by Rachel Rust
Brody knelt back down in front of me, running his finger over my cheek as before. My face and body clenched in anticipation of another hit. Hot tears squeezed from my eyes. A salty tear slid down my right cheek and a burning sensation made my face clench even tighter. I definitely had an open wound.
“What do you think, Victor?” Brody asked. “Same side? Or should I even it up?”
Victor’s body tensed up. “Leave her out of this. I’m the one you want. She’s nothing but a liability for you.”
Brody grinned and ran a finger down the other side of my face. He backhanded me. The sting on my left cheek momentarily subdued the sting of my right cheek. But as I raised my head back up, both sides were enflamed with throbbing, stinging pain. Hot tears spilled freely down my cheeks. My mind tried to force calm, but my facial muscles pinched together and a gurgled sob bubbled up from deep within me.
“Leave her alone,” Victor said. “Her dad’s a doctor, for Christ’s sake. How are you gonna explain it if you beat her up?”
“Far as anyone else knows, she was with you all night, Greer.” Brody looked at me with a shake of his head. “Victor must have a temper, huh? Poor Natalie, all she wanted was a finished school assignment and that jackass Victor Greer beat the shit outta her.”
“Josh knows you were with me,” I said. “He’ll believe me when I tell him what you did to me. And then he’s gonna kick your ass.”
“Then I guess I’ll need to take care of Josh, too.”
My eyes grew wide. “But you can’t, you’re friends with him.” Tears streamed down my cheeks. “Don’t hurt him.”
Brody examined the cheek he had just hit. “No cut on this side, that’s good.” His eyes scanned my chest. “But maybe Victor’s right and the face isn’t the way to go.” He lifted my shirt and the cool air of the basement hit my stomach. He ran a finger just above my belly button, making me flinch. “Certainly there are other ways to get Victor to talk.”
“Don’t fucking touch her,” Victor said.
Brody dropped the hem of my shirt and scooted back, sitting in the middle of the room, looking back and forth between both of us. “It’s real easy, Greer. Tell me who you’re selling for. Who’s moving it? What’s being moved? Pills? Guns?” He leered at me. “Girls maybe?”
Victor didn’t reply.
Krissy. It had to be Krissy that Victor was now working for. She wasn’t The Barber, she was The Barber’s new competition. She had worked for him, so she knew all of his secrets. She had contacts and name recognition in this vast, disgusting underworld of drugs and girls. Finally, something made sense. Krissy was Victor’s big secret.
“I won’t touch her again,” Brody said to Victor. “But only if you tell me who you’re working for.” Brody stood and undid the button of his jeans. “If you don’t start talking, you know what’s gonna happen and you’re gonna have to watch while it does.”
My entire body lurched away from Brody, and my next inhale came with a quiver. Involuntarily, my head started to shake as Brody’s hand moved to the zipper on his pants. I threw a panicked glance at Victor, who had eyes trained on Brody’s face. My mouth opened to shout out, “Krissy!” To give Brody the answer he demanded in order to save myself, but Victor spoke before I had a chance.
“I don’t think you’re gonna do anything to her,” he said with surprising calm.
“Excuse me?” Brody asked.
“You’re not gonna touch her because Little Bobby likes her type just the way she is. And she belongs to Little Bobby. You can go upstairs and ask him yourself.”
Brody’s eyebrows shot up and he looked at me. “Are you a virgin, Natalie?”
I glanced at Victor. He nodded for me to say yes.
“Yes.” It was a lie.
Brody’s eyes scanned me. “What about Jackson Nguyen?”
Shit. News traveled far and wide at Kennedy High. In the eleventh grade, my then-boyfriend Jackson and I had decided what the hell. The whole thing was embarrassingly awful. From the sounds of tinny rock music in the background to Jackson’s jerky, awkward movements and nonstop panting. His breath smelled like Fritos, and since that day I had still not been able to eat any kind of corn chips. The whole ordeal had only lasted about thirty seconds from hymen-annihilation to his collapsing like a sweaty rag doll on top of me. We did it a few more times after that, and things never really changed except the background music and Jackson’s choice of pre-sex snacks. For a long time, I remained confused over whether it was really the same act the rest of the world raved about. In the end, I concluded I simply needed a better partner.
