Burn (8 page)

“You heard from him since Julio’s call before?” I ask.

Michael nods, collecting a beer from the ice bucket by the pool and sitting down to join me. “That’s why I came to see you. He’s coming here.”

I point to the floor at my feet. “Here? Rebel’s coming
here
? Why?”

“For the event. To ghost Julio for causing me grief. To screw some girls. I don’t know. He just told me to expect him.”

This is fucking fantastic news. Fucking. Fantastic. An onslaught of problems present themselves to me all at once, giving me an instant headache. Will he see Sloane and recognize her? Eli, the P.I. I killed must have shown him photos of her for him to have bid so fucking high on some random girl’s virginity. Will he fucking behave himself? Will he do something that my temper just won’t tolerate?

Alongside all of that are the small advantages that present themselves, too, though. If Rebel is here, Julio’s gonna be on his best fucking behavior. He’s gonna be distracted, trying to shove his nose so far up Rebel’s ass that he won’t be paying attention to me. Or Sloane. Or a prize hooker being snuck out of the place. Plus…I’ve never met Rebel. I’ve only heard his name spoken amongst the bike gangs and the cartels, whispered like the man’s a fucking god or something. This is a prime opportunity to meet the guy and see what he’s like for myself. To put a face to the name. And commit it to memory for later so I can beat him to death, should the need arise.

“You listening to me, man?” Michael’s already downed his beer, and is holding out a fresh one to me, too. “I thought you were leaving Lace with the doctor? Where is she?”

“Oh. With Sloane’s parents.” I pull on my beer, mulling that one over. The whole thing is kind of ironic. And worrying.

“Aren’t they super religious?”

“Yeah. Her dad’s a minister. Doesn’t get more religious than that.”

Michael smiles politely, although I can tell the fucker’s grinning on the inside. “And do they know about Lacey’s girl-on-girl tendencies? Or the fact that she’s dead set on killing herself at the earliest available opportunity?”

A volt of panic charges through me at his last question. Lacey may have taken to playing with the odd girl here and there, but she’s not a lesbian. It wouldn’t matter to me if she was—eating pussy’s addictive. I can see why chicks like it—but the real reason Lacey’s toying with the fairer sex of late is because she’s afraid. Afraid of guys. Women are softer, kinder, gentler. There’ll come a time when Lace’ll get over that, though. Or at least I’m hoping there will. That’s got a lot to do with the other thing. The dying thing. Sloane may have told her parents to watch Lace like a hawk, but they can’t really understand how messed up the girl is. They don’t know her like I do. They don’t know the level of commitment she’s dedicated to the cause of her own demise. I need to fucking speak to Sloane. I need to speak to Sloane’s fucking
dad.
If she dies on his watch…

Michael brings me back from thoughts of murder. “Does Sloane have a problem with Lacey?”

That’s a weird fucking question. I was going to drink some beer, but the bottle only makes it halfway to my lips. “What? No. Why would she?”

This has Michael chuckling, shaking his head. “You’re clueless, boss. You’re fucking Sloane, yet you’re so protective over Lacey. The doc’s gonna assume you’re fucking her, too. Or that you used to fuck her.”

I love Michael like a brother, but sometimes he’s a stupid shit. “Sloane doesn’t care about my exes. She probably wouldn’t care if I
was
fucking Lacey. She’s not that kind of girl. All she cares about is finding her sister. I’m a means to an end.”

Michael looks at me like
I’m
the stupid shit. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. Well, she’s not asked me for anything.” And they
all
ask me for something. A phone number; a second date; a marriage proposal. Sloane’s repeatedly asked me to get the hell out of her life, or may as well have done.

Michael reaches over and slaps me on the back. He looks oddly bemused. “If you believe that, my dear friend, you’re the dumbest motherfucker alive.”

******

I haven’t found anywhere else to sleep. I really, really should, but I haven’t. I’m waiting for her when she comes back from her pyjama party with Julio’s girls. Her eyes grow wide when she sees me sitting at the small table by the window, cleaning the Desert Eagle.

“What are you doing here?” she asks. She’s wearing some of the heaviest makeup I’ve ever seen. She’s got that smoky look thing going on with her eyes, which makes them pop like crazy.

“Same thing you’ve been doing, I presume? Preparing for tomorrow night.”

“You’re bringing the gun?”

