by Brook Wilder
She disappeared in his embrace, coming up for air a moment later.
“Lori, this is Porky. He’s going to help you. Isn’t he just a sweetheart?”
Lori raised one eyebrow dubiously. The guy was as tall as he was wide, with broad Viking-like shoulders and eyes that were glued on Carrie.
“Yeah, sure. A sweetheart,” Lori muttered, even more unsure that this ridiculous plan of Carrie’s was going to work.
“Did you bring it?” Carrie asked.
Porky started to dig a package from his back pocket, but Tex stepped forward, one hand raised to stall him.
“Hold on. Before anything happens, we need to talk. I need to know what I’m getting into.”
“You’re not getting into anything, cowboy,” Lori snapped, all her nerves rushing back at Tex’s words. “My problem. My risk. You don’t have anything to do with this.”
“Actually, sweetheart, I do.” He turned to her with a sardonic lopsided grin on his face. “My product, my rules.”
Lori’s mouth gaped open and closed as she sought for some comeback, something to say to wipe the smug look off his face. But Tex just took a seat on her small couch, looking as if he had every intention of staying rooted in place until they had talked through the plan. Porky shot Tex a look, but a moment later he sat as well, taking up the rest of the space that was left on the tiny piece of furniture.
Carrie skipped over to him, plopping herself on the larger man’s lap with a giggle, and Lori had grit her teeth, trying not to roll her eyes at being outnumbered. Needing a moment to get herself back under control, she turned on her heel and headed into the galley kitchen, coming back a moment later with a tray of cookies she’d baked a few days before and a pitcher of lemonade. She may have been trying to escape from her crazed boss-slash-landlord, but no one could say she wasn’t a good host. Southern hospitality was a thing for a reason.
Carrie grabbed a cookie, feeding small pieces to Porky as they made goo-goo eyes at each other, and Lori fought the urge to roll her eyes again. Instead, she took the only other seat, the pink velvet arm chair, and leaned forward.
As soon as she opened her mouth to speak, Tex was there, talking over her and trampling her words with his own.
“You want to make us believe that you’re capable of selling a hefty number of drugs and you’re offering us lemonade and cookies?”
Tex scoffed at the treats and Lori’s temper flared at the dismissive cast to his gaze.
“I don’t think this is going to work,” he concluded.
“I don’t know, Tex,” Porky chimed in from under Carrie. “They’re damn good cookies.”
He was still chewing happily and Carrie let out a giggle. Lori didn’t know whether to thank the guy, yell at him, or kick him out of the house and pretend like none of this had ever happened.
Suddenly, all the tension and nerves of the past twenty-four hours came to a head and Lori threw up her hands.
“Fine! Go then if you don’t want to help me,” she said.
She knew she was shouting but there nothing that she could do about it. The words came falling out of her mouth faster than she could keep up.
“Carrie was the one who came up with this ridiculous plan in the first place. She said she knew someone who would be able to help me out of a tough spot. I need the money and I need it fast. But if you’re not willing to help, then what the hell are you even doing here? You made up your mind about me before you even walked through my door, so you can just turn around and walk right back out again!”
Lori was breathing hard by the end of her tirade and everyone else in the room was staring at her wide eyed.
“Alright, just calm down now,” Porky said gently as he tossed the package on the coffee table that squatted in the middle of the room between them. “I brought the pills, just like Carrie asked for. I made a promise and I always keep my word.”
Lori looked from the pills to Porky and then to the enigmatic man sitting next to him on the couch.
“What about you, cowboy? Do you always keep your promises?”
She didn’t know what made her keep pushing, but she was rewarded by a light flaring in his green gaze.
“I do,” he said slowly, leaning towards her and speaking as if they were the only two people in the room. “But I didn’t make you any promises sweetheart. I’m just here to make sure that my friend doesn’t get his ass shot or landed in jail.”
After another long moment Tex nodded at the package of pills still sitting untouched and unopened.
“So, there’s the product. Now what are you going to do about it? How are you going to sell it and what kind of percentage are you looking to get out of it?”
“We want seventy-thirty,” Carrie said, speaking up for the first time but Tex was shaking his head before she even finished. “Seventy percent for us.”
“Forty-sixty.”
“Fifty-fifty,” Carrie said, her voice growing firm.
For a second, Tex looked like he was going to argue, but he sent an almost imperceptible look in Lori’s direction before nodding reluctantly.
“Alright. Fifty fifty.”
Tex nodded again, this time towards the package.
“You didn’t say how you were going to sell it, or how fast you were planning on moving the product. Too fast and you oversaturate the market. Too slow and you lose interest. You already have buyers lined-up I’m assuming?”
