Vice

by Callie Hart

  “I won’t talk to her without someone present,” I tell him.

  “Good. And try not to curse in front of her, Mr. Garrett. The last man who used profanity in front of Natalia was severely punished.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. I cut out his tongue with a blunt knife. Now he can never make that mistake again.”

  On the other side of the open office door, Ocho shifts uncomfortably from one foot to the other. So that explains that, then.

  “My men will be by your room later on this evening to collect your fifty-thousand-dollar collateral, if that is convenient with you? I would be grateful if you would please remain in your assigned room until that time, please? A number of players from the blue room are being released this afternoon, and I would hate for any of William’s friends to run into you in the hallways. Just as I have not punished you for your indiscretions, Mr. Garrett, it would also be very hard for me to punish them for theirs should they decide to follow in your footsteps.”

  “And Plato?”

  “Don’t worry, Mr. Garrett. You will see Plato again soon, I am sure of it.”

  ******

  My bedroom is luxurious and way more than I was expecting. Dark, slate-gray drapes hang from high windows, and the bedclothes, also slate-gray, match the thick, rich rug that covers the polished floorboards. I have an en suite bathroom—clean towels, and tiny little bottles of body wash and shampoo stacked in a glass bowl beside a huge shower. I’ve stayed in plenty of five star hotel rooms that weren’t anywhere near as nice.

  Five star hotel rooms don’t generally come with video surveillance, though. I spend an hour going over the place with a fine-tooth comb, searching every piece of furniture and picture frame, the light fittings and the air vents until I’m satisfied that there’s nothing in here. Looks like Fernando only watches over the common areas of the house, along with the party room. At least I can keep my own privacy here.

  I kick off my boots and my clothes, stretching, revelling in the freedom of being naked. It’s three thirty in the afternoon—quite an eventful day thus far. I take a long, blisteringly hot shower, scrubbing the dirt from my body, and once I’m done I dry myself off and crash out on the massive bed that takes up a considerable portion of the room. I don’t mean to sleep. I don’t even mean to close my eyes, but the next thing I know, it’s dark out of the windows overlooking the rear of the property, and a weird, cold sensation is prickling across my still-bare skin.

  My heart steps up the pace, sending my pulse skyrocketing upward. Something isn’t right. It’s dark, but I can feel it—eyes on me, eyes traveling over my body. There’s someone in the fucking room with me. I sit up at the same time they strike.

  “Get his legs! Get his fucking legs!”

  Hands claw and grab at me; I can’t tell how many men are in the room with me, but there are more than I can fight off. And they’re fucking strong. I’m surrounded by American accents, which is weird. I try to wrestle myself free from the men that are holding onto my arms, thrashing my legs to prevent more of them from taking hold of me by the ankles, but it’s a futile struggle. It feels like there are two guys per limb, holding me down, and I can’t fight against those odds. Not naked and unprepared as I am. I still give it a fucking good try, though.

  “Goddamn. Fuck! He kicked me in the balls.”

  “Quit fucking around, Art. Just get the fucking job done already.”

  “I’m trying! Ahh, Jesus, I’m gonna throw up.”

  I lash out, trying to connect with someone else, with something vital and delicate, but they’ve got me now. “What the fuck are you doing?” I snarl. “Get your fucking hands off me.”

  A light switches on in the bathroom, followed by a small lamp on the table beside the bed, and a soft, warm glow fills the room. Not much light, but enough that I can make out the crowd of men kneeling on my bed, holding me down. I can see plainly enough the tall, red-headed guy standing in the doorway, wearing a black suit with a white button-down underneath, surveying the scene with distaste. He steps inside my bedroom, pulling the door closed behind him.

  “Well, this is messy,” he says. “I thought I said ask him if you could search his belongings?”

  The guy holding my right wrist, pressing his other hand down hard onto my chest, makes an amused sound. “No. You told us to go fuck up his shit,” he says.

  The red-headed guy in the suit thinks for a second and then nods. “Yeah, you know what? I think you might be right. I did say that, didn’t I?”

