Don't Take My Baby (Twisted Ghosts MC)

by Zoey Parker

  It wasn’t quite the kind of neighborhood where gunshots were ignored because they were commonplace, but it also wasn’t all that far away from such a place.

  He parked in front of a little shop that did not have bars on its front windows, but she could see roll-down metal shutters that could be closed at night. There were mannequins in those windows, wearing skimpy costumes that no store in the nicer parts of town would display. One was a flapper dress, covered in a fringe, that barely covered the mannequin’s plastic ass; the other wore a bikini, not unlike the one she and Milo were here to pick up. He took her hand like she was his girlfriend, and it gave her the same soft feelings that she’d had before; she forced to swallow them again. Why did she want to give in to this? Why did she want him to be a part of her life? She’d never wanted that before, not since she was a tiny child. She hadn’t wanted that from Toro, or any of the men that had come before him. They had been a means to an end, a way to get what she wanted: food, safety, and in all honesty, a way to scratch the endless itch of wanting physical pleasure and contact. It was safer than fucking random people from bars and more interesting than a rechargeable vibrator. It was better than nothing, but not by all that much. Wanting more than that wasn’t safe. Wanting more than that was how girls like her ended up as mules for drug kingpins and hooking for pimps who swore they loved the girl, and that just as soon as he’d paid off his bills, she could stop. She’d worked hard to make herself so untouchable that she’d never be fooled like that. She wasn’t going to allow that to change because of some stupid wish that was probably hormone related anyway.

  So instead of letting Milo lead the way into the store, she pulled free of his hand and strutted inside first. She didn’t have four-inch heels, but she could walk like she did; she got every inch of sway out of her hips that she could. She let the door bang on her way in; Tess had known how to make an entrance since she was a preteen. She struck a pose in the doorway, her hand on her hip, her left leg extended just enough to highlight her calf under her shortened leather skirt, and her sunglasses low on her nose so she could stare over them like some kind of movie starlet.

  She spotted the proprietor; a skinny, sweaty man, taller than most, with a thick head of hair that didn’t look entirely his. He stuck his hands deep into his pocket in a way that made her think he’d gotten a hard-on just from glancing at her in the doorway. Oh, this is going to be fun. She heard Milo walking in behind her and could almost feel the displeasure rolling off him. He’d gone on and on about staying under the radar, and she understood why he wanted that; she also understood that down here, his version of staying under the radar would be standing out. No one survived unless they were louder than life, flamboyant, hard, intense, take no prisoners. Strutting into a shop for slutty dance gear like she owned the place would make her just another diva; walking in all quiet and mousy would attract so much more attention than he wanted. But trying to explain that to a man was useless. Especially, she suspected, this man. Why waste her time?

  She swayed her way across the floor, moving her hips like Jessica Rabbit, and stopped just a step too close to the skinny man. His hair was pristine, and he wasn’t bony-skinny under his shirt; in another life, she might have found him attractive. Today, though, he was an obstacle in her way, and she needed him out of it.

  “Hey there, handsome,” she said, tilting her head back to look up at him and running her hand down his chest while he swallowed. She stopped north of his belt buckle, but only just. “I heard you have something in the back that’s just my size.”

  He glanced down at his belt and her hand and swallowed hard a second time. “Well, then.”

  And then she pulled back, smiling like she was all business. “It’s the green scaled model with the gauntlets.” She told him her size, and he looked disappointed, but no more so than he would for anyone else who didn’t drop to her knees to suck his dick. She was now just another customer who didn’t fuck him, but he didn’t expect any of them to actually fuck him, so it was no big deal.

  He went into the back to find the costume, and Milo slid up next to her. “What was that?”

  Over the past few weeks, there had been so many times she’d been on Milo’s turf, doing what she needed to do to be safe and sane in his world. It had been fun and exciting and sexy, there was no question, but it had also not been hers. This world, however? This was entirely hers.

  “What does it look like?” Tess asked, giving him a thousand-watt smile that she suspected he would not recognize. “I’m blending.”

  Milo opened his mouth to ask another question, but the proprietor came out of the back then, holding an opaque plastic bag. It was one thing to twirl and spin half-naked around a pole in one of the most acrobatic fashions Tess had ever seen or tried, but accepting a dance costume in public and carrying it through the street, that just wasn’t done. She didn’t roll her eyes, but the temptation was painfully present.

  The man named a price. Tess raised an eyebrow and cocked her hip, and suddenly she was getting a fifty percent discount as his eyes went straight down her chest and tumbled into her cleavage. Milo didn’t exactly snort behind her, but he came close. But he paid the man, and he didn’t argue.

  Back out on the street, he managed to find his voice again. “That was something else.”

  Tess nodded. “I’ve survived in this world for an awfully long time. I appreciate the effort, but frankly, I know more about blending in this world than you do.”

  “Is that so?”

  “It absolutely is.”

  He looked like he wanted to argue the point, but before he could get too involved, he gave a little shrug. “It doesn’t matter. You did good in there, kid. That’s the point.” The vague Humphrey Bogart accent didn’t hurt, either.

