Char

by Jade Kuzma

  “You’re trying to frame me,” I said. “You’re trying to frame me with drugs… You’re a federal agent and you’re planting drugs on me—”

  “I haven’t planted anything on you. Not yet.”

  She stood up from the table and moved over to the side of it. She pressed her palms down on the wood and leaned in close to me.

  “It won’t be hard to get your fingerprints on these drugs,” she said. “I don’t give a shit how good Holmes’s lawyers are. With the business he’s involved in and his reputation, there’s no way they can prove you weren’t trying to distribute.”

  “Okay!”

  I put my hands up, knowing I’d lost. There was nothing else I could do.

  “Okay,” I sighed. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Nothing right now. But you have to stay close to Holmes. Stay close enough to him to get all of the details. I’ll meet with you whenever I can. Once I get enough evidence, we’ll lock him up.”

  “How long is that gonna take?”

  “I don’t know. It all depends on how much Blade is willing to tell you.”

  I stared at the bag of drugs on the table. The white powder sat there like it was taunting me.

  “Help me, Miss Gibson. Help me put away Holmes and I’ll help you.”

  “You don’t get it,” I whispered. “If Holmes finds out that I’m working for you—”

  “He won’t find out. I promise he won’t. Once we lock Holmes up, you’ll never have to deal with me again.”

  Lieberman straightened up and kept looking down at me even though I was still focused on the drugs in front of me.

  “I know what happened,” she said. “It’s all there in your file. You were a young girl and Holmes offered you an opportunity when nobody else was there for you. Do this for me, and you’ll get another chance. You’ll be free from having to work for him.”

  I clenched my jaw, trying to think of a way out of this but finding nothing.

  “Work with me, Miss Gibson. You know this is the best option for everybody.”

  I sighed a deep breath.

  “If I do this, you have to promise me that you won’t lock me up with him.”

  “You have my word. Holmes is the big fish. You’re just the poor girl who got caught up with him. Once he’s behind bars, you’re free to go. But only when he’s behind bars.”

  She held her hand out to me.

  “Do we have a deal, Miss Gibson?”

  I looked up and stared at Lieberman. I would have thought she was good-looking if it wasn’t for her demeanor. Instead, looking into her brown eyes was like staring at the devil.

  The devil I was making a deal with.

  “Okay.”

  I reached up and shook her hand.

  She smiled at me.

  “Just do everything I tell you to do and Holmes will be locked up before you know it, Miss Gibson.”

  Chapter 15

  LENORA

  The freedom I felt on the open road with Charles was fleeting. We arrived back at my apartment sooner than I wanted to. Even though I had to tell him, there was something holding me back.

  I didn’t stop him when he pounced on me.

  There was no one else around to watch us. Charles unleashed the animal inside of him. Deep kisses. Tongues dancing and tasting each other. Hands roaming all over my body. His throbbing cock pressing up against me in anticipation of what was to come.

  Charles sat me down on my couch and kissed me like he never had before.

  I have to… I have to tell him…

  I didn’t have much of a choice. Just before he started pushing my dress down on me, I pressed my hand on his chest. He moved away from me and stared into my eyes.

  The way he looked at me was enough to break my heart.

  “You’re beautiful, Lenora… You’re the most beautiful thing in my life right now.”

  “Charles… I…”

  In the darkness of my apartment, I could see the confusion forming on his face. I looked down at the ground, knowing that I had no other choice.

  “I have to tell you something,” I said.

  “I know.”

  “You do?”

  A half-smile formed on his lips.

  “I may not have known you for long but it’s obvious you’ve got some shit on your mind.”

  “That’s a bit of an understatement…”

  I got up from the couch and nervously started twiddling my fingers. I shook my head and sighed, trying to find the right way to say it. But the reality was there was no right way to say it.

  So I just told him.

  “It was Blade,” I said.

  “What was Blade?”

  “Walsh. He was the one who had Walsh killed.”

  I kept pacing back and forth. I didn’t say anything, waiting for Charles’s response.

  “He told you this?”

  “I don’t see any reason not to believe him.”

  I looked at Charles. The passion he had for me was gone. I imagined he was trying to put everything together in his head.

  “Why would he do something like that?” he asked.

  “For me.”

  “For you?”

  “He knows I’ve been spending a lot of time with you. He has people in this town. People that figured out who you are. When you got arrested for beating up Walsh, it wasn’t hard to put two and two together.”

  “That doesn’t explain why he would have Walsh killed.”

  “He knows you came here to Ivory to deal with Walsh. Now that he’s out of the picture, he expects you to leave.”

  Charles smirked at me and shook his head.

  “I wasn’t planning on leaving, if that’s what you’re worried about. I could work something out with him. He might not be a good man but there has to be a way out of this.”

  “It’s… It’s not that simple.”

  The smile left his face. I couldn’t look at him as I hesitated again.

  “There’s… something else.”

