CHAPTER 7
MAYA
“Tomorrow is the third shipment,” I tell Sarah as she stares at a knife blade like it’s fascinating.
She’s been in and out of here a lot lately, and I don’t know what’s going on.
“My team is supposed to contact me when it’s done,” I go on, expecting her to at least be curious.
She stabs the knife into the table and looks down at her phone when it chimes with a text. I know the different tunes on her phone and what they mean—that’s how much she’s been around.
“You’re ignoring me,” I decide to say as I roller skate around in a circle, trying to work out my nerves. I’ve cleared the large room out to give me room to skate in for times like these.
She looks up from her phone and smirks at me.
“How many favors do you owe me?” she asks.
“I’m sure you have an accurate tab on you somewhere,” I tell her, since she’s pretty adamant about telling me when I owe her yet another favor, though she’s yet to use any of said favors.
“You’re about to become a bank,” she says as she stands.
I skid to a halt, cocking my head. “Okay. How much do you need?”
Her grin only grows. “Not me, love. I’m using the favor for some old friends of mine. You remember Axle, don’t you?”
My stomach flips a little at just the mention of his name. Not that it should. He wouldn’t even glance at me like I was anything more than a nuisance.
Girl needs self-respect.
“Barely,” I lie, batting a hand.
She rolls her eyes before grabbing a few pistols, and starts to shove them into the holsters on her body. She’s dressed in all black. Again. Including pleather leggings—she makes them hot. And a corset. Totally hot.
Me? Not so hot.
I’m in roller skates with my hair in twin balls and my 1970’s pink socks that stop at my thighs, while I wear my pink Bubble Gum Girl T-shirt and little white exercise shorts.
We couldn’t be more opposite.
“Thought they had more money than I do,” I finally say when she stares expectantly at me.
Those are pretty much the words Drex Caine—yes, I know his name now—said to me that night.
The guns she straps on all the time used to make me wary. I’ve learned Sarah is somewhat unhinged—even more so than me.
“They had plenty of money. But shit went down. The club split in half after Drex and Herrin went toe-to-toe. Long story short, all hell broke loose, and Drex finally saw his father as the shitty little weasel he really is. Now Herrin has stolen their money. They need a bank until they get back on their feet. I have a guy who might be able to steal their money back, but that could take time.”
I spin in a tight circle on my skates before pushing off and getting closer to her. She eyes my socks for a second before looking up at me.
“I said sorority girl was a good look. Not Bubble Gum Betty.”
“This is my unwinding attire. Tonight is tense for me. Anyway, I’ll give you however much you need, and you can take it to them.”
Her expression goes blank, no emotion showing.
“I can’t. You’ll have to be the one to give it to them, and you’ll have to convince them to take it.”
My lips purse. “You have a boyfriend on the inside, and in case you’ve forgotten, they ran me out of that place. If they need money, then they shouldn’t need convincing.”
She starts putting on some ammo holsters that hold spare magazines, and I cock my head. That’s new. She doesn’t usually do that when she leaves.
My distraction is interrupted when she speaks again.
“You’ll offer them a job they can’t refuse. Not a loan. It can’t be me who offers it. Jude left me—”
“I thought his name was Snake,” I interrupt.
Her stony expression cracks, and I see the pain in her eyes. “His name is Jude. Snake was just a nickname. I was the only one allowed to call him Jude, and I only called him that when we were alone. Now he takes that special thing away by having everyone call him Jude. It’s just one of the many ways he’s letting me know we’re really over.”
Her face hardens again, and she angrily shoves on a few more holsters that take up her forearm. She bends her arms like she’s testing their flexibility or weight, and then she picks up a few knives and starts shoving them into her waist holster.
“Why’d you break up?”
Her hands pause their jerky movements, and her face stays hidden by her blonde hair as she exhales heavily.
“Because I did the one unforgivable thing.”
“You cheated?” I guess.
Her face stays hidden as she shakes her head, finishing up her dangerous attire.
“No. Worse. I lied.”
I frown at that. “Everyone lies.”
She looks at me grimly. “Trust me when I say there’s nothing worse I could have done where Jude is concerned. His past is really fucked up, and lying is at the core of that.”
“What’d you lie about?” I ask, unable to help myself.
She peers over at me. “I told him I was Sarah, and he fell in love with her. Then he found out I was AJ, daughter of Phillip Jenkins, and he didn’t love AJ. It’s that simple. Hence the reason I still prefer to be called Sarah unless I’m executing people.”
“It’s not that simple. You’re still the same person, just under a different name.”
She straightens, and her eyes flick down to my roller skates.
“You can shoot straight, right?” she asks abruptly, lifting her gaze again.
Apparently we’re finished talking about her ex and her lost identity.
“Yeah…why?” I ask slowly, tensing a little.
