Torn

Blurb

The day my fiancé was brutally gunned down before my eyes, my entire life changed forever. Gone was the sweet and innocent bride-to-be who wanted nothing more than to get married and have babies. She was replaced by a tattooed biker bitch hell bent on revenge. I’m going to make The Wright Brothers pay for what they’ve done. I’ll see them all dead if it’s the last thing I do…

 

I strolled into that dive bar with the intention of killing Rick Wright, the gang leader responsible for the death of my fiancé. He might not have pulled the trigger, but he was the man in charge, so I was holding him personally responsible. I had it all planned. I would seduce him, get him alone, then put a bullet in his head.

 

The one thing I hadn’t counted on was him being so charming, not to mention smoking hot. He had a smile that he used like a weapon. All he had to do was point it my way and I melted in my panties.

 

Once I got him naked and in my bed, would I be able to put a bullet in his head, or would the site of his naked body and the surge of my own desires wash away my need for revenge forever?

PROLOG: SANDY DUVAL

I met the love of my life on Tuesday, January 26th.

He asked me to marry him on Saturday, May 3rd.

The wedding was scheduled for Saturday, October 15th.

He died in my arms on Sunday, July 24th.

I decided to kill the man responsible for his death at the exact moment the last breath slipped from my lover’s body.

Now, it’s all I think about.

Killing Rick Wright.

A man I’ve never even met, but can’t wait to kill.

CHAPTER ONE: SANDY

I missed those long nights when I’d lie awake thinking about my wedding day. I thought about how best to wear my hair, how I’d do my makeup, who would help me get ready, what song we’d dance to for our first dance and a thousand other things.

I already had my dress, which, as wedding dresses go, was a pretty simple design.

On a hairdresser’s pay, I couldn’t afford anything fancy with a long train and a veil, not that I wanted anything like that. I was a simple girl with simple tastes, and I was marrying a simple man.

Brent worked in the service department at the local Ford dealership. I cut hair at Cost Clippers. Together, we’d make enough to have a nice, simple life, like our parents.

Funny, how I keep using that word: simple.

Sad, because nothing is simple anymore.

I bought my wedding dress off Craig’s List for two hundred dollars from a bride whose marriage had lasted less than a year. It was a lacy white dress that was bought off the discount rack at David’s Bridal; floor length, with a high neckline and long sleeves. The girl kept calling it “antique looking”, which I think meant that is was purposefully made to look old.

I remembered trying it on in the girl’s bedroom, staring at myself in the full-length mirror she had mounted to the back of the closet door. It fit like it was made especially for me. I’m tall for a girl, like 5’8 in bare feet, but I’m also curvy. My sister, April, always said that I got my big boobs and wide hips from my mom and my short temper from my dad.

I bought the dress and rushed home to show it to April and my mom. I was so proud of that dress. I couldn’t wait to try it on and show it off to them. I couldn’t wait for Brent to see me in it as I walked down the aisle. I thought he was just gonna die when he saw me.

Fuck.

What did I say that…?

I rolled over and balled up the covers in my hands and tucked them under my chin.

I tried to sob quietly, so April didn’t hear me.

I’d moved back home, out of the apartment Brent and I had rented less than a month before he was killed. I couldn’t afford to live there on my own.

I was back in the same room April and I shared growing up. April was just eighteen, six years younger than me, and just starting junior college. She needed her space and her sleep, but she welcomed me home with open arms. They all did; April, mom, dad. They tried to make me feel like it was all going to be all right, that one day I’d wake up to find that I hadn’t cried myself to sleep the night before.

“Time heals all wounds,” my mom kept saying as if it was a mantra for driving away the spirit and memory of my dead lover.

That was bullshit.

For me, time makes all wounds grow deeper.

Time makes them fester and grow, like cancer that eats at your heart and soul, until it consumes you, leaving nothing but an empty shell and the desire to simply lay down and die.

April rolled over and sighed. I buried my face in the pillow to stifle my tears. After a moment, I could hear her snoring softly. I found some comfort in the sound of my sister’s breathing. It was so calm, so peaceful. It was the breathing of a girl whose greatest worry in the world was which pair of cute jeans she should wear to the mall on Friday night to make the boys notice her.

I remembered those days.

For me, they were gone for good.

I wiped my eyes on the blanket and forced the tears away.

I used to lie awake nights thinking about my wedding.

Now I lie awake and wonder how many good people are killed every year just because they’re in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I knew of at least one.

And he died before he could see me in my wedding dress.

For some reason, that was the saddest thing of all.

CHAPTER TWO: RICK WRIGHT

I pulled the black Lincoln Navigator into a spot in the parking lot in front of Crown Jewelers and slid the gear into park. I parked far enough away so no one would notice us watching the place.

I left the motor running so the cool air would keep pumping out of the vents in the dash. It was the middle of September and hot as fuck in the city.

The black t-shirt I wore clung to my sweaty back like a second skin. My next truck would have those built-in seat coolers like I saw advertised on TV. After this job, I’d go check out the new Navigators. If everything went as planned I’d be able to buy a fucking fleet of them in a couple of weeks.

I was a Lincoln man way before that fuck Matthew McConoughey started doing their commercials. I was still a Lincoln man despite him. Fuck their commercials and Matthew McConoughey. I just loved Lincolns; always had, always will.

Eddie, my little brother, best friend, and second in command, was slumped in the passenger seat with a black baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. I shook my head at him. He didn’t seem to comprehend that the heavily-tinted windows prevented anyone from seeing inside the truck. Even the upper part of the windshield had a heavy tent, obstructing our faces from traffic cams.

Funny, during a job, Eddie was the one I always worried about not being careful enough or flying off the handle and doing something stupid, but when we were casing our next job, like the hit on Crown Jewelers, he was a paranoid bundle of nerves.

“That’s it,” I said, nodding at the strip of stores in front of us. “Crown Jewelers, next to the Men’s Warehouse.”

“Don’t look like much,” Eddie said, pushing the cap back from his forehead with his thumb. He leaned in toward the windshield and took off the dark sunglasses he was wearing.

“Looks can be deceiving,” I said.

He slid the sunglasses back on his nose and pulled the cap low again. Sitting back, he asked, “So, what’s the setup? What do they have in the way of security?”

“The setup is one small showroom lined with jewelry cases,” I said, describing the place from memory. I’d gone into Crown’s two weeks earlier to buy the vintage Rolex Mariner that was strapped to my left wrist. I loved old Rolex’s about as much as I loved Lincolns. I’d paid cash for the watch, nearly nine-thousand dollars, part of my cut from selling a semi-truck load of stolen cigarettes to a gang of goons from upstate somewhere.

Buying the watch was just part of the reason I was there. The main reason was to case the place to determine if it should be the target of my gang’s next hit.

I rested a hand on the steering wheel and aimed a finger at the storefront. “There is a fat fuck of a security guard who sits right inside the door. He has a pistol in a holster that he’s probably never even fired. He can be taken out before he knows what hit him. When I was there, he had his nose stuck in a newspaper and wasn’t paying too much attention to what was going on around him. There is one door at the back of the showroom that leads to an office, and a room where they do jewelry repair.”

Eddie nodded as he listened. “So, you’re thinking smash and grab?”

Eddie and I had been doing smash and grabs since we were kids. Basically, you run into a place, smash the fuck out of the glass display cases with a hammer or the butt of a gun, and grab whatever the fuck you can and get the fuck out. Smash and grabs worked fine if you didn’t care what you got away with. The Crown hit would not be a smash and grab because I didn’t care about the shit in the display cases. I wanted what was kept in the safe in the office.

“Not a smash and grab,” I said.

Eddie dug a cigarette pack from his shirt pocket and held it out to me. I shook my head and said I was trying to quit. I rolled his window down a couple of inches. He lit a cigarette and blew smoke toward the window, then gave me a sideways frown. “Not a smash and grab. Okay, what then?”

“There is a safe in the office,” I said. “A source I have on the inside tells me that Mr. Crown stores a couple of million dollars’ worth of loose diamonds there at any given time. That’s our target.”

Eddie grinned and poked me with his elbow. “Who’s your inside source? Let me guess, that fat girl you’ve been banging? What’s her name? Doris, Doreen…”

“Dottie,” I said. “And she’s not fat. She’s pleasantly plump.”

“What you call pleasantly plump I call fat, my brother,” Eddie said. “I knew there had to be a reason you were dipping your stick into that one. Not exactly your usual type. So, what’s her connection to the jewelry store?”

“She’s the one who sold me the watch,” I said, wiggling my wrist at him. “Turns out, Dottie is a very lonely, very horny lady. After a couple of hours of banging the shit out of her at the No Tell Motel, she was more than happy to answer all my questions about her place of employment.”

Eddie scratched his chin, which was covered with a scraggly beard he’d been trying to grow since high school. “What’s gonna happen when the cops question Dottie after we hit the store?”

“Won’t be a problem,” I said, shaking my head.

He gave me a sideways glance, then a smirk. “You gonna kill her?”

“I don’t kill people, Eddie,” I said, giving him a hard look that made him turn away. I was a criminal, but I wasn’t a killer. Eddie had killed people. Sometimes, people who didn’t deserve to die, like that poor schmuck at the convenience store a couple of months back. Eddie’s temper got away from him sometimes and people got hurt. Sometimes, I thought he might even like it; hurting people. But he’s my little brother. I love him. I try not to think about it too much.

“So, what’s your plan for her then?”

“I wore a disguise whenever I was with her,” I said. “Dottie knows me as a traveling salesman from Reno named Carl Douglass who wears glasses and a bad toupee. Carl is going to take Dottie on a little trip a couple of days before the job. She’ll be heavily sedated in a motel while we do the job. I have a guy who is going to babysit her for me. When I give him the all-clear, he’ll let her wake up the next day to find a note from dear old Carl telling her he’s gone back to his wife and she should take the bus home.”

“I hope you at least have the decency to give her one more good fucking before you give her a good fucking over,” Eddie said, chuckling at himself. That was another flaw Eddie had: he wasn’t nearly as funny as he thought he was, but I didn’t need Eddie to be funny. I needed him to watch my back, which he’d been doing his entire life.

CHAPTER THREE: SANDY

I met Brent Griffin on a chilly January day when I came into the Ford dealership to have my car serviced. My fifteen-year-old Taurus was a total piece of shit, but it was all I could afford, so I had to keep it running.

I’d gotten a coupon in the mail a few days before letting me know that Tuesday was Ladies’ Day at the dealership. I could have my oil changed, fluids topped off, tires pumped up, and filters checked for just $29. I scraped together my spare change and used the tips I’d made from cutting hair all weekend to have the work done.

I pulled up to the large bay door around the side of the dealership. I was number three in line at the service center. I sat in my car with the heater going and watched as a cute service advisor with shaggy brown hair and clipboard in hand leaned in to chat with the drivers seated inside their nice warm cars. When he got to me, he asked my name and did a double take when he glanced into my eyes. It was so cute.

“My name?” I stuttered because he was staring at me, smiling.

His eyes narrowed when he smiled. He had these adorable little dimples in his cheeks. “Yes, ma’am, I need your name,” he said, tapping the pen to the clipboard.

“Oh, um, Sandy Duval,” I said.

“Hi, Sandy,” he said, writing. “I’m Brent. What can we do for your today?”

“Hi, Brent. Um, I want that Tuesday Ladies Special thingy.” God, I must have sounded like an idiot because he grinned at me. He had such a nice smile.

He asked, “You mean the oil change service?”

“Yes, that’s it,” I said, nodding like a bobble-head. I forced my head to stop bobbing when he gazed into my eyes again.

“Can I get your phone number, Sandy?” he asked.

I gave him my cell number. I bit my lip as I watched him jot it down on the form.

Without looking up, he asked, “Would it be okay if I called you some time, Sandy?”

“You mean about my car?” I asked, confused.

“No, about dinner.” His eyes widened. They were so brown I could see myself in them. “Maybe Red Lobster or Olive Garden.”

I felt my cheeks flush. I said, “Yes, I’d like that.”

“Good,” he said with a happy nod. He stuck the pen behind his ear and reached for the door handle. “We’ll get you in and out as quickly as possible. If you’d like to wait in the lounge, there’s coffee and donuts.”

I watched him walk away. He had a cute, tight ass beneath the blue uniform pants. He glanced back over his shoulder at me and smiled again as if he knew I was checking him out.

He called me the next day and we went to Red Lobster for dinner the following Friday night. We quickly became inseparable, at least until he went somewhere that I could not go.

* * *

Brent and I met on Tuesday, January 24th.

We always did silly little anniversaries every month; the anniversary of our first date, the anniversary of our first kiss, the anniversary of the first time we made love in the little apartment he shared with his best friend, Wesley. The anniversary of the night he asked me to marry him.

Sunday, July 24th was the six-month anniversary of the day we met. I came up with the brilliant idea of recreating our first date. We went back to Red Lobster for dinner. I had grilled scampi and Brent had popcorn shrimp. I drank a margarita and Brent drank two glasses of sweet tea. The bill was the same and Brent left the exact same tip. The only difference between then and now was that I was desperately, hopelessly in love. I had met the man of my dreams. We were to be married on Saturday, October 15th in the little Baptist Church where Brent’s dad was an elder. Our families were thrilled. I already had my dress.

We were in Brent’s truck, a two-year-old Ford F-150 that he loved just a little less than he loved me. He was so proud of that truck. His dad had it now, though he never drove it. It just sat in the driveway, where Brent parked when he came home to visit. The bullet holes were still in the windshield and the back glass. His dad had duct-taped a piece of cardboard over the busted-out passenger side window. I think that he thought that having the truck repaired would somehow mean that he had accepted his only son’s death. Brent’s dad and I were a lot alike. Neither of us would ever let that happen.

