Sadie
The whole drive back to my apartment, I was shaking in the car. It wasn’t even really cold out, but I shivered every few minutes, thinking about what had happened; about Micah fucking me so forcefully, about Chris’ troubles, about the deal I’d struck with the big, bad mafia boss.
“I’m losing my mind,” I said, thinking about the whole crazy thing. I hadn’t even really had any idea of what I was going to do when I’d left the apartment, other than pleading my brother’s case. The idea had just popped into my head when it became clear that Micah wasn’t just going to forgive Chris—something I’d more or less guessed, but hadn’t really planned for the right way.
By the time I got back to my building, I had more or less gotten myself under control; I knew I wasn’t about to tell Chris the full details, but he deserved to know what was going on—he deserved to know how I was going to bail him out.
I took a deep breath and turned off the engine. I was sore, deep down between my hips and along my inner labia, from Micah’s cock. He had to be eight inches, easy, I thought with a shudder, in a mixture of revulsion and delight. It had been months since I’d been with anyone at all; and the last guy I’d been with wasn’t nearly as big as Micah. I cringed at the thought that Micah had finished inside of me. Shouldn’t I have at least asked him to put on a condom? I was going to get a shower as soon as I could, but first things first: I had to tell Chris what I’d done.
I unlocked the front door to my apartment and discovered that at least my brother had done what I’d told him; he wasn’t in the living room or the kitchen. “Chris? I’m back! And I’m all alone—you can come out of hiding.” I felt giddy, almost lightheaded. I reached into my purse and took out the folded-up sheet of paper that Micah had given me from his desk. I felt a brief moment of doubt; what if Micah had just given me any old piece of paper to get rid of me? What if he’d pranked me?
But when I looked down at it, unfolded on my kitchen table, I saw a list of names, last known addresses, hangouts, random notations I couldn’t decipher right away, and dollar amounts. Whether the debts were valid or real, at least it was a list. I sighed, relieved.
“Okay,” Chris said, coming into the kitchen. “Who are you and what have you done with my sister?” he shook his head in disbelief, looking me up and down. “Or—maybe you didn’t even get in to talk to Micah?”
I rolled my eyes. “I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t,” I told him. “I’d still be working on a way to get access to him.” I pointed to the seat across from me at the table. “I made a deal.”
“You?” Chris sat down heavily in the chair. “You made a deal with Micah?”
I shrugged. “He’s a businessman,” I said, more nonchalant than I felt. “I made him an offer—gave him a way to get the money back that you owe—and he accepted it.” I felt my cheeks warming up as I thought about the thousand that I’d knocked off by having sex with Micah. That was the last thing I was going to tell my brother about.
“What?” Chris stared at me with the same stunned look that Micah had when I’d proposed working off Chris’ debt. You’d think these guys have never met a business-minded woman before, I thought wryly.
“Micah has a bunch of guys who owe him money, one way or another,” I explained. “Like any business.” I shrugged. “I offered to help him recoup some of those bad debts, enough to add up to the five thousand you owe. Then he’ll consider it even.”
Chris shook his head slowly from side to side. “Micah Rintley agreed to this?” I nodded. “You’re sure it was him?”
“I am dead certain I made my deal with Micah,” I said. “I told him I’d have it done in a week—and it shouldn’t be too hard.”
Chris continued to stare at me. “It shouldn’t be too hard?” I grinned. “Do you know what kind of people owe Micah money?”
“Drug dealers, pimps, gamblers…” I shrugged. “It’s not that important who they are.”
“Sadie! These people—they’re trash,” Chris said.
“You owe Micah money. Are you trash?” Chris gave me a sheepish look. “I’m sure they’re not good Samaritans. I’m not counting on them even being decent human beings. We find them, we look them up, I confront them and get the money.” I looked over the list. There was easily twice what my brother owed in other debts listed.
“You confront them,” Chris said, making it not quite a question.
“Yep,” I confirmed.
“How? I mean—no offense, Say—but you’re not the kind of girl…”
“I’m the kind of girl who owns a gun and knows how to use it,” I told my brother blithely.
His eyes widened. “You own a gun?”
I had to admit I was actually kind of enjoying his shock. “Yeah,” I said. “I have—I think they call it a ‘baby Glock,’ a .26.”
“I never would have even guessed,” Chris told me, shaking his head again in disbelief. “And you can shoot it?”
I nodded. “I’m pretty damn accurate with it,” I said. Of course, I didn’t tell him that I’d only ever shot it at the range. At that, I’d only shot it maybe half a dozen times at most—shooting at standard targets, not even moving ones, and not that far away. But the .26 was meant for close-in shooting anyway, or at least that’s what the shop owner had told me. A perfect self-defense gun for women, he’d said.
“I’m learning all kinds of shit about my kid sister,” Chris said in wonder. He stared at me. “Why didn’t you mention it before now?”
