by B. B. Hamel
I sighed. I did not like this motherfucker.
“I said, did you punch this girl?”
He spat on the ground. “Yeah. Bitch deserved it.”
I hit him as hard as I could in the eye with the butt of the gun. He dropped to the ground.
But he wasn’t unconscious. He groaned in pain, holding his face.
“There you go. Now you two are even, I think.” I leaned toward the guy. “Listen to me, motherfucker. You come near this girl again and I’ll kill you all. Got it?”
“You stupid cunt,” he said. “You’re messing with the wrong guys.”
“I’m going to pretend like you said, ‘yes sir, good sir,’ and leave it at that.”
“Fuck you,” the man said. I turned away and walked over to the girl.
“Come on,” I said to her.
“What?”
“Come on,” I said again.
She followed me as I walked across the parking lot.
“Wait,” she said. “My stuff.” She ran back over to the car and began stuffing her things back into a bag. I sighed and waited. When she was done, she kicked the guy on the ground as hard as she could before coming back toward me.
I grinned at her. “He deserved that.”
“He deserves worse.”
“Come on.” I went over to my car, unlocked it, and opened the door for her. “Get in.”
She gave me a look, like she wasn’t sure she could trust me. Frankly, that look made me fucking hard as hell. I’d never seen a girl with so much fire before.
I smirked at her. “I won’t bite. Get in the car before those guys decide to fight back.”
Reluctantly, she climbed in. I shut the door and then walked around to the driver’s seat.
I got inside, started the engine, and pulled away.
I hadn’t been looking for shit. I’d wanted a nice, quiet time in the bar, maybe get some pussy later in the day. Instead, I beat the fuck out of two guys and saved some ungrateful girl’s life.
At least she had a mouth that made my cock hard and a body to match.
Still, based on the look she was giving me, I guessed I was going to have to be very careful. That thought only made me that much more excited.
3
Hartley
He came out of nowhere.
One second I was pressed up against the car, struggling as Guff worked to get my panties down, and the next he was there. I couldn’t believe my eyes as he smashed the gun down into Guff’s face.
I’d thought Guff was going to rape me. I’d thought I was going to be violated, right there in the parking lot, by that disgusting piece of shit. Instead, that man saved me.
And I got to go back and get a nice kick in to top it all off.
I couldn’t believe it. He’d hustled me into his car and we were off. Halfway down the drive back toward the main road, he tossed the gun out the window and laughed.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Hartley,” I said.
He looked at me. “Pretty name.”
“Who are you and why did you do that?”
He smirked at me, and I got a better look at him. Tattoos snaked along his arms, disappearing up his shirt. I caught hints of them along his neck, peeking out from his collar. He was handsome, so damn handsome, with intense blue eyes and a ripped body that knew what it was doing.
“Not a polite way of saying thanks, but I guess it’ll do.”
“Thanks,” I said more softly. “But you shouldn’t have done that. Do you know who they are?”
He sighed. “How come nobody cares who I am?” he said to himself.
“I asked that first,” I pointed out.
“Fair.” He smirked at me. “My name’s Travis, and I’m your guardian angel.”
I laughed. “I don’t have a guardian angel.”
“You did today, apparently. What did you do to make them want to hurt you like that?”
I looked away from him. “Not sure that’s your business.”
“I think it is, considering I just saved your pretty ass.”
I sighed. “I don’t want to get into it.”
He grunted. “Okay then. Was it bad enough to rape you over?”
“No,” I said. “They didn’t think I was trying hard enough.”
“Fucking scumbags,” he said softly. “I should have put a fucking bullet in them all.”
“You don’t get it,” I said seriously. “Listen. They’re all Dixie Mafia. You should really drop me off now and get out of here before they figure out who you are.”
He glanced at me again, a small frown on his face. “Dixie Mafia, huh?”
“Those three, they’re bad men. You shouldn’t have done that.”
He grinned at me again. “I’m a bad fucking man myself, Hartley. You happen to be in luck.”
I sighed, leaning back in the seat. His car was an old Cadillac, a big boat of a car, not the type of thing I was used to seeing down south. Most men drove trucks, big trucks with huge wheels, but not this guy.
“Are you not from around here?” I asked him.
“I was, a long time ago.”
“So you know what the Dixie Mafia is then.”
“I have a good idea, sure.”
“Then you know it’s no joke,” I said, getting frustrated.
“Didn’t think you were joking.” That cocky grin on his face, though, that grin said otherwise.
That grin seemed to suggest that everything about me was a big fat joke. I could feel his eyes glancing at me, taking me in, not shy about it at all.
“Look,” I said, taking a deep breath, “I appreciate what you did for me. I really do. But you should just drop me off and get out of here.”
“Hartley, do those guys know where you live?” he asked me.
“Yes,” I said, “but I was heading out of town.”
“That’s probably smart. But do you think they’re going to stop looking for you just because you skipped out?”
“No. Probably not.”
