He felt her pull back.
“Forget it. Let’s not worry about that tonight. Instead, let’s enjoy the moment.”
He gathered her back into his embrace and tucked her hair under his chin. “You know the moment that is forever immortalized in my mind, the one where should anything ever happen to me, I’d think of you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I love you, Charlie, and nothing will ever change that.”
He felt her body begin to relax again while he held her close. For this night, he needed more than a lover, he needed a friend. He needed her to be his anchor to keep him from falling over the cliff into a pit of scorpions who’d like nothing more than to sting him if they knew the truth.
Tonight he needed love to keep him safe.
Words of love didn’t fill the hole her child’s absence created.
Under the shower’s battering, Charlie allowed the barrage of water to beat her skin. A fool would always dance to the drummer’s beat without questioning it, but after days of being sober, clarity filtered through. The fragrance of freedom whisked around her, like a pleasing perfume, wooing her.
It called her name, while ideas pinged.
If she stayed waiting for Shane to get shot, ratted out, or pulled out, she ran the risk of being ousted or killed, and then being no closer to being the mother her son needed and the parent she desired to be. How long could she pretend not to have opened Pandora’s box? She couldn’t unhear what he’d said or undo what he’d done.
Turning off the water, she stepped out of the warmth of the curtained tub into the cool room and quickly dried her body with a rough towel. Pulling free her hair tie, she eased it over her hand and sat on the toilet seat. Digging through the needed tools, she located her catheter, tubing, and plastic bottle under the sink. Sticking the needle under the skin, she watched the blood follow the plastic tubing, carrying its bounty to the plastic bottle.
Lies hurt, even little white ones.
36
September 20, 2003
For the last month, Shane had eased into his new role, being an official part of the gang. The white van he’d grudgingly driven had been replaced with a personal car, and instead of a simple driver, he now had a name and position.
Stepping out into the fresh air during Virginia’s annual heat wave that lasted well into normal fall, he watched the Bavarian and German flags wave. The sight of the black, red, and gold filled him with pride, while scents that reminded him of his mother’s kitchen wafted his way.
Oktoberfest was supposed to be a time of sheer revelry, as tankards filled with great German beer were guzzled down and true German sausages, schnitzel, and sauerkraut were devoured. The Bavarian flag fluttered high over Monument Avenue as pedestrians walked along the red and yellowing trees, folk music played, and men and women dressed in their trachten, traditional folk-wear, meandered from one concession stand to the next.
He remembered what it meant to be home.
Dressed in jeans and black short-sleeved t-shirt, Shane walked along the perimeter of the seating area, watching the hungry crowd grow bigger. His gaze rested on the gentle sway of Charlie’s hips. Dressed in her green dirndl, with her hair pulled back into two long braids, carrying several tankards, she moved with ease through the throng, serving the blue and white covered tables. He always seemed to find her, even when he wasn’t looking.
The last few days had been peaceful, as crime would have it. He’d done what was required, but there were no new leads on what he really needed to know. He wasn’t there to protect anyone, but find out the hierarchy and now, for his investigation, he wanted to know where the harvested parts were going. Besides Otto’s proclamation, he didn’t have anything concrete to present to Hobbes.
Organ harvesting was illegal, and body brokering was something he’d only heard about happening abroad with individuals being found pieced together with PVC pipes—but this? There was no central database to request information, no one he could ask as to where the parcels landed at the end of their destination.
Without much thought, Shane watched a man get too friendly with his girl. He bristled and stomped toward the drunken man who had his hands roaming up Charlie’s skirt, while she tried to bat him away.
“I’d suggest you stop,” she said.
“I’m just copping a feel, sugar. That’s what the fest is for,” the man slurred.
“I said get your hands off of me!” She leaned back and placed the tankards down on the table.
“But you’re so pretty, I’m sure you’d love a nice ride—”
Before he could finish his sentence, Shane grabbed him by the throat and lifted him up, squeezing tightly.
“What the hell are you doing to my girlfriend? You need to leave the woman alone,” he said between clenched teeth.
“We were just having a little fun,” he said.
“Shane, put him down. This is not the place for that.”
“No one touches what is mine. Don’t you know who the fuck you’re dealing with?”
“Yeah, a German pig, I guess.”
With the words spoken, heated rage rushed through him. His muscles tensed, his fists and teeth clenched, and he planted his feet. He scowled and in one quick motion sprang forward, head-butting the man, knocking him down to the ground, and then his fist began to connect with the drunkard, punching him over and over. The sounds of the music, laughter, and jovialness were gone. All he heard was his heart thrashing in his chest. All he saw was the sight of his newly tatted up knuckles connecting with flesh, and for that brief moment, all he wanted was for the Shane he depicted to be real.
Shane pummeled him, breaking free from those who tried to break up the fight only to hit the man again and again. It was as if he’d been given an adrenaline shot of kick-ass.
