VICIOUS MEN: THE COMPLETE VICIOUS CITY COLLECTION

by Renard, Loki

  I open the door and find Blaze’s small, dark figure standing outside. Slick says she doesn’t know anything. I’m pretty damn sure she does, but I’m also equally as sure she’d never give Kitty up, not in a thousand years.

  “What do you want?”

  “Slick says Kitty is gone.” Blaze pretends not to know precisely what is happening.

  “Hm,” I murmur. I have less than no intention of discussing this with Blaze. It’s obvious that she will be relaying my every move and reaction to Kitty, who is doing this for attention and juvenile revenge and what she sees as rebellion against my misdeeds.

  “I told her not to go. So stupid.” She leans against the door and rests her head against the jamb. I look at her a little more intently. There is something different about her. What is it? The shape of her face has ever so subtly changed, like she gained a bit of weight, but not enough for it to show anywhere else. Marriage must be agreeing with her.

  “What did you want, Blaze?”

  “I don’t know. Nothing.” She shakes her head. “I thought maybe you might have found her. If you had you’d probably be keeping her in a shipping container or something I guess. You must be mad as hell.”

  I am mad as hell, but again, not a conversation I’m going to have with Blaze. I’m really not sure why she’s here. The days of her dropping in every two seconds are long over. She’s settled with Slick - as far as I can tell anyway.

  I wait for her to leave, but she doesn’t. She just stands there in the doorway, taking up space, not quite looking at me.

  “Why are you here, Blaze?”

  “No reason,” she says, pushing off the door frame.

  She’s about to walk away when I reach out, take her by the shoulder and stop her. Something tells me I need to have this conversation, whatever it is.

  “Come in.”

  She does as she’s told. She steps inside the door and smirks slightly. “You’ve never asked me in before.”

  “I don’t believe you’ve ever knocked.”

  “True, probably haven’t.”

  “You want something to drink?”

  “Wow, you’re catering now?”

  “Mhm. This one time.”

  She’s definitely not her usual self. Maybe she knows something about Kitty. I don’t get the feeling it is about Kitty though. There’s something else. I’m good at sensing when I’m in the presence of something hidden and important. It’s one of the abilities which has kept me alive this long.

  I get Blaze a coffee. She sits down and doesn’t drink it. It steams its life away next to her as she sits and fidgets. I ease myself into my favorite arm chair, cross one leg over the other and wait for her to start filling the silence between us.

  “This is weird,” she says. “Us sitting here like this. I should go.”

  “Sit down,” I say as her butt leaves the chair.

  She sits down again.

  “Tell me why you came.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Is it to do with Kitty?”

  She shakes her head infinitesimally.

  “What is it?”

  “You don’t care. I shouldn’t have come. I’m sorry.”

  Her butt leaves the chair again.

  “Sit. Down.”

  I’m getting this out of her, not because I’m going to force it, but because she wants to tell me. Whatever it is, it’s burning out of her, hanging in the silence between us.

  “Do you think Kitty is okay?”

  “I know she is.”

  Her lips twist. “You know exactly where she is, don’t you. I told her there’s no getting away from you. She’s being stupid. Trying to get revenge for what even? So you lied to her. So what? There’s worse things a man can do to a woman.”

  “Such as?”

  She presses her lips together tightly. I know she’s been abused. I know she’s developed a hard outer layer to deal with the brutalities of the world. And I also know she now has the best protector any woman could have in Slick. But if he could help her with this, she would have taken it to him.

  Blaze picks up her coffee and puts it down again. “If I try to leave now, you’re going to stop me, right?”

  I say nothing. She wants me to stop her. She’s changed.

  And, it occurs to me, so have I.

  Three months ago, there’s no way I would have sat down with Blaze and tried to talk to her. I wouldn’t have cared in the slightest. I’m not sure why I care now. Slick is no real friend of mine. He’s a CIA agent. We can never be true allies. We run on parallel lines for now and that’s it. Blaze is less than an acquaintance. She’s more an unfortunate side effect of having Kitty in my life.

