I paced and listened. Beyond the sounds of my phone going off every second, I didn’t hear much. Vinnie and Channing were point men that I answered to. Channing had been in place since before I came ‘round. It had only been a year or so for Vinnie. Channing was a royal fucking asshole when it came to most things. Always glaring me down like I was two seconds away from a major fuck up and maybe I was.
Every day, I regret stepping out on that stoop and laying eyes on Ember Bloom that first time all those months ago. The dark, sick part of me said I should have just let Sugar get her kicks, and have a story to tell her other hooker friends. At the time, there was no way I could. I couldn’t let her or anyone else fucking touch me.
For the last year, I was the asshole in our crew. It was my natural reaction before I was punished for having an independent thought. Nah, it wasn’t a thought. It was more like a ‘fuck you, I’m not fighting—not your way.’
I’d stepped out of the cage. The whores. The money. I left the life they were conditioning me to grow into. It had no good way out.
When my life inside Malcolm’s inner circle began, I was good with the pit of sin I found myself in the middle of. In some jacked up way, I was happy. I thought I could keep who I was and also march to their beat. But then I felt myself slipping. I was thinking things were okay when I knew they weren’t. So, I stepped back.
It was a deadly choice. I didn’t care. I was ready to die, on my terms that is. The last thing I am is a fucking pity story, but I damn sure had not had it easy. I’d been a runaway, on my own, fighting my whole life—one step from jail or a coffin. I was so fucking tired that I was all but begging them to nail my fucking pine box shut. Yeah, I’d go down swinging, but not in the cage. Not for sport.
Malcolm didn’t kill me when I backed out. He wanted to, still fucking does. But I’m young. I’m fierce. I’m fucking smart. I was worth more alive than dead. And to top it off, he was sure that one way or another, down the road he’d get me right back where he wanted me. He told me as much.
I still had dues to pay for my actions. They had me running all over the damn town, working like a rookie to pick up bets, enforcing when needed. I went from fighting, getting what I wanted and when, to standing on freezing, then blazing hot street corners waiting for assholes to drop off money they didn’t have.
I was good at getting them to pay. So good, that my time out earned me respect. The kind that threatened guys like Vinnie and Channing. Yeah, the boss wanted someone who could follow orders, all loyal like. But he also needed someone who could fucking think for themselves when shit got tight. Someone fearless.
One by one, bigger jobs came. I wasn’t watching for drops but looking for Unicorns, bringing them down. With each one Malcolm pulled me in tighter, pushing girls and cash on me at the same time. He was taunting demons I’d barely escaped, knowing it would not be long now—I’d want back into the fold of his good graces. The promise of power he’d never give me.
I was at church the entire night before I saw Ember that first time. Hiding the way I always did, not in the attic—it was too damn hot, and it wasn’t set up since I left it the spring before—but in the sanctuary.
There is no place on earth like a church in the dead of the night. One by one, all those candles the faithful had lit would whisper their death, the sounds of the city long quieted. The stillness allowed thoughts I didn’t want to deal with to halt. Peace.
I ignored my texts that night until I couldn’t anymore—it was almost morning. Before I left, I strolled to the altar and gazed up at the cross doubting its power when all I really wanted to do was cling to it. I lit one of those fucking candles and tossed a glance up. I didn’t say a prayer. The way I saw it, if he knew me so well, then I shouldn’t have to spell it out for him.
Then I left.
I hated working with Vinnie and his punks. Their jokes were bad, and their taste in women was worse. I cursed when I figured out what address Vinnie had told me to go to. The girl that lived there was a wannabe cage whore. Girls like her are nothin’ but trouble. Hell, they’d make you believe they were the devil themselves at times. No one should act like that on the norm, with every dick that crosses their path. No girl of mine would.
I went in looking for Vinnie and my orders. It was a fucking orgy. No shocker there. We’d all been taught to be armed and ready to run at any time, so the crew was dressed for the most part. The girls were wasted and not.
“Are you fucking kidding me,” I growled in Vinnie’s direction. He was blazed, like always, a nasty whore was riding him so slowly I doubted he was actually fucking her.
