by Nina Park
“Marco Santorelli speaking,” he said, his words clipped and hurried as if he had people waiting on several other lines.
“Marco? It’s Cade Dickinson of the Stone Devils.”
I’d known about Marco for years – everyone in our world did – but there was no reason to believe he would remember my name. He would, however, recognize the Stone Devils. We were one of the largest, most influential motorcycle clubs in the city, and it would look very bad if he refused to take my meeting.
“Cade, you said?” he asked, sounding suddenly friendly, personable. “How are you?”
“I have a business proposition for you.” I tried to get directly to the point.
I didn’t see the purpose in drawing out our conversation. Marco and I would never be friends, but perhaps, if he cooperated, we could be business associates. We could make a deal and go our separate ways. At least, I hoped so.
“Okay, great,” Marco said, his tone betraying his faux enthusiasm. “Why don’t we try to set something up in a few weeks? Maybe near the end of the month?”
“I was hoping for something a bit sooner.”
“Oh.” The line went silent, and I worried for a second Marco had hung up on me. But then, he continued, “When were you thinking, Cade?”
The way he said my name felt like an insult, as if he wanted to point out the difference between our positions within the world. He wanted to remind me that I was a nobody with a motorcycle and he had a crime ring under his thumb.
“Today,” I said coolly.
He whistled. “That’s a little short notice. Any reason for the urgency?”
“No, no reason. It’s just a good deal, and I’d hate for you to miss out on it.”
“Can you be here in an hour?”
I looked at the time. It would take forty-five minutes to get across the city to his clubhouse in even the best traffic, but I didn’t think I’d get a much better offer and I didn’t want to press my luck. So, I agreed.
I skipped breakfast, slipped on my Stone Devils kutte, and hopped on my bike.
Sleep had been difficult. I’d tossed and turned most of the night, trying to push away thoughts of the mystery woman from the club. She consumed my mind. Her body pressed against mine, her hands around my neck, her lips begging me for help. I didn’t even know her name, but I knew I had to help her. I had to figure out a way to get her away from Marco and his goons.
Now, finally, the time had come. I’d done my best to prep a speech for Marco, but I also knew I always did my best work on the fly. That was why Guts liked to send me out on jobs more than anyone else. I was clutch. Adrenaline made my mind sharper and helped me weasel out of even the tightest of situations.
The briny air whipped against my skin as I pulled my bike alongside Marco’s clubhouse. The building was outdated and worn down, but Guts told me Marco liked it that way. It kept people from having a good idea of how much money he had. People expected wealthy people to flaunt their wealth, so if Marco kept his headquarters in a rundown building by the docks, that had to mean he was short on funds for a remodel, right? Not exactly. And that was one of the things I was at the clubhouse to figure out.
Marco must have sent someone to wait for me because as soon as I hopped off my bike, a door on the side of the building facing the water opened and a large, muscly man stepped out.
“Cade Dickinson?” he asked, his square mouth downturned in a permanent scowl.
“That’s me.”
“Follow me,” he said with a bark.
The lights were dim, but I could still make out the worn shag carpet running the length of the hallway, the creaky wooden floors, the cracks in the walls. The place looked like it had been plucked out of the 1970s.
I followed the lumbering guard down a hallway until it opened into a kind of lobby. Floral patterned furniture and glass-topped tables were arranged haphazardly in the center of the room, and a bar took up the back wall. That is where Marco was sitting.
He had a glass of amber liquid in front of him, and he downed it when I walked in, wiping his mouth and then turning to me with a smile.
“Cade Dickinson?” he asked.
“That’s me,” I replied, repeating the same response I’d given to the guard before.
Marco smiled. “I thought we could have our discussion right here, if you don’t mind. There’s no need for us to hole ourselves away in my office, right?”
“Right.”
He smiled again, pausing for a moment just to stare at me. I knew it was in an effort to make me uncomfortable, but I simply smiled and stared back. After a few seconds, he gestured for me to sit at a nearby table, so I took a seat and folded my hands in front of me in plain sight.
Guts had taught me that it was always best to be as open as possible in meetings like this. Don’t wear a lot of layers, always keep your hands visible, make eye contact. If guys like Marco sense any kind of funny business, you are liable to end up with a bullet in your head at the bottom of the ocean.
Before sitting, Marco pulled a cigar from a box on the bar top. He held the box out to me, eyebrows raised, but I waved him away. He shrugged and then spent a few minutes lighting his cigar, puffing at it importantly and filling the air with the woody smell of smoke. Finally, he sat across from me, the chubby cigar held aloft in his thin fingers, and smiled.
“Well, Cade Dickinson. What business do we have together?”
“None, yet,” I replied coyly. “However, I think I have an offer you may be interested in.”
His eyes widened in response to my confidence. Marco took another puff of his cigar and then waved for me to continue.