“Shane, stop it!” he heard Charlie scream as she bent down toward the unconscious man, while other nameless faces held him back. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“With me? I was protecting you.”
“I don’t need any man’s protection. Not even yours.”
Breaking away from their grasps, Shane allowed the crowd to swallow him up.
37
September 25, 2003
Shane picked up the body, courtesy of the City Morgue, and placed it on the stainless steel cart. During the last three days, he’d been able to come up with enough corpses to keep Blackwell from breathing down his neck too much. Pushing the newest delivery toward the refrigeration room, he could smell the sickly sweet stench of rotting flesh.
Shane had learned a lot during his last three days from working in delivery and procurement. The bodies were being butchered and then brokered through Galen Biotechnologies, Inc. So far, through listening and watching the other employees, he’d learned that they were wrapped in cellophane, placed on ice, and packaged with paperwork with a barcode verifying the necessary falsified information, including a fake name, fake consent form for body allocation, and even forged signatures to wrap it all together.
A body was decomposing.
Rounding the corner, he noticed that neither Blackwell nor Webbie were present. Instead, Otto was there busy carving up one of the bodies.
The saw’s blade moved along the shoulder joint, severing it from the bloated female torso that had stitching sewn into its oily looking skin. Shane’s stomach lurched. He’d seen a lot during these assignments, but this was something new.
“So, time for your introduction,” Otto said looking up from his handiwork. The sound of the saw cutting into human flesh jarred Shane. And then seeing the female face, with opened eyes, his stomach somersaulted; bile surged up his esophagus, burning. He tried not to show his rising discomfort, as recognition of the woman’s face registered.
It was Summer.
“Does the Boss know about this one?” Shane asked, trying to shirk away the thought of blood and body parts that seemed to surround him. Summer had been a good girl too.
The wal
ls began to close in around him.
“Don’t look at her like that,” Otto said matter-of-factly. He continued with the buzzing and then began to whistle as if he were whittling on a piece of wood instead of a woman.
“Boss wanted me to tell you to pick up a body from the funeral home. We got an order in, and they’re holding something for us.”
“A funeral home?”
“Yeah, idiots. They don’t know. You can’t blame people for not knowing that they’re just another commodity, worth more dead than alive. Shit, I’ll never let them have me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Simple. You go in for a cremation and your family ends up with a pile of fake ashes while your body is somewhere else. The best thing is having a Viking pyre where everyone can watch it happen.”
For some reason, Shane noticed, Otto didn’t realize the duality of his thought process. He complained about the process, while continuing to victimize people, and make a quick buck—or thousands.
Shane often wondered how they constantly received new parts and pieces prior to his arrival, and now knowing that funeral homes were also subject to criminality, it made him rethink the whole cremation thing. Who was to say that at the end of it all, his body wouldn’t end up on a stainless-steel slab, dismembered, and then shipped out to the highest bidder piece by piece?
“How did Summer end up here?” Shane asked.
“I don’t ask questions like that here. You ask questions, then it’s highly likely you might end up on the table too.”
38
The last month had been tumultuous, Charlie thought, as she scribbled her thoughts in a notebook. She reached for a cigarette, but out of habit—a habit she was trying to break. She’d gone from being a stripper and consort, there for everyone’s pleasure, to being holed up in the house of a man who had decided he now owned her. The fight at the festival unnerved her. The gentle side of Shane, the one who would cuddle with her, now was a little more aloof, and they’d said nothing about their son.
Her thoughts drifted as she imagined seeing him, her toddler. Surely, he’d look like his father and be walking and talking. He’d giggle when she tickled him, and his laughter would warm her, making her smile. Having Shane back was great, but she missed the little arms that never got a chance to hold her. Yet, he would deserve a sober mother, a better mother, and she still needed to work on that.
The knock on the door made her jump. “Delivery,” she heard.
Grabbing the money from the table, she went toward the door and carelessly threw it open.
“Did you miss me?” Jesse said, storming through the door with a plastic bag in his arms. “Thought I’d come by and pick up my girl since you haven’t been home. Thought you might have forgotten where you’re supposed to lay your head.” It had been a little more than two weeks since Shane had dethroned Jesse, and Jesse now looked worse for wear with purple bags under his eyes, sunken cheeks, and scarred hands. “I paid for your food, so I think you owe me, at least some answers.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” Charlie said, backing up to the other side of the kitchen island. She wanted to put some distance between him and her. You don’t know me. You don’t know shit about me! She silently screamed. She took a deep breath and slowly released it, in hopes of not angering him even more than he surely was. “You need to leave!”
“Is that all you have to say?” He paused, as if thinking. She needed to remove the yoke he thought he had around her neck, by force if needed. “Well, ask yourself this. Since you’ve been gone, what has happened to your dear friends, like Summer?”
“Summer doesn’t have anything to do with you being here or me no longer working or dancing at the Passionate Lai.” Charlie couldn’t keep the anger from her voice.
