by Vivian Gray
“I’m afraid you two won’t be going anywhere.”
***
Trigger
The night was brisk, and goose bumps rose up on my arms, but I couldn’t bring myself to put on my leather jacket. I liked the feel of the wind against my skin too much to cover up. Riding around the city at night was the best. The traffic of the day had mostly dissipated, making it possible to weave around cars and treat the streets like my own personal track.
I’d been the leader of the Broken Mavericks for two years – ever since Shank got himself involved in a pointless feud, and ironically (though no one liked to bring it up), got himself shanked. The boys voted me to the top position even though, at twenty-eight, I was the youngest leader the club had ever had, and I’d been doing my best to turn things around. We made trouble only when there was no other option and did our best to keep our business deals just that. Business.
That was Shank’s problem. He mixed up his business and personal life. Slept with his associates’ girlfriends, bought from the dealers who owed him money. It made the club feel like a high school locker room, constantly focusing on who we weren’t talking to that week and who we needed to track down and teach a lesson. It became tedious, and the club suffered. Now, though, I’d turned things around for the better.
It felt like an oxymoron, trying to be an honest criminal, but it really did make a difference. When you were honest with people, they respected you. Mostly. We still had a few outstanding deals with some of Shank’s clients, and they tended to be less pleasant to work with. One of them was Buzz.
He and Shank had fought like brothers. They’d be livid with each other one minute and laughing, patting each other on the back the next. It was dizzying. And because of their unconventional relationship, Shank had allowed Buzz to fall deep into debt with us. I’d been taking it easy on Buzz, allowing him to pay off his debts slowly, but then he’d dropped off the map.
Finally, I’d received word he was working out of an old crack house on the south side of the city, so a few of the boys and I decided to ride over and check it out before he could scurry back to his hiding hole and disappear. We were still a few blocks away when I gestured for the boys to pull over and kill the engines. If Buzz heard us coming, he’d either try to run or fight, and I wasn’t in the mood for either.
“What’s the plan, Trigger?” Dean asked, shaking out his arms and kicking his legs, limbering up. He was the smallest guy in the club, but he was surprisingly strong, and I’d never seen him lose a fight. Bigger men liked to underestimate him, which was their downfall.
I stepped up onto the curb and crossed my arms against the evening chill. “The plan is to make him pay up or make him pay.”
Dean’s mouth pulled up into a twisted smile. “Sounds like my kind of plan.”
The neighborhood was rough, but we were an intimidating enough group walking down the street that I wasn’t worried. No one would mess with us. As we reached the end of the block, a rusty blue car pulled up in front of the house, and a beautiful blonde stepped out. She wore tight jeans that hugged her delicate curves, a long-sleeve shirt with a deep-V highlighting her ample cleavage, and golden blonde hair that shone in the flickering street light above her. She looked like an angel. So, what in the hell was she doing around Buzz’s place?
Most people would be surprised to see the kind of straight-laced people who could find themselves wrapped up in the criminal world. Businessmen looking for a way to relax. Housewives looking for a way to cut loose. Teenagers trying to impress their friends or rebel against their parents. Good people who found themselves in terribly dangerous situations they weren’t at all prepared to handle.
I wanted to yell at the woman to stay out. You definitely don’t want to be in there when we show up. It’s going to get messy. But shouting at her would have likely alerted Buzz to our presence, and even if it hadn’t, I didn’t know who the woman was. She was too beautiful to be romantically involved with a man like Buzz, but she could be working with him… or for him.
She could be a druggie there for her next fix. She wouldn’t be the first beautiful woman I’d seen be mixed up in this world. My mom found herself hanging around the wrong crowd when my dad left us. She didn’t have enough money for food or electricity, so she took a job as a dancer. For a while, she was able to keep me in the dark. I knew she was a dancer, but I imagined her as a ballet dancer on stage and kept asking to see her perform, not understanding why she refused.
Then, finally, I wised up. I realized that she stripped for money. It made me sick to think of all the men who took advantage of her, the men her used her for her body and threatened to have her fired or hurt if she didn’t give them what she wanted.
Suddenly, for no other reason than the beautiful woman reminded me of my mom, I wanted to help her. I wanted to see her get clean and turn her life around. But I was there for a purpose, and it was to get the money Buzz owed the club and get out. The woman would have to find herself another savior because it wouldn’t be me.
“We get in, get the money, get out,” I said, trying to forget about the woman as we stopped on the corner to regroup before going in. “Do what you need to do to protect yourselves, but don’t start a fight if it isn’t necessary.”
Everyone nodded in agreement.
I patted my hip, feeling the reassuring metal of my gun there, and then checked my opposite pocket for my knife. “Okay, let’s do this.”
Chapter Two
Kenna
“I don’t care if she’s the queen,” the man said, pointing to my mom’s very unroyal position on the dirty floor. “She owes me money, and she isn’t leaving.”
