DIESEL DADDY

by Naomi West

  He kisses her on the nose. “Really, really good!” he cries. “Really, really good!”

  Yazmin giggles and gives him a kiss in return. I quickly snap the picture. Yesterday I may’ve been in the city working over a couple of guys who thought they’d try and swoop in and pick up where Snake left off all those years ago, trying to funnel drugs into Sunnyside. But today I’m just a proud husband and a dad. I capture Yazmin kissing Toby on the cheek, and her face as she turns at the professor’s voice, calling them over to throw up their caps.

  “I better go,” she says. “Wait for me?”

  “Nah.” I grin at her, winking. “I reckon I’ll take the little man here and head on home. You’ll be all right without me.”

  “You are so not funny.” She blows me a kiss and then disappears into the crowd, becoming one black robe in a sea of black robes.

  “Daddy, shoulders.”

  I lift him up and together we join the other onlookers. After searching the crowd for a couple of minutes we find Yazmin and Georgia near the back, smiling over at us.

  “Daddy, are we happy?” Toby says.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Mikey from town says being happy is a really good thing to be.”

  “Okay, now, toss!”

  A hundred caps fly into the air. A hundred cameras, including mine, snap photographs. A hundred graduates smile a hundred smiles, but Yazmin’s is brightest of all. Yazmin’s is the only one I see, really.

  “Yeah, son,” I say. “We’re happy.”

  THE END

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  PAY FOR HER: The Warhawks MC

  By Naomi West

  HE PAID WHATEVER IT TOOK TO MAKE ME HIS.

  The thug who stole my home wants me as his slave.

  The biker who bought my body wants me for something worse.

  I had no choice but to become his possession.

  I just never thought I’d like it so much.

  I used to be a good girl, once upon a time.

  I had a grandmother who loved me.

  A home to shelter me.

  But then these men came into my life and took it all away.

  Before I know it, I’m stripped bare under the spotlights while faceless men bid for my body.

  The night grows longer.

  The price goes higher.

  But one man won’t be outdone.

  I’ve never met him before.

  But by the time the nightmare is over, I have a feeling I’m going to know him very, very well.

  My new owner, Tank, is a monster.

  A killer.

  A thief.

  He terrifies me.

  And from now on, I belong to him.

  Chapter One

  Star

  “Anything else I can get for you, hon?”

  The overly chipper voice of the diner waitress snapped me out of my daydream. Coming back to reality, I looked down at the plate in front of me, its dingy white surface smeared with grease and yellow from the eggs and bacon I’d ordered.

  “Um, just some more coffee, please,” I said, pushing the chipped coffee cup slowly towards the edge of the table.

  The waitress, a heavy, middle-aged woman with a rear end like a caboose, blonde hair whose brown tips showed that she was a little too behind with her next dye, and overly done makeup of white foundation, blue eyeshadow, and red lipstick that was all so heavy it looked like she’d melted down a bunch of American flags and just dunked her face in it, gave a half smile as she topped up my cup before heading off to her other tables.

  Truth be told, I didn’t want anymore coffee; my hands were already jittery from the three cups I’d already had. Well, jittery from that and the fact that I had about two dollars to my name and was planning on running out on the check.

  But I couldn’t find the nerve to do it. I was eighteen years old and hadn’t so much as pocketed a candy bar at a gas station. Crime was the last thing I wanted to get involved in, even something as stupid and simple as this. I mean, the place was packed; all I would need to do would be to head to the bathroom then out the side door. But I couldn’t shake this image out of my mind of a giant line cook slapping down a greasy hand on my bare shoulder as I stepped out the door, asking me just what was I doing, little lady?

  There was only so much coffee I could drink, however. I sipped from my fresh cup, feeling my heart race faster and faster with each little drop that went down my throat. I was starting to feel like a little blonde hummingbird.

  Looking around the diner, my eyes jumping from the big-shouldered and big-bellied truckers sipping coffee at the white linoleum counter to the families crammed into booths to the white-clad waitresses darting here and there, I couldn’t help but feel stuck and helpless. And when my eyes settled on the group of bikers clad in their leather vests, their beards thick and braided, their voices loud and boisterous, I couldn’t help but ruminate on my extremely helpless situation.

  Might as well introduce myself. I’m Star Dylan, and I was homeless. Two days out on the street so far, and everything I owned was crammed into the ratty little red backpack at my side—the same backpack that I’d made last through high school and the last year of middle school. The little bit of money that I’d managed to squirrel away was already gone, and only the endless grumbling of my stomach and the suggestion of a free meal had gotten me into this diner.

  How’d I gotten in this situation? It was all because of a man named Dakin.

