A PRICE TO PAY: A Dark Bad Boy Romance

by Zoey Parker

  Sperm and I bristled, preparing to draw our guns depending on Antonio's reaction. But Antonio just frowned for a moment, confused. “Chester? I'm afraid you might have the wrong boat, there, pal. There ain't no one named Chester here.”

  “How about Angelo?” Bard asked without missing a beat. “Might he be around? We really do hate to bother you, but we had some business we wanted to discuss with him.”

  Antonio's frown deepened. My hand slowly started to drift behind me toward my gun. I didn't like the idea of a gunfight on a dock full of Fourth of July party-goers, but I liked the idea of being unprepared for one even less.

  “Business?” Antonio asked. “What kinda...” He stopped, then his face brightened and he burst out laughing. “Holy shit, really? Is that what you guys came for? Hey, wait here. He’s gonna get such a kick out of this!” He walked into the yacht's cabin, and we heard his voice calling out. “Angie! Angie, come on out here! You ain't gonna believe who's here to conduct a little freakin' transaction with you!”

  Bard turned to shoot us a bemused look.

  A few moments later, a boy in a White Sox t-shirt with a matching baseball cap emerged from the cabin. He looked about ten years old. “Hi, I'm Angelo,” he said. “Most of my friends call me Angie, though. Are you guys really here to buy my Frank Thomas?” he asked.

  “Your what?” Bard replied.

  The boy reached into his pocket and carefully removed a baseball card encased in thick clear plastic. The picture showed a young black man in a White Sox uniform, kneeling on the diamond next to a plate as another player stepped on it.

  “Frank Thomas,” Angie said incredulously, as though Bard had asked him whether water was really wet. “The Big Hurt? I've got his No Name Rookie Error Card from 1990, the first season he started playing for the Sox. My friend Nathan tried to tell me it was only worth $500, but I looked online and there was a website that said they only printed 100 of these so they're worth over $1,000. So do you want to buy it, or what?”

  Sperm and I looked at the kid, then at each other.

  “Call me crazy, boss,” Sperm said to Bard, “but I think maybe we've got the wrong boat.”

  Chapter 35

  Jewel

  Growler held up one finger.

  “Just the one?” I asked. “Really?”

  Growler nodded. His tangled locks of hair billowed around his scarred face.

  “Are you absolutely positive?” I teased, smiling. “Because I find it a little hard to believe you're holding that many good cards.”

  Growler nodded again vigorously, holding up his index finger again.

  “Okay,” I said, “but just so you know, if you're bluffing, I'm not falling for it.”

  Growler nodded once more, switching to his middle finger.

  I laughed. “All right, but when you lose, don't give me that puppy-dog eye of yours.”

  Growler chuckled from deep in his throat, lowering his finger. I dealt him a single card. He carefully laid his four cards face-down on the cot in front of him, then added the fifth card to them and picked them up again. I couldn't imagine that patience was a common trait among bikers, and I was amazed by how much of it he showed in working around his disabilities. And once I got past his frightening appearance, it was easy to see that he was a very charming person in his way, with a wonderful sense of humor.

  “Okay, dealer takes three,” I said, discarding three and replacing them from the deck.

  Growler studied his cards for a moment, rearranged them, then put them face-down again and tossed three cocktail toothpicks with red plastic frills into the pile in the center.

  “And we have a bet of three hundred from the handsome young man with the metal toes,” I said. “Well, sir, the house sees your three hundred, and raises you seven.” I took a toothpick with green frills from my pile and threw it into the center with the half-dozen others of various colors.

  Growler thought for a moment, then shrugged and added seven red-frilled toothpicks to the pot. He pointed to the cards in my hand, then pointed to the cot, indicating that I should show my cards.

  I put my cards on the cot face-up. “Three Queens.”

  Growler flipped his cards over, revealing four deuces. He chortled to himself, sweeping the pile of toothpicks over to his side of the cot.

  “You've got to be kidding!” I exclaimed. “How does one guy get so lucky, huh?”

  Growler wrote on the blackboard, holding it up. “That's what I ask every day when I look in the mirror.”

  I burst out laughing. Growler grinned.

  “You want me to keep dealing?” I asked. He nodded and I scooped up the cards, shuffling them. I used to play Five-Card Draw with my grandmother when I visited her as a child, and it was one of the only card games I knew how to play. It was a good way to pass the time, and I knew Growler was trying to ease my mind while I waited for Rafe.

  But I was still so nervous I could barely sit still. I was no longer fretting about how I would feel if I got shot. Instead, all I could think about was how I would feel if Rafe got shot.

  “Can I ask you a question?” I said.

  Growler scrawled on the board. “8 inches.”

  I laughed again. “Jeez, you bikers and your dick jokes, I swear. No, what I wanted to ask...and I mean, you don't have to talk about it if you don't want to, obviously, or if it makes you uncomfortable...”

