LOCK

by Debra Anastasia

  He leaned next to my ear. “You’re learning. That’s fabulous.”

  I closed my eyes. Maybe that’s how Mom did it, too. Maybe she closed her eyes. I steadied my breathing. In and out. In and out. When I opened my eyes, I was calmer. Just a touch. My heart was still hammering away, but I wanted to pay attention to details. Names, if I could. Places.

  When I was little, I would play elaborate games by myself. Dolls, forts, drawings. I’d create a whole universe. When eventually Aunt Dor would make me clean it all up, I’d feel like Godzilla wrecking it all. The point being, I could play pretend hardcore. And I had a feeling that I’d have to tap into that tonight. And maybe tomorrow, too. Mom’s last word was my name. Nix had been keeping true to what he felt was her request. But I had to reciprocate, and that meant surviving. For him. Somehow, I had to whisper his name back to my mom’s intentions.

  A woman I assumed was Ann breezed into the room and gave Olin air kisses on both cheeks like they were meeting up in a French bistro.

  “Darling. Such an unexpected surprise. A gift?” She gestured to me. I tried not to react. I didn’t want to be a gift. None of that had a good connotation.

  Ann had a short bob and was wearing a linen shift with nude heels. She could easily be running a company. She seemed out of place in the same building as a nightclub.

  “Not for you, this time.” Olin half-bowed before snatching her hand up and kissing it. “I need a favor. Can you give her a transformation? I’ll be back in an hour. I want Cosmo to really like her.”

  Ann nodded with all the gravity and understanding of a brain surgeon. She came over and asked me to stand. She ran her hands over me like I was a statue. “I can make some miracles happen here. She’s got a lot of resources to play with. Can you give me an hour and a half?” She lifted my hair from my shoulder and rubbed it between her fingers.

  “I can make that happen, but that’s it. I need her outside ready to go in ninety minutes.” Olin patted my ass as he went by. “Play nice with Ann. I’ll leave a few men in this room to keep an eye on you.” I flinched at his touch, which Olin followed with a slightly harder warning slap. “You better get used to a Feybi touch.”

  And with that, he was gone, though his guards remained. In his absence, Ann’s demeanor didn’t change. She was haughty and professional, but I soon gathered that she treated women like a product. I gleaned the information from the comparisons of me to other ladies. She had three laptops and two assistants and they all got on their computers. One was researching Cosmo’s Instagram and another clicked through pictures of a girl who had similar bone structure to me. I recognized her when I glimpsed the screen. I think it was the girl who’d acted as my double earlier. The last was pulling up inventory they had on hand. They spent far more time than I expected on the computers. I stood waiting. They hadn’t told me to sit and would occasionally ask me to turn or face a certain light.

  Ann gave her interpretation of what she felt they could do to me to make me appeal to Cosmo. “We don’t have time to dye this hair, but I want it in an upsweep. Tuck as many colors as you can underneath. Maybe get a brown mascara wand to touch up. Cosmo seems to like a more classic profile. Think Hepburn.”

  And then they started. Ann made the men turn around, at least. She said that their testosterone would affect my femininity. And when the three ladies set to work, I became a product manipulated to the way they wanted me. It was a flurry of tugging and pulling and brushes and poking. At one point, I was lying on a couch with just Spanx on and Ann was doing my makeup as one of the assistants tackled my hair. The other was making sure my feet looked great. Apparently, Cosmo had liked a few open toe heel pictures, so they figured he might have a toe fetish. After they stood me up, there were three dresses to choose from. All of them were put on me and photographed. Ann grumbled about not getting enough time, but having Olin on the hook for a favor was worth the hassle, or so she quietly told her helpers.

  We were almost done, with me finally in a tight short black dress with complicated straps and heels. Ann couldn’t bring herself to put me in out-of-season open toe shoes, but she knew my feet were ready to fuck if need be. At those words, everything sank in; I was being made into a sex object. During the test to see if I could stand and pose the way they thought best, the door to the apartment burst open.

  Two girls were helping a badly beaten woman into the room. Ann went immediately to them. “Set her on the tile. I don’t want blood everywhere.”

