CHAPTER SIXTEEN
DOM
Maybe getting out of town for a few hours would help clear my head. Ever since I found myself in the church alone with Noah, I’d been haunted by what happened that night. Not because I had any hangups about being with a man. Because it was him.
Even though it had only been a few days ago, it felt like just yesterday, and somehow also felt far too long ago. What was it about that asshole that got to me this way? Why couldn’t I cut him out of me?
Rebel needed two of us to head to Elmwood to drop off a kidney. An organ we’d obtained through a recent connection to a local doctor willing to occasionally bend the rules. For the right price. In the past we’d harvested plenty of organs ourselves with the help of a medical student we knew.
We recently decided it was time to move away from that.
To find another way to obtain human organs without having to do the dirty work ourselves.
Which was one of the reasons we had been trying to create a partnership with Morgan Teller, who we still had yet to track down.
The information Noah had given us hadn’t done much to help.
Tonight Casper and I were making the trip to Elmwood. A small city about an hour away. We were supposed to meet the buyer in the parking lot of an outdoor waterpark that had been closed down for the season.
“How’s everything been going?” I momentarily took my eyes off the road to glance over at Casper. He’d gone through some serious personal shit lately. I worried about him.
“Getting better every day,” he signed. “You don’t have to worry about me, Dom. I’m not going to do anything crazy.”
“I know. Just checking in.” I still thought about the night I found him overdosed on painkillers. I didn’t think I’d ever been so scared in my life. Knowing that he was doing better brought me a sense of relief.
A few minutes later he tapped my arm, waiting for me to look over before signing. “What about you? Everything good? You know I’m a good listener if you want to talk about anything. Or anyone.”
He followed that up with a pointed look and a grin. I hated how evident Noah and I were in our hateful attraction to one another. Did we have to be so damn obvious?
I stared out the windshield as I drove. The highway was quiet. Very few other vehicles on the road with us. We passed the occasional farmhouse along with plenty of countryside.
For a long time, I didn’t say anything. Then the words began to spill out.
“Noah sucked me off the night of the party. After everyone left.” In my peripheral view I saw Casper glance over at me in surprise, his head of blue streaked black hair swiveling in my direction.
I kept staring straight ahead. “He jerked me off a few days before that. While I held a gun to his head. I don’t know why I let it happen.
I’m supposed to kill him. Hell, I want to kill him.
When I’m around him, it’s like everything changes.
I fucking hate him, but I fucking want him. Am I losing it?”
Getting this off my chest felt good. I knew I could trust Casper not to tell anyone. I wasn’t ready for that yet. Maybe I never would be.
Afraid of what I might see on his face, I risked a glance over in his direction. There was no judgment in Casper’s green eyes. I saw only sympathy and understanding.
“It’s okay if you feel something for him,” Casper signed. “We can’t control who we’re attracted to. There’s nothing wrong with wanting him.”
“Yes there is,” I muttered with a shake of my head. “It has to be wrong. It’s Noah fucking Cunningham. He’s the enemy, remember?”
“I get that,” Casper continued, his hands moving quickly. “It’s complicated. But if the feeling is mutual, maybe he doesn’t have to be the enemy anymore. Maybe you two can move past that.”
I turned my attention back to the road. Why was he giving me permission to do this? Why was he making it sound like it was fine? How could it possibly be?
“I’m supposed to kill him. Nothing changes that.” Swallowing hard, I gripped the steering wheel tight. Staring hard at the empty road ahead.
I hated that Casper saw nothing wrong with my sick attraction. Part of me had hoped he would find it disgusting. Revolting. That he would tell me to stay the hell away from Noah.
He was a good friend. I didn’t blame him for not telling me what I wanted to hear. I blamed myself for feeling this way in the first place.
We rolled into Elmwood twenty minutes before we were scheduled to meet our buyer. It didn’t take long to find the closed down waterpark on the edge of town. Surrounded by heavy fencing, the tall slides in the distance looked creepy in the dark.
We parked at the back of the large lot well out of reach of the few measly cameras near the entrance. Then we waited.
Suddenly headlights came on, pointing at us from three different directions. Vehicles hidden in the dark suddenly revealed. Men got out of each car, stalking toward us with guns held in hand.
“What the fuck is this?” I reached to touch the handgun on the console next to me, knowing it would be useless.
“Get out of the vehicle.” One man shouted. “Show us your hands.”
“Do it,” Casper signed. “Just play along.”
In unison, we opened our doors, slowly getting out with our hands raised. There were seven surrounding us. That didn’t mean there weren’t more waiting in the vehicles. Careful not to slip on the icy parking lot surface, I took a few steps away from the SUV we’d rented to do the drop.
“Is there a problem here?” I asked, trying to keep my tone neutral.
The guy who shouted at us stepped forward. He wore a heavy plaid jacket, his head shaved bald to expose the X tattooed on the side of his skull. Son of a bitch. I knew what that meant.