“No, they won’t. I can promise that, especially now.”
“Whose fault is that?”
“I’m sorry. Should I have let that man rape you?”
I shook my head. “Point taken.”
“Listen to me. Come back to my hotel room. Let me get a look at that black eye you got. Stay the night and then make a new plan in the morning.”
I frowned. This total stranger wanted me to stay the night with him? That usually meant only one thing, from my experience. Truth was, though, I couldn’t act like I wasn’t interested in exactly that. Every second I was around this man I felt my pulse quickening, my body reacting. I was dripping wet already, and I had no idea exactly why.
He was frustrating, and an asshole, and a total stranger. It was probably a bad idea, following him home.
“I don’t have much choice in this, I guess,” I said.
“You do. You really want to go, I’ll drop you wherever you want to be. But I promise, you’ll be safer with me.”
I stared at him. I didn’t understand why he was doing this or who he really was. He’d seemed to take control of that situation so easily, like he’d done that sort of thing a million times before. He didn’t look like a cop or something like that, but he clearly wasn’t a mafia guy himself.
It made no sense why he’d reach out and put himself in the middle of this, but I knew I needed help, especially now. At least just for the night.
“Okay,” I said.
He nodded. “All right then.”
We drove in silence then and Travis switched on the radio. I leaned deeper into my seat, looking out the window, watching the trees flash by.
Knoxville was a beautiful town. Set deep in the southern part of Georgia, it had some of the prettiest landscapes around. But it was also such a deadly place, as I was finding out for myself. I never thought they’d come after me like that, to be completely honest. I figured they might come after my family, but I prayed that my father and
them could figure something out.
This was different, though. They’d tried to rape me in broad daylight right outside a crowded bar. They had way more power in Knoxville than I could have ever dreamed.
Escaping was a damn fantasy. I couldn’t believe how dumb I was getting myself into this mess. If Travis hadn’t helped, something horrible would have happened to me.
I took a deep breath. I couldn’t think about that.
I was probably safe, at least for the time being. I didn’t know how much I trusted Travis, but I couldn’t really see any other options for me. I needed to get out of town, but I didn’t think I’d get very far.
For now, just for now, I was going to follow this handsome, asshole stranger back to his hotel. But that was all. It wasn’t going any further than that. I’d stay there and wait until this all blew over.
That was right. I’d wait and this would all blow over.
I just had to hope I could keep my hands to myself once he got me alone in a room.
4
Travis
I was staying in a shit motel at the edge of town, the sort of place where a man could still be anonymous. I paid in cash and paid double, just in case. Probably wouldn’t do much if the mafia came looking for us, but it might make the front desk guy hesitate for a second at least.
I pulled the car into the parking lot and killed the engine, glancing over at Hartley. “Here we are,” I said.
“Nice place.”
“I like it. Has charm.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Is that a hooker?”
I followed her gaze and spotted a women dressed in a tube top. She was clearly fucked up on meth and was absolutely a prostitute.
“That is in fact a lady of the night,” I said, grinning.
“Charming,” she said. “Like the rest of this town.”
I laughed and climbed out of the car. She followed me.
“Shouldn’t talk shit about Knoxville,” I said. “This is my home.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Really. I know you can’t tell, but my family had deep roots in this place.”
“What happened?”
“Oh, you know,” I said, shrugging. “Drugs, violence, and crime. The usual sort of shit that tears apart any family.”
I began to walk toward my room, but I could sense her hesitation. She lingered near the car, frowning at me.
“Come on,” I said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Just one night,” she said. “One night only. Okay? And then we part ways forever.”
“Whatever you want, princess,” I said, laughing. “One night is all I’ll need anyway.”
She shook her head. “None of that. This is strictly business between us.”
“I’m always all business. Come on.”
I headed toward my room and she followed. We passed the methed-out hooker and I gave the poor woman a smile. She was too busy smoking her cigarette to notice, though. Hartley, to her credit, just ignored the woman. I was guessing Hartley had never seen the darkest parts of the human world, but if she had spent any serious time in Knoxville, she’d definitely seen a few things.
I could show her more. I could show her a lot of fucked up things in this world. There was something about the girl, something that drew me toward her. It was the lips and the body and the full blond hair, sure, but it was also something else about her. Sometimes you found a person who had a pull, a magnetic draw about them, and no matter what you thought or did, you found yourself gravitating toward them. This girl had that effect on me, and I couldn’t understand why. It’d been a very long time since a girl had made me feel that way. Not since the last time I was in Knoxville, all those years ago.
I walked up the steps toward the second floor and unlocked the last room, pushing the door open. Hartley followed me in and I smiled at her, gesturing. “This is your palace, my lady.”
She sighed. “It’s beautiful.”
I laughed and shut the door behind her. The room was pretty dingy as far as motels went. The bedspread was a vague, greenish puke color, and the furniture hadn’t been updated since the ’70s. The room smelled like smoke and the ceilings were a stained yellow color, though they were probably white at some point.
