by Lena Pierce
“But I was the only one who knew where it was!” she exclaims. “Not even Sissy. I’m pretty careful about that, Dirk.”
“Whoever did this had someone watch you,” I tell her. “They searched you for a weakness and when they found it …”
She swallows. “I never thought I would be saying this, but I really wish some crazy person had just firebombed the place on his own.”
“Yeah.” I laugh. “I know exactly what you mean.”
“What about these?” she asks.
She leads me to the rear door, the one we fled through, and then points at a set of boot marks. I follow them through the wreck, impressed that she managed to pick them out, and then join them up with the tracks that lead up to the lockbox. “They came in through this door,” I say, “and they went straight for the lockbox, no messing around. They knew exactly where to look.”
“So they had been watching me!” She folds her arms. “I hoped you were wrong, but you’re not, are you?”
“I don’t think so, Meghan.”
She shivers. “That’s really creepy. I guess I should’ve kept it somewhere more secret?”
“I don’t think it would’ve mattered,” I assure her. “If somebody wants to get to you and they have the proper resources, there ain’t shit you can do.”
“Wow,” she says, laughing humorlessly. “That’s reassuring.”
I shrug. “Sorry I don’t have any words of comfort, ma’am.”
She shoves me with her arm, and then falls forward and kisses me on the cheek, a quick brush, before falling away.
“What was that for?” I ask.
“Just because,” she says. “Do I need a reason?”
“I guess not,” I reply, thinking I could get used to random kisses from Meghan, random hotter stuff, too. Coming home after a hard day’s work to find her waiting for me in the kitchen, a beer in one hand and her other going for my crotch.
“You’re thinking dirty thoughts,” she says. “I smell it on you.”
“Absolutely not,” I retort. “I am a gentleman, Meghan. You know that. I’m the most gentlemanly person there is. I am the gentleman’s gentleman.”
She rolls her eyes. “You’re so full of shit, but I have to say that I like this new Dirk.”
“New Dirk?” I raise an eyebrow.
“Don’t act all surprised.” She slaps me on the arm. “You’re not pretending to be a walled-off fortress anymore. That’s what I mean. You’re a real living, breathing person!”
I take a step back, clench my fists, and scowl at her. “Don’t know what the fuck you’re talkin’ about,” I say, my scowl almost a sound. “You’re just talkin’ shit.”
“See!” She giggles, leaping at me. She grabs my face in her hands. “You can’t even stop smiling!”
I try and force my lips to remain a flat line, but they won’t. It’s like there’s some force in them twisting them upwards every time I try and force them down. She watches my war with a smile of her own, and then she reaches forward and presses her hand against my crotch.
“Here?” I ask.
“Do you want me to stop?” She smiles sweetly, tilting her head at me and fluttering her eyelashes. And she keeps rubbing my crotch, too, her hand finding my cock as it gets harder and rubbing it softly. “Because I could, you know, I could take my hand away and just leave you here, all hard and lonely.” She falls to her knees, giggling and looking up at me under the bridge of her eyebrows.
“Goddamn,” I mutter, as she wrenches my belt free and unbuttons my pants. “You really are somethin’ else, Meghan.”
“Don’t go crazy just yet.”
She pulls out my cock, which is already hard for her, which is always hard for her, which couldn’t not be hard for her when she’s putting on a show like this. I don’t know what’s come over her but I ain’t about to ask her to stop. She cups my balls with one hand, warm, and then takes the tip of my cock into her mouth with the other. The moaning is the hottest damn part of it all, the way she lets out a series of singsong—muffled—cries as she sucks as though she’s getting just as much pleasure from this as me. I place my hands on her head and rock back and forward slowly, but this ain’t a throat fucking. To my disbelief I find that I’m worried about hurting her.
But then she grabs my hips and forces her mouth down, making choking, moaning sounds. She looks up at me and I don’t need any words. The message is clear: Do it. So I do, because even if part of me worries about hurting her, there’s another part, a part that wouldn’t be able to resist her right now if there was a gun to my head. I push my cock to the back of her throat, watching her eyes water with the animal part of me yapping internally.
And then a sound comes from the front of the store and the moment is snapped in two. I duck down and take my gun from its holster, pulling my pants up with one hand. Meghan wipes her mouth. We smile at each other, despite the danger; whoever’s making noise at the entrance might be the same person who firebombed the place or stole the logbooks or doused the place with oil. A dangerous man, then, not somebody to be trifled with.
“What should we do?”
I bring my finger to my lips. “Be quiet,” I whisper, so near-silent she has to lean in to hear. “Stay behind me. And if I tell you to run, you don’t question it, y’hear? You just get fuckin’ running.”
“Okay.” She nods twice, steeling herself. “I can do that.”
“Hello?” a voice calls. “Is anybody in there?”
