by R. J. Lewis
“Different is good sometimes, Prez.”
He made a grunting sound. “She looks a bit too polished for me.”
“That was my concern.”
I gave him a what-the-fuck stare. “No, it wasn’t.”
He ignored me. “She’s got the cleanest skin, Prez. Look at her arms. No track marks, and she’s conscious. We don’t gotta worry about another OD’er.”
Not being a drug addict was supposed to give me an edge?
Prez made another sound before widening the door. “Bring her in.”
The biker dragged me into the room. I passed a kitchenette and a small living area that was filled with beer bottles and cocaine. The entire place smelled like really strong pot and body odour – I gagged. The biker deposited me in the large bedroom at the foot of a king-sized bed. Unmade. The covers were half hanging from the bed. I spotted questionable stains as the biker spoke to his overlord before leaving, slamming the door closed behind him.
Just like that, I was trapped in a room with the One Percent’s president.
“I kind of let that happen,” I whispered to myself.
“What’s that, darlin’?” Prez called out to me.
“Nothing.”
“You want a fix?”
“What?”
I turned to look at him as he stopped by the doorway, looking me over. “I said you want a fix?”
“What does that mean?”
“A hit. Do you want a hit?”
“You mean drugs.”
He smiled his yellow teeth at me. He needed a dental plan so badly. “Yeah, I got some coke, some pot, I might even have some pills somewhere.”
“No, thank you,” I said politely – because you never know, I might polite my way out of this.
“I’ll be right back. You hang out in here, get comfortable. You can take that sweet little dress off you, or you can wait for me to. Might like doing it with my teeth, actually…” His grumbling trailed off as he left the room and started banging around in the living room.
As he sniffed wildly, I spun around the room, searching for a weapon. Nothing really jumped out except a belt on the floor and the lamp on the nightstand. It was fucking disappointing. You’d think a biker would have some guns hanging around…
I raced to the lamp, picking up the belt along the way and ripped the cord to the lamp out of the wall. Spotting the hotel phone, I quickly grabbed it off its cradle and tried to call 911, but nothing went through (and in a hotel that was frequented by criminals, why on earth would I have expected it would?). Feeling panicked, I dialled the front desk number that was taped to the phone.
“Marx Hotel, how may I help you?” chimed a lady.
“Please, help me,” I begged. “I’ve been forced in a room with a biker. I think he’s going to hurt me.”
“How would you like me to assist you?”
“Are you fucking serious? Call the fucking cops!”
“I’m sorry, I can’t do that. What I can do is send up room service –”
“I don’t want room service! I am trapped in a hotel room with the president biker of the One Percent!” I seethed.
There was an awkward silence on the other end. Was this lady for real just sitting on the other end not saying anything?
“Are you fucking ghosting me?” I cried, tears springing to my eyes now.
I heard her breathing. Heard chatter all around her. She muffled the phone and there was some murmuring. I faintly heard, “He will feed us to his dogs. Hang up now.”
My heart sank.
She wasn’t going to do shit.
“Put the phone down,” Prez boomed from behind me.
I spun around. He was in the room, staring at me, his eyes all bright and buzzed. Sniffing, he growled again, “Put the fucking phone down or I’ll fucking kill you.”
I shakily set the phone down.
Now he glanced at the lamp and belt. “Put those down, too.”
“I would really like to hold them,” I replied in that polite way again.
He stepped toward me and I stepped back. I gripped the lamp tightly, and he smirked with amusement. When he took another step forward, I jumped on the bed and hurried to the other side, almost tripping over my heels in the process.
“We can do this all night long,” he murmured, moving in the other direction now. “It won’t make a difference. You’re going to wind up under me.”
I shook my head, panting now because this panic attack was like a noose tightening around my throat. “Listen, President man, I am not as polished as I look.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, I bite.”
He chuckled. “I like it dirty.”
“I’m very dirty,” I told him. “As in, I’m carrying a lot of diseases. You don’t want to be up in this.”
He kept coming to me, unperturbed. “That’s alright, honey. I’ve got a few surprises of my own.”
Oh fuck, ew.
I dry heaved, shaking my head furiously at him, pleading, “I’m not even on birth control.”
“I like a bit of risk involved.”
“I feel like, perhaps, you should be considerate of what I like. This should be very mutual.”
“I’m packing a big one, honey. You will be very satisfied –”
“I don’t think Nicholas Cooper will be okay with this.”
Now he stopped and stared at me. Just when I began to think I was getting through to him, he burst out laughing. The laughs were really over the top and unnecessary. He shook his head; I was such a comedian. “Ain’t God himself gonna be able to get Nicholas Cooper here in the flesh.”
Before I could respond, he lunged at me. This old man could move. His giant body pressed against mine. His hand grabbed at my hand that gripped the belt. On reflex, I swung the lamp at him, crashing it against his head.
It didn’t even break.
It just made him really angry.
He growled and ripped the lamp from out of my other hand. He threw both items behind him. I heard the lamp shatter, heard my cries flee my lips as he gripped me harshly around my hair and shoved me down on the bed.
