Keeping Her

by Holly Hart

  If I already had a reputation as a hard dealmaker before tonight, this was going to be the icing on the fucking cake.

  “Why are you here?” Garibaldi pants, straining to speak, “I haven’t seen you in –”

  “Wrong answer, piggy,” I grunt. I lift my leg onto the man’s mattress and press my knee against his chest.

  “Aw, shit,” I grin, looking down at a filthy footprint. “Where are my manners? I’m getting your sheets all dirty.”

  I hold the smile and stare into the piggy’s eyes. I put all my weight through my knee, compressing his lungs, forcing the breath out of them.

  “See,” I spit venomously as his body spasms beneath me, desperate for oxygen, “that is what happens when you lie to me. Now, shall we try that again?”

  I’m glad Skye cannot see me right now. I’m giving in to the very darkest parts of myself – a side I thought I’d left behind long, long ago in the deserts of the Middle East. Apparently, when the people I love are threatened, I can still summon up the darkness.

  I don’t like it, but it’s real.

  Maybe that’s what Skye can work on next …

  “You know why I’m here,” I state, relaxing my grip and releasing my weight. Garibaldi’s chest inflates once more.

  This time, he nods, never breaking eye contact.

  “And you’re going to answer my questions,” I say. Again, it’s a statement, not an inquiry.

  He nods again.

  “Where are the photos?” I ask.

  The man’s eyes gleam with a malevolent dishonesty. I can see his mind turning, trying to figure out how to turn this situation to his advantage. “I don’t know what you’re–”

  I groan, and my head falls forward onto my chest. I can’t believe this guy. Not only did he take me, of all the Joe Schmuck’s in New York, to be an easy mark, but now he’s trying to play me like a fool – again.

  “Seriously, dude,” I growl. “I’m tired. I’ve been up all night screwing the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen, and you’re costing me my beauty sleep. Are you seriously going to fucking lie to me while I’ve got a gun pressed right up against your temple?”

  Garibaldi flinches at the word gun. He struggles fruitlessly against my grip, before giving up, as if exhausted.

  I’m not surprised. I wonder when the last time he exercised was. By the looks of him, it wasn’t recent.

  “I’m going to make this very, very difficult for you,” I say, grinding my teeth together even as I speak, “unless you start telling the truth, and fast. Capisci?”

  Garibaldi nods, and the gleam seems to die in his eyes. I still don’t trust him, but I think he knows I’m being serious now.

  “You took the photos. Yes or no?”

  “No,” he chokes.

  My blood boils and thunders in my ears like the rushing of the sea. But I stifle the anger. I let it feed me, not overcome me.

  “But you ordered them taken,” I say.

  He nods as I put pressure on his Adam’s apple. “Yes, yes!” He squeals.

  “How did you know I would be there?” I ask, spitting out the question that’s been bugging me ever since I found the camera.

  “From your… phone,” Garibaldi chokes out, still panting for breath, “Your office phone.”

  “You bugged it?” I howl, knuckles going white with rage. The thought that this piece of human filth has been listening in on my conversations sickens me.

  “Man on the inside,” he pants, “at the phone company, owed me a favor.”

  “So you planned to blackmail me, is that right?”

  Garibaldi – the lying fuck – shakes his head. “No, no. I just wanted a meeting. That’s all. I would’ve given–”

  I kneel again on his chest.

  “Don’t you fucking lie there,” I spit, hopping mad, “and spin me falsehoods. You think I’m going to believe that?”

  This time, the man stays silent. It’s a smart move. I don’t think there’s a word that could come out of his mouth that wouldn’t feed my anger right now.

  “I’m going to tell you a story,” I say. “Tell me if it rings a bell. I think you wanted back in to Wolfe Capital. Your wife finally figured out that you’re a piece of shit, left you, and took your cash as well. So you decided to come after me, decided that instead of working for money like everybody else, you’d just threaten me instead – and threaten the woman I fucking love.”

