Blood to Dust (5 page)

I always land on my feet.

I broke free from Camden, Godfrey and Sebastian. Getting rid of these two should be a walk in the park.

Beat’s fist slams against the door three times, then he unlocks the door from the outside.

“Yo, Silver Spoon. Your time’s up.”

“Just one second,” I call, turning off the faucet and stepping outside. I reach for one of the manly dark towels and cover myself up as I squat down to pick up my gray dress.

Hold on a minute.

Manly. . .Dark. . .Towels.

They might have a shaving razor. Holy hell, they might have a weapon in here.

I start flinging drawers open, still wrapped in a towel, desperately trying to find something to injure Beat with. I don’t even care if he hears. Give me a razor and I will dice this 6’5 Goliath to pieces the size of Barbacoa. Talent can be outworked and rage can outweigh size. That’s the motto I live by.

Beat bangs on the door again, and it wails on its hinges.

“Hey. . .you,” he grunts.
He doesn’t even know my name.
“If you make me open this door myself, you’ll be fucking sorry.”

I ignore him. He can’t rape or harm me. Godfrey made that clear. Honestly? I’m not even that scared of him. He’s been nothing but compassionate to me so far, in his own, angry, Stockton way. Damn it, though. They have absolutely nothing in these drawers. Empty, empty, empty. What’s wrong with these men? Do they not live here, or did they think about this scenario beforehand? Probably the latter. I’m just about to turn around and pick up my dress when the door swings open and Guy Fawkes’s face greets me again, bat-shit crazy galore. The drawers are all open. I threw most of their contents on the floor in my desperate search for a weapon.

This is not looking good for me.

I stumble back, but he shoots his arm out, yanking me by the towel flush against his body. I bump into his hard abs, my eyes zeroing in on the curves of his pecs.

Okay, I take it back. A little scared now.

“You wanna play like that?” he grits out, his voice hoarse. I gulp as I scan his eyes for the very first time. Honey brown, almost greenish. . .and
full
. So full. Full of things I shouldn’t see. Of soul. Of pain. Of a story behind a man I mustn’t personify.

Breaking eye contact, I pick up my dress from the floor. So what? Hot killer guy has a soul. Big fucking deal.

Big. Broken. Maybe even a little good, underneath all those calloused layers life wrapped him in. Indebted to Godfrey, and is filed under Must-Recruit-To-My-Side.
Likes
: Reading (he had a book in his back pocket), the color black and sarcasm.
Dislikes
: Ink, Godfrey, Seb. . .
not me.

To him, I’m still a clean slate. Although that’s starting to change.

I’m waiting for a slap or a punch to arrive, every muscle in my body tensing, but he just stares at me through his mask with those eyes.

“What’s your name?” he growls, not unlike a beast.

“Prescott.”

“Stupid name.”

“Allow me not to take offense, considering the fact that you call yourself Beat.”

I’m sure he smiles behind this mask, though there’s no way I could tell. His body relaxes, which prompts me to breathe normally again.

“You need some ground rules, Country Club, so let me lay them out for you, before you do anything stupid that’d land your ass in trouble. One—if I find you looking for a weapon again, you lose all privileges. No showers. No peeing. No getting out of the basement. For all I care, you will sit in your own shit and piss until the Archers come and pick you up. Two—you disobey, you’ll be punished. Food will be scarce and in-between. Three—” his eyes close, and when they open again, there’s a flicker of something devious in them, “I’m not like them. I have no interest in making this unnecessarily painful for you. But don’t try anything that’d make me turn on you. I easily flip, and once I do. . .”

My nipples brush against the rough towel at his threat.

“I need shampoo, soap and tampons.” I try my luck. “And a stress ball. If you’re going to keep me here. . .” I trail off, thinking about the outside world I just caught a glimpse of. Squinting my eyes, shaking my head, letting the soft, wet strands of gold frame my face. “Just. . .please. It’s worse than prison.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” he surprises me by saying. I nod curtly. The shampoo and tampons are luxuries I can live without. The stress ball, though. . .I’ve never gone out of the house without one. Not since a shrink I went to after the baby ordeal told me I should try and use one to release some of my anger. That’s what keeps me relatively sane. It’s what also keeps me a drug dealer, as opposed to a drug user.

“Thank you.”

He leads me back to my cellar, where he blindfolds me again. My hands are back to being tied. They want to keep me disorientated, and for a good reason. Godfrey told them I’m not who I appear to be. But whoever I am, I don’t want to be left with myself right now. With my thoughts, with my mind working overtime, trying to second-guess Camden and Godfrey’s next move.

“Please don’t leave.” I draw a sharp breath. As much as I hate to admit it, the anxiety in my tone is not only due to my plan to have him warm up to me in order to gain his trust, but also because I genuinely hate the idea of spending the next few hours alone.

He doesn’t respond, and I hear the door shutting and locking behind him.

I bang my head against the wall, letting the tears that’ve been threatening to escape loose. I’ve already been through so much, but I just have to pull through one more thing. I can take these guys down.

It’s only Stockton. I’m already so close to home.

Home
.

