Neither This Nor That Box Set 1

by MariaLisa deMora

  No way Po’Boy made a deal with the cartel. That was the story which had accompanied the picture, asking her if she’d known it was coming. Wildman had sent it and the text, and then called her, raging at how something like this could happen to a brother like Po’Boy. That was the emotion she would expect from Twisted, and that was what she’d been missing. The man can do no wrong. Not past tense, Twisted had been talking about right now, today.

  Do with that what you will.

  An angry roar echoed off the trees and around the house, shaking the air around her. Followed by a bang, then another, then a series of pounding crashes, each of which made the earth under the house tremble.

  “I’ll tell you what I’ll do.” She dug into her pocket for her phone a second time, lifting it as she dialed, “I’ll do what I shoulda done yesterday, soon as I heard about this bullshit.” The call rang twice, then connected, a voice she recognized sounding strong through the line. Nothing but bullshit.

  “Hey, Penny. How are you, doll?”

  Bullshit, she reminded herself. “I tell you what, Retro, I’ve been better. There’s some kinda bullshit bug running around Louisiana, and we need to sort it out before your kiddos come visit.”

  “Tell me what you need.”

  ***

  Crissy

  Driving into the city, Crissy glanced over when her phone rang. Seeing an unfamiliar number, she rolled her eyes and muttered, “No, I didn’t win a cruise.” Telemarketing calls were one of her least favorite things. She sighed. She didn’t have many favorite things these days, but robo dialers were on the least fav list. A moment later the phone rang again, with what looked to be the same number. Fumbling for a moment with the controls on the steering wheel, she finally hit the right button to connect, just as the caller hung up. Smirking, she watched the traffic in front of her, knowing it was always congested at this time.

  Her phone rang again, and without looking at the phone, she tapped the controls. A moment only then a rich, warm man’s voice filtered through the car’s speakers. “Is this Crissy? Crissy Emmerson?”

  “If I say yes are you going to try to sell me something?” Signaling a left turn, she slowed and negotiated the entrance into the firm’s parking lot. The client for this presentation was a law office, and she made a face as she drove past row after row of expensive cars parked in their lot.

  Easy laughter, sounding warm even over the phone as he asked, “If I say yes are you gonna hang up on my ass?” Crissy came alert suddenly knowing this wasn’t a sales call.

  “Who is this?” She found a parking spot and angled her car into it, slamming it into Park and killing the engine. “Who are you?”

  “My name’s Retro,” he said enigmatically, and she was puzzled for a moment before realizing it must be a club name like Wrench and Po’Boy. Before she could respond, he tried to reassure her, “We got friends in common, honey.”

  “What’s happened?” Her heart leaped into her throat, threatening to cut off her air, and she wheezed a bit as she asked, “Are they okay?”

  Silence for a beat then this Retro fella spoke again, all the warmth having fled his voice. “Wanna tell me what you think you know to jump to that kinda response?”

  “Are they okay?” She repeated her question, fighting the sudden burning in her nose, fear settling deep into her chest. “Please.”

  Not as warm as it had been, still his voice had lost some of the starch this time around. “Imma goin’ out on a limb here, and guessin’ you’re askin’ after Wrench and Po’Boy. And that’s just who I called to ask you about. But you comin’ unglued on me ain’t gonna help either of us figure out anything, honey. Suck it up, and pull your ass together.” Softer, gentler, he told her, “Far as I know ain’t nothin’ happened to those boys, just no one can lay eyes on ‘em. I hoped you’d either be with ‘em, or seen ‘em.” He took a breath, and she found herself breathing with him, feeling steadier by the time he asked, “You better now, honey?”

  She didn’t bother responding to that, because with his call, with his questions, there was a sense of urgency weighing her down, as if the very air in the car had gotten heavier, oppressively so. Instead, she dove to the center of what she feared. “I live next door to Ty…Wrench, whatever. He hasn’t been home for a while. A handful of days. Even after he broke things off with me and…” She pulled up short, remembering the fight she’d heard through the walls. “With me,” she corrected, then continued, “he was home more than he was gone. I haven’t talked to Po’Boy in days, but he’s all the way over in Mandeville, and neither of them keeps a normal schedule.”