“The Stone Devils have a small stash of scrubbed weapons they’d like to rid themselves of, and we thought you’d be interested.”
Marco’s face gave nothing away. “Why did you think that?”
“Because they are good guns, all the serial numbers are gone, and everyone knows it’s tough to know when you are buying from a legit dealer or an undercover cop.”
“How do I know you aren’t an undercover cop?”
I shrugged. “You don’t. But an undercover cop probably wouldn’t have called you to set up a meeting in an hour and then showed up alone.”
He nodded and pursed his lips, making his thin face look even longer. “That’s probably true.”
“We don’t claim to be professional dealers. I’m sure you could leave this meeting, make a few calls, and have someone else sitting here in an hour selling you the same kind of thing as I am, but I can guarantee it won’t be for as good of a price. The Stone Devils want to cut you a deal.”
Marco leaned back in his chair, the cigar poking out from between his lips like an evil banker from a children’s cartoon. “Why do you want to cut me a deal? We don’t know one another. And why didn’t Guts contact me himself?”
“Because this deal was my idea,” I replied honestly. “I wanted to come here personally and pitch it to you.”
“Okay,” Marco said, still dubious. “Then pitch it.”
I told him what little I knew about the guns, but I knew that with every word I was revealing my lack of knowledge. I had barely even used a gun before, so I didn’t exactly make the best salesman. However, what I lacked in knowledge, I made up for in passion. By the end of my spiel, Marco was nodding along with me, his cigar forgotten in his hand.
“Yeah, okay, Cade Dickinson,” he said, using my full name once again. “I might be interested in your deal. Do you have a price in mind?”
I shook my head. “I’m open to whatever you think they’re worth.”
Marco pulled his lips to one side of his mouth and wavered back and forth. “I won’t be able to give you a concrete number until I see the guns. You know how it is?”
I, in fact, did not know how it is, but I nodded in understanding anyway.
“But,” he said, chewing on his bottom lip while he thought, “what about ten thousand?”
I knew nothing about guns, and I still knew this
offer was insanely low. Embarrassingly low. If Guts had been there, he would have stormed out of the meeting immediately and told Marco where he could shove that number. I, however, had a larger purpose.
Throughout the entire discussion, I had been observing the large room we were in. Paying attention to the entrances and exits, taking note of each person who passed through the space. How many women? How many men? Age range? Appearance? I also kept an eye out for the woman from the club.
I didn’t imagine she would just be roaming freely around the clubhouse, but still, my imagination was in overdrive. I imagined her clinging to a pole in the corner while Marco and I had our meeting. I pictured her hanging from the ceiling in a large metal cage, forced to strip and dance until she couldn’t stand.
I hated to admit it, but as horrific as either of those situations would have been, the idea was rather stimulating. I found myself losing focus frequently, remembering the feel of her body against mine.
“You’re right,” I said. “You really can’t give a concrete number until you see the guns. Because if you could see the guns, you’d realize that number is not even half of what they are worth.”
Marco smiled, but it didn’t extend past his mouth. His eyebrows lowered and his black eyes spewed venom at me. “Twelve thousand?”
“If that is all you plan to raise your offer, then I’m going to need one of those cigars, because we’re going to be here awhile,” I joked.
“Unfortunately,” Marco said, pushing off of the table and standing up, “that is all the time I have for now. I have another appointment soon so we will have to pick up negotiations on another date.”
For the first time, I began to panic. I hadn’t even been able to mention the auction or the woman. And bringing it up now, right at the end of our conversation, would be more than a little suspicious. I’d promised the woman I would help her. Well, I hadn’t exactly promised her, but I had nodded at her, which was as close as I could get in that moment.
I couldn’t leave here without knowing what was happening to her. Thoughts and questions and possible plans began tearing through my mind, making it impossible for me to say anything at all. And then, Marco made all of my worrying entirely moot.
“I’m sorry I do not have more time to offer you today. I know it is a long ride. Might I interest you in a little… relaxation?”
The way he paused before the word, the way his eyebrows rose as he spoke, let me know exactly what he meant.
“When you say ‘relaxation’, you mean… women?” I chanced.
Marco winked. “Only the best.”
He waved a hand above his head, and a guard appeared immediately.
“Bring out my girls,” Marco commanded. The guard disappeared, and Marco smiled at me. “This one will be free of charge, as a gesture of goodwill.”
The room fell into a stuffy silence as the guard disappeared into a corner behind the bar and then reappeared, three human shapes trailing behind him. The first two were clearly downtrodden. Their faces were aimed at the floor. All I could see was the tops of their heads. The third woman, however, looked around the room eagerly. Her eyes were wide and searching. And familiar.
It was her. The woman from the club. The woman from the auction.