I twisted and turned. I tried crawling away, but he just grabbed at my legs and slid me down the bed effortlessly. I tried kicking at him, but he dodged my feet with such expertise and then ripped my heels off each foot.
“I ain’t even hard,” he murmured, sounding demonic. “This sorta thing really cramps my libido, but you fucking hit me, and my head hurts, and you know what, bitch? I think you’re fun to play with.”
His hand wrapped around the back of my head. He pressed my face into the mattress, suffocating me. I jerked, opening my mouth wide to breath, but I could hardly suck a breath in. Pressure built behind my eyes as I struggled to stay conscious, and now as he climbed over the bed, pressing a knee into my spine, I could hardly move either.
I shut my eyes, feeling helpless, feeling like I really did fuck up this time and it was purely my fault.
I just…
I needed to know he was alive.
I needed to see it for myself.
To hear it from his mouth.
For him to admit he let me go, once and for all.
I needed that closure, that final crack in my heart.
“Hey, Prez,” a deep voice sounded.
“Yeah?” Prez muttered, easing off my spine.
I twisted around, looked straight at Prez as a bullet cracked through the air.
His head…popped above me.
Blood rained down my body and spurted all over my face.
I didn’t scream this time.
51.
Victoria…
I slid out from under the body, teeth chattering. I felt pressure in my neck and face as I struggled to breathe. Nothing was coming into my body, though. I started to panic. My hands wrapped around my throat as I tried to suck a breath in.
I was going to die.
My heart hurt so much, I felt like my chest was caving in on itself.
Then…
In my hysteria, I twisted in his arms, fighting him off, but he tightened his grip around me and dropped his head to mine, whispering in my ear, “Breathe, now, breathe. You’re alright.”
I thrashed some more, trying my hardest until finally I felt a giant surge of oxygen in my lungs. I gasped hard, feeling the weight in my chest ease. He rewarded me with, “Good girl, there it is. Deep breaths, baby.”
I breathed in and out, and in and out, but now my stomach was rolling. I could see blood everywhere. I felt it coating my skin. It felt cool against the air. I wiped at my face and stared at my red skin, feeling faint.
Blood, blood, blood. Everywhere. Always. Blood followed me wherever I went.
“Stop that,” he admonished, grabbing at my hands and forcing them down into my lap so I wouldn’t see. “It’s just a bit of blood. We’ve seen worse, haven’t we, baby?”
I didn’t respond.
My brain was fried. I was in a state of shock.
Not once did I stop to consider who was holding me.
In the back of my mind, I’d made the connection, but on the surface it hadn’t registered. Not until the feel of his stubble brushed against my forehead, and the familiarity of that – the memories that cut through me just by feeling that – hit me with the same velocity as that flying bullet.
I startled in his arms, blinking up at him. At him, I repeated.
At Nixon.
He looked down at me as I began to shake my head at him, feeling my lips quiver. He began to frown, reading me and saying, “We’ll get to that –”
“Get to what?” I cut in, hysterically. “What will we get to, Nixon?”
“Keep your voice down.”
“Or what?”
“We gotta act fast. I only planned to kill this fucker tonight. Any more guys and we might not make it.”
Before I could respond, he pulled a burner cell from his pocket and made a call. “Tyrone,” he said, “it’s done. Have the footage loop itself while the crew get up here.” Narrowing his eyes at me, he added, “There’s been a complication.”
I heard Tyrone’s voice on the other end. “I saw her enter the room. They’re going to want to know what happened to her.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He hung up and slipped the phone back into his pocket. Then he stood up and carried me out of the bedroom and to the lounge.
As he began to settle me on the stain-ridden couch, I shook my head furiously. “Don’t, don’t, Nixon.”
“I gotta put you down.”
I dug my bloody fingers into the black sweater he was wearing. “I’ll scream, Nixon. I will. I’ll fucking scream.”
He frowned, opening his mouth to respond when a knock sounded. Gritting his teeth, he picked me back up and carried me to the door of the hotel. He peered through the peephole, telling me, “Bury your head against my chest. I don’t want you seeing this.”
I buried my face into his chest as he opened the door. Footsteps scurried in. Multiple people by the sounds of it, sounding hushed.
“Take him to the bedroom,” Nixon directed, quietly. “Eman, we can’t fuck this up, alright?”
“I got this,” Eman’s voice rang out, cockily. “You hold onto that fine ass girl. Hey, Vixen, it’s good to see you, angel face.”
“Don’t talk to her,” Nixon snapped.
Without thinking, I snuck a glance and, sure enough, Eman was there, carrying what looked like an unconscious man over his shoulder.
“Hey,” Nixon growled down at me, “don’t fucking look.”
I buried my face against his chest and shut my eyes, breathing him in.
“You should leave,” a familiar voice said. Rowan. “You did enough. We can take care of this.”
“I want shots against the chest,” Nixon demanded. “I want it to look like Jekyll fired at him first before he got shot through the head. I want Matteo to bleed out. Make it look like he was trying to make a call –”
“Nixon,” Rowan interrupted calmly. “We know.”
