The Vigilantes Collection

by Lake, Keri

  The two of them exited the room, though Ania cast one last glance back at me as she trailed behind Roman, her ass in that skirt mocking me as she moved.

  After nabbing the black briefs that’d been set out, I made my way into the bathroom.

  Like the rest of the house, the bathroom was the most luxurious I’d ever seen. Tan-colored marble made up the floor and the stairs leading up to where the jacuzzi tub sat perched beside the wide picture window. A large, rectangular shower, surrounded by clear glass, boasted brass hardware and jets from every angle—a far cry from cold concrete and icy water spilling out of a pipe.

  Heat warmed my back, and I glanced up, toward where beams poured down like rays of the sun, from a lamp just outside of the shower. Letting them engulf me, I opened the shower door, reached inside, and flipped on the water.

  Steam instantly coated the glass, and I couldn’t fucking wait to get swallowed up in that heat and have it penetrate down to my bones that’d gone cold for the last eleven months. In seconds, I'd stripped out of my clothes. I'd just stepped inside the cubicle, when the click of the bathroom door had me spinning around.

  Ania stood at the door, holding a stack of white fluffy towels, and her gaze dropped toward my exposed dick. “Mr. Hawkins, Roman asked me to bring you some towels.”

  Eyes narrowed, I crossed over to the linen closet beside the sink and threw back the doors. Inside was completely stocked.

  A shit-eating grin slid across her face as she sauntered up to me and placed the towels on the sink. “You caught me peeking. My bad.” Her thick accent, slightly different from Roman’s, made the phrase sound less ghetto. “The truth is, I don’t take rejection very well. I know you want this. I do, too.”

  Little feisty. Little bold.

  She unbuttoned her top, revealing pert, braless tits that had to have seen some plastic surgery, as high and stiff as they sat on her chest. My palms burned with the urge to squeeze them. Once she’d removed her top, she slid out of the A-line skirt, putting her bare pussy on full display for me, and reached into the linen closet. The square foil object she pulled from a drawer kicked up my blood as she carried the condom between her teeth like a promise.

  As much as I wanted to say no, my dick spoke for me, so I let her take my hand and lead me to the shower, where she stepped inside first. I followed in after her and closed the door behind me, eyes on her body the whole time. She was a little skinnier than I normally liked my women, without much muscle tone. Perhaps she did model at one time in her life.

  Hot sprays of water pounded against my back as I stepped beneath the spray, softening my muscles, as the tension eased away. Before I could say, or do, anything, her hand gripped hold of my cock, my stomach tightening on contact, and she stroked my shaft, up and down, up and down. I couldn’t deny it felt good. Hell, it felt fantastic having a woman’s soft hands on my body. I’d gone so long without it, I’d wondered if I was even capable of feeling anything at all.

  Her up and down long strokes forced me to brace my hands against the wall, for fear I’d collapse. I probably wouldn’t last more than ten minutes with the chick.

  “So strong.” She kissed my shoulder, while her hand worked me below. “I want to please you. What would you like to do, handsome?”

  Her words struck like lightning, and the world around me faded to a dark and dingy apartment with a dirty mattress on the floor.

  My mother enters first, and waves for me to follow her inside the dark room. The woman who’d answered the door leans against the wall, eyeing me with a cigarette dangling from between her fingertips. She must be in her forties. Maybe fifties.

  “Fifteen minutes,” my mother says. “Where’s the fuckin’ cash?”

  The stranger shakes her head. “Crackhead bitch.” From inside her bra, she pulls out a twenty-dollar bill and takes another drag on her smoke.

  I know my mom has a problem, and the exchange between them has me wondering what she’s bartering for her drug money.

  Head angled down, my mother slips past me, as if to leave, and when I turn to follow her, she swings around, her finger pressed into my chest. “You’re going to do everything she tells you, got it? I’ll pick you up in fifteen minutes.”

  My throat goes dry, as in that moment everything becomes clear. “Mom?”

  “Fifteen minutes.” She looks away and shuffles out the door.

  “Mom!” I lurch after her, stopped short when the door slams in my face. My heart beats in my chest to an unnatural rhythm of fear.

