The Hunting Town (Brothers Book 1)

by Elizabeth Stephens

  Plumeria’s naked body is covered in scratches and bruises. She walks with a limp, favoring her left leg, and her right eyelid is entirely swollen shut so that she looks at me with her left. There’s a tugging at the thick grey chain locked around her neck, beneath which she wears a symphony of brightly colored abrasions in varying stages of healing. She’s got half-healed lacerations on her arms, a white bandage plastered to her left leg that’s weeping crimson, and the wound I last saw on her lip has been reopened, what looks like recently, because there’s fresh blood on the blackened side of her face. She’s been tortured, possibly raped. Blood on the inside of her thighs only confirms it.

  I am a shell of who I was before.

  Spade steps into the room behind her, holding the other end of the heavy lead connected to her throat. He reels her into his bare chest and slides his hand over her stomach to mark an implicit claim. I rise to stand. No other words are said, or need to be said, between this man and I. Either he is doomed or I am, because one of us will die today. And soon.

  “Loredo,” Plumeria says and her voice warbles though her pitch is strong. She is muscle and bone and skin and coughs into her fist and I refuse to be distracted by the fact that all of her seems to be a little wilted – not if I’m meant to keep her with me among the living. And I will. This is not just a statement of intent, but a vow. “This isn’t the right brother. You’ve wasted your time. Just let Spade take me and be done with this charade.”

  The man called Loredo’s wide lips twitch. “Spade,” he snaps.

  In a single moment that’s too fast to retract, just like its consequences, Spade slides his hand down Plumeria’s stomach and inserts a finger into her all the way up to the palm. Her body pitches forward though she doesn’t scream and I know then that it was a mistake to stand, because my knees grow weak and for a moment I wonder if I’ve keeled over.

  Instead, I say quietly, “Enough. I am the brother.”

  Loredo snaps again and Spade withdraws. He slides his finger into his mouth, licking it clean without breaking the line of my gaze. My stomach pitches and I try to remain relaxed, but fail as he pulls Plumeria towards the couch, closer to me. To torture me. Close enough that I can smell the sweat and blood on her skin. The fever too. He doesn’t stop grinning. I could reach out and touch her where she stands, drag just a fingertip over her scarred shoulder, though I don’t fucking dare. We are playing a game and in the game of monsters and dead men, everything is sacred and nothing can be revealed. Already, I have given away too much.

  “Muy bien,” Loredo drawls, stepping away from the fireplace and into the center of the room. It nearly kills me, but I move away from Plumeria to walk with him.

  “I assume you want payment for the girl,” I say coldly.

  There is surprise on Loredo’s face that I know is because of Dixon and I feel a momentary guilt for the way I last spoke to him. Everything I said was true, but I did not know just how much I needed him until now. To mimic the mask he wears in perpetuity is one of the many lessons he taught me as a child that has value to adulthood. “You are correct. Unfortunately, her father passed away before he was able to repay his debt. Her brother was unavailable to step in and recover this loss, so it is sadly left to little Plumeria.”

  “How much do you want?”

  “The total remaining is a measly eighty thousand, but Plumeria doesn’t have it, so I’ve been forced to put her on auction.” He shakes his head and clicks his tongue against the backs of his teeth, feigning remorse. “I came into town because I heard that there may be another bidder. Plumeria refused to tell me his name, so I had to wait for someone to come calling, and here you are.”

  The bottom drops out of my stomach and for a moment the world and walls switch places. I am inside out and nothing but pure violence. Red begins to seep into my field of vision, claiming a dangerous amount of space. Wouldn’t give up his name. My name. She was here, being tortured for the past nine days because she refused to let Loredo give me a single phone call. She could have ended her own suffering so easily. Why didn’t she ask for me? Was it pride? Was it me? Does she hate me so much she won’t use me to help her even now?

  “Another?” I say, clearing my throat.