  About two weeks ago, my dear Grandmother Dove had passed away. Her health had been failing for a long while, and I’d had to miss more and more school to stay in and look after her. It was only by the skin of my teeth and a few well-placed little flirts with the more lecherous teachers to get them to let me make up some finals that allowed me to graduate. I knew college wasn’t in the cards for a girl like me, so once I was out of high school I devoted myself to taking care of Grandma Dove full time.

  And she was all too happy to have me do it. You see, my grandma was a sweet woman, but she was one of those types who felt that the less a young girl knew about the world outside the front door, the better. That meant no parties, only a few carefully-vetted friends, and absolutely, positively, no boys. Which I hated. Every girl I knew seemed to be pairing off with one handsome guy after another, some of my, well, more ambitious friends taking their pick of guys from the University of Florida in Gainesville, where I lived. I, on the other hand, was doomed to stay at home. While my friends were all out partying, going to dances, and losing their virginities, I was stuck at home under the watchful eye of Grandma Dove.

  “You’ll thank me when you’re older, Star,” she’d say, taking a drag from one of them skinny little cigarettes she’d smoke, the half-burnt stub dangling from her dingy yellow fingers. “That kinda business your friends get up to, well, that’s nothing a young girl like you should be participating in. A pretty young thing like you needs to use that face to hook a man that’s worth a damn, not one of these punk thugs running around town.”

  I get that her heart was in the right place, but damned if I didn’t hate her for it when I’d be going through my friends’ Instagrams the day after the big dances and go through all the pictures seeing them having what looked like the time of their lives.

  But any concerns about boys and dances went right out the window when the lung cancer finally took Grandma. She had a little money stored away, a bunch of hundred-dollar bills stuffed into a little suitcase that she kept under her bed. Grandma had never trusted banks, and once that money came into my possession I didn’t know what to do with it. After all, I’d seen enough crime shows to know that you couldn’t just walk into a bank with a bag of money and say
you wanted to open an account without raising an eyebrow or two.

  Then the letters starting coming. They were all about the mortgage, informing me that I had to pay, and pay soon, or else they’d take the house. I didn’t know what to do. I’d never been allowed to go to the grocery store by myself, let alone manage a mortgage. I knew that Grandma keeping me sheltered had just been her way of protecting me, but now I’d been thrown into the world of adulthood without a clue of what to do. Part of me just hoped that the problem would take care of itself eventually. After all, when Grandma had been looking out for me, that’s what had happened.

  The letters got more and more angry sounding. Some said “final notice” in big red letters. Then, eventually, they stopped coming. The mortgage ones, at least; I was still getting bill after bill about whatever else my grandma had been on the hook for. But the problem seemed taken care of, and I even let myself get comfortable. I mean, Grandma hadn’t left a will—whatever was still in the house was mine, I guess—but maybe she had arranged something to cover the mortgage. Maybe I was home free?

  God, this was only a little while ago and already I’m trying to figure out just how I could have been so goddamn stupid.

  Anyway, one morning there was a knock on the door. I opened it and standing there was a prim, slender woman in a pantsuit and her chocolate-brown hair in a professional ponytail. She handed me a letter, this one evidently so important that it had to be delivered in person. My heart racing, I opened it up right then and there, which is what I think the woman wanted.

  “Evicted.” There it was, written clear as day.

  “You have until the end of the week to clear out your things,” the woman said, her voice chipper and bright, as though she were trying to get me to sign up for a magazine or something.

  Then, just like that, she was gone, leaving me there with the letter in my hands. Leaning against the front door frame, my shaking legs unable to support my weight, I read the letter over and over again. My eyes went over the words “new owner” again and again. Someone had bought the home right out from under me; the place where I’d grown up was now someone else’s.

  I’d stepped onto the front lawn and looked around at the stretches of land around me. This house was out in the middle of nowhere, miles from town. I wondered just who’d put down the thousands of dollars necessary to buy it out from under me.

  I got my answer the next day.

  That next evening, there was a pounding at the door—a hell of a contrast to the gentle little rap that the bank agent had announced herself with. I was shaking again as I approached the door; it’s like my body already knew about the danger that was lurking on the other side. Taking a deep breath, I opened the door.

  “Evening, miss,” said the man on the other side.

  He was a real beast of a man. Thinking about Dakin, that’s the best word I can use to describe him: beast. Tall, with bulging, inhuman muscles, a long beard tied into a thick braid, and wild eyes that burned with both intensity and intelligence; he struck me as almost larger-than-life. That, and totally evil. Behind him was a pair of grungy-looking biker thugs just like him, their big arms crossed over their leather vests and wicked little smirks on their ugly faces.

  He didn’t even ask to come in. Instead, he stepped right past me and into the home.