  “Sit down,” I sigh as she makes another abortive attempt at standing up.

  “I have to tell someone,” she says, her voice soft and trembling. “You’re not the person to tell, but…”

  I stay silent. My words would only interrupt hers, even as she trails off.

  She takes a deep breath. “You might be the only person who can understand how fucked up my world is right now. I can’t tell Slick this.”

  “What can’t you tell him?”

  My instinct is that she has cheated. There’s a shiftiness to her gaze, a shame which suffuses her being. She looks miserable, and if she’s been unfaithful, I don’t blame her. Slick won’t take that well. He’s a traditional man. He won’t be angry, he’ll be hurt and disappointed and I know that’s worse for a girl like her.

  She wraps her arms around herself, protecting herself. But her gestures are different. Her palm splays across her lower stomach and I realize she’s holding more than herself. She’s holding something else. Someone else. Not cheating then, the other thing that can turn a woman’s life upside down.

  “You’re pregnant.”

  Blaze nods, just barely perceptibly. “Yes.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  Usually people get giddy over this sort of thing. Rush out and buy small clothes, tell everyone who cares - and a significant number of people who don’t. There’s something yet to come. Something she hasn’t told me, but something she’s going to.

  “It’s not Slick’s.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Slick and I weren’t really dating before we got married. I had, you know, some male friends”

  Including one who beat the shit out of her and almost killed her. I’m familiar.

  “We did stuff when we were bored,” she continues.

  Stuff when they were bored. Sure. That’s as good a reason as any to bring life into this overpopulated cesspit of a world. Casual entertainment. Why fucking not. It takes all my self control not to let my judgement show on my face.

  “I see.”

  Her face crumples. “He married me. He didn’t marry this baby.”

  “I should hope not. Highly illegal.”

  She shoots a look at me. “Are you seriously going to make a joke right now?”

  I can tell Blaze is on the verge of tears. A surge of sympathy I don’t understand makes me attempt some kind of comfort.

  “It’s going to be okay.”

  “It’s not. When I tell Slick, he’s going to… I don’t even know, and it doesn’t matter, because I can’t tell him. I’m going to,” she draws in a breath. “Take care of it.”

  She’s using the same language I use when I’m going to permanently deal with a problem. Somehow, hearing it out of her mouth is perverse. Her body though, so her right.

  “It’s not okay now. But it’s going to be. One day.” I try being comforting again. I’m not terribly successful.

  Tears are coursing down her face, unleashed with the telling of her secret. They’re silent. They come without sobbing. They stream from her eyes and they coat her skin and I can feel the misery inside her like a physical thing.

  “What did you do to him?” She asks the question in watery tones.

  “The ex? The one who hurt you?”

  I am guessing from her questio
n that he is also the one who fathered the life inside her. What a fucking mess.

  She nods.

  I get up and pour myself two fingers of whiskey, trying to work out how to phrase it in a way she’ll understand, and yet not incriminate myself. “Let’s just say, he is very much ex. I don’t see a reunion on this physical plane.”

  Blaze nods grimly. “That’s what I thought.”

  Blaze

  I shouldn’t have told Vicious any of this. I shouldn’t have told anyone. But I had to say the words, and my best friend is gone. I don’t know if she’s coming back. I don’t even know if she’s going to be able to come back. I don’t blame Vicious for being thoroughly pissed off at her. After all we’ve been through saving her from this and that, she runs away?

  She gave me shit for not wanting to go with her, but I couldn’t. I’d already seen the positive result. I’d already made the connection with the little life inside me - and I’d already realized there was no way in hell I could have this baby, and keep my husband who knew nothing about it.

  Shit. This is all too much. A few months ago, my biggest problem was what takeaway I wanted. I drank, fucked around, chilled out, enjoyed my life. Now I don’t recognize myself, or my body, or the life inside it, or…

  I start to sob, right there on Vicious’ couch.