  Garibaldi freezes beneath me as he realizes the seriousness of the minefield he’s walked into. I have no doubt that in his twisted, screwed up, criminal mind, he thought he was just playing hardball.

  Thought he’d swagger into my boardroom with leverage in his back pocket and force me to cut him in on the action.

  He probably thought that Skye was just some whore, thought that I – of all people – would pay a woman for sex.

  He couldn’t have been more wrong. Because he didn’t just screw me, he screwed the woman I love.

  So now it’s personal.

  “Did you?” I hiss.

  “Did I what?”

  “Know what she meant to me? Means to me. Did you think you could use my love for her like a cheap bargaining ploy?”

  Garibaldi’s already small, snakelike black eyes disappear even further into his head with fear. It’s a strange trick. It makes my stomach turn. He looks barely human.

  He shakes his head.

  “No, no – I swear. I just –”

  He stops, mid-sentence, and tears glitter in his eyes. I look down at him with disgust, but it only seems to spur him on. In seconds, his eyes have welled up, and tears are streaking down his cheeks.

  “You don’t know how it is,” he sobs.

  What the hell?

  “I’m out. I’m out in the cold.”

  “What are you talking about?” I spit, recoiling from this strange turn of events. I was disgusted with the man before, but now I feel…

  … Pity.

  It’s a strange mix of emotions. I don’t really feel the pity for Garibaldi himself, more what he’s become. He had character before, strength. I could respect that, even if I didn’t like it, or him.

  But whatever this creature is beneath me, it’s been chewed up and spat out by life. It’s barely recognizable as human.

  “The Don died, and his son took over the Family,” Garibaldi weeps. “He didn’t need an old man like me by his side anymore.”

  “Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?”

  Garibaldi continues as if he hasn’t heard me. “Then my wife left me. Took me for everything I was worth. The art – gone, furniture – gone. She told the court about me – who I worked for.”

  “I guess they didn’t look too kindly on that, did they?” I chuckle with grim satisfaction.

  “I just wanted to feel the rush again,” Garibaldi moans beneath me, his face wracked with anguish. “I wanted to be back in the game.”

  “You didn’t have a plan, did you,” I say, shaking my head and releasing my grip slightly. “This wasn’t some elaborate scheme to bully your way back in to the top table. It was a desperate ploy from a desperate man.”

  Garibaldi doesn’t reply. He just lies there, on his mattress, sweating freely – a blubbering wreck.

  “I need the backups. Now.”

  “I–”

  “Don’t try and tell me you don’t have them,” I say, grimacing with anger. “You’re pathetic, but you’re not stupid. Tell me where they are, and you don’t have to get hurt.”

  The truth is I’m not even sure I could hurt this man right now. It would be like kicking a broken, beaten, battered dog while it’s down.

  A neuron fires somewhere in my brain, and I decide to take a different tack.

  “You jerked off, didn’t you?” I ask him, sickened by what I’m suggesting. The idea of this little fat man tugging at his cock while looking through those pictures sickens me.

  He shakes his head violently. “No, no – I swear!”

  “Come on,” I spit.
“A sad, lonely, little man like you – you’re telling me you didn’t want to see what a real piece of ass looks like?”

  “I promise,” Garibaldi moans. “I’ll swear in whatever book you want. I didn’t, I wouldn’t…”

  “Maybe that’s it,” I say with an evil grin. “Maybe that’s the pound of flesh I should take in return for what you’ve done.”

  The fat man’s eyes widen with incomprehension. “Pound of…”

  I leer at him. “Well in your case, that tiny little cock probably doesn’t weigh half an ounce.”

  I flex my gun hand, and slowly pull the weapon away from Garibaldi’s temple. He breathes out deeply and relaxes, for some strange reason thinking it’s all over.

  It’s not.

  I trace it down the man’s front. His eyeballs quiver as he watches it the whole way – then widen as he realizes where I’m taking it.

