by Zahra Girard
“Hi, Declan,” she says.
“Fuck you, Anna.”
“Nice to see you, Officer Jacobsen,” Howser says. “Been a while.”
“Yeah, you too, Howser,” the cop says.
“Where are my things? And how long do we have with him before any of your coworkers get back?” She says. She doesn’t even look at Officer Jacobsen — her eyes are glued to me like a ravenous hyena.
“I’m going to go take a walk, Ms. Ebri. Your files and laptop are there on the table. I’ll be gone for about an hour. That’s as long as I can give you,” the cop says. Then he pulls his nightstick and the cell keys from his pants and hands them over to the thug named Howser, who takes them both in his gloved hands. “Make sure you use this club on him. Keep it relatively clean. They won’t believe it's self-defense if you paint his brains all over the ceiling. You hear me?”
Anna shrugs. “Whatever. I just want this dealt with.”
After one last look, Officer Jacobsen leaves and shuts the door behind him with a heavy slam. Now, it’s just me, Anna, and her three lapdogs.
Howser takes the keys and slides them into the cell door. They turn with a heavy click.
I take a few steps back and settle into a boxer’s stance while the cell door slides open on its heavy hinges.
“Anna, I’ve never hit a woman, but if you don’t call off your fucking dogs, this will get real nasty for you.”
She rolls her eyes. “I pay these men to solve problems. You’re a problem. And now, I need you to go the fuck away, so I can get back to work.”
I keep my eyes on Howser and his buddies. They hesitate at the entrance to the cell. Neither of them has the balls to make the first move. I’m not surprised; they’ve got girth, but more than half of it is around their guts. They’re the kind of guys that would scare the average civilian into submission, but they haven’t had a proper fight in a long fucking time; they’re about to learn that they are way out of practice when it comes to taking someone’s life.
“You know, I don’t even give a shit that you’re ripping all these people off. Fuck, in a way, I’m impressed. All I care about is that you made the dumb-as-hell decision to go after my mom. So, I will give you a chance: leave her and Tiffany the fuck alone, and I’ll let you live.”
I want out of this cell.
I want to find Tiffany and my mom and make sure the both of them are OK.
That’s all that matters. I’ll humble myself again, even in front of Anna Ebri, if that’s what it takes.
“Thanks, Declan, that means a lot to me coming from a man who was a half-percentage point away from being a high school failure and who has a credit score that is so low it nearly broke a computer. Oh, not to mention a rap sheet more extensive than my stock portfolio. I’m truly touched you think so much of me. But you want to know what? I don’t fucking trust you. I would much rather have you dead. Thanks.”
“Fine, bring it. I’ve had a shit day and breaking a few ugly faces always cheers me up.”
Her men take it as the cue it is and work up the nerve to step into my cell. Howser hangs back, holding his club the same way I’d bet he grips his cock on a lonely night, while the other two advance side by side.
I wait. Fists ready, and heart so eager to spill some blood that I could nearly explode in anticipation.
The cell is small, and I use that to my advantage. It’s too tight for them to surround me, so I let them come forward, step by step, until they’re almost in reach. Then I strike.
The first one tries his luck with a winding roundhouse, pulling his fist way back and telegraphing the blow so blatantly that Samuel Morse would be proud.
I duck it, slipping under the blow and hitting him in the gut with a hook that doubles his fat ass over. An uppercut sends him reeling and I have just enough time to dodge an incoming punch from his companion. It whizzes by my face so close I feel a breeze and then I turn, cracking my fist into his grizzled double chin.
And I keep coming.
A jab sends him stumbling. An uppercut snaps his head back and leaves his chin dangling out as a nice, fat target. A hook catches him right in the sweet spot, and he goes slumping to the concrete floor of the cell.
Then pain erupts in my ribs. His companion bashes me with a lucky body blow and then puts two meaty paws on my shoulders, throwing his whole weight into me and shoving me hard against the back wall of the cell. My face hits the barred window, agony explodes in my skull, blood drips from a gash in my forehead, and I become just a little less handsome.
