Chapter Six
Ricky
Beaten, bloody, buzzed, with Rohypnol still lingering in my veins like a chatty stranger standing next to me in line at the grocery store who just won’t get the fucking hint, this is not how I saw my hopefully last night on earth going — doing my damndest to survive and make sure Vanessa’s sister doesn’t get taken by the Russian mob.
How the fuck am I failing at getting killed?
Whatever the answer, the truth is: I can’t die until Adriana’s safe.
I have to save my murderer so she can do the job she set out to do.
And that means finding somewhere we can hide, get our bearings, and figure out a way out of this mess with Ruslan Volkov and his gang.
Adriana grumbles and mutters as she bounces against my back while I sprint down the sidewalk. “I can’t believe… this is insane… how in the hell are we…”
I tune most of her words out. It doesn’t matter what she says or what she thinks right now; I can’t spare the brainpower for her babbling.
Down one alley we run, taking a sharp corner, ducking behind a dumpster to pause for breath, then sprinting down another alley to come out in a pay-for-parking lot behind a combination steakhouse and teriyaki joint that smells a lot better than it looks, only to have just a spare second to crouch behind a car as an ominous pair of headlights passes on the street.
Adriana is an albatross on my back, cursing and shifting, like she’s determined to make me suffer every step I carry her.
When the headlights pass and enough time has come and gone that I’m sure the coast is clear, we continue. A series of turns and alleys brings us to a strip club that pulses with music and the latent desires of its customers.
I pause for a moment.
“Why’d you stop?” she hisses from my back.
I shake my head. It’s too much to explain — memories surge through me, of Vanessa’s old life, of my old life, of all the problems we have, yet problems we shared because, as fucked up was we were, we were still both alive, together, living out our own twisted form of love — and I bite them back to answer. “No fucking reason. Let’s go.”
We make it out onto the sidewalk in front of the strip club before another pair of headlights comes around the bend. Hissing, I come to a sudden stop.
“Why the fuck are you stopping?” she snaps.
“Shut up.”
I turn my head left and right. The view to the right brings Adriana’s round ass right into view. I hiss again.
The fuck am I doing checking out her ass?
Regret disappears in a second when I realize that, even though I plan on dying, I’m not dead yet, and a nice ass is a nice ass and Adriana definitely has one.
I turn a little to give her a view of the street, and whatever angry retort was on her lips dies.
“Shit. That’s them.”
“Yes, genius, that’s them.”
I don’t wait for her to fire back; I run toward the strip club and the safety of the alley. We have to find somewhere to hide, because no matter how fast I sprint, we will not get far enough away before the Russians get into the parking lot and spot us.
My feet come to a reluctant stop in front of our only option.
“No,” Adriana says.
“We don’t have a choice. In you go,” I say, and pop the lid on the dumpster in the alley behind the strip club.
The movement frees the trapped air — redolent with the thick, musty smell of old buffet grub, cigarette butts, and used towels — to assault our faces with its pungent funk.
I gag. Adriana gags. I toss her in. “Don’t worry, I’m right behind you. ”
Then, I jump in and slam the dumpster lid closed on top of us.
My feet are wet. My nose and eyes are both watering in rebellion. My stomach wants to vacate every meal I’ve had for the last eight years.
“I hate… I hate… you… so… much…” Adriana’s voice turns into a hacking, gurgling cough that ends with something wet and goopy smacking into my pant leg. “Fuck you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“For throwing me into a strip club dumpster? I’m swimming in cum rags here. If I didn’t want to kill you earlier, I sure as fuck want to now.”
“I saved your life. Now shut the fuck up or they’ll find us.”
Mercifully, she closes her plump, perfect-for-sucking-dick lips and gives me a look so sharply hateful that it’s a wonder it doesn’t flay my skin off.
Seconds turn into minutes, all passing with the thrumming bass of the strip club’s music penetrating the grime-encrusted walls of the dumpster.
Within the pumping pulse of the music, there’s the sound of car doors slamming and Russian voices shouting at each other.
For a moment, their shouting is cut short by a different voice — the club’s bouncer, probably — asking them what the hell they’re doing, only to end with a sudden exclamation of fear as the poor bastard realizes that questioning a quartet of armed Russians is not beneficial to his life expectancy.
Deep in the muck, we wait.
Footsteps approach.
I clench my fists.
Voices return — shouted directions, curses, exclamations and questions about where the fuck we could have gone.
Then silence again, nothing except the sensual thud of the club’s bassline.
Adriana reaches for the dumpster’s lid, but I grab her by the wrist. She gives me another skin-flaying glare, but I hold her tight. Sure, I’d love to breathe some air that hasn’t been filtered through a cum-drenched towel, but we need to be sure those Russian assholes are gone.
