by J. C. Allen
I began contemplating the other possible sources—which only fell apart faster and faster when I thought of all of the elements of that message.
There wasn’t a single member of the Black Falcons who wouldn’t have missed the chance at issuing a direct threat while sending me a text message. And, at that point, why bother texting me at all? It wasn’t their style to set up shady meetings with an enemy like this, not when they could arrange something more personal, more dangerous.
Then who the fuck did that leave?
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw some guy crossing the street, wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses. He looked vaguely familiar, like I had seen him in the previous few days but not paid any attention to him at all. He didn’t look at me, though, so I just passed him off as a passer-by who didn’t realize how dangerous the territory he was in was.
At that thought, I patted the gun in my hip pocket, willing and ready to kill if necessary. We may not trade in guns if we can help it. But they’re fools if they don’t think we aren’t protecting ourselves.
And yet, the man kept coming closer. This… this was my mystery sender? The dude was literally quaking in his shoes, his eyes looking down and away from me at all times. He looked like the angry, awkward kid who had finally found the courage to fight his tormentors, except he had no skill to back it up.
And in this case, I wasn’t a tormentor, but a peace-keeper.
And this guy wasn’t awkward. He was a creep.
I decided not to say a word as he kept getting closer, choosing instead to stare him down. I kept my glare strong and my nostrils flared. Be alert. Don’t get cocky just because he’s small. He could be laying a trap. Eyes up.
I did a quick scan of the area. I didn’t see any Falcons nearby—not in the windows, not peeking out of nearby alleys, nothing. We were alone.
Well, to this asshole, we were. I knew the truth.
“I’m guessing you’re Derek,” he said, trying very, very hard not to sound terrified.
I worked to keep my motions slow and threatening as I rose my head up in the mystery sender’s—now the mystery speaker’s—direction.
Then, he did something I never expected. He patted me on the shoulder.
I had to give it to him. The man had some serious balls. Too bad I’m about to crush them with my bare hands.
“Somebody who knows me would know that touching me is a good way to never touch anything ever again,” I said. “Take that as a hint.”
The man swallowed and took off his sunglasses. The eyes were terrified, but they were utterly devoid of any other emotion. They didn’t look like they feared for his life—they looked like that of a bully’s who had finally come across someone he couldn’t beat up.
I wanted to pummel his ass right on the spot.
And then he said the words that all but gave me that wish.
“Wonder what that says for my sister’s future.”
Sister…?
Her brother…
The one who sold her to Rock…
The one who is responsible for her life being hell before me…
Chuck Kellerman…
The fucking devil!
Seeing red and hearing only a shrill, high-pitched whine that I knew to exist only in my head, I lost track of a few seconds after that. I remembered seeing his nervous face, panicked face, terrified face, pleading face, pained face as I grabbed him by the collar and slammed him against the brick wall behind him, not giving a shit as he cried out in pain.
Chuck, squirming in my grip, was all wire and sinew. I might have been disgusted if I weren’t so damned pissed. It was like someone had aimed to make a man-shaped thing out of pipe cleaners, realized the dumb thing couldn’t stand on its own, and started patching up the weak points with strips of chicken gristle.
His clothes hung on his scrawny frame like melting candle wax. Short blond hair and too-pale skin only reinforced my theory that this thing was more built than born. But the worst of it was that he shared Eve’s eyes.
How could the fucking devil and a goddess have the same thing in common?
No matter.
Five seconds.
“You’d better have a very good fucking reason for me not to rip you apart right here and now!” I snarled in his face. “And if you don’t think I will, try me. I already killed two men who hurt Eve. And you’ve hurt them way worse than they ever did.”
My hands choked him as I held him, pinned, against the wall. His face turned purple. Near rage took over me. Only by the slimmest of strained voices could he get his words out to me.
“I can… give you… excellent… r-r-rea-sons…”
The last word of this started to break as his face began to turn blue. I thought of giving him one good yank to snap his fucking neck, but I wanted to know. I wanted to know what this pathetic scum’s excuses were for everything he had ever done before I killed him. I craved ammunition to not feel guilty about my third murder in just the past few days.
“Start talking, asshole. And choose your words carefully. I’m your judge, jury, and fucking executioner.”
He panted, sucking in a few hearty gulps of air, seeming, in my opinion, to stall for time. I took the moment to look around—still alone. I didn’t know where Roost and Eagle were, but they were experts at showing up within seconds of me needing their help. I had no fear that they wouldn’t help me just because I couldn’t see them.
“Hurry up,” I growled.
Then, moments before I was about to bring my hands back into play, this time outright around his throat, he croaked.
“First,” he said, raising the index finger from his left hand. My eyes went wide at this punk’s move. “It wouldn’t be worth it to commit an act of assault on a waste of skin like me. It’d just be unnecessary trouble for you. While I’m certain you’ve got ways of making it an in-and-out process with the local authorities, I’m sure you’d agree that it wouldn’t be worth your time. You’re an important man… and why should a great and powerful king waste his precious time wiping his hands of a peasant’s blood?”
