by Susan Stoker
Along with the men were women . . . or girls. Most looked young enough to still be in high school; all wore skimpy clothes, like Kelly, that left nothing to the imagination. Alexis was definitely overdressed, but since she was being used as an ATM, no one was complaining.
Throughout her time at the party, several gang members had come up to her and asked for money. Each and every time, even though she hadn’t even been introduced to most of the men, Alexis had acquiesced, handing over twenties and fifty-dollar bills without complaint and with an airhead smile as if the money were candy and the guys were trick-or-treating.
The seven or so girls in the room completely ignored her. Since the men outnumbered them two to one, their job seemed to be making out with, and disappearing with, whatever man demanded their time. She’d seen one girl, who couldn’t have been a day over fourteen, go into a back room with three different men so far. And that was in the hour and a half since she’d arrived. The girl never complained, didn’t even look surprised or pissed she was being used like a whore. She docilely followed whichever man took her hand and dragged her out of the room.
Another girl was pulled out of the room by four men at once. Even though Alexis didn’t hear any screams or crying from the hallway they’d disappeared into, she shuddered to think about what was going on and what the poor girl was going through.
Kelly, somewhat surprisingly, hadn’t hooked up with anyone, at least not that Alexis had observed. She’d stood next to Alexis for a while, arms crossed, a scowl on her face, as some of the gang members came up and demanded money. Chuck was the last to arrive, around thirty minutes earlier.
The second he saw Alexis, a wide, leering smile crossed his face, and he made a beeline for the wall she’d been holding up. He hadn’t said a word in greeting, just reached out, put a hand behind her neck, and pulled her to him.
Alexis gasped in surprise at his actions, and it gave him the opening he needed. His tongue slid into her mouth and stroked against her own. It took everything she had not to gag at Chuck’s rancid breath as he slobbered all over her. She plastered her tongue to the roof of her mouth and tried to block his access to the rest of her mouth. At her actions, he retreated and began to lick and nibble on her bottom lip instead, not even seeming put out that she’d blocked him.
Pulling away, and knowing it was only because Chuck allowed it, Alexis smiled weakly at him and said, “Hello again, Chuck.”
“Alexis. Great to fucking see you. After the night I’ve had, you’re just what I need.” When she strained away from him, his hand tightened on the back of her neck, keeping her immobile in front of him. His grip was tight and scary, nothing like how Blake held her.
She put a hand up to his T-shirt and recoiled when she felt how damp it was. Alexis pulled her hand back and looked down, seeing a maroon smear on her palm.
Chuck laughed, and it once again took everything Alexis had not to gag at the foul stench coming from his mouth. The man needed a toothbrush and some mouthwash . . . badly.
“Sorry, doll. Work. I need to change and talk to my guys for a bit.” His eyes flicked down to the bottle of beer she’d been nursing all night. “You look like you need a stronger drink.” He turned to Kelly, never loosening the grip he had on the back of Alexis’s neck. “Be a gem, Kel, and go get that bottle of vodka I know Damian is hiding in his freezer.”
“Fuck off, Chuck. You don’t own me.” Kelly sneered, standing upright from her slouch against the wall, where she’d been for the last hour.
Chuck moved faster than Alexis had ever seen someone move before, his free hand wrapping around the front of Kelly’s throat and squeezing. Kelly’s hands immediately came up to his tattooed fingers and tugged, trying to get free with no luck.
“You might think you’re hot shit, bitch, but Donovan’s not fucking here. He can’t protect you and wouldn’t even if he was here. Shit, woman, he doesn’t want you anymore. Everyone knows he’s still got the hots for his ex. He only fucked you because you were easy and he was desperate when she ran off. When he gets out and we find her, you’ll see you’re nothing but yesterday’s pussy. You’re nothing to him. Hear me? Nothing. The only reason you’re still around is . . .” Chuck paused for a moment, his eyes sliding over to Alexis, then back to Kelly. “You know why. Now go get the fucking bottle of vodka and start pouring shots. When I get back out here I want to show our new benefactor some Inca Boyz appreciation. Got it?”
