Redd

by Leah Holt

  “You don't know that.” Sitting up straight, I pulled the young woman back against my chest. “You don't know that.”

  I wanted to believe my own words. But in reality, she was probably right.

  I had met men like Dominick and Val before, men that would stop at nothing to take what they deemed theirs. Men like that, they didn't care who got in the way. They just took and took and took, until they felt satisfied.

  And the man in charge, he probably had an appetite that was deadly.

  “All I want is to hear his voice one more time, that's it. What will I do if he's gone? What will happen to the rest of my family?”

  There was no answer I could give that would console her. So I sat holding her, feeling her pain and distress, knowing exactly what she was experiencing.

  I felt it. I lived it.

  The loss, the hurt, the anguish, it created a knot in your gut and made you feel sick. You want to breathe, but you can't, you want to speak, but you have no voice. And that feeling, it can make you do things you'd never think possible.

  Like fighting when you had nothing left to fight with—or killing someone.

  “Why me?” she asked, her tone deflated and full of so much sorrow it stabbed me in the chest. “Why did this have to happen to me?”

  “I don't know.”

  That was a question I had asked myself on so many occasions. When you think things couldn't get any worse, but the world kicks you down again and again; of course you ask yourself why.

  Why me?

  Why now?

  Why here?

  Why, why, why. . .

  You could do that forever and ever, but it changed nothing.

  That was a hard lesson I had to learn. Asking why doesn't fix it, asking why doesn't stop it from happening. All you can do is pick yourself up and keep going.

  Because until you're dead, the world keeps on spinning and you're still walking it.

  “I wish I knew, I really do. But I don't have that answer.” Running my hands up and down her arms, I massaged her shoulders. “Maybe it would help if I knew who you were. Tell me your name.”

  A cynical chuckle left her mouth as she peered at me over her shoulder, her lids lowering into thin lines. “Are you sure you want me to tell you? You weren't too interested earlier.” Nodding, I waited patiently. Pursing her lips, she shook her head. “Bijou, Bijou Garrel.”

  “Bi-ju,” I sounded out the letters, trying to pronounce it the same way she had. “Did I say that right?”

  “Yeah, you said it fine.” Her hands nervously tumbled around each other, fingers braiding and unbraiding repeatedly.

  Bijou—That's pretty.

  Stroking her hair, my heart began to beat for a different reason. It wasn't working off adrenaline or anger anymore, it was filling with something else.

  My body became warm the longer I touched her, my stomach clenched tight and buzzed with electric pops. Her hair tickled the skin under my chin, and a faint aroma of lavender swept over my senses.

  Trailing the tips of my fingers up and down her arms, my eyes drifted around her body, taking her in. Her small, firm breasts pressed against the cotton, nipples hard as diamonds.

  Moving my hands down lower, my eyes followed the lean lines and muscles of her legs, ready and willing to keep going, to stroke her harder, longer, over every inch of exposed skin.

  No, it's wrong. Don't be an even bigger asshole, Redd!

  I couldn't understand the sudden change, or why my body reacted so easily to this woman. I felt it that night too, when she peered up at me in the car to thank me. Her eyes were glittering in the moonlight, her skin glowing under the white hue.

  She looked so sweet and innocent. Her lips curved to speak those few simple words and my mind went into shock. I thought about what it would feel like if she wrapped her flesh colored lips around my cock. I wondered if her skin would flush pink and if her pussy would soak her panties as she sucked me off.

  It was a horrible thought to have, especially after what had happened. So I didn't respond to her thank you, I sat inside my head, talking my cock down. Forcing the thoughts away, I chalked them up as some demented response to the trauma we had just experienced.

  Why is this happening?

  I'm fucking sick in the head. What the hell is wrong with me?

  I had to put some distance between us. I was afraid of what I'd do if I didn't. “Come on, want something to eat?” Pushing myself up, I snatched the knife off the carpet, and walked into the kitchen. “Do you like peanut butter?”

