Burned: A Stepbrother Romance (12 page)

A car honks hard when I blow through a red. I’m not even paying attention to the rules of the road.

My head’s scattered, thoughts rushing in and out like a new tide. I can’t find the clarity I’m looking for, the perfect solution to this mess.

Clearly Hernandez doesn’t know about Brock’s little charity side project, but the ice? That’s serious, and Hernandez is desperate. I remember the way he sounded during the call.

I bash the steering wheel with my hand. I try to think where Brock would have put the Camaro, just in case. Birdie’s still in hospital. Maybe she has a place somewhere? Jay? But I don’t know. I just don’t.

I’m not surprised to find the address Hernandez texted me is yet another fucking warehouse, this one down by the water on the other side of the bay.

On a Sunday like this the area is quiet, far away from the hustle and bustle of the city. A gunshot would go unnoticed.

I pull around the back and survey the place. Hernandez’s Skyline is parked out the front, the side door open.

I sit sweaty in my seat. “Get your shit together, Maddy,” I tell myself. “You can do this.”

I’m not so sure as I get out, each step damning as I approach the door.

The sun’s just rising above, the walls of the warehouse simmering with color. I push the door wider and step in.

The warehouse is empty except for four people arranged around the center.

Hernandez stands next to a chair. In the chair, tied up, is my stepbrother, a gag in his mouth. He’s looking worse for wear, no doubt about it.

To the sides are two goons I vaguely recognize from nights gone by—large, unwelcome types with handguns stuffed into their pants.
Good way to shoot your dick off, boys.

Hernandez looks pleased with himself. “Well, well, what do we have here?”

I try to maintain my composure, consider this a job like any other, but my heart’s beating its way right out of my chest. I’m perilously close to falling apart.

It’s just another perp; just another job.

As I get closer, I see clearer how Brock is tied to the chair, tape over his mouth to hold the gag in and his right eye puffy and swollen. He’s been beaten and for a moment I’m filled with pure rage.

Hernandez puts his hand up. “Stop right there, baby.”

I stop in the middle of the warehouse floor still too far from Brock to do anything.

“Strip,” says Hernandez. “Can’t have you packing now, can we?”

I look to Brock. He nods his head loosely.

I take a deep breath and start unbuttoning my blouse conscious of the two goons flanking me from the sides, pistols in their waistbands. That makes three targets at a minimum provided no one else is lurking in the shadows.

“To be honest,” continues Hernandez, my blouse feathering to the floor, “I didn’t think you’d come. After all, who’d want to save this piece of trash?” He gives Brock’s chair a kick and laughs. “But you’re a piece of work. You know that? A pig sent undercover to spy on us.” He looks to the heavens. “Ai-ai-ai, I never would have guessed.”

I kick off my shoes and tug my jeans down, face burning with embarrassment and goose bumps rising on my legs and arms in the sour air of the warehouse.

I fold my jeans once and let them drop down on top of my blouse, standing straight and covering myself the best I can.

“All of it,” smiles Hernandez.

Again I look to Brock. Again he nods.

I reach around behind my back and undo my bra, let it fall into my hands. I place it down gently, breasts exposed now and nipples hard—from the cold or the nerves I do not know.

Hernandez waves his gun at me. “Panties too, baby. Let’s see that pretty pig pussy of yours.”

I hook my fingers into the side of my underwear and drag the briefs down my legs, hooking them off my ankles and adding them to the pile.

Hernandez crouches down next to Brock. “Wow, bra. She’s tight. I can see why you’re banging her. If we had more time on our hands…”

Hernandez turns his attention back to me. “Hands by your side, turn around.”

I place my arms straight by my sides, my bare sex on show, and turn.

I try to keep my voice calm and level, but it still comes out frayed. “Can I dress now?”

Hernandez nods, smiling. “Sure.”

I dress as quickly as I can, thankful to be shielded away from the prying eyes around me.

Hernandez approaches me clapping his hands together once. “Now, to business. You want your boy and I want my goods. It’s a simple transaction.”

“I don’t know where they are,” I retort.

Hernandez stands before me, eyes dropping down my body. Once again I feel naked.

I’m starting to think this was a bad idea. I could have called in a favor, back-up, the captain would have understood.
Foolish, Maddy, foolish.

Hernandez’s eyes are ice cold, a single tear tattooed under the right. “I hope for his sake you’re lying, girly. I’ve capped fools for much less.”

There’s a long string of silence, a stalemate. He shrugs his shoulders, flicking the safety off on his weapon and turning to walk back to Brock. “Your call.”

“Stop!” I yell, making it as dramatic as I can.

He turns with the ugliest grin I’ve ever seen, a Cheshire ‘got ya’ grimace. He cups his ear. “Something you want to say?”

“Okay, I know where the car is, your stash. I can show you.”

“I’m not talking about your boyfriend’s little weed operation.”
So he does know.
“That means nothing to me. He can save all the kids he wants in his own time.”

“I know. You want the ice, right?”

Hernandez looks to his goons. “Hear that, boys? She
does
know what I’m talking about. Will wonders never cease?”

There’s a strange sense of déjà vu about that phrase. I’m trying to calculate every option, but it’s all coming up blank. Without a weapon I can’t take down all three. I need to separate them somehow, buy time.

“Now we’re on the same page then,” continues Hernandez, “where is my fucking ice?”

“In the Camaro, in the boot,” I reply.

Hernandez pistol-whips Brock hard, a line of red opening up just above his hairline and a crimson trail following. “I know it’s in his car, bitch.
I
put it there, but where’s the fucking car?”

