by Nicole Fox
“Okay,” Princess acknowledged in wonder. “That’s pretty damn cool.”
“Yup,” I agreed, then grabbed her hand and led her through.
There were two options. A set of dusty old stairs led downwards, to the dark and hidden basement, while a ladder, slightly less dusty but equally dingy, led upward, through a three foot gap between the interior and exterior wall.
“Where does that lead?” Princess whispered, and I just chuckled.
“Come on,” I said, and mounted the ladder. I felt it creak quietly beneath my weight, but it held.
“A long time ago,” I explained as we climbed, “Sam Michaels figured out that a motorcycle club would need somewhere to hide. Hostages. Money. Weapons. Information. Whatever. But it was President Montengo who added his own special touch.”
We reached the top of the ladder, which spilled us over onto a smallwooden platform looking back to the interior of the clubhouse. There, the near darkness in which we had been enclosed suddenly brightened, allowing us to see.
Princess gasped.
“Yup,” I whispered. “Witness President Fucking Montengo’s real legacy.”
A mirror. An enormous, two-way mirror, overlooking that leopard print bedroom. Remember the mirror Montengo had over his bed? It was translucent from this side, so we could gaze down, unseen, into the bedchamber.
I saw Princess blinking, utterly dumbfounded, not knowing if she should laugh or grimace. “Why the fuck did he build this?” she whispered.
I shrugged. “All I know is that sometimes he hires two hookers, then disappears for a while. I think he gets off by watching them or something. Like a peeping Tom.”
Princess giggled. “What a pervert.”
“You got that right.”
“Wait! Shhh!”
We looked.
It was Farrah. Or Honi? Was that what Princess had called her? Either way, she was down below, darting about the bedroom like a bird trapped in a cage. She bit her nails, stared nervously at the door, and gazed around the room, as if looking for somewhere to hide.
“In the closet,” I heard Princess whisper beside me. “In the fucking closet.”
But it was too late. Someone was at the door.
A police officer burst in. His eye was black, and he had a bloody nose, but neither of those made any difference to the gun he was aiming, quite steadily, at Honi.
Honi wilted. I saw all that bravado, all that sexy confidence, vanish from her in an instant.
“Please,” we heard her whimper, and then the cop stepped forward.
Crack! His hand shot out like a snake, slapping her clear across the face! She gasped in pain and toppled, her stupid high heels betraying her and sending her crashing to the floor. A second later, two more cops appeared, carrying, of all things, rope.
She screamed, thrashing and biting, but there were three of them and only one of her, and she was hysterical with terror. It only took seconds for them to bind her, hand and foot, and for them to stuff a gag into her mouth. Her screaming was silenced, and in the next instant they were marching out the door with her flung over a shoulder. I saw one of them groping her ass as they left.
Princess and I held our breaths, waiting in stunned and horrified silence. Finally, once they were gone and the door had closed behind them, I turned to Princess.
“Those weren’t fucking cops, were they?”
“No,” she hissed, her voice venomous. “They weren’t.”
“And why do they want … Honi? That’s what you called her, right?”
Silence was the only answer she offered me.
Chapter Twenty-One
Farrah
I knew that Connor was impatient. I knew that he wanted answers. But I couldn’t give them to him. Not yet. At the moment, all I could think was, Poor Honi. Poor, poor Honi.
Yes, I knew that she had brought this on herself. And yes, I knew that she had more or less betrayed me. But that didn’t change the fact that she was a scared and helpless woman, desperate for safety and for the right to spread her legs only when she wanted to. And now she was suffering for me. It wasn’t right, even if she had been a selfish bitch. Who knew what those men would do to her?
After waiting at least an hour, we finally emerged from our hiding place. Though Connor was frustrated, I could tell that he was happy that none of the financial documents had been found. Only a few of the Devil’s Wings had been injured, and minorly at that. It was Montengo, in fact, who seemed most upset. He stormed up and down the halls in a rage, punching through sheetrock and shouting at anyone who dared cross him. Connor sighed deeply, knowing that he was duty bound to report in to his president. I, meanwhile, felt way too shattered to deal with Montengo, so I asked Connor to return me to the bunkroom. After the horrible realizations of this afternoon, even that place seemed inviting.
Without a word, Connor keyed open the lock and let me in. He looked at me sadly, gave my hand a squeeze, and left. I did not envy him having to go deal with Montengo. As soon as the door shut behind him, I collapsed onto the nearest bed and pressed my hands against my face.
I knew why Minghelli’s men were after me. I knew why they’d killed Aunt Venus in their hunt for me, and I knew that Honi was in terrible danger. I lay back and closed my eyes. At long last, the assault of memories I had been putting off since that morning overwhelmed me.
