Dirty Debt

by Lauren Landish

  Out in the street, the other men look at me differently, but then again, I guess you always look at a woman differently after you’ve seen her naked and impaled on a cock. Ryker ignores them though, talking to his brother. “Take Sarah back to the safe house, and you stay by her side until I get back.”

  “I got it,” Marcus says, the two brothers embracing. “You sure about this?”

  “Damn sure,” Ryker says. “It ends tonight.”

  Ryker turns to walk away, and I go to call him but realize he doesn’t need the distraction. Suddenly, he stops and turns, coming over to me and kissing me, pulling me into his arms and holding me close before letting me go, cupping my chin again. “For luck. I’ll see you when I get back.”

  He turns and rushes off into the darkness, and I watch him for as long as possible before Marcus puts a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Come on. These streets aren’t safe right now.”

  “Hey,” I ask, my lips still tingling from Ryker’s passionate kiss. It’s his promise, and I am going to hold onto that promise as long as I can. “What did you mean to that girl, she’d get what’s coming?”

  Marcus stops, then chuckles. “Guess that did sound rough, didn’t it? I meant we’d pay her rent on that place for the month. It’s Ryker’s style. We use your stuff, we compensate you. It’s how we were able to get so much loyalty in only five years. Treat the people right, and they support us.”

  Chapter 13

  Ryker

  Everything I’ve studied and practiced and done over the past five years is telling me that what I’m doing is stupid. That I need to take a few days to let him sweat, to make him start to relax his guard. Maybe even to let a little paranoia set in. Or that maybe I should’ve just taken Jacob out from day one.

  The call came in from a trusted source, but that doesn’t mean much. Trust in my world only goes so far except in cases of people like Marcus. As the old saying goes, for most men at least, everyone’s got a price. And Waters still has plenty of money to throw around. For all I know, Jacob could be sitting at his house, chilling out with a crew of a dozen men just waiting for me to show up.

  So I should be doing anything other than what I’m doing, which is crawling up the slope that surrounds Waters’ mansion alone. For fuck’s sake, I don’t even have any guns with me, just a pair of double-edged fighting knives. I should be hitting this house with every fucking thing I’ve got. Instead, I’m crawling up this slope like some ninja out of the movies. And why? First, because I want to feel Jacob Waters’s blood on my hands, and a pistol’s too quick for him. Secondly, and more practically, because if I shoot, that’s going to bring every single man Jacob’s got in the area right on top of me. If I want to make it back to Sarah, I need to do this quietly.

  I slide up another two feet, pausing to listen if I’ve been detected. The silence doesn’t reassure me, but I can’t let my fear get in the way. I check my watch. I’ve been crawling up this slope for nearly an hour, and it’s getting close to three in the morning. It’s the ideal time for this crazy fucking idea of mine, the time when any guards are going to be sleepy and everyone should be more or less not alert.

  I crest the slope and get behind the brick retaining wall that forms the outer edge of the lawn at the Waters estate, looking carefully through the gaps in the design. There’s no movement, none, but I keep watch. If I am going to survive this, not only is my reputation assured, but this is going to be over. On the other hand, if I’m going to survive this, I need to be smart.

  I watch for ten minutes, looking for any sign of movement at all, and there’s none. Still, the last report Marcus fed to me said that Jacob Waters was sighted going into his mansion around midnight and his driver pulled away twenty minutes later.

  I cross the lawn and go to the back door, trying it and finding it locked. Not a problem. I didn’t get to where I am without learning a few things about breaking and entering, and this door’s a piece of cake. Jacob’s always had a reputation that matters more than any lock for keeping his house secure.

  Creeping through the dark house is weird. I keep wondering if this room or that was a place where Jacob did terrible things to Sarah. The feeling only increases when I see a dark shape laid out on the floor in the dining room. I approach carefully, kneeling and turning on a pen light, horrified when the blank, dead eyes of a blonde girl look back up at me, her face a puffy wreck and her throat cut ear to ear. “Sweet Jesus.”