  Growler pointed to his missing eye, tongue, arm, crotch, and feet, then drew a question mark in the air and cocked his head. Clearly, he knew I was going to ask how he'd lost them.

  “Yeah, that,” I said, a lump in my throat. I hadn't known about his crotch until he pointed to it. Good lord, how awful, I thought.

  Growler blinked at me with his one eye for a moment, then wrote on the board again. “Leprosy's a bitch.”

  I stifled a laugh. I'd only known him for an hour, and already I found myself strangely inspired by him. I couldn't imagine the kind of inner strength it would take for someone to be able to make jokes after everything he'd been through.

  It was funny, in a way. My entire life, I'd seen gangs of tough bikers in movies and TV shows, but I'd never actually met one until a few days ago. The fictional bikers were always portrayed as shallow, violent thugs and psychos. So far, the ones I had met in real life had surprised me tremendously.

  “No, come on, seriously,” I replied. “Was it some kind of gang-related...thing? Was it anything like what Rafe's involved with now?”

  Growler looked at me for almost a full minute, his expression a mixture of curiosity and sympathy. Finally, he wrote on the board. “Thinking about a future with him?”

  “Was I that obvious?” I chuckled.

  Growler nodded.

  “It's just...this whole life is very new to me,” I explained hesitantly, trying to find the right words. “Before a few days ago, the most exciting thing that ever happened to me was almost getting hit by a car while crossing the street, and now I've been chased and shot at. I even killed someone yesterday. Can you believe that? Because I still can't.”

  Growler raised an eyebrow in surprise, then made a “go on” gesture.

  “And somehow, I've survived it all, and I want to believe that means I can survive whatever else I'd have to if Rafe and I were...you know.”

  Growler put up two fingers and crossed them.

  “Right,” I said. “But then I see you, and no offense, but whatever happened to you isn't something I had even considered as one of the risks before. For him, or for me. Which probably means there are about a hundred other risks I hadn't thought of either, right?”

  Growler nodded.

  “So I guess I'm sitting here, and I'm worried that he won't come back, or that only part of him will, or something else will happen that's horrible and too big for me to even imagine. And I'm wondering if anyone could possibly make a relationship work under those conditions.”

  Growler thought for a moment, then wrote, carefully trying to squeeze all of his words into the boa
rd's limited space. “Many do under these conditions & worse. Only works if it's important enuff 4 them 2 make it work. Up 2 u.”

  I nodded. He was right, of course. The world was full of cops, soldiers, rescue workers, and yes, even criminals, many of whom had to live with these same fears every day. Why couldn't I? Besides, despite my own previously-sheltered life, I still knew that unimaginable, unpredictable violence and tragedy could easily hit anyone anyway, forcing them to live with—or grieve—the consequences. At least I'd be more prepared for it than most.

  “Thank you,” I said. “You're pretty wise for a biker.”

  Growler wrote again. “Wasn't always. Lose 34% of ur body & u start 2 think about what u still have & how 2 make the most of it.”

  Before I could respond, I heard a loud crash in the bar, followed by men's voices yelling and a sound I'd come to know much too well—shots from handguns and machine pistols.

  Growler jumped up from the cot, surprisingly agile on his prosthetic feet. He motioned for me to get back against the rear wall, then tipped the cot over and slid it up against the door before locking it. He drew a gun from the back of his waistband and darted over to the back door, opening it just a crack.

  I heard a voice outside yell “Back here!” a split-second before a machine gun opened fire, peppering Growler's torso with bullets.

  “Growler!” I yelled, starting forward reflexively to catch him before he fell.

  Growler roared from the back of his throat, gesturing for me to stay back. He staggered back, then regained his balance, slamming the door and locking it. He shoved the stack of tables and chairs, spilling them in front of the back door to barricade it.

  The voices outside were getting louder. “Fish, you dumb fuck! He said we needed her alive!”

  “Yeah, well, he didn't say nothin' about them other greasers or that Frankenstein-lookin' fucker peekin' out the door,” another voice said. Fists started banging and hammering at both doors.

  My stomach felt like it was being squeezed by a fist of ice as I pressed myself against the wall. My fingernails dug into the cheap paneling. I gritted my teeth against the panic, wishing I had kept the pistol instead of giving it to Rafe while also knowing with a gnawing certainty that it wouldn't have done me any good.

  There was no way out of here except with these men who were coming for me. My only comfort was that they wanted me alive, but without knowing what for, that wasn't much comfort at all. A horrible voice inside of me wondered whether something similar to this had happened to Growler once, when he still had two eyes and two arms and two legs.

  The sound of Growler's heavy breathing filled the room as he pointed his gun, rapidly shifting his aim from one door to the other. He was doubled over, but I could still see the deep holes in his torso pumping out dark red blood. One of the wounds was in the right side of his chest, and every time he inhaled, it whistled wetly.

  His eye flickered back and forth, back and forth. His eyepatch was soaked with the heavy sweat that rolled down his face. His teeth were clenched, bubbles of spit forming at the corners of his mouth.

