Sweet Release (A Bad Boy Mafia Romance) (16 page)

Ella

Pembry pulled the car into the seediest fucking hourly motel I had ever seen in my life. Which was, in part, because it was the only one I had actually seen. Even as we parked, I saw a guy in a fancy pinstripe business suit leading a woman who was very obviously a professional—and not his secretary—going into one of the upper floor rooms.

“Get out,” Pembry said when he pulled the back driver side door open. He had one hand in his dumpy jogging jacket, the angles inside it hinting at the revolver that he still gripped in his right hand.

I said nothing as I did, but I considered screaming. Then again, somehow I imagined this place had seen its share of human trafficking and that this was potentially one of its selling points for the sorts of people who would even consider renting a room.

Pembry already had. He didn’t take me to the office in handcuffs to check-in; instead, he pulled a key from his back pocket and took me to a room on the second floor, at the end. It was still broad daylight outside, but if anyone saw us, they didn’t let me know it. We were just outside the city, near an overpass off the highway. I tried to figure exactly where we were. The Cat’s Tail Motor Inn, at least, was visible at the end of the parking lot.

I tried to grasp at details, plan some kind of escape. Whether I got a chance or not wasn’t really on my mind. I was trying to keep myself from thinking like a victim. Save yourself, woman; don’t wait to be saved. Pay attention.

The Cat’s Tail was situated at the center of a wide, flat slab of lined concrete, the parking space lines long ago cracked and peeled and washed away by probably decades of rain. The land beyond the parking lot might as well have been paved for all the coverage it offered. But if I had to run, maybe Pembry’s aim would be off from all the alcohol in him. Then again, how far could I make it before he started up the car and ran me down on four wheels? It was a long run. I could do a mile in three minutes and ten seconds. So, what, I needed maybe half a minute to get to the highway ramp? I could wave down a car from there.

The railing of the second floor was a little over waist high, cheap black iron like I’d seen on any number of hotels serving as temporary shelters all those years ago. I could swing my legs over it, jump, and roll the landing. It would cost me a shoulder, but that was cheaper than a bullet in the head, or anywhere else.

By the time I had played the tentative plan through in my head a few times, Pembry was shoving me through the door into the ratty little room with a single, hard mattress bed. He closed the door behind us, and took me to the edge of the bed.

The revolver came out of his pocket, aimed at me, and he handed me the key to the cuffs. “Cuff yourself to the bed post there,” he said, jerking the nose of the gun toward the conveniently positioned bed post that was possibly the only remotely overt decoration in the room. Of course, an hourly hotel would need something to tie people to. I wanted to hover six inches off the almost certainly disgusting mattress. Under a black light, this place probably looked like a blood bath.

I did as he told me. Partly because of the revolver and the imminent threat of being shot—and partly because the fucking bed post, while tall, wasn’t capped. If I had the chance, I could stand up and slide the cuff right off the top.

Alright. Calm. Focus. I just needed to make a chance.

Pembry settled down into the only chair in the room, which was next to a cheap looking little table by the window. He glanced out of the curtains, but not long enough that it mattered. When he looked back at me he smiled, a lopsided, disgusting expression that forced me to look away from him. “Take your fucking pants off,” he said.

I looked back at him. “Why?”

“Why the fuck do you think, bitch?”

“So you can do my fucking laundry?”

He surged up. “That mouth is gonna get you shot, you know that? Now take your goddamn pants off and show me that fucking pussy you dumb fucking cunt.”

Fire burned in my stomach, and my vision went momentarily red. Actually red, just like the say. Whatever nervousness or fear I had been holding down no longer seemed to even be there, it just vanished, seared off my brain by the white hot rage that replaced it. “If you think that I’m going to let you get even the barest peek of pink, Pembry,” I said, shaking with fury, “you can just shoot me in the head right now. Because I will literally die before I let you anywhere near me with that stub you call a dick.” I leaned toward him. “Are we clear?”

Pembry hurled himself onto me, and jammed the muzzle of the revolver against my temple. He smelled like he’d skipped a shower for the past three or four days; as it hit my nose, the scent of him made me nearly retch. I glared up at him. Try me, fucker. I really would have died first. Nothing was worth enduring that again. Never again.

“You women,” Pembry growled, flecks of spit gathering at the corner of his mouth and spraying me on the forehead this close. “You think you’re so special, like you goddamn pussies are fucking made of gold or something. Who the fuck are you, huh? Just some fucking bitch. Fuck it. You don’t gotta be conscious.”

He reared back his hand, the barrel angled up, the handle of the gun raised to hit me.

This was the chance.

When his hand came down, it came down hard. I twisted, and brought my own arm up to hammer his forearm to one side so that he missed me. His hand hit the wall, and the gun fell. For an awful second I thought it would go off, but the hammer hadn’t been drawn back this time and it just clattered to the ground.