This last was directed at Lori and she shrugged under the intense scrutiny.
“Well, no. Not exactly. Honestly, I figured we would just reach out to a few of the guys I know at the bar and see if they would want to buy…”
“No! You can’t sell in the bar. And you can’t sell to Grim Riders. It’ll take them all of thirty seconds to wonder where the hell you got the product from and then you’ll blab about us helping you. And we don’t want this coming back to the Devil’s Martyrs, alright? We keep it quiet.”
“I wouldn’t blab,” Lori huffed in frustration. “What do you suggest then, oh wise one?”
“What do I suggest?” Tex asked, his brows raising in doubt. “I suggest that we take those pills back and you forget this whole god damned stupid plan of yours. Because I promise you, sweetheart, this isn’t going to be as easy as you seem to think it is. It’s not a walk in the park. You’re trying to sell a massive number of drugs quickly. You really have no fucking clue what you are doing, do you?”
Chapter 7
Tex let his tirade fade and silence fell in the cramped living room.
Everything was too god damned small and closed in. It made him feel claustrophobic and he desperately wanted to jump to his feet and stalk out of the place and away from the hurt and confused look on the pretty bartender’s face and not look back. He wanted to escape.
But he couldn’t. All he could do was sit there and watch the emotions chase each other across Lori’s expressive features. Pain and then doubt, worry and anger, and finally fear. It was that glimpse of fear shining in her changeable hazel eyes that made his own anger drift away.
After a moment, Porky and Carrie started talking again, Lori chiming in now and then as they brainstormed ideas to sell the pills and buyers who might be interested in a haul that big.
Tex watched Lori the whole time. Not that he could have taken his eyes off her even if he wanted too. And as he watched her, he became more and more certain of one thing.
“You’re hiding something,” he stated, letting the words fall heavy into the middle of the others conversation. Still his gaze didn’t leave Lori’s. He watched her expression, fascinated that every thought and emotion played out for everyone to see. Damn! but she’d be terrible at poker.
“You’re hiding something. And I need to know what it is before I decide to help you or not.”
Indignation spread across her face, tinting her cheeks a rosy pink.
“I am not hiding anything. I told you, I need the money and I need it fast. It’s important, can’t you see that?”
Something about the petite blonde put him edge.
The sweet pout of her mouth firmed into a hard line and, for a split second, he was tempted to kiss it back again. But he kept the instinct in a strangle-hold. He didn’t know why it was so much harder to resist when it came to this woman, but it wasn’t the place or the time.
“Tell me everything right here, right now, or we take the pills and leave. We can’t have something come around and bite us in the ass in the middle of a drug deal.”
He snorted the words, mostly meaning them. There was always something that could go wrong and you planned for it. But there was a mystery to her that was driving him crazy. He wanted to dig out every single secret she had locked away. He wanted to know everything about her.
In mulish silence, Lori stood and paced around the smallest living room he’d ever seen. In fact, she was quiet for so long that Tex was sure she wasn’t going to speak at all. But, finally, she opened her mouth.
“Fine!”
Lori spit out the word like it left a sour taste in her mouth. Tex reveled in triumph for a moment at his victory, but the feeing died as she continued.
“A year ago, I was… I was homeless and living on the streets. I didn’t have anywhere to go. No family.”
Tex could see that the admission cost her and, for a second, he considered telling her to stop, telling her he didn’t need to know, that he would help her anyway that he could. But then she was talking again, and he couldn’t force any words at all from his suddenly tight throat.
“One day, I was digging in this dumpster outside The Reaper and Gears saw me. He’s a member of the Grim Riders and the owner of the club.”
“I know who he is.” Tex said softly.
He’d had the unfortunate luck to run into the man a few times during his business dealings. He’d always gotten an off feeling from the guy.
“Right. Well, Gears offered me a job bartending at the club and then rented me this place.”
Lori made a shrugging gesture, taking in the dilapidated house. He was going to say something about how he hoped the other man wasn’t overcharging her for the shit hole, but after sleeping on the streets it was probably heaven.
“He was the one who brought me in to the Riders and made me a member,” Lori continued, her voice even and distant, as if she was talking about someone else. “It was great at first. A new family. A new home. It was rough, but at least I was safe. At least, I thought I was safe.”
Lori took a deep breath and Tex hated the tremor in her voice. He could see the steel that ran through her core despite her girl-next-door good looks. Obviously, something had shaken her.
“The last few months, Gears started getting really possessive. He… He cornered me a few times, hinting that I owed him for helping me. That I… That I belong to him. He’s tried to get me alone, but I don’t let him. But it’s just a matter of time before something happens. He’s my boss and my landlord. All he has to do is walk over here and open the door.”