He tossed down a couple of pictures on the table. “You might want to give this a look then and consider that your new boy toy is the one responsible for it. I wonder if you’re going to be next.”
“What have you done, Jesse?” Charlie eased open the drawer and gripped a knife’s handle. She refused to look at the pictures or even to contemplate what Jesse was saying Shane was capable of doing. They were all family, but now, as if a light finally shone brightly, she recognized Jesse for what he was—a true rat.
“Only what was necessary.” He paused. She watched his face contort while a variety of emotions played across them—from pity to adoration to hate. “I wonder if I’ll get a chance to add to that collection though. I mean, your kid—the one who supposedly means so much, but you never ask about him. Where could he be? What have I done with him? Weren’t you supposed to stay by my side? Weren’t you supposed to be my other half?”
“That was never the way of things between us, Jesse. I thought you were my friend until you—”
“Offered you a place to live? Sheltered you in a time of need?”
“No, passed me around like I was worthless.”
“You didn’t seem to have any problems with it, once we broke you in.”
Charlie pulled back her shoulders and tried to stand taller. “You should leave.”
“And your son? How do you reckon that you’re going to find him without giving me some due diligence?” He pointed down toward the floor as if he expected her to fall to her knees before him.
Charlie gulped. If she didn’t stand up now, he’d come back and demand more of her, threaten her, and maybe even do Shane harm. She’d find her son, without question, but first things first. She needed to make sure Jesse understood that she was not to be played with.
Like a meek little kitten, she plodded over to him.
“Don’t worry,” Jesse said. “I’m going to take care of you, and I’ll even forgive you for turning your back on me.” He smiled, as if victory was inevitable, and placed his hands on her shoulders, pushing her down to her knees.
“You know how I like it,” he whispered.
Charlie slowly unzipped his pants zipper, feeling him rise to the occasion. Reaching in, she removed his semi-hard penis.
Placing it in her mouth, she began their usual rough play of nipping and scraping, until her jaws began to close around his cock.
Finally, hearing his sigh of contentment, she bit down with all of her might, breaking the skin. He tried to pull back, but she held him in place. She was like a pit bull with a locked jaw. His screams blasted throughout the room, but she ignored him, along with his attempts at pulling away and his hitting her. The pain radiated through her head and shoulders, but she continued to gnaw at his most treasured tool allowing his blood and her saliva to mingle and dribble down her chin.
Then taking the pear knife, she placed its point to his testes, and leaned back on her haunches. “If you ever threaten me again, I will make sure you can’t use it anymore.” She pressed the knife to his penis for emphasis. “I will never be your whore again, and if you so much as blink in my direction, I will sneak in your house and chop it off.” Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she stared at him in disgust, like the vermin he was.
“Now get the hell out!”
39
Her face was bruised and swollen, but at least Jesse was gone.
Charlie gargled and spit, rinsing her mouth from the taste of raw meat and blood. The choices she now had were lessening. Her quandary would have been easier decided if Jesse didn’t have connections and if loyalty and honor weren’t reoccurring themes coming out of his mouth. She had two options, and they all seemed bleak. She was a woman, and in her world, her worth was only as much money as she could either bring in or put out to earn more of it. Money was what it all revolved around—and power. Death, the second option, didn’t seem like much of an option at all. She paced the small kitchenette, while holding the package of frozen peas against her aching jaw.
She’d never had a fight like that with Jesse, but she felt as if she’d placed her bet on a long shot and could only hope and pray for her horse to come in or she was going to be out of more than just some simple winnin
gs.
Charlie hadn’t checked her messages in days, and she didn’t want to now, but the one new message on her cellphone was impossible to ignore.
“Charlie, this is Kevin. I found the boy. Call me back as soon as you get this message.”
Kevin, the male stripper and non-Brotherhood associate, had been helping her try to locate her son for months, and until now, she’d been unable to find anything to indicate that he could be somewhere nearby. The only person who continued to hold a grasp on this coattail of a dream was Jesse, but he always remained silent on the subject of her missing kid.
Punching in Kevin’s number, she waited for his baritone voice to greet her.
“Took you long enough to respond,” he said.
“What do you have?” Charlie cut to the quick.
“Anxious? Calm down. I think I found him. He’s living with a family out in the West End. From what the maid said, the adoptive parents are older and he wants for nothing.”
“Can I see him? Can you take me to see him?”
“What are you going to do, Charlie, when you see him? I know I told you I’d find him, but you grew up with a real family right? Imagine if you’d never gotten involved in this lifestyle. You don’t want to give him this chance?”
“I just want to be his mother.”
“Are you even clean? How are you going to explain to him when you have different men coming back to your place and paying you with loads of cash or your dancing on the silver pole? Your child deserves better.”
“I can change.”
“You haven’t changed yet, and I’ve been searching for him for the last twelve months. Listen to me, Charlie. He needs a chance to grow up without the family breathing down his neck.”
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