  “She tried to say no,” a now familiar voice says behind me. I turn, staying low as Jacob Waters comes in, a short samurai sword in his right hand, the edge dark with what I know is this girl’s blood. He’s limping a little from where Marcus shot him in the ass, but not all that much. “Nobody says no to me.”

  “Didn’t think you’d be up,” I comment, trying to buy time. “Night owl?”

  “Something like that,” Jacob says, swinging the sword. I may be half his age, but he’s got a fucking razor sharp sword and he’s fast. I barely roll out of the way of the first blow, gaining a little distance and getting to my feet, pulling both of my knives, reversing the one in my left hand to protect myself.

  “Nice knives,” Jacob says, adjusting his grip and taking a trained stance. I hope it’s just something he saw in movies. I mean who the fuck studies sword fighting nowadays? “I have a similar pair in my study.”

  “Why not go get them, make this even?” I grunt, keeping my eyes not on the glittering tip of the sword but his wrists. It’s one of the first lessons I learned about how to fight with a blade. Where the wrists go, the blade follows, so keep your eyes there. “Then again, you’re the kind who doesn’t play fair.”

  “Says the guy who stole my wife and tries to use her as a human shield,” Waters says, thrusting his sword forward on the final word. I see it coming and duck, stepping forward and slicing the side and back of his right leg before momentum carries us apart again, Waters groaning in pain and starting to limp some more. “I’ll have your head on my desk!”

  Waters doesn’t give me a chance to reply, swinging his blade in small X shapes that force me to retreat out of the dining room and into the hallway. Here, I can’t go around his blade, and I back up more, trying to draw him into another big space. “You’re not a man, Jacob. You’re not even an animal.”

  “What the fuck do I care?” Waters asks, grinning. “So long as they fear me.”

  “They’re going to fear me in the future,” I reply, stepping into what feels like the main foyer of the house. It’s huge, with a marble staircase that curves up and around, and I know I must end this here. I can’t bet on having enough space to fight him anywhere else. “Just like she’s going to be mine after this.”

  “She’s mine,” Waters says, his breath coming in shallow gasps. Maybe I hit a vein, or maybe he’s just not in very good shape, but he’s tired already, the tip of his sword wavering in the dim moonlight coming through the windows.

  “Huh. She called out my name a lot over the past few days,” I taunt, trying to provoke him into a berserker rage. I want him sloppy, I can’t get past that sword without it. “Then again, she did say you’re a little . . . short in certain areas.”

  Waters roars, raising his sword over his head, and I take my chance, stepping in and slicing upward with my right hand, cutting him across both wrists deeply, his sword falling from his now useless hands to clatter to the marble. Meanwhile, my left hand brings my knife up to press into his throat. Waters tries to jerk his head back, but not in time as I draw my blade across, a fountain of blood erupting out to cover my arm and face. He sinks to his knees, staring up at me with rage and a total lack of understanding in his eyes.

  “If I were going for justice, I’d shoot you in the head right now like you shot my father,” I say, kicking him in the chest. He falls back, still trying to breathe as the blood flows from his neck to shine black in the moonlight. Appropriate for someone who I just said wasn’t even human. I squat down, staring into his fading eyes, where panic and a glimmer of unde
rstanding is starting to emerge. “But I’m not a very just man.”

  I watch for another minute as Jacob Waters bleeds out, his blood pooling underneath him on the marble flooring. When he twitches his last, I cut a piece from his shirt and dip it in the blood, writing my message on the tile. The King is dead. Long live the King of the Streets.

  Satisfied, I walk out, leaving the door open and exposing Jacob’s body to the elements. I’m halfway down the hill when a car pulls up and someone gets out. “Jesus… what the hell happened to you?”

  It’s one of Waters’s men, but my face is so covered in blood that he doesn’t recognize me until I get closer, and by then, it’s too late as I jack him against the car, my knife at his throat. “There are two bodies up there. One of them is my work. The other was that fucker’s work. Put the word out. I’m the man in town now. I’m the new king.”

