His to Protect: Midnight Riders MC

by April Lust

  Struggling to my feet, I waited until the flashlight swung for a beat to the opposite side of the field. Then I limped out into the darkness as fast as I could, pain erupting in my leg with every step. But I didn’t stop.

  Pain couldn’t make me stay here.

  # # #

  If I thought I’d made a mistake when I first left the orphanage, I learned what that word truly meant two weeks later. A sandwich could only last so long, and the clothes I’d brought with me weren’t all that warm. An early-onset winter meant I was spending my nights shivering on abandoned stoops and the grimy underside of concrete overpasses. Chicago sure wasn’t friendly to the homeless.

  Hunger was a real bitch. It took me over from the inside, making my teeth ache and my skin shiver. I couldn’t think straight, could barely see or stand up. I’d managed to steal a few candy bars from the local bodega on the corner, but after the man behind the counter had caught me in the act last time around, I didn’t dare go back. I’d barely managed to run out in time to avoid getting snatched up and beaten.

  I thought about all the meals I was missing back at the group home. The food tasted awful, but at least it was three meals a day, enough to keep my belly from caving in the way it had started to.

  Yet as hungry as I was, there was no going back. I’d made a choice, and I didn’t renege on my choices. I was going to make it out here come hell or high water. I’d find a place to live and food to eat and I’d be my own man.

  But first, I needed some money.

  It was easy to spot the men who had cash to spare. They stood on the corner in big, fur-lined parkas, laughing loudly and rolling dice on the sidewalk while they threw around crisp twenties as wagers on the games they played.

  The rich men sold drugs. Filthy, deranged men and women would stagger up to them, begging for product, and forking over crumbled bills in exchange for a tiny plastic baggie of something brown and moist. I’d never tried it, but the junkies acted like the brown stuff was a miracle from God. Their faces would light up, they’d spread their lips to reveal dirty, gap-toothed smiles, and they’d skip away with joy in their step. Then they’d be back two days later, looking worse than ever, begging for more.

  I didn’t care about the crackheads. They were only a means to an end. What I wanted was the money. That was the ticket to getting everything going the way it was supposed to go.

  I needed to learn more. One day, I stood across the street from one of the drug dealers. I ignored the roaring in my stomach. The dealer was a big, burly white guy. He wore the hood of his jacket pulled up. His eyes squinting out from beneath the lip of the parka were black and beady. He scanned the streets, back and forth, always on the lookout for cops or enemy dealers infringing on his territory.

  I waited until there was a break in traffic before limping over. My ankle still hurt like a bitch, but I did my best to hide it. Coming to a stop in front of the man, I crossed my arms and drew myself up tall.

  I cut straight to the chase. “How do I get some money?” I asked him.

  He barely looked down. “Get the fuck outta here, li’l kid,” he said.

  But I wasn’t going anywhere. “I want money,” I said firmly, careful to pitch my voice a few octaves lower so I wouldn’t give away my age.

  “I said scram.”

  I dug my heels in, stared up at him with the meanest face I could muster, and repeated myself. “I want money.”

  The man sighed, exasperated. “Look, kid, I’m not gonna tell you again. This ain’t no place for a scrawny little bitch like you. Come back when you’re older.” He pushed me and I stumbled backwards, then he went back to eyeing the passerby.

  Even at that age I didn’t like being talked down to. Didn’t this man know who I was? I had run away from a state facility. I was a man of the streets now. I wasn’t going to tolerate his disrespect.

  I reached out and gave him a two-handed shove. I pushed hard, but my hands only sunk deeper into his protruding gut.

  “What the…” he said, then he sighed again, withdrew a hand from his pocket, and swatted me across the face.

  I crumbled immediately under his blow, slamming into the pavement a yard away, my head cracking hard on the ground. Dizziness surged through my vision, blurring the lines of everything around me.

  The dealer didn’t look back at me. As I lay on the ground, blinking through the dull pain, an emaciated old lady staggered up to him, moaning something through her toothless gums. They began to argue back and forth, though I could hardly make out their words through the deafening tone ringing through my ears. Eventually, they settled on something. Drugs and money exchanged hands.

  I pushed myself to a seat, still reeling from the smack of my head on concrete. I watched while the dealer counted out the bills he’d received carefully, then pulled out a huge wad of cash from his back pocket and added the new ones to the roll. When he was done, he tucked it back in.

  I could see the thick stack of green peeking over the edge of his denim. A scowl set in over me. Who did this bastard think he was, knocking me around like that? I was going to show him. That money was going to be mine.

  The swirling giddiness had started to settle down and the world regained its order. I clambered up slowly, ignoring the pain lancing through my head and ankle. I was a man of the streets. I took what I wanted. No one was going to stop me, least of all this dumb, pig-eyed son of a bitch.

  When another customer came tottering up to him, I took my chance. Springing forward, I snatched the roll of cash from his back pocket, tucked it under my arm, and booked it around the corner.