  I felt my jaw drop. Instead of being brought to the couch I had been laid on, the woman was brought to the kitchen. She was softly moaning. I choked on a sympathetic sob. There was so much blood; the poor girl must have been in misery.

  Ann pointed at me from her crouch. “Don’t you dare cry. I don’t have time to fix it. Laura, take her to the curb for her ride. Feybi men, go with.”

  Before I knew it, I was being led down the staircase. “What’s happening to her?” I was too shocked to keep my mouth shut.

  Laura answered softly as she guided me outside and began checking my hair and makeup beneath the light from the streetlamps. “We have a customer who’s known to do that if a girl doesn’t follow the script he lays out. She was new.”

  “This is a theater?” I couldn’t connect the dots. A script to me meant a play.

  Laura acted like I was speaking a different language. “This is a brothel. Ann is a madam.”

  And then it all slammed into place. Why they were good at makeup, the pounding music below, even the late hours everyone here seemed to be keeping.

  “You didn’t know?” Laura patted my hair again.

  “No. I don’t even actually know what a script has to do with any of this. Does this mean I’m a hooker now?” I was getting ready for Cosmo. Maybe he had bought me, or at least thought he had.

  “Not you. Not yet anyway. From what I overheard, you’re getting ready for Cosmo Feybi. We would kill for that chance. He’s made of money. His father, Olin, is particular, too.” Laura pressed her lips shut when one of the men guarding me shook his head.

  Olin, of course, would have a connection here. He’d murdered people. Sex had to be part of it. Sex sells and all that. And I was being painted up for Olin’s own son. My stomach lurched. I was already overstimulated by this evening. New situations, giant heaps of uncertainty and fear. I had to make this okay in my head and keep moving forward. I pictured Nix and centered my fear. At least I could stand here and not scream at the top my lungs. That was something.

  The headlights pierced through the night, and I knew it was the limo. Olin got out of the car after it stopped. “Nice work. I would’ve thought a little less coverage in the bosom area.”

  Laura put her head down like she was a prisoner talking to a warden, “Sir, Ann was sure that Cosmo would like this classy ensemble judging from his social media. We can change it, of course—”

  Olin let her stir in her fear for a few seconds before forcing a laugh. “I’m sure she’s right. Maybe I’m just a breast man, you know?” He reached out and grabbed two handfuls of Laura’s.

  I could tell her body was stiff with fear. I reached out and slapped his hands away.

  “She’s not meat.”

  And then he whirled on me, letting go of Laura. He grabbed the back of my neck and stuffed his hand under my dress between my legs. “I take what I want. Got it?”

  I couldn’t move. He was horrible. I hated him viscerally. I glared at him. A tiny voice in my head told me not to, but my temper got ahead of me.

  “Don’t you rear up to me. Say it. I can take what I want.” He increased the pressure on the back of my neck.

  “Sir. Please, her hair. We can’t mess up her hair. Or make her cry.” When Olin let go, relief swelled in my chest. It was short-lived.

  “Beat her until she’s unrecognizable.” I thought he meant me, but the bodyguards grabbed up Laura and started in on her. I felt my knees go out from under me. The violence was so swift and cruel.

  Olin grabbed
my upper arm and steered me to the back of the limo. The last glimpse I got of Laura, she was getting kicked in the stomach.

  I felt sick to mine.

  “Tell me, darling.”

  He was sitting next to me. I faced him. I think I knew in that second life wasn’t fair. That the rules in books and movies didn’t apply to this man. No one was promising me a happily ever after.

  “You can take what you want.” My mind hated the sentence, but my survival instincts made me appease him.

  I was numb now. I had to be. Because I wanted to cry. I wondered if Laura was dead. If she would die. And what about the other girl at Ann’s?

  This was the brutal underbelly. I wondered if this was what Nix and Animal did. And maybe T. Were they nice to me and then kicking innocent people in the stomach to make a horrible point? I couldn’t imagine it. But all at once I could. All the money Nix had came from somewhere. Was it coated in blood? Did he inherit more from his father than I cared to see? I was growing up in minutes. And I hated it.

