Blackout: A Romance Anthology

by Stephanie St. Klaire

  Pussy.

  I pressed him for details about Tony’s security as we ate, looking for anything I could use to my advantage. I wasn’t exactly experienced in this kind of search and rescue operation, but I’d spent my adolescence and adult life getting in and out of trouble, it couldn’t be that much different.

  We finished our food and parted ways. I needed to get back to Sawyer’s house where he and Callie were waiting so we could figure out a plan of attack. Marco was out for the actual snatch and grab, but my brother and Callie were all in. The thought of leaving Ellis with that bastard another night made my stomach lurch, it wasn’t an option.

  By the time the crowd cleared at the underground that night, I’d be on the road with Ellis on the back of my bike and enough cash to start over somewhere far away from the lights of Vegas.

  CHAPTER 6

  Ellis

  “Woo hoo! Kill ‘em!” Callie screamed. She jumped to her feet, champagne sloshing over the rim of her glass as she fist pumped and generally made a fool of herself.

  We were watching the first fight in the second round of the night, whoever won the next two bouts would go head-to-head in the championship fight. It wasn’t exactly an organized sport, but the bracket style tournament made it easy to follow. Tony and Marco had been hyping up this tournament for weeks, and it didn’t disappoint.

  The warehouse was packed, nearly double the crowd from the night before. The mob of spectators roared with every punch, growing more blood thirsty with every match.

  I sipped my champagne and tried to look like I was enjoying myself, but my mind was a million miles away. I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Nix. I almost had a heart attack when he stepped shirtless into the cage for his first fight and I got a glimpse at the deep scratches marring his back.

  I’d done that. I’d carved up his skin as he fucked me stupid in a public bathroom while my abusive boyfriend’s guard waited by the bar. The thought both excited me and made me feel like the biggest whore in all the land. It’s not like I had any loyalty left for Tony, but who jumps their ex-boyfriend after not seeing him for nearly a decade?

  Apparently, you do.

  And in a bathroom of all places, yuck. Things had gone from screwed up to an impenetrable clusterfuck of complications in less than fifteen minutes. Stupid hormones. That was the only explanation I could come up with, because if it wasn’t hormones then it was my heart and I couldn’t let myself get distracted by that stupid organ. Too much was riding on my being vigilant, if I wasn’t careful I might end up dead.

  Tony had watched me like a hawk throughout Nix’s first fight and for a panicked second I thought he’d put two and two together, but I was just being paranoid. If he really suspected anything he would’ve said something, Tony wasn’t exactly one to hold his tongue.

  After the first round, Callie made her way up to the platform, plopping her skinny ass next to me on the couch, much to Tony’s chagrin. He wouldn’t say anything though, he never did. Callie was Marco’s family, if he had a problem with Callie, he had a problem with Marco. Tony was smart enough to know that probably wouldn’t end well for him.

  He might act like the boss, but he knew where his bread was buttered. Without Marco’s contacts, Tony would be dead in the water. I’d learned a lot over the past couple of weeks living with Tony. Turns out, penthouse walls were thin. What I’d gleaned from overheard conversations pieced together with the things Callie had mentioned painted quite the picture.

  Apparently, Tony wasn’t all that well liked—by his employees or their business partners. The only thing he brought to the table was his business acumen and a ruthless demeanor. Now that he and Marco had essentially built an empire, his grip on control was starting to slip.

  I was beginning to think I was just a pawn in a bigger game. Callie was my best friend, and she was also Marco’s cousin, if he had control over me, maybe he thought that meant he had something over Marco. If it was true, it was a stupid move, unhinged even. But then again, Tony wasn’t exactly sane.

  A deafening roar sounded all around, pulling me from my thoughts. The two fighters in the pit were rolling around on the ground, each struggling for dominance. One of them, a man with long dreads coiled into an intricate knot on top of his head, took control, flipping the other guy onto his back in an impressive move that I couldn’t even begin to understand. Faster than I thought possible, the man with the dreads was on top of him, landing blow after blow until the ref finally pulled him off and declared him the winner.

