by Mia Gold
“Now then,” Carlos Cazador said, pacing forward, his Bowie knife gleaming in the dim light. “We’re going to have some fun, but not to break you in, just because we deserve a little recreation after all this trouble. I ain’t keeping you for my harem, Yankee. After the boys and I have our little sport, I’m going to cut your nose off for my collection, and after that I’m going to gut you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
“Drag her onto the tarpaulin,” Carlos Cazador ordered. “She’s messed up this place enough already.”
The gang hauled her across the room. Ruby felt herself going cold. She was going to suffer horribly, and then she was going to die.
This is the end of the line.
No, the end of the line came a year ago.
A year of drinking, lonely nights, lonelier flings, and keeping at arm’s length all those who had truly cared for her.
Most of all her dad. She had failed him most of all.
How could she have walked away from him like that? Sure, he had been disappointed when her career ended. He had put as much work into it as she had. She could see the disappointment in his eyes.
But he hadn’t blamed her. He had never blamed her.
But she had blamed herself. That was why she really left. Ruby hadn’t been running from him. She had been running from losing.
Only to lose again. And again.
They dropped her on the tarpaulin, still holding her arms and legs so she couldn’t move.
“Ok,” Carlos said. “Let’s get to work.”
Goodbye, Dad.
A tire iron crashing through one of the windows made everyone stop and look. The Venetian blinds rattled for a moment, broken parts trailing on the window next to the table, and then flew off the window frame as a figure burst through them.
“Huzzah!”
Neville leaped through the window, a patch on his eye and a cutlass in his hand. Ruby gaped to see that it looked like a real one, not the plastic toy he brandished at everyone in The Pirate’s Cove.
Ruby’s boss probably intended to land on the table, give some dramatic speech, and leap into the fray, but that’s not how it worked out. Just as he opened his mouth to give his soliloquy, he tried to take a step forward and his foot got tangled on the wreckage of the Venetian blinds.
He fell face first onto the floor.
“Kill that clown!” Carlos ordered.
One of the Bahamian men ran for him, his left eye swollen shut from one of Ruby’s punches, but just then Kristiano jumped through the broken window and landed a kick to the man’s face. His head snapped back, twin plumes of blood trailing from the nostrils, and he fell limp to the floor.
A couple of men went for Ruby’s friend, but she didn’t see any more. She needed to get back in the game. Taking advantage of the fact that the guys holding her down were still staring at the fight across the room, Ruby sank her teeth into the hand of the man gripping her right arm.
He yelped and let go. Ruby swung a hammer blow against the temple of the man holding her left arm.
The guy she had just bit snarled and reached for her. She flipped him into the pair holding her legs. They fell in a tangle. She shoved them off her, then flung out her legs to bring herself to her feet.
Carlos swung around to face her again, knife in hand.
“¡Puta!”
A roundhouse kick to the head knocked him flat.
She still faced a half circle of determined opponents. She ducked and rolled, cutting through one man’s legs and lashing out a kick to another’s shin before springing back to her feet. A front kick knocked the nearest man back, and then she turned and ran for Kristiano and Neville.
Her fellow bartender was trading punches with one guy while the other was trying to grab her boss, who still hadn’t managed to get up but was swinging his cutlass in wide arcs, keeping his opponent from getting close.
A flying kick to the base of the spine took care of the threat to Neville, and she turned to take out the one fighting Kristiano.
She never got there, because the mob she had ducked away from came crowding in on her.
Ruby swung a high roundhouse kick that only caught air but made the tide of men pull back. The scattering of unconscious companions lying on the floor had taught them not to underestimate her. That made them even more dangerous.
As she let out another wide kick, keeping them back, Ruby noticed a burly Bahamian man that made Kristiano look like a ninety-pound weakling working his way around to her right, trying to get behind her.
She lashed out with a kick to the knee. He dodged it just enough not to get a broken joint, but her foot still connected enough to make him stumble back.
One of his buddies rushed her, keeping Ruby from following up. She blocked a punch to the head, another to the stomach, and knocked him down with an elbow strike to the jaw.
At her side Kristiano was duking it out with the biker, who had recovered enough to get back in the game. Her friend did not appear to be winning. Ruby didn’t have a chance to help him as that squat Hispanic man who had caused her so much trouble before rushed her again, this time wielding a vase from one of the tables. She was surprised any were left unbroken.
He swung down at her, hoping to break it on her head, but she knelt low, grabbing his weapon arm and using his momentum to flip him, sending him crashing into the biker.
“Thanks!” Kristiano shouted past a split lip, rushing forward to engage with another gang member.
That’s all she got to see, as two more islanders came at her at the same time.
A left cross took care of one, but the other ducked her right hook and blocked her left jab. His counterstrike nearly came half an inch from connecting with her face.
Boxing experience.
That was confirmed when she noticed the flattened nose and cauliflower ears. This guy had been in the ring a lot.
She tried to strike again, but he ducked out of the way and Ruby had to pull back to avoid a series of jabs and hooks. One got through her guard, glancing off her shoulder.