  Back and forth.

  Back and forth.

  Suddenly, the door to the bar smashed open, shoving the cot aside. Men in ski masks pushed through, some carrying shotguns while other brandished mini-Uzis. Growler squeezed the trigger as the men opened fire on him. His first two shots hit a man standing toward the front, but the rest went wild as his body jitterbugged under automatic fire from six different gunmen.

  After a few seconds that seemed like an eternity, the guns fell silent and Growler reeled backward, dead before he hit the floor.

  The men swarmed into the room, approaching with their guns trained on me. When they got close enough, the two in front reached out quickly, snatching my wrists and duct-taping them together behind me. My lips parted and I let out a scream before another strip of tape was slapped over my mouth.

  “We don't need to hear it, honey,” one of the larger men said, heaving me over his shoulder and turning around. I lashed out with my foot and felt it connect with the side of someone's ribs, eliciting a pained groan. A few of the other men laughed.

  “Hey, we got one hell of a kicker over here!” one of them said.

  “Bears oughtta draft this bitch,” wheezed the man who'd been kicked. “Couple field goals from her an' they might make it to the Super Bowl.”

  There was more laughter as a long strip of duct tape was wrapped around my ankles. Someone punched me in the left kidney, and the pain that radiated from it felt like rusty nails.

  “Have fun pissin' blood, you rotten slit,” said the man I'd kicked.

  “Yo, we oughtta get a fuckin' move on,” said a younger, more nervous voice. “If the cops show up...”

  “Relax, Tommy,” someone else said. “The cops've been paid off top to bottom to steer clear of this block until we're finished. Now come on, help me lift this filthy mignotta into the trunk. I got a bad back already.”

  I was carried out the back door to the alley behind the Devil's Nest where two cars were parked. Most of them got into the first car and drove off, while the remaining two dragged me to the second car and popped the trunk.

  As they crammed my aching body into the trunk and slammed it shut, I thought about how funny it was to find out that the cops really had been bought off by Jester after all. I thought about poor Growler lying on the floor in a pool of blood. I thought about where they might be taking me.

  Mostly, though, I thought about what they might cut off of me when we got there.

  Chapter 36

  Rafe

  Bard ended up telling Antonio that we'd been looking for a different Angelo, and that the “business” we wanted to discuss involved restoring a vintage motorcycle for him. But Antonio had still looked a little distrustful of this explanation. As we walked away, I could tell Bard was wondering whether someone like Antonio might call the cops and report us as suspicious characters. We hadn't exactly committed a crime, but we couldn't exactly go snooping for the Thorns' yacht with the police breathing down our necks either. Plus I'd been out of prison for all of four days, so carrying an unlicensed firearm would probably be enough to put me back behind bars for a long fucking time.

  We tried to blend in and look casual as we walked up and down the docks, looking for any clues pointing to the Thorns' boat. Just as we were about to give up, Sperm pointed to one of the smaller yachts near the end of the last dock and said, “Hey, you don't suppose...?”

  Bard and I turned to look. The boat was sleek as an arrowhead and painted dark crimson. The name on the hull was “Every Rose,” and the letters were decorated with elaborate vines of thorns.

  “'Every Rose Has Its Thorn?'” I said in disbelief. “Huh. I wouldn't have pegged Jester and his guys as Poison fans.”

  “Hiding in plain sight after all,” Bard said. “Come on. Let's see if anyone's aboard.”

  We walked up to the gangway, peering up at the deck. It didn't look like anyone was there. Bard motioned for us to follow him and crept up the gangway slowly, his hand hovering over the handle of the pistol at the back of his jeans. Sperm and I followed.

  “This doesn't feel right,” Sperm muttered. “What if they're watching us, waiting for us to get on board so they can blow the boat up or something?”

  “If Jester really thinks killing me is worth blowing up a yacht, I'm flattered,” I answered.

  “Quiet, both of you,” Bard hissed. He stepped aboard and walked over to the cabin's entrance. He pressed his body against the wall next to the open doorway, snuck a quick peek inside, then relaxed and stepped forward.

  “It doesn't look like there's anyone here,” Bard said. “Still, keep your wits about you, both of you. Let's search the place and see what we can find.”

  We spent the next thirty minutes examining every inch of the boat's deck and cabin, looking for any clue that it belonged to the Family of Thorns. We couldn't find anything. It was almost as if no one had ever even stepped on
to the yacht before. There were no personal items, no clothes, not even a bottle of liquor or a glass to pour it into. Even the windows and walls seemed as though they'd never been touched, since they didn't have a single fingerprint or smudge on them.

  “I don't like this at all,” Sperm said. “This yacht looks completely new and untraceable, which kinda seems to support my whole blowing-it-up-with-us-on-it theory. I think we need to get out of here as fast as possible.”

  “I agree,” I said. “This smells like a trap. We need to go. Now.”

  We all turned and headed for the gangway as fast as our legs could carry us.

  Chapter 37