SWEET HEART

by Yva Golden

  I’m not even sure what I’m doing, only that I don’t want it to be the last day I’d see her. I want to establish a real connection with her and see where it goes. Even then I don’t know if she’ll have it. If she’ll have me. I’m old enough to be her…shit! My age has never been an issue with a woman, especially on my part. Until now. I realize now, this is serious. I’m getting serious with her.

  “She mentioned a man named Jigger.”

  “I know Jigger. He’s the biggest pimp west of Vegas.”

  I feel repulsed that Heart is dealing with this kind of person. My sweet, sweet Heart. My baby.

  “Do you know where to find this man?”

  “Yes.”

  “Call him and tell him not to let Heart go. We’re going to get her.”

  I can almost see Franco’s knowing grin. I might end up thanking the fucker after all, and Prem, too, for buying Heart for me. How else would I have met her if not for their insanity?

  “Your wish is my command, amico.”

  HEART

  Jigger counts his money in front of me. He’s taking his time. I can’t wait to leave this stinky place he calls office and never set foot in it again.

  “So, you’re leaving Vegas?” he asks me with heavy-lidded eyes. He’s high on weed again, or maybe on some other shit. I need to leave.

  “Yes,” I simply reply. I don’t want to tell him anything more. The combined stink of cigarette and stale sweat is turning my stomach. I want him to hurry the hell up so we can finally settle our deal and I can finally leave this city. I’m so done with Vegas. Except for Ashton, I have no reason to even want to stay a heartbeat longer in this city.

  Ashton. My chest clenches at the mere thought of him. I’ve been reining my emotions in since I left The Acropolis. I feel brittle and fragile inside and I want to be finally alone in my little corner aboard the train and sort out my thoughts as I travel to California.

  “You can actually stay and make more money. You will make a lot of money with that hot little body of yours.”

  His eyes have this lecherous glint as he stares at me. I can see avarice, too. He’s thinking of peddling my flesh like he did to my mother and to countless other women. Bastard. My stomach crawls.

  “No, thanks. Are you done counting? Are we settled now? Am I free to go?”

  His eyes become dark and dangerous. “Acting high and mighty now with your fifty grand, I see.” He sneers, glancing at the backpack slung on my left shoulder. “You’ve always turned up your snotty little nose at me with your books and smarts. You think your fancy education can change what you are, little girl? You’re nothing but a whore’s and a junkie’s daughter. Oh, you’re a whore now, too, to the tune of one hundred grand, thanks to me. Nothing you’ll ever do can change that.”

  I meet his stare and stand my ground. Nothing and no one will ever make me feel small again. Today is the beginning of my new life.

  “I will prove you wrong. I will make something out of myself. I cannot change my past, but I can certainly shape my future. Nothing you’ll ever say can change that.”

  “Little bitch needs to learn her place.” He slowly stands up and approaches me. I step back.

  Fear slams in my chest. I regret goading him now. The last thing I need is to antagonize this man. He owns this shady block of Vegas. It’s swarming with his comrades in anything illegal.

  “What if I tell you that you can’t leave?”

  “What…what do you mean?”

  “Bonatti called me a while back. He told me to hold your ass here. Apparently, you can’t leave.”

  I freeze. The mention of the man’s name sends waves of fear in my entire being. “B-but…Why?”

  “I don’t know. He didn’t sound happy,” he tells me gleefully.

  Oh, God. My hand automatically tightens around the strap of my backpack. My future.

  “So, why is Bonatti looking for you? Did you do something, little girl?”

  “No. No. It wasn’t Mr. Bonatti who took my…He wasn’t the man I was with. It was his friend. And Ashton promised me I could go freely.” Maybe I should have gone to see Mr. Bonatti before I left the hotel. Oh, God. I thought…

  “Well, it seems to me that you can’t.”

  I’m panicking inside. This can’t be happening! Ashton promised me! “But I need to leave today, Jigger. I swear, his friend told me I could go freely.”

  “No, you can’t.”

  Feeling like a cornered animal, I dart for the door.

  Jigger is fast. He grabs my hair and drags me back into the room. I scream in pain. He wraps his hand around my neck and slams me hard on the wall, rattling me to my bones.

  “When Bonatti says you stay, you stay, or you want the mob on your ass, little girl?”

  The mob! I’m quaking in fear now. “I’ll return his money! He can take the money back!”

  “It’s not for me to decide.”

  Then he grins, evil in his eyes. “Maybe his friend isn’t happy, after all? What did you do, Heart? Or shall I say, what didn’t you do? Did you give him head?”

  I push at his chest. “Let me go!”

  He grabs my face and squeezes my cheeks hard. “Did you suck his dick good? Maybe it wasn’t good enough? You need practice sucking dicks, little girl? Maybe I’ll let you practice on mine. How many times did he fuck your virgin cunt?”

