Page 33 of Femme Fatale
“Or about what happened to Simone,” I said.
“Fucking Simone wouldn’t leave. I tried to make her. I’ve tried before. But he gives her shit. Money. Cars. And then he goes back to treating her like shit.” He looked down at the table.When he looked up, a sadness filled his eyes. “I told my father I’d had enough, and he pulled a gun. He pressed the end of the barrel to my forehead. I got up and walked out, wondering if he’d shoot me in the back. Instead, he told me I was just like my mother. I took it as a compliment; he meant it as an insult.”
“I’m sorry, Zeke.” I got up and stood behind him, placing my hands on his shoulders.
He placed a hand on mine and stood, towering over me, pressing his lips against mine, the hunger deeper, more intense. Aces walked in and turned around, and left, closing the door as Zeke lay me on the table.
He had my jeans off before I had a chance to breathe, my panties dangling around my left foot while he buried his face between my legs. The sound of him eating me was exquisite to the ears; his moans and gasps touched every inch of my soul. I shook and came with his tongue inside me, his thumb slowly rubbing around my clit. He sat me up, his lips wet with my juices. I kissed him hard, tasting myself, wanting to enjoy what he worked so very easily to create.
“Fuck, Zeke,” I said, “you can’t just up and do that anytime you like.”
“I can and I will,” was his only reply.
***
As the sun went down, I climbed to the roof. From up there, the city didn’t look so tough. Vegas was just a sprawl of lights, flickering promises and lies, stitched together by highways and broken dreams. I let the wind whip through my hair, the cold bite making my eyes sting.
I let myself feel fear, just for a second. The kind that got under your ribs and shook your bones. The kind you couldn’t ever talk about, not to anyone.
I closed my eyes and remembered every time someone told me I’d end up dead in a ditch. I remembered my mother, her voice and her ghosts. I remembered the old woman by the lake, Buck, and the look in Zeke’s eyes when he’d told me he wanted his father dead.
I opened my eyes and let the city burn itself into my memory. The war was real now, not just a metaphor. The cut on my back felt heavier than ever.
***
Just before midnight, I straddled my Harley and waited by the gates. The rest of the crew lined up behind me, engines coughing and rattling in the cold desert air. We all wore our colors, but that night it felt like we were naked—exposed, raw, nothing between us and what was coming.
Zeke rolled up last, his bike black as sin and twice as loud. He parked beside me, boots planted, arms crossed. He looked at me, and for a second, all the noise faded away.
“You ready?” he asked.
I met his gaze. “Born ready.”
He smiled, but there was no joy in it. Only the shared knowledge that we were about to do something unforgivable.
I revved the engine, the sound drowning out doubt and mercy and every last trace of my old life.
We rolled out as one, the road ahead dark but not empty. That’s when the two calls came in, sending Zeke in one direction and me in another.
Chapter Eight
Zeke
The front lot of Sexy Beavers looked like a backhoe had worked it over. Concrete island bent up, steel poles tilting, parking stripes buried under a soup of broken bottles and blood. A single neon “Open” flickered in the window, taunting anyone dumb enough to believe it. We rolled in at first light, the Vegas sunrise making everything pink and cruel, and the silence outside the brothel was a warning all its own. My father meant business, and although I believed Selene could handle herself, I made it my mission to make sure she stayed alive.
I shut down the Harley and let the last echo die. No movement. I got off the bike, boots crunching on safety glass. The rest of the crew lined up behind me, visors down, no one talking.
I stepped into the lobby and immediately wanted to leave again. The air stank of copper and cheap disinfectant. There was blood on the laminate floor, pooled and streaked, and more onthe walls—swiped by a hand, maybe, or splattered by a head. Two of the vending machines were toppled, the snack packs burst open and mixed with wet crimson. Someone had gone to the trouble of dragging three bodies into the open, covering them with pool towels that were already soaked through.
A woman in a Beavers crop-top, lip split, and eye already swelling shut, sat against the front desk. Her hands trembled, still sticky with blood not her own. She looked up at me and tried to smile, then gave up and just nodded.
I ignored her for a moment and checked the rest of the room. In the corner, near the ATM, four girls in lingerie huddled together. They weren’t crying. Just shivering, eyes fixed on nothing. One of them—the one with the purple hair—kept clutching her left arm, which hung limp and ugly at her side. She saw me watching and held the stare, daring me to ask if she needed help.
Joker pushed past, glanced at the bodies, and said, “Fuck. Fuck.” She spat the word like it was a mouthful of broken teeth. “They did this fast.”
Spade knelt by the side entrance and checked the lock, running a gloved finger along the warped metal. “Came through the back,” she said. “Probably knew the alarm codes. This was surgical.” Her face was blank, but I saw the tic in her jaw. She was running through every scenario that ended with someone dying and measuring herself against it.
Aces moved to the girls, crouched down, and started checking for wounds with a medic’s precision. She murmured something low, something that almost sounded gentle, and the purple-haired girl nodded and let her splint the wrist with a ruler and some tape. Glitz made a beeline for the office, picking her way through the mess, already tallying up what it would cost to keep this out of the papers. Nines ghosted into the server closet, blackhoodie blending into the shadows, her fingers already tapping out search strings and pulling up the camera feeds.
