18. Lifesaver
18
LIFESAVER
The sight of her is something that should be studied.
I’d happily do a doctorate.
Brander takes a turn first inside of her, while Match and I hold her to stop her from collapsing.
She screams when he first enters her, wetness dripping out from her slit. I mop some of it up with my fingers. Shut my eyes and lick it off. I’ve never popped pills, injected drugs into me, or snorted weird white substances offered to me in bags by drunks on the street, but tasting Alice, I finally get it. I could bottle up her wetness and sip it every night before bed to help me sleep, as psychotic as it sounds. Of course I won’t be doing that, but I won’t need to when she’s right beside me in bed.
“brANDER!” She arches her back as she comes.
When he moves aside, Match and I prepare to step her out of the shower, but her feet grip the floor, hands fighting to stay pressed against the tiles.
“You two haven’t fucked me yet.”
I position myself between her legs and insert my dick.
She screams just as hard, the plug just as pink as her tight, wet pussy. She shakes her ass so I slap it, my dick enlarging inside of her even more as I watch both of her cheeks recoil.
From an innocent-eyed girl who had a total body count of one, I wouldn’t expect this sort of behavior. Women sometimes shy away whenever the three of us hit the Vegas strip. As soon as we mention the “package deal,” we get a lot of backtracking and declining and sometimes a judgmental “No thank you.”
Sometimes it’s nice to sit back and admire. Being with Alice has made me appreciate her body more. It makes my dick twitch, seeing her body squirm and her pussy petals flower open. It’s a tease and it pains my balls so fucking much, but when it finally comes time to bury my dick inside of her, the wait is worth it.
I just can’t wait for the day when she can take all three of us at once.
“OH MY GOD!” she screams, clutching onto Match like her life depends on it.
My vision goes hazy when I feel her pussy walls tighten around my dick. Then they start to contort. Pulsate.
I swirl back her hair into a makeshift ponytail. “That’s it, sweetheart.”
Match scoots over to her ass. “How does the plug feel, sweetness?”
“It makes it feel even better.”
“Good.” I continue stroking her hair.
Match spanks both of her cheeks.
Then he’s dipping a finger into where we’re joined to fondle her clit.
“AH!” Alice screams.
After rinsing off, Brander runs to her aid, grabbing her breasts and pinching her nipples. “You’re such a good girl. Come for us, darling. Let yourself go. We’ve got you.”
Her walls continue to pulsate as I drive my cock deeper into her dripping wet pussy.
The corners of my vision go black.
The high-pitched singsong cry that exits her mouth does it for me.
I slam into her one more time and release.
“Doctor Miller?”
A face filters back into vision. Nurse Shelly.
Why is it her and not Alice?
The money I’d pay to be back in that shower again…
“Sorry.” I wipe my wrist over my forehead. “What were you saying?”
“An acute patient was asking for you.” She presses a folder into my chest and takes off down the hallway.
No lingering stares this time?
Her pissed-off attitude probably has something to do with me being on my phone the entire shift. I’ve been shooting messages to Alice all day, and Shelly has been at my shoulder trying to read each one. Apparently, Alice can “take care of herself,” because “she’s a big girl.”
I wedge the folder under my arm and head over to acute.
When I see the patient, the folder falls to the floor and I stop in my tracks.
It’s one of the Russians from yesterday.
More specifically, the one strewn across the bar, the one who Brander scalded with his iron rod.
Feet planted firmly on the ground, he stares up at me from his seat looking like a fucking wreck. A burn mark stripes diagonally across his face. Now, he’s without a bottom lip and a smile.
Although I doubt he had the latter to begin with.
I gesture him into a private room and close the door behind us.
I may not have the gun now, but a surgical knife should do the trick.
And lose me my job.
“Your friend has terrible resuscitation technique, by the way,” I tell him.
“Shut the fuck up,” he spits. The thick Russian accent cuts through the air.
“I will not.” I sit back in my doctor’s chair because there’s no need to stress. I have the advantage here. This is my hospital and my place of work. Security is a button away, but I keep my hands on my lap. “The burn looks angry.” I narrow my eyes and lean forward to inspect further. Red boils protrude from the surface of his skin. Popping them would be fun. “I can prescribe you silver sulfadiazine cream.”
“I want no cream.”
Anxiety creeps into my nervous system, souring the aftertaste of the coffee I just drank. He could ruin my career. Tell everyone that it was me that fried his skin.
He knows better than to run his mouth, though.
Both of us keep our sins close to our chest. Exposing mine would release his out into the air too.
I fold my arms over my chest. “What do you want, then?”
“Keep away from us.”
“Is that a threat?”
“It’s an order. Peter might be a childhood friend, but he wants our legacy gone.”
“Doesn’t sound like a me problem.”
“Oh, it will be.”
I narrow my eyes. “And what is that supposed to mean?”
“How many years did it take you to get where you are today? All the studying? The exams? The time. I would hate to see it all go to waste.”
I knit my lips together and wait for him to finish his fucking riddle.
