by Nicole Fox
“He was driving drunk,” he said, and I could almost hear the grin in his voice, “and hit a cop car.”
I stifled a laugh and pulled back from his chest. I looked up into those dark brown eyes of his, marveling at the way they matched mine so perfectly. Four years, come and gone.
“So, you can come home, Jace,” he said, squeezing my shoulders. “If, you know, you want to.”
I stepped back, breaking his grip, and turned away from him. “Tommy,” I said.
“Or, you know, you don't have. I could come out here, you know.”
For a moment, I realized how much I wanted to go home, to go be with him, or to bring my little brother our here to New Orleans with me. He was alone now, with our stepfather going to prison.
Sure, Jeremy was an abusive piece of shit and a total creep. The reason I'd left . . . let's just say a father shouldn't look at his daughter that way. They'd been bad before Momma passed, but were steadily getting worse even before we put her in the ground. But, with Tomlin, at least he'd just beat him. He'd still made sure he went to school, had a roof over his head.
Now, who was going to do that? Who was going to take care of my little brother? Me?
I bit my lower lip. Yeah. Me. I could do it. I just had to get away from Sven, first. Hell, I'd run from Jeremy four years ago. Why couldn't I just run from Sven, too?
“Jace?” Tommy asked from behind me. “You okay, sis?”
“Yeah,” I said, smiling a little. My brother. I realized then how much I'd tried to stop missing him so much, and how I'd finally managed to. I turned around, that little smile still on my lips. “You're right. Let's go. Lemme grab my purse.”
“Just like that?” Tommy asked, grinning from ear to ear. His sister had just come back to him, of course, and he sure as Hell had a reason to smile that way. “But, you've got this room for the night.”
I chuckled a little, shaking my head at my brother naivety. I went over and grabbed my purse, then put my hand in his and tugged wholeheartedly for the door.
“Why not just stay here?” he asked as I looked back at him.
“Because, silly,” I said. “If you're going to start a new life, why wait? Just go and do it!”
He laughed, his voice happy and full, echoing in the room. “Sure, Jace. Yeah, you're right, let's get going.”
My hand went for the door handle, but stopped half-way. I heard the lock's electronic tumbler disengage with a loud click as someone inserted a keycard into the room's reader.
“What's up?” Tommy asked.
“Bathroom,” I said, my voice a quiet hiss as I turned and began to shove him in the room's bathroom. “Get in the bathroom and don't come out.”
“Jace,” my brother said, his voice lower than before but still too loud. “What the fuck're you doing, sis?”
“Just stay in here and shut the fuck up,” I hissed again.
There was only two men who would be opening the door like this. My next John, or Sven, my pimp. Having Tommy in the room with me if it was the first one wouldn't be too bad, but having him here with the second would be suicide.
“Jace?” Sven asked from behind me as I shut the bathroom door on my little brother. His thick, Russian accent filled the room with its bravado.
“Right here,” I said, surprising him from being so close.
Sven was tall and lean, like an old fence post. Scars covered his hands and, even in the well-tailored suits he always seemed to wear, he looked like a thug. Something about the way he walked, the way he appraised a room or the men he met on the street, like he was sizing everything up to see what kind of threat you would be. And, if you weren't determined a threat, too bad. That just meant you were easy prey. Tonight, with his black suit and gray shirt, he looked even more like a predator than usual. Like a lean wolf, or a hungry shark swimming around the beach.
He took a step back and looked me up and down, like he was appraising me and my looks, determining whether I was up to his snuff.
Sven had picked me up from another pimp a year or so before. I wasn't sure of the exact details, just that he'd shown up at the apartment I shared with one of the other girls, and told us there were going to be changes. When Benji, my roommate and best friend, asked about what happened to Clyde, our old manager, Sven just told us not to worry. Clyde wasn't around anymore. He'd had an accident.
There wasn't a funeral, and nobody was ever found. We never reported him missing, either. Clyde had been kind of a dick, and hadn't exactly been gentle if you were short on money. Sven, though, made lots of threats. But at least he never beat us.
With his eyes poring over my body, I sucked in my stomach a little, lifted my chin higher, pushed my shoulders farther back. I knew I was hot, I knew I was dripping sex appeal. I just hoped it was good enough for Sven, good enough to satisfy him so Tommy and I could get out of here.
“You alone here, koshechka?” he asked.
“Yeah, Sven,” I lied, “of course I am.”
“I heard a man,” he said. “No man in here?”
“No,” I said, furiously shaking my head. “My John hasn't shown up yet.” God, if he found Tommy in the bathroom, I didn't know what he'd do. Beat him? Toss him out? I'd probably get some of his fists, too.
His eyes bored into mine, seemed to reach into my soul.
Inwardly, I was sweating bullets. Outwardly, I just shrugged. I bit my lip a little, tried smiling to reassure him.
