by April Lust
Taking a deep breath, I nodded once. “All right. Fine. What’s Blade up to?”
Relieved to change the topic, Bills answered, “Not the kind of stuff we need to be into, boss.”
“What kind of stuff?”
Shaking his head, Bills said, “He’s stealing girls, boss. Don’t care much about their ages or where they’re from. He snags them off the street or steals them outright if the catch is worth it.”
I frowned, trying to understand what he was saying. “Stealing girls? For what?” I asked, but as soon as the question was out of my mouth I knew the answer. I winced as I heard Bills confirm it.
“Prostitution, porn. Twisted fucking stuff, boss. The kind of shit that—” Bills shuddered, looking away. “He hasn’t picked up any lately. At least, he hasn’t told me if he has, but I’ve seen some of the footage. They cry, Max. They cry and fight back and struggle, but they never win. Sometimes they’re drugged; sometimes they’re awake. And they’re young. So fucking young. If they’re eighteen, I’m fucking ancient.”
A cold rush of fear washed through me. His words painted a picture so grotesque that all I wanted to do was pour bleach across my mind and scrape away the memories. But I knew wasn’t possible. The thoughts would be there forever.
Anger surged through me and I wanted suddenly to destroy something. Preferably Blade’s face, but I’d take just about anything at that point. It took everything I had in me to shove the urge down and continue to look at Bills.
This was the one thing I never wanted to do. Fuck the rest. Gun running, drug dealing, boosting cars. All of it was minor things compared to this one great evil. Human trafficking. I’d suspected the Slayers of it, heard the rumors, but I’d never really let myself think about it. I told myself this wasn’t the thing I’d get involved with, but I’d been lying. I’d convinced myself it was them, not me, but there was no damn difference.
None at all.
“Damnit!” I said, slamming my hand down on the table and spilling some of my beer.
Bills started to say something, but before he could get it out a fit of coughing overtook him. I gave him a minute to compose himself, but realized quickly he was in a bad way. He used a napkin to cover his mouth, but after a moment, he pulled it away to reveal the napkin was covered in blood.
“What’s going on?” I asked him, and this time I wasn’t talking about Blade.
With a heavy sigh he said, “I’ve got cancer, Max. I’m…I’m dying. The doctor gave me three months.”
I told him we would deal with that later, as friends, but there was something inside me that told me there wouldn’t be anything to deal with. I had a feeling Bills was dead, no matter what I did.
Chapter 17
Lucy
Max was gone for a week and I spent all of it stressing out about him. Would he come back? Would he be alive? Would someone hurt him? He hadn’t told me what he was doing, but I knew it was business related.
I couldn’t spend my week worrying about it, though; that would eat me up. So instead I spent it with Becky and with my mom.
My mom wasn’t doing so well these days. Her health was deteriorating quickly, no matter what we seemed to do. Her leg was worse, but that wasn’t all of it. There were other things going on—something with her breathing, something with her aches and pains, something going on inside that we just couldn’t see—so we went to the doctor again.
He saw a lot of her these days.
Ultimately, he gave me a little hope in a couple of different ways. Get her some fresh air. Move her out of the city; it’s eating her up.
Those words were my salvation, not just because they might save my mom, but because they might save me, too. I could get her out of the city and, by extension, have a damn good reason to take myself out of it, too.
After all, she couldn’t go alone, right?
There was only one problem with the brilliant plan: my mom. She wouldn’t do it.
“I like it here,” she told me firmly for the millionth time that week. Max would be home tomorrow and if I wanted to ask him for the cabin—because what was the point of living out in the woods if you didn’t have a cabin?— I’d need to have a solid reason to be convincing.
I rolled my eyes at her. “You’re being ridiculous,” I told her again. “You heard what the doctor said.”
She waved me off. “Nonsense. I’ve lived in this city my whole damn life! I’m not giving it up now over some stupid doctor.”
“Right. Don’t listen to the PhD.”
She only glared at me and didn’t answer.
I sighed. “What if I moved out there?” I asked suddenly, a plan forming in my mind. “Then you could keep your place in the city, but you could come up on weekends. The fresh air would be good for you, but you wouldn’t have to give anything up.”
My mother studied me suspiciously. She knew there was something going on, but couldn’t quite figure out what. Which was good; I didn’t want her to know the thoughts I’d been having about leaving lately. I knew she didn’t want to go; this was her home.
“What’s your angle?” she demanded with narrowed eyes.
I rolled my eyes again. “No angle. I get a vacation from all…this,” I gestured to the house, “and you get a little taste of good health.”
She frowned at me, not entirely convinced, but, ultimately, she agreed to it. She couldn’t think of why she shouldn’t.
When Max got home the next day, I asked him.
