by LK Collins
He emerges from the house and with my gun in my holster, I get out buttoning my suit coat along the way. “Who the fuck are you?” he asks.
Walking up his front steps, I walk right to him and look down into his pathetic eyes. “I’m here for Aubrey, motherfucker.”
He blinks a few times, shocked and searching for the right words to say.
“Go ahead,” I egg him on, waiting patiently. “Put your hands on me. It was easy enough to do it to her, asshole.” He’s frozen and I ask him, “What, now you have nothing to say?” He looks scared and caught off guard.
“I’m calling the cops,” he says taking his phone from his pocket.
“Go ahead, I’ll tell them all about the flow of women you’ve got coming out of China into the US.” His eyes get huge and he just stands there staring like a pussy. “Come on, Prestwell,” I yell in his face. “Where are all of your threats now?”
“You aren’t going to get away with this.”
“You keep saying that shit, but what have we done?”
“She stole information from my…” His face is flushed and I can tell my being so close is intimidating him. “You better back the fuck up,” he says.
“Or what?” I ask, and he doesn’t respond. He’s bluffing; he can’t afford attention from the authorities. “She only took information regarding your human trafficking ring. What do you call it? Oh, right, Resource Drum. You really need to be more careful with who you just let into your home. I don’t assume that you’d want the authorities to get a hold of that,” I taunt him. He turns white as a ghost and changes his tune.
“I’ve got your point. What do you guys want?”
“Well, I want you to leave Aubrey alone. Erase her from your fucking memory.” He nods profusely. “And I want you to apologize for putting your hands on her and threatening to kill her.” I pull the gun from my waistband and point it at his head.
He puts his hands in the air. “Hey, man, you don’t need to do this.” I dial Nat ignoring him. “On your fucking knees, bitch,” I order him and put the call on speaker, pressing the barrel hard against his forehead. In this moment, it’s crazy how vulnerable we are as humans. To protect ourselves, we will do just about anything. He’s no longer talking shit or acting hard.
“Baby?” she answers right away.
“I have someone that wants to say something to you.”
She doesn’t respond, and Prestwell says, “Aub.” He clears his throat and speaks a little louder. “Aubrey, I’m…I’m sorry I touched you, hurt you.” Dragging the barrel of the gun along the front of his face, he watches it and breathes harshly.
“And?” I ask, putting the gun into his mouth. He stares at it stone cold, like I have officially scared the shit out of him, and I wait, letting him make an ass of himself talking incoherently around the muzzle.
“And,” he says muffled from the barrel hitting his tongue. I pull it out moving it to his temple. “And, I’m sorry I threatened you.” His voice is shaky. I couldn’t imagine being degraded like this, but for Nat, I’ll do anything, to anyone. And this sick fucker deserves every last bit of what he’s getting.
“I’ll be home soon, baby.” I hang up and know that I’ll get an earful from Nat for doing this, but what did she expect?
Leaning over, I look into his eyes, “You fucked us, Prestwell, you know that?”
“I’m sorry,” he pleads, “I have money,” he screams. “A lot of it. You can have it all, just please don’t kill me.” Tears are streaming down his face, the chamber of the gun is locked and loaded and as much as I just want to fucking kill him, I know I can’t. He has money and we need it. Looking into his pathetic eyes, something inside of me keeps ticking, telling me to do it, to pull the trigger.
But I know I have to blackmail him to keep him quiet and get whatever I can out of him. So he won’t say shit to anyone about us. “What about the human trafficking? Are you gonna stop?”
“Yes,” he begs me, “But please don’t hurt me, I’ll do whatever you want.”
“I’ll be watching you, your every fucking move so it ends now.”
Lifting him by his neck, I push him inside. “I will, I swear,” he says and stumbles through the threshold. “Where’s the money?” I ask holding the gun to the base of his skull.
