by Naomi West
“Or, I could put a bullet or two right in the pregnant belly of yours. Make you live with all that. Or you could cut out this bullshit and stop-fucking-running!”
With that threat, whatever fight Honey had left in her slipped out of her body. She dropped to her knees and began to weep. Letting her head fall back, she looked up at the deep black above her, the night sky glittering with the stars she’d forgotten existed.
“Atta girl,” said Charlie.
He killed the engine, came to a stop, and got out of the car. Moments later, he had Honey by the arm and was pulling her back to the car. Once seated again, she slumped forward and stared helplessly into space in front of her. She knew then what it was like to have not a bit of hope left.
“Don’t need to do anything stupid,” said Charlie. “I’ll take real good care of you.”
Minutes later, they were back in the house and Honey was tied up to the chair again. This time, Charlie double-checked the knots to make sure that they were all secure.
“Not gonna make that mistake again,” he said.
Please, Grit, she thought, as though she had the power to project her thoughts. If you’re out there, please help. I need you. Your baby needs you.
It was all she could do.
Chapter Sixteen
Grit
Grit stood at the front of the warehouse floor, his hands on his hips as he looked over his men. The crew that had gone with him to Fantasies to burn it down was up in front, and he wanted them at his side as he searched for Honey and Charlie. The other couple dozen members of the Vandals were seated around the pace, all of them eager to hear just what Grit had to say.
“All right, listen up all,” he started, his booming voice projecting throughout the place. “As you all know, the crew up front here and I pulled an op not too long ago and torched the fucking place that made the drugs that killed Pitt.”
The men threw up gruff cheers and patted one another on the back.
At least I can give them some good news and let them know that their brother’s been avenged, he thought. Too bad it’s nothing but bad news for Honey.
“But this shit ain’t over,” said Grit. “The ringleader of that fucking operation took off and took a hostage with him. And the girl he took was our contact at the strip club. I figure that the least we can do is bring that girl home safe.”
Grit didn’t want to tell the men that Honey was carrying his kid. He hated letting out personal information like that, figuring that leaders kept that shit to themselves. But from the way his crew in front looked at him, he realized that he had to say something. He had a personal stake in this, and Honey was more to him than just a girl who did them a solid.
“And, uh, the girl’s pregnant with my kid,” he said, putting the words out there as bluntly as he could.
The men murmured among themselves, and Grit heard a couple of “holy shits” and “boss is gonna be a dad?” here and there. It felt strange saying the words out loud; he’d never imagined himself as a father; his own old man hadn’t exactly been there for him when he was a boy, so the word “father” had never really meant that much to him. But it was his reality—he was going to be a dad whether he liked it or not. If, that was, he was able to get Honey back safe.
“I know this is some personal-life bullshit, but like I said, this girl is still the one who led us to the fucker that’s behind all this shit. So if you don’t give a shit about helping a girl out because she’s close to me, give a shit about helping her out so we can finally avenge our fallen brother.”
Grit scanned the room and realized from the expressions of the men that all of them were on board. There wasn’t a single bit of hesitation in any of their faces. He felt a warmth in his heart as he realized just what a crew he had; they were brothers to the end.
“So, here’s the plan,” he said. “Stone, Razor, Killian, Gray, and I are gonna lead the strike to get this girl back. We’re gonna find out just where this asshole went off to and I’m gonna put a goddamn bullet in his head myself.”
“But here’s the thing,” he said. “We know that Charlie, the fucker behind all this shit, wasn’t working alone. He wasn’t the owner of the strip club, and he was only the direct supervisor. We’ve got good reason to think that the men who actually owned Fantasies are high-ups in the Vegas organized crime scene. And you bet your asses they’re gonna be fucking pissed off that their newest drug lab got wrecked. It won’t be hard for them to find out just who was behind all this shit, and when they do, they’re gonna be out for blood.”
“Does that mean war?” asked one of the men in the back.
“Maybe,” said Grit. “We might have the fight of our lives on our hands. And I want all of you men to be ready. That means load up, get your guns, and stick together. We’re gonna know in the next day or two just what’s gonna shake down from all of this. And if whoever owns that goddamn strip club is in the mood for a fight, then we’re gonna fuckin’ give it to ’em.”
The men threw up a cheer, and Grit found himself pumped and ready for a brawl. As far as he was concerned, the Vandals owned this town, and anyone who wanted to step up to them could go right ahead and try. As Grit looked over his crew, he knew that no one could stand up to this group of men and live to tell about it.
“Now,” said Grit. “I need to know what anyone knows about this girl that we’ve been working with. I need any bit of information that we can use to track her down, no matter how inconsequential you might think it is.”