  I’m surprised he hasn’t kicked me out, and I’m really surprised he hasn’t given me a lot more shit. He’s not exactly the confidante type.

  Then he surprises me. He puts his drink down, sits beside me, puts an arm around my shoulders and lets me cry on his impossibly expensive suit. He doesn’t say a thing. He doesn’t try to make it better. He just sits there, letting me cry the way I’ve needed to cry for so long now.

  I’ve had to hold them in and try to pretend everything is okay. It hasn’t been working. Slick often asks me what’s wrong. I tell him it’s nothing. He doesn’t believe me, and I want to tell him, but I know a man like him would never understand something like this. It would be the end of our marriage. The end of everything.

  “You’re going to tell me I need to tell Slick, right?” I wipe my eyes and look at Vicious.

  “I’m not going to tell you a thing, Blaze. Except that you’re welcome to come here when you need to.”

  I stare at him for a long moment. That’s not what I expected from him.

  “When did you get nice?”

  “I didn’t,” he says bluntly.

  “Yeah, you did.”

  He shakes his head and gestures to my drink. “Do you want something stronger?”

  “No. It’s okay,” I say. “I guess I should go home…”

  “Blaze?”

  Vicious

  Ah hell. Slick just walked in. He never knocks. Apparently, he views my apartment as an extension of his own personal domain.

  The look on his face when he sees Blaze curled up with me on the couch is priceless. If the occasion weren’t so sombre, I’d find it amusing.

  “What the hell is going on?” His voice is tense and terse.

  Blaze stiffens.

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing? Since when do you come here and snuggle with him of all people?”

  Slick is pissed. He’s trying to hide it behind that facade of his, but I can see his anger, and so can Blaze. It’s the last thing she needs right now. Usually I wouldn’t get involved in other people’s domestic disputes, but apparently I am already involved. For better or worse, their marriage is inextricably linked to the world I inhabit.

  “Slick. Come here. Now.”

  I get up and I grab him by his shirt. He’s too tall to really drag, but he lets me pull him into my office, the empty space I used to work in before Kitty came and I had to hide all my secrets away.

  “Why is she here?” He growls the question.

  “Because she needed to talk to someone.”

  “You’ve lost your girl, so you want to take mine, is that it?”

  This isn’t like him. He’s not one of these guys who flies off the handle because his girl talks to someone else. Things must be bad between him and Blaze. I’m not surprised, with the magnitude of the secret she’s hiding.

  “If I wanted to fuck Blaze, I could have the first time I met her,” I say. Not the most diplomatic comment, but it’s true. When we first met, she wanted me, but I only had eyes for Kitty and nothing about that has changed.

  “Making up for lost time?”

  “Don’t be bloody stupid.” I snap back at him. “You need to talk to your wife. I need to go find my girlfriend.”

  “Why is she here?”

  “She’s in trouble, Slick. The kind of trouble only you are going to be able to help her with.”

  “What is it? What did she tell you? Please. I know something is going on.”

  He’s gone from furious to pathetic in a matter of seconds, staring at me with those big blue eyes of his as if begging has ever worked on me.

  “Ordinarily, I’d tell you, but trust me, this is something you’re going to want to hear from your wife. One word of advice. Try to put that blue sky, white picket fence ideal you’ve got in your head behind you. Life’s messy.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means talk to your bloody wife.”

  Slick grabs me, and not by the arm. He takes both his fists, grabs my shirt and pushes me up against the wall. We’re back to angry, I guess.

  Last time we got physical was before the wedding. I didn’t think we’d get back to this place so easily. He must be desperate.

  “Tell me what I want to know, or I’ll have your partnership revoked and you’ll end up in a jail cell before the night is over. I am not damn well kidding, Arthur.”

  “This is a mistake, Slick. If you hear this from me, you will fuck up your marriage. Maybe forever.”