He points upstairs and we begin to walk, I scan the house making sure there are no cameras that I can see and that no one else is actually here. Prestwell’s entire body is shaking in fear as adrenaline courses through mine. We enter his bedroom and my mind flashes to an image of Nat tied to his bed – that’s what he could’ve done to her. It motivates me to move and continue with this fucked up situation. What I am doing is right; this guy’s a piece of shit.
He enters his closet and stops in front of a safe. I know better than to just let him open it and shoot me dead, so I ask, “Where is some duct tape?”
Next to the safe is a dresser, he points and I turn him around keeping the gun on him as I pull the drawer open. What a freak – inside are a ton of sex toys, bondage items, strap-ons, and some duct tape.
“Hands behind your back,” I order. I wrap enough tape around his wrists to secure a grizzly bear and then kick the back of his knees. He buckles and grunts in pain. “What’s the code?” I ask.
“Twelve, twenty-two, z…zero, seven.”
I press the smooth white buttons and get a green light. Opening the safe, I pray that this fucker didn’t lie. And sure enough, he didn’t. Inside are mounds of cash.
“How much?” I ask.
“It’s close to two million,” he says.
“Where’s the rest?” I ask, knowing he’s worth a whole lot more.
“That’s all I have, I swear.”
“Shut the fuck up, liar,” I yell and backhand him with the gun. “You’re easily worth over a hundred mil, where is it?”
“I’m in debt up to my eyeballs, I ran from Texas after my oil business tanked, this is all I have…I swear.”
I don’t have much of a choice but to trust him. This isn’t the money we need, but it’ll help. I grab a suitcase from one of his shelves. Yeah, this might be dirty money from trafficking women, but it’s going to pay someone even dirtier, so what’s it matter? Opening it up, I load the entire thing full with every last brick of cash. It is packed to the brim, so full I can barely zip it. Setting the suitcase on the ground, I kneel over Prestwell.
“Do you know me?” He shakes his head, crying like a bitch. “What about Aubrey?”
“N…no,” he whispers.
“I can’t fucking hear you,” I scream a mere inch from his face.
“No,” he says more loudly. Taking the gun, I direct him up. He very shakily gets to his knees and I stop him with the barrel of the gun in front of his face. “Do you have any last words?” I ask him.
“No,” he screams and shakes his head. “Please don’t,” he pleads with his eyes tightly shut. Wishing to God that I could kill him, I look at him one last time and raise my gun towards the window, firing a shot off into the distance. The window shatters and he screams like a girl, falling over and pissing himself. I know watching him like this that we’ll be okay moving on to Plan B without this fucker popping back into the picture. I walk away rolling my suitcase of cash with a little satisfaction on how he crumbled and how he contributed to our cause.
After everything that has happened, I can’t help but be stressed. We’re almost at the halfway mark of having to pay Moretti, and we still have a ways to go, and it feels impossible. I haven’t slept a wink lately and I’m so…so lost.
Micah turns towards me, lying on his stomach, and blinks a few times, opening his sleepy eyes. “Hey,” he says in a raspy tone.
“Hi,” I tell him, lying the same way that he is.
“You’re up early.”
“I can’t sleep.”
“Why?” he asks, sounding surprised.
“I’m stressed.”
“No, baby, you gotta let the stress go. I told you it’s go
ing to be fine, let me handle everything and—”
“And what?” I cut him off. “I tried to do it myself before and we didn’t get what we needed. I can’t just sit back and let you do it alone, it won’t end well.”
He wraps an arm around me and pulls me close. “It’s gonna be fine, beautiful. Things will end well. Please believe me when I tell you that.”
I nuzzle close to him, wanting to believe his words, but it’s hard to think that way when I don’t have a clue what his plan is. Typically, I’m a strong person, but this is pushing me to my limits. Tears fill my eyes and one drops onto his chest.
I felt like we were so close and I got my hopes up. I’d started picturing our reunion with our beautiful girl, imagining so many moments with her, and I can’t bear the thought of giving that up.
