by Susan Stoker
The most alarming thing about her appearance, other than the fact that she was standing outside her apartment building when she’d never told her where she lived, were the bruises running up and down her arm, which was in a sling. Kelly winced as Alexis came toward her.
“Oh my God, Kelly, are you all right?” Alexis asked. She had no idea what Kelly was doing there. She wanted to ignore her altogether, but she couldn’t. The memory of their childhood friendship and her work with battered women at Ace Security wouldn’t let her turn away.
“I’m okay,” Kelly croaked, her voice sounding even rougher than it had before, if that was even possible. “I need to talk to you.”
“Okay, talk,” Alexis said, her face open and concerned.
“Not here,” Kelly insisted, looking around her fearfully. “It’s not safe.”
Alexis copied her mannerisms, her eyes scanning the immediate area but not seeing anything out of the ordinary. “Do you want to come in?” It probably wasn’t the safest thing to do, but Kelly was moving stiffly and looked like she was in a lot of pain. They could stay in the lobby, and Alexis could find out what happened.
Kelly shook her head. “No, I don’t want to be seen going into your building. Damian and Dominic are watching you. They’re pissed that you haven’t been around, and they called your parents’ office and sweet-talked someone into telling them where you lived. They wanted me to tell them all I could about you, but I refused, so they beat me up. I know I wasn’t all that nice to you back in school, but you’re in danger. I’ve got a place they don’t know about. We can talk there.” She reached out with her good hand and put it on Alexis’s forearm.
“I’m sorry about what happened when we were kids. I’m also sorry that I got you involved with my friends. I was milking you for money because Dominic and Damian forced me to. I hated doing it to you, and I was hoping we could be friends again—that I could make up for being so horrible to you—but instead I got you sucked into more crap. I feel horrible about it, and I don’t want you to end up like me.” Kelly gestured to her arm in a sling. “I just want to tell you as much as I can about the guys so you can keep yourself safe.”
Alexis was torn. She believed one hundred percent that Kelly had been beaten. The bruises on her face and arms, not to mention her injured arm, communicated that loud and clear. But getting involved deeper with Kelly and whatever was going on wasn’t exactly high on her list of things to do. Not to mention it wasn’t smart.
But on the other hand, she looked contrite. Really sorry for what happened in the past and the position she thought she’d put Alexis in. Kelly reminded her of the desperate and frightened women Ace Security helped every week. She wavered in indecision.
“When Chuck had his hand around my throat at the party, I was scared,” Kelly told her in a soft voice, shaking with emotion. “I couldn’t get any air in my lungs, and I thought he was going to kill me right there. I don’t want that to be you.”
It had already been her. When she was fourteen and the boys at school were beating her up, she’d actually thought at one point she was going to die. For the first time she felt a sort of kinship with Kelly.
“The gunshots scared me,” Alexis told Kelly. “I might like some excitement in my life, but I think from here on out I’ll stick with guys who are only a little on the wild side. The Inca Boyz are outside my comfort zone.” It was mostly true.
“I’m not surprised,” Kelly responded with only a small hint of hostility in her tone instead of the disgust Alexis had expected. “I didn’t think you were the kind of chick who wanted to be a gang bitch. But seriously, you’re not safe. Just hear me out. I’ll tell you everything, and then you’ll know what to be on the lookout for. We were friends once, right?”
Alexis’s resolve wavered. They had been friends once. Best friends. Kelly pulling away from her and having her beaten up had hurt. Bad. But now she was as much a victim as anyone Ace Security helped . . . maybe more so. She gave in. “Okay, but I only have a little bit of time.”
“This won’t take long. Promise,” Kelly said, smiling a bit lopsidedly at her.
Alexis waved at the doorman, who was now standing outside the door, his arms crossed, looking disapprovingly at Kelly. “I’ll be back soon, Osman,” she called out, letting him know she was all right.
He didn’t respond and continued to look concerned as she turned the corner with Kelly.
