Sin & Savage

by Anna Mara

  “Unless he had to leave in a hurry and thought he’d be coming back soon?”

  Nana’s eyes widened with fear. “Oh Tori, something bad’s happened to him, I know it!” she whined before racing into the living room. “Joe, are you here? Joe?” she shouted, but no one answered her frantic call.

  For the next 15 minutes, the women scoured the entire bungalow. According to Nana, everything seemed to be in its proper place. She knew this because Joe had once walked her through his entire home with his Skype and laptop computer, showing her what each of the rooms looked like.

  Tori strode back into the living room and her searching eyes took another long look around. Where was he? What had happened to Joe Sorelli?

  When she’d first walked in, she had expected to find his clothes gone along with his valuables. But everything was still here. From the looks of this place, it was obvious that he’d left, intending to come back but never had.

  Nana’s eyes misted over. “Where is he, Tori?” she cried, as she sank onto the couch. “My wonderful, precious, loving Joe—oh, where are you, my darling?” She fished inside her purse for a tissue to dab at her wet eyes before nervously lighting up a cigarette.

  “Nana, I think it’s time we called the police.” Tori moved towards the portable phone set on the coffee table. As she picked up the receiver, her eyes were suddenly drawn to the notepad beside the telephone cradle. There was a name written on it and a phone number. She held the piece of paper up to her grandmother. “Do you know a Delilah?”

  The older woman slowly lowered her cigarette from her lips and in an instant, her shrewd eyes narrowed sharply. Snatching the paper from Tori’s hand, she stared at it hard for a second. Suddenly her voice rose with fury. “Delilah? Delilah? Who the fuck is Delilah?” she screeched, her blonde, bouffant hairstyle seeming to grow a couple of inches higher.

  A knowing smile snaked across Tori’s lips. Bingo! It was obvious who Delilah was. It was another one of Joe Sorelli’s girlfriends, of course—probably where he was hiding out right now after he’d just stolen all of her Nana’s money. Maybe they had even planned the theft together?

  She turned to her grandmother, who had begun to pace furiously around the room. “Nana, let’s go find Delilah,” Tori announced.

  And Joe Sorelli too, that no-good, scumbag thief!

  Chapter 5

  Thursday – 11:06 a.m.

  Delilah’s

  Tori and Nana sat frozen in the front seat of their parked car and stared at the bar entrance to their right. A large neon sign above the door flashed the word ‘Delilah’ in various shades of pulsating red, except for the last two letters, which were dark and dead, and in obvious need of repair.

  A puzzled frown marred Nana’s brow as she turned to her granddaughter. “Are you sure this is the right Delilah?”

  Tori nodded. “This is the address that came up when I Googled the phone number.”

  Nana reached for her door handle. “Okay then, let’s go in.”

  “Wait!” Tori’s troubled eyes scanned the neighborhood. This was obviously an older and poorer part of town, the rundown storefronts attesting to that fact. A sudden shiver of alarm traveled up her spine. Every raw nerve in her body was telling her to drive away—now.

  She turned to take another look at the tavern. Delilah was a hole-in-the wall, dive bar housed in a flat, one-story building. The front double doors were painted black and a window on the left was boarded shut, allowing no light in. Five Harley-Davidson motorcycles were parked in a row at the side and an ominous air permeated the place.

  “We’re not going in there,” she announced, as another shiver went through her.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course we are.”

  “Nana, I don’t like this. This is bad.”

  “It’s the only lead we have, Tori. We have to take it. Don’t worry, nothing’s gonna happen to us. We’ve got Jesus on our side.”

  “Nana, you don’t understand. This is a biker bar. It’s not a good place for two defenseless and proper southern ladies like us to be in.”

  “Defenseless and proper? Me? Honey, you’ve got the wrong girl.”

  “This isn’t funny.”

  A wicked gleam crinkled the corners of Nana’s blue eyes. “Chickenshit, darlin’?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me, Miss Twenty-seven-going-on-one-hundred-and-twenty-seven! You sound just like your fuddy-duddy father. Where’s your sense of adventure, your joie de vivre, your ‘let’s-take-a-chance-and-see-what-happens’ approach to life? You’re turning into a dried-up, crusty, old prune, Victoria Alexandra Jones—way older than even me. You’re no fun anymore.” Nana’s blonde bouffant bobbed up and down as if to stamp her pronouncement on the younger woman’s character into law.

