CHAPTER THREE
MAX
Out here in the open, she’s striking. That glossy photo showed nothing of the depth of her eyes, or her delicate skin. She’s beautiful, no doubt, but I’m not here to judge America’s Next Top Model.
I toss the pepper spray down the alley.
“I’ll scream,” says her friend, the one I mistook for her.
“Go for it,” I suggest. “I don’t see anyone around.”
The friend looks down the street, nervous, eyes wide as she turns back towards me.
‘Dawn’ has her hands out in front of her, ready to pounce. She can try. I kind of hope she does. I’d love nothing more than to touch her, see if her skin is as soft as it looks, but no, not like this.
“What do you want?” she says, a definite quiver in her voice.
“Let’s keep it simple,” I start. “Your boyfriend owes my employer a considerable amount of money, a debt that has now, unfortunately, fallen upon your shoulders. I’m here to collect.”
“Ex-boyfriend,” she corrects. “And do I look like I have money?”
The dress she’s wearing could fetch a couple of hundred at least. “Yeah, it kind of does.”
“Hey!”
I spin around to the friend. She’s got her cell raised to her ear.
“I’m calling the cops,” she says.
I go to snatch her phone, but she pulls back. “Yes, nine-one-one?”
Her eyes flick past me.
I hear footsteps.
Fuck.
Dawn’s halfway down the street thanks to the distraction, but I’m not about to let a mark get away. I never do.
I forget the friend and take off after Dawn, my heavy boots pounding against the pavement, my heart beating hard from the chase. It’s only in moments like these where I know I’m alive, not simply existing.
She rounds the corner, but she’s wearing heels. She may as well be wearing a bell around her neck.
“Help!” she calls, but there’s no residential zoning nearby. We’re alone.
When I make the corner, she’s gone, but I can hear her, the steady clop, clop of her progress.
My head tracks left to another alley. Worst. Idea. Ever.
I move slowly now, checking for company, but the streets are still empty.
I enter the alleyway, my eyes sweeping left and right. It’s a dead end. She’s waiting there, hands slapping uselessly against the wall.
She turns around, fingers pressing back against the brick. I get a flashback to my last job—Mr. Garcia and his missing teeth. It could be the title of a kids’ book. I don’t want this to go down the same way.
I stop a good six feet away from her, allow her no room to get past me.
She reaches into her handbag.
“Don’t,” I warn.
“I can’t help you,” she says, the fear ripe in her voice.
I know the procedure here. I’m supposed to rough her up. It’s amazing how much violence shakes information out of people—men, at least. Some take more persuasion than others. The last thing I want to do is head down that road here, damage something so beautiful, so innocent. That’s not who I am. That’s not what I stand for.
Used to, adds my head. You’re halfway to hell already. Why stop now?
“I don’t want to hurt you, Dawn,” I continue, using her name.
“So don’t,” she pleads. “Let me go and we can pretend this never happened. I won’t say anything.”
I expected her to be bawling, but she’s holding it together. Good girl.
I hear sirens in the distance.
“The police are coming,” she says.
I exhale, bringing my hands together. “Look, this is business, pure and simple. I can shut you up, knock you out so we can talk somewhere else, but that’s going to hurt.”
I start to approach her, trying to talk myself into this.
She starts to beg. “Please.”
I can’t stand the fucking begging.
I close my right hand into a fist. Some of the others prefer to use the butt of a gun, a bat, keep their hands clean, but I like the pain. It stops me going too far.
One punch, I tell myself. A quick jab and she’ll be in dreamland. She’ll wake up with a headache, a broken cheekbone, sure, but at least she’ll be alive. Maybe that’s enough to satisfy Saul—a warning. But I know that’s not going to be enough. One way or another, he’ll want his money.
She brings her hands up, shielding herself, panting, “Please, please,” over and over, sobbing now she knows there’s no escape.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her, closing the distance and falling into my boxing stance, tightening for the blow.
Do it. Just fucking do it.
But I can’t. My fist stays back, hanging there. I can’t fucking move it.
I go loose and breathe out, run my hands through my hair. “Saul’s not going to like this.”
Dawn watches me through gated fingers.
I take out my cell and hit speed-dial. “I need him.”
Saul answers five seconds later.
“I’ve got her,” I tell him. “But I can’t fuck her up. I won’t.”
I expect a tirade, but the silence that follows is even more unsettling. “Bring her to me,” he says, calm as a summer sea.
It’s not perfect, but it’s a start. “Okay.”
The line goes dead. I stare at the screen.
“Was that your boss?” she asks, hands by her side again.
I nod. “He wants to talk. That’s all.”
This seems to placate her.
The sirens grow louder.
I take her by the arm gently. She flinches when I do, but she doesn’t fight. I catch her fragrance—fruity and floral, mixed with her natural perspiration. My cock grows hard again. “Come on. Let’s go. I’m not going to hurt you.”
We start to walk.
“What’s he going to do to me,” she says. “Your boss?”
“I don’t know,” I tell her, and that’s the scariest part of all.
*
The friend is nowhere to be seen when we arrive back at the car, which is just as well. I don’t like to drag others into this. She might have taken down my plates, but it doesn’t matter. I’ve got a pile of new ones sitting in the garage thanks to Saul’s boy at the DMV.
