by Breck, A. R.
“Sit down, Ivy.” I nod to the only empty chair, right in between Jex and Niles. She slides into the chair, back ramrod straight and ass right on the edge of the chair. I can imagine her toes pressed into the ground, ready to bolt at any given second.
“Ivy?” My dad says, rolling his chair forward so he’s right against the table.
Ivy nods.
“My name is Lynx. Seems my boy Aziel here has taken an interest in you.” I turn to glare at him. What the fuck is he doing?
Ivy says nothing.
“How old are you, girl?”
“Nineteen.”
“Where are you from?”
She glances over to me, pausing a beat before looking back at my dad. “Mexico.” The word is strained as she works it through her lips. What is she hiding? Why is she so scared?
Pops takes his time pulling a cigarette out of his pack on the table. He taps it against the table a few times before sticking it between his lips and lighting it. Taking a long drag before, he stares at her a moment before settling it between the grooves in the ashtray. “Now, with a midwestern accent like yours, I’m inclined to think that’s a lie.”
Ivy stares at him, the glow draining from her face and leaving her a ghostly white. “I’m from Mexico.”
“And before Mexico?”
Her gaze fades away and leaves her with a faraway look. “Ohio.”
“Ohio.” My dad repeats, smoke seeping from between his lips with each syllable. The look on his face is inquisitive. “How’d you go from Ohio… to Mexico?”
She brings her hands to the hand rests and squeezes tight. “I think you know.” She chokes the words from her throat. Her face pales, her sun kissed skin fades into a sickly white as she stares at the wall.
“No, kid. I want you to tell me.” He steeples his fingers on the table and gives her a look. A look that screams ‘you’re not leaving until I get what I want.’
“I was taken.” Her gaze falls from the wall to her lap. Like she’s embarrassed. Of being stolen? What the fuck.
“Who took you?” I grit the words out. Each letter tastes like acid on my tongue. I want to vomit thinking of a miniature Ivy living her midwestern, normal life and it being flipped upside down in the blink of an eye. “Is it the same person that put those bruises all over your face?”
She flinches before her eyes swing to mine and narrow into slits. “You know who took me.”
“So, tell me.” I shrug, downplaying the fucking burning in my insides.
She bolts up, the chair flying back and hitting the wall behind her, “Listen, I’m not going to sit here and have story time replaying terrible memories. I’m sure you have the outline. I can’t, and won’t, go down memory lane. Not for me, and certainly not for any of you. Now if you don’t mind, I’m grabbing my daughter and we’re leaving.”
My eyes widen when I hear the click of a bullet lodging into the chamber.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I shout at Jex, who has the gun pointed directly at Ivy’s face.
“Sit down, girl. As far as I’m concerned, you’re the enemy until proven otherwise. You’re not going to speak? I’ll put a bullet in your brain like I would any one of Santiago’s men. You answer our questions? Maybe we’ll let you live.” He growls the words, the scar lining trailing down his cheek accentuated with the severe frown on his face.
She reaches behind her for the chair. Once her fingers brush the worn leather, she sits back down with a pale face and whispers, “What do you want to know?”
Jex looks over at me, and I shake my head in fury. “Fucking bastard.” I mouth to him.
He lifts an eyebrow, ignoring me as he turns back towards Ivy.
“Tell me, kid. Santiago Fernandez is the biggest sex trafficker I have ever known. We have taken down seven locations of his now, with the one in Tijuana being the biggest. In all six other locations, I have never once seen a girl not being held hostage. Unless, of course, she was working with him. Now tell me, Ivy, are you working with Santiago?” My dad questions. His voice is commanding, that of a President. He’s not playing games, and I realize if he, in any way, thinks she’s working with Santiago, he’ll put a bullet in her head.
She’s shaking her head before he finishes his sentence. “N-No. It’s not like that. I don’t… he kidnapped me.” She looks to me with watery eyes. “I promise I wasn’t working with him.”