  “Wrench ain’t been home? Are you sure?”

  Shaking her head, she answered him, “Yeah, I’m sure.”

  “You been in his place while he’s gone?”

  Leaning back in the seat, she shook her head again, uncaring he couldn’t see her. “No, I’d never…not even when we…it’s his.”

  “We got a couple of alarms about the system disengaging and then engaging, like someone came in for something and then left not long after. Maybe fifteen minutes inside. Got any idea who that might be?”

  Crissy started to shake her head again and then paused, thinking. Over the past weeks, she’d occasionally seen one person other than Ty heading into and out of his condo. One who he hated, if she could believe what he’d said. He said a lot of things, but he’s still gone. Wrinkling her nose, she questioned, “Is it the same alarm sequence? I know I can set a special one for guests.” She’d done that, passing them out on heart-shaped pieces of paper to both Ty and Lewis, receiving Ty’s in return, delivered with the sweetest kiss which seemed to hold every kind of promise. She put the memory out of her head and twisting the key, started the car and sat, waiting.

  Silence for a moment, then he cursed. “Fuck, how’d I miss that? Yeah, it’s different from his master code. Who is it, honey?”

  “I got this.” Throwing the car into Reverse, she backed out of the parking spot, barely getting straightened out before spinning her wheels, leaving black strips of rubber. “I got this.” She hung up on the shouting man she didn’t know, aiming her car for the exit and back to Slidell. “Fucking Sam Rotain.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Po’Boy

  Po’Boy waited in silence, or as much silence as he could manage. It was hard and becoming more difficult by the second as the pressure on his hand increased. Twisting his neck, he looked, even as he told himself not to, and saw the balloon-like swelling of his fingers, skin stretched taut. Purple with pooling blood, he didn't know how much more strain his flesh could take without bursting. For a moment he reconsidered the silent thing, because while screaming wouldn’t help, it couldn’t hurt.

  The trap was simple, and elegant. Noose around his ankle, tight and secure, positioned where he couldn't reach. It had been laid in a hallway, rag rug tossed over it to conceal the presence of the rope. All it took was him creeping through the darkness looking for Deuces, and a step in the wrong place. Snap, the trap tripped, and he'd been dragged down the hallway like a rabbit lure at hound races.

  The one on his hand was harder to explain, but he remembered reaching out for something, anything to slow his terrifying rush up the hallway. Pulled to a jolting stop, his shoulder joint stretched to near breaking, anchored to a point somewhere along the path. Once the shock wore off, he'd looked up to see a thin wire wrapped around his hand and wrist. But the motor pulling on his leg hadn’t stalled. Oh, no. That bitch is quality machinery. Fuck. Hadn't stopped and was actively pulling, whining as it worked overtime to continue its job. The wire around his wrist was small, thin, and looked disturbingly like a cheese slicer against his skin.

  Images from text books ran through his mind, of men suspended from ropes, tied to four horses, one for each appendage. Drawn and quartered, but in his case he figured it was halved. The sound of the motor changed, nearly stalling, and he hoped this meant the clutch was giving out. Fucking finally. Then another sound rattled through the
hallway, and he twisted his head to look towards the front of the building. Standing in the opening was a man. He wasn’t moving, was just standing there quietly. From the tilt of his head, Po’Boy knew he was looking down at him. Not moving, not jumping to help, not saying anything.

  Not friend, then. Can’t hurt to ask. It did hurt like a motherfucker just to lay there, so asking was where he’d head.

  “Little help?” Rough and hoarse from holding quiet for so long, Po’Boy watched as the man’s head swung back and forth, slowly. “Oh, come on, man. You can’t be fuckin’ serious.”

  “As a heart attack,” the man told him, stepping forwards and into the light shining through a window in a room opening onto the hallway. Slender, with long red hair pulled low on his neck into a simple queue, the man looked like anyone you might pass on the street. Nondescript, dressed in clothes which wouldn’t pull someone’s gaze twice. He was everybody, and nobody. “You’re in quite the pickle, Po’Boy.”

