Jenna
It’s been like talking to a ghost for hours now. The giant rock of a man has become, well, a literal rock. I don’t think he’s uttered more than a couple of words since we walked back to the hotel room with Vic’s body men providing the escort.
I waited until the men were out of earshot before trying to hear his side, but Rev refused to talk to me or even acknowledge my existence. He just cursed at me as he paced the hotel room until the imprint of his boots looked permanently etched into the carpet. So, all I could do, and am doing, is waiting—for him to say something or do anything. This, I suppose, is what happens when you’re taken hostage.
He surprises me when he finally clears his throat and turns his head towards me. “I’m going out,” he says. “I’ve gotta make a few calls.”
I brush my hands and push myself up off of the floor. I’ve been trying to nap on a pile of discarded sheets and mildew-stained pillows I’ve sort of fashioned into a bed, but it’s been useless while Rev’s been brooding over me.
I grab my bag as I ask, “Do you want me to co—”
“No,” he snaps. “It’s too fucking dangerous to take you along. You just sit your ass down and stay here. And for Christ’s sake, try not to make a goddamn fool out of yourself while Vic’s guys are here.”
“Rev,” I say, “hang on a second. What do I do if—I mean, what if something happens or something goes wrong? What should I—”
“Listen, goddammit,” Rev barks, cutting me off again, “I’m keeping you alive—at least for now. That’s all you need to know. If you don’t like that, I could arrange for it to be different. I mean, fuck, it would’ve been easier on all of us if I’d offed your ass hours ago. But, here we are.” He sighs heavily as he adds, “Now you need to listen to me and stay—fucking—put. Got it? It’s for your own good. Do you think you can be a good girl and do that?”
My heart aches staring at him. He’s been a monster to me—there’s no doubt about that, but I don’t want him to look at me like this. I don’t want him to see me as this helpless girl that needs to be kept in a tower for her own good. After seeing him out there with Vic’s guys, I want to be with him, but it’s killing me to tell him that.
He knows this too. It must be the expression on my face because everything suddenly changes. He stops panting and pacing. His own look softens with those dark eyes transforming. His thick eyebrows ease up along with the deep crease in his forehead, and he runs a hand through his hair to straighten it out. It’s like watching Superman change back to Clark Kent. He’s a completely different person when he actually looks at me.
“I’m sorry,” he says, the tension in his voice dying. “If you understood what was out there, you wouldn’t want to go with me. Fuck, you wouldn’t want to go anywhere with me.”
“How do you know that?” I ask, my tone on the edge of pleading.
“Because that’s how it goes with guys like me. I’m not the kind you want to keep around or show off to Mom and Dad.”
“I don’t have either. You were right earlier—my parents were junkies like my brother. Mom went to prison. Dad died pretty young. I know what it’s like to be in the darkness.” My heart feels like it’s about to burst. While I listen to people be confessional all day long, it’s different when I force myself to do it.
“I only said that shit because it’s what happened to me too.” He walks back over to the bed, his feet thudding with the impact. “I was where you were. My sister was into this shit—this new strand of coke. It didn’t kill her, but it came close. I told myself I’d never be a user like her.”
That shocks me. From my experience, the guys who worked with drugs were the guys who abused them the most. He was around them every single day in one way or another. To have that willpower to avoid the temptation is just incredible.
I take a seat next to him, my arm brushing up against his. There’s a spark again. It’s only a flash, a one second moment, but it’s a moment I know he feels too. He turns his face towards mine.
“I don’t want you to get hurt like her. That’s how I got roped into this life. When she ran away, I was in military school. My parents put me in there to keep me away from her and straighten me out. It didn’t really work, did it?” He laughs to himself, but there’s pain there. I can feel it.
“I didn’t have any options when I got out,” he adds. “A friend showed me how to ride a motorcycle, and then I stole it. I stole the fucking thing right from under him, and I never looked back that day. My half-dead sister, my parents, even my cousin who owns that bar... they’re just a part of who I was when I was able to care about someone other than myself.”
“Do you ever want to go back?”
“I can’t go back, Jenna. Not that I would want to even if I could. This is my damn life, and I love every minute of it.”
“Well, except for today,” I correct him.
“Yeah, but that’s part of the game. I’d hang myself with my own tie if you put me behind a desk and made me crunch numbers. Excitement is what you need.”
“I wish I had that,” I find myself saying to him, “My job is listening to other people’s problems and making sure my brother doesn’t end up dead. It’s not exactly a thrill.”
