Chapter 8 Nick
Nick
“Ggggluurrbbbb… I… Blrrrruubbb… Wait…” The man whose head I’m intermittently holding under water—and only dragging up for small gasps of air—begs for mercy. This idiot is wasting his breath—literally.
My patience is running extra thin today. This is what happens when you lie to me. You get your mouth washed out with soapy water in the supply closet.
First Emma scolded me in front of the girl. Then the girl herself tried to assert some sort of dominance by refusing to accept my offer of employment. It was kind of cute actually. I chuckle to myself. Like she has so many other appealing offers.
I’m now down my right-hand man since I sent Ethan to babysit her. I gave him strict orders that he is by no means allowed to try and fuck her or even touch her. She’s off limits.
She will stay, work off her debt, and hopefully, when it’s all said and done, her mental state will be in good enough shape to carry on a life of her own—somewhere else.
But what about the other debts she talked about the morning after I saved her from the river? I still need to find out who her father was indebted to, especially now that she’s staying in my family’s home.
Am I really better than anyone else who wants to use her for repayment? I might be the asshole holding her hostage, but she is in a much better and safer environment where her needs will be met. So yes, I am better than anyone else who wants to use her for payment.
I might not be a good guy, but for some damn reason, I can’t hurt her and won’t let anyone else hurt her either.
I reach in my pocket to pull out my phone, becoming aware of the now unmoving corpse whose head I’m still holding underwater. Oops. I was going to kill him, just not that quickly.
Lucky bastard.
I send Ethan a text letting him know he has a golden opportunity to make good use of his time by getting any and all information out of her. I toss the corpse aside and send another message to the cleanup crew while heading to the dock where Vade is waiting for me with a shipment of guns.
“I checked all the boxes, and all inventory is accounted for. Diaz also sent a small shipment of bombs too. I think those need to stay in our personal stash and not be added to any orders.” Vade admires the cylindrical tube in his hand.
“Thinking of blowing up the casino and cashing in on the insurance money?” I tease.
“Not on your life. Unless you want all our funds funneled in your family’s horse racing legacy, I suggest we leave these bricks standing.” Vade signs off on the shipment and hands the clipboard to the delivery guy who will load the boxes in the warehouse.
He’s right. We need more than one business to funnel the kind of money we bring in. This shipment alone will net over half a million dollars each. We only have a handful of employees to pay out and are looking to profit eighty percent of the final cut.
“I don’t mind using the horses as a cover, but it would draw too much attention doing all of our business that way.” Like the old saying goes, don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
“Then let’s not add insurance fraud to our list of extracurricular activities.” Vade passes me the cylindrical pipe bomb to examine. Impressive.
“Speaking of eggs in a basket, I need to pay a visit to the farm. The horse I went to look at earlier in the week will be delivered to my barn in the next few days. That’ll be a good time to make a personal check up on the girl.
” As much as I don’t want to admit it, I’d like to see her—not just check on her.
“Oh yeah? How are you planning on hiding her in plain sight for this undercover operation? Her face is all over the news, anyone could recognize her.”
“First, we plant a body and fake her death.” I run my hands through my hair, I should’ve thought about that before.
“Second, it’s an old high school pic. I’m banking on her filling out on the farm and being unrecognizable in a healthier state.
If that fails, there’s always makeup, hair dye, and colored contacts.
” Even though it can be easily done, the thought of making her look like someone other than herself unsettles me.
Something about her unsettles me. Not in a bad way though.
If anything I find her intriguing. I want—no—need to know her entire story, what makes her tick, what her limits are.
Because I am about to push every one she has to make her stronger than she ever thought possible.
I will not have a weakling working for me.
“After what happened to Charlie, I’m not crazy about sending a woman in to bust a trafficking ring, even if she’s from the slums.” Vade crosses his arms, notably uncomfortable with that memory being brought up.
“It’s going to be hard for anyone associated with either one of us to penetrate that operation when it’s well known that we’ve taken down trafficking rings in the past. This town is too small.”
“How do you know you can trust her?”
“I don’t. She has nothing else to lose and everything to gain. If she’s smart, she will cooperate. We’ll make sure she doesn’t go in until we’ve exhausted all our options. There are other ways we can put her to work if this doesn’t work out.”
She will work to earn her keep and to make sure my effort in saving her isn’t wasted.
Two things I don’t tolerate are lazy and sloppy.
If she proves to be either, she will unfortunately have to be disposed of.
However, I don’t think that’s what’s going to happen.
She still has some fight in her, she showed me that this morning.
“Fine. But let her stay at the farm until she’s mentally and physically ready to train, don’t bring her back a minute before.”
“You got it.” I pat Vade on the back.
She will be safer there, away from prying eyes. The explosion chatter needs time to die down and the public move on to other breaking news events.
Ethan can use that time to gain her trust so she knows nobody else is out to get her. If my suspicions are correct, her feeling like she’s being held hostage by three men won’t do anything but hinder her progress. Ethan is the easiest going of us all.
Vade and I head to my office where we can call Dr. Bennett in private. I’m going to need his help and cooperation with this. I pick up the phone and dial the number.
“You sure are going through a lot of trouble for a waste of space from Whiskey Rivers.” Vade leans back in his chair, propping his feet on my desk.
Part of me wants to tip his ass over for his comment. Wasn’t he just worried about sending her undercover? Neither one of us know the girl, but before it’s all said and done, she will be unstoppable. Waste of space will be the furthest from anyone’s mind when they come across her.
Dr. Bennett picks up after a few rings and I explain the situation and the plan for the girl. “You’re in luck. I picked up a body of a hooker this week. She’s almost a dead ringer for the river girl. No pun intended.”
“Great, when will it be ready?” I ask, placing the phone on speaker so Vade can hear, too. Thank fuck, our office is soundproof. We don’t need anyone else knowing what we are up to.