It was just after eight o’clock when we left Red Lobster. It was the middle of summer and even though the sun was just going down, the air was still sticky and hot. We had the windows up and the AC blasting. We were going back to our little apartment to consummate our anniversary.

Sex with Brent was always quick and simple (there’s that word again). Even though he was twenty-six and good looking, he’d only been with one other girl before me, so his skills in the bedroom were somewhat awkward and a little bland. I’d had sex with four guys, one of them a lot older than me, and had done pretty much everything you could imagine, but I never suggested we do anything more than a little fingering foreplay and the quick missionary position to Brent. He was the sensitive type; deeply religious and wholesome. Telling him I wanted him to eat my pussy or that I wanted him to shove his cock into my mouth probably would have scared him to death. Brent was such a good guy, I could live with bland sex if it meant we would be together forever. At least that’s what I kept telling myself. If Brent couldn’t satisfy me, I could satisfy myself.

I was fiddling with the radio when I felt the truck slow. I looked up to see that we were pulling into a convenience store parking lot.

“What are we doing?” I asked.

“We’re out of milk,” he said with a wink. “I know how you have to have your Frosted Flakes in the morning.”

“Am I really that big of a creature of habit?” I asked.

“You are,” he said, putting the truck into gear. He left the engine running so I’d have air while he ran into the store.

“Need anything else?” he asked.

“Just you,” I said with a smile. “Hurry.”

I watched him get out of the truck and go inside the store. From the corner of my eye, I saw a black car pull in and park a couple of spaces over. I didn’t pay the car much mind.

I heard two doors slam but didn’t look up because my phone was buzzing. It was my sister sending a text: Mom wants to know if you and Brent want to come to Sunday dinner. My mom didn’t know how to text, so we often communicated through my sister. I settled back in the seat and started texting my reply.

A loud bang coming from inside the convenience store jarred me. The phone slipped from my hands and tumbled to the floor. I dug my fingers into the dash and leaned in to stare through the windshield.

I could see two men inside the store. One was in front of the counter, holding a gun, the other was behind the counter with his hand digging into the cash drawer. The man who I’d seen standing behind the counter a minute ago was gone. I assumed he was on the floor, wounded or maybe dead.

“Oh my god, Brent,” I heard myself say. I started to reach for the door handle. Brent appeared at the end of the aisle next to the beer coolers. He was holding a gallon of milk in his left hand and a convenience store red rose in his right. When he saw the two men at the counter, he held up his hands and said something.

He glanced my way.

Our eyes met for just a second.

The man with the gun aimed it at the jug of milk in Brent’s right hand and pulled the trigger. The plastic jug exploded and milk went everywhere. The two men looked at each other and laughed. Brent’s hand was bloody, injured. He clutched it to his chest and backed into the beer cooler. He shook his head and held out the hand clutching the rose.

The man aimed the gun at Brent’s head and pulled the trigger.

The glass cooler behind Brent splattered with blood.

Brent crumbled to the floor.

The two men laughed.

I screamed Brent’s name.

The men came out the door.

They were dressed in all black.

One was tall and thin.

The other one, the one with the gun, was thick and muscular.

They had ski masks over their heads, with cut-outs for their eyes, noses, and mouths.

The one who had shot Brent looked into my eyes.

He pointed the gun at the windshield and pulled the trigger.

I heard the shot and the windshield pop at the same instant. I heard the bullet whiz through the cab as it passed within a few inches of my left ear and exited out the window behind my head.

I screamed and jerked my head down.

I scrunched down and covered my head with my hands.

I was crying uncontrollably.

My cellphone buzzed in the floor.

My fingers reached for it.

I heard a tap on the side window.

I glanced up to see the man who had shot at me pressing his nose against the window. He stuck out his tongue and licked the glass. He grinned at me. He had a silver front tooth.

The other guy was already in the black car, behind the wheel, yelling at the one who was grinning at me through the window.

He pressed his lips to the window and gave me one more smile, then pulled back the hand holding the gun and smashed the butt of the gun into the window, showering me with shards of glass. I screamed again and covered my head.

I heard him laugh; a deep, throaty, phlegmy-cigarette laugh that I still hear in my dreams.

I waited until I heard them sped away, then I pushed open the truck door and ran inside the store.

The man I’d seen behind the counter was slumped back against the cigarette display with a bullet hole at the center of his chest.

Brent was on the floor in front of the beer coolers, lying on his back, eyes open and glazed, a hole the size of a nickel at the center of his forehead.

He was still holding the red rose in his hand.

A large pool of dark red blood formed beneath his head.

I dropped to the floor and cradled his head to my chest, even though in my heart I knew he was dead.

I wailed and rocked him back and forth like a sleeping baby.

I was still doing it when the police came.

I was covered in blood.

Alone.

Devastated.

And mad as hell.

 

CHAPTER FOUR: RICK

I slapped Dottie’s plump ass so hard it left my handprint on her dimpled skin. She squealed and told me to slap her again, harder this time. I did as I was told. The sound of my palm hitting her flesh and her resultant squeal echoed off the thin walls.

She was on the motel bed on all fours. I was behind her, digging my fingers into her fleshy hips and ramming my cock so hard into her hairy box that her big titties flounced beneath her. I slapped her again, so hard it hurt my hand. She buried her face in a pillow and squealed, then begged me to do it again.

Dottie loved having her ass slapped when I was fucking her from behind, and her nipples pinched until they turned purple when I was fucking her from the front. It was fun at first, the doling out of pleasure and pain. Now, the cute was wearing thin. Fucking her was becoming a chore. I had hung in there, though. I’d only have to fuck her a couple more times, then we’d hit Crown and I’d never have to see her again.

“Fuck me harder… Carl... harder…” she moaned, pushing her plump ass against me. “Harder… ram that big cock into me… harder…”

I rolled my eyes and grabbed her hips. I dug my fingers in hard and pulled her backward into me as I thrust my cock into her. She took all ten inches of me like a trouper and begged for more.

Eddie was right about one thing: Dottie was not my type, though I didn’t mind fucking her, at least at first. A little variety never hurt anyone.

Personally, I liked my women tall and thin, with big tits and a shaved cunt, although a little hair down there didn’t bother me so long as it didn’t get in my teeth or in my way.

I loved to eat pussy, but I hated pussy hair. That was another thing about Dottie. She had a fucking bush that looked like a goddamn beaver down there.

The first time I ate her out I was like Moses parting the Red Sea, only I was parting dark pubic hair trying to find her cunt. I gotta admit, it was worth the hunt. For a forty-something chunky girl, Dottie had a picture-perfect pussy and knew how to use it. It was pink and tight and smelled like strawberry douche. I’ve fucked worse cunts, though never by choice. Sex was just another of the tools of my trade. I didn’t do guys, but women, so long as they were clean and willing, I’d fuck them all if it helped get a job done.

Dottie was getting close to cumming. I could tell because she always started moaning a minute before, like a siren ramping up to blast out a warning.

“Fuck me… Carl… fuck me… I’m cumming… cum in me… Carl…”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said with a thankful sigh that it was almost over. I clenched my muscles and got on my toes to will the orgasm from deep in my balls. I started slamming into her like a jackhammer. The sound of my hips hitting her fat ass mixed with the squeal of her siren moan.

She buried her face in the pillow and pushed back against me. I gripped her hips and thrust my cock all the way in and held it there as I came, filling her with my hot milky cum as she gushed her tangy juices over me. The air in the tiny motel room became hot and dense with the scent of our sex.

Dottie moaned one last time and let herself go limp. I pulled my cock out her and wiped it on her ass. She giggled when I swirled the head around her asshole. Dottie loved getting it in the ass. Oh well, maybe next time.

She rolled onto her back and put her hands on her big tits to give them a satisfied squeeze. They were like big white melons with dark areolas the size of softballs and plump nipples the size of thimbles. She kneaded her fingers into the flesh and sighed. She spread her legs. Her thick bush trailed down the sides of her cunt toward her asshole. The hair was soaked and matted with cum. The sight made me wince. Not sexy. Not to me.

I went into the bathroom to take a piss and clean her off my cock. I glanced in the mirror, startling myself because I forgot that I was wearing the bad toupee. The clear glasses I wore as Carl were on the sink. I put them on and stared at myself in the mirror for a moment. I wore the bad toupee and glasses not as a disguise, but to convince Dottie that I was Carl from Reno, a salesman who wore a bad toupee and glasses. The best disguise is the one that doesn’t look like a disguise.

“Can you bring me a towel, lover?” Dottie called. I washed my hands and dried them on a clean towel, then walked into the room and handed the towel to Dottie. She took the towel and mopped her cooch for a moment, then put the towel between her legs and clamped her thighs around it.

I took a cigarette out of the pack on the nightstand and lit it for her. Handing her the cigarette, I casually asked, “So, busy day at the store?”

“Oh, not too bad,” she said, holding the cigarette in the crux of two fingers and bringing it to her lips. She took a long puff and sighed happily as she blew smoke at the ceiling. “Fridays are always slow because that’s the day Mr. Crown gets the loose diamonds ready for shipment to other stores.”

I sat cross-legged on the bed next to her and traced circles around her knees with my fingertips. “Yeah, you mentioned that before,” I said as if I was just making conversation between bouts of sex. Dottie wasn’t done with me yet. Not by a long shot. She always wanted to be fucked several times when we stole away together as if she was storing up orgasms until next time.

I asked, “So, he’s like a broker for other stores?”

She puffed on the cigarette and nodded with her head against the pillow. “Something like that. He gets shipments of loose diamonds from some contact in South Africa somewhere, then he fills orders for other jewelers up and down the coast.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “You’d never know it by looking at the place, but he keeps a couple million dollars in diamonds in the safe built into the floor under his desk at any given time.”

“Who would have ever thought,” I said, shaking my head. “So, he ships the diamonds out on Friday? Every week?”

She nodded again. “Yes. An armored car delivers them on Monday morning and picks them up on Friday afternoon. They take the packaged diamonds and ship them to Mr. Crown’s customers.”

“That’s just crazy,” I said, rolling my eyes. My fingers had drifted up from her knees and were now walking their way up her meaty thighs toward her cunt.

She closed her eyes and hummed.

My fingers settled in her thick curls. I gave them a little scratch. I said, “Hey, I’ve been thinking. What if we got away next weekend?”

She opened her eyes to frown at me through the smoke. “Get away?”

“Yeah. Just you and me, alone, out of town. Do you think you could take off work one Friday so we could head to Vegas for a long weekend?”

“Ooh, I’d like that,” she said, wiggling her cunt against my fingers. She tugged the soiled towel from her cunt and tossed it aside. She stubbed out the cigarette in the ashtray and started massaging her breasts again. She spread her legs and cooed at me.

She asked, “When could we go? Where?”

“Next week or two maybe?” I shrugged, like I was just coming up with the idea. “I’ll be back in town Thursday. We could leave Thursday night, be in Vegas in a few hours, spend the weekend drinking, eating, gambling, and fucking.”

“That sounds awesome,” she said, sucking in a deep breath as my fingers slid into her. I pushed in three fingers to the knuckle, then pulled them out slowly. Her soaked cunt closed around my fingers.

I asked, “Think you can get off? Work, I mean?”

“Yessss, I can get off…” she sighed, her hands assaulting her big tits again. “I’ll ask on Monday.”

“Awesome,” I said, pushing my hand inside her with my thumb rubbing against her clit. She reached down to find my cock rock hard between my legs.

It wasn’t because of her.

The thought of a big score always made my cock hard.

CHAPTER FIVE: SANDY

My plan to exact revenge on Rick Wright and his gang started two months ago, even though at that moment I didn’t even know who he was.

Brent was dead in my arms.

The police came.

An ambulance.

A forensics team.

The coroner.

More cops.

A female detective who said her name was Cochran pulled me away from Brent’s lifeless body so a photographer could take pictures of the scene and the forensics guy could gather evidence.

I was in shock, she said, covered in Brent’s blood.

An EMT wrapped a blanket around me and sat me on the back of his van and shined a light in my eyes. I’m fine, I muttered. Help Brent. Help Brent.

Detective Cochran was taking notes. She asked me to tell her everything I could remember.

Did I see their faces?

No, they wore masks.

Did they say anything to me?

No, nothing.

Would I recognize them again if I saw them?

Probably not.

Could I pick them out of a lineup?

No, I told you, they wore masks.

Did they have any distinguishing marks that might help identify them?

I thought of the silver tooth but said no.

She asked if she could call someone to come get me.

I asked her to call my dad.

He came immediately to take me home.

Mom and April were waiting at the door for me.

They were horrified by what had happened.

When mom saw my blood-soaked clothes and hands, she looked like she was going to puke.

I took a shower and went to bed, where I stayed for six straight days and nights.

I was totally numb, barely aware of what was going on around me. My mom brought me food that I didn’t touch and offered words of comfort that I didn’t hear.

I cried until there wasn’t a single drop of moisture left in my body.

* * *

We buried Brent seven days after he was killed. It was a small service at his dad’s church. His parents made all the decisions. I had no legal claim on him. I sat on the first church pew next to his parents, staring at the walnut coffin they had chosen for him. I watch them lower him into the ground in their family plot.

I didn’t cry at all that day. I was all cried out.

I went back to work the next week. I thanked everyone for their condolences. I tried to smile when I greeted customers, tried to be chatty as I cut hair.

I don’t remember much about that time.

I was numb, just going through the motions.

Then, as it had in the split-second the bullet went through Brent’s skull, my life instantly changed again.

A man from the Banner Life & Casualty Insurance Company showed up at CostClippers.

He needed to speak privately with me.

He had something very important to give me.

