Savage Mercy (Savage Saviors MC #1)

by Timothy S. Allen

  Fortunately, the rich and the powerful seemed to enjoy having their own Secret Service type guards, for they spoke amongst themselves but no one else. The guards were there to protect the rich if shit went down—which increased the likelihood of my death. Oh, well. Life ends well, hopefully.

  At some point, the group that I tailgated made its way near the stairs. This seemed like an opportunity I could not waste—to go up a level would grant me the chance to have an eagle’s eye view of everything beneath me, including the bald ugly head of Rock. I wasn’t too sure of my aim from where it appeared the second floor was, but I didn’t need to snipe—I just needed to know the terrain for an ambush.

  There was just one problem—finding that asshole was fucking impossible.

  I was far from searching for a needle in a haystack; if anything, I was hunting that same needle among a mountain of AIDS-infected hypodermics. Matty hadn’t been bullshitting when he said that this was a dangerous move—one wouldn’t be crossing any lines or daring any argument to say it was a flat-our stupid move, too—but the needle in question was Rock, and that meant I had a better chance of sneezing around that metaphorical haystack and blowing away everything but that famously elusive length of metal.

  Put simply, I probably had a better chance of catching AIDS and then curing it with the force of my own will than finding Rock with anything other than dumb luck.

  I walked as if I was communicating with someone over a headset, putting my hands to my ear and moving without looking at anyone. This was beyond fucking stupid, and every passing second made me more and more paranoid that someone was going to wonder who the lone wolf climbing the stairs with an earache was. I was violating my rule of remaining subtle.

  But I made it to the second floor without getting noticed.

  At least, not that I noticed being noticed.

  The second floor of the building, carpeted in the same scarlet as the staircase leading up to it, was a large square that served more as a balcony that overlooked the first floor. Doors occupied the outer walls, some open and offering passersby a view of various interiors—fancy private offices, libraries, and what appeared to be a trophy room loaded with shocked-looking animal heads—while others, most of them, were shut.

  A few people stood around the perimeter, seeming, at a glance, to be innocently chatting amongst themselves or overseeing the party below. A few, however, slipped envelopes of varying cash amounts, drugs, or other illegal and illicit activities. Guns were clearly visible on the belts of many people. If I ever needed a reminder that I’d entered hell disguised, for the time being, as heaven, I got it here.

  I take it back, I thought as I saw what was going on to my side.

  In my peripheral vision, three men walked very close to each other, as if arm in arm. It took a strain to keep my eyes ahead but my vision on them to realize that was exactly what they were doing, actually—and the man in the middle looked none too pleased.

  Which meant…

  Oh shit.

  He’s dead.

  Rock’s cronies were, without making it obvious, dragging the middle man to one of the closed doors. Were I a betting man, I’d be willing to wager that at least one of those outermost men, if not both of them, had their free hands tucked inside their jackets with a Saturday night special cocked and leveled through a concealing layer of formality at their “buddy.”

  Hell, even if I wasn’t a betting man, I’d take that bet, because it wouldn’t be gambling, it would be a guarantee.

  The middle man tried to make a move, but the guards were smooth and prevented him from getting away. I was surprised that the man didn’t scream—perhaps he thought silence might get him a deal of some sort—but by then, by the time he had tried to escape, the guard whispered something that prevented any scream.

  The door opened, the three men entered, and then the door shut.

  And nobody else, having either missed the moment entirely or seen it as something entirely different, had a twinge of suspicion that they’d been present—some by mere feet—to a murder.

  Damnit. They are not fucking around here.

  I have to get focused.

  If the man they’d just dragged in there wasn’t already dead, I was certain they were, at that very moment, finishing the job. In only a matter of moments, the door—

  Swung open.

  And sure enough, only two men emerged, the two who had been on the outside of the man. That was bad enough.

  Making it even worse was that one of the men, seeing me stand by myself, looking on, came over to me. Fuck.

  Fuck.

  Fuck!

  I could not run. To do so would draw the attention of every man in this room, every gun, every bullet. Even to begin to walk away would at least draw a similar reaction—it wouldn’t have the theatrics of running away, sure, but the end result would be the same.

  So I stood still, looking ahead until the last possible second, when the guard approached me.

  “How are you, buddy?” the guard said.

  Shit.

  “Enjoyin’ the view,” I said, putting on the thickest, most fake Southern accent I could muster. Anything different than my normal voice. “This here be one of the nicest places I reckon’ I ever been!”

  “Indeed,” the guard said, though he spent several seconds eying me up, as if daring me to break, daring me to show some sign of fear—some excuse to throw me in the dumping room. “You do know that this floor is authorized personnel only, right?”

  “Why, for real?” I said. I didn’t have to fake my surprise—I really did not know that. “Why I apologize good sir, I certainly did not mean—”

  “It means go downstairs.”

  His voice left little room for argument. It also told me I was going to be trailed for the rest of the night.

  This was getting a hell of a lot harder.

  “Yes, sir, right away sir,” I said.