  _______________

  The limo rubbed up to a curb in downtown Valston. Olin couldn’t stop bouncing his left foot. It was shaking the car subtly. He seemed agitated, like he was waiting for a prom date that might not come through. When we were parked, he nodded at the guard in the passenger seat. No words were needed for this; it was something everyone was in on—everyone but me.

  Olin reached up and touched my chin, tilting my head this way and that. I didn’t flinch and he noticed. A slight smile parted his lips. “See. I knew you were perfect. Good stock and all that.”

  I didn’t ask him to elaborate, but his anxiety seemed to make him a talker. “Your brother, right? He’s like a myth. That’s the thing that people forget. Siblings are from the same makeup. You have similarities. Extreme circumstances made your brother what he is. But you’ve been spared. Until now, anyway. I have to watch for any violent tendencies, you know?”

  Olin got a signal from the driver and he hurried to open his door and help me out of mine. This time I took his hand, though his touch was like sticking my fingers into a box full of spiders.

  He smoothed my dress and patted my hair, but without understanding the work that went into my appearance. Like he was playing with someone else’s toy without an instruction book.

  I followed where his focus was pinned. The side door of the club burst open and a group of men came toward Olin. I read the anticipation in his eyes. He hissed a few last-minute details at me.

  “Be pretty. Be nice. But have fire. Your life depends on it.” As soon as he was done threatening me, he smiled in the direction of the group headed our way. “Son. Can I get a word without your friends?”

  At the center of the group was a man who had to be Cosmo. Everyone else seemed afraid of Olin, but this guy, who was taller than Olin and smoking a cigarette, only seemed aggravated.

  He took an inhale and held the smoke in his mouth, looking his father up and down like he might want to fight him. Then he exhaled a ring in Olin’s direction.

  For a tense moment it looked like Cosmo might turn around and ignore his father.

  I held my breath. My safety depended on this prick.

  Cosmo nodded and the seven guys around him fell back. I wondered what it was like to live like this, with other humans treating you like you were some kind of god.

  Olin reached for my wrist and twirled me into an uncomfortable dance spin that I wasn’t expecting. The heels made me falter a little, but the old man was able to right me. “Her name is Ember. And she has connections that would benefit our family.”

  Cosmo didn’t rake his gaze over my body like his father had. Instead, his eyes searched my face. He was handsome. Dark hair, brown eyes, and great cheekbones. His outfit seemed like he spent a lot of time trying to look like he hadn’t done just that.

  I couldn’t find a ton of interest in his face. My stomach dropped. I pictured the two bloody women I’d seen tonight. Things came in threes. Maybe I would be next.

  For a moment, Cosmo’s gaze connected with mine. I caught a glimpse of compassion in him. And then it was gone.

  “She’ll do.” Cosmo tossed his cigarette to the side and turned his back on his father and me.

  He reunited with his group like he hadn’t made a monumental decision about my life.

  “She’s good? It’s okay?” Olin called after his son, but didn’t receive a response.

  I wondered if Cosmo would get the beating for disrespect that I had witnessed with Laura. But instead, Olin just waved and spun.

  ”Finally! You’re the third girl. And honestly, you might be a little bony for him, but that freaking face of yours. Show-stopping.” He took my hand and led me to the vehicle. “Get her back to her dorm. Help her pack. She moves in tomorrow.”

  I knew my face registered how surprised I was when he started giving me instructions. “You make sure that no one thinks this is anything but a girl falling crazy in love with Cosmo. If they take you? Everyone you love dies and you go to prison very quickly. Head spinningly quickly. Do you want me to prove it? I can.”

  I shook my head no. Bowen had been proof enough. I didn’t want to lose anyone else. I had to stay with this man. There was no other choice.

  Chapter 33

  Animal

  AT THIS POINT ALL we could do was wait. Nix, T, and I were holed up in a hotel down the street from Ember’s school. We couldn’t keep this up much longer. There were so many parts and pieces to our daily business that all good intentions at respecting her wishes aside, Ember had to come home. Nix had a hair trigger and it was far from sprung. He and T spent time on their laptops, sometimes switching to their phones in their research.

