Chapter 9
NINE
Dutch
I’m still growling as I shove all the towels except the two with her virgin blood into a black trash bag. Daphne is huddled in the corner where the camera can’t see her. She looks horrified and vulnerable.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
After the pounding on the door, I looked around and saw the black camera mounted in the corner above the top shelf, aimed down. Someone was getting a full view of the moment I took Daphne’s cherry.
Rage boils through me at the thought that anyone has even seen what belongs to me, let alone watching a moment meant to belong to us alone.
“Come on, baby,” I manage, gritting my teeth, leaving the trash bag behind. I shove the two towels stained with her virginity down inside my shirt.
“What the hell are you doing with those?” she asks.
My little sassy doll gives me a snarky look but I’m not playing. I grab her hand. “No one is getting those but me.”
Back out in the main floor of the bar, I see an older guy glaring at us. Dead ringer for whoever was banging on the door. I head his way, pulling Daphne close behind.
As I approach, he leans on locked arms behind the bar. “You clean that shit up?”
“Yeah,” I bark back. “Now, you tell me something. You record what happened in there?”
“Yeah.” He gives me a hard stare. “My place. My security. My cameras. My evidence.”
This motherfucker has no idea who he’s dealing with. But he’s about to find out.
I turn to Daphne. “Go wait at the table, baby. I’ll be right there…” I give her a kiss on the top of her head as she starts to protest, then I see James coming up from behind, looking tense.
“Where you two been? There was some sort of a fight, some massive biker dude with a beer belly the size of Arizona spilled his drink down this girl’s dress. I couldn’t see properly but I was worried you two were caught up in it all. I’ve been looking all over…”
“Nowhere,” Daphne interjects, turning away to hide her soaked dress. Her cheeks flush as she looks to me for support, and I get it. Talking to her brother about losing her cherry in the back room of a bar is not on her list of sibling bonding moments.
I point toward the table where our coats still hang on the backs of our chairs. “Just go sit, both of you. I gotta take care of something.”
“Nothing to take care of,” says the owner, watching the two of them head for our table. “Time for you to go.”
“Not yet,” I reply, and make a beeline for the door back down the hallway that says STAFF ONLY.
“Hey! You can’t go back there!”
I hear him, but I don’t give a fuck. He saw what was happening, and I know how guys work. There’s probably a huddle around the footage right now, and the idea of a bunch of horny assholes getting off watching the moment I took Daphne as mine has me ready to hand out concussions and remove eyeballs.
In ten steps, I’m in front of the door and I hear the hoots and laughter.
I jiggle the knob, but it’s locked. This fucking place and its locked fucking doors. But it doesn’t matter. I tighten my fists, take a step back, and then burst through the lock with my foot flat on the door.
I was right about the fucking huddle. In front of me, three guys and two girls, most of them wearing Van Dyke Racers t-shirts, spin around, eyes wide.
“Dutch?” One of the bigger guys says my name, recognition in his eyes. “Guess you’re out.”
Behind him on the screen is the video of the two of us. That sacred fucking moment, right out there in the open like some bullshit free fucking porn.
And it makes me lose my goddamned mind. I start to growl as I look at him. Like a fucking rabid Doberman. I know him, for sure. Fucking Tito, one of the guys from my old group of what I thought were friends. But he’s not in a work shirt.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I growl.
Before he can answer, the owner catches up and barges in beside me.
“Get the fuck out!” he yells. “Get the fuck out of my bar, asshole.”
“Fuck this.” I storm forward, the low-pixel footage is poor quality but it’s clear enough. There’s Daphne, with me behind her pounding away. I spin around, grabbing the first guy I see and throwing him toward the door, then pointing at the owner. I’ve got him by the throat and all I’ve got to do is squeeze. “You give me this tape right fucking now or I’m wrecking this room, then burning this place to the ground.”
“Fuck off, man. You’re the one tapping some piece of ass in the closet at my fucking bar! You get the fuck out before I call the cops.”
Tapping some piece of ass? How about I fucking rip your balls off?
I seethe, watching the two girls head for the door, but Tito flashes me a grin. “Dutch is just out of the joint. Right, Dutch? You’re not going to want to see no cops.” He laughs and I growl, stepping his way and watching him shrink back.
He always was a fucking coward.
“You call her a piece of ass again…” I say to the owner.
And I let my words hang there, heavy. I cock my head, clench my fists. I’m ready to fucking roll with this guy. I learned it in prison. The look.
He must see it in in my eyes because he looks down, checking his feet for where his balls must have gone.
At least, that’s what I think.
But I’ve overestimated him. A fat hand forms into a pudgy fist and he lets fly, sloppy but still strong. I see the punch coming before he even throws it, my hand already in position to block. That’s another thing from prison—keep your eyes open. Be ready. No matter what.
As soon as his shot is deflected, I act on instinct, grabbing him and shoving him back.
Daphne’s words come back to me again: they’ll take you away from me. I promised I wasn’t going anywhere, and I mean it. I won’t even start anything with Tito. And the truth is, I don’t want to fight this pudgy fucker. I just want to get the fuck out of this place as soon as we can.
But I’m not leaving this room without that footage.