“After I procure her body from the morgue, we’ll place it in the swamp and let it decompose for a few weeks before calling it in. I’ll make sure I’m around when it comes time to identify the body. I might need a hair sample from your girl, but I doubt the state takes it that far.”
My girl. The way he says it sounds so odd.
After hanging up with Dr. Bennett, I turn to Vade.
“I’m going to head to the office, I’ve got to work out a plan for this girl, should she have to go undercover, before I head to the farm.
” To say I am stressed to the max is an understatement, I could use a few days away, but my schedule will only allow for one.
This whole situation is getting way too deep. I could smoke a cigarette a mile long, but I made a promise to Mom before she got too sick that I would quit.
Vade stays to oversee that our shipments go as planned while I head back to my office. Luckily, I don’t have any big cases I’m working on right now.
Back at my office, Sasha struts in as I’m running my hands over my face and through my hair. “What’s wrong, Nick?” She walks around behind me and starts massaging my shoulders.
I have so much built-up frustration, it’s going to take a while to work its way out, but this isn’t how I want to go about it. I remove her hands and pull her away from me the best I can from my seated position.
“I have a lot on my mind and no, I don’t want to talk about it.” I don’t look at her, so she sits on my desk next to me.
“There’s other things we can do besides talk.” She runs her hand over mine and I pull away.
I glance over and see bruises covering her legs like fuck trophies in those short skirts she wears. She’s not going without so I’m not sure why she won’t leave me alone. I’ve tried to make it very clear lately that I’m not interested in her advances.
“Not now, I have work to do.” I grab some files and open them—maybe she will get a hint.
It works because she walks off, calling out to me on her way, “If you change your mind, you know where to find me.”
I have to finish looking over a few of my upcoming cases before going home, so it’s not like I lied to her. Glancing over the files, I see there’s a request for a pro bono case. Fucking freeloaders.
Before I toss it in the trash, something catches my eye. It’s not the name but the location—Kaleb Cherry - Whiskey Rivers. Opening the file, I scan through the list of charges: illegal gambling, simple assault, possession of a controlled substance.
Well, well, well. What do we have here.
This must be a year of firsts for me. I don’t hand out my legal expertise to charity cases, but—I lean back in my chair and crack my knuckles—I might be willing to work out a deal. Let’s see what Kaleb knows about the Rivers family.
I pick up the phone and dial the number listed on the paper. “Yeah…” A man’s bored voice comes over the speaker after the fourth ring.
“This is Nick Ryker calling for Kaleb Cherry.” I sit back in my chair, propping my feet on my desk.
There’s a slight pause before the man talks again. “Oh hey. Yeah, thank you for calling me, man. I got into a little bit of trouble a while back and was wondering if you could help me out.”
“So I see, I was reading your file. How long have you lived in Whiskey Rivers?” I pretend to be invested in his history, but truth be told, nobody intentionally moves there.
“My whole life. There ain’t any good jobs here, man. The law took all my money. Can you work my case for free? You know, do something good with your career.” He laughs as if society owes him because he’s poor and got caught breaking the law.
“I won’t make you any promises but meet me in my office next Wednesday at 10 a.m. to plead your case.”
“Yeah man, aight, I’ll be there for sure. Thanks so much, my guy.” My guy? Sheer stupidity oozes from his voice.
How old is he? I glance down at his file and see that he’s twenty-four. I rub my hand over my head and sigh. The ridiculousness in my life just keeps multiplying.
On my way home, I call Ethan to see how the girl’s first day at the farm went. “How’d everything go today?”
Part of me wishes she could’ve stayed here for the time being, but she needs to be where she can get out without risking being recognized. Keeping her cooped up won’t help her depression.
“She’s a lot less tense without your scary ass around.” Ethan has the maturity level of a teenage boy; there’s nothing intimidating about him at all and that’s why I keep him working behind the scenes.
He’s great with technology and can work with it under pressure so it works out. I could never put him on the front lines though. I used to wish he would toughen up but I’d never try to change him. As much as it pisses me off when he does it, he helps balance my harsh personality.
I roll my eyes in annoyance. “Glad to hear. Do you have anything useful to tell me about her yet?”
“Naw, not yet. We are just sitting on the porch drinking some fresh squeezed lemonade.” I hear what sounds like glasses clinking together in the background.
I am a little envious of that. Don’t get me wrong, I love my lifestyle here, but there’s nothing like stepping away from the city and getting some fresh air.
“A security system has been installed in her room and bathroom. The security system throughout the house has also been updated. I’ve hired a team to monitor her remotely around the clock.
You can also access everything from your laptop.
I don’t trust her to not kill herself yet.
” I can keep an eye on her this way, too.
“Sounds good boss. I’m here if you need anything.”
“I’ll be by in a couple days, and I’ll expect an update. Call if you need or hear anything.” I click the phone off. It’s only been a couple weeks since I’ve been to the farm, but it seems like longer.
As if my playlist can sense my energy, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Simple Man” comes on the radio. My mama used to sing this song to me as a kid. I pull my car over in the empty public beach access and watch the sun set on the horizon and reflect on the recent turn of events.
If my mama knew what I was up to right now she would have me in the yard picking my own switch to beat my ass with. I snicker at the thought. At five foot nothing, weighing less than a buck ten, she ruled my daddy and I with an iron fist.
Something about planting that girl in that shithole strip joint is not sitting right with me and not just because of how I was raised. I’ve been thinking about it all day. I can’t use anyone I know, they’d be too easily spotted, and I’m not going to put my trust into a random stranger.
It will be hard to get the girl to trust me when she’s so emotionally fragile. Being nice to people is not something I’m used to doing. It’s going to take some work to keep myself from ruining her for good.