Riding Dirty

by Abriella Blake

Besides, she wasn’t even a real prostitute. The fact that she wasn’t actually selling her body didn’t quite dissolve the small stone of shame she felt forming in her chest like a dead weight. Yes, she had to admit she had felt a pleasant sensation of power when she saw the way men looked at her in that gold dress. Even so, that knot of guilt was choking. Sentient to the fact that she was really the huntress and the men the prey, Rowan still didn’t quite feel safe from the lust in their eyes.

  She was rapidly deciding that she hated Las Vegas.

  As if the shame of being mistaken for a prostitute wasn’t bad enough, her conscience was prickling with the knowledge that she was actually a thief. Stealing was illegal anywhere. Worse, it was wrong. And she was stealing with the help of a real honest to God biker gang, the kind that probably had members in prison, sold drugs to kids, had drive-by shootings and did all the other horrible gang things she had only really ever read about in newspapers. Rowan hadn’t been in the presence of Bronson’s brawny “friends” more than three seconds before she realized that meeting any of them alone in an alley would be bad, bad news. Remembering Guzman’s bloodied face and fearful eyes, Rowan had to admit to herself that she had been the cause of his suffering. She was the reason behind the crime.

  All of these disjointed thoughts were swirling in Rowan’s bleary brain, but each anxious rabbit trail led to the same conclusion: this was what she had to do to save Lacy. It wasn’t fair that her sweet little sister should lose her life just because of poverty and neglect, and there wasn’t any legal way around Rowan’s own poverty and limitations.

  “This is it,” she muttered to herself. “This is what it is.”

  Rowan groaned, banging her forehead lightly against the shower wall in frustration. Not even a seemingly noble motivation like helping Lacy could ever justify her doing such terrible things. It didn’t make her choices ok, it didn’t absolve her of guilt.

  She had always believed in right and wrong. It was wrong for her father to drink like a fish and wrong for her parents to have kids in the first place when they obviously couldn’t care for them. It was right to work hard and do your best in everything, right to hate evil and try to help the weak. It was right to love and wrong to steal. Rowan believed all of that fully, even now, and dreaded that she would eventually have to face the consequences of her actions.

  Stepping out of the shower and wrapping a clean towel around her hair, Rowan piled it all in a turban on top of her head. Meeting her own gaze in the mirror, she took a deep breath and had a moment of truth. Could she really accept the consequences of her choices? Could she live with the reality of what she was becoming? Was she really willing to forfeit her values, her very soul, if that was the price to save Lacy?

  Looking at herself, she laughed softly. That decision was already made, and now she nodded and quietly sealed the deal with herself. No looking back, just forward.

  “Bring it on,” she muttered to her reflection.

  There was always a price to pay.

  “That you blondie?”

  A startled cry escaped her lips. She must have jumped three feet in the air as she spun to trace the source of the sound to the window over the shower. The frosted glass was cracked open a few inches, and through the steam from her shower she could just make out the dark outline of a man’s face peering in. Her heart hammered; that voice was unmistakable, and she felt goose bumps prickle up all over her bare skin.

  “What are you doing here?” She hissed, pulling the towel from her hair to shield her nude body. She fluttered a finger up to her lips, frantically motioning for quiet. She stood frozen for a moment, listening, and then sighed in relief. “Thank God you didn’t wake up Chitto, just gave me a heart attack.” Turning to the window, it dawned on her that her midnight visitor was enjoying his view a little too much, and her cheeks flushed angrily. “Don’t look at me! What is wrong with you? How did you even find me? What do you want?”

  Outside the window, Bronson chuckled in amusement but obligingly turned around. Modesty was something he rarely encountered in women anymore, and it tickled him. Quaint. At any rate, he had already seen Rowan completely naked and the pleasurable image wasn’t likely to leave his brain any time soon. Even with his back to her, he could picture the swelling curves of her breasts and the lean slope of her thighs with tormenting accuracy. It didn’t take a lot of effort to imagine his hands sliding across that taut skin.