“Fuck!” the owner screams as he stumbles back, banging into a toolbox that spills its contents over the floor. He doesn’t even seem to notice as he picks himself up, laughing. “Okay, fucktard. I’m calling the cops. Your ass is going right back to jail.”
“Call them,” I snarl back, staring at the tools scattered over the floor. Expensive shit. Makita and Stihl. “I guess they’ll be interested in those.”
The owner turns, and I see the look on his face even as he tries to cover it. “Cops aren’t going to give a shit what I do with my own tools.”
“Oh yeah, so then why do they say Foster Garage on them? And The AutoSpot? Oh, and here’s another…” I kick at a long wrench. “Goodmyer’s Muffler Shop.”
“They don’t…”
This guy. This fucking guy. “Don’t even try.” I point to one of the tools, the word Foster clearly visible. “I know these people. They’re like my fucking family. And I know shit’s been going missing from their shop.”
The owner cringes and I can see him searching for some other explanation, when Daphne and James come around the corner.
I see the look in James’ eyes as he stares at the screen. The footage is paused but it’s clear what’s going on. He shakes his head, his jaw muscles protruding.
Shit. Win some and lose some. Just my fucking luck.
But again, it doesn’t matter. I care about James, but I’m not about to apologize for the greatest moment of my life.
“Delete the footage.” I walk over to the three monitors where there are video feeds playing from behind the bar and other angles out in the open area. I start punching keys on the computer, ready to wreck the system to get my baby off that fucking screen.
But I’m in the weeds on this one. Computers haven’t exactly been a big part of my life up to this moment.
“Get the fuck out of my way,” the bar owner says, pushing past me.
I watch as he taps the keyboard, finds the section of video that starts with us entering the closet, then he fast forwards to where we exit. Taps a few more keys and I see the prompt for him to confirm he wants to delete the footage and my heart cinches in my chest. He turns to me with a fat finger hovering over the delete key.
Part of me wants to keep it for myself.
Part of me wants to keep the moment I took my girl’s sweet cherry.
But that’s some selfish shit right there. Because if he doesn’t delete it, that puts Daphne at risk.
And anyway, I will always fucking remember it. In vivid technicolor forever.
I see Daphne is holding back a smile, eyebrows raised. I love her even more in this moment, though how the hell that’s possible, I just don’t know.
James, on the other hand, looks like a deer in the headlights. I’ll have to deal with that later.
I turn to Tito. He’s eyeing the tools on the floor. Suspicious as shit. But that’s Tito all over—a small time thief with no mind for the longer plan. “I’m guessing you’re a part of this shit?”
He waves it off. “Man, no. I’m just a go between. I don’t ask where the shit comes from, I just—”
“You think the cops will give a fuck? Ever heard the word ‘accessory’? Ever heard of profiting from stolen goods after the fact? You’re stealing from my friends, fucker. And I won’t stand for it.”
“Hang on a minute.” James looks shocked as I turn toward him. “What are you talking about?”
I snap my fingers and point at the tools. “The stuff that’s missing from your garage? I’m guessing that’s some of it right there.”
James crouches down and picks up a monkey wrench that his dad has etched his name into on the handle.
I watch as he starts to go through things, looking more and more angry. “You gotta be fucking joking.”
Very slowly, James rises up and he turns to Tito. Their sizes might not exactly match up but my old street buddy knows fury when he sees it. He shrinks back as James takes a step forward.
“Where’s the rest?” James demands. “Where’s the bigger stuff?”
Tito’s looking scared shitless. “I don’t know, I swear! I only—"James pulls at his arm, bending it up and behind his back and I already hear the snapping of tendons as they strain under the pressure. “Fuck! Dutch, get your dog on a leash, man!”
I put a hand on James’s shoulder. I can’t help but grin at this whole fucking situation.
Now I get right up in Tito’s face, grinning no more. “Here’s what’s going to happen. Tomorrow morning, all the shit that’s been stolen is going to appear back outside the Foster Garage before we open up. Got it?”
Tito swallows hard. “Yeah.”
I nod. “Same for the other shops. Not a single fucking needle-nose pliers is going to be forgotten. Am I right?”
“Right.”
“Otherwise the cops are going to show up and make your life an absolute pile of flaming dogshit. That’s if you’re lucky and they get there before me.”
Tito nods and blinks in shit-scared terror. I grab the toolbox from by the door as a down payment, then nod to James. He narrows his eyes at me. Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but he’s not throwing punches.
It’s a start.
Daphne tugs on my arm. The warmth of her body, her scent, her softness. Fuck. All the fight just drains right out of me. I slip my arm over her shoulder, pulling her next to me as James looks on.
“We should go,” I tell them both.
The three of us make our way out into the parking lot, under clear cold skies. James stops before we get to the car.
“Wait just a second,” James says. “Are we going to talk about this?”
I glance at Daphne. I can still feel her wetness on my balls. “Talk about what?”
James scoffs. “You better make this right.” He looks from me to Daphne, then back. “I’m not going to run and rat you out to my folks, but you better be a man.” He pauses, setting his jaw before he finishes. “You hurt my sister, I’ll kill you.”
I press a kiss to the side of her head, savoring this moment. Savoring her. Cherishing her—my one and only. “If I ever hurt your sister, you won’t have to.”