Chapter 14
Rebel
Shit, I'd fucked up. I should never have touched Ginger. I should have taken her friend up on her offer and given her a ride home. We both knew that it would have ended in sex. She would have scratched the itch, but would it have satisfied me? I hadn't lied to Ginger when I'd said that it made a difference when you were with someone that you wanted, and God knows that I'd wanted her from the start. I had rubbed one off many times with her pretty face on my mind. I couldn't explain why I couldn’t get her out of my thoughts, and I refused to think that it meant anything more than wanting to sink my dick inside her tight, little pussy. She was right in calling me an asshole.
I couldn't afford to have ties.
I was a nomad, wandering the country and taking jobs as they came to me, mostly from MCs that needed something done under the radar. The kind of jobs that were dangerous and could lead to long prison sentences if caught. Such was my current job that I was doing with Jace and Moody. The three of us worked together a lot. In a way we were our own MC. We trusted each other, we had each other's backs, and we were as tight as brothers could get. Each one of us had at one time or another been in clubs, deciding early on that we preferred to run solo.
Right now we were looking for a politician's daughter. It wasn't news that she and a friend had been snatched up right off the street one morning while they'd been jogging, but there'd never been a ransom demand for either girl. They'd simply disappeared. Of course their families wanted them back, so they'd hired Jace's firm to find her. He had a legit business on the side that focused on investigative services. The Politian had ties with the local MC back in his hometown, and had gone to them for help, desperate to find his only daughter. They'd referred him to Jace.
Jace had contacted Moody and me for help, mainly as backup. Not that his firm couldn't have handled shit on its own if it had been a typical kidnapping situation. The fact that there'd been no ransom demand led Jace to believe that this was a human trafficking situation, and that was so far underground that it would be impossible to find the girls if you didn't have the right connections and resources. The people involved in human trafficking were serious about their business, and they had strict rules in place to make certain that the average Joe didn't stumble upon their operation, one of which was that they moved around a lot, until it was time to sell the girls.
I finished my shower, dried off, and slipped into my jeans before heading out to the kitchen. I noticed that Ginger's bedroom was door closed, but something about the utter silence in the apartment told me that she had left. When my gaze lit on the unlocked front door, I guessed that she had probably gone next door to check up on her friend. I padded barefoot to the fridge, opened it, and looked over the meager contents. Salad and sandwich stuff wasn't going to satisfy me, so I ordered a couple of pizzas and then walked across the short hallway to her friend’s apartment.
I rapped a few times on the door, and didn't have to wait long for it to open to a cute little blonde in a pair of loose pajama bottoms and a tank. She was a little on the pale side, which I contributed to her recent illness, and her hair was a wild mess. Still, there was a sparkle in her pretty blue eyes and a welcoming smile on her full mouth.
"Della?"
She giggled. "Rebel?"
"Don't let him in!" I heard Ginger snap from somewhere behind her.
With an eye roll and a smile, Della stepped back and opened the door. "Ignore my irritable friend." She swung back to Ginger and said in a low tone that I was sure she didn’t think I would hear, "He's yummy!"
I entered the room just in time to see Ginger roll her eyes and cross her arms over her chest. My gaze ate her up. She wasn't wearing much, just a clinging tank and pair of boy shorts, both of which didn't leave much to the imagination, and, I knew that she was naked underneath. Her hair was still wet and uncombed, her cheeks rosy, and her eyes were flashing fire from the heated emotions running through her. It was obvious that she was still angry, but I knew the flushed look of sexual gratification on a woman's face when I saw it, and little Ginger couldn't deny that I'd satisfied her.
She was a hot mess, and the sight of her made my dick twitch.
"What did you do to piss off my best friend?" Della asked, still holding the door open, her smile giving her a little color in her cheeks.
As if she doesn’t already know, I thought to myself. I'm sure Ginger hadn't wasted any time in telling Della that I'd thoroughly fucked her in the shower and then ruined it by saying what I had afterwards. My gaze moved from Ginger, who was poised like a statue shooting lightning bolts my way, to the shorter, curvier woman standing in front of me.
"I'm innocent," I grinned, hearing Ginger's snort. "And I'm not staying. I just wanted to let you ladies know that I ordered a couple of pizzas and that I'm willing to share them."
Della's eyes widened into twin pools of excitement. "Not sure how my stomach feels about that, but I'm willing to give it a try. Pizza is my weakness. What time do you want us over?"
Another snort from Ginger, this time louder. "Yes, what time do you want us over to my apartment to eat?"
I smirked, liking her sass. The door was still open, and before I could answer them, a tall, thin man walked up on us. He had a look about him that reminded me of the meth heads that I'd come across over the years. I didn't know what the guy looked like before the drugs had taken control of him, but the clothes that he was wearing were hanging on his thin frame, and it appeared that he had a nervous twitch. He barely met my eyes, instead looking directly at Della with an intensity that I thought should worry her.