“Not much,” I said, “but it’s a bed and there aren’t any folks trying to kill us.”
She sat down at the small table pressed up against the front window. I drew the curtains shut.
“It’s gross, but then again it’s about average for this town.”
“There you go again, talking shit on Knoxville.”
“I can’t help it,” she said. “I was almost raped back there.”
“Fair play. Stay here.” I opened the door again.
“Wait. Where are you going?”
“Getting ice for that face. Go take a look in the mirror.”
She frowned, but I was already leaving, shutting the door behind me. I walked back down the walkway and down the steps toward the snack area. I grabbed an ice bucket from the corner and filled it up from the machine.
This girl was so far out of her depths, it was crazy. I couldn’t even begin to understand what she was doing in Knoxville and why she was fucking with the Dixie Mafia. She hadn’t been very talkative in the car, and I didn’t think it was time to push her too hard, considering the almost-rape and all. The girl needed a second to gather herself, which was why I’d decided to leave her alone.
I took my time filling up the bucket and slowly walking back. The hooker gave me a smile as I passed her, but she didn’t ask if I wanted anything. Probably off the clock, or maybe I didn’t look like the hooker type. She was right, but still, a man liked to be asked at least.
I paused outside the door. Hartley had been surprisingly together for a girl who was just nearly raped, but there had to be something beneath that hard exterior. I pressed my ear against the door and waited a second.
Sure enough, there it was, the soft sound of someone crying. I frowned and had the urge to get in there and comfort her, but I was just another strange man. Right now, she needed a second to herself to process what had almost happened to her.
And so I leaned up against the wall outside the door and crossed my arms.
It’d been a long time since I’d had anything to do with the Dixie Mafia, but I wasn’t a stranger to those fucking bastards. I remembered clear as day the last job I did for them, the job that pushed me away from a life of petty crime and helped make me want to enlist in the military.
I was just an idiot kid back then, didn’t know shit about the world, didn’t understand a damn fucking thing. I thought the only things in the world worth owning were large trucks and lots of land. My family had the land, or at least some of it, though they mostly just grew weed and raised chickens.
As for the truck, that was up to me to steal. The Dixie Mafia was still important in Knoxville back then, though they were on the fringe of things. But when one of their members, an asshole named Pate with a big beer gut and a scraggly beard, said they had a job for me, I was pretty quick to listen.
Pate wanted me to steal him a truck. He said that if I could pull it off, then he’d consider giving me his old one. To a dumbass kid who wanted more than anything to be a real gun-toting Dixie man, that sounded like a fucking dream. Plus, I might get my own truck out of the deal.
Before that, I’d never done anything but petty crimes. I shoplifted some shit, sold a little weed here and there, basically all the beginner criminal shit. This, though, this was the big leagues as far as I was concerned.
I was such a dumb fucking kid. I remembered the night I snuck onto my neighbor’s land, a guy who owned maybe ten piece-of-shit, beat-up trucks. I figured he wouldn’t even notice if one of them went missing. Of course, as soon as I got there, I had no fucking clue how to actually steal one.
My neighbor caught me trying to break one of the windows out. I ran, but not fast enough, because the cops showed up on my doorstep the next day. I g
ot off with a warning, thankfully, since a record could’ve fucked my chances at becoming a SEAL. But the worst part of it was, Pate stopped by the following day and beat my ass bloody for letting him down.
That beatdown really soured me on the Dixie Mafia. They went from badass heroes to a bunch of petty thugs practically overnight.
I enlisted in the military not long later. There were other reasons, good fucking reasons, but that was one of them. My brother was another reason.
I snapped back to reality and pressed my ear against the door again. The crying had stopped or moved into another room, so I figured it was time to get in there before the ice melted. I unlocked the door and stepped inside.
Hartley was sitting on the chair, looking blindly toward the bathroom.
“Got the ice,” I said.
She looked at me and nodded. “Thanks.”
Her bruise had gotten worse it seemed in the last ten minutes. I walked into the bathroom and grabbed a little towel and then wrapped it around some ice. I gave the towel to Hartley, and she pressed the thing against her eye.
The sun was beginning to set outside as I walked over to the dresser and pulled out a drawer. Inside was a nice bottle of whisky I’d bought on my way into town, just for this sort of occasion. I grabbed two glasses, opened the bottle, and poured us drinks. I returned to the table, putting the glass in front of her and holding on to mine.
She tried to smile weakly. “I must look like a mess.”
“Actually, I’ve never been fucking harder,” I said. “A woman with a black eye and running makeup does it for me.”
“That’s sick,” she said, laughing.
“What can I say? I can overlook certain defects in favor of certain other qualities.”
“What sort of qualities are you talking here?”
“For example, those lips of yours. And fuck, that body in that pretty dress. Every man in that bar probably wanted you.”
She smiled weakly. “I doubt it. They were all too drunk to notice.”
“I noticed,” I said seriously. “Couldn’t keep my eyes off you.”