What sort of an amateur murderer calls out hello before he storms a place? I stand up to a crouch and peer over the counter, waiting. Maybe it’s a member of the public, or some teenagers messing around. It sounds like a fully-grown man, though, but I guess some kids can have pretty deep voices. I poke my gun over the counter.
A skinny almost gaunt man walks into the store. He’s tall and wears a leather jacket, his black hair tied back. It looks like his ponytail is tugging on his features, making him even more pointy. Everything about him is points: pointy nose and pointy chin and pointy ears.
I aim my gun at him, just in case, but then Meghan whispers in my ear: “That’s Badger Burnes. That’s the leader of the Broken Sinners.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Meghan
“Did you already contact him?” Dirk whispers.
“No.”
Dirk stands up slowly and I stand up with him. I’m heartened when he grabs me and moves me behind him. His broad, wide back is the obstacle between Badger and me that I’ve always wanted: a secure block between the man and the obligation of payment, the constant reminder that though I started this store on my own, it wasn’t without help.
I peek over Badger’s shoulder and see that he has his gun out, too, aimed at Dirk as Dirk aims his gun at him.
“Strange place to come sneaking around,” Dirk says.
“I suppose it is,” Badger returns. “But I could say the same to you, could I not?”
“You speak posh,” Dirk notes. “You don’t sound like the famous Badger Burnes, scourge of the fuckin’ world.”
“Maybe I’m not.” Badger’s sharp face softens into a smile. “Maybe I’m just a kind man looking to do a kind thing?”
“And what’s that?” Dirk strokes his trigger. I grab his shoulder and squeeze tightly, hoping to communicate the message that he shouldn’t shoot. I don’t want to step out from behind him because even if I know Badger in a passing sort of way, I don’t know him well enough to be sure that he won’t shoot at me. Yet I might have to; I am, after all, the go-between for so many violent men.
“I want to help you,” he says.
Dirk snorts out a laugh. “Is this some kind of fuckin’ joke?” he asks. “Because from what I’ve heard about you, Badger, you ain’t the sort of fella to go around helping folks out of the kindness of your heart.”
“And what have you heard about me?” he asks quietly. “And who did you hear it from? Did you hear that I was some madman who tortures puppies and hurts children, o
r maybe that I’m a psychopath and the only thing I live for is to cause people pain? Or maybe, even, that I’m the one who’s trying to drive this rundown town even further into the dirt.”
“Yes,” Dirk says. “Pretty much all that.”
Badger shakes his head, causing his ponytail to shake behind him. “It’s all lies,” he says. “You heard it from Jackson, I bet, and Jackson is the biggest liar this life has ever seen. I don’t know why men would follow a man like that. Well, let me make a correction. I know why some men would follow a man like that. They get to do whatever they want. They can fuck and hurt and burn, burn, burn to their heart’s content.” His eyes settle on me. “Hello, Meghan, it’s nice to see you again.”
“Don’t talk to her,” Dirk growls.
“Why?” Badger says, sounding innocent and genuinely curious.
“Because I just told you not to,” Dirk snaps.
Badger holds his hand up; his other is still busy holding the gun. “I didn’t realize you two were an item.”
“Well, we are,” Dirk says, and the fierceness of his voice sends tingles all over my body. “She’s my old lady, so don’t you fuckin’ look at her.”
Old lady. That means I’m his, now, that he’s publicly declared that I’m his. More tingles move over me. My mouth is still wet from his cock, the spit, and the pre-come, and I can still taste him.
“I’m not here to cause problems,” Badger says. “I’ve been hearing rumors about Jackson and the Shattered Hearts, about women disappearing in the night and still more women forced to do things they’d rather not do. I’ve been hearing whispers, Dirk Dvorak, of a leader who’s getting more and more volatile with each passing day, of a man who doesn’t even love his own sister.”
Before Dirk can stop me, I step out from behind him, around the counter, and stare down Badger’s gun. “You sound like you’re not happy with that situation,” I say.
“Meghan,” Dirk growls. “Get back, now. You can’t trust him.”
I spread my hands. “Are you going to shoot me, Badger?”
“No.” He smiles. “I’ve always liked you, Meghan, ever since you came asking for cash. I thought this place was a good idea: a hub, so to speak, a way for one violent man to get to know another violent man so that maybe they go their separate ways just that little bit less violent. And you were the perfect person to do it—calm, composed, a viper.”
I raise my hands to both of them. “Please,” I say, “lower your weapons. Let’s just talk this through, okay?”
“I’ll lower my gun,” Dirk says, “when he lowers his.”
“It seems we’re in a bind,” Badger mutters. “What if I lower my gun and you shoot me, Dirk Dvorak? What then?”
“Then I guess that’s your fate,” he says, smiling savagely. “But let me make you a deal. You lower that gun and I’ll do the same. I swear on my patch.”
Badger smiles, but it’s tinted with sadness. “I’m not sure what the patch means in this town anymore, Dirk. Swearing on it isn’t very … convincing.”
