A PRICE TO PAY: A Dark Bad Boy Romance

by Zoey Parker

  And now Rafe had taken us to this weird little motel instead of going to the police, and he seemed to know the owner and what was going on. That was probably what they were talking about in the office. But why hadn't he told me anything? Why was he acting so mysterious?

  Who was Rafe? What the hell had I gotten involved in? What if whatever this was, it never ended?

  What if I'd never be safe again?

  I suddenly understood that if Rafe wasn't going to go to the cops, it must mean he was a criminal himself. I was in a motel room, waiting for a criminal to come back. A criminal who was somehow tied to the terrible thing I'd seen in the alley and knew more than he was telling. And the longer I went without calling 9-1-1 and reporting all of this, the more I'd look like I was a criminal, too.

  I looked up at the flimsy curtain over the window and realized how desperately I wished there were red and blue lights flashing through them. I wanted the police. I wanted to sit in a precinct sipping coffee and giving my statement, surrounded by friendly cops in uniforms who'd keep me safe from Rafe and the man in the alley and whoever else wanted to hurt me. I wanted a ruddy-faced patrolman to tell me that everyone involved had been arrested and would be going to a prison far away for the rest of their lives, and then offer me a ride back to my safe apartment and my safe job and my safe life.

  And if I didn't make that happen before Rafe came back, I might never have another chance.

  I reached for my purse with a trembling hand. It fell over, and everything inside of it clattered to the floor in a heap. I felt a surge of panic that felt like a stomach full of crickets, and my lungs finally filled with air. I thought about bullets punching through my body again. When they hit bone, would I feel the shards embed themselves in my surrounding organs? Would...

  I heard a strange, shrill sound, like an alarm going off. It took me a moment to realize it was coming from me. I was screaming.

  As I pawed through the stuff from my purse looking for my phone, my brain begged my lungs and mouth to be quiet so Rafe wouldn't come running. But I couldn't stop. I'd held in my shock and horror for too long and now it was leaking out uncontrollably in a steady stream, like air from a punctured tire.

  My fingers finally found my phone just as I heard the key rattling against the door lock. Rafe yelled my name, asking if I was okay.

  I tried to punch in the passcode to unlock my phone screen, but my hands were shaking too badly.

  The door burst open. Rafe lunged in, pointing a gun around the room. When he saw me on the floor, he jumped at me, knocking the phone out of my hand. It flew across the room, hitting the bed frame. The plastic casing broke hard enough to expose the phone's innards, and I knew I wouldn't be making any calls on it ever again.

  “What the fuck do you think you're doing?” he hissed angrily.

  Chapter 10

  Rafe

  I grabbed Jewel by the shoulders and shook her, trying to get her to stop screaming.

  Inwardly, I was kicking myself for letting her keep her goddamn cell phone. She could have called friends, family, or cops and let them know where we were. I'd lose my only potential lead, and Jester would probably have her shot in the head the first chance he got.

  But what was I supposed to do? Snatch her purse and yank her phone out of it? Cut the cord on the room phone? That'd make her think I was the reason to be scared, and she'd probably run off as soon as she saw an opening. I needed her afraid of the Mancusos, not me.

  The scream died in her throat and she inhaled. I clamped my hand over her mouth, staring into her frightened eyes. “I cannot let you make any calls and I cannot let you scream like that anymore,” I said slowly, enunciating every syllable. “If you do, you will put us both in serious danger, but especially you. There will be more guys with guns and they'll shoot at us again. Do you want to get shot?”

  Jewel shook her head slowly.

  “Good,” I continued. “Neither do I. Which is why the next time you scream or try to make a call, I'm not going to have any choice except to tie you up and put tape over your mouth, for your own good. And I don't want that. Do you?”

  She shook her head again.

  “Good,” I said again. “I want us to be able to trust each other. If we do, it'll make things a whole lot easier. So I'm gonna show you I trust you by taking my hand away from your mouth. Then we're gonna sit down calmly and I'll ask you some questions. Okay?”

  She nodded. Her breathing was starting to slow down.

  I removed my hand and got up, brushing the carpet dust from my jeans. Jewel didn't scream. She just looked up at me, wide-eyed. I offered her my hand. She flinched, then realized what I was doing and timidly grabbed it, letting me help her up.

  There was a loud knock at the door. I gestured for Jewel to have a seat on the bed, putting my finger to my lips. She nodded and I opened the door.

  A short, grizzled man stood there in a crusty undershirt and boxers, with corkscrews of wispy white hair sticking up from his head. He had thick white stubble on his leathery cheeks, and his eyes were yellowed and cloudy. He had the big, red, pitted nose of a hard drinker. He looked like he was a hundred years old and had hated every minute of it.

  “What in the Sam Hill is goin' on in there?” he demanded in a high, trembling voice. “Who's makin' all that racket?”