  “No…” He moans. “Please…”

  “That’s right,” I chuckle, pointing the barrel of my pistol directly at his cock. “You’ve got precisely three seconds to tell me where the backups are, or I promise you one thing – you won’t be jerking off for a very, very long time. Though with that little thing between your legs, I’m not sure how you’ll be able to tell the difference…”

  “Three…”

  “Two…”

  “Okay!” Garibaldi squeals. “You can have them! I swear to you, I didn’t know what she meant to you. I swear it on everything I hold dear. Just take them, take them.”

  He lets out a long, shuddering, exhausted groan and slumps back – broken, defeated.

  One…

  I say the word silently, inside the privacy of my own head. Mostly I am glad I don’t have to shoot this prick’s cock off, but I’d be lying if I said that a tiny part of me – about the size of Garibaldi’s cock – didn’t want to blast it off anyway…

  “Okay then, piggy,” I grin, “time to ante up. Where are they?”

  Garibaldi looks at me with hate-filled eyes. The glare sizzles on my skin, but the heat bounces off of me. I’m saving Skye’s dignity, the career she loves, and that means I’ll do whatever it takes.

  “My neck,” he groans with a defeated hiss, “on the chain around my neck.”

  “You’ve got to be shitting me,” I mutter, releasing my grip on the man’s fat neck. And there I see it – a USB stick on a gold chain. Tacky as hell, but I guess that fits.

  I rip the chain off his neck and slide the USB stick into my pocket.

  “And there are no other copies?”

  He shakes his head. “None. I swear.”

  I see it in his eyes. For the first time in this entire… conversation… Garibaldi is telling the truth.

  I slap him on the chest. “Great doing business with you,” I smile at the broken, defeated man. “But I promise you, if you ever try to fuck with me or anyone I love again, it won’t be your cock I put a bullet through. Understand?”

  He nods.

  “Great,” I mutter, staring down at the fat lump on the mattress beneath me. “Because if I have to be in bed with someone tonight, I sure as hell rather it wasn’t you…”

  234

  Skye

  I’m fuming. Fuming!

  “The boss doesn’t want to be disturbed,” is all Harlan’s beefy security guard told me, before slamming me straight back into my prison. Sure, you can call it a penthouse if you really want to, but since I can’t leave, it might as well be my jail.

  So I’m stuck here – pacing up and down – just like I was before. And I don’t even know whether Harlan is dead or alive. In truth, I don’t really know if he was ever in danger at all.

  But it’s the not knowing that is killing me.

  And –

  I hear a beep at the front door, then a click as it unlocks.

  “What?” I yell. “Brought me some food, have you? But I don’t want it. I just want to speak to –”

  “Skye?”

  I don’t register the voice at first, even though I know it almost as well now as I know my own. Even though I’ve told it my deepest secrets, even though I let it tempt me to do things I’d never have dreamt of before, even in my darkest moments.

  Then it speaks again.

  “What the hell are you talking about, Skye?”

  I spin and sprint toward the front door, and the voice. That voice – Him.

  Harlan.

  As I close on him, he opens his arms wide to welcome me in for a hug. He’s got a proud, smug smile on his face.

  I draw my hand back and slap him on his right cheek.

  “What the hell was that?” I yell.

  Behind Harlan, the bemused security guard peers at me through the open front door. I can practically read the thoughts written on his face. He’s wondering whether he should charge me.

  The boss doesn’t pay me enough for this shit, he’s saying.

  He reaches out and closes the door, leaving us alone together once more.

  Harlan rocked backwards, holding his face. His eyes flare with surprise. “What do you mean, what was that?” He growls. “I could ask you the same question!”

  I lean forward, jutting my chin out as threateningly as I can manage. “Never – and I mean never – play a trick like that on me again. Do you understand?”

  Harlan physically flinches as he feels the rage crackling on my skin. I barely notice it, even though my cheeks are burning with the fires of righteous anger.

  “But…”

  “But nothing,” I snap. “Where have you been? I thought –”

  I crumple. All of the anger that carried me seeps out. I feel like I’m standing on frozen ground in winter, with cold attacking me through the soles of my feet, putting out the flames of my rage.

  “I thought you were dead,” I mutter, admitting my deepest, darkest fears. “I thought I’d killed you.”

