RJ answered him only with a mischievous smile as she guided his legs around while Ruby pulled him off the bed.
He landed like a ragdoll in the chair and grunted. After Ruby had hoisted him up so he was sitting straight, he said to her with some effort, “Are you Ruby or the other one?”
“It’s your girl Ruby, baby,” Ruby said with an exaggerated frightened whisper into his ear as she looked up at RJ with a mocking smirk on her face. “Baby, this little white bitch here is gonna kill me unless I do what she tells me to do. You know mama would never want to do you like this.”
DeBlanc was having a hard time comprehending what was happening to him. “Do me like what?” he asked, trying to turn himself in the chair so he could look at Ruby. “What is she planning on doing to me?”
“Shut up, both of you,” RJ said as she tossed Ruby the cashmere belt. “Tie this tight around his chest to the back of the chair.” RJ then squatted down and began tying DeBlanc’s thighs to the seat with the pink belt, trying not to look at his shrinking manhood as she did.
“What the fuck is going on, Ruby?” DeBlanc said, making a sloppy, halfhearted effort to resist.
“Stop talking,” RJ ordered. She pulled the rifle partially around so DeBlanc could see it. “Or I’ll shut you up for good.”
“You better listen to her, baby, ‘cause this bitch is crazy,” Ruby said, more concerned about not breaking a nail than getting DeBlanc tied down. “She just killed your boy McKnight out in the hallway with two wooden sticks.”
The scared, confused look DeBlanc had on his face transformed all at once into one of sudden insight. He laughed unpleasantly and said, “Okay, you had me going there for a moment, Ruby, but you took your little bondage game a bit too far trying to suggest that the ginger here could take down a man like McKnight.” He looked at RJ closely. “Although I have to admit, the gun is quite convincing.”
RJ handed Ruby a pair of shoestrings. “Tie his wrists to the wooden slats at the back of the chair.” Because it was a swivel chair, RJ had to make do tying his ankles to the end of the horizontal legs, threading the strings through the gap between the casters and the wheels.
“Look, Miss Whatever Your Name Is,” DeBlanc said to RJ, “maybe some other time, okay? But right now I’m too shitfaced for anything kinky like this so you need to cease and desist with the bonds ASAP.”
RJ finished tying the left ankle down and started on the right. “Hey you, Red,” DeBlanc said angrily. “I said stop fucking around and untie me.” When RJ continued to ignore him, he yanked his foot free from her grip and began kicking it at her. “I’ve said I’ve had enough, you stupid little cunt. Get me out of this chair right now. I have to go to the bathroom.”
RJ slammed the edge of the rifle butt down onto the top of DeBlanc’s left foot. As he screamed and thrashed from the pain, she stood up and jabbed him hard in the forehead with the barrel several times before getting his attention. “This is no game, you sick little piece of shit. You make one more move to resist and I’ll put a bullet in your head just as your little innocent Miss Ruby Black here had earlier advised me to do. Do you understand? Don’t speak. Just nod your head.”
For the first time DeBlanc noticed that RJ was stained the rusty color of dried blood. His eyes widened from the onset of a cold, creeping fear, and he nodded his head rapidly to convey his understanding of what she had just said.
“She’s lying, baby,” Ruby said, still behind him speaking into his ear while stroking his bare chest with one hand and combing her fingers through his wild hair with the other. “You know Ruby would never do you like that. This bitch wanted to shoot you straight away and your girl talked her out of it.”
DeBlanc didn’t hear Ruby’s lies. Time and space collapsed around him as the shock from the pain in his foot and the chilling realization that his life was truly in danger began to sink in, leaving him deaf and dumb, staring lost into an unseeable void.
After RJ had finished tying up DeBlanc’s right ankle, she went behind him and shoved Ruby out of the way. Ruby went sprawling to the deck.
“Bitch, I swear to god if you didn’t have that mother fucking gun, I’d kick the shit out of you,” Ruby said, her hate for RJ evident in her brown eyes.