Micah squeezes me and says, “Don’t cry, baby.” I hold on to him tightly, trying to calm down. “What can I do to help?”
“You can let me help with things, and fill me in on your plan. Getting ten million dollars out of your work is a lot of money.”
“I don’t think involving you is the best idea.”
“Why not?” I argue.
“Because if things go awry, I don’t want you involved.”
I sit up and look him in the eye. “Like if you get caught?” He nods. “Micah, I’m not living this life without you. I about died trying to survive these last ten years alone. I won’t do it again.”
“Baby, you have to. Michelle needs to at least know one of us.”
“Don’t start fucking talking like that. She’s gonna know both of us.”
“But she might not.” Now he’s the one thinking the worst. We seem to keep taking turns holding our shit together.
Holding on to his shoulders, I shake my head. “Goddammit, stop.” He blinks at me a bit taken aback and gets out of bed. I lie there, agitated. I feel bad for being so adamant about this, but now he’s talking like we might not be able to make this happen, or we won’t have a future together, and I’m sorry, but I won’t do that. And I can’t bear his doubt.
Micah comes back in the room with a notebook in hand, still wearing just his underwear. His tired eyes are apologetic as he sits down. He flips open to a blank page and says, “I’m sorry that I’m so protective. I just feel horrible for getting you involved in this whole mess to begin with. I don’t want to make things worse.”
“That’s the last thing you’re doing. We got into this mess together ten years ago, and we’re going to get through it together.”
He kisses my nose and puts the pen against the paper.
“What’s with the notebook?” I ask resting my head against his shoulder.
He writes “Plan B” on the top and says, “It’s our plan and easier to explain this way.”
I listen as he begins, watching him draw a few squares on the page. “About a year ago all the banks started to turn away the dispensaries here in Colorado after they realized what kind of money they were dealing with. The dispensaries had nowhere to put their cash, which is a problem because some of them make a million dollars a month. I heard about the problem and got the guys on board with a plan I had. Then I approached one of the dispensaries, knowing we could make some quick easy cash helping them out, so long story short, we started laundering their money.”
“So you straight-laced lawyers aren’t all honest? I knew you still had a dark side after all.”
He smirks and shrugs, and goes on with his plan.
“With the businesses being a tight community of master growers and dispensary owners, the word spread. We now represent a hundred and sixty dispensaries across the state.”
“Holy shit,” I breathe, as he writes down the number 160 on the paper. “How many are there in Colorado?”
“A little over 400, but I represent all the big ones,” he says kissing my cheek.
“And how much do you charge them?” I ask.
“Seven percent a month, which I think is a steal, but keep listening – the fee is not where we’re going to get our money. Lately there’s been a string of robberies in broad daylight, and most of the time their entire inventory gets wiped out. Some of them have lost close to half a million dollars in one afternoon. As you can imagine, they’re all fucking panicking, baby. The cops won’t help much, if at all, and the dispensaries don’t want to take measures into their own hands.”
“So you’re going to help somehow?”
He jots some more things on the paper and says, “Yeah, I am. There is an opportunity here with them all feeling vulnerable. As their attorney, they come to me for everything. I mean, how much would you pay for your safety, if you were pulling in that kind of money and I could offer you the best of the best in security? I’m talking ex-Navy SEALS, the whole nine.”
“You can’t put a price on safety, baby.”
“Exactly. So that’s why I’m thinking we present the dispensaries with a contract to give them security. I know a guy who has his own security operation and they’re the kind of people no one will want to fuck with. Then we’ll tack on our own hefty one-time start up fee for the service and that’s how we’ll get the money we need.”
“That’s a big fee.”
“It is, but you said yourself that you can’t put a price on security. If we add about another forty dispensaries to the books, that gives us 200.” Which he writes down. “Then charge each of them $50,000 as our cut, plus whatever Reid is charging to bring his group on board.”