I chuckled. “It wasn’t really a subject for conversation,” I pointed out. “I got it for self-defense because I felt safer with something I could use if someone broke in, and I learned how to use it properly.” I stood and went into my room. As I walked, I could still feel the lingering dampness in my panties, the tenderness between my hips and along my labia.
I kept the gun in a small, locked case—just a little bit bigger than the gun itself—in the drawer by my bed. I unlocked the case and brought it back with me into the kitchen.
The fact that I hadn’t even considered bringing the gun with me to meet with Micah in the first place made me cringe; but then, I thought, I had no way of knowing that the big, bad mob boss wouldn’t have had me checked for a gun. I chuckled to myself—anyone else, or at least any guy, going into see Micah probably would’ve been checked. The fact that I was a petite blonde dressed in business attire had been what got me in, what made them consider me no threat. That’s something to keep in mind, not just for the debt collecting...I can always think of that later.
But somehow I wasn’t convinced that Micah would let himself be fooled the same way again. He’d be on his guard around me in the future—at least a little bit. The thought of being patted down by the man himself, checked for weapons, flashed through my head and with it came a jolt of heat. Calm down, Sadie—you can’t have liked being violated by the guy that much.
I sat down and opened the case, showed Chris my gun. “You weren’t kidding,” Chris said, shaking his head as he watched me handle the beautiful, dangerous, black tool.
“I wasn’t,” I said. “And we’re starting tonight.”
“We are?” I shrugged in response to my brother’s question.
“We might as well,” I told him. “We need to get this done. The sooner I can start paying Micah back, the sooner we can get him off your back.” I paused and looked at the gun; there was something about the sight of it that made me feel more powerful, more confident. Careful, Sadie—that’s probably exactly what leads people astray in these situations. You don’t want to shoot anyone. “Besides, I only have a week to make the five thousand.” I looked at my brother and smiled slightly. “You’re driving.”
Chris turned pale.
# # #
Micah
I definitely had a bit of a spring in my step when I left the office after Bamber’s sister scurried off. If I’d actually thought I could get the money back—all of it—I never would have made the deal; but as far as I was concerned, I’d probably never see little Sadie again, and a thousand dollars I wasn’t going to see anyway was worth the shit-hot sex I’d gotten out of the deal.
Might have been worth it to see if she’d be willing to work all his debt off that way, I thought, heading out to the employee parking behind the club and walking toward my bike. I grinned a bit. If I’d had more time—even a few hours—it would have been tempting. I imagined keeping Bamber’s sister tied up in my bed, exactly the way she’d been sprawled on my desk: easy access, whenever I wanted it, for at least a day. God, that ass, though.
I shook my head and pulled my helmet on. I had to check on my girls.
I drove across town to one of the other bars I owned. There was an apartment building—old, just a few steps above being torn down for new condos—maybe half a block away, where the girls worked. The bar was where my guys—Manny and Rob—oversaw things.
I’d bought up Flat Tire after I’d gotten Vagabond doing what I wanted. One of my friends had put me on the right track to get started in the business, and he’d said that the last thing I should do was have the operation run out of my best, biggest, most successful club. Flat Tire had gone for a fucking song—less than half of what I’d paid to get Vagabond running—and I hadn’t invested much to improve it.
I pulled into the employee parking and came in through the back, listening to the noise inside. It reeked of cigarettes and decades of spilled booze; I kept my own bartenders to higher standards than the ones before had had, but some things just don’t clean out.
Since Flat Tire was mostly an after-hours place, it wasn’t too busy when I got to the front of the house. Claire was at the bar, along with Tony; there were a couple of girls scattered around, talking to potential Johns, but I saw that most of the girls were off on calls. Good.
I looked around the bar, trying to spot one of my two guys; they took turns checking on the girls in the rooms at the building, and hung out at the bar where the deals got made in between. Manny was a big guy—hard to miss, the center of the fucking party wherever he went but ruthless when it came to dealing with bullshit from clients. I’d seen him break a guy’s arm over a payment dispute. Rob, my other pimp, was skinny, looked like he belonged in one of the hipster dives that looks cruddier than it really is, with tattoos all over his arms and a goatee; and when he’d first come to work for me I’d thought he was out of his mind—what could he do in a business like mine? But he’d taken care of business for me just fine.
I saw Rob nursing a whiskey on the rocks, smoking one of his shitty 305s at the bar. Manny must have been doing the check-up. The girls, spotting me, turned to start working harder at hooking their targets, and I sat down next to their boss. I looked around at the general area, making mental notes. I wanted to move up my business—to get it a better reputation, make it more upscale—but I didn’t know how to begin, not really. The drug add-on was showing signs of working out the way I wanted it to, but that wasn’t going to be enough for the kind of moves I wanted to make.
The real goal I had in mind was to get access to the big-spending clientele. Most of the girls managed to pull in a few hundred a night. The better ones made me about a thousand. But I knew guys in other cities in the same line of business whose girls were making a few thousand a night; most of them went after the executives, did longer calls, worked the hotels and resorts. I didn’t even know where to begin with that, where I could get an in with the kinds of johns I wanted the girls to go for.
