Chapter Four
Fanny
“I’m better.” Eyes nearly the same pewter shade as my own were no longer glazed with fever, and her pretty features firmly reflected her resolve. “You don’t need to go back out at night.”
“It’s dusk not night, Hollie.”
She raised one strawberry blond brow.
“Ok. It’ll be night by the time I get all the way there.” And later, dangerously later, for me all alone on the way back. “But don’t try your signature eyebrow thingy on me. It doesn’t turn my brain to mush like it does all those hormonal teenage boys who stalk you on social media. And anyway, my mind’s made up. We need the money, Hols or we’re never going to get out of here.”
“We’ll find another way.”
“There is no other way. I earned enough cash the first time to pay for another set of clothes for each of us.”
“Yeah, I know, but you’ve also had those gang bangers tailing you ever since looking for their cut.”
“It’s a risk.” I nodded, conceding her point.
“A big one, Fanny.”
“But worth it.” If I did it a couple of times and made as much as before, we could get new fake passports. We could get across the border. Money would stretch further in Mexico. He’d have a harder time finding us there. We could lay low until Hollie’s eighteenth birthday, then tap into her sizeable accounts. Get a high-powered lawyer willing to take on our stepfather. Turn the tables on Samuel Lesowski once and for all.
Hopefully.
Leaving Hollie behind, I hurried through the parking lot but then froze beneath the shadows of the cliffs when I heard his deep booming voice and Simone’s laughter. The cute fluffy white and black dog I’d seen around the surf shop was bounding around her ankles on the sand. Ashland was standing across from her. They were both wearing wetsuits. The way his fit him left little to the imagination. Wide shoulders, strong arms, powerful legs, tight ass. When I brought my gaze back up to a safer zone, I realized Linc had joined them, his darker blond hair dripping wet and slicked back like Ash’s. He draped his arms around Simone, pulling her into himself and looking like a man who had everything he most needed in the world. Ashland, well. He looked the opposite. Alone. Isolated. A one-man island though he was standing on the shore among his friends.
I shouldn’t have been lurking in the shadows staring at them—him—like a stalker. I needed to get moving, retrieve my guitar and earn some cash. But yet here I lingered, watching and wondering about Ashland Keys as I had done far too many times in the past and way too often lately.
Who is Renee? I wondered. The woman Linc mentioned Ashland had an arrangement with. What kind of arrangement did they have? Whatever it was it sounded like it had been going on for a while. Why didn’t he want anything more with her? Was it the same reason he had never shown up to meet me?
Her.
Simone Bianchi.
The woman he was staring at so intently, so longingly.
The beautiful brunette with the golden eyes who belonged to his cousin.
My heart belongs to you and Simone, Ashland had told Linc while I had been listening.
She was the one. The one he could never have. The one who apparently ruined everything for the rest of us. The reason no other could ever measure up.
He had come to terms with it. I could see it in his eyes. He would never cross the line and betray his cousin’s trust. But he watched her the way I watched him, even now unable to look away from the truth though the sharp pain of finally knowing it gripped my heart.
"There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries".
Shakespeare had it right. I needed to get on with my voyage, on with my life. I had more important pressing issues to deal with than wallowing in my misery. I had my stepfather to worry about and gang members on the lookout for me. I didn’t have the luxury of wasting any more time on Ashland Keys.
Slipping back into the shadows, I skimmed the cliff walls along the water until I reached the concrete stairs at Narragansett. I took them two at a time, a steep ascent. I was huffing when I reached the street level several stories above the sea. Sprinting past the green roofed rental cottages, I hooked a sharp left at the alley that backed the downtown shops. I stopped when I reached Bacon Street and looked both ways before crossing.
As the alley narrowed, I slowed my steps and started scanning more cautiously. I’d almost gotten caught by thugs from the street gang once while running away from Ramon back on this side of town.
Tonight, there was no one here, nothing but the dumpsters and walls of colorful graffiti for company.
I quickly ducked under the carport behind the gym, opened the back door, checked to make sure the storage room was empty and then marched straight to the oversized locker where I stored my guitar.
“Hey, what are you doing in here?” a grumbly voice barked.
“Nothing,” I replied automatically, swallowing hard and turning to more fully face the man who had grabbed my arm. “I just need to get into my locker.”
“Who gave you permission to be in here?” Bald, tall and imposingly built, I recognized him as the owner of the gym.
“Your wife.” My hands shook as I held up my key. His eyes narrowed. “She…” I swallowed again. “She said it would be ok for me to keep my guitar here. I…I don’t have any place else safe to store it. I’m sorry.”
His expression remaining hard, he studied me for a long uncomfortable beat. My eyes wide I didn’t drop my gaze though my heart beat rapidly.
“I saw you earlier. At the Deck Bar putting the trash back inside the can after you took all recyclables out. Took you a good long while.”
I nodded once in acknowledgement.
“Hardworking, conscious kid.”
A compliment. Not a reprimand. I let out the breath I had been holding in.
“I could use some help keeping the back room swept and clean. You think you might be able to do that for me?”
I nodded vigorously.
“Alright then. Tuesdays and Thursdays. I’ll need you to be here early before we open. I’ll pay you ten bucks. It’s not much but if you show up on time and do a good job I’ll let you come in and wipe all the equipment down in the evenings, too, after we close. Sound good?”
“It sounds great.” Tears pricked my eyes. It was perfect. Before everyone got here and after everyone was already gone meant no one would be there to potentially recognize me.
“Ok.” He gave me a nod, turned away and used his key card to enter the main part of the building Stunned by the unexpected kindness, I lost a few moments staring at the spot he had just vacated.
