Menace

by J. M. Darhower

  Her eyes are on the floor again, every inch of her rigid.

  She’s terrified.

  His expression is relaxed, casual, a slight smile on his lips, like her fear amuses him. No idea what he could be saying. He’s not yelling, but the longer this goes on, the more the woman looks like she might collapse under the weight of his words.

  After a moment, Aristov flicks the woman’s cheek so hard she winces, her head tilting up, her eyes meeting his. He says something else, and she nods, before he turns, motioning for the bartender to give him a golden-colored bottle from behind the bar.

  Appleton Estates. Jamaica Rum. I can see the label as Aristov approaches, dragging the waitress along with him. He stops beside the table, in my line of sight, his hand shifting from the waitress’s waist to clutch the back of her neck.

  “I’m sorry,” she says, forcing a smile, although tears brim her eyes. “I hope you can forgive me. It’ll never happen again. I promise.”

  Promises. I hate promises.

  People break them all the goddamn time.

  I nod, because I’m not sure what to say to that. What I want to say will probably only make everything worse for her, and it seems like she’s having a rough enough time without my help.

  “Rum,” Aristov says, holding the bottle out to me. The outside of it is dusty, the bottle still sealed. “I must confess, we do not sell much here. We specialize in vodka, only the best, straight from Russia.”

  I take the bottle from him.

  Aristov leans over, pressing a kiss to the waitress’s temple before whispering, “Go to my office, suka.”

  Her head lowers, and as soon as Aristov lets go of her neck, she scurries through the club, out of sight. Aristov lingers, his eyes on me as I crack open the bottle, bringing it to my lips.

  “On the house, everything,” Aristov says. “All of you. Enjoy.”

  My guys, they celebrate, but I just sit here, still sipping rum while they scatter, wasting no time now that it’s free. Cheapskates.

  “Join me for a drink in my office?” Aristov asks, raising his eyebrows.

  I shrug as I stand up. What the hell? “Lead the way.”

  His office is toward the back of the club, a small room behind a two-way mirror. He can see out, watching everything, but nobody can see in. The waitress stands inside, in the center of the room, hands clasped together in front of her.

  It’s not an office in the traditional sense of the word. It looks more like a typical studio apartment in New York. Leather couches surround a square table, a small private bar opposite the door with liquor bottles on it. Vodka. Above that is a loft, a white ladder leading up to it. I don’t even have to take a guess why there’s a bed in his office.

  The lighting is soft, the walls white, with a red Persian rug covering part of the marble floor.

  After shutting the office door, Aristov snatches up one of the bottles. He guzzles some of the liquor as he approaches the waitress, eyes meticulously scanning her before looking at me. His free hand grasps the back of her neck again, yanking her by it, turning her my direction. She whimpers, closing her eyes. “She is stupid, this one, but she is pretty, and there is nothing she cannot handle, if you would like to try her.”

  “She’s not really my type,” I say.

  “Oh? What is your type?”

  “The type that doesn’t cower from me in fear.”

  Aristov laughs. “Ah, do those type of women exist? Most are afraid of their own shadows.”

  I don’t entertain that with an answer.

  He drags the waitress over to one of the couches, sitting and tugging her in front of him, shoving her down on her knees. He unbuckles his pants, not saying a word, and grabs her by her hair, pulling her face onto his lap as he pulls his dick out right in front of me.

  The woman takes him into her mouth without putting up any sort of fight, and he lets out an exaggerated sigh as he smiles lazily, seeming damn pleased with himself.

  Look, I’m not an idiot. This isn’t my first day on the job, if you know what I mean. I know he’s asserting his dominance or spraying his territory or whatever alpha male bullshit move you want to chalk this up to, a figurative pissing contest because I’m a rival lion who entered his den. So I get it, but the thing is, he doesn’t know me. He’s thinking this show will get under my skin, that it’ll make me uncomfortable, that I’ll cower, but that’s not happening.

  I told Scarlet he didn’t scare me.

  I meant that shit.

