Rogue (In the life of the Rogue Book 1) (15 page)

When you feel the noose tightening, it’s already too late…

My remaining brother, Ralph Rogue, was the young, dumb, fool in the family. Thirty-three years old, and if it wasn’t for the fact that he had a family business to crawl into, he would have done absolutely nothing with his life.

I didn’t want to work with him or for him, but I needed the money, and favor with my family.

It had been two weeks since my meeting with Papa before Ralph actually called me to bring me aboard the gun running ship, and it was a call that I had dreaded and begged for. Zander and I were running on empty as far as our cash flow. No bodies to be cut into, no pieces of a corpse to be disposed of, we were flat broke and only falling deeper. We had been reduced to scraping up dimes under our beds, and searching for quarters after we ripped and split holes into our couches just to cover our habits, and threatening the manager not to kick us out because our rent was ridicously late.

“We got a situation,” Ralph said over the phone, “give me the number to your prepaid.”

I could tell by just the sound of his voice, he didn’t want to be talking to me. Johnny’s death had been a hard, ugly blow, for my remaining brother. Ralph’s and I’s relationship was shit to begin with, but now it was just plain not polite in how he looked at me with a longing, as if he was picturing me with a bullet in the back of head then his precious, full blood brother.

Luckly for me, Ralph didn’t start with the familiar pleasantries: “Hey nigger…wassup, boy…go fuck yourself… you fucking wife fucker… you should have been the one dead, and I would have killed you myself…”

For once, he didn’t waste time, he got to the point.

“One of the hands got popped,” he informed me.

I asked: “Gang bangers got whiff of what we’re doing and wanted a take on the score?”

“No, this is
in
house. The guns are missing. This is a big shipment and it’s fucking missing,” he screamed over the line and I could hear his voice cracking.

My head dropped into my hands as I stifled a curse. Of course he would bring me into this mess. My opening night in gun running, and I had already substained a broken leg.

Ralph went on, “Look, my father said” –
my
father, not
our
father – “you got to come in on this. That I gotta let you come in on my operation. Let’s get this straight: I don’t want your black ass no where near me or my money or what I do.”

“Are you finished?”

“Fuck no, I’m not.” His harsh breath blew at me from the other end. “That young bitch, Dominique,” – and he said it in such a laconic manner – “is being sent in by dad, too. She’ll be meeting you in front of the hotel. She don’t come in unless you’re there holding her hand and explaining to her not to speak when the men are talking, and not to speak even if we aren’t.”

Young bitch?
A large part of me was upset that he would talk about her like that, but another part, a not too small part, was happy – damned right relieved – that I wasn’t the only one on Ralph’s shit list, the low roller on his registry of
importance
.

“She’s the next boss, Ralph,” I reminded him.

“And she’s green. You’re babysitting.”

I nodded my head as I listened to his long winded sermon that he spewed so harshly, as if he figured I would be sniveling at his feet by the end of it, and said nothing until he finally gave the directions to where I needed to be.

“Don’t bring a gun,” he said, “This is fucked as it is and we don’t need you making it worse.”

He didn’t say goodbye – not his style – he simply stopped talking and I heard the click as the call had been disconnected.

I got my gun and stuffed it the back of my pants, slung my leather jacket over it, concealing my rebelliousness, and congradulated myself on how well I followed orders.

***

Dominique had been waiting in her car in the hotel parking lot, just like Ralph had said she would.

She was more than a little pissed at Ralph’s order that she couldn’t come anywhere near the operation until I had gotten there. Ralph had said he wasn’t going to give her the hotel number and he had meant that, which meant that a stunning, beautiful woman was waiting alone in a bad side of town. Maybe Ralph had figured that it would take all of five minutes before a gang of rapists would take her, place her under their arm like a bag of groceries, and make off with her like they had just found the score of the night. 

Dominique wore her hair down, a black leather jacket with dark shirt and jeans. It was the right outfit for this type of job – not too out of place, and easy to forget, and hard to recount if needed for an Id.

Not so green after all.

I took the sight of her in, looking at her, searching her face for the angriness that would be directed at me. Or the curiousiness of as to why her mother had bit into my face with her hand – not once but twice – the last time I had seen her.

Like Ralph, Dominique got to the point. “Ralph told me not to bring a gun.”

“He said the same thing to me.”

She seized my hand and brought it to the small of her back where she had her gun secured by her holster and covered by her jacket, her own little slip at following orders – her quiet placement in rebellion.

She whispered, “I showed you mine, now show me yours.”

I felt her hand slip inside my jacket. Her soft fingers touched my stomach, my ribs, and dragged to my back.

“Revolver,” she approved.

“.38,” I said proudly.

“No shells, good call.”

“Yours feel like a .32,” I added, not yet ready to let go of the closeness.

Dominique nodded as a smile formed. “Girls like petite things that do bad things.”

“Let me guess, your hand grip is pink?”

She wrapped her other arm around my neck and brought me close. Our foreheads touched momentarily, my breathing stopped, my lips parted, and I was dying of anticipation – ready to feel alive again like I had in the elevator.

Dominique didn’t make me wait too long.

Our lips touched; her breath: hot and sweet. And then it was over. All the air in my lungs escaped and my face felt hot.

“To still the nerves,” she said, licking her lips.

“You’re going to be boss of this family. This isn’t the time to be nervous.”

“It wasn’t my nerves I was stilling, Tristan.” Her eyes fluttered up to me as she smiled a sexy smile half hidden in the darkness of the shabby parking lot.

