Keeping You: KJ Elite Inc.

by Kracek, L. K.

  Lord help me.

  “I want that, too.”

  Unfortunately, I can’t fight the very unwelcome yawn that overtakes me.

  “Sleep first. I’ll be here in the morning.”

  * * *

  Blind faith.

  That’s what she’s always giving me.

  Undeservingly so.

  I say move, she moves; I tell her to go, she leaves; I don’t confide in her and she doesn’t ask any questions.

  She doesn’t even ask me why I was into all that shit. She just accepted my need to control with no reason behind it.

  Damnit though, if she doesn’t ask I may never tell her why.

  Now she’s cuddled up, snoring lightly in my arms.

  I can hear someone hovering by our door so I get up slowly and quietly.

  “Diesel, here.” I call, pointing to the bed beside Jamie.

  I toss on a pair of low hung sweats and house shoes before making my way to the door.

  Trying to make as little noise as possible, I disengage the locks to find Peyton pacing a hole in the ground.

  “Dude? You are aware it’s well past midnight, right?”

  “You should really come hear this. Baby went with me, into town, earlier. We ran into Bryant.” He said, and then walked away.

  Damnit. I thought about jogging back into the room to grab a t-shirt but decided to just leave it. No one wants to be out of the action and apparently, there is action to be had.

  In the meeting room is Peyton, Mike, Candace, Luke, Charlie, Tommy and dad.

  The age old question: where the Hell is Baby?

  “Noah.”

  “Dad.”

  We nodded and I set my focus on Baby and Peyton who looked hyped up.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I went for a run to grab some essentials when Bryant just walked right out of the gas station store.”

  “Alone?” Mike asked.

  “Alone.” Peyton repeated. “He asked if we would be interested in a trade. Of sorts.”

  “Bryant didn’t fuckin’ touch her, did he?” She aint here and I’m feeling edgy.

  “A trade?” Dad asked, craning his neck in confusion.

  “Baby for his guy. Apparently we will get all the answers from his guy.”

  “How can we trade Baby for his guy if we’ve got them both? Where the fuck is she?” My body is overheating from the anger overtaking my recently achieved sense of calm.

  “That’s the weird part. He wants us to just surrender Baby over to him.”

  “Like Hell we will. He’s officially lost his damn mind.”

  “Baby wanted me to tell you it was okay.” Peyton said, eyeing me sympathetically.

  I don’t need his damn sympathy, my girl ain’t walking into the hands of the same creep who broke her heart and is trying to kidnap my woman for a sex trafficker.

  “I’m sorry. Did no one hear my, ‘like Hell we will!’?”

  Peyton handed me a note that read:

  “Bryant does make useless or senseless deals. Give me just enough time to work him and I’ll be back.”

  -Alice

  My eyes snap shut and I take a deep breath. They’ve got to be pulling my leg. There’s no way this is real right now.

  “Who let her walk into this?” I ask, trying not to growl.

  “She went on her own. She’s a big girl and wanted you to know it was her choice. Baby knew you wouldn’t be on board with the plan so she didn’t come back to discuss it, she just went.”

  “Fuck that! I’m her team leader and friend. I won’t let her sacrifice herself. Bryant is still dirty.”

  “Let’s just see what his little parrot has to say.” Dad suggested, standing.

  “Not like I really have a choice, now do I?” My stomach and good mood are soured. You never get over losing a team mate.

  You get even.

  Maybe that’s what Bryant’s doing, but if Baby’s right… he handed us one of his on a silver platter. What in the Hell is going on.

  Chapter 15

  The door of the cell creaks open, jerking the douchebag awake. He sits up and rubs his eyes coming to.

  “Morning sunshine.” Peyton hollers, tossing a snickers at him.

  “Breakfast of champions.” He grunts, ripping it open. “It’s not laced with cyanide, right?”

  “Take a bite and find out.” Candace says, leaning her frame into the corner farthest from him.

