Rogue (In the life of the Rogue Book 1)

by KaNeshia Michelle

  I say, “Because of the Fed heat, right?”

  Ralph nodded and streams of sweat rolled down his face. “We had to close up shop on the gun running while you were taking care of our Fed problem. We needed catch up when we got the green light.”

  “The guard?”

  “The guys tell me the guard seemed way too nervous during the operation. This isn’t new to him; we’ve used him before, so there’s no need to sweat.”

  I offered: “Sweat means ambush.”

  “Cops or gang, or a rival family, either way, the sweating tips the guys off and make them nervous. They call me and I give the order to check up on the guard and see why he acting funny. Apply pressure; put a gun to his face – whatever - just find out what’s up.”

  My thumb jerked out to the moaning man on the floor. “Guard gets itchy, shoots when approached, and tries to run.”

  Ralph wipes his forehead. He nods. “We check the container and it’s nothing but tires.”

  I felt Dominique’s hand grab at the grip to my gun, readying her self for when she might need it. Judging from the ever hardening faces of Lacone’s blood thirsty goons, she would need it soon, and I was positioned in front of her – a really good suit of armor here to just take bullets.

  I tensed at this thought. “Lacone provide bodies, and, in return, we give them picks at the guns for a discount,” I say, finally coming full circle of the gun running business.

  Ralph’s face tightened. He had told me too much, and he and I both knew it. “Don’t fucking worry about that, Tristan!” It was a vicous snarl but it did nothing for me.

  “I should worry that you got a man killed from a family that isn’t ours. Lacone is going to want retribution.”

  “He ain’t dead yet.”

  The man moaned again. The blood was gushing. It wasn’t going to stop. He was young too; maybe younger than I. His eyes were wide, brown and petrified, and glazing. I waited another moment, biting my bottom lip.

  He moaned again then stopped. His eyes closing and the rise and fall in his chest stilling.

  Dead…

  I turned back to Ralph. “You were saying?”

  I made the mistake of smirking at my impeciable timing with my prediction of Lacone’s man dying and my follow up line.

  Ralph’s heavy glass was sailing in the air, aimed straight for my head. I pushed Dominique out of the way and ducked from the glass. It hit the door and shattered, the glass flying back at me.

  I wasn’t cut, luckily.

  Ralph crossed the room in two long steps, his big hands seizing me by the collar.

  He slapped me with the back of his meaty, bloody hand - his knuckles tearing against my teeth. He reared back for another shot.

  Lacone’s men had already been pulled taunt by a shrivling string. Now that string had snapped and some were lunging while others were reaching for their guns.

  Dominique fingers were back under my coat, shaking loose my gun while she was snatching her own from her back.

  A stream of spit came out of Ralph’s mouth and rested on his chin. “I should have never brought you, or that whore in!”

  He struck home with the second hit and my vision blurred.

  It had not been the first time he’d hit me.

  But, it would be he’s last.

  He rammed me against the door. He pulled me back and shoved me again, the door knob digging into my spine.

  His hand reared back for another hit, his fingers closing, tightening and making an iron fist. I jerked my head to the side as his fist struck the door instead. He howled. I used his surprise to the pain and head butted him. His head flew back, blood lurched out. I grabbed the back of his head, my fingers digging into his wild hair and slammed his face into the door.

  Dominique had the two guns aimed at Lacone’s men. Her thumbs pulled back at the hammers and there was a click in unison.

  I crashed a fist into Ralph’s jaw as he was falling.

  I readjusted my jacket and stepped away, calmly. My face felt sore, big and it burned.

  I snatched Dominique’s .32 from her hand, glad that it didn’t have a pink grip to it like I had speculated at first.

  I glared at Lacone’s men, wishing they would test my temper. Wishing one of them would step up and be next.

  Lacone’s men were playing for money; Ralph was playing to save his own neck; and I was playing for keeps.

  The security guard quietly watched my mutany, but a flicker of fear did move across his face when he saw me looking at him.

  I played into moment. “We’re all friends here, right?”

  He said nothing but watched the gun in my hand.

  He soon lost interest in the gun and watched me.

  The gun: not so dangerous.

  Me: maybe he had something to worry about.

  I bared my teeth at him in a way so there would be no mistakes in him taking it as a smile. “I’m your friend, okay? And I want you to mine.”

  Silent still.

  Talking Silent…

  “I’ll show you good faith, okay?”

  I took command of the room and no one oppressed me. I glanced at Dominique and her face was hard, cold, murderous, and aimed at Lacone’s men with their still itchy fingers.

  A beautiful woman in a room full of men should be nervous, but Dominique seemed right at home – almost disappointed that the volience we just had hadn’t had a follow up.

  “So here’s what I’m gonna do as your friend, okay?” I tell the guard.

  He waited.

  And I unloaded two shots – two hot bullets at close range - in each knee. He screamed. I half expected for the girl to scream too but she did not.

  I go on with my speech as the screams have gone down and the whimpering began. “See as friends, we trust each other. We do for each other. I’m your friend. You’re my friend.”

  I leaned down so I could see his eyes and he flinched.

