The Bad Boys Of Molly Riot: The Complete Hard Rock Star Series

by Jade Allen

  CHAPTER TEN

  Somehow, we both managed to get ourselves back together in time to leave for the club; I wiped the makeup off my face and put my clothes back on, while Mary somehow managed to fix the smears and sweat that had messed up her makeup in a matter of minutes, and wriggled back into the tight skirt and revealing blouse she’d decided on for the night.

  “You know, when this is over, I want to see you completely naked again,” I told her, looking her up and down as we walked from the car towards the entrance of the club.

  “If we get through this, then the minute we’re back at the house, I’m taking all this off. It’s less than comfy, you know.” I stared at Mary’s ass, perfectly curved in the skirt she wore.

  “Less than comfy, but more than hot,” I told her with a little grin. Mary rolled her eyes, but in the yellow-orange light outside of the club, I could see her smiling.

  The man at the door recognized me. “I heard you were in rehab,” Drake said, raising an eyebrow as he checked Mary’s ID.

  “I got out,” I said, shrugging. “She’s here to keep me in line.” Drake looked at Mary for what seemed like a long time before a respectful grin broke out on his face.

  “If you can do that, then Alex here needs you in his life,” Drake said. “Go on in.”

  “I’m surprised he didn’t ask for cover,” Mary commented as we went into the cool, dark club.

  “You’re with me, and Drake decided he likes you. Cover’s for visitors—you’re practically family now.” I started towards the bar; but then I remembered that I wasn’t even supposed to be drinking. What the hell do sober people even do in clubs? I’d never had the opportunity to find out. I felt antsy, irritable.

  “Want something to drink?” Mary asked me.

  I stared at her. “I thought I’m not supposed to be drinking.”

  Mary sighed. “Water, or ginger ale or something,” she said. “We’ll look weird if we don’t have something in our hands.” I had to agree with that assessment. I told her to get me water, and looked around while Mary went to the bar.

  I spotted a few of Big J’s dealers that I could recognize; it wasn’t like I knew all of them, of course—a guy as big as Big J had more people working for him than I would probably ever meet. But skinny Alberto, Donald T., and Reggie were guys I knew, and they knew me. I saw each of them take out their phones, but it was impossible to know whether they were texting Big J to let him know I’d come out of the woodwork, or if it was that they were communicating with a client, or what was happening.

  Mary came back with two full plastic cups; one with water for me, and another with ginger ale for herself.

  “You could have a drink, you know,” I pointed out.

  “One, I want to stay alert. Two, I didn’t want to basically taunt you with something you can’t have. It’s fine.” She looked around, her gaze sweeping the room, and I put my arm around her waist; I told myself it was because I wanted to look natural, but it was mostly because I wanted to have my arm around her.

  “We’ve been spotted,” I said into her ear. “Don’t be obvious, but three guys in here have seen me.”

  “Five,” Mary countered, glancing at me. I frowned. “Guy over at two o’clock,” she said, and I glanced in that direction as casually as possible; sure enough, I saw someone watching us—but how did Mary know it was one of Big J’s guys? “Another one at ten o’clock,” she added. I looked in that direction; sure enough, there was someone else, watching us both.

  “What do we do?” I asked Mary. “Just hang out and hope one of them approaches us?” This was the part of the plan that no one was entirely certain about. There were, supposedly, police waiting to spring the trap; but neither Mary nor I had any idea of what the trigger was supposed to be.

  “For right now, we hang out, and enjoy the music,” Mary suggested. “Wait and see if more of Big J’s people come.” She gave my hand a squeeze. “Do not get separated from me, Alex. Seriously.”

  We wandered around the dark depths of Vagabond, hand in hand. I felt like such a tool, sipping my water, smoking a few cigarettes, while I could feel eyes on me from all around the room. Come on, you assholes, someone make a move. Offer me a hit at least. Something. Like a good little boy, I followed Mary to the restrooms. “Stay right here,” Mary said, looking at me with serious eyes. “I’ll be out in two minutes.”