“Dah,” he said, nodding a little. He pushed past me and went to stand in the middle of the room, just like Tommy had a scant few minutes before. He turned to me and made a gesture with his hand, ordering me to turn around for him. He liked to inspect his wares before they were delivered.
I spun around for him, my skirt riding up a little on my butt.
“Good,” he said. “Very good. Want you pristine, perfect for The Boss when he get here.”
“The Boss?” I asked as I took a step forward, my curiosity piqued despite my nerves being on edge about my little brother hiding in the bathroom. “Who's the Boss?”
“Tony Danza,” he said, laughing.
I shook my head, not getting the reference. “Tony Who-za?”
“Joke, joke,” he said as he shook his head and rolled his eyes. He took his phone out, fiddled with it for a moment as he spoke. “Old American TV show. Here, this the Boss.” He handed me the phone, a picture of a man pulled up on the screen.
I felt an almost unfamiliar tingle as I looked over the image in front of me. He was handsome, with chestnut hair combed back from his face and pale blue eyes. His beard was full, but trimmed well, and I could see how strongly defined his jaw was. Something about him just had a devil-may-care attitude to it, too. Maybe it was the way his full lips were set, almost like they were in a permanent half-smirk.
Whatever the reason, I immediately thought to myself that being a working girl sometimes had its perks. It might even be worth it to stick around one more night, if it meant I got to meet a man like the Boss for once. I could leave with Tommy in the morning, just as well as I could right now. Right?
Sven must have seen the look in my eyes, because he let out a deep chuckle as he pried the phone out of my hands and took it back. “Ready for the Boss when he come? Yes?”
“Yeah, Sven,” I said, crossing my arms across my chest.
He passed me and headed off to the door, grabbed the door's handle. “Good,” he said. “You my number one koshechka, Jace. Real good girl, eh?”
“Yeah, Sven,” I said as I joined him at the door. “Number one,” I said, nodding.
Satisfied I was both alone and ready, he pulled the door open and went to leave.
“Home free,” I thought. One more night, maybe, but free after that. Now, all I needed was Sven to walk out that door, then I could push my kid brother out after him.
I took a deep breath. Home stretch. We got this.
But then, it all came apart. Tomlin sneezed. There's nothing out there like a sneeze, no sound of plumbing or a
fan coming on that could be mistaken for it.
Sven stopped in his tracks and released the door, letting it slam shut in only the way a hotel room door can.
My heart may have stopped in that moment. I pressed myself into him, screaming. “Sven! It's not what you think! It's just my brother in there!”
He threw me off him, pushing me back into the room. “Lying shylukha,” he shouted as I sprawled on my back on the thick hotel carpet. He reached inside his black suit coat and came back out with a pistol, a big, heavy looking automatic.
“Jace?” Tommy asked through the door.
“No, Tommy!” I screamed.
But, hearing the commotion, Tommy came bursting out through the door.
The sound of the gun going off was like a roar of thunder, so loud and so complete, it felt like the world itself was shaking at its roots. Eyes wide, my little brother stumbled back into the bathroom. He reached back out, into view, and gripped the edge of the door frame with a bloody hand, almost as if he thought he could pull himself back to the moment before he'd sneezed, back to that instant before the gun had fired and he'd had his whole life ahead of him.
Sven, his eyes distant, followed after Tommy and stepped into the bathroom, the look on his face almost one of disbelief.
My ears ringing from the gunshot, I climbed to my feet. I didn't realize I was screaming until I'd run into Sven as he came out of the bathroom, a look of shock on his face as he dropped the pistol between us.
I reached down faster than him, and he stepped back as I brought the gun back up, both hands clasping desperately to the big pistol.
“Fuck you, Sven,” I screamed.
# # #
Koen
“Still don't think this is a good idea, Koen,” Fed said as he leaned back against the elevator wall. We were riding up to the ninth floor of the New Orleans Sheraton, on our way to meet what may have been our new man on the inside. “This Sven guy sounds like he ain't offering us anything Bradley can't.”
Fed was my best friend, my confidante, and my second-in-command of the Fire and Brimstone MC. He was a real bruiser, but had as sharp a mind as any when it came to this kind of game.
“Look, man,” I said, running a hand back over my slicked back, brown hair, “this Sven guy's promising us a bigger haul from Volkov. Says he knows the routes, that he can make this a safer bet for us. Every time we go out and hit one of those trucks, we open ourselves. We get one of the drivers, though, a driver like Sven, we get a better, safer shot.”
We'd been ripping off Volkov Arms for almost the last year. We had a contact, Bradley, who worked in dispatch. They shipped the guns, we pulled 'em over. Then, we offloaded them to our contacts. Before, we'd been knocking over electronics shipments. But you just couldn't compare the price of a flatscreen TV to a clean semi-auto rifle, especially not when they hit the streets.