  “Second to Spade, of course.” He gestures to the man and when I turn, Spade grabs the chain and uses it to throw Plumeria onto the ground at his feet. While she coughs up blood spatter onto the floorboards, he takes a seat on the couch and combs his fingers back through her hair, meeting my gaze and succeeding in straining the limits of my composure. But it does not break. It will, but not yet. I’m not ready for The Red to take me. “Spade has agreed to pay the amount in full in exchange for the girl. Can you beat his offer?”

  Loredo knows I can, and I gather so does Spade. His eyes watch me hauntingly from the sofa as I turn and begin to make my way towards him. I crouch beside Plumeria’s body, keeping about three feet of distance between us. I watch her unseeingly, because I can’t afford to focus on her injuries in this moment. Not when it could mean her life. “I’m not sure,” I muse.

  Loredo’s voice catches as he speaks and I hear the first notes of anger begin to warp his tone. “Plumeria tells me that you own a couple of farms. Couldn’t you afford to sell them in exchange for the girl? I assure you, she’ll be well worth the price.” Farms? But Plumeria knows I own much, much more than that. The whole damn city. Hell, I could give the guy half a million of my own or ten times that if I borrowed from my brothers – in cash, today, just to take her home with me. But he thinks we own farms…

  And then it hits me. Plumeria let herself be tortured, not for pride, but in the desire to protect me. My chest smolders and I can’t speak. It takes me many deep inhalations, which I hope appear contemplative from the outside. “I don’t own them on my own. I share them with my brothers,” I say, clearing my throat into my fist and ignoring the urge to commit homicide that grips me when she flashes a frightened glance at my face.

  I’m sorry, she mouths into the floorboards and I close my eyes to block out the sight of blood on the insides of her lips. If I fall apart now, we both leave this house in body bags and Spade and Loredo leave alive.

  Loredo says, “You should know that none of my men have spoiled her since you last saw her. She’ll be every bit the eager whore that you remember.” Spade clenches up, face burning a brilliant cherry. Finally. I nearly sigh with relief. He’s given me the opening I needed.

  As our host continues driveling on, I lower my tone and speak just loud enough for Plumeria and, more importantly, Spade to hear. “But it might be worth it to taste that sweet ass again.” I place emphasis on the word and the response is immediate. Spade stiffens and clutches the chain tighter to his chest, winding it around his fist as I move closer to her.

  “Damn, she might be the tightest pussy I’ve ever been in and the way she works that mouth on my dick and balls…” I whistle between my teeth. “She could go pro. And she was so eager the first half a dozen times, I wonder if it would be even better to have her all chained up like this to my bed so I can do whatever sick things come to mind.” Plumeria’s face turns towards mine and I see anger and fear and angry, frightened tears drip down her cheeks. I close my eyes, push through the wall that has formed in the cavity where my heart used to be, and continue. “Maybe I’d even let my brothers take their turns…”

  I reach out to touch her bare shoulder and Spade lets out a roar, then tackles me to the ground. My back stings as it hits the floorboards, but it doesn’t hurt as much as the sight of her wincing away from my outstretched hand.

  Spade sits up on my chest and lifts up a fist while Loredo shouts at him to stand down. Spade can’t hear the guy. He can’t hear anything but the gushing of blood through his ears, the calling of bloodlust needing to be sated and I understand this man above me because I hear it too, but it doesn’t own me anymore like it used to – like it still owns Spade.

  I twist my head and let his fist eat up the
floor. He roars an angry scream and I punch him in the throat once, twice, a third time, until he loses his grip on me. I kick him off and we both rise to stand, but when he lifts his fists and angles his body towards me, I cede a few feet of ground and hold up my palms.

  “I get the feeling that any number Loredo throws at us, you’d match and so would I. Why don’t we settle this like men? Fight for Plumeria? Winner leaves with the girl, loser doesn’t leave at all.” My chest is heaving. That little itch inside of me waiting to unleash the floodgates is loosening, like worn elastic. I need to let go. My left leg is shaking and so are my fingers, but my mind is still a steel knot of harnessed control. For the moment.

  Spade cocks his block of a head to the side and squints at me. In a heavy, Russian accent, he asks, “What about money?”

  “Not our debt. Not our problem.”