"Who's this?" he demanded. "Heard you were sick, but it looks like you're cheating on me."
Della's eyes rounded and her jaw dropped. "Well, ‘hi’ to you too, Daryl, and I was sick as a dog for two days," she explained in a slightly pissed off tone. "This is Rebel, Ginger's man."
I glanced at Ginger and she remained mutinously quiet, her lips pressed together, but it was the hard look in her eyes that warned me that she didn't like the man.
"Then why the fuck is he here with you?"
The man was an idiot if he couldn't see that his attitude was starting to piss me off. I knew the threat even if the women didn't recognize it. He was on something now, his pupils were so dilated that they practically covered the whole brown of his eyes. The look on Della's face told me that she was used to Daryl’s appearance, but saddened by it. Maybe he hadn't always been a prick.
"Maybe because I am, too?" Ginger snapped, drawing his attention. Her tone backed up my earlier observation that she didn't like the man. "By the way, I took care of your girlfriend while she was sick. Where the hell were you?"
"Shut the fuck up, bitch‒"
I snapped, grabbing him by the collar of his tee and slamming him up against the door. He grunted at the impact, and Della gasped loudly, but I ignored them both.
"Rebel‒"
I ignored Ginger too.
"You show respect, asshole." I grated the words into his face. "You got me?" I waited for his nod of understanding and released him.
He straightened his shirt and looked at Ginger sheepishly. "Sorry, Gin, I, ah, guess I got carried away." His lackluster apology was weak but I let it slide.
Ginger didn't acknowledge him in any way. Finally, Daryl appealed to Della, who'd been standing by, shocked, as if she'd never seen someone stand up to her boyfriend like that before. "Can I talk to you?" It was obvious that he was making an attempt to control himself. He glanced back at me before continuing, "Privately?"
I crossed my arms and planted my feet to show Della that I wasn't going anywhere. Whether or not she liked the show of support I had no idea, but there was no way that I was going to leave her or Ginger there alone with the asshole. My gut told me that he was unstable, and that there was an underlining violence beneath the surface of his shaky veneer. The slightest softening of Della’s expression told me a lot.
"Sure," she said after a moment. She took Daryl by the hand. "Let's go to my bedroom."
I waited until I heard the click of her door before pinning my gaze on Ginger. "He's using."
Her eyes widened slightly, as if she were surprised that I'd guessed that all ready. "We're not sure what or for how long, but he's changed the last couple of months. I've tried to talk some sense into Della, I’ve told her to get rid of him, but they've been together a long time."
"Old habits are hard to break." She nodded. "Is he abusive?"
"Not to my knowledge. I mean, Della's never had any bruises or anything, and she would tell me if he was knocking her around."
"You sure about that?"
The look on her face said that it hadn't occurred to her before then. "We're best friends, Rebel, we tell each other everything."
I smirked at that. "Did you tell her about us?"
"There is no us!" she hissed.
My brows shot up at that. "Who was that sexy little number I just got done fucking in the shower?"
She pressed her lips, and I could see that she was struggling with what to say. It only made me grin wider.
"I hate you!" she hissed.
I laughed. "Want me to prove you wrong?" She looked positively frightened at that prospect.
Before she could respond, the voices in the bedroom grew louder, loud enough that it became obvious that the conversation between Della and Daryl was about money, and that it was increasing in intensity. I could see the worry in Ginger's eyes as we both glanced in the direction of the door. My instinct was to intervene, but I reminded myself that it wasn't my business, as long as Daryl kept his hands off Della. If he put his hands on her in a violent way, then all bets were off.
I'd seen enough violence towards women during my time with the Red Devils. It had taken everything in me not to get involved. That's why when Ginger had been thrown at me, I'd done everything that I could to protect her from the others, even if I hadn't been able to protect her from myself. There was no way that I could make up to her what she'd gone through at my hands, and that was like acid eating away in my gut.
The pizza delivery guy showed up, reminding us that Della's entrance door was still open. He began knocking at Ginger's closed door. "Pizza delivery!"
"We'll be over as soon as Daryl is gone," Ginger said to me, noticing him.
I hesitated, listening to the sound of arguing that was still going on in the bedroom. It was obvious that whatever was happening in there was escalating. "Baby, there's no way I'm leaving you here with that asshole in there." I pulled some cash out of my pocket and stepped out to deal with the delivery guy. He took the cash and I took the pizzas, taking them into Della's apartment and setting them on the kitchen counter.