  “Nice place,” he said, his big black boots thumping onto the carpet, dirt tracks following him as he walked.

  I was gripped with fear; I didn’t know who this man was or what he was doing in my home. For all I knew, this was some kind of home invasion.

  “Who … who are you?” I finally sputtered out.

  I must’ve sounded about as fearsome as a baby hamster because the two men still out in the front yard burst into mocking laughter as soon as I finished speaking.

  The man turned around, looming over me. I couldn’t make out his age; he seemed to be older than thirty, but it was hard to tell with the bikers that I’d see riding around town. Their faces were always covered in beards, scars, and messy hair, making them look old and weathered, like Viking warriors who’d been to battle after battle and wore it on their faces and bodies.

  “You, my pretty little thing, can call me Dakin.”

  Something about his voice just shook me to my very core. You know how some people just have a way about them that’s friendly, warm, and open? A manner of looking and acting that just makes you want to be friends with them right out the gate? Well, this Dakin was the exact opposite of that. Every little thing about him, from the lanky swagger of his walk to his wild, dark eyes, to that smell of grease and motor oil that trailed behind him, just made me want to get as far away from him as possible.

  “What do you want?” I asked, the two other bikers who’d come along with Dakin stepping into the living room and scoping out the place.

  “A little old fashioned,” said Dakin, picking up and looking at the little knickknacks that my grandmother’d packed onto every surface of the home, “but I think it just might have some potential.”

  Then he turned his gaze to me, looking me up and down like I was a cut of meat he was thinking about cooking up for dinner.

  “Can’t argue with the in-home amenities either,” he said.

  “What are you doing in my home?” I demanded, finally getting a little bit of a spine.

  “Your home?” asked Dakin. “That’s where you’re wrong, little lady. As of tomorrow morning at nine a.m., this place is all mine.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He reached into his pocket, pulled out a piece of paper, and slapped it against my chest as he walked past me.

  “Thing about a mortgage is, if you don’t pay it someone can just buy the house right out from under you. I’ve had my eye on this place for a while, see. Nice location out in the boonies, perfect for my club’s little get-togethers. And when I heard the little girl who’d been stuck with the bill after her grandmammy died wasn’t doing a very good job making ends meet, I knew it was time to swoop in.”

  “What?”

  It was all I could say.

  Dakin strode over to me, leaned in, and tapped on my head with his index finger.

  “Anyone in there?” he asked, his whiskey breath hot on my face. “Figures a girl with a body like this wouldn’t have anything going on up top.”

  “Only one kind of ‘up top’ I’m thinkin’ about,” said one of the bikers, staring hard at my breasts.

  I wanted to cry; I’d never felt so violated in my life.

  “You have to leave,” I said. “Even if you’re right, then this place isn’t yours until tomorrow at nine.”

  Dakin looked at me hard for a second, then shrugged his shoulders.

  “Guess she’s right, boys,” he said, turning to the other bikers. “Rules are rules, right?”

  He slapped one of the bikers hard on the shoulder, the sound of his hand on the leather sounding out through the living room.

  “Rules are rules,” he repeated, taking another look around the room. “I just wanted to come by and see if there was any décor I might want to hang onto. I mean, unless you’ve got some movers coming, that is.”

  I stood still, now glaring at Dakin, my hands in tight little fists. I was equal parts scared and furious at this point.

  “So, nine tomorrow. See you then, blondie.”

  With that, he had his friends strode out of the house, the smell of cheap whiskey, cigarettes, and motor oil lingering in the air.

  I didn’t know what to do with myself. I had no idea for sure, but everything looked in order—that asshole Dakin now owned my home. Or he would tomorrow, at least. I spent that evening thinking about the day ahead, wondering what I was going to do with myself. I was so scared and angry; I wished my Grandma Dove had taught me a single damn thing about how the world worked. And why hadn’t she? She’d known that she wouldn’t be around forever. Part of me wanted to curse her name, but I talked myself out of it, trying to keep in mind that she had just been protecting
me in the only way she knew how.

  I’d spent my whole life in this town, and now, with nothing more than whatever I could cram into a suitcase and whatever money was left under the bed, I was going to have to make my way in the world. I went into Grandma’s bedroom and looked under the bed, pulling out her suitcase. There were a few stacks of money left, maybe a few thousand dollars’ worth. I slipped a couple hundreds out of one of the stacks and stuck them in my pocket; just having some money on me made me feel a little less helpless.

  I slept restlessly that night, dreaming horrible dreams about walking through a dark hallway, fumbling my way down, unable to see anything ahead, a horrible fire raging behind me that gained on me no matter I fast I moved. Right as the fire reached me I woke up, the sound of engines roaring to life jolting me out of my sleep.