I take a sip and open my mouth, but Sherry speaks first. “Fuck that. To being a goddamn stripper and proud of it!” She throws her arm in the air and margarita sloshes over the side of her cup.
“Woohoo,” I cheer, laughing harder. “To being a stripper!”
“She’s a dancer. A dancer,” Amber mumbles, a flare of red igniting her cheeks. I’m glad I’ve come to terms with what I’m doing and why I’m doing it, because I don’t have that reaction anymore. I guess, in a funny way, I’ve got Dixon to thank for that. I didn’t think it would be so easy to take off all my clothes and dance nasty on a stranger but trying to prove something to him made it easy. What was I trying to prove? Absolutely no idea.
I drain my margarita and order a water, though what I really want is a third margarita. I suck on an ice cube, hoping to cool down because the bar is full – but not crowded – while Sherry tells me all about the Tinder date she had the day before and Amber rebukes her for it. As Amber desperately tries to steer the conversation towards her job at the physical therapy clinic, a guy slides onto the barstool beside me.
He’s far from the first guy to try ruining girl’s night, but his pickup line does draw my attention: “So if you work at Camelot, then you must know Dixon.”
“Wow,” I say turning reflexively, though the other guys I’ve succeeded in brushing off. “That’s a lot of assumptions.”
He looks me up and down, but in a way that doesn’t make me feel totally dirty. Then he shrugs. “There’s a few strip clubs off the block, but Camelot is the only nice one. I figure a girl that looks like you probably works at the nice one is all. The brothers run Camelot and most everything else in this town, but Dixon’s the only one that spends any time there.”
“Dixon,” I say with a gulp. “Is he…he’s the one with the uhh…”
The guy laughs at my struggle and runs his hand back through his hair. “He’s tall, dark and yeah, I can see how a woman might find him pretty good looking.”
Laughing uncomfortably myself, I let the curtain of my hair fall between us. On my other side, Sherry gives me a lecherous grin. “You didn’t tell us the dick who made you dance for him was tall, dark, and handsome.”
“Seriously?” Amber balks. “After what he did, you get that reaction when this nice man so much as mentions his name.” She rolls her eyes. “I don’t even recognize you anymore.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to get you in trouble.” The man angles his body to face mine and while I’m not attracted to him, I can understand why Sherry has scooted her barstool six inches closer. Noticing, he flashes her a smile.
I make way for Sherry and a less-excited Amber to crowd in. “No, you’re fine. But sorry – how do you know Dixon?”
“I don’t. Just heard about him. He and his brothers own all of Seventh and most of the surrounding blocks so it makes me curious.”
“He owns this place too?” I glance over each shoulder, worried I might see him here and feel like there’s something else that I owe him.
He nods. “Yeah, Cactus too.”
I mouth the word ‘shit,’ though I don’t say it out loud. Instead, my hand reaches for the cross around my neck. The man’s grey gaze flashes to the pendant, then he smiles at me thoughtfully. “So can you give me any insiders?”
“To be honest, no. I didn’t even know his name was Dixon,” I confess, shouting to be heard over the din of the music.
“Her first day is only on Wednesday. I’d say you should stop by and see her, but maybe you should stop by and see me instead.” Sherry leans over my legs in order to rest her hand on his knee. Her dyed honey curls fall in a magnificent wave over my arms as I reach for my drink and try not to spill it.
Our new friend straightens up and the grin he sports lights up his pale cheeks. His hair is short, dark brown and he’s got a scar that snakes back past his ear, disrupting his hairline. “That’s quite the offer,” he says slowly and I laugh again. When I flip back my hair, the first thing I see is Amber, rolling her eyes, and behind her, three men watching us from afar.
“What’s your name?” The man asks, reclaiming my attention.
“I’m Sherry.” As she stretches out her left hand, her right snakes further up his leg.
“Oh my gosh,” Amber crows.
I grab Sherry’s hand and place it back in her lap despite her pouts and protests. “Sorry about that,” I say with emphasis.
The man laughs. He’s got an easy laugh that he’s quick to share. Genuine, in a real unapologetic kinda way. “No apologies necessary. And you are?”
