A PRICE TO PAY: A Dark Bad Boy Romance

by Zoey Parker

  The mist in Cain's eyes briefly cleared, and he saw a man in a flannel shirt and cargo shorts pointing a gun at him. There were two holes in the man's chest which were already starting to ooze red, and half of his jaw was hanging off. The other three bullets had hit the wall behind him.

  A moist gurgle escaped from the intruder's shattered mouth and his eyes rolled up in his head. He dropped his gun to the floor, then joined it a moment later.

  Lucky shot, Cain thought. Three of them, actually. I should buy a lotto ticket today, with luck like that.

  Then he passed out.

  Chapter 20

  Cain

  Cain woke slowly to the sound of Hunter's voice. “Cain? Cain, can you hear me?”

  He opened his eyes and saw Hunter's concerned face inches away from his own. Behind Hunter, Cain could see Bones and Keith wrapping up the intruder's body in a sheet of black plastic as Missy looked on nervously.

  “Yeah,” Cain wheezed. His own voice sounded to him like a faint radio broadcast from a distant planet. “Jesus, I gotta start dating more. That's twice in two days I've had to wake up to your hairy face hanging over me. What happened?”

  “Gaspar,” Hunter said grimly. “He ordered his guys to make another move on us. Well, two other moves, to be exact. Thank God neither of them panned out for 'im. Come on, lemme help you up.”

  Hunter helped Cain onto the couch as Bones and Keith finished their work, securing the plastic around the body with duct tape. “Okay, let's haul this fucker outta here,” Keith said.

  “Just a sec,” Bones replied. He fished in his pocket, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

  “Oh, what the fuck?” Keith balked. “Yer not gonna smoke that nasty goddamn thing in here, are ya?”

  “Why not?” Bones rasped, flicking the lighter. “This is hard work. I deserve a smoke break.”

  “So wait 'til we're outside!” Keith insisted. “You got a room fulla people here who probably don't wanna choke on yer bullshit second-hand smoke, an' you're just gonna light up an' blow it all around their heads like it's no big deal? Does the social fuckin' compact mean nothin' to you?”

  Bones considered the question seriously for a moment, then shook his head and lit the cigarette.

  Before Keith could object further, Cain said, “Hey, Keith...he can smoke in here if he wants, all right? My house, my rules, my social compact.”

  Keith opened his mouth to protest, then shut it again and nodded. “Glad yer okay, Cain,” he grunted. Bones put the lit smoke between his lips and the two men grabbed the wrapped body, lugging it toward the door to the garage. It left a wide trail of blood on the floor behind it.

  “What did you mean, 'two other moves?'” Cain asked. “Is anyone hurt?”

  “Everyone's fine,” Missy said. “I just had some unwanted attention at the store, that's all. I took care of it.”

  “Well, from now on, you won't be going to the store, or anywhere else,” Hunter told her. “I'm gonna have Bones an' Keith take turns guarding the place.”

  “Aw, Hunter...” Cain began, protesting.

  Hunter held up a hand to silence him. “They'll stay outside,” he assured Cain. “I know you've already got more company than you're comfortable with. But if you guys need anythin' else, you send them to get it for you, understand?”

  “So now I've got your sister as my nursemaid, and a pair of fully-patched Eagles working for me as delivery boys,” Cain groaned. “Hooray for me.”

  “Live with it, pal,” Hunter countered. “I ain't riskin' my VP or my sister again while this thing with Gaspar is goin' on. Fuck that. Missy told me you've been doin' a good job stayin' put, so just keep it up.”

  Cain glanced over at Missy, silently thanking her for not telling Hunter he'd tried to ride off on Gooch's bike. She gently nodded her response.

  “I'm gonna leave Keith here first,” Hunter continued, “while Bones an' I haul this bushwhackin' piece of shit off to the dump. Stay out of trouble, an' stay close to your phone so I can reach you.” He turned, pointing to Missy. “That goes for you, too.”

  Suddenly, there was a loud knock at the front door. Cain saw Hunter and Missy jump at the sound.

  “I think you can relax,” Cain said, smiling weakly. “After all this shit, I kinda doubt Gaspar's guys would just walk up and knock on the door.”

  Hunter sighed and nodded, moving toward the door. He opened it, revealing the imposing frame of Sheriff Hemmick.

  “Goodness gracious me,” Hemmick rumbled amiably, grinning and surveying the living room. “What a busy day I've had! First there's some kind of weird multiple hit-and-run at the Shop-N-Stop that leaves one man dead, and two more badly injured and unwilling to talk about it. And just when I'd darn near given up hope of solving the blasted thing, I get a report of shots fired in this neighborhood, and as I'm driving up to investigate what I'm sure is a totally unrelated incident, hey-presto! There's the very same car from the hit-and-run parked in the driveway, with blood and dents matching the crime. Isn't that a neat coincidence, that the two would be connected like that? Why, I thought that stuff only happened on detective shows!”

  “You're not cute, Ham-Hock,” Hunter sneered, “no matter how hard you try to be.”

