Page 44 of Pain and Pleasure

"I'm tired, Ricky. Let's go home," I say, looking back at the guards who are busy checking wristbands for the line of people now ushering into the club.

"We will go home, as soon as we look and see if this is my cat, you heartless bitch," he playfully tells me, pulling me with him as we walk into the alleyway.

We are about ten feet away as we approach the cat and Ricky bends down to call for it. After about a minute of him clicking his tongue and beckoning it, the cat runs away and I roll my eyes.

"There's your answer. Are we done now?" I say, ready to walk back to the front.

Ricky sighs and stands, giving me an evil eye. We are walking back to the front when I hear someone whisper something. Something that sounded an awful lot like my name.

"Did you say something?" I ask him, but he shakes his head.

As soon as he opens his mouth, I see his eyes move to look at something behind me before they widen. He begins to yell out, but I already feel something cold and metal press against my back, a sweaty and large hand coming around to close over my mouth as I am pulled back against a cold and strange body.

20

Esmeralda

The handaround my mouth is cold and chapped, I can feel the rough bits of skin against my lips. Whoever is behind me is gripping me so tight that my breathing is constricted, but I still thrash against him.

His free hand is stretched out, holding a gun that is pointed directly at Ricky's head. My eyes widen and I scream behind the hand, but it's useless. Ricky is as still as a statue, his hands raised in surrender.

"Make one more sound and a bullet goes through his skull." I hear the voice rasp against my ear and I recognize it immediately.

It belongs to the man who was tied up in Dante's boardroom the other week. I look to the hand that's holding the gun and notice his bandaged finger, confirming his identity.

"You had me at a disadvantage last week. Boss didn't realize you had a keen eye for detail, but really you're just as stupid as every other woman, walking into an alleyway at night away from your precious guards," he hisses in my ear, and I cringe inwardly.

Ricky's eyes widen in both understanding and apology. I try to signal for him to create a distraction, my eyes flicking between him and the main entrance by the door. We've been friends our whole lives, he has to pick up on some sort of cue.

Thank God he does, because within seconds of my eye movement, he's pointing behind the man that's holding me.

"I guess you're at a disadvantage again, being as one of her precious guards is right behind you," he says and the man turns his head immediately, his gun following in the direction Ricky pointed in.

I take that as my opportunity to immediately stomp on the man's foot and then kick my leg back and straight into his crotch. He doubles over in pain, allowing me to wrestle free of his tight grasp. Ricky leaps forward to grab the gun and I want to yell at him for doing something so stupid, but it's too late because both he and the man are tumbling to the ground, the gun clanking against the cement and scattering a few feet away.

Ricky and the man toss and turn on the ground and I feel helpless until I see an opportunity. Ricky has the man pinned beneath him momentarily and I stomp my stiletto heel into the man's exposed hand. He yells out in pain, and I scoot the gun towards me with my other foot as I keep this one pinning the man’s hand down.

I grab it and as soon as Ricky manages to climb away from the man, I press my heel into his neck, halting his movement. Ricky stands and yells for the guards as I bend to press the gun to the man's head, adrenaline coursing through me. I see Benjamin and two guards rushing towards us as I sneer into the man's ear.

"I'd love nothing more than to see your blood splattered across the pavement, but I'll leave that up to mypreciousguards." He's cursing and screaming at me, but it's useless because as soon as the guards grab him, they immediately start landing blows to his face.

I grab my purse from the ground and hand the man's gun to Benjamin, who tucks it into his pants as his phone starts ringing.

"It's Dante," is all he says, and I sigh.

I don't want to deal with him right this second, especially since I just escaped a chokehold. I grab Ricky's hand and start walking to the car, speaking to Benjamin as he trails behind us.

"Just tell him I'm safe and we're on the way home. I'll talk to him when we get there," I say before heading to the car with Ricky.

As soon as we start driving, the questions begin spilling from Ricky's mouth. I already feel a headache coming on, but I know I need to be honest with him.

"My biological father has been watching me for years. He abused my mother at one of Dante's clubs and she became pregnant with me. He murdered Dante's father that night and he's been out to kill me ever since he found out I was born. Even more so now that he knows I'm with Dante," I say, beating Ricky to the punch and unloading everything all at once.

His eyes widen and confusion filters through his panic. I shake my head at him, letting him know that I don't want to dive any deeper into it. It's quiet for the remainder of the car ride, but I speak up as we near the mansion.

"Ricky, I think you should take Marianne up on the New York offer. I never want to be without you, but I also don't want to see you dead. I don't want you caught up in this. I want you to live your dream," I say, looking at his sad eyes as he reaches a hand out to me and grabs one of mine.

"If you think for one second that I'm going to leave you after knowing that somebody wants you dead, then you really are fucked in the head. I'm not going anywhere, Emmie," he says sternly and I shake my head defiantly.

---