  “Would you prefer fish?” Mike asked, straddling a chair.

  He came since Baby’s preoccupied now and Peyton just followed us.

  Ole’ boy looked up at that and shook his head, at a loss for words. I mean, how would you even defend that?

  “Can I get a first aid kit or something?” He asked swallowing half the snickers.

  “You’ve got a t-shirt and belt.” I said, staying near the door.

  It’s for the best.

  Looking me in the eyes, he carelessly chucked the wrapper in Candace’s direction. “Pick that up, will you, girl?”

  My fists clenched. I know Baby didn’t like a man to defend her and I can only guess Candace wouldn’t either, so I stay put, mouth zipped. Mike on the other hand is chomping at the bit, eyeing Candace, waiting for her to make her move.

  Instead, Peyton walks forward and steps on top of it.

  “Who are yall working for?” Candace asked, inspecting her fingernails.

  I’ve come to learn that Baby chews, Candace eyes. If only I could teach Baby that trick.

  “Oh, come on. No foreplay?” He clucked his tongue.

  “Sorry, bitches aren’t my type. Give me a name.”

  “Ooh, feisty. Daddy likey.”

  Candace put a hand over her mouth and gagged.

  “Focus, shithead.” Mike warned.

  “What’s in it for me? Because he’s paying a hefty fee and I gotta say,” he threw his arms out and looked around. “I don’t think you can afford to make demands.”

  “Here’s the thing, daddy.” Candace said nearly vomiting the word. “You’re gonna answer us because without our help, you’re dead either way. Bryant doesn’t stand for traitors on his team, I mean, why do you think he put you directly in the line of fire and tripped you up? And if your pimp gets a hold of you? I really don’t think I need to paint you a picture.”

  “Honestly, I’d probably take Marcus over Bryant. Even on his worst day.” I said.

  “You mean best day?” Bitch boy asked.

  “Nope, his worst day. Like, when he was shot six times and had a piece of rebar sticking out of his flank. You should have seen him. He was dying right there before my eyes and still took out thirty two towel heads. The thirty second, the nasty sumbitch yanked the rebar out and stabbed haji in the throat through and through, front to back.” I gave a shudder remembering.

  Bryant might be a rogue but he was crazy good at his job.

  “Jesus.” Peyton swore appreciatively.

  Baby later told me that was the night little Louisa was conceived. The story always makes me laugh.

  But I digress.

  “Then I’m a dead man no matter what.”

  “Not necessarily. There is a third option. Us. Would you be a rich man? No. But being a dead man, now that’s up to you.” I shrugged.

  This’ll be so much easier if he doesn’t ask questions. He might not be so cooperative then.

  We sit in a tense silence for no more than four minutes when he takes a deep breath and says, “Roberto.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it. He’s got a house in Spanish Wells. Transport goes through Miami to Spanish Wells where he inspects personally and then sends it all off. You’d be surprised how many people are willing to bend their morals for a little extra income.”

  Mike released an exasperated grunt that lifted his whole upper body while I shook my head in disgust.

  “It doesn’t surprise me one bit.”

  Bryant had himself a real genius on his team. This guy has to
be here for a reason and I’m willing to bet we all just learned what it is. Dude is weak and folds like a house of cards.

  “You got a name or should we just keep calling you ‘bitch boy’?”

  “Jeffery ‘Jay’ Morgan. 29, divorced, two kids, prior Army. Has an affinity to internet porn and doesn’t pay his bills on time. Tsk, tsk, Jeffery. You’ve been a naughty boy what with an extensive record as a youth dabbing in a little bit of everything and then getting kicked out of the service you were forced into to spare you from jail time. For rape and aggravated assault nonetheless.” Luke was standing just behind me in the doorway. He was holding a piece of paper that he crinkled up and tossed behind him after he finished reading.

  “Like it rough, do you?” Candace said suggestively.