I sneered at that, knowing a blowhard’s pandering drivel when I heard it. It was oddly impressive to see such a goddamn bitch speak so arrogantly to me. I’d allowed him to get away with it once; I would not allow him to get away with it twice.
“Your other reasons better be a lot better and a lot less soaked in bullshit,” I warned. “No lies. No bullshit. And make it quick. I still have to kill you.”
I wasn’t actually yet committed to killing him, but that was only because part of me wanted to knock him up and capture him so Eve could kill him if she wanted. He certainly wasn’t going to get out of here unharmed—and I wasn’t going to stop with just a brief choke.
“Second,” he said, raising his middle finger to meet the still-raised index. “I believe that you care about my sister, and while I’ll get back around to that fact…”
Choose. Real. Fucking. Carefully.
“I feel it’s worth pointing out that it’d only hurt yourself in the long run if she found out that you beat up the brother she’s already endured so much to protect.”
I laughed mockingly at that. There was no way that that was true. For all he had done?
And then, mid-laugh, I remembered how Eve had asked me to send protection to Chuck the night I had rescued her. I didn’t dare stop laughing, but in that moment, I realized that this guy wasn’t as full of shit as I had thought.
No, Derek. Don’t give it to him so goddamn easily.
“You’re a fucking riot,” I said. “Is that all you got? Because that’s not good enough.”
“No, no, no,” he pleaded. I sighed. I hated the Falcons, but almost as much as that, I hated weasels who couldn’t hold their own in a fight. Hiding behind the technicalities of his words and the verbal wit was a coward’s way of “fighting.” “Please.”
“Talk!”
He dropped his hand and his head, looking down at the ground. Oh, that was another thing that I fucking des
pised—people who couldn’t look me in the goddamn eye. Even Rock pulled that off, and Rock might have been the worst person in the world. Besides Falcon.
And maybe this guy. It’s closer than it should be.
“It’s… well, it’s like I said: I believe you care about my sister. Now, you seem like a smart guy—and that’s not me just soaking things in bullshit like you said; I’m being genuine here.”
“I don’t need your goddamn flattery.”
Chuck still didn’t look at me, but he nodded.
“Smart guys don’t typically go around liking girls and buying them all sorts of nice things if they don’t believe that the girl in question likes them back. I mean, guys go to great lengths to impress girls who wouldn’t give them the time of day all the time, but I don’t think either of us would call a guy like that ‘smart,’ right? I mean, uhh, ‘desperate’ and ‘love-struck,’ sure, maybe even just cut to the chase and call them ‘horny,’ but still not ‘smart.’ I don’t think you’re doing all this for my sister because you’re desperate or love-struck, and, horny or not, I don’t think you snatched up Black Falcons property just so you could fuck her.”
I felt myself tremble with rage at his words and began to advance, my right fist raised and hungry for a crunch to sound under its knuckles. I slammed my first into his ribs, drawing a sharp exhale. I let him writhe on the ground in pain for a few moments.
“You watch your tongue before I drive my foot into your face, Charles,” I growled, refusing to call him by the name he likely went by. “That’s Eve you’re talking about.”
“I’m not trying to piss you off here, D-Derek,” he said as he coughed up blood. Damn. I could’ve gone for better than this. “I’m just saying… I think you care for Eve. Whether that means you have a decent enough crush to trouble yourself this far for her or if you’re head-over-heels in… well, you know—it’s none of my business one way or the other.”
What the fuck is the point of this? I’m wasting my time.
“Real fucking pleasure meeting you, Chuck,” I said. “Show your face to me again or stalk Eve again and I’ll kill you!”
“Wait!”
Fuck. Fine.
“Thirty seconds, go.”
Chuck sighed, as if preparing for some grand speech. I just didn’t fucking care—I just wanted him gone or dead.
“All this means that you’re probably thinking she likes you, too. Again, whether you’re under the assumption that she’s returning your crush or if you think that she, too, is head-over-heels, it stands to reason that you believe she cares for you, too.”
He sighed and shook his head. Here comes the big surprise. The big shocker! Tell me, Chuckles, what is it?
“And I only thought it would be fair to warn you in advance that, if you’re looking for… that, you’re looking in the wrong place. Not to get your blood pressure up all over again, but you are dealing with a girl whose entire livelihood has revolved around selling herself.”
Wow.
That was your big reveal?
Nice try, Chuck. I know why she was there.
“And now she’s out of that life,” I said. “And so, Chuck—”
“Says who?” he interrupted with such force that I got taken aback. “You? The Savages? Think about it, Mister Knight! Being a whore is simple enough, sure, but how many of those guys do you think walked off thinking they’d found love? How many likely fantasized about freeing her from that life? Or, at the very least, how many were at least smitten enough to come back again and throw down some more money? I’d imagine a great many, right?”
Doesn’t matter. I freed her. I’m the only one who actually did. The end.
“Sort of goes hand-in-hand with salesmanship. Twist the details of a story here, embellish there, and suddenly she’s the poor little girl. Next thing you know the whole city’s pouting beside her and chastising the big, bad brother for putting her in that horrible, horrible situation. But you don’t see her running off behind your back—it’s behind your back, after all. What do you think she’s doing when you aren’t around? Don’t you find it strange that she came to see me when she was—”
“I swear to Christ,” I said, seething, “I am a red cunt hair from bashing your teeth straight down your fucking throat, you fucking liar!”