Nixon carried me out of the hotel room and down the hallway. At the very end, he stopped out front of another door and used a key card to enter. The room was dark as we stepped in. He hit a few switches and carried me through an exact copy of the penthouse we were just in.
He took me into the bathroom and set me down on the edge of the tub. This time I let him leave me there as he turned his focus to the shower stall. I looked up at him, feeling brittle.
My memory dulled him. He was bigger than life right now. Bigger than I remembered, and just as gorgeous. I noticed some greys in his stubble that weren’t there before, and some lines around his eyes, but other than that, he was perfectly preserved.
My heart beat faster. He turned the water on and then turned to me, pausing as his eyes caught mine for the first time in two years.
It felt heady to look at each other. It was almost hard to maintain that connection.
I wondered if he could see my pain.
I wondered if he sensed how deceived I felt.
His expression was stoic. He barely blinked at me before looking away. He appeared unbothered. It stung so much, I felt hot tears fall from my eyes.
“Get naked,” he ordered.
“I’d rather not,” I retorted, feeling my nostrils flare as the reality of this – us – hit me.
His jaw tensed. “If you don’t get naked in five seconds, I’m going to tear that dress off you. I don’t care if I have to do it with my blade. I don’t care if you scream when I do it, either, because these walls are soundproof. Decide, Victoria.”
“I’m sort of in a state of fucking shock, if you haven’t noticed,” I seethed, glaring at him now. “I almost got raped. The guy got shot in the head right over me. Oh, and another fucking thing, the man that told me he loved me, that told me he would never let me go, the one that was DYING in front of me on that beach two years ago is kind of fucking alive.” I threw my arms up in defeat. “Excuse me for not wanting to get naked right this fucking instant.”
His expression cracked. Anger seeped out of him as he bent down and gritted out, “You begged to be let go. You spent two years telling me you were miserable.”
“I fell in love with you,” I cut in.
“Funny, I never heard you say it once.”
“Because I was in denial, you asshole.” The veins protruded from my neck as I yelled, “And I don’t recall you ever saying it to me, either.”
He let out a sardonic chuckle. “I did everything for you, Victoria.”
“Victoria,” I repeated, rolling my eyes. “You would never say my name before. It’s not Vixen anymore, not baby like it was two seconds ago, now it’s Victoria.”
“Because that’s your fucking name, and you begged for me to use it.”
I stood, glowering up at him. “I know what’s going on. You’re punishing me, aren’t you?”
“Punishing you how?” he bit back.
“You broke me down until I couldn’t be on my own, until I depended on you, and then you set me loose. You wanted me to come crawling back to you –”
“I wanted you to think I was dead,” he interrupted, harshly, peering down at me with cold eyes.
“So, you faked it.”
“I didn’t fake it. I thought I was dying. I almost did, but my spirit wouldn’t leave my body. It fought to exist in this fucking wasteland, even if it meant letting you go.” He looked me over, that expression hardening by the second. “I gave you what you wanted because I couldn’t live with myself knowing you were with me and thinking of what life would be like without me. I loved you more than I loved to breathe. But you? You pushed me away, Victoria. You made it clear every time I took you, every time I begged for you to open up, that I would never have your soul. That your soul belonged to you.” With a tense j
aw, he gritted out, “I let you go. I did it for the two of us.” With a defeated look, he added, “I let you go, and I destroyed myself so you wouldn’t.”
Tears streamed down my face. I felt so much anger in that moment. “You made me mourn you. You made me think you were dead. I don’t think you realize how FUCKED UP that is. Who does that?”
“I was dead,” he told me. “There was nothing left inside me.”
“And now?” I prodded frantically. “What’s inside you now?”
His face went cold. “Not you.”
My lips trembled. I felt like my heart was breaking apart all over again, and he didn’t care. “I hate you,” I whispered, meaning it with every fibre of my being. “I hate you more than anything, you fucking arrogant asshole.”
He had the audacity to smirk. “Good. Hate me all you want.”
“I will,” I told him, confidently. “I will hate you until my last breath.”
His brows shot up. “It takes a lot of energy to hate someone that much, Victoria.”
I smiled coldly. “I’ll happily spend the rest of my life using every ounce of my energy loathing a fucking jerk like you.”
“Okay.”
“Yeah, okay,” I taunted. “That’s all you ever did. Use short fucking words –”
“Yeah –”
“—and you do it to piss me off! You always tried to wind me up.”
“Sure.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Get in the fucking shower.”
“I’d rather sit in another man’s blood than get in your fucking shower, Nixon.”
“Is that right?”
“Yeah, that’s fucking right –”
He grabbed me by the arm suddenly and dragged me into the shower stall and under the spray. I tried to get out immediately, but he held me down under the spray until I was screaming at him, telling him I loathed him because I really did. I loathed him. I loathed him so much. He responded by shoving me back against the tile wall of the stall and stepping in. Drenched, he stared down at me, the rage in his eyes pinning me in place.
“Let me go!” I shouted at him. “You’re a fucking dickhead. Just go, why don’t you. Go and actually be dead and then this time I won’t spend every fucking minute missing your asshole face! You abducted me, you forced me to love you, but I know to let you go now! I know I’ll never look at your stupid face again –”