Page 75 of Arm Candy Warrior

His gaze narrows at me, but he doesn’t say anything.

“This could be a victim like your mother.”

“I’ve been around my mom enough to know that she does this shit to herself. The way I see it, it’s all too easy. Don’t do drugs, and you wouldn’t be caught in the fucked-up situations you find yourself in.”

“Natalia’s not a druggie,” Brawler says, voice firm. “She wouldn’t be caught dead in a place like that.”

I eye him again. He gazes softly down at her. He definitely knows this girl and is worried about what happens to her. He’s got such a good heart.

But I will cut a bitch if I have to. Just sayin’.

Magnum drives to a corner store to pick up a few things and then to a park just outside of town. We stay there until Natalia starts to come around again. She’s in and out of it, and no matter how much I want to slap her to get her to wake up quicker, I agree this is the humane way. It’s just that the more we wait to see what’s happened to her, the more the same thing is happening to someone else.

An hour and a half later, Natalia’s eyes shoot open. Her cheeks blow out, and she covers her mouth. “Fuuuck,” Oscar says, backing away.

I grab the shopping bag Magnum came out of the store with and shove it in her face. She expels the contents of her stomach into it over and over, gagging. The air in the car turns putrid. We throw the car doors open. Oscar and Magnum even leave while Brawler and I stay with her.

I hand her the water, and she takes it gratefully, sending me a short-lived smile. Her hands shake as she holds the bottle to her lips, gulping the water down. I tried to keep it cool, but she’s been out for too long, so I doubt it’s stayed refreshing. It doesn’t seem to matter to her though.

She lies back on the seat, throwing the bag out of the car. She turns her gaze to Brawler and then to me. “What am I doing here?”

“You were at Candy’s,” Brawler says. “We were there for Kyla’s after party and you looked messed up.”

She clenches her stomach. “I work there,” she says.

Brawler and I eye each other.

“I just started as a waitress,” she continues. “I don’t know. They’re not doing the strip club thing anymore, so I thought what the hell. The last thing I remember is getting a drink before my shift started. We heard you had a fight that night, so we knew we were going to be busy.”

Her drink. They must have put something in her fucking drink. “You don’t remember anything after that.”

She shakes her head, but the look on her face is telling me things are still fuzzy. “Fuck. Do you think someone put something in my drink? Fucking Gregory handed it to me.”

I refuse to look at Brawler. That’s the evidence we needed. I think. He’s Dunnegan’s right-hand man. He was in there with Oscar’s mom last night. If he’s orchestrating this sort of sex ring with women who are too out of it to notice, Dunnegan has to be in on it too.

I glance up at Natalia who’s drinking the water again. How do I even tell this girl what’s going down at Candy’s? Or what I think is going down at Candy’s? I don’t want to alarm her for no reason, but she wasn’t upstairs for the fun of it.

“We found you upstairs, Natalia. Upstairs at Candy’s.”

She shakes her head. “That doesn’t make sense. We’re not allowed upstairs. It’s where they used to have the private stripteases and shit, but since they’re not doing it anymore, it’s off-limits.”

I put my hand on her knee. She looks down at herself, frowning at her outfit. Recognition starts to spark in her gaze. “Natalia, I think you were drugged. Brawler found you upstairs in one of the rooms.” As I’m talking, I’m a half second behind her thoughts because before the next thing even slips out of my mouth, it’s as if she knows what I’m about to say and is already dreading it.

She sits up straight. “I want to go home now.”

“Natalia,” I say, squeezing her knee.

She pushes my hand away from her. “I want to fucking go home. Now.”

We sit back. Brawler puts some space between the two of them. Magnum and Oscar must have heard what she said because Oscar gets in and shuts the door while Magnum gets in the driver’s seat and starts the car up. I close the last door, the sound ricocheting around the interior as a pool of dead weight sinks to the bottom of my stomach.

I feel for this girl, I do. Who knows what unimaginable things were done to her before Brawler walked into her room? I watch her as we drive and see the moment each terrible thought strikes her. One thing’s for sure. Natalia’s fucking strong, but her strength can’t hide the truth. Just as mine could never hide what happened to me.

30

Magnum follows Natalia’s directions, pulling up to a house that’s been turned into many apartments. The shudders are falling down, and the siding is peeling and chipping off. The glow from the porch light lights the rundown house in starkness.

As soon as Magnum parks the car, Natalia glances down at herself. She clutches her stomach. “I can’t go in like this. My grandmother will kill me.”

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