“Lemme at it!” Bic Mac roared out.
Another biker whooped: “Fuck yeah! Let me get in on that! I’ve been lustin’ after that tight little ass for months!”
More bikers weighed in, and their obscene suggestions echoed back and forth across the ceiling of the old, abandoned food court.
I could see Christi’s face growing paler and paler as she listened to them – and Coyle’s grin grow wider and more dangerous.
Finally, he wheeled back around to me, and leaned back in that nonchalant, threatening way of his – like a cobra about to strike.
“You heard my boys gettin’ all riled up,” he jerked his thumb over his shoulder, towards the baying crowd. “They all want a piece of Christi’s cute little buns, here.”
As he said that, he squeezed her ass again – and Christi’s eyes shot open in embarrassment and discomfort.
Coyle didn’t care. He just kept talking.
“So, here’s the deal, Recon. You tell me everything the Feds know, or I’m gonna get Bowser and Big Mac to hold Christi down, and I’m gonna pop her anal cherry right here in front of you.”
I gulped dryly.
“I’m gonna break little Christi’s ass in nice and hard,” Coyle’s eyes flashed at the very idea of it. “And when I’ve bust my nut in her, I’m gonna let every one of my boys take a turn with her…”
Christi’s knees gave out, and Coyle had to physically hold onto her to stop her from fainting.
“Just look at her,” the big biker grinned, as Christi swooned in his arms. “Greedy little bitch can’t wait to get on her knees and get started!”
But he knew just as well as I did that Christi had damn near fainted at the thought of what was about to happen to her next.
“There are fifty-six of us ridin’ with the Knuckleheads right now,” Coyle grinned, hefting Christi’s dead weight. “You ever seen a girl take fifty-six dicks in the ass? One after the other?”
He licked his lips lasciviously.
“Shit, some of us might come back for seconds… Or thirds.”
“Fuck yeah, I will!” One of the bikers cried out, as he heard the suggestion.
“So, what’ll it be, buddy boy?” Coyle asked me coolly. “You gonna talk? Or am I gonna have Rooker hold your head up and make you watch us all run a train on your girl’s tight little virgin ass?”
He sucked his breath in through his teeth.
“Fifty-six of us? Shit, that might even be a world fuckin’ record!” He laughed bitterly. “Not that the Guiness Book of Records keeps track of things like that.”
I felt sick to my stomach.
I knelt there, barely able to breath, and watched Christi hanging limply in Coyle’s arms.
The motherfucker meant it. If I didn’t comply, he’d pin me there and make me watch every dirty, grizzled, horny biker in this room fuck Christi in the ass…
And then, when the first lot was done, most of them would come back for seconds…
And thirds… And who knew what else…
Sure, it wouldn’t kill her. Not physically, at least. But the part of Christi that had been dead inside – that I’d resurrected with our kiss and love-making – would die an ignominious, and permanent death.
“N-no,” I found the will to speak. “Don’t. I’ll talk. I’ll tell you everything.”
Coyle watched me with satisfaction – and that was almost as bad as the fate he’d threatened to subject Christi to.
But my moment of weakness passed quickly. After taking a deep breath, I snorted bitterly and warned Coyle:
“I was going to tell you anyway, Make some amends for betraying your trust…”
“Sure you were,” Coyle didn’t sound convinced.
In fact, more than that, he looked genuinely disappointed that I’d decided to talk. But, by the huge bulge distending the front of his jeans, perhaps he’d been eager to make good on his threat to Christi.
I mean, shit… Just look at her. Who wouldn’t?
“I’ll talk,” I reassured him. “And then I’ll take what I’ve got coming like a man. But you’ve got to promise to let her go, okay? Unmolested.”
Coyle peered down at me, like I was an ant about to be crushed beneath his boot…
But then he let Christi go, and shoved her back towards the two police officers.
With one breast still hanging out, and tears streaming down her face, Christi staggered across the food court away from him.
I peered up at Coyle, as he glowered down at me expectantly.
Now it was my turn to smile.
