Avenge Thy Brother

Chapter 5: Frayed Knot

            We ended up waiting two days for the initial medical examiner's autopsy reports to be completed. They were unable to determine a direct cause of death for neither Michael nor Vince; however, they suggested both of them died of sudden cardiac death brought on by severe shock. While that was very possible, it was unusual and fairly unlikely that both of them would die the exact same way. The full toxicology report was going to take weeks so we had to work with what we were given in the initial report, which wasn't much. My head was in a whirlpool, spinning around from the confusion and loose ends.

"I miss you so much, baby," I said to Byron during our FaceTime call.

"You've said that twenty times in the past five minutes," he said with a laugh while staring at me through his phone's camera. "I miss you, too, baby."

"Have you been taking the trash out to the curb?"

"Of course, I have. Do you think I'm gonna just sit around with bags of funky ass trash around the house?"

"Okay, you say that as if I don't remember how messy your apartment used to be."

"Hold up, my apartment wasn't that messy. It was a bachelor pad. Bachelor pads aren't supposed to be spotless. That's why they're called bachelor pads."

"Your place was nasty."

"Well, my dick must've been clean because you used to be all over it in my messy apartment."

I blushed and laughed while telling him, "You are something else, Mr. Rowell."

"So are you, Mr. Rowell." He licked his lips and said, "I wish I could kiss you right now. You know, I am going to wait on you hand and foot when you get back here."

"Ooh, tell me more, daddy."

"I'm gonna give you foot massages and back rubs. Anything you want, I'm gonna give it to you. We can take a two-week vacation and just spend those two weeks in our home together, baby. We can cook, listen to music, and make love. It'll be the perfect way to unwind after you successfully end this case."

"As great as that sounds, I can't even imagine when it will happen."

"Baby, you can do this. I have faith in you."

"Aren't you going to ask me what's been happening?"

"No, because I know you can't talk about it. I respect the protocols just like you do. Besides, I know you got this. You're smart, Cam. You're resourceful and you're better at this than I am."

"Byron..."

"No, it's true. Why do you think they moved me to dealing with money embezzlement and other financial crimes?"

"But you helped bring down Kappa Sigma Phi."

"All I did was provide a safe backing for you in case things went wrong. You did all of the work, Cam. You and Marlon did everything right and probably could have solved everything on your own without me, especially since you were working with Langston. Baby, I knew you were going to be a good fit for the FBI. I knew it the moment I first heard you speak."

"Thank you, baby."

"For what?"

"For being you. You have no idea how much I needed to hear you say the things you just said to me. I'd like to hear one more thing from you."