Dirty Debt

by Lauren Landish

  Marcus turns and leaves, leaving me alone, looking out on the streets, watching as the lights move and the blood flows. Soon now, it’ll run red with real blood.

  Every time the king dies, there’s always a little bloodshed.

  Chapter 2

  Sarah

  The room is just a little chilly, but at least after my shower, it helps me to remember that I’m real. It’s not pain. It’s more like dipping my body in a cool stream to help me wake up. Except that I’m not sleepy, and the dream isn’t a dream. It’s a nightmare.

  “Mrs. Waters, Mr. Jacob told me that you’re supposed to wear this,” Constanza, the maid, says. I’m naked from the waist up, my towel wrapped around my waist for convenience’s sake only, looking at the body that at one time had men drooling over me, saying nothing to Stanzie as I look at my breasts. They’d once been called ‘the two greatest pieces of evidence that God is a man.’ I doubt that the horny editor who penned that line to go along with my photo spread for that magazine would think of them that way now. Not with the scars that dot them or the deeper ones that cover my back.

  I don’t hide my body here at home. Stanzie knows about my scars. They all know that my ‘loving husband’ beats me. They know that the big pucker-shaped star a little over my right nipple is from a cigar that he put out on my skin. They know about the longer ones where he’s beaten me with his belt. Dozens of scars. And not a single stitch in five years.

  I don’t blame Stanzie, though. She’s just as terrified of Jacob as I am. An illegal immigrant who came to the city from Brazil on the promise of becoming an au pair, she lasted a week before Jacob raped her in front of me while I lay tied up and beaten half-senseless on the bed. She’s just as terrified of him as I am. Probably even more.

  They all are.

  Which is why none of them are willing to help me.

  Instead, I continue to brush out my hair, one of the few things that Jacob hasn’t cut or abused since we got married. He likes it long, and despite all the other abuse I’ve received, my hair is still just as thick and strong as ever. I wish it would go brittle and break off more easily when he grabs it and drags me through the marble hallways of his mansion, but it doesn’t. I hate it, while at the same time, I take a little bit of perverse pride in it. At least from the neck up, I’m still the Sarah D. who used to make men’s knees weak. I’m still the girl who grew up in the suburbs and thought she had a bright future ahead of her, a girl with humor and happiness. At least it’s somewhere inside of me. It would be nice to pretend I’m still that girl, but at least I have my memories. Although lately, they’re slipping.

  “Mrs. Waters?” Stanzie says again softly. “Are you okay?”

  I set my brush down, nodding. “Yes, Stanzie. Would you help me, please? My back’s a bit stiff after yesterday’s workout.”

  Workout. Stanzie doesn’t say anything about my obvious lie. She knows it’s because of Jacob, but lets me get away with it.

  Instead, she goes over to my dresser, taking out the Agent Provocateur lingerie that Jacob insists I wear. He picks out everything for me, all of it being sexy and just walking the line toward slutty, AP lingerie and form-fitting dresses that are just a little too tight or a little too revealing so that I look the part of the gold digger tramp who’s fucking her way to her inheritance. I know better than to question him or to try to be anything different. I learned that long ago.

  I slide on the thong panties that Stanzie has set out. I feel for her, but considering the number of times Jacob has screamed at her that he’s only treating her like garbage because of me, she might hate me just as much as she hates Jacob. Hates him and fears him.

  Next is my bra, which thankfully, because of my scars, is more comfortable, with wider shoulder straps and padded, lined cups that make my breasts seem bigger to a casual observer. Jacob likes it when I look curvier when we go out. It hides the scars though. He’s careful to make sure that anything he does to me can be hidden to keep up appearances.

  I don’t hear him. He can move like a goddamned cat when he wants to, but Stanzie and I both can feel his presence the moment he walks into my room. It was that presence that I was at first attracted to. I thought it was charisma, wit, and that quality that some people like to call ‘Alpha male-ness.’ I was drawn to that power. Of course, he’d been charming then, too. He’s a good liar, and it wasn’t until it was too late that I realized just how much of a monster he really is.

