by Nicole Fox
Regaining my breath and my presence of mind, I got up and walked over to the door. I tried the handle and, sure enough, it was locked. The lock he’d set didn’t appear to be able to opened from the inside, and I realized that I was stuck in that apartment.
So much for trust, I thought to myself.
Still naked, I walked into the bath to clean myself up, then to the kitchen to pour myself a glass of water. Drinking it slowly, my eyes scanned around the apartment. It was a small place, but well-organized. Everything there, from the things in the kitchen to the guns on the shelves, was arranged neatly. It was the apartment of a man who didn’t have anything to prove, who just got what he needed in order to live and didn’t care for spending money or time on unnecessary luxuries. All in all, it was fitting with the impression of Russell that I’d gotten so far.
Finishing my water, I realized that a shower did sound really, really nice. I hadn’t had one since I’d snuck into some gym in Levittown the day before yesterday, and the longer I considered the idea, the more my muscles seemed to ache and cry out for the relaxing spray of hot water. Grabbing a beer, I decided that a shower sounded just right.
I entered the bathroom, which was as Spartan and neat as the rest of the apartment. The walls were off-white, and the counters were slate gray granite. The shower was surprisingly large, and stepping in I saw that there was a large, stainless steel showerhead, the kind that sprayed out multiple streams of water.
Maybe he isn’t immune to all luxury after all, I thought.
I turned on the shower and water blasted out so hard and hot that I had to remove my hand. After fiddling with the knobs, I brought the stream of water down to a temperature and heat that was comfortable. Grabbing my beer, I stepped into the stream of hot water.
“Oh, Gooood,” I said, the hot water pounding against my bare skin.
It was heavenly. After the last few days, a hot shower was nothing short of decadence to me, and one with a showerhead like this that sprayed out multiple intense streams of steaming water, massaging the tension out of my tired, sore muscles, well, it was about the nicest thing I could’ve imagined.
I sipped my beer as I stood under the water, the events of the evening settling into my mind. I was now alone for the first time since Cory had hopped into my car, and as I looked back on what I’d gotten myself into, I felt overwhelmed and frightened. After all, I’d just agreed to … well, what had I agreed to? Russell had said that the sex that we’d just had was the first “payment” that I was making. Was he intending to keep me locked up in here as some kind of live-in sex slave? It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility, but something told me that if he lived like this then he probably wasn’t the type to have the need for his own personal escort. And I didn’t think a man who looked like him had any trouble getting whatever women he wanted, when he wanted them.
So what did he want from me? Was I going to be a drug mule? A patsy? A maid? He had been pretty mum about the whole thing. As I let the water work out the knots and tension in my muscles, I tried to tell myself to just relax, that I’d find out sooner or later what he had in mind, and that for now I should just be happy that I had a warm place to sleep; not to mention an escape plan down the road when Russell got me set up with that fake identity he’d told me about.
But what if he was lying about that? What if he’d just told me whatever I wanted to hear in order to get me to go along with whatever he had in mind for me? Though this seemed to be a real possibility, I was able to let this idea go. Though Russell seemed tough as nails and not one to abide by any nonsense, I didn’t get the impression that he was a liar.
I stayed in the shower for so long that my skin became soft and pruny. Turning off the stream of water, I stepped out and dried off. The towel wrapped around my body, I lay down on the couch, telling myself that I’d just relax for a bit before checking around for something appropriate to sleep in.
I was out in less than a minute.
# # #
I awoke to the sound of the front door jangling. My eyes shot open, and both awareness of where I was and the fact that someone was coming in dawned on me simultaneously. Looking down, I saw that my breasts were hanging out of my towel, and I was only just able to wrap the thing around my body before the door opened.
It was Cory.
Though I barely knew Russell, I found that his quiet, hard confidence instilled in me a sense of calm, a feeling that I was safe around him. Cory, on the other hand, with his erratic, unpredictable ways, made me feel the exact opposite. Just seeing him standing there at the door put me ill at ease. He looked at me from the doorway with those watery blue eyes of his.
“Oh, hey girl,” he said. “Didn’t know if Russ’d put you up here or if he’d stuck you in a hotel somewhere.”
“Hey,” I said weakly, my eyes darting around and looking for something more to cover myself up with.
At that moment I wanted to be around anyone else other than him. Even from where I sat, I could tell that there was something off about him, that he seemed a little jumpier and sketchier than he should’ve been. Something about the way his body moved … just seemed strange. I wondered if he was on some kind of drug, or combination of drugs; everything that Russell had said about him made it seem like his little brother had an issue with things like that.
“Damn,” he said, walking in and making a beeline to the weapons stacked on the wall. “Russell wasn’t kidding about that shit he’d been buying.”
He rubbed his hands together as he looked over the weapons. I could almost see the dollar signs floating above his head.
