Riding Dirty

by Abriella Blake

  Stand, Bronson!

  How could he save Rowan when he couldn’t save himself? His pulse plummeted…his lips tried to form her name. Her face was everywhere, worried, blue sphinx eyes blinking at him from a frozen form in the front row.

  “Bronson Ramsey, winner by knockout!”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Lola clacked manicured fingernails daintily over the lid of a small pill bottle. It had cost four dollars at the drug store, but it was worth its weight in gold. Guards’ footsteps shuffled outside the locker room door, and she leapt to smiling animation. Ralph and Carmine, her new friends from the nights of the heist, half-dragged, half-led a slumping Bronson to a chair and tossed his body carelessly.

  “It’s ok guys, you can take a walk and leave him with me.” Lola blew them both a kiss as they shut the door behind them, and then turned to triumph over her prize. This plan had been in the works for weeks, almost as soon as she had been assigned to ‘distract’ Bronson’s watchdogs. She’d coaxed and teased information out of them, and out of Bronson too—only he’d never admit it. Lola knew what was up with the Ruiners and the Auditores, and she was the first to find out when a john had ratted on them.

  “Surprised?” She giggled at Bronson.

  The arrhythmia of his heart was freaking him out, making him dizzy and short of breath, and Bronson had scarcely noticed the dark figure of the woman leaning against the massage table. Sucking in a long breath of air, Bronson rolled his eyes up to look at her, but could spare no energy to respond. His brain was an opaque soup at this point, but the sight of Lola’s self-satisfied leer triggered an inevitable conclusion.

  Hell truly hath no fury like a biker bitch scorned.

  “Don’t look at me like that baby,” she whined. “You got it wrong! I didn’t rat you out. It was Kang. I’d never do that to you honey! I just capitalized on the situation.”

  “Kang…doesn’t…who I am,” Bronson forced out. “Couldn’t be…only one.”

  “Well,” Lola eased herself up on to the table, swinging a leg and assuming a chatty, playful air. This was fun! She thought of it as foreplay, savoring each second that Bronson worsened. He’d need her before long. “That’s a good point, actually, and you’re probably right. But Lump A and Lump B, your bodyguard friends, told me they were looking for a gang running an entrapment scheme in their casinos with a cracker dude and a blonde chick in charge. It was a matter of time, baby, before they hunted you down and bang! Dead. If we’d waited, I wouldn’t have been able to save you.”

  A thin brittle laugh bubbled up through Bronson’s dry throat. “Save me? Lola, you.” He drew a deep breath, crushing through the pain. “You murdered me.”

  “No baby, I’d never do that!” In a hot second she was sitting on his lap, running her fingers through his hair and kissing his cheek. “I got the anecdote right there. I told you I made a deal! Just listen and see how smart your woman is. Because I am your woman now, baby. See? That’s how it works. I come through for you so you’re mine. Blondie got you in this mess, baby, you’ve been thinking with your dick. But I forgive you, and I’m getting you out of trouble. I told you, we got a deal. All you have to do is give her up. I give Dolce up too, and we’re square with Joey.”

  Bronson’s face crinkled. That didn’t make any sense. His guess was Joey was playing Lola, and she was dumb enough to fall for it. One thing stood out to him, one word he needed.

  Anecdote? Leave it to Lola to screw up everything. “Antidote? Give it to me, Lola.”

  “Listen first, you have to agree.”

  “Give it to me!” Bronson tried to stand, but his legs buckled under Lola’s and he collapsed back to his seat, gasping.

  “Poor baby.” Lola stroked his hair. “Let me make you feel better.”

  She held his limp face between her hands and kissed his mouth with her eyes open, laughing at his outrage. Power was finally hers! She moaned in the exultation of this delicious moment, appreciating the sensation of being able to do literally whatever she wanted to him. She’d waited for this as long as they’d known each other, ever since his stupid grin first made her panties wet.

  “You’re not at your best huh?” Lola chuckled. “You better let me do the thinking for us.”

  She spread her legs around his waist, straddling him, rubbing her breasts against his bare chest and curving her lips over to his ear. Her hand slid down between his legs, rubbing his package over the thin barrier of his wrestling shorts. Bronson could barely raise his arms to push her away, and when he tried she only batted his hands away and laughed before continuing her unwanted attentions, stroking him and licking his face.