  I moved as calmly as I could, thinking I was smooth, but let’s be honest, I probably had swamp ass from sweating so much and looked the part of hillbilly. I didn’t dare look back to see if Rock’s man was eying me, because I knew he was. I just prayed that the guard wouldn’t spread the word about me, that he’d remain upstairs as a sort of second-floor bouncer.

  When I got to the stairwell, I almost mumbled “shit” to myself before thinking saying anything out loud was a grave mistake.

  Well, one thing was for sure. I was now a Southern man, who… had not given his name out yet, so I’d think of something. Sam? Sam sounded pretty damn Southern, but why think of it until I needed it?

  Because no prep got you dangerously close to being outed, and there’s no reason to do such a thing again?

  I ignored that worry. If I got outed, I was killing everyone in sight to get to Rock. My personal mission would become something like a John Wick mission.

  I checked my phone, which I’d also changed the background of to… the skies of Chicago. Not Southern at all. And too late to change it now.

  And for all that had happened already, for all that had taken place… I’d only spent about fifteen minutes.

  Fifteen minutes to draw the first suspicious eye.

  Fuck me.

  Forgive me, Maggie, if this fails. You deserve better.

  “Rock sends his condolences!”

  “The Saviors are dead!”

  Sucking in a deep breath, I promised myself that things would change when—hah, when… if I got out of there. Once Rock was good and dead, I was certain that the shackles that were holding me beneath the waters of my own misery would shatter and let me breathe the sweet air of happiness once more.

  It was there, I knew—Matty had been trying to tell me that for years, I realized—but a person could point and declare that shimmering light just on the other side of the water’s surface as a happy life they wanted, but if you could only stare at that divide—if you had no earthly way of even touching it, let alone crossing over—then what difference did it make?

/>   Rock had taken my happiness and, in doing so, thrown an anchor over my neck and cast me into these cold, dark depths. His existence kept me down there. He’d die and, just like that, I’d be free and I’d be happy again. And then, yes, I could commit to making everything else better.

  I might even get over Maggie’s death, finally.

  If I could get out of here alive.

  I came back down to the first floor, adjusting my suit to try and look like I’d just come from the bathroom or something.

  And then, just as I came to the open expanse, in the corner, I saw him.

  Rock.

  With him was a sight I could not bear myself to believe, something that left me so stupid as to believe I could ever believe in innocence again.

  Eve.

  14

  Eve

  I felt ridiculous.

  Utterly, stupidly, completely ridiculous.

  Beyond insane ridiculous.

  I was sure I looked great—I had goddamn better.—but I felt ridiculous. I wasn’t fooling anyone. No one was going to see me and think that I was a classy, high-end broad who could be won only by the most handsome billionaire.

  No, I could address what I was seen as with the one question that never left my mind.

  “You a whore or not?”

  Sure was.

  And, judging from the glances I was getting and the way some of the people made a note of leaning in to whisper something to their neighbors, I had to guess that they thought I was ridiculous, as well.

  And a whore.

  But then again, I suppose that part wasn’t much of a secret. I think Rock had told everyone beforehand there would be whores to satisfy any man who walked in—God knows there were no wives or girlfriends present—and it wasn’t like we had signs that said “we are classy.”

  If anything…

  We just emphasized further how much sluttier we were.

  But I’d gone above and beyond for Rock, simply because being mocked for having overdone our dress was a far better fate than death, no matter how it got spun.

  I’d gotten exactly the sort of dress I imagined he’d want me in. I’d decided to take the extra step in leaving early.

  This, however, wasn’t so much my own decision as it was something Crystal and I decided would be wise in the long run. Neither of us had been to this part of town, and so neither of us really had any idea of where we were going or if we’d have trouble finding the place. It was as much a business decision as it was a “suck up to the boss” decision.

  In doing so, we caught the 7:15 bus—drawing all sorts of jaw dropping looks from the casually dressed riders—and arrived just before 7:45, plenty early to avoid drawing the ire of Rock.

  Well, not that he couldn’t find reason to be pissed at us anyways. But at least we had eliminated the options he had for being angry at us.

  And what little it mattered, because Rock was nowhere to be found. We’d wasted our energy trying to get here early.

  “Figures,” Crystal muttered. “We give an A-plus effort and teacher’s not even here to hand out gold stars. I’m gonna go see if I can find a high-payer who’d be willing to buy me a drink if I let him slap me with his balls.”

  Well, that’s one way to think of it.

  This was probably deadly to me in the long run, but meeting Derek had completely turned my world around. It made me see hope for the future. It made me… I wouldn’t say believe in men again, but it made me begin to believe in the possibility of a single good man again. It made me have hope.

  But the problem with hope—aside from it crashing hard in the end—was that it made my current status with being an enslaved prostitute all the more unbearable. When I didn’t see a way out, I could just shrug it off and die a slow death until I couldn’t take it anymore.

  But now, now that I saw a future without these chains, having the chains actually on me was brutal—to make no mention of the fact that there was no telling when, let alone if, these chains would ever come off.