“You’re new to all this shit, but you’ll find out real quick just how much money you can make selling this fuckin’ gear. You’ll learn.”
He flashed me a shark smile over his shoulder that somehow made me feel more ill at ease than I already had been. I didn’t have any desire to talk to Cory, and thankfully it appeared that whatever drug he was on made him more than happy to carry on the conversation all by himself.
“Me and Russ, we’re a fuckin’ killer duo,” he said. “Russ gets all this shit lined up, gets the buyers picked out, and together, we get this fuckin’ shit sold. Stacks and stacks of cash.”
He placed one palm on top of the other in order to demonstrate his point.
“We’ve only been getting’ started, but we’re makin’ money hand over fuckin’ fist. Makes sense he’d want to get a chick on board for where he’s going.”
It was clear that he was trying very hard to impress me. There was a certain eagerness to Cory, almost like what you’d find in a little kid trying to look tough to his peers, or some girl that he was looking to get sweet on him. Maybe in a little kid, this might’ve been cute or endearing, but in a grown man like him, it just made him seem unstable, like any reaction to what he was saying that he didn’t like might send him flying off of the handle.
“Why does that make sense?” I asked.
Really, I wanted the conversation to end as quickly as possible, but I felt that I should say something, to at least mask a little how uncomfortable I felt.
“Well, you see all this shit on the walls?” He gestured to the stacks and stacks of guns packed onto the shelves. “This is primo, grade-A fuckin’ merchandise. The kinda shit that every banger in this city would kill to get a hold of. But it’s all ours, see. That little deal we ran tonight, that was a ‘trial run,’ if you wanna call it that; we wanted to get a sense of just how in demand our shit was. Well, the answer is that it’s really fuckin’ in demand. We got twice what we were hopin’ for, and the buyers were chompin’ at the bit to get even more, like, to know if we had any more merch that we could sell them right then and there.”
“I still don’t get understand why there needs to be a woman involved for any of this.”
Cory was fidgety, and kept clenching and unclenching his fists. I was nearly certain that he was on something. It was becoming clear why a man like Russell would be short-tempered with someone like C
ory.
“Right, right,” he said. “The women. Anyway, we’re mostly dealing with low-life criminal thugs, you know? The kinda guys who don’t really have much taste or class or anything like that. Gangbangers, drug-pushers, that kinda shit. You see, my bro and I have been at this game for a long-ass time now, ever since we got out of high school. Well, high school for me, and college for Russell.”
“College?” I asked.
“Yeah, don’t you know? Then again, why would you; you’ve only known us Carrick boys for less than a day. Russ’s got a degree in some kinda shit from NYU. Can’t remember what it is, exactly; philosophy, political science, some kinda brainy shit like that.”
Now that was a shock. Though, the more I thought about it, it wasn’t all that surprising. Russell did exude a cool, collected intelligence. And I had the distinct impression that a guy like Cory wasn’t exactly the criminal mastermind type.
“If he’s got a degree, then why is he doing … work like this?”
As much as I wasn’t all that excited about talking to Cory, I was, for some reason, interested in learning all I could about Russell. After all, I was going to be working with him. And he didn’t really strike me as the type to be keen on offering loads of personal information about himself.
“He did some white-collar shit for a while, but fuckin’ hated it. Not sure why; he doesn’t really talk about that kinda stuff. You ask me, I think it’s because he’s got too much ambition for his own good. Jobs like those, you gotta be button-down and fly straight and all that crap, and a guy like Russ only gives a shit about playing by his own rules. Me? I’ve been in and out of criminal shit since I was old enough to get a hard-on. Started out shoplifting pills for meth heads, moved to drugs, and now I’m here with my bro.”
The whole time he was talking, all I could do was picture Russell in a sharp, well-fitted suit. It was easy to imagine him standing at the head of a boardroom table, his palms pressed down on it, those sparkling blue eyes scanning everyone in the room. I had no idea if that was anything like what his reality in that world had been, but man, was it an attractive mental image.
Cory, on the other hand, was just as easy to picture as a skuzzy little hoodlum shoving pills into his coat pocket in some pharmacy. The detail about Cory coming to work with Russell really stuck out to me. I wondered if Russell had figured that Cory wouldn’t last long in the criminal world by himself, and that keeping him close by was the best way to keep him safe. It was just a guess, but if someone who’d known Cory for as short of a time as I had could tell that he was barely able to keep it together, then surely his own brother would notice it.
“You still haven’t gotten to the part about why he’d need a woman.”
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “Right, right.”
Definitely on something, I thought. This guy can barely keep his thoughts straight.
“Anyway, Russell says that he doesn’t want to spend much time fucking around with these low-class thugs. Says that they’re all loose-trigger, short-tempered assholes who are a ‘perceived insult’ away from putting a bullet right between the eyes during what should be a routine deal.’ His words, not mine. So he wants to move up in the world, you know? Do some deals with the kingpins who run things behind the scenes in this city. Smart move, if you ask me—more money, less bullshit, and maybe we’ll even get to go to some swanky parties every now and then.”
