HUNTER (The Corbin Brothers Book 1)

by Lexie Ray

  The job at the mall was a little more understanding, letting me keep Trevor in his carrier as I worked. I could be right there if he started to fuss, but he was more entertained with his various toys, or looking at all the shining earrings or other accessories I was stocking.

  Thus began the slow death of our little family.

  I thought I could make it work with just the baby and me, but I was wrong.

  Without Gran’s pension—and Gran’s ability to watch the baby while I worked—we struggled.

  I was forced to move into a tiny studio apartment—not much more than a shoebox with a bathroom—when I had to make the decision on whether to miss rent or miss buying Trevor diapers and formula. I’d given up on eating long ago, and subsisted on whatever I could find—free coffee, some days. Other days, less than that.

  Shit really hit the fan the day that the corporate manager of the shop I worked at in the mall found out that the local manager had allowed me to keep my baby at work. I don’t know who ratted us out, but I was out of a job and incredibly desperate.

  I tried everything to get a job at a school or day care, something that would also benefit Trevor. But there were no openings anywhere, or only at places where I couldn’t bring my baby to work with me.

  During this entire time, a niggling thought wouldn’t leave me alone. It was the idea that the Paxton’s were right, that I didn’t have any options left except for them. Though I never used it, I kept the cell phone they gave us charged, the weight of it in my purse sometimes unbearable. That possibility was always with me. What if they were right? What if I couldn’t raise this baby? What if their money outweighed my love?

  The first night that Trevor went to bed wailing because his belly was empty would be the last time, I vowed.

  It became clear to me what I had to do.

  My love for my baby was so great that I had to let him go to the people who would be able to give him the things that I couldn’t, even though I tried so hard.

  I rocked Trevor as he fitfully whined and nibbled at my fingers. My baby was hungry, and I had to do whatever I had to in order to see him fed.

  I dialed the number I knew so well on the cell phone, but it wasn’t Miles who answered.

  “You had a good run,” the voice said. “But now you know that there was only one way this was going to end.”

  “Ben?” My heart stopped at the familiar voice. “Where have you been?”

  “Getting an education,” he said. “Preparing myself to succeed in my family’s business. Preparing our home to welcome my son.”

  “Not your son,” I said. “My son.”

  “You’re doing a good thing,” he said. “I want our son to be well cared for. You can’t do that anymore, can you, Shimmy?”

  “No,” I said honestly, my voice raw. “I tried, but I can’t. I need to do what’s best for my son, even—”

  My voice broke with emotion, and I found I couldn’t finish my statement. Even if it wasn’t good for me. I didn’t want to give up my son, but I didn’t want him to suffer because of my pride and stubbornness. He needed to be with someone who could provide for him, and as hard as I tried, it wasn’t me.

  “I’ll send Miles for you in the car,” Ben said. “Don’t bother packing any of my son’s things. He’ll have better ones here.”

  That stung, and I hung up the phone. I bathed and dressed Trevor in his finest things—little corduroy coveralls and a plaid shirt, and he looked at me.

  “You gonna remember your mama, treasure,” I told him. “I’m your mama, and I love you. This isn’t forever. This is just temporary. I’m going to save up enough money to bring you back to me.”

  He looked at me, and I willed my baby to understand me. I needed him to know that I wasn’t abandoning him. I wouldn’t do that to him, not like my parents did to me. His mama was going to raise him right. He’d be caring and responsible and smart and respectful toward women.

  But right now … right now, my treasure was going to have to live with his daddy.

  “And your daddy is a good man, if he wants to be,” I told Trevor as we rode down the elevator. “It’s your grandparents that are the problem. You watch out for them, treasure. Don’t trust them for an instant. Mama knows this.”

  Miles was standing outside of the car when we reached the curb.

  “Miss Shimmy,” he said, his voice sad.

  “Miles,” I said. “I never thanked you for what you did for my grandmother. I really appreciate it.”

  “It was simply my duty, Miss Shimmy,” he said. “Here. Let’s buckle your son into this car seat.”

