by Penny Dee
“I think it’s time you boys leave,” Snake said, replacing his toothpick between his teeth and walking back to his hammock. “And next time you think about wandering into these parts again… do yourself a favor and don’t.”
On the ride back to Destiny, we stopped at a roadhouse a few miles before the state line. After ordering, we sat at a counter by the window. Just as our food was ready, I noticed a woman make her way through the crowd of diners toward us. She was tall and beautiful and all kinds of sin wrapped up in a tight body. Long blonde hair flowed like satin down her back. She wore a tiny pair of denim cutoffs with cowboy boots and a top that did little to hide her ample rack. As she walked through the roadhouse, she had the attention of every man in the room and knew it.
Sauntering up to Bull, she leaned an arm on the counter and offered him a small smirk.
Up close, there was no denying she was real pretty.
Until she opened her mouth.
And there they were, broken, jagged teeth that had been rotted away by years of poor oral hygiene and meth abuse.
She was a Swamper.
Despite her bad teeth, she still oozed sex. The body language. The slow blink of seductive eyes. The lick of her tongue across plump lips. She gave Animal an interested smirk before turning to Bull.
“My name is Vicki-Marie. I’m Snake’s sister.”
Bull nodded but said nothing.
“My brother is a stubborn mule. Too damn stubborn for his own good. He don’t want to back down in front of you on account of your past. But I don’t have no problem with the Kings.” She winked at Animal and kept her lusty, hooded eyes on him as she added, “I’m all about keeping things real friendly.”
While she and Animal made eyes at each other, Bull remained focused.
“You want to tell us what you know?” he said. “What you think it is that your brother didn’t tell us.”
Vicki-Marie dragged her eyes away from Animal long enough to answer.
“Your Vander Quinn got herself into financial trouble with Laurent on account of her not paying for her product.” Vicki-Marie was careful with the words she used. Product was code for meth. She was only going to give us enough to get us off the Swampers backs and wasn’t going to incriminate herself or any of her family in the process. “She gave him her car as a down payment on her debt, which he in turn sold to my brother. That was why you saw her car there. It was paid for fair and square.”
“You expect me to believe that?” Bull asked.
“It’s true. They brought it to Snake and offered him a good price.”
“Now why on Earth would Laurent do that?”
“Said he needed the money.”
“After he killed Vander Quinn?”
“You misunderstand me, Bull.” She said his name so seductively even I felt it hit my cock. “She was with him.”
You could feel the realization settle over all of us at the same time.
“She came with him to sell her car to your brother?” I asked, surprised.
She nodded. “Wanted to sell it real quick too. Didn’t say why.”
“Now why would Vander come with Laurent to sell the Mustang to Snake? The car she’d just given him?” Ruger asked.
I had a feeling I knew why. It was slowly starting to piece together.
She shrugged like she couldn’t care less.
“You know the sheriff’s department is looking for that car, and it’s only a matter of time before they find out it’s there,” Bull said.
Vicki-Marie looked at him suspiciously. “Oh really? And how so?”
“A bright red limited edition mustang rolling into town?” He raised an eyebrow at her. “You don’t think someone noticed it?”
She leaned her elbows further back on the bar. The move pushed her boobs out, and Animal’s eyes almost fell out of his head.
“Probably,” she said. “But by the time I get back, that pony will already be in pieces and sold.”
That didn’t surprise me.
“This guy Laurent, is he the murdering type?” Ruger asked.
Vicki-Marie fixed him with her own raised eyebrow. “Oh, honey, in the swamplands, you do what you gotta do to survive. Probably everybody got a bit of murder in them.”
“So where do we find this Laurent?” Bull asked.
“Oh, you won’t find him now. Let’s just say, when you piss off the wrong people, you get up close and personal with the gators.”
“You say it like you know someone was out to make him disappear,” Ruger said.
She shrugged. “Let’s just say he’s been acting shady lately. Hadn’t been around as much. He was one of Snake’s best salesmen, and then all of a sudden he wasn’t as available.”
Salesmen was another one of those carefully chosen words.
“Did your brother think he was selling someone else’s product in town?” I asked.
Drug kingpins and dealers were territorial. You didn’t peddle anything in town that was direct competition to their product. If Laurent had gotten entrepreneurial and started selling the competition’s product, it would be a good reason for Snake to feed him to the gators.
And if Vander was witness to any of this, it was no surprise she ended up dead in the river.
CASSIDY
Chance gave me explicit instructions to not leave the clubhouse. But the idea of retrieving my necklace from the cabin chipped away at me until I was completely convinced it was the right thing to do. If I took his truck, I could be there and back before he was any the wiser. And like Cade had suggested, maybe the home invasion had nothing to do with Barrett and everything to do with the cannabis fields. That would mean I wasn’t in any danger at all, which meant my little excursion out to the river was hardly dangerous.
Plus, according to Chance’s sources, Barrett was still in California as late as yesterday morning.