“I’m Sara.”
“Sara, Sherry and…” He looks to Amber, who introduces herself, at which point he says, “Nice to meet you, ladies. I’m Neil.”
Sherry barely lets the poor man finish. “So Neil, what do you do?”
“Nothing quite as exciting as Sara here, I’m sure.”
“Bold sir,” I say with a giggle – a gosh darn giggle. “Teasing me when I barely know anything about you. Tsk, tsk.” I poke his shoulder. Am I flirting? Is this flirting? After my last relationship ended at the same time I took Brant, I didn’t think I’d be back to flirting for a long time. And shoving my crotch in some strangers face so he’ll hire me doesn’t count.
Neil massages his shoulder, feigning injury. “You know what? Maybe I will come see you on Wednesday.” He winks.
Even Amber cracks at that one and soon we’re launched into a deep discussion of all kinds of things. I want to stay and talk the whole night away, but I can’t keep Stephanie up on a school night so I head out around eleven. When Neil finds out we didn’t drive, he offers to chauffeur us home. Ordinarily, I would say no, but two margaritas plus Sherry’s evident infatuation dissuades me from finding the bus. Half an hour later, I’m skipping up to my front door.
It’s crazy how excited I get to see Brant every time we’re apart for more than an hour, and though poop and pee and tears might deter others, I’m glad enough that he’s still awake. That means, I’ll get to spend time with him.
“Hey!” Stephanie stands up the minute I walk through the door. She’s got a crying baby bundled in her arms – my crying baby – and I swoop down on her as she issues me a whole slew of apologies.
“Stephanie, you’re fine!” I laugh and kiss baby Brant on the cheek. He smells like baby powder and baby oil and diapers. He’s perfect. His little caramel cheeks quiver when I kiss them again and again and finally, I pull back and he’s quiet. His doe eyes blink at me. They sit too big on his face and in their depths, I can see my whole face reflected.
“Oh my god, I can’t believe it. He’s been crying all night. I tried everything…the bottle, the pacifier, reading to him, rocking him…”
“I know, and I am so sorry. He’s like this a lot at daycare too.” I hoist him up on my hip and his chubby little hands reach for my hair, trying to draw it into his mouth. I tickle the tips of my blonde locks against his own black curls, then trickle them down to his nose and mouth and neck. He giggles wildly, nearly shrieking in a delight that fills my whole body with warmth.
Meanwhile, Stephanie is staring at me with her mouth open. She has the same auburn hair her sister does, and is just as compassionate. I hate making her do this, but there is no one else I trust who has this kind of availability. At least, no one else within my price range. I hand her sixty dollars for watching Brant for the past six hours and she takes it with such a heavy sigh of relief that I hand her ten dollars extra. I can afford ten extra dollars after what Dixon gave me. I try not to think about him as I carry Brant against my chest to the bedroom. He’s got his arms tucked between us and his head on my shoulder. His diaper’s dry and for that I’m grateful.
I lay him down on the little co-sleeper crib extension that abuts my bed and quickly shower off, then climb into bed beside him. In the dim glow of the nightlight against the far wall, I watch him take slow, even breaths. His cheeks are round and his nose is round and his brow bone is
flat and he’s so freaking beautiful.
I don’t know what his father looked like, but he has Lilian’s lips and her same tiny ears. This little boy is the only piece of her left and I will do anything to give him the best life. Eight hundred dollars will put him into the nice daycare – the one on Stone Avenue near the mansion district – for five days a week. Even if it’s only a month, it’s better than leaving him with the series of sitters he’s been staying with. So yeah, if rubbing my cooter all over a stranger will change my little man’s odds of surviving this crazy world, I’m fine with that. Just as long as next time, it’s not Dixon.
Aiden
They’re looking for something. The three Russians that were upstairs have moved to the parking lot. They stand out in the open near a white Mercedes, leaving me no space to creep closer without detection. The dealer plates on the Benz don’t give me much to work with either.