“Motherfucker,” I growl, but the rest of my insult dies in a grunt of pain as he rams a knee into my back.
I stagger, gritting my teeth against the pain, I put both hands against the wall and hurl the both of us backwards.
We tumble to the ground in a messy heap.
And then I turn.
I’m faster than this double-chinned son of a bitch. Before he can get his bearings, I have my knee on his throat and my elbow raining bloody murder down on his ugly face. One blow splits open a thick gash on his forehead, the next turns his mouth into a blood-spurting mess, and the third has him shaking and twitching. He’s outclassed, and this is the point where — if we were in any other circumstances — I might consider stopping because it’s obvious this dumb son of a bitch doesn’t have a chance. But this man and his boss threatened two of the women that I care about most in the world.
He’s got to die.
Then my head explodes.
Pain burns down my spine and sears through every single nerve in my body, and I slump off Mr. Fat-and-ugly and hit the concrete floor.
That god damned, club-swinging son of a bitch. Howser.
I’m lights-out for a second before my nerves fire to life.
Move, I scream inside, and force my pain-blasted body to obey.
Throwing myself to the side, I’m too fast for the swinging club, and there’s a loud crack as the wood smashes into the concrete floor with stunning force.
“God fucking damn it,” he curses, shaking his numb fist.
“Yep. God damn it,” I growl, and I leap from my knees and charge into him, ramming him with the full weight of my body and hurling the both of us back into the wall.
I don’t bother with punching him; I rip the club out of his hands like he’s a limp-wristed baby, and I blast Howser’s slack-jawed face wide open with a single swing. He hits the ground in a thud and I don’t even pause to check whether he’s alive, dead, or just unconscious, I turn from him and head straight for the bitch that seems to be the cause of all my problems today: Anna Ebri.
The look of shock on her face is the most delicious thing I’ve seen since Tiffany Santos took her clothes off.
I put the business end of the club right under her pointed chin and stare into her vacuous eyes.
“I am so sick of your shit. You should’ve taken my advice and just walked the fuck away, but you had to be a superior bitch, didn’t you?” I snap, and then I swing the club wide and send it thudding into her shins.
She howls and hops on one high-heeled shoe, grasping her injured leg in one perfectly manicured hand.
Fuck, do I ever hate this pompous bitch.
So, I crack her again.
Because, if there’s one thing I like about this arrogant bitch, it’s the look of pain on her face.
“When I’m done with you, you will be begging me to kill you. But I won’t. Not until I find your daddy, drag his old ass in front of you, and put a fucking bullet in his brain and get your fancy outfit soaked in his blood.”
I end my threat with another blow to her shin and she howls again, her leg already turning an ugly purple.
But then the bitch steadies herself. And when I reach out and rip hold of her by her hair to drag her bony ass outside so I can steal her sports car and take her somewhere private, she laughs.
Laughs.
And spits right on my left foot.
“Put down the club, Declan. Because, before I even came her
e, my boys paid a visit to your mother’s house. And they did not come away empty-handed.”
I keep my grip on her hair and pull until she’s looking me right in the eyes; there might not be a soul in her icy blues, but there isn’t a hint of a lie, either.
She’s got my mom. And Tiffany, too.
What’s the point of fighting if the people I care about are just going to suffer for it? Even if Tiffany ratted me out, she sure as shit doesn’t deserve anything that Anna or her crew will do to her; she’s an innocent woman that I dragged in way over her head. And now she’s going to drown for my mistakes.
The club clatters from my hand. I let Anna go.
Behind me, I hear that motherfucker Howser stirring.
Anna turns her imperious eyes from me to the crew that I’ve left beaten half to death in the jail cell.