“The problem is that you’re doing business in our city. This is our territory.” He lowered his gun. The rest of his friends did not.
“We’re just here to drop something off,” I explained. “Two minutes and we’re out of here.”
The guy shook his head, snickering. “That’s not how this works. You do business on our turf, you give us a cut. I’m thinking fifty percent.”
A laugh of disbelief escaped me. “You’ve got to be joking. Fifty percent to do a simple handoff in a parking lot? I don’t think so.”
I shot a glance at Casper who stood a few feet away. His expression was pinched and tight. No doubt he was thinking about getting out of here safely and going home to his girl. I couldn’t let anything happen to him.
“Those are our terms,” the man continued. “Of course, we could raise our cut to seventy percent if you prefer.”
“Come on, man. Let’s be reasonable. It doesn’t need to be this way.” I wasn’t sure how to appeal to this guy. Already I got the sense that he would not be reasoned with. “How about you let us do our deal and we’ll never come back here?”
My suggestion was met with a round of laughter. Great.
Rebel liked to say I was a manipulative fuck. He was wrong. I simply knew how to get what I wanted. Most of the time. Not today apparently.
The man in charge nodded to some of his companions. “Check their vehicle. Find out what they’re dealing here.”
Fuck. They were going to find the cooler with the kidney inside. There was nothing I could do to stop them.
Two of the X members searched the SUV before coming forward with the cooler. They handed it off to the leader who looked inside, his eyebrows rising.
“How much does one of these go for?” He glanced from me to Casper.
I had no intention of telling this guy fuck all. Since he clearly expected an answer, I lied. “Like twenty grand or so. Give or take.”
“Uh-huh. So then I guess you’ll be giving us ten grand.” Closing the cooler lid, he placed it next to his feet.
I had no way of knowing if these guys knew anything about organ sales. That kidney was worth two hundred grand. I had a bad feeling about this.
That feeling was confirmed when one of the other men spoke up. “He’s lying, Garrett. Those things fetch six figures on the black market.”
Motherfucker.
“Is that so?” Garrett eyed Casper and me curiously. “Then I guess we’ll be keeping it for ourselves.”
“They don’t last long on ice,” I said. “If it’s not handed off to the buyer right away, it’s useless.”
“Your buyer should be here soon, shouldn’t they? We’ll be here to meet them. You guys can leave.” Garrett smirked, revealing a missing tooth.
Now I was getting pissed off. “We’re not leaving without our kidney or our cash.”
Garrett pressed his lips together, nodding thoughtfully. “Let’s see what we can do to change your mind about that.”
All the fucker had to do was snap his fingers. His men were on us. Six on two while Garrett watched.
Despite our efforts to defend ourselves, Casper and I became human punching bags.
Several fists hit me at once, colliding with my face, stomach, and back.
I was thrown up against the SUV and held in place while my face was punched repeatedly.
I was still sore from the scrap with Noah a few nights ago. My face would never heal at this rate.
A few feet away, one man hit Casper over the head with his gun, knocking him to his knees. Since he was a bigger guy, these assholes were going harder on him. Hitting him with their weapons, kicking him in the ribs once he was down.
My instinct was to fight to the death. To go down swinging. I may have had nothing to lose, but Casper certainly did. Tasting blood, I knew I had to make it stop.
“All right. Fuck. Fine, keep the kidney,” I shouted. “It’s yours. We’ll leave.”
Not knowing how far these guys would take it, we had no choice but to surrender the kidney and get the hell out of there with our lives. An especially hard punch to my spine stole my breath.
I hit the ground, reaching out to brace myself against the ice and snow. At Garrett’s command, the men stepped back, allowing me to get up.
“I don’t want to have this conversation with you again,” Garrett said. “Next time we catch you dealing in our territory, you die. Make sure the rest of your group knows that as well. I’m not in the business of giving second chances.”
The seven of them gathered together, standing there and watching as Casper and I dragged ourselves back into the SUV. I started the engine with one hand, using the other to fumble my burner phone from my pocket. I needed to alert the buyer and tell them not to come.
While the Project X assholes stared us down, I peeled out of the parking lot, trying not to slide on the ice. I’d been expecting a basic handoff. So much for that.
Once we left Elmwood behind, I pulled over on the side of the road. “Are you all right, Casper?”
He gently touched a large lump forming on his forehead, wincing as he signed, “I think so. Are you all good?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
The drive home was especially quiet. I wasn’t sure I’d ever been so frustrated. Having to take that bullshit from those dicks.
Project X was a known street gang in Elmwood. Dealing drugs, weapons, and even humans from what we’d heard. They tended to stay in their own domain, not bothering with the rest of us. Until now.
I wasn’t sure what this meant for the Kings. How did they even know we were coming? Unless they’d been paying more attention to our activity than we realized.
Hopefully, it was one bad encounter. It was probably for the best to stay out of Elmwood and keep our business closer to home. Otherwise, we were going to have a serious problem.