  “Listen baby,” she said. “All we have to do is give them Rowan and Dolce and they’ll let us go. An exchange! So simple right? They just need Ruiners blood is all, it doesn’t matter whose. I’ll have you all better and free of that bitch, in…” she checked her watch. “Ten minutes. Tops. Which gives me time to go down on you, first.”

  “You crazy,” Bronson couldn’t finish the curse, jolted by a violent bang in his chest. He winced, realizing how powerless he was to stop whatever stupid scheme Lola had in the works. “They won’t…we’re dead…”

  “Bronson!”

  The strangled cry had come from behind them, at the doorway, and Bronson didn’t need to look to Lola’s cruel smirk to confirm the source of that familiar voice.

  “Rowan,” he wheezed, black spots swimming in his vision. She had to run. It was too dangerous. He couldn’t let Joey win. “Get out of here!” While you still can…

  Lola’s nemesis oscillated in the doorway, ripped apart by the sight of her lover caught in the arms of another woman. “You heard him guera,” Lola laughed, rolling her hips explicitly over Bronson’s lap and wrapping her arms around his shoulders. “He doesn’t want you here, he’s had enough of your pasty ass. He needs a real woman.”

  Rowan didn’t exactly take the time to think or process what she was seeing. The bare legs and arms of Lola, the naked sweaty back of Bronson, these superseded all concerns about the stupid text message and worry for safety she had felt only moments ago. The betrayal and hurt she experienced in this painful second twisted together and dethroned her reason.

  A primal rage Rowan didn’t realize slept inside her sprang awake, contorting her body into a maelstrom of fury. She snarled, teeth flashing. Without intention or consciousness, she flung herself into the room and found her hands violently wringing at Lola’s neck.

  “Get off him!”

  Incredible vim and force hit Lola from behind, ripping her off of Bronson’s body and backward in a swirl of confusion. Lola screeched as a powerful tug on her hair dragged her to the floor. Her need to fight back kicked in before she could even get her bearings.

  “You bitch! I’ll cut you!” Lola screamed and scratched her long nails over her head, reaching for anything, and finally sinking them in to Rowan’s arms. Hair and fists and legs shot every which way, curves and skin melding together to the soundtrack of angry female grunts and howls.

  Bronson was bitterly aware of the irony that he couldn’t enjoy witnessing most men’s wet dream of an epic titty smack down. The sweaty thighs, the bouncing breasts, the screams. There was no time, no way. His perceptions were foggy and their confused movements made him queasy, and all the time in the background he felt the erratic thumping and silence of his heartbeat. While the girls rolled in a hot heap on the floor, he tried to focus his eyes in a fuzzy sweep around the room. Antidote…antidote…Lola had to have it with her, here, somewhere!

  Searching the room with his eyes, Bronson asked himself what was out of place: walls, wood panels, carpet, a man with a gun standing in the doorway. It all looked normal enough aside from the weaving distortion of his mental confusion.

  Wait a second. Bronson blinked. Man with a gun in the doorway?

  “Perfect,” he muttered.

  “Wow, just in time for the private show I see.”

  Joey Auditore’s smooth baritone cut
through the charged air and Rowan jerked to a halt bolt upright, her thighs still spread in a straddle over Lola’s body. Her blood ran cold at the sight of an unblinking barrel of an M15 leveled at her head. Rowan gulped. There was nowhere to hide. Instinctively, she raised her arms over her head in a gesture of surrender.

  Lola seized the opportunity to punch Rowan in the face, straight to the nose. With a cry and spurt of blood, Rowan fell backward. Lola wriggled up to her feet and kicked the blonde in the ribs, causing a ripple of laughter from Joey.

  “How’s everybody feeling?” He asked, wading closer. “Shitty, I hope, after that stunt you pulled. What a punch, Ramsey! You sure aren’t the UFC champ for nothing I guess. Impressed the shit out of me, what with that little cocktail we gave you this afternoon. Funny thing about that, I seem to recall telling you to lose. I took precautions to ensure that you’d lose. So how did you fucking win, huh? How the hell?”

  Joey was standing in front of Bronson now, and smacked his face.