  “Thanks,” she replied. She found herself wanting to take his hand again, but there was no world where that was appropriate, and it especially was not appropriate in this one. She wasn’t his girlfriend, she wasn’t even really his baby mama. She was the girl he’d kidnapped, knocked up, and was willing not to kill. There was nothing else between them, and it was going to be the worst mistake she’d ever made to pretend otherwise.

  “So, what now?”

  “Do you have a specific place you want to start?”

  He shrugged. “Toro has a dozen clubs in the city, right?” She nodded. “I can’t find information on any of them. No yes’, no nos. He’s just a ghost. I think he’s left town, honestly, but I need to know for sure before I leave too. I need to get a sense of where he’s going, what’s going on. I need to have a direction.”

  “And you need to have it before Bastille does.”

  “And that. If he hasn’t already.”

  Tess nodded and thought for a minute. “Assets,” she said, after a little bit. “That’s the place to start. If anyone tells us anything, it’ll be Sammy. The front-end manager,” she added when she noticed Milo’s raised eyebrow.

  “In the know about Toro’s affairs?”

  “Not more than any of the other managers. But he really liked my ass back when I worked there, and if I shake it for him, he’ll tell me anything I want to know.”

  There was a flash on Milo’s face for just a moment, but whatever it was, he hid it quickly. She studied him for a long moment, hoping the expression would return so she could figure out what was going on, but he hid it too well.

  “Is it worth it, if he doesn’t know anything?”

  “I didn’t say he didn’t know anything,” she said, turning and walking back towards the car.

  She didn’t bother to tone down the sway in her hips; she hoped, in fact, that he’d enjoy it. This was the version of herself she knew; the version that flounced and flaunted just to get the attention – because when she was doing that, no one paid attention to the rest of her. No one noticed that she was stashing cash, or getting information that could be bargained for her life later, or anything else. They just saw her tits and her ass and the way she used them.

/>   “I just said he didn’t know anything more than everyone else. He’s the most likely to tell me what we – what you need to know.” She got to the car and spun around, one eyebrow lifted to ask when he planned on unlocking the car. He pushed a button on the keychain and tried to be subtle as he adjusted his dick in his pants. Good boy, she thought. Good fucking boy.

  “Let’s go, then,” he said. “To Assets.”

  She didn’t finish the line, just slipped into the car, the bag in her lap, trying to pretend that his eyes on her body didn’t make her incredibly, almost painfully wet.

  Chapter Fifteen

  At Assets, Tess found herself incredibly at home and deeply disoriented. This was a world she’d seamlessly inhabited for what seemed like her entire lifetime. She’d worked in club after club since she was a teenager, supporting herself on tips, refining her dancing skills, and gradually working her way up in the world. She’d had a knack for both the athletic elements of dancing and the more elegant and sexual aspects as well. She’d sold herself for sex when she’d needed to, and she didn’t have shame about that, but it was the dancing she’d always loved. When Toro had made her the offer to follow him home for a night, she’d thought it was a good way to earn a handful of cash; he’d certainly been waving around more than she’d ever seen in a single roll before. He’d promised her she didn’t even have to have intercourse, and his word had been good. But one night had turned into two, a few more, and then she was giving up the room she had in the small apartment she’d shared with a few other girls from the club. She’d let him buy her new clothes, first dancewear for her night job, and once she left that, for her to wear around the penthouse. He’d used her as an ornament; a pretty toy to reward those who pleased him and to take out his anger when something in his business hadn’t gone his way.

  She’d never minded, not really. After the way she’d grown up, on the street as often as she was off it, having a roof over her head was worth almost anything. Sex was a commodity to be traded for whatever she needed; at some points in her life, it was one of the few things she’d had to give.

  Something had changed in the past few weeks though. It wasn’t that the time with Milo had made her disgusted with this world, or even with herself, but it had put a lens between her and the world that hadn’t existed before. She looked around and found herself wondering what it had looked like here, in this club, before she’d spent a month being fucked by a man who could play her body like a tuning fork. It felt different. Colors were brighter, but the floor was more worn. She was confused by it at the same time that she tried to disregard it.

  She had taken the tags off the dance outfit she’d picked out and thrown the gear into an old shoulder bag, covered in sequins and sparkles, that she’d found on her way out of the store. She’d made Milo stop at a drugstore too, and put together a quick makeup bag that would do. After all, she wouldn’t be expected to have all the right gear if she was just there for a tryout. Most girls, if they didn’t have a reputation for drinking or drugs, would get a small advance to get whatever they needed for their first night on stage. But she had a reputation to uphold, after all.

