Puck

by Marata Eros

  Or maybe not.

  “Well, that’s just a swell endorsement,” Noose says with a sardonic lift to his mouth. “But we’re ready to rock and roll. Put Candi in place and see if we can’t lure this bastard out.”

  She nods, smoothing her outfit down. Her breasts are huge because of the nursing, but as she admitted, it’ll help get attention.

  “Like we’ve agreed, I’ll behave like a freelance girl,” she says.

  “And that’s going to get you the notice from this fucker that’s heading up the operation,” Snare says.

  Candi gives a short nod. “Get me to the other hookers.”

  Wring scrutinizes her, his gaze lingering on her unusual hazel eyes. “You still have cop eyes.” He gives a small shake of his head.

  “I know.” She sighs. “It’s a challenge to look soft when you’re not.”

  Storm smirks, and I get the sudden impulse to punch him.

  Viper lifts Candi’s hand, lips brushing her knuckles. “I’ll be watching.”

  Candi turns to him. “Don’t come after me, no matter what happens. Let the other men do it. We don’t both need to be in the crosshairs.”

  Viper plunges his fingers through his hair. “I can’t lose you.”

  Candi walks to him in her ridiculous fuck-me stilettos and circles his trim waist with her arms. “You won’t.”

  He cups the back of her head, smoothing all that dark auburn hair flat.

  The strands looks like blood against his skin.

  Chapter 23

  Temp

  I come to. Kind of. I feel like I do when I’m about to nod off to sleep, caught in that place between true wakefulness and sleeping.

  And normally, that few moments of the twilight between sleeping and waking pass each day without notice, like the fabric of daily life.

  But not right now.

  For one thing, a thin snakelike opaque tube runs from the crook of my elbow to a hanging bag filled with clear fluid.

  I stare at the spot where the needle’s inserted.

  “Don’t bother, bitch. You’re officially under the influence.” Ritchie gives a satisfied chuckle.

  “You know, that little electrical blast I gave you should have fucked you up. But I’m not surprised you fought after I lit up your life.” He folds his beefy appendages over his chest so they rest on his gut. “Nope,” he says, snapping his tongue over the word. “Not a bit surprised.”

  With a sigh, he lights up a cigarette. After taking a drag, he blows the first lungful in my face.

  I gag, coughing.

  He chuckles again.

  I’ve never viewed myself as a murderer, but I might make an exception for Ritchie.

  “Chenille’s back on the shit,” he says with a vague smile. “I’m back to fucking her and selling her snatch to our regular clientele.”

  His little speech is disturbing, but I find I’m not getting worked up like I should be, which is even more disquieting. My normal fear and natural revulsion are on a shelf somewhere out of reach, instead of part of my consciousness.

  His gaze rolls over my body as I lie on a pseudo hospital bed in a spartan and unfamiliar room. “You’re not looking too hot, bitch.”

  I’m sick of Ritchie using “bitch” instead of any other name. Really tired of it. But like all the other emotions, that one isn’t available for me to latch on to, either.

  “Got anything to say?” A sarcastic drawl fills his voice, while his thick lips twitch into a parody of a smug smile.

  My thoughts aren’t my own, but I have one small fact to impart. “Hurting me won’t change what you are.”

  More smoke finds its way into my face.

  I choke, covering my mouth and nose with the hand not hooked up to the IV.

  His smile goes from slim to wide.

  “And what am I?”

  “A loser,” I manage. And that’s about the extent of my thoughts.

  Ritchie’s grin doesn’t change; he seems almost jovial. “Maybe. But I’m a loser who’s in charge of you. And the minute I get the go-ahead, I’m going to stick your cunt with my cock and fuck you into tomorrow.”

  Cold dread peels through me.

  Instantly, I get the memory of my first client’s father, ramming his penis into my anus until it bled.

  I couldn’t get away.

  Like now.

  Rape isn’t about sexual gratification. It’s about power, control, and hate. Ritchie hates what I represent—things he’ll never be. So raping me will make him feel closer to being that which he hates.