  “You had to fuck up my money,” he whispered. “You biker piece of shit. Fuck. You. Now you gotta die, and your little slut too.” Joey cocked the gun and slowly lowered it at Bronson’s head. “Say goodnight.”

  “No!”

  Rowan didn’t know what she was doing as she propelled herself up at Joey, everything in the room fading. All she could see was the gun and Bronson, and all she knew was she had to get between them. But Lola was faster, wilder, angry at the interruption of her perfect plans. She lunged at Rowan’s legs and bit with her teeth. Rowan tripped, thudding against Joey’s side awkwardly and only barely bumping him off his stance.

  The whole sequence gave Bronson just enough time to rally himself. With a painful battle cry he rocketed himself up from the chair, one hand reaching for Joey’s rifle and the other jabbing in a hook at the side of his head. Joey buckled, his trigger finger convulsing and sending a burst of bullets randomly into the air. One projectile barely grazed Bronson’s arm, drawing blood but not penetrating his flesh. The heat of the pain temporarily cleared Bronson’s mind and sent adrenaline pumping through his ruined body, winning him clarity. The men stumbled back, locked together over the rifle like dancing bears, clutching and reeling and crashing into the massage table. Their girth and violence knocked over the solid steel rectangle.

  “I’ll crush you, whore!” Lola shoved Rowan at the table, using her downward momentum to gain an advantage over her. Grabbing Rowan by her hair, Lola slammed her head against the edge. Rowan screamed with pain, struggling to push away from Lola’s grasp.

  “Stop!” Rowan pleaded.

  “You can’t touch him if you’re dead!”

  Lola had her in her clutches, and used her bodyweight to lift her up and slam her head against the table a second time, now with more force and leverage. The pain was blinding, cruel, and lethal. Rowan could taste the coldness of metal in her mouth, feel the cold of metal in her hand. For a moment blackness surged over her and a high buzz filled her ears. She floated on the cusp of a dark quiet wave. It would be so easy to drift away.

  “No!”

  Not like this. It couldn’t end like this. Too much was at stake. Lacy…Bronson…

  Rowan couldn’t let go now. Lola lifted her head again, drawing an excruciated whimper from Rowan. Blood was running into her eyes and death into her mind.

  This was her last chance. The cold steel of Rowan’s Beretta Nano pressed into her hand. Through bleary eyes and blinding pain she took a breath, aimed, and fired.

  In the savage silence that followed, Lola’s fingers loosened in Rowan’s hair, her expression changing. Dazed, Lola looked down at her left breast. She raised her hand to inspect the wet sticky circle that was seeping through her shirt. Collapsing to the floor, Lola stared at her bloodstained fingers with disbelief.

  “It was supposed to be you,” she whispered, turning hateful eyes on Rowan. “Bitch.”

  Rowan watched with awe, fear, and eerie composure as Lola convulsed, faltered, and died. The young, still corpse beside her on the ground made her shiver, but she couldn’t look away even as the blood soaked in a wide ring in the carpet, staining her shorts.

  Was that another gunshot, or was she just in shock, hearing echoes? Shaking herself, Rowan clutched her Beretta close to her chest and used the table for balance, rocking gingerly to her feet. The pain in her head throbbed, but the adrenaline blasting through her veins rendered her preternaturally calm.

  Both of the men were lying still on the ground, groaning, the rifle discarded between them. So it definitely had been a gunshot, but who shot whom? She had to know.

  “Bronson?” Rowan’s voice sounded out of place. “Please, God…” He was panting and sweating. Rowan rolled him over, her hands sliding quickly in a desperate search over his body. No holes! Her head shot up, surveying Joey from afar. His cold predatory eyes challenged her.

  “He won’t last long,” wheezed Joey. “Neither will you.”

  Joey was slumped against the wall, lying bizarrely still, and as she studied him Rowan could see blood pumping from a wound on his thigh. It looked like a bullet had hit an artery. Blood spurted up in a rhythmic fountain, dark and thick.

  “Looks like you should be more worried about number one,” said Rowan.

  Her mind was brilliantly clear. There was little time for games. Any second now Joey’s hoods would rematerialize from wherever they had disappeared to, and if she didn’t act fast she would lose any chance of escape. Rowan paced swiftly over to Joey and without further ceremony brought the butt of her Beretta down on the back of his head with a crack, knocking him unconscious.