Kelly didn’t say much, but hurried down the street as if the hounds of hell were at her heels. Alexis thought how weird it looked for Kelly to be wearing sneakers. Not that high heels would go with her outfit, but she couldn’t remember a day in high school when the other woman had worn anything other than the three-inch heels she loved.
They’d walked about three blocks, before Alexis asked, “Surely this is far enough?”
“We’re almost there,” Kelly reassured her. “I just wanted to make sure we weren’t anywhere near your place. It wouldn’t do either of us any good to be seen together.”
Alexis silently agreed. She mentally reviewed the services she was going to tell Kelly about to help her get away from the gang, so she could start a new life.
They turned one more corner, and Alexis came to an abrupt halt. Standing in front of her were Chuck, Damian, and Dominic. Fucking hell.
Alexis immediately grabbed Kelly’s good arm and pulled back the way they’d come, hissing, “Run!”
But Kelly didn’t budge, only yanked her arm out of Alexis’s grip and took a step back and away from her, smiling smugly.
Before Alexis could run, Chuck took hold of her bicep and hauled her toward an alley between two tall downtown buildings. She struggled and tried to twist herself away. She’d almost succeeded when Dominic took hold of her other arm. Now, between the two larger men, she was being dragged into the alley, her feet barely touching the ground.
“Let me go!” she exclaimed. “Kelly, what’s going on?”
“Just doing my job, friend.” She sneered.
“But you said all that stuff about being scared and of being sorry about what you did to me. And you’re all bruised up. I don’t understand. You let them do that to you?” Alexis asked, cursing her short stature.
“Yeah, A-lex-is. It’s called loyalty. Something you don’t know dick about. You disappeared on us. We weren’t done with you or your money. Not a smart thing to do,” Kelly said with her eyes narrowed and her mouth tight. The hatred on her face was easy to read.
Alexis couldn’t think straight. She didn’t want to say anything that the Inca Boyz didn’t already know, but she was in shock. It was hard to keep up with her own emotions, going from pity toward Kelly and wanting to help her to realizing that she’d just led her straight into a trap. One that could kill her. “Not done with me? I don’t understand.”
Obviously done with the back-and-forth, Dominic jerked her arm out of Chuck’s grasp and slammed her hard against the brick wall next to him. Alexis felt her head bounce off the unforgiving surface, and she moaned in pain. She saw black spots in front of her eyes, but refused to pass out. There was no telling what would happen to her if she did. Especially with Chuck standing behind Dominic, licking his lips and looking pissed off and turned on at the same time.
“Money, bitch,” Dominic growled, leaning into her. “My brother’s been in jail long enough. He finally got a new attorney who has convinced a judge that he’s not a threat to society. He’s allowed out on bail, but we gots to get the money for him first. That’s where you come in.”
“I can get you whatever you need,” Alexis said immediately, more than happy to give these assholes whatever they wanted, as long as they let her go. For once in her life she was glad she had money. She’d give it all over to the Inca Boyz if it meant she lived to see Blake again.
“Yeah, you will,” Dominic confirmed in a scary growl. “But unfortunately for you, that’s not where this is gonna end.”
Alexis couldn’t help the high-pitched whimper that came up her throat
.
Dominic switched his grip from her arms to her neck. One hand wrapped around her throat much as Chuck had done to Kelly at the party and pushed upward until she was standing on her tiptoes trying to get away from him, to get air into her lungs, to no avail. He thrust his other hand under her tank top and squeezed her breast with an excruciating amount of force. His grip was so tight Alexis knew she’d be bruised. Her whimper turned into a choked cry.
“I don’t know what the fuck you were doing with the Inca Boyz, but I’ll find out before we’re done with you. I have a feeling you were there under false pretenses, sugar. And I’ll be needing to know what those were before we’re done with you. We don’t like snitches. Oh, and Chuck here says you’re a cock tease. He gets first crack at that rich pussy before the rest of us get a shot. Then maybe, if we’re satisfied, we’ll see about letting you go on your merry way. Maybe.”