“Yeah, well you’re lucky all I did was shove you on your ass for lying like that to this little asshole,” RJ shot back as she carefully checked all of Ruby’s knots to make sure they were secure. None were.
DeBlanc reemerged suddenly from the netherworld the shock had dismissed him to and began at once screaming for help and squirming in his chair to try to free himself.
To shut him up, RJ stripped him of his socks, rolled them into a ball, and shoved them into his mouth. But he immediately pushed them out with his tongue and continued screaming. She quickly shoved them back in and held her hand tight over his mouth. “See if you can find me something I can tie around his mouth to keep him from spitting these socks out,” she said to Ruby.
Ruby stood up slowly and glared at RJ.
RJ sighed. “Come on Ruby,” she said, exasperated by the young, indignant woman’s constant challenges, “will you please just… Okay, look. I’m sorry for shoving you to the floor. I really am. It’s just that I’m a little out of my element here and, well, I really need your help.”
“Fuck you,” Ruby said. She glared at RJ for a few seconds longer before finally turning to begin searching through the drawers for something to hold DeBlanc’s gag in place. After finding nothing useful in the first two drawers, she pulled out a pair of flamboyant blue and gold striped dress socks from the third one and held them up for RJ to see.
“Yeah, great. Those will do. Tie the ends together for me please.”
As Ruby tied the socks together, RJ sat on the edge of the bed in front of DeBlanc and pointed the rifle at him. “Where’s Killian?”
DeBlanc looked at her as if she were crazy. “Who?”
“The large man who came here to rescue the three of us. I was drugged up pretty good but I’m sure I remember seeing him before we were brought out to this boat. Where is he now?”
“It’s a yacht, not a boat,” DeBlanc said snidely. “And as for your hero, I’m pretty sure he’s having himself a grand old time right about now.”
RJ sprung at him and smacked him across the face. “You obnoxious little bastard. Where is he, god damn it? Is he on this boat?”
DeBlanc, stinging from the smack, said, “Y-yes, he’s in a cabin down below, being interrogated by the most awful Russians you can imagine. Don’t ask me what it’s all about, I was rudely dis—”
RJ crammed the socks into his mouth as hard as she could and tied the other socks tight over them.
Ruby resumed her glaring at RJ and said sarcastically, “Now what?”
RJ wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. “Well, you need to get your sister sobered up so we can figure out how the hell we’re going to get off this boat alive.”
Ruby rolled her eyes dramatically and started for her sister, but she stopped right before reaching the steps and turned back toward RJ. “You know what, fuck that.” With her hands placed firmly on the hips, she said, “I’m tired of you ordering me around like I’m your own personal nigger. You want Toni sobered up, you do it yourself.” She shouldered RJ as she walked by her and entered the bathroom.
RJ went rushing after her, kicking the bathroom door open before Ruby could close it all the way. Her aggressive behavior took Ruby completely by surprise. “Here’s what’s going to happen starting right now, Ruby,” RJ said as she hastily pulled the rifle around from her back. “First, you’re going to stop calling me bitch. Second…” She poked Ruby in the gut with the end of the barrel. “…you’re going to keep your fucking mouth shut and do exactly what I say to do exactly when I say to do it. You got that?”
Ruby laughed. “Old white bitch with a gun ain’t gonna do shit with it.”
RJ looked down at the rifle for a moment and then slung it around onto her ba
ck again. She sighed heavily and said, “You know, Ruby, I’m stressed out and on edge from whatever the drug was that was sprayed into my nose and, hey, I’ve already killed two men, one who had just finished raping me and one who...” She sighed again and then looked down and shook her head slowly as she reflected briefly on everything she had just been through. She grunted out a short, sardonic laugh, but when she looked back up at Ruby, there was no laughter in her eyes, only resolve. “But you know what, Miss Ruby Black?” she said, stepping in close, too close for Ruby’s liking. Her bright green eyes narrowed as they stared hard into the dark, hostile eyes of Ruby’s.
Ruby balled her fists and stood her ground.
