Chapter 7

I couldn’t go there directly, and not with so much fucking emotion running through my head. I couldn’t appear frail, not in this fucking business. I had to make a pit stop at home. It was the other side of town, but I didn’t give a fuck, they could wait. A quick shower and a change of clothes would set me straight. Right now, I was so fucking emotional. I still had Mario’s tears and cries running through my ears as if he was in the car with me. He’d stopped the moment I told him what his mom had done, when anger took over him. I couldn’t regret what I’d done; no, I couldn’t cave.

My phone rang so I turned it off. I didn’t even feel like listening to the radio. What I needed was a shot of whiskey, the smoke of a cigar, and a shower and a change; then I’d be back to normal.

“What the fuck!”

I screamed out as the lights turned red and I did an unnatural stop. Someone was testing my patience today. My car jumped the lane as the car behind me bashed into me, and I swung the door open to see who had smashed into the back of my car.

My Aston Martin Valkyrie had hardly any damage, but her car was a mess. Though, I had a feeling it had been beaten up before it smashed into me. She sat in her car, trying to get past the airbag and waving her hand up in the air.

“Shit!” I screamed out, seeing the smoke coming out of it. I shouted to her, “Get the fuck out of there!”

I didn’t know why she was sitting there, until I realized she couldn’t get the door open. I had an ax at the front of my car. I lifted the hood, got out the ax.

“Get back,” I said, then smashed the ax against the window and reached inside to yank the door open. It swung open before it dropped on the ground like a ton of bricks. I quickly moved out of the way, worried her car was about to explode. There was so much fucking smoke coming out of her car, yet she remained inside, coughing.

Why was she staying in the car?

Her eyes were huge and she leaned away from me.

She must have been afraid because I had an ax, but she had to see I was trying to help her.

"Come on," I yelled. "It might blow.”

I gave her a hand, because it was as if her butt was glued to the seat as she stretched out past the airbag.

“Help!” she whimpered, but my other hand still had the ax in it. I dropped it to the ground and moved toward her as she tried to get up.

“Thank you,” she said, and then I started to get paranoid; was this an accident or did she do it on purpose?

“Who the fuck are you?” I growled, not caring who heard me, as onlookers stared at her car as we moved away from it. She shook her head. “Adrianna Smith. Sorry, I hit your car. I thought you were going. I didn’t think you would stop, and I didn’t know the airbag was still working. Nothing else works in the damn car.”

She was rambling, out of fear and probably confusion too.

“So, you rammed right into me. Where did you learn to drive?”

“Chicago.”

I didn’t expect her to answer, the fear in her eyes told me she was scared as I still held on to her. Her breasts were against my chest, the heat of her breath on my neck slowing down, but surely turning me on. I pushed her away from me.

I was going to ask her something else, but then a pig showed up, and I could tell by the way he looked at me, he knew exactly who I was, and he wanted to cause some trouble.

“Ma’am, are you alright?”

She nodded. “I’m sorry, but I had a rough day and I wasn’t paying attention.”

It was then I noticed her skirt was falling apart at the seams. She was pretty, busty with emerald eyes and her hair looked as if it was partway tied up and loose. She wore a jacket and shirt which were tight; her formal attire told me she worked in one of the offices. The strange thing about it, she said she’d had a rough day. It was only eleven in the morning, how bad could her morning have been?

“Was this man harassing you in some way?” He cut his eyes to me, and then he was shocked as I moved to get my ax.

“Put the weapon down, Ricardo Ruiz.”

I shook my head, “I was helping her get out of her car after she rammed into me.”

What was he going to do? He appeared to be a rookie as his dark eyes shifted between her and me nervously, and he adjusted his cap with one hand, while looking for his gun. He was feeling his waist, he fucking didn’t know what he was doing because he seemed to know nothing about protocol. I picked up the ax, and walked away from him, not to him.

“Look, Ms. Smith. Give me your details. I’ll talk to my insurance, you do the same with yours and we can sort it out,” I said before the rookie did something he would fucking regret. One call was all it would take to not only take him out, but his entire fucking family.

She nodded, and then the rookie came up close to me as I was about to get into my car to get my card to give it to her.

“I don’t know what was going on before I came, but you need to watch your step,” he warned me as he followed me like a fucking dog.

I shook my head and said, “Rookie Price,” as I read his badge. “You need to watch yours.”

