by Loki Renard
When we arrive at the station, I’m taken through the arrest process. First they fingerprint me. Then they take me through and do a mugshot. Holy shit. This is all going to be on record. This is probably going to end up on a felon website somewhere. I can see my future crumbling in front of me, all the dreams of a steady, respectable career snapped away with the shutter of the camera as I am recorded for posterity, hungover, with old make up and messy hair.
I thought they’d start asking me lots of questions right away, but instead they just put me in a large room with a lot of benches and other women in various states of disarray. I guess nobody’s best day is the day they go to jail. I’m still in my slippers, pink fluffy things with little eyes on the front. I never figured out what kind of animal they were supposed to be, but the black plastic pupils jiggle whenever I move my feet. Right now, my slippers are rolling their eyes at me as I shuffle along the paint chipped bench to find a position not too close to anyone else in the room.
Everybody here is afraid. It’s a weird, institutional feeling which isn’t like any other I’ve experienced before. I’ve been around scared people, of course, but this is something different. The heavy walls and the eggshell paint which is coming off all over the show make it deeply depressing.
They should have used primer before they painted. That’s the problem, cheap government contractors skipping steps to save a buck on a bid. That’s my father’s voice in my head. My god. When he finds out what is going on, he’s going to be so… I don’t even know. I do remember Harry last night. It’s coming back in huge flooding waves of memory. He assaulted me. Or tried to. I shot him. He fucking deserved it. I’m assuming that’s what this is about. Unless Dante called the cops on me for not being a compliant kidnap victim, and I doubt that very much.
An officer comes to the door of the holding cell and calls my name. I get up and find myself cuffed at the door again. Jesus. What are they expecting me to do? One small female against a station full of armed people?
I say nothing as I am led to something generously titled “interview room”. It contains a desk, two chairs, and, interestingly to me, no one-way mirror. I thought there were always one-way mirrors. Then it occurs to me that sort of thing probably stopped being quite so useful when things like, cameras with sound were invented. No need to have a gumshoe lurking behind a mirror when you can have as many people as you like watching camera feeds.
The officer sits down across from me. His face is forgettable, aside from a prolific mustache sprouting from his upper lip, dancing like an independent entity when he speaks.
“Your name is Candice Smith? Street name, Candi?”
“Street name?” I laugh scornfully. “That’s what my friends at college call me. And my parents. And probably, my dog.”
“This is a serious investigation,” he officer’s mustache growls at me. “A man has been shot.”
“He deserved it.”
“So you admit shooting him.”
“I admit nothing. Where’s my lawyer?”
“You’re requesting a lawyer?”
“Yes. I’m requesting a lawyer.”
I expect him to send me back to the holding cell, but instead he gets on the little walkie talkie on his shoulder and tells whoever is on the other end to let my lawyer in.
“So my lawyer was here all along, and you were going to question me anyway?”
“You have to ask for your lawyer.”
“I did. As I was arrested.”
“You have to ask again.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works. At all.”
He looks at me with obvious distaste, and it is clear to me that he intends to make my life hell, charge me with as much as he can, and use every trick in the book to make me incriminate myself. What an asshole.
I sit back and I wait. Two minutes later, a tall woman with a restrained elegance walks into the room. She’s mid-forties and wearing a charcoal gray pantsuit and I can tell from the second I lay eyes on her purse that she’s not one of my family’s attorneys. This is a Steffy Rawling special. Madison must have called her and Steffy must have come through for me.
I’m seriously impressed, and absolutely grateful the second I see her, I relax. Some people just have the sorts of faces and briefcases that let you know everything is going to be alright.
“He tried to question me without you present!” I blab as soon as she walks into the room.
“Hello, Miss Smith,” she says. “I’m Lara Crufts.”
“Wow.”
“You began questioning before I was present?” Lara sits down, takes out a pad and pen, and makes a note. “That’s a paddling.”
I smirk at the officer, who is now standing because Lara took his seat and apparently they don’t have the foresight to put three chairs in this room.
“Your client has ties to a criminal gang.”
“I do not!”
“What’s the question?” Lara interrupts.
“I just said your client has ties to a criminal gang.”
“Yes, but that’s not a question. You have to ask a question, officer. You can’t just hurl accusations and see what happens. That’s borderline entrapment.”
“Oh she’s good, huh, isn’t she?” I smirk at the police officer. “You’re good, Mrs Crufts.”
“Ms Crufts,” she says, eyes twinkling. “And thank you.”
“Fine,” the cop sighs. “Here’s a question. Where were you last night, Miss Smith?”
“I was at the country club.” I figure I can say that. Other people knew I was there, after all.
“And what did you do at the country club?”
“I had a drink.”
“I see.” The officer is starting to get into his stride now. This must be very exciting for him. “And when did you leave?”
“When they closed.”
“And did you leave with anyone?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Harry, the man who wanted to Houdini his way inside me even though I told him no.”