  I will whip my cock out and measure that son of a bitch, right here, right now, if he pushes me. In the figurative sense, of course. Literally, my cock is staying right where it is.

  “You sure you do not want a taste?” he asks, nodding his head toward the waitress blowing him. “You could fuck her. I do not mind. She squeals like a little piggie when you fill her up.”

  “I appreciate it, but I’m not fucking any of your women.”

  Or, well, hell, I might be.

  I don’t know.

  I’m still fuzzy on his history with Scarlet.

  But regardless, as far as I’m concerned, she’s not his. She’s not Amello’s, either. She doesn’t belong to either of those assholes.

  Strolling over to the couch across from him, I sit down, relaxing back, sipping straight from the bottle of rum, not bothering to avert my eyes. Looking away toes a lie of cowering that I’m not even coming close to crossing.

  I think he realizes it, that I’m not like the others he deals with. He could slit that woman’s throat and I wouldn’t flinch. I don’t have it in me to flinch. He stops prolonging things, gripping the back of her head and shoving her down, making her gag, as he bucks his hips a few times, fucking her face until he spills down her throat.

  As soon as he’s done, he yanks her away. “Get back to work.”

  She runs from the room, shutting the door behind her. Aristov tucks himself back away, narrowed eyes fixed on my face. If anything, I think I’m ruffling him.

  “Is there a reason you have come here?” he asks. “Since it seems to not be the appeal of my women, it must be the appeal of me, no?”

  “Don’t flatter yourself. You’re not my type, either.”

  He shrugs, chugging more vodka. “I do not cower.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “You have heard?” He raises his eyebrows. “Earlier this week, you said you did not know me.”

  “I didn’t,” I say. “Kinda got curious when you busted into the club, spewing bullets, so I asked around. Led me here.”

  “So it was the appeal of me.” He laughs, drinking some more, damn near finishing off the entire bottle in just a few minutes. How the fuck does he still have a functioning liver?

  Hell, maybe he doesn’t.

  Maybe that’s why he’s after Scarlet.

  Maybe he needs a transplant.

  Maybe they’re compatible.

  I shrug, because in a roundabout way, what he says is true. I came because I had a sneaking suspicion I’d find Scarlet’s problem here. “Like you said, you don’t cower. Most people do. I’ve been in the city for a while, and I keep finding little boys who only talk the talk. So when I encounter someone who walks the walk, well, it gets me interested.”

  He sits there, continuing to drink, as he thinks those words through. I can see as the liquor takes hold of him, his posture relaxing, eyelids drooping, and leg lazily moving.

  “We used to do business with the Italians,” he says. “The families would come to us when they wanted something done but were too chicken. They had so many silly rules. Do not kill women, do not kill bosses, do not kill officers, but we do not have those rules. We were the loophole that kept their hands clean.”

  “I don’t need loopholes,” I say, “nor do I care if my hands are clean.”

  “That I have heard,” he says. “You have built a very big reputation in a very small time, Mister Scar.”

  Mister Scar.

  I can feel my muscles twitch when he
says that, my body unconsciously reacting. I’d like to hit him, but I’d also like to walk out of here, and with my guys preoccupied with pussy, well, I’m not sure that would turn out to my advantage.

  “Go big or go home, right?”

  “Right,” he says. “Are you working with George Amello? Is that why you were at his club?”

  I shake my head. “Someone has been robbing him. He accused me. I didn’t appreciate the insinuation, so I made an appearance to tell him how I felt about his finger pointing.”

  He laughs. “I must confess—that is my fault.”

  “You? Figured you were above petty larceny.”

  “I am,” he says. “It was personal.”

  “Personal? What did he do to you?”

  “He has my girl.”

  “The one you were looking for? Morgan?”

  I have to force myself to use her real name.

  He nods, pointing his bottle at me. “That is the one.”

  “So he took a woman from you,” I say, trying to riddle it out. “Seems to me, looking at this place, you’re not exactly hurting. Is one woman really worth all that?”