  “What is it, Lenora?”

  “I…”

  I sighed a deep breath before I continued.

  “Ivory is a small town. You live here long enough, people start to recognize you. You can’t avoid it. Most people know who I am. I’m just a hooker. The cops don’t pay much attention to me but sometimes I get clumsy.”

  I kept pacing back and forth, giving Charles all of the details I could.

  “I got arrested one night. It’s not anything new to me. In this town, they slap you on the wrist and lock you up for one night then you’re back out on the street. That’s enough for most girls to learn their lesson.

  “But that night… That night was different. That was the night I met Jane Lieberman.”

  “…You know Lieberman?”

  Charles was listening intently. I nodded and let out a deep sigh.

  “She had all of my information on file. She knew about my history. She knew about my family. She knew I worked for Blade. She told me…”

  I stopped pacing. I stared at Charles just as the words got caught in my throat.

  “What did she tell you?”

  “…She told me that if I didn’t start working for her as an informant for Blade that she was gonna lock me up for crimes I didn’t commit.”

  Charles didn’t say anything. He just kept staring at me like he had been this entire time.

  “Charles?”

  He remained silent. His eyes were unblinking. He breathed softly through his nose. I would have thought he was dead if I couldn’t barely see his chest moving.

  “Lieberman said that I have to keep working for her,” I said. “I have to keep feeding her information until they have enough for a conviction.”

  He nodded in understanding.

  Charles stood up from his seat and started walking toward the door.

  “Charles!”

  I rushed up to him and put a hand on his muscled arm.

  “Charles, did you hear me?”

 
He slowly turned back to me and sighed through his nose.

  “Yeah, I heard you.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Away from you.”

  “Away… from me? Why—”

  “I can’t trust you.”

  I blinked my eyes, my mouth half-open as I stuttered.

  “B-but—”

  “You’re working for a federal agent. Do you realize what you’re doing?”

  “I-I didn’t have a choice! She said she was gonna lock me up!”

  “And you’re gonna take the word of a woman who’s willing to frame you?”

  “She gave me her word.”

  “And you believed her?”

  “I…”

  Charles put his hands on my arms and held me in place. He looked down into my eyes.

  “She’s using you,” he said.

  “I know she is. But once she locks up Blade—”

  “You think she’s here for Holmes?”

  “W-what? What are you saying?”

  “How do I know that you’re not feeding her other information?”

  He let go of me and put his hands on his hips. The frustration on his face was obvious.

  “I was just talking to the president of the Black Reapers,” he said. “Do you understand that? Do you understand what that means to have someone like you, someone who’s working with the feds, that close to the Reapers? Any information gets leaked and Lieberman would snatch up the entire club just like that.”

  Charles snapped his fingers to reiterate his point.

  “I haven’t told her anything about you or your club,” I said. “I was just working with her for Blade.”

  “You can’t be that naive, Lenora.”

  I kept having trouble finding the words. The growing frustration on Charles’s face only made it harder to figure out what to say.

  “You don’t trust me?” I said. “ You don’t believe me?”

  “Even if I trust you, I can’t trust Lieberman. If you’re working with her, you might as well be the same person.”

  “I can’t believe you’re saying something like that. Charles, you know I would never do anything to jeopardize you or your club. I care about you.”

  “Fifty grand.”

  “What?”

  “You wanted 50 thousand dollars. Why?”

  “I told you. I was…”

  I looked into his eyes and realized what he was trying to get at.

  “I don’t care about the money anymore,” I said. “I told you that—”

  “You were planning on running away. But Blade would have caught up to you. Lieberman would have caught you. There was no escape for you.”

  “That’s right…”

  I swallowed to clear my suddenly dry throat. All of the emotions building up in my stomach made it hard for me to speak.

  “I wanted to run away,” I said. “I wanted to run away from Ivory. From Lieberman. From Blade. But not anymore. You’re all I care about now. I wanna stay. You’re my reason—”

  “That’s not good enough.”

  I couldn’t hold back any longer. A tear leaked down the side of my cheek. My insides were twisting into a knot.

  “What are you saying, Charles?”

  “I’m saying… That this will never work.”

  “What? How can you say that?”

  “Lieberman has eyes on you right now. So does Blade. Just being around you puts the entire club in jeopardy.”

  “She only cares about Blade—”

  “For now. It’s only a matter of time until she finds something to pin on the MC. And you’re helping her do it by being around me.”

  Charles turned around and started walking toward the exit. I grabbed his arm with both hands, desperately trying to get him to stay.

  “Please,” I pleaded with him. “You can’t go.”

  He looked down at the ground and sighed through his nose.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I know you care about me. I know you care about me the same way I care about you—”

  He shook his head and faced me.

  “Charles, please—”

  Without warning, he rushed his face back to mine and kissed me. He shoved his tongue into my mouth and started tearing away at my dress.