  I should have been safe, in the midst of a public space, right next to the bathrooms, waiting for my supposed girlfriend to come out. It should have been the last place that any of Big J’s guys would have tried to grab me from. I could even see into the ladies’ room—though not into the stalls, unfortunately.

  But as I counted down the seconds before Mary could believably come out of the bathroom and join me again, I felt a heavy hand fall on my right shoulder, and then another hand fell on my left shoulder. “Welcome back to the scene, North,” I heard Reggie say in my ear. “The boss has been looking for you. Wants to have a few words.”

  “I’m here with a date,” I said, trying to shrug their hands off of my shoulders. “Besides, I’m not really into coke anymore.”

  “Come on, Alex,” I turned and saw one of the guys that Mary had pointed out. “Your little girlie can come with us too, but you’ve put off talking to Big J for too long.”

  Mary stepped out of the bathroom and I saw—to my horror—that two tough-looking, wild-eyed women, who were unobtrusively gripping her arms at her sides, flanked her. Fuck. Hook, line, and sinker. Come on, cops—bust these assholes. My and Mary’s escorts started to lead us out through the back door of Vagabond, and I could only hope that the cops who were supposed to be waiting for us were really there, that they would spring into action in a matter of moments, before we got loaded into the van I saw parked at the end of the alley. “This was a fucking terrible idea,” I said to Mary; of course, the others heard me, but right then, I didn’t care.

  “Any time now,” I heard Mary mutter as our escorts led us through the alley towards the van waiting at the end. Of all the fucking clichés, it was a black-paneled van, the windows all tinted so heavily you couldn’t see in. Exactly the kind of van that too many people in Miami had—and exactly the kind of van that the cops would expect to see a junkie forced into.

  “Keep your mouth shut,” one of the women said, and I saw Mary stagger.

  “Hey, she’s not even part of this!” I said to the people who had me by the arms. “Let her go.”

  “She’s with you, she comes with,” the dealer told me firmly. I looked at Mary; her big, dark eyes were a little wide, but I could tell that she was holding onto her composure, that the wheels were turning in her head. Why do I think she’d try to take on all these fuckers if she thought the cops wouldn’t come through for us? I couldn’t help smiling to myself, though I wanted to tell Mary that whatever thoughts she was entertaining of rescuing us herself were pointless. The dealers who had me had guns; I had to assume the women who’d taken Mary did, too.

  They shoved us into the back of the van and I had a moment or two to think about where the hell the cops could possibly be. Were they tailing us? Were they going to follow us to this meeting I was supposed to have with Big J and do the bust there? Mary crouched across the van from me, the women who’d snatched her out of the bathroom on either side of her, and even though her demeanor was a little bit scared and submissive, one look at her downturned face told me she hadn’t given up yet. Nick was totally right about her, I thought. I’m fucking gone on this one.

  “I swear to god,” I told the guys watching us in the back of the van as we pulled away from the curb, “If one of you assholes lays a hand on her, I’m going to find a fucking way to kill you as slowly as possible.” One of the dealers laughed.

  “How long have you been without? I’d have thought you’d be offering us our choice of hole just for a little bump.”

  “Is it true you were in rehab?” Reggie asked me.

  “The band put me there; the label, too. Said I was
getting too wild.”

  “Stealing from the man, that’s pretty fucking wild all right.”

  “I didn’t steal from him; why the hell would I do that? I’d just bought enough for the whole week.”

  “Maybe you wanted more than you were entitled to. Maybe you just saw it out and couldn’t resist.” Reggie shrugged. “It’s not my job to figure out why you’d do something. The boss says to pick North up, so we pick you up.”

  “It was someone else—if you bring me to J and he kills me, whoever actually did it is just going to steal from him again.”

  “Not really my problem. I do what I’m told; I get paid. That’s all I care about.”

