by Cora Black
“I told you already. You, interfering in club business? It ends today. You go away, and things go back to normal,” Axel said.
Charlotte scoffed in disbelief despite her fear. “You’re jealous that Ben is stepping up and you think that getting rid of me will reverse time? Is that it?”
“Worth a shot,” Axel said, tightening his grip on her shoulder, making her hiss in pain.
Come on, don’t be a scared little girl. You can handle this. You can get out of this, she coached herself. “I’m not scared of you, little boy,” Charlotte spat, practically baring her teeth at Axel.
He tightened his grip some more, digging his nails into her skin. “Yeah? Well, you fucking should be. You’ve been playing dress-up the past few months, but it ends now. You stop fucking around with our lives, or I’ll have to fuck with yours. And believe me, it won’t be pretty.”
“Oooh, big talk from somebody who can’t even handle a money drop on his own. Save it,” Charlotte said, and she tried to reach down to her pocket to grab her phone, but Axel’s other hand restrained hers, pushing it against the wall. She looked to the side, trying to see if anybody could see her from behind the wall, but she was tucked out of sight. Axel’s fingers dug deeper into her skin. Charlotte whined a little, tiny broken noises leaving her mouth before her brain caught up and ordered it to shut up. She couldn’t show weakness, not now.
“Listen the fuck up,” Axel hissed under his breath, his eyes darting around behind the wall, probably looking to check if anyone was watching them. “I’ve got ten guys in the club sick of your fucking bullshit, sick of Ben bossing us around like he has any goddamned authority whatsoever. It’s going to stop today, or something’s gonna happen.”
“Like what?” Charlotte asked, trying to sound nonchalant, like she was just in utter disbelief that he could be capable of anything real.
Axel shrugged, but then kept talking. “Lots of accidents happen out there on the road, lady. You never know. You can hit a rough patch, a pothole, or maybe just go a little too fast and hit the pavement. Or maybe you make a turn without looking both ways and—BAM!” Axel slapped the side of her body, making her jump in surprise and pain. “That’s the end of it.”
“You’re going to kill us?” Charlotte asked, once again trying and failing to sound casual and unbothered. “Me and Ben, if we don’t do what you want?”
“Maybe. Or maybe just him. That’d solve my problem right up. But guess what? It’d be fine with me if you disappeared on your own terms, miss. Entirely up to you.”
“So you’re saying that if I don’t leave the club, you’ll kill Ben?” Charlotte asked between gritted teeth. Come on, Ben, please, come back, turn around, come back to the club, look for me, come back to see what he’s doing, please, she inwardly begged. But then another thought struck her. What if Axel wasn’t lying about the ten guys? What if Ben came back and saw this and started a fight, and then the other guys jumped in, and then—
Her inner prayer suddenly reversed itself. Stay away, Ben, please. Don’t see this. Don’t see this. She couldn’t trust that he wouldn’t start a huge fight that could get them both killed.
Instead, she went limp and loose in Axel’s grasp, collecting her thoughts together and facing him with as calm a face as she could muster. “Why shouldn’t I just tell Ben what you’ve done? He’s got lots of guys loyal to him here. He’s got Uncle Wally. He could kill you.”
Axel shrugged. “And how do you know that anybody other than Ben and Wally would believe you? I could just say that you came on to me the second that little Benny went away. Wouldn’t shock anybody, seeing how you dress.”
Charlotte made a face, utterly disgusted. “As if. You can’t be serious.”
“Who would believe you?” Axel asked.
“Noah would,” Charlotte said without thinking.
Axel laughed, using his free hand to hold his stomach, like it was the most hilarious thing he’d ever heard. “Oh, that’s funny. The weakest little bitch in the club would believe you. Big deal. You don’t know who’s on my side. You don’t know who’s ready to kill Ben in a second if he doesn’t shut up. But…” Axel leaned in, breathing on her neck, making Charlotte cringe and squirm. “If you disappear, he’ll go back to being a lieutenant. He’ll be safe. Doesn’t that sound better?”
Charlotte swallowed heavily, all of her muscles tensing up in a last attempt to flex out of Axel’s grasp.
“How do I know that you’re even capable of doing anything? You don’t even fight with the boys,” she argued, reaching for any excuse she could find to make Axel crumble and admit that he wasn’t for real. This couldn’t be happening. She had just made a home here. It couldn’t fall apart like this.
But Axel shrugged again, completely unbothered even as his grip tightened on her arm. “I don’t play around, don’t go around wasting my energy on shit that doesn’t matter. That’s the difference between Ben and me.” He leaned in until their faces were almost touching, breathing on her skin. Charlotte squirmed and groaned under her breath in disgust, feeling her heartbeat pick up again in terror. She had never felt this scared before in her entire life. She willed her fingers to stop shaking, but it was no use. “Anyway, it’s fine if you don’t believe me. Just stick around and watch. See what happens to loverboy if you don’t get out of the picture.”