* * *

“Miss Duval, I’m very sorry for your loss,” he said after I led him into the small break room in the back of the shop and closed the door. He was a short, fat man in a brown suit and skinny black tie. He had a round, kind face with pinkish cheeks. Like Brent, his eyes closed when he smiled. His name was Mr. Ray. He set his business card on the table and slid it toward me.

“Thank you,” I said quietly. “What can I do for you, Mr. Ray?”

“I hope to do something for you,” he said, reaching inside his jacket to pull out an envelope. He tapped the edge of the envelope lightly on the table. “I know that money can’t ease your pain, but you need to know that Brent had a one-hundred-thousand-dollar life insurance policy through his work. He also recently started paying additional premiums to increase that payout amount.”

I blinked at him. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

He held out the envelope and nodded for me to take it.

I opened the envelope to find a check made out to me from the Banner Life & Casualty Company. When I saw the amount, my heart leaped into my throat. The tears returned. I pressed my fingers to my lips.

“I know money won’t ease your pain,” he said again. “But you were Brent’s beneficiary. He wanted to make sure you were taken care of in case anything ever happened to him.”

“I don’t know what to say… I mean… shouldn’t this go to his parents…”

“He named you his sole beneficiary,” he said.

I stared at the check, not fully convinced that it was real.

I blinked at him and he gave me a soft smile, then shook my hand and wished me well.

He left me alone, staring at a check for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

CHAPTER SIX: SANDY

Things happened very quickly after that. I quit my job and moved back into the apartment I had shared with Brent. I loved April and my parents, but I needed to be alone to do what I planned to do. I didn’t need anyone telling me revenge was wrong or worried about me getting hurt. I was going to do this, regardless of the consequences.

The landlord hadn’t touched the place because the rent was paid a month in advance. All our things were still there. Brent’s clothes and shoes, his cap collection, his shaving cream and razor, toothbrush, and cologne.

His guns were still there, too. He had kept a .9mm Beretta in the nightstand for home protection. Under the bed in a lockbox was stored a Bulldog .357 revolver, a .45 ACP Colt, and a small Ruger .380. I remembered Brent carrying the Ruger in a concealed holster on his belt. I wondered what might have happened if he had been carrying the gun the night he was killed.

I packed Brent’s belongings and sent them to his mom.

I kept his guns.

I called the female detective who had interviewed me after the shooting to ask if they had any leads. She was polite but curt. They were looking at a number of leads, but there was nothing that she could share with me.

I went online and found a private detective named Gerald Beamon. His website said he was a former city cop, retired after thirty-five years of service. I made an appointment to see him. We met at a coffee shop downtown.

Beamon was his sixties and dressed casually in a white polo shirt and beige khakis. He wore a pistol holstered on his belt and showed me his PI badge as we sat down. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought he was still on the force.

“So basically, you want me to find out what the police know about the men who killed your fiancé,” he said, scratching his chin. “Have you asked them yourself?”

“Yes,” I said. “They won’t tell me anything.”

He narrowed his eyes to study my face as if he were trying to assess my motives for wanting the information. When he discovered that he couldn’t read my mind, he asked, “Miss Duval, may I ask what you intend to do with this information?”

I slowly blinked at him. My expression was blank because that’s how I felt; blank, cold, empty.

I said, “That’s none of your business.” I reached into my purse and brought out five one-hundred-dollar bills. I set two of them on the table between us. “I’m asking you to make a phone call, Mr. Beamon. If you get the information I need, you get the rest.”

He eyed the crisp bills for a moment, then picked them up and folded them into his shirt pocket. He picked up his phone from the table and got out of his chair. “Give me five minutes.”

He walked outside and paced the sidewalk to make the call.

He was back in less than five minutes.

He sat down and spoke quietly. “Okay, I talked to a buddy in Robbery/Homicide. They’re pretty sure it wasn’t really a robbery. They think it was a hit.”

“A hit? Like a mafia hit? A hit on who?”

“The guy working behind the counter,” he said. He set his elbows on the table and leaned over them. “Name was Turner Smith. Turns out he was a confidential informant for the local PD. They had nabbed him as part of a stolen goods ring and he was ratting out his buddies in exchange for immunity. The cops think the guys that hit him were part of a criminal organization they call The Wright Brothers.”

I frowned at him. I didn’t smile. Nothing made me smile anymore. “You mean, like the airplane Wright brothers?”

He scratched at a spot next to his bulbous nose and gave me a little smile. “Same name, different outfit. This one is a local gang of thugs who the authorities believe has been involved in a number of high-dollar heists over the last few years. Richard Wright is their leader. He goes by Rick. His younger brother, a hothead piece of shit named Eddie, is his second. I’d peg him as the shooter. Far as I know, Rick’s not violent, just a criminal. Eddie, well, let’s just say he doesn’t have much respect for anything, not even a human life. There are three or four others in the gang at any given time. They’ll steal anything they can sell for big money on the black market. Truckloads of cigarettes or booze, a shipping container full of flat panel TVs. Word is they’ve even hit a couple of armored cars recently. They seem to be ratcheting up their game, going for higher scores. You name it, these guys have probably stolen it.”

I listened quietly, taking mental notes. I wondered if Rick or Eddie Wright had a silver tooth in the front.

I asked, “Why aren’t they in jail?”

“Eddie has been in jail on and off for years,” he said. “But it’s not so easy to catch and convict guys like this. Especially Rick Wright. He’s a smart guy, just working the wrong side of the law.”

I folded my hands together and rested my chin on them. “So, the authorities think these Wright Brothers killed the guy behind the counter because he was talking to the police, and Brent just happened to get in the way.”

He gave me sad look and shrugged his bushy eyebrows. “Yes, ma’am, apparently so. I’m afraid your fiancé was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

I took a deep breath and held it for a moment. I wasn’t nervous. I wasn’t going to cry. My heart was beating at a normal rhythm. All the crying was behind me now. I just wanted to know everything he had to say about the men I was going to kill.

“Tell me everything you now about the Wright Brothers.”

He stared into my eyes for a moment. “Miss Duval, if you’re thinking about doing something rash, I have to recommend that you get such thoughts out of your head. These are not men you want to mess with.”

I set the three hundred dollars on the table, then reached into my purse and brought out five more bills. I counted the money out in front of him, then sat back with my arms folded over my breasts.

He stared at the money for a moment, then blew out a long breath and scooped it up.

“Give me your email address,” he said. “I’ll forward you everything I know.”

CHAPTER SEVEN: SANDY

I gave Mr. Beamon my email address and left him to count his money and drink his coffee. It was a warm summer’s day. Too bad I couldn’t enjoy it.

I slipped on a pair of dark sunglasses as I walked into the parking lot toward my car (yes, I’m still driving my decrepit Taurus for now). The door opened with a squeak and I started to get in, but something made me look back toward the strip mall.

There was a hair salon two doors down from the coffee shop, Glamor Cuts, right next to a jewelry store that had a crown on the sign. I stared at the sign for a moment, my eyes waiting for my brain to tell my feet what to do.

“Yes,” I said, closing the car door and locking it with the key since the electronic fob thingy hadn’t worked in years. I went inside the hair salon and told the girl behind the counter what I wanted. She asked if I was sure. I said I wouldn’t have asked for it if I wasn’t sure.

I’d worn my blond hair long my entire life, usually pulled back into a tight ponytail or blown out to cascade over my shoulders. For my wedding, I was going to do long braids and have them pinned into swirls atop my head.

My hair was long and blonde and in a tight ponytail when I went into Glamor Cuts.

An hour later, I emerged with jet-black hair cut into a messy shag that barely reached my collar.

I’d had my eyebrows dyed the same color as my hair.

I got in the car and adjusted the rearview mirror to look at myself. I barely recognized the girl staring back at me.

That was a good thing because she would not have been able to handle what I was about to do.

CHAPTER EIGHT: RICK

One of my legitimate businesses, at least according to the IRS, was a dive bar tucked in an alley off 8th Street called Dick’s Place. I’d bought the place from a guy named Dick (duh) three years ago and had never bothered to change the buzzing neon sign that hung over the front door.

Dick’s was in a rough part of town, one of those dark, musky places with low lighting, a lone pool table that leaned to one corner, and a dartboard with three darts with broken tips. It was the kind of place upstanding citizens wouldn’t dare set foot in for fear of getting their asses kicked or catching some disease from a dirty glass.

That said, Dick’s did a steady business, catering to the underbelly of society: low-life’s, crackheads, and drunks, worn out hookers and johns, petty criminals and wannabe gangsters.

Dick’s did not discriminate. If you had money to spend, we had watered-down shots and beer to serve.

Dick’s also had a strict no-bullshit policy.

Start any kind of bullshit inside Dick’s and you had to answer to me, and nobody wanted to do that; at least nobody who knew me.

I typically held court with my crew at Dick’s in a little curtained-off back room that had just enough space for a round table and six chairs.

We sat around and drank, shot the shit, played cards. It was forbidden to talk shop at Dick’s because I took for granted that the place was bugged.

The local cops and the feds had been on my ass for as long as I could remember. Members of my crew had been locked up for crimes that had nothing to do with me and none of them had ever flipped on me. They knew what would happen if they ratted out The Wright Brothers. No cop or fed would be able to protect them, Eddie would see to that.

Rick Wright had never spent a single day in jail and I planned to keep it that way, though I knew my freedom was directly tied to the intelligence and loyalty of those around me. That’s why I kept my inner circle small, consisting of only those few guys who had proven to me in the past that I could trust them completely.

I knew that it would take just one asshole with a big mouth to sink the ship I was captaining, so I kept the crew small and under my thumb. They didn’t do anything without me knowing about it or giving it my blessing. Although Eddie sometimes went rogue and had to be put back in line, the rest of the crew were as loyal and obedient as a pack of wolves.

That said, I was getting tired of being the leader of the pack.

I was tired of looking over my shoulder and sleeping with a gun under my pillow at night.

I had a plan that would get me out of this/ life soon.

One more big score and it was bye-bye Rick Wright.

You’ll never see this good-looking son of a bitch again.

Rick Wright was going to become a motherfucking ghost.

* * *

“Holy fucking shit, have you guys seen the bitch sitting at the end of the bar?”

I looked up from the lousy poker hand Eddie had dealt me to see Fats, the fattest guy on the crew (duh), standing in the doorway grabbing his crotch. He grunted like a pig in the mud. “Man oh man, what I’d do to that sweet ass bitch.”

All of a sudden it was like I was playing cards with a bunch of fucking horny teenagers. Eddie, Pete, and Ronnie fell all over each other to get to the door to peer out into the bar.

“Holy fucking shit is right,” Eddie said. “Who is she?”

“Don’t recognize her,” Skip said, peering over Eddie’s shoulder. “But I’d tap that ass.” He turned to me. “Rick, dude, you gotta see this bitch.”

I blew out a long breath and threw my cards on the table. I picked up my beer and pushed them out of the way to see the woman that had gotten all their cocks hard.

Sitting at the end of the bar, facing me, nursing a tequila shot, was a gorgeous piece of ass with hair so black it shined and a face that belonged to a fucking Victoria’s Secret model.

She was wearing a black tank top that was overflowing with cleavage. Her arms were toned. I could see tattoos on her upper arms shoulders, but couldn’t make out what they were from that distance. My shoulders and back are covered with tats. I regretted getting every one of them. They hurt like a motherfucker. And they were like scars. Once you had them, it was virtually impossible to get rid of them without a trace. I gave respect to any woman who could sit through the pain it took to get the amount of ink she had on her.

“I’m gonna go talk to her,” Eddie said, trying to elbow his way past me. “That bitch needs some Eddie Wright cock in her ass.”

“Keep it in your pants, Casanova,” I said, holding up a hand that made them all take a step back. “Nobody’s sticking anything in anybody’s ass until I make sure she’s not a cop.”

Eddie blinked at me. “Dude, you think she’s a cop?”

“I think everybody is a cop,” I said. I tilted the bottle to my lips to drain it. “You fuckers stay here. I got this.”

CHAPTER NINE: SANDY

It took longer for me to sit in my car and muster the courage to walk into Dick’s than it did for someone to hit on me once I took a seat at the bar. I’d barely had time to slide onto the barstool when a slimy-looking guy wearing a wife beater and a Members Only jacket asked if he could buy me a drink.

I told him to fuck off and he started to say something back to me, but the bartender came over and gave him a look that sent him on his way.

The bartender, an older man with thick white hair, wearing a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a tie pulled loose from his collar (he looked like Coach from that old TV show Cheers) swirled a wet rag over the bar in front of me.

He looked out of place compared to the bikers and sleaze balls lined up at the bar and sitting at the dozen or so tables that haphazardly dotted the room. There were three bikers shooting pool in the corner, leaning on their sticks and gawking at me like hungry dogs staring in a butcher’s window.

“What’ll you have?” the bartender asked.

“What do you have?” I asked. It was the first time I’d ever sat at a bar. I had no idea what a bad biker bitch like me would drink.

“Shots and beer,” he said, nodding over his shoulder at the bottles lined against the wall.

“Tequila shot,” I said, trying to sound tougher than I felt. I had tried to psyche myself up, but my insides were churning. I could feel my heart beating in my neck. I was a nervous wreck, but I knew I couldn’t show it. A little voice in my head kept telling me to just breath… show fear, and they’ll tear you apart...

The only tequila I’d ever drank was mixed in the margaritas at El Mexicana, the restaurant where Brent and I went when we had a craving for Mexican. I had never finished one of the icy drinks, served in a glass the size of a fishbowl. I put my elbows on the bar and tried to look tough as I watched the bartender bring over the shot glass of dark liquid.

“Run you a tab?” he asked, wiping his hands on the rag.

“Um, sure,” I said, picking up the shot and bringing it to my lips. The harsh stink of tequila filled my nostrils and made my eyes water. The old man chuckled and shuffled away. I set the shot on the bar without bringing it to my lips.

