by Hamel, B. B.
“I can and I’m going to.” Vincent half-turned to look over his shoulder. “Trey, get in here.”
A thick guy in dark clothes with a shaved head and an ugly sneer came into the room and glowered at me. “Yeah, boss?”
“Escort Amber back to her room. Make sure she’s packed.”
“I’m not going back to Chicago,” I said, staring at him. Trey came forward, but I stepped out of his grip and grabbed a tiki mug from the bar, brandishing it like a weapon.
Vincent waved Trey off. “You’re taking the first flight back. Trey’s going to escort you the whole way. Isn’t this what you wanted?”
“No, it’s just— I don’t know what I wanted.”
Vincent leaned forward. I saw a sheen of sweat on his forehead and realized he must’ve been in some pain. “You thought Ren would come with you, isn’t that it?”
“No,” I said, and felt stupid for lying.
“Good, because Ren’s gone. That fucker did what I needed, and now he’s never going to complicate my life ever again.”
“Wait, what?” I felt like my head was spinning. “You threw him out? Ren saved your ass. He won you this war.”
“He did well, I’ll admit it. But he’s a backstabbing traitor.”
“He did that for you.”
Vincent only shrugged. “Still can’t trust a traitor.”
“You bastard.”
He sneered as I went at him with the tiki mug. Trey stepped in and grabbed my wrist, yanking me back hard. I let out a gasp as he buried his fist into my gut then tossed me aside. I tried to suck in air but it felt like he’d flattened my lungs.
“I didn’t want to have to do this,” Vincent said, almost sounding regretful. “But if you won’t make it easy—”
Trey came for me again, that time I dodged around him and ran. I sprinted to the door, threw myself into the hallway, then slammed it shut behind me. I sprinted along the carpet and heard a shout behind me, but I didn’t look back. I reached the staircase and took them two at a time, lungs burning, eyes stinging from tears, hate fueling my run. I reached the room and grabbed the handle, throwing it open—
And found everything torn to shreds.
I walked a few steps inside, mouth hanging open.
The lamp was knocked over and there was glass on the floor. Bottles had been picked up and smashed from the bar. Blood stained the carpet, and the TV was knocked sideways, the screen flickering. It looked like something horrible had happened, like a murder scene, and I thought I might scream.
I heard someone come up behind me and shove me forward. I stumble and almost fell to the floor. I turned as Trey came for me, a wicked gleam in his eyes.
“Shouldn’t have fought, girly,” he said, raising his hands up, and I knew what was coming.
I prepared myself to fight him. If he was going to hurt me, I’d make him pay, I’d make all of them pay. I was sick and tired of letting them shoot me, hit me, make me bleed, when all I wanted was to be left alone. I’d rip out Trey’s eyes, kick him in the balls again and again until he puked blood, I’d bite off his nose if I had to. I didn’t care.
I’d make him hurt for this.
“Stop it.” A voice from the doorway made Trey pause. I backed up until I bumped into an end table with a sideways lamp. Dante surveyed the room, then looked at Trey and made a shooing gesture. “Get out.”
Trey clenched his jaw. “Vincent said—”
“Get out, you fucking twat.”
The thug glanced back at me, but obeyed and left the room. Dante watched him go before closing the door softly and facing me. He ran a hand through his hair and wiped at his face.
“I’m sorry about this,” he said.
“What the hell happened?”
“Vincent came back.” The words were meant to be some kind of explanation, but it didn’t explain a damn thing.
“Ren saved your asses. All of your asses, Vincent’s included. And he pulls this?”
“He never wanted this in the first place. He feels as though he was robbed of beating the Dusters himself.” Dante snorted. “He can be an asshole sometimes.”
I stepped toward Dante. “And what happened? Is Ren okay?”
“He’s alive, if that’s what you mean.” He gestured at the room. “Didn’t go down easy though. Broke a few jaws on his way out the door. Got to hand it to him, he’s a tough bastard. I have nothing but respect.”
