Chapter 7
Rue
I exhale with relief as we pull up to Redlight. Finally something familiar. What we’re doing here in the middle of the day, I don’t know, but at least we’re not driving around the shittiest neighborhoods in Mistone interacting with some seriously scary dudes anymore.
I’m not sure why Leon brought me with him today.
He never takes me on his rounds, but he’s being weirdly clingy today, and I hate it.
I love it when he leaves the house. Even though there’s always one of his thugs guarding me, it’s better than being under his thumb, but today he insisted I come along.
“Tell Phil to let the guys in when they get here,” Leon says to No Neck. “And tell someone to grill me a steak. What do you want to eat?” he asks me.
“Um, a sandwich is fine.”
“Ham and cheese?”
“Sure.” I shrug. I’m not hungry, but I’ll eat just to have something to do.
What I really want is a peanut butter and banana sandwich, but they don’t have that here.
It’s a weird little nightclub, not a diner.
Maybe when we get back to the house, I can make a banana milkshake.
That would taste good right now. Assuming Leon remembered my banana fetish and put them on the grocery order this week. He doesn’t always remember.
Inside the club, he leads me to the usual table and gestures for me to sit down while he excuses himself. It’s a rare moment of solitude, but I know it’s not real. There are eyes on me. There always are.
I fidget to avoid putting my arms or hands on the sticky table and try to ignore the thoughts of all the people and substances that might’ve graced the chair I’m sitting in. Eww.
Leslie, the owner’s sister, comes over to the table, offering me a smile.
I bet she was pretty once, but all that’s left is the evidence of many years of drug abuse.
She’s good now, I hear, but the effects linger.
She has several missing teeth, scarred skin, and her black hair is straggly and thin.
She looks just like Phil, except decades older, but to hear him tell it, she’s five years younger than him.
She’s a “Don’t do drugs, kids” poster if I’ve ever seen one.
The time passes uneventfully, which is fine by me, but Leon is getting impatient waiting for the guys he’s expecting to show up.
They’re exactly twenty minutes late, and he’s pissed.
He keeps checking his phone and huffing while I pick at my sandwich.
The bread is stale, which doesn’t exactly make me feel good about the freshness of the lunch meat.
I sniffed it before I took a bite and it seemed okay, but one can never be too cautious when it comes to food safety.
“Where the fuck are Kyle and Loon?” Leon yells to no one in particular. “They’re never late and they asked for the meeting.”
“I don’t know, boss,” No Neck says. “I can call them.”
“I’ve been calling them, asshole. Something’s not right. I can feel it.”
“We’re safe here,” Phil says from the table beside us. He’s looking down at some paperwork, but he seems to be paying attention, at least.
“No shit,” Leon grumbles. “Fuck this.” He angrily tosses his napkin onto the table and grabs my arm, pulling me to my feet. “We’re leaving. If they can’t respect my time, they can fuck right off.”
My chest tightens as he practically drags me to the door. I hate it when he’s in a bad mood. He’ll almost certainly take it out on me, and what that looks like is becoming increasingly unpredictable.
“Leon, wait.” Phil hurries in our direction. “We didn’t go over the books yet.”
“I don’t care about that right now. I’ve been disrespected. I’m not sitting around here waiting for them to show up like they run me or something. Fuck that.”
He kicks the door, and when it swings open, we’re faced with an open SUV and two men groaning and nearly unconscious, beat to hell.
The scene shocks me as fear spreads through me. “Oh my god.”
Leon rushes over to them. “Kyle. What the fuck happened?”
Kyle, I guess, can barely open his swollen eyes. His lips part and Leon leans in closer. Kyle reaches up, feebly gripping Leon’s shirt in his fist. “G-g-go.”
I back away slowly as the terror intensifies. Leon was right. Something’s wrong.
“What, man? Go?”
Tires squeal to my left, and in a sudden whirl of activity, my world goes dark and my feet leave the ground.
I scream as strong arms tighten around me and Leon yells my name.
A gun goes off and I freeze with fear as I’m tossed into a vehicle and it takes off.
I can still hear Leon yelling for me and the sound of car engines starting, but whoever is driving this one must be fast, because the other cars start to sound distant very quickly.
Oh fuck. I’ve been kidnapped.
Did one of Leon’s enemies decide to use me for ransom?
What’s going to happen to me now?
The hood over my head is pulled off gently, and then I’m staring into the warmest brown eyes I’ve ever seen.
Carnage.
“Hi. Sorry to scare you, but it had to go that way.”
I throw my arms around him. “You. Oh my god, it’s you.”
