Wicked Stepbrother (Book Two)

by Lila Price

  “Cool,” I said, wondering what this meant.

  We drove in silence for a bit and then Zack’s phone began ringing. He answered it brusquely. “Wild,” he said into it, holding the phone to his ear.

  There was a voice blabbering but I couldn’t hear the words.

  And then Zack nodded. “It’s early,” he said. “I’m there if they got the money.” A few seconds later, he asked for an address, nodded, then hung up. He tucked the phone back into his pocket. “Detour,” he said. “I need to stop off and do some work, pick up some cash.”

  “What kind of work?”

  “It shouldn’t take long,” he said. “It’s a little early in the day for it, but I take the work whenever it comes in.”

  I didn’t know what he was talking about. I checked the time on the dashboard of his truck—the clock read 10:07am. I wondered what kind of job he was bringing me to—I hoped he wasn’t a drug dealer or something.

  After another minute or two driving in silence, I spoke again. “Is this illegal?”

  “Sort of,” he said.

  “Then I don’t want any part of it.”

  He laughed. “It’s not that kind of thing. You can’t get into any trouble for it.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Actually, I am,” he said, laughing again, shooting me a quick look of amusement as he stepped on the gas and shifted gears again.

  After a little bit, we pulled up in front of a home on a residential street.

  Zack turned off the car and grabbed the keys. “Ready?” he asked me.

  “Should I wait in the truck?”

  “Probably,” he said, then got out and slammed the door shut. He started toward the yard, which had a chain link fence around it. There were some people in the back yard waiting for him.

  A few of them were holding up their cell phones, clearly filming Zack.

  I grew curious.

  Maybe he sings for birthday parties? Maybe he’s a famous DJ?

  A clown?

  Maybe he skateboards or juggles.

  I couldn’t think of much else that made sense—why he would just show up at some house and get paid and filmed like he was some kind of celebrity.

  I got out of the car, slowly heading toward the back yard to see what was happening. When I approached the fence, I saw that a crowd of about fifteen or twenty young men (with just a sprinkling of three or four women) were standing around drinking beer.

  There was a large keg standing on one end of the lawn near the porch.

  Zack was stripping off his jacket. He said something to one of the men, who approached and showed him a roll of money. Zack glanced at the money and nodded approvingly. Then he took off his shirt, baring his muscular, tattooed torso to the crowd.

  Oh my God. He’s a male stripper.

  I felt revolted and entranced.

  Then I saw another man, much bigger and even more muscular than Zack, also with his shirt off. He was even more heavily tattooed, and he also sported a thick Mohawk dyed blue.

  The larger man was throwing punches at the air. His eyes were wide and insane.

  The crowd formed a semi circle as the big blue haired maniac squared off against Zack. Zack rolled his shoulders and gave a quick smile and a nod at the blue-haired monster.

  The man holding the money got between them momentarily, raising his voice to the audience of beer swilling hicks in the backyard. “Okay, y’all, this contest is simple. No holds barred—anything goes. First man to tap, ask to stop the fight, or get knocked the fuck out loses. Last man standing wins and gets the money.”

  He backed away and someone handed him a cup of beer and he drank it, squeezing the roll of bills in his other hand.

  I couldn’t believe this was real. If I wasn’t watching it in real time, I’d assume this was staged—a hoax, a joke.

  A bunch of young men drinking warm beer and standing around a muddy backyard, paying to watch two strangers beat the crap out of each other.

  But that didn’t explain why Zack was there. I could tell he was intelligent, and he was clearly hot enough to be a model. He could get money a different way, and yet he chose to do this.

  Why?

  But my ruminations were interrupted by the commencing of an actual fight in front of my eyes.

  The onlookers began raucously cheering, whooping and hollering as it began.

  Mohawk walked briskly towards Zack, hands up as if to block punches, but Zack wasn’t throwing any punches. He backed away, slowly, his own hands down at his sides, moving his head ever so slightly from left to right, as if taunting the bigger man.

  Mohawk grinned, revealing a mouth shy of a few teeth—his dental health couldn’t have been exactly encouraged by this sort of activity.

  Mohawk seemed to tire of chasing Zack, stopped and stood there, waving at him with both hands. “Come on,” he shouted. “You wanna fight or you want to run, pussy?”

  The crowd cheered, but some people whistled and booed.

  Zack stopped and then moved forward suddenly, ducking as Mohawk threw a hard but ultimately slow, wide, looping punch that missed by at least two feet.

  Zack threw a hard punch to the bigger man’s gut, hitting him just below his ribcage, collapsing him sideways from the pain and force of the blow. As Mohawk began to try and protect his body, he brought his hands low, and then Zack pivoted and threw a vicious punch that landed with a thud on the jaw that could be heard echoing out into the neighborhood.

  The punch separated Mohawk from his senses completely, and he fell sideways to the dirt in one violent mass of unconscious flesh.

  His head bounced off the ground and then he rolled onto his back, legs kicking out straight as if he’d been electrocuted.

  Zack stood there, watching him momentarily.

  The crowd had fallen deathly silent, as if the brutality and finality of the contest had dismayed even the most bloodthirsty observers.