  “I'm not hungry.” Crossing her legs, she sat on the floor, staring blankly at her hands.

  “Alright.” Leaning against the sink, I tucked my arms into my ribs. “Look, I'm sure the last thing you want to do is talk about it, but I really do need to know. Why were you in that house?”

  Cocking her head up, her eyes shot fire in my direction. It was a sore question to ask, I knew that before it left my mouth. I just needed to know. There were really only two questions I wanted her to answer.

  Why had she been there?

  How can I find them so I can kill them?

  Biting her lower lip, she nibbled at a thick crack on the surface. “Maybe you should tell me why you were in that house first.” The sharp angle of her jaw worked back and forth, grinding her teeth together. “How did you know I was there? Did someone send you to take me?”

  My brows shot up defensively, and I stared at her dumbfounded. “What? No, I wasn't there for you. I was there for something else, I just found you instead.”

  “What were you there for? What the hell could you ever want from that place?”

  Dragging my hand over my head, I scratched at my scalp. How much do I tell her? Do I tell her everything?

  Not yet. First I need to know about her.

  “It doesn't really matter, you're just lucky I was there. I don't think you would have made it another month looking the way you do—which is why you should eat something.”

  “I told you, I'm not hungry.”

  “Yeah, and?” Turning back around, I opened up the bread, and took out four pieces. Fumbling through the stuff on the counter, I searched for the peanut butter. “Just cause you say it, doesn't make it true. I can hear your stomach growling from over here.”

  Unscrewing the top, I made us each a sandwich, wrapping them in a paper towel and walking back into the living room. Holding it out to her, she stared hungrily, but didn't reach out to take it.

  Shaking her head, Bijou bit the inside of her cheek, her eyes eagerly devouring the food, but her mouth refusing to accept it. “No, I said I wasn't hungry.” Her tone was harsh, like she had just fought some imaginary battle between her belly and brain.

  Angling my head, I just stared at her. Her body needed food, she was weak and skinny, deprived for way too long. It made me hate the man that had her, I wanted to chain him up and let him starve just so he knew what it felt like.

  “You're obviously hungry, take it.”

  “Don't tell me what to do, you don't own me,” she barked. Scooting around to face me, her hands slammed into the floor. “This morning you barely said a word to me, now you want to boss me around and force me to do things.”

  “I'm offering you food, I don't think that's me bossing you around. And this morning wasn't a good time to talk. My head was still a little fucked up, and my sister was here.” Shaking my head, I sat on the couch. “I never expected to find you, it went nothing like I had planned. You, those men, it all took me by surprise. I needed some time to sort through it.”

  “And did you. . .” Pausing, Bijou loosened her fingers in the rug, plucking at the fibers. “Sort through it?” Under hooded lids, she looked up at me, her eyes searching for answers, aching to know what I was thinking, what I was planning on doing.

  I couldn't blame her for her curiosity. She had been held in a four by six foot room for lord knows how long, and suddenly I show up. Her world had been turned upside down. She didn't want to go back th
ere and she didn't know what to expect here.

  I couldn't give her the answer she was looking for, it was another question that she would have to live with until I figured it out.

  “I don't know.” Biting my sandwich, I held out hers again and nudged it in the air. With my mouth half full, chewing slowly, I spoke through clenched teeth. “But I can tell you one thing, you'll never go back to that place. That's a promise I can make you.”

  “You can't make that promise. Not if you have any idea who you're dealing with.” Her hand greedily came up and snagged the food as if I was playing a sick joke on her, and would yank it away before she could grab it.

  What the hell has that man done to you?

  Whatever he's done, I'm going to erase it.

  A light smile tugged on my lip as I watched her cheeks engorge with food and heard her moan softly as the flavor hit her taste buds.

  For that single second in time, I didn't see a broken girl at my feet. . . I saw someone else trying to survive.

  We're not that different.

