by Layla Wolfe
I was truly a victim. A powerless, paralyzed victim.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
ROMAN
Everyone went up to Page with the understanding that Shannon was long gone. It had been three weeks since she’d been taken, and if the Bamboo Boys were as proficient as Roman knew them to be, the girls would be long gone on the pipeline, maybe to Salt Lake City, or the interstates that led east.
But of course they had to make a show of strength against the fuckers who had taken one of their own. They had been thinking of their quest for Shannon for so long as being related to Gudrun, it seemed as though she were someone’s old lady. Gudrun described her as shy and reserved. She felt sort of responsible for Shannon even being there that night. It wasn’t something Shannon would normally do. Tracy, now, Tracy had been known to take a few Mollys with strangers. Not Shannon. Shannon had just gone along because it seemed like “the thing to do.” That’s why she’d insisted on driving her car.
Gudrun had said, “She probably had a presentiment that she’d need to make a quick getaway.”
The men kept their Bare Bones cuts on for this run into Page. They wanted these fucking Bamboo Boys to know who had hit them, and why.
With Knoxie and Tuzigoot still up in Jerome and Speed out of commission, that left it up to the officers Ford and Lytton plus the muscle of Gollywow and Wild Man to execute this job. The denizens of 118 Date Street could be plastered spitters, the lowest rung of the drug dealing realm who swallowed bags of drugs and spit them back out when the coast was clear. Or they could be highly trained traffickers armed with U.S. military style hardware. They had to be prepared for either case.
The brothers pulled to the side of the road near an elementary school. It was freakishly early in the morning, an hour deemed a good one to hit the Chinese. Men working in this field tended to keep late hours, but they had to sleep sometime. They had slept a few hours at the clubhouse in Flagstaff just to be able to hit them this early, take them by surprise. Roman knew that sicarios, hitmen, usually struck in the dead of night. That’s why he’d rarely seen his father.
There was a janitor looking at them oddly, but other than that, it was quiet as the grave. Roman didn’t smoke often, but when he saw Wild Man light up, he bogarted one off him. They inhaled deeply, not wanting to think it might be their last.
Ford said, “No doubt they’ve got triple locks on the doors. The satellite made it look like a typical fifties ranch house, nothing special, no giant fortress with a moat.”
“Right,” said Lytton, Ford’s nearly identical twin. Roman thought he remembered a time when the two brothers worked at odds against each other, but now they were thick as thieves. “These shotguns will eat through any sort of door hardware. Everyone’s masks handy?”
Gollywow, Wild Man, and Roman all nodded soberly. There had been a brief discussion earlier about maybe knocking on the door and checking out the lay of the land, but that idea was quickly laughed off. The Bamboo Boys would just hustle whatever human chattel they had out the back door or whatever, while the Bare Bones were left holding their dicks in their hands. No, a commando raid was the only way to go.
With a simple thumbs up, Ford took off riding point. It had been agreed Roman could be second in command since he had the biggest stake in this business. He might not have been able to find Riker yet, but riding up on the Chinese who had orchestrated everything—the Bamboo Boys who were major players in the synthetic drug and human trafficking business in the southwestern states—would have to satisfy him for now. Bobo Segrist trailed them at a safe distance with his chase van. Bobo was a great getaway driver, perfect in these live wire situations.
It was strangely tense yet dreamlike, riding up to the house on Date Street. It was the way Roman used to feel right before blasting onto a stage in front of tens of thousands. There was something high-inducing about the narcissism, the power of being in control of the destiny of others’ lives. Everything lay on Roman’s shoulders. The success of the mission depended on him, and orchestrating things perfectly with a few other men. He was used to operating in a small squad like this. In synchronicity they could alter the outcome of many lives. He thrived on it.
Gollywow pointed to the video cams mounted to the house’s roof right before they all put on gas masks. They’d expected that, one of the reasons they had to act fast. The fence to the backyard would be harder to pass through, so it had been agreed Roman would just shoot his way through the front door. He shredded the door so thoroughly with the rapid-fire spray of bullets, it was easy to kick what remained of it in. The sound was deafening in the early sunrise quiet, where only a dog had been barking before.