I glance at my watch. It’s half past three and the sun has moved beyond its highest point in the sky so that I’m cast in the building’s shadow. I have some time to linger in this invisibility though I know I shouldn’t. I should forget about the Russians in the lot and return to the West Wing where Gavriil Popov lies awake and defenseless. I should go end it this second, plug two bullets into his skull. Bam bam. Done. I should, but I’d rather be here because he’s still got a goddamn visitor. The same goddamn visitor. And I hate the way she looks at me. Such innocence. Like I could be anyone but the man sent to kill her brother.
Alina Popov. Gavriil and Timur’s half-sister. She’s there every single day. From noon to two on Mondays and Wednesdays, ten to three on Tuesdays, four to six on Thursdays, four to eight on Fridays, and on Saturdays and Sundays she spends most of the day at the hospital. Every other Sunday morning, she goes to church. She brings the orderlies and nurses small gifts each Saturday morning and they, in turn, let her sneak in meals from the outside. The entire unit’s infatuated with her. I hear the male doctors and nurses talking about her when I snake up and down the halls – one surgeon in particular seems to have developed a particular affection for the girl.
Alina Popov. She’s a law student at Echardt College of Law, a small, expensive, private liberal arts university two towns over. She drives a mint green Fiat, is a registered Democrat, participates in her university’s mock trial, volunteers at a nursing home on Monday and Wednesday nights and each time she comes to the hospital, she takes time to visit the kids in the children’s cancer wing. She’s also a model and features frequently in fashion magazines as well as our local tabloids.
I have some information compiled on the brothers but not nearly as extensive. I don’t know why. And the information I have on the Russians crowded around the car is weak. Overall, I’ve counted roughly nine of them who are involved in searching for whatever it is that’s lost. They typically arrive in twos, though today there are three. The other brother, Timur, is here today and went into Gavriil’s room with two Russians.
Alina stepped out and the surgeon with the hard-on for her used the opportunity to try to talk to her at the nurse’s station. She seemed agitated, constantly glancing at the door, so I slipped into the adjacent room. Through the thin walls I could hear Russian words thrown angrily back and forth. The words were too muffled to capture on my phone. Too muffled and too brief.
Leaving less than five minutes in, they went straight to the parking lot and tore apart three cars in the lot – including the Fiat. My hands twitched towards my guns and I found myself compelled to intervene as they threw law textbooks, tablets, and fashion magazines onto the asphalt. I didn’t, recognizing that there was no reason for these acerbic feelings.
A younger man that I haven’t seen before is leading the trio and when he drives off in the white Mercedes, the two remaining men climb into a second black Benz. Timur joins them and together, they head down Nineteenth in the opposite direction. I step into the center of the lot. Even in green surgical scrubs and a mask, I look out of place, so I don’t linger as I canvas the items the Russians threw away.
A cell phone charger and three power banks, contents of an overnight bag – men’s gym shorts, boxers, tee shirts, toothpaste – plus a dozen fast food wrappers and gas station receipts. Not much, but I do snatch the receipts from the ground. The first one’s from Lexington. That’s three towns over. A couple others are closer than that. Several are from in town, but over half are out of state. Well out of cartel territory. I thought they’d come for the big guy Knox killed, but if they were, they wouldn’t be here now ransacking some half-dead Mafioso’s truck. They’re looking for something else, something smaller.
A harsh breeze blows past, scattering some of the trash. A Chik-fil-A wrapper lands near the Fiat. My feet wander towards it and though I should get back inside, my body doesn’t yield to my mind’s resistance. I stop at a large, leather purse fallen on its side, contents spewing out near the back left tire. A black dress lies half outside of it, along with a hair brush, a comb, a towel and a pair of panties. Also black.
I lower myself into a crouch and before I can think too much about my actions, I bring the dress to my nose. It smells like her. A concentration of rain and cardamom and some kind of flower. Christ, it smells good. I shove the dress back into the bag, the brush, the comb, the towel, the panties. I grab the textbooks and the papers and shove them in too. The Russians left the car doors wide open so I don’t have trouble getting inside. I throw the bag into the trunk, lock the car and head to my own.