Movement on the other side of the bar caught my eye. There was a room in the back of the bar. Several large men were standing in the doorway, gawking at me. One of them, the biggest one, stared directly into my eyes. The blood froze in my veins. I had just made eye contact with Richard Wright.

I knew it was Richard Wright because I’d spent hours studying every line of his face. I had memorized every detail of his life that Mr. Beamon had sent me. I probably knew as much about Richard “Rick” Wright as the police did. I also knew everything there was to know about his brother, Eddie, and the rest of his band of thugs.

I was shocked that Rick had never been convicted of any crime. He was the careful one, I supposed. Then there was Eddie; the dangerous, younger brother who had spent more time in jail than out. His criminal record included arrests for assault with a deadly weapon, assault and battery, breaking and entering, car theft, and burglary. He had been arrested twice for rape and once for sexual battery, but had not been convicted of those crimes. I suspected that Eddie was the one who killed Brent. I would know for sure the moment he smiled at me.

I knew all this because Mr. Beamon had emailed me complete police dossiers of The Wright Brothers, sent to him by his pal on the force. I’d spent hours studying it, memorizing it, deciding how I could use it to my advantage.

The day after getting my hair done, I drove to a tattoo shop near the Cost Clippers where I used to work. I’d seen the place hundreds of times over the years but had never given a moment’s thought to stopping in for a tattoo. I parked near the front door, sat in my car for a few minutes working up my courage, then went inside.

The girl behind the counter had hair as black as my new dye job. She was wearing a skin-tight black tank top and skinny black jeans. She wore clunky combat boots on her feet. Her arms and shoulders were covered by tattoos; a mixture of colorful flowers, birds, butterflies, and smiling skulls. She had a small diamond stud on the right side of her nose.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said, swallowing my fear of needles. “I want a tattoo.”

“Okay. What kind of tattoo?”

I nodded at her arms and shoulders. “I want that.”

She frowned as if she didn’t understand. She asked, “You mean you want some flowers and butterflies? Where do you want them?”

“No, you don’t understand,” I said. I gestured at her with both hands. “I want that. All of that. On me.”

She gave me a smirk that let me know how amused she was by tattoo virgins who thought they wanted their bodies covered in ink.

“This,” she said, gesturing to herself, “is about twenty hours and a couple grand. And it hurts like a motherfucker, so we typically space something out this big over the course of a month or two.”

“I have two weeks,” I said, reaching into my purse. I counted out twenty-one-hundred-dollar bills into a net stack on the counter. Her eyes grew wider with each bill. “I’d like to have it done within a week so it has time to heal.”

“Okay,” she said slowly, reaching for the stack of cash. “We can do as much as you can stand today, then tomorrow, then the next day.”

“That would be great,” I said.

She folded the bills in half and shoved them into her back pocket. “Anything else I can do for you?”

I looked down at her clothes.

“Yes. You can tell me where you buy your clothes.”

CHAPTER TEN: RICK

I watched her as I sauntered behind the bar and pulled a fresh beer from the cooler. I twisted off the cap and tossed it in the trash on my way to her end of the bar. She glanced up, saw me coming, then looked down. The closer I got, the more beautiful she was.

“Hi, there,” I said, holding up the beer. “Can I get you one of these to chase that with?”

She blinked at me for a moment, like I was speaking fucking French. She picked up the shot and said, “No, that’s okay. This is fine.”

“Okay, it was going to be on the house,” I said, bringing the icy bottle to my lips and taking a slow sip. My eyes went over her as I wiped my mouth on the back of my hand.

She had to be the best-looking woman ever to set foot in Dick’s. Fuck, she was the best-looking woman I’d seen in a long time outside of the place.

Up close, her hair was the color of a raven’s wings. She had on heavy black eyeliner and dark lipstick that did not hide her delicate features.

She wasn’t what the kids called “goth”.

She was just dark and mysterious, like the queen of a biker bar where they only let good-looking people in.

I wondered what she looked like without all that shit on her face. How would she look stepping naked from the shower with only drops of water clinging to her soft skin? For that matter, how would she look in the shower from behind, all soaped up and bent over with my hands digging into her hips and my cock slamming into her pussy?

I shook off the fantasy and let my eyes drift down from hers. She had a long neck and big milky tits with deep cleavage that made my mouth water. Her shoulders and upper arms were covered in flowers and butterflies and smiling skulls. She had a little diamond pierced into the right side of her nose.

If the rest of her, the part I couldn’t see because of the bar, was as hot as what I was looking at now, this was a woman I had to get to know.

“That’s a lot of ink,” I said, letting my eyes go around her shoulders. I leaned back against the bar and crossed my arms over my chest so she could see the tats going up my biceps into my black t-shirt. “Must have hurt like a motherfucker.”

“It was a little unpleasant,” she said. She picked up the tequila shot and brought it to her lips. She hesitated for a moment, then tilted her head back and tossed the bitter shot into her mouth. Her eyes widened for a second and filled with tears as the tequila burned its way down her throat. She started to gag a little. She covered her lips with her hand. For a second, I thought she was going to throw it back up on me.

I chuckled and held out the beer. “Here, chase it with this. Makes the burn go away.”

She shook her head for a moment, then reached for the beer and took a long, cooling pull from the bottle. I covered my smile with a hand and watched her recover.

“Jesus,” she said, tongue hanging out, panting like a dog. “That really burns.”

I couldn’t help but laugh when she tilted the bottle again and drained it dry. I stuck out my hand and gave her my best non-threatening smile.

“I’m Rick,” I said. “Welcome to my place.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN: SANDY

When I slipped my hand in his, I expected to be filled with a sense of revulsion, like touching the claws of the monster that had slaughtered your family. I held my breath and forced a smile as his long fingers closed around mine and he gave my hand a gentle shake.

I swallowed the lump that had lodged in my throat.

I said, “Hi, Rick, I’m Sandy.”

“Nice to meet you, Sandy,” he said, letting go of my hand and picking up the empty shot glass. He wiggled it at me. “Do you want another shot or something a little less toxic?”

I held the smile as I stared into his eyes. They were gorgeous, deep blue, with dark irises and long lashes. Everything about him was gorgeous, from his warm smile to the Kennedy jawline to the thick muscles of his shoulders and chest. His brown hair was cut short on the sides and pushed back from his tanned forehead. He had several days’ worth of thick stubble on his cheeks and chin. When he grinned, I saw a mouthful of perfect teeth. There was no silver tooth shining back at me.

“I think I’ll take one of those beers,” I said. My eyes tracked him as he went to the other end of the bar to pull two bottles of Coors from the cooler. His broad back tapered into the narrow waist of his black jeans. His ass was tight and compact. His legs were incredibly long. He was 6’4, according to his dossier. Brent was just 5’9. I towered over him in heels. I had planned to get married wearing flats. If I was standing toe to toe with Rick Wright, he’d tower over me.

He was the hottest man I’d ever seen up close, but he was still a monster. He might not have pulled the trigger that killed Brent, but he was responsible still the same. It was his gang, his deal, his fault.

“So, Sandy, what brings you to the dark side of town tonight?” he asked as he placed a napkin on the bar and set the icy bottle of beer on top of it. He took a step back and brought his bottle to his lips. “Looking for someone or just slumming?”

I took a slow sip of the beer and licked my lips. I had never been a beer drinker, but it wasn’t too bad. I could get accustomed to the taste much quicker than I could tequila.

I let my eyes around the bar to avoid looking at him. There was something in his stare that made me uneasy, like being watched from the shadows by a wolf that intended to devour you the moment your back is turned.

I took another sip and asked, “Why would you think I was looking for someone?”

He shrugged. “Why else would you be here?”

“Maybe I just wanted a drink,” I said with a shrug. I held the bottle between my hands to keep them from shaking. I’d imagined this moment for weeks. I had told myself that I could handle the pressure of meeting him, that I could convince him of the lie, that I could kill him when the time came.

He gave me a knowing look and slowly shook his head. “Nobody comes in here just to drink, Sandy.”

“Why do people come in here then?”

His eyes bounced from my lips to my tits like a pinball. “People come in here to get away, to forget, to get laid, but never just to have a drink.” He held the bottle to his lips and narrowed his eyes at me. “So, which is it for you?”

“Which is what?” I asked, my teeth digging into my bottom lip. His eyes focused on my mouth.

“Are you here to get away, to forget, or to get laid?”

I stared into his eyes and summoned every ounce of courage I had left in my body. He had braced his palms on the bar and stood giving me the eye. The muscles in his thick arms flexed as he drummed his fingers on the bar. I briefly imagined his arms going around me, pulling me to him, holding me tight. Without blinking, I said, “Maybe I’m here for all three.”

A broad smile crossed his lips. He held out his bottle for me to toast.

“Well, Sandy,” he said, tapping his bottle to mine. “You have come to the right place.”

CHAPTER TWELVE: RICK

Sandy quickly drank five beers while we chatted at the bar. She seemed nervous at first; taking pensive little sips like she was trying to make each bottle last. But with each bottle, she drank a little faster. And her lips got a little looser.

I grilled her easy, like a pro, and she answered every question without hesitation. If she was a cop or a mole sent in by the cops, I’d know it soon enough. Then I’d either toss her out on her sweet ass or let Eddie deal with her. Eddie hated rats; even ones as hot as this chick was.

She said her name was Sandra Duval, but she went by Sandy.

She was from here, born and raised.

She said she was engaged for a while, but it ended badly.

She lived by herself in a small apartment across town.

She had never traveled any place fun.

She had made a living cutting hair since high school but was tired of it now.

She liked the taste of beer.

Maybe she’d give bartending a try.

“Do you know anything about tending bar?” I asked.

“No,” she said, snorting. She nodded at Carl, who was standing at the other end of the bar watching a fight on TV. “But how hard can it be?”

“Not hard in a place like this that only serves shots and beers,” I said. I plucked the empty beer bottle from her hand and brought her another. I studied her eyes as I asked, “You interested in working here?”

The bottle popped from her lips. She wiped her mouth on her knuckle and gave me a dreamy look. “Here? Really? Do you need another bartender?”

“I don’t necessarily need another bartender,” I said, holding out my hands. “But old Carl would love the help. And if you worked here you would get to see me all the time.”

She shot me a wary glance as if she didn’t know that was a good thing or a bad thing.

I smiled. I’ve been told by more than one woman that I have a smile that would melt the panties off the Mona Lisa. It seemed to be working on her.

She blinked at me as she played with a lock of hair at her neck and asked, “Are you offering me a job?”

“Maybe. Are you looking for a job?”

“Maybe.”

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Her beautiful tits went up and down. I thought she was going to turn me down, but she stuck out her hand and gave me a cautious smile.

She said, “Then I accept.”

“Excellent,” I said, shaking her hand. Her hand was warm and soft and just a little damp from the icy bottle. I held it for a moment, warming it up. Warming me up. For some reason, I didn’t want to let her hand go.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: SANDY

Holy crap…

What the heck was I thinking?

I didn’t want to work for Rick Wright.

I wanted to kill him.

But that would have to wait.

I had to pee.

“I need to pee,” I said. He smiled. My head bobbed. The words slurred from my lips.

“In the back,” Rick said with a nod. He wouldn’t stop smiling at me. Fuck, I wish he’d stop doing that. His smile was making it hard for me to hate him. He watched me slide off the stool. “Need help?”

“No, I’m good,” I said, holding up a hand as I waddled away.

Getting drunk with Rick Wright was not part of my plan, but it seemed to be doing the trick. I had gotten close to him. He seemed to like me. At least he liked my tits because he couldn’t stop looking at them.

I clutched the purse strap hanging over my shoulder and found a restroom in the back that had the word BITCHES painted in red across the door. I went inside, flipped on the light, and locked the door. I fell back on the door and took a minute to catch my breath.

I wasn’t used to drinking. I felt sick. I set my purse on the sink and squatted in front of the toilet, thinking that my stomach was about to send all that beer back up because it was so disgusted with me.

I pushed up the toilet seat and rested my hands on the cold porcelain rim and tried to breathe. Thankfully, the restroom wasn’t a total pig sty. It was ten times cleaner than the rest of the place.

A cold sweat washed over my forehead.

I could taste vomit on the back of my tongue.

I focused on breathing slowly in and out.

After a moment, the wave of nausea passed.

I didn’t know if I was nauseous because I was tipsy or because of my encounter with Rick. I glanced at my watch. We’d been talking for over an hour. It was like having a conversation with the devil. I was sickened by it now, but when it was happening, I was completely under the spell of his charms.

I turned around to undo my pants, then pushed them and my panties down to my knees. I sat down on the toilet and took a good, long pee. I found a tissue in my purse and dabbed the sweat from my forehead. When I looked down into the purse, I saw the dull silver of the Bulldog Snub-nosed .357. For just a second, I imagined myself coming out of the restroom with the gun in my hand. I would go to the bar to kill Rick first, then into the little room where his crew sat playing cards.

I would just point the gun at their heads and pull the trigger.

How hard would that be?

Eddie Wright made it look easy.

I shook the thought away and finished peeing. I pulled up my panties and wiggled the tight jeans over my round ass and zipped them up. I washed my hands and dried them on the dispenser as I checked my reflection in the mirror.

It took a moment for me to recognize the dark-haired woman staring back at me. Her eyes were red, rimmed with dark eyeliner and mascara. Her dark lipstick was smudged from the beer bottles. I blinked at her and she blinked back. I shook my head in disgust at her. She felt the same way about me.

“Okay,” I said to my reflection. “Let’s go home.”

When I opened the door I literally jumped a foot off the ground and screamed. Standing there with his arms propped on either side of the door was Eddie Wright; the younger, greasier, more threatening version of his older brother. He wasn’t as tall as Rick, but he was muscled up and had a dangerous look in his eye, like a stick of dynamite that might go off without a moment’s notice.

