“Sandy,” I warn.
“So touchy. Are you on the rag?”
“Let me know when it’s done,” I call over my shoulder.
“An organized group of criminals,” Sandy repeats to himself. “Fuck, Dictionary.com says we’re a gang, too. Oh, Wait. I forgot to tell you. The boys running security at the casino had to chase down two girls who were running a con on the guests.”
I turn my head. “You get them on camera?”
Sandy shakes his head. “No, I think one of the staff members tipped them off to the one dark spot in the whole place.”
“They catch them?”
Sandy shakes his head again. “No, the one with light brown hair went one way, and the dark-haired girl ran the other. No clue who they are, either. All we know is that they’ve been there before, and it looks like they’ve been running scams there for a while. No known affiliations. No names. Nada.”
The girl from last night.
She met up with another girl in the alley. When I saw her, she had been running. Hiding.
I’ll give the money back
“Let me know if you find out anything else. I’ll talk to the Chief about it tonight and tell him we’ve got it handled. And if you find the girls, bring them to me first before anything happens. You understand?”
“Roger that.”
I walk through the house and pull open the slider, stepping out into the backyard. I head toward my room which is separate from the house. An old shed conversion. It gives me the privacy I need and a break from the constant noise and Sandy’s always running mouth. I unlock the door and step into my room, shutting it behind me.
“Does this mean we get to pick colors?” Sandy calls out from the other side of the door. I didn’t even notice he’d followed me out. “For the record, this pristine complexion of mine does not look good in orange or burgundy. As the temporary leader of our gang until Belly’s better, I expect you to choose something that makes my eyes pop. Oceanside is the Sherwin Williams color of the year. I think that might work. I’ll pick up a swatch tomorrow, and we can go over options. We’ll have a little blow, a little vote. Sound good?”
I hear the sliders of the house open and close, and thankfully, I’m finally alone.
I groan. I have more things to worry about than Sandy finally realizing that our organization is, in fact, a gang. A lot more. Like the fact that the task force is up our ass, Belly’s declining health, and that earnings have been lower than they have since the day I arrived in Lacking. The ceasefire has been bad for business.
And then there’s the girl. If she is caught, it would be up to me to decide what’s done with her. Hopefully, she’s not stupid enough to be affiliated with Los Muertos or the Immortals AND running cons at the casino.
That won’t end well for her.
I rub my temples. I didn’t ask for this leadership shit. I was brought in for something else entirely, and it wasn’t my ability to lead.
It was my ability to not feel.
My lack of respect for human life.
My ability to kill without hesitation.
But for some reason, Belly chose me, and I’m not about to let him down.
There’s a familiar scratch at the window. I sigh and cross the room. When I open it, a ball of tiger-striped fur jumps into my arms, dropping what appears to be a mangled mouse onto the carpet. I pat his head, and he hisses out his usual greeting before curling up against me and purring softly. His tail is a scabby, mangled mess. The truce obviously hasn’t deterred him from getting into his own fights.
“Thanks for the fucking gift, asshole,” I mutter, tossing the mouse by the tail out into the yard.
The cat leaps from my arms back out the window.
I pick up my phone, realizing that the kind of company I want tonight isn’t in the form of Mr. Fuzzy, who after five years, is indifferent to me at best. I need a distraction in the form of bouncing tits and over the top moans.
I’m typing out a text to one of my go-to girls when the locket falls from my pocket onto the carpet. I pick it up and rub my thumb over the heart-shape. It’s cheap and the clasp is rusted shit. I scrape at it with my thumbnail, but before I can open it, there’s another scratch at the window.
I think it’s Fuzzy again, unable to make up his mind whether he wants in or out. But the window slides open on its own, and unless he’s grown thumbs in the past twenty seconds, it’s not the fucking cat.
I pull draw my weapon and press my back to the wall.
I watch from the corner of my eye as a small dirty, yellow sneaker appears, feeling for the dresser below. Once it gains footing, the other follows, slipping on a stack of magazines.
A blur of tanned skin and tangled brown hair crashes to the floor.
I’m over her in a flash, my knees caging her in, my gun aimed at her head.
Her gaze travels down my weapon, to my arms, then finally my face. “Oh, shit,” she says, but she’s smiling like she’s just dropped an earring, not like she’s found herself on the wrong end of a gun.
Which she has.
It’s her. The girl from the alley.
“Perfect timing,” I tell her.
We stare at each other for a few moments in deafening silence. The feeling is there again. The current between us. But it doesn’t change that the bitch just broke into my room. I’m debating what to tie her up with when she darts her tongue out, licking along the barrel of my gun.
“You gonna shoot me with that thing,” she asks. “Or just tease me with it?”
Eleven
“Oh, I’m not teasing,” he replies. “Talk, or I’ll shoot.”
He gives me no indication that he’s lying as he massages the trigger with his index finger.
“Listen, I’m just here to get my locket back. That’s all,” I say, swallowing hard. I thought for sure he was still out front in the driveway working on the van. That’s where he was when I first spotted him. I had to move slow through the backyard to be as quiet as possible.
Apparently, I’d moved too fucking slow.