“The woman thing,” I said, trying to keep him on track.
“Right. So at these parties, having a girl like you at your side is a pretty good idea. These guys love beautiful young ladies, and having something easy on the eyes in the room is a really solid way to sweeten the deal. Guys seem to lose their head when there’re babes around, you know?”
“I don’t know, actually,” I said, becoming more uncomfortable by the moment.
“Well, it’s true. These guys love a good-looking girl, you know?”
It was at that moment that I noticed that the distance between Cory and I was … less than it had been before. We’d started our conversation with him sitting on the far end of the couch, but somehow, without my noticing, he’d closed the distance between us to around half a foot. And he was staring deeply into me with those beady, watery eyes of his. I could see that they were the same general color as Russell’s, but where Russell’s eyes were sparkling and piercing pools of ice, Cory’s seemed more like dingy puddles. Where Russell’s eyes betrayed a sharp, calculating intelligence, Cory’s seemed to demonstrate a dull, animal sense of understanding.
“Speaking of pretty girls, I’m a sucker for those myself.”
A sense of danger was beginning to creep over me. My skin tingled, and I felt the blood begin to rush to my hands and feet. The back of my neck tingled with fearful anticipation.
“And you know, Russell and I, we’re close. Really close. And close brothers like us, well, we like to share.”
Now my internal alarms were going off. I started scanning the room for either a way to get out or a way to defend myself. My eyes settled on one of the guns on the shelves, but what was I going to do with that if Cory tried what I was now pretty damn sure he was going to try? Was I seriously considering running to one of those guns, grabbing it off the shelf, and putting a round in Russell’s brother? Cory wasn’t nearly as beefy and strong as Russell, but he could still likely overpower me easily.
My eyes shot to the door, hoping that Russell might come back at any second.
“You don’t need to worry about my bro,” said Cory. “He’s gonna be gone for a long while. That means that you and I can have plenty of time to … get to know one another.”
It was the least appealing thing imaginable to me. I shuffled my butt down the length of the couch, trying to put some distance between Cory and me without seeming too conspicuous.
“Aw, don’t be like that,” said Cory, noticing my movement. “I’m a real nice guy once you get to know me. And it would be pretty damn rude of you not to even try to get to know me, you know.”
“Just,” I started, now feeling helpless, “let me put something on.”
It was a strange thing to say, but being there in nothing but my towel was making me extremely uncomfortable. And maybe it could give me the chance to get away from Cory for enough time for Russell to return.
But Cory wasn’t having any of it.
“Nah, I think you look pretty damn good wearing just that,” he said, his thin voice taking a harder edge.
Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a little baggie of porcelain-white powder. I’d seen the aftermath of enough of Logan’s little outings to know exactly what that was. Cory dumped out a small pile onto the coffee table in front of him and sorted the coke into a pair of long, thick lines. Next, he pulled a stainless-steel tube out of his pocket and offered it to me.
“Let’s party, girl,” he said.
I never had been one for drugs, and doing coke with Cory was about the least-appealing sounding thing to me in the world.
“No,” I said. “I don’t want any.”
“I insist,” he said, the hand holding the tube still extended towards me.
“No,” I said, making my voice as hard as I could.
A long moment passed, the air tense and uncomfortable. Then, a wide, almost dopey smile broke out on his face.
“Fine,” he said, trying to sound enthusiastic. “More for me.”
With that, he leaned forward and placed the silver tube into his nose. Starting at one end of one of the lines, he sniffed hard, the powder disappearing as he moved the end of the tube. Once the first line was gone, without missing a beat, he brought the tube to the end of the other and snorted it right up.
“Woo!” he shouted, punching the air. “That’s the real fuckin’ shit!”
He dabbed the remnants of the coke from the table and rubbed it inside of his mouth. The whole thing was disgusting to behold. Next, he turned to me, his eyes now manic and wild
Before I could react, he reached toward
s me and put his hand on my shoulder.
“Damn, girl,” he said. “You’ve got some smooth skin.”
I was paralyzed. I wanted nothing more than to flee right then and there, but I found myself frozen in fear. As strange as it sounds, I couldn’t help but notice that Cory was instilling in me the exact opposite of my feelings with Russell last night—where Russell had seemed to pull my barriers down the more he came onto me, Cory made me feel nothing but some combination of fear and disgust.
“Don’t … don’t touch me,” I said, taking his hand away.
The hardening of his face after I moved his hand made it very, very clear that he didn’t appreciate what I’d just done.
“I don’t think you get it, Alyssa—when I said me and my brother share, I meant it.”
He moved closer and closer to me.
“Now,” he said, his voice charged with energy from the drugs. “I’m gonna take what I want, and you’re gonna be a good girl and let me have it, get it?”