Fighting Fate (14 page)

‘I already told you to make a choice,’ she said. ‘And I’d appreciate you telling me up front if that choice isn’t me.’

‘Don’t get your panties in a twist, I’m gonna figure this out.’

‘How exactly?’ she asked, crossing her legs away from him. ‘And how many times will I have to swallow his spunk before you do that?’

The car jolted forward when he sped up in what appeared to be an involuntary motion. ‘He’s not gonna lay a finger on you, and you’re not gonna let him if he tries.’

‘Forgive me, but isn’t that how we got into this mess?’ she asked. ‘I’ve been playing the role of brainwashed Manson girl in front of Bruno because I believed I was doing both you and me a favour, biding my time until I was getting out. I didn’t even mind being your fuck-bunny, it was fun, and you’re incredible in the sack. Screwing you sort of broke up the monotony of what I went through downstairs, but all this time you were playing with me?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Why would I do that?’

‘Maybe because it would be fun to see what Trystan would do to me when he found out I wasn’t as obedient as you and Bruno made out to him I would be? Was that the point of this? To make me so pliable that you could just hand me over to him? What was your plan? Were you going to tell me to do whatever Trystan asked of me just to save your hide? Did you expect me to do with him all of the things I do with you just because, why? I’m such a slut?’

‘You’re no slut. I’ve been around sluts all my life and you’re sure not one of them.’

‘Don’t change the subject or try and flatter me now,’ she said. ‘I want to know, were you expecting me to go to him willingly just to do you a favour?’

‘This isn’t my ideal scenario either, Minx. Do you think I planned on falling for you?’

‘So what did you plan?’ she asked. ‘You’d just steal some woman, fuck her up as much as you could and then hand her over to that pervert?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Maybe. I don’t know. Do you know how long it’s been since I cared about anyone? Or even really cared about myself? You go through the motions… you just… you…’

‘Survive?’ she sighed, remembering what he’d said to her about breathing in and out. He’d been following the orders of Maurice Stark for so long that he never wasted the time to stop and consider if those orders were moral or if he even agreed with them.

‘Look, the way I see it, you’re fine until Tryst gets back. We’ll get this worked out before he’s back on US turf, ok?’

‘Great,’ she said, not feeling very reassured. ‘You’re not the one with the prospect of a lifetime of rape hanging on the horizon. I’m telling you now that I won’t submit to him, no, I won’t. I don’t care if they get pissed at you because you didn’t do your job right. I will not have sex with him, not voluntarily.’

‘Good,’ Dax said. ‘I don’t want you to. If you ever find yourself in that situation with him, or with any other guy, then you fight your damndest, babygirl. This is mine.’ He grabbed her knee and digging his fingers into her he hauled her toward him. ‘From the tips of those toes to the roots of your hair, Minx, even that damn clever mouth.’

‘So that’s your strategy? I fight them off? Wow Dax, you’re really not a planner, are you?’

‘You’re giving me a hard time?’ he asked. ‘I’ve kept you safe and let you off the hook. I could’ve taken you down to that basement anytime and given up on you, but I didn’t.’

‘While you were getting your balls played with you had no reason to,’ she said. ‘Now that you’re being held to account it’s not so much fun, is it?’

The car was going faster now, but being stopped by the cops wasn’t going to do her any harm, only him. ‘I have time,’ he said. ‘We play it cool and keep it together for just a while longer. I’ll talk to Mauri and he’ll see—‘

‘What? That you want to play with the toy a little bit longer? Then he’ll tell you that it’s nice to share, Dax, and you’ll do what your surrogate daddy tells you to and I’ll be the one sailing down the river on my own.’

‘I’m not going to let that happen! I’m going to keep you safe!’ His outburst was so abrupt that she was stunned into silence and they must have covered five miles before she spoke again.

‘You want us to keep doing what we’ve been doing,’ she said, trying to be logical and not let herself be conquered by fear. ‘I’m supposed to trust you and one way or another you’re going to keep me safe, is that it?’

‘Yeah,’ he murmured. ‘That’s it exactly. Just give me some time to figure this out.’

‘Ok,’ she said, resolved to the fact that as angry as she was, she didn’t want to walk away from Dax. ‘I’ll give you three days, after that, if we’re not safe together, I’m on my own.’

