chance to take a step forward in my undercover work, and I wasn’t about to blow it just because some woman had slid into the middle of things and made me think twice about what I was up to.
“Good,” Rafael replied, and he stood there for a moment, clearly not ready to go. I didn’t want him to. But instead, he locked eyes with me and gave me a stare that told me everything I needed to know.
“I’m sure you can handle this,” he told me, a sure sign of his belief in me. He wasn’t someone who just said shit for the sake of it; when he spoke, he picked out every word carefully, and he made sure he could stand by each one.
“I will,” I promised him, and I meant it. With that, he seemed satisfied, and he turned to the door and walked out, leaving me alone in the kitchen once more, with nothing but the half-congealed pizza and what remained of the beer I wasn’t even going to be able to drink.
Okay. As soon as I stepped out of this place, I was going to have to return to the Dean I had been before, the Dean ready to take on the Schwindel family by working his way deep inside to upset it from the top down.
I was so close to getting where I needed to go, and this latest development could be a chance for me to secure it for good, prove I was on their side by what I had sacrificed to get there. I wasn’t going to blow it.
I wasn’t going to let it get away.