  Harlan’s forehead wrinkles. He takes a step forward and grabs me by the wrists. He cocks his head at me, and looks like he’s wondering whether he should shake some sense into me.

  Part of me doesn’t blame him. I know I’m acting crazy. I can’t help it. I’m telling the truth. I thought I’d never see him again – see the man I love again – and that fear shook me to the core. It threatened my very being.

  “Skye,” Harlan whispers softly.

  He grabs my hand and guides it towards his cheek. The one I just slapped … I wince. A red handprint is quickly appearing on his skin.

  “Look, I’m here. I’m fine. Nothing happened to me out there. I just had a –” he pauses for a second, chewing his lower lip. A smile makes its way onto his face, as if he’s reliving the memory of what happened while he was away.

  “– a conversation with him, that’s all. A friendly one. Look…”

  He holds his arms out, releasing my wrists and turns them over.

  “No scratches, see. He didn’t lay a hand on me.”

  I breathe out deeply. Now the anger has faded, I’m just left with an overwhelming sense of tiredness. I study Harlan’s outfit. I imagine he would blend neatly into the darkness, but right now, in his well-lit penthouse, not so much.

  “Harlan,” I choke, as a wave of giggles rises up and out of me. “You look… ridiculous.”

  A hurt expression bubbles up onto Harlan’s face. He hides it quickly, but I see it before it’s gone.

  “Oh,” I giggle. “Don’t be like that. I’m just telling it how I see it…”

  “What do you see, then?” Harlan replies roughly.

  “Well for one,” I say, listing it on my thumb, “I don’t believe you for a moment when you say you were safe the whole time.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because you’ve got shards of glass all over that vest you’re wearing…” I say, reaching out and plucking a glittering splinter from his chest. “What – did you think you were Rambo or something?” I pick at the shards and toss them in a waste basket nearby.

  I take a step back, and survey Harlan in more detail.
He’s dressed in all black combat gear, including the stab vest I just picked the glass fragments off.

  “What if someone had seen you like that?” I say, shaking my head.

  “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?” Harlan replies suddenly. I think he thought I’d welcome him home like a conquering hero…

  I grin. Harlan’s a big enough boy that I know he’ll be able to take my ribbing.

  “You’re dressed for war, Harlan, but you got your driver to drop you off and pick you up…” I giggle.

  “Fine,” Harlan grumbles. He’s play-acting that he’s annoyed, but I know better. I see the glint of amusement in his eyes. “Maybe it didn’t go quite as smoothly as I made out. But what did you want me to do? Knock on his front door and ask him to let me in?”

  I shrug. “I guess not. But it never hurts to be polite…”

  “So when did you get that memo?” Harlan winks at me.

  “Point taken,” I ruefully reply.

  I let out a deep breath. “Seriously, though, Harlan. Don’t do that to me again. I’ve practically worn a hole in your carpet with worry.”

  Harlan grabs me by my wrist and pulls me towards him once again. “Forget about it. I’ll have accounting take it out of your paycheck.”

  I try and wriggle away from my lover’s arms, but he holds me too tight. There’s no escape. I pinch his arm instead.

  “Or maybe,” Harlan whispers roughly into my ear, sending a shocking, thrilling surge of excitement coursing through my body. “There’s another way you can repay me…”

  I wrinkle my eyebrow. “Oh?”

  Harlan presses his lips against mine. His tongue grazes my lower lip, and I shiver with anticipation. His hands drop to my ass, and once there, seem to like it too much to leave.

  Maybe this isn’t such a bad idea, I think.

  “Well, we were rudely interrupted earlier…” I groan, resting my lips away from Harlan’s. “So I suppose…”

  “Those are my thoughts exactly,” Harlan growls.

  I pull away from him. “First things first, Captain America, I need to wash up. After what we did earlier, and the last few hours of worry, I’m a hot mess. And –”

  “I don’t care about any of that. Skye, you’re the woman I love. I don’t care if you’re sweaty, or dirty, or –”