“Sure. I’ve got the money.”
I didn’t ask how much or where the money had come from, because I needed this to work. It had to.
Chapter 18
Max
If I’d known how eager Lucy was for a cabin, I’d have bought her one years ago. We had the money. Maybe it had been tighter than usual lately, but my money wasn’t all tied up in the club. I had my own set aside and I’d been saving it for a rainy day.
The haunted look in Lucy’s eyes seemed pretty damn rainy to me.
She had the place picked out within days of asking me for it. She’d probably been looking for longer than that, waiting to ask me until she had a good argument. I never mentioned to her that she didn’t need a good argument. It would have been my pleasure to give it to her no matter what.
I was headed there now, going to meet her as she finished up the paperwork with the place, and as I drove towards the cabin, I decided I liked the idea. Not just because it was something Lucy really wanted, but because it was a good idea. A place in the hills, away from the streets and the city and the crime. A place where I could step away from the club for a minute and just be the guy Lucy needed.
Sounded damn near perfect.
As I drove, I considered the other things an isolated cabin might be good for. I thought of Lucy standing in the kitchen naked, unconcerned with who might be looking through the window, because there was no one. Just trees and forest. I thought of how I could come up behind her and fondle her breasts, pinching her nipples. I could slide my hands lower, too, slipping over her slim waist and belly until I found her clean-shaven mound. My hands could dip lower and slide between her thighs to find that sweet spot between her lips.
And not just that. I could sit her on the porch without a care and let her sunbathe naked. I could fondle her until I was so damn hard that it hurt.
I could fuck her on the porch if I wanted. I could drive myself inside her over and over again, each time receiving a piercing scream of pleasure that echoed through the trees, because dammit no one would hear it.
Our lovemaking had always resulted in the kind of animalistic sounds that made our neighbors call in noise complaints and scared people into thinking I was murdering her.
But she loved every minute of it, and I did, too.
Out here, we could do that and no one would question or complain about it. I could have as much of her as I wanted.
The thought made me harden and my balls ache. It caused the rest of the ride there to be a little uncomfortable, bu
t I didn’t really care. I’d ride as hard and as far as I had to with thoughts of Lucy in my head to reach her.
I pulled up the long driveway to the place not too much later. It was quiet and peaceful, I supposed, but there was something off about the whole thing. Not the cabin itself, but the way the air felt around it. I couldn’t say what it was until I stepped up to the porch and saw the man leaning there against the frame.
“What took you so long?”
I did a quick inventory of him, but I didn’t need to. I knew who he was. He wore the jacket marked with the Slayers’ logo, and I recognized him already as one of the men Blade had brought to the negotiations the other day. One of Blade’s lieutenants.
Frowning, I said, “What are you doing here?” My hand had already begun to move around my back. I didn’t have to ask to know something was wrong. I desperately wanted to look around to find Lucy, but I didn’t dare take my eyes from the immediate threat right in front of me. Getting myself killed wouldn’t do her any good.
The man grinned broadly, and for a second I thought he might be related to Blade with that same expression on his face. “I’m just here to give you a friendly message. You’d better start running girls, Riley, if you ever want to see your pretty little girlfriend again.” He took a step off the porch, closer to me. “Oh, and if you say no, I should tell you that you might see her after all. In a movie. The first little porn shoot Blade decides to film, staring none other than the Preacher’s Daughter. I’d watch that, wouldn’t you?”
He was still grinning when I pulled the gun and put a bullet in his head.
Chapter 19
Lucy
My head hurt. It throbbed and pulsed, the headache I was feeling worse than any hangover I’d had before in my life. I brought my hand up to the side of my head, pressing against it as though I might be able to ease some of the throbbing, but it was useless. It went on silently, pressure building in my ears and my sinuses.
I swallowed heavily, then forced myself to sit up. The throbbing got worse, but I did my best to push it aside and ignore it.
Taking a steadying breath, I looked around.
Where am I?
I didn’t recognize the place. It was dark and small, and with a quickening of my breath I realized there were bars surrounding me. I tried not to panic, but it was near to impossible. A quick search revealed the bars definitely had me completely caged in and the only door to them I spotted was closed.
How did I get here?
The thought was followed by memories of the cabin. It had been perfect, so beautiful my heart almost hurt. Everything I could have asked for and so much more. It was bigger than our place in the city, but not by much. There was a mud room, which added to the square footage, but it was mostly just this room in the back with tiling, a drain, and a haphazard shower. There wasn’t a garage, which I knew would irk Max, but he’d get used to it. Or maybe he’d get creative and build his own.
I knew my mother would love it. She was so reluctant to leave the city, but once she saw the place, I just knew she’d want to spend all her time there. The prospect of it elated me.