  She pasted a big smile on her face and sauntered straight over to Sammy. He was sitting at the bar with a glass of what looked like water in front of him, bent over a laptop with accounting software pulled up. Of all Toro’s managers, she’d liked Sammy best, despite what she’d said to Milo. Sammy had always been polite to her, both when she’d been dancing and when he’d come by Toro’s penthouse for one thing or another. He’d never taken her when she’d been offered. He was a tall man, plain and nondescript, with ash blond hair and hazel eyes. He smiled, though, and when he smiled, he was impossible to miss. She knew he took care of his girls. He liked to look, but he didn’t touch, and he was careful about letting drugs into his building. She’d heard he’d stuck up for girls who were dealing with handsy customers.

  If she were looking for a new dancing job, this was where she’d look.

  A couple of girls were up on the stage in workout clothes, practicing their routines. It was always a little weird watching girls dance around a pole in regular stretchy pants and a basic sports bra. She knew there were pole dancing workout classes now, which was just bizarre. Sure, it was a fantastic workout, but what kind of gentrifying nonsense was it that these pretty little wives would dance their asses off to stay skinny while they looked down their noses at the girls who had to do it for a living. As if their husbands didn’t turn up and try really hard to stuff a hundred-dollar bill in a girl’s G-string (she never let anyone. That was a way to get hepatitis, and she was not interested. Money was filthy, emotionally and literally).

  She forced the judgmental thoughts out of her head as well as she could. After all, wasn’t she trying hard to be the pretty little wife now? She’d miss the dancing – not just the sexy parts, but the sheer athleticism of twirling around the pole, her arms and legs working as hard as they could to keep her suspended in the air. She was half acrobat and half sex toy up there, and she loved both sides equally. She’d pouted and moped until Toro had installed a proper pole for her, and she’d kept up with her routines as best as she could, inventing new ones to new songs as they became popular, updating older routines to new music when the music got stale. She’d always been a soft-bodied, curvy woman, but she was strong, and she liked being strong. It helped her feel safe.

  Maybe, if she took Milo up on his offer, she’d get him to set her up a pole, too. She could be like all the other pretty wives in whatever neighborhood they found and stay fit by doing what she’d always done. The irony would be its own kind of delicious.

  Sammy heard her heels click-clacking across the floor and turned. Even in the casual short shorts and low-cut tank that Milo had bought her, she knew she was a stunner – and she knew she was recognizable. Tess loved how Sammy looked her up and down, a small smile on his face. He appreciated her body without seeming to undress her with his eyes. There was no noticeable shifting of his hardening dick, no smirking thought of how he could have her if he wanted her plastered across his face. Just a quiet appreciation for the girl sashaying towards him.

  “Theresa Graham, as I live and breathe,” he said. He was from somewhere in the South, she’d never exactly pinned down where, but he tended to play up his accent when it suited him. He held out a hand and took hers, lifting it up to his lips for the kind of kiss that would have been appropriate in a fancy restaurant or a period movie. “We all thought for you sure you went down in the raid that took out Toro’s place.”

  Her stomach fluttered for a moment, and she forced herself to remember that no one was going to volunteer any information to her right now; anything that he said to her at this moment would be a smokescreen, no matter what he did or didn’t know. She smiled back, letting him hold her hand for an extra moment before taking it back. Might as well be sweet and flattering.

  Behind her, she heard the door to the club open, very gently; if she hadn’t been listening for the sound, she probably would have missed it. Milo had wanted to follow her in, but she’d managed to explain – repeatedly but firmly – that she would never get any information at all out of Sammy if he tried that. There were a time and a place for his sort of interrogation – and a time and a place for hers.

  “It’s been an awfully long time since I heard that name, Samuel,” she said, and Sammy gave a little laugh. “I am a good little kitty who used to have nine lives.” She returned his little laugh. Toro had called her his pet for the longest time, and it used to annoy her; now it was the kind of signal she hoped would tell Sammy she could be trusted. Even though she couldn’t. “Or at least, I did until some men came and shot up Toro’s place.”

  “How did you get out?” The question felt casual, but it made her stomach jump all the same. Sammy wasn’t stupid, and no one around a drug lord was presumed innocent. Anyone could have turned to the cops, gotten in too deep with another family, or any other number of things that could threaten an
entire community.

  She shrugged. “I still don’t entirely know. I was in the bath when everything went down. I hid in a closet when I heard the gunshots. Came out when things were quiet. There was so much blood, and the penthouse was empty. I grabbed what I could carry and ran for it. I’ve been staying with a friend for a while; I thought Toro would come for me.” She let her face fall, biting her lower lip like a sad little girl who was all alone in the rain. “I guess I wasn’t as important to him as he always said.” She would have let a tear leak out if she hadn’t thought that would be too ridiculous to be believed.

  “Men like Toro can never be trusted,” Sammy said with the wise tone of someone who had been down that road and knew where it led. “Men like me, however; tell me what you need, Tess.”

  “Frankly, I need a job. I’ve been couch surfing for weeks now, and I’m tired of it. If Toro’s done with me, fine, but I need to earn my way.” She let all her fierce pride, entirely true and real, shine through her expression. “I’m not going to go crawling around town begging some other two-bit street dealer for a bed to sleep in just so he can start hooking me out for rent money. I’ll do what I have to do, but I’m better than that.”