He glared at me and smacked his lips. “Hey, sweet thing, you having a good time with my brother?” he asked, looking me up and down. “Damn, don’t you look good enough to eat.”

His eyes settled on my tits and he smiled.

He had a silver tooth in the front.

“You’d have a better time with me,” he said, bringing his hands to his belt buckle. His right hand slid down to the bulge in the front of his jeans. “Rick’s better looking, but my cock’s bigger. Wanna see?”

I held my breath and slipped my hand inside the purse. My fingers closed around the rubber grip of the Bulldog. Pull it out, the little voice in my head whispered. Pull it out and point it at him and pull the trigger. Do the world a favor and blow this murdering piece of shit away.

“Hey, dipshit, leave the lady alone.”

Rick appeared behind his brother, standing with his arms crossed over his muscled chest. Eddie turned to him and held up his hands.

“Hey, big brother, you can’t blame a fella for trying.” He leered at me again and made a little growling noise in his throat. “Sweet piece of ass like that. There’s plenty to go around.”

“Go play cards before you get your ass kicked,” Rick said, nodding him away. Eddie stared at me for a moment, then smiled and sauntered away. The image of the silver tooth lingered in my mind, sending shivers up my spine.

Rick held out his hand. “You okay?”

“Yes, he just startled me,” I said, letting the pistol slide out of my hand inside the purse. “I’m okay now.”

“Come on,” Rick said, wiggling his fingers at me. “Let’s get you home. I think you’ve had enough of this shit hole for one night.”

* * *

I held onto Rick’s hand and let him lead me safely out of the bar. Every head turned to watch us pass. Lots of nods and whispers. Eddie stood in the door of the back room with a bottle of beer in his hand and a cigarette dangling from his lips, casually watching me like a bored predator tracking its easy prey. Rick ignored them in the way a mighty king might ignore his lowly subjects as he strolled by.

I breathed out a long sigh of relief as we stepped out onto the sidewalk. The night air was warm and moist. Little beads of sweat dotted my upper lip. I sucked in a few deep breaths to try to get my head to stop swimming.

“I have my car,” I said, pointing at the new black Cadillac CTS I’d bought a few days before. It was parked on the street half a block down; its high-gloss black paint shimmered under the moonlight. It seemed like a fitting ride for my new bad girl persona.

“You’re lucky that’s still in one piece,” Rick said, eyeing my car with his hands on his hips.

“What? Oh, I didn’t think…”

“There’s a private lot around back,” Rick said. “Park there from now on. Nobody will mess with it. Guaranteed.”

“Um, okay…” I started digging in my purse for my keys. I pulled them out and dangled them at him. I pressed the key fob and the Cadillac flashed its halogen headlights at us.

“Give me those,” he commanded, hand out, fingers crooked.

“I’m fine to drive, really…”

“I don’t think so,” Rick said, shaking his head. “Let me drive you home, then I’ll catch a ride back here.”

“No, really, that’s not necessary,” I said. I was both mortified and excited at the prospect of Rick Wright driving me home. And possibly coming inside to put me to bed. And climbing into bed with me…

It would be so much easier to kill him if we were alone, the little voice in my head whispered. Just lead him into the bedroom, have him strip off all his clothes, and kill him in the bed you shared with Brent.

In my drunken brain, there was a sort of ironic justice to the plan. I never thought of the million ways it could go wrong.

I dropped the keys into his hand.

“Okay, fine. Just don’t drive too fast or I might puke.”

“Deal,” he said, hitting the button to unlock the passenger door. He held the door open and took my hand. I slid into the seat and he closed the door.

I settled back in the plush leather seat and watched him come around the front of the car. God, he made walking look good…

He slid in behind the wheel and buckled up.

He glanced over at me and smiled.

That damn smile.

It made me feel… I don’t know what…

I leaned my head back and closed my eyes.

My plan was working better than I thought it would.

Now all I had to do was follow through and kill Rick Wright.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: SANDY

Everything was happening so fast.

Maybe too fast.

I had walked into that dive bar with the goal of just checking out The Wright Brothers from afar. I’d never planned on confronting them; at least not so soon.

The plan was to sit at the bar, nurse one drink for a few minutes, then watch and listen. I never thought I would end up spending time with Rick Wright or be confronted by his murderous brother, Eddie.

The moment Eddie leered at me I knew he was the man who killed Brent. I remembered our eyes meeting when he came out of the convenience store. I remembered the threat in his eyes, the sneer on his lips.

If he had known who I was and what I was doing in the bar, he would have killed me in the bathroom. Of that, I have no doubt.

Rick asked for my address. I gave it to him, then directed him along the way. Turn right… turn left… no… fuck… I meant right…

I focused on the road to keep from focusing on him. He made small talk. He liked my car. It handled well. It had good pickup. He liked the way it took the curves. He might as well have been speaking French because I had no idea what all that meant. Brent would have understood every word.

He draped his left wrist over the steering wheel and rested his right hand on the gear lever in the console as he drove. His fingers were inches from my knee. I found myself hoping that he would casually slide his hand onto my leg; gently massage my thigh, slowly move his hand closer to my...

No.

Stop it.

You should be repulsed by the mere thought of his touch.

It took twenty minutes to reach my apartment. By the time we arrived, I was feeling less nauseous, but still tipsy. And a little horny. I couldn’t help it. I knew it was wrong, but it was a different kind of horny, one I had never felt before. It was tinged with danger and abandon, a taboo kind of horny that told me to ignore the dampness in my panties and the stiffening of my nipples as I inhaled deeply Rick’s musky scent.

Rick pulled into a spot in front of my building and shut off the engine. Without a word, he came around to open my door and offer me his hand. I took a deep breath and let him pull me out of the car. I lost my balance for a moment and fell into his arms. I glanced up into his eyes. Our lips were inches apart.

“Sorry,” I said, holding onto his round shoulders to push away from him. “Guess I’m still a little tipsy.”

“Just a little,” he said. He brushed a strand of hair from my forehead and took my arm. “Come on, let’s get you in bed.”

His words echoed in my ears as he led me to the door. He gave me the keys and waited patiently while I fumbled with the deadbolt. Once I managed to get the door open, I stepped inside and turned back to look at him. He made no attempt to follow me inside. I leaned on the door and bit my lip.

“Get some rest,” he said. He tugged his phone from his back pocket. “I’m going to call for a ride. I’ll wait out here so you can get to sleep.”

My brain struggled to clear away the fog that was clouding all of my senses but one. Here we were, me and the man I blamed for the death of my fiancé, standing in my doorway at midnight. I thought it would take weeks to get Rick Wright alone, away from his crew. Yet, here we were. This was my chance.

“Want to come in?” I asked, smiling at him with dreamy eyes. I was trying to be seductive, even though I had no idea what I was doing. I’d never seduced a man in my life, especially one like Rick Wright, who looked like he could snap his fingers and have any women in the room go down on him. I leaned my cheek against the door and batted my fake eyelashes at him.

“Are you sure,” he asked, taking a step closer.

Was I sure? No, I wasn’t sure of anything, other than the sadness I still felt in my heart for Brent’s death and the desire to make those responsible for his death pay with their lives.

I said, “Yes, I’m sure. Come inside.”

He tucked his phone back into his pocket and came inside. I closed the door and leaned back against it. Before I even knew what was happening, I was in his arms, pressing my lips to his.

I stood on my tiptoes to kiss him. My arms went around his neck and his hands went around to my ass. He clenched my ass cheeks in his hands and lifted me off the floor. I wrapped my legs around his waist and held on tight as he carried me to the bedroom without breaking the kiss.

He lowered me to the floor at the foot of my bed. My arms were still around his neck and his hands were still on my ass. His tongue pushed through my lips to probe into my mouth. When the tip of my tongue touched his, I felt a shudder of excitement shoot through my body, as if I’d stuck my tongue into a light socket. My nipples sprang to life and the heat that had been building in my cunt for the past hour gave way to a flood that drenched my panties.

“I want you,” he growled in my ear. “Do you want me?”

“Yes,” I moaned. “I want you.”

“Tell me,” he whispered, teeth nipping at my earlobe. “Tell me you want me to fuck your sweet pussy with my big cock.”

A dirty talker… I kind of liked that… Brent never said a word when we made love, other than to ask if brought a towel.

“I want you to fuck my sweet pussy with your big cock,” I said, my lips on his neck. “Please. Now.”

He was pulling me into him, grinding my cunt into the thick bulge in his pants. Dry humping, we called it in high school. I could remember one boy cumming in his pants as he rubbed his cock against my cunt. He was so embarrassed that he ran way, leaving me with wet panties and no idea what to do about it. I knew now what to do. I hadn’t had much practice, but I knew I didn’t want Rick cumming in his jeans. I wanted him to cum inside me.

My fingers found his belt buckle as he tugged the black t-shirt over his head. Hit shoulders and chest were thick with muscle, covered with tribal tattoos that ran up his arms and disappeared over his shoulders and onto his back. My hands went to his chest. My fingers brushed his nipples, hard as little pebbles on the roundness of his chest.

“Let me do that,” he said, pushing my hands from his belt. “You get those fucking clothes off and get on the bed. If I don’t fuck you soon I’m gonna pop.”

I hesitated for a moment as my pussy started arguing with my brain. Don’t do this, my brain screamed. This is not what you want. You want revenge. You want him dead. You can do it. Get the gun. Shoot him. Kill him. Do it now!

“Something wrong?” he asked, his hands frozen on this belt.

“No, nothing,” I said. “Um, but you get into bed. I have to use the bathroom.”

“Don’t be long,” he said. He pushed his pants and underwear down his muscled legs. His long cock sprang free. I swallowed hard as I looked at it. It was twice as long as any cock I’d ever seen in person. Ten to twelve inches, thick and girthy, with large veins that ran from shaft to tip.

“My cock is ready for your pussy,” he said, taking his cock in his hand and slowly stroking it back and forth. The head was round, like a mushroom. It blossomed as he pumped the blood into it.

I couldn’t help but lick my lips as I stared wide-eyed at his cock. I wanted to touch it. I wanted to take it in my mouth. I wanted it in my pussy. Almost as much as I wanted him dead.

I looked around for my purse. I’d left it on the floor inside the door. I put my hand around his cock and gave it a tug. It felt massive in my hand, like a warm, fleshy lead pipe. I fought the urge to drop to my knees and take him in my mouth. I said, “You and your friend get into bed. I’ll just be back in a minute.”

“Don’t be long,” he said, breathing hard. I released my grip on his cock and he climbed into bed while I went to retrieve my purse from the foyer where I’d dropped it.

Focus. Focus. Focus.

Point. Aim. Shoot.

I scooped up my purse and went back into the bedroom. Rick was lying on my bed, spread eagle, one hand behind his head, the other stroking his monster cock. It jutted from the patch of dark curls like the trunk of a thick oak tree with a mushrooming top.

“I’ll just be back in a minute,” I said as I went into the bathroom and closed the door. The moment the door closed I thought I was going to pass out. I was suddenly nauseous again. I could taste vomit on the back of my throat. My hands were shaking. A cold sweat washed over my forehead.

I set the purse on the sink and stuck my hand inside it. I brought out the .357 and stared at it for a moment. The dull gray metal was cold in my hand. I took it by the rubber grip and bounced it in my hand. I tried to remember everything Brent had taught me about firing the pistol the time he took me to the gun range to shoot it.

Grip it in your right hand. Firm, not too tight.

Cup your left hand under your right for balance and to keep your hand steady.

It’s a revolver. You just point and shoot.

Hold the pistol at arm’s length.

Close your left eye. Look down the sights on the top of the gun. Center the front sight with the rear one.

Put your finger on the trigger.

Take a deep breath and hold it.

Squeeze the trigger slowly as you exhale.

Don’t jerk it.

Squeeze with a slow and steady pressure.

Aim for the center of the chest. Don’t aim for the head or you’ll miss. Go for center mass. Center mass.

Bang.

Rinse and repeat.

You have six bullets. Don’t waste them.

I looked at the woman in the mirror who was holding the gun. I asked her, “Can you do this? Can you really kill someone?” She told me to open the door and see.

“You fall in?” Rick called from the bedroom.

I looked at the woman again. She didn’t say a word.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: RICK

I lay on her bed, stroking my cock to keep it hard, waiting on Sandy to emerge from the bathroom. I was starting to think that maybe she had passed out or had changed her mind when the bathroom door opened and she stepped out.

“I was starting to get worried about you,” I said. I frowned at her because she still had her clothes on. Maybe she was going to do a little strip tease, not that I needed it. I was ready to pop. If she didn’t get on my cock soon I was gonna blow like a geyser. I looked into her eyes. She had a strange, far-away look on her face. Maybe she was drunker than I thought. Then I saw the gun in her right hand.

“What’s that for?” I asked, playing it cool. I just kept stroking my cock and smiling at her. I wasn’t too alarmed. Believe it or not, it wasn’t the first time a bitch had walked in on me carrying a gun.

She held out the gun at her waist and frowned as if she had just realized that she was carrying it. She moved to the side of the bed. Her eyes never left mine. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought that she was going to shoot me.

She gave her head a little shake, then leaned down and pulled out the nightstand drawer. She set the gun in the drawer and slid it shut.

“I want you to fuck me, Rick,” she said, tugging her t-shirt over her head. “I want you to fuck me like I’ve never been fucked before.”

“I can do that,” I said. “Get those fucking clothes off and get your sweet ass over here.”

She was wearing a black lacy bra that barely contained her big tits. She unhooked the bra and let it slide down her arms. Her tits seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. Her globes hung large and milky white on her chest, with dark areolas and plump, pink nipples that made me lick my lips.