The Bare Bones men leaped into the front room, Ford tossing his blue grenade of tear gas at two Chinese gentlemen who lounged on a couch, probably sleeping from the looks of their slack mouths crammed with gold teeth. As they reached for their weapons at their sides, Gollywow took out one with a spray to the chest, Roman the other with a similarly artistic dusting of delicate rounds. The Boners themselves all wore bulletproof vests, but that didn’t protect the entire body, so better safe than sorry.
Ford and Roman headed for the back bedrooms while Roman, Gollywow, and Wild Man took the kitchen and dining room, most likely to be used as offices. They could shoot up their computers and other devices—there was no time to pull a Tobiah and steal any information.
The smoke had started seeping into the back hallway as Roman heard what sounded like slo-mo screams. The feminine wails seemed slowed down to an unbelievably groggy pitch, and a white woman came barreling out of a bedroom right into his arms. Gudrun had shown him photos of Shannon but in the mist and confusion he couldn’t be sure this was her. So he shoved her back into the bedroom behind the open door, shouting, “Stay. Here.”
Her eyes were already pouring water from the gas, but Roman had to clear the rest of the bedrooms. Ford herded three or four women—some white, some Hispanic—toward the front of the house, so Roman bypassed him and entered the master bedroom.
Creepy. A Bamboo Boy was tied spread-eagled to the queen-sized bed with a flocked velvet bedspread wearing nothing but a diaper. This Bamboo Boy had also appeared to be asleep, with his enormous, colorful dragon tattoo covering his flabby chest. Roman raced on past the bed to grab a white woman sprawled in a chair holding a cat-o-nine tails flogger. When the white woman, dressed sloppily in an ill-fitting latex bondage outfit, opened her eyes to view Roman, she started shrieking blue murder.
He knew he had to be a sight, a biker slash SWAT commando wearing a gas mask like some sort of alien with antennae. He briefly yanked it over his forehead to explain to her, “We’re the good guys. We’re friends of Gudrun. Come with us.” Then he yanked it back down over his face because the tear gas was noxious. Ford knew his weapons and explosives.
The dominatrix still shrieked as Ford dragged her to the bedroom door. It occurred to him one or some of these women might not even want to go. What were they saving them for, anyway? Some of them, the Mexican women in particular, might not have anywhere to go. But surely “anywhere” was better than a life of slavery. They probably received no payment at all when stuck in this dilemma.
At the last moment, with the girl a screaming mess in the hallway, Roman pivoted back on one boot and shot the submissive triad member.
Which girl was Shannon? Roman made a detour to grab the one he’d stashed behind the door. Water virtually poured from her eyes at this point. He was only disappointed there were no more Bamboo Boys coming at them like video game zombies as they exited the house. Bobo Segrist was just pulling up at the curb with his intuitive driver’s precision, and it only took a few moments to load the women in his van.
Roman breathed freer now with his mask up on his forehead. They couldn’t prevent smoke from pouring out the broken front door, so time was of the essence. “Shannon? Are any of you Shannon? Who is named Shannon?”
The dominatrix took out her ire on him. “Who the fuck are you? Now do I ha
ve to go with you? Says who? I’m sick of this whole gross business! I’m beyond sick of these disgusting men who just want to be whipped and peed on.” And she started running down the street. It took Roman and Gollywow to chase her down, laden as they were with their vests and automatic weapons, and practically tackle her on someone’s lawn. By that time, of course, neighbors were looking curiously out their front doors, the cops had no doubt been called, and it looked for a few seconds that everything might wind up as a giant clusterfuck.
“I’m Gudrun’s stepbrother,” Roman snarled into Shannon’s ear as he half-walked, half-carried her by her latex suit toward the van. “She’s safe, and you will be too.”
“She never mentioned a stepbrother.” Shannon was still skeptical as he handed her over to Bobo. Once she saw her other girlfriends in the van, though, she relented, and by then, Roman could hear the sirens.
He peeled out just in time. In border towns like Page, the police were often half-assed about things. They knew that a lot of the time the culprits would flee onto the Rez where they had no jurisdiction, so they didn’t put a lot of time and effort into anything, another reason the Bamboo Boys had set up shop here. Roman counted on this as he tore back south toward Flagstaff, almost the entirety of the road cutting through the Rez.