I don’t have one, but I do have a place I can call my own. It’s called revenge, and I will seek it, find it and soak in it.

“Oopsie. Someone forgot to wipe down the windows.”

I’m on my knees, mopping pristine hardwood tiles. Looking up to the woman who had spoken to me, I throw the wet cloth I’m holding near an exotic plant she once told me was imported from Singapore and push to my feet.

“Yes, ma’am.” My acceptance holds more authority than her command. She knows it. What’s more—she fucking loves it.

“Or. . .” Mrs. Hathaway presses her elbows on the grand piano in her living room, its keys still virginal, having never been touched. She angles forward, offering me a perfect view of her plastic tits as she lifts one foot in the air and twists from side-to-side in her white mini-dress.

All I can think about is that she’s leaving marks I’ll have to clean afterwards. “You can come upstairs and help me pack for Tahoe.”

Ignoring her suggestion, I brush past her heading toward the shed outside where she keeps my cleaning tools, the squeegee included. I can still see her face in my periphery. It’s painted with pricey makeup and displeasure—both unappealing to my taste—and by the time I get back to the foyer, Mrs. Hathaway’s already deep into her plan B. She’s sitting on her upholstered gray leather sofa in nothing but a tiny black bikini.

“Should I take this or the leopard one?” She waves the printed bikini that’s clutched between her pink fingernails.

“Ma’am, I’d make the worst fucking stylist. I still wear the same pair of Dickies from when I was sixteen.” Fisting the squeegee, I walk straight to her floor-to-ceiling windows, dangling the wire of the bucket I’m holding. I’ve worked here since I was released from San Dimas, housekeeping and doing some light landscaping when Mrs. H’s gardener Eddie is out of town. Godfrey hooked me up with this minimum wage job. And even though it’s in Blackhawk—a good hour or so from Stockton—I can’t afford to pass on this opportunity. A felon with manslaughter on his record? I’m shit-lucky to have any kind of job, especially with a parole officer watching my every move.

And I need the money.

Bad.

I’ve never been bothered by my poverty. Haven’t known anything else. Where I come from, you inherit poverty the way you do your eye color or height. You can’t escape it, but you sure can ignore it.

No money, no pride, no problem.

Materialistic things do nothing for me. I’m a fugitive who escapes reality with a good book. This is the first time in my life I really need money, and I need it to survive.

It’s time to turn my back and leave Stockton as well as Godfrey’s watchful eye. Saving up is crucial so I can disappear.

For now, I have a place. I share it with a guy called Irvin and pay Godfrey pennies for the rent. But that’s the problem—relying on Godfrey Archer’s goodwill? Better to slit my own throat right fucking here.

Mrs. H is still eyeing my ass, eyes so heavy with desire she can barely keep them open. I feel the ache between her legs for her. Rich girls love bad boys. The tattoos, the attitude, the danger.

The hopelessness.

They want to fuck something dark and damaged, but always with a condom, God forbid our bleak reality would rub off on them.

Mrs. Hathaway built a fantasy in her head and cast me in the leading role. In that fantasy, I’m a beast, taking her from behind, going in dry, fisting her hair, spanking her until she purples, claiming her like a savage and leaving marks that’d confirm her grave assessments about my nature. I know that, because she’s not the only rich girl who’s tried to get some since I was released.

I may be a felon, but she’s a sexual harasser of the highest level.

When I’m done wiping her windows, I change from the swim trunks she makes me wear on my shifts to my usual attire. I stand in her drawing room (the fuck is a drawing room? I’ve no idea, but she keeps calling it that so I humor her) and she slaps cash into my palm.

That’s just the extra she pays me for working in nothing but my trunks. She also gives me a payslip every two weeks.

“Have fun in Tahoe,” I grunt, praying it won’t lead to more boring-ass small talk. Rich people just love small talk. For them, time’s not a luxury.

“Thanks,” she says, stretching her long limbs. She’s got the legs of an eighteen-year-old sorority girl attached to a body of a forty-six-year-old housewife who fights nature with plastic surgery and bullshit green shakes.

“Ever been to Tahoe, Nate? It’s quite spectacular. A lot to see and experience.”

Here comes brainless blather. I crack my neck and squint, not sure why she’s asking a question with such an obvious answer. Where does a Tahoe vacation fit into my reality? Next she’ll ask me if I have a place in Aspen.

“We can go together sometime if you’d like. Stan will be spending the summer in New York. His company is opening an East Coast branch.”

I raise my brow in amusement, leaving no room for negotiation.

“See you next week, Mrs. H. Again, enjoy Tahoe.”

I stop at a drive thru before I go back home. It’s a ritual I keep religiously, the only part of my day I don’t hate completely.

Stella, my beat-down Toyota Tacoma (it’s okay to give it a name when it’s your only reliable companion in this world) is red and blends, but I still pull my hoodie over my face just in case I’m being watched. The Aryan Brotherhood is breathing down my neck, always. Seeking retaliation for a crime I didn’t do, forever.

Two weeks after I got out, they almost managed to off me, blocking my way out from a side street armed with baseball bats. I beat them up and ran away.