  Well, fuck. If he knows who I am, then I’m screwed. The motor whined and stuttered, then caught, and at the resulting yank, Po’Boy felt the cable around his hand break the skin, finally.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Crissy

  Standing at the door, she dithered for a moment, unsure, then lifted a hand and knocked briskly. Ty’s truck was in the lot, but his bike wasn’t, so Crissy figured she had a fifty-fifty chance of him being home. If he was, then she’d call Retro back and let him know.

  That was a man who didn’t give up easily. When she refused to answer any of his dozen calls while she drove like a bat out of hell back to Slidell, he’d left two very detailed voice mails. One about what bad things could happen to a nice girl like her if she stepped into the wrong person’s path, and one about all the ways she could contact him “when you fuck up, because you’re gonna fuck up, woman.”

  Thirty seconds with no response to her knocking had her stepping to the side where the keyless pad was hidden behind a panel. Thirty more seconds and she was inside, soundlessly closing the door behind her, reaching to the side to enter the code a second time, disarming the alarm. She swept the living area with her gaze, marking the disarray so unlike Ty’s normal housekeeping. He might not be a neat freak, but he seemed to appreciate tidy.

  This room was far from orderly. There were beer cans on the floor next to the furniture, mostly empty bottles of liquor on the end tables, and open takeout containers on the coffee table in front of the sofa. His boots were missing from their normal place near the door, but the thing that chilled her bones was the sight of his club vest hanging off the back of a dining room chair. If his truck had been the vehicle missing from the lot, she wouldn’t have thought anything about the vest being here, but given he was evidently out on the bike, him not wearing the symbol of his association with such a powerful group made her decidedly uneasy.

  The silence in the condo was oppressive, the air stale, scents of rotting food teasing at her nostrils. Thinking hard, she put it at about a week since she’d seen his bike, but it didn’t mean he hadn’t been back in between. Still.

  When her phone rang, she startled, thumb moving to decline the call, flipping the button to silence the device without looking to see who had called.

  Walking through Ty’s home was eerie, and she found herself tiptoeing to keep her footsteps as silent as possible. Everywhere she looked there seemed to be another jarring detail. A glass with beer foam residue sporting a bright red lipstick stain on the rim. A small pile of ammunition, with several bullets arranged in a circle, butt down to the table. Dirty pans in the sink, burnt and unidentifiable food caked in the bottoms. A disassembled gun on a towel on the kitchen table.

  She got to Ty’s room and hesitated, one hand resting on the doorknob. It was the only closed door inside the condo, and the smell of decaying and spoiled food hung heavy in the air, churning her stomach. With a shallow breath, she gripped hard, turning the knob and easing the door open.

  Not certain what she was seeing, for a moment she stood stock still, staring with mouth open at the disaster that greeted her. While the rest of the condo could be politely termed untidy, this room was destroyed. Pillows and mattress were slashed and ruined, feathers and foam everywhere. The mattress was half-off the frame, angled against the far wall as if it had been tossed there. The dresser drawers all stood open, hanging wildly akimbo, the clothing tossed here and there. Shirts were shredded, holes and rips in each one she could see.

  The closet door hung open and the hangers were in tangles, empty and shoved together so they looked like knots of metal. Debris littered the floor, and Crissy couldn’t catalogue every item, but it looked as if everything in the room had been touched and demolished. Everywhere she looked, she found more ruin. The thing her eyes kept returning to was on the wall over the bed, and while she couldn’t tell what it was, it filled her with a slippery unease.

  She took a step, then another, finally coming close enough to see it was a picture pinned against the surface with a knife. The huge blade bisected the image, and it took a moment before she realized it was of her, Ty, and Lewis. Not one she’d ever seen, this was taken at Plaisirs Caches in New Orleans, with the three of them at the bar. She was leaning into Lewis’ side, and Ty had draped himself over their shoulders. Smiling at a private joke; there was no mistaking the intimacy between the three of them.