  I writhe, rage bubbling through me as I try to get free. “What the fuck is going on?”

  The guy in the suit enters the room properly now, casting a bored glance around the space, his eyes traveling over my scattered belongings. He reaches out and picks up my cell phone. “My employer is a trusting man. To a point. He hires men like me to be extra suspicious on his behalf. You could say…I am Fernando Villalobos’s paranoia. And I was very paranoid when I heard that a guy from New York had showed up today on a motorcycle without so much as a phone call ahead of time. I suggested we do a little investigating before we welcomed you into the fold with open arms.”

  “I’ve hardly been welcomed with open arms.” I jerk my right leg free and swiftly kick all in one motion, sending the guy who was holding onto me flying onto his ass. The guy holding onto my other leg scrambles, trying to grab hold of me, but I bend and kick out again, smashing the sole of my bare foot right into his face. He hollers, letting go of me altogether, and then I’m straining, doing my best to free my arms so I can start swinging properly.

  I’m almost free when I hear something that makes me freezes, though: the safety of a gun being removed. Looking up, I see that the guy in the suit is now standing over me, and he’s pointing the business end of a Glock into my face.

  “You really are a handful, huh?”

  “You don’t know the half of it.”

  “You certainly don’t seem like a straight laced businessman, Mr. Garrett.”

  “I never said I was. Why the fuck would my employer be hiring a straight laced businessman to come out here on a trip like this?”

  “True.” He grunts. “If you have nothing to hide, why are you railing against being searched, then?”

  “I wouldn’t have given a shit if you’d knocked politely on the door and asked, motherfucker. When you sneak up on a guy in the dark, pin him to a bed while he’s naked and start messing with his stuff, of course he’s gonna react fucking badly.”

  Suit Guy smiles. “I guess you’re right. How about this, then? We would like to look through your belongings, Mr. Garrett. Do you consent?”

  “Let me go, and then ask me.”

  He ponders my demand, then seems to agree to it. He jerks his head in a terse, irritated motion, and then his lackeys let go, releasing me from the bed. I hop up, grabbing the towel that had been wrapped around my waist when I passed out on the bed. No one bothers to look away as I cover myself. I have zero modesty left; I’ve been naked in front of so many people in college, in the military and at the club that I couldn’t give a shit if some guy gets an eyeful of my cock and balls. What pisses me off is that none of the assholes hide the fact that they’re checking out what I’ve got, assessing me. I suppose they’ve all been in that room upstairs. They must have seen what goes on there. They must have watched so many naked men and women fuck in there that it’s all just meat to them by now.

  I fold my arms across my chest, clenching my jaw. “Have at it, jackhole. I don’t have anything to hide.”

  Suit Guy smirks savagely, twitching a finger. His men get to work. I only had my small backpack with me when I arrived, filled with the clothes I bought at the airport and the money I knew I would need at some point. The guys go to town, tearing the bag apart, looking for hidden pockets or zips that might be concealing nefarious secrets. The bag is in pieces by the time they’re satisfied that there’s nothing to be found there. They quickly move on to my jeans, my leather jacket, and the Adidas sneakers I w
as wearing when I arrived. Soon the pants are destroyed, as is my leather, and the brand new shoes. One of them holds out my wallet to the guy in the suit, who shoots me a sly glance as he flips it open.

  “Any surprises in here, buddy? Anything you’d like to get off your chest before I empty this thing?”

  “Nope. Go for your fucking life.” I’m not stupid. It’s not like I have a Widow Makers MC membership card in there or anything. The wallet is still kitted out with my ID from the airport. The credit cards have Sam Garret’s name on them. The driver’s licence also his. I’m not dumb enough to have plastered the inside of my wallet with pictures of Laura, thank god. Suit Guy looks visibly disappointed when he doesn’t find anything that proves me to be a liar.

  “You realize we’re going to have to search you personally, Mr. Garrett?” he says. That seems to put a smile back on his face.

  “You think I’ve got a wire shoved up my ass?”

