CUT (New Adult Dark Romance)

by Cheri, Ann

  “Sure, make fun of me why don’t you. And I’m sure you’ve always dreamed of being a big bad drug dealing cage fighter?”

  “Boats…”

  “What?” I asked, glancing over as Marcus shook his head.

  “I love boats. Had a little hobie cat as a kid, sailed it three times a week. Always wanted to start up a little boat dealer. Buy them, sell them, sail them. Boring, I know…”

  “The florist and the used boat salesman. Not exactly Romeo and Juliet, is it?” I said, laughing.

  “Now who’s making fun?” Black said, reaching over and poking me in the ribs.

  “I’m sorry…”

  “I was born into this shitpile. I never wanted this to be my whole life. Dad never gave me a choice in the matter. I’m in too deep.”

  My eyes looked over the deep lines in his face, and I could imagine the faded lines on his arms and legs. He’d seen pain, loss, sadness. I knew those lines, I saw them in the mirror every single day. We were both broken. Two little cogs in a big machine that nobody could stop. I turned back to the window as we drove past the bridge that carried traffic over to Coronado island, continuing up harbor and along the water.

  “So why don’t you make the change? You said you want to take things legit… Why don’t you do it?” I asked, feeling heavy in my seat.

  “I’ve already laid down the groundwork. You’ve only seen the edge of it. We’re setting up a restaurant on the east side, I’ve got some of the guys helping fix up a couple apartment complexes up in Los Angeles. We’re already running a pretty big trucking operation for Carcetti that we’re going to run squeaky clean as soon as we pull out of the Italian contracts. It’s a risk, but I’m taking the club money and putting it to work. And… There’s this.

  The car pulled into a parking lot, a tall building sitting next to a gated space, the water stretching off behind the bars.

  “What is this?”

  “It’s the only thing my father left me that I wanted… My grandfather owned this place. Ran a little marina out back.”

  “Your boat store?” I asked, staring at the space.

  “No, I gave up that dream a long time ago… This is going to be home for the next cage. We’re going to break into the US fighting scene. I want to be hosting every big cagefight in this city, and this is the place to do it. The interior is huge, you can’t beat the location, and it’ll fit one hell of a lot more spectators. And, there’s that,”

  I followed his pointing finger to the small attached building on the far side of the lot.

  “That might make a nice flower shop.”

  My breath caught in my throat, staring out the window past Black’s smiling face.

  “You’re crazy. You really think I’m going to go sell flowers?”

  “You make me want to be crazy… Flower girl.”

  “What about the others, are they good with your little plan?”

  “I’ll always be Rampant sweetheart, always, but there’s nothing that says we need to keep dying for the cause. We’re not going to break our contracts, we’ll see this deal with the Italians through, but once that’s done it’s business and real estate. I want my son to grow up an entrepreneur, not an outlaw.”

  “You have a son?”

  “Not yet,” he replied, smiling at me wickedly. “I’m hoping I might meet a girl to help me with that one…”

  ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼

  The drive back to the clubhouse was much quieter. I sat back as Black lay his hand on my leg, just staring out the window and dreaming of the future. Could it really be so simple?

  The flashing lights of a half a dozen police cars certainly had me second guessing things. The entire alley leading to the roll-up entrance was blocked off, and as I looked over my shoulder, two more cars had rolled in behind us to halt any chance of escape. Black drove calmly as I hyperventilated in the passenger seat, pulling the jag into the garage and stopping for the plethora of armed officers asking us to exit the car with our hands over our heads.

  “Don’t worry sweetheart, it’s gonna be ok, they do this shit three times a year” Black said, stepping out of the car with his smile beaming. I was less brave, staring at the agents clad in white collared shirts and bulletproof vests. As we were walked to the main room, I could see that at least half a dozen other club members were kneeled down on the concrete as drug dogs swept the building.

  “What’s this all about officer?” Black asked the closest officer to him. She was a tall dark skinned woman with a wild look behind her dark hazel eyes. Her feet clicked on the concrete, a wicked pair of boots peeking out from under her long and dark slacks.

  “Somebody shot up a gang up on the north of town. Suppose you wouldn’t know anything about the Kings would you?”

  “Bunch of criminals, probably got what they deserved,” Black replied, flashing a smile. “That doesn’t explain why you’re tearing up my shop.”

  “Got a hot tip about your little shithouse here. Cocaine, human trafficking, and guns that should link right back to a few recent crimes.”

  “You can search until you turn blue, we don’t deal in drugs, we definitely don’t deal in women, and any guns you come across are registered and clean. We’re a recreational boxing club, not a bunch of outlaws.”

  “Look shithead, your daddy spent plenty of time behind bars and we have every reason to believe it didn’t stop when that idiot shed his fucking mortal coil,” the woman spat. Black went quiet, waiting patiently as I hyperventilated.

  “Tell me we’ve got something,” the officer shouted as a few men came walking out from the boardroom and others moved down the stairs from the upper floor.