  The man nods shallowly, and I take my knife away long enough to let him start to relax before I grab his head and slam it into the roof of his car, knocking him out. His body drops to the pavement, and I check his pulse to make sure he’s okay.

  Having a witness like this makes things easier in some ways.

  Still, kinda sucks to not take his car. It’s a pretty long walk.

  Chapter 14

  Sarah

  For the first time, the warehouse feels crowded as nearly a dozen people sit around the office and outside in the main room, tiredly shooting the shit. They just got off shift protecting the neighborhood and protecting me, and while I should feel grateful to these ten men and two women, all I can think of is Ryker.

  I feel like an outsider. These people, they grew up in housing projects nearby, learning in the streets. They grew up fighting, and while trying to become a teen actress wasn’t exactly all fun and games, they’ve had a harder life than I’ve had.

  Even their language is different. When they throw around the street slang that the scriptwriters used to get me to try occasionally, they sound comfortable with it. They know exactly how to use it, what it means. They don’t look like they’re going to stumble over their own tongues, forcing the words out and trying not to giggle like I used to.

  Still, the conversation is quiet, and as Marcus takes a seat next to me, he hands me a cup of coffee. “You know, you don’t need to be up yet. For sure, you don’t need to be sitting around here with us deplorable types.”

  “Kinda lonely lying on the bed, and I couldn’t get back to sleep,” I whisper, looking down. I don’t know why I should be so emotional, but I am. After sleeping fitfully for only a few hours, I decided to get up. “They keep looking at me . . .”

  “It’s been a while,” Marcus says simply, sipping his coffee. “A lot of the crew is wondering about you.”

  “About what?” I ask, and one of the other people laughs.

  “We’re wondering if you really are Rygirl or not,” someone jokes, earning a few chuckles before an icy stare from Marcus shuts him up and people start to leave the office area. “Fuck, man, just making a joke.”

  “Would you say that if Ryker were here?” Marcus asks, and the man shakes his head. “Then get the fuck out.”

  The man closes the door behind him, and Marcus sits down, shaking his head in frustration. I’m totally confused, and I look at him. “Rygirl?”

  Marcus nods. “It’s just a stupid term the crew came up with for when he found a real girlfriend, not a part-time fling. For most of the time that Ryker’s been in charge of our gang, he’s been single. Our lives sort of demand it outside of what you can guess. Oh, by the way, sorry about walking in on you guys earlier.”

  “It’s okay. You were concerned about your brother,” I reply, reaching out and patting him on the shoulder. “You know, for all the tough guy act you show the crew, you’re pretty sensitive.”

  Marcus chuckles, shrugging. “Maybe. I do know that I hope you are Rygirl. He needs someone in his life besides me.”

  “Ryker’s Girl?” I ask as I make the connection, and Marcus nods. “But I’m not his girl! I mean, sure, you saw us, well . . .”

  “I saw,” Marcus says. “And I’m man enough to admit that I was a little jealous of Ryker. Back when we were kids and you were on TV, I was the one with the bigger crush on you than him. I actually wrote you a fan letter once, although all I got back was a form letter from your talent agency.”

  I chuckle, nodding. It helps, Marcus’s admission, helping me recenter a little. “At one point, I was getting ten thousand letters a week. Now I get none. To be honest, I prefer getting none. But still, just because the two of us were . . . together, that doesn’t make me his girl.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Marcus agrees. “But when he turned around to give you that kiss before he left, that’s all I needed to see. Everyone knows it. Except for maybe you, it seems.”

  “It’s only been a few days, Marcus. Maybe a little over a week?”

  He shrugs. “When you know what you want, you know what you want. Ryker’s always been like that. Either way, he’s been different and I like the new Ryker I’m seeing this past week. More heart, less cold-blooded. Tell you one thing—he needs more than me in his life.”

  I nod, looking down. “Still, it’s not like that.”

  “You never know. Like I said, Ryker doesn’t fuck around,” Marcus says. “And you two have chemistry. I saw that back at the penthouse. The way you’d talk about him when I was keeping you company, the way he talked about you . . . I could tell something was happening.”