I’m not going to lie: Smiling right then was the last thing I wanted to do. I wanted to scream, and cuss, and struggle against the elbow around my neck, and throw my fists at Coyle’s big, broad face…
But I knew a smile could sometimes be more threatening than any weapon.
A smile showed you had a trick up your sleeve – and there was a benefit to smiling even when you didn’t, because there was no way the motherfuckers looking at you could tell that you were bluffing.
“In fact, Coyle,” I continued, my voice finding strength and confidence, “I’ll do more than talk. I’ll tell you exactly what to do so you can still pull this shit off.”
Now that got his attention.
Previously, Coyle had been performing for the crowd. He’d been working his boys up into a frenzy, eager to set them loose on me and Christi like a pack of wild dogs…
But after I’d promised him that, something changed…
Coyle’s eyes narrowed. His mouth thinned to a knife edge.
When he spoke to me next, it was like the fifty or so bikers surrounding us weren’t even in the room.
Taking a deep breath, Coyle rasped:
“You better not be trying to screw me, Recon.”
I didn’t respond. I didn’t need to. I just looked up at him – which wasn’t easy with Rooker’s beefy arm around my throat – and continued to smile.
Coyle seemed impressed at my chutzpah.
“I swear to God, Recon,” he warned. “If you try and screw me, dicks up the ass are going to be the least of Christi’s problems…”
But I knew I’d hooked him… And good job, too. From the way the gang of Knuckleheads were whooping and hollering, they looked a hair’s breadth from shouldering Coyle aside and taking what they wanted from Christi’s ass right then and there.
But Coyle wouldn’t let that happen.
Not now.
Looking up at Rooker, the boss of the biker gang barked: “Get that son of a bitch up on his feet.”
Rooker reluctantly pulled his elbow from my throat, and I gratefully sucked in a lungful of air.
As I staggered to my unsteady feet, Coyle wheeled around and addressed Officers Dempsey and Sanchez.
“Step into my office, boys,” he ordered, jerking his thumb towards his Airstream trailer. “We’ve got some business to discuss.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Christi
The old Airstream trailer rocked from side to side as we all clambered into it.
Coyle. His brother, Raine, and Big Bertha. Then, shoved roughly forward by Officer Dempsey and Officer Sanchez, my darling Mason followed.
Moments later, the door of the trailer clumped shut, and it was just the seven of us.
It was funny. The moment Coyle was away from the expectant eyes of his biker brothers, the big man’s shoulders suddenly slumped, and I swear he looked a decade older.
Limping over to the breakfast niche, Coyle grabbed a bottle of Hudson Baby Bourbon that was shoved in between the cushions, and yanked the cork out with his teeth.
“I had a bottle of Bib and Tucker around here somewhere,” he snorted, splashing a healthy measure into a rocks glass, “but I’m damned if I know where it went.”
I glanced up, across the crowded trailer, and saw Mason staring back at me.
He was bruised, and bloodied, and I was half-wondering how he even found the strength to stay upright…
Bu
t as I watched, the man I loved threw me a conspiratorial wink and a smile, and I remembered that Coyle’s missing bottle of sour mash had been the one I’d stolen, the night Mason and I first kissed.
My cheeks burned at the memory of it, and despite our horrible situation, I found myself smiling.
“Well,” Coyle’s sharp voice snapped me out of it. “Glad to see there’s one of us who thinks there’s something to fuckin’ grin about.”
That killed my smile pretty damn quick.
“Why don’t you share what’s so goddamned amusing, Christi,” Coyle growled, like an angry preschool teacher. “Tell the whole fuckin’ class.”
“Nothing.” My smile faded as instantly as it had appeared. I glanced down at my feet, and tried to avoid eye contact.
Seemingly satisfied with this demonstration of subservience, Coyle gulped down two inches of bourbon, and turned to face Mason.
Coyle was bigger, and heavier, and meaner – but even with his hands behind his back, and blood dribbling down his cheek, Mason stood eye-to-eye with him.