  He unleashed all of his pent-up anger and frustration on me, ripping my outfit off until I was in my underwear. With a forceful tug, he stripped my panties off of me and exposed me completely.

  He forcefully shoved me against the wall. I spread my legs in eager anticipation, my pussy aching to have him inside of me.

  But he didn’t do anything. He just stopped.

  “Charles…”

  He looked into my eyes. I stared back at him and tried to figure out what he was thinking. Slightly glazed over, his eyes told me what I thought I saw but didn’t want to see.

  He was hurt. So hurt that even this wouldn’t be enough to make it any better.

  The frustration on his face was gone. There was no anger either. Just a pair of sad brown eyes that knew he didn’t have much of a choice.

  He leaned in close to me and kissed me on the mouth, holding my head in his strong hands.

  “Don’t go,” I whispered. “Stay with me. Please…”

  “As long as you’re working with Lieberman, the club will never be safe.”

  “It’ll all be over once Blade gets put away. Please… You have to trust me…”

  “How can I when you didn’t tell me you were working for the feds in the first place? It wouldn’t be fair to Garnet. It wouldn’t be fair to the club. Not when someone I care about is so close to the one person who’s trying to take them down.”

  He pulled away from me and stared into my eyes.

  “When I first met you, all I cared about was the money,” I said. “I’ll admit that. But now… You know it’s different.”

  “Maybe it is. But Garnet would never let me stick around knowing I’m trying to make an old lady out of someone working with Lieberman. It could never work.”

  His hands still around my head, he leaned forward and kissed me softly on the forehead.

  “Goodbye, Lenora.”

  He walked out of my apartment. I didn’t bother trying to stop him. I didn’t have anything left in me to try.

  I listened to the door closing and stood there in the darkness of my apartment. I’d never felt more alone.

  Chapter 16

  LENORA

  I stayed up as late as I could, texting Charles to see where he was before the fatigue of the night eventually put me to sleep.

  I didn’t sleep well. I laid on my couch, tossing and turning while everything that happened continued to run through my thoughts. I wanted to believe that there was some way out of this but there wasn’t.

  Blade was looming. Lieberman had her eye on me. Charles was a Reaper and he was always gonna have a spotlight on him.

  I stayed in my apartment, not moving from my couch even when I woke up in the morning. I clutched my phone in my hand, waiting for a message I knew wasn’t coming.

  I could only tell it was the middle of the afternoon when the sun started peering in through the window. That still wasn’t enough to get me to move.

  I started drifting off to sleep when my phone vibrated. I looked at it as quickly as I could but it was only a message from Lieberman.

  “We need to talk.”

  “If you have something to say to me, just say it.”

  I waited a few seconds before she sent me another text.

  “It’s not safe. Meet me in 30 minutes at the usual spot.”

  I sighed a deep breath through my nose and sank deep into my couch.

  Lieberman never gave me any details over my phone. She said the information was too sensitive. I guess I couldn’t blame her.

  I didn’t have the energy to get up from my couch but I knew that there was no way out of it.

  I climbed into the shower and let the water run over me. I stared down at the drain, thinki
ng about everything I’d just been through. Despite everything that happened, the only thing on my mind was him.

  Charles.

  He was the only thing I cared about now. And I knew that he felt the same way.

  I eventually got out of the shower without an apparent solution to our situation. I finished getting dressed and prepared for my meeting with Lieberman. I was double-checking my messages when there was a knock at my door.

  “Just a second…”

  I set my phone down on the coffee table. I didn’t bother looking through the peephole. When I swung the door open, I had to hold back my surprise at seeing Blade standing there.

  “Hello, Asia.”

  He had a smile on his face. The same smile he always gave me when he greeted me. He looked just as magnanimous as always. His suit perfectly-tailored on his frame and not a single hair out of place on his head.

  “Blade… What are you doing here?”

  “I came here to say hello.”

  I didn’t want to think something was wrong but there was something about his demeanor. Something I couldn’t place.

  “I haven’t had lunch yet,” I said. “Did you wanna get something to eat?”

  “Maybe a little later. I was hoping I could speak to you.”

  “Right.”

  “May I come in?”

  “Come in? I…”

  I turned around and looked at my barren apartment then chuckled nervously.

  “…I haven’t really cleaned up,” I said. “I’m kinda embarrassed…”

  “Asia… I know all of the intimate details of your life. We’ve shared everything. Would a messy apartment be anything to be embarrassed about now?”

  “No… I guess not…”

  I smiled and stepped to the side to let him into my apartment. Blade started looking around my living room even though there wasn’t much to look at.

  “Do you want something to drink?” I asked. “Maybe something to snack on?”

  “I’m fine,” he said with a smile. “You don’t need to show me any unnecessary hospitality.”

  He walked over to the side of my living room and stared at the painting next to the window.

  “I see you’re still painting,” he said.

  “That painting is kind of old, actually. I set it out to dry a couple of weeks ago and haven’t bothered putting it away.”