by B. B. Hamel
Rage shook through me. Rage, white and hot.
They hurt Mona. Those motherfuckers. She wasn’t a part of this. She was just a journalist, just a girl looking for a halfway decent story, and I dragged her into my world. I thought it would be fun to bring her around, thought it would be a good time to show some innocent girl the life of a real gangster.
I never meant for shit to get this real.
Steven took us down the block and stopped outside of a black SUV.
Of course it was some fucking black SUV.
He unlocked it. “Get in,” he said.
I put Mona in the back seat and went around. Steven tossed me the keys.
“You good?” I asked him.
“I’m good,” he said. “I own this area, don’t worry about me. You get the hell out of here before the cops show up and start asking questions.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Yeah, well, you better go talk to your father about this shit.”
I grunted, got into the car, and started the engine. I drove fast, swerved around the wreckage of my beautiful car, around the corpses left in the hot afternoon sun, and hurried back toward my house as Mona curled up into a little ball on the back seat and cried.
14
Vince
I parked in my normal spot and carried Mona inside. I shut the door, locked it, and took her to the couch. Her crying had stopped a couple blocks ago, and she stared up at me with bleary eyes as I sat down next to her.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Not really.”
“Physically, I mean.”
She hesitated, touched herself, and let out a breath. “I think so.”
“Stay here.” I ran upstairs, hurried into her bathroom, and found a first aid kit under the sink. I may be a mobster, but I’m not so stupid that I don’t have a first aid kit just lying around. Too many rough nights taught me the importance of a well-stocked medicine cabinet.
I stomped back downstairs and knelt down in front of her. She looked at me, her pouty lips parted, her breath coming fast.
“This’ll hurt a little,” I said as I took out some antiseptic and a cotton ball.
“What are you doing?”
“Cleaning your cuts.” I doused the cotton ball in the antiseptic then dabbed it over a particularly deep cut on her cheek.
She winced. “Ow. Fuck.”
“Sorry,” I said. “But I don’t think it’ll need stitches at least. Probably won’t scar, either.”
“Good,” she said, but her voice sounded flat and distant. “Right, yeah, don’t want to scar.”
“Mona,” I said, grabbing another cotton ball and cleaning more of her cuts. “I know what just happened was scary.”
“Scary?” Her eyes narrowed. “Is that what you’re calling it?”
“I know you’ve never gone through something like that before, but—”
“We just got shot at,” she said, pulling away. “They rammed our car and tried to kill us. Then you… you… you killed them. I saw the bodies.”
I stared into her eyes, held her gaze for a few beats.
“It’s going to be hard to calm down,” I said, my voice slow and steady. “What you just went through, it wasn’t a small thing.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” she asked, her voice getting shrill.
“Your adrenaline’s pumping,” he said. “You have to try to calm down.”
“I can’t calm down,” she said and grabbed at my face. She clawed at me like she wanted to tear me apart. “They tried to kill me.”
I grabbed her wrists and pushed her back against the couch. Her eyes were wide and wild as she stared at me, but slowly she began to breathe in deep, gulping gasps, and stopped struggling against me. She bit her lip, closed her eyes, then opened them again.
“Are you okay?” I asked, voice soft.
“I think so.”
“Something like that, it leaves a mark,” I said. “It’s going to be hard to shake for a while.”
“Why did they do it?” she asked, her voice a whisper.
“I don’t know,” I said. “You were never supposed to see something like that. I never thought…” I trailed off.
She stared into my eyes and her wrists went limp. I pressed her back against the couch, moving closer. Her breasts heaved as she took deep breaths and bit down on her lip hard. I moved closer, my eyes roaming her body, unable to help myself.
She tilted her head and opened her mouth. I thought she might say something, but she stopped herself.
So I leaned closer and kissed her.
Gently at first, just my lips brushing against hers. She sucked in a breath, let out a soft moan. I pinned her harder against the couch, kissed her deeper. She threw herself at me, mouth open, tongue against mine. We kissed slow and hard, a little rough, a little desperate. I felt my own heart racing and knew I was going through the same thing she was, that adrenaline survivors feel.
I released her wrists and reached down to her jeans. I unbuttoned her fly, unzipped it, tugged at them. She let out a soft gasp as I pulled them off, revealing light blue lacy panties barely covering her smooth, bare pussy. I kissed her harder and she gripped my hair, gripped it hard as I ran my fingers over those panties, over her pussy. She moaned, rolled her hips, and I pressed against her clit.
She was wet and I felt my cock growing harder as she moaned into my kiss.
I couldn’t help myself. But I knew this would help her, even if she didn’t realize it just yet. I pulled away and dropped between her legs, forcing them open nice and wide as I kissed up her thighs then licked over her panties, kissing her wet little pussy, the lacy underwear already drenched from her need.
“This is fucked up,” she whispered. “Oh my god. You’re just… and we just… you killed those men.”
She grabbed my hair and pulled me up. I kissed her then pulled off her panties. She moaned into my kiss as I ran a finger along her bare slit, rolling her wet up to her clit then teasing her.
“I killed those men,” I said and kissed her neck. “I’d kill more men if they came for you.”