“Get up. We can’t kill him here — he’s made too much of a mess as it is. We’ll take him to the construction site and I’ll shoot him myself.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Tiffany
More than at any point in my life, I am lost. More lost than I was in the aftermath of my assault, more lost than when I dropped out of Stanford and returned to finish my studies at community college, more lost than when I settled for the worst possible career choice by working for Anna Ebri and her father at some no-name bank. Lives depend on me, and I have no plan. There’s no one I can talk to, no one I can count on. I am lost and all alone.
What am I going to do?
I’m a mile down the road before my heart slows down and I get a handle on this problem; I have no legal options.
Which means I need to consider my illegal options.
I need help. And, in times like this, people turn to their families; Blaze’s mom is in danger, she’s his only immediate family, but he’s told me time and time again about his brothers. Before I know it, I’m on the road to Lone Mesa, taking the two-lane county road with my foot pressed flat to the gas pedal, while I scream at the old Volvo to go faster.
It’s not long before I’m pulling in to the parking lot of a scary-looking bar, where the parking lot is full of motorcycles and work trucks and the type of van that’s used for maintenance or creepily lurking outside of elementary schools.
My heart is terrified thunder in my chest and grows louder with each step closer toward the front door of this raucously loud bar.
What am I going to say?
How am I going to get these men to even listen to me?
Will they laugh me away? Will they hurt me? Will they help?
I’m feeling as lost and terrified as I was earlier. Only now I’m advancing into what feels like a lion’s den.
The door opens to a wood-paneled, smoky-smelling, booze-soaked bacchanalia. From every corner, I feel eyes pat me up and down in ways that make me feel violated. There’s laughter all around — some drunken, some menacing — from rough-looking men in leather. There are women here, too; some of them give me looks more threatening than the men. They look like they’re club groupies, while a few look like they might be normal women, except they seem to have a harder edge.
Who do I even talk to? How do I find the boss? Is that even his title?
Feeling myself shrink with every step into this terrifying den, I head right toward the bar and the kind-eyed young woman behind it. She looks like she’s about high school age, maybe older, and I feel some of my terror ease as I get closer to her. She gives me a calming, yet inquisitive, smile.
“Can I help you with something?” She says. When I say nothing — because I have no idea what to say — she leans in a little closer and her smile gets warmer, more caring, less inquisitive. “My name’s Adella. What’s yours? Is everything all right? Do you need help?”
Just being next to her helps me get my senses back together. I stand up straighter and try to muster up the assertiveness to speak.
“I, uh, I need to talk to your manager. It’s important,” I say. And my voice comes out more stern than I intended. Probably because I still feel a dozen curious eyes roaming all over my body.
She raises an eyebrow, and her warm features harden. “Are you trying to pull a ‘Karen’ on me right now? Because my dad is the MC’s president, and he’s technically the ‘manager’ of this place, but if you try to pull any bullshit over on him, you will not like the outcome.”
I stop. Breathe. And try to be more like Blaze — I calm the doubtful, loud, overly thinking portions of my mind — and just act.
“My name isn’t Karen. It’s Tiffany. And Blaze is in serious trouble. He’s going to die.”
Her eyebrow, somehow, arches higher. “Oh? So, you and him are dating, huh? This isn’t the first time something like this has happened. What’d he do this time?”
I shake my head. “No. Yes. I mean, we’ve slept together but we haven’t defined our relationship, and we did just have a big fight, so whatever we were is possibly over, but that’s not what I’m talking about.”
Adella pours a glass of white wine and hands it to me. “You look like a wine person. Tell me, what sort of trouble has Blaze gotten himself in to?”
I throw the wine back in one big gulp. It tastes terrible, but I wouldn’t expect a place like this to even have wine. “His mom’s been kidnapped by some people who will definitely kill her, and he’s been picked up by the cops for attempted bank robbery and burglary, both of which he did — in fact, the bank robbery was how we met because I worked there and he took me hostage — but I’m pretty sure the cops will kill him, too.”
Her mouth drops open. “Well, fuck. That is not his usual kind of mess. Wait here a second, OK?”