“And that’s when you shot him.”
“That’s when he got shot. I didn’t shoot him.”
“How did he get shoot if you didn’t shoot?”
“I guess a gun went off.” I glance over at the lawyer to see if she’s annoyed at me answering this way, but she just gives me a curt little nod of approval.
“So you didn’t shoot him.”
“No.”
“We have a 911 call in which you say…”
“That he’s been shot. Yes. Because he was. He was a handsy asshole who was going to hurt me and then a gun happened to discharge into his body. Karma, I guess.”
“We’ve recovered the weapon used in the assault last night,” the cop ploughs on.
“No. You haven’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve recovered a weapon used in self-defence against someone who was trying to assault me sexually,” I say, defiant and angry.
“Well, one of you are in hospital.”
“That’s because I was the one who had the gun.”
“So you don’t deny ownership.”
“I don’t own it. I just happened to possess it. Like, it happened to be near me. Not mine.”
“The gun you used has been tied to several murders,” the officer says, leaning down on the table so he looms over me. “Now we’re fairly confident you didn’t perpetrate them, but we do need to know where the gun came from.”
“And you’ll let me go?”
“No,” he snorts. “You still shot someone.”
“Who was trying to force himself on me.”
“That’s for the courts to decide.”
“Then I guess where that gun from is going to be for you to decide,” I say, snarky.
I am not bowing down to this bullshit institutional bullying. They’re used to dealing with people who don't have money here. I might not have much money myself, but I’m not the kind of girl who ge
ts left to rot in prison.
Their authority doesn’t impress me. I know how little they’re paid. I know what the requirements are to get their jobs. I’ve always tried to respect the law, because without it you have chaos. But given one officer point blank let Dante kidnap me, and these ones have manhandled me, as well as Steffy, my respect is seriously waning.
“Let’s take her back to the holding cell,” the cop says into his shoulder walkie talkie.
I could tell them about Dante, but what would I tell them that they don’t already know? I’m not afraid of snitching, if that’s what it is called. I’m more certain that if they can get any kind of tie between him and I, I’m going down as a gang associate, and I have no intention of letting that happen.
“I don’t think so,” Ms Crufts says. “I think you’re going to let my client go.”
“Now why would we do that?”
“One, because she told you she was the victim of an assault and you did nothing to investigate that whatsoever, two, because you have attributed possession of the weapon to my client, when it could equally have been in possession of the male who was the aggressor.”
“He comes from a very good family…”
“And I’m from Chicago,” Ms Crufts says. “Irrelevant. I am going to begin proceedings calling for investigation into the multitude of procedural failures in this case, including, but not limited to, failure to investigate assault on a female. The gun, as I understand it, was found in the male’s car. There is nothing besides his rather dubious word to suggest she ever had anything to do with it besides happening to be near it when it discharged. Next time you decide to arrest a client of mine, do try to get something at least approximating evidence.”
There’s more wrangling after that, but the upshot of it is that at the end of it, I am released. Not on bail, just straight up released.
“Thank you so much, Ms Crufts!” I gush in the parking lot. “And please, thank Steffy for getting me a lawyer.”
“I don’t know who Steffy is,” she says, already on her phone. “I’m on retainer to the man you know as Dante.”
I stare at her as that information percolates through my hangover infested head.
“Dante sent you to get me out?”
“Yes.”
God. I don’t know what to do with that. Does this mean Dante… cares? I guess I’m about to find out, because he’s walking toward us. I almost don’t recognize him. He’s incognito in a suit, the kind of attire that makes any man look better than he really is. Dante is pure sin, but that finely cut blazer makes him look almost sensible.
I brace myself for him to gloat or lecture or even maybe curse me out for costing him money, but when he gets to me he thanks the lawyer. When he speaks to her, it is with respect, and she returns it. There’s no chance of her ending up tied to a warehouse ceiling, I think to myself. I wait to see what he’s going to say to me, but the answer to that is absolutely nothing. When the lawyer walks away, Dante crooks a finger and turns, clearly expecting me to follow. I hesitate for a moment, then do as he expects.
He leads me to a car. It’s never the same car. I don’t know if he has one of his warehouses full of cars, or if he steals them at his convenience. I guess I’m not really in a position to ask.
“Dante…” I try to talk to him, but he hakes his head and points to the inside of the car.
“In,” he says curtly.
I shouldn’t be getting into Dante’s car. I should be running back into the station. I should be running as far and as fast as I can, but that seems ungrateful given the only reason I even have the option to run is that he got me out of jail.
“Got yourself into some more trouble, huh?” He drawls the words in a rough voice as he gets in beside me. One of his guys is driving the car. I sink down in my seat and stay quiet as we head away from the jail.
“You not going to talk to me now?” He gives me a light nudge with his elbow. It’s a casual, friendly gesture and it breaks some of the tension I’ve been holding in my body, sitting next to him and wondering how angry he is.
