by Zoey Parker
“What?” I exclaimed. “Where?” I didn’t wait for an answer. I leaped out of bed, still completely naked, and started hunting around the room for the source of the buzzing. “What time is it?” I said in a panic. The light streaming in through the windowpanes was the grayish blue tint of early morning.
I finally found my phone vibrating against the stone floor, hidden beneath my top from the night before. I snatched it up and looked at the screen to see that the caller ID was lighting up with Lori’s number.
“Hello?” I said breathlessly as I answered the call.
“Carmen, where the fuck are you?” came the screeching tone. “I’ve been looking for you for hours! Jesus Christ, we need to go!” Her voice was piercing and not at all helping my hangover headache. I held the phone away from my ear.
“I’m, uh…” I said, fumbling for an excuse. “I got, um…Ben and I, we…” I trailed off again and looked over at Ben. He had struggled into a seat on the bed and was surveying the scene with a calm expression on his face. Even in the middle of my panic, I couldn’t help but notice the muscle tone riddling his arms and torso. He was otherworldly.
“You need to get home, Carmen!” Lori said. “Your dad is going to kill you!”
The color drained from my face. My dad.
She was completely right, of course. I found an alarm clock on the bedside table and saw it was almost six o’clock in the morning. If he wasn’t already home, he was sure as hell going to be there any minute. I needed to get back this second.
Ben spoke up behind me. “I can take you home,” he said calmly.
I considered his offer for a half-second before realizing what a ridiculous suggestion that was. The first thing that popped into my head was an image of Ben and me, trundling up to the driveway of my house on his motorcycle, with my dad greeting us at the door.
“Daddy, this is Ben,” I would say. “I met him at a wild biker party last night—you know, the one you explicitly forbade me from going to?—and we did wheelies on his motorcycle then ended up having the most amazing sex of my life.”
To which my dad would no doubt respond, “Ben, was it? Pleasure to meet you, son. You sure seem like an upstanding young gentleman, and I do appreciate you taking the time to lick my daughter to an orgasm before treating her to a second one with your magnificent cock. Great work. I’d love to shake your hand and congratulate you on a job well done.”
Yeah, that was of course the way it would go. Except, take away the pleasantries and substitute in a lot more bloodshed, gunshots, and, after everything had settled down, paramedics with body bags.
“No way,” I told Ben. Into the phone, I said to Lori, “I need you to come get me.”
“I’m on my way,” she answered. “Be there in five.”
I dropped the phone onto the desk at my side and began scrounging around for my missing clothes. I dressed as quickly as I could, while Ben shrugged on his jeans and lit a cigarette. He slumped back against the pillows and watched me wriggling into my leather pants and tying the drapey shirt behind my neck. I couldn’t find my panties anywhere, but I didn’t have time to keep looking.
When I was dressed, I started to stalk towards the door, then froze. I spun back around to look at him. He hadn’t moved. He laid back against the bed like everything was just peachy, like I wasn’t about to get ripped to shreds by my maniacally over-controlling father, in the very likely event that he was home waiting for me. He took a long drag on his cigarette, then exhaled a mushrooming cloud of smoke.
“I, uh…I don’t know what to say,” I said flatly. The magic from the night before that had gripped me like nothing I’d ever felt or even dreamed about was gone. In its place was a flickering coolness, like coals in a day-old fire. Ben looked like he didn’t give a shit.
But when he rose and walked over to me, I felt it roar back to life suddenly. His presence was enough to shorten my breath. I felt tiny next to him, and unlike last night, this time I knew what it was like to be claimed and taken by this man. I’d never come so hard in my life. I’d never wanted it so badly. I shuddered. The memory alone was enough to send teasing sparks rippling over my skin and between my legs.
“It was nice to meet you, Carmen,” he said. “I hope I can see you again soon.”
I started to say, “I hope I can, too” when the sound of a blaring car horn interrupted me halfway through the thought. “That must be Lori,” I said. The panic had not let go of me. Every time I blinked, I saw a vision of my dad’s eyes purpling with rage. If I got caught like this, I’d never be allowed out of the house again. “I have to go.”
“Give me your number,” he said. He reached to the desk behind me and plucked a marker from a cup. Offering me his forearm, I quickly scribbled my number across his skin. The car horn honked again.
“I really have to go now,” I said.
“Okay,” he replied simply. He bent down and kissed me again and for one crazy moment I considered not going home. Why not just stay here? These few hours were the best I’d had in months—no, years—heck, maybe the best ever. I’d felt free and smooth and not chained down like I always did. I hadn’t felt this good since before my mom died. Since my father had decided to start playing jail warden.
But the third honk brought me plummeting back to reality. I needed to go, right now. I broke the kiss off and looked at him as hard as I could. I wanted to sear the image of Ben—his body, his soft mouth, the tattoos swirling across his chest—into my retinas so I would never, ever be able to forget it.
Then I turned and ran out.
