Devil's Pawn

by SE Chardou

  The last possibility I couldn’t bear to think about as I smiled beguilingly and slid the keycard into the slot. The light went from red to green and I stepped inside.

  Every light in the suite was on. Although I didn’t immediately spot any bodyguards, I still pulled out .380 and held it against my side, allowing the silky material to cover the hand as I approached the room.

  Evidence of drugs and alcohol littered the elegant coffee table and the bar counter. The music was also turned up loud—an endless mix of thumping hip-hop. Flo Rida’s “Wild Ones” smoothly mixed into Eminem’s “The Monster” and over Rihanna’s vocal track, I could hear another feminine voice that wasn’t coming from the speakers.

  She squealed like there was something over her mouth, and my heart kicked up a notch as adrenaline continued to pump through my veins like a drug. I kicked off my shoes and crept toward the bedroom, trying not to make any noise.

  One of the bodyguards sauntered out, his pants undone and his limp dick hanging out like a wet noodle. “Who the fuck are you? More entertainment?”

  I nodded and hid the gun behind my back as he staggered over to the counter and did several lines of coke. “Give me a minute, babe, and I’ll be back up before you know it.”

  “Why don’t you sit on the sofa,” I coaxed, pointing toward the area with my free hand since I didn’t want my voice to carry over the music.

  He took my advice and walked over before he slumped down. “That is one hot piece of pussy Marco has but I’m glad he called in another one. We’re gonna wear her out before midnight.” He chuckled while the bile rose in my throat.

  This wasn’t a quiet, intimate night between two lovers. Marco was having a classic gangbang with Karina being the guest of honor. Something inside me turned cold for the first time. My spine straightened as ice joined the adrenaline flowing through my veins.

  I didn’t like Karina and I thought she was a classic manipulator but no woman deserved to be raped especially by multiple men at once. I’d experienced it more than once, and it took everything in me from not clutching my abdomen and wishing my daughter would never know what it would be like to have her body violated in such a horrific way.

  I sat down next to the bodyguard. He’d laid his head back and closed his eyes. “Just let the coke do its work, babe, and I’ll be ready to show you a good time too.”

  I laughed in a jovial manner as I grabbed a velvet pillow from the sofa. “I bet, sweetie.” I climbed on his lap and ground my panty-covered groin over his semi-hard dick as I covered his face with the pillow and pulled the trigger twice.

  The noise was minimal—certainly not louder than the music. I removed the pillow, down feathers floating all around us and realized the bodyguard was no longer an issue. One down, three to go if I included Marco.

  I opened my purse while watching the door to the bedroom, Swyped a message on my Samsung Note 4, and sent a joint text to both Vincent and Cricket.

  Me: Gang bang rape in process. 4 men in room. Took care of 1. U need to make the bodyguards disappear and get your ass to the door ASAP.

  My heart thundered in my chest so hard, I took deep breaths to calm down. I wasn’t a fool and knew I couldn’t take on three, coked out men who thought they were invincible. I would need help.

  My phone vibrated.

  Vincent: On our way now.

  Cricket: I got one bodyguard and Shadow’s gonna take care of the other. Give us a minute. Will knock 3 times.

  I kept watching the door as I stood along with the bedroom door. Another man grunted, sounding like he was reaching his pinnacle. I wouldn’t have time to take him by surprise, not with a dead bodyguard splayed on the sofa.

  Three quick knocks came and I immediately crept to the suite door and opened it. Vincent dragged one dead bodyguard inside while Cricket dragged the other. I closed the door behind them and pointed at the bedroom.

  “This is how we’re gonna do this. There are three men. I’ll take one, Vincent will take the other and you have number three. Okay with you?”

  I nodded at Cricket. He stepped toward the bedroom door without fear while my heart pounded; a wave of nausea and adrenaline kicked in at the same time. He slowly opened the door, looked inside, and then proceeded to look at Vincent.

  The look on his face said it all. It was worse than I thought and I wasn’t exactly sure I wanted my brother seeing any of it. “Stay here.”

