Divided (Unguarded #2) (5 page)

No. Momma, wake up.

Sharp pain hurt my body. I shook her shoulders but she didn’t move or make a sound. Tears filled up my eyes and blurred everything in front of me until all I could see was red. On my hands. On my pants. All around the two of us.

It hurt too much. I doubled over and laid down beside her with one arm cradling her body and my face, resting on the cold hard floor. Maybe if I stayed here and held her, wished hard enough for her to hear my cries she’d curl her arms around mine and tell me what she always reminds me. ‘It’s you and me, baby. We’ll always be okay.’

My shoulders bobbed with every sob until I became so tired from crying, my eyes began to close. With every blink, they closed for longer until I fell asleep and didn’t wake until a familiar voice soothed my soul and my cheek.

My eyes flicked open to the sad face of my grandma, my momma’s mom. My limbs felt heavy as Grandma lifted me up from the floor and held me to her chest.

“Beth you gotta take him away. You need to get out of the city. They find him. They’ll do to him what they’ve done to Catherine. I’m not gonna let that happen.”

His voice echoes in my ears as the memory fades where it always does, despite how hard I try to remember who owned that voice or remember what came next.

Repressed fucking memories.

My doctor told me I’ve unconsciously blocked out memories from before, during, and after the event, because of the trauma I suffered when it all happened. I did it without knowing and for years I remembered nothing. Over time, little things had begun to trigger flashbacks. Sometimes it was a smell or something someone said just like my mother. Slowly, moments of my life I’d lost were returning. But they were all just pieces to a puzzle I can’t make sense of, or finish. The very first time I shot my gun in weapons training at the academy I remembered a few vital moments of that night. I remembered his face. The one who blew two slugs into the back of my mother’s head. I remembered his fancy fucking shoes and the smugness in his features as he walked out of my mother’s bedroom. From that day forward, my goals were set. I’d make Giuseppe Marino pay for his sins. For the hurt and treachery he’d brought upon me, my mom, and so many others.

Laughter overtakes my mind and I twist my head and see a couple holding hands, pass by. I rub my hands over my face and stand from the bench seat, ready to make the walk home. Ali hasn’t come back. My feet keep me in place while my mind tells me to wait. Just a few more minutes, she’ll turn up. After two weeks, I’m doubtful she’ll be back now. Every night I’ve come back here to the bridge, hoping she’ll come back so I could see how she was doing. At least, find out more about her so I could keep an eye out for her. But I’m as helpless now as I was when I was a kid, because I can’t help her, just like I couldn’t help my mother. I had no way to find her, and every day she doesn’t come back leaves me wondering what she returned home to the night she left me standing on the bridge. I shuffle on my feet, forcing myself to leave and hang my shoulders in defeat.

Four Years Later

I flatten the needle against my skin plunging it in deep. Oxycontin flushes through my veins and the rush pulls me under almost straight away. My eyes close for a second, relief settles over me. For a brief moment, I forget about the music pumping in the background. I forget about the girls surrounding me, getting prepped to go on stage or have just come off. Cheap perfume and alcohol no longer linger on my skin like a constant reminder of what makes up my life. But the moment doesn’t last long. One of the girls sits to my right, brushing her hair in the mirrors in front of us without batting an eyelash at me. Most of them don’t care around here, they all know I use and half of them do too. We’re all here for one reason or another. They’ve either been forced to be here, or they want to be here. I don’t know which riddles me with disgust more.

I lean over, my make-up scattered on the counter in front of me and check my face in the mirror. My bright pink lips stand out, but my eyes pop with the shit ton of black crap shadowed around them. No one would ever guess underneath the make-up is a nineteen-year-old girl doing what she has to survive in this screwed up world. I sit back down in my seat, biting my nails as I stare at the floor, concentrating on the seductive lyrics, the beat of sultry music while I wait for my cue. The fog in my head thickens. It’s my escape and my reality. My perfect world where nothing can hurt me. No one can touch me. Get past these walls because I’m lost. Lost in a place with only myself, and it’s fucking wonderful. No voices. No memories. Nothing but bliss.

I stagger to the main stage from the dressing rooms of Sweet Tarts tripping up the stairs, but I don’t fall. Something tightens around my arm, holding me up. I blink through the fog still clouding around me and I see a flicker of long red hair followed by a whisper.

“Ali, you need to pull your shit together before Giuseppe or Lucio sees you. They’re both here tonight. You might not care if you kill yourself but I do.”

Silver’s voice swirls in the air. Standing up straight, I squint my eyes closed in an effort to pull myself together, but when I reopen them Silver’s face blurs in my vision.

“Fuck.”

My head spins.

“Yeah, well, what do you expect,” she mutters pushing me toward the stage, hand at my lower back.

I turn back before stepping out into the lights and cheers coming from the audience as I’m announced. “Thanks, Silver.”

She gives me a warm smile filled with pity. That’s how pathetic I’ve become—a prostitute with no family, no future, and hardly any life in her feels sorry for me.