“You’re right,” RJ continued, speaking now in a harsh, aggressive whisper, her face only inches from Ruby’s. “I’m absolutely not going to shoot you…”
Ruby’s smile was both vile and knowing. “Damn right you ain’t, bit—”
RJ plowed a powerful left uppercut into Ruby’s gut. The punch right to the liver sent Ruby straight to her knees, doubled her over, and left her gasping for air. RJ reached down, grabbed a handful of her hair, and yanked her head back so she had to look up at RJ as RJ spoke to her. “But just because I’m not going to shoot you, doesn’t mean I don’t want to.”
Ruby stared up helplessly at RJ, trying not to show her pain, trying to remain defiant. “Fuck you,” she said between breaths.
RJ leaned her face down close to Ruby’s. “Yeah, that’s right. Fuck me, you ungrateful, scared little girl. Jesus, I’m so sick and tired of your disrespect and ingratitude toward your sister. She has literally given up everything… risked her life. All for you. And you know what? So has Killian. So have I.”
“And just who the fuck asked you to do any of that bullshit? It wasn’t Ruby Black. Ruby Black don’t need no kind of help, especially from no bitch ass like you, Toni, or that punk ass boyfriend of yours.”
“You know what, Whitney Steele,” RJ said, releasing her grip on Ruby’s hair. “I no longer give a fuck about you. You want to stay here with these animals and die a whore, that’s on you. From now on, my only concern is getting Toni, Killian, and myself off this boat alive. Anyone who gets in my way of that objective, including you, risks death. Simple as that.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
Toni, still feeling her high, but awake now and sitting up on the couch holding a glass of ice water in between two shaky hands and sipping at it tentatively, watched DeBlanc with all the little might she had as he slept bound to his chair up in the bedroom suite, his head lolled to the side in what looked to be a most uncomfortable position. But it wasn’t DeBlanc’s comfort that Toni was thinking of right now. Ruby, across the room sitting sullenly at the bar, stared off somewhere into middle space away from Toni; occasionally she would huff out a hostile sigh and inspect her long, manicured fingernails with brief disinterest before returning her angry attention back to nothing in particular. RJ was in the bathroom.
After a long period of abrasive silence, Toni turned her attention from DeBlanc to Ruby and watched her sister as she sat there looking angry, wanting to speak to her, but not wanting the confrontation that was certain to be triggered by what it was she wanted to speak about.
“What?” Ruby said abruptly without looking at Toni.
Toni was startled by the sudden intrusion into the silence of her thoughts. “Nothing. I just…”
“If it’s nothing then why you looking at me like you got something to say?”
Toni looked down and stared into the whiskey tumbler between her hands. “I don’t… It’s just…”
“Whatever it is you think you got to say, I don’t want to hear it, girl.” Ruby said, wanting to sound resolved, but unable to keep the sickening angst she had been trying to bury from creeping into her voice.
Toni looked back up at her sister with tears in her eyes. “Earlier, when all three of us were high…” She paused to take in a deep breath, stalling in an effort to find the confidence needed to continue.
Ruby, still not looking at Toni, said softly, barely above a whisper. “Shut up, Toni.”
But Toni continued despite her sister’s weak protestation. “Earlier, did we… you and I, I mean… did we have s—” Her voice caught on the unspeakable word and turned into an uncontrollable sob. Fat tears rolled down her cheeks and dropped heavily upon her bare thighs.
Ruby repeated herself, louder this time. “Shut up, you hear me, girl? When she turned to face her sister, she was blinking back her own tears. “Don’t you never say one word to me again about any of that shit. Ever.” She turned back away from Toni and closed her eyes, squeezing them hard, trying to rid them of their wet, unwanted reminders.
RJ exited the bathroom in a rush wearing one of Ruby’s Adidas tracksuits, a navy-blue original with double white stripes running down the outsides of the sleeves and pantlegs. Her right hand carried a pair of Ruby’s incongruous but still matching dark blue leather Chuck Taylors; her left hand worked a thick cream-colored towel vigorously over her head drying her hair. The automatic rifle was slung familiarly upon her back. “I never want to wear another bikini for the rest of my life,” she said as she removed the towel from her head. She looked down at the two sisters sitting silent and unmoving across from each other in the living room, staring off in different directions. She could feel right away the dark emotive silence languishing heavily between them.