“You found out where I lived, came here, and decided to break into my room? For a cheap piece of broken tin?” he asks with a growl, looking to the floor where my locket rests on the carpet.
He cocks his head to the side and looks me over. His gaze trailing down my body sends chills rippling through me. His strong thighs are crushing my ribcage as he straddles me.
“It’s not that easy,” he says, his stare pinning the back of my head to the wood floor. My head is throbbing, and I realize it’s probably because I smacked it on the way down during my not so graceful grand entrance. “Besides, there’s more we have to talk about. Like you ripping off people at the casino.”
Shit.
Gabby was right.
I am fucking crazy.
However, the enormity of the decision to retrieve my locket from one of the most violent men in town doesn’t sink in until he’s straddling me with a gun aimed at my head. Apparently, my gun licking antics are lost on him. But I’ve got other tricks up my sleeve.
I always do.
The jacket and hood are gone. Grim’s shirtless. The ridges of his ab muscles flex with his every breath. The cords of his neck are strained, the petals of the black rose tattoo moving with each inhalation. His hands and chest are covered in grease. His white sneakers stand out amid the darkness of his black jeans slung low on his hips.
His hair falls into his eyes as he glares down at me. They aren’t glowing without being under the fluorescents in the alley. They’re not yellow like I thought, either, but more of a brown speckled with green that gives them a golden hue. They’re heated with anger, and something else I can’t quite make out.
Maybe confusion at the feeling passing between us because it’s muddling my thoughts as well.
“So, you decided to break into my house and take it back?” he asks like he can’t quite believe it himself. “You found me, so that means you know who I am?”
I no
d and say the words with a fake yawn. “You’re Grim. The executioner for the Bedlam Brotherhood.”
“And yet you decided to come steal from me anyway,” he says.
I try and push him off me, but he’s got at least a hundred pounds on me. He goes nowhere fast, and I think I pull a muscle in my stomach.
“When you put it that way, you almost make it sound like a bad idea,” I hiss. “And I’m not stealing. I’m just taking back what’s mine!”
“Why is this thing worth risking your life?”
“Why do people keep asking me that! It just is!” I shout, my annoyance outweighing my need to toy with him to get what I want. I try honesty instead. “Inside is a picture of someone. He’s important to me.” I sigh heavily, blowing a strand of hair from my eye.
“And?” he prods, pushing the cool barrel of the gun against my forehead. “Why?”
“Because he’s the only person I’ve ever loved!” I blurt.
“Bullshit,” Grim leaps off me like I’m the one holding a gun to him. I sit up against the bed and catch my breath while he stands there in a mixture of shock and anger. “Nobody does stupid shit like this for a picture.”
He picks the locket up from the floor and tries to open it, but it’s rusted and there’s a trick to it.
There’s a scratch at the window. A large, striped cat leaps into the room and directly into Grim’s arms. The way he’s looking from the cat to me stirs up a memory. I glance at the locket in his hands, and the room begins to spin around me. My eyes darting from the locket to the cat to Grim.
He doesn’t look away from me when he says, “Not now, Mr. Fuzzy. I’m busy.”
I gasp. It can’t be…it…it is.
Tristan.
Twelve
My brain wants to hate the girl who broke into my room, but the barbaric, possessive attraction pulsing between us like a live-wire is gnawing at my rib cage and confusing the fuck out of my every thought. I know she feels it, too.
Her pupils are dilated, and it’s not just because she’s pissed off. Whatever this is, it’s probably some twisted reaction to her having the same unique eye color as Emma Jean. But I don’t have time to analyze it because there’s a bang on the door.
“You got someone in there?” Haze asks from the other side. “This can’t wait.”
I set Mr. Fuzzy down on the dresser and tug the girl up to a sitting position. I pull a bungee cord from my toolbox and use it to tether her wrists to the footboard of my bed.
“What are you going to do with me?” she asks. She looks directly into my eyes in a way that makes me want to blindfold her as well. She’s calmer now. The attitude gone. Mr. Fuzzy curls up on her lap and closes his eyes. I feel uncomfortable under the way she’s looking at me, like she’s seeing me for the first time.
“Whatever the fuck I want to do with you,” I grate. I tie a black bandana around her mouth to keep her silent while I go out to talk to Haze.
“What do you need?” I ask when I step from my room.
“Kinky shit going on in there?” he asks, trying to peek inside. I shut the door.
“Well, someone is tied to my bed,” I say without any trace of humor in my voice. “What is it?”
“The gang task force brought in Sandy a few minutes ago,” he states.
“Jesus Christ. Tell me he didn’t have anything decaying in the back of his van when that happened.”
“No, he was clean. The package had just been taken care of.”
“Thank god,” I say, blowing out a relieved breath.
“Also, we think we got a lead on the casino girls. One of the waitresses thinks she might know who the dark-haired girl is. Someone named Gabby. Don’t know for sure yet. It’s not much, but it’s a start. While the boys are trying to track her down, at least, you’ve got something more to tell the Chief during your meeting tonight.”
“Thanks, brother,” I say. “Send someone to get Sandy. Don’t know how long they’ll have him, but someone should be waiting for him when he gets out.”
