Bender

by M. Stratton

  He wanted to make sure she knew he wasn’t going to be coming on to her. The last thing he needed was someone like her becoming attached to him. She was the hearts and flowers, ever after kind of chick; the kind he stayed away from. Far away. Lucky for him, for the most part, women like her didn’t come into the areas where his jobs were.

  “But I don’t have anything with me. What would I do?”

  “Well, we can stop at Wal-Mart to pick up what you need for the night and if you forget something most of the time the front desk would have what you need.”

  “What if I stayed here?”

  That question threw him for a loop. He wasn’t expecting her to say she’d stay here. “Are you thinking about it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  She shrugged and played with the strap on her purse. “Because I feel safe with you.”

  “You shouldn’t.”

  As he knew it would, her head whipped up and her eyes locked on his. He took a step closer to her. “You’ve got to learn to trust only yourself.”

  “Lesson three?” Her voice shook.

  He stood over her looking down at her. “You’ve been paying attention.”

  “Yeah, umm . . . yes I was . . . am.”

  “If you stay with me, you have to stay inside at all times. Don’t look out the window and do not try to go back to your car. It might not look like it, but I’ve got this placed wired with advanced security. I’ll know before you even open the door that you’re leaving. So don’t try it.”

  “I . . . I wouldn’t think of it.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  “Have you not been paying attention? Darling, I live for this shit. I know this shit. You’d better start reading up on street smarts because you obviously aren’t coming by them naturally.”

  “I’ll admit I am more book smart than street smart. But I have a vast amount of knowledge up here.” She tapped the side of her head. “Some of it I’m sure would come in handy.”

  “Oh, I don’t doubt that. Just in these situations, while we’re talking about this neighborhood, I’m the expert.”

  “How do they know you? Is Bender your name?”

  “Yeah, I go by Bender. I grew up here. Let’s just say, I don’t take shit from people.”

  He noticed she had a way of looking at things as if she was memorizing them and trying to figure them out. When her huge, brown eyes were turned full force on him, it made him want to squirm, fearing she’d learn his secrets. He had to figure out a way to help her without blowing his cover, if she hadn’t already started to suspect. Most people didn’t go out of their way to help anyone around here. He was afraid she wouldn’t be able to keep her mouth shut about why he really was here, and the only way to avoid that was to keep her close. Closer than was going to be healthy for either of them. “So what’s it going to be?”

  She blinked her eyes a few times before she finally gave him his answer. “Here. I’ll stay here with you.”

  Shit, he didn’t know what that feeling was; if he was happy she’d be close by, or disappointed she wouldn’t be out of his way. “Before we go upstairs you have to promise something.”

  “Sure.”

  “Again, so quick?”

  When she didn’t say anything but raise an eyebrow at him, he continued. “You’ve got to keep this a secret, at least for right now. No one can know about the security I have around here. We have to learn everything we can about why those guys were coming after you. We have to keep them on their toes and not give anything away. You got that?”

  “I really don’t talk to many people.”

  “It doesn’t matter; you could casually say something to a customer, which might lead them back to here. You want to keep a safe place for as long as possible.”

  “I’m not stupid.”

  “No, you’re not, but you’ve got to think before you talk. At all times. Never mention me or the bar. Ever.”

  “I mostly keep my conversations to about books anyway.”

  “Good. Now is there anyone you can call to cover you at the store?”

  “No, I just lost my last employee.”

  “Why?”

  “They were mugged outside the front door.”

  “Oh, kind of like what was going to happen to you tonight?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe? Lady, come on, wake up. You were about three minutes from being mugged, raped, and killed.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  He couldn’t believe how green she was. “Do you only read non-fiction?”

  “I ready everything.”

  “Ever read any mystery? Suspense? Thriller? Books on crime? You might want to branch out a bit.”

  “I read everything,” she said through clenched teeth.

  He decided not to push that. “So there is no one to help.” He tapped his lower lip with his finger. “Can you close for a few days?”

  “No! I could never do something like that.”

  “Why not? It’s not like you’re doing a booming business. What’s a couple of days compared to living to see next month.”

  “Because, well, the kids.”

  “What about them?”

  “They come in every day. I have a book exchange set up so they always have something to read. There is nothing better than getting lost in a story. To dream along with the characters, or take an adventure somewhere you’d never actually be able to go. You can learn or escape from so much in books. To instill a love of reading to kids who might never have the chance is why I opened up my bookstore here. No one else would even attempt it. Heck, there isn’t even a library. These kids deserve to be able to read whatever they want, whenever they want.”

  He didn’t want to be touched by what she said but he was. Too many times people passed this neighborhood by because there wasn’t enough money around and the crime was too high, and that was decades ago when he was young. He remembered all the time he spent in Saturday detention in the library at school. At some point, he’d started reading, and learning. Combining his street smarts with his books smarts, making him truly a dangerous man.

  “Fine, let me think about what we can do. What time do the kids normally come in?”