“Who’s Reid?”
“The guy that runs the security company. He’s agreed to meet with me Monday. I don’t have a clue what his price is, but I’m thinking that he’ll give me a deal. We represented him once, so he owes us.”
The puzzle is starting to come together as I watch him doing calculations. “We’ll then launder their funds, or the portion that we need. If we can get $50,000 from all of them, we’ll adjust it depending who’s on board, times the number who sign up. That’s our ten million.” He writes the number and circles it over and over again slowly. “And with Prestwell’s cash and ours, we’ll be golden.”
Is it naïve to think that Nat and I could one day live the American dream? Watching her cook us dinner after a long day’s work, I can’t help but think that way. She’s a flustered mess in the kitchen and so cute, but she demanded on cooking tonight, so I sit back.
“I can help you,” I offer as the oven dings.
“No, I got it.”
I take the last sip of Scotch from the glass that she poured me and get up grabbing the bottle for more. The water is boiling over, so I shut it off. She slaps my hand with a towel and I sit back down, knowing where my place is tonight.
“All right, all right,” I tell her.
She grins at me as I refill my glass. My phone rings – it’s Tony. He still owes us the last two months money for all of his stores, and despite me avoiding him lately. He needs to pay.
“Tony,” I answer, stepping out onto the balcony.
“Hey, Liam, I’m sorry for the delay with our payment.”
“You mean payments,” I correct him.
“Yeah, sorry. That’s what I’m calling about. I have your money, but I have to run some clones down to the Springs and was hoping you could pick it up?”
“Why don’t you stop it by the office tomorrow?”
“Uhh, it’s all cash. I haven’t had a chance to launder anything, so I can’t do the normal wire.” He rightfully sounds sheepish as fuck.
“Fuck, Tony.”
“I know, I don’t mean to put you out, but with everything going on, I can’t risk leaving the money, and these clones are my best strains. They can’t be in transport any longer than needed or I’d bring the money to you.”
“Where are you?” I ask, taking another swig from my glass. I look and notice it’s empty, I’ll need Nat to drive me with a few drinks in me.
“The Broadway store. I’ll be here for about an hour, if you wanna pull around back.”
“Okay,
see ya soon.” Hanging up, I walk back inside. The house is smoky and smells horrible. Nat is standing with a charred black casserole dish of God only knows what in front of her; she looks so disappointed.
“Didn’t go well?” She shakes her head. “It’s all right, baby.” I thread my fingers into her hair and look her in the eyes. I can tell she’s frustrated.
“I just wanted to make you a good dinner.”
“And I appreciate it more than you know. Will you let me take you out?” I ask her.
“No, we can’t risk it.”
“What choice do we have?” I ask her. “We can go on living our lives like hermits, and let Moretti win, or we can enjoy our life. I mean, if he wanted us dead, we would be. He knows where we are. Come out with me,” I beg her, feeling the alcohol in my system.
“Fine,” she agrees.
“Also, I just got a call from one of the dispensaries and I need to pick up a payment. Since you made me start drinking early,” I shake my empty glass at her, “You have to take me.”
“You fucking conned me,” she argues.
“No way babe, you ruined dinner. It’s just an errand on the way.”
“Fine,” she grumbles, grabbing her wallet off the counter. I hand her the keys to the Denali and kiss her cheek.
“Thank you, baby,” I say as we leave the house.
“Sorry dinner wasn’t what we expected it to be.”
“Don’t be, I loved watching you cook for me.” She laughs sardonically as we head out the door, and I smack her on the ass.
Driving away from the house, I tell her how to get to Tony’s dispensary. “Do you pick up payments often?” she asks.
“No, it’s rare, but this is cash, so he needs it picked up now. Plus, he’s behind, and I don’t want to risk it disappearing into another fucking Bentley,”
“Cash?” she asks surprised.
“Yeah, cash.”
“Fuck, Micah. Remind me, why we are picking it up?”