“Same here,” Toni said weakly.
Ruby said nothing.
RJ sat on the end of the bed and began putting on the Chuck Taylors. “How about you get out of that thing then as fast as you can, Toni, and put on something decent so we can find Killian and get the hell out of here.”
It wasn’t long before Toni emerged from Ruby’s wardrobe with another Adidas tracksuit, this one pink with white stripes, and a pair of white Adidas sneakers with pink stripes. She took the items with her into the bathroom.
RJ went down to the living room and took Toni’s spot on the couch. She too fell quickly into silence, lost in her own thoughts as she waited for Toni with some impatience. After a while she looked over at Toni’s sister. “What can you tell me about the yacht, Ruby? Is there any way for us to escape without having to put a gun to the captain’s head, or whoever it is driving this boat, and ordering him to take us back to port?”
“We’re at anchor so there ain’t no captain onboard,” Ruby said without the usual underlying tone of attitude in her voice. “And the crew and housekeeping staff was all flown off earlier in the day.” And then, with attitude, “Oh, and by housekeeping staff, I mean a bunch of half-naked teenage Mexican whores DeBlanc gets from his cartel buddies to keep him and his yacht ‘serviced,’ if you know what I mean.”
RJ looked somewhat shocked by the information. “Wow. If getting rid of the crew and staff isn’t a sign that they were planning to disappear someone… Killian and me, most likely… then nothing is.”
“I know damn well they weren’t planning on disappearing Ruby Black,” Ruby said as she inspected her fingernails.
A phone on the desk up in the bedroom suite began to ring, startling them both.
Toni, dressed now, exited the bathroom and looked first at the direction of the ringing and then to RJ.
Woken by the sudden noise, DeBlanc again began a muffled, unintelligible screaming for help.
“That’s the satellite phone. You want me to answer it?” Ruby said.
RJ considered Ruby’s offer of assistance with some suspicion for the length of two rings and then said, “No, not you.” She looked at Toni. “You answer it. Make whoever it is believe you’re Ruby.”
As Toni ran over to the phone to answer it, RJ ran up to the bedroom suite and came to a stop in front of DeBlanc. She leveled the rifle at his head and said, “One more sound from you and you’re dead.”
Toni picked up the retro-looking handheld satellite phone from the desk and looked it over briefly. It was squat and bulky, especially compared to the sleek smartphones of t
he day. She pressed the button with the green phone on it and answered the call just as the fifth ring ended. “Yes,” she said, trying her best to imitate her sister’s provocative tone. After listening to the caller for a moment she said, “Could you hold on for me please. I’ll ask him.”
She placed the phone’s mouthpiece against her stomach and whispered, “It’s some guy named Hammond. Says he wants to know what time DeBlanc was planning on returning Mr. Rudenko to the resort. He needs to send the helicopter out to pick them up.”
RJ thought about it for a moment. “Tell them that DeBlanc doesn’t need the helicopter. That they’ve decided to stay overnight on the yacht.”
“But can’t we use the helicopter to take us back?” Toni whispered.
RJ shook her head. “I don’t know… seems a bit too risky. If it comes to it, we can always order it to be flown out later now that we know you can speak on behalf of DeBlanc.”
Toni relayed the message. She listened to the response and then covered the mouthpiece again.
“He wants to know if he should have the chef and some of the housekeeping staff flown back in.”
RJ ripped out the gag from DeBlanc’s mouth. “Other than the helicopter, how else can we get off this boat and return to port?” she said quickly in a demanding whisper.
DeBlanc seemed to not have heard her. He just stared at her with his mouth open as if it were still stuffed with the dirty socks.
“We don’t have time for your bullshit, DeBlanc.” She gave him a hard slap with the back of her hand and then repeated her question. DeBlanc tried to speak, but all he could do was sputter out nonsense. RJ smacked him again, harder.
His eyes focused somewhat. “We… we have a tender… a small boat.”
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