Breathe

by N. M. Catalano

  I already know the answer to what he wants me to ask Joey although I wish I didn't. I don’t have to ask, but I will. Because it’s not good to kill someone without being completely certain you’re supposed to.

  “You’re setting me up.” I don’t say anything else.

  Just as I saw everything in Snake’s eyes, Batman’s tell me their own stories.

  Betrayal.

  Hate.

  Greed.

  Fury.

  Each truth is its own act until the culmination of the story climaxes when each one merges into the lie.

  “Raven,” he rasps out, “we’re friends. You know I wouldn’t do that to.”

  That's the lie. One tiny sentence and he just hung himself.

  I turn my face. I can’t stand to look at him. Out of everyone I've known in this world, I never thought Joey would have sold me out.

  Snake thrusts him harder into the wall, so hard I hear bones crack.

  "Who the hell are you and what the fuck are you doing here?" Joey the Batman snarls at Snake.

  "This isn't about me." Snake's voice is deceptively smooth. Whatever he is, he's damn good at it, I didn't even see him move. "Why don't you go ahead and tell Raven why you're here, might as well finish your business."

  A slow smirk spreads across Joey's face. "Raven asked me to come by to reminisce about old times. Said she hasn't had that kind of a good time it in a while, present company included," and he laughs. Despite his position, and the fact he's presently Snake's little bitch, he's taunting him.

  "In that case, how fortunate I was here to prevent her from reliving a part of her life she wants nothing to do with. Let's get back to business before my patience runs out." Snake shoves Joey's face into the wall.

  I choose to ignore the fact Snake's making assumptions about me, albeit they are correct. I've got to choose my battles, the one most pressing is Batman, the fucking two-faced liar.

  “What the fuck is he doing here?” Joey chokes out as he glares at me. Snake’s forearm at the back of Joey's neck has his throat stretched into the hard surface of the wall.

  “That,” I begin as I stand and approach the two men, “is none of your business. The question is what are you doing here?”

  I have to hear him say it. I need to hear him tell me how he was going to deliver me to the Steel Brothers.

  “This is my room…,” he sputters, thrashing in Snake’s grip.

  “In name only. I’m not stupid, I know I paid you double what it’s going for.”

  He at least has the decency not to deny it.

  “Talk, Joey, before you can’t. Ever. Again,” slowly I caress his cheek with the cool flat side of my knife.

  “Not yet little hellion. Let him say his peace,” Snake is enjoying himself, there’s humor in his words. I think he might enjoy watching me cut out Joey’s tongue as much as I’d like doing it.

  “Did you set me up, you psycho cunt?!” Joey spits out, his face red and the muscles in his neck bulging from straining.

  I shouldn’t be shocked at that, but I am. Joey and I were tight once upon a time, we had each other’s backs for years. This is not the same person I ran the streets with, the one who’d take on anyone who messed with me, and me him. But it does hurt. Because that person is dead.

  "Have you ever watched as someone got their tongue cut off, Joey?" I ask him calmly. Sliding the cold metal across Joey's flesh, I continue. "It's gruesome. There's so much blood. It pours out of the victim’s mouth like a river," my words are soft and dreamlike. Joey's one eye facing me is big and round. Could he actually be scared of me? He'd better be, I'm this close to the edge and I believe he knows it. "The tongue is a very thick muscle, it swells so much," my eyes flick to meet his one eye. "There's a very real chance of choking to death," I smile. Our eyes lock as I shift the blade so the point is pressing into the corner of his mouth. "That's before you bled to death." I twist the knife and a drop of crimson appears on his pale white skin.

  "Raven," he rasps out.

  I grab a handful of Joey’s hair and yank his head back, tilting it over Snake’s arm. I hope it hurts the fuck out of him. The drop of blood is leaking down his chin toward his ear leaving a trail through his stubble. With my blade now against Joey’s throat, I get in his face and whisper, “Tell me why you’re here, then maybe I’ll let you leave.”

  He’s breathing heavily, I can tell he’s completely pissed off at being the weak one. Good for him. “I got you the meet to take care of your problem.”

