Bared: A King's Hart Novel Book 3 (BWWM)

XI. Dead to the World

Nathaniel

The tap tap let me off at the town jailhouse, some small brick building with seedy looking officers standing guard outside. It was in the middle of an enclosed field, and there were shirtless me, jailbirds, working in the fields. 

My phone rang again and begrudgingly I pulled it out and shut it off. Nuri had been calling me since I left the hospital and I ignored every call. I had no plans of communicating with her until I did was I set out to do. Answering her call meant having to hear her voice. Hearing her voice meant losing all sense of direction as the world all fell away until it was only her left at the center.

With her at the center, I would happily do whatever she asked me to do which in the end would be a great disservice to her. What she needed was retribution, not altruism. 

I turned and paid the driver whatever I had left in my wallet and walked up the dirt walkway to where the officers stood watching. The entrance doors opened and a man came out out to greet me. He was tall, black with a different uniform than the rest. The other men guarding the door stood at attention with their hands at their sides. 

"Mr. King," he greeted  me with an outstretched hand that I took for a shake. "I'm Officer Mathieu and have been in contact with Armand Ambrose. He's informed me of what it is you plan for Mr. Thompson." Laced with the French accent, his English was on point and his build was not something to be taken lightly. He could really do some damage. 

"I won't take much of your time officer," I said an let him lead the way into the building.

"Mr. King," the officer began, our footsteps followed by the footsteps of other guards echoed on the wooden floor boards. "The only reason I am allowing this sort of transaction is because of my old friend Armand and the Hart family."

"How do you know Ambrose?"

"We served  together side by side," a far away look took the officer's face. "If my back was against the wall, he's the man I'd want at my side."

"He's a good man," I said coming to the conclusion that Ambrose and this man were robots.

We walked silently for a moment before he said, "The Hart family is well known around here for the generosity and genuine interest in the advancement of this small town. There was a time before I met my wife, I believed Nuri would be the woman to settle down with."

My eyes cut away from him at the mention of Nuri.

He chuckled. "She was so fragile and vulnerable... and beautiful. What man wouldn't fall for her if not to save her from her sadness."

"You got a point in all this?" I bit out to thrilled to learn that this man was almost Nuri's boyfriend before she met me.

"Relax," he said clapping his hand on my shoulder. "I'm just saying that I care about the Hart family and Nuri is an angel. If this monster did what Armand says he did, he deserves to be dealt justice." We stopped at door and he faced me. "He's in this room awaiting you. My men will follow you inside and there will be a monitor observing everything."

He held his hand out sternly and I looked down at it before placing my hand in his for a firm shake. He nodded to the men behind me who went in ahead of me before disappearing behind an open door.

I stepped in after the officers and saw Cassius settled in a chair in font of an aluminum table. His eyes locked with me and his head fell back. The man hadn't even been here an hour looked to have gone through hell. His clean cut hair style was disheveled, his clothes in disarray and undone. There was blood running down the side of his face mixing with bruise and soars.