She kicked off her boots and shimmied out of the tight jeans. Her hips were full. A neatly-trimmed vee of blond curls directed my gaze to her cunt. Her clit hood was long and thick between her thighs. I couldn’t wait to have it between my teeth.

I told my cock that he’d have to wait a few minutes. I wanted to eat her sweet pussy before I fucked it raw.

I shifted so that I was still on my back with my head hanging off the edge of the bed. I reached over my head for her. She stepped closer and spread her thighs. She straddled her pussy over my mouth and moaned when my tongue found her sweet hole. I put my hands between her legs and spread her pussy lips with my thumbs. I probed her cunt with my tongue, licking from the tip of her clit to the indent of her asshole. Her juices washed over my mouth and cheeks. She tasted tangy, salty, with a hint of strawberry. Like a pussy cocktail. I opened my mouth and pressed it to her cunt, probing her salty hole with the tip of my tongue.

She moaned and leaned forward to reach my cock. As I ate her pussy, she braced her left arm on the bed and took my cock into her right hand. She pumped it, slowly at first, almost gently, like she had didn’t want to hurt me. Gradually, her pumping grew faster.

“Suck my cock,” I said, my mouth still on her pussy. “Wrap your sweet lips around my cock.”

She hummed. I felt hot, wet, lips engulf the head. While she pumped the shaft, she took the head between her lips and sucked on it like a lollipop. She swirled her tongue around the head, then opened her mouth and took me deep inside her. I have a big cock, eleven inches, and no woman has ever been able to take it all in her mouth or her cunt, but Sandy was giving it one hell of a try.

She lowered her mouth over my cock until the head made her gag, then she clamped her lips around the shaft and pulled back slowly, milking every inch.

I felt the heat building in my balls as the orgasm threatened to cum.

I didn’t want to shoot my load into her mouth, at least not yet.

I wanted my cock in her pussy.

I wanted my first cum to be inside her.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: SANDY

I came out of the bathroom with every intention of shooting Rick Wright in the chest as he lay in my bed jerking on his own cock. My hand was tight on the pistol grip even as my other hand reached for the doorknob. I had played it all out in my mind. It would have made for a very interesting crime scene.

Just open the door, aim, and shoot.

It’s not that hard.

Remember how easy Eddie Wright made it look.

Just point and shoot.

I took a deep breath and opened the door.

My fingers tightened around the pistol grip.

Just point and shoot.

I took two steps toward the bed.

He was still stretched out, naked, hard, waiting.

I felt the fire in my pussy ignite and spread throughout my entire body. I could feel the hot juices flowing from between my legs. My nipples pushed against the thin material of the lacy bra.

I want him dead.

Yes, you do.

I want him inside me.

No, you don’t.

Yes, I do.

No, dammit, you don’t.

I want him inside me, filling my cunt with his seed, making me feel like I’ve never felt before.

I want him.

And I’ll have him.

* * *

Rick was driving me mad. His lips and tongue in my pussy had brought me nearly to the point of orgasm. I felt my body shudder against his lips. I felt his tongue probe deep inside me, releasing a wave of juice and a flurry of jolts that made me shudder.

“God… Rick… I’m going to…cum…”

I held his cock in my hand and squeezed it as I came, flooding his lips and mouth with my hot juices that filled the air with my tangy scent. He dug his fingers into my ass and pulled my pussy down onto his mouth as if he were afraid of missing a single drop. He lapped at my cunt as I struggled to breath. I took the head of his cock between my lips and pumped his shaft. I wanted him to cum, too.

“No,” he moaned. “I don’t want to cum in your hand. I want to fuck your sweet pussy. I want to cum inside you. Get on top of me.”

I smiled and wiped my lips on the back of my hand. I climbed onto the bed and threw my leg over him, straddling his cock. I lowered my pussy lips onto his shaft and slid them back and forth for a moment to lube him up. Rick’s cock was huge. I didn’t know how much of it I could take, but I was eager to find out.

He held his cock steady as I positioned my hole over the head. I lowered myself slowly, feeling the bulbous head force itself inside me. I hadn’t had sex in a long time, so I knew I would be tight. I held my breath and lowered my hips a little more. An inch pushed inside me, then another. I felt my pussy walls literally expanding for his huge cock, then closing around it as it came inside.

I braced my hands on his chest and took a deep breath, then let it out slowly as I slid onto as much of his cock that I could take. I could feel him in my throat. The breath gusted from my lungs and struggled to come back in.

“God… Rick... you’re so… fucking... big…”

“And you’re so fucking tight,” he said, putting his hands on my hips. I began to slowly rock back and forth, milking his cock horizontally. The shaft slid over my clit each time I stroked him, shooting little bolts of lightning through my body.

“Fuck,” he moaned as he brought his hands to my tits, which were swaying gently with the motion of my hips. “God… your tits…”

I opened my eyes and tried to breath.

My mouth hung open.

The breath came in short bursts.

My pussy was gushing over his cock.

I could feel the orgasm cumming.

It made my toes curl.

“So… fucking… tight... faster…”

His fingers dug into the soft tissue of my breasts.

His thumbs rolled over my nipples.

I leaned down to dig my fingers into his chest. I closed my eyes and moaned. “I’m cumming… oh… Rick… fuck me… fuck me…”

He grabbed my hips again and started slamming me into him, thrusting his cock in so deep that it struck the innermost point of my cunt, making me gasp.

“I’m cumming… Sandy…” he moaned. “Cum with me…

And I did. In a great flourish of bundled nerves and curled toes and gritted teeth and gusts of breath, we came together. We jerked and writhed and pressed our gooey selves together until there was nothing left to give.

I took a deep breath and blew it out slowly as I collapsed onto the bed beside him.

He held up his arm so I could roll into him.

I put my head on his chest and my hand on his flat stomach.

He pulled me close. I heard him sigh.

It didn’t take long for both of us to fall asleep.

The last thought that ran through my drunken mind was: Sandy, what the fuck have you done.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: SANDY

Rick was still sleeping peacefully when I opened my eyes and realized what I’d done. What we’d done; me and the man I was determined to kill.

He was on his side, facing me, with the left side of his face pressed to the pillow. His eyes were closed. He was breathing slowly in and out through his mouth.

I lay perfectly still, my breathing matching his, and let my eyes go around his handsome face. I wondered if he was dreaming, and if so, what about. He looked so content, so at peace, so unlike the man I expected to meet, going by what I’d learned from his police dossier.

I expected Rick Wright to be a cold, foulmouthed, heartless brute; capable of all manner of crimes and atrocities. I expected him to be callous, uncaring, unemotional, selfish. But in the short time I’d known him, he had been nothing but a perfect gentleman, in and out of bed.

His brother, Eddie, was exactly what I expected him to be. He was mean, angry, threatening, dangerous; and capable of horrible acts. My blood ran cold when he looked at me. I knew that given the chance, he would have dragged me into a room or a back alley and raped me, beat me, and left me for dead. My intentions against Rick Wright might have softened, but my determination to see Eddie Wright dead had not.

I glanced up to find Rick smiling at me. He put a finger to my cheek, then tucked a lock of hair behind my ear.

Softly, he said, “Good morning.”

* * *

I set the cup of coffee on the table in front of Rick and sat down across from him. I poured a little milk into my coffee and scooped in two heaping spoons of sugar.

“Would you like a little coffee with your milk and sugar?” Rick asked with a smile that was no less mesmerizing than the night before. He picked up his cup of black coffee and blew a cooling breath into it.

“I like milk and sugar,” I said, stirring the coffee slowly. “Are you sure I can’t fix you some eggs?”

“I think you have done enough,” he said. He took a careful sip and pursed out his lips. “Thanks for letting me spend the night.”

I gave him a sincere smile. “It was my pleasure.” I tapped the spoon to the rim of my cup and set it aside. I watched him for a minute. He had pulled on his jeans to come for coffee, but his muscled torso and feet were bare. The muscles in his forearms flexed as he held the cup between his hands.

“Can I ask you something?” He didn’t wait for permission. “Why did you come into my bar last night?”

“I just came in for a drink,” I said with a shrug. “It is a bar, isn’t it?”

He gave me the smile again. I swear, he used it like a weapon. I felt every nerve in my body tingle.

He took a sip of coffee and bobbed his head. “It is a bar, but it’s not a bar that people like you come to.”

I blinked at him. “People like me? What does that mean?”

He narrowed his eyes and dipped his chin. “You look the part of the bad biker bitch, with your black hair and tats and heavy boots, but as I look around this place,” he nodded around the room with his eyebrows arched, “I see a girl trying to make a drastic change. And I can’t help but wonder why.”

I glanced around the open space that included the apartment’s living room, small breakfast nook, and kitchen. The apartment was spotless, but that wasn’t what he was talking about. He was talking about the photos of my family that hung on the wall and sat about the room. The old me, the happy one, loved family photos. The new me would probably never take another one.

The one thing I had done was to remove photos of Brent because I couldn’t stand to look at them. They were in a box in the bottom of my bedroom closet.

“This one, for example,” he said, getting out of the chair and carefully taking a framed photo off the living room wall. He came back with the photo of me, my sister April, and our parents. The photo was one of those hokey studio shots like you get taken at the Wal-Mart Portrait Center. It had been taken the year I graduated high school, six years ago. I had long blond hair pulled back and clipped on the sides, and was wearing just a hint of makeup. I was wearing a baggy sweater to hide my boobs. He set the photo on the table between us and pointed at it.

“You were very cute in your natural state,” he said, smiling with his eyes. “So, who is the girl sitting across from me now?”

“Are you saying that I’m not cute now?” I asked. I was just wearing a t-shirt and a pair of panties. I pulled up the front of the shirt and flashed my tits in an attempt to distract him. “Are you saying that these aren’t cute?”

“Oh, those are beyond cute,” he said, eyebrows twitching. “I’m just curious, is all. What made the cute blond in this photo transform into the woman sitting across from me now?”

I thought about the question and how best to answer it so he wouldn’t suspect that I was doing anything other than slumming when I came into his bar. I decided to give him a bit of truth and a bit of bullshit.

“I lost someone very close to me,” I said quietly. I held the coffee cup between my hands and stared into it to avoid his eyes. “He was killed. We were going to be married. I decided I needed a change.”

His features softened. “I’m sorry to hear that. When did he die?”

“A while ago.”

“How did he die?”

I hesitated for just a second. “Cancer.”

“I thought you said he was killed.”

I blinked at him. “Cancer killed him.”

“Ah. How old was he?”

“Twenty-eight.”

He gave me a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry, Sandy. I didn’t mean to bring up painful memories. I’m just always curious why people do the things they do.”

“That’s okay,” I said, brushing a knuckle beneath my eyes. “So why do you do the things you do?”

His forehead wrinkled at the question. “What do you mean?”

I gave him a knowing look. “I’ve heard of The Wright Brothers. Everybody has. You guys are like a modern-day James Gang. What makes you do the things you do?”

He stared deeply into my eyes as if he were trying to read my mind. “Things like what?”

I raised my eyebrows and let my shoulders go up and down. “Oh, let’s see, suspected of robbing banks and armored cars, hijacking truckloads of cigarettes and alcohol, jaywalking, loitering, pulling the wings off butterflies. That sort of thing.”

He sat back and folded his arms over his chest. “Let me guess, you Googled me while I was asleep.”

“Something like that,” I said. I brought the cup to my lips and held it there for a moment. “I like to know who I’m sleeping with.”

“Well, don’t believe everything you read online,” he said seriously. “I’ve never pulled the wings off a single butterfly.”

“What about all that other stuff?” I asked the question playfully, but he could tell that I was serious.

He gave me a serious look. “What about it?”

“Is it true? Are you a criminal?” I could feel the color draining from my face as he stared at me. I couldn’t tell if he was pissed off or amused.

“Would you have a problem being with me if I was a criminal?” he asked.

I thought about the question for a moment but didn’t answer it because I knew I would be ashamed of the words that left my lips.

I stood up and held out my hand.

He wrapped his fingers around mine.

I pulled him out of the chair and led him into the bedroom.

I’d answer the question there.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: RICK

I had never been with a woman like Sandy. It wasn’t just that she was smoking hot and had the attitude to match, or that she would do anything and everything in the bedroom.

No, I’m talking about the way she made me feel. I had never been in love. Hell, I didn’t even know what love felt like. I didn’t think I was in love with Sandy, at least not yet, but when I was around her my heart beat a little faster. The air in my lungs felt a little lighter.

When I was with her, I wanted to be a better man.

Maybe that was it.

She made me want to be a better man.

She had been tending bar at the club for a few nights now. Carl was glad to have the help. He was nearing seventy. I had been trying to get him to retire for years, but he said if he retired he would die of boredom. Still, he was not averse to sitting in the room playing cards with the crew while Sandy did his job.

The plans to hit Crown Jewelers were all set. We would hit the place in two days, on Friday afternoon, while old man Crown was getting the shipment of diamonds ready for the armored car, which typically came at five. I had spent less and less time with Dottie, which she complained about when I pretended to call her from the road. I assured her that I would pick her up on Thursday evening for our weekend getaway.

I had absolutely no interest in ever fucking Dottie again now that I had Sandy. In fact, I had decided against driving the three hours to Vegas, just to slip her a rufie and drive home. I would take her as far as Barstow to a roadside motel and knock her out there. My contact would keep her sleeping peacefully until I gave them the all clear.

If everything went according to plan, we’d hit Crown Jewelers on Friday, I’d sell the diamonds to my fence on Saturday, and I would drop off the face of the earth by Sunday, and Dottie would come home heartbroken, but none the worse for wear on Monday.

I had a “go bag” all packed with a fake passport and ID, a hundred grand in cash, three burner phones, and a few changes of clothes.