  Raising the pitch of his voice, Bronson playfully mimicked Rowan’s tone. “Good to see you, Bronson. Lovely evening isn’t it? Thank you so much for following my sweet little stubborn ass all the way to this shitty neighborhood to protect me from the scary bad guys that might be following a piece like me home. I know you did it because you’re a good guy and you’re worried about me.” He flicked open his zippo and lit up. “That’s what you could have said, you know, if you bothered to be nice to me. But I guess that’s too much of a strain for you”

  Rowan’s skin flushed even pinker than it already was from the hot water, but she calmly reached for her underwear and began to dress. Gathering as much dignity as she could, she pretended not to notice his parody of her own rebuking words from earlier in the night. “I was under the impression we were finished for the night and that I could maybe—maybe—have a few hours of peace and quiet without a bunch of thugs watching my every move.”

  Bronson magnanimously decided to ignore the clear disparagement of his character and took a long, calming drag on his cigarette. “Look, I get it princess, you’re tired. But you can’t just slip off like that. It’s not safe. I told you, you’re mine now. For better or worse, until we’re done with our deal. Unfortunately that means your carefree days are temporarily at an end. Unsavory types are gonna take an interest in you, and I’m gonna protect my investment.”

  So that’s how he saw her—his investment? “What am I supposed to do, move in to your suite at the hotel?”

  Bronson wouldn’t mind one bit if she did, but he kept his opinion to himself. “Listen, I’m sorry to intrude on your Zen garden spa moment but you’re not done for the night. Get dressed and meet me outside in five minutes.”

  Rowan felt a strange swirl of sensation between her legs at the cocky summons, an unconscious reaction to his request. “Are you crazy?” she whispered. “I have to work at the casino tomorrow and there’s this thing called sleep. Maybe you’ve heard of it?”

  But he was gone, not even waiting for her to agree. Her cooperation was assumed.

  “Damn it, Ramsey.”

  Annoyed and resigned, Rowan viciously blotted her hair with the towel. Clearly, being a criminal was more of a full-time gig than she had anticipated. Tiptoeing out to the living room, she rummaged in the duffel bag that held her few possessions until she found a sweatshirt and jeans. Pausing, she briefly wondered what occasion she was supposed to be dressing for. A biker bonfire? Another john shake down? But then her lips hardened in grim determination. It was after midnight and she was going to be comfortable. If what Ramsey wanted was pretty arm candy for a biker party, he was just going to have to learn to live with disappointment.

  Rowan triumphantly and defiantly presented herself at the front porch a few moments later, but it turned out she was the one to be disappointed. Bronson indicated no reaction to her appearance, pleasurable or otherwise. Without a word, he handed her the spare motorcycle helmet that lived on the butt of his Dyna Wide Glide and started the engine.

  Gritting her teeth, Rowan had no choice but to climb on. The vibration of the bike between her legs surprised her, and she felt self-conscious as she wrapped her legs around Bronson’s hips. She grudgingly twined her arms around his shoulders, feeling a thrill at his close proximity.

  “OK?” he shouted over the engine.

  Rowan nodded, and they were off. Bronson wove elegantly through traffic, navigating through downtown Las Vegas and on to West Charleston Boulevard until they were narrowly skirting the fringes of Summerlin. With the blurry nightlights and warm wind howlin
g in around his bobber, Bronson was in his element. He could make the demons in his head go blank and empty under an airy static, relieved of the pressure to fight or entertain or pleasure anyone. Alone on the road there was no smuggling, no conversation, no ties to anyone. He could merge with metal and chrome and miles—disappear into the sunset, so to speak. Even so, he felt an odd vulnerability and intimacy tonight as he drove Rowan along the edge of the cookie-cutter, manicured town he had grown up in. Whitewashed tombs.

  Summerlin hadn’t changed much in Bronson’s lifetime, but he’d come to grips with the jarring reality of appearance versus experience in his personal journey. With Rowan’s arms around him, he felt a strange surge of emotion as certain memories surfaced. Finding used needles in his mom’s bathroom, finding her passed out in the bathtub. Crunching on cockroaches and garbage every morning on the kitchen floor with his bare feet. Shoplifting so he could cook for himself. Neighbors calling child services, his mother’s running mascara, silence.