  Vincent shook his head. “I need to help—if Karina is hurt—”

  “There is no if! She is hurt and she is going to need you more than she’s ever needed anyone in her life. Let Cricket and I handle this. Please!” I begged.

  “I can handle myself, Mags. Or have you forgotten I’m actually your older brother?”

  “Listen to me because I won’t repeat myself again. There is a huge difference between killing indiscriminately, and murdering someone who is literally destroying someone you love. You’re too emotionally involved, and you won’t be as sharp as you need to be. Feelings of hatred, helplessness and despair will overcome you and you’ll do more harm than good. Hell, you’ll end up putting Cricket and me at risk. You’re no good for this. Give me your gun. Let me handle this.”

  My brother hung his head in shame before he handed me his Glock 22 and I handed him my Desert Eagle. I tip toed toward Cricket, and we huddled together.

  “We’ll go on three. You ready?” he asked in a whispered tone.

  “Yeah, I’m ready. I’ll watch your back—you better fucking well watch mine. I don’t plan on dying tonight,” I responded in a cold voice though it had nothing to do with him.

  Cricket counted down silently, and on three, he slammed the door open with one of his steel-toed shitkickers and nothing could have prepared me for the scene it would unleash.

  Karina had her wrists tied behind her back with a zip tie, her hands turning a pale blue from lack of circulation. She had been thrust onto a bodyguard who lay beneath her, grabbing her to press her naked body against his as another bodyguard fucked in her in her ass. Marco Bassi had one hand down his pants caressing his hard cock while his iPhone 6 Plus filmed the scene.

  I felt a rush of blood to the head, and although it caused of a wave of nausea flowing through me to get stronger, the adrenaline surging through my bloodstream was the overwhelming sensation in my body.

  At that moment, it wasn’t Karina, my brother’s wife, and the woman pregnant with his child.

  It was me.

  I could remember so clearly now. The smell of motor oil, manly sweat and the cheap scent of Irish Spring as Brad fucked me doggy-style while I had to suck on Nel’s cock. They weren’t all that interested in my asshole at the time. Instead, they loved to tag-team me that way, taking turns so they both used my mouth and my pussy. When I was too sore, my jaw aching from constant use, and I could feel myself fading, Nel would pop an Amyl Nitrite under my nose, and slap me harshly across the face. The sudden rush through my veins would relax me; a complete yet soothing feeling of euphoria washed through my brain, making me giggle and smile even as the tears would slip from my eyes.

  It was a drug-induced happiness, and deep down inside I knew it but I went with the flow because if one day, all this pain and suffering bought my freedom then it wasn’t for naught. I couldn’t blame my parents, not when all I wanted was to feel their arms around me and tell me I was safe, and there were no real monsters.

  At least none that would ever hurt me.

  I was thirteen years old again, and although I had started to hyperventilate, I aimed Vincent’s Glock, and fired a bullet directly into the back of Marco’s head. Time seemed to slow down as the bodyguard turned our way. Cricket shot him quickly in the head as I ran over and pushed his body away from Karina’s before I heaved her off the other bodyguard and grabbed a sheet to cover her with. Cricket double-tapped the bodyguard who sprawled on the bed while he tried to reach under a pillow, and then shot him in the head for good measure.

  It was officially 2015.

>   The celebrations and fireworks covered the sounds of our gunshots but we weren’t sure how much time we’d bought ourselves. Karina couldn’t leave the suite wearing a sheet and nothing else.

  “Where are your clothes?” I asked her immediately after Cricket broke the zip tie and I took the tape off her mouth as gently as I could.

  “In the bathroom. They’re ruined. They cut me out of my clothes.” Her voice held steady but her blue eyes refused to focus on my face.

  Cricket began to scour the place and opened a closet. It was mostly filled with expensive men’s clothes but there was also a small section of clothing in the back that had a few dresses for women. He grabbed the most modest dress he could find and threw it at Karina. “Get dressed and put your shoes on. This hotel is hot and someone is bound to check on Marco. We don’t have much time to get the hell outta dodge unless you wanna be shot or go to prison. If you wanna live through this shit, you better act fast.”

