“I don’t doubt what you can do sober,” he says evenly. Touché. “But I will say that if you don’t want to leave, you look like a gal that could use a dance.”
I scoff at him and back away about a centimeter. He is looking for trouble tonight, and I am supposed to be here to do some espionage of sorts. Why does he have to keep getting in the way? Well, maybe going with the flow here will get me what I need out of him, so I can move on without any more distractions.
“Hit me,” I tell the cute girl behind the counter, and I can see she is a little jealous of my new suitor. Guess my gaydar is still pretty spot on.
She sets a shot of tequila, the real shit, down on the counter, and I knock it back without even blinking or coughing. I let the burn settle in the pit of my stomach before I answer Jade. I can tell he isn’t taking a no tonight, and I am not willing to give one tonight for some damn reason either.
“Let’s go, Don Juan,” I tell him, having to make ought of things so I remember never to take it too far. I can never take it too far again, whether I am on a job or not. I realize that now, that it isn’t just about the danger of getting involved with someone I am supposed to be taking down potentially, but it’s my heart. It can’t handle anymore of an ache or it will melt out of my body.
I let him take me out there, and I find that as one of my old favs comes through the speakers, that letting go for just a bit is not as hard as I expected.
My body sways to the beat, and the closer it gets to the end of the song, the closer I get to Jades’ body. I just can’t help it. The rhythm, the atmosphere, the alcohol, and then the fact that he approached me looking like a tall drink of water. It is too much to resist tonight.
Before I know it, it’s another six drinks and about ten songs later when it is him that calls it quits. My body is telling me to keep partying or to take it back to my place, take him with me, and my mind is not working at the moment. But I suddenly see the paranoid look on his face, and my dizzy vision can suddenly see that very few people are still around beyond MC members. He is concerned for my safety, and I should be as well. I may have a badge and a gun, but I am not invincible.
He nonchalantly pushes me out a back door. “Give me your keys,” he says evenly, and I tug them out and end up dropping them. I let him pick them up, knowing I will likely stay down if I dive for them. I let him put his hand on the small of my back and lead me to the car he sold me. I even let him buckle me in. I am going to so regret this in the morning.
Chapter Six
Jade
I can't believe I danced with her, watched her get drunk, and then ended up driving her home. I practically carried her inside of the place she was renting; a duplex which was probably one of the nicest places in town. Not that I should be surprised considering she paid cash for that car and bought out an entire old theatre to give an upgrade to it. I have seen the flyers all around talking about its reopening. I don’t know how much cash this chick has, but it has to be a pretty penny to pull shit together so fast.
I had a few drinks myself, to take the edge off, but I am no light weight. I am only tipsy enough not to be able to keep myself from looking around the place while she lays on the couch. I know I am going to have to stick around because she is so far gone now that I am afraid she’s going to choke on her own vomit. She can hold a few drinks well, but it seems she is not typically a heavy partier.
The first thing I notice is that there is no sign that she lives here with anyone or that she has had any man here at all really since she came here. Not that I should be surprised considering how busy she has kept herself, but I really shouldn’t care. It wasn’t good to care. It wasn’t good for her. Not now that I am going to become the devil himself and trade women and girls for money so that they can become sex slaves below the border. All the lives I will destroy already haunt me, and it hasn't even been that long since the order was given to me. This is my life now until I find a way out, which will likely mean my death. The good news is that I know cartels hate too many people knowing their secrets, and they are diabolical. At some point, they will end my misery.
The next thing I notice is the boxes. They are everywhere in small piles; two stacked up against the entryway to the kitchen, one by the bedroom, another three by the hall closet. She has not even finished unpacking. Other than furniture, the place looks damn bare right now.
As my curiosity gets the best of me and I roam through the rest of the place, I realize that these are also the only boxes she has. She didn’t come here with much, which seems off with the amount of money she has. Does she have some storage unit full of diamonds and high-end art somewhere, or is there something beneath the surface with her I am just not getting?
I look over at her, asleep and snoring with her hair and her limbs just kind of everywhere, and I sigh. She may be really freaked out by it or she might love me for it, but either way, I am doing a good deed for her. I am going to unpack these boxes so she doesn’t have to. Maybe every little good deed will wear away at the blackness that now stains my soul.
I don’t know how long it takes me to open up everything and find a place for it. Not long enough to preoccupy my mind, though. Most everything is little odds and ends, a couple of pictures that don’t even tell me a whole lot about her life, and clothes, a collection of old cassette tapes from all genres. Oh, and a few books. A lot of them seem to be crime thrillers, but finding Harry Potter in there makes me chuckle. Her things make her seem normal, but the whole picture doesn’t look normal at all.
I plop myself down on the edge of the couch where I won’t disturb her and lean back to close my eyes for a bit. I figure that if something starts happening to her, it'll wake me up. Considering I have a gun on me at all times and have to be ready in case a rival attacks the club, I am a light sleeper.
I am soon drifting off into a dreamless sleep; the one blessing I can enjoy.
