Stand of Redemption (4 page)

Chapter 5

“Another round of Buds, Chris!” Ria yelled at Chris from across the bar.

It was another Saturday night, and the crowd was rowdy. Fortunately, everyone seemed to be in a good mood. The local baseball team had won a game, and the fans were out celebrating. It had been a good night for all of the waitresses.

Ria looked around and breathed a sigh of relief. For once, she was actually enjoying herself in this shithole. She hated waitressing, but she got along with everyone who worked there. She was used to feeling like an outsider, yet everyone there was just like her: hard workers merely trying to make ends meet.

It was nothing like when she was younger and every move she made was watched. Her f
ather had been involved in a cartel. Her mother had attempted to protect her as she grew older, but her downward spiral into drug use had taken her from a caring mother to a drug addict who needed constant monitoring.

She shook off those thoughts. Her mother was doing okay now. Her stint in rehab had cleaned her up. Ria simply worried she hadn’t stayed long enough to keep her that way.

“Coming at you,” Chris hollered back.

She watched Chris pop open the lids of the beers and hand them to her. He was the only bartender tonight, and he was doing a good job of keeping up with the demand. As he turned back to the next customer with his adorable smile, she saw the look of impatience disappear from the young woman’s face, replaced with flirtation. Ria shook her head. She would probably end up being Chris’s next easy target for a quick romp.

Ria took the beers to one of her tables. The young men appeared to be in college, and were out for a good time.

“Here you go, fellas.” Ria gave them each their beers. “Need anything else?”

“Just a high five!” One of the young, drunk men raised his hand in the air toward her, almost falling off the stool in the process.

Ria laughed and steadied him then reached up to smack his hand still in the air.

“Go, Tigers!” he slurred.

“Go
, Tigers,” Ria replied, and the group laughed.

Ria attended to her other tables and went to stand by the bar to take a breather since she had just delivered everyone fresh drinks. She looked toward Chris, and he winked at her as he poured a shot of tequila for one of the customers in line. Ria smiled back, used to Chris’s flirt
atious ways. He winked at all of the waitresses.

The rest of the night went well, and when Chris counted the money out for the girls, he handed Ria eight hundred dollars. It was one hell of a night. She wished the team won every weekend. Ria sighed and felt
herself relax. The money would help get her through the next two months.

They all cleaned the bar and walked to their cars for the night as Chris stood watch. Once he saw them safely into their vehicles, Ria watched him walk to his car where the woman from earlier was waiting for him. Ria was proud of herself for calling that one. She watched Chris open the door for her and then get in to take off
to who knows where.

Ria put the keys in the ignition of her car and went to start it, but nothing happened. She tried again. It wouldn’t start. She looked around to see if anyone was around; however, she had taken too long to try to get her car started, and now the parking lot was empty. She looked down to see if there was anything to indicate why her car wasn’t starting and cussed at herself. She had left the fucking lights on.

She tried to figure out what to do. She knew Lacey would be asleep and would have called Chris, but she didn’t want to interrupt him. There was a gas station a couple of blocks away. She stopped there many times on her way home and knew the friendly, elderly man who worked there. She could ask him if he could jump her car.

She looked around and felt safe enough to get out. She hadn’t heard of much crime in the area and knew she didn’t have very far to walk.

She stepped out of the car and locked it. She then turned to walk to the gas station, keeping her phone in her hand, and enjoying the fresh air after being in the bar all night.

As she thought of the money she’d made, she saw a shadow come toward her. She tried to hit send on her phone to call Chris, but it was knocked from her hand. Then she was dragged into an alley between two buildings.

She felt herself thrown against the wall, and her head bounced off the concrete. She whimpered from the pain as she tried to see who was attacking her, but it was too dark and her vision was blurry from the blow to her head.

“You fucking thief. Did you think I wouldn’t notice the extra money you stole for yourself?” She heard a deep voice growl in her face.

“What are you talking about?” Ria was shaking with fear. She hadn’t stolen any money; she’d earned that eight hundred dollars.

The man shook her again and shoved her against the wall. He then wrapped his hand around her neck, slowly constricting her airway.
“Don’t play dumb, bitch. I saw the copy of the receipt with the extra three hundred.”

In her haze,
Ria’s mind jumped to the previous weekend.
Oh, no
, she thought to herself.
Chris hadn’t credited the money back
. She should have known tonight when her tips were excessively high that he must have slipped her the money back. She had thought the college students had left her the extra-large tip.

“I’m sorry! I’ll give it back. Please, please, let me give it back.” Ria strained to say the words as his grip tightened on her throat.

“Oh, I’ll get it back… and more.” His other hand slid under her skirt, grabbing her roughly. “You piece of trash, showing your tits and ass, but playing hard to get. Girls like you are meant to serve men like me. You think you can take what’s mine? I’ll get what you were promising me,” he said softly as he pushed her panties to the side.

Sickened at his touch, Ria kicked out.
Oh God, she didn’t know what to do. She tried to claw at his face, but her head was killing her, and she couldn’t put much strength into fighting back.

He managed to pin her flailing body against the wall when she felt herself suddenly r
eleased.

Finally able to breathe, she saw another man punching her attacker. She scooted away, although she could see that whomever had saved her had her attacker under control. The out of shape man didn’t stand a chance against her savior.

Eventually, her attacker quit fighting back. She could hear him groaning, so at least he wasn’t dead.

The other man turned to her. “Are you okay?”