  I was working the phones to keep in touch with all my contacts in the area. We weren’t turning up anything but a few rumors. Nix was scanning security footage he was pulling from God knew where. Finally, T cleared her throat.

  “Okay. I’ve got some intel, not on Ember, but on who we might be dealing with.” T took a deep breath then unloaded. “A guy was interviewed years ago by the cops after he was willing to accept a plea deal. He was dead the next day. But he left a bit of knowledge. Bat Feybi, you know, the original head of the Feybi family who Nix turned into a human flare, has two other half-brothers. Same father, different mothers. One is named Olin Dutch, but recently has been going around town calling himself Olin Feybi. He’s used his mother’s Dutch family money to cultivate his own business that bought other businesses that were failing. Olin would then money launder and use those businesses as fronts for his illicit, more lucrative pursuits, like selling arms and classified information. Seems like he used local gangs to protect his businesses in their part of town. Olin pits the gangs he’s used against one another, or in extreme cases, goes in and wipes them out when he shutters a front. No witnesses to testify against him.”

  Both Nix and I nodded, struggling to see how the pieces of this fucked-up puzzle fit together.

  T glanced at her computer screen, then continued, “Felon Dutch-Feybi is Feybi, Sr.’s third son that he had with his housekeeper. It looks like Felon stuck close to Olin after his mother died when he was a kid. According to rumors, Felon fell in love with Olin’s wife, who had Olin’s only son. But despite that, Felon is always with him. Word has it that Felon doesn’t speak. And has no designs on being any kind of boss. Just wants to make Olin happy. Maybe Felon stayed to watch over Cosmo after Olin’s wife died. They all live together on a big piece of property that’s been in the Dutch family for generations.”

  Nix said, “Coz,” out loud.

  The mysterious new boyfriend in Ember’s contacts.

  Nix’s fingers flew over his computer by way of response. It was a straight five minutes of typing before he offered more. “He’s been in and out of a few countries. Mother passed away a decade ago.” He nodded at T, confirming her intel. “If I were to guess, she was probably trying to keep him out of the family business.”

  T added, “A failed attempt. Altho
ugh he’s been referring to himself as a Feybi now, there’s tons of property in the area under Olin Dutch. He’s really making himself a dynasty here.”

  “So, Ember’s now involved with his kid? What does this mean?” I folded my arms and watched my phone. Wardon, Thrice, and Slice were canvassing the area for Ember. She’d assured them she was leaving of her own accord and now it was all about waiting for her whim to return.

  A text flashed on the top of my screen. We’ve got her. She just pulled up to the dorm.

  And then we were out of the room like a SWAT team. Nix was a bundle of nerves. And Ember didn’t know how very deadly that was. He was a quiet guy. A thoughtful one. But this had gone too far.

  When we knocked on her dorm room door, we had to do it a few times. Nix tugged out his keys, about to force his way in when she swung it open.

  “Me being on my own is really fucking hard to do with you guys always here.” She held up a hand, blocking our entry.

  Nix touched the doorknob, the tendons flexing beneath the bone inked there. “Let us in.”

  She shook her head. “I’m packing. Tonight. I’ve had enough.”

  “What do you mean?” Nix tilted his head and tipped his chin down.

  “I’m going. Now.” She twirled and I noticed her hair was twisted and tucked into an elaborate knot. I couldn’t see any of the colors she normally had.

  Nix followed her in. T met my eyes. Should we join in or wait it out? I held my hand out to my wife and we watched the door swing closed. We’d wait in the hall and let Nix have his time with Ember.

  And then the fighting started. Ember was hissing and whispering at Nix. I couldn’t make out the words. I loved Ember, but my blood was starting to boil. And then Nix went back at her, his deep voice murmuring with a definite edge to it.

  T pulled on my hand. She was torn. This might be the wrong way to go about it, especially if Ember was in love. But it was too dangerous. We didn’t know enough about the new situation with Olin Feybi.