My cut from the sale of the diamonds would be deposited in an offshore bank account I had set up weeks before. The rest of the crew wanted their cut in cash, which I knew would eventually get them caught. Even Eddie, who was a sloppy crook and a big spender. He’d spread money around like butter and people would notice. That would be his problem then. By that time, I’d be long gone.

All I had to decide was where I wanted to go.

And whether I wanted to take Sandy with me.

* * *

I came out of the back room and slid onto a bar stool. Sandy was tending bar for the third night in a row and seemed to be enjoying it. The regulars loved her. They especially liked looking at her big tits and the cleavage that spilled out over the top of her bra. I loved it, too. I buried my nose and mouth and cock into it every chance I got.

The only person that didn’t like Sandy was Eddie, who said there was something about her that set off red flags in his head, whatever the fuck that meant. He asked about her background, where she had come from all of a sudden, and what made me think she wasn’t a cop.

“I can smell a cop from a mile away,” I told him. “Trust me, I’ve been over every inch of her body and her apartment. If she was a cop, I’d know it.

“You can’t smell with your dick,” he said, giving me a hard look to let me know he was serious. He gritted his teeth at me. “You let this girl get under your skin fast as fuck, brother. I’m not convinced she is who she says she is. There’s something familiar about her. And when I figure it out…”

“You will do nothing, little brother,” I said, putting a hand on his shoulder and giving it a hard squeeze to remind him of the pecking order. “I’ve got this. You just focus on the job and try not to fuck anything up in the meantime.”

“You’d better be right,” he said, unamused. He jerked his shoulder from beneath my hand and looked me in the eye. “If she becomes a problem, you’d better take care of it or I will.”

* * *

“We need to talk,” I said, sliding onto a bar stool with my go-bag in my hand. I set the bag on the stool next to me and folded my arms on the bar.

Sandy gave me and the bag an apprehensive look. “Okay, that doesn’t sound good. Do you want a drink?”

“No, and it’s nothing bad,” I said, giving her the smile that she said curled her toes. “I’ve been meaning to ask. What would you say to getting away for a while?”

“You mean away from this place or the city?”

“I mean get away as in you and I getting on a plane and never looking back. We go somewhere sunny and warm, Belize maybe, or Tahiti, and we start again.”

She blinked at me for a moment. “I… I don’t know. I mean, what’s brought this one?” She nodded at the bag. “And what’s in the bag?”

I dragged the bag onto the bar and unzipped it so she could see inside. “Money, a new passport and ID, clothes.” I zipped it up. “It’s my go-bag.”

“Go-bag?”

“The bag I grab when I have to go. Quickly.”

A look of fear washed over her eyes. She put a hand to her lips and lowered her voice. “Why would you have to go?” she asked.

I glanced around the bar. It was late and the place was empty except for a couple of bikers and one old biker whore shooting pool. Eddie and the crew were out somewhere doing God knows what. I just hoped they didn’t get caught. The Crown job was in two days. I needed them sharp if we were going to pull this off.

“I want to start a new life,” I said, leaning over my elbows on the bar and lowering my voice so only she could hear me. “And I want you to come with me.”

“Okay. When would we go?”

I took a deep breath. I trusted her as much as I had ever trusted anyone in my life. I prayed Eddie wasn’t right, that my cock was not doing the thinking for my brain.

I said, “I am about to make a big score, one that will set me for life. It happens Friday. I’ll wrap up the details Saturday and be ready to go on Sunday. I want you to come with me.”

“You’re scaring me,” she said. “What kind of score?”

“I can’t tell you that. You just have to trust me.”

She looked deeply into my eyes. “Will anyone get hurt?”

“What? No, of course not. I don’t hurt people, you know that.”

“But your brother does.” She said the words and clenched her teeth.

I frowned at the look of fear in her eyes. “Why would you say that?”

“I’ve heard him talk about hurting people,” she said. “He brags about it.”

I tried to muster a reassuring smile for her. “Nobody gets hurt when I’m in charge,” I said. “You have my promise.”

She stared at the bag. “What do you want me to do with this?”

“Stow it in the trunk of your car. Pack one of your own. I will call you Friday after the job and have you meet me. We’ll take your car and get out of town, then figure out where we want to go and fly away.”

She held out her hand and I wrapped my fingers around it.

“This is so sudden,” she said. “Can I think about it?”

“Yes,” I said, squeezing her hand. “You have until Friday.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN: SANDY

I was sitting at my kitchen table staring into a cup of lukewarm coffee, replaying in my head the conversation I’d had with Rick the night before when the doorbell rang.

He was going to make a big score on Friday, he said, one that would set him up for life. He wanted to leave the city and never return. He wanted to start a new life. And he wanted me to go with him.

I took a sip of the coffee and wondered how things had happened so fast. And gotten so far out of hand.

A week ago, I was Sandy Duval, an innocent girl who was grieving over her dead fiancé and plotting revenge on the men who had killed him.

Now, I was a criminal’s girlfriend who was thinking about running away with him after he committed his next crime. Funny, how things can change so quickly, how morals can loosen and logic can wane; all because Eddie Wright put a bullet in Brent’s head and Rick Wright put his cock in me.

The doorbell rang again. I ignored it long enough to finish my coffee and set the cup in the sink. It was just after eight in the morning. I knew it wasn’t Rick at the door because he was out of town on business (god, that almost sounds legit) and wouldn’t be back until Friday. I wondered if Eddie was with him…

The doorbell rang again, this time making me jump. I was wearing a bathrobe with nothing on underneath, just as Rick had left me an hour before. I tightened the sash around my waist and pulled the lapels over my breasts as I went to answer the door.

I checked the peephole. It wasn’t Rick or Eddie. It was a tall, thin woman whose distorted features through the peephole looked vaguely familiar. I took a deep breath and opened the door.

“Yes?”

“Miss Duval?” The woman at the door looked me up and down as if she didn’t recognize me. I didn’t recognize her either until she held up a detective’s badge.

“I’m Detective Cochran,” she said, tucking the badge inside her gray jacket. “I was the detective that spoke with you after your fiancé’s murder.”

I lifted my chin and tried to swallow the piece of my heart that had wedged in my throat. Having a cop show up at my door wouldn’t have unnerved me a week ago. Now, I had to fight the urge to slam the door and run out the back. I wasn’t guilty of anything other than plotting revenge, but it sure felt like it.

“Yes. I remember. Please. Come in.” I put my hands in the robe’s pockets to keep them from shaking, then stepped aside to let her pass.

She followed me to the kitchen and took a seat at the table. She refused my offer of coffee. She took out a small notepad and pen as she waited for me to sit down.

“What can I do for you, Detective?” I asked.

Her eyes went around my face again. She glanced at my hair and the diamond stud in my nose. I had never felt more self-conscious. Thank God, the robe covered my tattoos.

She tapped the tip of the pen to the paper and stared at me as she spoke. “Well, ma’am, for starters, you can tell me what you’re doing hanging around the people that we think killed your fiancé.”

I suddenly felt like a criminal myself, as if I’d just been caught committing a major crime. I said, “I’m not sure what you mean.”

She reached into her jacket pocket and brought out five Polaroid mugshots and lay them out on the table one by one as if she were dealing cards. The five mugshots were of Rick’s crew. The first one was Rick and the last one was Eddie. Chunk, Ronnie, and Pete were the middle three.

She tapped a fingernail on the table. “Miss Duval, can you identify any of these men?”

I didn’t look down at the photos. I looked her in the eye and said, “No.”

Her eyebrows shot up like window shades. She grinned at me. “No?”

“No.”

“Miss Duval, have you been working at a dive bar called Dick’s Place for the past week or so?” She asked the question and gave me a stern look, waiting to see if I was going to lie. I clenched my teeth together and tried not to cry.

“Are you following me?” I asked quietly.

She ignored the question to ask, “Have you seen any of these men at the bar?”

When I didn’t answer, she put the cap on the pen and tossed it on the table. She leaned back with her arms over her chest and swept her eyes over me again.

She said, “You’ve certainly changed your looks since I last saw you.”

“I just thought I’d try something new,” I said shyly, tucking my hair behind my ears. I tried not to sound defensive, which was hard since she seemed to have the ability to see right through me. I tried to hold her gaze. I tried not to blink. My eyes started to water.

“This one, Eddie Wright,” she said, tapping the fingernail to Eddie’s mugshot. He was grinning. The silver tooth on display. “We’re pretty sure this is the one who killed your fiancé.”

She tapped on Ronnie’s mugshot.

“This was the guy who was with him. We have the surveillance video from the shooting to match them for height and weight, a description of the car, and a confidential informant ready to testify that they were criminal associates of the clerk. It was a deal gone wrong. At least that’s what I thought until I got the report from the surveillance team that’s been watching them for a week.”

She let the words hang in the air for a moment.

I said, “I don’t understand.”

“This one, the one you’re sleeping with.” She tapped the fingernail to Rick’s photo and left it there. “I believe the other two were following his orders. He was responsible for your fiancé’s death, Miss Duval, and now you’re fucking him. It makes me wonder, were you in on the murder, too? I know your fiancé had a sizable life insurance policy. Did you conspire with The Wright Brothers to kill Brent Griffin? Because that’s the way it looks to me and I’m pretty sure the D.A. will see it the same way.”

“No… I would never… I loved Brent…”

“You’ve got a damn funny way of showing it,” she said, her voice filled with disgust.

That did it.

My resolve broke and my eyes slowly lowered to Rick’s mugshot. I couldn’t believe that he had anything to do with Brent’s murder. I had convinced myself that it wasn’t possible. Rick was a good man, regardless of what she was saying. Or was he just good at deceiving stupid women who fell for his charms hook, line and sinker?

She picked up the pen and took off the cap, then leaned into the table. “Miss Duval, I’m going to give you one chance to make things right, for the sake of Brent Griffin, a man you once claimed to love. If you had anything to do with his death, or if this is just one huge coincidence, you have one chance to come clean. Otherwise, you’re going down with the rest of these pieces of shit.”

I wiped my eyes on the back of my hand and took a deep, shuddering breath. For Brent’s sake, I said, “I just wanted to kill them all…”

CHAPTER TWENTY: RICK

Chunk was behind the wheel of the panel van he had stolen for the Crown job. It was pale blue when he stole it from a Wal-Mart parking lot two days ago. Now it was white with a fake license plate and a City Electric magnet on the side.

I was in the passenger seat. Eddie, Ronnie, and Pete were in the back. Dottie was sleeping peacefully in Barstow at the Motor Inn. Sandy was probably at home. Waiting for my call.

The plan was for Chunk to drop us off at the curb in front of Crown’s, then remain behind the wheel with the motor running, parked half a block down. Me, Eddie, and Ronnie would go inside. Ronnie would take out the security guard with a stun gun and Eddie would watch over anyone that happened to be inside. I would force old man Crown to hand over the diamonds. Pete would stand watch on the sidewalk and alert us if any trouble headed our way.

We had to be in and out in less than three minutes because that was the average response time for LAPD in this part of town. Any longer and our chances of getting caught increased exponentially.

I had one firm rule when we were pulling a job that involved people. No guns. Ronnie had the stun gun, Eddie and I had the telescopic steel batons; neither of which were considered a deadly weapon by the state’s legal system. The reason I did not allow guns on a job like this was the amount of time you’d serve if you got caught in the act of robbery with a deadly weapon.

Get convicted of robbery with a gun in your hand and the minimum sentence was five years and the average was fifteen.

Get caught with a stun gun or a baton and you’d be out in twenty-four months; eighteen with good behavior.

Eddie always said he could do eighteen months standing on his head.

I’d never been in jail, but I imagined it wasn’t as easy as Eddie let on. Nothing ever was.

* * *

We sat down the block for half an hour, watching people and traffic come and go. Crown’s was relatively quiet. No one had gone in or come out in the last half hour. I looked at my watch. It was 4:30. Dottie had told me the armored car always came at 5 o’clock on Friday. Old man Crown usually spent a couple of hours getting the shipments ready in a locked back room, meaning the diamonds would not be in a safe. Ronnie could crack a safe, but not in three minutes, which was all we had. I had yet to find a locked door I couldn’t put my foot through in a couple of seconds.

“Okay, let’s do this,” I said. I looked over my shoulder and made eye contact with Eddie. “Everybody be cool, do what you’re supposed to, and we’ll be in and out in no time.”

Chunk pulled out of the parking space and stopped directly in front of Crown Jewelers. Me, Eddie, and Ronnie pulled our black ski masks down over our faces, put on black latex gloves, and made it from the van to the store’s front door in three seconds. Chunk pulled away and Pete stood casually on the sidewalk outside.

We came through the door so quickly that the guard barely had time to react before Ronnie shoved the stun gun into his meaty neck and knocked him out cold. Ronnie took the guard’s gun and emptied the rounds from the chamber, then slid the gun back into its holster. He pulled the guard’s hands behind his back and zip-tied them.

I set the timer on my watch to three minutes. Eddie locked the door and flipped the Open sign to Closed. We were all relieved to find no one else in the showroom. I went directly around the display case and into the doorway that led to a short hall. On the left were an office and a restroom. On the right was a door with two deadbolts installed.

“Fucking deadbolts,” Eddie said with a grin. “Seriously?”

I rolled my eyes, then lined up and put the heel of my right boot into the door, next to the knob. The door frame cracked, but the door didn’t open. I lined up and kicked it again, this time next to the deadbolts. The door frame splintered and the door flew open.

Old man Crown was sitting at a long table with a diamond loop in his eye and a horrified look on his face. On the table in front of him were a dozen tidy little piles of loose diamonds.

Eddie and I looked at each other and smiled.

* * *

I set the black duffel bag I’d carried in on the table while Eddie put the old man on the floor and zip-tied his hands. Crown didn’t say a word. He just held up his hands and complied with Eddie’s commands. I guess his six or seven decades in the jewelry business had taught him not to resist during a robbery, especially when everything we were stealing was probably over-insured.