  As a couple of guys lifted Mohawk off his back and into a sitting position, his eyes opened and he shook his head. They seemed to be explaining to him that the fight was indeed over.

  Meanwhile, Zack approached the man handling the money. Outstretching his hand, Zack still seemed to radiate danger.

  Everyone nearby had fallen silent and watchful, like he was some rabid dog that might just tear into the nearest person who looked at him wrong.

  He was handed a wad of cash that he didn’t bother counting, just stuffed the roll of bills into his pants pocket. Then he grabbed his shirt and coat and walked off, exiting through the gate while the crowd stared mutely at him.

  When he reached me, Zack pulled his shirt on and then glanced at me. “You should’ve stayed in the truck,” he said.

  “I didn’t know,” I replied, following him as he headed back to the vehicle.

  We both got inside. Zack started the car and then examined his knuckles while it idled. His hand looked a little swollen and raw, but that could just as easily have been from the fight with my cousins.

  “Not too bad,” he muttered, flexing his fingers out and then making a fist. He grimaced a little as he closed his hand.

  “So this is what you do all day? Beat people up?” I said, unable to keep the judgment out of my voice.

  Zack gave me a quick sideways look before pulling the truck out into the street. “That’s just one of my many talents,” he said, clearly not taking my question seriously.

  “And now where do we go?” I said, feeling strangely betrayed.

  “Where do you want to go?” he replied.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Somewhere else equally fun. How about a slaughterhouse?”

  Zack gave a grunting laugh. “Relax, Caeli. Nobody got hurt too bad. It’s just a fight, it’s what we do.”

  “Don’t act like it’s normal to do that to people.”

  “I didn’t say it was normal. I said it’s what people like me do. We fight.”

  “You could at least get in a ring and do it professionally, not illeg
ally in a backyard.”

  “So that would make it all better then?” he retorted.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted.

  “That’s a start,” he said, his voice hardening as he drove faster.

  I bit my nail, chewing on it absentmindedly, then realized what I was doing and stopped. My leg jittered anxiously. “I don’t even know what I’m doing right now. You’re right, I don’t know you and I shouldn’t judge you.”

  “I never said any of that,” Zack laughed.

  “Well, I just did.”

  “What’s your damage?” he asked, shaking his head.

  “This whole situation is just ridiculous. How many girls have you slept with?”

  He didn’t answer.

  I snorted. “That many?”

  “You’re really itching to find something to hate about me,” Zack said. “Well, you won’t have to look far if that’s what you’re after.”

  “I just don’t get why you asked me to come stay with you. Was it just because my father pissed you off? And now you’re regretting it, so you’re trying to scare me away or something?”

  Zack sighed, turning the truck onto a side road. “I asked you to stay because it seemed like you might need a safer place to live.”

  I cackled madly. “Living with you is safer? On what planet?”

  He glanced at me, his green eyes flashing. “Nobody will ever hurt you or so much as look at your wrong when you’re with me,” he said.

  In that moment, I felt the truth behind his words. I knew that he wasn’t merely saying it, that he actually meant it and intended to honor it.

  The sensation of his protectiveness caused chills to cascade throughout my body, making my skin flash into goose bumps.

  I inhaled sharply, my nipples stiffening.

  “I don’t know what to say to that,” I admitted.

  He gave a small grin. “You don’t need to say anything.” And then he pulled into a shopping plaza with a department store. In the next lot over was a large supermarket. “I happen to have come into some cash today,” Zack said, winking at me. “So why don’t you run into the store, pick out some clothes for the next few days, some essentials, and then I’ll run across to the market and grab some food and whatnot.”

  “I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” I said.

  “Caeli,” Zack said, turning to me and staring into my eyes. “You deserve to have a few nice things. It’s my treat. Let me do this for you.”

  I shook my head. “I can go home and pick up some clothes—“

  “No,” Zack said. “We both know if you go back to that apartment, this all falls apart.”

  His insight into my personality scared me a little. “I can’t live with you.”

  “You’re just staying with me for a bit,” he said. “Nobody said anything about living together.”

  “But what’s the point?” I asked, my hands curling tightly around my shirt anxiously. “Eventually I have to go back. This is silly.”

  “No,” Zack said.

  “No I don’t have to go back or no this isn’t silly?”

  “Both,” he replied simply. “Now get out and I’ll meet you in a few minutes in the store when you’re ready to check out.”

  ZACK

  After Caeli reluctantly got out of the truck, I watched her walk hesitantly towards the department store.

  She was beautiful and sexy as fuck, and she didn’t even seem to realize it.

  It was as though she was a beautiful, rare flower growing in the mud and dirt, somehow existing in the middle of a war zone.

  I’d seen beauty destroyed before—but nothing so beautiful as her.

  Nothing so rare as her.

  My stomach clenched a little as I watched her disappear into the store, looking back once over her shoulder as she went inside.

  My palms were suddenly sweating and I had a pounding headache as my mind spun back in time.

  Gun shots rattling.