  Stanzie stiffens, and even my fingers tighten a little before she can hand me the cocktail dress that I’m supposed to wear this evening for our event at the Philharmonic.

  “Constanza. Out,” Jacob says, and she disappears like a ghost, without even giving me a glance of pity. It’s probably better for her that way.

  I stand stock-still, frozen in place like a marble statue as my husband of five years, Jacob Waters, comes closer. I’m tall, but he’s still taller. He’s already dressed in his suit pants and shirt, although it looks like he hasn’t gotten his tie on yet.

  “You certainly do look seductive tonight,” Jacob says, running a finger up my arm and over my shoulder. Coldness pricks my skin where he touches me, and I can’t help it. He starts walking a hand up my back as he draws closer and closer to the mark that truly broke me, and I shiver. I don’t think it’s fear, I don’t feel fear anymore. I wish I did. It’s just physical disgust.

  “This one is so beautiful,” he whispers gleefully, tracing the deep fold in my skin. Belt buckles can do so much. “A harsh lesson, but you learned from it, more or less.”

  More or less? Yeah, I guess I did learn my lesson. It was the time that I learned that trying to run from Jacob Waters was useless. It was the time I realized just how much of a monster he is and that the cops in this town are in his pocket. I’d gone to them after watching Jacob kill a man by throwing him off the balcony of his office building.

  Not that it helped. The cops handcuffed me and brought me back to the mansion, dropping me off in the foyer and leaving the cuffs on before shaking hands with Jacob and leaving me to his lesson. So yeah, I did learn my lesson. If I’m ever going to escape, I’m going to have to this man.

  Jacob grabs the back of my head and my throat, painfully twisting my head to the side to look him in his icy blue eyes that burn with gleeful madness. “Ooh, Baby was thinking naughty things.”

  “No—” I start to reply, but Jacob doesn’t care. There’s no use. Pain shoots up and down my spine as he shakes me a few times by my neck, his face twisting into a mask of insane joy.

  “Oh, yes, you were. I know what you’re thinking. I know exactly what you’re thinking every moment of every day. And you were thinking very bad things about your Daddy, weren’t you?”

  His hand loosens a little on my throat, allowing me to take a breath that feels like pure moonshine being poured down my throat, and I sob. I can’t help it and I hate showing weakness, but the shame in the decision I made to get with him reduces me to crying again as Jacob eyes me carefully. Finally, he half drags me across the room toward my bed, shoving me back onto the bed as he reaches for his belt, undoing it but mercifully leaving it in the belt loops.

  “Oh yes, you were naughty, and Daddy’s going to have to punish you,” Jacob rasps, his voice rising until it’s almost girlish, a far cry from the deep, powerful tones that the public knows him for. “Daddy’s going to have to punish you good.”

  I start to cry. What’s worse, and what adds to my shame, is that my mind tells me that this is what I get. Everyone told me not to get involved with him, that he was trouble from day one. That this hell is all I get to look forward to for the rest of my miserable life until I find a way to kill him. If that day ever comes.

  Jacob doesn’t take it further though, he’s content that he’s made his point, and I’m sobbing in shame when I feel temporarily relieved. “Oh, be quiet. I’ll leave you alone. I’ll send Constanza in to help you get ready for the night out. But just remember, I own you.”

  He leaves,
and in the temporary silence, I want to scream into my pillow in rage and helplessness, but my screams are silent. I know better than to disobey him.

  It’s a death wish, but I can’t wait until I have the perfect opportunity to put him six feet under. I’ll go to Hell a happy woman if I can send him there just a few seconds before me.

  Chapter 3

  Ryker

  “Are you ready, Ryker?” Marcus asks, and I’m grateful again for my brother. While he may think he’s just doing things anyone could do, it’s at times like this that I most appreciate his presence. I feel the weight of the potential deaths on my mind. Not of the three assholes that we’re aiming for, but of Marcus, Javier, and Eric, the two hitters Marcus chose to help us with this job.