  “How old are you?”

  The woman’s raspy voice comes from behind, but I don’t bother to turn. I can’t look at her. I don’t want to see her face, so I close my eyes. “F-fourteen.”

  “Look at you.” Her warm, tobacco-stained breath slides down my back, and my spine turns to ice. “Gonna be a lady-killer someday, with all those strong muscles.” A squeeze of my bicep turns to a long pet down my arm, until she comes around in front of me, and her palm cups between my thighs. My stomach tightens, my heart beating a thousand times faster. “You’re gonna have to lose that shy boy act, though. I like it rough, honey.”

  Acids bubble in my throat, and I lift my forearm to my mouth to keep from upchucking all over her floor.

  Massaging the front of my jeans with one hand, she sets a kiss to the edge of my jaw that has me turning away from her. “So …” The wet sound of her tongue sliding across her lips turns my stomach. “What would you like to do, handsome?”

  I fall to my hands and knees, and vomit spews from my throat, splashing against my face as it smacks her hardwood floor.

  I shook my head, breaking from the memory, and took a step back from Ania. For years, the nightmares of my past had plagued me, springing up without warning and pulling me back into the bullshit. “I can’t. I’m sorry. Please just go.”

  Brows pinched, she tipped her head. “Was it something I said?”

  “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

  “I disagree.”

  “I’m … a little rough when it comes to sex.” It was true. Over the years, I’d developed an affinity for sex with an edge—and by edge, I meant edge play, particularly with a knife. I didn’t cut women, but I’d occasionally let them cut me, and I happened to prefer cold, hard sex over anything gentle. My chest rose and fell with deep breaths, while my mind scrambled to erase the image of that older woman still playing behind my eyes. “Not a lover.”

  Her wily smile kicked my pulse up a notch as she spun around. “Good. Neither am I.” She bent forward, legs spread wide, palms flat against the wall, and circled her ass in front of me, ready and waiting. For me.

  I scrubbed a hand down my face. “Please. Just go.” I’d been in a state of survival for too long. I didn’t know how to touch a woman gently. My hands had been used for harsh labor and defending myself, and I feared I might destroy something so delicate as a woman’s supple flesh.

  I turned away from her, letting the spray of the water beat against my chest. At the click of the door, I dipped my head into the hot torrents pulsing through the spigot and grabbed hold of my hard cock. Goddamn. Between the warm fists of water beating against my battered muscles and each long pull of my dick, I damn near fell to my knees.

  The wounds from my recent tortures seemed to hiss, adding a hint of pain to the pleasure of every stroke. Tension in my muscles eased, and I rested my head against the tile, letting out a quiet moan as images of the woman’s naked ass taunted my mind.

  An urgency tugged deep inside, coiling low in my stomach. I needed to come so bad. Had been months since I’d so much as thought of sex. I’d been so consumed with revenge. Confined to silence and my body’s response to the pain and tortures I’d endured at the hands of those sadistic bastards.

  As the pressure built inside of me, and the steam of the hot water billowed around me, sending a sheen of sweat dripping down my face, I pumped my dick, desperate for release. A tingle shot up my spine, and a flash of light exploded behind my eyes.r />
  Dizziness claimed my balance, as hot cum hit the tiles of the shower, and I stumbled back a step. Catching myself with a hand against the glass, I shook my head.

  Not the release I craved, but good enough.

  * * *

  Once I'd finished cleaning up, I dressed quickly, and found Roman and Ania at the foot of the stairs, as I descended with the carryon.

  “Feeling better?” Roman asked, and my gaze slid to Ania, who toyed with the cuff of her sleeve, eyes downcast like an abandoned puppy.

  I came to a stop in front of them and set the suitcase down. “Much better.”

  He handed me a slip of paper that held a series of numbers. “I’ve set up an account with an advance on your payment. More than adequate funds to carry out your charge. Once the file is retrieved, the account will reflect the full payment.”

  I slid the note into the pocket of my jeans and held out my palm, when he dangled a set of keys.

  “I understand you’re a car aficionado. Hopefully, you’ll find the vehicle to your standards.”