  Me, running full speed with my gear, shooting like a maniac, the bullets I fire blowing through the bodies of the enemy fleeing before me. They don’t know how to deal with someone who is unafraid of death—someone who will do anything to defend his brothers.

  The fury of seeing my best friends scared, wounded, killed—the smell of burning flesh and the madness of battle—all of these sights and sounds and scents are now permanently etched into the backs of my eyeballs, the insides of my nostrils, hitting my ear drums and echoing endlessly.

  We’re all going to die out here and I know it.

  But first, I intend to give my brothers every chance and opportunity to survive the ambush, and if that means my life is over, then so be it. After everything I’ve seen in Afghanistan, I don’t really think my life can ever be what it was—the veil has been pulled back and it won’t ever be the same for me.

  I’m fine with being a sacrifice.

  I snapped out of my memory, heart pounding, breathing shallowly, as someone laid on their car horn behind me. I turned and glared at the young guy in his car, and his face visibly paled.

  The look in my eyes was probably enough to make him pee his pants.

  I turned around, getting control of myself little by little and then driving across to the plaza with the supermarket.

  Just run. Leave her in the store back there and get the hell away from her.

  You’ll be sparing her so much misery. You’re ruined, a shell of a human being. You know this is all meaningless, your mind corrupted from everything you’ve seen and the places you’ve been.

  Why are you still trying to act like a human being when you know it’s all a lie?

  I wiped the sweat from my brow and slowed my breathing little by little. Part of me did want to run, leave her in the store.

  I was supposed to leave her this morning, not ask her to come and stay with me at my apartment. But something inside of me couldn’t stand by and let that beautiful flower wilt in the hot sun, couldn’t abide by that old man trying to crush her underfoot.

  I knew it wasn’t my place—me of all people. I was about the last person that should be trying to save anyone else, seeing as I’d been drowning for a long time.

  But somehow I couldn’t let go of her, couldn’t let go of the dream of her, I wanted to savor every little moment with Caeli.

  So maybe this would be a few days instead of just one night.

  Was that so bad?

  Wasn’t I entitled to a few days of happiness after everything I’d been through?

  No.

  The answer was simple and truthful.

  The world doesn’t owe you anything, soldier. You’ve seen children, innocent children, blown apart. You’ve seen grown men begging for their lives only to die screaming, their cries of anguish unheeded and forgotten.

  So no, you aren’t entitled to jack shit.

  The best you can do is spare this poor girl anymore wasted time in your company.

  I went into the supermarket and began shopping for some staples, things that I hoped might make the apartment feel more comfortable for her. I bought plenty of food, not knowing exactly what she liked.

  I got a range of stuff, from lunchmeat to veggies, salad fixings, yogurt, soup, bread, rice, some bacon and eggs and thin-sliced steaks.

  I bought shampoo, conditioner, the pink girlie stuff that seemed like it would make her feel at home. Lotions, nail polish, makeup, I bought enough food and toiletries to fill an entire cart.

  I paid in cash.

  The gig today had paid well and I still had money left over from my last fight.

  It seemed like word was starting to spread, because the last few weeks I was getting more calls and the money was going up. Apparently some of my fight films were being passed around online and people were hoping to see me live and in person more often.

  I didn’t care.

  Fighting just came easy to me.

  Hurting people came easy to me, and it kept me from thinking.

  Anything that kept me
from thinking was good.

  I rolled my cart out to the parking lot and loaded the bags into the back of my truck, then got inside and drove towards the department store.

  Even as I parked in front of the store where I knew she was shopping, a little voice in my head was telling me to just go. Back out, leave and never think about her again.

  The urge to flee was powerful. But then I imagined her face and her eyes, those big eyes that seemed to need me of all people.

  I couldn’t leave, not yet.

  The leaving was inevitable but it could wait for now.

  I got out of the truck and walked to the entrance.

  When I got inside, I found her standing with just a few items of clothing, and it was obvious to me that she was uncomfortable taking my help. I looked down at the clothes she was holding.

  “That’s not enough, and don’t just get the shit that’s on sale, Caeli.”

  She pouted a little. “I can’t take your money. I’m not—“

  “You’re not what?”

  “I’m not like that,” she said, defiantly.

  My dick hardened. “I think you are like that.” My jaw tightened. “Now go back and get more clothes, and make sure to get some little panties and bras, stuff that barely covers you.”

  Her cheeks flushed and she swallowed. “I’m not doing any such thing. I’m getting these jeans and this t-shirt.”

  “Come with me,” I told her, grabbing her wrist in my hand and pulling her.

  “Hey,” she said, but she did as I said.

  As we walked, I noticed how hard my cock was, how badly I wanted to be inside her again, wanted to feel her red, plush lips hugging my shaft, sucking me off while her big eyes stared up at me.

  I pulled her to the lingerie section and made her choose a few skimpy outfits.

  Her face reddened but I could tell she enjoyed selecting them in front of me. If there had been more time and the food wouldn’t spoil, I’d have made her change and give me a show in the dressing room.

  When she was done in the lingerie section, we went and grabbed socks, more panties and regular bras, t-shirts, sweaters, jeans and skirts. There was no time for her to try it all on, and I told her if things didn’t fit she could return them.