  Marcus isn’t like me in that regard. Sure, he knows Javy and Eric better than I do—that’s his job. He knows the boys. I need that sort of distance from them because deep down, I care about them too much to want to risk them. It’s hard enough risking my brother. Myself . . . well, that’s just the way it goes.

  His question helps me focus on the challenge at hand. Tonight’s poker game is happening at The Lucky Seven Tavern, where there’s a very lucrative underground casino in the back room. Where money isn’t the only things thrown into the pot during the game, but things that you can’t exactly exchange in the casino a hundred miles down the road. Six men—the three targets plus three more men who are unimportant to me except as potential guns—and a few bodyguards.

  “Yeah, I’m ready,” I finally reply, going over to the scratched desk in the warehouse we’re using as a staging area for tonight’s attack and picking up the Saiga-12 that I’m using for tonight’s hit. Marcus is carrying the same thing. Two semiautomatic shotguns are enough for this, while Javy and Eric will be carrying MP-5s. It’s one of the first lessons I learned when I started bringing the gangs together, one I borrowed from the military as I took my brains from studying at a community college and applied them to running this thing. Everyone showing up with whatever Saturday Night Special they wanted to bring to the party is a good way to find yourself fucked up very quickly. Good troops need good equipment, so I’ve made sure that my men carry the best we can get our hands on.

  That lesson becomes clear when I see Javier holding not the MP-5 that I ordered, but an Uzi in his hands when I come out of the office, making me stop. “What the fuck is that?”

  He’s a new kid, a steady hand so far and he’s proven to be loyal and eager to make something of himself. But he’s from the South Side, which for a long time was disrespected around town. I don’t believe in it, but some still do. I can read in Javy’s eyes that he wants to make an impression tonight. “It’s my baby. I call her Charlene.”

  I roll my eyes, holding up a hand when Marcus takes a step forward. I’ll handle this. “Put the bitch away. That’s not what we’re here for.”

  “Why?” Javier asks, a trifle unsure but not wanting to come off as a punk. Little does he know that by standing up to me, he’s just making it worse for himself. “Charlene can pump lead just as good as those German death machines.”

  I step closer and take the Uzi from him. Without warning, I turn and spray the Uzi across the other end of the warehouse. We’re secluded enough that the sound won’t be noticed. “Now that you’re out of ammo, what the fuck good are you?”

  “But . . .” Javy says as I hand the now empty Uzi back to him. “I mean—”

  “This isn’t some goddamned Stallone movie where our guns have magic magazines that never run out of rounds.” I interrupt, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt and jamming the gun into his chest. “And you don’t have any spare mags for your gun! What are you going to do, tell everyone to stop while you hand-load spare rounds one by one into your mag? Put Charlene down.”

  Javier’s stunned, but he does as he’s told. Eric, who’s been with us from the beginning, just chuckles and follows behind, climbing in the back and closing the door. Marcus gives me a chagrined look. “Sorry, Ryker. Thought he would’ve known better than that.”

  “He’s young, he’ll learn. As long as he’s a good hand in the fight, I’m not worried about him being a bit cocky. Come on.”

  We climb into the van, and I see that Eric’s already climbed behind the driver’s seat, leaving shotgun for Marcus and the back for Javy and I. The engine starts up and we pull out, Javier and I looking at each other across the back of the van.

  “Mr. Ryker?” Javier finally says to break the silence. He sounds different this time, maybe he’s ready to actually learn. “Why’d you do that, anyway?”

  “The people we’re going to hit tonight, they’ve been able to keep us down for years because they’ve treated us like door mats. We have the numbers, my friend. For every cop, for every ‘made man’ in the mobs who looks down on us, there’s four street level soldiers. We should have had this city a long damn time ago. But we helped them, we let them divide us, put us against each other over stupid shit like what color our skin is or what street we represent. They thought we were incapable of coming together, and the fact is, we weren’t for a long time. That shit stops. We work together, we cooperate and we can take this city.”

  “You mean you take the city,” Javier says, and I shrug.

  “Every unit has to have a leader. At least I still remember what it was like looking forward to my state paid for lunch at school and my cheap shit government beans and cheese dinner. I haven’t forgotten the hustle. And I haven’t forgotten how to get my hands dirty. Like tonight.”