Ria could hear the concern in his voice as he checked on her. Now that the shock was wearing off, she felt like she was going to pass out. She touched the back of her head, feeling the large lump forming.

“I... I think so,” she mumbled. It was so hard to think, but her mind kept telling her to do something.

“I need to get you to a hospital.”

Ria shook her head no. There was something she had to do. As she felt herself start to slip away, she forced herself to stay conscious.
The money!

She reached into her pocket and pulled out the cash.

“What the hell are you doing?” the man snapped at her.

“Give him three hundred dollars, please,” she panted.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he snapped again. “He was going to rape you!”

“
Three hundred dollars. Give it to him!” she said with as much strength as she could muster while she held the wad of money out.

“Fuck. Fine.”

Ria watched him count some money out and throw it at the man.

“Let’s go.” He pulled at her.

Ria tried to walk with him; however, the blackness took over.

The last thing she remembered coming from the man was, “Oh, shit!”

*  *  *

Ria
opened her eyes and looked around at the strange surroundings. She was in a small room with nothing except a bed, nightstand, dresser, and desk with a backpack next to the desk. The sunlight shining through the window indicated it must be the next morning. She’d thought she would be at a hospital, but apparently, the man had decided to bring her here.

She sat up and felt the pain shoot through her head, forcing the memories from earlier to return. She looked over at the nightstand and saw a glass of water and a bottle of Ibuprofen. She put her feet on the ground as she reached for the bottle.

As she popped the pills and took a drink of water, she heard some noises below her. There were men yelling and loud thuds.

She slowly stood up and walked out the door and down a hallway overlooking a large room with several rings where men were fighting each other.

How did I end up here?

She looked around to see if she recognized any of the men.
One man stood out to her in the corner. He was talking to two younger men and looked angry. It appeared as though one of the men was trying to explain something. The man gave the younger one a look which caused him to stop talking.

She looked down the hall to see how to get downstairs before she made her way down the hall. She glanced over to look at the man who appeared to be in charge, and when she did, their eyes met. He appeared to have a few more things to say to the two men, though.

She walked down the stairs, noticing several posters of fighters holding belts. She assumed they had trained here. She would never understand why anyone would want to do this for a living.

Several men turned to look at her as she made her way across the room.
Ria felt self-conscious as she felt their attention on her. She looked at the supposed owner and saw him watching her walk toward him.

One of the younger men turned to her.
“Hey, how are you feeling?” Ria could hear the concern in his voice and recognized it from the night before.

“Much better, thanks to you,” she replied. “I’m
Ria Sloan.” Ria put her hand out to shake the hand of the man who’d saved her. She would never know what her attacker’s intentions would have been after he raped her.

She saw the men all stiffen when she introduced herself. She looked at them curiously. It was as if they were surprised by her name.

The young man reached out to shake her hand. “Hi, Ria. I’m Ty, and this is Lane. We both train and live here. This is Zane; he owns the gym.”

Ria looked up at the tall man.
She vaguely remembered him from the night of the championship fight. She had been more focused on tending to Nicholas’s broken arm, though.

Looking at him now, he took her breath away. He was tall and perfectly proportioned in every way. He had a commanding presence that seemed to let everyone around him know he was the one in charge. He seemed like a man who called the shots and got his way.

“It’s nice to meet all of you,” Ria said warmly.

She turned to Ty. “But why am I here?”

“Ty thought it would be best to bring you here where you would be safe,” Zane answered for him.

Ria turned back to Zane. “Safe from what?”

“The man that attacked you,” Zane replied as if she was daft for asking.

“Oh, yeah.” Ria bit her lip. She didn’t want to admit what she had done, but she didn’t think that man would be coming back after her now.

“We checked your head and there’s a bad bump, but it’s not life-threatening.” Zane turned to scowl at Ty. “Considering Ty apparently beat the shit out of the man then left him there, we didn’t want charges pressed against Ty until we could make sure you were okay.”

“Oh, no! Ty saved my life. If not for him, God only knows what would have happened!” She didn’t want to take this to the police. She could only blame herself for this mess.

Ria continued, “I’m fine. Like you said, it’s just a bad bump. I’ll take it easy until the swelling goes down.”

“You need to report this to the police. Unfortunately, because Ty left the scene, the man was long gone before we could find him.” Zane scowled at Ty again.

Ria looked to see Ty’s reaction. She saw a mixture of rebellion and frustration in his face, though he kept his mouth shut.

“Look, it’s okay. I don’t think he’ll do it again. The only reason I was out last night was b
ecause my car wouldn’t start,” Ria explained.

“That doesn’t change the fact that you were attacked by a stranger,” Zane said firmly.

Ria could see he thought she wasn’t all there. Damn it, she was going to have to admit to what she had done.

“Listen, I fucked up last week and gave myself a tip on his credit card receipt. He had been an ass the whole night and when he didn’t leave me a tip, I wrote one in for myself,” Ria said
quickly while keeping her eyes down in shame. “I know it was wrong, but I’m so tight for money right now I needed the tip. Regardless, that’s no excuse. I’m ashamed of myself for doing it.” Ria purposely omitted that she had thought Chris had fixed her deception. He had only been trying to help, knowing how desperate she was for money. It was embarrassing enough to have admitted her poor choice of actions out loud for others to hear.

“That explains the money now.” Ty turned to Zane and Lane. “Before she passed out, she begged me to give him three hundred dollars.”