  He shrugs. “Could be the case. We can’t be too careful.” He nods to one of his boys, signalling that he should come forward and check me, and I growl low and deep in the back of my throat.

  “You can search my bag and my clothes and my cell phone, motherfucker, but not a single one of you is going near my ass.”

  “I’m afraid you really don’t have a choice.”

  “I guess we’ll see about that.” I will never submit to a cavity search. Never. I’m on my feet now, and I am fucking ready. I can take all of his guys without a problem now that I’m not half asleep, flat out on my back. I flick a warning glance out of the corner of my eye to the guy who is slowly approaching with his hands out, and I bare my teeth. “Do you know how to break every single finger in a man’s hand in under three seconds, with nothing more than a towel?” I ask him.

  He stops dead, blinking at me. “No, I don’t,” he mutters.

  “That’s a pity. Because I do.”

  The guy looks back at the redhead, lifting both eyebrows. “Harrison?”

  Harrison doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t move. He’s still holding his gun, but it’s loose in his hand, pointed at the floor, and he doesn’t really seem to be paying attention to the situation. His lackey swallows and resumes his approach. I kind of feel sorry for the poor bastard. He tries to jump me as soon as he’s in arm’s reach, but I grab hold of him by the wrist, spin him around so that his arm is trapped behind his back, and then I do as I promised. I lean my kneecap into the small of his back, pushing, and I pull his arm back toward me at the same time, straining it so that it’s almost popping from his shoulder joint. It’s very easy from there to snap the bones in his fingers. Index, middle, ring and pinkie. I must be getting soft in my old age, because I don’t break his thumb. I could. It wouldn’t take more than a second, but without his thumb he’s useless for six weeks. He’ll lose total use of his dominant hand, and who the fuck knows what happens to guys who suddenly can’t even hold a pen or wipe their own asses around here?

  I let him go, and he tumbles to the floor at Harrison’s feet, screaming, holding onto his hand for dear life.

  “God,” Harrison snaps. “Fucking pathetic. One of you guys just fucking deal with this, okay? None of us can leave until we’re sure he’s clean.”

  I survey the other men. None of them are volunteering to be next in line to have their fingers broken. Harrison sighs, lifting up his gun. He aims it at my head, his finger on the trigger.

  “Be a good boy and bend over now. This will all be over in a moment.”

  I take three long steps forward, so that his Glock is pressing up against my forehead, right between my eyes. “No. Fucking. Way. You’re going to have to kill me first.”

  “Don’t tempt me, friend.”

  “If Fernando wanted me dead, he would have shot me himself the moment he laid eyes on me. Or maybe later, here at the house when I broke his rules. But he didn’t. I guess that means he wants this deal to go through, friend. So do what you have to do. But I won’t be cowed by you. And I sure as hell am not letting anyone stick anything in my ass. It’s your call.”

  Harrison’s eyes lower until they’re no wider than slits. He isn’t happy, not one bit, but I know he isn’t going to shoot me. Not yet anyway. He lowers the gun and spits onto the floor at my feet. “It isn’t often that someone refuses me something, Mr. Garrett. I’m not a fan of rejection, and I’m not a fan of being told no. I assure you I will get what I want. Either now, or later, when Fernando’s tired of the little charade you’re playing.” He holds up my cell phone in his hand for me to see. “Tell me the passcode.”

  “Why?”

  “So I can read your messages and confirm you’re acting on behalf of this New York banker, moron.”

  “There’s personal information on there.”

  “I’m counting on it. Don’t worry. I couldn’t give a shit about your pussy pics and your stashed porn files. It’s your conversations with your boss I’m interested in. Give me the fucking code.”

  “No.”

  “I mean it. This isn’t a fucking joke, okay? You haven’t just checked in for a spa weekend at the Ritz Carlton. Your life is on the line right now.”

  I make a show of thinking for second, and then I hold up my hands, surrendering. “Okay. It’s five eight five nine. But seriously, man. Don’t look at my private photos. They’re pretty graphic. I’d hate to think of them in the wrong hands.”