“The place she works isn’t open yet,” he said with a groan.
“What’s the job?” I spat pushing two girls off of me. One had my belt the other had her nasty lips all over the back of my neck.
“Up and coming Unicorn. Gonna pinch his girl. Stop it real quick,” Vinnie said as his hand moved over the tits of the girl riding him.
“You don’t know shit about Unicorns or this fucking block. Quit trying to fuck up my brick road.”
The other two guys who were getting blown chuckled. Everybody knew Vinnie was threatened by me, that every time he saw me walk in a direction, he ran past me tryna get what I was after. All I was ever after was peace and fucking quiet. Pushing Unicorns was my gig now, but he just had to push in on it, one up my quiet ways by fucking with a man’s livelihood. Sick fuck.
I was glaring Vinnie down, but he wasn’t looking at me, he was watching the girl on her knees in front of me. She was undoing my jeans. My skin went hot. My head spun. There I was again. Right back in a hell that would not let me go. I’d been here before. Let myself slip, swearing I wasn’t and all I found was more hate.
My lungs closed; I swear they did causing me to sway and crash into the wall. With my eyes squeezed closed, I saw those red candles I’d been staring at on the church altar again. The ones that extinguished on their own, the others fighting a breeze I could not see. A sick rush slammed into me. I knew I had to get out, and fast.
On the front steps, the first gulp of air I took woke me up, stilled me. I was putting myself together, trying to shake the disgust of my life and the whore reaching for me when I saw Ember.
There was a halo around her. I know it sounds stupid, and that what I saw was just the street lamp reflecting on her. But for a split second, I was sure she was the angel I’d prayed for, that any second I’d feel a bullet rush through me or some shit and she’d take me away. I was positive whatever sentence I was serving in my worthless life had been paid in full.
When I focused on her, when I saw those eyes, a beautiful, blameless blue, my whole world changed. Something like hope rumbled in my chest. Absently, I heard someone inside say, “She’s out there.” My moment of reprieve, of feeling something that wasn’t sick or tainted had ended, and I had no time to think.
Maybe I should’ve acted like I was hurting her, hid her, and then helped her escape when the others were not looking. Maybe laying a claim down on her was the last thing I should have done. I’ll never know. God knows I’ve thought about what I should’ve done a thousand times.
Since then, Ember and I had just been making it day to day. Keeping our eye on the ball. All the while, I had been hoping like hell her father would pay up and like magic decide to walk right, at least get his daughter far from the lair he had pulled her into.
Then it would hit me that if he did, I’d lose her. I didn’t know how I was going to handle that. After tonight, seeing her in the candlelight, I knew I’d never let her go. She may be out of sight, out of mind, but she would always be the one ray of light I had, rooted deeply in the center of my black heart.
Staring at my phone now, knowing I had to answer at least by sending a text, had my head scrambled all over again. Ember had done exactly what I told her not to do, I was sure she had. She’d gone on record as Bloom’s daughter. The second any of that leaked, Malcolm would know I lied. He’d think the worst and react.
> I could turn this all on Zee’s people, and live with the bloodshed my accusation would cause. But I didn’t know how I was going to get Ember out of this. We’d have to run, fast and hard, never stopping. The insane thought that we’d make it had me moving through the school again working my way to the garage. I had to focus on a way out for us, not the idea of what Malcolm would do to her just because I gave a damn.
I was in the sedan, moving it so I could get to my bike when the cops surrounded it. I smirked realizing if I was the guy I was before I met Ember I would’ve gone down in a blaze of glory, even fucking welcomed it. But damn it to hell if I didn’t see her eyes flash in my head a million times over—she gave me a reason to live. I cursed, not because I was caught, but because I realized how far and fast that girl had brought me away from the guy I once was.
Being processed, moving through bullshit questioning, being stripped like an object and not a person was almost nostalgic. The first time I landed behind bars I was fourteen, then again at sixteen. I doubt I would have any kind of fucking education if I hadn’t been locked up, so I held no grudges. When I was out at seventeen, I had college credits, four semesters worth—which was more than the fools I should have graduated with could’ve hoped to have.
