Hard Candy

by Francesca Baez

  Hard Candy

  Francesca Baez

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Break

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Break

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from “Gold Cage”

  About the Author

  Caged © 2021 Francesca Baez

  * * *

  www.francescabaez.com

  * * *

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. Except for use in review, the reproduction or use of this work in any part is forbidden without the express written permission of the author.

  * * *

  Nispero Media, LLC

  nispero.media

  Prologue

  Andrews

  My calloused thumb absently traces the scar on my left arm, the uneven ridge soft and pink where it was once rough and tender. Newborn skin, patching together the places where I’ve been torn apart. It’s been nearly a year since she dug the knife in and sliced me open.

  “Do you know why I’m here?” A warm, throaty voice. A mess of curls as soft as her expression is hard. The unforgiving dimple that forms on her chin as she lifts the knife and grins.

  The racket in the next room over starts up again, and I pull the cheap headphones over my ears and crank the first song that comes up. I only have a few days left in this shitty motel, I remind myself. It’s not a comforting thought. My next destination will be the Walmart parking lot, with the driver’s seat pushed all the way back and a security guard tapping on my window in the morning.

  The leather jacket slips off toned, strong shoulders. A faded t-shirt and a shiny new Glock.

  Having sufficiently drowned out the white trash next door, I flip to the next page in my folder, the manila worn so ragged that the corners are velvet-soft. A year ago, all that this folder contained was detailed surveillance on Javier Vega and Selina Palacios, pages and pages of it. All the evidence I ever needed to prove the troubled heiress and her thug of a husband were extorting half the CEOs, government officials, and law enforcement officers in Atlanta. And for what? Those two disappeared off the face of the planet last fall, never being held accountable for their sins. They’re probably on a huge ranch in Colombia right now, fucking in an infinity pool filled with Cristal.

  The light in the Palacios estate wine cellar is dim, but the glare reflected on her sharp blade is blinding.

  Those files are now scattered all the way down I-75, rain and roadkill and screeching semis grinding my life’s work deep into the asphalt.

  I have new files, though. New transcripts and security cam stills and illegible chicken scratch that was once either the number to a dingy corner bar downtown or the email address of a contact in the State Patrol. There is a new name that buzzes in my head all day and drifts through my dreams at night.

  Miel Conde.

  She runs the tip of her knife feather-light across my goosepimpled flesh, and I forget how to breathe when those plush lips curl up. “I’m here to kill you.”

  My fingers trace the grainy surveillance photo of Conde, the only image I have of her face, aside from the bloody memories I see every time I close my eyes. Even in gray pixels her eyes shine with a certain hunger, and her body is coiled with the tight precision of a psycho bitch.

  Burning where my skin is splitting open, burning where every drop of blood in my body drips onto the floor. Her pretty face blurs in front of me, and I brace for the next cut. Then we’re both knocked to the ground.

  If it hadn’t been for the explosion that demolished half the Palacios mansion, she would have killed me. She very nearly did. By the time I had recovered enough to go looking for her, someone had burned down what remained of the mansion, and Miel Conde was nowhere to be found.

  I’ve been told I have an obsessive personality. I don’t know if I’d call it that. All I know is, when I see a problem, I don’t rest until I solve it. And the woman who left me scarred and mutilated is the biggest problem I’ve ever faced.

  A problem I’m about to take care of, once and for all.

  I rip the top sheet off the motel stationary, and study the address jotted on it, as if I haven’t already memorized it.

  1971 SW Fourth Street, Miami, Florida.

  The heart of Little Havana.

  Miel Conde may have run, but she didn’t flee far enough, and she didn’t hide deep enough.

  I know exactly where to find her, and exactly what I’ll do to her once I do.

  Chapter One

  Miel

  I’m going to fucking shoot myself if these women don’t shut up.

  Their harpy shrieks rise in a cacophonous melody over the throbbing bass of the electronic music, meaning that a new set must have just started. It doesn’t matter who just took the stage. It’s all the same. Screaming bitches sloshing their overpriced drinks on each other as they shove toward the stage, men greased up like pigs on a spit, writhing their overworked hips in time to the blaring music, glitter and dollar bills raining down like manna from heaven.

  I snap the band around another stack of bills that smell lightly of baby oil and toss it into the duffel by my feet. If it makes any sound as it lands among its brethren, I can’t hear it. There’s a country song on now, which means Jackson must be doing his cowboy set. It involves lassoing an unlucky guest from the audience and pulling them up on stage for their own personal lap dance. Bitches love that shit, enough to spend more than they’d told themselves they would. Jackson’s pretty face must have spread open the legs of every girl in his high school, and here, it spreads open the wallets of sorority girls on spring break and middle-aged divorcees alike. I’ll never understand it, the effect my boys have on these women. When I look at their strong jaws, contoured six packs, and suspiciously large bulges, I feel… nothing. I’ve never looked at anyone, man or woman, and felt the desperate hunger that drives sane people to throw away lives and fortunes and freedom.