“What, then?” Dirk snaps. “I ain’t a fuckin’ idiot, Badger. I’m not lowering this weapon until you stop pointing yours at me.”
“Swear on her.” He waves at me. “I’ve heard other rumors, too, about a cold man who’s showing signs that he might finally give a damn about something.”
“No damn way you had me followed,” Dirk says.
“No need to follow a man when you can read his face,” Badger says with satisfaction.
“Fine. I swear on Meghan that if you lower your gun, I’ll lower mine. But I ain’t promising not to shoot you. Make a move I don’t like and it’s lights out.”
“Come on!” I hiss, looking from Dirk and then Badger. “Are we going to do this all day? Let’s be civil, at least. Remember.” I step into the center of them, obscuring their views. “This is my store, and in my store we don’t point guns at each other. So either lower your weapons or I’ll throw you both out!”
Dirk smiles at me, Badger smiles at me, and in that shared moment they seem to find the motivation they need. Badger lowers his gun, and so does Dirk.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Dirk
“Now that that nonsense is over and done with,” Badgers says, taking a step closer, “why don’t the three of us go to my town car so that we can talk in a civilized way? It is very comfortable. There is air conditioning, and I even have whisky.”
Before I can open my mouth to tell him to go fuck himself, Meghan says, “Do you think we were born yesterday, Badger? Just because I don’t want you to shoot each other doesn’t mean I want to sleepwalk into some kind of trap. No, we’ll pass on the car. Thanks.”
He shrugs. “Fair enough. So where will we talk?”
I walk around the counter and stand in front of Meghan. Badger is walking closer and I don’t like the idea of him getting right up to her, especially since she’s my old lady now. Damn, that hits me hard now that I think of it: my old lady. I said it in the heat of the moment and it didn’t even seem like a big deal, but now … I reach behind me and touch her hand briefly. She gives my hand a squeeze.
“We can talk in here,” I say. “I don’t see that we have to turn this into some kind of a fuckin’ ceremony.”
“No,” he says, still smiling that ingratiating smile. “Perhaps we don’t.”
Meghan walks to one of the aisle and starts sweeping dust and dirt and ash from the floor with her shoe. She clears a wide area and then takes a step back. “Here,” she says. “We can sit down.”
“Fantastic,” I mutter darkly, walking over to the spot.
The three of us sit down in a circle, with Meghan between us but closer to me. It makes sense for Meghan to sit between us since she is the mediator and has always been the mediator. She is the one who’ll stop me from caving his head in with the butt of my gun, and keep him from quick-drawing and shooting me.
“Do you think we can talk without hurting each other now?” she asks.
“If he doesn’t come at me, I won’t go at him,” I say.
Badger inclines his head. “That works for me.”
“So, Badger, what is it you want to say?” Meghan motions with her hand as she talks. I get a glimpse of what she must’ve been like countless nights. The way she holds herself is impressive.
“My club has been harassed for months now,” Badger says. “Men beaten up outside bars, other men’s apartments broken into. At first I thought it was just coincidence but then I realized it was someone specifically targeting us, trying to bring us down. So I set a trap and baited a few of these men out. It worked, just about; these men were Jackson’s pledges, Dirk, sent to probe for weaknesses in my club. I did some investigating and found out that Jackson has been selling women to traffickers.”
“Oh my God,” Meghan whispers. “Sissy said … something that makes sense now.” Her forehead furrowed. “My brother’s been selling people? I knew he was an asshole, a freak, a fucking pervert.” She grinds her teeth. “But selling people?”
Badger nods slowly. “He’s been doing it for almost a year now.”
“Shit,” I whisper, thinking back over the last year and trying to find something that would give me a hint of this. But there’s nothing. I spend my time on my own, or with women at bars, drinking and fucking and forgetting. I didn’t even hang out at the club; I just went by there when I needed to collect my pay. “Shit.”
“Shit indeed,” Badger says. “But you don’t look surprised, Dirk.”
“I am—I was, just not right now.”
“You knew about this?” Meghan turns on me.
“Only since yesterday,” I tell her. “Why do you think I had to get you the hell out of there, Meghan? I wouldn’t put it past Jackson to sell his own goddamn sister.”
“Neither would I,” Badger says. “The man is not a man at all, not really. The man is a beast.”
“But what about you?” I demand. “You’ve been …” I trail off. “Jackson said you’ve b
een pressing us hard.”
“Jackson said,” Badger repeats, and that tells me everything about what he thinks of the statement. “Jackson is a liar, Dirk. I’ve been working hard to try and clean this neighborhood up, to stop the Shattered Hearts—well, Jackson and his pledges—from selling hard drugs and women, people, selling people. I’ve been working hard but he keeps sending you and men like you after me: men who just want to earn a pay packet and don’t want to think about the consequences. Well, now’s the time to think about the consequences, Dirk.”
“You don’t have to lecture him,” Meghan snaps. “He didn’t know.”