"Yo," Breaker's voice said into his phone, his eyes turning suddenly to look at me and I swear I saw regret there as he watched me struggle to bring back control. And then his face went hard. All the softness left his eyes and they became ice. "Shoot?"
The last dregs of desire got shoved away as I flew upward, wrapping my arms around my calves and trying to overhear the talking on the other end of the phone. Breaker's eyes were still on mine, but somehow not seeing me.
"Where are you?"
"How are you calling me then?"
"Why?"
"He there?"
"Stop trying to piss them off and give me the details, man."
Piss them off? Why would Shooter be trying to piss off Lex's guys?
"Negotiate what?"
Negotiate? Why would he want to negotiate? Did he know that we were working together? What we were doing? Was he going to try to convince Breaker to hand me over?
My eyes flew to the laptop, still up on the forum. No response. But that wasn't surprising. It was too soon. My eyes went back to Breaker's.
"You gonna be there?"
Breaker snorted, rolling his eyes.
"Alright. Two hours. See you then."
"Yeah?"
Breaker's eyes seemed to refocus on me suddenly, taking my face in like he was seeing me for the first time.
"I know."
And then he pulled the phone from his ear and shoved it back in his pocket.
I took a deep breath, feeling like it made my insides shaky as it moved down. "That was Shooter?"
"Yeah."
"We need to go meet with Lex," I said, hoping the fear didn't seep into my words.
"Yeah, doll."
"Okay," I said, hugging my knees to my chest tighter.
Breaker saw the motion and his eyes softened again, letting out his held breath. Then he did the strangest thing. He leaned downward toward my knee, watching me, and bit into it.
"Hopefully we get a chance to finish what we started," he said, resting his head on my knee. "If not... it'd be a fuckin' shame. You got the tightest fuckin' cunt I've ever felt."
Okay.
So he said that.
And I felt another whole body shiver course through me.
Breaker caught it and sighed.
"I need to get dressed," I said numbly, watching him.
"Yeah," he agreed. "In the old clothes," he said unnecessarily.
My hand went to my suddenly very wobbly belly. "I wish I hadn't eaten that," I said, looking over at the food on the table.
Breaker's hand slid down my calf, landing on my ankle, and squeezing. "I'd like to say that everything is going to be okay..." he started.
"It's okay," I said, shaking my head.
He had no words of comfort because there were none.
There was no way to ease the nerves.
Because there was no possible positive outcome to the situation.
I was going to be dead. Soon. One way or another.
Grimly, I uncurled from myself. There was no use delaying the inevitable I guessed. I reached down for the tee Breaker had pulled off of me and slipped back into it quickly before I made my way back to the bathroom where my old pajamas were still piled on the floor.
Through this, Breaker said nothing.
His eyes didn't even follow me.
I knew this because when I turned to close the door, I caught sight of him, bent forward so his elbows were on his knees, staring at the laptop like it held all the answers.
But it didn't.
And now it never would.
NINE
Breaker
The second I had her straddling my lap, I knew she was gonna be trouble. Not because, well, she already fuckin' was in more ways than one, but because I wanted her too much too soon. And it wasn't the hollow 'that'll do' that I felt for random bar sluts or chicks I ran across on the town. No, it was different. Stronger somehow. It wasn't just an itch to scratch. I wanted to fuck her seven ways to fuckin' Sunday then twice more just for good measure.
Maybe a part of it had to do with how she reacted. How responsive her body was to every little touch. It was like she was constantly teetering on the edge of a soul-crushing orgasm. And fuck if I didn't want to be a part of that. To feel it around my fingers, around my cock, to hear her scream my name, dig her nails into my back.
Yeah. Fuckin' trouble.
I ignored the cell ringing in my pocket while I listened to her moan and felt her writhe, more interested in getting her off than the phone I always picked up by the second ring. But when it stopped, then started up the second time, well... it had to be important.