Chapter Seven
Paisley
Even as I know I am awake and light is streaming in through a window somewhere, I refuse to open my eyes and act like I am awake. I am too ashamed as all the events of the night before come rushing back into my head. I do not want to even face Jade ever again after that display, and I know he had to even take me home. Though, after that, is a blur, which tells me I likely passed out. I can hold my own drinking, but I know I overdid it last night. I should have stopped, said no to playing his game, to dancing with him, but something in me just wouldn’t let me.
I can't let my heart get wrapped up in a job again, not when everything I know in life is wrapped up in this dangerous game I am playing. But there was something about the way he looked at me that made me want to spill my damn guts.
The sound of my door opening makes me shoot up where I am laying, and I almost fall off the couch., which is evidentially where Jade set me last night rather than my bed. But right now, I need to find out who has come into my place.
Dizzily, I look up to see Jade holding up his hands in surrender, and they are filled with a coffee and a bag of what looks to be fast food. I sniff, and instantly my stomach growls. My head may hurt, but I am not the type to have a typical hang over. I just feel funny and mostly humiliated at how I acted the night before.
But the food is calling to me, so I get up to retrieve the bag and murmur a thanks as I drag it over the coffee table and begin to set out all the wares on top of it.
There is sausage, pancakes, and some kind of burrito, two of everything. I scoot over and motion for him to have a seat next to me. He slips onto the couch, and I am hit by his scent. What am I a damn dog? But I can’t help but sniff it up. It's some strange combo of oak and motor oil that somehow gets to me in my after drunken state.
I dive into the food and try to ignore it as we eat in silence. Finally, not feeling like a zombie, I look up at him and say, "Thank you."
He chuckles. "For what exactly?" he asks me, an eyebrow quirking up, as if he isn’t already sexy enough. Ugh. I am so weak. And I can tell he is teasin
g me too. He wants me to thank him for the dance, not for seeing me home safely and making sure I have breakfast.
"For taking care of me last night," I say, my eyes going around the room for the first time in shock. "Did you unpack for me?" I ask him, seeing that a lot of my stuff is in place and the boxes are gone.
I purse my lips, unsure how to feel about it. On the one hand, it could have been him being a gentleman, but on the other hand, he could have been snooping.
"Well, I got a little bored watching over you and thought I might help you. Figured you had your hands full with the theatre and all," he says, clearing his throat and taking a large bite out of the burrito that his hand is swallowing.
"Oh, I guess I am grateful for that too, but I am sorry you even had to be in here. I mean, I don’t normally act like that," I say, feeling the need to make up for my behavior. Part of me wants him to know that I am not a crazy drunk whore, but the other part of me knows I need to make it clear that nothing big is going on here. I had my ass rubbing him up and down on the dance floor last night, and that made this acquaintance cross a line that it never should have. Then again, as I look him over once more and his eyes drag back over me, I know that avoiding him or convincing him to avoid me is going to be impossible.
What I am thinking of doing is so reckless and dangerous, and yet I know I need to give in before I let a man ruin another job; the most important job of my life, for that matter.
"It’s okay. You’re not the first drunk woman I have taken home," he says with a scoff. I glare at him as he seems to realize what he just said and shakes his head. "Geez, I have a habit of putting my foot in my mouth. I didn’t mean it like that. I just mean I felt like I was doing the right thing, and nothing you did last night bothered me. It looked like you could use a night to let loose. You have been working so hard, and you know, with your recent loss..."
He trails off, not mentioning my husband out of curtesy; my fake husband which is totally not in my head right now since I am about a second away from drooling over the tatted, tanned, gentleman with a bad boy streak to my right. I try to act naturally, but I am just so distracted, no room in my fuzzy head for more than one emotion at the moment.
"It's okay. It has been a while. I have done my grieving. He wouldn’t have wanted me to dwell," I said, saving myself. "But the dream of his just kind of became mine, so I followed it for the both of us," I added, making sure I wasn’t shrugging off an entire marriage and a death. Wow, I am single handedly gonna blow my cover in Eagleville, Texas without trying.
"I like your attitude," he says suddenly, finishing the rest of his food in one mouthful. I should be disturbed or disgusted, but something about this brutish act right now is getting to my panties.
"Let me make it up to you anyway," I tell him suddenly before I can stop my tongue from saying what’s on my brain. "Come by the afternoon before the opening of the theatre. I'll give you free food and a private showing of whatever we have," I offer, trying not to cringe at the innuendo I could hear in there. Hopefully, he would ignore it. I am thinking something more PG here. Well, at least I WAS.
"That actually sounds kinda nice," he tells me with a nod. "I will try to make it if I don’t have plans or work." He gets up and gives an awkward wave goodbye, and I can’t help but walk to the door after him and watch him leave, walking since it was my car he took the night before. As I watch him cross the raad and tear his shirt off to brave the Texas heat, I wonder if these plans he might have could include illegal activity.