“Oh, god,” she moaned as I plunged my fingers inside of her.
I went back down, ran my tongue along her delicious spot. She moaned and rolled her hips as she grabbed my hair. I could tell she was losing herself, just like I was, and I couldn’t stop. I licked her, rolling my tongue up and down, tasting her folds, tasting her delicious spot. I sucked her clit, nibbled on it, licked her faster, moving my tongue in tight little circles. She pushed me down harder, moving her hips, and I gripped her ass tight.
“You taste good,” I said, a deep, vicious growl. “You taste like what I need. I want to make you feel good, little Mona. I want to make you forget.”
“Oh, god,” she gasped. “I can’t forget.”
I licked her faster then slid my fingers deep inside. I fucked her tight little pussy with my fingers then reached up and grabbed her hair. I kissed her, made her taste her own pussy on my tongue.
“You’ll forget all about them,” I whispered. “Once I taste you come.”
She moaned as I went back down. I did my job, did my delicious work. I licked her fast, fucked her with my fingers. Her tight body writhed, her hips pressed against my mouth, moving along my fingers as they slid in and out. We moved like that, both of us lost in the moment, still stuck back there in the intersection, still full of adrenaline, still shocked we both survived.
And it felt so fucking good to make her feel good. This was what I wanted from the moment we met, her incredible little cunt on my tongue, but this wasn’t how I wanted it to go down. Still, she needed it, she needed me right now, and I owed her this much, owed her so much more.
And I’d deliver, oh, god, yes, I’d give her everything.
I kept going faster, in time with her hips, with her moans.
She was everything in that moment. Her body, her taste, her sounds. Sweat beaded on her skin as she grabbed my hair harder, rolled h
er hips harder. She wanted to tense her legs, to close them to the pleasure she felt, but I kept them nice and wide open. Her back arched as her lips parted, more unintelligible moans escaping her mouth, and I knew she was close. I kept going, faster, faster, tongue and lips and fingertips working her tight spot. I fucked her, licked her, and growled my pleasure as she threw back her head and said my name.
“Oh, fuck, Vince,” she moaned, her fingers tight in my hair, her back arched hard.
I tasted her come, I felt it on my fingers. I moved her through it, licking around her clit in quick circles as my fingers plunged in and out. She gasped and I licked her up, my fingers sliding out. I stared up at her, met her glassy gaze, and licked my fingers clean before licking her pussy top to bottom.
She collapsed back onto the couch, breathing hard. I moved up, kissed her, let her tongue lap against my tongue and lips. She moaned, sucked in a breath, and relaxed again.
“Fuck,” she said.
“Yeah.” I got up on the couch next to her and pulled her against me. She leaned her head on my shoulder. “Fuck.”
We sat like that for a while, not talking. She snuggled harder against me and I knew she was barely processing what had happened. I didn’t want to push her, didn’t want to freak her out any more than she already was, so I let her be. I just held her close, let the orgasm settle her down a little bit, let it even her out.
Finally, she pulled away with a sharp breath.
“I should, uh, put on my clothes.”
“Sure.”
She stood, picked up her panties. I stared at her tight ass. She bent over and pulled them on, and I couldn’t help but watch her long, lean legs. She shimmied into her jeans, buttoned them, then looked down at me and ran a hand through her messy hair.
“I’m okay,” she said. “I think so anyway.”
“Why don’t you go lie down for a little bit,” I said. “I can bring you something to eat if you want?”
“Yeah,” she said, nodding. “Yeah, I think, I think that’d be good.”
I stood and hesitated. I wanted to kiss her, hold her, do something to try and take the pain of what had happened away. She was a civilian, a goddamned journalist, and she almost got murdered by a bunch of fucking psycho cartel assholes.
Those bastards. Those fucking bastards. Rage ran through me again and I knew that they made a fucking mistake.
“Go ahead,” I said, turning toward the kitchen. I slipped past her, let my hand trail across her hips. “I’ll make some tea first. How’s that sound?”
“Yeah, tea, sure.” She laughed, a little dizzy, a little goofy. “Add some whiskey into it, please.”
I smiled and nodded. “Sure thing.”
She took a few steps to the stairs then stopped. She lingered there for a second and hugged her arms around herself.
“Are we safe here?” she asked.
I nodded. “We’re safe.”
“Are you sure? They found you, Vince, they knew where you were.”
I let out a breath. “Like you said before the shit went down, I’m not exactly hiding,” I said.
“But are you hiding here?”
“Nobody knows where I live,” I said. “That’s one thing I made sure of. Go on, go upstairs, I’ll bring you some tea. I have to make some calls.”
“Yeah.” She sucked in a breath. “Yeah, okay.”
“We’re safe. I promise.”
She nodded then walked up the steps holding onto the railing.
I watched her go then walked into the kitchen.
I stared at the counter then smashed my fists down onto it. Pain lanced up my arms, but damn, it felt good.
I was going to burn them to the ground. Every single Jalisco fuck that was involved in that botched hit, I was going to make them all pay, all their captains, their generals, they were all dead. I’d cut their throats and make them eat their own guts.
Nobody fucked with my Mona. Nobody fucked with me.