  I rolled my eyes. Of course. There was not really a whole lot of honor in any person who’d become a dealer, at least not a relatively big time dealer like Reggie was. The average guy who sold the extra weed he grew when he had enough for himself was one thing, but anyone involved in coke, meth, or E was a different kind of person altogether.

  “You get around to fucking her yet, or you two just meet?” Reggie’s friend gestured to Mary.

  “None of your fucking business,” I said. The guy laughed.

  “Oh, he got around to it, all right,” one of the women said, joining in the laughs. Mary looked up from her lap and even in the dark confines at the back of the van, her gaze hit me like a punch to the gut.

  “You guys do realize that you’re fucking with a social worker, right?” Mary looked at Reggie and the other dealer in charge of the operation. “I’m admitted to testify in court. If you ever wanted a fucking character witness in your goddamned idiotic lives, you’d want someone like me.”

  “Yeah? You’d testify for me?” Reggie smirked.

  “Well not the way things stand right now,” Mary said tartly, and I snorted—I couldn’t help myself. “But we could make a deal.”

  “No deals,” the other dealer said, shaking his head.

  Reggie held up a hand. “I want to hear what the bitch has to say. Go on.”

  “I know people who are involved in drug court,” Mary pointed out. “I can make recommendations for folks who should be sent to a diversion program or those who should serve actual time. If you’re half as smart as you think you are, you probably never carry enough at a time to be nabbed with possession with intent to sell.”

  “You got a brain,” Reggie said.

  What the hell is she trying to do? I looked at Mary, but she wouldn’t even spare me a glance.

  “So as long as you’re not getting nabbed by a plainclothes, then I could get you sent into the drug court. No regular trial means no record, means you’re clean and able to sell that much longer.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Reggie said, gesturing with a hand, “but it depends how much Big J wants you to come with your boy here. Money now is bigger than maybe jail later, you feel me?” Mary shrugged and glanced at me. I had no idea what she was trying to do; was she just trying to get herself out of this? Was she trying to drive a wedge? I looked into her big, dark eyes and I couldn’t fathom what that beautiful crazy bitch had in mind. I wished she would give me some kind of sign so I could play along.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Of course, even in the middle of the night, the traffic in Miami was impossible. Mary and I were both silent as the van made its way out of the city proper, and I racked my brain trying to think of how we could get ourselves out of what was about to happen—just in case the fucking cops had set us up. Obviously, I couldn’t use my phone; the minute I went to take it out, Reggie or someone else in the van would just snatch it away from me, and even if they didn’t, I wouldn’t exactly be able to call Nick or Jules and ask them how things were going in their particular locations.

  I thought long and hard about what had come about to bring me to this particular situation. Fucking ‘How Did We Get Here’ all over again. I could have almost laughed. I was in this situation because some asshole had stolen Big J’s stash, and I was a convenient fucking scapegoat. I was in this situation because screwing around with Mary had gotten us both kicked out of Recovery Now, and I’d had to do something to get the heat off of me. I was in this situation because I’d been too stupid to take the previous situation—the one in Germany, the time I’d almost OD’d—seriously enough to actually stop using.

  “You look nervous, bro,” Reggie said, watching me intently.

  “Well, look at it from my fucking point of view,” I said calmly. “I’m probably about to be beaten to death, if I remember Big J’s interests correctly. My girl here is probably going to meet the same fate. Not exactly something that fills a motherfucker with joyful anticipation.”

  Reggie laughed. “Want a bump? I have a sample. Might make it a bit easier.”

  I raised an eyebrow. It had been more than two weeks since I’d had anything in my system; no E, no pot, no coke, not even any alcohol. I bit into the inner surface of my lip, glancing at Mary. I knew what she’d want me to do, but I heard a dozen conflicting arguments in my brain all at once. If I took a bump, it’d put Reggie at ease. If I took a bump, I’d be betraying Mary’s trust. If I took a bump I’d be setting back my ‘recovery’—which as little as I really wanted it even still, I’d committed to at least a little bit. If I took a bump, I’d be playing into Reggie’s hands. If I took a bump, it might calm my nerves a bit, so I could think a little better.