  He saw her shoulders relax before she told him after school. “Great, since its four A.M. right now, we can sleep in and make sure we at least open the shop for them. Does that work for you?” He waited for her to nod. “Fine, come on.” He led her into the backroom behind the bar where he had a secret passage installed to get to the upper floors. As far as anyone else knew, the only way you could access upstairs was from the outside. This was a hidden advantage to him, and now Stormy.

  Mick Controne walked into the old warehouse, briefly looking at the large white canvas on the floor. Nutter was running around, literally, running around, jumping on old crates, and doing flips off them. He shook his head; you never knew what Nutter was going to do, but as a loyal employee who’d do anything, anytime, there was no one better. If all he asked for was to be able to kill people, well, they ended up on the same page more than once. They had a bond, two halves of a whole.

  “Hey, Nutter, what’s up?” He had no idea what he wanted.

  “Oh, hey, boss. We’ve got some cleaning up to do.”

  He frowned. “What happened?”

  “Seems Frankie and Ted couldn’t stick with the plan last night.”

  “Stormy?”

  “Yeah, she got away. Wasn’t even robbed.”

  He took some deep breaths trying to calm himself. She was the last holdout in the neighborhood, and beautiful. He was hoping he could drive her out of the neighborhood and straight into his arms. No woman could resist him. “What happened?”

  “Someone showed up. Ruined the whole thing.”

  “Who?” His fists clenched at his side.

  “Bender.”

  Mick let that name roll around and settle heavily on his shoulders. Bender. T
hat name was legend around the neighborhood, badass growing up, not taking shit from anyone. Not scared of anything, and in neighborhoods around the country, too. All of a sudden, he’d show up and people would start disappearing. He’d lost many of his contacts over the years. Knowing Bender was here, this wasn’t looking good.

  “Do what you need to do.”

  Nutter stopped and clapped his hands together, a maniacal grin spreading across his face. “Wonderful! I was hoping you were going to say that. The boys should be here any minute now. I have so much to do.” He raced away and started adjusting the canvas.

  Mick wanted to destroy something. But he had to hold it together. Nutter was the one who could go crazy and no one questioned it. He had to be the calm face of the partnership and never let anyone know he was far worse than Nutter. When he heard the men coming in he walked up a short flight of stairs so he’d be above them.

  “Hey, boss. Didn’t expect you here,” Frankie said a frown spread across his face. “What’s up?”

  “Why don’t you tell me?”

  Ted ran his hand across the back of his neck. “Things didn’t go as we planned last night.”

  “No?” Mick crossed his arms across his chest.

  “Well, see, someone else showed up.”

  “And?” Mick preferred to not talk much and have them dig their own graves, and with these two, it was going to happen sooner rather than later.

  “Well . . . see . . . we thought it might have been Nutter.” Frankie glanced around as if he was looking for him.

  What they didn’t know was Nutter was there, planning his fun for the day.

  Mick sighed. “So then what did you do?”

  “Then Ted called me Frankie.” The words rushed out of his mouth.

  “So you are telling me not only does Bender have one of your names, he also has Nutter’s name?” He waited for them to nod. “Now, what do you think Nutter is going to think about that?”

  They looked at each other and started to back up. “We, we, didn’t know. How could we know someone like him was in town?”

  “You should always assume someone like him is in town.” His voice dropped making them visibly shake.

  “Yeah, sure, it’ll never happen again,” Frankie said.

  “Now there you are correct.” Mick smiled. He knew when he smiled it was actually a scary thing. He only smiled when he was trying to intimidate someone; and typically, soon after that person lost his life. He made sure both men were focused on him as Nutter silently ran up behind them and, wielding a sword, cut their heads off with one slice.

  Mick watched as the heads plopped on the ground and rolled, leaving a trail of blood on the canvas Nutter had put down. Walking over, he leaned against a pillar and watched Nutter work. There was something graceful and magical in Nutter’s movements as he hacked and sliced his way through the body parts making sure to leave trails of blood all around. Mick watched as it slowly seeped into the canvas. Mick cocked his head to the side trying to see if Nutter was going for abstract, or actually trying to paint something with their blood. When Nutter grabbed a head in each hand and started shaking it trying to get the last little bit of blood out of it, Mick was able to see what he painted. Nutter’s princess, Stormy.

  Sighing, Mick stood up and walked slowly up to Nutter, making sure not to make any sudden moves. He was like an animal when he was in his killing mode and Mick didn’t want to do anything to scare him. After they’d first met, he’d had the misfortune of doing just that; he still had the scar on his side to prove it. “She’s beautiful.”

  Nutter’s chest rose and fell a few times before he wiped a bloody hand across his mouth and slowly turned toward Mick. “She is, and she’s going to taste divine.”