  I get it.

  But understanding the psych behind someone’s actions doesn’t soften my future outlook. Ritchie talks about raping me like it’s a fact. A known result.

  I can’t live with that. In fact, I won’t.

  I’m probably pregnant. And they’re pumping me full of drugs that might hurt the baby.

  Closing my eyes, I breathe in Ritchie’s smoke and plan. I might not want to live, but the baby I’m probably carrying is counting on me to want to live long enough to save its life.

  Sometimes, it’s more than just you.

  He nods, as though coming to mental terms with something. “So you think about how much of a loser I am while I’m giving you the beef fuel injection.”

  Ritchie snorts, snuffing out his cigarette in an ashtray I can’t see. He walks over to me from the door he’d been leaning against.

  He rips away the sheet covering me, and like the other women I saw earlier, I’m wearing nothing on the lower part of my body. Stripped of my panties. And my dignity.

  A smattering of bruises decorate my body, and for the first time since I awoke, I feel a dull throb where someone hit me on my head.

  I order my body to move.

  Command it.

  But my physical self doesn’t listen to the command.

  Instead, I watch as Ritchie licks two fingers by sticking them deep in his mouth. His lips curl as he withdraws the chubby digits with a long, dramatic pull, and his hand floats down to my vagina.

  Without wasting any time, he begins shoving them inside my dry entrance.

  Silent tears scald my cheeks.

  No one else has had their hands in my vagina but Puck. I chose him—and what we did together. To some extent, I even chose the direction I wanted to take with him.

  And now Ritchie gets to do what he wants because my body won’t do as I tell it to.

  When he’s all the way inside me, he gets a surprised look on his face. “You got a tight cunt.”

  He starts to pump his fingers in and out of me.

  I watch as the rigid outline of his penis appears inside his pants. Dying inside, I’m helpless to stop this twisted event from playing out.

  His eyes hood. “God this is gonna be good.” His fingers move deeply inside me. “I’m gonna fuck you hard. Your tight pussy is gonna take all of me.”

  Finally, he stops his obscene finger rape and removes his thick digits. Eyeing my naked vagina, he bends over me, flicking his tongue over my slit.

  Oh my God. I find my voice. “Please, don’t.”

  “Don’t taste too bad, neither,” Ritchie groans then licks me, taking long sweeping strokes with his filthy tongue. I know that he’s enjoying making me feel dirty.

  That I can’t defend myself. That I’m at his mercy.

  His fingers pierce my entrance again, wet from his tongue and the insistent slide of his fingers.

  “What are you doing, Mr. Ritchie?” A voice fractures the silence of his violation.

  My eyes spring open, the room spinning. His thick lips slick with my juices,

  Ritchie’s head pops up from between my legs, comical surprise and fear spreading across his beady eyes like a captured, muddy shadow. His ruddy skin flashes an unflattering red.

  I want to vomit and can’t even manage that manifestation of my revulsion.

  “Just testinʼ the merchandise, boss.”

  “I see that.” The voice carries distaste like a disease. �
�And I was certain we spoke about not having Ms. Temperance at your disposal until such time I’d gained the information I wanted.”

  Hastily, Ritchie nods.

  “Get out, Mr. Ritchie.”

  Ritchie gets out.

  The man’s cool eyes move to mine. “I’ve had my wound treated for rabies, Ms. Temperance.”

  All I can think of is that I can’t close my legs. Me doing a Mike Tyson on his leg is the least of my concerns.

  His eyes sweep over my face, never looking lower. “I believe in other circumstances, you and I could have gotten along.”

  The fool wears a benevolent, sort of buzzed expression. We would have never gotten along. In fact, he’s even creepier than Ritchie.

  “Alas,” he says, “you will have to be part of the whole, I’m afraid.”

  I open my mouth, but trying to capture my thoughts is like trying to grab wind and hold on to it. Finally, with great difficulty, I say, “I’ll never be a part of something I haven’t chosen.”

  His lips curl. “Kendra is willing.”