  Good…

  I asked the question of the night. “Now, where’s our shit and who was involved, other than you, in taking our shit?”

  A simple question that was simply not answered, but the guard had stopped his whimpering, yet his eyes were streaming tears. I understood why he wasn’t talking. If he didn’t talk he was going to die, and if he talked he was going to die.

  Any man faced with death wanted to do it on his terms.

  I had the gun, but he had the answers, which gave him all the power.

  I shot his left foot.

  He screamed again.

  “Now you’re ruining this friendship,” I said, refusing to raise my voice over his crying, “I’m still your friend but now I’m questioning it.”

  I shot right between his legs. Not the jewels but the chair.

  “That’s a line friends shouldn’t cross. If I cross it, you’re not my friend anymore. Do you want that?”

  I raised the gun and he winced but he said nothing.

  “Do you know what I do for my family?” I asked him. “I cut up bodies of people my family kills – people who tried to fuck them over. They’re my family’s secrets and I make them go away. I’ve gotten really good at working on the human flesh too.”

  I shot the gun again, not hitting him, and put the hot barrel to his cheek.

  “How about I pull those slugs out of your knees? Stop the bleeding, patch you up and give you something for the pain? Then I’m going to take out your wallet, go through your family photos because I know you got some, and pick which family member I want to dissect first. This is life outside my motherfucking close circle of friendship.”

  He breathed a long, ragged breath. His eyes watered and more tears slipped down his cheeks. His shoulders dropped – his walls down, his defeat pocketed.

  “If I tell you, my family dies anyway,” he said.

  My eyes widen. “You’re being squeezed.”

  He nodded.

  “In this room?” I questioned, scanning the faces that surrounded me.

  “I don’t
know,” he answered.

  “You got a call, given a threat and now you’re just at someone else’s mercy. I’m just rubbing salt in the wounds.”

  He whimpered. “I love my wife and kids. I’ll die for them.”

  I loved the chivalry but I’m not falling for it. I spit questions out, trying to make him trip over him self, make him give more than he think he actually was.

  “Man?” I fire off the first question.

  He nodded.

  “Old?” I’m thinking Lacone himself.

  He shrugged.

  “Smart, pushy, sophiscated?” Still thinking Lacone, but now I’m not so sure.

  He shook his head.

  “Demanding, boastful, greedy as fucked, hurried, maybe not too bright, and lays out a little too thick on the things he going to do to your family if you don’t comply?”

  He nodded, his eyes burning with fear and failure.

  I turned to Lacone’s men again. “Which one of you was a little too persistant not to check the shipment?” I asked them. “Which one wanted to get in, get out, and explain away the guard’s itchy behavior as nothing?”

  Dominique joined in. “Don’t think about loyalty. Just don’t think, but if you insist on thinking, you should think about how one greedy bastard is about to share his death with all of you.”

  Collectively, the men’s gaze moved to one man who was sitting next to the girl, closer to the wall. He was an average sized, slick bastard with a bulky black jacket and slicked black hair. He grabbed for his gun, secured it and slung his arm around the hooker’s neck.

  He growled as he put the gun to her head. “I’ll kill her.”

  We were all unimpressed.

  Even the girl seemed a little disappointed in his grasp for power of the situation.

  “We don’t care,” Dominique voiced the opinion of everyone.

  The slick bastard shoved her away, disgusted. I didn’t give him a chance to grab up another hostage and shot his knee cap. His gun dropped and one Lacone’s men kicked it way. If the hired thug had of gone for the guard, then maybe he would’ve had some slack in the situation.

  He didn’t and he paid for it.

  I aimed the gun back at the Guard. “Now, tell me where the shipment is, and it better be still in the shipping yard. You actually have a shot of not dying tonight.”

  The guard gave me the container number. “My computer is still open. You type the number in and it will give you the location.”

  I held the gun on him a little long, coming to terms if I believed him.

  I did.

  Dominique stepped forward and addressed the group. “Get to the yard and secure the shipment, and there better not be anymore fuck ups. We need to held out as of now. Gunshots is a great way to get the police involved and we don’t want, or need that.” She dipped her head and grinned, “We all know what part of town we’re in, so we won’t have to worry about the police showing up too quickly.”

  The man with the shot knee cap moaned.

  Dominique’s grin turned into a pleasant smile, she closed her eyes, and listened to his pleas. “Finish this quickly, and I’ll leave your turncoat alive for your boss; it’s Lacone’s retribution for his lost man.”

  The remaining Lacone’s men nodded, said nothing and filed out the door. They had to step over Ralph’s slumped body to do it. I hadn’t knocked Ralph out by my last assault, but he had found it best not to say another word, or try to move until he thought it was safe.

  I turned to my brother once the men were gone. “You pay the girl?”

  Ralph looked up at me. He glanced at the hooker and shook his head.

  “Let’s go, sweetie,” I beckoned her over.

  The hooker was calm about it as she stepped over the man shot in the knee cap and the shot up guard in the chair. Her only apprehension was when she had to step around Dominique who glared at her and then turned her glare on me.

  I offered my hand for the hooker took it.