I still had the ax in my hand. So, I lifted the front, and this time, put it at the front of my car, the rookie decided to do his job and call for back-up and a tow. I could have stood and helped her out, but I needed to relax before getting on with the job I had to do.

“Here’s my details. My card. Call me or give this to your insurance company.” I handed it to her, and she didn’t say a word. She just looked at it, and then her eyes bounced back to me before flitting back to the card again. I didn’t know if she was in some state of shock or not, but I really had to get going, so I asked as I ran out of patience, “And yours?”

She ran to her car, and then nearly all the contents of her bag dropped out. She picked up a card, scratched out everything on it.

“I just lost my job. So, I have no phone. Here, this is my best friend. I’ll write my plate, and full name, so you can contact me. I’ll call you the moment I have a phone,” she babbled as I took her card. The rest of the information she had given me was pointless, but I didn’t argue.

I didn’t wait for the rookie to tell me it was okay for me to leave. I hadn’t done anything wrong. As soon as I got back inside my car, I decided I would check the damage properly when I got home.

I put in a call to Jose, an associate and part of my main team. He was Juan’s twin brother. Unlike his brother, we spoke a lot more in general. He loved small talk, it didn’t mean he was the friendly guy who would run around giving everyone besos, but the type that would greet and say bye, which was more than Juan did at the best of times. The light turned green, and I took a deep breath as I waited for Jose to pick up.

“Boss, what do you need?”

I gritted my teeth and said, “To teach a rookie called Price in District 32 a lesson.”

“I’m on it.”

Then he hung up. The rookie made a mistake, one he would regret tonight and probably for the rest of his life. As for Adrianna Smith, I would deal with her later. What had happened had gotten her rattled, had her up close and personal to me, and I could still smell her flowery perfume on my shirt. She’d aroused me in a short space of time. I didn’t even think I was alive down there, nothing had done that in a long time. Or rather no one.

I was shaking so hard I had to clench my teeth to keep them from chattering when they took my car, the smoke luckily having stopped coming out of it. I checked my account and I had exactly two hundred and fifty dollars to my name. It wouldn’t last me long, but my rent wasn’t due until next month, so I had a whole twenty-five days to come up with a new job.

My insurance had lapsed, but I could pay for a new policy, and then tell them about the accident. I shook my head at the idea which had lasted all of five seconds. It wouldn’t work because I would have to tell them the time of the accident, and no doubt, they wouldn’t pay out knowing moments before I’d had an accident not on any car, but a big expensive one.

I called Jen, the only person’s number I knew by heart. The cop lent me his phone when I told him I had left mine at work. I told her where I was, and she sorted out the tow truck; otherwise, the city would have done it and I would have had to pay an arm and a leg. Unfortunately, I knew I would have to pay dearly for the car I smashed into; what the fuck was I thinking?

I’d been driving for five years and not once had I had an accident. Then again, this one was out of my control. I knew better to speed and brake, my car wasn’t an Aston Martin Valkyrie; it was a 1980’s Ford I barely managed to have serviced every year, except for this year.

When the bonus check came through, I should have used the money to buy a new car, or even better, pay for my insurance but I was fed up with being sensible, and so I took Jen on a little trip to Vegas. She had been my rock from the start when I came to the city jobless and homeless. We met by chance in a coffee shop, when I was going through ads and trying to figure out where I was going to live. I had a job back then; not a great one, but it was enough to get me started in the industry, just not enough for me to live in the city. She told me about a room her friend was renting. I rented the room, but later on, her friend got married and wanted to sell the place. Either way, I never forgot the kindness she’d shown me back then. She’d been working for Gold for just over two years when I finally joined her in working for him.

Now, I was fucked, not a little, but completely.

“Don’t worry, ma’am, he won’t hurt you. It’s a good thing I got here when I did,” the cop said, he spent most of his time talking to my chest and avoiding all eye contact.

I hated whenever men did that. I always felt like taking off my damn shirt and saying, here look some more. You can look all you want, but you can never fucking touch. And the irony of him thinking I should be scared of Ricardo. This cop was eyeing me up like I was some candy, and he had a gun. I wasn’t comfortable in Ricardo’s presence and surely didn’t feel safe with the cop.

Ricardo didn’t look at me like that, although I could feel his cock growing a little between my legs when he held me tight. When he took off my door with an ax, it turned me on some. I forgot about how scared and panicked I was about the accident.

