Chapter Four #2
The air below was cooler, but soured by mold and the iron tang of old blood. The first thing I noticed was how quiet it was. No screaming, no music, just a low hum, maybe the AC, maybe something worse.
We went down fast. Joker’s jaw was set; her breathing fast and shallow. My own pulse was steady, but my hands itched for violence.
The basement was less a room and more a holding pen: three heavy doors, each locked with a sliding bolt. A single guard sat on a folding chair, reading a magazine and drinking from a thermos.
He looked up and saw us. For a second, he didn’t react, and then he reached for his holster.
Joker beat him there. She slammed him back, swept his legs, and drove her boot into his groin so hard he coughed up bile and collapsed. He tried to scramble away, but she dropped her full weight on his spine, pinning him, then bent his wrist back until the gun popped free.
He screamed.
“Keys,” she said.
He fumbled at his belt, handed them over without another sound.
I threw him against the wall, cuffed his hands with his own belt, and pressed the barrel of my Glock to his ear. “Stay,” I whispered. “Or I’ll tattoo your brains on the drywall.”
He stayed.
Joker tried the first door. Locked. She shoved the key in and twisted. The bolt snapped back, and the door swung in slow.
Three women sat on a stained mattress. Their faces were shadows, mascara and tears and sweat all mixed. The one in front recognized Joker and let out a half-choked sob.
“Jules?” she said.
Joker went to her knees. “Tina. Fuck. Are you hurt?”
Tina’s wrists were raw, her lips split, but she tried to smile. “Just roughed up.”
The other two women shrank from the light, but one, the tallest, with a shiner blossoming on her cheek, gave me a hard, appraising look.
Joker was all business now. She checked the girls for injuries, helped them to their feet, and told them to hang tight while we cleared the rest of the rooms.
I tried the second door. Empty, except for two cots and the smell of urine.
The third door, though—that one was different. A single woman, cuffed to a pipe, her head lolling on her chest. I recognized her from somewhere, but couldn’t place it. She wore a ripped velvet dress, the kind that clings in all the wrong places, and her neck had a bruise as wide as my palm.
Spade checked her pulse. “She’s breathing.”
Joker took the keys, unlocked her. The woman’s eyes fluttered open. “Who—who are you?”
“Friends,” I said. “We’re getting you out.”
She nodded, tried to stand, then collapsed. Tempest lifted her easily, carrying her like a broken doll.
We hustled back up the stairs, adrenaline thrumming. The bodies in the kitchen hadn’t moved, but one, the tased guy, who was awake and trying to crawl. Spade kicked him in the ribs on the way out. “Sleep it off.”
In the main room, the lights had gone from neon to red alert. A silent alarm, maybe, or just bad wiring.
Aces pinged my phone. “Three vehicles approaching from the east. Black SUVs. No plates.”
I typed back: “ETA?”
“Two minutes. Less if they floor it.”
We had to move.
I led the girls and the crew out the back, into the wasteland behind the building. Glitz and Nines were waiting by the bikes, engine idling. Glitz tossed me a zip tie and a first aid kit.
“You get them all?” she said.
“Three and a half,” I replied.
Nines didn’t look up from her phone. “I got a ping. Zeke’s people just pulled traffic cams. They know we’re here.”
Tempest eased the unconscious woman onto the back of her own bike, then strapped her in with a bungee cord like luggage.
I turned to Joker. “You good to ride?”
She wiped blood off her knuckles and grinned. “Never better.”
We formed up, girls in the middle, Harlots around them. As we rolled out, I looked back at the building. A fresh spray of blood gleamed on the glass doors. I didn’t care.
I rode lead, Joker and Spade on my six, the others close behind. We peeled out as the first SUV fishtailed into the lot, tires screaming. A man in a suit leaned out the window, saw the gun in my hand, and ducked back inside.
“Cowards,” Spade muttered.
We cut across the dirt, hit the highway, and opened the throttle. The desert was cold and empty ahead, and we left Jack’s Rabbits behind us, broken and leaking.
Every muscle in my body hurt, but I didn’t slow down. Not until Vegas was a line of light in the windshield and the girls behind us were safe.