  “It wasn’t rape. She liked it until her old man found out.”

  “He literally means her old man. And your wife, too.” Luke interjected. “I don’t suppose she was so fond of you poking the sixteen year old babysitter while your kids were in the other room, awake. Or the part where you threw her around and left a few bruises, broken bones and missing teeth. I bet the poor girl really liked that.”

  Peyton took a deep breath and started counting. Kids were his thing. Women and kids were his ultra-soft spot. Mike threw the chair across the room and hauled Jay up to his feet.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have promised you’d be safe with us. I didn’t know you liked getting handsy with little girls. See, that’s a problem for us.” I nodded, tightening my smile.

  “You wanna play rough with someone your own size?” Candace asked walking over to him with a sway in her hips.

  “Candace, out.” Mike commanded.

  “Not if I was dying and fucking him were the only chance at survival.” She argued.

  I laid my hand on Mike’s shoulder and pulled him back from Jay. She clearly had something she needed to do or say. With all of us here, there’s no way even his crooked breath would touch her.

  Jay smirked at Mike, Candace and me before turning his body to face her fully.

  “What are you gonna do, girl?”

  Before he finished rolling off the l, Candace had punched him square in the nose, kneed him in the groin, elbowed him in the mouth and was flipping him over her back. He slammed into the concrete floor with such force, he surely broke something. She shoved her booted foot into his solar plexus and dug her heel in.

  “Don’t you have any manners, you pig?”

  Jay was speechless. Mostly because he was trying to catch his breath again but also because no matter what he did or said, he was at our mercy not the other way around.

  Peyton skipped over like a fairy and wrapped an arm around Candace’s shoulders.

  “Let’s blow this popsicle stand, Candy.”

  Mike flexed his fists and followed like Beast from the children’s cartoon.

  “He’s flying into Miami as we speak. Roberto knows we found Jamie here and wants to be nearby when we have her. He also knows that something isn’t right with Bryant or his plan. I’ve kept him updated and after hearing that Bryant and his team were the best of the best, he wants to know why we don’t have her yet. Suspicion and paranoia are getting the best of him.”

  “I’m not going to object to more insider info, but just know that you are not going to walk away scot free from all this.” I told him, turning to leave.

  Luke covered my back and slammed the cell door shut before locking it and coming to walk beside me.

  “We’ve got to fucking find Nolan.”

  “You sound like you could use some cheering up.”

  “Hit me.”

  “Nolan reached out. Wants to meet. Says we rendezvous at the B&B to retrieve Baby.”

  “Because that doesn’t sound weird at all.”

  “I trust him. There’s something about him.”

  “Now you sound like Jamie.”

  “She is a smart woman. Hot as sin, too.”

  “You couldn’t handle her if she came with step by step instructions and tips.”

  “You’re probably right.” He agreed, solemnly.

  “Oh, you’ll find your own one day, little brother.”

  “So you searched his porn collection, huh?”

  “That part was just a guess based off of his personality and records.” Luke laughed.

  “Damn. Remind me never to have you write my Eulogy. Or speak at the funeral.”

  We shared a laugh and split at the door to my room agreeing to meet back in his cave in twenty.

  The room was still dark and Jamie was curled around Diesel who had his snout along her arm.

  “Spoiled, lucky bastard.”

  Diesel wagged his tail once and closed his eyes again.

  I wrote Jamie a small note and dressed. After staring at her for far too long without being labeled a creeper, I kissed her forehead and whispered, “I love you, sugar.”

  Jamie moaned and mumbled, “I love you, too, No.”

  Thank God Peyton came for me or I never would have left that room.

  * * *

  The second the door shut behind us, I spun on the toe of my black, spike covered, six inch Louboutin’s and sucker punched the air out of Bryant’s sternum.

  “What was that for?” He gasped, doubled over.