Those credits didn’t do shit for me out on the streets. At eighteen, I would’ve gone back in again if someone on Malcolm’s payroll hadn’t seen the assault that went down and thought I’d be a nice little treat to take home to him.
Things about my life that I never understood started to make sense not long after that. No, life didn’t get better, I always had my doubts I’d live long enough to see my first gray hair, but I knew full well where I stood. Who I was. Like it or not, I did. It wasn’t a blessing or a curse, just the luck of the draw. A hand I was still playing.
None of the assholes in processing or holding were fond of my smug expression. They like for the fucks they catch to feel remorse, fear, maybe even anger. Calm stares unnerved them, had them checking and double checking favors they owe. Smart of them to do so.
I didn’t even make it to my official interview before Channing had me uncuffed and walking outside. I was far from digging my way out of this conflict and fucking knew it when the bastard stopped the car one alley over from the station. Channing wanted to make sure I could see it. It was a ploy he’d used before.
Jail or the thugs. There was no good choice.
Channing liked to put me at a fucking crossroads, force me to make a choice. That way when it all fucking blew up in my face, and I figured out I’d rather be on any path but the one I was on, he could look my ass in the eye and say it was my choice.
He and I had gone fist-to-fist, gun-to-gun, more times than I could count. Channing got off on my stubbornness. Maybe that’s the wrong way of putting it. I was the only one that could rattle him. Make him break his cool. I could outride his stare, the one that would have most believing he already knew your whole story and was just waiting for you to fall all over the bullshit lies you were throwing at him. Everyone needs a challenge, and he found a familiar one in me.
Channing never once fucking believed Ember was mine before I claimed her, and it wasn’t because he always had eyes on me. Channing just knew it wasn’t my style, and if I ever did anything out of character, I had a damn good reason. I didn’t have one when it came to Ember. I couldn’t explain it if I wanted to.
Channing was stuck in the lie about Ember with me. I never told the truth, but he knew I hadn’t and said nothing. He knew the second he laid eyes on her at my place that night. But he still gave Malcolm a nod when I had no choice but to face him with Ember in the next room. A nod that said two things, one it was fine to push me, and two I wasn’t going to back down.
It fucking sucked because it gave them all something to hang over my head, a card to pull right when they were ripe with need. Malcolm didn’t care about Bloom. There were hundreds of fucks playing the system and one way or another they always paid up in the end. However, he was curious about Bloom once Vinnie kicked up a fuss, complaining that I was cock-blocking his takedown of a Unicorn with a lie about a piece of ass I wanted to hit.
I’m sure Malcolm was over most of his curiosity or focused on another part of his empire right about the time Ember’s dad made the fuck-up of the year. Selling Zee’s shit twice over, pushing his boys to cross a territorial line.
It could not be overlooked. Zee wasn’t even a drug lord. He fucking dealt girls, both willing and unwilling ones. If we let that bullshit go down unanswered, it would have been a sign of weakness for the true drug lords. My ride was there constantly at Ember’s building. Channing’s and Vinnie’s were, too. The territory was marked. Simple as that.
Bloom all but started a fucking gang war over some blow that wouldn’t last Zee’s girls a night. Pointless. I had a talk with Zee if you’d call it that. When it was over, he went to Malcolm with an apology, and a hand full of high-class submissive girls. Their agreement was once Bloom paid us, Zee could deal with him.
Which left me working double time to make sure Bloom had enough to cover both. I’d already paid a hundred thousand of the fuck’s debt before he went and sold more, bet more. Which meant he’d put a serious dent in my escape out of hell one-day plan. Even if I gave him everything I had left, it wasn’t going to cover him.
Instead, I became Bloom’s enforcer, hitting up every asshole that had even given him a dollar to bet. It was done tonight. All Bloom had to do was pay. I took Malcolm’s fee and sent him to make Zee’s drop. It was over.
