Playboy

by Winter Travers

  “Ow.” I cringed. “Not gonna kill you, but it’s gonna leave a fucking mark,” I muttered.

  The guy clutched his arm and screamed. He wailed in pain and flailed around on the ground.

  “Anyone have something to say?” Barracuda asked again.

  I had to give it to these guys. They were keeping their mouths shut. One of their friends had just gotten shot and no one spoke.

  “Maybe they need a little bit more motivation to talk,” I mumbled to Barracuda.

  “You may be right.” He centered his gun over the other guy Monk and Mace had brought in. “Leg or arm?” he asked politely.

  The guy tried to scramble away but ran into Jet.

  Jet looked at the asshole. “These guys are fucking morons. How in the hell did they manage to get the drop on Memphis and Billie Jean?”

  Barracuda shot him in the leg with no warning. “Anyone want to talk now?”

  “Stop!” Mac shouted.

  Barracuda glanced at me over his shoulder. “My money was on this guy. He doesn’t seem like the type who can take a shot.”

  Jet lifted him up and moved him toward Barracuda. “Speak, fucker.”

  The guy licked his dry lips.

  “You fucking talk and you’re dead,” Jester growled.

  Barracuda pointed his gun at Jester’s head. “As if you’re in the position to threaten killing someone.”

  “Spoiler,” Jet laughed. “You’re all gonna die.”

  “Not so fast,” Barracuda said. “I did say if one of them talked, they may walk out of here with no extra holes in them.” He nodded to Mac. “Start talking.”

  “The girls. They were running some of the drugs for us. The blonde was the one who started. She needed money and was willing to do anything.” The guy licked his lips again. “The one with the ever changing hair color is the one who stirred shit up.”

  “Shut your mouth!” Jester spat.

  I pointed my gun at Jester. “You tell him to shut up one more time and I’m gonna put a bullet between your eyes.”

  “We needed one more girl to help and the blonde suggested her friend,” Mac continued. “Things were going good until we started noticing some of the drugs came up missing. Not a lot, but enough for us to know something wasn’t right.”

  “The girls you were using were stealing from you?” Monk asked.

  “We didn’t know what was happening. We didn’t figure it out until last week.”

  Jet smacked him upside the head. “Well tell us what the fuck happened, dumbass.”

  “She’s a snitch. An informant for the cops.”

  Whoa.

  “The girls?” Barracuda asked.

  “Just the one. The blonde had no idea what Billie Jean was doing.”

  Raelyn had been right. There was no way she was doing drugs. She was snitching to the cops about Jester.

  “So why take both girls?” I asked.

  “Because at the time, we didn’t know which one of them was ratting to the cops. All we noticed was the white car parked in different spots but there every day. They were surveilling us and using the information Billie Jean had given them.”

  “She was skimming off the drugs to give to the cops as evidence,” Monk snickered. “Fucking smart.”

  “She’s a fucking rat,” Jester spat. “Nothing smart about that. I should have killed that bitch right away when we grabbed her. The couple grand I was going to get for her and Memphis is the only reason they’re still alive.”

  “But, ya didn’t.” Mace drawled.

  Tank and Mace walked in with Billie Jean and Memphis. Their clothes were ripped and dirty, and they both looked like they had gone ten rounds in the ring.

  “Had to break down the door to the basement. They were right on the other side of it,” Tank informed us.

  They were alive, but they looked rough. Memphis’ left eye was swollen shut, and she wasn’t wearing pants. She had bruises all over her face and a large gash on her arm.

  Billie Jean’s hair was matted down with dried blood, and her lip was swollen and bleeding. She had all of her clothes on, but they were ripped and filthy.

  Menace had told us they were raping Memphis.

  Anger boiled deep inside me. Who the fuck did Jester think he was to do this? Where the fuck did he get off?

  I pointed the gun at Jester’s head and slowly moved around the couch.

  “Playboy,” Barracuda called.

  I didn’t stop. I couldn’t.

