Boston Underworld: The Collection

by A. Zavarelli

  She was a sweet girl. Typical story. Runaway. Abusive home. She’s too young for her life to be cut so short.

  And I’ve taken it upon myself to do right by her.

  Because who the hell else is going to?

  I’d do it whether I knew her or not. Every day of the week and twice on Sundays. But when her friend told me what the john looked like, the game changed for me.

  A crescent shaped scar above his lip, she’d said. I’d almost lost my shit, certain she was fucking with me somehow.

  But no.

  The more she described him, the more in my heart I knew it was true.

  Alexander is in Boston.

  I still don’t want to believe it. Even after everything that I know to be true. When you add two and two together, it always equals four. And the sky is fucking blue because it just is. And Alexander was bad, even if I never wanted to accept it. Even if I still don’t.

  The stale soundtrack plays on inside my head.

  He wouldn’t have been bad if it wasn’t for them.

  It wasn’t his fault.

  We all lie to ourselves, sometimes.

  Because a lie is sweet, and the truth is often bitter. And I’ve never had a pill so bitter as Alexander fucking Carrington.

  His back-story is as typical as it gets in the old world. Trust fund kid with daddy’s money. Prestigious schools and fast cars and soft hands because he never had to work a day in his life. That’s the world I grew up in. Those are the people I associated with. And now those are the people I hate more than anything.

  I told myself he’d be last on my list. Because I couldn’t have myself doubting five years of meticulous planning.

  One by one, I’ve watched the dominos fall.

  Ethan’s affairs, exposed. Quinn’s empire crumbling before his eyes. Duke’s bitter realization that his longtime girlfriend had been fucking his brother all along. And Trip, well he was easy. I didn’t even have to set fire to his perfectly constructed world. He lit the match himself with his numerous addictions.

  But Alexander is another story.

  He’s the one I’ve held out for. The one I haven’t been able to find. It’s like he vanished into thin air after his father’s scandal.

  I was beginning to lose all hope.

  Until Kylie’s friend mentioned that crescent shaped scar on the john.

  It can’t be him.

  I still don’t believe it, and yet here I am, prowling the same bar for the fifth night in a row. I am powerless against it. The fixation has grown inside of me now, infecting my mind like poison.

  I need to find him.

  And I need to decide once and for all if this warpath I’m on is really that. If I’m willing to do battle and bloody myself up in pursuit of my revenge.

  Until then, I will settle for the pawns. Like the one I’m now standing two feet away from. He only has to turn his head, and then he will notice me. Of that, I am confident.

  Will he remember me?

  I sit, and I wait. I flag down the bartender.

  By the time he makes it down our way, dopey will be asking if he can buy me a drink.

  Of course, I’ll tell him. And then when he’s not looking, I’ll slip him the benzos. Five minutes tops, and I’ll be suggesting we find somewhere quieter. Like my room upstairs.

  That’s how it usually goes.

  Only tonight, it doesn’t.

  Because he doesn’t notice me. Even when the bartender comes down to ask me if I want a drink. And when I turn to see what could be so blindingly fascinating, I find exactly what I don’t want to see.

  She’s across the bar, in shadow. Tonight, she wears a short black wig and the only weapon she needs. A wicked smile and a crook of her finger, and she’s got him. Hook, line, and sinker.

  I wouldn’t exactly call her my nemesis. Or even my rival.

  I don’t get possessive of my territory. Except when someone’s bringing heat down on it. Which is exactly what this girl has been doing since she showed up two months ago.

  She goes by the street name Storm, but names are like purses to her. She has a different one for every day of the week, to go with her disguises.

  Bitch is crazy. Even crazier than me.

  And she’s making my game look like child’s play compared to what she does to her toys. There is something about her that scares even me a little. I’ve watched her work before, and there is no flashy sales pitch on her part. She keeps it simple, and it works. It works so well she never even gets close to her targets before she lures them in.

  Standing in the shadows, tossing coy glances over her shoulder. That really is all there is to it. There’s a mystery about her that even I can’t deny. And I won’t say that I don’t admire her skill set because she’s got a natural talent for what she does.

  But respect is a two-way street.

  Like I said before, I’m not a fan of people. So usually, I mind my business.

  But tonight, she is crossing the line. And she knows it too when she meets my gaze and smiles.

  Dopey gets up from his stool and walks directly to his doom like a puppy chasing after a bone. I follow five steps behind him.

  Storm has been using the same hotels that I do on a regular basis, so I’m not surprised when she takes him into one of the rooms upstairs.

  I grab my knife and a credit card, prepared to deal with the lock, but there’s no need. She left it cracked open for me.

  By the time I open the door, she’s already got dopey unconscious on the ground. She meets my gaze for a second and quickly dismisses me before she goes to work on cutting off his clothes.

  If I didn’t know any better, I would think she’s been studying my playbook.

  “That one was mine,” I tell her.

  “Really?” She doesn’t move her focus from her current task. “Because I’m pretty sure he came back here of his own free will. Don’t think he even noticed you tonight. No offence, dollface.”

  Well, she does have a point there. But still, I’m not about to let it go.

  “I’ve already visited with him once before.”