  Doubtful. I close my eyes, willing myself to think clearly. Opening my eyes, I take in the drip again, thinking about Kendra and where she is. I wonder if Ritchie’s paid her the same type of visit he paid me.

  The drip, drip, drip of the solution keeps pumping me full of whatever drug they’re giving me, and panic flutters its wings deep inside of me like a trapped bird.

  “Let me go.”

  The man—who I know instinctively is the cause of me being here—shakes his head as though sad. What an actor. What a lie. “I thought you were smarter than this, Ms. Temperance.”

  Gooseflesh marches over my skin. I’m going to die, I realize.

  “You will be plugged into my modest but thriving operation, and when you are no longer viable, you will be discarded in one of the countries where such castaways go unnoticed.”

  “Don’t give me to Ritchie,” I whisper.

  His chin hikes up, softened slightly with age—which I’m guessing is mid-fifties. “I owe you nothing. Your interference caused a hiccup in my business.” His eyes are like low-burning coals of black as they scan my face. “I carry the imprint of your teeth in my flesh—and though unpolished, I have found Mr. Ritchie to be an effectively blunt tool within my considerable arsenal. Keeping a certain level of satisfaction within the hierarchy of my dealings has been most lucrative. I progress nothing without a certain degree of long-range planning.”

  He taps my bare leg. A single finger strokes the flesh of my inner upper thigh.

  I feel the brush over my clitoris like weighted air, and it’s somehow the worse violation I’ve suffered so far.

  Agony escapes me in the form of my next exhale.

  “Women are simply a business. Don’t take it personally, Ms. Temperance.”

  His smile is wide; teeth like those of a shark line the interior of his mouth.

  I shudder.

  “You really are quite lovely.”

  He stands, dragging that single finger all the way down my leg as he makes his exit.

  The revolting sensation doesn’t break until the digit slides off my big toe.

  I want to cry.

  Then realize I already am.

  Storm

  I pat my pocket again, having just inconspicuously taken out my photo of my mother, treating it like the talisman for the space of a second, then returning it before anyone is the wiser.

  Her pale-brown eyes light up the photo, as though my mother is looking right at me.

  Through me.

  The photo gives me courage and reassures me. It makes me feel as though she’s proud of whatever small accomplishment I finish.

  I forget her transgression against me. For just a moment, I forget the foster homes and all the women who came after her who never saw me.

  They still don’t.

  Charlotte Temperance has hours before she’s lost in the very thing we've been combating these past few month: a prostitution system that has crept into our territory.

  I agree with the brothersʼ assessment. Temp stumbled onto the ring, and the powers that be thought they could knock some sense into her. Instead, they found a woman who wouldn’t be beat down.

  I like that on principle, of course. Except the woman part.

  Fingers tracing the top of my pocket, I begin the mental buckle-down process.

  This isn’t the FBI. My rules are the only ones I want to follow. And I’ll roll that particular pair of dice as I go.

  Viper nods at me. “Hoped not to take this step.”

  I know exactly what he’s talking about. We’d all held out hope to subtly drive this whore-trafficking outfit from our territory.

  But the bigwig behind the curtain has money, finesse, and brains.

  This man isn’t some wizened corner pimp.

  Pressing the binoculars against my forehead, I zero in on Candi, and I have to give it to her—she can act the part. And for having spit out a kid only last year, she’s gotten her figure back in a hurry.

  I get a pang of regret about hurting her when I was deep undercover.

  I’ve got a hot head, and sometimes my brains take a break at critical moments.

  That’s served me well in the past and also busted my ass.

  It’s okay the FBI let me go. My brand wasn’t ever going to work. I was the joker in their deck of cards. I was qualified. I’d managed the psych eval.

  I’d done everything right.

  Who I was, though, just didn’t fit. The entire government entity was full of square holes, and I would always be a round peg.

  I haul my attention back to Candi. She’s playing it cool, really into her working-girl role.

  But I sit up straighter when I see who’s approached her.