Inside the duffel was a pair of sweats and an old pair of tennis shoes with socks stuffed inside. I tugged out the socks, then carefully scooped up each pile of diamonds and slid them into the toes of the tennis shoes, which were lined with plastic. Once I had every diamond from the table inside the shoes, I shoved the socks back into the shoes and zipped the duffel bag. I glanced at my watch. We had thirty seconds to go.

“That’s it,” I said, grinning at Eddie. I picked up the duffel and held out a hand to motion him to the door. “Let’s get the fuck out of here, little brother.”

Eddie grinned back at me. He ran his tongue over the silver tooth and pulled the small walkie-talkie off his belt. “Chunk, you fat motherfucker,” he said happily. “Pick us up.”

* * *

Ronnie was waiting by the door. When he saw Eddie and I emerge from the back room, he grinned and unlocked the front door and led the way out.

The white van skidded to a stop in front of us. I saw Chunk behind the wheel, but I didn’t see Pete, who was supposed to be standing lookout on the sidewalk. I assumed that he was already in the van. I’d give him hell for breaking protocol once we were safely away.

“Where the fuck’s Pete?” Eddie asked as he reached for the van’s side door.

“Beats me, let’s just go,” I said, looking up and down the street. A feeling I’d never felt before came over me, like a cold wind blowing down my neck. I glanced at Chunk. He had tears in his eyes. He lifted his left hand from the steering wheel to show me the handcuff around his wrist. The other end of the cuff was clipped to the steering wheel.

The van’s side door slid open with a loud metal clank. Inside the van were three SWAT members in full black Ninja gear. They all had M-4 automatic rifles, one each aimed at Ronnie, Eddie, and me. Little red laser dots danced across our chests. One of them grinned and put the dot between my eyes, blinding me. He said, “Gotcha, motherfucker.”

The sidewalk around us quickly filled with black uniforms. I dropped the duffel bag and held up my hands. I told Eddie and Ronnie to do the same.

It was over.

The Wright Brothers had pulled their last job.

Oddly enough, all I could think about was Sandy, waiting for my call, ready to run away with me to start a new life.

I wondered how long she would be willing to wait.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: SANDY

Eighteen months was a long time to wait for someone; especially when that someone didn’t even want to see or speak to you.

I had tried to visit Rick every month since he went away, but he always refused to see me. I drove to the prison on visitation day and sat patiently at a metal table for hours waiting for him to appear. But it was the same thing every time. The guard would eventually come over to tell me that the prisoner did not want to speak with me and that I shouldn’t come back again.

But I did come back, every month for eighteen months.

Rick hated my guts and I guess I couldn’t blame him. It was my testimony that helped put his brother, Eddie, away for twenty-five years to life for the murders of Brent and the clerk at the convenience store.

Ronnie also struck a deal with the district attorney and testified against Eddie. Rick was never charged with the murders because Eddie swore his brother had nothing to do with them. Eddie and Ronnie had their own shady dealings with the clerk that Rick knew nothing about. It was all about a truckload of stolen cigarettes and the fact that the clerk had screwed Eddie out of his cut. Brent had just gotten in the way. Wrong place, wrong time.

Eddie and Ronnie were also convicted of the Crown Jewelers robbery. They took a deal that tacked on another twenty-four months to the sentences they received for the murders. Eddie would probably be in prison for the rest of his life. Ronnie might get out in ten years with good behavior.

Rick didn’t fight the robbery charges.

He pleaded guilty and took a plea that sent him away for twenty-four months. I was in the courtroom the day he went away. He refused to even look at me.

With good behavior, he would be released after eighteen months.

The eighteen months runs out tomorrow.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: RICK

Eddie once said he could do eighteen months in the pen standing on his head. I wondered if he still felt that way, now that he was doing twenty-five to life. I would have loved to have asked him, but he was upstate at a maximum-security prison and I was three hundred miles away on a minimum-security work farm. He was in a prison and I was on a work farm. He would have loved to have given me shit about that.

I’d spent the last eighteen months working in the kitchen and helping in the fields, keeping my head down and my nose clean. It wasn’t hard to do the time. The place was a resort compared to a real prison. I was probably the only real criminal in a place full of white collar assholes, crooked politicians, and doctors who overprescribed pain meds to their patients for cash under the table.

I had no idea how I’d managed to be sentenced to the work farm until an assistant D.A. told me it was part of a deal Sandy arranged in exchange for testifying against my brother. I was already pissed at her for lying to me, not to mention her little plot to kill me and my crew that came out in court. Knowing that she sold my brother out so I could do a cushy stretch just pissed me off even more.

* * *

“Take it easy, Rick,” the guard at the gate said, slapping me on the back like we were old pals. “Don’t let me see you back in here again.”

I gave him a smile. “Don’t worry. You won’t.”

I tried to be patient as he went inside the guard shack to hit the button that opened the main gate that separated the farm from the free world. The gate rumbled and slid noisily to the right. As soon as there was enough space to step through, I went out the gate and started walking. I didn’t look back.

I was wearing the clothes I had on the day I processed in; a pair of jeans that now hung off my narrow hips rather than hugged them, motorcycle boots, and a black t-shirt. They had given me back my wallet, which was empty except for an expired driver’s license, my watch which had since stopped working, and a cellphone that no longer had service.

I had a hundred and eight dollars in my pocket; money earned from working on the farm for eighteen months. It came out to about six bucks a month. In the old days, I made a thousand times that in a week, but the old days were gone.

There was a bus station three miles from the work farm. I could have called a taxi to pick me up, but I decided to walk. I wanted to stretch my limbs and breathe fresh air and feel the sun on my face and the taste of freedom on my lips.

I was told to turn right at the gate and keep walking down the dusty road until I saw the Greyhound sign. I hoped a hundred and eight dollars would get me home. If it wouldn’t, I’d buy a ticket for as close as I could get and hitch the rest of the way.

I didn’t have much left for me there, but I had a little money stashed around and still owned the bar. My plan was to sell everything I owned and get the fuck away once and for all. Find some place nice, get a normal job, meet a nice girl, and settle down.

I couldn’t help but wonder how many other criminals had walked down this same dusty road with the same good intentions in mind.

And how long was it before they went back to their old ways.

* * *

I saw the sun reflect off the shiny grill of the black Cadillac before I realized who was behind the wheel. The car was coming at me at a pretty good clip. I could hear the growl of the engine as the driver downshifted to a stop in the middle of the country road, stopping directly in front of me.

She opened the door and stepped out of the car. It took me a minute to recognize her. Her hair was long and blonde, pulled back into a tight ponytail. Her blue eyes were bright and clear. Her cheeks flushed when she saw me. She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. And I hated her guts. And I hated myself for wanting her so badly.

She licked her lips and gave me a nervous smile.

“Hi,” she said, propping her arms on top of the open driver’s door. She rested her chin on her arms and stared at me. “Can I give you a ride?”

I thought about ignoring her, just keep on walking, like she wasn’t even there. But as I glared at her, forcing myself to hate her, struggling to resist the urge to take her in my arms, I realized that she wasn’t to blame for any of my troubles.

Her world was just fine until Eddie burned it down.

I couldn’t blame her for wanting him dead, for wanting me dead. I didn’t kill her fiancé, but I knew Eddie was a dangerous man. Maybe if I had tried to control him more, from the time we were kids, her fiancé might still be alive.

I blew out a long breath and gave her a nod.

“Yeah,” I said, “a ride would be great.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: SANDY

We didn’t talk much at first. Rick’s deeply tanned face looked gaunt and tired. I asked how he was and he said okay. He asked how I was and I said better now. He gave me a little smile, then turned to look out the window at the free world passing by. He let out a long sigh and closed his eyes and quickly fell asleep.

I was a little relieved that we weren’t talking. I still didn’t know what to say to him, or if we could put the past behind us and start again. All I knew was that I was willing to try if he was. I’d ask him as soon as he woke up.

In the trunk was his go-bag, with his passport, money, and clothes; just as he’d left it with me.

I’d packed several suitcases of my own. There was no way I could go anywhere with just one bag.

I got on the interstate and headed south toward Baja rather than north to Bakersfield. I would take him back to Bakersfield if that’s where he wanted to go, but I was hoping that he would agree to lie on a nude beach with me for a few weeks so we could sort things out in paradise.

There was nothing left for either of us in Bakersfield.

The only thing I cared about was the man snoring softly in the seat beside me. I prayed that he felt the same.

TWENTY-FOUR: SANDY

We’d been on the road for two hours when Rick woke up to realize that he had been kidnapped. He was an easy person to kidnap. When I told him we were headed to Cabo San Lucas for a few weeks of lying naked in the sun, he just looked at me and smiled.

“Isn’t Cabo like a thousand miles from where we are?” he asked, glancing at the exit signs for San Diego that we were passing.

“Yes. So? What’s your point?”

“Don’t guess I have one,” he said with shrug. My hand was resting on the gear shift. He covered it with his long fingers and gave it a squeeze. An old familiar tingle worked its way up my arm.

“So, we’re looking at twenty hours or so drive time,” he said, glancing over at me with a goofy look on his weathered face.

“That sounds about right.”

“And it’s getting dark,” he said, glancing out the window.

“Yes, it tends to get dark about this time every day.”

“And I haven’t gotten laid in a very long time.”

I glanced over at him. His old smile had returned. It washed over me like a warm bath. My cheeks flushed. My nipples plumped in my bra. I could feel moisture between my legs.

“I haven’t been laid in a long time either,” I said, turning my hand over so we could lace our fingers together. I glanced at the road ahead. There was a Motel 6 at the next exit.

“Shall I take this exit.”

“Please do,” he said, pulling my hand across to feel the bulge in his jeans. “Quickly.”

* * *

I had no idea what the record was for checking into a motel and stripping off your clothes, but I was sure that Rick and I had broken the old record by several minutes. I quickly checked us in, we hurried to the room without getting our bags and stripped each other naked just inside the door.

My hand immediately went to Rick’s throbbing cock. As my fingers closed around it and started to gently tug, it was as if we were transported back in time, to my apartment, to the first time we’d made love.

Rick dug his fingers into my tits and pushed me into the wall. His mouth was all over me: my lips, my chin, my neck. His fingers squeezed the soft flesh of my tits, making me moan in pain and pleasure. He lowered his mouth to my nipples and teased them with his tongue, taking them between his teeth, suckling them between his lips.

His cock felt wonderful in my hand. I had forgotten how long and thick he was. I stood on my tiptoes and pulled him to me, swirling the head of his cock around my dripping pussy and clit. I started pumping his cock with long strokes from base to head, pushing him against my clit. I came quickly, my hot juices showering him, making him moan.

He grabbed my ass and lifted me up. I draped an arm around his neck and wrapped my legs around his waist. He used a hand to guide his cock to my pussy, then put his hands on my ass again and impaled me onto him. His cock slid in with such force that the wind was knocked from my lungs.

With my arms around his neck and his hands on my ass and my back against the wall, Rick ramrodded his cock into my pussy, fast, hard, like a man who had not had sex in a very long time. He pressed his forehead to mine and gritted his teeth to hold back the orgasm.

“I want to see your face while I’m fucking you,” he said. He carried me to the bathroom and set me down. He roughly spun me around and dug his fingers into my hips. I pushed my ass toward him and watched his face in the mirror as he slid his cock back inside my pussy. I could feel him all inside me now. Long. Hard. Thick. Wonderful.

“Fuck me hard, baby,” I moaned. “Fuck me hard… stick your big cock inside my sweet pussy…”

He gazed into the mirror and smiled.

Dirty talk was our thing.

“You want my big cock to ram your sweet pussy,” he asked, moving his hips in and out, shoving his cock inside me until the head hit my innermost wall. “God... your pussy is so fucking tight… I’ve missed you… so much…”

“Fuck me hard, Rick…” I braced my arms on the counter and closed my eyes. “I want to feel your monster cock in my throat.”

Rick tightened his grip on my hips and started rocking into me so hard that my tits swayed back and forth, hanging from my chest. I grabbed them and gritted my teeth, rolling my nipples between my fingers.

The fire was igniting deep inside me.

Another orgasm was on its way.

I felt hot all over.

I could smell the tangy scent of my juices washed over him.

I could smell his sweat.

I wanted to lick every drop of it from his body.

“God… I’m cumming…” he moaned, ramming into me, jarring my entire body.

“Yes… baby… cum… with me…” He moaned loudly as his cock filled me with his hot, milky cum and my orgasm sent a shudder through my body.

A moment more, and our bodies went slack.

I opened my eyes to find him smiling back at me.

“Welcome home,” I said with a happy sigh, wiggling my soaked pussy against him. “Don’t you ever leave me again.”

 

EPILOG: SANDY

Cabo San Lucas was the most beautiful place on Earth.

Well, the most beautiful place that I’d ever been to.

And having Rick by my side again just made it feel that much more like Heaven on Earth.

We had rented a small bungalow on the beach and spent our days sunning and swimming, and our nights dancing and drinking and making love, or as Rick called it: drinkin’ and fuckin’.

Sigh. Such manners on this one.

We talked about other places we’d like to go; Europe maybe, or Australia. But every day as the sun set over the Pacific Ocean just a few feet from where we sat with our toes in the sand, we knew that it didn’t matter where we were, so long as we were together.

I thought about Brent often and how his death had brought me to this point in my life.

If I could have gone back in time and prevented him from going into that store; if I could have saved him from Eddie; I would have done so without hesitation.

But I couldn’t turn back time.

And I couldn’t bring him back.

All I could do was keep his memory alive in my heart and try to be the person he expected me to be; a person who deserved his love, and deserved the life it had given me.