  “Tell me then, tell me who I'm dealing with.”

  Cocking her head, her mouth stopped moving and her eyes grew wide. “You really have no idea?” A small crumb of bread hung on the edge of her lip as her mouth crooked in disbelief.

  Leaning forward, I attempted to brush it off with my thumb. Her body began to tremble, jerking away as my finger grazed her skin.

  She's been through fucking hell.

  I won't let anyone hurt her again.

  And I won't let him have her back.

  “Start at the beginning, Bijou, I need to know everything.”

  Chapter Eight

  Bijou

  Redd had to be joking, he couldn't be serious.

  My savior, the man who had freed me from that hell, he really didn't understand what he was dealing with. I could see it in his eyes. The curiosity, the eagerness for answers of his own, it was written all over his face.

  I could give him the answers he was looking for, but I wasn't going to tell him my story. It was too cruel to put into words, to vile to share with another soul.

  What I experienced, what I went through. . . I had known for a long time already, it was something I would deal with alone.

  “The man whose house you found me in, his name is Diablo. And to make a long story short, he's a fucking asshole.”

  “I don't want the short version, Bijou, I need the truth.” Bending over, he rested his elbows on his knees. “I have to protect my sister too.”

  Dipping my head, I stared at the sandwich in my hands, running my thumb up and down the crust. Tiny crumbs broke away, falling like bits of sand into my lap. Brushing them off, I took in a deep breath.

  I didn't want to explain the entire story, I couldn't go through every detail that scarred me deeper than the surface.

  If you could see my bones, you'd probably be able to see all the gashes Diablo delivered in thick lines, like bold unforgiving script. They would show a story, a history of abuse in permanent scars. His words, his hands, his demands; they all stayed with me in some way, layering my body like an onion.

  You couldn't peel them away, you couldn't cleanse my wounds or repair the breaks. Nothing, not a shred of a human being still existed anymore.

  Bijou was gone, she had been gone for a long time. All that was left was the box that carried her.

  “You can't ask that of me, Redd, it's not fair. You have no idea what it was like living in that house. You can't force me to talk about it, I won't do it.”

  Balling up the paper towel, he squeezed it like a stress ball. His eyes fluttered around my face, reading me, trying to pick me apart from the cover and see the pages inside.

  “Okay, then tell me about him. Who is Diablo?”

  “He's not someone you cross, I can tell you that.” Glancing at my hand, the thick scars from the burn smiled up at me. “He's going to kill you too, you know that right?”

  Redd's expression changed from curious to flat. The corners of his eyes crinkled, his nose twitching and flaring as he picked apart the idea of an unknown threat.

  When he pinned me to the wall, when his eyes turned ink black and his fingers held me hostage—there was no fear. I didn't fear him.

  What I felt was more of a slap across the face. Diablo refused to kill me, he'd bring me right to the brink, let me dip my toes onto the other side, only to yank it away. I was hoping that Redd would at least finish what he started.

  He didn't. The threat was there, but the strength he needed to complete it didn't exist.

  And in that brief moment, if he had actually choked me to death, I would have embraced it. Fuck, I begged him to do it. It would have been far sweeter to have died at the hands of my savior than the man that refused to let me go.

  But he couldn't do it, he gave me back the air and apologized. I didn't need him to tell me he was sorry, he wasn't the one who caused my pain.

  I was pissed that he had taken the phone, I had thought of him as another man trying to hold me in. . . He wasn't. He was trying to protect his sister. I understood that completely.

  “No one is going to kill me. I won't ever let that happen.” His tone was deep, crisp, filled with instant determination at the suggestion someone would even attempt to harm him. “And I won't let him kill you.”

  A flutter hit my chest, brief and delicate. But I felt it.

  Softening my eyes, I wasn't trying to make him angry or upset. I wasn't trying to taunt him or screw with his emotions. But he needed to know how much danger he had just invited to his doorstep.