Fire burns all the way down my throat as I take another shot of bourbon. My eyes never waver from the half-naked ass shaking in front of me. Small, round—fucking delectable. Light flickers off the silver pole as she swings around it in perfect precision, her long dark hair flowing behind her. Her eyes lock onto mine as she grinds against the pole. My cock stiffens and I relax back in the seat to adjust the ache growing below my belt. She watches me as I reach down and give my cock a squeeze. Lust pulses through me and I grunt as her tongue darts out and she licks her lips. She’s teasing me with her ass, her dancing, the look in her blue eyes. It’s been three weeks of the best kind of torture. Every night at the same time, sitting in this dirty fucking club I really shouldn’t even be in. She dances and I watch. She just hasn’t realized I’m not only watching her. She’s a bonus I never expected the first night I walked into the strip club for recon.

I didn’t know when it happened, when coming here became as much about her as it was for the job, my goal—the end game. But there’s something about her. Familiar but strange. Dangerous and sweet. I just can’t put my finger on it. But I’m getting closer to the prize every day.

Giuseppe Marino.

I can’t let a girl get in the way now. Not now I’ve finally pushed Mason into pursuing the Marino crime family on a more serious level. We might actually have a chance at bringing them down soon.

Warmth rubs against my arm, but I’m too caught up in the beauty on stage with her big pink lips I’ve been imagining around my dick and her long hair I want to twist in my hand while I bend her over and fuck her from behind. It isn’t until a husky female voice whispers in my ear that I turn to see one of the topless waitresses with her obvious fake tits against my arm. “Want another round, sugar?”

I pull away from her and shift in my seat. Without another glance in her direction, I reply, “No thanks.”

If it were any other day or time when I wasn’t so distracted, I would have taken her up on the drink and chugged it down while she sucked me off on her break.

But right now, I don’t need another drink and the little brunette’s set must be just about finished. I don’t plan to stick around. Last night was supposed to be the last visit to this dump. Tonight I was here for one reason, and it wasn’t because Mason wanted background on the younger Marino moron.

Seductive music echoes through the club, drowning out the men shouting sleazy comments to the dancer on stage that I’d rather not hear. My fingers tighten around my glass as I hold in the urge to shove my fist into every one of the dirty fucks’ faces. The stage fades to black along with the end of the song and the woman makes her way off stage. I stand from my seat and swallow the last of my drink because tonight I’m done. I’m all out patience and horny as fuck. I’m ready for her. I’m done playing games. Tonight she’ll be mine. She just doesn’t know it yet.

The coolness of winter in the city whisks across the back of my neck. I pull my jacket up as I lean against the brick wall a few feet up from the club. Voices travel from the entry of Sweet Tarts and I turn to see two men stumble out with one of the dancers on their arms. I check my watch again, wondering where she is. The girl’s like clockwork, I’ve watched her. The moment she finishes work she’s out of the place quicker than I can sling back another drink. It’s not lost on me how borderline stalking that sounds. But this is recon—work. She’s employed by the Marino’s. It counts.

“Thanks, Kev,” murmurs a soft voice and my head shoots up to see one of the bouncers smiling at a girl leaving the club. My chest expands with excitement when I recognize her long bare legs. She walks my way, but the small smile that’s been on her face drops and sadness creeps over her.

I push off the wall and stand up straighter while taking her in from heels up. Her ass is barely covered by the black coat hiding everything I’ve already seen underneath. Her hair falls around her waist, and when my eyes rise over the swell of her tits I see her arching an eyebrow at me.

Crossing her arms across her chest, she stops in front of me and pops her hip out. “Can I help you?”

I smirk as a million dirty thoughts about just how she can help me run through my mind. “I’m hoping so.”

Without giving her time to answer I move forward, so close to her I hear the gasp that leaves her lips and too close to decipher if it’s the good kind or bad.

“What do you want?” she asks, staring up at me through curious eyes.

I brush away the hair falling in front of her eyes. The whole time taking in every inch of her face. Her soft pale skin, the curve of her cheekbones, her small plump lips.

“I want a lot of things, gorgeous. But right now I’ll happily settle with you.”

Her brows bunch together and she stares at me for a moment, doing to me what I was doing to her a moment ago. Until she steps back and shakes her head. “Sorry. But you can’t have me.”

It’s my turn to ask the questions, even if I do already know the answers. “Why? Because you’re Marino’s girl?”

I know she is. I’ve watched him watch her when she’s on stage or giving a lap dance. I see how differently he treated her to the other girls. She’s something else to him, I just don’t know whether that constitutes this as a bad idea or the worst fuckin’ one I’ve ever had. It’s likely to be the latter.

Her lips flatten into a hard line. “I’m not his girl.”

I smirk and close in on her.
That’s a lie and we both know it.

She leans back against the wall as I invade her space. Her skin flushes and legs slightly part. My cock throbs as I watch her swallow while balling my hands into fists at my side to stop myself from reaching out to touch her uninvited. “Let’s cut the bullshit and get straight to the point, shall we? You’ve been eye fuckin’ the shit out of me up on that stage every night for the past few weeks. You want me just as much as I want you. You’re Marino’s girl and that’s fine. I’m not looking for more than a quick fuck anyway. From the moment I walked in here and you bounced those perfect tits in my face and your ass over my cock, I’ve been dying for a taste of that sweet pussy you flash around up on that stage. You don’t want it… that’s fine. Just say the word. But after tonight I won’t be back, and I’m not sticking around long enough for Marino to come out here and shoot me for even talking to you without throwing some cash in his face first. So you better make up your mind real quick, babe.”