“Okay, cowboy,” Coyle growled, the glass of bourbon at his lips. “Tell me what you know. And you better make it good, or I’ll make good on my promise about Christi’s ass.”
Mason’s lips curled. It was a feigned gesture, I could tell, but it still unsettled Coyle.
“How about you untie me and Christi, and pour me a glass of that bourbon there? Then I’ll talk.”
Coyle stared at him the same way my dad used to stare at our dog, when she took a shit in his shoes.
But Mason didn’t blink.
“Damn.” Finally, almost reverently, Coyle nodded at Mason. “You might be a dirty, double-crossin’ son of a bitch… But you’ve got some balls on you.”
Coyle turned to his brother.
“Raine – how about you untruss these two chickens here?”
“Sure thing.”
From the inside of his leather jacket, Raine suddenly produced a knife…
And not just any knife. This was one of those ‘this is a knife’ blades, like from that old Crocodile Dundee movie. A fourteen-inch, gleaming steel blade that looked like it could cut through anything…
And it did. With a single snip, Raine popped the zip-tie from around Mason’s wrists, and then turned to do the same for me.
I’m not going to lie – I trembled as Raine wheeled me around, and I felt that cold steel against my bare skin… But a second later, my wrists were free and I was finally able to bring my arms in front of me.
“Hey!” It was Officer Dempsey. “Are you fuckin’ nuts? I had those assholes cuffed for a reason.”
“Oh, relax,” Coyle growled at him. He crossed the trailer to the breakfast nook, and grabbed a second glass. “Recon’s a badass – but there are fuckin’ five of us in here.”
“And I’ve got this,” Raine added, laying his wicked-looking Bowie knife down on the table in front of him. “If he tries anything, I’ll cut him to ribbons.”
Seemingly satisfied with that answer, the cops fell silent.
Coyle turned around and sloshed whiskey into a tumbler, adding: “Not to mention – even if our boy Recon made it out of this trailer, where’d he go? There are fifty of my boys camped outside, and we’re ten miles from town.”
The two cops exchanged nervous glances, and didn’t bother to argue.
Satisfied at their silence, Coyle stepped up to Mason, and handed him the glass.
I watched as my lover lifted the bourbon to his lips, and eagerly gulped down the double measure.
“Ah!” Smacking his lips, Mason straightened up – as if the whiskey had added a good two inches to his height. “Now that’s the stuff.”
Coyle angrily snatched the empty glass from his hand.
“Okay, you’d had your drink. Now talk.” Jerking his head in the direction of the two cops, he demanded: “Tell us what the fuckin’ Feds know.”
Mason peered at Coyle for a moment. Then he turned and appraised Officers Dempsey and Sanchez, who were standing there nervously.
“The Feds know fucking everything,” he breathed.
Sanchez and Dempsey visibly reacted – like they’d been hit, or something. Both crooked cops staggered back, and the color drained even from Sanchez’s Latin complexion.
But Mason was smiling as he turned back to Coyle.
“But, don’t worry.”
“Don’t worry?” Coyle’s flinty eyes narrowed. “Easy for you to fuckin’ say, Recon. Don’t fucking worry.”
“They told me everything as well,” Mason fired back. “And I know enough so that you can still pull this job off, and get away free and clean.”
Coyle stood there silently, as if chewing on Mason’s words.
“I mean it,” Mason reassured him. “I know how they’re planning for things to go down. You follow my plan, and you can load up on the marijuana from Christi’s farm, and be gone like a ghost in the night.”
Coyle’s eyes narrowed.
“You better not be tryin’ to fuck me, Recon,” he growled. “’Cos if I find out you’re trying to fuck me, I’ll line my boys up outside and they’ll each take turns fucking her.”
And that’s when he jerked his thumb in my direction, and I shuddered at the thought of it.
“I’m being straight with you,” Mason promised. “And the reason you’ll know I’m telling the truth is because there’s a price attached.”
Coyle’s eyes flashed.
“A price? You think you’re in any goddamned position to be making demands, cowboy?”
