by Zahra Girard
It’s the low season here in Missoula — as if there ever is a season where people would want to come to this town — and I’ve got the volume on my TV way up because practically all the rooms nearby are empty except for mine.
Things are as good as they’re going to get.
I’m partway through my first movie — I don’t even know what’s happening in it, all I give a damn about is admiring Hemsworth’s golden-haired mimbo-ness — and I’m partway through my bottle of whiskey, wholly convinced that alcohol and fantasy escapes will be the only way I survive this nightmare that is Missoula, Montana and working for David Ardoin.
I can still feel the spot on the small of my back where that man touched me as he walked past me up the stairs. I can still hear the sickly heat in his voice as he whispered my name right as his fingers gripped me tight.
That man is justification for capital punishment.
He is the man I’m going to work to ensure gets the best deal possible for his cooperation.
He is why I’d better be promoted when this is all over.
A knock at the door pulls me away from my half-drunk fantasy harem and back to alertness.
I take a pull from my bottle of Jameson and stumble towards the door.
“Who the fuck is it?”
“Room service,” comes the reply with slightly-drawling accent.
I frown. “I didn’t order room service.”
A pause. “It’s compliments of the house. The manager knows you’re going to be staying here a while, and wanted to send up a bottle of wine as a thank you for your patronage.”
Wine? Fine, I’ll take it. I’ll save it for tomorrow morning to nurse my hangover and work myself back to a point where I can finish off whatever’s left of my Jameson.
“Ok, just a second.”
I take another pull from the bottle, letting the whiskey and it’s burn linger in my mouth, and open the door.
The handle turns, the heavy door moving slow against it’s hinges.
There’s a shove. Abrupt. Powerful. Brute hard force that sends the door rocketing backwards and crashing into me. I feel the echoes of the impact reverberate through my bones. I fall, the air leaves my lungs in a sudden whoosh, and the world starts to move way too fast.
Stunned, I watch through blurry vision as a steel cart shoves itself into the gap — screaming and squealing as metal grinds against the heavy wood and hinges cry out in resistance.
A man, nicely-dressed and ill-intentioned, forces his way through the gap and lunges toward me. There’s a smile on his face that is wholly frightening and he moves towards me like a predator, lashing out with his right hand and punching me square in the gut.
The concussion jars me, sending my heart racing and adrenaline flooding through my veins. My eyelids flutter, blinking clearness to my vision as I look up and see him.
He consumes my vision.
He towers over me.
Crooked nose — broken at least once — and eyes a sickly shade of green flecked with brown. A confident, twisted turn of his mouth shows two missing teeth and a yellow grin.
“Don’t scream. Don’t move,” he says, his voice disturbingly quiet.
His hand goes for my throat.
I spit. Jameson and saliva stream towards his face, spraying him all across his busted mug. It’s enough to give him pause, make him shut his eyes to keep the burning alcohol out of them.
It’s enough to give me time to scramble backwards.
I need to get away.
I turn around and scramble on hands and knees towards my bed. Deep inside, a quiet voice whispers to me about how foolish it is to head further into my room and away from the exit, but all I can think about is the man standing just feet away from me.
I have to get away from him.
That man is here to kill me. Or make me wish I was dead.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” he says. “It only makes it harder on you.”
That voice is drowned out by my own screams. They burst from me the second that man clamps his hands around my ankles and yanks me backwards across the floor like a ragdoll.
I kick at him — my foot hits his forearm — and though I kick him as hard as I can, it’s fruitless. He laughs.
“I’m glad you’re struggling. I love the look women like you make when you’re afraid. You think you’re so tough,” he says, and he flips me over on my back so easily. He forces himself between my legs, putrid breath caressing my face. “Nothing’s as hot as a tough woman when she’s afraid.”
“Get the fuck off me,” I scream, my cries blending with the cacophony emanating from my television. I claw at his face — drawing a line of blood across his neck and a satisfying growl of pain from him — before he seizes me by the wrists, pinning them to the floor.
“This is only going to hurt as much as you want it to, bitch,” he says, his voice burning barely above a whisper, his face right next to mine. “So give up and let this happen.”
Fuck him.
I lunge and I do the one thing I can. I bite him right on the face.
My teeth sink into his cheek. I taste copper and heat.
Fuck him. Fuck him for thinking I’ll be easy.
“You bitch,” he screams.
I earn a punch that leaves my ears ringing for my trouble. I fall back to the ground and look up at him and the bloody wound in his cheek.
“Get the fuck off me, you piece of shit.”
A drop of blood falls from his face, and then another and another, landing on my forehead. He smiles at me, but there’s a frighteningly dark light in his eyes.
“Are you done?” he says.
“What do you want?” I say.
I force myself to keep my voice even, though my heart is shaking in my chest. I won’t give him the satisfaction of seeing me shaken.
“Your client. Alone. Dead. Before he talks.”
“How the fuck am I supposed to do that?”
He shifts his grip on my wrists, pinning both of them under one of his meaty paws, and, with his free hand, he trails his fingers along my cheek. Blood continues to pepper my face, dripping from the hole I bit in his cheek.