Brock’s not giving anything away. He’s watching me with intensity, blinking blood out from his right eye. He looks woozy. I’m getting concerned this is moving quickly out of hand.

Stall, Maddy.
“It’s at a friend’s. I can take you there.”

“I know all his friends, bitch. You’re lying.”

“One of
my
friends,” I correct.

“Give me the address.”

15 Get Fucked Street, asshole.
“They won’t let you in without me.”

Hernandez moves to strike Brock again, but he knows I’ve got him.

He walks over to a fridge near the wall, places his piece on top and peers in, face lit by the fridge’s interior. He pulls a beer out, snapping the top off, and drinks. I watch the muscles in his neck move as he does.

Beer in one hand, gun in the other, he makes his way back over to Brock. “This friend of yours, they a cop?”

I realize this will work to my advantage. “Yes.”

“Do they know what’s inside the car?”

“No, I’m not an idiot.”

“Good, good.” He seems to be calming down.

Suddenly he smashes the beer bottle over Brock’s head and kicks his chair, Brock crashing onto his side. The hollow sound of his skull hitting the concrete is the worst part. Brock tries to cough against the gag, the trail of blood coming from his head now a small flood.

“What did I say?” bellows Hernandez, kicking Brock’s chair again and wildly waving the gun at me. “I am NOT fucking around. What’s the address?”

I shake my head, remaining firm. “I have to go with you. It’s the only way.”

“The. Fucking. Address.” Hernandez punctuates each word with a shake of the gun.

“I can’t give it to you.”

Hernandez crouches down beside Brock, one hand on the side of his head and the other pressing the barrel of the gun into his blood-stained eye. “On the count of three, I’m going to spray his brains all over this floor. You’ll need a mop to get your brother back.”

Stepbrother,
I mentally correct.

Hernandez shakes his head, my dread growing.

“One.” He pushes the gun a little harder into Brock’s head, Brock wincing. “There ain’t going to be a four.”

I remain silent. Even if I wanted to, there’s nothing I can say. No lie. I could send him to a cop’s house, but then what, and with no warning? There’s no point endangering someone else here. This is my own fucked-up mess.

“Two,” continues Hernandez, keeping the pressure on.

I shake my head. “We have to go together.” My voice breaks, a sign of weakness. “Please,” I add.

Hernandez looks at me like I’m Satan himself, like all his dreams have just been dashed. He prepares to fire, and I know he’s going to do it. I know this is the end of the road for Brock.

Hernandez begins to squeeze the trigger. “I warned you. Thr-”

Halfway through the word the hand holding the gun explodes in a bloody mist, what’s left of the gun spinning off into the far wall.

For a moment Hernandez just holds the dripping stump up to his eyes, unable quite to believe it, before another shot opens up his chest. He looks down, looks at me, and half of his head disappears, the echo of the shot ringing through the warehouse.

The goons are spinning around with guns raised trying to locate where the shots have come from, but there’s no one.

Four more shots follow in the distance, two for each goon, a gurgling from the big one as he breathes his last and slumps to the ground, a sticky puddle of ooze opening up underneath him.

I want to be sick, but I keep it together.

This time I saw the muzzle flash. I wait for the next bullet to strike my chest, to take Brock, but it doesn’t come.

Instead I watch a figure start to emerge from the back of the warehouse.

They wear dark army fatigues. They have a rifle.

I squint into the gloom and begin to make out features, the silver hair.

Couldn’t be,
but it is.

As the captain approaches, I think we’re saved. Somehow he followed me here, set up his sniper gear at the back and took Hernandez and his goons down.

I’m beaming with hope, smiling, when it all shifts away.

Standing next to Brock, the captain slings his rifle over his shoulder and pulls out his sidearm, aiming it down at Brock.

“Captain?” It comes from my lips like a prayer.

He spits at Hernandez’s corpse.

There’s a groan from one of the goons. We a simple shift of the gun left, the captain fires and the sound comes no more. He aims back at Brock still sideways on the floor bound to the chair surrounded by glass from the broken beer bottle, a cut on his cheek bleeding a little but the larger gash in his head of far greater concern.

“What was the last thing I told you, Collins, that day you agreed to be part of this op?”

I clear my throat, speaking through sandpaper. “To watch my back.”

“Doesn’t seem like you did a very good job.”

“What do you want?”

“I want something a little better than the piss-poor pension I’m going to be paid out when I finally fuck off from the force. I want stability. Isn’t that human? Isn’t that what we all want? Security and significance?”

Money. It always comes down to money. Still, I can’t believe the captain would stoop this low. “I trusted you.”

“You’re a fool then, aren’t you? But, tell you what. Let me know where that precious car is and I’ll let this scumbag live. I’m feeling generous after all.”

“And me?”

“I think we both know I can’t have you around, not knowing what you do. Wouldn’t be professional, would it?”

“You’re just as bad as they are.”

“Never said I was good, Collins. Never even pretended. Now, the car.”

This is it. My heart is absolutely thumping against my rib cage, my head a single pulsating mass. Brock’s lying there bleeding getting weaker and weaker by the damn second.

I don’t know where Brock’s car is. It was all a ruse, a lie. It could be anywhere.

I see everything that could have been vanishing into nothing. Brock and I, my dad, even Jay’s little girl.

I’m processing all this when I notice Brock’s hands frantically working behind his back. He’s got a piece of glass from the broken bottle in his fingers sawing at the rope. Blood oozes around the glass, but he’s almost there, almost through.

I stall. “Why not just take a few bricks of that haul you showed me before?”

The captain laughs. “You and I both know that would be mission impossible, Collins. Far easier to take directly from the baby, don’t you think?”