“She’s sick,” I said for what felt like the hundredth time. “She needs help.”
“And I need my money,” he said, immovable.
“I told you to bring money,” Mom said, pulling on my shirt sleeve, reminding me of a little kid asking for candy in the checkout aisle of a grocery store. “You brought some, right? Give it to him.”
I wanted to explain to my mom that we didn’t have any money, but I wasn’t sure how that would go over in front of the man. What would he do when he found out we couldn’t pay him back? He seemed content enough to let my mom waste away in his crack house, so surely, he wouldn’t have any issues with killing us both.
“How much does she owe?” I asked, though I knew it didn’t matter. She could be ten dollars in the hole or one thousand, and I still wouldn’t be able to pay the man.
“Four hundred.” He crossed his arms over his large stomach, scowling down at us both.
I regretted not calling the police. If I’d had any idea the kind of situation my mom was in, I never would have walked into the house. It was stupid. Prison would be better than dying in a place like this, and now it would be a miracle if either of us made it out.
“I can get the money to you next month,” I said, biting my lower lip, trying to look helpless in an effort to appeal to any mercy the man may have possessed.
He looked at me, his eyes appraising me for the first time, hesitating over my chest and my hips. He licked his lips, and I wanted to be sick. “How do I know you’re good for it?”
I hadn’t brought anything of value with me to put up as collateral. “I can leave you my car until I bring the money?”
He shook his head. “That rust bucket? It’s not even worth half of what she owes.”
So, he had been watching me walk up to the house.
“It’s all I have,” I said. “And if she stays here and dies, it will be on you. You’ll be responsible for her death.”
“Did I pump her full of drugs all these years? Did I drag her from her bed and force her to sleep on these dirty floors and shoot up? No, I didn’t. Her death is in her own hands.”
I hated how true his words were. My mom had done this to herself. She was the reason she was lying on the floor of a crack house, days, if not hours, away from death. But still, I couldn’t leave her.
“Please,
” I begged, my voice cracking. I reached out and touched the man’s arm lightly, my fingers trembling against his slick skin. “Please.”
He tilted his head to the side and smiled slightly. “You’re pretty desperate, huh?”
I nodded.
“Then I know a way you can begin to work off your mother’s debts.” He grabbed my hand and stepped backward, pulling me towards the center of the room. When we were standing directly beneath the only working bulb in the room, he let my hand go and backed away. “Strip.”
“No, I’ll do it, Buzz,” Mom said, her motherly instincts the only force propelling her broken body off the floor.
The man whose name was apparently Buzz waved her away. “No one wants to see you naked. I want to see her. And then, I want to have her.”
Have me? My heart hammered against my rib cage as I tried desperately to think of a way out of this. To think of any other way I could pay this man back.
“It’s my fault,” Mom said in a surprising moment of clarity. “Don’t do it, Kenna. It’s okay.”
Buzz scratched the scar that ran down his cheek, bored. “She doesn’t have to do anything, but you,” he said, pointing at my mom, “aren’t going anywhere unless she does.”
My mom opened her mouth, but then closed it, her lips trembling as though incapable of forming the words, and my mind was made up. I’d do whatever I had to do to get her out. Even if that meant sleeping with this horrible man.
I found the hem of my shirt and pulled it over my head just as the first tear began to roll down my cheek. I had made up my mind, but that couldn’t stop my body from responding to the trauma. My chest hiccupped with the sobs I was holding back.
Buzz whistled and moved towards me. He ran a hand down the curve of my breast and across my stomach. I shivered, and he smiled. “That’s right. Get excited.”
I wanted to kick him in the groin and run. I knew I could run faster than him, but I’d never be able to get my mom out in time. And unlike Buzz, I couldn’t shirk off my responsibility to her. He didn’t care whether she died on the floor where she lay, but I did. I’d never forgive myself if I left her there to rot.
He looked at my jeans and then flicked his eyes towards the floor, telling me to take them off. I unzipped them slowly, not to be sensual, but because I was still hoping that something, anything, would happen to change his mind. Buzz licked his lips and watched closely as my hands slipped beneath my waistband and I pushed my jeans down my thighs.
Then, I heard the footsteps in the hallway.
***
Trigger
Once we were in the door, there was no reason to be quiet anymore. Buzz was a tub of lard, and I could outrun him any day. Dean kicked a fallen ceiling tile across the entrance hall and whooped when it cracked in half against the wall.
I knew Buzz didn’t live in the crack house, but I still didn’t understand why it had to be such a dump. It’s where he conducted a lot of his business so it would make sense to clean it up a bit. However, I suppose if most of your clients are too high to care, then you might as well pocket the money you’d spend on any renovations.