  I spit in his face. He slams me harder on the wall. My head snaps back, hitting solid. My vision blurs. I can see my future fading before my very eyes.

  His hands are groping me, squeezing my behind. Fear and shock at what is happening to me are immobilizing me. I’m going to get raped. Oh God, please, help me!

  “Jigger, please, don’t…!”

  “No? You’re still acting like a tight-ass virgin when some dick’s been having a party in your cunt two days straight? Did you let him fuck you in the ass? Hmm? Maybe I’ll teach you that trick. Your mother was really good at it. Wrung me dry every time, she did, old hag that she was.”

  I see red at his mention of my dead mother. My fury resurrects my waning strength. “Bastard!” I scratch his face.

  He cusses and crushes his lips on mine. I want to gag at the stench of his breath. I fight him with all my might, screaming and kicking.

  Oh God, oh God, oh God!

  “You little bitch! Yeah, fight me! Fight me hard!” He slaps me hard in the face. Pain explodes in my skull.

  I look at the room wildly as I struggle with him. My knife! I remember my knife! If I can just get it in from the side pocket of my backpack….I reach toward my left, my hand working at the folds of my backpack, searching…Jigger is savaging my face, licking my cheeks like a crazed maniac.

  My hand closes around my little knife, my heart slamming hard in my chest…

  Suddenly, Jiggers pulls away from me. I see the opportunity. I slash him in the face. He gasps, shock in his eyes as he touches his cheek. Blood seeps through his fingers.

  By this time, I’m seeing pure bloody murder. I go at him blindly, cutting him in his arms as he tries to defend himself from my attacks. “Bastard! I’ll kill you! I’ll fucking kill you!”

  With a mad shriek, I viciously drive the knife into his upper shoulder. He screams like a woman.

  Someone yanks me from the back. Strong arms wrap around me. I scream in rage, kicking at whoever is holding me in a dead lock, wildly attacking my new assailant, too, with my knife. He grabs my wrist in a ruthless grip and renders me helpless. Someone yanks the knife from my fingers.

  I cry out helplessly, feeling defeated. Jigger’s men got me. I’m finished. My new life is over before it could even begin.

  “Heart! Calm down! Calm down!”

  I sag weakly when I hear his voice. “Ashton…!” I manage to utter his name.

  “I’m here. I’m here, baby. You’re okay now. You’re safe.”

  He turns me around and hugs me tightly. I hug him back desperately and cry my heart out in his chest, shaking from the inside out.

 
; His hands are frantically touching me as though looking for injuries. ‘“Baby, did he hurt you? Did he…?”

  I shake my head. “He didn’t rape me.”

  He exhaled harshly and lets me go. I watch him stand before Jigger who’s all bloody on the floor. I’m horrified when I finally realize what I have done. Did I just kill the man? Oh, God…!

  “You sick fuck!” Ashton kicks Jigger in the stomach several times.

  I’m relieved to see Jigger move and moan in pain, curling into a ball to evade Ashton’s assaults.

  “Ashton, let me handle this fucker for you.”

  I gasp inwardly when I finally become aware of the other people in the room. Franco Bonatti is here, too, with several men in black suits. They are not Jigger’s men. It’s the mob! Oh God, I’m dead, after all.

  But Ashton is here so…maybe…not?

  “Now what will I do with you, Jigger?” Franco Bonatti speaks in a lazy tone, surveying the bleeding man on the floor.

  “Franco, I swear, I wasn’t going to touch her. Please!”

  “No? But I saw you doing just that.”

  “She was being a pain. I was just teaching her a lesson. I swear, Franco, please!” Jigger is shaking like a scared puppy on the floor, terror in his eyes.

  “Oh, really? I think she taught you one hard lesson, eh? Never mess with Heart or you’ll get gutted.”

  Franco looks at me. I gulp. He winks at me and grins. Then he looks at Ashton. “Deadly sweet Heart you have there, Ash. Be a good boy from now on, okay? I don’t want you to suffer the same fate as this mofo. Now you two go. I’ll take care of this.”

  Ashton takes my hand and practically drags me out of that place. I’m only too willing to follow him.

  I see a stretch limo parked at the curb some meters away. A man is standing beside the limo. I know it’s Ashton’s car.

  He pauses in stride. “You going to Cali today?”

  “Yes.”

  “You packed?”

  I nod.

  “Where are your things?”

  “At my apartment, a few blocks from here.”

  “You need a ride going to Cali?“

  “I’m taking the train.”

  “I have a faster ride. You can hitch with me. I’m headed there, too.”

  I stare at him with uncertainty, my temple still throbbing from Jigger’s blow. I’m still reeling from what happened. I can’t believe Ashton is here. He saved my life. Like a valiant knight, he showed up when I needed him the most. Again. And now he’s offering me a ride to California. I don’t know what to make of it this time. I have nothing to offer him. He already took my virginity.