  That fucking Ritchie weasel Temp had the run-in with.

  We knew this was his territory. But that he approaches Candi that fast after we plug her in—there’s good old-fashioned luck with that.

  The brothers all exchange significant glances.

  Viper hisses when Ritchie reaches for Candi’s tit.

  And my smile stretches full tilt when Candi reaches for her gun. Grinding the business end of the piece into his temple, her words are economical, I’m sure. Can’t help my shit-eating grin. For a female, Candi ain’t half bad.

  With practiced silence, we move in like the collective we are. Lariat, Snare, Wring, Noose, Viper, and Puck. I miss Trainer on this game, but some of our main brothers have to hang back. It’s just good common sense. The prez wouldn’t normally be here if his property weren’t involved.

  But he is. And one of the brothers is assigned silent protection of just Viper.

  I smile wider. Ritchie will talk, and if he doesn’t, I’ll take care of that too.

  I hate men even more than women.

  Actually, come to think of it, I hate everyone.

  Chapter 24

  Noose

  I’m glad to see Vince’s girl isn’t afraid of a little finely executed torture to see things through.

  I hand her the pliers like a nurse with a surgeon, and she says, “Hold him down.”

  The fat fuck is bawling like a pussy. Of course, having your nails pulled is a nice slice of agony. I grin. Been through worse and didn’t deserve any of it.

  This guy deserves this and more.

  “Tell us where Charlotte Temperance is,” Candi says softly.

  Ritchie bucks, making the plastic sheeting underneath him crackle.

  Blood’s a bitch to clean out of the crevices of the all-metal service van we’re using for this fun.

  “No—he’ll kill me!” he hollers.

  Wring plugs his ears with his fingers. “Fuck! Quiet.”

  Candi leans in over his face. Not close enough to get bit, but close enough to be lethal. “And we won’t?” she asks lightly, tapping his thigh with the gored-up pliers I just handed her.

  Hell, this woman just gave birth. Baby Gabe’s just a bit younger than the twins. But to wa
tch a woman go to town and torture someone is tough to swallow.

  I guess I’m kind of chauvinistic.

  Storm’s eyes glitter with interest. He gets off on all this shit, the fucker. Now there’s a hard man. I’m scared of no one, but I wouldn’t want to meet up with Storm if he had it out for me. I’d see shit through, but it’s not a goal.

  He’s not fair, just a zealot for pain. Storm’s great for the club and loyal in his own, demented way, but he’s got shit to figure out.

  Even more than I do.

  Candi digs, tearing the nail from the top all the way to the cuticle.

  Ritchie screams like a baby.

  “Fucking gag,” Snare says, wincing.

  Lariat tears off his sweat-soaked bandana and stuffs it in Ritchie’s open mouth.

  The muffled howls continue.

  “I can keep this up for a while, but I need to get home to my son, so cooperate, and I won’t have to hand you over to one of my men.”

  Ritchie’s eyes go big.

  “I mean...” She looks around at us all, the tip of her pliers covered in blood and bits of flesh. “If anyone can shift work this scene?”

  A braying laugh shoots out of me. “Fuck yes.”

  Nods from everyone.

  Storm's eyes glitter. “I’d do it for fun.”

  Snare quirks an eyebrow at that but says nothing.

  “It’s settled then. Stop bellowing like a whiner and tell us where Temp is, or I excavate all ten fingernails and then I work on teeth.”

  She stares, and Ritchie stares back.

  After a few tense seconds, he gives a jerking nod of assent.

  Candi plucks the gag out of his mouth and sits back on her heels.

  “Talk.”

  With a soft mewl, Ritchie begins to talk. When he reveals the location, I couldn’t be more surprised.

  “Small fucking world,” Snare says in wonder.

  “Yeah,” I agree, remembering the torture I suffered at the old Chaos location. Some coincidences just flat-out suck. “Are there other women inside the building?”

  Ritchie violently shakes his head. “Cleared ʼem out for the new load coming in soon.”

  Grunts of disgust echo through the van.