“Then why were you dressed in regular clothes, not locked up?” My dad butts in, taking her gaze away from me and back to him.
“I… he… I don’t know!” She yells.
“Tell me, Ivy. Just tell me the truth. Are you working with him? What are you getting out of it? He says he’ll keep you and your kid safe if you do stuff for him?” I ask her. I so badly want her to give me something, anything to make sense of all this.
“No!” She’s crying freely now, tears running down her face and clogging her throat. “I hate him!”
I can feel the truth to her words. They slam into my chest with their force. But her story is still missing pieces.
“So, what is it then? What are you to him?” I bark at her
She looks down at her lap, sobbing into herself.
“Tell me, Ivy!” I slam my palm onto the table.
“I’m his!” She looks up at me, fire in her words and hate in her voice. “I’m his. He bought me.” The moment the word come out of her mouth, she slides out of the chair and falls to her knees. Her arms go behind her back in the weird formation they did earlier. She stares at the wall in front of her. The chair makes a clank as it rolls back and hits the wall. Then, it’s only silence.
Silence.
So much silence fills the room it’s stifling. Her words sucked the air from the room like a vortex, and for the life of me I can’t seem to catch a breath.
“Shit, she’s his old lady.” Cassius whispers.
“Holy shit.” West grunts.
I swallow down the bile and push my chair back. My face falls to my palms and my elbows fall to my knees. “Get out.” I take a breath. “Everyone get the fuck out!” I roar, looking up and glaring at everyone. When I see Ivy stand up, I point at her. “Except you.”
My dad turns towards me. “I did not say church was—”
I turn to him. “I do not give a shit about church right now. Everyone just get the fuck out of here!” I roar
He stares at me a long minute before standing up and barking, “All right, everyone. Let’s clear out. Looks like Z’s got business to take care of.” He laughs on his way out, and that just infuriates me even more.
Cassius is the last to leave the room, looking back at me with a curious look on his face before closing the door behind him.
I walk over to her and grab her from underneath her bicep, pulling her up roughly. My fingers dig into her skin way harder than she should, but my anger is fucking boiling inside of me and I’m past the point of being gentle with this strange girl.
“W-What do you want from me?” I watch as she clearly trembles. Hey body ramrod straight. Her skin is cold against mine, and she still hasn’t moved her gaze from the wall.
Trying to cool myself down is harder than I thought. I’m angry for the situation I put myself in. I’m furious for what I’m putting my club through. I’m sad for what Ivy has gone through.
And I’m so fucking excited to catch Santiago. I’m going to gut his stomach with the towing hitch in the mechanics shop and watch as his intestines get torn from his abdomen.
I push her into her chair and sit down on the corner of the table in front of her.
Glaring down at her pale face, I bark, “Tell me what you meant by that.”
“What do you mean?” She sniffles.
“Cut the bullshit, Ivy.”
She flinches. “No. I’m not with him, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Then what, he bought you?” I can only imagine how screwed up my face is right now. The absolute disgust dripping from my eyes.
She nods.<
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“You’re his pet? His slave? His wife?” She grows paler with each word, and my face feels hotter with each word.
“I’m… his.”
“What the fuck does that mean, Ivy? I don’t understand what the fuck you mean, “I’m his.” Tell me what the fuck you mean!” I bark, standing off the table and pushing her chair back until it hits the wall behind her.
“I mean he… he did what he wanted, okay? I did what he said, when he said it, how he said it. If I didn’t listen to him, well…” She trails off, and my blood boils.
“Well, what, Ivy?” I seethe.
“You see me. Don’t play dumb. You see my face. If I didn’t listen to him, I paid his price.”
The wall before me crumbles like dust as my fist plows through it inches from Ivy’s head. I get even more angry when I watch her flinch like I’m going to hit her.
“The motherfucker hit you, too? You think I wouldn’t be surprised after everything I’ve seen that fuck do to girls, but he fucking hits you?”