  “Ashton…”

  “I know we didn’t have much time to get to know each other, but you can trust me. Let me take you safely to California, Heart.”

  Trust him? After everything he’s done for me, I will trust him with my very life. “Are you from California?”

  “Yeah. I live an hour away from Berkeley. I’ll drive you there myself when we get to Cali.”

  I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “Why…why are you doing this?”

  “I want to get to now you more. If that’s okay with you?”

  What else can I say? It’s what I’ve been hoping for, that I would be given a chance to be his friend, at least.

  I smile, tremulously. After almost getting raped, seeing Ashton again is like walking into a comfort zone. “It’s very okay with me.”

  He takes my hand again. “Then lets go.”

  Giving one last glance at the small, shabby apartment I’d shared with my mother for years, I silently say goodbye to her memories. This place has been a silent witness to many of my mother’s sufferings in the hands of men who didn’t treat her right. But this has also been a place of love. The love that we kept alive in our hearts no matter the hardships, no matter the odds.

  “Goodbye, Mom,” I whisper, a sob escaping my throat.

  I think I’m smelling her perfume in the air, and I cry harder. Maybe she’s still around, lingering, watching over me. Maybe worrying about me.

  “I’ll be fine, Mom. I promise I’ll make both our dreams come true in California. Don’t you worry about me now. I can handle myself. I can take care of myself.”

  I feel a kind of calm I have never felt before. I walk out of the apartment.

  Ashton is just outside the door, waiting for me. All my bags are in the limo.

  “Ready?” he asks me tenderly.

  “I nod.”

  He reaches out to touch my cheek gently, where Jigger hit me. I flinch a little.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t get to you sooner, baby. I swear no one is going to hurt you ever again.”

  My battered heart wants so badly to believe him. I’m so tired of being strong, and I want someone to lean on completely for once.

  He puts his arm around me and leads me toward the limo.

  Chapter Ten

  HEART

  I KNEW ASHTON WAS RICH, but when his limo entered the airport premises and took us straight to a private jet, I started to feel overwhelmed.

  I have calmed down from my ordeal with Jigger. I’m thinking very clearly now.

  Am I making the right decision by going with Ashton to California? I don’t even know him. I mean, I know him physically, at least, and that he came for me when I needed him the most, but aside from that, he’s still very much a mystery to me.

  I’m about to climb the stairs of the plane with Ashton. My heart is racing fast for a different reason now. I’m entrusting my life to a man who’s still a stranger to me in many ways, even though my heart is telling me otherwise. But I have to be rational for my own sake. He’s obviously powerful, with the kind of wealth I can’t even fathom, and I’m blindly walking into his world. I just recently set myself free from the nightmares of Vegas. I don’t want to unwittingly walk into another one. He’s friends with Franco Bonatti. That should be a red flag.

  “Who are you?” I finally ask him. I feel entitled now, somehow, after spending two nights with him. Before I enter that plane, I want to know.

  He gives me a disarming smile, a far cry from that brooding man I first met the other night. “Can’t it wait? I want wine before I’d spill my family secrets on you.”

  I stand my ground. “I’m serious, Ashton.”

  “Okay…What’s your favorite social media site on the internet?”

  ”I’m not on social media.”

  His brows raise in a bit of disbelief. “Ever?”

  His reaction irks me. “I hate social media. It’s full of superficial and judgmental people.”

  “Fair enough. That’s partly true. But you went to high school and most can’t exist without social media nowadays.”

  “Hard to believe, but I’m one of the minority who don’t have any use for it. I don’t have friends. Not the normal friends a person my age has. I had whores for company all my life. I was pretty much an introvert and distrustful of people in general. Given my background, I don’t have good vibes to share in public either, so I avoid social media.”

  He nods, his eyes looking really…worried? “I see.”

  “But what’s that gotta do with my question?”

  He pulls me to step back a few meters from the plane. He points at the plane’s rear. “That’s my company logo.”

  I see a letter Z emblazoned on the plane. It looks familiar. Very familiar. I may not be on social media, but I know the biggest social media sites.

  “Z…Zenith?”

  He nods. “At least you know one of my companies.”

  “So…?”

  “My full name is Ashton Blackstone. Ring a bell?”

  My jaw drops. It certainly does! He’s always mentioned alongside Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg. I do know who are the big movers in tech. I’ve read all the business digests I could find in the library and on the internet. Those are where my interests lean, not flirting on social media.

  How in hell have I not recognized
him? I think I saw his picture once or twice on the internet. But he was clean-shaven in those pictures and wearing glasses, looking like a handsome geek. He’s not wearing glasses now and sporting a scruffy, disreputable look.