Another agonizing minute passes.
I raise the lid. She gasps. I gasp. But there are no gunshots, no Russians waiting in ambush, nothing except the thrum of music and a slight breeze that brings clean, not-cum-tainted air to my nostrils.
Climbing out of that dumpster of filth feels like a rebirth into a cleaner, more hopeful world… in the alley behind a strip club.
I exit the dumpster and raise my hands to help Adriana out and down.
“That was tied for the worst fucking thing that has ever happened in my life,” she says.
“That was just another Thursday for me.”
“Today isn’t Thursday.”
“Just tells you what my life has been like ever since…” My voice trails off. I know, she knows, I let it lie.
“What now?”
I scan the parking lot, then the strip club itself. The bouncer is watching us from the doorway, his eyes wide with questions I don’t like.
“We can’t stay here.”
“No. We can’t. We need to find a shower and clean clothes. Do you think we can go back to the hotel? My rental car’s there. I’ve got a gun in the glove compartment. We might be able to…”
I shake my head. For how crafty Adriana’s been to find and subdue me — not that I tried that hard not to be captured before she found me — I’m surprised at how na?ve she is.
“There will be someone watching that place. It’ll be awhile before you can even think about going back there, unless you want to wind up in a pit watched over by some guy named Oleg. ”
“Why do you think anyone would want that?”
“Because some people have fetishes, and I don’t fucking judge.”
“Fuck you, fucking smartass.”
I sigh. “We need to keep moving until we either find a safe place to lie low or we get far enough away from here that we can be reasonably sure that our asses won’t get snatched if we shut our eyes.
” Adriana looks like she’s going to argue — I’ve seen that same stubborn look in Vanessa’s eyes plenty of times — and I decide that there’s no fucking time; I scoop her back up and throw her over my shoulder.
Her argument turns into an indignant yelp, and she squirms in my grip.
So I stop and smack her on her ass. “You can either let me carry you to safety or I can throw you back in that dumpster. Which will it be?”
“Fine. Carry me. But don’t spank me again.”
“Good. Now shut up.”
“I hate you.”
“I hate me, too. But think of it this way: you let me get you out of here and you’ll still get the chance to kill me later.”
That shuts her up. The only sound for the next four blocks is her indignant breathing, my heartbeat thudding in my ears, and my heavy footfalls as I pound pavement.
My legs scream at me in growing frustration, as do my arms, back, and shoulders, when suddenly Adriana squirms. At first, I try to ignore her — we have to get as far away from here as possible, and the more she struggles, the harder it will be to carry her — but then she struggles harder.
Then she spanks me.
Hard.
A firm slap on my ass, followed by another, and another.
I stop. “What the fuck are you doing? Do you think I’m some fucking horse where you have to beat my ass and say, ‘Giddyup’?”
“No. Fuck no. I get no pleasure from smacking your ass. I want you to stop.”
“Oh, so you want to die, too?”
“No, I want you to fucking listen.”
“I’m listening. I do not like what I’m hearing, but I’m listening.”
“We need to go in there.”
“Where?” I say, setting her down.
She points to a door set into a nondescript brick wall. Above the door there’s a green plaque decorated with Chinese characters, along with the words ‘Jade Palace’ written in English. “In there.”
I shake my head. “Bad idea.”
“Why?”
“The Triads have a foothold in Sacramento. A big one,” I say, leaving out where my surety comes from.
Adriana doesn’t need to know that I gambled with more than a few of them, and when I was on a winning streak, more than a few of them suggested I look up someone named ‘Maoren’ if I wanted the purest heroin in Sacramento.
I’m ashamed to admit that there was a not-insignificant part of me that was tempted.
“And that looks like it has ‘Triad den’ written all over it.”
She grabs my wrist, tugs and limps toward the door. “Trust me.”
“Trust you? I don’t. Look, the only fucking thing I’m sure about you is that I want to save your life because you’re Vanessa’s sister. Everything else — fuck, I trust you about as much as I trust Ruslan or any of his men.”
She says something. What, I’m not fucking sure — it’s a mess of tones and sounds and it makes me blink. “I’ve got this. I know what I’m talking about. We’ll be safe in there.”
“Do you still want to kill me?”
“Of course. More than ever since you threw me into that dumpster. You look and smell like shit, by the way.”
“The looking like shit is genetic. The smelling like it, well, so do you.”
Which is partly true, but somehow, she doesn’t smell that bad. Or look that bad, even having just crawled out of a dumpster. In the right light, she almost looks…
What the fuck am I thinking?
“So what? Listen, you can stand out here all you want, covered in shit and looking like an asshole, but I’m telling you: I know what I’m talking about. Going in here is our best option. Just shut up and let me handle this.”
“Fine. Lead the fucking way.”