  “With who?” I yank his hair again.

  “The fucking Steel Brothers president,” he snarls.

  “I bet you did. So you could collect the million. How much is your boss getting, or does he even know?”

  Joey’s face blanches. Busted. If he’d gotten the money and didn’t report it to the mob, he could end up dead right along with me. Wouldn’t that be poetic justice?

  I let go of Joey’s hair. “We’re done here. You and I are finished.”

  I’m so mad. I’m mad at him, I’m angry at myself, I’m furious at Snake. Because he was right. I didn’t want him to be right, I didn’t want to admit that the one person I’d gone to for help betrayed me, that I'd been weak enough to need to, and I was going to suffer for it. Snake was he here to see the whole thing.

  I turn away. I can’t look at Joey, or Snake. I hear the two men shuffle behind me, but I’m done with them.

  "Don't do this Raven, you're making a big mistake," Joey throws at my back.

  "Seems to be a lot of that going around. Sucks for you," I tell the asshole.

  “Time for you to leave, Bat Boy,” Snake chuckles.

  “This isn’t finished. I haven’t even begun with you yet,” Joey laughs.

  “I stopped hanging out on the playground a long time ago. Run along now before daddy starts to worry.”

  Snake throws him out as Joey yells how much I'm going to regret this, then slams the metal latch in place on the door. Threats, I've lived with them my entire life. What else is new? I’m already moving around the room getting my things together. I just want to get the fuck out of here. I want nothing to do with anything associated with Joey. As far as I’m concerned, he’s dead, not me.

  “I’m sorry,” Snake states quietly. He somehow seems to know that Joey was more than a point of contact for business.

  He was the only thing I thought was good from my wretched childhood.

  How fucking wrong I was.

  “It’s all just business,” I reply emotionless.

  But I do feel something, too many things, and I hate it.

  We don’t speak as I finish packing. I’m leaving, I don’t know where I’m going right now, or with who, I don’t know Snake, Summer, or Rock, but he’s here. I’m not sure if he’s going to lead me into another trap, but Snake is going to buy me some time.

  Time is exactly what I need.

  He wants to help me? Fine. I'll let him think he is. The kicker is no one can help me. They've got to know you to do that. That's not happening. He thinks he can save me? There's no saving someone from hell.

  Yeah, I'll go with him. He's just invited me to use the fuck out of him.

  CHAPTER 14

  Snake

  I've just claimed hell for my own, invited her in, and sealed my fate.

  Raven is hell. She'll tempt you with that body, every inch of her flesh is a promise. She dares you to come close, to enter into her kingdom of damnation and sin, whispering to you with a forked tongue that it would be so worth it, that everything you want is there. It would only cost you your soul. Hell is ruled by a queen, and she doesn't have hooved feet or a pointy tail. She wears heels like a boss, fishnets like a porn star, and shorts have never looked so good. She's five-two, with perfect tits and an ass I want to worship, skin adorned in ink I want to trace with my tongue, then beg her to cut it off so her taste would never die. Just as she’d threatened to do to him.

  I’m one warped son-of-a-bitch because that shit was sexy as hel
l.

  My little queen lives at the entrance of crazy town right smack in the middle of Main Street. Hell, they probably have a monument in her honor. Raven's focused with only one thing on her radar. Get them before they get you, everyone, any time, everywhere. No exceptions, me included. If I ever forget that, she would leave me with some very deeply imbedded reminders with her knife she obviously is very well versed at wielding.

  Whatever Raven and Batman had was more than just the deal with the counterfeiting plates. The guy may be a total piece of shit, but the way he came into her room and called out for her was way more than a dude looking to get a random piece of ass. He knows her. Very well. Or at least he did. They have history, and I’d bet it’s a lot of history. I’d even go as far as to say they’d been close at one time. That makes the entire situation that much worse.

  Sometimes it royally sucks being right.