  I’d driven a beat-up piece of shit prior to getting shipped to the mines. As long as it wasn’t a pink Caddy, with fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror, I’d be happy. “I’m sure.”

  “Your suitcase includes extra clothing, a laptop, burner phones, some information that you may find handy, and a fake identity, in the event you need it.” From the console behind him, he lifted a manila envelope and handed it to me. “You’re to mail this package on Wednesday, three weeks from now. No later. No earlier. Understand?” At my nod, he continued, “When you retrieve the file, you’ll find instructions within your suitcase for what to do with it.”

  The envelope had been addressed to Matt Burke of the Detroit Police Department, and I glanced at the P.O. Box that'd been written as the return address as I tucked it under my arm. “Got it.”

  “Then, this is where we part ways. Do not return to this place, unless you have the file, or you will be shot on sight. Do not attempt to find me, because you won’t. On the other hand, I will be watching you. Closely. You have five weeks to fulfill your obligation.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “You become the hunted.” Parking a cigar between his teeth, he stretched out a hand to me, and I shook it. “The suitcase contains details on one of the men who broke into your grandmother’s home. I recommend you start with him.”

  Suitcase in hand, I strode past Roman and Ania to the front door, a strange sensation creeping over me as I opened it and took the first step outside—to freedom. For the first time in eleven months, I was free of shackles, free of the cold penetrating my bones, free of the pitch darkness that'd smothered me in solitary.

  Free.

  Descending the stone staircase, my jaw slackened as I eyed the maleficent-black 1969 Camaro SS with a rear spoiler, cowl hood, and beautiful chrome rally sport grill parked in the drive.

  Fuck me.

  I climbed inside the driver's seat, all black leather interior, setting the suitcase and envelope down on the passenger floor. After running my hand along the dash, I made a point to touch everything—the gear shift, the leather of the passenger seat. I adjusted the rearview mirror upward, so I could see out of the back window, then curled my fingers around the steering wheel, inhaling the aged vehicle scent of worn leather.

  Firing up the ignition kicked my excitement into overdrive as the engine roared to life and rumbled with power.

  Five weeks to find the file.

  Five weeks to hunt down the men who destroyed my life.

  Five weeks to exact my revenge.

  I stepped on the gas and squealed out of the drive.

  * * *

  I punched in the code to the storage facility, and after waiting while the gate slowly opened, I drove toward the unit registered under my Aperture username, Warhawk.

  Keeping the headlights on, I exited the vehicle, rounding the front to the storage unit, and dialed the code on the lock. How the units kept from getting broken into was a mystery. Any half-decent thief could've figured out the locks on the doors, but then again, the dilapidated surroundings probably told them they wouldn’t find dick in the units.

  The door slid up, and nostalgia struck like a hammer to my brain, as I trailed my gaze over stolen weapons, ammunition, computer parts, fireworks, comic books that’d once belonged to my dad, a desk, speakers and a stereo system, shelves full of shipping supplies, and boxes stacked toward back. I stepped over cords snaked across the floor, making my way toward the boxes, and tugged the first down. Inside, sat the masks Dax, Reed and I used to wear while urban exploring—black half-skull masks with mesh eyes, that we'd used when playing Airsoft. The same masks we’d worn the night we stole the guns.

  Beside the boxes, Airsoft guns were stacked in a variety of styles, including the AR15, which didn’t look much different from the real deal, aside from the orange barrel extension. I tipped my head to read the box labels, written in black marker, and as I lifted one, a flash of white caught my attention. With the box still propped, I bent forward and lifted a package that'd been shoved against the wall.

  The thick, white envelope, about ten-by-sixteen, had been sealed. I tore it open, slipped a hand inside, and pulled an SD card from its depths.

  We had a shit ton of cards lying around, for images we’d processed, so what made that one so special was beyond me.