“Fuck yeah. And whatever else I can use to kill a man.”

“Ahh, well, Julio better watch his silverware, then.”

“The silverware’s safe. I can use my bare hands if things get that bad.”

A flash of concern transforms Sloane’s face. “Are you expecting it to get that bad?”

“No. Maybe.” I snap the action of the gun home. “Better to be safe than sorry. Did you see your sister?” This is a dangerous question. I can’t tell just by looking at her what’s gone down at the other house. I’m assuming if it had gone badly, she’d be bawling her eyes out, but with Sloane you never know. She’s not like any other girl I’ve had dealings with. She’s far more complex than any of them. Far more intelligent. And far more fucking confusing.

Sloane comes and sits at the table opposite me; the cloud of perfume she brings with her is a little overbearing but not surprising in the least. Julio’s girls are heavy handed with everything—makeup, tans, tits, the whole nine yards.

“She wasn’t there,” Sloane informs me. “She’s going to be back tomorrow afternoon, in time for the party.”

“Oh.” That’s not great, but not terrible either. We can still make our plan work. Sloane looks troubled, though.

“What’s up?”

She runs her thumb across her lower lip, staring at me. I’m about to tell her she’s making me really fucking uncomfortable, when I realize
no
girl has ever made me feel fucking uncomfortable. I’m damned if I’m gonna admit something like that to her.

“I’ve been thinking about something. And I don’t want you to get mad.”

Well that is a fucking charming opening to a conversation. I sit back in the chair, putting the gun down on the table. She glances at it, and then takes a deep breath. “I want to know if you’re clean.”

“Wha—if I’m
clean
?”

“Yeah.” She shifts uncomfortably in her chair. “Y’know. We’ve had a lot of unprotected sex, and I want to know that you’ve not given me some disgusting or life-threatening disease. You’ve slept with all these hookers and—”

“Whoa, what the fuck?” I’m replaying the last words to come out of her mouth, trying to process them. “I’ve slept with all
what
hookers?”

Small knots of muscle jump in her jaw as she clenches down. I’ve made her angry, but then so fucking what? She’s made me angry, too. Her eyes are blazing when she says, “I thought you were always honest with me. You can’t tell me you haven’t slept with a lot of women.”

“I have slept with a lot of women, Sloane. But I’ve
never
fucked a hooker.” She lets out a snort that says she doesn’t believe me. “Sleeping with someone for money is not something that attracts me. At all. Everyone I’ve ever slept with has been more than willing. Yourself included.” I can feel my temperature rising, but I can
see
it happening to Sloane. Her cheeks have turned a bright red.

“Oh, really? So I lost my virginity in a hotel room in the dark to a complete fucking stranger because I wanted to?”

“You—” I bite back what I really want to say. Fuck! That night. That night’s gonna haunt us for fucking ever. “I’m not sorry for that, Sloane. I didn’t force you, and I didn’t pay you.”

“No, but
Eli
was supposed to. He was supposed to tell me where my sister was,
that
was the payment, but then again you killed him before he could do it. So you’re right. I guess I didn’t get any sort of recompense for bleeding for you.”

She jumps up from the table, physically shaking with rage. I follow after her, taking hold of her arm. She spins and slaps me; I’m expecting it and I let it come. I deserve that one. I probably deserve a whole lot more from her. I let myself feel the sting, waiting to see if she’s got more coming. She just stands there, shaking.

“If I’d have found Alexis a lot sooner if you hadn’t interfered, Zeth,” she whispers. The accusation’s clear in her eyes; she blames me for Alexis being trapped here for the last two years.

“You wouldn’t have found her. He didn’t have the information to give to you, Sloane.”

“That’s bullshit! I went into that office. I found Eli sitting there with a goddamn letter opener sticking out of his chest. And I found the file he had on Alexis! It was right there in his filing cabinet, except you’d taken all of the information out of it! Why! Why did you do that?”

I’m doing my best here, but I don’t have a great track record with anger management. Only what they taught me in prison, and that didn’t ever really help. Fuck it, though. She wants to rehash this? We can rehash this.

“The file didn’t have anything about Alexis in it, Sloane. It was all
you
. Eli had all your personal details in there. He had photos of you at work, in your car.
At home.
” I let that last part linger between us for a moment, letting all the connotations develop in her mind. Her eyes are bright and shining, but the information seems to have taken her aback.