I sat back, watching her snap her legs closed and fight to steady her breathing, her body shaking slightly in the unfulfilled need. Had to say it didn't exactly hurt my pride to see her like that, but fuck if I didn't want to throw the phone across the room and dive back between her thighs and finish her off.
That was, until I answered the call.
"Yo."
"You know it's rude to screen your calls these days, man. Unless you're balls deep in some good pussy," Shooter's voice said through the phone, his tone as casual as ever.
"Shoot?"
At this, a dry laugh. "Who the fuck else would be calling?"
"Where are you?"
When he spoke, his nonchalance was so strong you could practically hear a shrug in his voice, "Same place I've been for the past week. Some shit basement with no wifi, man."
I fought the urge to snort. "How are you calling me then?"
"Lex wants a meeting," he said, his tone a little more clipped. He paused as if weighing the next words. "With you and the girl."
Fuck. Great.
"Why?"
"Think I'm privy to that information, man?" he asked, making it sound like he had been trying to get more. Good old Shoot. Always with his head in the game even when he was being used as a bargaining chip.
"He there?" I asked, wondering how far I could push questioning him.
"No. Just one of his lackeys. Limp Dick Rick or somethin'," he said and I could practically see him smirking at the man in question. "You know how much these fuckers like their nicknames," he went on and I heard the distinct sound of fist hitting skin followed by the whooshing of air out of Shoot's mouth. No groan. No sign of pain. Then a chuckle. He was a crazy fuck.
"Stop trying to piss them off and give me the details, man."
"Hey gotta get my entertainment somehow," he said, sounding no worse for the wear. "Two hours. In the train car. He said to be prepared to negotiate."
That didn't sound good.
"Negotiate what?"
"Didn't say. You know the deal with him."
Fuck yeah I did. And that didn't speak well for our upcoming little meeting.
"You gonna be there?"
"With bells on. You know... or cuffs. Whatever," Shoot went on.
I snorted, feeling my eyes roll. It was like Shoot was biologically incapable of taking serious shit seriously.
"Alright. Two hours. See you then."
There was a pause, the silence full of something before he spoke again.
"Hey Breaker?"
"Yeah?" I asked, not liking his tone.
Another pause. "She's an innocent," he reminded me.
My eyes went to Alex's, finding her watching me intently.
I knew what Shoot was saying. It was the same thing Paine had said. It was the same thing I had been thinking. Me and Shoot, we chose this life. We danced with death every time we took a job. We align ourselves with people who could very well order our hit some day. We knew the risks. We took them willingly. We were guilty in every way possible. Whatever happened to us, we deserved it. We earned every kind of possible punishment. To the grave and beyond.
But that wasn't Alex.
Yeah, she got herself into some deep shit. Shit she wasn't prepared to handle, least of all on her own. But she did it because she felt like she had to. She did it for all those women in al
l those pictures she had on file. The pictures that made her look green. She wasn't jaded to the shit that was going down. She was enraged by it. Horrified by it. But she used that as the drive to try to end it. It was sweet and naive and hopeful of her.
And incredibly fuckin' stupid.
But also... innocent.
"I know," I said, hanging up the phone.
Alex walked to the bathroom to get changed while I stared at the forum on my laptop. I didn't know what kind of people she knew on the dark net. All the people I knew who routinely used it were scum of the earth. But if Alex said there were good guys out there- truth seekers, vigilante justice fighters, whatever the fuck she thought they were, then I had to trust her on that. I just wished they were paying attention. That they were going to offer some kind of solution.
Because I had shit.
I was going to take her to that train car because I had no choice. And then fuck-knew what was going to happen there. I needed to save her. And I needed to save Shoot. And I had no idea how I was going to pull that off. Or even if I would be given the opportunity. For all I knew, he was going to have me there to shoot me. It was his style. Kill Shooter. Torture Alex. Then kill me. He had a thing for flamboyant displays of violence. And he liked knowing he got under your skin.