“Then let me see him.”
“Can’t do that.” He leaned up against the door and looked tired. “Look, Amber. Shit’s changed, okay? The family’s not what it used to be, and I’m doing all I can to keep it from falling apart. Ren was a problem from the start, and Vincent’s positive he’ll rip off the whole place if we keep him around.”
“I don’t know what that has to do with me. I’m not a part of this stupid family.”
“You are, whether you like it or not. Honestly, you’re lucky. Vincent wanted to do something worse to you, but I convinced him to ship you back to Chicago. You’ll be okay there, I think.”
“Great, you’re such a fucking saint.” I approached him, ready to kill. He eyed me lazily, and I got the feeling that he was more than he appeared. “I want to see Ren again, Dante.”
“Sorry about that. As far as you’re concerned, Ren’s dead, and that’s the end of it.” He opened the door and stepped out. “Clean the place up, if you don’t mind, and make sure you’re packed. We leave early tomorrow morning. I’ll have someone bring up a meal.”
I ran at him, but he slammed the door in my face. The handle locked with an audible click, and I slumped down onto the floor, rage and sadness mingling all through me.
I didn’t know what to do. If they hurt Ren, I’d never forgive them, not any of them, not even my father. I wouldn’t stay in Chicago, they couldn’t force me to stay there forever. I’d come back to Philly— I’d find Ren, wherever he was— I’d do something—
But I knew I was lying to myself. My father was going to lock me away or send me off somewhere else, and Ren would seem like a beautiful dream—distant, lovely, and gone.
I squeezed my eyes shut and let the tears come, tired from fighting, and ready to sink into my own self-pity.
22
Ren
Goddamn, my ribs hurt.
I stood in the shadows of a row home’s front porch and kept still and quiet. The street around me was abandoned and dead, and I hadn’t seen a single person come or go in the last hour. It was slightly past two in the morning, and every inch of my body ached like hell.
But Amber was nearby, and I wasn’t about to walk away from this without her.
Fucking Vincent. His guys jumped me the first opportunity they got. They came in through that door one at a time at first, and I took the first two down before they all swarmed me. I wanted to kill them, all of them, but mostly I wanted to break free so I could strange Vincent with my bare hands.
Instead, they dragged me into a black van and dumped me out in front of my apartment. “Stay here,” Steven said, frowning down at me. “Be smart about this. You lay low for a while and Vincent might forget you exist. Don’t come back.”
The van door slid shut and it drove off.
I spent the next few hours getting myself together, then heading back up north.
Steven was probably right. If I was smart, I’d get out of the city for a few months, maybe a whole year, and let the heat blow over. Vincent would forget me eventually, and I could come back and have my old life back, if that was what I wanted.
Except I couldn’t go anywhere, not without Amber. I had to know if she’d come with me first.
So I slogged up to the mansion again and kept a low profile for a couple hours, lingering in the shadows, watching the staff come and go from the back door.
The thing about letting a thief into your house is they never quite go away. Vincent not only let me stay there, he let me linger for a few weeks. In that time, I wasn’t just sitting around and looking at my dick, althou
gh I did spend an inordinate amount of time teasing Amber and getting my fill of her toward the end there. Otherwise, I did what I do best: cased the joint and got a feel for how they operated.
First problem with mansion security: shift change. It happened every night, right at two thirty. It was an odd time, and I figured they did that to avoid letting guys like me get a sense of their habits, but even still. I waited until a group of guys were heading over toward the building before striding across the street. I broke off and skirted along the shadows, away from the back-door bouncer letting people in one at a time after patting them down first. The back alley was filled with dumpsters and a fire escape, and I used those to my advantage, keeping them between me and the crowd.
Philly facades tended to be pretty easy to climb once you got the feel for it, and the mansion’s was no different. I dug my fingers into the mortar and used a windowsill to swing myself up. I grabbed the end of the fire escape and hung there for half a second, waiting to see if anyone heard, before climbing up some more. I got up onto the escape and moved inch by inch, staying as silent as I could, while the shift change wound down. I reached the second floor and fiddled with the first window, but it was locked.