‘Ok,’ he said. ‘That’s fair…. You’re not going to run now? You’re not just saying this to keep me from…’

‘From what? Tying me down?’ she asked. ‘No, I’m not just saying this. But if you don’t trust me anymore then I have no reason to trust you.’

‘I trust you,’ he said.

‘Then we’ll both have to have some faith in each other, or else we’re going to cause the demise of each other.’

‘So we stand together or we die,’ Dax said. ‘Can you play the game for a little bit longer, Minx?’

‘My stamina is better than yours.’

He laughed. ‘Now we both know that’s not true, but there will be time to prove it later.’

‘If I let you,’ she said, wondering if they were going to turn into Bonnie and Clyde.

‘You’ll let me,’ he said. ‘I know how to work you now, Minx. I know all of your buttons.’

‘What we have, Dax...? Is there a future?’ If there was no future then hanging around for another three days wouldn’t be worth it.

‘I don’t want you to go anywhere,’ he said. ‘Having you around is… cool.’

‘Cool,’ she said, taking her eyes to her window. ‘Typical man speak for not wanting to reveal too much of yourself. Fine. Let’s just get through today.’

‘Mauri will understand,’ he said, skimming his hand to her inner thigh. ‘I’ll talk to him and work this out and then we’ll be together.’

‘And Trystan?’

‘He’ll be a little shit because he always is. But Mauri will keep him in line.’

She didn’t know if that was true, but she didn’t know the dynamics of the family. All she had to rely on was Dax’s word. With the knowledge that she wasn’t ready to leave him came her own realisation of just how much she cared about him. Fitting into life with the Starks’ as Dax’s girl might be difficult, but she’d rather do that than try to fit into it as Trystan’s girl, as far as she was concerned, that would never happen.

Dax had driven her to the Stark mansion, but she hadn’t seen anything except a broad wooden gate. Knowing its location seemed to be the goal, and maybe he was trying to make her more comfortable with the idea of spending time there. But when he offered to take her inside and show her around Ivy refused without any hesitation. If she went into that place then she had no guarantees that she would ever get out.

After a brief spell parked outside Dax drove on and they eventually ended up in an industrial area, pulling up alongside a grey concrete warehouse on a lot that appeared to be vacant.

‘What’s this place?’ she asked when he turned off the engine and got out of the car.

‘This is where we prepare our product. Come on, get out.’

‘I don’t want to go in there, Dax,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Who is in there?’

‘No one who will hurt you. There’s nothing you have to worry about, I already told you that. Come on, you have to know what it is that we do.’

‘Why? Why would Mauri want me to know this?’

Dax came around the car and crouched down, resting his forearms along the top rim of her door. ‘Because as far as he is concerned you’re gonna be part of the family and he has to be sure that we can trust you. He also thinks that you’re gonna be the mother of his future grandchildren who will one day take over the family business.’

‘I’m supposed to give birth to felons,’ she said. He backed away and opened her door, then took her hand to help her out of the car. ‘I’ve heard of planning for the future, but that idea takes the cake.’

‘Do you want kids?’ he asked, leading her towards a dusty brownish red door on the side of the building.

‘I don’t think that now is the time to talk about this, tough guy. We could get our heads blown off at any second.’

He laughed. ‘I do this almost every day. Any guy who takes a shot at me will have his kneecaps removed. These guys aren’t going to hurt me.’

‘That’s you,’ she said, looking all around, worried that there may be some kind of sniper or security guy who might take a disliking to her. ‘I’m just some chick that they don’t know.’

‘The guys in here aren’t what you’re expecting,’ he said, pushing open the door and taking her inside.

There was noise and the air was pungent, but it was the humidity, or rather the lack of it, that she noticed first. The space they entered was almost empty. He took her through into another room that was some sort of recreation space, except now it was empty.

‘We’re at the end of a shipment, everything was taken out last night. We’ll get another one in a few days, there’s been a bit of a hiccup, but Mauri’s sorting it out.’

‘Thank goodness for that,’ she said, absorbing the details of the well-kept space. There was air conditioning in here, it was cool and she saw a fridge in the corner. There was a series of mismatched couches and a wide screen TV. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask if they could hang out here together, alone, for a while. A far door opened and a guy came in, he was tall but quite weedy. He certainly wasn’t the thug that she had been expecting, just as Dax had warned her.