Pembry recovered faster than I would have though. He reached for something as I landed my elbow wherever I could get a good hit—his ribs, his collar; I tried for his temple to put him down but only smashed it into his jaw. Blood flecked onto his lips.

Something stung me on the upper arm. Then my forearm, and then again and again as Pembry flailed at me. There was blood. He’d cut me.

The next time his arm came toward me, I bucked my whole body, blocked the knife wielding arm with my own and earned another cut for it, and then rammed my knee into his tail bone. It must have hurt, but it didn’t give the satisfying crunch I was hoping for. Pembry howled, though, and hopped up and off before he turned and tried to stab me again. It was the sloppy, desperate kind of action that could easily have hit something vital.

I managed to whip a leg out, pulling painfully against the cuffs to get some leverage, and snapped my shin into his upper arm. He toppled sideway, hit the wall, and his arm went slack. The knife fell to the carpet, and Pembry’s free hand came up instinctively to hold the place where I’d hopefully broken something.

He spat at me as he collapsed, or at least that’s what I thought he was doing. I started to scramble up to my feet on the bed—it was hard to get them under me than I thought it would be—and froze when I heard the revolver’s hammer click into place again.

Bloody and beaten though he was, Pembry still had the gun to fall back on, and he had. He sat on the floor, pointing it at me, looking furious enough to do it. “Don’t. Fucking. Move.” He spat blood. “Fucking cunt,” he growled. “Sit down.” He jerked the barrel down.

I did, slowly, watching the gun, wondering if I could lure him in close again. Having one arm trapped was a problem, though. And the other was soaked in blood now from the cuts he’d made. I glanced down at them.

“I hope you fucking bleed out,” Pembry said. He wiped his bloody mouth on his sleeve and flexed his jaw, wincing when it cracked loudly. Yeah, and I hope you eat through a goddamn straw the rest of your life, asshole.

But I kept my mouth shut, and tried not to notice the burning pain of the cuts on my arm. Nothing was spraying, or cold. No arteries. I’d have some more scars, but didn’t care.

Pembry crawled to his feet. He was unsteady, probably feeling heavy from the exertion and the whiskey. I considered spreading my legs, telling him he’d won, come and get it big boy—but even as a ruse I couldn’t stomach actually doing it.

And besides, he grimaced as he shifted the gun to his other hand. Maybe I had broken something.

I’d given away my plan, though. When I’d tried to stand up, he must have realized, because he looked at the bed post, and then me, and then grunted. Keeping the revolver pointed roughly in my direction, he moved to the telephone and yanked the cord out of the wall, then jerked the phone off the stand and kicked at it until the cord on the other end came free.

“Kick me, and we’re done. I’ll make it outta the state before anyone even bothers to call in the gunshot, you understand me?”

I didn’t, until he pulled my foot down and tied one end of the phone cord to it, and the other to the post at the foot board. Shit. I couldn’t have reached it, standing up was no longer an option.

I could still kick him in the face if he came close enough to try anything, though, and planned to.

Pembry muttered something else profane, and then basically stumbled toward the door. “I’ll be back.” I grabbed the ice bucket and left, slamming the door behind him. I heard the key slip into the lock and turn the bolt.

I closed my eyes, and allowed myself exactly five seconds to let the fear, and anger, and panic bubble up in a short lived sob and a few hot, eyebiting tears. Then I wiped them off, swallowed it all, and gave my tied leg an experimental tug. It wasn’t a good knot, he’d done it one handed. If I had enough time I could probably get loose. If I was loose when he got back though, would he shoot me? I didn’t know, and didn’t want to chance it unless I was sure I could get free quickly. It didn’t seem likely.

So I looked around the rest of the room. Maybe something I could stab him with, a pen or… anything. Nothing.

Something buzzed. Three times, fast, and then a pause. Three more times. A phone. Shit, a cell phone. Where was it?

I honed in on the third trio of buzzes, and looked over the edge of the bed. There. Praise whoever the fuck was watching, it was a smart phone, screen up. “Parole: Bitch with Curls Blunt” was calling. I knew that name, I was absolutely certain I knew it but couldn’t think who it was.

It didn’t matter. I flopped my free leg over to my trapped on, listening to the buzzing go on, and kicked my shoe off, then tugged my sock down. Shit. Pembry would notice… it didn’t fucking matter.

I slung my foot off the side of the bed and wrenched my body sideways to the the point that I was worried something would dislocate. Fuck, it was just an inch too far away. Stretch, Ella, goddamn it. I bit my lip and winced as my shoulder popped.

I swiped my toe across the screen.

There was no way to hit the speaker button and it didn’t matter anyway, but I did managed to pull it toward me.