  Raven is a strong woman and a tough broad. Yeah, that’s exactly what she is. I don’t know her history, nothing of what created the ferocious Queen of hell, (what just happened promoted her to the highest rank of the underworld there is), but I’m in awe of her, and I respect the hell out of her. She came this close to being thrown to the sharks. What did she do? She grabbed the fucker by the balls and castrated him. She walked away with her head held high and didn’t bat an eye, her crown might have been tilted a fraction of an inch, but it never fell.

  The Queen of Hell is mine. For now.

  When she opened the door and I could see way too much of her fucking flesh in that tissue paper of a camisole that barely covered her naked ass and shaved mound, all I wanted to do was feast on her sex until she begged for mercy. I noticed. Everything. Her hard nipples and brown little discs, not pink, and the dragon serpent tattoo that wrapped around her leg with his open mouth at the juncture of her thighs, it’s tongue lashing out toward her pussy unleashing fire to those who dared trespass. Hell yes, I noticed. Now, I want to slam her against the wall and fuck her hard and watch her leave gouges in the wall with her fingernails. And fuck me, I want her to mark me, put her fucking brand on my skin with her precious knife, then watch her lick it clean and seal her claim on my flesh. She's infected me with her poison and I want more.

  But I had one thing on my mind when I got here. Get her out fast. Keep her safe.

  I’d known there wasn’t a lot of time, that much money is way too tempting to let slip through your fingers, but I had figured Bat Boy would sleep later than a fucking rooster. No matter, I’m glad it happened the way it did. The scumbag was going to give her up for the money, lead her right to the firing squad, that would be after he tried to fuck her. My blood boils imagining that slime ball touching her. That ain't happening. Despite how vicious my little demon queen was, it had to hurt hearing and seeing the truth. Nobody is that cold. At least I don't think so, although with Raven I'm not so sure.

  If I'm not dead after all this shit is over, I may have to find him and give him a little lesson on how to treat a lady.

  Reclining with a shoulder leaned against the wall, I watch Raven pack. She's meticulous, almost to the point of obsessive. There's an obvious order to everything she does, regardless if it's packing her underwear, or reciting a gruesome scene like cutting off somebody's tongue. She's thorough and precise, which makes me wonder why she'd supposedly been so careless in dealing with the Steel Brothers. The woman is the furthest thing from sloppy.

  What we were told doesn't make sense.

  The story Gringo gave us was a picture of a strung out whore who robbed her trick, one who happened to be one of the Steel Brothers.

  I have never met a more calculated woman than Raven. There isn't a strung out bone in her evil little body, and she might be a lot of things, but whore is not one of them. At least not for money. I can only hope she'll let her freaky little whore come out and play with us. All of us.

  The Raven I'm watching is not the girl they said rolled her trick.

  The woman in front of me pulling on a pair of shorts, her and those fucking shorts are going to do me in, then slipping on her signature over the knee stiletto boots, is not the woman they described. A junkie wouldn't have hidden pockets in her boots to hide a dagger in one and a pistol in the other, somebody who's so stoned wouldn't care that her matching bras and panties are packed together and stacked in neat little piles, she wouldn't wrap her straightening iron, or whatever the fuck that thing is, in a cloth so it wouldn't scratch. That person is not Raven.

  So which is it?

  Obviously Raven has the counterfeiting plates, I saw them in her duffle bag when she put it on the bed and unzipped it to pack. She glanced up at me and shrugged a shoulder like she was saying, 'You got me, oh well.' She didn't deny she stole them.

  That part of the story is true.

  Then the why must be a lie.

  The only two people who know the truth are the Steel Brothers member and Raven.

  Therein is the problem. The dude's apparently got something to hide because he made up the story about the whore.

  And Raven is locked up tighter than Fort fucking Knox. She's got an impenetrable armor thicker than the Grand Canyon around her. The one person she thought she could trust just betrayed her and was going to turn her in, not giving two shits about her. Why would she trust me? Or Summer? And Rock? She'd more likely go back to Bat Boy before she'd confide in him.

  Then there's Hawk.

  He's another wildcard.