  “Then I guess you didn’t do a good enough job,” she says. “I’ll make sure to do it right this time.”

  “I didn’t have his address.”

  “Well, don’t worry. I’ve got it. Along with the name of his wife and kids at home.”

  The way her lip curls when she says wife and kids reveals exactly what I wanted to know about her. We all have a trigger. Something that makes us tick, or makes us sick… whatever. This is where her rage stems from. It’s the cheating that does it for her.

  She’s young, maybe twenty-four at most I’d guess, but hard. Hard as fuck. And I’d venture a guess that she’s been married before already.

  It’s all very fascinating, really. But I’m no Freud, and I find myself caring a little too much, so I shake myself out of it and get down to business.

  “I get that you’re new here,” I say. “But I think we need to come to some sort of understanding. You’re drawing too much heat. The guys I fuck up run back to their penthouses with their tails between their legs and live out their days with regret and paranoia. But yours are actually going to the police. And now the feds have been sniffing around here too.”

  She pulls out a duffle not dissimilar to my own and retrieves a tattoo gun. She’s all business and in the zone and I’m not even sure she heard me when she snaps on some latex gloves and swipes his chest with an alcohol pad.

  “Look, Scarlett…” This time, she glances up at me. “That’s what you tell people your name is, right?”

  “That is my name.”

  “Sure, it is.” She rolls her eyes. “Just like mine is Storm. Let’s be real with each other for a minute. I don’t like you, and you don’t like me. In fact, I think we are a lot alike in that we both hate every-fucking-one. But we have to share our toys. That’s the way it goes. So, you just worry about you, and I’ll worry about me. And in the meantime, you can watch me fuck him
up real good if you want.”

  I guess my curiosity wins out in the end. Because I take a seat on the bed, and I do exactly what she suggested.

  I watch.

  She’s right that we are both similar. Maybe that’s why my curiosity is getting the best of me. This isn’t like me. I don’t team up. I don’t have interest in other people’s stories. Their thoughts, their fears, whatever.

  But it’s not often I stumble across someone as fucked up as I am. So, this girl, she fascinates me.

  Her face is turned down as she begins. She’s in a trance, inflicting the very permanent damage she leaves on all her toys. And it’s only now that I’m in close proximity that I can see it.

  The reason she hides in shadow.

  Her arm is a mess of tangled flesh and scars, and so is the right side of her face. They are disguised well, beneath the makeup and the black wig. But under the soft glow of the lamp light, they are obvious in a way I never noticed in a dark bar.

  Burns.

  She was burned.

  Badly, from the looks of it.

  She glances up and catches me staring.

  “Are you about done? I don’t have to let you watch, you know.”

  My answer is a nod and a new laser focus on her chosen canvas. But inside my head, the wheels are still turning.

  I can only imagine what it would be like to wear your scars so visibly. People staring all the time. Silently hypothesizing. Coming to their own conclusions. Silently judging you and pitying you at the same time.

  My respect for her only grows in this moment of vulnerability she shared with me. Allowing me to see her this closely. It wasn’t an accident, or a spontaneous decision.

  This girl’s mind is a chess board, and every move she makes is carefully planned out.

  She works quickly and efficiently. The tattoo is messy and deep. Too deep. This guy won’t ever be able to get her brand lasered off his skin. For the rest of his life, when he looks in the mirror, he will see the word staring back at him.

  Duplicity.

  I know from the news articles starting to make the rounds that she uses different words. Infidelity. Greed. Lust. Envy. Deceit.

  They are all sins in their own right, but they have new meaning to me now. It’s funny how a canvas changes once you meet the artist. It all starts to make sense. Or doesn’t. In this case, her words have come full circle. The puzzle is not in the different sins, but only one.

  Infidelity.

  Every other sin is just a shallow imitation. Another path to the same destination.

  These men are all cheaters. And when they come home from this, there is no hiding what they’ve done. They will confess on their knees and beg their wives forgiveness while Storm carries on as though it never happened.

  But she doesn’t just stop at tattoos.

  When she’s finished with his chest, she fucks up his face. And I mean really fucks it up. With cigarette burns and knife marks.

  My best guess for this one? She wants him to be as ugly on the outside as he is on the inside.

  Or maybe as ugly as she feels herself.

  If I could feel empathy for someone, I might have stopped her. But I don’t. I’m fucked up in my own special way and the tears of rich men are my opiates of choice.

  When it’s all said and done, I feel nothing when I look at him.

  There is nothing but emptiness when Storm cleans up and packs her bag. She walks to the door, and I think she’s going to leave. But first, she drops a bomb.

  “Your name is Tenly. Tenly Albright.”

  I flinch, and it’s involuntary.

  Storm smiles.

  “How…”

  “Don’t worry,” she says. “Your secret’s safe with me. But word on the street is there’s a cop with a hard on for you, sweetheart. So maybe you should do all the rest of us a favor and stay the fuck out of the way.”

  With that parting gift, she leaves me. And I’m still staring at the door, wondering if it was all a hallucination. Wondering if she drugged me too.

  That’s when the client chooses to mumble a coherent thought.

  “That guy.”

  “What guy?”