  I pressed the end of the gun against Jester’s forehead. “You think you’re a big man? Raping women and beating them? That makes you feel strong?”

  “She...she’s a snitch, and we only touched the blonde. Fucking Billie Jean doesn’t do anything for me,” Jester stuttered. A rapist with disconerning taste.

  As if that made what he had done right. “You’re a fucking coward. Use women to haul your drugs around while you sit here in your fucking roach infested filth getting high every day.” There was a special place in hell for guys like Jester.

  I never would tell you I was one of the good guys, but I had some morals. Raping and beating women was lower than dirt.

  “Take the girls out to the van,” Barracuda ordered Mace and Tank.

  Mace wrapped his arm around Memphis’ shoulder, and she whimpered when he urged her to walk. He lifted her into his arms, careful not to jostle her, and carried her out the door.

  Tank put his arm around Billie Jean and tried to follow Mace.

  “Wait,” Billie Jean said.

  She hobbled over to Jester and looked down at him.

  “What do you have to say, snitch?” he spat. Even with a gun to his head, Jester was a fucking moron.

  I ground the barrel into his skin, and my finger itched to pull the trigger.

  “Burn in hell, you piece of shit.” Billie Jean growled and spit on him. “You deserve everything they’re gonna do to you.” Billie Jean had the same spunk as Raelyn.

  Tank led her out of the house, and the door slammed shut behind them.

  “Not how you saw this ending, did you, Jester?” Barracuda moved next to me and looked down at Jester. “You’ve always thought you were untouchable.”

  “Not anymore,” Jet called.

  “I’m just like you guys. You think you’re better than me, but you’re the fucking same,” Jester growled. Even in the eye of death, he was a mouthy fucker.

  The two Barracuda had shot whimpered on the floor in pain and pleaded for their lives.

  Jet crouched down and pushed the tip of his gun into the wound in the one’s arm. “That hurt?” he asked.

  The guy moaned and tried to move from Jet.

  Jet pinned him to the floor with his knee. “Can I kill this one first?” he asked.

  “They’re all going to die,” Barracuda replied. “Don’t give a fuck in what order.”

  “You said I would live!” Mac yelled.

  Barracuda pinned him with a glare. “No. I said you might live.”

  “You can’t do this!” Mac wailed.

  Barracuda walked over to him and kicked him in the gut. He pointed his gun at him and planted a foot in his chest to pin him to the floor. “No one tells me what to do.” He pulled the trigger and shot Mac right between the eyes. Blood spattered all over the floor, and Mac’s eyes rolled into the back of his head.

  Jet followed Barracuda’s lead and pressed the gun to the one with the arm wound. “Night night, fucker.” He pulled the trigger and watched the life drain from the guy.

  The one with the leg wound tried to run away but collapsed onto the floor in a heap. Jet spun, fired twice, and killed him.

  “What the hell, man?” Monk grumbled. “I didn’t get to shoot one.”

  “Gotta be quicker than that,” Jet shrugged.

  “And then there was one,” I growled.

  “Please, no,” Jester pleaded. “Maybe we can work something out. We could work together.”

  Barracuda barked with laughter. “You think you could w
ork with the Royal Bastards?”

  “Snort some more, Jester,” Jet laughed.

  “No! You guys could branch out. I could give you all of my contacts an—”

  I didn’t want to hear anymore. Nothing was going to stop me from putting a bullet in his head.

  I pulled the trigger, and his head exploded. “Times up, fucker.” His body collapsed at my feet with a thud.

  “Jesus,” Jet muttered. “You splattered his fucking brains on my boots. Do brains wash out?” He shook his foot, and the spongy tissue fell on the floor.

  “Are we cleaning this up?” I asked

  Barracuda shook his head. “Leave them like this. The police can send a thank you card for taking out the fucking trash.”

  A gurgling noise came from the guy who had tried to run. “Damn. This one has got some fight in him,” Jet muttered. He put four more bullets in him, and he stopped making noise.

  “I think it was just the hot air leaving his body,” I laughed.

  “Well, God knows these assholes were full of it.”