“You need to tell me what the hell you got into last night,” Lori demanded as soon as I scrambled into the front seat of her car.
“I don’t even know where to begin,” I replied. I stared straight ahead. I couldn’t bear to look at Lori right now. There was too much of a crazy emotional storm building up in my chest.
“Did you sleep with him?” she asked excitedly.
I didn’t answer.
“You did, didn’t you? Carmen, that’s fantastic!” She squealed happily and drummed her hands on the steering wheel before beginning to batter me with questions. “How was it? Was he good? Are you going to see him again?”
It wasn’t until my sobs got loud enough for her to hear that she realized I was bawling.
“Oh, my God. Carmen. Car, baby, look at me,” she said in alarm. “C’mon, honey, it’s okay. Couldn’t have been that bad. Shh, shh.”
Words blubbered out of me in response, none of them making any sense. But Lori knew me well enough to just stroke my shoulder with her free hand as we shot down the road as fast as she could manage. I eventually gave up trying to explain and just let the tears flow.
By the time we reached the front of my house, I was mostly calm. But I felt hollow and thin. My eyes were swollen with insufficient sleep and the overwhelming emotions.
“I’ll call you later, okay, honey?” she said sympathetically as we pulled to a stop. I nodded and wiped the streaked mascara away from the bags beneath my eyes. “Now get inside. I don’t see your dad’s bike, so hopefully he’s not home yet.” She patted my head one more time before I climbed out.
I raced to the front door and jammed my key in the lock. “C’mon, c’mon,” I begged, “open up, please.” It finally gave way and I burst inside as Lori drove away.
I shut the door behind me and paused for a moment to listen. The house was deathly still and completely dark. No lights shone on the ground floor. So far, so good. I just had to make it to my room and climb into bed. Then I’d be safe enough to sleep for a while before I had to wake up and interpret the insane twists my life had taken over the last twenty-four hours.
My thoughts were a swirling mix of my father, the biology tests looming in front of me, and, underneath it all, Ben. What was I supposed to make of everything that had happened with him? I shook my head. That would have to come later. For now, safety lay in my room. Everything between here and there screamed danger.
I
looked up from the bottom of the stairs. From what I could see, the light in my father’s office wasn’t on. I slipped off my heels and crept up, one stair at a time, craning my neck to see if there was anything moving on the second floor.
My feet made shushing noises in the carpet. I reached the top landing. No movement. No light. My room was at the end of the hall. I relaxed and let out a long, whistling sigh, letting the tension seep out of my shoulders. Taking the five long steps to cross in front of my father’s office to the door of my bedroom, I reached out a hand to grab the knob.
But it opened before I could get there.
My father stood framed in the doorway. He was a massive, glowering hulk. I could almost swear his eyes were shining through the darkness. His arms were crossed in front of his chest and I could see one angry vein thudding in his forehead. When he spoke, his words were brutally short and vicious.
“You’re in a lot of trouble, Carmen.”
Chapter Eight
Ben
Four Months Later
“Ben, my good friend,” said the man in a thick Russian accent. He spread his arms out wide to pull me into a hug. “Welcome, welcome,” he said, patting me on the back. “It is good to see you. It has been very long.”
“Good to see you, too, Ivan,” I said.
“Come, sit, please.” He pointed at the chair across from his desk as he returned behind it and settled in, crossing his hands over his fat belly. Snapping his fingers at the pale young teen standing at attention on the far wall, he barked, “Petrov, go get a drink for my old friend, Ben. Vodka.”
“Little early for vodka, isn’t it?”
“Never too early for vodka.”
“You’re a Russian through and through,” I remarked.
“Ah, what can I do? It is in my blood.” He leaned forward in his seat and eyed me up and down. “You don’t look so well,” he said bluntly.
“Yeah, well, you look like shit, too, you fat old man,” I retorted sarcastically.
Ivan chuckled. The chains looped across his chest bounced as he did, dazzling in the light from overhead. We were sitting in his office in an underground bunker on the far side of town. It looked like an out of business deli from the street level, but anyone who knew anything about the shadier businesses that ran through this city knew more money and power was concentrated in the Bratva’s headquarters than just about anywhere else that wasn’t the Dark Knights clubhouse or that rotting dump the Wild Kings called home.
He patted his stomach and shrugged. “It is true. Perhaps I am a bit heavy these days. But, that is the life we lead, no? I drink the best liquor, eat the best food, fuck the prettiest women. I have no complaints if I must gain a few pounds as a result. Cost of doing business, you might say.”
Nothing he said was surprising. Ivan had always been a man of appetites, to put it nicely. To put it not so nicely, I might have said that he was a fat, greedy pig. But saying such a thing to the man’s face was a quick path to more pain and suffering than I was willing to deal with at the present moment.
I was fucked up enough in the head as it was. It had been, what, four months since the strike on James’s warehouse? Four months since the party? God, I couldn’t believe how quickly that time had gone. It seemed like just yesterday that Slick was dragging huge satchels of cash into my office while we cackled over our good fortune.
