Page 49 of Queenpin
I rub the thirteen tattooed in my wrist and shake my head. “I’m not here to talk about me. I’m here to talk about you. What happened to you?” I couldn’t bare to tell her that I have not had actual consensual sex in my life and I sure the hell couldn’t tell her that I wouldn’t know how.
I’m Lucian McGrace and that’s not going to change.
“Exactly what you think happened to me. Nothing less and probably everything more than what you are thinking. But it’s over. Get me out of here. I am ready to get out of here.”
Katie is a curvy woman with extra padding. So, it must have taken a lot for someone to beat this woman so much. But she saved me from getting jumped by the gang that I belong to and I would lay my life down for her. There is nothing that I wouldn’t do for her.
I shrug out of my jacket and drape it around her shoulders. It didn’t meet in the middle, but it will cover her exposed skin from the beating that she received. “Do you think we should go to-”
“Fuck no. The hospital wouldn’t save me nor would they help me in anyway. I have to take care of this. Promise me, Luca, you will let me handle this.” She was pleading with me but as she talked, I could see the dried blood in her mouth as it coated her teeth. She looked as if she had received too many hits to the mouth but that is because she probably did. Her jaw is hanging off to the side and I’m fucking worried that she broke it. There is nothing that I could do to help mend a broken jaw.
“I’m not promising anything but let’s get out of here before they come back. Where is all of your stuff?”
She walked around with a limp to gather her shit and shoved it into her bag that she had laying under the chair. It is amazing the amount of ugly that happens in such a beautiful place.
Katie had everything stuffed in her bag when the door began to rattle. “Open the fucking door! I know you are in there! Open the fucking door right now! Lucian! I know you are in there, too. I swear to fucking god… if you don’t answer the door right now, I’m going to break it down and both of your asses are going to be skinned.”
“Just a minute!” Katie called out and she started to shake.
“No! Fuck that!” I hissed in her ear. “You don’t owe them anything! I swear to you that if you open that door, they will own you for the rest of your life and you will never get out. Is that what you want?”
***
My eyes widened as Miguel circled me and fingered my hair. I have been wondering when the man with the thirteen tattooed on his face would come back to see me. I have been living in the compound for a little over a week and I have yet to be called on to be jumped-in.
3-1-3 gang dominated the streets of Detroit but in order to throw of the police, we have been branded with “13” instead. All the same, everyone knows who we are and knows that I am apart of them as well.
***
The door rattles and I could hear the wood breaking apart before it splinters. I have my gun aimed right at the door. I start shoving Katie’s shit into the bag on the floor. “Get your shit together because we are out of here. I don’t want to hear anything about it!”
Katie nods her head quickly and helps shuck her stuff in the bag. “I’m so sorry, Luca!”
I cut her off and that is when the door crashed open and I see Big Heavy standing in front of us. “Well, well, well. If it isn’t my two favorite girls?”
My friend’s body starts to vibrate with fear, but I kept my cool. You didn’t get to where I am being a scared little weakling. “Look, Ralf, I know that this is a tricky situation but…”
Ralf stands at five feet five and one hundred percent full of muscles. I have wanted to fucking shoot this bastard for the past ten years. “You shut your fuckin’ whore mouth!”
My back straightens and I grab for my knife that I keep tucked in my pocket. “Drop that, Lucian. You forget we grew up on the same streets.”
Fuck.
“Ralf, Katie is done. She’s wanting to come home. Don’t keep her here because you’re still mad at something that happened ten years ago. It’s over.”
I drop the knife on the ground and then reach my hand back into my pocket. There is nothing else in there, but it makes me feel better knowing that my hand is covered. Especially since it’s the one that covers my tattoo.
He steps forward and reaches out to touch my arm. I flinch back because I don’t like being touched at all. “Luca… Luca… Luca… I would gladly trade her in for someone more experienced. Like…. you.”
I flinch back but he grabs ahold of my throat and his meaty fingers bite into my flesh. White spots cloud the side of my vision and I begin to panic. Pure panic that won’t go away. “No, you don’t want me.”
Working for Ralf is like asking the devil for a job. There is nothing good that will happen with working for him. “Let me be the judge for that.”
I feel the panic rise in my throat. Each moment I’m standing in front of Big Heavy is another moment of memories I wish to not remember. They broke my body. All fifteen of them. It didn’t matter that Katie jumped in. The damage had already been done.
He could kill me all he wants.
I’m already dead.