  Every step was agony, but I couldn’t afford to stop. I heard pounding footsteps and raised voices coming from behind me. “Get the fuck back here, you little cunt!” the dealer roared. Other people joined him in chasing after me.

  The cold air was like daggers on the inside of my lungs and throat. I wove between pedestrians, desperate to find a spot to hide. If they caught me, they’d kill me, simple as that.

  The weight of the money was intoxicating. I’d never held so much cash at one time before. It was heavy, palpable. I couldn’t wait to pour over it and let its power wash over me. This was the shit. I was headed for the top. No one could stop me.

  Then I whipped around a corner and collided face-first with the knee of a tall businessman in a suit. All my momentum stopped at once. He looked down, startled to see a dazed little kid had run into him. But he didn’t stop. He stepped over me and kept on barking orders into his cell phone as he retreated into the distance.

  “Wait,” I gasped, stumbling on wavering legs. The breath had been knocked out of my lungs. I couldn’t manage to suck in more air. “Fuck…” I sputtered. This time, the word wasn’t satisfying. It was just ugly.

  I couldn’t do anything to resist as rough hands picked me up and carried me into a nearby back alley. “You fucking little shit,” snarled the man. He reared back and buried a fist in my stomach. I felt a rib give way under his knuckles.

  “You think you can fucking steal from me? Fuck you. Nobody steals from me.” He hurled me against the brick wall.

  I slammed into it, then slid down to the wet, dirty concrete. My eyes fluttered open just in time to see a tan boot wind up and then swing into my jaw. The world erupted in fireworks. More blows followed, battering my legs, my head, my torso. Bone crunched and blood dripped while the man beat the ever-living shit out of me.

  When he’d finished venting his anger on my helpless body, he plucked the cash from my limp grasp and walked away. I could only see his boots as he disappeared around the corner.

  The electricity in my brain was dim and sputtering. I could only focus on one thought, one word: fuck.

  Chapter 2

  Natalia

  “Natalia, what the hell do you think you are doing?”

  My father’s voice was as angry as always. It ripped through the heat of the kitchen and pierced my ears with its shrill fury. He soon followed, bundling around the corner, his cheeks p
urpled with rage. The tendons of his neck stood out stark against his flesh.

  I froze in place. The dolls on the tiled floor in front of me were worn and filthy. Their hair was a matted mess, limbs were missing, and every article of clothing was as threadbare and tattered as the ones I wore myself. It made sense—after all, they’d been fished out of the garbage—but it didn’t matter to me. I loved them anyway, even Eva, the one without a right eyeball. She had a sweet smile painted on.

  I liked to pretend that my mother had a smile like that. I wouldn’t know, of course. She was gone long before my memories began. Daddy always told me she’d gotten sick of the Chicago winters and she went to California, where it was sunny and warm. But I didn’t believe him. I could always tell when he was lying.

  I looked up at where he stood in the doorway. He was skinny, hardly any meat left on his bones, though a little potbelly sagged over his drawstring chef’s pants. He walked with a hunched back and a hitch in his step, cursing up a storm under his breath, always demanding to know why his body was betraying him in so many ways both little and big. His hands were scraped raw from years of plunging them into the hot water from the sink.

  He’d owned this restaurant for as long as I’d been alive. He used to tell me he’d moved to Chicago and found a job working in the kitchen here under the previous owner. It was a rundown Italian joint. We served spaghetti and meatballs with marinara sauce, lasagna, and lots of other dishes like that. But there weren’t ever too many people who came to eat here. Daddy was always sitting in his office, shuffling through papers and cursing like he loved to do. He knew a lot of curse words.

  I opened my mouth to talk, but he didn’t wait for me to answer. Instead, he marched across the distance between us in two quick steps, scooped up my dolls, and threw them straight into a trashcan.

  “No, Daddy!” I shrieked, clutching at his elbow.

  He shook me off, then spun around and seized my upper arm between his skinny skeleton fingers. “I told you to wash the dirty dishes,” he hissed. His face was jammed up against mine. I hated looking into his eyes. They were so scary. “If you don’t listen to me, you don’t get your dolls.”

  “I’m sorry, Daddy,” I wailed. Tears were streaming down my face. His grip on my arm was so tight. It hurt. There would be bruises later. It wasn’t the first time this had happened.

  “Now, go,” he barked, throwing me backwards. I stumbled, but stayed on my feet. He spun on his heel and stormed back out, ranting quietly to himself.

  Everything was wrong. It was too hot in the kitchen, my arm hurt, my dolls were gone, and the stack of dishes teetering on the edge of the sink would take me years to scrub clean. Daddy always made sure they were extra clean. He’d pluck one up from the finished stack and hold it right up under his eyes. If there was even the tiniest speck of grime or crusted food on it, he’d make me start the whole pile over, no matter how clean all the others were.

  I sagged in front of the sink. I didn’t want to stand up anymore. I just wanted to lie down somewhere quiet and cool and sleep for a long, long time. And when I woke up, I wanted Daddy to be nicer and smiling.