Of course, it wasn’t officially mine yet, but that was why I was there. The realtor had agreed for us to meet there to sign the remaining papers so we could get it taken care of and I could get a moment to look around. I hadn’t seen it in person before, having found it online.
I was so eager to find a place since Max had said yes that I didn’t want to risk him changing his mind, so I did it the fastest way I knew how.
The plan had been a means to an end at the time, but I couldn’t have imagined that I would fall in love with the place, too. But I had. It was so perfect. I waited a long time to meet the realtor, but they never showed. Finally, I had to call her on my cell. I tried her twice before I got ahold of her.
“Where are you?” I asked her, still smiling as I walked through the house for the thousandth time now. “Am I just really early?”
My question seemed to have confused her. “Ms. Gilles? I’m not quite sure what you mean. I wasn’t aware we had an appointment?”
I had frowned as I answered, “Of course we do. I called you yesterday to finish the paperwork…”
She apologized and told me she must not have gotten the message and promptly blamed her new and inept secretary. She explained that she couldn’t meet me then, but would make room sometime next week.
I agreed and we hung up, but I was disappointed that we couldn’t finish things right then. I was just about to head back out when I felt a hand clamp over my mouth. I didn’t even have the time to think about it, much less scream, before I grew dizzy. The room went black, and I remembered falling, but never hitting the ground.
And then I woke up here.
If I hadn’t been panicked before, I definitely was now. It took everything I had to keep from hyperventilating. Where was I? What happened? Whose hand had that been, and why did they do it?
Questions I didn’t have answers for. I got up from the cot I had been lying on and went hurriedly to the door. I tried it, but I knew before my hands wrapped around it that it was a lost cause. It didn’t budge; locked.
Doing my best to stay calm, I looked around, debating whether I should cry out for help. The thought disintegrated when I saw a figure in the corner on the other side of the bars. He was tall with a wicked, mad-looking smile. Scars crisscrossed his face, marring his features and making him look like Frankenstein’s monster.
He was terrifying, and it was all the worse because I knew who he was and what that meant.
I wasn’t getting out of there, not on my own. My only hope was Max, but there wasn’t a lot of hope in that because I realized the only way Max was going to get me out was to break me out—or to give this man whatever he wanted.
I tried not to think what Blade wanted.
Chapter 20
Max
I shoved down the panic burning inside of me and tried to think. I had a dead man on the porch, one of Blade’s boys, a missing girlfriend, and a lieutenant who swore up and down that the Slayers were running girls.
Things added up, but not in the way I wanted them to.
Anger swelled within my chest and I gritted my teeth so hard that I was willing to bet an ounce of pressure more, and I’d start breaking a few of them.
I sucked in a harsh breath, forced it out, and made myself be calm. I had to be calm.
I reached for my cell phone and started dialing as I turned away from the little cabin that Lucy had been so in love with. It rang twice before there was a click as someone picked up.
“Yeah, boss?” It was Bills. A week ago, I would have called him my biggest liability. I would have thought calling him was the biggest mistake I could have made in this situation and it probably would have cost me my life. Now, I knew better. He was one of the few men I knew I could trust.
“I need you to take care of something for me.”
The body had to go. I didn’t have any problems killing the sorry sack of shit. He threatened my girl and that was a line no one got to cross. But fact of the matter was, he was a body. And if the police started snooping around and found a dead man in connection with me, it didn’t matter what I said or did, I’d get my ass in a sling. Prison was a very real option.
I didn’t need to give the police any reason to start looking at me.
“You name it.”
“You know cabin, the one Lucy was looking at?” I asked Bills as I walked towards my bike. Even as I spoke, my mind was whirling through necessities. What did I need to do? I needed to take care of the body. That was the first step, because me being in prison wasn’t going to do Lucy any good. The second step was a little less clear. I needed to get Lucy back, but going directly to the Slayers wasn’t a wise choice. They would be expecting me, but they probably had some clue that I wouldn’t take this lying down.
Start running girls.
I gripped the phone tightly in my hand, on the verge of breaking the hard plastic and
all the electronic pieces within it.
Bills hesitated, but ultimately said, “Yeah, I know about it.”
“You got an address?” I asked him.
Suddenly, he sounded nervous. “Look, boss, I know I came clean about working in with the Slayers, but I didn’t give them anything. I swear it. I’d never do anything that might hurt Lucy.”
I stopped walking. For a long moment, I didn’t say anything. I hadn’t even jumped to that conclusion, that maybe Bills had been the one to give the Slayers the location of the cabin. Now that I thought about it, though, it would make sense. For a split second, I could even see it. Bills meeting with those asshole Slayers, talking, laughing, because what else could he do? And then he would keep talking, only now he’d be telling them important things. Essential things.