  Nix’s fight is next.

  It was the only thought in my head as two large men dragged the barely conscious loser out of the pit. I could already feel Tony’s eyes burrowing into the side of my head. Something was up with him; I just couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

  Nevertheless, I had to pretend to be uninterested when the next fight was announced. As always, Callie was there with the assist.

  “Here have some more champagne, it’s yummy,” she said, lifting up the bottle up in the air and almost dropping it. “Oopsies!” Giggling, she refilled my glass.

  “Maybe you’ve had enough,” I said, eyeing her uncoordinated movements. She was well and truly drunk, that much was obvious. Callie liked to party, but she was no lightweight and hardly ever got sloppy. But she was in rare form tonight, I just didn’t understand why.

  “Boo, you whore!” she said, quoting our favorite movie from high school. “You’re no fun, you know that? Why aren’t you fun anymore?” she slurred.

  I chanced a glance at Tony who, as I suspected, was glaring at Callie’s obnoxiously drunken behavior with distaste. She was doing a good job of distracting me from the fight underway in the pit, but her antics were causing a whole other set of problems.

  It took a while, but I was able to get her calmed down enough to the point where Tony didn’t look like he was going to backhand her in front of everyone. Nix won his second fight and they took a short break so he could rest before facing off against the guy with the dreads for the main event. By the time they announced the championship bout, though, Callie was on her feet and doubling down in party-girl mode.

  “Fuck yeah!” Callie called out, as Nix landed the first blow of the fight. It was a solid right hook straight to the other man’s jaw. Dreads, as I’d dubbed him, stumbled back a few feet, but recovered quickly and came back swinging. Nix blocked a punch and threw a left jab at the same time.

  They danced around each other for a while, each of them trying to get the upper hand. Dreads feigned right and hit Nix with a vicious left uppercut.

  “Come on, don’t let him do you dirty like that!” she shouted, earning her a laugh from everyone within earshot. Everyone but Tony of course, he was glaring daggers at my friend, his annoyance coming back full force. She twirled around, ending with a bow, but lost her balance at the last second, teetering forward on the edge of the platform.

  “Callie!” I screamed, lurching forward to grab her before she toppled and coming up with nothing but air.

  I watched in horror as Callie fell head-first into the crowd below. Rushing to the edge of the dais, I jumped down into the crowd. The two men she’d fell on top of were helping her to her feet when I reached them.

  “Jesus, are you okay?” I asked, grabbing her face as I checked her over.

  “Why is everything spinning? Oh, god, I think I’m gonna puke,” she groaned, slapping a hand over her mouth.

  “Shit, okay, let’s get you to the bathroom,” I said, glancing back at Tony with desperation in my eyes. I didn’t ask him for much, the least he could do was allow me to help my friend.

  Tony rolled his eyes and waved us off. “Go, I don’t want her making a mess,” he sneered. “Maybe next time she won’t get so sloppy.”

  I had to bite my tongue to keep from going off on the smug fucker. “Thank you.”

  “Go with them,” he said, nodding to Joey, one of his personal body guards, and probably the dumbest motherfucker I’d ever met.

&nbs
p; Joey rushed down the steps and pushed through the crowd, making a path for us to follow.

  “I think I fucked my ankle,” Callie groaned, favoring her left leg.

  “Here,” I said, hooking her arm around my neck. “Lean on me as much as you need.”

  “Thanks, babe,” she slurred, hiccupping for good measure.

  We made it to the deserted back hallway and followed Joey to a dingy bathroom. He stepped to the side, taking up his post outside the door where he’d undoubtedly stay until we were finished.

  “Oh, god,” Callie moaned, covering her mouth again.

  “Almost there, just a few more steps, okay?”

  She nodded jerkily, shuffling through into the bathroom. As soon as the door closed behind us, Callie stepped out from under my arm and spun around to lock the door, the limp and overall queasy demeanor vanishing in an instant.

  “Wha—”

  Callie put a finger to her lips, shushing me. “We don’t have a lot of time, let’s go,” she whispered.