And Brody Zane was no longer in the running to be that person. A little bit of me ached over the loss of the sweet Brody I thought I knew. He had been so perfect and probably would’ve popped a mint in his mouth before panting all over me.
I shook my head. “I didn’t sleep with Jackson. Those were just rumors.” In my head, the lie sounded outrageously false. But Brody fell for it.
“Well,” he said, further unzipping his pants, “Natalie the virgin. Guess I’ll have to stop short of ruining your market value.”
My entire body trembled. Behind Brody, Victor’s face turned redder. His hands were under his butt. He was shifting his body through his arms, and had almost gotten himself free. Brody was faced my direction, but he was liable to turn back to Victor at any moment. I had to do something to keep him from noticing Victor’s escape attempt.
“You are such a pig!” I shouted at Brody. “I can’t even believe you did this to me!”
Brody smiled. He moved toward me, pants undone. I bent my legs up, then kicked at him as hard I could. I missed his crotch and hit his upper thigh. He jerked back, but kept moving forward. He grabbed my bound ankles before I could kick him again. I moved my legs as much as possible and he struggled to hang on to them.
“Settle down, unless you want some more water,” he said. “Josh was pretty thirsty too. Too bad he couldn’t join us tonight.”
I spit on him. It landed on his shirt. He grabbed tight to my legs and yanked on them, sending my upper body onto the floor until I was square on my back. He stood up, over me, a grin on his face. As he leaned down, a pair of hands launched over his shoulders. The duct tape between Victor’s wrists pressed into the front of Brody’s neck. Wide-eyed, Brody clawed at the material, but the muscles in Victor’s forearms were popped out in sheer determination.
They both stumbled backward. As they fell, Brody landed on Victor’s stomach. Victor kept his taped wrists tight against Brody’s neck and Brody’s legs and arms flailed. As his face turned to a shade of red-violet, his movements got more erratic, less helpful to his situation. His arms and legs shook until he went limp.
Victor rolled, shoving Brody off him.
“Oh my God, is he dead?” I asked.
Victor pressed two fingers into the side of Brody’s neck. “No.” He slumped back against the wall, chest heaving with every breath out of pure exhaustion. “You okay?” he huffed.
“I think so. You?”
“Dandy.” He motioned for me to move forward. “Come here.”
I scooted toward him, then turned around. He worked on the duct tape on my wrists. The pain of tape ripping away the small hairs on my arms was a welcomed sensation. As soon as they were free, I turned around and unbound his wrists. We worked on our own ankles in silence.
Once free, and the floor littered with gray tape, I jumped to my feet. “Come on! We gotta get out of here!” Brody with his nice clothes and fancy leather shoes was probably the easy guy to take out. The next person down the stairs would no doubt be twice the size and armed with more than just a wimpy, slap-happy hand.
But Victor didn’t get up. He searched Brody’s pockets and pulled out a phone.
“Oh, good idea,” I said. “Call the cops, but we gotta get out of here before they come.” There wasn’t enough time to explain my experience with Detective Novotny.
A loud noise upstairs stopped me in my tracks. Heavy footst
eps stampeded on the floors overhead. I ducked down, peeking up at the ceiling. The exposed floorboards creaked under the multiplying rumbles of movement. People yelled. Something thumped against a wall. Then there was more yelling and more marching of heavy steps.
“What the hell?” I whispered, too afraid to move.
Victor moved in front of me, one arm out to keep me behind him as he kept a careful watch on the bottom of the stairs.
Upstairs, the noise grew. More yelling. More stomping around.
Then the commotion stopped. The entire house went quiet.
Victor dialed a number. A mumbled voice answered on the other side. Victor glanced down at Brody and said, “He’s alive, but subdued.” Victor nodded and said, “Yep,” and then ended the call.