  Focused on the picture, when her phone vibrated in her hand she dismissed the call, not bothering to try and recognize the number. A moment later it vibrated again, and she looked to see a text on the screen. The words chilled her, causing Crissy to look around, ensuring she was indeed alone. You’re in the house. It seemed too much like the script of a bad horror movie, so it was nearly a relief when the next text identified the caller. Retro callin u again now.

  The phone rang and she accepted it, putting it to her ear. Before she could speak, the man’s voice barked at her. “You stupid or somethin’? You went to Wrench’s place, and you’re inside. Tell me what you see.” A clear demand in a tone which said the person on the other end of the line was accustomed to being obeyed. Crissy didn’t hesitate, providing a quick rundown of what she’d seen.

  “Condo itself is messy, and if you know Ty, you’ll know it’s not his way, so I’m guessing he’s not been the one here the past week or so. But the bedroom—” She hesitated, swallowing hard as she eyed the picture fixed to the surface of the wall with a knife she assumed was used to create most of the chaos in the room. “—it’s different. This looks personal. It’s…everything is destroyed. It looks like an angry genie blew up anything belonging to Ty.” She paused. “That’s to say…everything.”

  “Anything stick out, honey?”

  “Yeah, sorta. There’s a picture of—” Wrinkling her nose, she tried to decide how to approach this bit of information. “—us. But we didn’t know anyone was taking it. Anyway, it’s nailed to the wall.” She hesitated again, then said, “Well, not nailed. There’s a knife…a big one.”

  “Where were the two of you when it was taken?”

  Shit. He’d made an assumption, and she had to set him straight, not knowing what it might all mean, but setting him straight might be the ruination of one of the men she loved. I love them, she told herself, the feeling in her chest bridging any additional fear. If they’re in trouble, I don’t care what might happen, as long as I can keep anything physically bad at bay.

  “It’s not just me and Ty in the picture.” She cast about for a moment, trying to remember his question, then finished with, “Plaisirs Caches in New Orleans. It’s a bar.”

  “I know the place,” he assured her, and then made an intuitive leap which shouldn’t have been a surprise, given the clues he’d already pieced together. “It’s the three of you, right? You and Wrench and Po’Boy?” Then he made another leap, one that made her wince for her two men. “It’s a picture of the three of you out together, like on a date.”

  Focused as she was on the contents of the room, at the words comin
g from the phone pressed tight to her ear, a touch on her shoulder had her shrieking and jumping away. She swung around to find a man standing behind her, someone she’d only seen once before. She barely had time to scream before his fist was swinging towards her face. An instant later pain burst in her jaw like she’d been hit with a brick, and she staggered backwards, tripping and falling over the shredded clothing on the floor. Lying on her back, she stared up at him, blinking in a futile effort to keep the blackness from sweeping over her. Through all this, the phone stayed in her hand, but with the ringing in her ears she couldn’t tell if Retro was still talking.

  ***

  Twisted

  Listening carefully, Twisted tried to make sense out of what Retro was telling him. After a minute, everything clicked, and his blood ran cold. Fucking shit, the ruse worked. Too well, it seemed, if Po’Boy and Wrench’s woman was caught up in it all. Now he just had to sort out who’d cottoned onto what was going on, and hope like fuck the woman was okay when he found her. The fact he would find her wasn’t a given, but he couldn’t allow any other thoughts to even enter his head. He knew she needed to be unharmed, or Po’Boy would give him an assbeating like none other.

  “Are there eyes in the place, or on the lot?” He broke in, interrupting Retro’s rant about the two men going off the grid. “You’re talkin’ Wrench’s place, right? Don’t he own the complex? You talk to Ace, see if he got any insight?”

  Silence, then Retro spoke carefully. “I have not called Ace. While Wrench can be an asshole, I like that asshole, didn’t wanna cause problems when I wasn’t sure there was even shit to share. I like your asshole, too, but I got the feeling I wasn’t causin’ Po’Boy any issues because you—” The sound of a sigh came through the line. “—know more than most how life can bend around ya.” A pause, and Twisted waited, knowing Retro was working through things in his head. “You know where they are.”