“You will tread with caution,” he continues, “or you will see your career crash and burn.” The ugly bastard rises from his seat and tenses his muscles. He should consider the sulfadiazine. It’s challenging to take him seriously with the scalded face. “Don’t get in our way.”
The door bangs shut behind him.
I slip out my phone, some of the tension alleviating when I see a message from Alice on my lock screen. She’s still safely at Brander’s, thank God. After last night she decided to crash at his house for a few days.
Alice: the thought of looking daddy in the eye sickens me.
I bite my lip. If I could medicate her issues away, I’d do so in a heartbeat. Last night after our activities in the shower, she had curled up into a ball in Brander’s bed and cried. Each whimper felt like a stab in the chest. Made me want to ride over to Peter’s and place a Takeshi in his. Fathers shouldn’t make their daughters cry.
I roll back my head and bask in the peace and quiet before I’m called again.
I don’t know where I stand with the guy anymore. He was my first friend that, once upon a time, had my back in a classroom of peers that didn’t. He stuck up for me and didn’t give a fuck about what anyone had to say about it.
Back then he was a Good Samaritan.
Is he still that person now?
I scratch my head. Say Russians outed me to the public, exposed my crimes and pitted me against the whole community—would Peter still back me?
His secret is one that could outshine mine, remove me from the spotlight, but I don’t think I’d ever report it to the press. I couldn’t do it. Things have changed, and Bratva interventions have set him on an entirely different path, but to me he’ll always be the Peter from Summerlin who used to wear GAP hoodies and nylon shorts, and play baseball with me in the garden.
But that white-picket-fence life is no more. It receded into the distance the moment I left for college on my bike, and for Peter, it disappeared the moment Vlad answered his phone call.
All there is left to do now is fix things.
How, I don’t know.
But me sticking a diamond ring on his daughter’s finger and watching the butt plug wink between her ass cheeks as we fuck sure has complicated matters.
I return to the keypad on my phone and type out a message.
Me: I know, sweetheart, but you can’t tell him that you know.
Me: He already feels guilty enough.
Me: And also, he’ll know that I told you.
The typing bubbles ripple.
Alice: Does he know I’m staying with you and the boys?
Me: Yeah, we told him it’s to keep you safe
Me: How is he?
Me: Fine for now. I’ll speak to you later 3
I pocket my phone and get back to the floor for a distraction. God, she’s so fucking hot. If I’m not buried deep inside of her, I’m thinking about it. Last night in the shower felt like more than sex, though. It was deeper than that, like together we were operating as one. I felt myself molding into her. My chest felt swollen—like, I physically felt it enlarging. Words can’t pinpoint the feeling because I don’t think there is one in the English language to describe The Alice Effect. It’s like my entire life I’ve been searching for something. Previously when I fucked other women, I felt unfulfilled afterward. Like I’d lost something.
Fucking Alice last night made me feel like I gained something. Like my soul had grown a pair of wings.
I didn’t know it was possible to feel weightless.
It’s given me a reason to fight. Who cares what silly Russians throw at me? Their ridiculous accents and threats can fuck off, because my career means nothing if Alice’s safety is on the line.
Which it still is.
Bile swirls around my stomach. What if her kidnapper hadn’t stormed in and escorted her out of the hotel room? What if he’d abandoned her in there, and the three fuckers did more than scroll their starved eyes up and down her perfect body? Maybe next time, if she’s caught again, something worse will unfold. Clearly, she’s valuable to them. An asset that could, judging from the amount of dollar bills stashed in her G-string, increase their daily earnings by thousands.
Dread squeezes my gut.
Could she be more than just a ransom to them now?
My phone buzzes.
Peter.
“How’s she doing?” The monotone suggests that he’s still not pleased she’s staying with my outlaw friends for the foreseeable future.
“She’s doing good. She finished her shift and made it back to Brander’s.”
“I don’t like that she’s staying with him, you know.”
“Yes, but it’s for her own safety,” I say. “The Russians know where you live and could show up at your place at any time. How safe would she be then?”
“I know.” The flat tone suggests that he’s done talking.
Silence stretches between us. Is he gonna hang up and get himself to sleep, or what?
I could hang up on him, but that feels rude.
“What time do you get off work?” he asks me.
“Not until midnight, man.”
“Stop by mine on your way home.”
Summerlin isn’t on my way home.
“Sure, man. But at midnight? Won’t you be asleep?”
“Sleep is a concept I’m no longer familiar with.”
Fair enough.
I say goodbye, drop the call, and get back to work. Acute patients wait to see me and the other doctor on call. Either I refer them to another hospital department, prescribe medicine, or tell them to go home and rest. The latter is something I’m starting to crave more of myself.
The thrill of the Venom Vultures is only fun when the stakes are low, and they have been until now. Meeting Alice has introduced real stakes into our lives. It’s not so simple anymore. Days of cruising down desert roads with loaded guns have long passed. It’s not thrill seeking anymore, and it’s not adrenaline that increases my pulse now. It’s fear. Alice could seriously get hurt.