  “That’s nice,” I said, admiring the device. “Is that new?”

  “Yes, it is,” Miles said, fastening the straps. “I just purchased it. It’s top of the line.”

  “I’m sure,” I said, starting to get into the car.

  “Miss Shimmy?”

  “Yes?”

  “The Paxton’s have asked that I take only Trevor back,” he said, unable to meet my eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Miles,” I said. “But I’m not just going to put my son in a car by himself.”

  “You can trust me, Miss Shimmy,” Miles protested.

  “It’s the Paxton’s I can’t trust,” I said, holding my hands up. “You can tell them I forced you. I don’t care. But I’m going. I’ll deal with the consequences.”

  Miles let me get into the car, resigned to the fact that I wasn’t about to change my mind. Trevor enjoyed the car ride, cooing and pointing at things as we continued on our journey.

  The trip was over too quickly for my liking, and I insisted on carrying my son.

  The Paxton’s were at the door, waiting for us with a scowl.

  “I told him I wouldn’t just send Trevor off,” I said. “You can blame me, not Miles.”

  “Give us the baby,” Mrs. Paxton said imperiously, holding her arms out.

  “Not yet,” I said. “First, you get to listen to me and listen to me well.”

  “We’re listening.”

  “This isn’t permanent,” I said fiercely. “I’m going to get a good job, now, and start saving money. As soon as I get things together again, I’m coming back for him.”

  “How could you ever think that the pennies you’d earn would even come close to meeting this child’s needs?” Mrs. Paxton asked. “Face it. You can never give him what we can. Never.”

  “I’m going to try,” I said. “I love my baby too much not to.”

  “Shimmy. Let him go.”

  I turned to see Ben. He was dressed so nicely, a dark suit tailored perfectly to his tall frame. He was a man through and through.

  “Ben,” I said, my voice choking in my throat. “Look at our son, Ben.”

  “The best thing is to let him go,” Ben said, holding his arms out. “You know that we can give him everything he needs and then some.”

  “I will be back for him,” I vowed, tears prickling my eyes as I handed Trevor over to his father. The baby set up an immediate wail, holding his chubby little arms out to me.

  It was all I could do not to wail back and snatch him from Ben’s arms, but I restrained myself, wrapping my arms around my own torso and gritting my teeth. This was the right thing to do, wasn’t it? Why did it feel so wrong?

  “I want to make this easy on everyone, Shimmy,” Ben said. “Why don’t you write Trevor letters? We’ll send you pictures of him back, let you know how he’s doing.”

  “I want you to tell him about me,” I said, not taking my eyes off my baby. “I want him growing up to know his mother.”

  “He will,” Ben vowed. “This is what’s best for him. Maybe, once you get it together, we can talk about custody arrangements. But don’t come back until you have a good job, a safe place to live, and money to fall back on. I won’t let you try to take care of our son unless you have the resources to do it. You know I’m right.”

  I knew, but I couldn’t form the words to confirm it. I was losi
ng too much. I couldn’t do this. I had to do this.

  “It’s time for you to go,” Mrs. Paxton said, her voice syrupy sweet.

  “I will be back for him,” I said again.

  “You might try,” Mr. Paxton reasoned. “But you probably won’t.”

  “Goodbye, Shimmy,” Ben said, looking me in my eyes. “And good luck.”

  Those eyes weren’t the eyes of the boy I’d fallen in love with. They were the eyes of a man I didn’t know. And he was holding my baby.

  “Let me hold my treasure one more time,” I begged, opening my arms, but Ben turned away.

  “Enough,” Mrs. Paxton said. “Miles, escort her out.”

  My sobs were silent until I was outside, then I wailed to the sky, not caring who saw as long as it wasn’t my baby. I’d never felt so alone in my life. There was a hole in my heart.

  I grieved long enough to lose the apartment, and then I was on the streets. I swallowed my pride one day and went inside a soup kitchen when my hunger had made me dizzy and light-headed. The food sustained me and gave me the strength I needed to clean myself up and find a job.