Lori paused, swallowing hard.
“I have a few hundred saved from the bar. I was planning on leaving at the end of the year, but… I don’t think I have that much time. Gears is losing it.”
“Last night, Lori was working at the bar,” Carrie said softly from her perch on Porky’s lap, “and one of the younger patch members had had a little too much to drink and threw his arm around her shoulder. Gears was there. He beat the shit out of the kid, just for touching her. He would have killed him if… if Lori hadn’t pulled him off. And the way he looked at her…” Carrie paused and shuddered at the memory. “It was as if she wasn’t even a person. He looked at her like a thing that he owned. She needs to leave town and as soon as possible. She’s in more and more danger with every day she stays here.”
Tex listened in silence. He couldn’t have said anything if he’d wanted to. His chest was so tight with anger that he could barely breathe and his vision had gone red at Lori’s words. The idea that anyone would want to hurt her like that made violence writhe inside him, begging to be let out. Picturing her like that, vulnerable to the person she should be able to trust the most, made his sick.
“Fuck!”
The hard curse shot from his mouth like a bullet leaving the barrel of a gun. He jumped to his feet. Angry energy made him move in quick, erratic steps. His mind whirled, his thoughts in chaos. Temper was still riding him hard when he turned towards Lori.
“What are you doing, still staying here? You need to move immediately. Find somewhere else, at least until we get this figured out. You can’t stay here with that asshole within reach.”
“Excuse me?” Lori said, dumbfounded, as she got to her feet, her own temper sparking in her hazel-colored eyes. “What the fuck do you think I’m trying to do here? That’s what I need the money for! So I can leave! So I can get away from him before he…” Her words trailed off, but it was painfully easy to fill in the gaps after what she had told them.
A part of Tex told him to calm down, told him that he had no right to shout at her. He wasn’t pissed at her, but he was angry as hell at the guy who was supposed to be protecting her. It all came out mixed up when he opened his mouth again.
“And this is your big plan? To try and move pills, even though you’ve never sold drugs in your life? You’re in danger, for fuck’s sake!”
“I know that, you asshole!” Lori said. “If you’ve got any other ideas, I’m all ears,”
Then they were both shouting at each other, standing toe-to-toe and glare-to-glare.
“Believe me, this is not my ideal plan. But it’s the quickest way to get enough cash for me to get out of here. Okay?”
“There has to be another way!”
“There’s not! Who the hell do you think you are anyway, trying to tell me…”
“Okay, guys. Enough, enough, calm down.”
Porky was suddenly standing between them, forcing them both to take a step back as he held his hands up in a call for peace.
“Listen, I have an idea. My cousin is always looking new product and he’ll buy a lot. A whole lot. Why don’t I give him a call and see if he’s interested. Okay?”
Tex looked from Porky to Lori’s tight face and back again, finally giving in with a shrug.
“Why the fuck not.”
Chapter 8
Lori searched furiously through the freezer, trying desperately to block out the sound of voices coming from the other room. After the blowout between her and Tex she’d escaped to the tiny kitchen in an attempt to calm herself down. Distance hadn’t worked. She was hoping vodka would.
A-ha! There it was! She knew she had a bottle stashed back there just for times like these. Lori grabbed the bottle, opened the twist-off top and took a swig of the pungent liquor before taking a deep gasping breath.
Well, maybe not times quite like these. A few months ago, when she’d bought the bottle, Lori doubted she could have predicted she would be plotting how to sell a few thousand dollars’ worth of illegal drugs with the help of two rival gang members, one of whom seemed to be able to push every single one of her buttons.
She took another swig of the ice-cold vodka, grimacing at the vicious burn as it slid down her esophagus. It did nothing to burn away the anger that still simmered beneath the surface though, or the embarrassment at having her situation aired and mocked by that… that… self-righteous asshole!
Lori hated the feeling coursing through her, so out of control, of not being able to make her own choices, of being not at all like her normal self. And she knew it had just as much to do with Tex as with everything else that was happening to her.
“What the hell kind of name is ‘Tex’ anyway?” Lori muttered to herself, throwing back another shot.
But the bottle was jerked from her grasp before the liquid reached her lips.
“It’s still dumb,” Lori mumbled.
She hated that she was sounding like a petulant child, but it was even worse feeling like one. She’d been making her own choices her whole life, more independent than most her age, but now she felt like every decision had been stripped from her hands because of the actions of others. She felt like she was trapped in a situation she hadn’t asked for and wasn’t ready for.