For the remaining three hours of my shift, I see patient after patient. Nothing is life-threatening, but each time my eyes meet theirs, I feel guilt rope around my intestines, squeezing hard. Killing people who deserve it is fun, but god, does it stay with you. The pain in my patients’ eyes. The worry. They come in with abdominal pain or a shortness of breath, and they look at me like I’m their cure.
“What should I do, doctor?”
“Take the pain away, doctor.”
I’ve been causing pain for years.
They see the scrubs, the ID badge clipped to my pocket, and trust me with, quite literally, their life. God, if only they saw the flip side of the coin. Me greased up in leather, stinking of gasoline and rotting human flesh, on my way back from an assassination.
People only see what’s right in front of them.
I finish my shift, hop on my bike, and drive to Summerlin. The moon shines brightly, emitting a weak glow over the distant mountains that appear to stretch to infinity and beyond. What would my parents say if they saw me now? To them, I’m just a doctor. Someone who can do no wrong.
The door opens before I even finish knocking.
“Come in.”
Peter shuts the door behind me as soon as I step in. Wandering into the living room, I notice a half-gone bottle of brandy, and a rom-com starring Julia Roberts playing on the TV.
“Do you want a drink?”
“No. I should get back soon. It was a tiring night.”
“Understood.” He collapses onto the couch that still holds the outline of his body, and looks up at me with bloodshot eyes. Sleep deprivation is no stranger to the guy. I visited him once or twice after Marybeth’s death to drag him out of the house, and he looked like a sewage rat. Tail between his legs.
He looks the same now.
“It’s funny,” he says.
Is it? His face says otherwise.
“I never wanted Alice to meet you.” He turns the TV volume down a peg. “I was ashamed to have a friend like you, because you were a living representation of everything I hated.”
Charming.
He stares at the TV for a moment before directing his gaze back to me. “Now look at me. You and your outlaw friends have taken her in because she’s safer with…criminals than she is in her own home.” He picks up the bottle of brandy and messes with the half-peeled sticker. “I know it’s too risky, the Bratva knowing where she lives and all, but I dunno…” He shrugs. “I guess I just don’t know how to feel.” He concentrates on my face. “You’re the only one I can talk to.” He sighs. “I suppose I should start by saying sorry.”
“For what?”
I want to hear him say it.
“For being ashamed of you, and for not introducing Alice to you sooner. I wanted to protect her and keep her out of harm. You know just as much as me how cruel the world is.
“The world is cruel to cruel people.”
Peter freezes.
I continue. “If you want to start with an apology, start with Alice.”
“She’ll never forgive me.”
I take a seat on the couch across from him, and look around the room. The whole house is exquisite. Definitely has mayor’s wages written all over it. An antler chandelier dangles from the ceiling (though Nevada doesn’t even have deer) and the huge flat-screen TV lights up the entire room. Even the carpet beneath my feet has a spongy feel to it, and the bottle of brandy—I focus my eyes to read the label—is Hennessy.
But none of it is real.
If not for the car “accident” twelve years ago, this house probably wouldn’t even exist.
I stare at my best friend. He used to run around my yard catching balls every time I whacked them with the deadbeat baseball bat we stole from the local park one day. He looks in no fit state for a game of baseball now.
Doesn’t even look like he has the mental capacity to watch one.
My heart will always love the guy. I’ll never despise him.
Always respect him.
Which is why I just can’t keep this next sentence in.
“I told her.”
Peter’s face screws into something scary. “You told her?”
“I’m sorry, man.” I hold up my hands when I say it. “She deserves to know the truth.”
“You had no right to tell her.”
“And you had no right to keep something like that from your daughter .”
He shoots up, anger pulling at his lip. He knows he can’t beat me in a fight, so he just stands there, hands at his sides, his entire body shaking like a leaf. “Why are you involving yourself? None of this has anything to do with you.”
If only he knew…
Do I let the other, bigger cat out of the bag?
No. That one will ruin me forever, and would probably cause Peter to slide back into Vlad’s messages with a request to set one of his contracted killers onto me.
I wouldn’t blame him for doing so.
But with Match, Brander, and me gone, who would be left to protect his daughter?
Best I stay shut for now.
“I’m getting involved because your daughter deserves the truth. Keeping her sheltered might feel like the right, paternal thing to do, but a life based on lies isn’t a life.”
“No. But it’s one where she’s happy.”
“Alice is happy.”
“And how would you know that, hm?” He folds his arms over his chest. “What do you know about happiness?”
Your daughter makes me happy isn’t a suitable answer, so I keep my lips sealed.
“Breaking the speed limit on your bike?” he snaps. “Causing havoc around Vegas?”
“Peter—”
“Is that your twisted version of happiness? Get out of my house. You’ve overstayed your welcome.” He walks me to the front door, the sound of the unclicking lock reverberating around my body.
“Peter—”
“No. Alice will be staying with Tammy.” He throws me out the door (tries to, at least). “You crossed a boundary. Stay away from my daughter. All of you.”