#thread: strike

Freddie walked into the dimly lit room and he took a look around. It was pitiful to see what she’d reduced herself to. She once lived in what other people would call a palace but now, she wallowed in a hide out that wasn’t really fit for a queen at all. It was like she was inflicting torture on herself. “I hear you are on a hunger strike…” he breathed, moving to position himself with his back against the wall. 

Mercedes looked up at Freddie for a moment before she looked back out the window. 

“You know that isn’t really good in your state” he said reasonably. “They say you haven’t eaten since Friday…” he sighed to himself. 

“My state” Mercedes repeated a chuckle leaving her. She blinked slowly shifting against the bench beneath her. He mentioned pregnancy as if it were some disease or a curse, though as she thought about it. That is what it was starting to feel like. Another attachment to the individual she wanted to detach from. It was ironic to say the least. “I am not on strike” she told him. 

“Well good, because I asked them to make you something good. And I’m going to watch you eat it..” Freddie said. The last couple days had been uneasy ones to navigate through. Some days he thought he knew what was whirling in her head the others he had no clue. He knew she was scheming up something awful in the wake of Michael’s absence but he hadn’t been able to discover it yet. 

Mercedes would tell him she wouldn’t eat but it was no use in fighting Freddie. She didn’t care to, care to fight or talk. She simply wanted to be left alone. 

“Al is persistent in locating you. He has summoned me twice. Don’t make me go back a third time, He might turn the gun on me then” Freddie added, filling the void of silence in the room. 

Mercedes watched the rain drops fall against the glass. New York had been so dreary the last couple of days. “Freddie, leave me alone..” she told him. She didn’t care about anyone, except for Michael of course. “If it’s not about Michael I don’t care to hear it…” 

“Michael is in safe hands Tiny” Freddie said, trying to both sympathize with her and rationalize with her his thoughts on the current issue. 

“Are you fucking crazy?” she asked him her head whipping in his direction. “I’m the safest place for him to fucking be” she snapped, eyes gazing into his. “It’s so amazing to see you become best friends with a man you told me I didn’t need to be with,” Mercedes said bitterly. “All of a sudden your loyalty lies with the enemy…” she said, rising from her seated position. “I should fucking kill you.” 

“My loyalty lies with you and no one else. It has for years” Freddie told her, his body still resting against the wall. The mention of his death left him unmoved, if there was anything he knew was that one day he’d die by her hands or die defending her honor there was no inbetween. Licking his lips he countered “I care about you just as much as Nicholas does, he loves you. Maybe I  was wrong to judge, but I am at your beckon call…” 

Mercedes chuckled again, “if there is one thing I know for sure it’s that you nor anyone else around me gives a fuck about me” she told him. 

Freddie cleared his throat and he pushed off the wall. “Tell me how I can help you then,” he said. “What are you thinking?” 

“Nothing” Mercedes said as she crossed the room and sat down on a couch. 

“I don’t believe that Tiny, tell me the truth…” Freddie inquired. “What are your plans…” he said. It had gotten back to him some time ago that she was maneuvering behind his back. Assigning people to tasks that he’d normally handle. 

“I don’t have one…” she said gazing at him with a straight face from across the room. 

“I don’t believe that either. I know you, I know how you operate” Freddie said back to her. 

Mercedes turned her head, her hand rubbing her tired eyes. “Then you should already know what my plan is…” 

_____________________

Freddie sat outside of the building hesitantly. He feared Nicholas just as much as he feared Al and Mercedes. He didn’t know what the man would think about him showing up, what if Nicholas thought this was an ambush and killed him. What would you have gone through all this trouble for, to accomplish what? The better question is why did he care? He sighed to himself, he guessed he’d gotten attached to his work, something he vowed never to do. He was just supposed to protect Mercedes, but he guessed in a way protecting her was also protecting the family. “Hey give me 30 minutes and if you hear anything pop off don’t leave me here to die man” he said before he climbed out of the car. He made his way to the entrance and he alerted everyone inside of his presence with a single press of a button. 

Nicholas' frosted stare held the two men sitting across the desk from him firmly in place. “You know Bernice isn’t going to leave.  No matter the danger, but listen… We are doing our best.” His brother said, licking his lips slowly.  “I didn’t ask you to tell me shit I already know-” Nicholas quieted and looked towards the camera feed, just over the men’s heads.  His face stoned over even further.  “What's wrong?” His brother asked, marking the change.   “You're dismissed.” Nicholas said, scanning the other camera feeds.  “Go out the back way and do a search of the block.  If you find anything out of the ordinary you know what to do.”  He rose from his seat as the doorbell alerted the staff.  “Go” He said sternly, pushing the call button on the phone, “Bring Freddie directly to me.” He ordered as the two men scampered from the room. 

Freddie held his breath as he waited, he was practically a sitting duck. He knew Nicholas didn’t really care for him on top of everything else he’d been exposed to. He took a deep breath before the door flew open and before he could speak he was told Nicholas was waiting for him. He nodded his head and hesitated to move before he stepped inside. Gun on his hip he zipped his jacket up hiding it from plain sight. He was escorted to the man and when he was presented with Nicholas he lifted his hands up defensively. “This is a personal visit!” he exclaimed immediately “I wasn’t sent here by anyone, and I’d really appreciate it if you kept this between us, please” he begged sincerely, concern written across his face. 