  She threw off the sheet and ran to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

  He looked at me, his face contorted with mixed emotions. “I didn’t mean to sound so harsh. I just . . . if that was Chantal . . . I don’t know what I would have done.”

  “You would be standing where Vincent is now, and the two of us would be handling the situation, easy as that,” I replied as I gazed into his cerulean blue eyes. “It’s not rocket science, Cricket, more like Assassin 101. Never allow the significant other to save his or her spouse. Most of the time, it changes everything. I don’t ever want Vincent to have the same picture in his head of Karina as we witnessed, and we’re not going to tell him anything either. If she wants to share her ordeal later down the road with him then that’s her business. What you and I saw stays between us, is that clear?”

  “Crystal.” He looked me up and down with awe. “Are you sure we’re the same age?”

  “If you were born in nineteen-eighty-eight we are,” I mused in a bored voice.

  “I knew it! What am I? A few months older than you? My birthday’s May twenty-first. When’s your birthday?”

  “Not that it matters but it’s mid-August. I’m a Leo if that means anything to you.” I smiled though it lacked true mirth.

  The adrenaline was fading, and the feeling of exhaustion and nausea were taking over. I needed to get the hell out of here, and back to the penthouse. The night’s excursions had taken every ounce of energy I possessed, and there wasn’t much inside me left to give. Like it or not, my baby, Max’s baby—our baby—was taking most of my natural reserves and it was taxing on me.

  Karina emerged from the bathroom with her hair tamed, a makeup free face, and sauntered out of the bedroom in a pair of Yves Saint Laurent stilettos. I could hear her reunion with Vincent in the other room and it was one of relief. She played the part of grateful wife, overwhelmed with happiness to see her husband again.

  She deserved a fucking Academy Award for her performance.

  Cricket stared at me again and I murmured to him, “Not a goddamn word.”

  He silently zipped across his lips with his thumb and forefinger while I nodded in agreement as we walked out. I slipped my high heels back on before I teetered over, traded guns with my brother, and handed him back his Glock. We all had gunpowder residue on our hands and body. Our weapons could be tied to the scene via ballistics when they came back with the report. If anyone saw us enter or leave the suite then they could have viable eyewitnesses. It was a sloppy crime scene, and we had to get the hell out of there. The only positive we had going for us right now was most people were drunk off their asses—and a good portion high on drugs, pharmaceutical or illegal. They didn’t make the best witnesses and we could move through the crowds fluidly without looking out of place.

  It wasn’t easy but we were all professionals and knew how to play it beautifully. I handed Karina my blacker than black shades to cover her face and looped an arm with Cricket. Just two couples coming back from hard core partying—tired, and ready to take our celebrations to our suites.

  Slipping out of The Florentine was easy, mostly because just as we crossed the skyway bridge from the hotel to The Cosmopolitan, paramedics and vehicles from the Las Vegas Metro Police Department pulled up, blocking the entranceway to the former hotel.

  “Looks like Edward and Max did what they had to do,” Vincent mused as we made our way past reception and up to the Penthouse suite.

  I didn’t breathe a sigh of relief until we reached our floor. Miranda opened the Penthouse door after three knocks, and she looked worried though she sighed in relief at seeing the four of us. Inside, Edward paced while Pyro sat on the sofa. Cricket’s arm immediately dropped from my side the moment he saw Chantal; he quickly made his way over to her, and they embraced each other.

  “Where’s Max?” I asked Edward, my heart beginning to pound.

  He gave me a look, and I knew he’d been crying though he tried his best to hide it. “He made sure the bomb went off but the blast . . . it was bigger than expected. He never came out, and I couldn’t check on him because Antonio’s bodyguards rushed the room. I got out of there as fast as I could.”

  A dull thud settled as my heart slowly pumped blood through my body. “And you tried his cell phone?”