Ten dollars would help a lot, but it wouldn’t get Hollie and I where we needed to go by itself. Out of OB. Across the border. Beyond our stepfather’s reach.
I got my feet moving, inserted my key, took out my guitar and returned to the alley. Long sinister shadows had crept in beneath the street lamps. There wasn’t much performing time left. There was only the one place with enough traffic at this time of the night that would be worth my while. Stump’s Family Marketplace on Voltaire. But it was on the outer edge of the street gang’s territory. Dangerous, sure. Hollie had gotten that right. But I had no choice. It was a risk, but one I had to take.
~ ~ ~
“Hola, Lakers Girl.”
I froze. The crowd had dispersed. I had been just about to close up my guitar case. On the sidewalk in front of me, it brimmed with cash. Cash it had taken me well into the night to earn. Cash Hollie and I desperately needed but that apparently the three Hispanic guys in grey and black gang colors thought they needed more. The confrontation I had been hoping to avoid. Times three. Their wallet chains jingled as they strut-glided straight toward me.
My heart rapped hard against my chest with each step that brought them closer. The one I knew only as El Jefe led the way. He wore a rolled black bandana to hold back his long black hair. He wasn’t tall, but he had a sturdy frame that was packed with ropy muscle. He lifted a finger in some kind of silent command and the two guys flanking him separated. The taller leaner one moved to my right, the heavier one with the tear tattoos on his cheeks moving to my left. El Jefe stopped directly in front of me, his dark brown gaze slowly slithering over my form. The tips of his black shoes nearly touched my purple high-tops. I wanted to retreat, but there was a chain link fence directly behind me. I was hemmed in. Trapped.
“Hey.” I gulped. “Qué onda?” What’s up? I had lived in LA long enough to know basic rudimentary Spanish. And though I might not know a lot about bullies, I had grown up with my stepfather. So I had learned an important lesson. Never let someone stronger than you know that you’re afraid.
“Looks like you had another good day in my territory, güera.” El Jefe’s menacing gaze dipped to my guitar case full of money then rose, his expression even angrier than it had been a moment before. He and I had been playing cat and mouse like Ashland and I had been. Only with the gang banger it was no trip down memory lane, and it wasn’t a game. He was deadly serious.
“Grab her, Nieto,” El Jefe commanded lifting his chin. He grinned slowly. “It’s time for her to pay.”
“Claro.” Rough fingers immediately latched around my upper arm. Nieto squeezed, and I hissed. Even with my hoodie providing a layer of protection his grip was tight enough to sting.
“You need to learn a lesson about working my corner without asking for my permission and paying me my fifty percent.” The El Jefe’s harsh features sharpened and his dark brown eyes practically glowed with steely anticipation. He enjoyed hurting people. I had seen that same type of creepy fascination in my stepfather’s eyes when he had threatened me.
“I’m sorry.” I licked my dry lips “Take what I earned tonight. You can have all of it.”
“I will have all of it. And you need to understand. It’s not what you earned. It’s what we earned. You sit on my corner. You play your guitar and sing your sad white girl songs in my hood. You pay.” He even sounded like my stepfather. “You disrespected me, güera. And this isn’t your first offense. You getting me?”
“I’m sorry.” I nodded. “Truly sorry.”
“Oh you will be.” He leaned close. I smelled alcohol on his breath and the pungent stench of cheap marijuana on his clothes.
“What’s underneath this thing? I wonder.” He reached out without warning and ripped off my Lakers cap. Spirally curls tumbled free to my shoulders.
“Roja.” Both his enforcers took a step back, making the signs of the cross on their chests.
“Madre de Dios!” Nieto exclaimed. Remember the fortune teller. She said…”
“Callete Mex,” El Jefe snapped, but his thick lips were pinched flat now, and his bronze skin had turned ashen.
“Maybe we should let Carlos handle her alone,” Nieto hooked his thumb sideways.
“Sí.” Carlos grinned darkly and the tatted tears beneath his eyes glistened in the street lamp lights as if they were real ones.
“No,” El Jefe decided after studying me a long moment. “Carlos doesn’t know when to stop. He just wants to earn more tears. But I don’t want to kill her. I just want to hurt her. Rough her up muy malo, but not so bad she can’t walk. That way she can still make me mucho dinero, comprende?” Fear trickled down my spine as he circled a finger and Carlos and Nieto came closer.
“Pobrecita. Poor baby. All alone sleeping on the street digging through the trash like a dog for her food.” He dropped my cap on the ground and stomped on it. “Shame.” His gaze lifted. “Such a shame. All that pretty flame. Sad that it has to die.” His arm flashed out again. This time a switchblade appeared in his grip. The metal caught the light, the brightness piercing my eyes. “Hold her still, mis hermanos.” She’s not going to like what I do.” Rough hands curled around both my arms. “But when I’m done, you two can have your fun.” He grabbed a fistful of my hair, yanked it and sawed it off slicing the top of my ear in the process. My stomach clenched. I couldn’t see how deep the cut was. It felt like a wasp sting but then a significant amount of warmth trickled down the side of my neck. Stomach turning, I leaned forward, grabbing the only thing I could, El Jefe. I retched, heave after dry heave my fingers curling around his forearms and my eyes bulging out from the force of it. If there had been anything inside of me it would have come up.
“Oh, she likes me, Nieto.” He put his hand on the center of my chest and shoved me backward. I swayed, but remained in place, since I was strung up tight, my arms outstretched as far wide as they would go between Carlos and Nieto. “Stand up straight,” he barked. “I don’t like little white girls.” He grabbed another lock of my hair, sliced it off and grinned. “But you’re in luck, ‘cause Carlos does.”