  Javier nods, looking at his MP-5. I can tell he’s thinking, he’s had a life like mine. Maybe the foods were different, but he understands. Finally, he looks up. “Okay then. My bad about Charlene.”

  I offer my hand, and we shake before we sit back. The staging area was a good ways from The Lucky Seven, and it takes us a while. Finally, Marcus speaks up from the front. “There it is, Ryker.”

  I scoot forward, looking out the front window as I see The Lucky Seven Tavern. The sign is practically a fucking advertisement for what goes on in the back, a pair of dice showing a four and a three superimposed over a martini glass, but the cops don’t give a fuck as long as they get their kickbacks. They play their games and we play ours.

  “Okay, pull up to the side entrance down the alley. That’s where the casino door is,” I say. I take a second and look around at the others. “Remember the plan. Hit them hard and fast. No casualties other than the three fucksticks we’re after, and any bodyguards. We clear?”

  Everyone nods, and Eric pulls the van up in front of the casino door. “GO!”

  I know there’s a security camera, so we don’t have much time as we throw open the sliding door on the driver’s side, Eric and Javy getting out first. Marcus has the slowest route, having to come around. “Down!”

  The Saiga roars, the twelve-gauge deer slug hitting the door near the locks and punching a hole through. Steel core doors aren’t shit for a slug fired from eighteen inches away. With a kick of my boot, the door flies open and I fire again into whatever the fuck’s in the way.

  Javy’s first, his ego and machismo making him break discipline and he pays for it, the shot from the bodyguard inside taking him high in the left shoulder. It doesn’t matter, my shotgun makes quick work of the shooter a half second later while Eric’s already doing his job, spraying the poker table in front of us with an entire forty round clip while Marcus and I shove through the door. Marcus once again shows his guts as he steps in front of the sagging Javier to protect him.

  Somehow, miraculously, Sal Francisco is still alive, his hands over his head, pressed down against the table after Eric’s sweep with his gun, and I take him out first, blowing him out of his chair. Julio Gonzales is on the floor, but Jimmy’s up, his reflexes a lot faster than a man his age normally has. My next shot takes him in the hip, destroying his ability to walk while spinning him to the floor and adding his screams to the overall insanity. Down and neutralized, I fire again, putting him down. “Hold
!”

  Eric takes a little longer than the others, finishing out his current magazine before he stops and we survey the damage. The table, which at one point looked like it might have been dark oak covered in green felt, looks like firewood with green puffs of fuzz on top, and the metal chairs have been twisted into strange, fantastical shapes as rounds have blasted them into scrap. The stench of burned gunpowder overpowers everything, although the coppery smell of blood is already starting to undercut it and make its presence felt.

  Through the wall, I can hear a little bit of reaction from the patrons of the Lucky Seven. The walls are soundproofed but not that well. Miraculously, I can hear a woman’s whimpers, and crouched down in the corner is a girl who was obviously here for entertainment purposes after the poker was finished, if her Playboy Bunny outfit is to mean anything. She’s covered in a mist of blood, we all are, and when I go over to nudge her with the toe of my boot, she screams, looking up at me with bright green eyes. “Please! Please don’t kill me!”

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” I reply softly, squatting down. Eric’s already pulling back, pulling the injured Javier with him while Marcus covers me, making sure there’s nobody playing possum. “I need you to deliver a message to someone for me, though.”

  “Who?” the girl asks, her voice like a little girl’s from the shock. Not what I intended, but at least she’s uninjured.

  “Tell them . . . this town is Ryker’s island,” I say softly, standing up and shouldering my Saiga. “Tell them that if they don’t know that now, they’ll find out soon enough.”

  The girl nods and I turn, walking out casually through the door.

  I turn my attention to Javier, who’s panicked and in shock from the gunshot. Luckily for him, I prepared for this. “Chill, Javy. The doctor’s just a few miles away. He’ll get you fixed up, he’s the best around. In the meantime, just chill, lie back, and think of the stories you’ll get to tell about this. Besides, chicks dig scars.”