Kelly nodded—at least Alexis thought she did (it was hard to tell since Chuck had such a firm grip on her throat)—and Chuck finally let go of her. She fell back against the wall and without another word, or even looking at either of them, slunk off toward the hallway on the right toward the kitchen.
Throughout the entire short, violent encounter, Chuck hadn’t taken his hand from the back of Alexis’s neck. She giggled nervously and said, “Wow, Chuck, you sure know how to get results.”
He leaned into her again, tilting her head but applying pressure on her nape, then licked a path from the hollow of her throat up the side of her neck to her ear. Alexis shuddered in revulsion, which Chuck obviously mistook for arousal. He bit down on her earlobe, hard enough for Alexis to flinch in pain, then said, “Hold that thought, doll. I’ve got Inca business to attend to, and I need to change. Then I’ll be back to show you a good time. I’ve had a bitch of a night, and you’re just what I need to unwind. Trust me, these assholes have nothin’ on me.”
He thrust his hips against her while he spoke, his hard cock pressing against her belly, his intentions crystal clear. Chuck kissed her lips once more, and Alexis was careful to keep them closed this time, then pulled back. “Be back soon. Be here when I get back.” It wasn’t a question.
Alexis swallowed hard, wanting to rub the back of her hand over her skin to erase the feel of Chuck but knowing it wouldn’t look good to the many people sitting around the small room unabashedly observing her. She knew Chuck meant his words as a sort of endearment, but they sounded like an obvious threat to her. As soon as he left her side, another man sauntered up to her and stated, “Kelly said we need more booze. Gotta make a liquor run. She said you liked the expensive shit. Need some cash.”
Without protest, as she’d done throughout the night, Alexis took out her wallet and handed the man the last two hundred bucks she had. She still had the cash in her back pocket, but she’d only use that if she had to. If she ran out of money, she’d be expendable . . . she really didn’t want that to happen. It was way past time for her to leave.
Thirty minutes later, she knew Chuck would be back any moment. Alexis had tried to get as many faces on the video camera as possible, and she’d hung as close as she dared around the pockets of men talking. It would have to be enough. She did not want to be there when Chuck got back from wherever he was.
She looked down at her hand and saw whatever the man’s shirt had been wet with was still smeared on her palm. She wiped it surreptitiously on her pants, horrified to see it had dried and wasn’t coming off. She needed a shower. A long one. Alexis wasn’t sure she’d ever feel clean again.
She bent her head as if she was simply tired, and as softly as she could, in barely a breath of air, whispered, “Get me out of here.”
One of the girls had unzipped a guy’s pants and was giving him a hand job on the couch, not even trying to hide what she was doing and not bothering to go into the back rooms. Ignoring the way a group of gangbangers were ogling her, then laughing, Alexis breathed through her nose, trying desperately to keep herself together. The mood in the room had definitely shifted from jovial-party atmosphere to a darker, dangerous one. The men were drunk and obviously horny. As she watched, a man kneeled on the couch behind the woman giving the hand job and hauled her to her knees. He shoved her short skirt up over her ass, then reached for the button of his jeans.
She averted her gaze and eyed the sliding door, in yearning, that led to the backyard. If push came to shove, she’d go out that way and disappear before circling around to
the meeting spot. She just had to hold on a little bit longer; then she could get out of this foul house with the terrible people and try to feel clean again.
Within minutes of her whispered plea to Blake, the sound of gunshots and a motor revving came from outside the small house. Everyone in the room froze. Then the men sprang into action, immediately heading for the front door, most pulling out handguns from wherever they’d stashed them on their bodies. The girls shrieked and ran for either of the two hallways to take cover before bullets started flying.
Alexis heard yelling from the front of the house where the men had disappeared, but she immediately slipped out through the sliding glass door. She ran for the gate she’d seen earlier and tugged. It didn’t move. Not even an inch. She pulled again. Desperately this time. Nothing. Dammit. She had nothing on her to break the lock.