  “All I’ve got is a couple bottles of vicodin with proper prescriptions and a few registered firearms. It’s all coming up clean,” one of the men replied, looking more than a little frustrated.

  “I want IDs on the girls in back.”

  “Already got em. Four women, all registered massage therapists with proper licenses from the state of California. One of them is on a work visa but it’s all on the up and up.”

  “Keep looking. Tear this place up end to end if you have to,” the detective shouted.

  “I’m not my father, and this is not my father’s club,” Black said with a steady voice. “We’re in real estate, business, I’ve got a stock portfolio for Christ’s sake. You’re not going to find anything because there’s nothing to find.”

  “Let them up,” one of the collared agents shouted, waving at the leather clad bikers. I could see Ash and Acre among them, shit eating grins plastered across their faces. “Not you two,” he shouted as I tried to stand. I dropped back down, my knee digging into the concrete uncomfortably as I held my hands behind my head. Tears were welling up in my eyes, and I could see Black wasn’t taking this well. His face was flushed with an anger I hadn’t seen in him since the day he kicked Jude out of the club.

  “We can play this game Marcus. I can have my people up your ass six days a week if that’s what it takes. Sooner or later, you’re going to fuck up. The Kings are a pile of shit and I’m glad to see them pull out of town, but if I find out you’re the ones who pulled the trigger I’ll have your nut sack on a platter and feed it to the goddamned district attorney.”

  I stared up at the man in the white shirt, his face twisted and snarling.

  “I told you, we’re legit. I don’t know who shot those fucking Kings up but good goddamned riddance. I’m just trying to run a business here. Now if you’ll kindly let me up, I’d like to get back to work.”

  “I better hear nothing. Not one fucking peep. I catch one of you so much as jaywalking and I’ll be so deep you’ll have to call a proctologist to pull me out.”

  “Thank you officer, may I stand up now or are you going to keep threatening me with sex crimes?”

  “Let them up. Everybody out of here, lets let these ‘business men’ get back to work.”

  The man stepped away, leaving us staring at the female detective as officer
s began to file out of the building.

  “I’m not letting this go Black,” the woman said ruthlessly.

  Black didn’t so much as honor her with a response, spitting on the concrete floor and watching her coldly as she followed the other officers.

  I didn’t move, waiting till Black pulled me to my feet before I finally breathed a little easier. The rest of the club seemed far more relaxed. Some of them more than relaxed. Penny came out from the back with sex-hair flying all over the place. Sure didn’t take her long to forget about Marlo… Turning, I started to say something to Black, but he cut me off with a finger over his lips. Everyone seemed to understand it but me, because it was that point I realized nobody was saying a word as the police filed out and drove away.

  ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼

  I sat quietly, watching men scour the building. They went around pulling furniture over, bottles went crashing off the bar’s shelf, and someone was even unbolting vents on the air conditioning system that hung from the ceiling. After a few hours, the men had come back together near the wall. I leaned in with everyone else as Black was the first to say anything from within the ring of silent men.

  “Ears?”

  Acre nodded, holding up two fingers. He pointed over to the board room, then off to the side of the bar.

  Black smiled widely, standing up straight, his voice booming.

  “Ok, looks like we’re clear. Next time we get raided I want to know about this shit before I come pulling up. How the fuck did they get up the alley without somebody putting out the alarm?”

  “Dig was on watch,” Acre said, spitting in the direction of one of the men. All eyes turned toward a thin and lanky kid who couldn’t be old enough to drink yet.

  “I had to use the shitter…” Dig replied, fidgeting.

  “You’re lucky I don’t use you as a shitter,” Black said, his teeth bared. “I’m laying down the fucking law on this. Any asshole that leaves that alley without eyes on it is losing their jacket.”

  “I’m sorry,” Dig replied, his voice trembling.

  Black ignored him, shaking his head.

  “Charlie, you and Dig need to get up to LA and check on our shit. The last thing we need is these fucks slowing down our work right now,” Black said firmly. Dig nodded, slinking away from the group with a second man I hadn’t been introduced to. The group was quiet as they climbed into one of the large moving vans parked along the edge of the warehouse. Black drew the members in close. The echoing rumble of the van’s big engine was oppressive, even causing the massive roll-up door to rattle in its tracks.

  A circle collapsed around Black and he spoke up, his voice barely audible even at close range under the cacophony of sound. “No talking business in here till we pull the ears. Charlie and Dig will drive up to the apartments and oversee repairs on our real estate, that aught to keep the feds off our ass for a few days. I need a few of you to stay here and make this place look busy. The rest of you need to fan out into the city for a day or two, then make your way to the dockside warehouse. We’ll set up shop there until we finish up the deal with Carcetti.”

  A few of the men nodded or gave the thumbs up.

  “Jude fucking sold us out, didn’t he?” Acre asked, voice growling with anger. “I’ll tie his dick around a fucking chainsaw.”