Between this little racket and Club Hellfire, we were pulling down a healthy income for me and all the members of the club. What we'd been making when my dad was in charge was chump change compared to the kind of numbers we were putting on the sheets, now.
The number on the elevator kept rising, and we followed with it as we ascended to our meeting in the sky. Fed glanced up at the numbers, at the bright digital 7 displayed, saying, “Still don't like this shit, brother. Seems too fucking easy.”
I looked at the floor and laughed, shaking my head. “Man, you got a fucked up idea of easy. You think knocking over semis full of guns is fucking easy, even if we got an inside man on it?”
“Guy’s gonna want a bigger cut than Bradley,” he said as the elevator slowed and that weird feeling of weightlessness entered my chest.
“Bigger cut of a bigger pie, though,” I said as we exited the elevator together. “Sven can have a couple more points than what Bradley took, as long as F&B is bringing in bigger shipments with less worry.”
“Down there, right?” Fed asked, pointing down the hallway. “923?”
“Yeah,” I said, nodding. We headed down that way.
“Still don't like it,” Fed mumbled.
“Said the same shit when I first proposed this,” I reminded him. “And look where we are now? Same risk, more reward. Just remember who the boss is, here.”
“Nah,” Fed said. “I get it, Koen. You're the boss, man. Ain't nobody said different.”
“We'll make it work, man,” I said, my voice as confident as I felt. “We got this shit on lockdown, man. Trust me. Ain't no way we ain't coming out on top with this.”
We stopped outside 923. It was just a room in a hotel, same as every other room in this joint. Fed looked one way up the hall, and I looked down the other.
There was the sound of a gunshot on the other side, then a scream, a long, pained scream. I took a step back, reaching for the gun I had beneath my vest. Beside me, Fed did the same. We locked wide eyes.
“Shit,” Fed whispered.
“Shit,” I whispered back, nodding.
Another gun shot.
Fed took another step back, tucked his pistol away, back beneath it. “I say we book it.”
“Good idea,” I agreed. “This shit's tits-up on arrival, man.”
I tucked my gun back in my jacket, and we both turned to leave.
Room 923's door, though, came flying open.
A bare slip of a woman, not much older than her early twenties, ran out of the room on heels almost bigger than her, auburn hair flying out behind her. Her eyes were wild, scared, angry, in shock.
Before I could get out of the way, she slammed right into me, almost barreling me over, her handbag slapping me in the shoulder and side of my head.
Instinctively, I wrapped my arms around her and held her close. “Hey, hey,” I said my voice calm and soothing. “Chill out, lady. Everything's going to be okay.”
She looked up at me with terrified dark brown eyes that peered out from a ring of heavy mascara and dark eye shadow.
Something about those eyes, they did something to me. I didn't know what, or why, but they just looked right into me.
“Are you,” she started to ask, licking her lips in the most enticing of ways, “are you the Boss?”
“Uh,” I said as I looked at Fed, and he looked back at me, both of us shocked, “how'd you know that?”
Chapter Two
Jace
“Please, please, please,” I babbled, “you gotta grab Benji, too.”
“Ain't grabbing your fucking dog,” the Boss said as he dragged me by the arm to the stairwell. Guests were spilling out of their rooms, the looks on their faces more concerned and confused than anything else.
“She's not my dog,” I protested as he threw open the door for the stairs and pulled me along behind him. “She's one of the other girls. When the cops find Sven, they're going to connect him back to her through the hotel. Then, they'll connect her to me and you! We gotta get her out of here!”
I wanted out of this hotel, badly. If I didn't get out of here, and I went up for killing Sven, I'd never get a chance to take my shot at the man holding my arm in a vice grip. It didn't matter if he was even sexier in person than he had been on Sven's phone, The Boss was my real owner, the one ultimately responsible for Tommy's death. Sven had just been a hired lackey.
But, if the cops got hold of Benji, she'd fold like a house of cards. There wasn't any sense in betting on her doing anything else.
Besides that, Benji was my friend. My only friend really. She and I were roommates, co-workers, confidantes. But she could be real soft, real sensitive. Like a flower that had to ask permission to bloom.
“Look,” I said as the Boss started to drag me down the stairs behind him, “I saw the way she handled Orleans Parish Jail. She ain't gonna last if the cops start asking her questions.”
The Boss and his friend stopped in the middle of the stairs, their breath heavy and their eyes searching around desperately for a clue as to their next step. They exchanged glances, and the Boss nodded to his buddy. He looked back to me.
“What room?”
I gave them Benji's regular room number, the one Sven normally got her up on the eleventh floor, two above us.
“Meet you at the car, man,” the Boss said.
Boss's buddy took off, up the stairs, but stopped a few steps up. “Hey, you,” he called to us. “What's your name, girl?”
“Huh?” I asked, eloquently.
“So Benji knows I'm on the up-and-up.”
“Jace,” I said. “Tell her Belle says to get the fuck moving.”