Second problem with mansion security: old fucking windows. I took a long, thin, flexible bar of metal with a notch cut at the end and a sharp knife. I cut open the paint seal along the window edge and used the knife to get a little space as I shoved the metal bar down inside the mechanism. It was a matter of jiggling it around and yanking until the metal bar caught and was able to turn the lock. It took me about ten minutes, but I was quiet, and I was patient, and eventually I was rewarded.
After another five minutes for the second lock, I got the window up, and slipped into an empty spare room.
It was smaller than the one Amber stayed in. There was no sitting area, only a bed, some chairs, a fireplace, and a side table. I crept to the doorway and opened it a crack, looking out into the dead silent hallway. I was on the opposite side of the building from Amber, and I knew I’d have to be pretty damn careful if I was going to get to her room in one piece, but I didn’t have all night.
Third problem with mansion security: sometimes the left hand had no fucking clue what the right hand was doing.
I walked down the hall, head held high, acting like I had a purpose. The staff members I came across smiled at me and waved like they expected to see me there, and I nodded back like it was no big deal. The thing was, I bet all the door guards, and most the street thugs knew that I was dead to the family, and they’d throw me out in a second. But the staff wasn’t told much if anything about family affairs, and they generally kept to themselves. I made a point of drinking and hanging out with some kitchen guys a few times, and I knew they existed in their own little bubble, probably out of some stupid attempt at keeping them from finding anything incriminating, which of course they did anyway.
It meant that I didn’t need to worry about staff. Thugs and made guys, well, those were another story. I was relying on a bit of luck and the knowledge that generally those guys didn’t bother moving around so late at night. The door guards watched the outside of the place, and the security team watched the interior through the monitors.
Which meant I had to dodge cameras.
That was the hardest bit. Generally, I could keep my head low, walk fast, and make sure the cameras didn’t catch my face. I’d made sure I knew where almost all the cameras were on my first couple nights in the place, so it wasn’t too difficult to pull off, but at least once it meant staring awkwardly at the floor while a night cleaner walked past and frowned at me like I was insane.
Soon though, I found myself on the far side of the mansion, and crept up to Amber’s room. I tried the knob, glancing down toward the staircase to make sure nobody was coming, but it was locked. I took out my picks and got to work, opening it up in under two minutes, which was a record for me. Probably helped that I was exposed as hell and if the wrong person came up those steps, I was beyond fucked.
The door opened with a soft click and a groan, and I went to flick on the lights—
Then something hard came down and smashed onto my shoulder.
“Ah, fuck,” I grunted, stumbling backwards.
Amber came at me like a monster. I caught her wrists before she could slam an ashtray down on my skull and murder the shit out of me. She growled like a crazy person and I dragged her back into the room before she made a scene out in the hall.
“Get off me,” she said. “Get the hell off me, you asshole, you motherfucker, I’ll kill you, I’ll—”
“Amber,” I hissed. “It’s me. Its Ren.”
That made her stop. She stared at me for a second, eyes wide, and dropped the ashtray. It hit the floor and rolled away. If she’d been even a little more accurate, that heavy as fuck crystal ashtray would’ve brained me.
It was my lucky night, apparently. She only managed to bruise the crap out of my arm.
“Ren?” She threw herself at me again, but this time, she hugged me tight.
I held on, hugging her back. “I got you,” I whispered, and breathed in the smell of her hair.
The room was still a mess. The assholes hadn’t bothered to clean up for her, which managed to piss me off even more. She looked up into my eyes and I kissed her, not thinking about it, not hesitating—I only wanted her taste, her lips, and whatever happened next, well, I’d figure it out. For me though, the kiss was everything, and I couldn’t make myself hold back.
She returned that kiss then gently pulled back. “I thought they hurt you.”