  “Can we change the subject?” I ask finally, and he hums, shrugging. “Uh, if I can ask, you’ve talked about your father. What about your mother?”

  Marcus finishes his coffee, sighing. “Took off when Ryker and I were still in junior high. Pop was dedicated to the life. The gang came first, and she couldn’t deal with that no more. Last I heard, she met a guy out west and got remarried. By now, she might even have another kid or two.”

  “That’s gotta be tough,” I say, and Marcus shrugs again. There’s a defeated tone to that shrug that makes me sad. It’s like Marcus understands that it’s wrong for a man to not make his wife and his family the most important things in his life, but that’s the way gang life is. It sucks, but there’s nothing that can be done about it. It scares me and saddens me that Ryker might feel the same.

  Finally, Marcus gets up, pouring himself another cup of coffee before he sits down and speaks again. “It is what it is. I understand why she did it. I don’t have any hate for her or anything like that. For Pop, the gang was number one, and that has to suck for any woman, whether that number one is a business, a gang, the army, whatever. I used to wonder what my life would have been like if Mom had taken Ryker and me with her, but it don’t matter now.”

  There’s a rising murmur of sound outside the meeting room, and Marcus looks up, a smile coming to his face. “He’s back.”

  I turn, getting to my feet just as I see him cross the warehouse, blood all over him. “Ryker!”

  Marcus hears something in my tone of voice and laughs. “Sure seems like you’re Rygirl to me.”

  “It’s not like that!” I yell, but Marcus’s grin never wavers.

  The door opens, and Ryker comes closer, his face and body exhausted, but his eyes sparkle when he sees me. “What’s not like that?”

  There’s a crowd gathering outside, everyone almost silently respectful as Ryker leans against the door frame and Marcus gets a chair for his brother. “Nothing, brother,” Marcus says. “We’re just glad to have you back, that’s all.”

  I can feel the heat rise to my cheeks as I sit back down, and Ryker comes over, pulling out the chair and sitting next to me. A few of the idiots outside mutter, but it dies as soon as Ryker glares back over his shoulder. He turns back to me, his eyes softening as he puts a comforting hand on my leg.

  The fact is, I don’t know what to think. Feeling his hand on my thigh, I feel something I’ve never felt before. It damn sure isn’t at all like Jacob’s charm when he was dating me an
d I didn’t know that the charismatic smile hid a monster on the other side.

  Ryker is different. As his hand rests on my thigh, he’s not demanding and he’s not saying he understands. Just that . . . it feels like he accepts me. Finally, I look up at him, swallowing the lump in my throat as I take in the blackened blood that’s covered half his face. “Is he . . .?”

  Ryker nods. “By my hand.”

  “Was there anyone else home?” I ask, and Ryker nods, the look in his eyes sending a chill down my spine. “Oh, no . . . Stanzie?”

  “A blonde girl. She was dead when I arrived,” Ryker says. “I’d have called when it was done, but I broke my damn phone in the fight, and then I had to get other things done. Marcus . . .?”

  Ryker’s words hit me hard, and I think about poor, sweet Stanzie, who never had a chance. If there’s anything that I can do for her, I swear to myself, I’m going to do it. She had a piss-poor life that I couldn’t do anything about, but she’s going to be honored in her death, that I can swear.

  All of this flashes through my mind in the heartbeat after Ryker’s question. Marcus’s phone rings before he can answer, though, and he pulls it out, listening quickly before saying one phrase in reply. “Yeah, we’ll call you back.”

  He turns to Ryker, his eyes looking at his brother in wonder. “That was a contact from the mayor’s office. They want to meet.”

  Ryker nods, leaning back in exhaustion. “Then it’s done. Marcus, get a car. I want to go home.”

  I have to help Ryker from the elevator to the bedroom when we get up to the penthouse, shaking my head when Marcus offers his hand. “Okay,” Marcus says. “I’ll make sure this building’s on lockdown. You’ll have plenty of people downstairs just in case. No worries for the next few hours.”

  “Thank you,” I tell Marcus. “Marcus . . .”