by Nicole Fox
Finally, I dialed the final place she could be: The Berth.
One ring … two rings … three rings …
“Hello?”
I slammed the disconnect button. That voice! It hadn’t been my aunt’s, but instead was a deep, unsettling male’s. It was a voice I could have sworn I’d heard before.
Minghelli.
The name popped into my head like a terrible curse word. I had heard that voice before, screaming, “Die, bitch! Die!”
I had seen him, head of the Minghelli family, as he strangled Vanessa, one of my aunt’s top whores. It was over Christmas, and I had run away, screaming to myself, “It didn’t happen! It didn’t happen!” By repeating it over and over, and by disappearing to my fancy college, it had been easy to pretend that nothing had happened. That it didn’t exist.
But now …
The familiarity of those cops. The strange words of the men searching the freezer. The fear in my aunt’s eyes. Suddenly, it all came together.
That had not been some routine raid of the police force, making a show that they wanted to shut my aunt down even though they were half her clients. No, I was beginning to realize that this could be something much deeper and much more dangerous.
“Aunt Venus!” I gasped. She could be in trouble! Real trouble! The Minghellis were known as brutes.
I needed to get to her!
Knowing that I was actively defying her orders, I resolved then and there to break out of the Devil’s Wings compound and find my aunt.
No matter what.
I turned off, then pocketed, the cellphone, wanting to make sure it had charge left if I need it again. I glanced around, looking for a way out.
There! A window that wasn’t blocked by iron bars, right beside a shelf.
I crept to it, and unhooked the latch. As quietly as I could, I shoved the thing open.
Thud. Thud.
I heard someone walking in the hallway. They were coming!
Like a monkey, I wrapped my hands around the base of the window, which was just level with my forehead, and swung myself up, using the shelf as both a ladder and support.
Thud. Thud. The steps were coming closer! I didn’t have much time.
With a wiggle, a squirm, and a wrench of all my muscles, I managed to pull myself through. The tip of my toes disappeared just as the walker entered the room, and I was out.
“Ouch!” I fell five feet onto grass. Then, silence.
The walker was approaching the window. I bit my lip, forcing myself not to breath.
“Assholes,” I heard him mutter. “They’re letting the fucking AC out.”
He slammed it shut and walked away.
“Christ,” I breathed, giving myself a moment to collect myself before leaping to my feet.
Where to now? I thought. I closed my eyes, thinking and listening.
Nearby, I heard the muffled roar of a highway, not far through the woods.
‘f I can get there, someone is bound to stop for me, I thought. Everyone wants to help pretty girls.
Or rape them.
I shoved the thought aside. It wasn’t helpful, though I regretted not taking the gun. Hell, I probably would have shot myself in the butt while I was climbing out the window, I thought dryly.
Ducking low, I began jogging to the edge of the property, staying out of few from the road.
That was when I saw movement.
Just there! A pair of dark figures wandering through the trees. Thank goodness the night was cloudy, or the moon would have betrayed me, wide open in the grass. Holding my breath, I tiptoed to the tree-line and listened.
“This is a waste of time,” one muttered. It was a man’s voice, deep and disdainful. “Wandering around the woods at night. What are we, raccoons?”
“Shh!” The second voice said. “The Devil’s Wings don’t know we’re here, and the boss wants us to keep it that way.”
“Why? We can take the Devil’s Wings. With their stupid president, they don’t have the arms or resources to take on the Minghellis.”
So it is them! I thought. I knew it!
My sense of victory lasted about three seconds, to be replaced by dread. Fuck. The Minghelli’s.
Those men were dangerous, and they were looking for me.
As if they sensed my thoughts, the first one spoke again. “How is he so sure she’ll be out here? I’m sure the Devil’s Wings are too busy fucking her senseless, knowing them.”
The second sighed. “She’s Michael’s daughter, and the niece of Venus Michaels to boot. She’s resourceful. She’ll find a way out.”
In spite of myself, I felt a small burst of pride. My enemies respect me, I thought. That was something my father and my aunt always felt to be important. It was a bitter note when I realized how little regard they had for the current president of the Devil’s Wings. My father would be ashamed.
All of this, however, brought me another chilling thought: Minghelli’s men not only know who I am, but what I’m like. And they’re waiting for me.
I glanced around. Darkness, woodlands, and wandering thugs on one side. The main road, police, and most like more thugs on the other.
And the Devil’s Wings in the middle.
I am of no use to Aunt Venus if I am captured, or if the Minghellis kill me, I thought. I need to bide my time.
I decided then that it was best to return to the Devil’s Wings compound. It was dangerous, yes, but I had two possible allies: Connor and Honi.