I flinch.
He laughs.
“You’re a smart girl: figure it out. You know your client has pissed off a lot of people. You had to know that some people would come looking for him. But if you want some further motivation, pretty lady, well, I’ve got a little time and I am awfully comfy here between your legs.”
I shut my eyes.
No.
I try to kick, try to squirm, but I can barely move.
There is no way out.
“Don’t do this,” I whisper.
At least I don’t scream.
“It’s too late for that.”
I don’t know how to get him what he wants; I don’t know how to get around a federal and local police protective detail; I don’t know how to get out of here.
I’m lost.
I shut down. My breath and my resistance leave me in one heavy gasp.
“I don’t know if I can,” I mumble.
It makes me sick how much my voice shakes. How helpless I feel.
Hands paw at me, touch me in ways that will live in my nightmares forever, that will leave scars on my heart for the rest of my life. I shrivel beneath him.
“Guess you need some encouragement, then,” that lightly-drawling voice chuckles. “Well, damn, my night just keeps getting better and better.”
My shirt slides up, ripping in his grip, the tearing sound of fabric making me start and shake and struggle. The chill air in my hotel room raises goosebumps on my chest and I whimper as his calloused fingertips slide across my breasts.
“Bet a woman like you loves it rough.”
“Please don’t.”
Lips and hot breath touch my collarbone. A grimy kiss hits my neck. I smell smoke and alcohol and sweat — the dirty musk of him — and I can’t take it — I scream again and squirm, trying to get my heels aga
inst him, trying to kick and push him away and none of it works.
None of it works.
He holds me and he laughs. Something firm pokes against my inner thigh.
“You feel that? I’m going to fuck you senseless.”
I shut my eyes again.
There’s a slam. Wood on wood. The door opens and closes.
“Bloody fucking hell. What the fuck is this?”
A voice I’d never thought I’d hear makes me start and I open my eyes just in time to watch a heavy set of hands take hold of my attacker’s neck and wrench him backwards, hurling him into the wall like he’s as light as a ragdoll.
“You think you can touch her?” Ozzy bellows. “You’re a fucking dead man.”
Ozzy. Fucking Ozzy.
I hop up to my feet, holding my hands folded across my chest, and just stare at him, trying to wrap my fear-fuzzed brain around how the hell he got here.
It’s him, but he looks nothing like the lovable lunkheaded biker I remember from Stony Shores, from Roxy and Nash’s wedding, from the texts and pictures we’ve traded back and forth since.
This man is rage.
Fierce, protective rage.
Muscles bulge in his arms; his fists clench and un-clench in uncontrolled anger.
“I’m going to kill you,” he says as he charges my attacker.
In a blink, he has the other man pinned to the ground, raining fists against his skull one after another, each impact opening a bloody gash across the man’s forehead and turning his face into a busted bruise.
My attacker kicks back, hitting Ozzy just above the groin and pushing him backwards into the wall. He’s on his feet in a flash, ramming a fist into Ozzy’s gut and shoulder-barging him into the wall hard enough that I feel the force of it across the room.
“Fucking cunt,” Ozzy growls, grabbing hold of the other guy again by the shoulders and head-butting him, turning the gash in the other man’s forehead into a geyser of blood. “You were dead the second you touched her.”
The other guy punches back — a right hook to the face — but Ozzy doesn’t loosen his grip. He doesn’t even flinch. He seizes the other guy by the back of the head, forcing him face-first to meet his up-coming knee. There’s a crack — a nose-breaking, bone-shaking snap — and then another, and another, until the only thing keeping the other guy upright is Ozzy’s grip on his head.
He does not let go.
He does not stop.
I watch, feet rooted to the floor, while he brutalizes my attacker until all that’s left is a lifelessly limp body.
When he lets go, and the man hits the floor with a thud.
“Son of a bitch,” Ozzy mutters, spitting a gob of blood onto the dead man.
Chest rising and falling with adrenaline and exertion, knuckles and face and knees of his jeans bloodied, he turns away from the man’s prone body to look at me. The mask of rage on his face softens, concern lights his eyes, and he comes to stand in front of me.
He pulls me into a hug.
Gently, he brushes some of the other man’s blood from my face.
“Are you ok?” he says, his voice soft. Warm.
What the fuck is going on?
I shake my head. I am not ok, not by any means, and my tongue and my brain are both frozen with fear and confusion.
“Maria, please, answer me: are you ok? Did he hurt you?” he says again, voice surging through with caring and concern. He’s covered in blood, knuckles busted and who knows what else is hurt, and the only thing he gives a damn about is me.
Me.
I wish I could answer him.
I wish I was composed enough to tell him ‘thank you’.
I wish he didn’t have to see me so fucked up and afraid.
But all I can do is put my arms around him and bury my face in his chest and let loose all the fear I’d been holding back because I didn’t want my attacker to have the satisfaction of seeing me so broken.
I break against him.
He holds me. He holds me while the minutes slide by and I let everything free against him.