Axel squeezed hard onto her arm, nails piercing her skin, and Charlotte had to bite her lip to keep from crying out. Her eyes flooded with hot tears, and she blinked rapidly, trying to get them to recede, but it was no good. Axel smirked, bringing his hand up to hold her chin and make her look him directly in the eyes. “Not so tough now, are you?” he whispered before letting go of her and stomping away.
Charlotte fell back against the wall, but her muscles were still tense. It was like her body was telling her to break into a run, get as far from here as possible. She buried her head in her hands and breathed deep and hard, over and over. Stop shaking. Stop fucking shaking, please, she begged herself.
Her body refused to obey.
Okay, okay, so what are my options? She could tell Ben right away and probably start a fight with Axel. If Axel was lying, Ben might still kill him just for trying to intimidate her. And if Axel was telling the truth…
So maybe she wouldn’t tell him, just in case. Could she hang around, doing the same things as usual, without telling Ben? Again, Axel might have been lying out of his ass for all Charlotte knew. Other than Donnie, he might not have anybody on his side. That’s still two grown men, Charlotte’s inner voice argued. Even if everybody else is on Ben’s side, they could do a lot of damage.
Goddammit. What could she do to make sure nothing bad would happen, to make sure nobody got hurt? She couldn’t turn to the police in this situation. The closest thing to a cop around here was Uncle Wally, who kept getting sicker with each passing day. And anyway, Charlotte figured, only Ben had a problem with Axel. She didn’t even know if Uncle Wally would take her word over his.
So what could she do to protect the club from Axel? To keep Ben away from doing something idiotic?
Before her brain could land on an answer, Charlotte was jerked out of her head by the sound of a motorcycle rolling to a stop in front of the bar. Her muscles sprang into action: She quickly went into the bathroom to wipe at her eyes with a wet towel and adjust her dress so that it didn’t look like she’d been flattened against a wall.
It was like she could sense him the minute he walked back into the building. It was Ben, she knew. She gripped the sides of the bathroom sink hard and breathed deep again, trying to anchor herself before she stepped back through the door to look out into the main room of the clubhouse.
Ben was standing there, looking a little bit annoyed but otherwise okay. Charlotte stared at him standing there, smiling down at one of the young guys sitting at the bar. He looked so… free, like for a brief moment all of the weight he’d been carrying on his shoulders for the past years had melted away into nothing. But just for a momen
t.
What do I do?
Then Ben laughed, low and deep, his eyes twinkling for a second before he threw back his head in harder laughter. And Charlotte knew the answer.
She exhaled heavily and walked forward, plastering a half-smile on her face as she approached Ben. “Hey, what’s up? Did you finish the check-up of the girls so fast?”
Ben sighed and shook his head. “Forgot my wallet. We were going to grab breakfast on the road, the boys and me.” He smiled a little at her and cupped the side of her face. “Say, you wanna eat with me before work? We could go get pancakes.”
Charlotte felt this stupid feathery fluttering sensation in her chest, staring up at him to see all of the shining light that his eyes held. He was so warm, so sweet, so flirty and soft, softer than she’d ever seen him before. For a moment, a brief, beautiful, fucking asshole of a moment, she thought the Axel thing might have been an awful nightmare, and Ben was the sun bringing in the redemptive truth of morning light. But it was too good to be true. Charlotte saw something move over Ben’s left shoulder, and her eyes flicked involuntarily to meet Axel’s across the room. He smirked at her meanly and toasted his drink in her direction. It was real. There was no escape from this.
By this point, Ben was looking down at her in concern, stepping closer and dropping his voice as he said, “What’s up? Everything okay?”
Charlotte could picture herself falling into Ben’s body, letting him catch her as she told him every single detail. Or, alternately, she could see herself grabbing his shoulders and shaking him, screaming at him to run. She could see it like it happened. But the decision had already been made, deep inside her. So instead Charlotte just nodded and said, “Yeah, I’m fine. Just late for work,” before turning away from Ben and heading upstairs to grab her overnight bag from Ben’s apartment. And even though there was a voice in her brain telling her Turn back, turn back, turn back! Go the other way! as she walked back down the steps toward Ben, she just smiled up at him, her lips feeling dry and raw and tight over her skin, like the words she’d swallowed were futilely fighting their way out.
“I gotta head out,” she said, her voice shaking a little on the last word.
If Ben noticed it, he let it go. “All right. I gotta go, too. The ladies aren’t going to check on themselves.”
Charlotte nodded and grabbed onto Ben’s elbow. “Let’s walk out together.”
He smiled at her and leaned over to kiss the top of her head.
She clenched as hard onto his arm as she could without hurting him, suppressing the urge to smash him into her body and never let go. “I’ll miss you,” she whispered.
Ben turned to grin at her as they passed the threshold of the bar and stepped out into the mid-morning air. “It’s only a few hours. I’ll see you tonight.”
“Yeah,” Charlotte said, her throat going hard as bone as she worked to keep her voice steady and calm. Tears pressed again against the back of her eyes, but this time she focused all of her energy on keeping them inside. Again, Ben didn’t seem to pick up on it. “I’ll see you soon.”