# # #
It was last Christmas Eve. Honi had been busy with a client, and I, rather than wrapping presents or singing carols or getting drunk like any normal college student on December 24t, was analyzing the house’s records and camera surveillance. Special rooms in the whorehouse were equipped with secret cameras. Sometimes, these served as means for excellent blackmail opportunities, especially for well-respected or well-known clients. Other times, for regular clients whom we trusted, we could sell the videos: little pieces of personal pornography that they could treasure forever. The working girls never minded. In fact, it often made them feel safer. It created a sense of accountability for whatever happened in the room.
But the records hadn’t kept Vanessa safe.
Tom Minghelli, head of the Minghelli family, had walked in late that night, asking for one of our top quality whores. Knowing Vanessa’s skills, Aunt Venus had assigned her to him, and together they had disappeared into one of the secretly surveyed rooms. The camera feed wasn’t instant. It needed to be recorded in fifteen minute intervals, downloaded, and sorted into the house’s extensive record system before I could pull it up on my computer screen. Aunt Venus had the live feed, of course, but she had been home, preparing Christmas dinner.
It had seemed strange even then. Synthesizing whorehouse data. Cooking Christmas dinner.
Tired but satisfied with my night’s work, I began switching on the camera feeds at random, curious to see who was out on Christmas Eve and what the girls were doing to entertain. Several brought a smile to my face. One couple involved a man dressed up as Santa Claus while the hooker rode his lap. Another showed Lady Vixen, our most talented dominatrix, whipping a man tied to a bedpost with a stocking full of what could only be coal.
Then, I turned on Vanessa’s screen.
At first, I thought no one was in the room. Naturally, the camera angle focused on the bed, and when no one was there I was confused. I looked to the padded armchair nearby, and even the floor. But no! There they were, in the far corner, almost entirely out of sight of the camera.
Vanessa was crouched down against the wall, naked except for her thigh-high black boots, and she was cowering. Though the image was grainy, I could see that her mouth was twisted open in a terrible scream.
Tom Minghelli stood over her.
Boom!
It was a silent image, and yet I imagined I could hear the impact. His fist struck her jaw and she collapsed, trying and failing to shield herself with slender little wrists.
Slap! Crack!
Blood splattered the floor. The screen was black and white, but there was no mistaking its evil gli
sten staining the rug and bedsheets.
I was near paralyzed, stupefied by what I was seeing. Just enough of me was aware to turn the sound on, desperate to hear what was going on. Vanessa whimpered. I could hear her pleading. Minghelli grabbed a lamp from the nightstand and took its cord, drawn out between his hands like a garrote.
“Die, bitch! Die!” he roared, and I saw it close around her neck…
“No!” I cried, shaken loose of my paralysis. I leapt to my feet and rushed the door, crying out for our security guards, the ones who kept the whores safe. They came at once to my summons and rushed immediately to the bedroom where Vanessa was trapped with Minghelli.
No one was there. Fifteen minutes. There was a fifteen minute lapse. The lamp was gone, as was Vanessa’s body, but there was nothing Minghelli could have done about the blood. It ranged from the rug all the way up to the curtains, pearly in its freshness. Minghelli would be trusting two things: he assumed he hadn’t been seen, and he knew that no cop was going to go looking for some useless whore.
He had thought he was safe.
Despite my terror, some part of me was still thinking rationally. Rather than staying to help to clean up the blood, I rushed back to my computer and downloaded that video, and the one after it, into a special file. This I encrypted, over and over again, and buried it deep within the house’s records. No one but me or my aunt would have been able to find it.
Storing the video away had had a strange effect on me as well. As I buried the video, so too did I seem to be burying the horror, and later even the memory, of what happened. I blotted it out, like a night of drunken regrets and refused to think about it ever again.
That was until I heard Minghelli’s voice, talking to me on the other end of Aunt Venus’ telephone.
# # #
“Ah!” I opened my eyes with a start, overcome by the clarity of the memory haunting me all those months later. I had thought I could make that horrible night go away, but now I knew that I was wrong.
It had gotten Aunt Venus.
And now it was on its way to get me.
The only hope I could think of—the only hope I had—was Connor.
And I did not yet dare hope in him.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Connor
I had to admit it: the temptation to follow Princess up into the bunk room was pretty fucking hard to ignore. As I watched her pretty little ass sway up those stairs, I came this close to leaping up after her—fuck Montengo and this sinking ship of a motorcycle club.
But I knew better than that. I was better than that.
So I took a deep breath, bit the bullet, and turned back towards the meeting hall, where Montengo was raging up a storm.
“I want her back!” he thundered, punching his fist so hard against the wooden table that it splintered. “Now!”
“Now, President Montengo,” Smitty murmured soothingly, as if he was talking to a toddler. “Those were Minghelli’s men. Tom Minghelli’s! I recognized them. We can’t just go charging in there without some proper planning and resources—”
“Resources be damned!” Montengo warned. I was getting nervous. His hand kept drifting over his pistol, which he had holstered by his pocket. Would he be crazy enough to start shooting? I thought. You never knew with Montengo.