“I don’t know who you are,” I said, “but I’m with Jason Pembry, at the Cat’s Tail Motor Inn… I don’t know where it is. Room… uhhhh… the top floor, the room all the way to the right from the parking lot facing the on-ramp to highway twenty seven. He’s armed.”

I didn’t know if anyone heard me clearly enough, and I didn’t have time to repeat myself. Instead, I tugged the phone hard with my foot to kick it under the bed. Hopefully, it was enough. A moment later, Pembry barreled through the door with a bucket of ice.

He was meticulous as he used a dirty looking bathroom washcloth to make a little pouch with ice cubes in it, and pressed it to his jaw. He glared at me, and I looked as sullen and dejected as I could. It was a chore.

Inside, I was on fire. Hope. I had hope. Someone, somewhere, knew where I was, and they were coming. I kept saying it to myself over and over again.

Someone’s coming. Someone’s coming. Someone’s coming.

Michael

“He’ll probably shoot, first thing,” Tony said. We were in the parking lot, watching the room that Pembry had just walked into carrying ice. He looked beat to hell.

Good girl, Baby. Just a little longer.

“I know,” I said.

“He’ll go center mass,” Tony said, he checked the clip on his gun, and started to screw a silencer into the barrel, “that’s how they train ‘em.”

“Okay,” I said. Tony hadn’t given me a gun. In a small space like that, he said, it would be a bad idea. I might hit him, or Ella, or even myself. He’d go in first, and didn’t want me to go in at all.

“So I go in first,” Tony explained. “You wait a couple seconds, then come in after me, low to the ground. Pembry’ll duck for cover when I fire at him.”

“And if he gets you before you get him?” I asked.

Tony shrugged. “Him that lives by the sword, dies by the sword. That’s what the Man said.” He didn’t seem even a little bothered by the idea. “If I can, I’ll drop my gun in your direction. Don’t rush in. He’ll think I came alone, but check outside. That’s when you get him. Be ready, if it comes to that.”

I was.

It was strange. I wasn’t afraid. Not for me, anyway, or even Tony, really—he was right; he probably wouldn’t die of old age. The only fear I had in me was for Ella. Was she okay? Was she whole? Had he…

No. No. Don’t think of that now. Just focus on getting her back.

“You ready?” Tony asked. All business, cool as ice, smooth as glass.

“Yeah.”

We got out of the car, and dashed across the parking lot as quietly as we could, not that Pembry was likely to notice. The distant, muffled sounds of people using the rooms of the Inn for exactly what you expected an hourly room to be used for were barely audible and only close to the doors. Cheap it was, but not cheaply made. It was like the designed the place for screwing in privacy.

Tony led the way up the stairs, and we stuck close to the wall as we got close to the door Pembry had gone in. I couldn’t hear anything; if they were talking in there, the walls were too solid, the windows too thick. Maybe they weren’t though. Maybe we were wrong all along, and he didn’t have Ella and he was in there getting beat up by some whore, consensual style.

It didn’t matter, I guessed. Now there were hooks in me, Tony might as well kill Pembry. I might as well do it. They’d cover me, and I wouldn’t been any more committed than I already was.

Tony had been clear. The Don would clean up the mess, make this all go away, even ensure that I got off parole free and clear. So long as I worked for him afterward. I hated it. I hated Luchese. I hated Pembry.

But I loved Ella. I knew that, now. Even if she wouldn’t stay with me after this, I couldn’t just let her go.

I held on to that as Tony watched me, eyebrows up, waiting for something from me, maybe a sign that I was ready. I gave him a nod.

Tony did a strange thing. I’d never seen him do it before, and didn’t entirely understand it except that I think he was praying. He closed his eyes, his lips moved, and he crossed himself. An almost, I don’t know, serene, look came over him, and he took on deep breath.

“Amen,” he said. He looked at me again. “Do it.”

We’d discussed it before. In a two man job, one guy kicks the door in, the other goes in after. People got stuck on the guy who went in, there was some word for it, some kind of psychological mumbo jumbo that Tony apparently knew all about. I was the door guy.

Which was just what I was built for. I stepped out from the wall, turned, aimed to get my heel right where the bolt would be, and kicked that son of a bitch hard enough to kill a man.

The door wasn’t flimsy. It was the sort you couldn’t hear a hooker who was being paid to scream through. It didn’t just buckle in. It thundered, and slammed against the inside wall.

As soon as it broke loose, I ducked and rolled outta Tony’s way, pressed against the wall, no matter how much I wanted to rush in there.

Tony got of two shots, quick, and I heard Janet scream, and Pembry cuss, and something heavy hit the ground, and then Tony, talking slowly. “This only goes one way, Pembry. Let her go.”