In response to that, Mason reached forward and calmly took his empty glass back from Coyle’s hand – and waggled it in front of him, wordlessly requesting a refill.
“I’m not making any demands for me,” Mason explained, which prompted Coyle to slosh another two inches of bourbon into his glass. “I told you I’d take whatever you had coming to me. God knows I fucking deserve it…”
Sliding the cork back into the bottle, Coyle snapped: “So who’s it for, then?” Glancing over his shoulder, in my direction, he grunted: “Sugar tits over there?”
“Yep,” Mason sucked down an inch of neat bourbon. “I give this to you, you give something to her.”
“If you try and double cross me again,” Coyle warned, “I’ve got fifty horny hombres out there who’ll be happy to give her something. Something right up the ass.”
Mason gulped, but maintained the illusion of composure.
“Here’s the deal,” he told Coyle. “If you follow my plan, and it works out, then you give Christi her cut. Capiche?”
Coyle blinked.
“You want what?”
“I want you to give Christi her cut from the job. Fuck, it’s her fucking weed. The least you can do is give her a share of whatever money you get for selling it.”
Coyle narrowed his eyes even tighter, and then turned to stare at me.
For a good five seconds he just stared – like he was looking at me for the first time, all over again.
“Think of it this way,” Mason added, even though Coyle wasn’t looking at him anymore. “You make this deal, and Christi’s got to ride with you – to collect what you owe her.”
He drained his second glass of whiskey.
“That means if I am screwing you over, she’ll be right there to punish, like you keep threatening to.”
The breath caught in my throat as I heard that. Was Mason really feeding me to the wolves?
Or was he just making sure I was part of the pack?
In any event, Coyle seemed to like this arrangement.
“Okay,” he grunted, holding up his pinkie finger. “I don’t trust you for shit, Recon – but I’ve seen the way you look at Christi, and unless you’re lyin’ about that too, I reckon you’re bein’ straight with me. You’ve got yourself a deal.”
Mason flashed his teeth, and held up his own pinkie.
“Half a mill,” he said, waggling his little finger. “That’s what you give her, when the job�
�s done.”
Coyle didn’t have a mouthful of whiskey at that moment – but if he had, he’d have sprayed it right in Mason’s face.
“Half a million bucks? Are you fucking kiddin’ me?”
The big man turned to me, and his eyes widened.
“Goddamn, son,” Coyle shook his head. “There’s maybe only three million bucks worth of weed on that farm. You expect me to give five-hundred-fucking-grand to this little slut-bunny?”
“I expect you to give her enough,” Mason fired back, not lowering his hand – or his pinkie. “Christi’s lost everything, Coyle. Her father, her farm.” He took a deep sigh. “Shit, she’s going to lose me soon enough.”
Coyle paused.
With his back to Mason, he stared at me again – weighing me up and down like I was a chicken at the market.
It wasn’t exactly pleasant, but it made a change to the way Coyle normally looked at me – like he was a hungry dog, and I was a juicy pork chop.
Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity, Coyle turned to face Mason again, and held up one of his big hands.
His pinkie was extended, and I nearly giggled at the sight of it. These two big, burly bikers with their little fingers stuck out – like they were sipping tea at Downton Abbey.
“I don’t want to talk figures, Recon,” Coyle growled. “Shit, I don’t even know what kind of haul we’re gonna get from this ourselves, if you tell me things are verklempt like they are…”
He took a deep, ragged breath.
“…but I’ll do right by her,” he promised. “I’ll make sure she’s got enough to get the fuck out of here, and start a comfortable new life. You have my word on that.”
Mason just stared at him – their pinkies inches from embracing.
“What’s the matter, Recon?” Coyle challenged him. “My word not good enough for you?”
For a second, Mason looked at him like it wasn’t…
…but then he nodded, and curled his pinkie around Coyle’s.
They shook. They shook their fucking pinkie fingers, like elementary school girls in the playground.
“Reckon if I want you to ever take my word for anything again,” Mason snorted, as they sealed their deal, “I’d better take yours.”
A moment later, they were done.
No Way Out Page 21