The door flew opened to Della's bedroom and Daryl came rushing out, red-faced and swearing beneath his breath. He avoided making eye contact with anyone and booked it for the open front door in an angry rush. Ginger and I exchanged a look before she took off in the direction of the bedroom, but Della emerged before she made it. The woman looked flustered and royally pissed.
She smiled in the face of Ginger's concern. "Well, four years down the drain, but it was long overdue. Once they start asking you for money . . . "She didn't finish the rest of her sentence, but it was easy to fill in the blanks. In spite of the four years gone, she didn't look all that broken up about the breakup. "Been down that fucking road before."
"Good riddance," Ginger remarked with a smirk.
A snort escaped Della. "I know, honey. You never really liked Daryl. He wasn't always a looser, though, you know? But the drugs . . . "She looked my way and smiled. "Why can't I meet someone like you?"
I laughed. "What makes you think I'm a good man?"
She giggled, her gaze darting to Ginger and then to me again. "A woman can tell." Her lips quirked downward at the corners. "Usually." She winked. "And from what Ginger told me about your shared past, you treated her right."
"Did she now?" I rested my gaze on Ginger, wondering if she really felt that way, knowing that if I'd treated her right I would have told her about the money. Thirty grand had gone missing, but I'd always known that she hadn't been the one who’d taken it. I'd had several stashes of money hidden throughout my place, hoping to throw off anyone who searched my apartment into thinking that if they found one stash that was all there was. It had worked, because whoever had taken the thirty thousand hadn't found the rest.
Ginger was right when she’d said that she only owed me four thousand.
I knew that I should have told her the truth about the money and let her off the hook. But if I'd done that there would be no reason for me to stick around, and I wasn't ready to leave just yet, not after running into her again after all this time. Years ago, when I'd finally returned to my apartment to find her gone, I'd made an attempt to find her. Starting at the bus station had been a good call, but there hadn't been much after that. After a while, life got in the fucking way.
I'd moved on.
That didn't mean that I hadn't looked for her when I was on the road, that I hadn’t asked around about her, even if I'd given up on ever seeing her again. I'd never stopped thinking about her, maybe because she'd been such an innocent, maybe because I'd been the one to take her cherry. Hell, I didn’t know why or what made her different, but something about her had gotten into my blood.
Not my heart.
Because I knew better.
I wasn't the settling down type, I wasn't looking for that special someone to get serious with and have a family. None of that shit was in my future, yet I couldn't fucking leave her alone. She'd said that she hated me, but I knew that she was scared over what I had made her feel. Fuck, she should be afraid of what she made me feel. If she knew, she would have fucking run. Women were a means of stress relief for me, and nothing else. No strings attached, no emotions, no repeats, unless they were club whores. The kind of women I liked used me as much as I used them.
They weren't the forever-after-kind.
They didn't expect anything in return.
We both got off, and didn't look back.
"Should we have some pizza?" Della was the one who asked, and she was already making her way toward the boxes that I'd placed on the counter.
Before I could answer my phone buzzed. I dug it out of my back pocket and glanced down, seeing Jace's name. Fuck. He wouldn't be calling me unless he had news. I watched as Della opened the first box, eagerly reaching for a slice. My gaze swung to Ginger. "Go ahead, I have to take this call."
I stepped outside the apartment, closing the door behind me.
"Yeah?" I ran my hand through my hair.
"We have to make plans, brother. I just got wind that Marcus Duponte rented an estate on A1A. He's planning an auction tomorrow night."
Fuck. I'd heard about Duponte. He operated under the cloak of philanthropy, jet setting around the world and holding elaborate parties under the guise of garnering donations for various charitable organizations. He incorporated human auctions while he moved around, but the locations and times were kept closely guarded. The guests on the invitation list were filthy rich and exclusive. Of course, they were pillars of society, but no one knew who they were. He must have pissed someone off for one of them to have betrayed him.
"Fuck." That didn't leave us much time to plan shit. "The girl will be there?"
"My contact couldn't confirm that, but it's highly likely. I've been in touch with Moody. Froggy's is still open another hour, I need you two down there five minutes ago."
I released a heavy sigh. "On my way."
The fact that Duponte had rented an estate told me that he must have been planning this for a while now, and he must have rented the place under an alias. Usually his auctions were held in abandoned warehouses or underground. Once in a while he went all out and held the auctions in a much more extravagant location, which he only did when he had a larger inventory of girls, the kind who brought in the big bucks. Most of his clientele wanted them young and beautiful, but his specialty auctions focused on virgins. They brought in big money, and he was obviously counting on a huge payout this time if he was renting an expensive property to house the girls and prepare them for sale.
I hoped that the Politician had given Jace enough money to play with, because something told me that getting his daughter back was going to be expensive. Unless Jace didn't plan to buy her back.
I would learn soon enough what his plans were.