They reconnoitered at the Flagstaff clubhouse. There was an antsy, jittery feeling in the air, although of course men were congratulating each other on a run well done. For the most part, the women seemed grateful to have been saved, adding to the satisfaction in the run. A few of the Mexicans were moody and disgruntled, as Roman had predicted.
The brothers convened in church to decide what to do about the entire mess. Lytton was the most fluent in Spanish, Knoxie being up in Jerome. He got from the women that they didn’t know where else to go without the Bamboo Boys. A lot of ideas were tossed around in church, but no concrete decisions were reached. The best idea was to turn them over to the Ochoa cartel where they could at least be paid to do something related to their pot farm. Lytton’s Pure and Easy weed dispensary got all of their shittier-grade pot from the Ochoas, the stellar quality stuff, of course, coming from Leaves of Grass.
Being well-rested, Roman took off to a nearby indoor gun range with Gollywow just to practice. That never hurt, and they were jazzed from the success of the morning’s events. Roman had no idea why he couldn’t shake the apprehensive, spooked feeling. He put it down to missing Gudrun, having to leave her behind in the Cordoban Housing Area. He called her, figuring he’d be the first to tell her they’d found Shannon, but all he got was her voicemail. He didn’t want to leave a voicemail telling her something so important, so he just said “Call me.” He thought of riding back to P&E tonight. There was no longer any reason to stick around here.
He had shot for about another hour with Gollywow when he checked his messages again. Nothing from Gudrun, but there was an eerily serious message from Wolf.
“Roman. If you don’t call me back within the next five minutes, I’m going to have to call Ford Illuminati. Call me.”
What the fuck? Roman caught Gollywow’s attention, they nodded at each other in recognition, and Roman went out front where it was quieter to call Wolf. The creeping feelings that had enveloped him intensified, nearly causing panic. It had been eight minutes since Wolf’s call, but he answered on the first ring.
Roman let Wolf speak. “Roman. There’s no other fucking way to say this. Gudrun’s gone. She’s gone, man. She told me to go down the hill to the store for some cans of tomatoes, and when I got back, she was gone.”
“Gone. As in…how is that possible? Is her purse there? Are the lights on? What’s going on?”
“Her purse is here. Everything’s here, her phone is here, the lights were on, the fucking spaghetti sauce was still simmering on the stovetop. Of course I’ve checked everywhere. And Roman…there are signs of a struggle down in the wine cellar.”
That fucking wine cellar. Roman had hated that thing from the start, for no apparent reason. He just had. And his first thought was Reg Eastwood. That guy always had an excessive interest in the fucking wine cellar.
“Reg Eastwood—”
“I’m on it. I just wanted to get the 10-4 from you to go over there and pound the intel out of him. I haven’t even called Ford yet. You’re her guard, you’re in command of the op.”
“Listen, hold your fucking horses. It’ll take me forty-three minutes to get there. Wait for me. I want to pound that worthless fucker too. I want to be there.”
Everything then became a blur of action. Roman’s brain switched gears. He went into the mode he’d been in earlier that morning, the robotic, mechanical mode he was familiar with from being onstage, from having a set playlist to perform, certain expected flamboyant maneuvers to execute.
This time, his expected maneuver was to bash the brains out of Reg Eastwood’s skull if he didn’t tell them where the fuck Gudrun was.
Roman told Gollywow what was happening, but made him promise not to tell Ford or anyone else. He peeled out of the shooting range’s parking lot in a state of barely-concealed terror.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
GUDRUN
I woke up sore with my skirt and panties around my knees.
I knew I’d been drugged by that shitty, synthetic Molly. I remembered being taken to this nineteenth century building on the side of a very steep, almost treeless hill. I’d been sitting up in the back of the van looking out the windshield. I thought I saw signs for Cottonwood, and then we went up a mountain, so I imagined we were in Jerome, where I’d heard rumors of Riker holing up.