The best way to fight a boxer if you’re trained in mixed martial arts is to use kicks, a type of attack boxers aren’t trained to deal with, especially if you send those kicks below the belt. He seemed to know this because he kept in close, denying Ruby the space to lash out with front or roundhouse kicks. Even so, she managed to swipe at his ankles, knocking him off balance more than once.
She still couldn’t get past his guard. This guy was good. Ruby wondered if he had ever fought for The King.
A bottle flew through the air and smashed into the side of the boxer’s head. Another bottle quickly followed into the crowd. Ruby glanced in the direction from which they had come and saw Neville standing behind the bar, emptying the shelf as quickly as he could as the teenaged bartender peeked over the counter in terror.
“Give them a broadside, me hearties! Send them to Davy Jones’s locker!”
The fusillade of bottles distracted the few remaining survivors enough that Kristiano and Ruby were able to advance, punching and kicking as the last of the gang tried to duck flying bottles. Neville’s aim was terrible—that hit on the boxer could just as well have hit her—but his rate of fire was impressive. Bottles crashed everywhere, sending glass flying in all directions. The thugs had to spend too much time dodging the bottles and shards and not enough guarding themselves against Ruby and Kristiano.
More and more of them fell, as the two bartenders worked relentlessly forward.
One guy peeled off and charged Neville, crying out in pain and rage as a bottle bounced off his shoulder. Ruby threw a chair at him, entangling his legs and making him crash head-first into the bar, not to rise again.
Ruby turned back to the fray, leveled one man with an elbow strike, then another with a front kick.
And suddenly there was no one left to fight. The man in front of Kristiano fell with a groan, and calm returned to the lounge.
Ruby surveyed the damage. The place was a wreck, with s
plintered furniture and broken glass everywhere. The only people left standing beside themselves were the cowering women. All of Carlos Cazador’s gang lay moaning on the floor or draped over various bits of furniture.
From his perch atop the bar, Neville swung his cutlass in the air. The tip caught on the ceiling, nearly causing him to drop it, then he hopped to the floor and joined them, a boyish grin on his face.
Wait. Where was that pimply bartender?
Ruby strode over to the bar and found him curled up in a ball behind it.
“You,” she gave him a soft kick to the ribs, which made him flinch and cry out. “Up.”
Meekly, keeping as much distance between her and him as he could, he stood.
“The police will be here before long. Someone was bound to have called them after all this noise. When they get here, you’re going to tell them everything you know. You’ll make a deal. As an accessory you’re liable for the crimes they committed, but you can tell them you were scared. You can tell them you were threatened. You’ll cut a deal. Your testimony against every one of these thugs and whoever else is in the gang who didn’t make it for tonight’s ass kicking. If you don’t cut a deal, I’ll come looking for you, and I’ll break every bone in your wimpy, useless body. Got it?”
The bartender gulped and nodded.
She turned to Kristiano and Neville.
“How did you know I was here?”
“John told us,” Kristiano said. “We couldn’t let you face this alone.”
“One for all and all for one!” Neville said, raising his cutlass.
She went over and gave them both a peck on the cheek. “You guys better get going. I can take it from here.”
They hesitated.
“You sure you’ll be all right?” Kristiano asked.
Ruby smiled. “Yes, thanks to you two.”
“Do you be needing my cutlass, lassie?” Neville asked.
She laughed. “You are even more mental than I thought. No, thank you.”
A siren wailed in the distance.
“Go,” she said.
They clambered over the table next to the broken window and climbed out.
Ruby noticed the two murderers edging toward the door.
“Oh, no you don’t!” she ran over to them and they jerked back, pressing themselves against the wall, eyes wide with fear.
“Now tell me why you killed Bridget Hansen.”
The mixed-race woman stammered. “W-we d-didn’t do—”
Ruby slapped her. Not hard, just enough to stop her nonsense.
“We didn’t!” her Bahamian companion protested.
Ruby gave her a warning look and raised her hand. The prostitute looked fearful, but there was a hardness under that fear. She knew silence was her only safety.
“That other tourist, the one who got away, she’s going to pick you both out of a lineup. If you confess now, the law will go easier on you.”
“We only meant to rob her,” the taller one whispered. “Things got out of hand.”
“Out of hand? You call stabbing a woman to death ‘getting out of hand?’”
“We didn’t stab her,” the Bahamian woman with the green jewelry said.
“Oh, come on! Helen said you threatened her with knives. Who killed her then, Santa Claus?”
The two women glanced at Carlos but said nothing.
Ruby blinked.
“What aren’t you telling me?” she demanded.
They looked at their feet.
“That guy was about to cut your noses off, and you’re protecting him?”
Jesus, this guy has really put the fear into them. If they won’t tell the truth with him lying unconscious, they’ll never tell the truth with him sitting glaring at them in a courtroom.
“It was Camilla,” the Bahamian woman said, her green bangles clattering as she pointed out a fellow islander. “She’s robbed more johns than anyone.”
“Shut up!” Camilla said.
“Yeah, you do,” another woman shot back. “You’re worse than all of us. You’ve even spiked their drinks. I never hurt no one, and I only steal because Señor Cazador made me.”