I open the door and help Dawn inside, her fragrance turning my cock to concrete. She looks forlornly at the shop front, hoping there may still be some way out of this, but when we take off, the cops passing us on the way in, I see that hope fade, her body sinking into the seat.
I lock the doors, keep my ears and eyes open. I’ve been given the slip before, not that they make it far. It’s hard to run with broken legs.
As expected, she tries to start a conversation, humanize herself to me. “What’s your name?”
I look across to her. It doesn’t matter one way or another. “Max.”
“Have you been doing this long, Max?” She wipes her eyes as she says it, pulling her composure back.
I can’t lift my own from the hint of cleavage her dress shows off, two supple mounds begging to be taken in hand. “Too long,” I reply.
“Don’t you get sick of it? You know, having to…” she drifts off. It’s better like this, better to let her think I’m the boogeyman.
“Most deserve what they get. It’s no great loss.”
“And me? Do you think I deserve this?”
I shrug. “It’s not my problem.”
“And it’s not my fault I dated a jackass. I didn’t even know he was playing poker until a few months ago.”
I think back to Pops. “They hide it well.”
She looks out the window, the fire that had threatened to blaze subsiding. “You can say that again.” Neon signs out my window turn her eyes abstract. “Is he going to kill me?” she says.
I laugh. “Kill you? This isn’t The Godfather. Saul’s a reasonable man. He’ll hear you out.”
“Are you sure?”
No. I’m definitely not fucking sure of that, but whatever it is Saul has planned to lure her ex back, I don’t want any part of it. “I am,” I lie.
My hand rolls on the steering wheel, my knuckles healing from the last job, the skin tight. “You like working at the dress shop?”
She nods. “I want to have my own one day.”
“A dress store?”
“A label, yes.”
“You’re a designer or something?”
“Something like that.”
I hate this kind of forced fucking conversation. I look down. “Did you make that dress?”
She runs the fabric at the hem through her fingers. It’s got daffodils printed all over it. “I did.”
“You like daffodils?”
“They’re my favorite. Silly, I know.”
So she’s got a thing for yellow.
“It’s beautiful—the dress, that is,” I say. You’re beautiful, I want to add.
She keeps her eyes ahead. “Thank you.”
We drive in silence, consumed in our own thoughts, until she asks, “What were you doing, before this?”
My hand tightens on the wheel again. What’s the harm? “I was a boxer.”
“I’ve never met a boxer before.”
I look over at her dress again, her heels. “No, I don’t suppose you have. Probably for the best.”
“Were you good?”
I was. They called me the next Sullivan, a future World Heavyweight Champion, but I took it too far. I pissed off the wrong people and paid the price. “I could hold my own.”
“Did you ever knock anyone out?”
“Twenty KOs in my first year.”
“That’s good?”
“It’s fucking exceptional, but it doesn’t mean shit now. Nothing does.”
She’s put off by my demeanor, my words, her eyes repeatedly drifting to my tats, but that’s okay. She should be scared of me.
I motion to the yellow rubber wristband at odds with her dress. “What’s with that?”
She looks down, holding up her wrist for inspection. “Oh, it’s one of those negative ion wristband thingys.”
“You know those things don’t work, right?”
“I do, but Mom gave it to me. We don’t see a lot of each other, so I like to wear it. It reminds me of her. Besides, it’s my favorite color.”
I make a mental note of that. “Your Mom’s back in Kansas?”
“How did you…?” she trails off.
“The boss called you ‘Dorothy,’ you know, but I guess you get that a lot, huh?”
She smiles. God, it’s fucking beautiful the way the corners of her mouth pull, her lips so delicate, so pink. I’m already picturing them around my cock.
“First time, actually, but it’s fitting.”
“Why’s that?”
The smile is gone, just like that. “Because if I could click my heels together three times and disappear, I would.”
Good work, asshole, I scold myself.
I pull up to the front of the Red Velvet nightclub, Saul’s nighttime haunt. I’ve always thought it was kind of funny that given the name the place is decked in blue inside and out. “We’re here.”
Thanks to that dress, Dawn slips right on in. Even Bobby on the door gives her a once-over as we pass by. He winks at me. “Go get her, tiger.”
I ignore him and walk through, the beating music giving me an instant fucking headache.
Hand at her back, I guide Dawn upstairs to Saul’s office. A goon I don’t recognize stops us before the door. I’m in the process of telling him who I am when his earpiece starts to jabber. He steps aside.
Saul’s pacing when we enter ‘the box,’ so called because of the one-way glass on every side that looks down into the club. The door closes and the music is snipped away with it.
Saul used to be military, black ops—the hard-ass the government would send into third-world shitholes to plug up drug supply, but he was cut off, left for dead. He’s been on a one-man mission to fuck them over since. I guess he saw the grass was indeed greener on the other side. He’s been the city’s numero uno mafia boss since. Even the cops are in his pocket.
He motions to the two seats at front of his desk, this one the fuselage from a B-25 bomber. He’s wearing the same shit suit, the same shit grin. “Please.”
I take a deep breath. Here we fucking go.