  And tonight, it was going to suck even more, and not just because Crystal had left me on my own.

  There’d be no reading—no escaping into fantasy worlds or actual intellectual thought via the neutral glow of my cell’s e-reader app—and no dimly-lit and rushed jobs for me tonight. Only ten minutes on the floor and I got the look from a man with a scarred face and an Eastern European, presumably Russian accent.

  “You, come,” he said.

  It took so much goddamn energy on my part to pretend I was interested. I didn’t just have to fight resignation, now I had to fight hope. It was like the absolute worst-case of receiving a job offer that paid triple, but the current job wouldn’t let you quit until a day you couldn’t know.

  Except, you know, the current job also destroyed your sense of self-worth and soul and took away any value and attachment you had to sex.

  Two minutes later I was in a stuffy, leather-scented library on the second floor. The old Russian man—wrinkly skin and all—just dropped his trousers right at the door, showing me a cock that would take many, many, many strokes and moments of almost gagging to finish off.

  “You, suck me,” he said.

  “Oh, anything for you.”

  God, make me puke.

  It got worse. It smelled like he bathed his dick in cologne. I really would vomit—I just had to hold it in until he came. Guess I’ll find out how good of a whore I am.

  You know what’s sick?

  It was, once I got past the part where I was basically being strangled and choked at the same time, sort of nice to be on my knees instead of in a car. It certainly took a lot of the usually neck-straining work out of the equation to just be able to kneel there and basically let the guy masturbate with my face.

  OK, nothing about it was nice, not even sort of nice. It just didn’t suck as much.

  After three minutes of holding my breath and stifling my gag reflex, the James Bond villain grunted some word I didn’t understand, buried himself to the hilt, and began a series of pants that sounded like a dying animal. I felt the tip of the condom begin to bulge inside my throat, only a few inches above my sternum, and it occurred to me with some distant and morbid intrigue that, had he not been wearing the condom, I wouldn’t even have had a chance to taste his cum.

  Just bear it, smile, take your payment, and wait till he leaves.

  “You, good,” he said with a satisfied sigh and an approving nod.

  He reached into his pocket, retrieved two twenties and a ten from an expensive-looking wallet, and dropped the money between the two of us, letting it divide and flutter to my knees. Then, still wearing that smile, he tucked his wallet back into his pocket, pulled off the condom, and dropped that, too, between us, letting it splat atop one of the twenties.

  “You, I thank.”

  He tucked his withering cock back into his dress pants and left me there to sort through the payment.

  I wasted no time immediately heading for the adjacent toilet and vomiting my guts out, trying to clear the smell of latex from my mouth.

  You know what’s sick? I distantly thought that Rock would be proud of me for not getting anything “offensive” on the dress or the necklace, but then I remembered this was Rock I was thinking of and he’d likely slap me around just for upchucking after the five-round boxing match the back of my throat had just endured.

  I’m not sure what was more profoundly saddening and disturbing—that I was probably right about Rock, or that I’d ever given thought to trying to make that sociopathic, narcissistic, arrogant asshole anything but deprived of life.

  Not that that is ever going to happen.

  So, suck it up—sadly, literally—and get through the night. Then, tomorrow, maybe Derek will come around.

  I touched up my lipstick a little, realizing that the latex had claimed a good deal of it in its pistoning fury. Sighing, I threw the condom away in the bathroom’s trash, curious what somebody might think if they spotted it there atop the small hill of
wadded-up paper towels. Then again, for all the drugs that would be here, along with all the other illegal stuff, this was probably not even going to register on most people’s radar.

  I stepped outside, and within just ten seconds of coming back to the first floor, I had someone grabbing my arm. I resisted instinctively, but the man who grabbed me, a thick black man with the nicest suit yet, stared me down.

  “You a whore or not?”

  It wasn’t the same John who had given me that line a couple of nights ago, but it echoed in unison with his in my head. Even here, even in a so-called classy event, I could not escape who I was.

  It was just like any other night.

  “For you, baby, I’m whatever you want me to be!”

  It took way too much energy not to sigh in exasperation at the act that grated on my sense of self—whatever remained about that.

  That, and at the fact that this was seriously like every other night.

  Why the expensive dress? Why the jewelry? Why the charade?

  I knew what Rock had said, some bullshit line about wrapping the presents properly, but every poor kid knew that a solid wrapping job couldn’t make a pile of rocks as appealing as a brand new PlayStation.

  Everyone there clearly knew what I was. I had a growing stack of bills that proved that much.

  And not a single one of them had stopped to say “nice dress” or “lovely necklace.” I’d spent two-thousand dollars of Carrion Crew money and two-hundred of my own for nothing. I might as well have been walking around under a flashing neon sign that read “Still a Hooker!”

  No one here is like Derek.

  But, sadly, then again, no one period is like Derek.

  Worse yet, I could almost hear, in those gossipy whispers, the men who had every intention of using me agreeing that it’d be better if I’d just been “in uniform.” Of course, none were stupid enough to say so out loud, lest it get back to Rock, but that didn’t mean they weren’t present all the same.