  “My wife would disagree,” Hemmick replied, stepping past Hunter and into the living room. He surveyed the blood and bullet holes, then let out a low whistle. “Anyone feel like telling me what happened here, or how it relates to the ruckus at the Teepee the other night?”

  “Not really,” Hunter answered, “so how about you just tell us how much this'll run us, then fuck off an' find a donut sale?”

  The smile dropped from Hemmick's lips. “All right,” he conceded, “I'll drop the cuddly routine. If you want all this heinous shit you've dropped in my lap to go away, it'll cost you ten grand, period.”

  Hunter's jaw dropped. “You can't be serious.”

  “I'm about as serious as a 380-pound man on a morgue slab with a tire track through his brains,” Hemmick snapped. “I wouldn't fucking test me today if I were you. We had an arrangement, Hunter. It wasn't a complicated one. You keep your fucked-up deeds out of the public eye, and I agree to look the other way in exchange for a little extra pocket money. Now I've got witnesses to a brutal beating at the Teepee, I've got witnesses to some kind of vehicular horror story at the Shop-N-Stop, and I've got witnesses who heard seven shots from their neighbor's house while they were tossing the ball around the back yard with their kids. How in the holy living fuck am I supposed to get re-elected when people see all this gangster shit going on around them?”

  “How the fuck should I know?” Hunter asked. “I'm not your campaign manager, am I?”

  Hemmick raised his bushy eyebrows. “No. You're not. But you just became my biggest fucking donor. You give me my ten grand and you make sure that from now on, this nonsense happens far away from any voters. Otherwise, all bets are off, and I feed you and your boys to the fucking feds, along with your sister for dessert. Let's see you assholes raise hell when you're doing twenty-five to life up in Gertler Penitentiary.”

  “You give us up, we give you up,” Cain pointed out.

  Hemmick turned his glaring brown eyes on Cain. “Your word against mine,” he said. “A decorated officer with a distinguished record against a pack of multiple felons. How do you think that's gonna go?”

  “Fine,” Hunter hissed. “You'll get your fuckin’ money. But if you really want to make all this public shit disappear, you should be going after Gaspar Hernandez, not us. He's the one provokin’ this stuff.”

  Hemmick thought about this. “So far, I haven't found anything connecting any of this to Gaspar,” he said. “If you say he's involved, fine, I'll look into it. Meanwhile, pay up within the next three days, and don't forget what I said. Next time you drag your dirt out into the spotlight, it's your ass.”

  The sheriff headed for the door, then turned back with his hand on the knob.

  “And don't forget to take care of
that bloodstain,” he said, nodding towards the floor with a grim smile. “Remember, cleanliness is right up there next to godliness.”

  With that, he stepped out, slamming the door behind him.

  Chapter 21

  Cain

  Cain sat on the couch restlessly as Missy brought her bags in from the car and started doing some cleaning. He flipped through the channels on the TV, cursing under his breath at each new show before switching to the next.

  He tried to ignore the sounds of Missy wiping down surfaces and sweeping floors, but even with the volume on the television turned all the way up, he still felt like it was all he could hear and it annoyed him.

  Cain tried not to think about his childhood much, but this situation brought up all the old awkward feelings of watching his dad sprawled on the couch, drinking beer after beer until he'd made his way through the whole case while Cain's mother quietly cleaned the house around him. He remembered that his dad had always seemed to keep his eyes purposefully pointed forward so he could ignore his wife and somehow pretend that the house magically cleaned itself. He'd only acknowledge her when she accidentally got in his way or made some small sound that distracted him from what he was watching.

  Then came loud cussing, and sometimes his fists if he was drunk enough.

  And now Cain found himself replaying the scene as an adult, with—infuriatingly—Missy in the role of his mother. That wasn't how he wanted to think about her. Come to think of it, after what happened between them when she was washing his hair, he didn't know how he wanted to think about her, if at all.

  Just as this unsettling parallel tangled up Cain's thoughts, Missy entered the living room and started sweeping up. She hovered at the periphery of his vision, and as she pushed the broom, Cain's eyes fell on her toned ass.

  Her jeans had a few well-placed holes in them, revealing small oval glimpses of her pale thighs. Before he could stop himself, he found his thoughts drawn to what it would be like to hook his fingers into those ragged holes in her jeans, and then slide his fingers up into the tight crevice between her legs...

  “What'cha watching?” Missy asked.

  “Huh?”

  Missy stopped sweeping and straightened up, turning around. “Anything good on TV?”

  Cain blinked and glanced at the screen. Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn were verbally sparring in a colorized flick from the '50s.

  “Not really,” Cain muttered, switching channels again.

  “Oh. You'd stopped on that one for a while, so I figured you'd found something worth seeing.”

  Cain swallowed. His throat felt like a desert, thanks to those fucking pills. He didn't want to ask her for a glass of water. He didn't want her cleaning. He didn't want her here.

  “I really don't want a maid, you know,” Cain said.