“I told you I’d find you.” He rubs my back. “Are you hurt?”
“No.” Tears flood my eyes as I release him, staring at his face in disbelief. “How did you do that?”
“I installed a tracking app on your phone. We’ve been following you for a few days, but we lost you every night.”
“Shitty reception at the house.” I glance at the driver. “You really did it. You got me away from Leon.”
Carnage smiles, and for the first time, I truly take him in.
We’re not in a dingy club or a dirty bathroom.
It’s daylight, and while the van’s windows are tinted, there’s still enough light for me to see his features clearly.
He has soft brown curls that are a little wild, a sharp jawline, soulful eyes, and a mouth that I really want to kiss right now. Wow, he’s hot.
“You can stay with us until we figure out what’s going on.”
“Stay with you? What do you mean?”
“Where else are you gonna go? I just kidnapped you.”
“I had a room I rented. Maybe that’s okay.”
“A room that Leon knows about?”
I frown, nodding. “I see your point.”
“Listen, you’ll be safe. We have guest rooms and plenty of protection. Leon won’t find you there.”
And then what? I haven’t considered what I’d actually do if I got away from Leon. Probably leave town, but with what money? And where would I go? I guess I have no choice but to accept the kindness of a stranger. A stranger who knows how to kidnap people.
“Did you do that to Kyle and Loon?”
He nods. “I tried to reason with them first, but they wanted to be dicks, so…”
“I helped,” the driver says with a chuckle.
“That’s Whisper,” Carnage says.
“Hi.”
“Hey, Rue,” he says. “You’re good now. We’ve got you.”
“So, um, do I want to know how you’re so good at this?”
“At what?” Carnage asks.
“Kidnapping, beating up criminals, tracking me.”
Carnage studies my face for a moment, before asking, “Do you want to know?”
“Probably should. Unless telling me means you’ll have to kill me later or something.”
Whisper chuckles again, merging to get on the freeway toward Crestvale.
“Uh, no, I won’t be murdering you at any point,” Carnage says.
“That’s a relief. Sooo, yes. I guess tell me.”
“We’re hit men, Rue.”
I hear him, but for some reason the words bounce around my head searching for a meaning that makes sense in this context, but landing on the only definition that makes sense.
“You kill people?”
“Yes. When hired to do so.”
“You… You’re…” I pause, letting that sink in. I left one criminal only to be kidnapped by another one. Wow, my decision-making skills are on point lately.
“We’re part of an organization,” Carnage explains. “We’re hired to take care of problems that can’t be taken care of in other ways.”
“Like, when a husband doesn’t want to pay alimony or child support? You kill his wife? I watch true crime.”
“Not that kind of hit man. We don’t work for the public and we’re selective about our clients.”
“Like, um, like the Mafia? You only kill other people in the Mafia?”
“No, not the Mafia. We kill people like Leon, and others like him who are into bad shit and get in over their heads or fuck with the wrong people. The Mafia takes care of itself. We take care of the rest.”
“You only kill bad guys?”
He tilts his head back and forth, his lips pressed tight in a look that reads as “mostly” to me. “That’s the goal. We have an intensive vetting process we rely on before we take a job.”
“That’s how you have a tracking app you can install?”
“Yes.”
“Is it just you and Whisper?”
“Oh no. There’s a lot of us. You’ll meet them all.”
Swallowing hard, I nod. I’m hardly in a position to be picky, but I literally just jumped out of the frying pan into the fire.
“You’re safe, Rue.” Carnage’s voice is soft and comforting, as if he can read my mind. “None of us will hurt you. We don’t hurt anyone unless we’re paid to or they cross us.” He rubs my arm. “You don’t need to worry.”
“You had a plan to kidnap me?”
He nods. “We could’ve killed everyone, but that’s dangerous. You might have been caught in the crossfire. If we couldn’t get to you today, our plan was to follow you to your house and break in tonight.”
“Oh. That would’ve been hard. Leon keeps me with him at night and he has guards outside his bedroom door.”
“Is he that paranoid or is he that much of a criminal?”
“Both. Mostly drugs, from what I can tell, but he deals with some pretty shady people.”
“You sleep with him?”
“Literally sleep. When I can. He doesn’t, well, he…” I huff a breath. “It’s complicated.”
“Does he hurt you, Rue?”
I nod, shifting my eyes to hands in my lap. “That just started. I mean, he’s always been kind of rough, but he smacked me for the first time a few days ago.”
I’m not looking at Carnage, but I feel his body tense, drawing my gaze to his face. He looks pissed, his brow furrowed, eyes narrowed, jaw set tight.