  There was no way Rowan could know this, but he was showing her a glimpse of his private life on this ride, and the soft caress of her breath on his neck warmed him against a deep chill in the pit of his stomach. He smiled faintly.

  Swerving onto the 159, Blue Diamond Rd., the pair moved together as one unit until the smudgy glow of the city gave way to a wide inky blackness of desert sky. Rowan screwed her neck up, relishing the openness and connection she felt to the dark horizon. There were stars peppering the expanse above, and only silent silhouettes of cacti and stone for company. In every direction she looked, Rowan saw freedom and space.

  Rocks began to rise and clump together from the brushy expanse to their right, slowly building to caverns and hills. Before long Bronson Ramsey steered the bike off the highway and into the sheltered cocoon of an abandoned gravel parking lot off of a side road. When the engine died, there was only the sound of crickets to stir the silence. Rowan was loath to break the quiet spell of the desert night, though questions were circling in her mind.

  Kicking out the stand to balance his bike, Bronson shook his head out of his helmet and stepped away, stretching. Rowan followed his lead, letting her legs flow in quiet plies. There was a sign looming above them identifying trailheads for a hiking path matrix in Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. So that’s where they were. But…why?

  Bronson must have been able to feel Rowan’s curiosity burning through his back because without turning back to look at her, answered one of her unspoken questions.

  “I used to hitchhike out here as a kid,” he said, surveying the darkened, layered canyon walls that cupped their parking area. The only visible break in their shadowy majesty was the thin ribbon of moonlit highway gouging down their middle like a sparkling stream. “After school, there was nowhere really to go. I was sure as shit not staying with the latchkey program, figured that out after a week. So I’d ditch ‘em and bum rides out to Red Rock, follow tour groups around pretending to be one of the tourist families’ kids. No one bothered me.

  Seeing coyotes, cactuses, and those cliffs. It was the first taste I had of the world outside Vegas. I mean it’s not really out of Vegas, only half an hour, but it’s another planet out here. Nature. It’s vicious, epic, you know? You’ll have to come see it in the daylight, the colors. I’ll take you sometime. It’s…majestic.”

  Rowan cocked an eyebrow. Without seeing Bronson’s face, it was impossible read his features to gauge his mood. He’d never revealed anything personal before. “Wow. It’s not like you to use such big words.”

  He surprised her by laughing good-naturedly. “You don’t have to finish high school to appreciate Red Rock. Or be able to hold a conversation.”

  “I suppose you don’t have to have an education to be intelligent,” she allowed, “But the smart thing to do is to get one.”

  Bronson shrugged. “I had a different kind of education.”

  Rowan was surprised by his chattiness, and didn’t jinx it with questions. “I’m working on a masters degree,” she said. “Well, I was. I took a break to come here.”

  “Of course you’re a smarty-pants, I should have known. I can just see it. You wear glasses and shit? Braces as a kid?”

  Rowan kicked at the dirt. “Couldn’t afford braces. No glasses.”

  Bronson nodded, offered her a drag on his cigarette.

  “No thanks,” Rowan shook her head. “I don’t smoke.”

  “I was hitching rides out here when I met Axle, and the rest is history. He was cruising down Blue Diamond Drive with his son. We’re about the same age, me and Rex. They saw me, stopped to ask where I was going. I said ‘nomad.’ I was going nomad. Guess we were talking about nomads in social studies or something. I thought I was running away from home, looking for a caravan to travel with. He gave me one.”

  The wind teased at Rowan’s hair, shifting things. She realized suddenly that Bronson was trying to tell her something. “How old were you?”

  “Guess about ten.”

  “So young,” she sighed. “You didn’t have a chance.”

  “Sure, Axle gave me my chance.” The warmth and humility in his voice surprised Rowan. “Started me boxing, riding. What do you think I would have been otherwise? I’d have gone junkie like my mom, probably, in high school. Ended up burned out in a meth house somewhere. My point is, what you’re doing for your sister, it’s worth it. A kid needs a pack, needs someone looking out for them and keeping them alive. Not all of us have big sisters, but she does. She’s a lucky kid.”