  With nothing to read it, I tucked it into my pocket and dug through another box, until at last, I found what I’d been looking for. Sheathed in a gray holster sat my black, carbon steel, gut hook, hunting knife. Way back, I'd named it Black Betty, after a cranky bitch who lived down the street from me in the trailer park where I grew up. Maria had given it to me as a gift a while back, after I’d tripped out on ecstasy and ended up at the police station for getting belligerent with a club bouncer. The blade had been engraved with: Hunger knows no friend but its feeder, a quote by Aristophanes. At first I thought it an odd gift for someone fresh out of rehab, but I’d later come to learn what the quote meant and quit using the shit.

  I strapped the holster to my waist, nabbed the drop holster that held two push knives inside, and continued rifling through the boxes. In a third box, I found a picture of my grandmother, my brother and me, just a few months before the break-in.

  Smoothing my thumb over Maria’s face brushed away a small speck of dirt that hid her smile. When I'd first gone to live with her, after our mom lost custody of Reed and me, I remembered sitting in her small kitchen, the smell of her special pasta sauce simmering on the stove, and that bright smile of hers, telling me I’d never go hungry again. That no one would ever hurt Reed and I again.

  I couldn’t say that Reed ever looked happy in his photos. Not that I looked particularly high on life, or anything, but Reed’s expression always seemed to carry the shadows of our past. Somehow, he wore them more than I ever did, in his dark and solemn eyes.

  Maria used to say he’d lost his faith in God. Only thing Reed had ever believed in was whatever he could put it in a pipe and smoke. It wasn’t that he was addicted to the drugs, so much as his own gradual destruction. Sometimes, I wondered if God had lost his faith in my brother and me.

  A youth chaplain once asked me if I believed in God. At times, I guess I had, but as I stared at the cross inked on my forearm, I didn’t know what I believed anymore.

  After tucking the picture into my pocket, I pulled another from the box, one of just Reed and me. I must’ve only been ten, which would’ve made Reed six. He stood beside me, still bright with innocence, not yet touched by the darkness that would follow him to the grave. Just looking at him struck like a stab to my heart. My arm was wrapped around his shoulders, and only the tips of his little fingers could be seen curled around my waist. My best friend from the day he was born. I remembered begging my mother to let me hold him. On nights when he’d lay crying of hunger, I’d wake and sneak beside his crib, stroking his cheek through the bars. I’d vowed to protect him. I’d promis
ed that, despite the unfair circumstances we'd been born into, I’d never let him walk alone.

  In the end, I’d failed him.

  I set the photo down. From the same stack, another picture showed Reed, Dax and I, sat with our legs dangling over the edge in the fire escape stairwell of Broderick Tower, looking down at the twisting staircase that seemed to go on into infinity. Reed’s friend, Sean, had accompanied us that day and had taken the picture at an angle that looked like we were standing on the railing, hovering over a never-ending downward spiral. Always did think it was a cool shot.

  A third picture was a black and white headshot of Reed beside a window, hand to his mouth as he smoked a joint. On the back of his forearm, a tattoo I'd never noticed had been inked alongside three mean-ass looking skulls, each with a bandana covering either the eyes, ears or mouth.

  Pulling back my sleeve, I stared down at the same tattoo on my wrist. The one Roman had had inked there.

  Why the hell did Reed have it?

  My brother had always been a little fucked up when it came to women. Seemed to prefer the crazy bitches, who were down with some of the mutilation shit he liked having done to him. Shit that went well beyond my craving to be cut every once in a while, so it came as a surprise when he'd started dating Dax’s younger foster sister, Olivia—or Livvie, as we'd called her. Reed had met her at The Ladder, a youth support program that our social worker had recommended for him when we first came to live with Maria. The place was run by David Kelley, a pretty laid back guy who'd had an equally laid back approach to dealing with kids that had come from some pretty fucked-up backgrounds. The guy was okay by me, never really gave Reed too much shit, not even when he’d ended up in detox, or skipped meetings.

  It was through the program, while driving Reed to and from his treatments, that I met Dax, a former Ladder kid who'd often driven Livvie to her sessions. Eventually, all four of us had commuted together, which had, in turn, prompted Reed to attend more frequently. He’d quickly become protective of Livvie, to the extent that he’d once beaten the shit out of a kid who’d called her a teasing bitch.