“Theres nothing in that room that will make me nervous, Dominqiue.”

She placed her palm on my chest. “I wasn’t referring to the hotel room when I made my statement.”

***

The room smelled like piss and blood.

It was a small room with six very angry men stuffed into it. Another man, dressed in a security guard uniform, not included in the angry men category, was tied neatly to a chair and his face was broken and bloodied. A girl, whose age I immediately questioned, sat on the bed sandwiched between two thugs.

The count – including bloody man and girl too young to be here – was eight. Eight full grown people in a tiny room that smelled.

Everyone’s nerves looked frayed…

Ralph had lost his cool in front of his men, and that was bad. He paced, glaring, growling, his teeth bared, and his eyes gone black. He was a sloppy individual with wild dark hair and very dark features. When he spoke, he slobbed, and when he wasn’t speaking, he had a cigarette in one side of his mouth and a drink on the other.

Ralph may have made himself belive that he was a mean son of a bitch, but everyone in the room, including the man who was taking hits to the face was unconvineced.

The man Ralph was beating didn’t have that scared look. Not the look of someone who was about to spill all the secrets.

The beating had gone on too long. If the guard said anything now, I would question if it was true or not. At this point of the abuse, a man would tell you anything.

Ralph’s hands were swollen, cut up and bloody. He was sweating. It was the workout on the man and his weight that made the streams of perspiration fall down his big cheeks.

Ralph looked up when we entered and so did every man in the room, including the guy getting worked on. Only the girl seemed not too fairly interested in our arrival.

Instinctively, I grabbed for Dominique’s hand and brought her into me. The movement had been so fast that I didn’t realize I had done it.

Quickly, I let her hand go.

Ralph slapped the man in the chair. “Tell me where you stashed the container.”

The guard said nothing, completely unconvineced by my brother’s influence to explain him self. He leaned his head down and spit a stream of blood with white chunks in it that I guessed was pieces of teeth.

Ralph stood back and lit a cigarette. His eyes were on me again. “You got something to say?”

“Why? Does it look like I’m bursting with prose?”

He laughed around his cigarette smoke. “Nice little big word, monkey.”

I could have taken the racist slur, swallowed it, and moved on with the bitter taste in my mouth – I had before. Ralph was having a very bad night, and he needed to blow off steam; to take the heat off his own shoulders, if even for a moment, and even if it was at my expense.

Usually, I felt like letting the things my family say run off my shoulders like pouring rain – the droplets would fall off at some point, while others would sink into my clothes and next it would be my skin.

But, Dominique was here, her body so close to mine.

Her presence loosened my tongue.

I responded with, “Great oxymoron, Ralph.”

His eyebrows furrowed. “What?”

“Oxymoron; contridicting terms.” I pointed to the beaten guard. “Keep at him they way you have been and he’ll be
talking silent
all night then no one get’s paid. And, it’ll be your fault, too, but that’s okay. After my father finds out how you fucked up” –
my
father not
our
father – “you’ll be
happy dead
.”  

I had left Ralph in the dust with this. Everyone in the tight room laughed – including the girl and the beaten guard. Ralph may not have known what oxymoron meant, but he knew – and understood – when someone was laughing at him. And we all were.

He glared at me and I shrugged it off.

Then he looked at Dominique, and so did the rest of the men. The first few stares on Dominique were hostile at first, but soon gave away to lust – as if they were imagining her naked in their bed. Again, I took her hand and brought her closer to me.

I smiled when I felt her squeeze with her warm fingers around my hand.

A man moaned in the bathroom and Ralph rolled his eyes and barked orders to one of the men: “Get him some pills. I don’t care just get him to shut up.”

The door opened and there was another moan, this one much more ragged. The nineth man, one of the hired hands, clutched his stomach while he writhed in pain on the piss stained bathroom floor. The bleeding persisted and his color had drained because of it.

I gritted my teeth and refused to stifle a curse.

Gun wounds in the stomach meant a lot of blood, and a hell of a lot more pain.

Gun wounds –
period
- meant a doctor was needed. More eyes only brought more attention. More attention brought more problems, and my brother wasn’t a problem solver.

“Who’s the hired help, Ralph,” I asked.

He paused for a moment, as if he was debating on if he wanted me to know. “These are Lacone’s guys,” he said, finally.

Lacone was a small time mob boss, who ate scraps from Rogue hands. His operation was small, but his manpower alone held a little too well. His men were ruthless, mostly young, and star struck with the idea of drawing blood.

Ralph stubbed his cigarette and lit another. He palmed a thick glass in his hand with two cubes of ice and a dark liquid inside. Drinking wasn’t going to make this better, but it took the edge of the bullshit – it greased the wheels a little, got the mind working, or slowed the gears some.

I figured he was under the assumption that he was
overthinking
this.

I personally felt that he needed to actually
think
before he would be in danger of overthinking. And that was one thing he hadn’t done. He had been getting his dick played with, miles away from his men and his operation. He had been absent when things went downhill, and the failing interrogation was only bringing more speed to the decline.

“How about we start from ground zero on this?” I offered.

He chuckled. “How about we keep the information on your pay grade, Tristan?”

My mouth opened for an embarrassing retort to this, but nothing came out. Dominique’s hand had slipped back under my jacket towards my gun. I scanned the tightening faces of the men, their tensed shoulders, locked jaws, and itchy fingers as they were close to their own guns.