So weighing up the odds, I decided to go. I took Chance’s truck and sped out of the clubhouse parking lot, heading in the direction of the cabin. It was a perfect spring day, warm and alive with promise. I wound the window down and let the sunny breeze blow through my hair and across my skin while I sang along to the radio. Today my heart felt light. Almost free. And that thought alone had a big smile spreading across my face.
Approaching the outskirts of town, a figure sitting at the bus stop caught my eye. As I got closer, I was surprised to see it was Missy.
Just keep driving, I told to myself. She threw you out on your ass and didn’t care that you had no place to go.
But as I passed the bus stop, I could see the misery on her face and the packed bags at her feet. Something bad must’ve happened to put her at a bus stop with all her belongings.
Damn it.
With a skid of breaks, I swung the truck around and pulled up to the curb. When I got out, Missy looked up, her face dropping when she saw me. Cautiously, I walked toward her but stopped a few yards away.
“What happened?” I asked, doing little to hide the betrayal in my voice.
She looked away and I watched her throat work as she swallowed hard. She looked resigned to her predicament, whatever it was.
“I’m skipping town,” she said quietly, avoiding eye contact with me.
“Why?” My voice was sharp. Hard. Because the pain of what she did to me was still very raw.
She shrugged and stared down the street. “Things didn’t work out.”
“What about Johnny and the baby?”
She closed her eyes briefly and exhaled, obviously hurting.
“I honestly thought I was pregnant,” she said. “When I told him, he seemed so happy. Said he would leave his wife. Said we’d start a life together. He said his wife couldn’t have babies, so us having a baby meant everything to him. I was so happy, Cassi. Thought I could finally put down some roots, have a home and a man by my side.” She scoffed sadly as if the idea had been ridiculous. “But then I got my period, and I didn’t know how to tell him. I was so scared he would stop loving me. So
I pretended I was pregnant until I could work something out. I thought maybe I could get pregnant and he would never know. But then he caught me buying tampons, and I had to come clean about it.” Tears streamed down her cheeks. “He fired me first. Then he dumped me.”
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to empathize with her, but it was hard seeing her so upset.
“But why leave town? You can get another job.”
“I had nowhere to go,” she sniffed.
“What about Craig, and your mom’s house?”
The look she gave me told me another revelation was coming.
“It’s not my mom’s house and he’s not really my brother.”
I stared at her, mouth agape.
You have to be fucking kidding me.
“My mom dated his dad. They both died in a car accident a few years ago. I was tired. I needed to stop moving. So I contacted him, and he said we could stay for a while.”
I had no words.
That was why she was protective of him. He wasn’t her brother and the house wasn’t hers. He could throw her—us—out at any time.
I shook my head and exhaled slowly, letting the knowledge drain from me. There was no point getting upset.
I looked at the packed bags sitting at her feet.
“Why did Craig throw you out?”
“He came into my room. Saw me crying. Tried to comfort me by forcing his tongue down my throat. When I pushed him away, he told me to get out,” she scoffed bitterly. “He didn’t have to tell me twice.”
I considered telling her about him jerking off with my underwear but decided against it because just remembering it made my stomach want to throw itself out of my mouth.
Instead, I asked, “Where are you going to go?”
She shrugged. “The 409 bus will be along in a minute. It goes to the station.” She looked down the street… I assumed to see if the bus was approaching. “Guess I’ll catch the next bus out of town. Leave it to the gods to decide.”
God, how many times had we done that?
She stood up so we were eye level, clutching the smallest of her bags in her hands. She looked apologetic. Innocent. Younger than her twenty-three years.
“I’m sorry I told your brother where you were,” she said. “What did he say when he caught up with you?”
Missy still had no idea what Barrett would do if he found me. He wouldn’t say anything. He would do. And it would be brutal. But there was no point explaining it to her. She was leaving town, and I would never see her again.
“He never showed up,” I said.
“He didn’t come and see you?”
“He never came to town.”
“What are you talking about? I saw him yesterday.”
And just like that all the air left my lungs.
“What do you mean? Are you sure?”
She nodded. “I was in the post office when a big black town car pulled up at the curb, and he climbed out. I recognized him from the Internet. It was him. He’s here, Cassi.”
Dread spread through me like the shockwaves of an atom bomb. Blood drained from my face, and my mouth went dry. I swung around, my eyes darting about, searching for any sight of outsiders. A strange vehicle. A big black town car. Him.
“Are you okay? You’ve gone as white as a ghost.”
I couldn’t breathe.
He was here and he was going to kill me.
And while Chance was physically powerful, he didn’t have what Barrett had.
Psychopathy.
Barrett was violent and insane.
I would never forgive myself if Chance got hurt because of me.
As I stood there struggling to breathe, my thoughts raced and my heart pounded violently against my ribcage. I should never have involved Chance in this mess. It was selfish and irresponsible. He had his own demons. He’d walked through Hell and still felt the flames on his skin. I had no business getting him caught up in this. Because there would never be an end to the nightmare.