  “The picture,” he groans. “You showed me a picture of the guy once.”

  I’m firing on all cylinders now. Up and off the bed and moving towards him. He recoils, but there’s nowhere for him to go.

  “Please,” he begs. “I’m trying to give you what you want.”

  “What the fuck is his name?” I demand.

  “I don’t know,” he spews. “I’ve never known. But I think he is a cop. I’ve been seeing him around.”

  “Where specifically?”

  “That bar downstairs,” he says. “He’s been scoping the place out. But not until late. He’s always there after ten when I see him. I heard him asking about you. He had a drawing of you, telling people this is what you might look like now.”

  I mull over his words as my eyes burn into his face. This feels too easy. And it doesn’t make sense. There’s no fucking way Alexander’s a cop.

  “If you’re lying to me…”

  “I swear,” he says. “I’m not lying. I just want you and that other psycho to leave me alone. Please.”

  I toss him a smile before I pivot on my heel and head to the door. Looks like the creep finally learned his lesson.

  And for once, I’m happy to oblige.

  3

  SCARLETT

  I DON'T WANT to be a fool. Even a beautiful one.

  The clock on the stove glares at me with neon green numbers when I drag myself out of bed. It’s after ten. And I’ve officially become a vampire, though I’m not sure when it happened. I hunt all night and nap during the day, only coming alive when the sun sets all over again.

  The silence is pervasive as I sit at the counter and drink my coffee. Quiet. Always quiet. No television. No music. Just silence.

  The thing I simultaneously need and hate most.

  I am hypersensitive by nature and my nights are loud and chaotic. Overwhelming. The lights and the noise are acid to my psyche, but I endure. My punishment for playing the game.

  When my mug is empty, I throw on an old tee shirt and a pair of leggings and lace up my running shoes- bunny ear style. Then it’s another cup of the usual. Neurosis.

  The appliances come first. I unplug them and check them again, and then fifty times more, just to be sure. Because there could be a fire and then the animals in the building could be trapped because not everyone’s home during the day. And so I count the knobs on the stove too, because I never use it, but you just don’t know. Maybe one got bumped. Or maybe I turned it on when I meant to check that it was off. This whole parade of insanity usually takes me about fifteen minutes or so.

  When I leave, I lock all six locks on my door. And then count them. And then re-lock them again because maybe I missed one.

  The third and final step of my compulsion is to linger in the hallway like the lunatic that I am, resisting the urge to go back inside and re-check everything. I tell myself that it’s fine. I tell myself I did everything just right.

  And then I take a step. And another. And eventually it gets easier to walk away, with a few deep breaths too.

  Mrs. Roger’s cat Whiskey is sitting at the end of the hallway when I get to the stairwell. I only know my neighbor’s name because sometimes she comes to knock on my door to accuse me of stealing Whiskey.

  I do let Whiskey inside sometimes. He’s nice. And he’s a cat, not people, so technically I’m allowed to like him. But he can only ever visit for a little while. Because in this life I don’t get attached to anything.

  This ginger cat is the closest thing to an exception that I’ll ever make. I reach down and grace his regal ass with a pat and he bonks my leg with his head a few times before he starts purring.

  I thought cats were supposed to have good instincts about people. But Whiskey apparently doesn’t. He doesn’t know that I’m dead inside. That I’m no good. Typi
cal narcissist, he demands attention anyway.

  So maybe cats are like me. They don’t really care about your issues. They just want what they want and that’s it.

  I give him one last pat and then I dart down the darkened stairwell of the building I’ve called home since I came to this city. It’s nothing special to look at, and my mother would clutch her pearls if she saw it. But it’s home to me. Familiar ground.

  A far cry from everything I once knew.

  I hit the pavement and breathe in the exhaust with a happy sigh. This is Boston. Nama-fucking-ste. Stretches commence in my usual spot, against the building.

  Then I run.

  It’s hard. It’s fast. And it’s brutal. The punishment does not stop until I can physically go on no longer. It’ll be hell walking in heels tonight. But I’ll manage. I always do.

  I’m limping when I get back to my apartment, and Whiskey is waiting for me at my door. I can’t be bothered to shoo him off today. So, I let him wander in while I make my usual safety checks.

  In this life, you never know who might be following you home. I almost always expect it to be one of my clients. But I never saw the butcher coming.

  History repeated itself that day.

  And even though I had my knife- the one I never, ever take off- he managed to surprise me. And overpower me.

  And drag me back to hell.

  It was a wake-up call if I ever had one. All my years on the streets had really taught me very little. Because somehow, I would always end up falling prey to men like that.

  Whatever notion I’d ever entertained about leaving this life behind withered in the aftermath of that day. The deadness returned. And so did the rage.

  The universe had a funny way of reminding me why I do what I do.

  For two long months, I was fucking up some random man every night. Making him pay for the sins of everyone else before him.

  It didn’t matter to me.

  The only thing that mattered was the game. The retribution.

  And everything has come full circle again as I sit here in my darkened apartment, with only Whiskey to keep me company while I nuke a TV dinner. My fingers move over the faces in my scrapbook, and sometimes, that notion reappears. That I could let it go.