“You don’t want what I have, Jenna,” he murmurs, his voice now hauntingly distant. “I’m a wanted guy. And if you ride with me, you’re fair game to the guys out there—even if you’re part of the job.”
“I’d still ride with you.”
“And that’s why you can’t come with me.” He stands back up again, rocking the bed as he shifts his weight off.
I try to steady myself as I begin to protest again, but then his hands wrap around my shoulders before pulling me into his chest. The smell of him washes over me, drowning me in its manly, spicy haze. I barely make out his words as he speaks into my hair, “I need you to stay here. I need you to listen to me and not get yourself hurt.”
“Why?” I ask. “Why does it matter so much to you? I’m just part of the job, right?”
He doesn’t reply right away. That has to mean something, but I can’t understand it. Why would he keep me alive? Why would he be so insistent on me staying in this motel room while he ran off to do... God who knows what?
His hands find my cheeks, lifting them up to face him. His tan skin glows in the soft light of the room. My eyes dart back and forth over his, searching for the questions I can’t ask out loud. But he answers them anyway with a tender kiss. His parted lips meet mine, drinking me in for four or five delicious seconds. I try to hold on to him with my mouth. Each movement is begging him to stay with me—protect me. But just as fast as he’d initiated it, he breaks our contact and turns to head out the door.
I don’t have a chance to protest. He’s already outside before I can think of catching him. The automatic lock clicks like a jail cell door closing in on me. And just like that, I’m back to being alone for the first time since I walked into my brother’s apartment.
Oh God, fucking Mark. Even though this entire ordeal has been about him, I haven’t had a single moment to really think about how it’s all his fault I’m here. Now that I’ve got a second to clear my head, I realize this has probably been a long time coming. I mean, I’ve been avoiding his issues for years now—pushing them under the rug with the hopes that he would eventually come along and ask me for help. But the whole time, it’s been so much more worse than I ever could have imagined. How could he have gotten mixed up with guys like Rev, Vic, and that Enrique guy?
But the reality, I realize, is that this isn’t really his fault—it’s mine. It has to be. I’m responsible for him, just like I’ve always been, ever since our dad’s death. What do I tell my clients in therapy? “Taking responsibility for your actions and inactions is the only way you can find peace.” Though I’m doing that now, there are no solutions coming my way. I’m stuck in this hotel room with armed men outside, my captor’s threatening to kill me, and my brother’s missing in action.
Dammit. My head is pounding. I need to get out of here for a few minutes—get a breath of fresh air. This poorly wallpapered room is suffocating, and the sound of the men’s boots scraping on the patio outside the window has been grating on me for hours now. Of course, I’m not going to go far. I’m not going to tempt my shaky relations with Rev by disobeying his... direct order. I’m just going to slip out and back in before any of these assholes can realize I’m gone.
I begin my march toward the exit by waiting next to the window. The two men have to put their guard down long enough for me to slip out the door unheard. Based on my surveying the parking lot earlier, there’s a quick turn towards the pool area that I could easily get out of sight in seconds if I run lightly across the patio. All I need is a distraction.
As if by my own sheer will, a beautiful woman about six feet tall with breasts the size of extra-large watermelons and nonexistent hip bones checks in next door.
Vic’s men turn toward the big tits like moths to a lamp. I grab the handle of the door as quietly as I can and wait for the tiny click. Without a key of my own, I prop the door open with a few folded over pieces of paper from a complimentary hotel notepad. The door opens just enough for me to slide out and run as the men fawn over the woman, offering to take her bags into her room for her. She, of course, refuses.
My bare feet tiptoe on the cement towards the green-blue pool in the center of the other end of the hotel. Just as I expected, it’s completely empty. The faded pool chairs are propped up on one end, and out of view of the part of the hotel I walked from. I stride over, grateful to find a safe spot to be alone for a few moments.
I pull over a long, metal recliner and pop open the umbrella to the end of the pool so that I can sit on the ends and dip my toes into the murky water. The feeling of the cool water is invigorating—not unlike my last shower. And like that, I’m taken back to the moment when Rev stepped inside next to me, the water pouring down my back. He looked at me like I was something else—something he wanted. And I guess I’m afraid to admit how much I needed him too.
Now that I have a moment to reflect on it all, I have to admit that something is different. Changed. At least, it has on my end. Before we slept together, it was about me getting out of this situation alive—even as hopeless as that seemed. But I can’t deny that when Rev shook Vic’s hand, my stomach ached for him. I wanted to scream, “No! No! No!” at him. But he did it. He made that man a deal partially for me. Had something changed for him as well? My instincts tells me yes based on that panty-melting kiss he just gave me before he’d walked away again...