Who the fuck had an ax in their car? He did, the tall, dark, hot stranger. I couldn’t get my eyes off him, and I didn’t know whether to be turned on or scared, which made him even hotter. The way he whisked me over to his car and knew exactly what to do. Even though I had bashed into him and he’d been angry at first, in the midst of it all, he’d been worried about my safety.

“Luckily, he wouldn’t do anything to you in public,” the cop was saying as I watched my car leave at the side of the curb.

Great, I had to be job hunting on foot. Then again, I could do with losing a few pounds.

“Why? What do you mean?” I asked, wondering what he was going on about.

“Ricardo Ruiz.”

“Yeah, the guy I crashed into. The one who saved me from being blown up in my car, yeah him. He’s a really bad guy!” I sighed, thinking this cop needed to play a different song; I’d only been here a little while, and Ricardo was the only thing he couldn’t stop talking about.

He nodded, “The one and only, and ever since his dad was killed, he’s either been in hiding or grieving. Who knows with those animals.”

“The big-time mob boss?” I asked as a tremble started low in my gut, making me feel like I was going to throw up, as all the headlines flashed in my mind. Some talked about a turf war, and other news stations praised his death. They didn’t show any remorse for it, instead highlighting all the crimes he’d been arrested for. They didn’t mention all the times he’d been discharged for being wrongfully accused of the same crime.

“The one and only. Yeah, his dad was carved out like an animal. I say good to whoever did it. They deserve a medal. They should skin the whole family alive,” he smiled proudly.

His dark eyes lit up as he said it, and my eyes glanced at his badge, wondering if it was a fake. He shouldn’t be talking to me like this, no, he shouldn’t be talking like this at all. He took an oath to serve and obey, not glorify in the slaughter of others.

I wondered if Ricardo would do the same thing to me the moment he realized my insurance wasn’t paid, and I couldn’t repair his car.

“Are you okay? You’re shaking again?” The cop asked and then he pulled me closer to comfort me. I didn’t retaliate because I realized not only had Ricardo’s dad been carved up, but he would do the same thing to me. I had believed this day couldn’t get any worse, but it just had.

I had to take an Uber back home. My skirt was practically ripped all the way to the middle; it was a joke. I couldn’t believe I had to give a statement at the station. Jen said it wasn’t normal, and it was clear the cop had the hots for me. Which wouldn’t bother me so much if he wasn’t creepy. I even thought about inviting him over tonight, so I wouldn’t be alone. I was scared of Ricardo. I was fucking petrified; I felt as if all that had happened this morning took place in the space of a year. It was lunchtime and I was hungry, but then I’d lost my appetite the moment I stepped out of the Uber. I couldn’t believe who I was seeing outside my apartment block. I slammed the door shut and ran over to her.

“What the heck are you doing here?” I asked Jen as I drew closer, her dark hair with highlights was loose, something I’d told her to do a million times. She always wore it up in a ponytail as if she was back in high school (so she told me). Her green eyes said it all as she beamed back at me.

“I quit. I couldn’t stay after you got fired.”

Shit, I had to fill her in. I hadn’t been fired, I’d been given two days to determine if I was ready to suck dick or I’d be fired. It was supposedly an option, according to Gold.

“What is it?”

“We need a drink. I haven’t exactly been fired. I’ll explain it to you once we go upstairs.”

“You have wine, right? Lots of it?”

I nodded, “Enough to get us through the day.”

She laughed. “And night.”

“What about Ben? Is he around or traveling?”

She sighed as she talked about her soon to be husband. “Traveling, but he’ll be back Friday. So, don’t worry. I’m all yours and I’ll be here all night. After all, I have no job to go back to.”

I shook my head as we walked through the lobby, “Yeah, but you have a wedding to plan and pay for. You shouldn’t have quit. You shouldn’t have done that for me.”

I sounded ungrateful. She was sticking up for me, and part of me wondered if I’d deserved such loyalty when I felt like an overgrown child being protected by their mother. She was only a couple of years older than me, but for some reason, she’d felt the need to take care of me from the day we met.