  “Go where?” I asked, thoroughly confused.

  She pointed to a window about six feet off the ground. “We’re going through there, Sawyer’s waiting outside with the car. Nix will follow after the fight.”

  “You faked that whole thing? The stage dive too?” I asked, hooking my thumb over my shoulder.

  Callie nodded, a well-deserved self-satisfied smirk spreading across her face. The woman deserved a fucking Oscar for that performance. I’d known Callie most of our lives and if I didn’t suspect anything, there was no way in hell anyone else would.

  “You’re an evil genius, you know that, right?”

  She shrugged, moving to the trashcan in the corner. “Don’t celebrate yet, we still need to pull this off,” she said, her nose crinkling up as she took a peek at the contents.

  Callie took a deep breath and started making loud retching noises as she overturned the garbage can. An attempt, I assumed, to mask the noise and keep up the ruse that she was puking up the bottle of champagne she’d been carrying around all night.

  Balled up paper towels and trash scattered across the grimy floor as she positioned the black industrial sized garbage can beneath the window. Reaching behind the toilet, she pulled out a black canvas makeup bag.

  “What’s that for?”

  She unzipped the pouch and pulled out a screwdriver. “It’s one of those crank windows, we have to remove the hardware in order to get through. Don’t worry, Nix loosened the screws earlier before his fight. We’ll be out of here in no time,” she said with a wink.

  “Who are you?” I asked. I was finding it difficult to align my party girl best friend with the woman standing in front of me. Callie was street smart, savvy even, but this was next level shit. It was like my best friend had turned into a super spy overnight.

  Callie smiled, her perfectly straight teeth practically glowing in the dim light. “I’m your person, silly.”

  It was true. Callie was my ride or die until the very end, if I’d ever doubted it before, what she did for me next proved it. She looked from the disgusting toilet to the trashcan and then up to the window before shaking her head.

  “The things I do for you,” she muttered, shooting me a glare before slipping off her heels. “Pretend like you’re upchucking and hold the can still while I get the window open.”

  I did as instructed, putting on my very best performance of a sloppy co-ed on spring break after one too many spiked lemonades. Callie tucked the screwdriver into the front of her dress between her breasts and braced her hands on the wall. Placing her right foot on the toilet seat, she used it as a stepstool to get her left foot on top of the overturned can. I watched in amazement as she gripped the ledge of the inset window and pushed off the toilet and steadied herself with both feet on the garbage can without making a noise.

  She cranked the window all the way open and peeked out. “We clear?” she whispered to someone outside, Sawyer I assumed. I didn’t hear a response, but she pulled out the screwdriver and got to work on the hardware, so it must’ve been an affirmative.

  I continued to retch, trying to break up the monotony of my sounds with coughing fits. I wasn’t nearly the actress Callie was, but I’d like to think I did okay, Joey didn’t break down the door looking for us, so that was something.

  “Here, put these in the sink,” she said, handing me the screwdriver followed by the rest of the hardware she’d removed. I did as I was asked in a state of shellshock. The moment felt surreal. Was I really getting out, away from Tony? Was it that easy?

  Satisfied with her handiwork, Callie hopped down from her perch. “You go first, just wiggle out the window headfirst, Sawyer will catch you,” she said, pulling me over to the toilet.

  “What about you?”

  “I’ll hold the garbage can and then follow you out, you’re clumsy as fuck, remember?”

  She was right, of course, I’d never been particularly graceful. A shiver of disgust ran down my spine as I kicked off my heels and followed Callie’s movements from before. My foot slipped in something wet on the toilet seat and this time the gag that came out of my mouth was real. Shaking off the ick factor, I took a deep breath and pushed off, climbing unsteadily onto the trashcan. The added height brought the window ledge to chest level. As promised, Sawyer was waiting beneath the window on the other side.

  Gripping the windowsill, I kicked off, my arms straining under my own weight as I pulled my upper body up and out of the window. The metal frame of the window dug painfully into my stomach as I wiggled myself out. When I got to the half way point, I reached out, thankful for Sawyer’s height as I gripped his shoulders and let him pull me the rest of the way out.