She was studying the room as if she was afraid there would be a pop quiz on it later. It wasn’t until the women had been lined up in front of me that her eyes finally landed on me. She recognized me immediately.
Her mouth fell open, and her eyes widened. For a minute, I was afraid she was going to close the space between us and jump into my arms. But then her eyes flicked to Marco, and that seemed to calm whatever storm was raging inside of her. When she looked back towards me, I gave her the subtlest of winks, trying to let her know everything was going to be okay.
Marco moved to stand in front of the women, his arms waving over them like he was a car salesman standing in front of the dealership’s latest models. In this case, however, two of the cars were complete clunkers.
The girl from the night before, even after the hell she’d been through, looked ravishing. Her dress clung to her body, revealing every curve, every inch of what she was hiding beneath her clothes. Dark hair tumbled down her shoulders in messy waves, and her eyes were a vibrant green. She was breathtaking. The other two women looked as though they had seen far better days. They were oily and clearly underfed. I wondered how long it would be before she would begin to look like them.
Marco turned to the women and then back to me. “Cade Dickinson, take your pick.”
Chapter Eleven
Falyn
The men from that morning, Fox and his hotheaded sidekick, came back less than an hour later. They walked into the room without knocking. The only warning we received was the sound of the key in the doorknob.
“Showtime.”
A chill raced down my spine. It was the same word the man at the auction had used moments before I’d stepped onto the stage that would forever change the direction of my life. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to hear the word again without feeling nauseous.
Bianca lifted herself out of her bed for the first time since I’d been there. The grubby light coming through the tiny rectangle of our window hit her face, and I was shocked. It was clear she had been a pretty woman at one time. She had a nice face shape, soft yet sturdy, and her eyes were an arresting shade of blue.
It was also clear, however, that she had been ravaged by her experiences. Whether it was all from the two months she had spent at Marco’s clubhouse or from before, I didn’t know, but Bianca looked rough. The dark circles under eyes looked painted on, and her olive complexion was splotchy, marred with dry patches and scabs.
“Who’s here?” Angie asked, standing up and stretching.
It surprised me how calm she could act in the face of such atrocity. Though, that is how the human spirit can carry on in inhumane circumstances. We normalize the abnormal and find a way to make it through. I made a note to respond less like Bianca and more like Angie. I had to survive. I had to walk out of this building with my spirit intact.
“Shut up and line up.” Fox snarled. “And try to look presentable.”
I’d splashed some water on my face and tried to clean my sensitive bits as best I could in the sink, but the water pressure was non-existent, and the water smelled like moss. Still, it made me feel a bit more human.
Fox waited until all three of us were in a straight line behind him – Angie took the lead, and I brought up the rear – and then he led us from the room and back into the hotel lobby room.
There were more lights on this time than there had been the night before, so I looked around the room, making a note of every window, every outlet, every light switch.
I wanted to remember as much as I could. If I stood any chance of escape, I couldn’t waste time fumbling in the dark looking for switches or questioning where windows and doors were. I needed to know. Those precious seconds spent searching could be the difference between freedom and a life of captivity.
While I memorized the room, I was struck by how different my life had become in twelve hours. If I’d made it home safely, I would have been just waking up on Lacey’s pull out. I might have rifled through the wanted ads in the paper if I was feeling particularly motivated. Otherwise, I would have eaten some of Lacey’s yogurt, promising to buy the next tub when she complained, and then walked down to the coffee house on the corner.
A small black coffee cost $1.05, and I could usually scrounge up that change on the street during my walk there. Then, I would go to the park across the street and people-watch, trying to imagine what my life was going to look like when I was finally able to support myself.
Of course, now that I was in Marco’s clubhouse, I had been given a bit more perspective. Like they say, hindsight is twenty-twenty. I was wasting my life at Lacey’s. Despite what I told everyone who asked, I wasn’t seriously looking for a job. The truth was, I had no prospects, and I likely would have been living in
Lacey’s house until, like my parents, she kicked me out and told me to get my crap together. And it only took being kidnapped and sold into sex slavery for me to figure that out.
Perhaps my mom was right. I am stubborn.
Bianca stopped walking, which was my cue to stop as well. I turned and faced forward, being a good little soldier. But then, I saw him.
Him. The nameless him from the club and the auction. The man I had begged for help.
What in the hell was he doing here? Had he come to rescue me? That was my first thought, and I felt an overwhelming urge to sprint towards him, to jump into his arms and let him carry me away.
I glanced at Marco, wondering if I could run past him in time. He was standing a few feet away, all six and a half feet of him, and I noticed how impossibly long his arms were. My rational mind took over. How did I even know this man could be trusted? After all, he had attended the auction. How many stand up guys would attend an event like that? I would wager the answer was pretty close to zero. Was he working with Marco? Would he tell Marco about me begging for help?