I don’t get a flat second more to think about it before I see a shadow standing just to the side of the umbrella. I look over my shoulder at a man I don’t recognize. He’s dressed in normal street clothes—nothing like Rev and the guys Vic left behind and their ridiculous leather jackets and combat boots. I drop my guard almost instantly. I’ve had enough of seeing motorcycle riding, street talking guys for a lifetime. This guy looks like he got off a tropical cruise an hour ago.
Still, moments later, and he’s managed to scoot himself closer, taking a seat just a few feet from me. Out of the corner of my eye, I watch him take out a newspaper and remove his sunglasses. Nothing irregular about that. My nerves must be totally fried after everything that’s happened to me. I take a deep breath and close my eyes as I lean the chair back even further.
“You Jenna?” I haven’t even begun to relax when I hear the man speak. “Hey... you.”
I don’t answer him. I do the most sensible thing I can do by heading back towards my hotel room. The man follows my lead. He repeats his question, “Are you Jenna?”
Fuck. I should have listened to Rev. I knew it. I fucking knew it. Fuck!
I take off towards my building. My bare feet feel as if they don’t even touch the ground until I round the corner. Stopping right where I am, I hit the roadblock I totally forgot would be there—Vic’s guards. With the girl safely in her own hotel room, they have gone back to sulking outside my door while smoking their thin, brown cigarettes. Damnit.
The man behind me must sense that I’m stuck, because he hovers off to the side of me, just inside my peripheral vision, forcing me to acknowledge him. With a sparkle in his eye, he repeats just loud enough for Vic’s men to overhear him, “Are you—”
Without even thinking, I place my shaking hand over his mouth and push back so that he walks on his heels out toward the pool area again. When I’m finally far enough away from Vic’s guys to feel a smidgen more comfortable, I hesitantly reply, “Yes. I’m Jenna. Who the hell are you?”
The man massages his lips. I haven’t realized how hard I’ve pressed down on his mouth, but there’s a red mark where my nails dug into his cheek. Not that I care if I hurt him. If Enrique sent him, like the other two, I should and could have done much worse to him.
“I’m here about your brother,” he finally says.
I feel my stomach drop, and my heart follows suit. In fact, my entire body goes dead—my feet feel like lead, while my head feels faint.
Trembling, I try to compose myself as I reply, “L—look, I’ve already told Rev that I don’t have any fucking idea where he is. I—I was just house-sitting for him—waiting until he got back from wherever he disappeared to.” I clear my throat and try to stiffen what feels like a nonexistent backbone as I add, “If you think that I’m some bait to get him back, you’re dead wrong.”
The man looks at me, blinking quickly. “Huh?” he asks, confusion on his face. “The fuck you talkin’ about? What boss?”
Suspicious, I peer at him with partially closed eyes as if I can read his intentions better this way. Would one of the Red Dukes actually try to pretend they were unaffiliated? I doubt it. They all seem too proud of their club to go a moment without showing off or claiming loyalty. Rev was the only guy I’ve met that didn’t look as if they kissed the rings of their higher ups. I’m starting to love him for that.
I try to flip the subject, going back to his main point, “What about my brother? What’s wrong?” The big sister in me is back, wondering if this man is here to give me the news I’ve been waiting for in my nightmares. It wouldn’t surprise me if Mark did end up dead at this point—whether by his own hand or others around him.
“I have a message from him,” the man grunts. He takes out a white napkin with some words scribbled in black marker and places it in my hand. I struggle to read through the blackish blue stains and the marks where the person pressed so hard into the napkin that it tore.
“Look, I’m sorry. He said he didn’t have anything else to write on besides that,” he explains. He takes it back from me and places it in his pocket. “I ran into Mark at one of the holding places Enrique brings the guys they need to punish. I was in it for ... well, I really don’t want to talk about what they did to me.” The man holds up his hand. Unmissable is the blank space where his pointer finger should be. A bruised nub sits in its place. The man looks down as if he’s ashamed of it.
“I’m so sorry,” I find myself saying, still not sure how to read this person. Just like how he didn’t look like a member of a motorcycle club, he looks too straight edge to be held up in some torture dungeon holding cell with my druggie brother.
“It’s fine,” he says, “but I made a promise to your brother that I’d find you and get you that note. It says that he’s sorry for everything he’s put you through. His time is running up, so I think he just wanted to let you know that he loves you.”
