Rev It Up (15 page)

“Oh, good,” Mary gushed. “Well, keep me informed then.”

She clicked off without saying good-bye, but Johnny didn’t give a rat’s ass how rude his sister was, because the couple next door was ramping it up for the big finish, and despite the crudeness of the show, or maybe because of it, his cock began to throb with interest.

Tonight, he’d visit Michelle Knight, and before ending her life, he planned to put a period on his sexual slump.

A niggle of anticipation trilled up the length of his spine.

***

If someone had told Michelle when she woke up this morning that she’d be driving through the Black Knights’ secret underground tunnel about to take Jake home with her, she’d have said,
Yeah, when hell freezes over.

Well, the devil and his demons must be sledding and making snow angels, because that’s exactly what she was doing.

This
can’t be happening.

That thought kept circling around in her head, but all she had to do to convince herself that she wasn’t dreaming—or having a nightmare—was look over at Jake’s hard profile cast into shadow by the dimly glowing lights on the Hummer’s dashboard. If she wasn’t mistaken, there was a tiny smirk tilting up one corner of his mouth.

This was exactly what he wanted, no doubt about it.

“I can change your mind.”
He’d said it with such absolute certainly that just thinking of it now caused a cold shiver to race down her spine. Because there was small part of her, a very small part—okay, maybe not so small—that feared he might be right.

Of course, when he pulled the Hummer out of the dark, dank tunnel and into the parking garage on the opposite side of the river from the Black Knights’ compound and she watched in the rearview mirror as the concrete wall silently slid back into place behind them, completely camouflaging their route, she was reminded that Jake was the very
least
of her worries right now.

There were much bigger fish to fry. Fish that came in the form of hired gunmen.

Sweet
Jesus.
She rubbed her sweaty palms on her jeans and tried to rake in a calming breath. It didn’t work. Especially when she realized Jake was obviously thinking about those same fish, because he exited the parking garage like his tires were on fire, careening around the corner and onto the street.

“Sorry,” he muttered, glancing into the back of the Hummer where Franklin was strapped into his car seat, still sleeping the sleep of the dead—or the sleep of tired three-year-old boys. “I’ve got to make sure we don’t have a tail.”

“Don’t worry,” she assured him, grabbing the handle above the door, the one Frank always referred to as the
oh shit bar,
when Jake took the next corner like he was manning the wheel of a sports car instead of a big, cumbersome Hummer. She closed her eyes and winced when they missed the back bumper on a parked Mercedes by no more than a hair. “He’s like his Uncle Frank in that he can sleep through anything.”

“Yeah,” Jake said, checking the mirrors, “I’ve noticed that.”

When they’d gone a few blocks, made a few more erratic turns, he blew out a breath and settled more comfortably into the driver’s seat.

“We’re good?” she asked him.

“We’re good.” He nodded.

“Oh, good.”
Okay
, she rolled her eyes,
and
just
crown
me
Queen
Lame-Ass. Geez.

He grinned over at her, his dimples dark shadows in his stubbled cheeks as he reached over and clicked on the radio.

The sound of KT Tunstall’s smooth voice drifted softly through the vehicle.

She quickly glanced out the window and for the thousandth time that night found herself on the verge of tears.

It
would
have
to
be
this
song, wouldn’t it?

***

Jake looked over at Shell, wondering if she was thinking the same thing he was thinking.

“Remember this song?” he asked. “It was playing that night me and all the boys of Bravo Platoon built that mammoth bonfire on the beach in Coronado to celebrate our last day of freedom before being required to embrace the suck and head back to Afghanistan. I finally got up the balls to tell you how I really felt that night, soldiered up enough to finally kiss you. Do you remember?”

Her whole body froze. Yeah, she remembered…

He took a chance. “The guys were playing football, we strolled down the beach and you…you told me you’d wait for me.”

“And I did,” she whispered, her voice strangled.

“Yes, you did. I came home four months later to find you the same wonderful, wholesome, beautiful Shell. But I came back different, didn’t I?” He’d been hurt and angry and, worst of all, broken. He’d taken that hurt and anger out on her. He’d said and done things that couldn’t be taken back, but they could certainly be explained and apologized for.

He opened his mouth to start in on all those apologies and explanations when Franklin piped up from the backseat. “Mama, I needa go potty.”

“Can you wait a little bit until we get home, sweetpea?” Shell asked, twisting around in the front seat, and Jake noticed, even in the darkness of the vehicle, the wetness in her eyes.

As much as he hated to see Shell sad, those tears gave him cause for hope. Because they meant that, despite everything, despite her claims to the contrary, she still cared.

He suddenly felt so light he was sure, had the roof of the Hummer not stopped him, he would’ve floated right up into the night sky.

“No, Mama.” He caught Franklin’s vigorous headshake in the rearview mirror. “I gotta
go
wight
now
.”

“Jake,” she turned to him, “could you—”

“Already on it,” he said, hooking a fast right into the parking lot of a gas station, ridiculously happy at doing this, this ordinary, mundane thing of getting the kid to a restroom, this…being a family.

Yo, I could definitely get used to this…

***

“Oh, this is gonna be fun,” Rock murmured as he glanced around the reception area at the pay-by-the-hour roach motel. The one that promised to be his home for the next few days.