  “Maybe he did, maybe the Kings did, the important thing here is we don’t lose our fucking cool. Keep your nose clean and we get out of this. The shipment is hitting and I’ll be damned if we’re going to let some rat fuck it up for us. We need all bodies to get this shipment off. Get in touch with the Italians and tell them we need to shift the drop north, they’ll know what to do.”

  My ears split as the motor roared and I found myself watching Dig and Charlie roll out before snapping my attention back on Black.

  “There’s no time for a change Black, you know this shit is going down…” Acre said, gnashing his teeth.

  “We’ll make it work. This isn’t our first fucking rodeo,” Black responded, patting Acre on the back. “I’ll see you up by the dockside.”

  Acre nodded, waving a hand around above his head. The men pulled away from Black, climbing into vehicles of their own.

  “Roll out people. Penny, you ride shotgun with Acre. Somebody tell the girls in back we’re gonna be out for a few days and ask them to behave themselves.”

  Black turned to me, finally noticing the tears on my face. “It’s fine sweetheart, you’re coming with me. I promise it’s gonna be ok.”

  “You heard the boss, roll the fuck out,” Acre shouted, his voice booming. Black lifted me up, carrying me back to his car, throwing me into the passengers seat. His hand gave a little circular motion in the air. Together, we flew out into the night, the cars splitting up as we reached the edge of the alley. I tucked in tight to Black as we went our own way. It took awhile before I realized we weren’t heading for the dock. Part of me wanted to ask Black where exactly we were going, but something told me I shouldn’t say a word. I drew my knees up against my chest, my arms cold in the rushing air.

  Oh my God!

  My mind cried out as Black swung the car into the pull-off area beside the lanes, tearing past dead-stopped rush hour traffic at high speed. I slammed my eyes shut, adrenaline rushing through my body as we tore along illegally, taking us impossibly quickly across town. Everything about this was wrong. I couldn’t look, couldn’t bring myself to watch. My heart beat straight out of my chest. Where could we be going? What in the hell was Black doing?

  Soon enough, we pulled off the freeway, veering down a side street as I opened my eyes. The car swung left across traffic and into a parking lot. Wide eyed, I stared at the big building almost in disbelief. A steakhouse? My stomach rumbled. We’d skipped breakfast and lunch was ruined by the police raid… Had Black seriously put our lives in danger so he could grab something to eat? Against every fear and anger welling up inside me, something even stranger bubbled to the surface. I started to laugh. I’d never felt so alive.

  “Sorry sweetheart, had to lose the tail before we head out to the dockside again, and I thought you might want something to put in your belly.”

  “Tail?”

  “Unmarked cruiser. Probably want to see where I’m heading. So, you hungry?

  “We did miss breakfast…”

  “Speak for yourself, I had the best goddamned breakfast ever,” Black said, a shit eating grin flashing pearly white teeth. My face flushed red as he stepped off the bike, pulling me along with him. “C’mon, this place has the best filet this side of Texas.”

  I threw my helmet over the handlebar and took his hand. For a brief moment as we walked up to the steakhouse, I felt… Normal. Just a woman and her man, out for an early dinner.

  “Table for two?” the young girl at the counter asked as we stepped inside.

  “Yes…. Table for two.” I responded, gripping Black’s hand even tighter.

  Maybe this is my new normal. I thought to myself.

  ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼

  “You seem bothered,” Black said, sitting down on a large rose colored booth, pulling me to the in next to him.

  “I’m just overwhelmed. It’s been a long day,” I replied, letting out a deep sigh. Long wasn’t really the right word for it. If I wasn’t so sure of my grip on reality I’d be checking myself into an asylum.

  “Just relax sweetheart. Get comfortable, enjoy the food and enjoy the company.”

  I stared at his lips as he curved them into a smile. His hand landed atop mine below the table, giving me a reassuring squeeze. I’m almost ashamed to admit I melted. His touch sent shivers straight up my arm. I closed my eyes, imagining Black’s touch spreading out from my fingers, exploring. My own smile grew, and I took a deep breath before opening my eyes again, gazing into his, exploring.

  The waiter came by to take an order, and quickly a glass of wine arrived for both of us.

  “Tell me everything is going to be ok,” I whispered, a little wave of fear overcoming m
e as I sipped my wine.

  “I need you to know Kattlyn, that I don’t do anything half-cocked. Things might get a little rough, but we’ll come out on top.”

  “Are we still talking about business, or sex?”

  “Maybe a little of both,” Black said, laughing. “Tonight though, how about we don’t worry about business? Do you have any idea what you do to me? You and those goddamned puppy dog eyes?”

  I shook my head downing a large mouthful of the cool and lightly sweet riesling. I was going to need more wine. “You’re not so bad yourself…”

  I smiled, but I was already regretting saying anything. I felt like a school girl on her first date. My thighs pressed together, trying to force away my feelings.