‘Hey, Zoom,’ Dax said. ‘You need to be quicker off the mark. You don’t have company back there, do you?’

Dax sounded severe, it wasn’t exactly anger in his tone, but an aloof authority that carried an unspoken warning – just like in Vegas when he’d threatened her without using negative words.

‘No,’ Zoom said. ‘Wasn’t expecting you today… I called Serg.’

‘Why?’ Dax asked. Zoom’s statement carried some sort of weight that she didn’t understand.

‘One load wasn’t picked up,’ Zoom said, scrutinising her, then letting his attention flick back to Dax before it came back to her. ‘Who is she?’

‘Not a perk for you,’ Dax said, leaving her to march forward and grab Zoom by the shoulder. ‘Who was it? Who missed it?’

‘I… I gave Serg all the details, you said, you said to report to him while you were… I would’ve called you but—‘

‘You did the right thing, but I’m here now and I’m going to follow up. It’s just sitting back there?’ Zoom nodded. ‘Ok. You don’t do anything until someone is in touch. Stay here.’

Dax let go of his shoulder and Zoom tried to smile. ‘I never go anywhere else.’

Apparently unamused, or maybe just uninterested, Dax stalked back to her and grabbed her hand to tug her back outside and into the car. ‘What is that place?’

‘It’s where we cut the coke,’ he said, starting up the car again. ‘It’s cut and packaged there and it’s supposed to be picked up once it’s divided.’

‘But someone didn’t pick up their share?’ she asked as he manoeuvred out of the industrial site they had not long ago arrived at. ‘Why would that be?’

‘Someone is lazy, scared, or dead, those are the only three reasons,’ he said.

‘Serg works for Mauri too?’

‘Yeah, he’s an all right guy, once you get to know him. He’s been running things for me while my attention has been split.’

‘So that means that you trust him?’

Dax glanced at her and then the road. ‘With the product and the job,’ he said, and one side of his mouth turned into a smile. ‘Not with my girl.’

‘Another rapist friend,’ she said. ‘You know you should really expand your social circles, baby.’

‘What do you think that you are?’

‘I’m a refreshing experience,’ she said. ‘It remains to be seen whether or not you’re beyond the point of redemption.’

‘If I got any better, babygirl, you’d have died and been sent to paradise.’

He didn’t often make jokes and they were almost always dry, but she was getting used to his more genial side though that didn’t stop her from goading him too.

‘If I was in heaven you wouldn’t be the one delivering me to ecstasy,’ she said. ‘I heard you’ve already paid your room deposit in hell.’

‘A room with a view,’ he said, flashing her a smile. ‘I might be able to talk to my peeps if you’re interested in the lot next door.’

‘I thought I belonged under you? Is that lot still vacant?’

‘Not anymore,’ he said in a deep purr that made her tingle.

He left her to consider the implications of what he’d said while they rode to the next location. She would take the isolated warehouse any day over the place that they went to next. Parking in the street, Dax came around the car to take her out of it like last time, this time without the pep talk.

Graffiti covered the walls of old tenement apartment blocks, broken windows and fences surrounded groups of youths in baggy pants wearing cheap jewellery and calling at each other. This was what the “wrong side of the tracks” looked like.

Instead of going into the front of the building they were at, Dax took her through an open chain link fence beside it. Moving around the back, they passed a barking dog tethered to a side wall and a group of heavy, tattooed men on a picnic bench. Nothing affected Dax; he carried on through a swing door at the rear of the building and into a short corridor.

‘Dax,’ she said, hoping for an explanation, but he didn’t stop just reached back and locked his fingers in between hers. 

His long calloused digits with their bumps and scars were so unique that their thickness was enough to offer her some reassurance. That comfort lasted until Dax shoved aside the strands of a metal-link curtain that covered a room full of jeering men who sat around a long table.

The smoke filled room reeked of cigarettes and greasy food but as soon as Dax walked in the half a dozen men shut up.

‘Boss, man,’ a blonde at the head of the table said and got up.

Though her eyelids stretched apart Ivy managed to hold in her gasp. The blonde guy had to be nearly seven feet tall.

‘You’re letting the place fall apart, Serg,’ Dax said. ‘What are you doing sitting on your ass when we’ve got a hold up at the factory?’

‘I’m on it.’

‘Apparently not,’ Dax said, unintimidated by this man’s bulk.