  Stunned, Rowan wasn’t sure how to respond. She reached for a joke, hiding her embarrassment. “Well, it’s hard to imagine you with a big sister. You probably wouldn’t have listened to her.”

  Bronson crunched the butt of his cigarette under his boot, gritting his teeth as he thought of his mother. “Maybe not.”

  The sound of crickets swelled between them. Rowan was a little puzzled. “Did you bring me all this way to tell me all this?”

  “Nah,” said Bronson. “I brought you here to get a liver for your sister.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Rowan couldn’t believe her ears. She squinted at Bronson’s lips through the darkness as if her eyes could corroborate that Bronson’s words had really been said.

  “A liver,” she breathed, a bead of sweat breaking out on her forehead. “You mean tonight? Already? How?”

  “Shhh no, don’t worry. You’d think I was taking yours. Relax.” The shrill edge of panic and hope in Rowan’s voice brought Bronson’s arms instinctively around her trembling shoulders in an effort to comfort her. For some reason, this time she didn’t flinch from his embrace and stared into his face with childlike confusion. “No, we’re not gonna get the actual organ tonight dummy. We only made seventy grand today, which is a great start, actually, but not enough. This is just step number one. I needed you here tonight so you could tell the guy what he needs to know. To set it up right, make sure there are no miscommunications.”

  Rowan’s cheek was pressed against Bronson’s chest. She could feel his corded peck muscles even through the thick leather of his Ruiners’ cut, and closed her eyes. The smell of the road, sweat, and leather clung to him. She was so very tired, had come so far already today, that it felt right to rest against his brawny support.

  “Why are you helping me, Ramsey?”

  Bronson looked down at that damp tangle of hair, sharply aware of the sweet curl of Rowan’s body against his. There was no easy answer to that question. Why? Why was he helping her?

  “I don’t know, blondie. I must be nuts.”

  It wasn’t simply that she was a smart investment, a means to quietly amass his own savings and achieve his own ends. He’d been asking himself all damn day whether he would have done this business deal with another girl or if he’d have helped Rowan if she were a different person. None of his reactions had satisfied him, and he didn’t try to offer any real answers to her now. Instead, he ran his hand lightly into the hair at Rowan’s nape, gently caressing
her neck with his fingers, trusting his touch to do the talking.

  Piercing headlights and the groan of crunching gravel interrupted the tender moment. Rowan lifted her head but didn’t draw away from Bronson, turning her face to track the approaching vehicle. In the saturated whiteness of the high-beams, she looked angelic.

  “Don’t worry,” instructed Bronson. “Just answer his questions. I got you.”

  The newcomer killed his car engine, but kept the cruel high beams leveled straight at their eyes and beyond, casting eerie shadows against the sienna canyon walls. The driver and passenger doors opened almost simultaneously, but blinded as she was by the headlights, Rowan could barely see the silhouettes of the two large men who exited the car.

  “Ramsey,” rumbled a voice that matched the gravel and rock of its surroundings. “You said you wanted to make a down payment? What do you have and what do you need?”

  “Hey Rusty,” said Bronson, holding up both hands to show they were empty. “Money’s in my pocket.”

  “Rusty?” Rowan muttered. It struck her that Rusty was a rather disconcerting, unfortunate name for someone who traded in illegal organs. The moniker evoked in her mind impressions of rusty knives, clumsy stitches, bathtubs filled with ice. It probably wasn’t far from the truth. She winced, feeling a stab of guilt, but stepped back so that Bronson could access a thick white envelope that was zipped inside his vest. Arm extended, he moved toward the car.

  Rusty chuckled and leaned against the hood of his BMW, nonchalantly accepting both the envelope and the handshake Bronson offered. Rowan could only see that he was a lean and wiry black man, built like a swimmer, with a shaved head. Bizarrely incongruous with the time of night, his eyes were obscured behind sunglasses. His associate on the passenger side of the car was silent and mostly invisible, but Rowan could see that his arms hovered around his waist near the bulge of a gun.

  “Good to see you Ramsey,” said Rusty. “It’s been a long time brother.”