Chapter Eight
Jade
I sit on my bed and stare at the crumpled little piece of paper that Snake slipped me today. An address, a date, and a time. These are the things that threaten to stop my heartbeat; stop the game I am playing and just end it all. Because this date, the one that is the day after I am supposed to sit down alone in a dark theatre with Paisley and her perfect blonde hair and long eyelashes, is the day that I go to meet the man that I am selling women to. It is the day I take these women that Snake has procured in a way I don’t even want to know about to meet the men that will be their physical nd emotional undoing.
"Fuck!" I holler, the anger washing over me as to the unfairness of my entire life. I am not one to dwell too much on a higher power, even though I was raised to believe in one. It’s an odd household that will teach you that there is a God having a hand in your grand plan and then lead to drugs, beatings, and the worst kind of shit for a kid to witness. It was why I left. After we lost my father to the hatred for our kind in the south, my mother threw all his teachings and love out the window and gave her body and soul to a man that would devour it along with mine.
That’s why a damned MC was better than what I had going for me at home. I let them save me and take me in because otherwise, I would not have had the will to go on for another day.
But somehow that decision has led me to the moment I am in now; the second time in my life that I am considering just letting go and giving up.
There is only one sure way out of this hell I have created for myself; death.
I reach for the metal in my pocket, gripping its hardness in my hand and wondering if this is the best way to go. A bullet to the brain from the side of my temple or through my mouth. A bullet to my chest. Those would surely do it, right? Though I have heard of people messing up and only becoming retarded or even vegetables.
I stand up and notice the knife on the nightstand. Is it sharp enough to slice through my veins? It can be one of those scenes in bathtub full of blood after drifting silently away; cold and alone. But that is too damn dramatic for me.
I could just turn Snake down. I could do something to provoke him or the other guys. I know it would get me killed, but could I handle all the suffering that would come before if they were in the mood for torture? I don’t think so.
But maybe I could drown myself. I have the will power to stay under there even as I struggle. It wouldn’t be too quick or slow. No one is around to save me from it. And the scene wouldn’t be bloody or horrific. I would just be lifeless in the water, nothing more or less.
I should know the fact that I am considering all the ways to off myself is sick as fuck, but so is delivering young women to men who want to sell their bodies to the highest bidder and take them away from their families. Dying really is the lesser of the evils here, and don’t I know it.
My phone rings, and I am so damn tempted not to answer it. I will just let it ring until I am so gone I can’t hear it anymore. Then, they will know to come find me; the coward that couldn’t handle the life he had chosen for himself anymore. But do we really get a say in anything that happens to us? Because it sure as hell feels like some puppet master is pulling the strings and laughing at us.
"Damn it!" I curse as I pick up the phone. I am such a slave to my life that I just have to answer the fucking thing, but I am surprised when I see it is a blocked number. I have a feeling I know who it is.
"Yep?" is how I answer, trying to play it cool like I wasn’t just plotting my own demise.
"That you, Jade?" he asks with a dark chuckle, and I let out a breath. If there is anyone who is going to talk me down from the ledge, it's him. He is actually Snake’s little brother; a man after my own heart. He is someone I am actually close to, but Snake doesn’t know it. As afr as he knows, he betrayed me right along with Snake and the rest of the club. See, he got out. He ran like hell, and he hasn’t been found since. Not that I think Snake will actually kill his brother, though, but he would sure as hell regret running if he is caught.
"It's me. Wow, it’s been a bit, man. I won’t ask you too much because I doubt you can answer, but how are you? Has he caught up with you yet?" I ask him.
"You know I wouldn’t be on the phone with you right now if they had." He sounds so serious. He really is sure Snake would kill him, I think.
"Man, you know Snake won’t actually kill his own brother."
"Do you have the damn blinders on, or what? You know he is the exact k
ind of monster that would." I mull what he says over and sit on the bed, a wave of darkness coming over my thoughts again.
"He is having me help him traffic women," I admit to him. "Didn’t give me a choice."
"Of course, he didn’t. Shit, Jade, you have to get out of there. Leave. I will have someone come find you, and you can run with me. Running is better than that life, I promise you."
I don’t think I am that guy, though. I have always wanted a home. "Man, I would just get us both killed," I say, letting the idea roll off me as an impossibility. Oh, how much I would love to run, but I really do think I would never make it out of Texas alive.
Chapter Nine
Jade
I roll up to the theatre on my bike, a Honda actually. Harleys are a bit overrated, especially in my line of work, if you can call it that.
I don’t know why I am here, but I woke up this morning and just kind of decided I would give myself this one chance to do something that didn’t involve anything illegal or even seedy, at least not as far as I knew. I mean, I guess Paisley’s ex-husband could have been some mob boss or something, thus all the cash, but it isn’t going to hurt just watching a movie with her. At least, that’s what I have told myself. But I know I do risk exposing what and who I am to her. I mean, it’s a small town and people talk, she must already know there is an MC here. It’s hard not to notice unless you are living under a rock, but even then, I think you would hear the rumblings of us. Some of the Red Crows are not exactly discrete about who they are or what they do. They think they are badasses and use it to control people here. But sometimes I wonder if it would fly in a larger city.
One Way Out (Red Crows MC Book 1) Page 3