Grit swept his eyes over the crew, hoping that one of them had something to say that’d steer him in the right direction. Finally, one of the men stood up. He was a reedy man with a bald head and a face full of hard angles. Grit recognized the man as Sketch, one of the newer and younger members of the crew.
“I got somethin’,” he said.
“Let’s hear it, Sketch.”
“Back when Razor and Pitt were meeting with this girl, Pitt had the idea to put some of us guys on her ass, to check in on her to see where she went when she wasn’t at work or at home. And it turns out that she’s got a friend who she’d hang out with every now and then, some other stripper that she worked with. We got news that the fuckin’ girl died of an OD. Might be worth checking in on.”
Grit turned to Razor.
“You know anything about this?” Grit asked, raising his eyebrows.
“Not a thing,” said Razor. “Guess Pitt decided to take some initiative.”
“Good fuckin’ man,” Grit said to his crew. “Thanks, Sketch.”
The man nodded and sat back down.
“My crew and I are gonna check out the girl’s house. The rest of you stay together and stay frosty. If we’ve got a war coming, I want every last one of you to be ready for blood. ’Cause no one fucks with the fuckin’ Vandals!”
He shouted the last words, raising his fist into the air as he did. The men threw up a cheer, and Grit knew right then and there that they were ready for anything. The meeting broke up, and Grit gestured for his crew to come with him.
“You think this is gonna pan out, boss?” asked Killian. “Checking out some girl’s house seems like a stretch.”
“You might be right,” said Grit. “But it’s the only thing we got to go on. So we’re gonna get the fuck over there and fight out what we can find out.”
The men nodded and they all knew that it was time to move. Minutes later, Grit was on the back of his bike and revving the engine. He felt like a new man as he sat on the back of his ride, like he could go anywhere, do anything. And at that moment there was only one thing that he wanted: to save Honey and kill the fucker who was threatening her.
Soon, the men were on their way, the pack of bikes tearing through the streets of Vegas. And as they rode, Grit’s mind was filled with images of Honey in peril. The thought of the girl, the mother of his child, fearing for his life summoned up something in him that he’d never felt before. He’d always had a soft spot for those weaker than him, but this was som
ething different. It was a primal sort of protective urge, one that filled him somehow with both a calculating rage and a fearsome bloodlust. He imagined holding Charlie’s head in his hands and squeezing harder and harder until he went “pop.” The thought brought a small smile to one corner of Grit’s mouth.
They soon pulled up to the place, which was a cheap-looking ranch home about twenty minutes away from the Strip. The crew pulled out in front of it, with Grit getting off his bike first and looking the place over. It appeared to him that the cops and medical teams had already been there, and they likely now had the run of the place. Grit walked up to the front door, picked the lock, and headed inside.
“Looks like a junkie lived here, all right,” said Razor as he and the rest of the men followed Grit into the dingy house and looked the place over.
“No kidding,” said Grit.
The place was the sort of trash heap that Grit had seen with junkies time and time again. He hated the idea of Honey running around with women like that and vowed that when he got her back he’d do everything he could to make sure that she never ran around with low lives like that again. Grit knew that Honey had a good heart, which made it obvious to him why she’d been able to resist the seedier vices of the stripping world, but he’d seen plenty of good girls go bad over the years. Honey wasn’t going to be one of them.
The men split up and looked around. Nothing jumped out to Grit as being out of the ordinary—there was plenty of trash here and there, along with needles and other drug paraphernalia, but nothing that could point him in the direction of where Honey had gone off to. He stepped into the bedroom and the lingering smell of death in the air made it clear to him that this was the room where the girl’d had her OD. He’d known the smell before, like chemicals and rot. It repelled him to the core.
He was about to give up hope of finding anything when Killian’s voice called out to him from the living room.
“Yo, boss!” he said. “Think I found something!”
Grit’s ears perked up and he rushed into the living room where he saw the crew gathered around a coffee table.
“What is it?” asked Grit, his heart now racing.
“Take a look at this, boss,” said Killian, handing Grit a small piece of paper.
Grit took it from his hands and looked it over. It was a business card for Fantasies with Charlie’s name on the front in bold letters. The word “Fantasies” was written in garish, gold cursive and the black silhouette of a nude woman was posed provocatively in the corner.
“On the back,” said Razor.
Grit flipped the card over and saw that there was an address scrawled in pen. He didn’t recognize the address right away, but knew from the words “rural road” that it was far out in the middle of nowhere, way outside of the limits of Vegas. But he knew right away what the guys had in mind.
“No way to know for sure, but this is probably where that second lab of his was gonna be set up,” said Grit.
“Yeah,” said Gray. “Way out in the middle of nowhere. And it’s a safe bet that if Charlie had to hide out someplace, that’d be it.”