  “And I don't want to be one,” Missy retorted, going back to her sweeping. “But I'm supposed to be here for a few more days, and I'm not spending them surrounded by dust-bunnies and prehistoric food stains, so I guess it's mop-and-bucket time for me. Besides, I don't have much else to do except watch you play ADHD with the television for hours at a time, and I'm afraid it'll give me some kind of epileptic fit.”

  “You're a real comedian, huh?” Cain said, rolling his eyes.

  “Well, you're the perfect straight man,” Missy replied. “About as fun to be around as a block of wood. You getting hungry?”

  “No,” Cain answered.

  Missy sighed. “Look, not that I give a shit, but you haven't had any food in about two days. If you're serious about healing up as quickly as possible, you're going to have to put some fuel in your tank or your body will start eating itself.”

  Cain scowled. “Hey, you're not my fucking mother, okay?”

  “And you're not a sulky teenage boy, so stop acting like it,” Missy said. “I'm going to make an early dinner, and you're going to have some of it so your body can start putting itself back together. For both our sakes, don't make me do the whole 'Here comes the choo-choo' thing with the spoon, okay? I know you're in a bad mood, but try to scrape together a little dignity.”

  She tossed the broom into the corner and headed for the kitchen. A moment later, Cain heard her taking out pots and pans and using the can opener.

  “Oh, and I'm going to throw this pork chop away,” Missy called out behind her. “Unless you were planning to sell it to a museum or something.” Before Cain could answer, there was a loud thunk as the chop was deposited in the trash can.

  Cain returned to the TV screen and saw that he'd somehow switched back to Tracy and Hepburn trading banter. She was lighting up a cigarette, and he seemed to be scolding her for it and threatening to watch her all day, every day if he had to so she wouldn't take another puff.

  Suddenly, Cain realized that this was a different channel and a different movie from the previous one, and switched off the television in disgust. He hated those movies. He hated all that they-hate-each-other-and-then-they-fall-in-love crap. It felt like something he'd seen too many times already.

  His dry throat was starting to feel like it was locking itself down, and he thought he might actually gag.

  “Hey,” Missy called out, “do you want me to get you a glass of water or anything, or should I just go fuck myself?”

  “No,” Cain choked out, sitting up. He slowly pulled himself off the couch. He succeeded in biting back any audible sounds of pain, and he felt a fierce surge of pride at that, but he was gritting his teeth so hard he thought his gums might start to bleed.

  Cain swayed a bit on his feet, then lurched to the kitchen. Missy heard him open the cabinet for a drinking glass and turned, surprised. “I thought you didn't want water?”

  “No, I didn't want you to get it for me,” Cain said, turning on the faucet and filling the glass. He drained it in two big gulps, then refilled it and drained it again.

  On the counter, Cain saw a large package of ground beef, plus several jars of tomato paste, containers of spices, and three different kinds of canned beans. Missy was in the process of chopping an onion and some garlic cloves, and a large pot was heating on the stove.

  “What are you making?” Cain asked.

  “Well, Jeeves made it back with the Rolls after all, so it looks like tonight we're dining on pheasant and foie gras,” she said wryly.

  Cain was confused for a moment, then remembered his earlier joke. “Funny,” he grunted.

  “I'm making chili,” Missy said. “Relax, you'll like it. Plus, I got some cornbread to dip in it. That refined enough for your delicate palate, smart guy?”

  “Yeah, sounds fine,” said Cain. He sat down at the table.

  “You're going to watch me cook chili?” asked Missy, raising an eyebrow.

  “Like I said, there's nothing good on TV,” Cain replied. “Besides, I never watched anyone make chili before.”

  The truth was, he needed to be off the couch for a while. He could feel his own self-pity soaking into the cushions under him, and he worried that if he remained sprawled there, it might become a pool deep enough for him to drown in. And even though he didn't want Missy there, he still hated the idea of sitting in the living room like a lump and listening to a woman do chores in the other rooms of the house.

  Missy shrugged, tossing the beef, onions, and garlic into the bottom of the pot. They sizzled, and the smell of cooking food made Cain's stomach growl audibly. He had to admit that the thought of a good meal wasn't so bad.

  “Fair enough,” she said. “Anyway, you might find it useful, learning how to make big pots of food like this. Like they said in The Godfather, you might have to cook for twenty guys someday.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Okay, maybe not,” Missy conceded, “but at least you can freeze a bunch of it and heat it up whenever you feel like eating something that doesn't come with fries and a large fountain drink. As long as I'm standing in for your TV, do you want me to narrate what I'm doing over here, like a cooking show?”

  “N
o thanks,” he said.

  “You sure? I could try to do some kind of accent to spice it up a bit...”

  “Just make the chili, wiseass,” Cain snickered. He may have found her infuriating, but he still had to admit she could be kind of funny when she wasn't acting bitchy.

  “Just trying to give you your money's worth,” Missy said, breaking up the meat in the pot and tossing some spices over it.

  About an hour later, the chili was finished and Missy doled it out into bowls. She placed a plate of cornbread muffins in the center of the table, along with some butter.