“It’s nothing new, Aziel. And it’s nothing to be pissed about, because he’s been like this for a long, long time.”
“Oh, and that’s supposed to make me feel better?” I puff out a humorless laugh. “Sure, he’s been doing it for years, that makes me feel so much better.” I say, sarcasm dripping from my tone. “No. I’m not fucking happy that he lays his hands on you. I’m going to skin that motherfucker alive!”
She shrinks back at my words.
“I don’t want you to kill him. I don’t want you to kill anyone.” She buries her face in her hands inches from my chest. This is the closest I’ve ever been to her, and she smells like me. Her eyes glisten like a thousand stars against the ocean water. I’m intoxicated by her, and she’s drowning me in her endless waves.
“Is… Lilah… his?” I choke out.
Tears fall down her cheeks like rain drops and I watch as each one falls off her chin, falling and landing on my tainted boots.
She nods.
The walls sinks beneath my palm as a second hole ends up behind her.
“Fuck!” I shout, the word shredding my throat as anger tears through me.
“P-Please. I want to go home.” She cries and shakes in front of me.
I sink down until I’m eye level with her. I grab onto her shoulders to stop her from shaking. “Stop, listen to me.”
She stops crying, but the silent sobs still shake my shoulders.
“Stop, Ivy. Listen!”
“You want to go home, but you have to realize it’s not safe right now, right?”
She looks up at me, fear trickling in her eyes like a slow drip.
“You think if you leave here your life will go back to normal? Do you think the past will be erased and you can just go live your life again? It’ll be that easy?”
“No.” She sobs.
“No, it won’t. Until we take Santiago down, it won’t be safe for you to go home. Honestly, it won’t be safe for you to go anywhere. Mostly with the kid being Santiago’s… you’ve got a big target on your back. You have to know that, right?” She really can’t be that naive, can she? Going anywhere with Santiago’s kid and acting like she’ll just fade into the crowd is laughable.
She folds into herself, accepting defeat. Her shoulders curl and her eyes dull, and she looks like a butterfly that’s lost her wings. She’s gone from a colorful storybook to a black and white film. The life that flowed through her when she pleaded her eagerness to leave is gone, in its place is a sadness, a loss that I can feel in my soul.
Without even realizing it, my hand snaps out and my fingers curl around her tiny bicep. Her skin is hot against mine, the smooth, tanned skin almost butter against my rough palm. I pull her towards me and wrap my other arm around her neck. The top of her head nudges underneath my chin, even as her body stiffens. She feels petrified against me, but I hold her tight as her sobs still shake against me. She feels trapped; I realize that. But at the end of the day, my gut shouts at me that letting her walk out of these walls will be a death sentence. For her and Lilah.
I can’t let that happen.
Which means I need end him before he finds her.
12
Ivy
“Mom, I’m bored.” Lilah says to me the next morning. Her tiny little feet swing off the end of the bed.
I don’t blame her.
I’m bored too, but I’m procrastinating. Yesterday was… interesting. After I cried in Aziel’s arms for a good five minutes, we separated, and I went to get Lilah. I was able to avoid him the rest of the day, even though I could feel his heavy eyes on the back of my neck. He came to talk to Lilah a few times, but he gave me space to reflect, I guess. Or maybe to come to terms with what’s been going on these last couple days. Either way, I ended the night feeling more alone than ever. I shrugged my way up to Aziel’s bedroom and held Lilah all night, silently crying as I realized I’m stuck in another prison.
It might be a different type of prison but trapped is trapped. And I’m fucking trapped.
I know Aziel is right, though. The moment I walk out of these walls, I’ll be walking right into Santiago’s arms, and I would rather take my last breath than go back to him.
Since I woke up this morning, I’ve been putzing around the room. I don’t know if I’m waiting for Ms. Maria to burst through the door, or maybe I’m waiting for Aziel. I don’t know but being stuck with a three year old means I don’t have a lot of time to procrastinate. Young minds with short attention spans.