“He loves me?” I repeat back. He’s not said that to me since we were kids. I recall the time he took a beating a little too hard from my father. Half deaf from the ringing in his ear, he laid on my bed, sobbing into my lap without any shame or fear. When it was over, when my dad stopped stalking outside the bedroom door, Mark told me that he loved me. It was rare to hear it again now.
I swallow hard. “Where is he being held?”
The man stands a bit straighter, his eyes darting side to side as he answers, “They were keeping him at their main warehouse down on the north side. It’s in Edgewater.”
“Could you bring me there—to where Enrique is holding him?”
“What do you think you’re going to do if I take you there, Jenna?”
“I’m going to get him out of there.”
My throat goes dry and my head races. I remember what Rev said to me earlier about how I could pay my brother’s debt to Enrique by working directly for him. I knew that I wouldn’t be doing office work or providing professional counseling. What Enrique would enlist me to do would be much more than just washing dishes for a fair wage.
Still, as the man leads me towards his car and away from the hotel room where I last saw Rev, I try not to think of the danger of what I’m doing. In my head, I’m saving my brother from death. I’m giving him his life back by offering mine up.
It only takes us twenty minutes to get past the looming skyscrapers and the beachfront crowded with Chicago tourists and suburbanites. Neither of us says a word to the other, but the man driving begins to appear more anxious as we get closer to the exit on Lake Shore Drive. A small pool of sweat dots his temple while his nine fingers twist over and over against the sewn leather of the steering wheel.
As we pull into the lot for the warehouse, he clears his throat. “We’re here. I’ll walk you in.”
“Walk me in? Aren’t you afraid they’re going to... “ I look down to his hand, which he almost pulls away immediately.
“No. This is different.” He gets out of the car and walks several feet ahead of me. Within seconds of me fighting to keep up with him, we are flanked by two large men wearing jackets similar to the men who assaulted me in the bar. A shiver travels up my spine, and I breathe in deeply to keep myself steady.
The two follow us in a back door and through a long, narrow hallway where an industrial light flickers and buzzes overhead. It leads to a wide-open space where remains of old machines, now completely dissected for parts, lay to the side. More men mingle around, watching us from a distance without much attention. They lean against boxes, check notes off on their clipboards, or sip on beer bottles.
“Well, well, well... I’ve been waiting for you.” I spin towards a large metal fire escape behind me. On the second floor, a man stands on the clearing of a rusted staircase. By the way everyone’s eyes turn towards him, I can only assume this has to be Enrique. But he looks much younger than I imagined. While he’s almost completely bald, as he comes closer, I can see that his face is nearly untouched. His pale blue eyes practically glow with sadistic excitement.
“Good job, Hermes.” Enrique clicks his fingers and one of the men who escorted us in from the parking lot hands the man who drove me here a wad of cash. “I didn’t think you could do it, but... here we are.”
My face turns beet red, smoking under the surface, as I turn to him. I should’ve known better than to trust anyone who says they’re associated with Enrique. I let myself believe him for a millisecond, and I end up here—in the hands of my enemy. The man gets to walk away, having turned me in for the ransom, while I face a future completely unknown.
What a fool I am! I deserve to be here. I force back the lump in my throat and the tears welling in the corners of my eyes as I face Enrique, examining me from head to toe. Slithering like a snake towards me, he whispers into my ear, “I should’ve known that if Rev were keeping you alive, you’d be a fine piece of ass.”
“Where’s my brother?” I ask through gritted teeth, still holding out hope that maybe, just maybe, this wasn’t all a lie.
“Your brother?” He laughs, looking at the rest of the group. “She actually believed Hermes! You really think I have him here? Shit no! But it looks like I’ve got something better—a money maker. You know, I like to employ guys like your brother—guys who know the territory and have connections they can sell to. But there’s nothing like a lady to bring in the big cash. I’ve got no doubt you’re going to earn your keep and your brothers.”
“My keep?” I whisper. “Can’t we negotiate or something?” Who the hell am I kidding? I know the answer before he can open those peachy fat lips of his to cackle at my innocence.
“Who the fuck do you think you’re dealing with, princess? You do what I tell you, and I let you live. You do your work right and make it worth the time for my clients, and I’ll make sure you eat.”
“And what about my brother’s debt? Can I go when I pay it off?”
“If you made Rev break off his contract with me, I know you’re worth way more than what your brother owes me...” He licks his lips as he places a hand around the curve of my butt. My spine stiffens as I force myself to look up into his eyes. “Oh Jenna, I think you’re going to be staying here for as long I want. Welcome to the Red Dukes.”