I could fucking kill that worthless ass for charging into that church, for leading his demons right to Ember.
For a long while, Channing said nothing as we both sat in the front seat of his Escalade and watched the city. I swear that’s all we ever did. It was either boring as hell or an edge of your seat ride. It just depended on how deep you looked, what you chose to care about.
“How you gonna play this, Kid?” Channing asked as he lit a smoke.
“I’m not your fucking kid.” He had six years on me, but to hear him talk you’d think it was twenty.
Channing smirked and leaned his shoulder into his door. “You’re in jail, Vinnie is in a body bag, and Zee has three guys sitting right next to ‘em.” He took a drag of his smoke. “And it all went down at your crib.”
“Bloom was making the drop, shit happened.”
“You’re lying.” I was, and I knew he knew it, but I needed to feel the story on my lips. See if I could say it looking boldly into the eyes of a killer.
“Zee’s kid charged in all eager, Vinnie stuck his nose where it didn’t fucking belong, like always. The kid shot, hit Bloom. The other fucks all started firing.”
“And somehow you and your girl come out unscathed,” he said with a chuckle.
Because it was my crib, I almost said.
“So we’re at war,” Channing said darkly, letting the words roll slowly off his lips.
I cringed. War was the last thing our territory needed. It was too hard to track, and crumbled the alliances that needed to stay in place just as quickly as it took the ones down that shouldn’t be.
“Zee doesn’t want trouble,” I said as I kept my stare on the street. “He told me himself he had out of control threads in his operation. Kids riding under his name that he had no allegiance to, taking double cuts.” I pressed my lips together. “I can get him to disown those boys that are in bags. He’ll say Bloom paid up, and they wanted more. Cut the tie.”
It would work. I’d taken the money on Bloom and put it on that first kid’s body. And right before I came home I’d given Vinnie Bloom’s payment. I knew Vinnie didn’t turn it in. He didn’t have time to do it; no, because that fuck was stalking my ass. Shit got him killed.
Channing laughed. I fucking hated it when he did that. “You want Malcolm to look away again? Let Bloom walk away again? When one of his was killed?” He leaned closer. “How long do you think it’s going to take your girl to tell a nice counselor
Bloom is her daddy? Do you think she hasn’t already?”
Channing let his pause ride out before he went on. “Bloods gonna be shed. At the very least, Bloom’s. Even if you get everyone to believe the fuck paid, he still stirred this shit pot. Cost Malcolm a man,” he said shaking his head as he leaned back. “I don’t get how that bastard has a daughter like Ember any more than you do, but the last thing you can do is stop a train wreck with your bare hands.”
No, I didn’t get it. Ember and her dad were on opposite spectrums of the universe. She’d freak if she saw half the stuff her daddy was up to. The fact that she loved him both ate me alive and gave me peace. It gave me hope that my demons would not scare her away.
I tensed with rage at the thought of Bloom becoming a mark because of all of this. Not because I gave a damn about the fuck. But because I saw Ember’s eyes, that clear blue welling with tears, begging me for his life.
She said she’d never forgive me if something happened to him. I believed her. I was prepared to live with the consequences. I just wasn’t ready to give up on her only demand just yet. When I told her what went down, I wanted to be able to look her in the eye and know it was out of my control. I did what I could.
“Malcolm needs vengeance for Vinnie. If he figures out you shot him...”
THIRTEEN
I didn’t deny or acknowledge I’d killed Vinnie. I didn’t shoot Vinnie because he was going to run his fucking mouth, I did it to save Ember, he was aiming at her—knowing taking her away from me would be worse than any punishment Malcolm would dish out.
“The way I see this right now is you have two choices, kid.” Channing threw out his smoke. “Jail or the Gladiator ring.”
He didn’t say three choices, but I knew death was on the table. He knew either of my choices would end the same. Over the last months, I’d told him more than once I wanted out. Channing was blatantly clear when he told me there was only one way out, a way I could not take. This had become about more than me and no matter how much I hated the cards of life I’d been dealt; I’d never leave Ember behind in this shithole of a life.