  I tucked my gun in the waistband of my pants and followed Barracuda out the front door.

  “The girls are all loaded up. There was a blanket in the trunk we gave it to Memphis,” Tank said.

  “They say anything?” Barracuda asked.

  Mace shook his head. “Billie Jean was taking care of Memphis. I think she’s pretty banged up.”

  Barracuda nodded to Tank. “Take them to the clubhouse. We’ll call the doc and have him come out.”

  Tank and Mace hopped into the car and headed to the clubhouse.

  “You believe that shit?” Monk asked.

  “What? That Billie Jean was an informant?” Barracuda asked.

  Monk nodded.

  “I can believe it. The chick shoots straight from the hip,” Barracuda laughed. He shook his head. “She’s got a lot of spunk in her, too. Spit on his dumbass and told him to go to hell.”

  Jet tucked his gun in his waistband. “Well, now that that’s over, can we get the hell out of here?”

  “Yeah, brother.” Barracuda looked back at the house with four dead bodies in it. “I think we did pretty good and it’s not even noon yet.”

  It was over. Billie Jean and Memphis were safe.

  Raelyn had her sister back. She was a little more battered than the last time Raelyn had seen her, but she was safe again.

  I threw my leg over my bike and cranked it up.

  Jester was dead.

  Billie Jean was back home.

  Now it was time to really make Raelyn mine.

  *

  Chapter Eighteen

  Raelyn

  Say what?!

  “Stop staring at me.”

  I couldn’t. I didn’t know if I would ever see Billie Jean again and now she was sitting in front of me. “I can’t.”

  She rolled her eyes and grabbed her glass off the bar. “You keep staring, I’m going home.”

  I looked away for a second but then my eyes were back on her. “You’re not leaving.”

  She shook her head. “I’m gonna leave eventually, Raelyn. I have my own place and life to get back to.”

  “I know, Billie. Can I just have one night where you’re right in front of me?” Jesus. She was acting like she hadn’t just been kidnapped for over a week.

  I had been watching out the window the whole time Playboy was gone. The van pulled into the driveway, and my heart leapt when the passenger door opened and Billie Jean had stepped out.

  “I’m not staying,” she stated quietly.

  “I know, Billie Jean,” I growled. She was going to give me one damn night.

  “No, Raelyn. I’m not just talking about tonight. I mean I’m not staying here. I can’t stay in Sacramento anymore.” She looked down at her hands. “Before the whole Jester thing, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, but I knew I didn’t want to be here anymore.”

  “But...” I trailed off. I didn’t know what to say. Billie Jean was my sister, and we always lived in the same city. Yes, she had her own life, but she was always just a phone call or short drive away.

  “I became an informant for the SPD and something changed inside me, Raelyn. I found something that could make a difference. I was doing something worthwhile. Not slinging drinks at some strip club and wasting my life away.” She sighed and ran her finger around the rim of her glass. “I applied to become a police officer in Colorado Springs. My testing starts next week.”

  I blinked slowly and tried to process what Billie Jean had just said. “Is there Colorado Springs in California that I don’t know about?”

  Billie Jean laughed and shook her head. “No, Raelyn. I meant it when I said I can’t stay here. I have to get out of California.”

  “But, you’re my sister.” I had just got Billie Jean back, and now, she was going to leave me again?

  “And I’ll still be your sister, Raelyn. Just from Colorado.”

  I looked down at my empty cup. “I can’t drive to Colorado when I’m bored or want to go shopping with you.”

  “Yeah, I think the over eighteen hour drive might be a bit too much for one day,” Billie Jean laughed. She sounded happy. I hadn’t heard her sound like that for a while. She was genuinely happy.

  “You’re all I have, Billie Jean. If you leave, I’ll be all alone.” I couldn’t get over my own feelings though.

  Billie Jean shook her head. “I’m not all you have, Raelyn.” She turned and looked over her shoulder. “You have crazy Leona.”

  Leona was sitting in Barracuda’s lap with a beer in her hand and a huge smile on her face.