  He doesn’t seem to like what I’m saying. His slack expression grows hard, his shoulders squaring. Yeah, she’s worth it to him. She’s worth more than I might’ve realized.

  After guzzling the last of his liquor, he shoves to his feet and strolls back over to the bar. For getting drunk so fast, his walk is awfully steady. He exchanges his empty bottle for a full one as he says, “She is different.”

  Different. I can tell he means that. Hell, he almost sounds sentimental about it, like he might actually feel something for Scarlet.

  “I do not like when people take what is mine,” he says, turning back around. “She is very pretty, my Morgan, and she knows it. She uses it to her advantage. It makes men want to help her, as if she needs help.” He laughs bitterly, cracking open the bottle. “She is like a siren of the sea, and the only thing that might be stronger than her call is my money. That is why I will give half a million dollars to whoever coughs her up.”

  “That’s a lot of money.”

  “It is,” he agrees. “It is also a lot of incentive.”

  That it is.

  I know quite a few people who would sell out their own mother for that kind of cash. Scarlet doesn’t stand a chance. They say you can’t put a price tag on feelings, but I’m pretty fucking sure half a million is a big enough payday to wipe that away.

  For most people.

  “What are you going to do with her when you find her?” I ask, the irony of this whole moment not lost on me. It wasn’t long ago I was looking for the same damn woman and Seven asked me this exact question. Because men like me... men like Aristov? We react on principle. It’s ego. We’d pay half a million dollars to get our hands on someone just for the chance to watch them bleed out, and it would be worth every penny to us.

  “That is my business,” he says, that answer not a surprise. Pretty sure I said something similar. He walks toward me, setting his bottle down on the table before reaching into his back pocket for a wallet. Flipping it open, he pulls out something tucked in one of the pockets, shoved in behind credit cards and who knows what else.

  A photo, I realize, when he holds it out to me.

  I take it carefully.

  It’s worn and scratched up, the edges frayed, like he’s pulled it out and shoved it back away hundreds of times. Brown hair is pulled up, messy on top of her head, some loose strands falling down around her face. It’s Scarlet, without a doubt, but at the same time, it’s not the Scarlet I know. The girl in the picture is young—fourteen, maybe fifteen. Still a teenager, her face slightly rounded, soft with a bit of innocence. Not a hell of a lot, but some. She’s smiling her half-smile, like she’s as happy as she could possibly be, which isn’t really happy at all. More like not quite as beaten down.

  “That was taken a few years ago,” he says. “She is a bit older, but she is still the same pretty girl.”

  Before I can respond, there’s a knock on the door to the office. Aristov folds his wallet up, shoving it in his pocket, and snatches up his liquor bottle as he yells, “Come in!”

  The door opens, a man walking in. I saw him once, at Mystic—the guy that was with Aristov, the big burly motherfucker that looks a lot like him. He hesitates when he sees me, eyes narrowing.

  “What are you doing here, Markel?” Aristov asks.

  “Needed to talk to you about...” Markel trails off, staring at me, before he turns to Aristov. “Am I interrupting something?”

  “I was just leaving,” I say, standing up, waving my bottle of rum at Aristov. “Thanks for the drink.”

  “Anytime,” he says.

  I glance at the picture once more before holding it out to Aristov. He takes it back, gazing down at it in his hand as I walk away. I stroll past Markel, who watches me go.

  Limerence is packed, my men nowhere in sight.

  So I leave, because tonight’s not the night to start trouble, even if trouble sounds like a lot of damn fun right now. Security at the door doesn’t say a word as I leave, carrying the rum with me, because fuck it.

  It’s mine now.

  Seven lingers by the curb, my shadow in the darkness. He hasn’t even moved. He looks at me as I approach, assessing, like he’s figuring out what happened without asking. I get in my car, not bothering with the seatbelt, taking a swig as Seven joins me.

  “Find what you were looking for?” he asks.

  “Even more.”

  “That’s good,” he says, hesitating before adding, “It is good, right?”