He continued raging. “I don’t care how many men or how much money it takes! We can’t let her be taken!”
“But, John,” Smitty purred again. “We simply don’t have the resources or the men. The club has been hemorrhaging money for years now, and …”
Montengo’s voice suddenly quieted, somehow making it even more menacing than before. “I don’t want to hear another word about the MC’s sorry finances, all right? I am sick to death of it!” With that, he placed his hand clearly on the butt of his gun.
Smitty frowned and looked away from Montengo, obviously frustrated but not afraid. He wasn’t, anyway. I was torn between fear and wanting to joke about how sick I, too, was of the goddamned finances.
Montengo’s eyes glittered. His knuckles turned white on the gun, and he licked his lips, a moist, snake-like motion. At last, he sighed, and the tension relaxed. His hand slid away from the holster and hung limply at his side.
“I’m sorry, Smitty,” he murmured. “I know you’re a good friend to the club, but … that’s Sam Michaels’ daughter! Think of the good she could do in our hands, and the damage in another’s!”
“Actually, sir,” I interrupted, feeling duty-bound to tell him my suspicions. Smitty, however, cast me a forbidding look, and I fell silent.
“That is true,” Smitty acknowledged. “I recommend, then, a small, stealthy force that can sneak in and out of Minghelli’s compound hopefully without notice, rather than an all-out assault. Agreed?”
Montengo nodded. “Agreed,” he grunted.
“I would also suggest that this force be made up of volunteers only,” Smitty continued. “It would be a very dangerous mission, and we can’t in good conscience send—”
“I’ll volunteer!” I blurted immediately, interrupting Smitty. Everyone looked at me in surprise, but I had my own reasons for volunteering. I’m gonna get to the bottom of this Princess/Honi/Farrah clusterfuck if it’s the last thing I do, I thought.
Meanwhile, the rest of the men in the meeting room glanced at each other uncomfortably. I saw Joey, who had been hanging around in the background until this point, step forward and wave his through air. “Me, too,” he said, nodding at me. “If only to protect your dumb ass.”
After Joey, it wasn’t hard to get several more people to step up and volunteer. That was one of the nice things about a motorcycle club. Nobody ever wanted to look like a pussy.
“All right!” exulted Montengo, clearly overjoyed with how things had turned out. “Connor, I put you in charge. Start planning immediately. You’ll go tonight, at midnight.”
“Hear, hear!” the volunteers thundered, and then we dispersed.
As everyone was milling out of the room, Joey came up to me and whispered, “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
I grinned. “As much as I ever do.”
“Right. We’re all fucked then,” he laughed and clapped me on the back.
# # #
I went to my office next, poring over maps and diagrams and wracking my brains as to the best way to attack the Minghelli compound without getting us all killed. After about two hours of this, I noticed my stomach growling, and sent a new recruit out for food,making sure to tell him to order for Princess, too. I liked her curves. I didn’t want her losing weight.
After about another two hours (and the lovely meal the hopeful kid brought me) it occurred to me that perhaps I should be consulting Princess about all this. She obviously was intelligent, knew a little bit about what was going on, and wanted Honi/Farrah back almost as much as Montengo. I had seenw it in her eyes.
I cleaned up my papers, rubbed my temple, which was aching from so much concentration, and plodded my way up the stairs to the bunkroom.
In the motorcycle club’s heyday, this room would have been lined with whores, all brightly lit and clean. But, as everything was fucked now, it was only Princess, holed up on the farthest bed from the door, curled up into a little ball as if sleeping. But when I approached, I saw that her eyes were hard and awake, glaring at the world.
“What is it?” she demanded, sitting up as soon as she saw me.
“Me and a few other of the men are making a plan to go rescue your friend,” I told her.
Her eyes widened, her mouth flickering between a smile and a worried frown.
“It’s too dangerous,” she said at last. “The Minghelli family … you don’t know how strong they are.”
“And you do?” I shot back, suddenly annoyed. She was smart, but she was still a whore. She needed to respect me.
She didn’t wilt at my tone, however. She just stared right on back. “You tell me,” she snapped. “Minghelli’s men just waltzed in here, took exactly what th
ey wanted, and marched right out with nary a casualty.”
I opened my mouth, hesitated, and then closed it again. She was right.
Then, something occurred to me.
“Wait a minute … how did you know they were Minghelli’s men?”
She blushed and looked away. No fucking way, I thought. I’m not letting her get away with that shit! I grabbed her shoulder and whirled to face me.
“Come on, Princess!” I demanded. “You know something, don’t you? I order you to tell me! Besides … it might help you to save your friend.”