Nicholas eased himself back into his chair and instinctively, placed his hand on the trigger of the sawed off under his desk.  It was beyond Red to send Freddie here to end him.  A sad but very true reality. He raised an eyebrow as the man entered the office.  “Hand over your guns. And if I like what you say, I’ll let you leave.” That was most likely a lie.  But he owed Freddie a show of good faith.  He liked the man after all. 

Freddie dropped his hands at his sides, he unzipped his jacket and pulled the gun off his hip handing it over to Nicholas. “That’s all that I have” he told him, being completely honest. At the mama words Freddie had to swallow down his pride, he was here to help him and he was threatening to kill him? He was starting to remember exactly why he never got in the middle of her affairs. He was starting to hate himself for even coming to him in the first place. “I came here to try to be a help.”

Nicholas removed his hand from the trigger of the shotgun and relaxed leaning back in his chair.. What game was Red playing? He nodded towards the chair across his desk, letting a bit of his weariness show on his face.  Another person who wanted to help, Bernice, Rebecca and now Freddie. He was tired of people trying to tell him what to do. He knew his wife didn’t care about him. At least his head knew that. Unfortunately,  he was have a hell of a time convincing his fucking heart it was true.  “Is that so?  And Tiny doesn’t know you here… I find that hard to believe Freddie.” 

Freddie dropped down in the chair when he was commanded to do so. Once there in the chair he dropped his head down into his hands gathering his thoughts before he spoke. He shook his head and leaned up “I am a dead man walking but this is bigger than me, it’s bigger than some divorce papers too” he said to him seriously. He chuckled slightly looking past Nicholas before he dropped his head again. “I used to be able to offer her sensible advice,” he told him, eyes fixed on the man's desk. “I’ve known Tiny for a long time, a very long time…” he trailed off. “I ain’t never seen her like this Nicholas” he said looking back up at him. “This shit is serious… in her fucked up mind” he said pointing to his head. “You have waged war with her.”

As Nicholas watched Freddie, his instinct told him the man wasn’t pretending.  Or if he was pretending he was one hell of an actor.  He leaned forward, hanging on the morsel the man was dowling out.  Nicholas shook his head, “That is crazy.  Red has been calling all the shots.  How the hell am I waging war on her? She wants me to give her Michael, right?” 

“You denied her Michael Nicholas” Freddie said looking at the man confused, you had to have common sense enough to know what that would cause. “That doesn’t matter anymore Nicholas, that is what I am trying to tell you” he stressed “it’s beyond that” he breathed. “She put a bounty out on you, she doesn’t know that I know, but the streets came to me” he told him. “I can’t get her to talk, she hasn’t told me one thing since we left here without Michael, but I know her mind is turning” he said gesturing the action with his finger. “And you have to know it’s not just you, everyone you know we lay at her feet or she is going to die trying. She won’t talk, she won’t eat, she won’t do anything - she isn’t going to until Michael is in her hands but I don’t think it’s going to stop then” he spoke. “Tiny…” he pinched the bridge of his nose debating telling the man this next part. “You” he started again, “here” he said, pulling a piece of paper out of his coat and sitting on his desk. “She will be at this location, on this day, at this time” he said pointing to the piece of paper. He couldn’t tell the man she was pregnant, but he could help him intercept a doctor’s appointment, that’s if he went who would know. “You could get her off the ledge, despite…” 

He had known… Or rather he had suspected. The plain truth of it was sort of a relief.  He let out a sad chuckle, at least this was something he was prepared for. “Predictability is a thing where Tiny is concerned. I was trying to protect her and my son.  And once that failed, I had to protect the one who couldn’t protect himself. Fuck.” He cursed, rising to his feet.  His heart pounded in his chest, he wanted to kill someone.  He frowned down at the slip of paper, a time and address scribbled across it.  He lifted the paper from the desk and looked at the man. “When you met me, you would have preferred me dead.  What changed?”

Freddie rubbed his hands together nervously, his elbows resting on his knees. Red was going to kill him for this shit, he just hoped it was worth it in the end. “She is going to fucking kill me” he breathed tiredly. “Because” he started his confession “I am always with her right?” he asked. “Which means I witnessed the tears when she felt abandoned, when you didn’t show up, when she thought she wasn’t worthy of Michael, or not good enough for you, not pretty enough….  She loves you Nicholas. She’s cried an ocean of tears over you, I didn’t even know she could feel until she met you” he said shaking his head slowly. “She’s bitter…. But killing you would be like killing half of herself.” 

Nicholas stared into the man’s eyes.  He nodded at Freddie’s question.  The man wouldn’t leave Red’s side.  Not even when he had asked him to.  He was completely loyal to the woman. Nicholas couldn’t help but avert his eyes as Freddie laid out his supposed crimes.  After Michael's birth he’d felt guilty for not being there in the beginning, but he’d tried to make up for it by not missing a moment with his son now.  The rest of Frieddy’s statements were, however, untrue. Nevertheless, the word drained Nicholas of everything. He crushed the paper in his flist, and took a piece of paper from his desk.  Writing an address on the paper, he slid it over to Freddie.  Falling back into the chair, as if all his bones had melted away, he looked down at this lap for a long moment before he spoke. “That is a safe house for your family.  It was for my mother but I’ll never get Bernice to leave New York.  You’re a good man Freddy. Better than any of us deserve. I don’t believe Red would ever kill you.  But just in case…” He sighed, “I wish I knew how the hell to love Red.  I’ll think about going.  Thank you.”