  “I’ll do it if Mary does one,” I said finally. I looked across the car at the woman I’d begrudgingly come to respect over the past couple of weeks. Mary’s eyes widened.

  “A little powder courage?” Reggie produced a little bag of white powder—coke. Big J’s product was always worth the price, and Reggie sold direct from Big J. Mary glanced from me to Reggie and then back to me. I willed her to take it; I willed her to refuse. If she took it, I would have to. I wanted it, but I didn’t want it, all at once. “You ever do coke before?” Mary shook her head.

  “Aww a coke virgin. Make her take it! Make her take it Reggie, it’ll be great.” I glanced at one of the tough women who had control of Mary and I wondered just what they were getting out of the idea of having Mary do a bump of coke.

  “First taste is always free, and you’ve got the friends and family deal on top,” Reggie said. “May as well try it, you only regret the shit you didn’t do in life.”

  Mary chuckled softly. “Okay, fine,” she said, glancing at me. I could see the worry in her dark eyes. “I’ll do a line.”

  Reggie called up to the front for the driver to smooth it out a bit, and the other dealer brought out a mirror. I watched, practically salivating, as Reggie and the other dealer dumped the powder onto the glass and started separating it out into a couple of tiny lines, cutting it up. I shuddered; the ritual was so familiar to me. I could feel my body already gearing up for the high, already tightening down. I knew that if I took the bump, I’d be quicker, I’d be able to think more clearly; but I also knew that Mary was going down with me. I hated myself for making her make that choice. I hated the fact that I might be dragging her down into my need instead of letting her pull me out of the hole. Fuck it. Both of us might die by the end of the night anyway. She might as well get a little thrill out of it.

  Mary took the rolled-up twenty that one of the women offered her and got onto her knees in front of Reggie’s lap, where the blow was perfectly lined up. I watched her in fascination and disgust; it seemed to me like she was deliberately making it look as much as possible as if she was about to go down on Reg. I gritted my teeth. This wasn’t part of the plan, but I couldn’t exactly do anything about it now; I had opened myself up for it. I had made it happen.

  I heard the little snort of Mary inhaling the line, the sniff of her drawing it deeper into her sinuses. She shivered and turned to look at me. “Your turn,” Mary said, tilting her head back slightly and breathing in once more. I took the rolled-up bill from her and took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. If I was going to die tonight—and unless the cops came through, that was the high fucking p
robability—I was at least going to go out with a buzz.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I was jittering and fidgeting just a little bit by the time the van came to a final stop; I couldn’t tell how long it had been exactly, but I thought it must have been at least thirty minutes, if not an hour, after we’d left Vagabond. Of course, knowing that didn’t give me much of an idea; everything in South Florida is either thirty minutes away or three hours away, and there’s almost no reason for it. Reggie and the others in the car hopped out as soon as the van shut off, and I hoped against hope that the fucking cops that had put Mary and me out on the limb were somewhere close. Come on now, guys, I thought as Reggie and the other dealer dragged me out of the back of the van. Any time now. For her sake if not for mine. Let me fucking twist in the wind if you have to, but get Mary the hell out of here.

  Looking around, I thought we were probably out in the sticks; it was probably one of Big J’s safe houses, assuming that it was Big J that we were actually about to meet. If the cops were in the area, they were really well hidden. I looked over at Mary as the dealers and their women led us towards the little, run-down looking house.

  “You okay, babe?”

  Mary turned to look at me and I could see that the coke was really starting to take effect. I almost groaned as I realized that Big J probably set Reggie up to give us that little bump; it wasn’t out of the goodness of Reggie’s heart—it was to make us chatty, amped up, ready to say too much and convict ourselves.