SINdicate: A BT Urruela FanFiction Novel: Cerberus MC Book 1.5 (10 page)

I knee the first guy I hit in the nuts, and grab the second guy by his jacket as the first guy crumples to the ground holding his junk. I attempt a head-butt as I hold the guy closer by the lapels of his coat, but the hit lands off-centered to his cheek. I’m sure it’s painful but not enough to keep him from fighting.

Out of the corner of my eye I see the guy holding Kid back swing him to the side. The crack I hear as Kid falls and crashes into the nightstand makes my stomach roll. I can see his feet at the end of the bed, and he doesn’t move. Free of an opponent, the third man comes for me as well.

It isn’t until two of the men are holding me while the third guy wraps his hands around my throat that I realize I may not have thought this through enough. Not only am I about to die, but I’m the reason Kid is lying lifeless ten feet away, possibly with a broken neck.

My vision goes blurry first, then the dark halo of oxygen deprivation darkens it completely.

“What are we going to do with the other guy?” I hear one of them ask.

“Leave him,” another one answers. “He doesn’t owe us anything,” I hear him say before darkness takes over my world.

My last thought before I die is that I’ve failed Aviana, and I was her last hope.

Aviana

“What the hell?” I scream sitting up suddenly in bed.

Vito is standing across the room and even in my sleep, I could feel his eyes on me. All of the furniture in the room was too heavy to move on my own, and Darby refused to help me, stating she couldn’t do anything to compromise her being here.

“Seriously, Vito. What are you doing in here?”

He has a black eye, and I smile thinking that someone punched him in his handsome face.

“Only two more weeks before your father’s deadline,” he sneers. It’s the first time he’s been aggressive toward me.

As long as I’ve been here, no one has ever been mean, ugly or disrespectful. Until now.

The small sense of safety I’ve begun to feel has just been wiped away with one sentence.

A tear rolls down my cheek unbidden as I clutch the blanket to my chest.

“Don’t cry, baby,” he says with no hint of affection in his tone. “I can always put you on the payroll.”

I know in my heart of hearts I would never be like the other women here. I may not believe in relationships, but I believe in a woman’s choice. Forced into having sex with men to pay off a debt accumulated by my father is something I’d die before ever doing. Vito, however, doesn’t know that.

“I don’t know what you’re saying,” I answer, pretending as if I have no idea what the women are doing here.

“Show the guys a good time, and I’ll start taking that in trade for what your father owes.” He states it simply, like it’s the most lucrative offer he’s ever given to someone.

“I don’t know,” I say and hang my head. What I really want to do is tell him to go fuck himself and he might as well kill me if that’s my only option. The Cat House comes to mind, and I know that death isn’t the worst thing they could do to me.

“H… how long would it take to pay back?” I’m curious about the prices. Darby mentioned which things brought more money, but she wouldn’t give exact prices. Curiosity has me wondering if the rates are the same for each girl or if they change them on a whim.

He laughs, and the sound makes me jerk my head up. “You’d be here a long time, Aviana. I won’t lie about that.” He bites his lip, and I know he’s trying to look enticing, but the sight of him disgusts me. “But I get the feeling the guys are going to love you, so it’ll go by faster than it would with most girls.”

I give him a weak smile while trying to swallow back the bile that’s slowly climbing the back of my throat. For the first time since I got here, I feel hopeless. I make a mental note to find a weapon to keep in my room. I can use it to fight off anyone who comes in here, or if worse comes to worse, I can use it to take care of myself.

“Give it some thought, baby.” I hate the way the term of endearment sounds coming out of his mouth. “I could be your first. I’d break you in real good.”

I keep my head down as he opens the door to leave.

“I tip really well, too,” he says before leaving the room and closing the door softly behind him.

No one seems to be willing to tell me the ins and outs of the “business” they’re running here. With Darby, I honestly think she doesn’t know but is too embarrassed to admit she’s not sure what she’s making by sleeping with the guys and doing God knows what else.

Vito isn’t going to give me any information either. I’m being held captive here, and even more of a threat than the other women who are here willingly. I did hear Darby mention that the drugs they bring in are not free. Those are deducted from the money the women are making.

It’s a vicious cycle. The women get high to sleep with the men to earn money. Yet, they snort all of the “profit” they’re making whoring themselves out. I heard one of the other girls talking in the kitchen last night that Sheila was taking more up her nose than she was making with the men, and since there was no return on investment any longer with the SINdicate, they removed her.

I’m afraid I’ll meet the same fate.

***

The longer I stay in my room, the more my mind races with the proposition Vito spoke to me about. Knowing I have less than two weeks to get out of here before my father’s deadline has me hustling out of my room in search of Darby. She has to know more. She can’t have lived here more than two years and not know something. She’s not one of the girls that’s snorting her weight in coke.

I knock on her cracked-open door and stick my head inside.

“Hey,” I say when she tells her visitor to ‘come in.’ “Look at you. Hot date?” I’m being sarcastic because no one ever leaves here.

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen her show more effort for a visit from one of the guys, but it is the first time I’ve seen her with her hair twisted up and glamourous. My eyes falter on a gorgeous silk gown hanging from the wardrobe.

“As a matter of fact,” she says applying mascara, “I do.”

“What do you mean? You get to leave here?” My heart picks up, and my pulse beats loudly in my ears.

“There is a casino opening tonight. Frankie is taking me.” She shrugs as if it’s no big deal. To her it may not be; to me, it’s a way to get out of this place.

My mind reminds me of all the things I would have to do before they’d ever allow me to step foot out of this place.

I cringe at the idea, unsure at this point if surviving would be worth it. What do I have to go home to anyway? The only thing that is back home is my crappy apartment, a shitty job, and classes that I despise.