He parked the van in a sort of carriage house, a separate building apart from the main house where I also saw his bike. So this was why no one had been able to find him. If he had enough supplies and never went down the hill to any bars, who would see him? He carried me up some stairs and into the house, but I could tell he was getting tired of carrying me. A biker who lifts nothing heavier than a mug of beer and who does drugs tirelessly isn’t the most muscular guy in the world. I know I’ve gained a lot of weight since quitting the modeling biz, and that stood me in good stead right now. One, he was getting tired of carrying me. Two, I didn’t feel as attractive as I used to.
But I don’t think sexual assault is all about sex, actually. It’s not all about who is too pretty, who is “asking for it” by looking gorgeous. So even though I’d gained weight, I wasn’t safe. Sexual molestation is more of a violent thing, an anger thing, a rage thing. And now that Riker somehow knew I was behind the guy who had shot him, he was filled with anger and rage at me.
He dumped me on some couch so smelly, a cloud of dust flew into the air. I could see in the ray of light that managed to come in the front window how it plumed upward like an A-bomb cloud. Blankets covered the windows, predictably, so I still couldn’t get a good idea where we were. Riker talked. He stood with hands on hips glaring down at me.
“I know what I’ll do with you today, and tomorrow. But I’ve got to hand you back to those Bamboo kids, those zipper heads, those panda trainers. I’ve already got the Presencións out after me—I don’t need Tony Tormenta coming to kill me, too. Oo, that moron at the army housing sure did a good job on your shirt. You’ve got bazongas coming out the yin-yang. Agh!”
Apparently able to stand it no more, he fell to his knees and nuzzled my tits like he had at the house—an animal slathering at the kill. His coarse beard scraped against the oozing welt Reg Eastwood had made up the center of my chest. I found I could sort of zone out, the way I used to when having to suck some photographer’s cock or other. If I rolled my eyes upward and focused on a spot on the ceiling, I could force myself to think of other, more innocent things.
Like, how much did Riker know? That fucking traitor Reg Eastwood had probably given him names, such as Roman Serpico. No doubt Riker had put two and two together that hey, this was the son of the Tormenta sicario, the one who’d been offed for whatever reason by his own cartel. If Riker worked for Tormenta,
he knew Dante Serpico. So he knew who Roman was.
He obviously knew who The Bare Bones were, especially the Pure and Easy chapter, having been their sergeant-at-arms for…decades? So not only did he have it out for Roman for being Dante’s son, he had it out for him for having joined his former club—the club who wanted all the tattoos burned off his back. This guy had all sorts of reasons to maim and torture me, but maybe I was worth more to the Bamboo Boys alive than dead.
I would get out of this eventually. Riker mauled my boobs with his mouth for a while, and it seemed like he might’ve been beating off, a hopeful sign for me. I couldn’t think of Roman, of his shapely mouth, his languid grey eyes, his thick glossy hair. Not while this was happening to me. I thought strategy instead. Riker had to sleep sometime. I could hear the occasional car going by in the street, so we weren’t that remote. I had seen other nineteenth century homes through the windshield as we approached Riker’s house. We couldn’t be that far from downtown. According to the descriptions of Roman, Knoxie, and Tuzigoot, Jerome was mostly a collection of antique stores, boutiques, and bars. This house probably belonged to an associate of Riker’s, because he sure wasn’t the antiquing sort.
That made me think of antiquing with Roman. Now that did sound like the sort of thing he’d actually do. Roman had a wide variety of interests. He’d traveled the world many times over with Little Accident. He was worldly. He knew a lot and it wasn’t just from watching TV. He hadn’t lived an insulated, small life, like Riker had.
Then I remembered I shouldn’t be thinking about Roman. It made me pine and long, and tears stung the backs of my eyes. I can probably get out of this. Maybe Riker would take some of his own Molly and pass out and forget to lock some door or window. More likely, Wolf Glaser would go beat the shit out of Reg Eastwood. Why had Reg sold me out, anyway? I understood he was a frustrated jerk who hadn’t been laid in a while, but like I said, sexual assault is more about violence than sex. Did he just want the money that badly? Riker not paying him was in my favor. Now Reg would be pissed. He’d be easier to break.