  “I'm sorry, sir,” I said, trying to sound respectful and sheepish. “I was asking the owner for directions and my wife had a real bad nightmare. She gets those sometimes and can't wake up from them. Scares the hell out of the kids when we're home.” I tried to keep my eyes on the old man, but I could see a few people poking their heads out of their rooms, and I knew they'd be listening too. I figured I'd better make it good so none of them would call the cops.

  “Anyway, it took me a minute to run back to the room when I heard her and wake her up,” I continued. “I'm real sorry it disturbed you. Probably gave you a heck of a jump.”

  “Ain't gonna happen again, is it?” the old man asked, peering past me into the room.

  “Definitely not,” I insisted. “It never happens when she sleeps on her side. She just forgot this time.” I looked over my shoulder at Jewel. “Right, honey?”

  Jewel nodded. “I fell asleep on my back while watching TV,” she said quietly. “Sorry.” The old man kept eyeing me suspiciously. For a moment, I considered handing him some money and telling him to have a nightcap on me, just so he'd fucking buzz off. Then I realized that would just give him something weird to remember about this whole incident if anyone ever asked him about it. If he thought it was just a random annoyance, he'd probably forget the whole thing by the time he woke up. Life's full of them.

  Finally, he nodded to himself and stepped away from the door. “Just keep it down,” he grumbled.

  “I will, sir, absolutely,” I agreed. “Thank you. Sorry again.”

  I closed the door and turned to look at Jewel. “Thanks for backing me up,” I said. “That was quick thinking.”

  “Why haven't we gone to the police?” Jewel asked immediately. “People tried to shoot us. They killed someone. Why aren't we reporting it? We haven't done anything wrong. Or at least...” She trailed off, her eyes searching my face.

  So she figured out on her own that I must have problems with the law, I thought. That was pretty fucking sharp of her, given how shaken up she must be. Controlling this situation and maintaining her trust might be harder than I thought. I'd have to cut way back on the tough-guy thing and try not to swear. After a seven-year prison stretch, I figured both would be pretty damn difficult, but I had to try.

  “That's a good question, and I can definitely understand why you'd be asking yourself that,” I replied, trying to sound reasonable. “If this was a normal situation, yeah, that would be the thing to do. But those guys who chased us were...” I stopped. “Have you ever heard of the Mancuso crime family?”

  Jewel shook her head. “Are they gangsters?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Bad ones. They pay off the
local cops and the State Police. We wouldn't be safe with them.” Technically, this was only half a lie. Chucky said the Mancusos might have grabbed a couple more cops here and there for their payroll, but the odds of a vast police conspiracy on their side were unlikely. Still, it was a good story to keep her from calling them.

  “Who are you? How are you involved in all this?” Jewel asked.

  I did my best to look harmless and innocent. After seven years in prison, I figured I was probably extremely out of practice. “Me? Like I said, my name's Rafe. I'm just a biker. I was passing by and saw you were in trouble. I didn't want you to get hurt or anything, so...”

  “But you knew who those guys were? How?”

  Fuck, she was smart. “The Mancusos own that restaurant you were in front of—Maggia's. All the bikers know that. When you're riding around out there, you learn who the players are real quick, even if you ain't in the game yourself.” I hoped this sounded like the kind of bullshit tough-guy movie wisdom that would be hard for her to argue with. I needed her giving answers, not asking me for them.

  “How much trouble am I in?” she demanded. “When can I go home?”

  “I want to answer that for you,” I said, “but for me to do that, I need you to answer some of my questions first. If you give me honest answers and don't hold anything back from me, I can figure out how bad it is and how we can fix it for you. Okay?”

  Jewel nodded.

  “First of all, I need you to tell me everything you saw and heard in that alley,” I said. “Think very carefully.”

  Jewel thought for a long moment. “I didn't really see much,” she said slowly. “I was getting closer and closer to the alley and I heard yelling. I should have just turned around and gone a different way. I wish I had, I don't know why I didn't...”

  She was losing focus and getting hung up on her panic again. I took her by the shoulders firmly. “Stop. That's over. You can't change it. But you can give me the details of what you heard, and we can start with that. It's important, okay? Concentrate.”

  She nodded again. “Right. Sorry. Um, at first I thought it was just a mugging, you know? Just some random thing. I mean, it's Chicago, there's always something bad going on these days...”

  I opened my mouth to interrupt her and she held up a hand. “No, I know,” she said. “Okay. The first man, he was begging and saying he was sorry. He called the other one by name...”

  “Angelo?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” she replied. “You know him?”

  “I know of him,” I said, thinking of all the times I'd been in the same room with Angelo and Jester. Again, I didn't feel great about lying to this girl. It wasn't her fault she'd been caught up in all this. Still, I needed answers.

  “And Angelo, he kept calling the first guy something...” Jewel frowned, trying to recall. Suddenly, she snapped her fingers. “'Maggot.' That's what it was. He called him that twice. I remember because I thought it was such a weird thing to call someone.”

  I'd known Maggot a little bit before I got sent away. He wasn't much of a real gangster. Actually, he'd been more of a hanger-on, tending bar and working the coat check at the Mancusos' restaurants while hoping for something bigger. He was a fucking weasel with a big mouth, mostly known for selling gossip and engaging in a bit of light blackmail here and there.