  “You don't understand, it's not just you or me he'll kill. He's going to kill your sister too.”

  Redd lunged forward, wrapping his hands around my arms. “Don't say shit like that. No one will ever lay a hand on my sister.”

  My heart raced inside my chest, thrashing around violently against my ribs. His hands were still gentle and kind, despite what he was trying to provoke them to be.

  Firm thumbs stroked the inside of my arms, forcing a knot in my stomach. Heavy fingers held me in place, sending a shock to my system.

  I was excited, I was suddenly lightheaded and unable to focus on anything but his face. His lips were thick, his chest was puffed up, pressing his hard muscles into the fabric. The way his hair fell over his eyes and his skin glowed with hot sweat, it was too real, too warm, too raw.

  My nerves went wild, they were warm and tingling, but for all the wrong reasons. I was everything I shouldn't be and I couldn't understand it.

  All I could do was feel it.

  What the hell is going on with me?

  Drawing in a quick breath, I looked into his eyes. “I'm not trying to upset you. But you wanted to know who you're dealing with, and that's him. He's a vile man with no limitations. He doesn't give a shit about who he kills, not if they get in his way. You got in his way, Redd.”

  Dropping his arms, he stood up, turning to face the wall. Every muscle in his body pulsed, throbbing and beating as he allowed himself to hear my words.

  “Why were you there?”

  Rubbing my arms where he had just held me, the skin was still blazing under his shadowed touch.

  “Why do you think? He took me, I didn't ask to be there.”

  “And what about your family? You said you have a dad, he didn't come looking for you?”

  Shrugging a shoulder, my brows arched up high. “I don't know. Not that it matters, there was no way for me to know if he did or didn't. Diablo would never tell me that.” I didn't want to tell him that my father might be the reason I was there to begin with.

  I was afraid to say it out loud, fearing it would sound so much more terrible. Like I was auctioned off as property, given away like a bartering chip.

  Inside my head I could tame down the words, I could work them in a way that helped me to accept whatever choices he had to make.

  I refused to put any anger into his role until I talked to him myself.

  If I ever get the chanc
e to talk to him again.

  Pacing in a small circle, Redd's jaw locked in place as he grumbled. “Fuck, what the fuck.”

  “You still haven't told me what you were doing there.”

  “I went looking for something, and I found you instead. I told you that already.”

  Tilting my head a hair, I scrunched my brows. “Looking for what exactly?”

  Thinning his lips, he whipped his head over his shoulder. “I don't know.”

  Pushing myself up off the floor, I sat on the couch. “Let me get this straight; you don't know who Diablo is, but you knew he had something in his house, and you just decided to go take it? That doesn't make any sense, why would you do that?”

  I watched his shoulders roll forward, like giant boulders had just dropped down from the sky and pinned him place.

  “Forget it, it doesn't change anything. The details don't matter, what matters is how I fix it.” Spinning on his heels, his hands fell to his sides, hanging with precision. “I am going to fix this.”

  “There's no fixing this. There's only two things that are going to happen. Diablo is going to come for me, and he's going to kill you and anyone you love. That's it, that's how this is going to go. That's how he works.”

  Slowly, his head lifted up, eyes piercing mine and holding me still. “You don't know me, Bijou. . . And neither does he.”

  “If you knew what was good for you and your sister, you'd pick up everything right now and leave.”

  “I'm not going anywhere. I worked too hard for this, I won't be driven away by some prick with a stick up his ass. And if I leave, then you have no one. I won't do that to you.”

  He said it with such confidence that I almost believed him. A small flicker of heat ignited in my gut, warming my veins and sending chills over my body.

  It always felt like no one had fought for me. And now, here was this man, ready and willing to take on the world.

  You know he can't help you. No one has ever helped you.

  Desperation. . . That's all that was.

  The feeling faded, it morphed into a gnawing cramp that hardened my stomach and turned it to stone. I had to accept that my reality and his dreams were far different.