  “Have you got amnesia? I know you’re not stupid, so it must be amnesia. Or you have an evil twin out there somewhere?” I rambled on and on, moving to sit on the bed and remove my shoes. This wasn’t planned so I have no idea how long it’ll be until the boys show up. If they’ve told Noah it could be any minute now. Better safe than sorry – you don’t want sore feet and a migraine when getting ready to kick ass.

  Once they were off and tossed across the room, Bryant came to kneel before me.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry’s not good enough you lying, backstabbing, deadbeat, good for nothing, two timing, double crossing, ugly, fatheaded, prick.” My voice rose in pitch as my air supply dwindled.

  “I know I can’t make up for all that I lost and for what I put you through, but I swear on my last breath, I’ll try. Everything I did, I did for a good reason.”

  “There is not one good enough reason that could excuse you for what you’ve done. Even if there was, I wouldn’t let you use it.”

  “You have to know I never meant for this to happen.”

  “What, pray tell, do you mean by that? Jamie having a fucked up life or giving one to your own daughter?”

  “She did not have a fucked up life. First of all, she’s three and second, she had you.”

  Damn him.

  “I see you’re still just as slimy as you’ve always been.”

  “In less than an hour, you’re going to know everything. It’s all going to be laid out in pretty little color coded indexes for you.”

  “Why do you want me here?”

  “So you can understand. I did this for you and for her.”

  There is so much in that statement that I don’t know which way to go with it.

  “What’s with the getup? You do not have blue eyes and you used to have the most beautiful, inky black hair that fell in waves over your forehead. The tips touched your eye and drove you nuts but you never cut it.” I smiled at the internal image I had of him.

  “So you think it was the most beautiful, huh?”

  I’ve never been one for romance but that would have been a perfectly ruined moment had I not wanted it to be.

  “It was the only beautiful thing about you.” I rolled my eyes at him and looked away.

  Bryant leaned forward, sliding his large hands up my skinny jean clad thighs, wrapping around to my butt. He nuzzled his face in the crook of my neck and shoulder and inhaled.

  His proximity, the way his hands hold me perfectly, the smell of him, it all sends me into overdrive.

  “If I remember correctly, it’s not the only thing on me you called beautiful.”

  Bastard. My pussy tightens at the memories of him sliding beneath my l
egs.

  Now my body is beginning to tingle, aching for his touch to travel all over me. I have to take a deep calming breath.

  “Your memory sucks then. I said it was magnificent, not beautiful.”

  He chuckled and then bit down on my throat, lightly.

  A moan escaped my lips and I gripped his shoulders like it was still the natural thing to do.

  This was always how it happened between us. He’d sweet talk, I’d lose all thought and fall right into his big, burly arms. When the sun rose, he would be gone and a note apologizing.

  “No.”

  “Wrong man, babe. No doesn’t have shit to do with what’s between us.”

  I shoved at his shoulders and jumped back to the side of the bed out of his reach.

  “Noah has everything to do with what’s between us. When you ran off like a coward, he stepped up and helped me raise OUR daughter! She adores her Uncle Noah and because of him, she has a much more positive outlook on men than I do.” I shouted, not caring if everyone else in the B&B could hear me.

  Bryant stayed there, on his knees with his mouth open to speak when a knock came at the door.

  Whoops.

  “Hold that thought, babe.”

  I mumbled under my breath, “I’m not your babe.”

  Bryant swung the door open and got an instant shiner, knocking him back a foot.

  Welp, Noah’s here. My guy!

  “Baby?”

  He stepped around Bryant and checked me out from head to foot, circling me.

  “You alright?” Noah asked, enveloping me in a hug.

  “I’ve been gone a couple of hours at most. What could have happened?”

  Besides riding my brains out on Bryant’s magnificent cock.

  “Too much.” He said quietly.

  “I’m perfect.”

  Bryant got a wet washcloth and walked over to a chair by the window on the far wall. Taking ice out of a bucket nearby, he filled the washcloth and held it up to his eye.