  Another stack lands in the duffel. Now this, this makes me feel something. It feels like safety, self-preservation, and control. In the right hands, money can be as powerful as a gun. And I want to be the right hands.

  I need to be.

  A light rap on the door, then a pause. My staff knows better than to barge into my office without permission.

  “Come in,” I shout, loud enough to be heard over the music and girlish screeching.

  Luci
a pushes the door open partway, leaning around it to look at me, but not stepping into the room. The harsh light of the single, bare bulb overhead darkens the unconcealed shadows under her deep-set eyes.

  “Hey boss.” She cuts to the chase, her husky voice rendered even raspier by the harsh cigarette smoke that still lingers around her. “There’s some shit going down at the bar.”

  “So take care of it,” I say brusquely. “Isn’t that what I pay you for?”

  “It’s that pendeja from last week.” Lucia doesn’t waste time on apologies or excuses. “She’s threatening to call the police again.”

  Fucking perfect. I miss being able to solve my problems with a little gunpowder or a broken bone. I wasn’t built for diplomacy. But Hard Candy has always been an upstanding, if sleazy, establishment, and it needs to stay that way. On paper, anyway. What happens in the dark is nobody’s business.

  I kick the duffel bag full of cash farther under the desk as I stand, and grab the leather jacket off the back of my chair. Wearing it in Miami always leaves me miserably sweaty, but I still keep it around. People like the woman I’m about to shut up expect people like me to look a certain way. When I match their expectations, it adds to the intimidation factor that already comes off of me naturally. I shrug my shoulders into the well-worn leather and instantly feel a little taller. It has nothing to do with the memories attached to the garment. This always has been and always will be nothing but armor.

  Locking the office door behind me, I step into the Saturday night swarm. Jostling bodies press into me from all sides, and out here, the music is so loud that I can feel the bassline in my bones. It used to give me a headache, but now, my body welcomes the buzz. I belong in the chaos. I was born for it.

  The crowd has cleared a bit around the bar. Even in their drunken stupor, most of the customers know to stay away from the escalating drama. That only pisses me off more. Every second that drinks aren’t being served is money stolen straight out of my pocket.

  I come up behind the woman in question, keeping a wide enough berth that she can’t reach out and strike me if startled. I’m not worried about her hurting me. I know that if she comes at me, she’s the one who ends up on the floor with a bloody nose, at the very least. I don’t have time to deal with the fallout of that.

  “Ma’am?” The girls tease me for always using my ma’ams and sirs, but growing up in Georgia beat the habit into me. “What seems to be the problem?”

  The woman turns to me, bleary eyes and slurring lips telling me more than her fumbled explanations. She threatens to call the police. I threaten to ban her from the club. She says I can’t do that. I cross my arms and hold her gaze until she gets the message: I can do whatever the fuck I want.

  Someone at the edge of the room catches my eye. A man. Not that that in itself is so noteworthy; we get plenty of men here, of all shapes and sizes. But this man, towering over the crowd with a glower that rivals mine, is no customer. It’s The Breaker.

  The Breaker is King’s brawn. He is the embodiment of fear, and it only takes one look to understand how he earned his name. Nobody in Miami crosses King, because only a truly suicidal idiot would go up against his one-man-army. Most people hate The Breaker because of what he could do to them. I hate him for what he already does to me weekly.

  He’s here to take my money.

  I nod at Lucia, ignoring the continued babbling of the drunken woman. “Take care of this shit, for real.”

  Then I meet The Breaker’s eyes and jerk my chin toward my office, before heading that way myself.

  He won’t take all my money. King is good to his washers. But every single bill they pry from my fingers leaves me a little colder, a little more exposed.

  I unlock the office and The Breaker follows me in. I pull the duffel out from under the desk and slide it his way, then lean back and wait as he begins to finger through the bands.

  “Busy night?” I ask when the quiet grows unbearable. He doesn’t answer. I knew he wouldn’t. The Breaker was born for this job. He’s all muscle and loyalty, not a shred of charisma or human emotion to be found.

  Not that I’m one to talk.

  “It’s been fucking crazy in here all weekend,” I say, answering a question he’d never even consider asking. “Bachelorette season, I guess. All we have to do is play Pony once an hour and these bitches are emptying their pockets.”

  The mute giant of a man finishes counting, zips up the duffel, and pulls it over a mammoth shoulder.

