Vanessa #3
“We were about to sit down for lunch. Would you like to stay?” my mom offers, since she’s been trained her entire adult life to be polite and welcoming to the assholes who grace her doorstep.
“No. I ate,” he tells her. No “thank you for the offer.” No showing any sort of appreciation that my mother is still kind to him even though he’s been anything but to us. “I need to have a word with Vanessa.”
My mom’s confused gaze finds me, and I can do nothing but offer her a smile. Russ has never shown up here wanting to talk to me. If he had anything to say to me, he could say it at the club when I was at work.
“Let’s go downstairs,” I say, stepping out of the apartment, and Russ follows, shutting the door behind him.
When we step outside and onto the cracked sidewalk, I look around at the run-down neighborhood.
It’s row after row of brick apartment buildings with pavement and dead grass as far as the eye can see.
The only people outside are a couple of kids sitting on bikes in front of a building, handing a cigarette back and forth.
Fuck, this place depresses the shit out of me.
Soon, Vanessa. You’ll get your family away from here soon.
Russ pulls a cigarette from his pack and lights it, inhaling deeply while he shakes his head.
“You haven’t gotten me what I want. You’re playing house in Shine, and I’m sitting here with my thumb up my ass waiting for the intel you were sent there to retrieve for me.”
“You make it sound like this is some top-secret mission,” I reply, barely containing my eye roll.
“Oh, but it is,” he says. “And you’re supposed to be playing the femme fatale, but you aren’t exactly holding up your end of our deal.
I may put you in another role if you can’t produce.
You know what’ll happen if you don’t. There are men who like older women, Vanessa.
Maybe it’s time your mother started working instead of living off my generosity. ”
“Generosity? You call this generosity?” I wave my hand at the building we’re standing in front of, which regularly loses hot water in the winter and has ancient window air-conditioning units that barely cool anything in the summer.
“I could have thrown all of you on the street when my father died. Don’t forget it was me who saved you from being homeless. I even gave you a job.”
My jaw clenches when I think back to being seventeen and scared to death my first night taking my clothes off in one of his clubs. And he considers it fucking generosity.
“Getting information from a group of bikers isn’t exactly the easiest thing, you know?”
Russ nods. “I’m sure that will be a real comfort for your mother when she has to start getting on her knees to cover the rent I’ve so graciously allowed you to be late on while you’re establishing yourself in Shine.”
“Do you want money? Is that what you’re asking for?” I hadn’t planned on seeing him, but maybe if I give him a few hundred dollars, that will appease him before I have to make the choice of whether or not to screw over my new friends and my…whatever Braxton is.
“No,” he barks. “I want information. I want the Black Roses decimated. I want what I sent you there to get me.” The way Russ’s face is changing from his usual pale pallor to beet red means I’m out of time.
He’s going to follow through on his threats if he doesn’t get what he wants—I have no misconceptions about that.
“I heard something today, but it isn’t much. I was waiting until I could find more so you wouldn’t be chasing your tail if it doesn’t mean anything.”
“You were keeping things from me?” he asks in a deadly calm that scares the shit out of me.
“No. I swear. I just wanted to verify the information before I gave it to you, that way I could be certain that there were no mistakes.”
He impatiently waves his hand in front of him. “Tell me.”
“I…” The words feel stuck in my throat. God, I don’t want to repeat what I heard.
But then my gaze travels to the window of my mother’s kitchen, and I know I can’t lie and I can’t get out of this.
So I clear the lump in my throat and continue.
“I heard Ozzy on the phone today. He was talking to someone named Cillian. He said they were a go for Thursday and that they would meet at the warehouse before heading to Michigan.”
I’m going to be sick.
“Did they say what time?”
I shake my head. “That’s all I know.”
A wretched smile twists his lips and he hums in approval. “Very good, Vanessa.”
“If this pans out, does that mean I can leave Shine?” And leave this fucking city in my wake once and for all.
“No. Not until we’re sure that we’ve destroyed them.”
“Don’t you think that once you start your attacks they’re going to become suspicious of me? It’s not going to look good for me that all this shit is starting after I showed up.” The one thing Russ loves is when people beg him, and I’m doing just that.
“That’s why you need to make sure they don’t have a reason to suspect you.”
“How do you suggest I do that?”
“On your back like any other whore would. If they’re fucking some new piece of ass, they’ll never think to look in their own bed for a traitor.”
That’s what Braxton will think of me if he ever finds out what I’m doing. A traitor and a whore.
I don’t know why I thought he would ever let me leave Shine. He wants them destroyed, and I’m his main weapon in doing that. Problem is, I have a feeling I’ll be the one broken from the destruction.
“Okay, Russ. I’ll stick it out.”
He rolls his eyes. “Like you have any other choice.” He drops his cigarette on the concrete sidewalk and stomps it out. “I need to go.” I nod and turn to go back into the apartment building. “Since you’re back at work, I’m assuming you’ve made some money.”
I turn to face him. “I have.”
Russ holds out his hand. “You can give me half of what you owe me for rent.”
I blow out a breath through my nose and wonder for the millionth time how this has become my life. Pulling out a wad of cash from my pocket, I slap it into his waiting palm.