  The cool January air licked at my exposed skin as I stood barefoot in the patchy grass outside the warehouse, waiting for Callie to work her way out of the window next. Unsurprisingly, she followed with far more grace and poise than I had, landing softly on her bare feet.

  “Come on, the car’s over here,” Sawyer said, taking off at a jog.

  We hurried to follow him, on the lookout for any of Tony’s guys that might be lurking around. Sawyer’s rusted out Cadillac was parked a few yards away and we all piled in. I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding, feeling safe for the first time all night.

  I leaned forward, poking my head between Callie and Sawyer’s seats. “What do we do now?” I asked, searching the deserted streets. The fight must’ve still been going on because no one was milling around outside.

  “Now, we wait,” Sawyer said, relaxing back into the driver’s seat. He tried to appear calm, but the way his knee was bouncing gave away how nervous he was.

  None of us breathed a word as we idled in the shadows at the corner of the street, our eyes fixated on Nix’s bike. Any second he’d walk out the front door, climb on his bike, and we’d be free. But that didn’t happen.

  Nix appeared at the doorway to the warehouse, hood up and head down. But unlike the plan, three men in suits followed him out.

  “No,” I said on a hushed whisper.

  No sooner had I said it, then the guards lunged for him. The sudden attack took Nix by surprise and they quickly overpowered him.

  “We have to do something!” I hissed, shoving at Sawyer’s shoulder. The men were dragging Nix back into the warehouse while we sat thirty feet away.

  “No, it’s too risky, we have to go,” Sawyer said as soon as they’d cleared the door. He put the car into gear and pulled away from the curb.

  “No! We can’t just leave him!” I screamed.

  Unfazed by my hysterics, Sawyer guided the car through the dark streets. “There isn’t another option, Ellis. What are we going to do? Go in there and ask the nice thugs with guns to hand over Nix? He told me if he got caught, I had to get you out, so that’s what I’m doing.”

  “We can’t just leave town, we have to wait and see if we can get him out,” I said as Sawyer turned onto the main road and stepped on the gas.

  “Where are we
going to go? They know where we all live,” Sawyer said, his thumbs tapping out a frantic beat on the steering wheel.

  “Marco’s old place, he keeps it as a crash pad for when he and Martha fight. I know where he hides the key, it’ll be empty,” Callie offered.

  “Yes, let’s go there,” I said, thankful my best friend was also a damn genius.

  “Fine,” Sawyer said, taking a left at the light and heading for the highway.

  I wouldn’t leave without him, I just wouldn’t. There was only one way I was getting out of Vegas, and that was with Nix.

  CHAPTER 7

  Nix

  Blood bloomed across my tongue, the familiar copper taste filling my mouth. Turning my head, I spat, clearing my mouth and lending another stain to the patchwork of gore that decorated the dirty concrete floor. I briefly wondered how many different DNA profiles they’d be able to pull from a single swab of any surface in the dank basement.

  Before I had a chance to explore the thought further, another heavy fist sunk viciously into my stomach, knocking the wind out of my lungs. Sputtering, my shoulders drooped forward, my body automatically trying to curl in on itself for protection, but the way my wrists were tied behind the back of the chair didn’t allow much range of motion. My fingers were starting to go numb, but I methodically worked at the knots anyway.

  There were only three of them, if I could get my arms free, I still stood a fighting chance of getting out of this alive.

  “Where is she?” Tony roared, his face inches from mine.

  My lip was split open, pouring a steady stream of blood down my chin, I was sure I had several broken ribs, and I could feel my right eye swelling shut, but I managed to smile wide in spite of the pain. Poor Tony was still operating under the impression that he could beat Ellis’s location out of me; he didn’t understand what it was like to love someone more than yourself. All I’d ever wanted was to protect her. I’d die before I gave her up.

  “I’ll never tell,” I gritted out, forcing myself to breathe through the pain as I worked at the knots. “You should kill me now while you still have the chance.”