  Loredo steps between us and cracks the butt of his gun across Spade’s cheek. “I paid good money for you, now you listen to me…” Spade rights himself and throws his full weight behind the punch he levels at Loredo’s face. It’s almost beautiful to watch, the way the man’s head cracks backwards, whiplash so severe it severs the top of his spinal column while Spade’s fist shatters the full face. Loredo hits the back wall, two goons too slow to catch him, before slumping down onto the floor. He’s dead.

  “I am Ruskya Mafya,” Spade screams, before devolving into a stream of unintelligible Russian curses.

  He advances on the corpse and kicks it while the two remaining Mexican men draw their guns. One of them manages to get a round off and though it hits Spade in the right arm, he doesn’t slow. He tears the gun away from the second fool and uses it to shoot the first before turning on the second. He tosses the guns aside even though he could have killed me and been done with it. But this man and I are alike in more aspects than I care to acknowledge. We both have too much pride. Spade’s gaze passes to Plumeria, still kneeling on the ground, metal shackle wound around her neck. Pride and something stronger. We both have desire.

  The thought just about rips me apart but I still hear him through my rage as he says, “Just us men.” He grins, unfazed by the blood dribbling down his arm or the welt below his right eye. That doesn’t bother me. “Ready?”

  I grimace in a way that shows all my teeth. “Ready.” And like a ribbon pulled, that fine thread holding me together unravels and the Red monster and I become one.

  I see only crimson and limbs and feel nothing but the inside of my own chest as my lungs pull in air less and less evenly. My heart has exploded and when my eyes clear I see my thumbs buried in the eye sockets of a man I know I’ve met but whose name I can no longer remember.

  Spade. The word comes to me along with the realization of where I am and why I’m here and I grab a thicket of his blonde hair and I shatter the back of his head on the linoleum. We are in the kitchen and there is a trail of blood leading around the counter. A block of butcher knives is turned over and I gather that we used them by the fact that there’s a knife wound on my chest just over my heart. Below me, Spade is dead and I killed him.

  His hands and legs have stopped twitching and as my adrenaline crashes like two school busses full of kids headed straight towards one another driven at full speed by suicidal sociopaths, I hear a voice saying my name though it takes me a moment to recognize it.

  “Plumeria,” I cough, rolling off of the male body and onto my back. I rise to stand when she does not respond and step out from behind the kitchen counter, returning to the living room to find her naked in its center. Blood and bodies litter the ground around her. She’s crying and I shake my head, hoping to clear it and be better able to understand what could have won this reaction. Is it Spade? Does she cry for him?

  My body is heavy and the world begins to slip sideways but I still see her as she charges across the space towards me and wraps her arms around my chest tight enough I begin to feel the first of the damage I sustained. Painful, but not irreparable. I pray that the same can be said for her as my hand comes down on the back of her hair and her warmth presses against my tattered tee shirt.

  “You killed Spade. That culero. That mama vergas pendeja. Carajo!” She chokes back sobs, still attempting to marshal her reaction. I’d tell her not to bother. I’d tell her so many things if only I could find the lungs in my chest or the tongue in my mouth. Right now, all I feel is her body tucked against mine where nothing can get to her. Nothing.

  “You came for me,” she says, “you fought for me.”

  I tilt her face back so that I can look at it and carefully, I drag my finger underneath the plum colored bruises on her cheeks. “I would have died for you,” I say, meaning it for reasons that go beyond logic. I don’t know her likes, her tastes, her favorite anything. But I know her. Deep down, The Red knows her too. Like she was and always has been a part of me. I kiss her forehead, but as I bend to meet her mouth, my body lists to the side. I stagger forward and she catches me with a grunt, carefully maneuvering my weight over her similarly broken frame.

  “Mierda,” she says, staggering herself, “you’re hurt bad. Fuck. I didn’t want you to be in any of this. I’ve got to get you home.”

  I hand her my keys and she helps me out into the darkening light, down the porch steps and to the car. I’m not so sure that there’s one thing hugely wrong with me, but if everything isn’t a little wrong. Everything but the woman sitting next to me. I sit close to her. Close enough to rest my hand on her leg, though she won’t let me lie down.