So I needed to make it clear Alex meant nothing to me.
Wasn't sure how well I'd pull that off, but I had to try.
Shoot, well, that was another story.
If he knew Shooter was a good person to pick up and hold, then he already knew the bond we had. There was no pretending he didn't mean something.
He would expect me to want to protect him.
I heard Alex come back from the bathroom in her dirty clothes, holding her boots in her hands.
"I know I'm supposed to be wearing what I wore when you took me, but I have nowhere else to store the heroin," she said casually, shrugging a shoulder.
"Not a detail I think he will notice," I said back, watching as she sat down beside me and slipped her shoes on, keeping the laces loose enough for her hand to slip down inside them if she needed to.
Still no reaction. Still as cool as could be about the whole situation.
If, by some miracle, we both lived through the night, I intended to figure out what was wrong with her. What kind of life she had led to make her so collected in the face of her own death?
What kind of person doesn't feel some sort of grief about it?
Hell, if I knew for damn sure I was looking down the barrel holding a bullet with my name on it, even I'd feel something. Think about all the bitches I didn't get to fuck. All the whiskey I didn't get to drink. All the vacations I never took. All the retirement plans Shoot and I had bullshitted about that never happened. Maybe think about not getting the chance to find some bitch I liked enough to strap myself to and let her give me a rugrat to drive me nuts for the next twenty years.
Something.
Everyone should want to live for something.
As the old saying went... Alex was going to die for nothing.
"Are you bringing any weapons?" Alex asked and I noticed she had been staring at me. For how long, I had no idea.
I nodded, getting off the couch and moving toward the closet in the kitchen that was supposed to be a small pantry. I pulled open the door, feeling Alex's presence behind me, looking in on the four shelves of guns, ammo, knives, stun guns, handcuffs, chains, brass knuckles- the works. I still had my Desert Eagle in my truck and that was gonna go right back in my waistband, but I grabbed a knife and slipped it into my pocket, grabbed a second gun and a strap to put around my ankle.
If I hadn't turned and stooped to attach the strap to said ankle, I might have seen Alex grab a pocketknife and slip it into the boot that wasn't holding the heroin.
"Do I look too clean?" she asked as I stood back up.
I felt my brows drawing together, looking at her dust stained clothes. "What?"
"Like my face and arms and hair. Am I too clean? Should I try to muss myself up a little?"
At that, I felt a smile tugging at my lips. "Muss yourself up a little?"
"Yeah. So it's convincing."
"So what is convincing, doll?"
"That you've been keeping me prisoner like instructed."
"The job was to grab you and hold onto you. No one said I couldn't let you shower and eat."
"Oh," she said, looking out the window.
"You alright?" I asked, taking in her drawn-together brows.
She turned back to me with an odd little smirk. "I guess it's as good a day as any to die, right?" As if sensing that was the wrong thing to say, she rushed on, changing the subject. "Did Shooter sound like he was okay?"
"He was poking fun at the guard assigned to him, getting his face bashed into while we were talking. So, yeah, he's good."
Her brow went up. "Getting beat is... good?"
I felt my shoulder shrug. "Shoot is a smartass with a runaway tongue. If he's still sticking his foot in his own mouth, they haven't broken him yet."
"Oh. Okay. So... he's gonna be there?" she asked, her words tense. Like she knew that was a bad complication.
"Yeah."
She reached up, running a hand through her mostly dry hair, making it gently slide back into place. She sighed, nodding, accepting the added trouble. "You'll get him out of there," she said confidently.
"Doll, it ain't just him I got..."
She held up a hand and it was so ridiculous a gesture (who held up hands to silence people anymore?) that I stopped talking and raised a brow.
"You worry about your friend. First and foremost. Don't go getting yourself in trouble because I screwed up and got myself in a bad situation. It isn't your job to fix this. So take care of your friend and let me handle myself."