  And now he was dead.

  How had he gotten on Angelo's wrong side? Had he found out something he shouldn't have? Could I find a way to use that?

  “So Maggot was saying he was sorry,” I said. “Did he say what for?”

  “Not exactly,” Jewel said, rubbing her temples. “He, um...it sounded like he had something Angelo wanted. Or anyway, he knew where it was.”

  That could be helpful. “What was it?” I prodded.

  “God, I can't remember,” Jewel groaned, shutting her eyes tight. “I don't think he said anything about what it was.” Her eyes opened wide. “Wait. But he did say where it was. Milwaukee.”

  I fought the frustration boiling up inside me. Milwaukee was a big town, and this was starting to feel like pulling teeth. “Anything more specific than that?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “Definitely not. Except...he did say there was someone else who'd know the exact place. I think his name was...'Joker,' or something? That couldn't be it, could it?”

  “Jester,” I said through clenched teeth. So this did involve him directly somehow. Good.

  “Yeah, that was it,” Jewel agreed. “Is that someone else you 'know of?'”

  I caught the implied quotation marks around “know of.” Shit. She was still hip to the fact that I knew more than I was telling her, even if she was going along with it for now.

  “Jester's a high-level guy in the Mancusos,” I said. “And when you looked into the alley, what did you see?”

  The color drained out of Jewel's face and her hands started trembling again. “Angelo killed Maggot,” she whispered. “He shot him in the back. I don't know how many times.”

  “Are there any other details you can remember?” I asked. “Think hard.”

  “I could barely see anything.” Jewel said. “It was so dark, all I could see was the flash from the gunshots reflecting off that gold gun Angelo was using.”

  I frowned. “A gold gun? Are you sure about that?”

  “Pretty sure,” she said, nodding.

  Angelo had never owned a gold-plated gun when I'd known him. When it came to his personal style, he'd always been very conservative—classy tailored suits with dark colors, nothing too flashy. I'd heard him make fun of plenty of other guys for treating themselves to tricked-out pistols with fancy grips and plating. So the idea of him waving around a golden gun didn't seem to fit. I tried to remember whether I'd gotten a solid look at his gun when he was chasing us, and kicked myself when I realized I hadn't.

  Jewel was looking at me expectantly. I knew I had to tell her something to keep her from freaking out on me again.

  “If Jester's involved in this thing you saw, that's pretty serious,” I said. “We're gonna have to keep running for a while so his guys don't catch up to us.”

  Jewel's eyes filled with horror. “Keep running? Where? For how long? I have a job, an apartment, parents who will be worried about me...”

  “At least you'll be alive for them to worry about,” I insisted. “We'll work out the rest later. I'll think of something. In the meantime, you should try to rest. Do you want me to have Chucky order you something to eat?”

  Jewel shook her head. “I don't think I can eat anything. Actually, I might still throw up. I haven't really decided yet.” She looked down at the ugly bedspread under her, grimacing. “If I do it here, it might improve the look of it. The smell, too, for that matter.”

  I chuckled. Even scared and confused, this girl had a good sense of humor. I was starting to like her in spite of myself. “Cool. I know it'll be hard, but try to get some rest. I'll stay up and keep an eye on the door to make sure no one's coming for us. Not that I think they will tonight,” I added quickly, seeing her eyes widen again. “But just in case.”

  “Okay,” Jewel agreed. She kicked off her shoes and rolled over on her side, closing her eyes.

  I switched the TV on, killing the sound and putting on the closed captions as I tried to think of what to do next. After all the shooting and chasing earlier, I figured the adrenaline spike would stick around long enough to keep me up for a while.

  But that's the thing about adrenaline. It's like any chemical upper that churns through a person's system. Eventually, it runs out and you crash. And sleep always shows up at that crash site sooner or later, like an ambulance at the scene of a wreck.

  Sure enough, after a while sleep strapped me to its gurney, wheeling me off and driving me away to dreamland.

  Chapter 11

  Jewel

  I'd gone along with everything Rafe said and answered his questions because I knew I didn't have much of a choice.

  Rafe was doing a decent job of
pretending he was just a good-natured biker who happened along to save a damsel in distress. I wanted to believe it, and I might have if he hadn't mentioned the fact that he'd just gotten out of “the Gray Bar Hotel” when he was talking to Chucky earlier. Even I knew that meant he'd been to prison. He'd showed off a crude, blurry makeshift tattoo that looked like something a person would get in jail. My parents lived off the highway a few miles from the Potawatomi Correctional Center, and I was willing to bet that was what the “P.C.C.” stood for.

  So based on that, I could assume that Rafe was a criminal himself after all. When he'd told me that everyone out on the streets just automatically knew all that stuff about the Mancusos, I was pretty sure he was lying. He was involved with all of this somehow. So what did he need me for? What information was he trying to get from me? How long would he need to keep me around?