  A small, hard voice in her mind told her she should just kill him now. That he’d never forget. Instead she ripped Joey’s shirt over his head, twisting it into a makeshift rope and tying the tightest tourniquet she could manage around his bleeding leg. When she was satisfied that Joey was both out of danger and unable to be dangerous for the time being, Rowan extracted her cell-phone from her back pocket and rapidly dialed. There was an immediate answer and she sighed in relief.

  “Chitto! I need you. Come to Bronson’s locker to the right of the arena, and have the Bronco close by. We have a heavy load.”

  Bronson’s eyes fluttered open, a small groan escaping his cracked lips. His mouth was so dry that forming a coherent sound actually hurt. Rowan saw him straining and rushed over to him, tenderly smoothing damp curly hair back from his forehead. Whatever suspicions she had when she saw him under Lola were forgotten, wiped out by an engulfing protective impulse.

  “I’ll get you out of here alive,” Rowan whispered, her voice firm. “I promise.” Bronson was trying to say something and she leaned in closer. She couldn’t make sense of it. “Typo?”

  “Type-O,” he repeated. “Lola…type-o blood. I know…long story, we dated. Universal donor. Your sister.”

  Rowan’s brain was so preoccupied with escape and survival that it took her a second to catch up with Bronson’s train of thought. Bronson had seen Lola die and somehow leapt to thoughts of saving Lacy. Rowan sat up, her eyes stinging with confused tears. How could he possibly remember something like that at a moment like this, when his own life was dimming?

  “Take her, get out of here.”

  “I can’t,” said Rowan firmly. “Not without you.”

  “Go,” he said. “They want me, not you.”

  “But I want you more.” Rowan bent her head and kissed him, tears rolling down her nose and onto Bronson’s face. She could feel how faint his breath was, how lax the muscles. “Bronson, what did they do to you? How can I fix it?”

  His hand fluttered, pointing. “Antidote.”

  “Where?” Frantically, she crawled in the direction his hand pointed. Through the blood and tears, she saw a small bottle and snatched it, peering at the label. “Potassium? These are vitamins.”

  “Antidote…” Bronson repeated.

  No time to question it anymore. She brought the bottle back to Bronson’s side and heaved his head u
p, peering at the bottle. “How many?”

  “Fuck, all.”

  She shook out a small handful. “Let’s start with a couple.” Cupping her hand to his lips, she let the vitamin capsules fall back into his mouth. Bronson struggled to swallow, and Rowan bounced up again to find water. Nothing…nothing…There was a half-empty bottle of Gatorade on top of the row of lockers and she brought it back to Bronson’s lips gratefully.

  The door banged open. Rowan’s Beretta was back in her hands and aimed in a flash, but she breathed a sigh of relief and tucked it away in her pocket. “Chitto! Help me lift him. We need to get him out of here.”

  With a backward glance at the hall, Chitto bounded into the room. “Holy shit hoktuce.” His troubled eyes riveted on Lola’s still body. “Dead?”

  Rowan stood, mentally calculating the best way to get everybody to the car. “She is, he’s not. We don’t have much time Chitto. Help me with Bronson.”

  “Lola…” Bronson rasped. His dark, pragmatic gaze bore into Rowan and she felt chills ripple down her neck. “Lola too.”

  Lola was dead because of her. Rowan had killed a woman. The truth and violence of it smacked Rowan like a cold wind, but this was no safe harbor to feel the storm of feelings that would certainly come. Precision and numbness washed through Rowan’s insides, cleansing her temporarily. She’d have to face this sometime, but not now.

  “Alright.” Rowan sounded small. “Uh…how do we do this Chitto?”

  Chitto’s training kicked in as soon as he understood the situation, the many fast moves and hurried rescues of his past coming back to him. The soldier in him was ready to command and solve. “Bronson, can you stand?” When he grunted assent, Chitto pulled Bronson’s arm over his shoulder and used his legs to propel them both upright. Leaning Bronson against the wall for support, Chitto locked straightforward eyes with Rowan. “Rowan, you will help Bronson walk out of here. I will carry the girl and help you two if I have to. The Bronco is not far and the Ruiners have taken over an exit we can use. Let’s go.”