Honi! I’d just realized that, since Honi had taken my name, that the Minghellis would also be after her. I felt a thrill of fear. I was angry at her, yes, but I could understand her selfishness.
Silently as I could, I returned to the window from which I’d escaped. Fortunately, the man who’d slammed it had been too lazy to latch it shut, so I was able to slip inside with little more than a bruise to my hips. Once in, I crept back up the stairs to the bunkroom, let myself in, and locked the door behind me. I stashed the items I had stolen in the bottom of a dresser, which was full to the brim with stockings and lingerie.
The room and all its sensuality assaulted my awareness. There was only one thing such a room was made for.
“You made a promise to Honi,” I muttered to myself. “You promised her no more whoring.”
What I hadn’t realized, however, was that I would have to take her place.
Chapter Ten
Connor
After cumming to the thought of fucking Princess, I was proud to say that I was able to concentrate all day on my work without too much distraction. “I have more important things to do than worry about some stupid whore,” I kept telling myself over and over.
I had several meetings, took my bike for a ride to increase our presence on the roads, and even spoke to President Montengo. He showed up just long enough to say, “Everything’s going great. Keep up the good work, boys!”
It took every ounce of self-control I had not to pick up the financial report I had been working on that very moment and hurl it in his face.
To cool down, I took my bike out again and stopped at Joey’s place. It was an okay apartment, but the greatest thing about it was the enormous, four car garage he had attached. It was full to the brim with antique cars, all gleaming from Joey’s loving and multiple polishes, and when I arrived he was underneath a baby blue 1970 Mustang.
“Hey, Joey,” I called, and he jumped, dropping his wrench and emerging from beneath the beauty swearing and glaring at me.
“Hey, Connor,” he said. “What’s going on?”
I offered him a hand up, and then he cleaned himself off with a towel.
“Just needed a break,” I said, leaning back against another car—this one a Pontiac.
“Finances again, huh?” he guessed.
“Yup.”
Casually, I lit myself a cigarette, then handed him one.
We smoked in companionable silence for a while. As a member of the Devil’s Wings, I had dozens of allies and mentors. But Joey
was one of the few I could actually count as my friend.
“How’s that new girl treating you?” He asked. “What’s her name … Princess?”
I shrugged. “I couldn’t tell you. I’m trying not to be distracted, you know?”
“Ha! Imagine that! Connor, world class stud, is learning!”
If another man had said that, I would have punched him. But with Joey, it was somehow okay.
“You ever think about … you know … leaving the Devil’s Wings?” he said at last.
I gaped at him, shocked. “Of course not! Once a brother, always a brother! Don’t you know that?”
“Of course, of course,” he sighed. “Under Sam Michaels, maybe. Or Garcia, the guy after him. But … does Montengo make you feel very brotherly? I don’t know. A club is supposed to look after their own, not just themselves.”
I let out a long, smoky exhale. He was right, of course, but …
“You know I can’t abandon the Devil’s Wings,” I said. “They took me in, you know? They were there when no one else was. Even if Montengo is a prick … the MC, it’s my family.”
“Yeah,” agreed Joey, and that was it. He took the cloth he had been rubbing his oil-blackened hands with and tossed it aside. “Maybe one day,” he said, “we’ll hit it big, and we can start our own fucking club.”
I laughed. “Damn right,” I said. It was a silly dream hie and I shared. And we both knew it.
There was not much room for silliness in a biker’s life.
I finished the cigarette and told him that I needed to get back to work. He wasn’t annoyed. He knew the job came first. I smiled at him, complimented his car, and then rode off.
By the time I arrived back at the motorcycle club, there seemed to be something going on. There were a bunch of bikes parked in the lot, but no one was outside, and, distantly, I was able to hear screaming.
Female screaming.
“Oh, Christ,” I muttered, then bolted inside.
A small crowd had formed at the base of the stairs--the ones leading up to the bunk room where Princess had been locked away. Now that I was inside, the screaming was louder, and I could tell that it was definitely female, and definitely her.
“What’s going on?” I demanded, charging up to the first Devil’s Wing I saw.
He shrugged. “Old Leo got tired of waiting for you to break in the new whore,” he said, “so he decided to break her in himself.”
Once more, a scream shot through the air like a wild bat, tearing down the stairs and scratching us all with its little claws. I felt my heart leap to my throat, for now I knew why she was screaming.
“That’s my fucking whore!” I bellowed, and charged up the stairs. There had been Devil’s Wings in the way. Now there weren’t. Though many were bigger than me, I had simply knocked them aside.
The door at the top of the stairs was open, the key hanging by a string from its lockbox. Normally, I would have been angry at this lax biker behavior, but at that point I was grateful. There was nothing standing in between me and the bunkroom.