  Shocked, Tori’s jaw slacked open at the insulting barbs aimed her way for a second time that week, first from Cassie and now her Nana. Anger flared through her. “Are you implying that I’m turning into Bonnie Bell?”

  “Bonnie Bell?” Nana lips twitched before bursting into a hearty cackle. “I didn’t think of that one but if the nun’s habit fits, you might as well wear it,” she decreed in her hard, Texas twang.

  “Well, let me tell you, Miss I-gave-all-my-money-to-a-con-artist, I’m nothing like Bonnie Bell. I’m vibrant and interesting and fun! I do fun things all the time. I’m the most fun person I know!”

  “Fun? Sweetheart, lately you’ve been about as much fun as a yeast infection.”

  Tori gasped. “What? How dare you!”

  “I dare because I love you, sweetie-pie and I want you to be happy, and the way you’ve been acting since that goblin you married dumped you, is not healthy. You need a new man in your life. You need to find love again. Besides, I’m the most fun person you know.”

  “No, you’re the most impulsive and irrational person I know. Just look where we are, and all because you gave some internet crook $65,000 dollars of granddaddy’s hard-earned money. Really, Nana!”

  “My Joe is not a crook! I love him and he loves me.”

  “If he loves you so much, where is he, huh? Why hasn’t he called since he got his grubby hands on your cash?”

  “Tori, you listen up! My Joe loves me. I know that with all my heart. If he could let me know where he is, I’m sure he would. That’s why I think he’s in trouble and we have to do whatever it takes to find him. If that means going into this establishment here to ask a few questions, then that’s what we’re gonna do. Now are you comin’ in with me, or do I go in by myself and you can wait in this car with the doors locked like a big ‘ole stick-in-the-mud?”

  Tori’s temper flared. “Comin’ in?” She yanked the key out of the ignition and shoved her car door open. “Try and stop me! Who knows, maybe I’ll even find a boyfriend in there, or how about a biker gang husband to bring home to daddy? Would you like that? Maybe the love of my life is sitting right behind those black double doors right now. Fun? I’ll show you fun.”

  As Tori rushed around the front of the car to open the passenger door to help her grandmother out, a wave of sudden unease assailed Estelle. Oh no, she thought, as she stepped out of the vehicle, maybe she had pushed her grandbaby too far? It seemed the child was in a snit and who knew what she’d do in this mood.

  Chapter 6

  The second the ladies entered the bar, all eyes turned their way—and none of them were friendly. A shiver of apprehension ran up Tori’s spine but because she was still too incensed at what her grandmother had said about her becoming dull, she completely ignored it.

  She let her eyes scan the room. It was a small, dingy place with wood paneling lining the walls and cheap white Christmas lights strung all around the perimeter. There was a long bar with stools on her right and one lone pool table in the middle. Small, round wooden tables and chairs were dotted throughout. Loud, head-banging, metal music pounded through some invisible speaker and she could swear the dump had a faint smell of urine permeating everything. Her probing eyes
quickly glommed onto a large sign on the far back wall which read ‘Piss Here’ with an arrow pointing downwards, indicating some sort of unisex washroom. Probably where the smell was coming from, Tori thought cattily. Next to that, an open doorway with old style saloon swinging doors, must have led to the kitchen and whatever other back rooms the hovel housed.

  Her searching eyes next took in the patrons interspersed throughout. They were all bikers; and all were wearing jeans, t-shirts and what looked like weather-beaten leather vests with the words Sons of Perdition stitched in orange lettering on the back, obviously the name of their motorcycle club. Colorful tattoos inked each of their bare arms from wrists to shoulders.

  There were four of them in the bar. Two were by the pool table, playing a game. They appeared to be in their fifties, with long, graying beards and balding hair. Another biker, this one in his forties was seated at the bar guzzling a beer. He was fat and his huge belly spilled over his belt buckle. But he didn’t care, his posture said. He was proud of his gut.