When I’m empty, he speaks again. It’s startling how gentle his voice is. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up. We’ve got a bloody lot to talk about.”
I put my hand in his and let him lead me to the bathroom.
I don’t know why Ozzy’s here, and as grateful as I am for him, I’m scared.
Whatever brought him here means that my life is about to become a lot more complicated.
Chapter Six
Ozzy
All I see is red. Blood and bruises mark the body of this lovely woman, violent reminders of that creep lying in a heap on the floor and how he tried to violate her.
It takes all of my energy to sound calm while, inside, I rage and fantasize about how I’d like to bring that fucking bastard back to life just to kill him again. Slow and painful, the death he deserves for what he tried to do to Maria.
“It’s going to be ok. I’m here, now,” I whisper to her.
She’s in my arms, trembling. She’s always seemed like the kind of woman who was a rock — tough, smart, unshakeable — but here she is, quivering like a newborn lamb. It makes me rage.
I take a breath, hoping to cool the anger that’s burning in my heart like an out of control forest fire. What she needs right now is calm and comfort, and I need to give it to her.
“You’re going to be ok,” I repeat. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
Maria is like iron — strong, but brittle, breakable, and this man pushed her to her limit. She looks at me now with wounded eyes that hurt my heart, but I can already feel her stiffen in my arms and regain some of that strength that’s defined her. “Thank you.”
“Let’s get you cleaned up,” I say, and I take her hand, and lead her to the bathroom.
It’s a nice bathroom — marble, tile, flashy tub, separate shower stall — and sparkling clean. I start the tap, check the temperature to make sure it’s soothing and warm, and hunt around for something to dab her clean. Unfortunately, all I see are white bath towels, white hand towels, and white robes. Not exactly the best stuff to go wiping blood with. And it feels wrong getting them dirty. The housekeeping staff does enough here keeping this place clean, the last thing those hardworking ladies need is some bloke like me turning this place into a total mess.
So I take my shirt off. It’s clean — mostly.
She gives me a look. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I don’t want to get your towels dirty. I reckon the last thing you want after all this is some extra charges from the hotel for spoiled linens.”
“Fucking seriously?”
“I’m just trying to be respectful. Of the housekeeping staff and you. I know I’d be fucking upset if I got attacked and billed for a bunch of bloody towels.”
“Hold on a second. Let’s forget about the towels for a second and start from the beginning: why are you here?” she says.
I wet my shirt and dab some of the dead man’s blood off her face. She startles at first — not wanting to be touched — so I move slow and careful, and make the same kind of hushing noise people do when they’re trying to calm a feral animal.
“I’m here because I’m supposed to kill you and the guy you’re working for,” I say, gently scrubbing her face and trying to keep my voice normal, like we’re having a regular chat. “But I didn’t know it was you when I came here. And I’m not going to kill you. Obviously. All I knew is what the court clerk we abducted told me, which was a pretty lawyer was staying here. Then I won the coin flip with Preacher to come check this place out — he’s here, too, by the way, except he’s off checking up on that other lawyer. I’m glad I got here in time.”
“God damnit, this is fucking insanity,” she murmurs.
“Yeah, I’d say so.”
She shakes her head, then turns and spits a dollop of blood into the sink. I suppress the urge to go into the other room and kick the dead man’s body.
“That doesn’t tell me the deeper reason about why you’re here. David Ardoin worked for the Dixie Mafia. For a bunch of southern hick criminal groups. What do you care about a man like him?”
Her face is clean now. She’s beautiful, even though she’s still looking wide-eyed like a caged animal.
I nod. “Gunney says they’ve done business with us in the past, and this Ardoin bloke’s got a lot of information that could implicate the club.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah, it’s a mess, ain’t it?” I say.
“You know I can’t just let you just kill my client,” she says, taking a breath and looking way more composed. Even as frazzled as she is, she’s a beautiful sight — her hair just as wild as her eyes, her mouth set in a determined straight line. “For one, I don’t have that kind of access — he’s off in some high security lockup. For another, if this case goes tits up, so does my career. And guess what? I like my job. So the answer’s no.”
“You know that’s going to hurt a lot of people — Bear and Roxanna included — right? And me, too. I reckon you know deep down that this David Ardoin is a vile cunt who doesn’t deserve to get some sweet deal to escape punishment. Do the right thing here and don’t stand in our way.”
“So what? I just roll over, become complicit in murder, and help you set up some secret back-alley meeting with him, away from all the cops and feds guarding him?”
I love her stubbornness. Hate it, too. Especially right now. She’s pulling me in both directions — I’ve never wanted to fuck someone as much as I want to fuck her; I’ve never been as frustrated by someone as I am by her.
Calm down, Ozzy, I tell myself. Be a leader. Take control.
“We’ll figure something out. There’s got to be some solution that lets you off the hook and still protects the club. But in the meantime, I’m not letting you out of my sight. It’s too dangerous.”
She laughs. “So I’m going to show up to the courthouse tomorrow with an outlaw biker by my side and just expect things to go on like normal?”