Her parents were comfortable, but compared to Mom they were rich, which wasn’t hard seeing as she was a single mom with four kids. She was a nurse and we never wanted for anything. When Mom died; Jackie, Rebecca, and Alice, my sisters, made it clear we didn’t have to be in contact anymore. Jackie, only a couple of years older than I, left town straight after the funeral while I was still in college. Rebecca, the eldest, made it clear she didn’t want to take on Mom’s role. She got married, had her own family and turned her back on ours. As for Alice, no one knows; she ran away as soon as she was eighteen. She used to send a postcard to Mom, but then they stopped and I remember Mom once saying to me, “She was always selfish, only thinking of herself. I knew the cards would stop eventually, I’m not even sure why she bothered sending them in the first place.”

No one did.

She would send a card from Vegas, with the big Vegas signs on the front and at the back of the card she would write something like, I’m here, and you’re not.

Alice.

No one knew why she ran away, and after a while, when the postcards stopped coming, no one really cared.

Mom died while I was at college and it was clear all those years of working had taken a toll on her. I missed her every single day and promised I would work hard to make her proud of me, which was more than I could say about my sisters. I hadn’t seen two of them since the funeral, which was four years ago. It was as if once Mom died, we didn’t feel the need to stay in touch. It was sad, but the harsh reality was we were happy when we didn’t have to be in each other’s company. In a way, Jen reminds me of the sister I never had, the type of relationship I’d wished I’d had with at least one of my sisters.

She pressed the elevator button, and I clutched my purse.

She waved her hand as she said, “You don’t have to worry about me paying for the wedding, Dad will take care of it. After all, he’s the father of the bride.”

I dipped my head, “I didn’t think they still did it that way. I thought that would be considered old-fashioned.”

She smiled. “They do. Urgh, is your roommate coming back tonight?”

I shook my head. “Oh, I forgot to tell you.” The doors opened, and we stepped inside, where I pressed the button to go up to the top floor.

“She went to 321 and now she has herself a boyfriend. You went there and found your soul mate two years ago. I went there, too, but all I’ve ever done is meet jerks. Anyway, apparently, he lives downtown in an apartment much nicer than hers, so she’s there nearly all the time.”

She shivered, “What’s up with this dude? Rich. Probably hot, too, and he’s dating her. She makes Blair Waldorf from Gossip Girl seem nice.”

I shrugged, “I’ve only met him once and to tell you the truth, he was a male version of her.”

I didn’t go into too much detail, but it was no secret my roommate, Debbie, had an air about her as if she was better than everyone else, including me. She was rich, and had no job, but her dad cut down her allowance, forcing her to rent out a room to get some extra income. Jen never really came over here because of Debbie, but it was tough getting someone to rent out a room in the city, most wanted to rent out their whole apartment, something I couldn’t afford to pay.

“Explains it. I couldn’t imagine her going out with a nice guy, she would eat him alive!”

“Exactly,” I said, thinking Jen had summed them both up in the short sentence.

The elevator doors opened and as we got out, I started to search for my keys in my bag, which was too big, and held nearly all my world belongings in it, such as my passport, make-up, wipes and everything else.

“I’m glad you’re okay. I was a little worried. I know how hard you worked to keep it going for just one more year,” she said.

I shook my head as I finally found my keys and opened the door.

“I need to fill you in on the rest of the day, I’ll get the wine, some chips and then we’ll talk.”

I shut the door behind me as I held my breath and dumped my bag on the floor. I couldn’t be bothered to put it in my room. Debbie hated it when I did that, but she wasn’t here, and I had so much to tell Jen, especially seeing as I didn’t know if today would be my last day on the earth after the accident I’d just had.

* * *

“All this happened before eleven this morning?”

I dipped my head. After sipping my second glass, no more was my ripped skirt bothering me. I’d completely ripped it down the middle. It was just covering my thighs down the sides. I didn’t care, it was the least of my worries.

“Why didn’t you tell me about your insurance? I could have covered it. Wait. No, no, no…we didn’t have to go to Vegas. You could have paid for the insurance instead.”

I nodded, “I know, but I rely on you too much. Now, I wish I hadn’t called to tell you about the car or even Gold’s offer.”

She started to go through her purse as she tried to get up, and missed her balance and ended up tumbling on the floor. We both laughed until she handed something to me as she slumped on the brown leather sofa. A brand new XR iPhone, still in its box.

“This is too much; I’ll get a phone.”

“They took my phone, too, so I bought it on the way not only for you, but for me too. Besides you kept a back-up of everything in the iCloud, so it makes sense to have a personal iPhone. This way you can still keep all your contacts, photos and stuff.”