I pulled my phone from my pocket and decided to start a goddamn war.
15
Mona
It was like a waking dream. His tongue between my legs, the orgasm rolling through my body in earth-shattering waves. I’d never come like that before, never in my life. I nearly blacked out, nearly lost myself entirely. My eyes rolled back and his tongue, God, his tongue did that thing, and I just went wild.
After, I hid in my room. He brought me tea at some point, set it down on the nightstand, and left without a word. I sipped it, tasted the whiskey, just a splash. I drank it all down and fell asleep, the world turning into black.
I don’t know how long I slept. It was late when I woke up again. I looked at the bedside clock with bleary eyes and took a few sharp breaths, clearing my head. The clock said it was fifteen after midnight, which meant I’d slept all the rest of the day.
My stomach rumbled, so I got out of bed and headed downstairs.
I figured Vince would be asleep, so I wasn’t thinking as I staggered through the living room. I stopped in my tracks and blinked as I realized there was a light on and Vince was sitting at the kitchen table, his feet up on a chair, a drink in his hand. He stared at me, wearing a tight black V-neck t-shirt, his hair messy, bags under his eyes.
“Hey,” I said, suddenly very self-conscious. I was still in the same clothes from earlier, hadn’t bothered getting changed.
“Hey.” He tilted his head. “You just waking up?”
I nodded. “Hungry. You can’t sleep?”
“Not really.” He looked at his drink, sipped it. “Never can after shit like that.”
I bit my lip, wrapped my arms around myself. Flashes of screams, of gunshots flitted through my mind. I didn’t see most of what happened, I was too busy hiding on the floor of that car with glass shards all around me, trying not to breathe too much, praying a stray bullet didn’t come and end me.
Then he pulled me out, brought me into the daylight, and let me see the corpses on the pavement.
“Yeah.” I pulled out a chair and sat across from him. “That sort of thing happens often?”
He frowned at his drink, sipped it, shrugged. “Not like that,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“There’s usually more warning.”
I nodded a little and stared at the table. “Why would they do that?” I asked. “I mean, why would they do something like that?”
“I’m not sure,” he said. “I’ve been trying to figure it out all day. Made a lot of calls, talked with my father, with Dante and Steven, but I got nothing. Steven reached out to his guy in the Jalisco, but his guy wouldn’t respond, so something’s going on.”
“You said… it has to do with the Russians, right?”
He nodded. “We’re working on an alliance with them,” he said. “I think the Jalisco want to break that up.”
“That was barely a day ago.”
“I know.” He narrowed his eyes, shook his head. “That’s what I don’t understand. If they wanted to change our minds, it makes no sense to come after us so hard like that.”
I chewed on my lip then reached my hand out. “Drink, please.”
He hesitated then handed his glass over. I took a sip, winced at the hard liquor, and handed it back. The warmth of the whiskey quieted my rumbling stomach a bit at least.
“We’re arming up,” he said. “And now I won’t be heading back to the city for a while.”
“Really?” I asked.
“Really. My crew there, they’re fine. They aren’t involved with the Jalisco, they’ve got other connections. NYC’s a whole different beast.”
“You’re needed here then,” I said.
“Right.” He took a deep breath. “But I need to be honest with you.”
I looked away. I knew what was coming. He was going to kick me out, maybe threaten to kill me if I told anyone what I knew. Having a journalist in his life was risky enough, but having a journalist in his life in the middle of a war was even worse.
I co
uld still feel his hands on my hips, his tongue on my pussy, his fingers deep inside of me, and I didn’t want to leave. It was irrational and stupid, and I knew I’d be safer if I could just go home and forget I was ever involved in any of this, but I didn’t want that.
I wanted to stay. I wanted to make mistakes.
I felt like I’d lost my mind.
“You can just tell me,” I said, staring at the table. “I understand.”
He leaned toward me and put his glass down.
“If my father had this way, you’d be dead already,” he said, his voice even and low. “But I’m not letting that happen. I won’t force you to stay, but I also made a deal with you, and I plan on following through. So the choice is all up to you.”
I looked up and blinked a few times, not sure what to say. I opened my mouth then shut it again as I fidgeted in my seat.
“You’re not kicking me out?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “And I’m not letting anyone else do that, either.”
“Oh,” I said, at a complete and total loss.
“My father won’t really hurt you,” he said. “Don’t worry about that. He’s a bastard, but he’s not a monster and he’s not stupid. We start killing civilians and we all get locked up for a long time.”
“Wow, that really makes me feel better.”
He laughed, bitter and cold. “I know this is a lot,” he said. “You should sleep on it, okay?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I can sleep on it. But Vince, why would you want me here? I mean, I’m a liability.”
“I know,” he said, his head tilted. I looked up and met his eyes as he smiled. “But I got a taste of you today, Mona. And not just your body.”
I blinked a few times and took a breath to steady myself.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Look, what happened today, most people would’ve gone to pieces.”
“I kind of did,” I said.
“Not as bad as you’d think. I’ve seen worse, to be honest, I’ve seen hard men lose their shit, curl up in a ball, and sob for hours. Instead, you let me go down on you, then went upstairs and slept.”