He had her. Pembry had Ella, and if he wasn’t dead then…

I couldn’t stay put, I turned and looked through the door.

Pembry had Ella in a head lock, some old six-shooter pressed to her head. When he saw me he flinched, his trigger finger spasmed like the might shoot her, and I held my hands up. “Wait wait wait!” I snapped. “Pembry, look… just… you know… let her go and you can have me, okay? I’ll trade me for her, just… just don’t fucking hurt her, okay? Ella? Baby? You’re gonna be okay, Baby, just… just fuckin…” I was losing it. I wanted Tony to pull some crazy fucking sharpshooter shit and put a round in Pembry’s head.

If he could have, though, he would have. The whole world seemed frozen, the four of us trapped in ice. Ella’s eyes were red and… shit, her whole arm was wet red and rust. She was blood to her shoulder.

“You fucking mooks,” Pembry spat. “You’re a fucking plague on this goddamn city. All of you. I been cleaning your shit off my streets for twenty eight years. You took fucking everything from me. You know that? Every goddamn thing. First my… my fucking… my son. Then my dignity, and my wife and daughter. Now my job. My whole fucking future.”

Tony answered him. “I know about your son, Pembry.” I didn’t. What the fuck? Tony hadn’t covered that in his discussion. “Shane, right? Shane Pembry?”

“Don’t fucking say his name you fucking mob filth,” Pembry howled. His face was crunched, twisted, his jaw swollen, his eyes wet and red. Blood and spit foamed at the corner of his mouth. He’d lost it. He’d snap any second. He’d kill Ella. Kill my girl.

“Tony…” I muttered. Don’t stir him up, Tony.

Tony ignored me, and his voice didn’t change. It was calm, almost soothing; not a tone I’d ever heard come out of him before. Maybe this was why the Don liked him so much for an enforcer. Cool under pressure. Not like me. “You think he got shot by one of our guys,” Tony said. “He didn’t. I can prove it, if you let me. It was one of the Santera boys, back when they was around. We got rid of ‘em. Remember? They just stopped showing up? We got the guy that got your son, Pembry. He’s been dead a long time.”

“You’re lying,” Pembry growled.

“I’m not, Pembry,” Tony said evenly. “We can work all this out, okay? Let Ella go. We gotta fix her up. We can fix you up to. Get you back on the force. We can do that for you, Pembry. You know we can.”

I hoped he was lying. Pembry wasn’t leaving this room alive.

“Jason Pembry?”

The fuck? All four of us froze, and everyone but Tony turned to look at the door.

“The police are on the way, Pembry. Put the gun down.” It was fucking Anne-fuckin-marie. What the hell was she doing here? What kinda party was this?

Her head of red curls peeked around the doorway, clocked me, and Tony, and Pembry, and she stepped in. She wasn’t armed, and had her hands up.

“Annemarie,” I growled. “You called the goddamn cops?”

“I did,” she said. “And you’re violating parole. And Pembry, this is done. They’re on the way. You let that girl go, and come with me, turn yourself in, and the DA will let you plead insanity. You can take some time to rest. It’s all arranged.”

Pembry took the gun away from Ella’s head, and used that hand to rub the side of his face as it contorted and he let out an angry, heaving sob. The most pitiful thing I’d probably ever seen on man’s face. “It’s all over. Doesn’t matter. Jesus Christ, you people ruined my life. I got nothing. Not a fucking thing.”

He sighed, and the hand with the revolver came down, pointed at me.

Tony fired at the same time that Ella screamed, and jerked herself and Pembry to one side. The revolver went off. Pembry stagged, let Ella go, and she spun and crouched. Annemarie rushed forward, hand’s up, and I saw the gun tucked behind the back of her pants. She was shouting something, but I couldn’t hear it over the ringing in my ears.

Pembry focused her, snarled, and fired. Annemarie when down backward like she’d been hit by a car, just jerked back at the waist and dropped. Tony barked, and fired again as Pembry turned on Janet.

The shot hit him in the side. Blood sprayed out behind him against the nicotine stained walls, but Pembry didn’t fall. He trained his gun on Ella, and she screamed at him.

It all happened so slow. I was moving, I couldn’t feel my feet, or my legs. One second I saw it happen, then next I was on Pembry, driving him into the wall. I pulled up a knee, hard, into his ribs. Something cracked. A shot fired. My arm went numb. I hit him again, and again. More thunder, I couldn’t hear anything but the thunder now, and this time something tugged me from the waist, like a hook had grabbed me at the side, and I fell back.

Pembry brought the revolver around toward me.

But before he could, his head snapped back, a spray of red hit the wall behind him, over the first, so suddenly it was like somebody just flipped a switch. He stumbled back, one step, and then fell straight down in a heap, dead.