  There was also a fourth biker who was standing behind the bar, serving the others. He too was slimy-looking, probably in his mid-twenties, with a short goatee and long hair down to his shoulders. He threw them a malevolent, crooked smile. “Ladies, what can I get you?”

  Tori was just about to approach him when a slight movement to her far right caught her eye. Instinctively, she turned and spotted a fifth biker seated at a small table in the corner. She hadn’t seen him when they’d walked in but he had definitely seen her, his dark, smoldering eyes were saying. He was in his late twenties, and definitely handsome but a cocky handsomeness, like he knew it and didn’t need any validation from anybody. His chocolate brown hair was all one-length reaching to the base of his neck but it was held back off of his face with a red bandana of black crosses wrapped around his forehead.

  His tall frame was confidently slouched back in his chair with his long legs directly jutting out straight in front of him and crossed at his black biker boots. He wore jeans, a black t-shirt and the similar dirty leather vest the others wore, but unlike the others who had seemed to be just hanging out, he held a smart phone in his hands and had obviously been scrolling though it. Probably checking for messages having to do with his drug deals, Tori mused bitchily.

  Her gaze wandered to his arms—bare, tanned and both completely tattooed from wrist to shoulder, just like the others; and she could see that his colorful biceps were filled with strong, hard-worked muscles. He pumped iron, she could tell, his lean, flat belly attesting to that too—or did he just beat up people and get his workouts that way?

  Her curious eyes came back up to his face and locked in with his. He’d been watching her intently as she’d been studying him, and his scorching look suddenly told her that now it was his turn to do to her what she had been doing to him. His gaze blazed with mischief as it slowly lowered to where her breasts were hidden beneath her white, short-sleeved, cotton blouse before lowering further still to the V-area of her black pants. It lingered there, between her legs, leering nastily before coming back up her curvy body and back up to her suddenly furious eyes. A long, silent moment passed between them as he stared at her with an admiring but amused gleam; and she at him with a hard, cold glare.

  Tori scowled with fury. That reprobate had given her the most insulting, once-over look she had ever received in her entire life. Even the other degenerates in the bar hadn’t been quite so obvious with their disgusting perusals. What an animal!

  Another sizzling awareness passed between them and Tori watched as a wicked grin flashed white across his arrogant face. It was obvious. The bastard knew what she’d been thinking about him and he was amused, entertained even at her uptight, judgmental opinion of him and his lifestyle. But he didn’t care, his look said—she was still good enough to fuck.

  Tori blinked hard and took a protective step back as she realized she’d been reading his mind just as he’d been reading hers. The exchange had taken mere seconds but in those seconds, she’d learned everything she needed to know about him. He was just another disgusting, biker, criminal pig like the rest of them in this drab place.

  Haughtily, she turned her head back to the bartender and forced her lips to widen into a friendly smile.

  “Hi there.” She walked up to the bar, with Nana following closely behind her. “We’re looking for someone, a Mr. Joe Sorelli, and we found your phone number—well, I mean this bar’s phone number in Mr. Sorelli’s house.” Tori fished into her purse for the photo her grandmother had given her, Joe apparently having emailed her a picture when the pair had first begun Skyping each other. She placed it on the counter. “Do you know him?”

  The biker looked down at the picture for a split second before coming back up to her face. He smiled wickedly. “What can I get you ladies?” he asked, pointing to a big blackboard stationed behind him which detailed their menu.

  It was obvious to Tori that the man wasn’t answering any of their questions until they ordered something. Acquiescing, she looked past his shoulder to the chalk board. It was sparsely written with two columns. The first column was titled DRINKS and below that were only two choices—BEER and JACK. The next column was labeled FOOD and it listed four selections—HAMBURGER, PORK RIBS, STEAK, FRIES with the following description scribbled beside each one, COOKED THE WAY WE WANT TO FUCKING COOK IT!

  Her eyes landed back on the bartender’s knowing smirk. The faint urine smell she had detected earlier wafted into her nostrils again. “Two beers, please.” She tried to sound polite.