“What do you want to do? Want to go get breakfast? I bet you’re getting hungry.”
She tilts her head to the side. “Mmm, no. I want to play hide and seek.”
“Hide and seek?”
She hops of the bed. “Yeah!”
I tap my lips. “How about we go and see if Haley will make us something, and while we’re waiting, we can play hide and seek? That way we can get some food in your belly, too.”
“Okay!”
“Okay.” I say, not as enthusiastically. I’m nervous to run into Aziel after last night. The way he held me only made me more upset, but not for reasons that he’s thinking.
The way he held me; I haven’t been held that way in so long. Not since I was little, and my parents would cuddle me. It felt like I was needed, like I was wanted. Lilah holds onto me, but to have someone larger than you wrap their arms around you and allows you to sink into them… it gave me a relief that I haven’t felt in so long. His strong arms held me tight and I felt like I could finally let go.
I’m sure he thinks I’m a lunatic for crying like a mental patient and afterwards ignoring him the rest of the night. Now I feel even more awkward for the inevitable talk we’re going to have sooner or later.
“I want to hide first.” Lilah says as we’re walking down the creaky steps.
“Okay.” My voice shakes, so I give her a smile to hide my unease.
Once we get to the bottom of the stairs, I expect the group of leather vests to be staring me down.
Except there’s no one.
Not even Haley.
It’s eerie how quiet it is down here. I wander across the room and lean over the wooden bar top. “Haley?” I question.
“What!” Her voice comes from far away, and I hear a sink turn off and then her shoes pad across the floor. “Oh, hi there. Hi, Lilah.” She smiles down at her. I decide I like her, even with her semi-frosty attitude towards me. If she is nice to Lilah, she’s a good person in my book.
“Hi, um, I was wondering if we can maybe get something to eat? I can always do it myself, too. That way you don’t have to keep cooking for me.”
She waves me off. “It’s my job. I’ll put together something for you guys. Shouldn’t take too long.”
“Lilah wants to play hide and seek, so we’ll be back in a bit.”
She’s already returned to the kitchen, so we wander towards the door and head outside. The sky is cloudy today, maybe even a little hazy from some fires I heard the
guys talking about yesterday evening. It gives the sky a dangerous glow that stirs something in my belly. I’m not used to the fires, being from Ohio then Mexico. This is new.
“Okay, Mom. You count. I’ll hide.” She’s already off.
“Not too far.” I close my eyes and start counting to ten. Once I’m finished, I crack open my eyes and see her hiding underneath the picnic bench. Not an inch of the bench is hiding her, but she still curls in a ball and hides her face beneath her hands. “Wow, I wonder where Lilah went.”
I make a big production of looking around the yard for a few minutes then jump in front of her and shout. “Found you!”
She lets out a squeak as she jolts in place.
“Come on, goofy. Let’s go get something to eat.” I pull her out from underneath the table and lift her into my arms.
“No! Your turn to hide. I’ll count!” She wiggles, attempting to slide through the bottom of my arms.
Shit. “Okay, okay.” I drop her on the bench. “One time. You count, I’ll go hide.”
“Okay!”
I speed off towards the building. I can hide on the side and she probably won’t even try to look there. I listen as Lilah continues counting, stumbling over number four and five and have to slap my hand over my mouth so she can’t hear me chuckle.
As I near the side of the building, deep voices filter towards me. I pass the room we were in last night, and although the door is closed, I can hear them clearly through the cracked open window. I tip toe past, not at all interested in what they have to say.
Until I hear his name.
Santiago.
I stop in my tracks, the gravel underneath my sandals sliding and creating more noise than I wanted. I squat down, wincing and waiting for the door to burst open. When it doesn’t, I stand up and press my ear closer to the window.
Yeah, I’m fucking sly.
“…Santiago.” Someone says. It’s hard to decipher the difference in their voices when I can’t see their faces.
“I’ll fuckin’ kill him.” That’s definitely Aziel.
“Too risky. We need to come up with a plan.”