  Harrison smirks, and I know all too well that he’s going to make a big deal out of the files he finds in my gallery. He’s in for a fucking surprise. When he rifles through my phone, he’ll find about seventy pictures of a naked eighty-three year old woman at various stages of undress as she obviously performs a strip tease. It’s quite disturbing. In the text messages, he’ll find the most sordid, graphic sexts between myself and Mavis—texts so nasty and dirty they’d even make Carnie, the Widow Makers’ recently promoted prospect, blush. In my emails, he’ll find eighteen folders of spam, and a number of coded, confusing messages from a contact called “Trident,” that will leave him scratching his head for days.

  What he won’t find is anything incriminating about Laura, or any correspondence between Jamie and me. It’ll drive him crazy. The code I just gave him is the key. If the code “five eight, five nine” is entered into my cell, my real phone screen isn’t unlocked, but a proxy screen complete with apps, contacts, notes and photos. He’ll never be able to tell it’s not real. And he’ll never gain access to the stored information I have on countless different South American cartels, the places I’ve buried bodies, or the entire towns I’ve razed to the ground on my journey to find my sister.

  Harrison taps the code into the phone and swells up when it unlocks, his chest puffing up with pride, like he hacked into the damn thing himself. “I’m sure Fernando will be discreet,” he says, but he and I both know Fernando will only be looking at it once he’s been through it with a fine tooth comb. “Get dressed,” he tells me. “Everyone’s gathering outside. Fernando wants you down there, too.”

  “What for?”

  Harrison rolls his eyes, pocketing my cell phone. “Just do it, man. He doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

  It’s only after he leaves, the rest of his men following behind him, that I realize how badly this could have gone. I’ve been facing Harrison and his guys the whole time. I didn’t turn around, and none of them tried to sneak up behind me to get a jump on me. If they had, they would have immediately known I was lying to them.

  They would have seen the huge Widow Makers MC tattoo that sprawls across my shoulder blades, and I, my friends, would have been fucked.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE HOUSE OF WOLVES

  I find some clothes that haven’t been completely destroyed, and I head outside. On the lawn in front of the huge mansion, a small crowd of people are gathered together, looking uncomfortable and frightened. It hits me then—at least five or six of them have red hair. How strange. They’re dressed in white robes, men and women both, clutching the material tigh
tly closed up around their chins. Their feet are bare in the short, neatly cut grass. These are Fernando’s Servicio, as Plato called them.

  Off to the right, another crowd of people hover—a mix of men, all dressed in expensive clothes from suits to leather jackets, jeans to Georgio Armani slacks. They have this lean, hungry look about them that sets them apart from the other group. These are obviously Fernando’s guests, his players¸ the men who have paid to use and abuse the other human beings a few feet away from them.

  On the far stretches of the lawn, Fernando is talking to a line of guys who are all carrying rifles. He appears to be giving them orders. A moment passes, and then the men run off across the lawn, disappearing into the vegetation line, where the land turns from well-maintained country garden to overgrown, wild rainforest.

  I’m scanning the scene before me, hunting for Plato, sure I’m going to find him in chains, tied up and butt naked in the dirt, when I see him standing in amongst the Servicio. Our gazes meet, and I see that his bottom lip is badly split open, and there’s a violent purple bruise under his right eye. In spite of the injuries, he smiles broadly and gives me a thumbs up, which sets my mind at ease. He wouldn’t be so happy if he thought Fernando was about to feed him to a pack of wolves, surely?

  Alone, standing on her own to one side, Natalia is shivering in the cool night air, arms wrapped around herself as she stares off into the dark. I’m about to make my way over to her when I see a shadow shift close to the house, and Ocho emerges, still carrying that damn rifle of his. I’m reminded of Fernando’s warning not to speak to his daughter unless someone else is present. And I’m reminded of what happened to Ocho when he broke that rule.

  I like my tongue. I like being able to speak. Most importantly, I like making girls come with it, and I can’t do that very well if it’s been cut out of my fucking head with a blunt knife. I forget about making my way over to Natalia and stay put instead.