Grit nodded.
“Then let’s not waste another fucking second. Meet up at the warehouse, gear up, and let’s get a move on.”
The men didn’t need to hear it a second time. Minutes later, they were back on their bikes and tearing through the evening air. Once back at the warehouse, Grit saw that the rest of the men were already getting ready for the fight that just might be looming on the horizon. He swept through the place, checking over the men and making sure they had everything. But just as he’d been expecting, they were ready. There wasn’t a trace of hesitation to be found among them.
“Let’s do this,” said Grit, standing with the rest of his men in front of a large fold-out table packed with just about every kind of small arm he could want.
Grit grabbed a shotgun and tucked a pistol into his belt. He’d normally never ride with gear like that, but he didn’t give a damn tonight. All he cared about was having everything he’d need to get Honey back.
Once the men were loaded up and ready to roll out, he gave them the signal to take off. The pack formed up and soon they were on their bikes, heading further out of town. The lights of the city disappeared into the distance, and the lonely road leading into the desert seemed to stretch out into infinity. The moon above was a slim sliver, and their headlights cut through the inky dark.
Grit had revenge on his mind and anger in his heart. But above all, against his better wishes, there was love.
Chapter Seventeen
Honey
Honey sat slumped over in the chair, defeated. She’d struggled a bit against the restraints, but this time Charlie had made sure that there was no chance she could break free. She was stuck, and unless Grit showed up, she knew that she was sunk. She watched through the little rectangular window above the bar as Charlie stood in front of the stove in the kitchen, preparing food. The smell of cooking meat wafted through the air and made Honey sick to her stomach. There wasn’t anything less appealing to her than food at that moment.
“Cookin’ up something real nice for you,” said Charlie. “You’re gonna love it—trust me!”
The idea of trusting Charlie almost made wanted Honey to break out into a sick laugh.
“I don’t understand,” she pleaded. “What are you going to do with me? Take me out of the country? And then what? I’m fucking pregnant!”
Charlie looked over his shoulder.
“See, you and I are both smart people,” he said. “I think we’ll figure something out. Mexico’s a big place, you know. Important thing is that we just get the fuck out of this country. We can figure out the rest of the details then.”
Charlie killed the stove and prepared the food for a few more minutes. A short time later, he walked back into the living room with two plates in his hand. He set one down on Honey’s lap. Looking down, she saw that it was some kind of dish of sliced chicken with a side of creamy rice. The smell was overpowering, and her first instinct was to turn her head away.
“Now,” said Charlie, I’m gonna untie one hand so you can eat. But I’m gonna be sitting right over there, so don’t get any ideas unless you want me to put a round in your leg and make sure that you’re not gonna be walking anywhere for a long, long time.”
Charlie did what he said, untying the binding for her right arm and placing a plastic fork on her plate.
“Now, eat up!”
Honey stared at Charlie obstinately.
“I don’t want your fucking food,” she hissed.
“Now, I’m sure you’re not all that hungry. But think about that kid in you. You got a growing boy or girl in there. Don’t starve the poor little fucker just to prove a point.”
Honey hated to admit it, but he had a point. She was a mother-to-be and had more than just what she wanted to worry about. Taking a deep breath, she shoved her fork into the food and slowly brought it to her mouth. But as soon as she opened her mouth and prepared to take a bite, she smelled something strange. It was that odd, astringent, chemical smell that she could detect off of Charlie when he got close enough to her. She looked down at the food and saw that in the rice there was an odd trace of brown something.
She knew right then that Charlie was trying to drug her.
“You miserable fuck!” she shouted, flipping the plate off of her lap and sending the food flying.
Charlie made an innocent expression as if to say, “who, me?”
“What?” he asked, his mouth full of food.
“You’re trying to drug me! You asshole!”
He raised his hands, in a “you got me” gesture.
“Listen,” he said, “it was just a little bit. Just enough to take the edge off. We got a long drive ahead of us, and I can’t have you trying anything funny, you know? And you looked like you needed to relax.”
Honey couldn’t believe how furious she was. She wanted to rip through the restraints and murder Charlie wit
h the plastic fork in her hand.
But before either of them could do anything else, the sound of car engines grew in the distance. Charlie sat stone-still with wide eyes as he listened to the cars. Soon, headlights cut through the darkness in front of the house and shone into the living room.
Is it Grit? thought Honey, her heart singing. Did he come for me?
Charlie set his food aside and rushed to the windows.
“Oh, fuck!” he shouted.
“Who is it?” asked Honey, eager to know.
“The fuckin’ bosses!”
Before Honey could say anything else, the engines to the cars cut off. Long moments passed as Honey waited to see just who had shown up.