We pounded down the hallway, our footsteps echoing through the house like an irregular heartbeat. Wherever Buzz was, he could hear us coming. There was only one door open to the left, and it opened into one large space. It looked as though the walls had been knocked down to make it bigger.
The windows along the back wall had been boarded over same as the windows in the front, but unlike the empty entrance hall, this room was full of people. They were scattered across the floor like rat droppings, but I couldn’t pay them any attention. In the center of the room, half-naked and crying, was the blonde woman I’d seen come inside only five minutes before.
She looked up at me, and the boys walked in, her eyes wide and scared. She threw an arm over her chest and used her other hand to hold onto her jeans, which were caught around the thickness of her thighs. Her eyes were red-rimmed and watery with tears. In the corner, another woman was collapsed against the brick wall. She was looking at the floor, but her shoulders shook with silent sobs.
Buzz had his hands on the blonde’s waist and was too distracted by her heaving chest to look over at us right away. Even from across the room, I could see the small tent in his pants. He was turned on by this. By her fear and her nakedness.
Anger rose up in me like a lick of fire against dry wood. Soon, it caught, and I felt myself trembling with unspent aggression. It had been so long since I’d been in a fight, so long since I’d given someone an ass kicking they deserved.
Finally, Buzz looked over. He didn’t look ashamed or guilty. He simply looked annoyed.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, not bothering to take his hand from the girl’s waist. “You all aren’t supposed to just show up here like this.”
“Says who?” Dean asked, stepping forward. He was vibrating with excitement. He was like a live wire, pulsing with electricity and energy.
I saw Buzz size up Dean. They were comically different sizes. A real-life Lennie and George. But what Buzz didn’t know is that Dean could have him on his knees, begging for mercy within the minute.
“Shank never interrupted my den like this—”
“Shank was killed,” I said, lifting my shirt, so my gun was visible. I turned slightly so Buzz would be able to see it. “So, you’ll understand if I’ve decided not to run my business the way he did.”
“And you’ll understand if I decide to throw you out,” Buzz said, finally moving away from the woman, and marching towards us. It was clear he was the kind of man who was accustomed to intimidating other men. He stood with his shoulders stretched wide, his nose high in the air. His feet stomped across the rickety floor, sending small vibrations through my legs.
Without even blinking, I pulled out my gun and pointed it between his eyes. Buzz froze mid-step. Slowly, his meaty foot lowered to the ground, and he leaned away from me.
“What do you want?” he asked, scowling.
“The money you owe me,” I said. And then I looked at the shaking woman behind him. She was pulling her jeans back on and whispering something to the older woman huddled against the wall. “And the blonde.”
“I don’t have your money because of that blonde,” Buzz said. “And her mother. They were fixing to pay me back the only way they can.”
I’d known as soon as I walked in what his plans for the girl were but hearing him admit it so proudly made me want to pull the trigger and walk away. How could scum like him live with themselves?
I barked out a laugh. “Why should I care why you don’t have my money? I only care that you don’t have it. It’s not my fault if you can’t run your business. The girl and the woman come with me. I’ll be back for my money later.”
“They aren’t going anywhere with you,” Buzz said, moving towards me, though I saw him eye my weapon nervously. “I’ll get you your money soon, but I don’t have it now.”
I tilted my head to the side. “You seem to be under the impression that you’re making the rules here today. Let me be the one to inform you that you are not.”
Buzz took another step towards me, and I could tell he was trying to call my bluff. He didn’t think I’d pull the trigger. He didn’t think I’d actually shoot him, though I didn’t understand why. I hadn’t given him any reason to doubt my sincerity. However, I’d known enough men like Buzz to know the type. He figured life would always work out in his favor. Well today, it wouldn’t.
Dean was like a rabid dog at the end of his leash. He was chomping at the bit to get to Buzz. And the men behind him were eager, as well. All it took was one nod from me, and they were on top of him. Like a pebble tossed into quicksand, Buzz disappeared in a swarm of flailing, kicking limbs.
I didn’t bother to stay and watch. The boys would make quick work of Buzz. He had a lot to say, but little to show for it. The woman had already pulled her shirt back over her head and had knelt down next to the woman in the corner, tryin
g to haul her to her feet. I went to help, but the girl stiffened when she heard me approach and spun around to face me.
“I’m not going with you,” she said. “I’m here to get my mom and leave. That’s it.”
Her skin was clear and pale like a porcelain doll, a small hint of rose blush on her full cheeks. Her eyes were wide, gray in the dim light, and scared.
“I want to help you,” I said. I heard Buzz groaning behind me, the sound of fists hitting dense flesh echoing off the walls. “I’m not here to be anyone’s pimp or some trafficker. I’m here to get my money and you happen to look like you could use some help. Am I wrong?”
She looked up at me, unsure, but then her mother groaned and rolled onto her side, and she seemed to decide I was worth the risk.
“We need help,” she said, nodding. “Can you help me get her outside?”