Barrett was right. I would never be free of him. He would always find me and bring hell with him.
It was suddenly crystal clear.
I had to leave.
Run.
“What are you doing?” Missy called out after me as I stormed toward the truck.
“I’m doing what I always do,” I said, opening the door. “I’m running away.”
I climbed in and gunned the engine.
“Well, hey! Wait!” The passenger door opened. “Take me with you!”
I paused, my foot ready to press down on the gas. I owed her nothing. And I would never trust her again. But two sets of eyes would be safer than one while I was getting out of town.
I looked at her, my mind frantically weighing up my options. She could keep watch while I drove; she knew what car he was driving. When we were safely out of town, I could drop her where she wanted to go.
“Climb in,” I said.
Within seconds, I was swinging the car around, the tires screeching as we took off toward the cabin. I would take the car and leave Chance a note. Whenever I could, I would wire him money as payment.
CHANCE
The thing about riding your bike on the open road is that it was meditative. Calming.
Being so free, you drop your ego and let your mind slip away. It gave you the clarity to see things for how they really were.
Unfortunately for me, it was also an easy way for the memories to worm their way into my head.
As we crossed county lines and headed into Destiny, we passed a playground with a small basketball court, and I was rocked by a powerful memory that almost sent me off my bike and into a ditch.
We pulled up to an outdoor basketball court at the neighborhood playground, and my father killed the engine. Across the grass, two men were shooting hoops.
“See that piece of shit in the blue T-shirt?” my father asked.
I looked at the man. He was tall and built well with broad shoulders and strong arms. He intercepted the ball from his friend, lined up the shot, and then sent it straight into the hoop. When he smiled, I saw rows of straight white teeth.
“Who is he?” I asked.
My father’s eyes sharpened with meanness.
“He’s the man who’s been sticking his dick in your mom.”
At first I thought I’d misheard him. “What?”
“He’s been fucking my wife behind my back. And now I’m going to show him what I think about that.”
He waited for the game to finish, for the man to say goodbye to his friend and walk away, before he got him alone in the deserted parking lot. I watched from the front seat of the car as my father approached the man. He was unlocking his car and didn’t see my father storming toward him. For a split second, I wondered if I could warn him somehow. Catch his attention. Make a sound. Anything to get him to look up in time. Because I knew what my old man was capable of, and something told me that this man was going to receive the full force of Garrett Calley’s wrath.
Fear ripped through me, and I was about to “accidentally” lean on the car horn to catch the man’s attention when my father increased his pace and started to run toward his target.
He must’ve said his name, because the man looked up just in time for the tire iron to catch him in the face.
Blood splattered into the air, some of it landing on the windshield.
The next strike sent him backward, a third into a heap on the concrete where my father laid into him with his boots as well as the tire iron.
Terrified, I hit the horn. I didn’t care if I got a beating off my old man. I had to stop what was happening in that car park.
The horn grabbed my father’s attention and stopped another kick of his boot into the man’s ribs. He looked down at the bloodied mess, his face twisting with rage as he leaned down and spat on him.
When he returned to the car, he was covered in blood.
“And that is how you deal with men who think they can put their hands on your wife.
” He was breathing heavy and sweat trickled down his temple, mingling with the blood on his face. He didn’t look at me, just kept his mean eyes on the man stirring on the concrete.
“Is he… dead?” I asked, terrified.
My father shrugged as he started the car. “If not now, he will be in a few minutes.”
He didn’t know I had called 911 from my cell phone. Now I prayed an ambulance wasn’t far away.
As if on cue, the sound of a siren cut into the quiet Sunday afternoon air.
“Time to go,” my father said as he put the car in reverse and drove away.
We didn’t speak on the way home. I stared out the window, trying not to think about the man lying in a crumpled bloody mess on the ground.
Instead, I thought about how much I hated my father.
And how, given the first chance, I would run as far as possible from him.
When we arrived home, he pulled into the driveway but didn’t move to get out. As I went to open the door, he stopped me.
“Best you don’t say anything to your mom,” he said calmly. I looked at him. He’d wiped the blood from his face while we waited at a set of lights, but there was still a drop of blood in one of his eyebrows.
I struggled to swallow. “Okay.”
He nodded and then added, “And, Son, if you ever honk my horn again, I’ll cut your fucking hand off.”
Feeling the terror of his threat, the last vestige of my childhood burned to ash and broke apart because I didn’t doubt him. He would hurt me if it somehow suited him.
I said nothing as I climbed out of the car and followed him solemnly into the house, wondering how I was going to keep this from a mother who knew everything just by looking at me. But the moment he walked through the front door, my mother stormed up to him and slapped him so hard across the face it left a bright red handprint on his skin.
She already knew.
The second slap to his face was with equal force and probably hurt my mom’s palm, but she was so wild with emotion I doubt it even registered.
“You monster!” she screamed at him. “You cock sucking monster.”