“He won’t be in there as long as you were, that’s for sure. Once he starts yammering on about shit that has nothing to do with what they’re asking him, they’ll throw him out,” Haze laughs.
“No doubt,” I agree, remembering words spoken in the alley.
Gabby, is that you?
Then from five years ago.
My best friend Gabby Vega’s teacher says that putting them to sleep doesn’t really mean putting them to sleep.
I’m sure there are a lot of people named Gabby in this world. But do they all have friends with bright blue-green eyes? I picture the girl in my room and replace her long straight brown hair with wild blonde curls.
No. It can’t be…could it? In my room?
I’m not sure, but I’m suddenly in a hurry to find out.
“Find out who at the casino was working with them, and it better not be one of our boys. Anyone who breaks their oath of loyalty needs to be put down just like the last one,” I prattle off. “Loyalty above all else.”
“Loyalty above all else, brother,” he echoes, slapping my hand and pulling me for a one-shoulder bro-hug.
I step back inside my room and shut the door behind me.
The bungee cord is on the floor.
The window is wide open.
Mr. Fuzzy meows from the windowsill.
She’s gone, but the locket isn’t. It’s not on the floor anymore. It’s on my pillow, and it’s open. I snatch it up and drop it just as quickly after glancing at the picture inside.
The picture is of a younger version of me, smiling up at my mother.
There’s a hastily scribbled quote underneath it on top of a gun magazine. My heart is hammering in my chest as I read it silently.
“You can close your eyes to reality, but not to memories.” -Stanislaw Jerzy Leo
“Tricks.”
Thirteen
“We already have a spot figured out. It’s attached to the casino. Chief David would take a cut of course, but they aren’t regulated out there. Task force can’t take a single step on reservation lands. It would be safer. Smarter. It would be—”
“No,” Belly grates before I can finish laying out my plan.
We’re in the middle of an important family sit-down. I’m trying not to let thoughts of Tricks interfere with business, but I’m finding it hard to concentrate when the person I’ve been searching for over the last five years was in my room last night.
And then left.
Or, rather, escaped.
I can escape most knots.
“No,” Belly disagrees. “Absolutely. Fucking. Not. We aren’t pimps. We aren’t going to run a whorehouse just so you fuckers can get your dicks wet when you see fit.”
Marci adjusts the oxygen tubes around Belly’s nose. He waves her away, and she takes the seat next to him.
“Belly,” Sandy says, “With all due respect. As much as I love pussy, as much as we ALL love pussy, that’s not what this is about. We need something to supplement our earnings. We have to be careful about our shipments because, between Los Muertos jacking our shit and the task force keeping an eye on us, we have to be more careful than ever, which means we can’t move as much as we used to. It wouldn’t just be a whorehouse. Front of the house will have more of a sports bar/strip club feel.”
“The answer is still fucking no. My rule has always been no girls. Leave that to the Immortals and Los Muertos. We ain’t pushing girls into shit they don’t want to do because they’re desperate. That ain’t us. Never has been. That’s not why I started this family, and you know it. It’s not how we do things.” Belly’s face reddens. He slams his fist down on the table.
The table grows silent. Sandy looks to me.
Pissing off Belly isn’t a great idea. The man’s got enough health problems without us adding a stroke to the list.
Haze chimes in. “We aren’t going to put girls out on the street like Marco. And we aren’t going to take underage girls and turn them int
o street whores against their will. This is all consensual. Professional women who just want to earn for their families, just like us. They can dance or choose to do more. Their call.”
Marci reaches out and gives Belly’s hand a reassuring squeeze. She breathes in slowly through her nose, reminding him to be calm. He rolls his eyes at her but repeats the breathing technique until his face has returned to a normal color.
“Pops,” I start calmly, “It’s a good business, and it’s a high profit business. Sandy already ran the numbers. We’re not going into this blind.”
“We’re not going into this at all,” Belly growls, his shoulders shaking with renewed anger. “I can’t believe you agree with this, Grim. Thought you were the voice of reason in this fucking house.”
“I do agree with it. It was my idea.” And it’s a damn good one.
“Bell, it’s alright. Hear him out,” Marci suggests. “Then, do what your gut tells you. Like you always do. They’ve taken a lot on their shoulders since you’ve been out of commission, and they’ve done a great job. They deserve to be heard.”
“You, of all people, can’t really be okay with this shit?” Belly asks, turning to her with a surprised look on his face.
Marci looks to me and then back at Belly. “Grim ran it by me. It’ll be a good place. A profitable one that’s safe. Clean. Respectful.”
“I never thought I’d hear you agree with this. Not after…” Belly doesn’t finish. He shakes his head and looks down at his hands.
Marci leans forward and whispers something in his ear. Whatever she says causes his shoulders to relax. He turns over his hand and wraps it around Marci’s, intertwining their fingers.
Marci clears her throat. “When I met Belly, I was a kid. Fifteen. It was at a party at the clubhouse of another MC. I was a runaway. Some bikers had offered to give me a ride, and they took me right to their clubhouse.”
The Perversion Trilogy: Perversion, Possession & Permission Page 9