“I’m cashing in on another favor. Time is too limited to bring about a group of goons and vet them to make sure they won’t sell me out before I do this, so I need your help. Just point and shoot. I’ll handle the hard work,” she goes on.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
“You want me to—”
“Start making good on those favors you owe,” she finishes as I skate toward a chair that has my shoes in it. “And leave the roller skates on. You can move faster on them.”
My mouth falls open as she struts toward the door in her combat boots, and I skate out into the hallway behind her.
“What are we doing?” I hiss as I slide into the elevator with her.
She stabs a button before cracking her neck to the side. “Don’t worry. I have the hard part,” she assures me. “I just need you to take out the stragglers—which may or may not be necessary. A girl in roller skates doesn’t look too threatening, and you can chase them down easily enough.”
“Damn it, Sarah. Tell me what we’re doing! Why am I shooting someone?”
“Because you owe me,” she says simply, her gaze flicking to me. “And your life depends on helping me save the man I love from walking into a death trap.”
She grins like she didn’t just say that last sentence.
“I’ll explain the details of your next favor on the way,” she adds.
***
When I woke up this morning, I had one thing on my mind. Going to a warehouse in the middle of Nowhere, Texas was not that one thing.
Waiting outside, listening to the sound of rapid gunfire spitting inside the warehouse was also not on the docket for today.
Wearing roller skates on less than ideal concrete was so not on today’s freaking agenda!
Pop. Pop. Pop.
The sound of gunshots continue, and I clutch my gun in my hand. Maybe I even tremble a little as I watch the rear exit Sarah told me to keep an eye on, praying no one walks out, because…death and all that.
Death doesn’t bother me in the abstract. I can sentence someone to death…but actually causing death with an actual weapon? I haven’t popped that cherry, and I’m not so sure that I want to do it in roller skates.
I’m hiding by a massive, disgusting smelling dumpster also, because it’s that kind of day.
I’m starting to wish I’d at least shot one person in my life so I’d know how to deal with this, but I haven’t. Unlike Sarah, who is a freaking retired assassin. I have teams for a reason, damn it!
I need alcohol to deal with this day.
A few screams sound from inside the warehouse, and the gun rattles in my hand. That’s a lot of gunfire. And she’s only one person. What happens when that army of guys comes out here and decide I’m next in line to die?
Nope. I’m not leaving her. No worries.
I just wish I had picked a different outfit to die in. I can’t even remember what panties I have on, other than they have to be white. My shirt isn’t the best to tell the world this girl was once awesome. And roller skates? Who wants to die in roller skates?
The gunfire stops suddenly, and my heart thumps in my chest as I wait for any sign that tells me Sarah is alive.
Something buzzes against my right breast, and I squeal a little and jump, almost busting my ass in my skates, before I realize—that due to the lack of pockets on this ridiculous outfit—I put my phone in my bra.
I juggle it out, seeing the text is from Sarah.
SARAH: Come on in. I need some help.
I take a deep breath, swallowing down the nervous knot in my throat, prepare to be a badass, and skate like a demon toward the back bay door. An unplanned rebel yell tears from my throat like I’m Tarzan’s female counterpart, as I charge through, skating under the half-closed door.
But I skid sideways and to a halt when my eyes almost fall out of my head, looking around in disbelief at the scene. Sarah is standing before me, clutching her side, and her eyebrows are lifted in quiet mockery.
“I need you to gather all their phones. I’ll be way up front, waiting for the guys to show up. And take all their cash, too. Bring it all to me when you’re finished, Jungle Girl.”
The shaky gun gets lowered to my side as I slowly relax.
I see dead people. No, that’s not a Sixth Sense joke. There’s a lot of dead people in here. Good thing I’m not squeamish.
Tearing my eyes off the remains, I look back at her to see her giving me an exasperated expression. “Now, Maya.”
She turns and walks away, and I put my gun down as I start going from corpse to corpse to pick pockets like a total creep.
I feel like I’m at the ground level and trying to work my way up instead of being born on top.
Sarah pushes a button on a remote as she limps toward the front, and music blasts loudly, scaring the shit out of me as I pick up a phone. I do a total cartoonish skate walk, jazz hands flailing in the air, desperately trying to keep my balance, but an embarrassing scream escapes me when I crash to the ground.
Well, to a body that breaks my fall.
“Sorry,” I tell the dead guy whose vacant eyes stare back at me. I pat his chest appreciatively while pushing back up to a crouched position.
“This. Is. Not. My. Day,” I groan, then grimace as I look at Dead Guy. “Guess your day is worse than mine, huh?”
I almost don’t hear it over the music when Dead Guy’s phone starts ringing in his pocket. I grab it, looking at the name on the screen. Rush? I have no idea who Rush is.
Not that it matters. Dead Guy can’t answer the phone right now, because he’s…dead. I’m sure you didn’t need that explained.
Instead of answering the phone, I go about the carnage, doing my grunt work as instructed. If this is how Sarah wants me to pay back the favors I owe, life is going to suck.
I’ve racked up quite the favor bill in the past six months.