Ben turned toward his bike, but before he could swing onto the seat Charlotte pulled him back, leaning forward to lightly kiss him. Ben returned the kiss and deepened it, cupping the back of her head gently. For a second, Charlotte felt safe. But only for a second.
“I’m so proud of you,” Charlotte murmured into his mouth, stroking the side of his face. “Please don’t ever forget that.”
“Okay, weirdo,” Ben said with a smile as he pulled away from the kiss. “See you tonight.”
“See you,” Charlotte whispered as Ben switched on his engine and waved goodbye to her, rolling out into the horizon.
Charlotte watched as Ben rode away, the black rectangle of his bike getting smaller and smaller on the horizon as each second went by. She stood there, staring out into the sun, until Ben’s little black dot faded from her sight.
Charlotte walked over to her car, pressing her head hard onto the boiling surface of the shining metal. She wanted to be burned. She wanted this moment to be branded into her skin, to remind her of that special feeling she got when she kissed Ben Wiseman a minute before.
But it didn’t work that way. She stepped into her car, her thighs painfully rubbing against the hot seats, and when she looked in the mirror, she couldn’t read Ben anywhere on her face or neck or arms. Her skin had forgotten him as easily as it had touched him. He was gone. Ben is gone.
Charlotte cranked her engine to life, turned her car in the other direction, and set off for the highway, putting as much distance between them as possible.
It was the laughter. If Ben hadn’t laughed, who knows what she would have done? She would do anything, fight anyone, to keep Ben’s smile safe.
But sometimes, Charlotte thought, fighting meant being brave enough to walk away.
Chapter Eight
“Where are you?” Ben sent the text and stared at his phone for several long seconds, hoping to hear the little chirp sound that would signify Charlotte’s response. But it didn’t come.
He sighed loudly and gestured to the bartender for another drink. He was feeling loose enough already, honestly, but he needed something to distract himself. Charlotte had never been late before. Things happen. Maybe an assignment ran late or she got a flat tire or something, he tried to argue with himself. Ben checked his phone again. No messages.
“Hey, Noah,” he said as the younger man passed by him on his way to the bathroom. “Have you seen Howard around?” He always referred to her by her last name in front of other people. He was aware it was silly, but he worried that if he said her first name it would be obvious how whipped he was, how he felt about her. And he wasn’t ready for anyone to know that, not even Charlotte herself.
Noah stopped walking and shook his head. “No, I— Wait, well, sort of,” he said. “I noticed her driving away like a bat outta hell yesterday.”
Ben didn’t know what to make of that. Charlotte tended to be a more responsible driver whenever she wasn’t on a bike. When he let her sit up front on his bike, she would skid so fast on the dirt Ben would even get a little scared sometimes. But as far as he could tell, she was a responsible driver in her own car, paranoid that a cop she knew would pull her over and embarrass her at work over it.
“Was anyone else around who might’ve spoken to her before she took off?” he asked Noah.
Noah shrugged. “Nah, I don’t think so. Don’t remember who else was hanging around, anyway.”
Ben wondered for a moment why Noah only ever seemed to pay attention to Charlotte, and not anyone else, but he dismissed the thought a second later. He’d just have to text her again. There was no way he could guess why she was speeding away yesterday, not without more witnesses to piece together the clues.
“Do you need help? I can come meet you,” he texted her. There was no response.
Ben sighed deeply and put his phone away. Maybe she was focused on her assignment, some troubled kid who really needed help. Charlotte was so invested in helping people. It was probably his favorite thing about her. She was so passionate and intense. If she was wrapped up in helping somebody else, he couldn’t even blame her for it.
Still, it was boring, sitting around and watching the other boys drink and joke and laugh. After another minute or two sitting down, he went up to his room and lay down on his bed. He stared at the blank screen of his phone and groaned, wanting to bang his head against a wall. Ben hit the call button and pressed the phone against his ear, waiting for a long second for the dial tone to sound. It rang like normal instead of going straight to voicemail, so it wasn’t that her phone was dead. Maybe it was on silent. He called two or three times, but there was never any answer.
Come on, Charlotte, where are you? Ben thought to himself. That question repeated itself on a loop, over and over again in his head. It was all he could think about. Eventually, he slipped off into sleep, clutching onto that same question. Where are you? Where are you? Where are you
?
***
Charlotte was in chains. Ben looked around and saw they were in a wet, dark basement, but he’d never been here before. Charlotte was on the other side of the room, tied up against the wall. She was sobbing quietly, sniffling in an obvious attempt to get the tears to stop. Ben looked down at his own arms. There was nothing holding him back, no ropes or chains or locks to restrain his arms and legs. But when he tried to get up and walk across the room, he couldn’t move. It felt like his arms were suspended in glue, completely stuck in place. He opened his mouth to speak to Charlotte, but his voice came out as a weak whisper. “Charlotte. It’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay, baby.”
For several long seconds he thought she hadn’t heard him. She was crying so hard, it echoed in their wide empty prison. “How the hell would you know? You’re not with me. Not really.”
“I am, I am, I promise,” Ben said, tensing all his muscles in an effort to stand up. No part of his body moved, but he still sweat with the exertion. “I’m going to save you.”