“How’s the night going?” Claire brought me a tumbler with some Hennessey in it and I sipped. I didn’t need it—I knew I didn’t—but it would help clear my head a bit after that chick in my office. I could still remember how tight and hot and wet she’d been, how good she’d felt. Should have told her you’d forgive Chris if she’d give you a month. A month of fucking whenever you want it, however you want it—the works. Heat pooled at my groin and I could feel my cock starting to harden again. I had to stop thinking about her.
“So far, so good,” Rob said, flicking ash into an empty tray. “Some of these are on their second or third of the night.”
“Who isn’t?” I looked around at the girls. There were maybe a dozen women in the club. Of those, only four were mine. If one of those four wasn’t pulling her weight, she’d have to be watched.
“Lisa,” Rob said with a shrug. “She usually pulls in big fish though so I’m not worried. Look at who she’s sizing.”
I glanced at the girl; the guy she was with looked out of place in the dive, but looking at him, he was probably some out-of-town business douche, looking to get spendy while he was away from his wife, find someone who would do all the things she wouldn’t.
“Keep an eye on her anyway,” I said. “I don’t need any fucking divas in this org.”
Rob snorted. “Then you should get rid of Manny,” Rob said, giving me a look.
“Oh?” That was news to me—normally my employees kept their disputes to themselves. But I had what those corporate jokers called an “open door” policy. If someone thought their fellow employees were really, truly trying to fuck something up, they could come to me and I’d handle it; but they also knew that if they ratted someone out and turned out to be wrong, they’d get handled, too.
“Manny’s up to something,” Rob said. I sipped the cognac and considered that. Rob had had a temper for as long as I’d known him; in fact, it was watching him go ape on a bunch of bikers at one of my bars before I’d even agreed to let him work for me that had convinced me to give him a shot. Manny was harder to piss off, joking around with the girls and even some of their johns, jolly and happy most of the time. I’d figured they weren’t a great match personality-wise, but I didn’t figure that it would come to sniping like this.
“You got any proof of that?”
Rob shook his head, stubbed out his cig, and then lit another one, blowing the smoke away from me. “Just a feeling I have,” Rob said. “He walks around like he owns this place, the slick bastard.”
I shrugged it off. “Get me proof of something and we’ll talk,” I said. One of the girls left the bar with a guy, headed for the street—a good sign. “Meanwhile, you’ll never guess who I met this evening.”
“Cher?” Rob smirked at me.
“Chris Bamber has a sister, apparently,” I told him.
“Bamber? I told you, boss—you never should have hired that little shit.”
“All I had to go on was his reputation,” I pointed out. “Anyway, his sister is apparently named Sadie. She came offering to pay off Chris’ debt.”
Rob knocked back the rest of his whiskey and gave me a skeptical look. “Pay it off how?” I saw Rob look out over the bar. “We’re full up on rooms as it is.”
“Nah, she’s not hooking—or even asking to hook,” I said, shaking my head. “She’s going to collect some of my old debts, apparently.”
Rob laughed hard enough to give himself a coughing fit. “No shit?”
I nodded. “Was spouting a bunch of shit about principal, interest, write-offs.” I shook my head and chuckled to myself. “Obviously she got all the brains from that gene pool.”
“Obviously,” Rob said, sounding bitchy again. “That Bamber kid—I told you he was going to screw up.”
“I gave her a list,” I told Rob with a shrug. I finished off my cognac and on cue, Claire appeared again, with a water for me and a beer for Rob. “If she doesn’t come up with the money by next Friday, you and Manny can find Chris and sort his shit out.”
Rob nodded. “I can’t believe you’re even letting her try,” Rob said.
“Whatever,” I countered. “If she gets some of my money back it’s a win. Bamber’s black list anyway, but hell—who am I to turn down money?” I smirked. “If she can’t, then Bamber gets to be an example.”
“You’re giving her just over a week to get six thou off of people who aren’t paying you?” Rob whistled lowly. “She’s never going to do it.”
“Of course not,” I said, shaking my head. “But she might get one, maybe two. And that’s one or two thou I’m missing right now.” I thought about the determination on the chick’s face, the way she’d kept herself under control right up until I’d offered to knock a thousand off her brother’s debt if she’d fuck for me. Even that—I had to respect a chick who’d go through with that much for her brother. But it wouldn’t change anything much for Chris once she wasn’t able to come up with the cash. Maybe Chris doesn’t have to die—just get jacked enough to make her want to come to a new agreement with you. I pushed the thought out of my head. She was a good lay—but I couldn’t go catching some kind of feelings for a chick who was supposed to be working for me, especially not when her brother was on my shit list.
Another one of the girls left with a john. “When she doesn’t get the money, you and Manny will visit her brother,” I told Rob. Rob nodded with satisfaction.
“Can’t let people think they can get away with shit like that, can we?” I shook my head. It was always good to have my employees on the same page as me.