I tugged on his arm. “Come on! We’ve gotta find a way out of here!”
“Wait.”
“What do you mean wait? Who did you call?”
Before he could answer, Brody let out a moan and rolled onto his side. Victor reached down, grabbed him by the shirt, lifted him up a few inches and landed a punch clean across his cheek.
Heavy boots sounded behind me. I whirled around to find Krissy standing at the bottom of the stairs, dressed in a bullet-proof vest with a handgun drawn, her eyes on Victor. Her gaze fell to Victor’s hand where he still had a grasp on Brody’s shirt.
“Let go, Martinez,” she said, holstering her gun at her side.
Victor let go of Brody’s shirt and Brody fell to the ground, groaning with a hand to his cheek.
My eyes darted back and forth between Krissy and Victor. She had called him Martinez. Like the name Detective Novotny had circled in red marker.
Something shiny flew through the air in front of me. Victor caught a pair of handcuffs with one hand. He reached down and grabbed Brody under the arm, yanking him to his feet. He spun him until Brody’s chest and cheek were up against the concrete wall. Victor forced both his hands behind his back, clinching them in the handcuffs.
“Brody Zane,” Victor said, “you’re being placed under arrest. You have the right…”
With a woozy head, I fell to my knees. Krissy rushed up beside me, keeping me upright as my eyes stayed on Victor…as he arrested Brody. Two guys with heavy boots, guns, and bullet-proof vests rushed into the basement. One of them had brown hair pulled back into a low ponytail. Lip Licker. Victor handed Brody over to him, and he then led him away.
Krissy handed a black Kevlar vest to Victor. He threw it over his head and velcroed the sides shut. Three bright white letters bounced off the dark material—FBI.
Victor turned to me. Our eyes locked. No words were spoken, as if neither of us had any idea what to say to the other in that moment.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Leaned against the bumper of an ambulance, my eyes squeezed shut as white-hot pain seared through my cheek. The EMT said it was just a small cut, but my entire face was enflamed after she doused it with an antiseptic.
“There,” she said, giving the cut one last dab. Her paramedic’s uniform was too small, stretching across her ample chest. I wondered what kind of stitching held those strained buttons on. Steel, apparently. “It’ll leave a little scar, but it doesn’t need stitches.”
Next came more tests like following a light around with my eyes and answering simple questions over and over again after they were asked in different ways. My head felt surprisingly light given all that had happened. The sting of my right cheek was the only pain I had.
“Would you like transportation to the nearest hospital?” she asked.
“No, I’m fine.” I signed a waiver stating my refusal for further medical care. Or at least that’s what I think it said. The print was so tiny I didn’t even bother reading it. I just signed.
“Would you like me to call someone for you?”
My fingers curled around my phone, which Krissy had retrieved for me from the trunk of Josh’s car. “No, I’ll call my brother myself.”
“All right,” she said. “I’d like you to sit here for a while, get your wits about you, and if you change your mind about going to the hospital, let me know.”
“Okay, thanks.”
The commotion outside of Little Bobby’s house was chaotic. The entire property had been taped off with yellow police tape. From the front door of the house, police led handcuffed Little Bobby and Ramon to squad cars. Brody had left a few minutes ago in the back of an unmarked cop car. Everywhere I turned, people with law enforcement jackets walked by.
Krissy was up near the house, talking to the two girls in the leopard print pants, each with a blue wool police blanket over their shoulders. A woman with short black hair and black slacks walked up to them. She had a clipboard in her hand. She motioned for the girls to follow her. They got into a car marked Department of Social Services. A sigh of relief left me.
Victor appeared around the open ambulance door. His face had been wiped clean. A thick square of gauze was taped against his temple. He had changed out of Josh’s shirt into a plain black t-shirt.
“How’s your cheek?” he asked.
“Fine. How’s your head?”
“Just a scratch.” He reached up and removed the gauze. His gash had been stitched shut.
“Scratches don’t require stitches,” I said.
“You sound like a doctor already.” He smiled.
I didn’t smile back. “Who are you? You’re seriously FBI?”