  Raven's not stupid, not by far. I've no doubt she could sense he's got connections, that we all travel within a very elite but unseen set. Would she seek him out? Would she go to him and ask for his assistance? Would he bite, or would he set her up too, just for the money?

  Goddamn it!

  Too many variables to be dealt with while keeping us all alive.

  Oh, and let's not forget the latest update from Hawk that he feels there are three contracted Program hitmen on us. Things just keep getting better and better.

  Ain't life fucking grand.

  As fucked up as it sounds, I'm grateful Raven is dangerous. That means she can handle her own. It eases my mind a little, especially if I'm not the one on the receiving end of her wrath. The way she described the tongue amputation was way to realistic to want to live it. After I work her sweet pussy with my tongue, that might convince her to never consider that fate for me.

  I scrub a hand over my face and push off the wall. "You about ready there, my little hellion?"

  She turns to look at me over her shoulder, an eyebrow raised. "Let's get this straight right now, I'm not your anything? Comprendo? I might be coming with you but that doesn't mean jack, got it, sport?"

  I approach her, she turns to face me, arms crossed under her round, plump breasts, feet shoulder width apart and looking all kinds of fierce.

  This woman is trouble and aggravation, and I want her in every fucking kind of way.

  Knowing she's welcome into our trifecta, every single pain in the ass part of her, and all of her heat and fire, makes me grin like a kid with a new toy.

  Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you Raven, the latest and greatest, she walks and talks, slices and dices, and promises to be everything you think she is. That is as long as you can tame her cold black heart.

  "Let me make this clear one more time, angel," I'm right in front of her, taking up all of her space, invading her senses, forcing her to see me, hear me, to let me in. "I'm not the bad guy. And as of about fifteen minutes ago, we're on the same team. That means," I close the distance between us, her now erect nipples grazing my t-shirt covered chest. The sensation is slight but powerful, and shoots jolts throughout my body. "That means the only time we fight is for who's on top." There's nowhere for her to go, the bed and duffle bag are at her back, and I'm all around her everywhere else. She has to tilt her head back to look at me. Her eyes are wide and her breathing has escalated. She looks like she's ready to bolt. I don't give a fuck. I'm crowding her.

  "You think so?" she asks roughly.
>
  I grin, "That's a start."

  I slip a hand behind her neck and cup the back of her head. Her scent is pure and raw, she smells like sin and sleep and destruction and salvation. And it's getting me high. Her hands come up and land on my pecs, they're firm and strong and just a touch agitated. I like that. I lower my mouth to hers and force her to kiss me. I guide her with my hand at the back of her head and move her mouth over mine. When her fingers curl into my chest and her body presses into mine, I slide my hand down to curve around her neck as I pull her tighter with my other arm. The kiss turns hard and hungry. Her nails dig into me through the cloth, the sweet pain makes me growl. She digs deeper into my flesh, so hard I think she wants to rip out my heart. She probably does, take it as a fucking trophy. The thing is, I'd let her.

  I break the kiss. If I don't do it now, I probably won't be able to stop. What I want to do is fuck her twenty ways to Sunday. To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure what she's up to. I don't know a lot about my Queen of Hell, but it'd be a mistake if I didn't assume she's got an agenda, some kind of ulterior motive, what I do know of her is motive enough.

  "We've got to go, my queen. Rock and Summer are probably awake by now and are waiting for us."

  Whatever Raven's feeling, I can't get a clear read on it. Her eyes are gorgeous, green and tawny one second, then the next they're brown and cold and lethal. They're expressive and deadly. They can lull you into thinking she's soft and tender, then the next minute every dark thing inside her is sucking your soul. Right now, they look a little of both.

  Giving me a shove with her hands on my chest, she says, "What does that mean?"

  I chuckle and barely budge. "Which part?"

  She pushes me again. "Move and give me some room. All of it."

  I reach around her and zip the duffle closed. "You, angel, are officially the Queen of Hell, and I mean that in the most affectionate way. And Rock and Summer are waiting for us in our suite." I straighten as I hoist the bag over my shoulder. "They were sleeping when I left."

  The surprise on her face is quickly pushed away by a look of understanding.