I burst inside, and the scene which met my eyes made me growl with rage.
Broken shit was everywhere. Glass from the mirror, shredded lace, a shattered lamp. Leo, a mammoth of a being who was so large he needed to special order a bike to fit his fat ass, was crouched over by the far bunkbeds. He was laughing and sticking his hairy arm, the color of a raw sausage, deep into the wood frame of the bunks. For a crazy, stupid instant I thought of Winnie the Pooh, trying to swipe that last bit of honey of his honey jar.
But so, so much uglier.
There was another scream, this time from the bunkbeds, and in a flash I realized where Princess was.
Thin and willowy, she had been able to crawl up into the wooden, handmade framing of the bed and was now suspending herself there, just out of reach of Leo.
“No! No!” she screeched over and over. “I’m Connor’s. I’m fucking Connor’s, you hear me! I was promised to him!”
I heard just as much disdain and anger in her voice as I did fear. I liked that. This girl was tough.
Just then, I had a moment of clarity, and I saw Leo exactly for what he was: yet another biker wannabe, interested only in serving himself rather than the club.
Not a true Devil’s Wing.
I walked up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder.
“Hey, Leo,” I said, and he turned around, his red, stupid face gazing confusedly at me. I smiled and finished, “Why don’t you fuck this?”
Wham! I popped him, right in the jaw. There was a moment where all his extra skin rippled with the impact, like a pit bull hanging its jowls outside the window of a moving car. He toppled over onto his hip and gazed up at me, baffled.
“What the fuck?” he said. His jaw was red from where my fist had struck him. Well, redder.
“That’s my whore,” I said. “You were at the meeting. You heard Smitty. She belongs to me.”
He scowled, beady little eyes narrowing. “But you ain’t using her!” he protested.
I grinned. “Yeah, well, I’m saving it up,” I said. “Give her a proper welcome.”
There was a smattering of chuckles from the doorway, where a crowd of bikers, like a bunch of fucking school girls, was gathered.
A dark look overcame his bewilderment, like storm clouds covering a dull sun. Slowly, he rose to his feet. It was like a mountain standing up.
“And what if I think you’re just being a big, fat faggot?” He growled, glowering down from his tiny head’s massive perch.
I chuckled. That was the best way to take the wind out of the sails of a guy like this. Laugh at them. “A faggot?” I said. “Maybe. But you’re going to have to tell me about being big and fat.”
He blinked. Someone in the watching crowd let out a big guffaw, and then Leo blushed.
“Why, you …” he grunted, rearing back to hit me. I tensed, ready to slip aside from the giant bowling ball of a fist …
“Is there a problem here, gentlemen?”
Smitty! I whirled, and found Smitty, our Sergeant-at-Arms, standing alone in the doorway. The crowd had mysteriously disappeared.
Leo gaped. I blushed, knowing that I should have gone to Smitty instead of charging up here like a rooster ready to protect its hen. Then, just in time to complete the ridiculousness of the moment, Princess’s strength failed, and she fell down onto the bottom bunk. A second later she was up and standing behind me.
“No problem, Smitty, no,” Leo mumbled, bowing his head.
“Good,” said Smitty. “You should go rest up. You now have night-watch duty – ”
“Aw, man—”
“For the next two weeks. Now get out of here.”
He grumbled, then shuffled to the door and down the stairs. I had seen snow plows that moved with more grace.
“You, Connor,” Smitty said, turning to me. “You should know better than to leave a fresh whore lying around, especially with those idiots. Besides, don’t you remember what we talked about?”
I sighed. “Yes, Sergeant.”
“Good. Now, I suggest you take, uh, Princess here and bring her to your office. We’ll get one of the prospects to clean up in here. Got it?”
“Yes, sir,” I said, then thought privately, This. This is the sort of respect and disciple the MC needs. Not stupid, idiotic pricks like Leo.
I looked to Princess, who was watching the pair of us talk with almost rude fascination, and who snapped to attention when she saw me looking at her.
“To … to your office,” she echoed quietly. She knew what that meant. I wondered if she was upset. She’d certainly sounded avid to be my whore a fucking minute ago.
I, too, knew what that meant.
I seized her by the wrist—it would look dangerous to have grabbed her by the hand—and led her to the door and down the stairs.
I heard Smitty muttering behind me, “Fucking assholes. I liked that fucking mirror.”
And I could not help but smile.
Farrah
My heart was still pounding from my close encounter with Leo. My wrists and legs were bruised from where I had had to jam them against the wood of the bunk bed, and my head still whirled against the prospect of Leo touching me.