  “Blaze isn’t talking to me, and I’m not going one more damn day without knowing what’s going on. So you’re going to tell me.”

  “Get your hands off me. Before you lose them.”

  I’m calm. This isn’t really my problem. This is their business, and I have my own to attend to.

  Slick relents and lets me go. He’s not actually crazy, he’s just trying to get what he wants out of me. I can see the desperation in his eyes, but again, not my problem. I’m not a relationship councillor, I’m a criminal.

  “What if I tell you I know where Kitty is? Will you tell me then?”

  “If you bring her to me, I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. Until then, lips sealed. Get your wife. I have to go.”

  5

  Kitty

  Three days I’ve been on the run. That’s three days longer than I thought I’d manage to stay away from Vicious. I still have to enact the vengeance part of my plan, but that is coming. He’s had some time to stew, to wonder what is coming next. Today’s the day he finds out. He wants to trap me in his web of lies, he’s gonna pay for it. Oh he is going to fucking pay.

  The hardest thing about this whole revenge plot is missing the man I’m trying to get revenge on. I love Vicious. But I can’t let my love stop me from making sure he understands exactly who I really am. I might be younger than him, I might have been completely stupid in many respects, almost getting myself killed by Russians and what not, but I’m not going to be a puppet forever. Hell no. He’s going to be truthful with me, or there’s going to be hell to pay.

  Now that Chad’s hooked me up with a device to fuck with the tracker inside me, I have a lot more freedom. I can put some of the cash I appropriated from Vicious to better use. That means I’ve gone from the crappy motel to a nice hotel. No more roughing it for me. And no more mercy for Vicious. Shit is about to get real.

  I’m sitting on the second floor balcony overlooking the hotel lobby with a knock off ‘Spooge Bob’ Walkie Talkie I picked up at the ninety nine cent store. I was going to try to get one of those cute in-ear pieces, but they were well out of budget at the time. The walkie talkies were two bucks, and they’ll do the
job just fine.

  “You ready, Chad?” I whisper into Spooge’s gaping plastic mouth cavity.

  “Ready,” Chad crackles back.

  I dial my cheap burner phone. It only rings once before Vicious picks up.

  “Hello, Kitty.”

  How the hell does he know it’s me? This is a random number. I try not to be too freaked out. It’s probably a simple matter of deduction.

  “Hi honey, how are you doing?” I keep my tone casual and light.

  “Wonderful, darling,” he drawls down the line. I can hear the sinister steel in his voice. “Where are you?”

  Oh he’d like to know where I am. I can only imagine the shit he’s thinking he’d do to me if he found me.

  “If I tell you, will you be nice?”

  His chuckle is deep and dark. “I’m always nice, Kitty.”

  That’s not true. He’s never nice. Nice is not the reason I fell for him, and I know he doesn’t have anything nice in mind for me.

  “I’m at the Borgata. Why don’t you meet me at the bar and we’ll have a drink. Talk about old times.”

  “You went to Atlantic City?”

  “Sure, what better way to spend a weekend?”

  “Kitty, you better be there when I get there,” he growls down the line. “And you better have a damn good reason for everything you’ve been up to. I do not appreciate juvenile pranks. The glitter was not cute.”

  I cover my mouth with my hand and try not to snort with laughter in a way he can hear.

  “And you’re going to pay for that broken window.”

  “Mhm. Well I mean, I guess that’s fair.”

  “It’s more than fair. What happened to the chip? We can’t track you.”

  “I’ve been at a tinfoil convention. Maybe that messed with it?”

  “Kitty,” his voice is deep and resonant, and I feel the lower part of me quiver with anticipation. “You better be there when I get there. If you make me chase you, it’s going to be even worse.”

  “Don’t threaten me, Arthur.” There’s more than a little snappiness in my voice. “I don’t have to tell you where I am. I don’t have to come back. Don’t look a gift kitty in the mouth.”