At that, Chuck’s face formed into a smile. I lunged for him, missing only because my rage had turned me into a fire-breathing dragon who wanted to burn everything down.
“Wait, wait, wait!” he said, pulling out his phone.
And then, in a video that I saw clearly marked the day I woke up, I saw that he had recorded him talking to Eve. And sure enough, it was at Samsville.
“OK, you told one truth,” I said. “Congrats. I can see her face here. She hates your guts.”
“Can’t you step back far enough from the situation to consider the bigger picture?” he demanded, suddenly sounding bolder. “This is a girl who has made a career her entire life of lying and hiding important details for the sake of keeping a great story going. Yes, I got myself into some deep shit with the Black Falcons. Yes, I… I put Eve there. I’m not proud of any of that.”
Still a fucking, sneering, savage liar, aren’t you?
“Imagine if you will, that our cunning, manipulative Eve finds herself in an absolutely shitty situation, right? And it’s way too dangerous to just try to up-and-bail. We both met that Rock asshole at some time or another; guy was out of his mind, we can agree on that.”
First thing you’ve said that makes a modicum of sense.
“Eve would know better than to try to give a guy like that the slip. She’d be signing her own death certificate. So what does she do? She does what she does best! She does a bit of research, finds the best target for the situation at hand. It’s not impossible to see her setting her sights on you, Derek. Not only are you loaded as hell, but you’re a part of the only possible threat to the people who she was working for at the time. Never mind part of the threat, you’re the Savage’s goddamn leader!”
I was about to kill him, but…
Something was happening.
What he was saying…
I wouldn’t call it believable…
But plausible?
“How difficult would it have been for Eve to stage whatever sequence of events went down to get you to take notice of her in the first place?”
I blinked at that, forced despite all my efforts to think back on it.
I remembered following after Rock through the crowded Black Falcons event.
I remembered losing track of him in the crowd and hurrying to keep him in my sights.
I remembered Eve appearing out of nowhere, drink in hand, and colliding with me.
“I’m guessing she said all the right things, right? Might have even helped you.”
She had murdered the guard. But that was in self-defense.
Moment of weakness. This guy is still full of shit. Just shut him up already.
“If it hadn’t been that violent encounter, it would’ve been another. Maybe something worse, maybe something not as bad. But isn’t that just the life she was trapped in? A whore on the streets? And now, having fooled you, she gets to live a lush, protected life of luxury, knowing she’s got the best possible protection from those Falcon cocksuckers, and all she has to do for it is the exact same thing she was doing before. Now, you think she’s only got to take one dick, she’s getting a lot more in exchange for it, and she doesn’t have to share the profits or squat. Except there’s one problem—she’s still being a who—”
I didn’t let him finish his words, because I delivered a stern kick to his gut, drawing actual tears from his eyes.
“Seriously,” I said. “You’re such a bitch that you cry when you get hit? No wonder Eve hates you. You’re a fucking coward.”
“I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, Derek, but my sister is a parasite!” Chuck said, barely getting the words out. “She always has been. I don’t think she’s ever cared
for another human being in her entire life, but I can rattle off a list of names as thick as your contact list of guys who believed with all their hearts that she cared for them even half as much as they found themselves caring for her. You don’t have to believe me—but believe this.”
And with that, he handed me his phone, showing me a whole horde of pictures of Eve… Eve wandering the streets… Eve looking around….
And all of them came from after that one video dated from the day I woke up. What the…
No…
And then, seemingly the worst of them—Eve in a revealing outfit, bending over in front of a car, marked from… not even an hour ago…
“I wanted to get you out here to warn you, Mister Knight,” he finally said after an extended silence as he rose to his feet, letting me scroll through the photos of Eve in his phone. “If you want to go to war with the Black Falcons, be my guest. But if you’re about to escalate things with them solely because of this business with my sister then you’ll wind up with a broken heart and shattered expectations.”
“You fucking liar! And tell me why I would believe any of this!”
But there was a problem.
I could disbelieve a sneering coward and pussy like Chuck Kellerman.
But photographic evidence?
Proof?
What could I say?
I wasn’t about to give Chuck any sense of satisfaction, but that didn’t mean I didn’t have some serious concerns in my head.
“You don’t have to, Derek. You don’t have to believe anything I said. But are you going to ignore what you saw? You know you’re a smart guy! Really! And quite frankly, I’m just sick of life stabbing me in the eye with the shit-stick while she gets to manipulate and fuck her way in and out of every little thing. For once it’d just be nice to see things not work out for her. You don’t seem like you deserve much more shit in your life. I looked into you, Derek, and—”
I stopped him right there, clocking him in the jaw with a hook that landed so savagely, so viciously, that he did not move after hitting the ground. I spat on his body—his corpse, I hoped—and cursed him out a few times for good measure.
“Don’t fucking tell me what I do and don’t deserve, you sniveling asshole,” I growled.