Alexis tried to suck in a breath, but only got a sliver of air through the constriction around her throat. She felt someone cutting her purse off. She’d been wearing it across her body. She looked into the bottomless, unrelenting, and unsympathetic eyes of Dominic and knew without a doubt she’d be wishing she were dead before he was done with her.
Making the decision at that moment to do whatever she could to keep herself alive, Alexis went as limp as she could, making it seem as if the fight left her body. She’d learned a lot during her time with Ace Security. She’d pay attention, gather intel that she could share with Blake and Logan, and protect herself as much as she could.
Alexis stumbled as Dominic suddenly let go of her throat and marched her, with one arm twisted up painfully behind her back, toward a Cadillac parked nearby in the alley. Her arm felt like it was being ripped out of its socket, and she could do nothing but stumble alongside the man who held her life in his hands and pray she’d find a way out of this mess.
Damian popped open the trunk, and Chuck wrenched her from Dominic and threw her into the small space as if she was nothing but a sack of potatoes. She landed on something hard and cried out at the pain that radiated through her hip and down her leg. Before she could do anything, Damian slammed the trunk down, enclosing her in blackness.
Alexis lay still for a moment, trying to catch her breath and frantically trying to hear what was going on outside the car. She was happy she wasn’t in the clutches of Chuck or Damian anymore and alone in the trunk. It gave her a chance to catch her breath and plan. Information was key to helping herself be rescued.
She heard the car doors opening and shutting, and could even hear the men and Kelly talking. Their voices were clear as they discussed which ATMs they could drag her to and how much money they needed.
Without hesitation, Alexis dug into her front pocket for her phone. She’d started carrying it in her pocket so she wouldn’t miss a message or phone call from Blake. Thank God the phone hadn’t been in her purse.
Knowing she couldn’t say a word, as the gang members would hear her as easily as she could hear them, she prayed she’d get a signal inside the trunk and opened the text app. Her thumbs frantically flew over the keyboard, not sure how long she had. She ignored her typos, knowing it was more important to get as much information to Blake as possible. She hit send as much as she could, hoping that the more dings he heard from the incoming texts, the sooner he’d realize something was wrong and would respond.
Alexis: im in trouble
Alexis: gang got me
Alexis: cant talk
Alexis: think theyre gonna kill me
Alexis: want $ for bail for Donovan
Alexis: kelly got me to follow her
Alexis: stupid
Alexis: sorry
Alexis: in trunk black cadillac
Alexis: going to atms
Blake: Where are you?
Alexis: not sure started about 3 blks from my apartmt
Blake: I’m on my way. I’m gonna find you
Alexis: im scared
Blake: I’m coming for you.
Alexis: Dominic said hed torture me
Alexis: wants to know why I was there
Alexis: should I tell him or no?
Blake: Play it by ear. If you think it’ll help, do it. If you think he’ll do something worse if you do, lie or string it out.
Alexis took a deep breath and tried to hold back her tears. God. She wasn’t cut out for this. The car slowed.
Alexis: car slowing
Alexis: hiding phone in trunk
Alexis: dont text afraid they will hear
Blake: ok. ILY
Alexis’s eyes filled with tears at Blake’s last message. She used the light of the phone to look around the trunk, then shoved the phone deep into a pocket on one side that held a jack and something slimy.
The tears spilled over just as the trunk lifted. They were in another alley. Damian hauled her out and pulled her other arm up into the middle of her back, pulling on the tendons and muscles.
“Here’s the deal. We’re gonna walk around the corner and up to the ATM machine. You’re gonna take out five hundred bucks without making a fuss. Don’t signal to the camera, don’t do anything but get the money. You hear me?”
Alexis nodded quickly. She hoped the more cooperative she was, the better they’d treat her. And the more stops they made, the more info she could give to Blake so he could hopefully find her.
“I’m serious, bitch. Don’t do one thing wrong, or I’ll put a bullet in your brain right here. Understand?”