  Billie Jean looked back at me. “And you also have Playboy now.”

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me you weren’t happy?” I wasn’t ready to get off the topic of Billie Jean leaving. I knew she was trying to distract me from the fact that my only sister was going to another state.

  She sighed. “It’s not that I wasn’t happy, I just knew that there was something more for me out there. I’m meant to be more than a waitress for the rest of my life.”

  I agreed, but did she have to leave the damn state? “You’re putting two states in between us.” I leaned forward. “And they’re not small states like Connecticut or Maryland.” Nevada and Utah were huge in comparison. She herself had just said it was an over eighteen hour drive.

  “No, they’re not, but it’s just a short airplane ride away, Raelyn. I have to do this. I know it’s going to be a big change, but I finally figured out what I want to do with my life.”

  I sighed. I was being selfish and not thinking about what Billie Jean wanted. “What about Vegas?” I asked. That was still over an eight-hour drive, but it was closer than freaking Colorado Springs.

  “I’ve made up my mind, Raelyn. I already bought my plane ticket.”

  “You were just kidnapped for over a week, Billie Jean. Don’t you think you should rest for a little bit?” She could wait. Put her plans on hold until she was fully healed. Hell, it was June. She might as well as give it six months and try again next year.

  “Oh, Raelyn. You always are the best big sister, even if you were only seven minutes older. I know you’re just worried about me going off and you not being right there with me, but I need to go.” She laid her hand on mine. “You’re gonna be fine without me. You’re finally starting your life here. Never in a million years would I have put you and Playboy together, but it makes sense. You’re exactly what he needs to grow up, and he’s exactly what you need to spice up life a little bit.”

  “We’re not talking about me.”

  Billie Jean grabbed her glass and stood up. “We should, Raelyn. We’re always talking about me and never about you.”

  “That’s because...” I didn’t know why. “I’ve got everything figured out. I live a boring life, and it’s always going to be that way.”

  Billie Jean shook her head. “And now I’m getting everything figured out.”

  “But you never told me you wanted to b
e a police officer.”

  She shrugged. “Because I didn’t know I wanted to do it until a couple of months ago.” She put her arm around my shoulders and pressed a kiss to my face. “You’ve been a great big sister, Raelyn, and I’ll always be thankful for all of your sacrifices. It’s time for me to set out on my own and let you live your life now.”

  “Billie Jean, I—”

  “I’m gonna go check on Memphis and call it a night. I’ll see you in the morning.” She gave me one last squeeze and headed down the hall to Memphis.

  “Pretty girl.” Playboy took Billie Jean’s seat and frowned. “I caught the tail end of that. You okay?”

  I blinked back tears and tried to smile. “Never better.” I kept telling myself after we brought Billie Jean home that everything would go back to normal.

  Billie Jean living in Colorado Springs was not normal.

  “You’re a horrible liar.” He grabbed my hand and pressed a kiss to my palm.

  Adding Playboy to my life was the only new change I wanted. Billie Jean leaving was not okay.

  A tear streaked down my cheek. “Billie Jean is leaving for Colorado Springs next week to join the police academy.”

  Playboy’s jaw dropped. “That was the last thing I expected you to say.”

  I felt the same when she had told me. “Billie Jean can’t be a cop, Playboy.”

  He tipped his head to the side. “Why not?”

  “Uh, well...she...” I sputtered. “Because she can’t.”

  “I hope that wasn’t the reasoning you gave her.”

  I growled and drained my glass of whiskey. “No. I told her she couldn’t go because I needed her here in California. It’s ridiculous to move to Colorado when there are plenty of police stations she can work at here.”

  “But maybe she doesn’t want to be here, pretty girl. And what do you need her for? You want her here.”

  “Whose side are you on?” I snapped.

  Playboy chuckled. “Always yours, Raelyn. I think you just need to take a second to think and not just feel.”

  “My sister was kidnapped for over a week, Playboy, and now, she thinks she’s just going to hop on a plane and fly to Colorado.”