Since then, though, it had been a slow unraveling. I knew why, at least in part. I hadn’t said her name out loud since the morning she left, but those eyes stuck with me. They damn near haunted me, showing up every time I managed to grab some shuteye or even just paused to think for a moment. Those grey fucking eyes.
But there were other things bothering me, too, mostly business-related. We hadn’t heard a peep out of the Kings in the days and weeks since their stash got taken. It didn’t make a goddamn bit of sense. Who gave up that much money, over a million in cold, hard cash, without even looking for it? For Christ’s sake, at the very least they could have bothered to put up a fucking “Lost—Please Return” poster. But no, it had been stony silence. All of the gossip channels had fallen dead quiet. I didn’t like that shit at all.
And if I didn’t like something, then Jay was sure as hell brooding over it. I pictured him as he was waiting for me outside, chain-smoking those Camels like the end was nigh. He had a funny way of being nervous. Looking at his face, you’d think he was at a funeral, but I knew damn well that his leg started bouncing frantically whenever he thought no one could see him.
Then again, it was his job to worry. In this case, it was justified. Men with a reputation for bloody retribution—men like James Sanders—didn’t just let things go. They didn’t simply allow their money to walk out the door and say, “Aw, shucks, shouldn’t have let that happen.” No. What they did was strike back with double the strength, inflict double the pain. We’d been braced for it, on the off chance that he had discovered who was responsible for the theft. But the weeks of tension were starting to take their toll on my nerves.
“So, Ben, tell me: what is it that brings you here today?” Ivan’s eyes were glinting an icy blue. He picked up a switchblade knife from his desktop, flicked it open, and began shaving down his fingernails.
I glanced down at my hands in my lap before clearing my throat and launching into the spiel we’d rehearsed. “We’ve been giving this some thought, Ivan,” I began. “We think that there’s been, let’s say, a little bit of unrest in the city as of late. Nothing major, nothing to be too worried about, but definitely some tremors here and there. Little upstarts. Guys edging in on each other’s turf. Some illicit business that no one in charge ever condoned.”
The things I was saying were true, to a certain extent. There’d been a prostitution ring shipping in hookers from Eastern Europe that got some unpleasant attention from the local PD with the full backing of the feds. I looked down on that as much as the next man, but the fact of the matter was that any extra focus on organized crime put a crosshair on the back of me and the men in my MC. We preferred to stay under the radar rather than star on the six o’clock news.
Along with the heavily publicized bust of that particular organization, there’d been the usual spate of shootings, stabbings, and bodies left to hang as some of the lower level gangs duked it out for control of one or two city blocks.
Taken altogether, it was nothing too far out of the norm, but Jay and I had agreed that this was the best angle to drum up. We had one goal in mind for this meeting, and it depended on us convincing Ivan that he needed us as much as we needed him.
“Sure, sure.” He nodded. “And?”
“It makes us a little, oh, I don’t know…uncomfortable,” I continued. “I like the status quo. I don’t want to see it changing anytime soon.”
Ivan blinked and waited for me to go on.
“The real straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak, was this theft. I don’t know if you’ve heard about it. For some reason, it was kept very quiet.”
His eyebrows shot up. I had his attention, but this was the tricky part, the one most liable to get us in a hot, heaping load of trouble if we triggered the wrong reaction. “Do tell,” he said.
“Someone—no one knows who—stole an awful lot of money from the Wild Kings.”
“James Sanders’ crew.”
“Those’re the guys.”
“Not the most, eh, friendly of men is James?”
“He is the farthest thing from it. Devil spawn, if you ask me, but you didn’t, so I won’t say that.”
Ivan didn’t laugh this time. “Ben, what does this have to do with you and me?”
I steeled my gaze. “Given the unpleasant history between James and myself, we’ve got a suspicion that he thinks we’re the ones responsible for robbing him blind. That, combined with all the other troubling things going on in every damn corner of this city, got us to thinking we could do with an ally right about now. Someone to watch our back while we watch theirs. Call it a defense pact, if you’d
like.”
Ivan eyed me for a long few seconds, then went back to carving off the ends of his fingernails. I had no choice other than to sit and wait. He was the kind of man to take his time before speaking. And when he said things, he said them once only. Every word was final.
Finally, he set the knife down, steepled his fingers, and looked at me again. “I like you, Ben,” he said. “Hell, my wife likes you, too. When we have done business before, it has gone very well for both of us, and what is there not to like about making money?”
My heart sank. I knew this couldn’t be headed in a good direction.
He wagged a finger sadly in the air between us. “But I cannot say yes to this right now. Perhaps even you were the one to take James’s money. I have no way of knowing, and I will not insult you by asking. What I do know is that there is much bad blood between James’s club and your own. That was very bad business that took place those few years ago, very bad, indeed. I do not like to be mixed up in such things when I have no skin of my own in the game, you know? I am very sorry, friend, but I cannot help you.”