“I guess I did,” I admit with a small sigh. “You were right.”
A smile establishes itself on his face. All men like to be right.
“Uh huh. And you know what?”
“What?”
“You really owe me now, chica.”
I swallow and nod. I can’t deny it. I do owe him. He’s an asshole for pointing it out, but my obligation is growing by the minute.
“Where are we going?” I change the subject with a question.
“Your place. You’re going to get your stuff. Pack it up. And you’re going to put it in my car.”
“What! Why?”
“Because I’m taking you.”
“Taking me where?”
He doesn’t answer me, but he directs his driver to take us back to the house where I live with my friends. My life is no longer my own. It has been spiraling out of control ever since I picked up that case of alcohol, and it just seems to get more intense with every passing hour.
“If you see ‘em, tell your friends you’re going to be gone for a while.”
“But I have class tomorrow.”
“Naw,” he says. “You don’t.”
“But my degree?”
“You wanted to focus on your education, you should have kept your car rolling,” he says as we come to a halt. “Go tell your friends.”
This insane. Literally insane. But what happens if I defy him now? Jail, that’s what, probably. Or worse. Dante is toying with me, but I know he has his limits and there’s probably going to be a price to pay for what I’ve done these last few days.
We pull up outside what I now fear only used to be my home. Dante tells me again to pack quickly, and I’m too shaken to disobey him. He waits out in the car as I willingly disassemble my life and put it into two big suitcases.
My friends are never going to understand this. They’re going to freak out. I’m going to be the topic of conversation for weeks, if not months. Then I’m going to be someone they used to know. There’s something in the air which tells me this is the last time I’ll be in this house. I feel tears rising to my eyes. So much of my innocence is already gone, and I know I will be losing more soon.
I write a note to the girls before I go.
I’m going away for a bit. I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. I will be in touch soon. I love you guys so fucking much.
It’s short, but what else can I say? I don't know where I am going. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me. I do know I will seriously miss them, and the life we used to have, the life that is already gone.
“They weren’t home,” I tell Dante as I get in the car. “I left a note.”
“Give me your purse,” Dante says. “I want your phone. Your cards. Everything.”
I hand it over. What else can I do at this point besides obey?
“What are you going to do with me?”
He glances over at me with one of those casual, dark looks that sees more of me in a half a second than most people see in years. “I can think of a few things.”
Chapter 6
I’m expecting to be taken to a warehouse. I don’t know why. I guess that’s just the only context I’ve seen Dante in, when he’s not invading my world. But we don’t go to a warehouse, of course. We go into the inner city, to a very trendy suburb right in the middle of things.
The houses are expensive here. Not houses. Apartments. Everybody lives stacked on top of one another. And apparently, so does Dante.
His is a very tall building, all glass and metal. Colder and sleeker than I would have picked for him. We take the elevator up to the top floor, where a vista of the city in which we live with the rivers and parks and buildings make for a stunning sight.
“Wow,” I breathe as I step out of the elevator into an apartment that is admittedly sparse, the warehouse aesthetic is in full effect, but beautiful. “This is where you’re keeping me?”
“This is where I live,” he says. “And it’s where you’re staying.”
I shake my head. “Why do you even want me?”
“Because you owe me, and I’m going to get what I’m owed.”
“You mean sex.”
He’s slipping off his jacked and unbuttoning his shirt. He gives me a sexy little nod. “I mean sex.”
Oh god. He really means it. He’s going to reclaim my debt with my body and… wow. He looks incredible without a shirt on. His muscles ripple under tattooed skin, and when his hands go to his waist and undo the fastening of his pants and lose the belt and I see him in all his sudden naked glory…
“Holy fuck.”
“Mhm,” he smirks, coming over to me. The transformation from dressed to undressed is more than mere clothing. It’s like an animal has been unleashed. A beast who only wants one thing.
We have been circling this moment since we met, getting ever closer with every breath we take. He would have taken me in the warehouse yesterday if the British man had not come and interrupted us and I had not gone on a crime spree. There’s no escaping Dante. Or his revenge.
“Please…” I whimper as he crouches over me and starts working at my clothing. “Please, I know I don’t deserve it but… please be gentle.”
I see his cock twitch at my request, that hard rod of flesh getting even more aroused because of the fact that I am afraid. Dante enjoys my fear. He feeds on it. He wants it.
He is stripping the last defenses from my body, making me as naked as he is, exposing the simple facts about us. I am small, pale, soft, and curvy. He is big and hard and dark and he is going to ravage me.
“You’ve been such a bad girl, Candi,” he purrs running his hand down between my breasts and cupping my pussy with a confident familiarity. “A very bad girl.”
I can’t argue with him, though I might have yesterday. A lot has changed between then and now. Yesterday I had never encountered the law. Today, I found myself handcuffed and fingerprinted and… I want to forget all of it, and Dante is making that easy, rubbing my pussy, encouraging my soft lower lips to swell and spread for him.