  “I don’t know.” I glance at the club, my gaze skimming along the red cursive. “He wants her.”

  “Who?”

  “Scarlet.”

  He lets out a low whistle. “What does he want with her?”

  “Didn’t say, but he’s offering one hell of a reward to whoever hands her over.”

  He drives away from the club, merging into traffic. Not a word is spoken, but I can see him fidgeting, his fingers drumming against the steering wheel.

  He’s wondering if I’m going to take the offer.

  He doesn’t ask, though.

  Maybe he’s afraid of hearing my answer.

  Maybe, deep down, he already knows.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I don’t have cable. Hell, there isn’t even a television in this rundown apartment. No Wi-Fi. No computer.

  I’ve got a cell phone, of course, one of those cheap prepaid burner ones, loaded with minutes in case of an emergency, but I usually forget to charge it, so a lot of good that does.

  I used to have a stereo, but not anymore. Music surrounded me too many nights as it was and reminded me that I became this woman, the one who danced until her feet had blisters, the one who wore skimpy lingerie to work.

  The woman I never wanted to be.

  A woman I might never get away from.

  I miss it all sometimes. I miss the noise. Movies. Music. Laughter. Fun. I miss dancing for the hell of it and playing games. The only time I run anymore is when I’m being chased.

  Just once, I want to throw caution to the wind again, go where my heart leads me instead of always worrying, worrying, worrying. I want to laugh, and shout, and sing at the top of my lungs, dance in the moonlight and actually feel happy about it for once. Yeah, right. I want to hear birds chirping instead of men catcalling. I want to hear music playing that makes me smile instead of—

  A doorknob turning.

  Shit.

  My head snaps up, eyes going straight to the apartment door. Even in the darkness, I can see it slowly opening.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  I move as silently as possible, running on my tiptoes, grateful the wooden floor doesn’t squeak as I dart into the kitchen. Snatching a knife from the drawer, I slide into the small space beside the fridge, pressed up against the wall, my heart frantically racing. I try to hold my breath, straining my ears, listening for footste
ps, or movement, or something. Maybe heavy breathing?

  I hear nothing.

  It’s silent, and still, the air frigid in the apartment, so cold my teeth chatter as I shiver. Or maybe that’s from fear, dumbass. I stay in place, hiding, waiting, but nothing’s happening.

  Minutes tick away.

  Maybe I’m going insane.

  It’s dark. I could’ve imagined it, right?

  Maybe I did.

  I give it a few more minutes, the apartment remaining quiet, before I take a deep breath. Face your fears…

  I peek around the fridge and step out, barely making it three steps through the kitchen when a shadow moves in the darkness, a figure stepping into the doorway. Fuck. It’s like being punched in the chest, the air leaving my lungs, my vision blurring for half a second as I grip the handle of the knife tightly, ready to fight.

  I raise my arm, but before I can lunge, bright light hits me, and I wince. What the fuck? It takes a few seconds for my brain to catch up, for my eyes to make out the sight of Lorenzo, his hand on the light switch right inside on the kitchen wall.

  The asshole turned the light on.

  He raises an eyebrow, not saying a word, as he casually leans against the doorframe, clutching a bottle of liquor, taking a drink, his eyes on my hand.

  On the knife.

  Shit.

  Instinctively, I release my grip, letting it clatter to the floor by my bare feet. My hands are trembling. I clench them into fists, but it doesn’t little to calm me down. “Jesus Christ, Lorenzo, you scared me!”

  He meets my gaze, taking another drink, before waving the bottle toward the knife. “Thought I told you not to pull another knife on me.”

  “I didn’t know it was you,” I say. “You didn’t exactly announce yourself.”

  He says nothing, drinking some more, watching me as he does. His gaze crawls across my skin, giving me goose bumps. I shiver again, crossing my arms over my chest. I’m fully clothed, wearing pajamas—old gray sweats and a black t-shirt, my hair still wet from a shower, knotted on top of my head in a messy bun. I’m wearing not a stitch of makeup, my skin bare except for the lotion I always wear.