There was a sad, lopsided plastic plant in one corner, a couple of painted-up ladies of the evening lounging on a ratty, red velvet settee, and a cigarillo-smoking, stained-wife-beater-wearing guy working behind a set of steel bars that separated the reception desk from the rest of the entryway.

To add to the air of seediness, the smell of sex mixed with the more pungent aromas of bottom shelf booze and stale cigarette smoke.

“I’ve seen worse,” Vanessa murmured as she slipped an arm around his waist and swayed drunkenly.

The drunkenness was all part of the act. It, along with her platinum blond wig, sky-high red patent-leather pumps, nearly nonexistent mini-skirt, slick ruby lips, and enough kohl eyeliner to give a randy raccoon a heart attack, was supposed to fool everyone into thinking she was just another working girl who’d scored herself a high-class john.

Enter him: the high-class john.

The Armani suit he was wearing was stolen from Christian’s closet along with the Gucci loafers that were half a size too big and slipping against his heels.

Oui,
he was gonna have one hell of a set of blisters by the time this was over. No doubt about it.

He slung an arm around her shoulders and leaned down to whisper in her ear. “Now
that
sounds like a story I’d like to hear sometime,
chère
.”

“I’d tell you,” she whispered back, “but then I’d have to kill you.”

It was the standard spec-ops comeback, but he threw his head back and laughed like she’d just said the wittiest thing he’d ever heard, because,
mon
dieu,
the feel of her pressed against his side seared him like a brand.

The next four days were going to be hell. And he was contemplating this very salient fact when he caught a look at himself in the smoky, gilt mirror clinging to the peeling wallpaper.

He barely recognized his own reflection.

With the neon-blue colored contact lenses he’d popped in his eyes, his hairless chin, and the jet-black dye he’d washed through his hair—not to mention the gold watch and four-carat diamond sparkling in his ear—he looked like a quintessential Chicago mobster.

Shades of Al Capone.

One of the good things about having a non-descript face was that a few small changes completely altered his looks.

“Hi, sugar,” Vanessa slurred to the guy working behind the bars, her voice a rough parody of itself, like she’d spent the last fifteen years smoking two packs a day. Rock considered himself a pretty good actor, but Vanessa Cordero,
oui
, she was world class. “We’re gonna need a room for—” she glanced up at him, pursing her glistening lips. And though this was all a giant ruse, for a moment he wished he really
was
taking her upstairs to peel away that ridiculously small halter-top and that barely there miniskirt in order to sink into the warm, wet welcome of her body. “How long you want, big daddy? An hour? Two?”

“Let’s make it a full night and go from there,” he winked, donning his best Chicago-accent while reaching into his jacket pocket to pull out a platinum Bulgari money clip—also on loan from The Christian Watson collection. Rock would never understand the guy’s obsession with designer labels. Right now, he missed his jeans like crazy and, oh lordy, what he wouldn’t give to have his boots back. “Mr. and Mrs. Smith checking in,” he told the guy who cast a jaded eye over his suit.

“That’ll be two hundred dollars, Mr…
Smith
,” the guy rasped as he chewed on the end of his cigarillo and ran a hand through the ten hairs still left atop his greasy head.

Two hundred dollars?

Uh-huh. Rock highly suspected the rates at the Stardust Hotel worked on a sliding scale. The more money you could afford to pay, the more money your stay was gonna run you.

“We’d like a room facing west,” he told the guy as he thumbed off two Benjamins and slid them between the bars. “You know, so the sun doesn’t wake us up in the morning.” And so they’d be perfectly situated to watch the hotel’s front door and the comings and goings at the bar across the street.

The guy threw the crisp bills into an old-fashioned cash register that
dinged
in happiness of yet another deposit before he slid Rock a key with a plastic, diamond-shaped attachment. On the attachment, in chipped white font, was the number 402.

“We’ve got a delivery coming,” he told Mr. Cigarillo, winking and running his tongue over his lips in a lewd gesture. “A few…
provisions
to get us through the night, if ya know what I mean.”

The guy stared at him with dead, bloodshot eyes and continued to chew on the soggy end of his cigarillo.

“Anyway,” he continued, undeterred by Sir Wife-Beater’s bored gaze, “when they get here, just send ’em on up.”

Sir Wife-Beater transferred his smoke to the other side of his mouth, flashing one severely crooked front tooth, and Rock figured that was as close as he was going to get to an acknowledgment of his request.

Pocketing the key, he once more slid his arm around Vanessa’s shoulders and steered her toward the lone elevator as she pretended to teeter precariously in her high heels. The women lounging lazily on the settee evaluated his suit and shoes and primped by fluffing their hair and their boobs while simultaneously batting their fake lashes.

“You get tired of her, honey,” one of them called, “you just come back down here. Candy’ll show you a real good time.”

“Back off, bitch,” Vanessa snarled. Rock bit his lip to keep from grinning. “This one’s mine. Go find your own.”

“Who you callin’ a bitch, bitch?” Candy demanded, showing a set of teeth brown and worn down from too many years smoking unfiltered cigarettes.

“I’m callin’
you
a bitch,
bitch
!” Vanessa retorted hotly, making like she was heading toward Candy.

Rock dragged her back and shoved her in the elevator before Candy could push up from the settee. When the creaky silver doors closed them inside and the elevator began its jerky journey upward, he turned to ask if that was really necessary, even as entertaining as it’d been, but she grabbed his face.