  “Do you want to up your delivery?” he asks, eyes still on the now empty desk. I nod too quickly. More is more, after all. “I’ll tell King.”

  Without waiting for an answer, he crosses the room and lets himself out.

  I drop back into my chair and open the top drawer, pulling out a Chupa Chups. The sugar jolts through me as soon as it hits my tongue, artificial cherry flavor flooding my taste buds. Outside, as if on cue, Pony begins to play.

  Thank fuck for Channing Tatum.

  With a loud crack, I bite down, sharp candy shards teasing my tongue. I check the time on my phone. Two in the morning. Just another hour until closing. Then there’s the hour it takes to actually clear the club, and another after that to clean sticky off of every surface in this place, including the guys. The time doesn’t bother me. My body adjusted to a nocturnal schedule months ago. My body can adjust to anything.

  Three hours later, I pull my beat-up sedan into the last spot left in the lot, get my shit, and lock up. The lonely walk through the muggy courtyard, past the dingy community pool, and up the weathered wooden stairs is a familiar one. I’ve walked it through lobbies that smell of stale piss, I’ve walked it up five floors of staircases lit the color of menace, and I’ve walked it past yards fenced by rusty chain-link to keep the moldy mattresses and detached toilet bowls in place. The path itself is different, but the destination is always the same. The closest thing to comfort and security I’ll ever have: Four walls and a door that at least pretends to lock.

  A low wolf-whistle. I don’t turn to look. It’s like feeding a stray cat. You give them attention once, and you’ll never be rid of them.

  “Bueno pues, look who’s been out all night,” the voice from across the balcony leers in Spanish. “What’s a pretty girl like you doing out so late?”

  “Fuck off, Ramon,” I growl as I twist the key in the lock, wishing it was a serrated blade I was twisting in the soft flesh of his belly. I don’t say that out loud. I’m too tired to make threats right now. If he tries to fuck with me, my actions will do all the talking.

  “Ay, mami, don’t be like—”

  I slam the door behind me, and imagine that the thin fiberglass does anything to drown out the sounds of the night. The mixed roar of cars heading home after a long night and driving to work for a long day, the people above me fucking, fighting, or both, the occasional distant howl of a train passing through. A dog barking down the block, Ramon swearing at me from across the way. When I click the three deadbolts into place and slide the chain guard through its track, none of it matters. I am home, I am alone, and I can let my guard down enough to sleep for four or five hours.

  The nine millimeter on my nightstand, the hunting knife under my mattress, and my permanently loaded supply of vicious anger will keep me safe.

  Chapter Two

  Andrews

  The apartment complex is distinctly Floridian. “Sunset Cliffs.” What the fuck does that mean? There sure as hell aren’t any cliffs in Miami. A pool guaranteed to give one a staph infection, encircled by squat pink stucco buildings. Through the tiny, perfectly square windows, I see guys playing video games, kids watching TV, a lady yelling into a phone, and her.

  Fourth building, second floor, first window on the right. She’s drawn the blinds, but that’s not enough to stop a guy like me. I watch her silhouette brush its teeth and I fantasize about pulling those pearly whites out, one by one. I watch her slice through an apple the way she sliced through me, and I wonder what it would feel li
ke to hold a knife to her throat.

  I’m not a violent man. The most damage I’ve ever done to a human body was accidentally spraining a fellow officer’s wrist in training. But she broke something in me, that night in the wine cellar. When she cut me open, she released a bitter hunger I’d never felt before, a thirst for blood that’s been bubbling up inside me, boiling over ever since. I want her to hurt, the way I hurt, dragging myself out of the rubble with my one good arm, running for hours on a quarter of my blood supply. I want her to pay, not only for what she did to me, but for everything that happened that year in Atlanta. I’ve seen my share of monsters, but none have haunted me the way she does. When they stitched me back together, they left all her shrapnel inside me. The toxin has leaked into my bloodstream, poisoning my thoughts, my actions. It led me right to her.

  She goes back into the bedroom and pulls her shirt off over her head. I watch the blurred edges of her shadow, filling in the details with pain-drunk memories. Toned, strong biceps. A hint of cleavage that she doesn’t show off. Thighs built for running. I think about my fist around her throat, and her body pressed against mine. She will fight me. Miel Conde didn’t come this far only to go easily into the night. The idea of her struggling against me stirs up my hunger, making the distance between us feel even more acute. I’ve finally found her. I can barely wait to get my hands on her. I’ve never felt this, a desire so deep I can’t breathe through it. I’ve gotten rough with women before, and it felt good, but I never thought of them again. This poisonous woman is burrowed between the folds of my brain, sucking all sense out of me. I need to get rid of her and go back to my old life. I need to cleanse my body of her influence, and there’s only one way to do that.