“Me? What do you mean, photos of me at home?”

“I mean photos of you in the shower, in bed, walking around naked. He had video files of you fucking touching yourself, Sloane.”

“What?” Her voice is a whisper. The horror on her face…

Fuck.

“I went in there to get Alexis’ information for you, but Eli laughed about it. He said he knew your sister was living in LA but he had no clue where. He’d just heard on the grapevine that a dark haired girl had been taken by bikers and she was working for them now. He wasn’t even gonna tell you that much, though, okay? He was gonna feed you some shitty line that would end up being a dead-end lead, and you would have had to go back to him again for more information. And guess fucking what? You weren’t gonna be a virgin anymore, so you were gonna have to fuck
three
guys to get
that
fake piece of info. And on and on it would have gone. Round and round we go. And then I saw the other files on the other girls he had in his office. Did you bother looking in those?”

“Yes! I—” She stops, though. All her furious energy has waned away; she’s staring at the floor, tears trembling on the tips of her eyelashes, while her brain works overtime. “I saw them. I looked through a few. They were all…” She swallows hard. “They were all normal. Regular cases. Adulterers and broken bail bonds.”

It’s my turn to shake my head now. “No, you didn’t see the files. Because I took them, too. I took them all. He was doing the same thing to at least twelve other women, and he was pulling the strings on each and every one of them. I destroyed the photos, the thumb drives, the disc everything. And then you’re right—I did kill Eli. I killed him because he stabbed me first. Here. You want fucking proof?” I tear my shirt over my head, twisting so she can see the two inches of narrow scar tissue where Eli Horowitz stuck me in the side with his stupid fucking letter opener. I mean what kind of P.I. doesn’t have a proper fucking knife? Or a gun, come to think of it?

“Zeth…” She’s reaching out, her fingertips shaking, but she doesn’t touch my skin. By the look on her face, she’s scared. Scared shitless. She jerks her head in a small motion of denial. “You had those scars before. In the hotel. I felt them.”

“I had these scars, sure.” I point to the four jagged marks across my torso, the ones I earned myself back in New York and while I was in Chino. “But this…this was after. After I saw you at the hotel.”

“Oh my God.” Sloane steps backward, once, twice and then the backs of her legs hit the bed. Her ass hits the mattress hard as she sits down. “I had no idea.” She covers her mouth with her hands, breathing noisily through her fingers.

“And in response to your earlier question, Sloane. I
am
clean. I’ve only ever slept with
you
without using protection. I figured it was safe with you since I’m the only guy you’ve been with. But still. I needed a good STD accusation to finish off my day nicely. So fuck you very much.”

I want to leave. I want to storm out of the room and slam the door so fucking hard it smashes off its hinges. I’ve been walking out a lot recently, though, and we can’t afford to keep yelling at each other in Julio’s villa. The guy’s gonna kill me sooner rather than later if we keep ruining his peace and quiet. Instead, I turn my back on her, digging the heels of my palms into my eyes, trying to breathe through it all. To try and pull myself back from the brink of all out war with her. This is why fucking and leaving has always worked so well in the past. If you don’t stick around for shit to get awkward, you never have to go through this bullshit. I had a good system. I should go back to—

I go rigid when I feel her hand touch my back.

“Why did you do all of that?” she whispers.

“Which part? Protect your modesty, or prevent you from being used by a scumbag asshole?”

“All of it. Why did you even intervene in the first place? How did you know Eli was…was selling me?”

It’s easier to answer these questions with my back to her.
Easier
but not
easy
. I don’t know if…I don’t think I can answer her properly. Not really. I do my best.

“My uncle Carl.” That’s how I begin. That’s how a lot of the stories in my life have begun. With him. “When my parents died, my uncle Carl took me on. He was a piece of shit, and he used to beat me. He wasn’t all that bad, though. He’d wait long enough for me to heal from the last one before laying into me again. And he hardly ever broke bones. That was a small mercy, I guess. Things got real bad when I was about eight. He started drinking more. Whatever. So I learned how to distance myself from it all. For me, Carl was like a festering wound that refused to fucking heal, and yet I somehow managed to turn off the nerve endings. I managed to not feel any of it anymore. I shut myself down and suddenly I could handle everything that was happening to me.