  I pounded the pavement, going in to each and every business along the street I chanced upon. Many of them didn’t have openings or didn’t think I had the right kind of skills to succeed. Several others simply weren’t open. I pressed my face against the glass of one building, trying to see inside. It looked like it was a restaurant or club of some kind, chairs stacked on top of tables. That seemed like a place I could get a good start at. Tips were how you earned enough money to get by on.

  I stepped back, intent on finding other restaurants to apply at, but the door opened.

  “Can I help you, sweet pea?”

  I walked closer and saw a large black woman holding open the door. She was in a dressing gown, her makeup half done.

  “I’m sorry for disturbing you,” I said. “Is this a restaurant?”

  “Restaurant and nightclub,” the woman said. “And it’s mine. You can call me Mama, and this is Mama’s nightclub.”

  It was bigger than it looked from the window and nicer, too, paintings of bands performing decorating the wall. There was a dance floor in the middle that I could visualize full.

  “This place is amazing,” I said. “You wouldn’t happen to be hiring, would you?”

  Mama beamed. “It just so happens that I am,” she said. “This is a special place, you know.”

  “Is it?” I asked. “I’ve never heard of it before.”

  “Before we go any further, what’s your name?”

  “It’s Shonda,” I said. “But everyone calls me Shimmy.”

  “Then Shimmy you’ll be,” Mama said. “This is our workplace and our home, Shimmy. The hours you work in the nightclub are your room and board for living here as well.”

  “Really?” I asked. “That’s just what I need. I—I just got kicked out of my apartment for missing rent. I really need a place to live and a way to start saving money.”

  Mama’s grin was so wide I thought it’d tear her face.

  “Honey, you’re the reason I opened this place,” she said. “I have a business to run, but I still like to help people. This was just meant to be. We’ll be opening in a couple hours, but I’ll see about getting you in a uniform and shadowing one of my girls for the night. How does that sound?”

  “It sounds great, Mama,” I said, smiling. “I won’t let you down.”

  Life at Mama’s nightclub started out just fine. I was clear from the get go on what needed to happen for me to make money—real money, not just the tips we got for waiting the tables—after I saw girl after girl lead customers to a curtained stairwell behind the bar. I was ready and willing to sell my sex in order to earn money. I’d do whatever it took to make a life for my son and me.

  It also made sense to me that Mama would keep all of our money in her safe. I trusted her from the very beginning. I could see something in her that reminded me of myself. The same resignation, maybe. The same drive to keep going forward no matter what.

  I got myself a P.O. box and wrote my first letter to Trevor. I knew that the Paxton’s would read it, and Ben would, too, probably. But I poured my heart into it, imagining that I was writing it for my son and my son alone.

  “My treasure,” it read. “Your mommy loves you and she misses you every day. Grandma is looking down on you from heaven, so you’ll always have a guardian angel, baby.

  “Life has it so that right now we’re not together, Trevor, but we will be soon. I’m making lots of money for us and I’m saving every dime. When I get a good job, one that’ll let me see you and spend time with you, I’ll come and get you. We’ll be together again, I promise.

  “I hope that you are growing big and strong and learning everything that you possibly can. I love you from the bottom of my heart, and I’ll see you soon.

  “Love, Mommy.”

  The envelope that returned to my P.O. box was small, but I treasured what was inside. It was a single photo of Trevor, looking directly at the camera and absolutely darling. He was more me than he was Ben, my same big eyes and full lips, and pretty curls instead of kinks. He was my baby through and through, and I resolved to make as much money as I possibly could while working at Mama’s nightclub.

  It soon became clear to me that Mama and I were very, very different.

  I started living and working in the nightclub not too long after another girl named Jazz. Jazz was a beautiful girl, and I heard rumors that she was earning top dollar—more, even, than the more experienced girls.

  I heard lots of shit and had trouble figuring out what was true and what simply wasn’t. Jazz was a virgin when she first started working, I heard, or that she was a mob don’s favorite lay. She was angling to take over the nightclub from Mama and Mama was trying to break her with clients. She was a prisoner here.