  “Calls go straight to voicemail.”

  A feeling of resignation came over me.

  If Max was dead then there was truly nothing I could do except avenge it when the time was right. I didn’t bother to say anything else as I packed my one bag, changed into comfortable clothes, and began to walk out of the suite.

  Edward caught up with me and pulled me around to face him. “Mags, where are you going? It’s not safe.”

  I yanked my arm from his grip. “You’re right, it’s not safe but I don’t fear much of anything, Edward, you know that? If anything, people should be more frightened of me and what I’m going to do.”

  “What happens if Max is perfectly all right and he comes back to find you gone?” Miranda dared to ask.

  “We had contingency plans. He knows where I’ll be. After I have the baby, you guys will see me again. His instructions were quite clear. Disappear for a while and when I was safe, come back but only to the Saints. I can’t trust my uncle anymore, and you’re his family. He wanted me to be with you—he knew you’d protect me and his legacy, our baby,” I explained as I looked around at all of them.

  Karina finally broke down and cried in Vincent’s arms while I embraced Edward, Chantal, Miranda and Cricket.

  “Take care of yourself and keep that baby of yours safe. Can you at least promise us that?” Miranda implored while tears slipped down her cheeks.

  I smiled though it was bittersweet. “Nothing is going to happen to the baby, I promise.”

  I walked out of the penthouse before any more goodbyes could be exchanged and made my way quickly and efficiently down the Strip. The cut off was Tropicana, and from the MGM Grand, I was able to grab a taxi to take me to McCarran International Airport. It took a little finagling but I was able to get a flight on Air Canada to Owen Roberts International Airport with a layover in Toronto. That was fine with me. The sooner I could leave the States, the better.

  The wait seemed interminable as I wrestled emotions of nausea, anxiety and a sense of loss. I knew Max wasn’t dead. It wasn’t denial; the feeling was innate. The man was a part of me as much as I was a part of him, but we both knew there were fates worse than death.

  Prison.

  Torture.

  Abduction.

  All these thoughts went through my mind, even as my flight was called and I settled into Business class. I tried to calm myself down but that hole in my heart only Max could feel seemed to grow wider by the minute. I didn’t know where he was, but that’s why a contingency plan only the two of us knew about had been put in place from the get-go. We knew we needed an out, and I had to be safe until the baby was born.

  My heart ached but I didn’t even allow a single tear to drop from my eyes until we were airborne,
and the nightmare in Vegas was just a bright, neon-lit memory I chose to leave behind in the desert where it belonged.

  Max would want me to be strong because I still had a part of him inside me, and in the end, that’s all he ever wanted.

  A legacy.

  Now he had one.

  Even if it cost me what I wanted most out of life, and that was to spend every single day waking up by his side.

  Epilogue

  Mags

  Three Days Later

  I awoke early to the bright sun and the sound of the sea. Grand Cayman was a beautiful place, the Switzerland of the Caribbean, with many moneyed residents, and more foreigners than islanders thanks to their ability to hide money from the United States federal government and any other government just as well—if not better—than Switzerland.

  I had the most beautiful view from my penthouse condo. White sandy beaches, tanned tourists and residents walking along the bluer than blue Caribbean Sea as the water surged the beach with white froth before receding.

  The dull ache lunged its way into my chest and although I wanted to feel something, anything, other than loss, it’s all I felt. I slowly crawled out of bed and immediately took a shower before I donned a Givenchy black Magnolia moth print bikini and finished the look with a sheer, pale yellow cover-up that slightly clung to my curves and ended mid thigh. After I slipped on a pair of Valentino black gladiator sandals, I left the penthouse with an oversized black Mickael Kors leather handbag and walked to the elevator.

  The ride down was uneventful as was the walk through the lobby where everyone on the staff who passed me greeted me warmly. I walked out to the beach and found my favorite place in the shade. The warm breeze washed over me as Ricardo, my usual server walked over with a cup of chai tea, a bowl of fresh fruit, a bottle of water and a copy of USA Today.