With that, she turned on her heel and stalked to my front door. I ran a hand up one of the sides of my head, feeling the short hair catch at my skin.
This was going to be a clusterfuck.
I had to somehow protect Shoot. Who wanted me to forget about him and take care of Alex. And at the same time protect Alex who wanted me to take care of Shoot because her plan was to kill herself. Meanwhile trying to not piss off the notoriously mercurial and volatile Lex Keith who was fully capable of having us all killed at once.
Jesus Christ.
I lived through this, I needed to find a new fuckin' job.
Janitor. Used car salesman. Guinea pig trainer.
Fuckin' anything that didn't all but guarantee blood and terror at every turn.
I sighed, grabbing my keys, and making my way outside.
Alex was already sitting in the car, buckled up, calmly pushing back the cuticles on her nails like we weren't very possibly walking into a well orchestrated trap.
If she wasn't so set on dying, she would make one fuck of a good criminal.
--
There were two SUVs parked out front the warehouse, empty, the hoods already cool to the touch. Further cementing my idea that we were heading into a trap. Alex didn't look at me as she unbuckled and went to her door.
I grabbed my gun, shoved it into the waistband of my pants and met Alex by her side of the car.
"Thanks for trying to help me," she said, looking at the building in front of her while she spoke to me.
"Ain't done trying, doll," I said, but she shrugged, biting on the inside of her cheek. "You ready?" I asked, already all too aware of how well prepared she was to get this done.
"Yup. Let's get this over with."
She fell into step beside me as I let us in the front door, into the hall, then slowly down the stairs. Beside me, she was calm as could be. No sweating. No struggled breathing. Just oddly empty eyes and straight shoulders.
Meanwhile my heart was a fuckin' jackhammer.
We reached the bottom landing and I could hear voices around the corner. Alex paused and my hand went out, landing on her hip for a brief second. Her eyes went up to mine and she made her lip twitch upward before
turning away again. My hand dropped and we moved forward as a unit, stepping around the curve of the wall and into view of the train car.
Four heads turned at the shuffling of our feet. Lex, two of his goons, and Shoot.
Lex was closing in on middle age with dark hair, dark eyes, and a thin build. His goons were big piles of muscle, one ugly with a shaved head and black eyes, one average looking with long blonde hair and blue eyes. Shoot had a busted lip (likely from his taunting of Limp Dick Rick when we were on the phone earlier) and a fading black eye. He was hunched just the slightest bit to his left, suggesting he likely had bruised or busted ribs. But he was alright. And the fuck even gave me a smile and a half-wave when he saw me.
I shook my head and I saw Alex's brow raise slightly, taking him in.
Whether it was because of his manner or because he was a good looking guy, I had no idea.
The train door was open and I stepped through first, Alex on my heels.
"Breaker, so nice to see you again," Lex said, his slick voice leaving a slimy film on the air.
"Lex," I said, nodding at him. "Shoot," I said, nodding at him too
"You must be Alex," Shoot said, letting one of his panty-melting smiles spread across his face. "Been keeping my brother company?"
"More like driving him up a wall I'm afraid," she said easily. To anyone else, she seemed as at ease as Shoot himself. But I had noticed that her eyes hadn't so much as moved across the car. She found Shoot and she kept her eyes there. Like she was too afraid to look at the people who held her fate in their hands.
"Well, we're here," I said, looking at Lex. Wanting to get down to it. The suspense wasn't helping anything.
Lex nodded. "Alex Miller," he said and I saw the way her hands flexed outward slightly before she balled them in fists, lifting her chin, and turning to face the man she hated most in the world.
"Lex Keith," she said in a tone that was like jagged glass.
"You're prettier than I expected. My men said you were a looker, but I had no idea you would be so..."
"Are we flirting with the hostage or having a fuckin' meeting?" I broke in, trying to make it look like I wasn't paying any attention to Alex and her clenched jaw and even paler than usual skin.
Savages Boxed Set Page 8