  I put my attention back on Ralph. “Give me your roll?”

  “What?”

  I nodded to his pocket. “Give me your roll.”

  He grumbled as he reached into his pocket and took out a wad of hundreds. We both looked at the young hooker as her eyes lit up at the money. Ralph grumbled even more as he took the time to try and peel some of the hundreds off then decided to just hand it to me altogether. He was slow getting up. His left eye had completely swollen shut. His bottom lip was big and his nose was still spurting little streams of blood that he did not wipe just yet. He briefly looked at me and then looked away. If he thought about asking for his money when I finished paying the girl, he didn’t voice it. If he thought about making a comment of our very short fight that I won and he very much lost, he didn’t bring it up.

  It was the best thing he could’ve done for himself.

  ***

  Once out of the stuffy hotel room, the young girl took a deep breath. She glanced at the stairs not too far from her and appeared like she was ready to bolt. I tightened the hold on her hand and brought her close to me. She did not protest, and in that instant, I found a kinship with her. She was trash and she knew it, but she expected not the big house or dreams of marrying rich or a trick wanting to make her life better, but accepted who and what she was. If I slapped her she wouldn’t flinch from it and probably wouldn’t wipe the blood until after I left or if I insisted she do it while I watched and sneered.

  I began the conversation between her and me, with, “Look, I’m your friend, okay?” It might have been the wrong choice of words but I had to get a point across. She flinched but instantly got a hold of herself. I peeled off two hundred dollar bills and handed them to her. “You’re my friend, too, okay?”

  She nodded and said nothing. I handed her another hundred.

  “How did you end up in there?”

  She looked at the closed hotel door. “Fat guy wanted a party.”

  “Just him?”

  She nodded again. “He said I might have to do his boys, too. No extra charge for ‘em.”

  I handed her two more hundreds for Ralph’s blatant stupidity. You don’t stiff a hooker and make her work your crew and then have her witness your crimes and expect her to be quiet about it. He might have killed her and she might have known that.

  I handed her another hundred just at the thought.

  “Keep going,” I told her.

  “He paid for the room. I did him and he said I could stay the night there. I wanted a shower, he sweats too much. He left and not even an hour later he came back with the guys and the guard and the guy in the bathroom that died. I wanted to leave but he wouldn’t let me. So I staid and the fat guy did what he did to the guard.”

  “Anything else?” She eyed the wad in my hand. I did not hand her another bill. “You’re still being my friend, right?”

  “That’s it.”

  I handed her three more hundreds and put the money away. “Look, sorry you had to see that in there. We’re friends now and friends don’t tell on each other. You weren’t here, okay? You didn’t see any of this so you have nothing to talk about, okay? If I hear one thing about tonight anywhere then I’m coming after you. I will find you. And when I do get a hold of you, we’re not friends anymore, okay?”

  I released her hand and she scurried off into the night.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Don’t flinch, you saw it coming way too early to move now…

  The hand raised, palm out, fingers straight and stiff.

  I tried not to wince, knowning it would hurt.

  Slap!

  My eyes watered – not in my control – and my vision blinked in and out, flickered slightly, from black to my father’s angry scrowl, his ever watching eyes on the prowl for a shimmer of weakness.

  The tears were threatening to make its debut on my cheeks. I gulped and the burn eased. I breathed through my mouth and the tears slowly crept back to wherever they came from.

  I raised my head, gulped again, b
reathed once more, and set my jaw for the next hit that I was sure would come.

  Slap!

  My father had reversed his tatics and used the back of his hand this time. Same cheek, already on fire and burning hotly, caught the second slap and my mind wavered, my vision did too.

  No tears building this time, none at all. What was at first astonishment and pain slowly eased away and anger and embarrassement at being a grown man and slapped by another man in the pressense of other men, settled in my gut and twisted until I almost gagged. I locked my jaw, my teeth grinding loudly.

  To my assumption, I looked like a man itching for trouble.

  My father took a step closer, his nose almost touching mine – a man that was ready to snub out the trouble I would arise.

  We stared at each other, long and hard, angrily and defiantily. We did not speak, and neither one of us breathed.

  My compuser loosened when I felt the sting under my left eye and the first little droplets of blood down my cheek. The back hand had opened my skin, his ring had cut me.

  I had refused to cry in front of my father.

  Instead I bled; tears of blood running down my left cheek.

  I lowered my eyes; defeated, quietly and violently, put back in my place.

  “Don’t you dare, Tristan, you be a fucking man and look me in my eyes,” my father said through his gritted teeth.

  I did as he asked and he slapped me again. Same cheek, more force than the previous two. I grunted in pain but I did not look away.

  Whatever was left of my face would look fucked up in the morning.

  My father turned his attention to Ralph. “You were careless,” he growled and Ralph flinched and his nose instantly started bleeding again. “While you were busy fucking, your shipment was almost pinched and you lost one of your crew.”

  Ralph nodded and averted his eyes.

  “I would hit you if your own little brother hadn’t fucked you up first,” my father went on. His voice was steady and calm, his body not completely relaxed, but suited well for the conversation of predator and prey – my brother the latter.