“They did.” I grinned, then grimaced. “And now I think you broke my shoulder.”
She laughed and touched my face. “Poor baby.”
“I know.” I held her hand there and met her gaze. “I had to come back for you.”
“They’re sending me back to Chicago.” She spoke in a rush, like she’d been holding her breath for hours. “I don’t want to go, I tried to fight, but there’s nothing I can do. Vincent’s gone crazy, he wants to get rid of you, and get rid of me, and I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“It’s okay,” I said, squeezing her hands. “I’m getting out of the city and I want you to come with me.”
She took a step back. “You want me to leave with you? Right now?”
I nodded as her fingers trailed away from mine. I felt that absence like another punch in the gut. “Right now,” I said. “You don’t have to come. I’m not going to force you. But I love you, Amber, and I want you to be with me. We’ll go wherever you want, I have enough money to last us for a while, and—”
She threw herself at me again. I grunted from the sharp pain in my ribs but her kiss pushed that pain away. I held her tight, kissing her, feeling her body, the warmth of her skin and the weight of her arms, before she pulled back.
“I love you too,” she said, breathless.
“Let’s get your stuff. We’ve got a long night ahead of us.”
Fortunately, she was already packed. I slung her bag over my shoulder and headed out into the hall again, looking both ways before gesturing for her to follow. “Down the stairs and out the back,” I whispered. “We’ll make a break for it. Door guy won’t know what hit him.”
“Are you sure?” She chewed her lip.
“I’m positive. Come on. Trust me.”
She nodded and we moved forward. I led her down the hall toward the staircase that wound down the spine of the house. We took the stairs, hesitating at the first landing, then turning down and walking to the bottom. On the left was a hall that led into the main artery that cut down the length of the structure, and on the right was the kitchen. It was still bustling even so late at night, and a lonely radio played salsa music.
I walked fast. She followed close. A few cooks in hairnets and white uniforms were gathered around a small table, smoking and playing cards. I grinned and nodded at them, a few young guys, and one even waved back, looking confused. None of them moved though, and
as we reached the back door, they looked away as if it wasn’t their problem.
The door guy leaned back in an alcove. He looked half away, arms crossed over his chest. I moved fast, running at him like a bull. Amber didn’t know this part of the plan, since it was the least elegant and relied on even more good luck. She let out a strangled, surprised yelp as I smashed into the guard, kneeing him hard in the gut and smashing my elbow on his shoulder.
He groaned in shock and pain, but slammed his head into my nose. I felt a wet crunch as I staggered back. The guard bashed a button on the wall and a blaring, wild scream broke out as an alarm ripped through the space.
I attacked hard. I jabbed him in the throat then grabbed his wrist, twisted, and turned him, throwing him against the wall. He hit face-first and slumped forward, moaning. I kicked him once for good measure as blood poured from my nose.
“Come on,” I shouted, pulling Amber into the alcove and shoving her toward the door. She stumbled and opened it. I threw the bag toward her. “Run south.”
“What are you doing?”
I turned as two thugs barreled into the room and the kitchen guys scattered, looking for hiding spots. I met the thugs and smashed a fist into one face, elbowed another. I fought like an animal, ripped a pan from a rack and bashed one guy in the skull until he dropped, and kicked another in the mouth until he slipped in his partner’s blood and hit the floor hard.
“Ren!” Amber screamed.
I turned and sprinted after her. We hit the ground outside and kept going. I heard shouting behind us, but I wouldn’t let her slow down. Block after block flashed past, and although the sounds of pursuit died down, we couldn’t slow.
“This way.” I tugged her through streets, down a few side blocks, and into an alley. “Stay here.”
We crouched down beside a dumpster and I watched as a few black cars rolled past along the street, going slow, guys hanging out the windows.
“They’re looking for us,” she whispered, eyes wide.
“We’re not far.” I stood, waited to make sure no cars were coming, then start walking away, tugging her along behind me.