  I twisted open the faucet. Water poured out, scalding hot. Steam rose in spirals from the flow. Reaching as high as I could while standing on my tiptoes, I pulled the first plate from the top of the stack, dunked it in the sudsy water, and started to scrub.

  I pretended all the bad things were like old food on the plates. If I scrubbed hard enough and didn’t cry out when the hot water hit my hands, I’d be able to make it all go away. The plates were so pretty when they were clean. Maybe my life could be that pretty, too.

  Hours passed as I scrubbed and scrubbed until my hands were swollen and pink. I could hardly bend my knuckles. The fingertips were like little fleshy raisins.

  It had to be getting close to closing time. There were still a lot of chores I had to do after the customers stopped coming in, but at least Daddy wouldn’t be quite so nervous and mad. He usually calmed down a little bit once the restaurant was empty.

  I eyed the pile. There were only a few dozen plates left. I figured I could afford to take a quick break. Stepping down from the stool, I tottered to the kitchen door. I pushed it open and stuck my head out.

  There was a short hallway connecting the kitchen to the main dining room. The sign on the door was flipped to Closed and the few tables I could see were empty, but, for some reason, there were still unfamiliar voices booming throughout the building. Suddenly, I heard a big crash, like plates shattering.

  I snuck down the hallway and peeked around the corner to see what was happening.

  At the big booth in the corner, two men in suits were lounging back, cackling. Their suits were shiny and new-looking. I wanted to touch the fabric. It looked so soft and silky. They each had cigarettes burning between their lips, even though smoking wasn’t allowed in the restaurant. Daddy hated the smell.

  Strewn across the table were dozens of dishes. That was good, at least. They’d ordered a lot of food, so maybe, if I were lucky, Daddy would be a little bit happier tonight. Maybe they’d even leave him a big tip. That would be best of all.

  “This pasta tasted like shit, Antonio,” said one of the men. He had a thick, bristly mustache and chubby fingers with lots of gold rings. As I watched, he picked up the plate in question and dropped it on the floor at my father’s feet where he stood at the head of their table, right on top of the remains of another broken dish.

  It hit the floor and broke into tiny shards. Pasta sauce flew up onto my father’s apron and torso. He flinched, bringing up his hands to protect his face. I couldn’t see his expression but I knew he would be furious. Daddy had such a temper, didn’t these men know that? I bet he was about to kick them out and curse at them until they cried, just like he did to me when I was bad.

  But he didn’t do anything. He lowered his hands slowly. I barely recognized the voice that came out of his mouth just then. It didn’t sound anything like him. Where was the anger? Where were the curse words? The only thing he said was, “I’m s-sorry, Giovanni. It won’t happen again.” His tone was apologetic and sad. He looked down at his feet as soon as he’d finished talking.

  I was confused. None of this made any sense. Daddy shouldn’t be acting so nice to these men. He was letting them smoke in the restaurant and break his plates and insult his food. That wasn’t very nice of them at all. If I’d broken a plate, Daddy would have shaken me by my arm and sent me straight to my room without supper.

  “Fuck your sorry,” said the other man. This one was immensely fat, but he had a baby face, skin as smooth and clear as a pat of butter. When he spoke, his cheeks shook like Jell-O. I didn’t like him any more than I liked the man with the mustache. “And fuck your food,” he added. “Giovanni’s right. It does taste like shit.”

  “Can I, uh, get you something else?” my father stuttered.

  “You can get us the money you owe, Antonio,” the fat man said. His eyes were squinty and mean. He took a big drag on his cigarette and blew the smoke straight into Daddy’s face. Daddy coughed hard, doubling over as he wheezed. The men all chortled.

  Daddy tried to talk, though his voice came out raspy. “I don’t have any money to give you right now. I can barely keep the lights on as it is. Nobody comes here!”

  The man with the mustache cut in sharply, “The Esposito family doesn’t give a fuck about your excuses, Antonio. We don’t care how you get the money. But you better find a way to get it.”

  My father started to babble. “There’s just no way, I mean, how can I? No customers, food goes bad, and then—” The sharp crack of flesh on flesh rang out, interrupting him. Daddy’s head snapped back. He fell silent, stunned.

  The man with the mustache, the one who had just slapped him across the face, winced and rubbed his knuckles. “Christ, you’ve got a hard skull, Antonio,” he muttered. “I hate doing that, you know. Why do you make us do things like that?” He tugged on a pair of leather gloves as he stood up fr
om the table.

  The other man followed suit. As he stood, he swept an arm across the table, knocking off the dozens of half-eaten plates of food that had been sitting there. They slammed into the floor, crashing and smashing apart. Food went everywhere.

  “No, wait, please,” my father begged, but the skinny man with the mustache ignored his pleas as he gripped Daddy’s neck and swung him on top of the table.

  “Find the money. Now. We’ll be back soon if you don’t,” he said, pointing a gloved finger in his face.

  “Okay,” he gasped through the pressure on his neck. “I’ll find it, I swear.”