“That’s a load of bull, Antonia,” the woman with green jewelry said. “You once knocked out a john with lamp.”
The room erupted with accusations and counteraccusations. All the girls eagerly painted themselves as innocent victims and all the others as evil thieves and murderers.
Shaking her head, Ruby walked to the middle of the room, checking out each man for signs of life. One brawny islander staggered to his feet.
“Get back down,” Ruby ordered.
He snarled, hesitated, and lay back down on the floor.
A movement out of the corner of her eye made her turn. Carlos Cazador was on the floor almost behind her, crawling toward her with his knife in his hand.
He froze in midmotion, uncertainty coming into his eyes.
As she looked down on him, Ruby felt a sick sense of disgust. What the girls had let slip made sense. They didn’t seem the type to kill. They were too cowed, too broken by the man who dominated them. Threatening someone with a knife was way different than plunging it into their flesh.
The slimy pimp at her feet, however, made a collection of sheared-off noses.
Her disgust grew. The King was a thug, but he offered brutal sport for pay. Bob Marley was a thug too, but no sadist. They hurt for their own gain, not for the sake of hurting.
This guy was a whole lot lower. He was sick. Twisted. A human cockroach in a silk vest.
“You killed Bridget.”
Carlos grinned. “You think those bitches got it in them?”
“Why did you leave the body in the hotel room instead of cleaning up the scene?”
“I was gonna clean it up soon but …” Carlos actually blushed. “It was kind of cool to look at.”
“Get up,” Ruby ordered. “I want to knock you back down again.”
Edging a little to the side so she wouldn’t have her back to the other conscious man, she waited for the pimp to rise.
While the Bahamian watched from the floor, Carlos Cazador approached her warily, legs set wide apart, knife held a bit ahead of him.
He lashed out, quick as a cobra.
Ruby ducked back with half a second to spare, feeling a tug on her dress and the tip of the blade sliced into the material.
They circled each other, alert and wary. Carlos dove in again with a thrust that turned into a swipe, and once again she had to duck back. As he raised his arm for another swipe, she lashed out with a fist. Carlos dodged and backed off.
They began to circle each other once again.
Damn this guy’s fast. Faster than almost anyone I’ve ever fought. That kick that got him the last time was pure luck. He’d been too crowded by his own men and couldn’t move like he wanted to.
Now he can.
Carlos darted in like an Olympic fencer, making a thrust that sliced through the side of Ruby’s dress, barely missing flesh. She aimed an elbow for the side of his head, but the pimp dodged enough that it was only a glancing blow that sent him stumbling to the side.
Ruby rushed to follow up, only to have to backpedal immediately as Carlos made several quick swings to keep her at bay.
They sized each other up from just out of reach.
I should have taken Neville’s cutlass when I had the chance.
Carlos glanced over her shoulder, eyes widening for a half second.
One of his men!
Ruby turned halfway to meet this new threat, only to find no one there.
Not having time to turn to face the attack she knew was almost upon her, she leapt back and to the side.
Only to stumble on the unconscious body of the Zeke the biker.
Ruby fell. Carlos let out a cry of victory and dove for her, leading with his knife.
Now on her back, Ruby lashed out with her feet in a classic MMA move used by those fighters who find themselves on the ground in front of thei
r opponent.
One of her feet batted away Carlos’s knife hand, although he kept a hold of the weapon, and her other foot slammed into his gut.
Curling up and coughing, the pimp backed away. Ruby scrambled to her feet. Zeke shifted and groaned. A quick hammer blow put him out of the fight again.
Carlos stood a few paces away clutching his belly but with his knife at the ready, hate in his eyes.
She took a second to glance around the room. Other than the Bahamian she had noted before, still lying on the floor like he had been told to, and the cowering women and bartender, no one else appeared conscious.
When she looked back at the pimp, she saw he had moved a step closer. He kept the same posture as before.
You’re not as hurt as you let on.
A sob from one of the women gave her an idea. She faced Carlos, waiting for another sudden sound.
She got it a moment later when one of the girls whispered to another, “Are you OK?”
Ruby turned in the direction of the sound, acting startled and suspicious, then immediately turned to face Carlos again.
He had taken advantage of her supposed distraction to launch an attack.
Carlos was almost on her, closing the final distance with frightening speed.
Ruby was quicker. She swept out with her foot, connecting with the pimp’s wrist and making the knife fly away. In a fraction of a second she pulled back her leg and landed a straight kick to his nose.
Cartilage disintegrated with a sickening crunch. Carlos Cazador tumbled back to the floor. He lay still, down for the count.
“Well, I didn’t cut it off, you piece of trash, but it’s going to sure look ugly from now on. Hey!”
The islander jumped up and bolted for the broken window.
Detective Pinder appeared on the other side, raised a small bottle, and sent a plume of red spray into the man’s face.
“Aagh!” he screamed, stumbling back as the pepper spray burned his eyes and nostrils.
The detective glanced around the room for further threats, then settled her hateful gaze on Ruby.
“You again,” the detective grumbled.
Ruby shimmied in her dress and curtsied. “Like my new look? More girly, I think.”