***
We stopped on the far side of the valley, where the headlights couldn’t reach and the only sound was the ticking of cooling engines and the desert wind. Aces swept the horizon with a flashlight, eyes narrowed to slits, but nothing moved except a coyote a hundred yards out, yellow eyes unblinking.
Tempest parked her Harley, then eased the unconscious woman, now half-awake, groaning, off the seat and set her gently on the dirt.
Joker wrapped her jacket around Tina and started dabbing the cuts on her cheek with spit and the hem of her own shirt.
The other woman, the tall blonde, didn’t bother sitting.
She stood like she was waiting for a limo, not stranded at the edge of Clark County, hands at her sides, chin high.
Even bruised and with blood on her teeth, she looked expensive.
Hair was two shades of gold, the kind you paid for every month.
Her lipstick was smeared but defiant. She wore a necklace with a pendant that caught the moonlight.
It was a sculpted wolf’s head, the eyes set with little green stones.
I watched her take in the whole crew, measure every face, and decide exactly how much respect to give each of us.
Spade tossed her a water bottle. The blonde unscrewed the cap and drank like she was at a tasting, small sips, careful not to drip. When she caught me watching, she smiled with just her mouth.
“Name’s Simone,” she said. Her voice was smooth, maybe a little hoarse from the collar, but confident. “Thank you for the rescue. If you hadn’t come, I think they would have sent us all south. Or worse.”
Joker lit a cigarette and offered one to Tina, who took it with shaking hands. “You got family, Simone? Anybody we should call?”
Simone shook her head. “No family in the city. My boss will be furious, but he can wait.”
I didn’t buy it, but I let it ride. Aces was already at the bikes, checking the gas, her eyes flicking between us and the highway.
Nines kept her distance, hood up, hands deep in her pockets. “We need to move,” she said. “Those SUVs had Metro scanners. If they find us here, we’re all going in cuffs.”
Glitz came up behind me. “One of them said something weird on the scanner. They called the girls ‘hot property.’ Like, in a way that made my skin crawl.”
“Doesn’t matter now,” Tempest grunted. “We’re not leaving them behind.”
We mounted up, this time with the girls riding pillion. I took Simone. She slung on behind me without a word, arms tight, not afraid but deliberate, as if she was used to being driven by strangers.
We cut through the desert, the line of bikes splitting the night. No lights behind us, no pursuit, just the low growl of engines and the far-off glitter of the Strip.
Simone leaned in, close to my ear. “You Harlots always rescue people you don’t know?”
“Depends what they’re worth,” I said. “Or who they’re running from.”
She laughed, low and real. “I wasn’t running. I was collecting. The deal went bad. My boss won’t like this.”
“Your boss got a name?” I asked, just to see if she’d say it.
She waited until we hit a smooth stretch, then spoke over the wind. “Jack Smalls. My father.”
I almost dumped the bike. Every nerve in my spine iced up, and my jaw clenched so hard I thought I’d crack a molar.
Simone didn’t flinch at my silence. She just squeezed tighter.
Joker pulled up next to me at a red light. “Problem?” she mouthed.
I shook my head, but my brain was racing. “What’s Smalls’ daughter doing in a brothel’s basement?” I hissed, barely audible over the rumble. I nodded at Simone.
Joker grinned, wild-eyed. “Fuck.”
We ran the rest of the way in silence. No one spoke, not even Tina, whose head rested on Joker’s shoulder, eyes half-closed but safe. Simone never let go.
At the clubhouse, the crew filed inside, locking the door and double-barring the windows. We made beds from sleeping bags and busted pool floaties. The girls huddled in the corner, but Simone just sat by the window, watching the dark.
I poured a shot of bourbon, handed it to her. She drank it neat, wiped her lips, and said, “He’ll be coming for me by tomorrow.”
I nodded. “He’ll come for all of us.”
She smiled. “Then we'd better get some sleep.”
I looked at Joker. She looked back, her eyes wide with the thrill of it, like we’d just rolled the dice on the biggest table in town, and for once, we didn’t care if the house won.