She looked frantically back into the house, no one was in the main room—for now—but soon the men would come back inside, or the women would get brave and want to see what was happening. If she got caught trying to slip away, it would look suspicious, which was the last thing she wanted. Escaping Chuck’s amorous advances would be the least of her worries. And if anyone got her in a position where they could remove her shirt, they’d discover the wire, and she’d be as good as dead. She had to escape that yard. Now.
Desperate, Alexis looked around the small outdoor space. The gate had to be locked from the outside, which was insane. Who padlocked a gate from the outside? Wary criminals, that’s who.
She spotted the stack of rotting wood that they’d seen on the satellite images, and Alexis expected to feel a hand on her shoulder any second. She could practically smell Chuck’s rancid breath breathing down her neck. Blake had pointed out the debris pile absently, noting in passing that if she needed to, she could use a piece of wood as a weapon, but neither of them had thought about using it to escape the yard. But the second her eyes landed on it, Alexis had seen an exit point, not a stack of weapons.
Without stopping to think that she could be crawling out of the frying pan into the fire, Alexis climbed up on the unsteady stack of random wood and other trash lying forgotten and rotting at the back of the yard and reached for the top of the fence. Taking advantage of the adrenaline coursing through her veins, she jumped, managing to push her body up until the points of wooden fence slats were pressed against her belly. Seeing no one and, more important, no drooling, rabid, pissed-off dogs on the other side, she threw one leg up, then quickly, ignoring the pain of the wooden points sticking into her belly, brought her other leg up and dropped down to the other side.
It was quite a long drop, and Alexis landed hard. Her ankles buckled, and she fell back on her ass, wincing as she felt the jolt all the way up her spine. She could still hear yelling from the front of the house and crawled away as fast as she could from the fence, when she heard Kelly’s voice faintly calling her name.
Turning and crab walking backward as fast as she could toward a group of overgrown bushes, Alexis kept her eyes on the top of the fence, fearing she’d see Kelly or one of the gang members looking over it any second. She probably could claim she was scared of the gunfire, but the last thing she wanted was to have to go back inside that house. She had a knife strapped to her ankle under her jeans, but she instinctively knew she’d only make a bad situation worse if she pulled it out. Blake might be outside ready and willing to do what he had to keep her safe, but even with Logan, they couldn’t fight off over a dozen gangbangers.
Alexis heard the sliding door open and someone walk into the yard she’d just left. Whoever it was, was just on the other side of the fence, but she was too scared to move into the cover of the bushes. She didn’t want to make any noise that might alert whoever it was to her presence.
“Goddammit, where’d she go?” Kelly asked someone.
“I didn’t see her. We all ran. She must’ve gotten scared and gone outside with the guys,” one of the girls who’d been at the party said.
“What a dumb bitch,” Kelly spat venomously. “She was always so goddamn stupid.”
“I heard we got two grand off her tonight, though. That’s good, right?”
“It’s fucking peanuts is what it is,” Kelly told the other girl. “That bitch has tens of thousands of dollars at her disposal. Donovan wants that cash. He needs it.”
Alexis held her breath.
“Well, you can text her later and act like you care. Then you can set up another meet. I know Chuck said he wants in her pants. So, while he’s doing her, you can take her ATM card and go get some cash.”
Alexis heard a smack, then Kelly said, “You’re just as stupid as she is, bitch. You think she’s gonna give me her pass code just like that? No, she won’t. She likes to feel important by doling out the cash little by little and making us beg for it. Besides, we’re done with this bullshit. I can’t stand being around her anymore, and Donovan agrees. We’re doing it his way now. He’s ready to get the fuck outta that place.”
Alexis had no idea what “Donovan’s way” meant, but she didn’t think she wanted to know.
“Chuck won’t be happy.”
Alexis was actually a little impressed at how the other girl stood her ground with Kelly.