BT. BT is back in Tampa. He’s been filling my mind more often the last couple of days. I’ve wondered more times than I can count if he’s worried about me or even noticed that I’m gone.

“You get to go out often?” I ask hoping her answer is yes.

“Not too often. A couple times a year maybe. I get to go out more than the other girls,” she says with a wink.

I know the other women hate her because of her popularity with the men, but I find her self-esteem refreshing.

I laugh at her carefree attitude concerning the other women. “So, how do I score a date out of this place?” I waggle my eyebrows at her.

She pulls the mascara wand away from her face and laughs. “Lots and lots of blowjobs!”

I crinkle my nose at her. I know she’s right, but cold day in hell and all that.

“How about,” I proposition her, “you suck the dicks and pass the date to me.”

She scoffs. “It doesn’t work that way, babe.”

My face falls even though I know it’s not a possibility. I know they’ll never let me out of here.
Unless it’s to The Cat House.

“You don’t think your dad will pay?” She keeps her voice low because along with the cattiness from the other girls has come a distaste for me as well. We both know we can’t trust any of the women with some of the conversations we have.

I shake my head no. “He doesn’t have that type of money at all. Last time I talked to him, he was homeless. If he had two hundred thousand dollars he’d gamble it away or shoot it up his arm.”

She sits beside me on the bed as a tear rolls down my cheek. “You can always work,” she says softly. She’s being sincere and not trying to entice me, rather she’s offering me a way out. The only other choice I’ve been given.

I chuckle at the absurdity of it. “You sound like Vito.”

“We all have to do what we need to survive, Avi.”

I nod as she gives my shoulders a final squeeze and walks over to the dress hanging on the wardrobe door. She shrugs off her robe and slides the soft silky dress down her body.

“Zip me up?” she asks with her back to me.

I stand from the bed and tug her zipper up. She looks positively gorgeous. I can’t help but think of Julia Roberts in
Pretty Woman
.

“Think about it,” she whispers over her shoulder.

“I’ll consider it,” I lie.

The door swings open wider, and a handsome man in a tuxedo walks in.

“You ready?” He asks Darby before his eyes land on me.

He saunters toward me with a stride that says he’s well aware of his good looks and the effect it has on women.

“Frankie,” he purrs holding his hand out for me to shake. I give him my hand and he raises it to his lips. I could vomit at his charm. “Fuck, Vito was right about you. Stunning,” he whispers not letting go of my hand but taking a step back to snake his eyes from my head to my toes.

I pull my hand from his. I’m in sweats and a baggy t-shirt. This guy is one hundred percent full of shit. These clothes and a few outfits like it are all that were in the room when I got here. I haven’t asked for anything else because I know at the end of the day nothing is free.

“Nice to meet you,” I tell Frankie politely before skirting around him and going back to my room. I stay locked in there for the rest of the night. With Darby not here, I don’t feel as safe from the other women as I did before.

BT

There is nothing better than waking up from a situation you thought would kill you. This isn’t the first time. I squeeze my eyes together not knowing what the damage to my body is this time around. I feel like I got hit by a truck, but that’s still ten times better than I felt the day I woke up from the IED explosion.

My face is swollen, and every joint in my body is tight. No doubt those fuckers continued to beat the shit out of me when I passed out. I shouldn’t expect any less. I’ve seen how they treat people on the street. What I’m not sure about is why they left me alive. They know I can’t pay back the money.

I pray that the information Shadow set up hasn’t been breached. I would die if something happened to my family.

“He’s waking up,” I hear from my right.

I try to move and turn to the sound in an effort to defend myself if they try to pull any more sneaky shit. I realize then that my hands are tied behind my back, and my legs are tied to the chair I’m sitting in. I rotate my jaw and even though it’s sore as hell I can tell it’s not broken. I once again miss my beard.

I open my eyes as best I can and see one of the guys from the hotel room staring back at me. I shift my weight to lunge at him, but my restraints hold. He raises an eyebrow at me, and I see his lip twitch. Fucker thinks this shit is funny. I, personally, don’t see anything about this comical, but as always it’s about perception.

“This guy’s like a pit bull,” another guy says.

“More like a Chihuahua,” the guy I’m looking at says. “Those tiny bastards don’t know when to give up because they’re outnumbered.”

My lip twitches and they’re both right. I’ve never felt so caged and animalistic in my life. These low life scumbags are getting off on this shit. I vow then and there if I’m given the chance I’ll wipe their shit-eating grins off their faces before it’s all said and done.

I twist my wrists again and feel either rope or flex cuffs cutting into my skin. My head throbs from the punches they landed on my face. A deep breath tells me a few ribs are either bruised severely or broken, and it makes me hate these guys even more.

Worst, though, is the disappointment I feel in myself for not thinking this plan through. I should’ve taken Kincaid up on his offer to send his entire team, but no, I had to be her hero. My failure now makes me her executioner.

I hear a door behind me open, and I can’t help but wonder if they will just shoot me in the back of the head like a coward. The smell of awful cigar smoke fills my nostrils, and I know it’s Vinnie before he even comes around and stands in front of me.

I guessed wrong with the thought that the big boss man wouldn’t show up for the dirty part of business. Here he is in all his rotund glory. I’m almost certain we’re in the casino basement, more than likely near Vinnie’s office. He’s slightly out of breath from the trip getting here, but not so out of breath that he’s walked clear across the casino from his office.

“You owe me money,” he says, blowing smoke in my face.

I turn my head to avoid catching most of it in my eyes and nose. The last thing I need is to have a coughing fit. That would surely make me look like a pussy.