“Yeah. I won’t do anything. I swear,” Alexis choked out between her tears.
“Let’s go.” Damian shoved her and she stumbled, trying to keep from falling. He handed her the ATM card he’d obviously gotten from inside her wallet and motioned for her to walk ahead of him. He walked two paces behind her as she hurried to the bank machine. He stood out of line of the camera, with one hand in his front pocket, the other behind him. Alexis knew he probably had a gun in his hand, ready to blow her head off if she did anything wrong. He didn’t care that they were on a busy city street.
As calmly as she could, Alexis slid her ATM card into the slot and punched in her password. Why they didn’t just get the code from her and use her card themselves, she didn’t know, but she wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. The more she was allowed out of the trunk and able to see where she was, the easier it would be for Blake and his brothers to find her. Don’t antagonize them. Do what they want as long as it doesn’t get you hurt further. Logan’s words rang through her head. Every situation is different. Sometimes it’s better to fight, other times it’s better to be compliant. It’s up to you to read the situation and figure out the best course of action.
The transaction was quick and painless, and within moments she had five hundred dollars in cash. She turned and walked right back to Damian and handed the money and the card over. He snatched them from her, grabbed her by the bicep again, and marched her back to the car, where the others were waiting. Once again, he shoved her into the trunk and slammed the lid. Before too much longer, they were once more on the move.
Alexis dug the phone out of the side pocket and clicked on the text app again.
Alexis: 5th and main atm
Blake: Good girl.
Blake: We’re working on tracking your phone. How’s the battery?
Alexis: half
Blake: Good. It should last awhile. Hang in there.
The car stopped again, and Alexis stuffed the phone back into its hiding spot. This time it was Chuck who opened the trunk. She flinched away from him as he reached for her. She much preferred one of the brothers. He grabbed the front of her tank top, his fingernails gouging four long furrows into her skin. Alexis shrieked as he yanked her out and shoved her to the ground. She landed on her hands and knees and flinched at the pain that tore through her as the cement scraped her skin. Her entire body hurt from the abuse it had received, but the adrenaline pumping through her body kept her from caring much.
“Get up, bitch. If you th
ink that hurt, we’re gonna have a whole heap of fun later.” Chuck sneered, wrapping his hand around her wrist and hauling her upright until it felt like her bones would snap under the pressure.
He repeated the threats that Damian had said earlier and shoved her toward another ATM. She once again robotically removed five hundred dollars and handed it over as soon as she was out of camera range.
Chuck shoved her back into the trunk, but leaned down into her space when she was lying helplessly in front of him. He took her chin into his hand and squeezed her jaw so hard tears leaked out of Alexis’s eyes. “No one fucks with an Inca Boy, sweet Alexis. Make no mistake, I’ll be inside this sweet little body in every way I can be before the night is over. I’ll take your cunt, your ass, and you’ll take me down your throat. There’s nothing I like better than seeing the panic in a slut’s eyes as I cut off her air with my dick. I don’t care what Donovan has ordered to be done with you. I’ll come back when everyone else has gone and take what you owe me. You’ll be begging for me to kill you by the time I’m done, but that would be too good for you. Dumb rich bitch.” And with that he threw her head to the side and slammed the trunk.
Alexis sobbed once and bit her lip to keep the rest of her tears from escaping. For one, she didn’t think she’d be able to stop if she got started, and for two, she didn’t want to give Chuck and the others the satisfaction of hearing her lose it. As soon as she felt the car move again, she grabbed her phone.
Alexis: bank across from big sculpture
Blake: I know which one. You ok?
Alexis didn’t answer. She wasn’t okay. She was as far from okay as she could get. But telling Blake that wouldn’t help her. She took a few big breaths and tried to regain control of her emotions.
She put the phone back into its hiding spot and waited for the next stop. She regretted the fact that she carried both of her debit cards, not to mention her credit cards. The gang could drive her from ATM to ATM for quite a while before she hit her maximum daily withdrawal amounts.