  “You’ve got a concussion,” she says as the car bounces down the road, heading towards a peach horizon. “Stay awake with me.” When I glance up through the window, I see a blood moon rising.

  “Are you okay?” I ask her, lips moving though I can’t feel them. I can only feel the blood dripping onto my chin, but I try to focus a little harder when she tells me that she’s not. Forcing my eyelids open a little further, I glance down the length of her body perched on the edge of the seat, which is still pulled out to accommodate the length of my legs. My gaze lingers over the bright white bandages that cover her hip.

  “What did he do to you?” I say, and I wonder if I really want the answer.

  She shakes her head. “Just beat me up. That’s all.”

  I know it isn’t, but I’m not in a position to argue, given that the pounding in my ears is growing louder. “How long?”

  “Not that long,” she whispers.

  I slam the side of my fist against the window, trailing blood in the shape of a hand as it falls back onto my lap. “How long?”

  She closes her eyes, takes the turn that I tell her and says, “The night we were together.”

  The night we were together. Nine days. The full extent. I’m still punching the dashboard when she lays down on the horn. A few seconds later, the passenger’s side door is being forced open and people are grabbing my hands. They call me brother and though I see their faces, all they present is a wall between me and the one that I came for. I start to thrash against them and they struggle to pin me down. Aiden and Charlie are at my arms and Clifton is reaching into the car and I hear a tight scream. Red. It’s coming back, obscuring most of my vision until I can see little else.

  “Fuck,” Clifton says. “Sorry. You’re naked.” He states the facts that make me rabid and the boys at my arms wrench back hard enough I’m shocked I keep both shoulders in their sockets.

  “Don’t fucking touch her,” I sneer.

  Clifton looks to me and then back at the car before removing his shirt in a simple gesture. “Don’t touch me there,” she says, though I don’t yet see her. “Hurts like hell.”

  Easing her legs over the edge of the bench seat, she grabs onto Clifton’s shoulder and lets him help her out of the car and though I hate the sight of another man touching her when she’s in just a tee shirt, the sight of her is enough.

  She wraps the chain still attached to the metal clasp at her neck around one arm and shoves the opposite sho
ulder under my left armpit. When she lifts, she asks my brothers to help her and they do. We walk like atoms forming a single complex molecule towards the door, which opens up before we reach it. Dixon stands there and his eyes go first to Plumeria and then to me.

  They narrow. “Take her to the guest house and lock her inside. Take Knox to the lab in the basement.”

  “Take me to my room. Plumeria stays with me.”

  “The hell she does,” Dixon says through gritted teeth. “Not until we…”

  I throw myself forward, dragging half the other bodies with me. I reach Dixon and slam my forearm across his throat. I roar, “If you want me to leave, tell me to fucking leave! If I stay, she stays with me.”

  Clifton manages to wedge himself between my body and Dixon’s. He slams a needle into my thigh and I curse. The arm I’ve got braced against Dixon’s throat slips back to my side and my whole body sways left, and I know I must be crushing Plumeria beneath me. The silence is broken up only by my ragged breath and Plumeria’s wheezing.

  Then Clifton whispers, “He’s not right without her. When he’s better you two can hash out the living situation, but until then let him keep her here. You should go walk off steam.”

  I remind myself to kiss that man on the mouth as my bedroom door assaults my plane of vision and a strange serenity washes over me. For now, however, I think I’ll lie down with Plumeria and sleep.

  Part II

  The Strip Club

  Dixon

  The wind against my face is cold and hard but neither cold nor hard enough to curb this particular brand of rage. I tend to feel it only when one of my brothers are getting their asses handed to them in the ring, when they gamble away too much of their money, when they drink themselves into stupors and lose themselves to drugs or women or the bottle – when they put themselves at risk. There’s a risk now, I’m sure of that, but this time it is my brother. He’s going to tear everything that we’ve worked so hard to build apart and it’s our town, our world, our universe. No one else is allowed to breach that, least of all a woman.