  The biker bartender indicated one of the round wooden tables in the middle of the room. “You ladies have a seat and I’ll bring your drinks.” It sounded like an order rather than a request, and Tori knew that if they were to get any answers out of him, they’d have to do as he said.

  Reluctantly, Tori reached for Joe’s picture on the counter and replaced it with a twenty dollar bill as payment for the beers before walking to the table he’d pointed at and sitting down. Her grandmother did the same.

  Nana Estelle took another quick glance around the room and sensed they were in trouble. In fact, her gut had been clanging warning bells since they’d stepped into this joint. No, these were not good people, not their kind at all; and the way they were looking at her grandbaby, as if she was a juicy steak about to be devoured by a man on a hunger strike, was sending chills up her spine. What in God’s name, had she been thinking to land Tori in such a situation fraught with peril? This was crazy and only now, when she was physically feeling all these beady, sweaty, rapacious male eyes focused on her precious child did she realize what a huge mistake this had been.

  Suddenly, she felt Tori lean into her. “Having fun yet, Nana?” she whispered to the older woman.

  “Tori, we’re tearing our asses outta here, right now!”

  “No way! You were the one who insisted on coming in and we’re staying until we get some answers. In fact, I’m having so much fun that I think I’ll ask one of these gentlemen to dance with me.”

  “A dance? Have you lost all good sense, girl?”

  “You were the one who said I needed some excitement and a new man in my life. Well, here we are. Take your pick! Which of these wonderful men would you like for a new grandson-in-law?”

  “Victoria Alexandra Jones, now you’re being dumber than dirt. I’m leaving!” Nana jumped up but Tori grabbed her arm and yanked her back down into her seat.

  “You’re staying until I’ve had my dance. One thing for sure, I promise it won’t be dull! And you and everybody else can’t accuse me of that anymore.”

  Tori cut her grandmother a sharp look. She had every intention of doing exactly what she was threatening to do—which was to dance with one of these creeps and in the process, teach her Nana a lesson. Because if you pushed people into doing what you wanted them to do, you should realize that sometimes they would and you wouldn’t like it—so be careful what you said.

  And besides, Tori had warned the older lady that co
ming in here would be a bad idea but her grandmother—hard-headed as always—had ignored Tori’s good advice. Well, maybe the next time Tori would make such a pronouncement, Nana would think twice and listen to her.

  Looking up, she saw the biker bartender approach with two beer filled mugs. He plopped them down on their table along with her change.

  “Thanks.” Tori acknowledged him with a smile. “So, how about it? Do you know Joe Sorelli, Mister…?”

  “The name’s Wizard. And yeah, I know Joe. We sometimes buy our meat from him. Haven’t seen him in a while though.”

  “What do you consider a while?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  “My name’s Tori and this is my grandmother, Estelle. Joe’s a friend of ours and we haven’t heard from him in a few days. We’re just worried about him, that’s all.” She tried to sound casual.

  Wizard threw her a slow, appraising leer. “Haven’t seen him in over a week but that’s not unusual. We don’t always place our orders with him.”

  Nana reached into her purse and pulled out her own twenty-dollar bill. She stuffed it into Wizard’s meaty hand. “Thank you for the information, young man,” she declared, before turning towards Tori. “We should go now. I have that appointment, Tori. Remember? We wouldn’t want to be late.” She stood up from her chair.

  “Oh, but Nana, we have plenty of time and we should finish our drinks first. Besides, I’m in the mood for a little fun.” Tori looked back up at Wizard. “Wanna dance?”

  The young biker’s eyes lit up with a hungry, excited gleam. “Fuck, yeah,” he intoned. His hand wrapped around her wrist and he hauled her up, dragging her to an empty spot near the pool table. In a split second, he had plastered his hard body to hers. Before Tori had had a chance to protest, he had spread his hands over her buttocks, pressing her into him. He swayed her to the music. “Hell honey, this is my lucky day,” he mumbled into her hair as he nuzzled her neck.

  “Just a minute…” Tori tried to yank out of his arms but it was to no avail. The sleazeball was holding on tight. A tremor went through her as his large, disgusting hands slid up from her behind to her breasts.