“I don’t give a shit. He’ll get his piece of ass. Of course, Alexis probably won’t like him as much when he offers her up to the rest of the gang.”
Alexis stayed motionless on the ground, horrified.
The other girl laughed. “Better her than me.”
Kelly’s tone suddenly changed. She almost sounded motherly. “Very true. You just keep giving the guys what they want when they need it, and you’ll be good. Sucking cock and letting them take you isn’t so bad. You’ll learn to enjoy it. The last thing you want is to be on the bad side of the Inca Boyz.”
“No shit,” the girl said. “Someday I’m gonna be an Inca Boyz old lady and get some respect. Come on, let’s see what happened and if our guys shot up the fucker who took shots at our house.”
Alexis heard the sliding door slam shut as the two women went back into the house. She let out the breath she’d been holding and turned over onto her hands and knees, ignoring the pain in her lower back and her ankles. She had to get to the meeting spot . . . and Blake. She’d crawl there if she had to. She wanted out of this yard, out of this neighborhood, and out of this part of Denver. She never even wanted to drive through it again. She was done.
Chapter Eleven
Blake fidgeted in the passenger seat next to Logan. “Where is she?”
It was somewhat of a rhetorical question as both men could see through the video camera she was wearing that she was still making her way to the rendezvous point. They could hear her heavy breathing and her mumbled words letting them know her progress.
“Keep it together, Blake,” Logan warned in a low voice.
“If it was Grace out there, how would you feel?” Blake knew it was a low blow the second he’d uttered it, but didn’t apologize.
“I’d feel exactly the same way you do,” his brother said calmly. “And you know I’ve been where you are. Alexis was amazing tonight. She kept her cool, didn’t panic when shit got real, was able to get some amazing intel, and she acted exactly how she was supposed to when we set up the distraction. She’ll be here.”
“That fucker Chuck had his hands on her,” Blake bit out between clenched teeth.
“Just like Donovan had his hands on Grace,” Logan reminded his brother gently. “Grace got through it, so will Alexis.”
Blake didn’t bother to point out that when Donovan touched Grace, she’d been unconscious and didn’t even know it was happening. Alexis was more than aware of what Chuck wanted to do to her. “I love her,” Blake told his brother. He turned to look at him. “I can’t imagine anything happening to her. It makes me crazy. How do you stand it?”
Logan grinned. “It’s a bitch for sure. Just wait until she’s pregnant with your child. It gets a hundred times worse.”
“Fuck,�
�� Blake grouched, but his lips quirked up in a half smile. Alexis pregnant. He could imagine her round with his child inside her. Damn, he hadn’t even made love to her yet, and he already wanted to see her pregnant with his child. He certainly wasn’t good enough for her, but he had a feeling she’d be a great mother. She naturally liked to take care of people and was always looking out for not only his but his brothers’ best interests. He couldn’t fucking wait.
“Here she comes,” Logan stated quietly, pointing at the small screen they’d been watching through the camera lens around her neck all night.
It took a few moments, but finally Blake saw faint movement at the northeast edge of the deserted parking lot. “Turn off the tapes,” he ordered his brother, not wanting anything Alexis said to him being videotaped, before he opened his door and walked as fast as he could across the parking lot. He wanted to run but didn’t want to draw attention to either of them.
As he got closer, Blake could see Alexis was limping. He was in front of her within seconds. He wrapped one arm around her waist and pulled her into his body. He brought the other arm up and rested it on her cheek.
“You okay, Lex?”
“Yeah,” she responded immediately, in a muted tone that sounded nothing like the spunky, give-’em-hell woman he’d come to know and love.
Blake leaned forward to touch his lips to hers, but she jerked her head backward, away from him, turning it aside at the same time, not letting him kiss her.
“No,” she pleaded, shaking her head and pushing against his chest. “I need to shower. I need to wipe his touch off me. I don’t want to taint you.”
“Sweetheart—” Blake started, but Alexis cut him off.
“Get me out of here, Blake. Please? I need to get away from here.”