He joined me on the bumper of the ambulance. “Yes.”
“FBI,” I repeated. “Of course you are. Why not?” The lights of cop cars and ambulances and fire trucks swirled all around in the black sky. The air buzzed with constant movement and conversation. “I’m dead, aren’t I? That’s the only good explanation.”
He chuckled. “You’re not dead.”
“And you’re not eighteen years old.”
“No.”
“How old are you?”
He took a deep breath. “Twenty-three.”
My face blushed and I pursed my lips to keep from smiling in the realization that I had kissed an FBI agent who was five years older than me. I was either a complete idiot or the most awesome eighteen-year-old girl ever.
He’d undoubtedly vote that I was an idiot. Mentally, he was probably patting himself on the back for having duped the stupid high school girl. Emphasis on girl. I glanced at his messy hair and dark eyes. Big deal if he was cute. He had lied to me all night. He was an ass.
“Do you know how badly I want to punch you right now?”
His lip turned up. “Go ahead. My face is practically numb at this point.”
I huffed. “You’ve done nothing but lie to me. I bet even that stuff you told me about being from Ohio was complete bullshit, wasn’t it?”
“No, I am from Akron. I grew up on a dairy farm, just like I said. It had been my grandparents’—my mom’s parents. My dad moved to Ohio from Mexico when he was twenty. Met and fell in love with my mom, they took over the farm and…”
“And then came you, their lying FBI agent son. How romantic.”
“I wasn’t lying, I was undercover. Big difference.”
“Same thing.” I crossed my arms to warm them up, but also to show Victor—or whatever his name was—that I was pissed as hell. “You had a lot of opportunities to tell me, even a little bit of the truth.”
“I couldn’t. It wouldn’t have been safe for either one of us.”
“How did Krissy—if that’s even her name—how did she know to find us here?”
“That is her name and she followed you all night. She knew we were out by the shop. She drove down and saw you heading back to Rapid in my car. Tailed you ever since, even when you got taken by Brody.”
I looked over at him. His dark eyes held my gaze as I asked a question I already knew the answer to. “What’s your real name?”
“Eddie Martinez.”
“Eduardo.”
A hint of a smile crossed his face. “How’d you know that?”
“I have my own secrets, too.” I straightened my spine, full of smug. “Who are Mason and his mom? Why are you staying with them?”
“Mary’s a retired agent. She insisted I use her for a cover. People collect retirement checks from the FBI, but no one ever really retires, ya know?”
“Why was she dating Leon?”
His jaw clenched. He leaned forward, hands clasped. “Leon was Rapid PD.”
“He’s undercover, too?”
“Was. Got in too deep.” Victor—Eddie, whatever—looked over at me. “Remember I said I didn’t trust cops ‘cause they’re human? That was the truth, too. Leon got a bit too much money dangled in front of him. Turned to the other side.”
I surveyed the crowd of people milling all around, looking for the owner of the cross neck tattoo in handcuffs. “Did he get arrested?”
He shook his head.
“Oh my God…dead?” I whispered.
He nodded. “When I came to at McNally’s, a fight broke out between Leon and Ramon. Ramon shot him.”
I had no idea what to say. “Sorry” sounded too generic, and “thank God” way too crass. It was probably better to just not talk about Leon anymore. “How long have you been undercover?”
He looked around before answering. “About a year. I got thrown into this task force right after the academy. Before I came to Rapid, I was down in Omaha working the same case. We tracked The Barber to Rapid City, and that’s when I came up here. There’s a huge trafficking circuit between Denver and Minneapolis. Drugs, guns, girls.”
“Girls?” I scoffed. “I guess that explains why you sold me to Little Bobby.”
He shook his head. “Victor Greer may have made a deal with Little Bobby, but there’s no Victor Greer, which means there’s no deal. And it wasn’t my call to bring you to Little Bobby’s house. It was Krissy’s. She thought it was safer to have you with me than wandering out on your own. Plus, you’re the reason Little Bobby even agreed to meet with me.”