She refills my wineglass and then takes a long drink from the bottle herself. Then she walks over to one biker who is currently perched atop the corner of one of the pool tables. He’s a wild-looking man, with a mess of tattoos, a warm smile, and rough, ready laugh. She trades a few words with him, then grabs another biker — who, despite his rugged looks and mussed up, inky hair, has a bookish look to him — and brings the two of them over to me.
“Tiffany, this is Mack, and this is Crash, they work for my dad. Fill them in while I go find him, OK?”
Adella’s gone before I answer.
The wild-looking one — Mack — speaks first. “Tell me what the fuck is happening with Blaze and what kind of shit he’s stirred up.”
He’s so intense I take a step back and I feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up as fear surges inside me. “Um…” I stutter.
The other one, Crash, comes closer and puts his hand on my shoulder. “Relax. Mack’s just got a problem toning it down sometimes. Fatherhood usually calms people down, but it seems to have had the opposite effect on him.”
“Matyas used to be a quiet baby. Used to sleep the whole fucking night. Used to being the key word, because that wee one now screams like he’s auditioning to be a banshee. It’s fucking horrible.”
“Chill out, Mack, let her breathe for a second. She’s obviously had a rough day,” Crash says. “Tiffany, why don’t you start by telling us how you know Blaze?”
“I used to work at Southwest Regional bank. The other day, Blaze came in and tried to rob it. He ended up taking me as a hostage,” I say.
“That’s a start. Now, he took you hostage. But you’re here trying to get help for him? What happened?” Crash says. The man’s attitude and voice is like a sedative; my heart rate slows just listening to him.
“We found out his mom was being scammed. Something with the bank, fake debts, loans, so they could seize her house and then sell it. We didn’t have enough information to prove it, or help his mom, so he went to go break into this woman’s house — Anna Ebri, she’s the manager of Southwest Regional and she’s in on this scam — but Blaze’s mom, Eleanor, found out and called the cops.”
Mack erupts. “His own mother ratted him out? What the flying fuck is this all about?”
“They don’t get along,” I say. “Right after she called the cops, some gu
ys showed up and took her, and they tried to take me. I barely got away. Look, we don’t have much time, we need to get back to Torreon, and we need to get Blaze out of jail before they kill him.”
“You’re right,” Crash says, then he turns to Mack. “Fill Stone in. Round up the club and head toward Torreon. Be on the road in five. I will take Razor and we’ll ride with Tiffany to go find Blaze.”
“Got it,” Mack says, and he charges off toward a door set off in the back of the clubhouse.
Crash turns to me. “Are you good to drive?”
I shake my head. I’ve pounded two glasses of wine, my foot’s still a mess, and I’m shaking with all the adrenaline in me.
“No,” I say and I hand over the keys to the Volvo. “You drive, please.”
“Fair enough,” Crash says. Then turns and shouts at another biker. This one’s younger, athletically built, and has a face lined like he’s used to scowling. “Razor, grab your gun, and come on. We’ve got work to do.”
Crash offers me his arm and together we hobble out to the parking lot with Razor on our heels.
“It’s that one,” I say, pointing out the car.
Razor stops. “Fuck, we’re riding in that? Are you fucking serious?”
Crash laughs and jingles the keys in his hand. “Yep. Get ready, brother. We’re doing a fucking jailbreak in a motherfucking Volvo.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Blaze
I’m handcuffed. Dragged by two beefy dudes into the parking lot, while that other thug, Howser, gives me the stink-eye and Anna motherfucking Ebri struts like she’s the queen of the fucking world.
“You know, I’m no criminal mastermind — in fact, in might surprise you to learn that thinking is not my strong suit — but even I can see that you’ve made a big fucking mess of this situation,” I say. “There’s no way that mess, all that blood, Howser’s teeth, or any of it — goes unnoticed when the cops get back. Unless, Howser, were you missing those teeth before I whipped your fat ass? You’re so ugly, it’s hard for me to remember. Either way, your little operation is up and people are going to start asking some questions.”