I drive for what might be hours or minutes and find myself at Renway Mall in the perfume department. I’ve smelled two dozen bottles but I can’t find the one I want. “If you’re not…satisfied by any of these…” The woman who’s been attempting to attend to me edges back nervously when I look at her.
She points to a locked case in the corner I hadn’t seen. “We’ve got more expensive brands, but I do mean much more expensive. They range from three hundred to over a thousand dollars…”
“Let me see.”
She spritzes just two paper white tiles before I find the one I’m searching for. It’s in a gold tear-shaped bottle. A large number one is scrawled on its smooth surface beneath a man’s name. Christian something. “That one,” I tell her.
“A sample size, sir, or the bottle?”
“The bottle.”
“Are you sure, sir? It’s eight hundred…”
“The bottle.”
Her eyes widen and I see her look at me the way women look at men they want. Women look at my twin like that, not me, and I’m made uncomfortable by it. Her grin turns from frightened to eager and when she flips back her dyed blonde hair, I can tell she’s trying to be brave as I hand her my credit card.
“No bag, no box.” I hold out my hand and she places the jar of perfume in it along with a scrap of paper marked by a name I don’t care about, and a sequence of numbers. Taking back my card, I turn from her and chuck the paper as I walk.
Plumeria
It’s been five weeks since I’ve been at the barn, but nobody’s keeping me away any longer. Cooped up in the house all day, I’m so damn bored. So. Damn. Bored. “Put that box here, kid,” I shout over the sounds of a brawl. It’s fresh blood night and two college kids are beating the shit out of each other. From the little I’ve seen of the fight from behind the bar, their forms are fucking terrible. Not like I have strong legs to stand on. Literally. The wound on my side has turned into a scar, one that spells the name of a ghost whose presence I carry with me. In the night, wrapped in Knox’s arms, I hear him whisper my name.
“Mer, where do you want these?” Morgan is big and I’m sure his size is the only reason no one messes with him, because the kid’s a huge softie.
“Full or empties?”
“Empties.”
“Back out by the smoker’s shed.”
Balancing two huge boxes in his arms, he edges behind me and out of the back door just as the crowd surges towards the pit. They’re pushed back by
the boys standing along the pit’s perimeter. Knox is among them. He came down to check on me, but he stayed to help maintain order. It’s a lie, but it’s what he tells me. He’s worried and I don’t blame him. We haven’t heard from the cartel or the Russians since Dixon’s initial brush with them, though they must be looking for the men they lost. We didn’t cover our tracks well. Aiden said that when he went back to recon the barn last week somebody’d been through it. Maybe more than one somebody.
They’d torn apart the house and all the shitty furniture, but didn’t seem so concerned with the backyard, where there were evident marks charring the earth. Wouldn’t they have wanted to know if their men had been burned or if their bodies had been buried? I don’t know. I know nothing except that I want to keep Knox and his brothers living. Aiden’s still on the hunt but can’t get close enough to do the deed without witnesses. The thought makes me shudder. The brothers are all clean but Aiden – and now Knox – and it terrifies me that those two now fall into the same category.
“How are things going?” someone shouts at me from across the rickshaw bar.
I look up. “Hijo de tu puta madre. Look who’s risen. How you been?”
Ollie lets his cast thump down onto the upturned crates and flips me the bird with his free hand. “Never better. I figure it’s karmic revenge.”
I pull a beer from the ancient sub-zero behind me and crack the top, slam it down. “How you figure that?” He opens his mouth to answer, but the crowd goes wild and drowns him out.
I smile, even though a fierce and consuming emptiness inflates in my chest, like a sad balloon. As much as being back in the barn is a relief for me, I’m still filled with tortured thoughts of Mario. I try to repress them like I do all painful things but every once in a while the husky sound of men laughing or flesh smacking against flesh reminds me of the fights we used to have when we were just two kids trying to survive our ruined childhoods. The smell of blood takes me to those moments when he would slap Band-Aids over my wounds and take me back to the ring after I lost a fight. He’d make me practice against him again and again until I never lost a fight to a bigger opponent.
The Hunting Town (Brothers Book 1) Page 14