None of the men here appeared like the sort to mess with. They were varying grades of thug and hooligan and she recognised one or two from the party at the beach house.

The phone in Dax’s back pocket rang before he could give Serg further orders. While striding into the corridor to maintain his privacy, he dug out the cell-phone and answered it, leaving her alone with the goons.

Ivy’s initial discomfort dissipated when a thug on the right hand side spoke. ‘Are you the boss’ new slut?’

Although aware that she was supposed to be the submissive slave in front of Bruno, Ivy found herself unable to show such weakness in the face of this new intimidation.

‘If I am then you’re taking a risk in speaking to me like that,’ she said.

‘The boss has never brought a girl here before,’ another said.

‘You’re more likely to find your nose embedded into the back of your skull than you are to find yourself freed of your ignorance if you insult me,’ she said.

The men can’t have been expecting such a retort from her, if they expected any at all, because when Dax came back in they were all still suspended in silence.

‘I’m getting out of here,’ Dax said, if he noticed the atmosphere in the room he said nothing about it. ‘Get over to the warehouse. I’ll join you there in a while, Serg… Minx.’

She took his statement of her pet name as an indication that she should follow him when he departed. When they were in the outer corridor he linked their fingers again, and held them against the small of his back.

Outside, they passed the inked group again without a word and eventually got back to the car.

‘What was that place?’ she asked.

‘Out front is a bar, it’s where most of the guys hang. It’s a good place to check if you’re looking for anyone.’ She didn’t know who she would ever be looking for, but didn’t point that out to him.

‘Where are we going now?’

‘Back home,’ he said.

‘But you said that you’d go back to that warehouse. You already drove me out here and now you’re going to drive back to the beach house just to drop me off with Bruno? It seems like an awful long way to—‘

‘Bruno’s on his way to the restaurant where Mauri is eating.’

‘So I’ll be alone? Is Rita going to be there? What will she and I talk about? The only thing that we have in common is your penis… I suppose we could talk about that for an hour or two.’

‘She’s never seen my dick,’ he said with a flourish of a smile.

‘She did this morning.’

‘Never before that,’ he grumbled.

‘So you screwed her in the dark every time?’

‘Are you jealous, babygirl?’ His hand was back up her dress at her inner thigh. ‘I’ve watched Bruno put his hands all over you.’

‘And Trystan too,’ she said, curious as to how he felt about the night they first encountered each other.

‘We’re not going back to the beach house. There’s been a change of plans, Mauri wants you at the mansion today.’

All good humour and joviality drained out of her, just as she was sure the colour did too. ‘What? Why?’

‘He didn’t say, just told me to take you over there. He’s not there, so you won’t have to meet him.’

‘Is Trystan there?’

‘No, he’s still in Europe.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes. I’ve told you that he won’t get his hands on you and that won’t change. Trystan’s the most unreliable SOB you’ll ever meet, we could get lucky and he decides to stay in Europe another six months.’

‘Or he makes a surprise return.’

‘I’m never gonna leave you anywhere that you’ll get into trouble.’

Her faith in him did console her. ‘I have a talent for that, I could get myself into trouble in an empty building.’

‘No doubt about that,’ he said. ‘I’ll take you in, someone will show you around and you’ll probably be given a room… I don’t think they’ll put you in Trystan’s suite.’

Revealing any vulnerability churned her stomach so she tried her best to disguise her jitters. ‘You haven’t shown me your place, maybe we could go there first.’

‘When Mauri calls and tells you to do something you don’t do anything else “first”, you do what he’s told you to do.’

‘To the detriment of anything else you might be doing? What if we were having sex?’

‘I probably wouldn’t have answered the phone.’

‘Probably?’

‘Depends how well you were holding my attention. As long as I’m amused you’ve got nothing to worry about, babygirl.’

‘Amused,’ she said, twisting to lean closer and press her palm to his fly. ‘Is that how you usually feel when we’re in bed together?’

Using sex to manipulate him seemed dishonest now, given their revelation of having feelings for each other, but her choices were limited. Tracing her lips on his neck, she urged her breasts against his solid arm while rubbing her body on his in time with her hand that kneaded his now stiff cock.

‘I’ll drive the scenic route to the mansion if you get your mouth down there,’ he said, turning his head to kiss her quickly.