  The truest thing became more and more evident as time went on: Jazz didn’t want to be here. She was a ghost, an empty shell, never smiling while we worked, and rarely leaving the room she shared with Cocoa when we weren’t working.

  I was young and new to the game, but I watched Cocoa watch Jazz and wondered.

  “I don’t get it,” I told Cocoa one day when we happened to be washing our faces in adjacent sinks.

  “Get what?” Cocoa’s voice was muffled behind her washcloth.

  “If Jazz is so unhappy, why doesn’t she just leave?” I asked, splashing water on my face.

  Cocoa’s eyes met mine in the mirror, holding them for a few long moments until she dropped the gaze.

  “She doesn’t have anywhere to go,” she said simply, and left.

  That chilled me to the bone. It was a good thing, then, that I was taking to this life. Because I didn’t have anywhere to go, either. All I had was a goal to work toward, a life that I wanted for myself and Trevor.

  Then, something really terrible happened.

  One night, while we were working the nightclub floor, I saw Jazz sneak upstairs with a customer without going through Mama. That, I understood, was a big no-no. Mama did all the negotiations for that side of the business. You didn’t take a customer upstairs without the go-ahead from Mama.

  Cocoa saw, too, and was puzzled, following at a distance. I got busy with my own customers, not thinking anything else of it until Cocoa came rocketing down the stairs. She sprinted to Mama and told her something. Mama was a big woman, but I didn’t know she was a fast woman, too. Mama, her face dark and terrifying, blew across the nightclub floor, Cocoa and a bouncer and another customer in her wake. Most of the customers either didn’t notice or didn’t care, but every single one of Mama’s girls had taken note of that madness.

  After about fifteen minutes, Mama, Cocoa, and the bouncer came back down, Cocoa shaking visibly even though she was clear across the nightclub.

  Seeing Cocoa so upset, so unable to control her emotions, shook all of us up. I waited for Jazz to reappear, to try to put the pieces of the puzzle together, but she never did.

>   After the last customer left and Mama locked the front door, Cocoa snagged me and another girl, Daisy.

  “I need your help with something,” Cocoa said, “but I also need your discretion.”

  “I can keep a secret,” Daisy said, blinking her wide, innocent eyes.

  “Shimmy?”

  “You can count on me,” I said.

  We followed Cocoa up the stairs and to one of the rooms. When she opened the door and flicked on the lights, turning them up to their full brightness, I first thought what we were seeing was a joke. Someone had splattered red paint or something everywhere, and now it was our bitch job to clean it up.

  “Jazz?” Cocoa called, looking around the room. “Jazz?” She poked her head in the bathroom, but didn’t seem to like what she didn’t find.

  “We gotta get this room cleaned up,” Cocoa said. “Please get started. I’ll be right back.”

  We heard Cocoa’s calls echo down the hallway, but I figured if Jazz had trashed this room so thoroughly, she was long gone. Maybe she’d exacted her revenge on Mama forcing her into trysts with customers by defacing this room.

  Daisy gave a sharp gasp and I turned to her, questioning.

  “It’s blood,” she said, her face white.

  “No way,” I scoffed, but I looked again. There was what looked like a belt curled onto that wet, red bed, the edges as red as the liquid coating the wall and carpet.

  Cocoa came in, breathless and looking sick.

  “It’s blood,” Daisy said, staring at her.

  “Yes,” Cocoa confirmed grimly.

  “It’s Jazz’s blood?” I asked.

  Cocoa only nodded.

  “Where’s Jazz?”

  Cocoa shook her head. “I can’t find her,” she said. “She was hurt bad. I think she left.”

  “But what happened?” Daisy whispered.

  Cocoa shook her head again. “We need to clean this up.”

  Perhaps Cocoa was only trying to spare us the gory details, but it was only too easy to let my imagination run away with all the gruesome possibilities of what exactly had taken place. We even found blood spatter on the ceiling, Daisy having to run downstairs to fetch a ladder so we could mop it up.