  Stormy knew she was supposed to keep the backdoor unlocked during business hours, but she couldn’t, not after last night. If fact, she had to fight the urge not to lock the front door and just let the kids in and out as needed. Since she was trying to create an open learning environment, she didn’t think that would be the best way to handle things. Besides, she had Bender silently lurking around; after last night, she was thankful for the protection. In fact, she was surprised at how relaxed and comforted she felt around him. Typically, being around people in general put her off, and then you add in someone a foot taller than she was, who had hard muscles and a bad boy—seen a lot of fights—handsome face and she couldn’t string two words together coherently. Although she couldn’t get much out of him, at least she was communicating with him in the same language. In any case, she thought so since he wasn’t looking at her like she was stupid every time she opened her mouth.

  “Miss Stormy,” said a small voice next to her. “Can I get this book?”

  She looked down into the big brown eyes of a little nine-year-old boy. “Of course, Donnie.” He held a special place in her heart. When she first opened, he was one of the first in the door. He hardly knew the alphabet, and nothing about reading, but she’d taught him and he soaked everything up like a sponge. Now, a couple of years later he was reading at a junior high level. She liked to think she was helping him know there was more to life than gangs; and he could be anything he was determined.

  “Come on, let’s get my log.” She placed her hand on his boney shoulder to guide him and quickly drew her arm away when he hissed. “Are you okay?” Stormy kneeled next to the boy, torn on what to do for him.

  Donnie looked down at the ground. “I’m okay, Miss Stormy. It’s nothing.”

  “Let me help, please.”

  He glanced quickly up at her, and then back down. “I’m fine.”

  “But . . .”

  “Leave him,” Bender said from behind her.

  She gave him credit; Donnie didn’t even flinch or move away just slowly looked up at the big man standing over them. “Who are you?” he asked.

  “Bender.”

  They stared at each other for a few minutes. Stormy could swear they were having a whole conversation she wasn’t privy to. Finally, Donnie nodded at the older man and walked over to the counter to wait for her. She stood up and turned toward Bender. “What was all that about?”

  “Guy stuff.”

  “Guy stuff, my ass.”

  “Stormy Ryan, really, such language.”

  “You aren’t going to tell me?”

  “No, there are just some things he and I understand about each other. He knows where I am if he needs something. No biggie.”

  “No, there, I think you are wrong. To someone like him, in this neighborhood, knowing there is someone you can trust, who isn’t going to take advantage of you, and go to for help is everything.”

  Bender laughed humorlessly. “Lady, you don’t know me, and you certainly shouldn’t trust me.”

  “You helped me last night; you didn’t take advantage of me.”

  “It was a moment of weakness. Don’t get too comfortable.”

  She stared at him, wanting to know more about him. Why he was doing all of this for her? His eyes were hooded and there was no way he was going to be giving away any secrets today. “Just so you know”—she waved her hand up and down, taking in his whole body—“I never judge a book by its cover. It’s too much fun reading each chapter and discovering all the twists and turns buried underneath.”

  She turned and walked away from him going over to help Donnie, part of her mind still trying to figure out the man behind her and the other part wondering what she could do to help the boy in front of her.

  As her ass swayed back and forth with each graceful step she took, Bender knew he was in trouble. He’d made it his life’s work to stay away from complicated, refined women. No strings, is what he always looked for. Get in and get out, no one got hurt. Besides, he was never in town long enough, and he wasn’t going to make an exception now. After this job was over, he was heading south. No more cold winters.

  Lucky for him, he didn’t need much sleep because he hadn’t gotten much last night. He’d been up making sure she didn
’t leave and doing more research on her. On paper, she was rich and pampered, but if you dug deeper, you found out she’d always tried to help everyone, no matter what. Once she came into her money at thirty-five from the extensive farm her parents had run, she started helping more people.

  He didn’t need to close his eyes to bring the image to mind of her sleeping so soundly in his bed this morning. The way she hugged his pillow and had one leg bent high was so sexy, the perfect curve of her ass just the right size for his hand to grab and squeeze while he was buried deep inside of her. When his phone rang, he didn’t even look to see who it was. “Bender.”

  “Where are you?”

  “You know.” It took everything he had not to groan as she bent over at the waist and her ass wiggled as she tried to pull something out from under the counter.

  “Yeah, I need to see you.”

  “Don’t have time.”

  “Something’s come up.”

  “I’m working here.” He tried to keep the frustration out of his voice as the person on the other end wasn’t taking no for an answer.

  “I know; she’ll be fine for an hour. Trust me; you’re going to want to see this.”

  “Fine.” Bender clicked the end button and put his phone in his pocket. He waited for the kid Donnie to leave before he strode over to Stormy. “I’ve got to go out for a bit. You’ll be okay for an hour, right?”

  He saw her swallow before answering, “Sure, I’ll be fine.”

  “Lesson four, don’t lie. I’m here to help you; and if you lie, you die and I can’t do my job.”

  Stormy tilted her chin up in the air. “I don’t lie.”

  Bender leaned in close to her. “Then what did you just do?”

  “Put on a brave front.”

  “No, you lied. You can dress it up and call it whatever you want, but you lied.” He continued before any words came out of her open mouth. “Any more kids coming in?”