“Holy crap, I forgot about the photos. Yeah, it makes sense. Seriously, I’ll never repay you with all the money you spend on me. Anyway, it doesn’t matter I may not need a phone or a job if Ruiz carves me up alive! Like they did with his dad.”

I handed her the once empty glass, which I refilled while talking. We were both sitting on the floor of the two-bedroom apartment.

I could move further out of town, and get something cheaper, which would be another option, I remembered one time looking at the classified section and seeing studio apartments going for the same price I was paying for my room. Or maybe they were a little more. I couldn’t remember. I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to be thinking of such things; I was too busy drinking rather than eating chips, and she was doing the same thing.

She laughed, “What, you think you’re so important he would send one of his men to take care of you? Because you crashed your car at the back of his, you lost your job, and you lied about your insurance. I’m sure they have bigger fish to fry.”

“Thanks for making me feel so important.”

She laughed, “I can’t believe you slapped Carrie. Damn, if I wish I could have been on a fly on the precious white walls.”

“What she said was cruel and uncalled for. Anyway, I’m too damn nervous about Ruiz. Shit, why didn’t I put two and two together and realize it was him.”

“Please. You’re not important. Most likely he won’t even bother with the insurance, you’ll have nothing to worry about. Besides didn’t you say he drives an Aston Martin Valkyrie?”

“Yeah, I’ve never been close to one before and you know the worst part is, I think his car barely had a scratch on it. Whereas mine was completely a write-off.”

She laughed, “You vowed the masking tape was good enough to hold the car together at the front. It was a write-off before the accident!”

I flopped on to the cream rug floor, it was so soft and gentle. “I know. Crazy right? It was up in smoke, and his just had a scratch on it. If even that.” I sat up. “Anyway, you’re right, he wouldn’t bother with the insurance for a scratch. And he saw my car was beaten up.”

She waved her finger up in the air, “You could get him for using his ax against your car. You could countersue him for damages.”

“I’m scared he’s going to kill me. He has an ax in his car, and you want me to countersue? You really want me to die!”

We both laughed, so hard I nearly knocked over the small glass table in the middle of the two sofas. Seeing the glass table reminded me of Gold and Carrie.

“As for Gold, he can forget it. I’m not going anywhere near him.”

She pulled closer to me as she tried to carefully move the table out of the way. Red wine and a cream Persian rug did not mix. For sure, Debbie would kick me out of the apartment, rent paid or not. I never came in here, only when she wasn’t around, otherwise, she would be on me for leaving a mess. So, I mainly stuck to using the bathroom, hardly cooked in the kitchen, and spent most of my time in my room.

“Is it true about his weight-loss? Does he look completely different?”

I rose an eyebrow. “He does, but when you know a person, what they’re like, it doesn’t matter how much weight they lose, they still look ugly.”

She sighed, “Poor Linda, his wife, putting up with him.”

I choked. “It’s clear the money keeps her going, I mean, she must know what he’s like.”

“True. Do you have any real food to eat?” As she struggled to get up, she knew better than to ask me. I always had snacks, nibbles, and wine on hand, a little too much on hand lately. Loneliness had taken over my body and mind, which was part of the reason I screwed up the presentations. I was introduced to my roommate’s boyfriend, whom she’d met at the same club Jen and I went to, when we vowed to get a man in the city. The problem was Jen did, while every man I met wanted one thing. There was no, ‘hey beautiful, you wanna dance?’ which was what Ben said to Jen. It was, ‘you wanna get out of here?’ or one time, ‘the men’s is free, if you want to go with me.’ Yep, they wanted one thing and they didn’t hide it, either. This was the sad part about it, and it made my self-esteem plummet.

Finally, I figured out how to get off the floor and started heading to the open-plan white kitchen, which was a bitch to clean.

She sat on the bench as she faced me, ready to be dazzled with something to eat.

“Puff, chocolate, muffins, croissant, or nuts?”

She shrugged, “A little of each, afterwards we can get something decent to eat from the take-out later, or we could go out?”

I backed up and pointed to my ripped skirt, “In this?”

She shook her head, “No, you’d have to change.”

I sighed, “Nah, I can’t be bothered, this could be my last meal. I want to be in the comfort of my own home.”

“Adrianna, you’re too dramatic.”

I laughed, but I had a feeling I wasn’t being dramatic, I didn’t think Ricardo would sweep it under the carpet as much as I hoped he would.