The Con (8 page)

Jagger's eyes flicker back and forth between
us as he smirks, laughing under his breath. "Yeah... Ronnie..." He
drags out the last syllable of my name. He's never used my real
name before. He's always called me twinkle toes. "Listen to your
man and go wait in the truck like a good little girl."

The disdain in his voice is evident and his
condescending words piss me off. I can feel the temperature inside
me rising, and this time it's not from desire. I'm like a teapot
about to blow my whistle. My hands clench in fists at my sides as I
take a step forward, ready to confront him.

Dougy steps in front of me, blocking my view
of Jagger. "I said, get in the truck." His voice is low and
demanding... and a little scary.

I look up at him stunned, before turning
around and storming over to the truck, ripping the passenger door
open and climbing in before slamming the door behind me. I know I
look like a child instead of the adult I've just recently become,
but I don't care. Dougy just spoke to me like I was a child so I
might as well act the part.

The windows in the truck are rolled down so
I can hear the conversation between the two of them escalate from
whispering to shouting. Jagger is yelling and I swear I hear him
say my name. I can't make out anything else he's saying from this
far away but I can see him. His arms are crossed over his chest as
he leans into Dougy, continuing to rattle out in anger before
pointing over in my direction. I sit completely still in the truck,
hoping their little fight will end shortly.

Their voices eventually taper down to the
way normal people speak and I can no longer hear anything. Dougy's
left hand digs into his front pocket and he hands a wad of cash
over to Jagger.

Holy shit.

Jagger counts it briefly in front of him
before shoving it in his back pocket, but he doesn't give Dougy
anything in return. They give each other one of those one-armed man
hugs and then Dougy's walking back over to the truck. Instead of
focusing on him, I look back over to the building where Jagger is
standing. He hasn't moved away from the front door. His eyes are
focused intently on the truck... on me.

I should look away, but I don't. Jagger just
has something that's always drawn me to him and made him completely
irresistible to me, even when I should be paying attention to my
boyfriend. It's hypnotizing and I know it's not just a part of my
imagination. He feels it, too.

The truck begins to move and I'm jolted
forward in my seat, breaking my trance and bringing my focus back
to where I am and the person sitting next to me.

"Hold on, Dougy. I'm not buckled in," I
shout, sitting back in the worn cloth seats and fastening myself
in. Once he hears the sound of the click he leans in to kiss me
chastely on the lips and then we're moving again, the auto shop and
Jagger in my rearview mirror.

"What was that between you and Jagger?" I
ask, wanting to know what their heated discussion was about.

"What was what?" Dougy asks confused.

"The two of you were yelling at each other
and pointing over in my direction."

"Oh, that. Jagger was just being a prick. He
likes to stick his nose where it doesn't belong. He's always felt
like he could say whatever he wants when it comes to you."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean nothing, babe. Don't worry about it.
You and I are none of Jagger's business and I told him that. He
acts like he's looking out for you, but that's not his job. I've
got your best interest at heart."

They were fighting about me? I'm so
confused.

"And the money? What was that for?"

He sighs deeply before answering. "That was
just business. I owed him some money and paid my debt." Dougy's
hand falls on my knee and gives it a squeeze. "Where to, babe? It's
your big day so what would you like to do?"

I'm staring at his calloused hand; rough
from the hard work he does at the warehouse. Dougy likes to have
his hands on me, he always has, but right now his touch feels wrong
to me, foreign. I'm uncomfortable and every time the tips of his
fingers move against me it makes me want to crawl out of my
skin.

I'm willing him to move his hand off my body
as I respond. "I just want to go home."

Please take your hand off me.

If I let him take me out tonight, if we go
somewhere, he'll spend money on me and I can't let him do that. I
finally feel ready enough to break up with him, I made the decision
last night, but after seeing Jagger today it confirms everything I
know. I'm being unfair to Dougy. Feeling my insides awaken just by
being in Jagger's presence, it's not right to continue leading
Dougy on. He's a good guy, most of the time, and he deserves a
woman who will feel the same way about him as he feels about
her.

That woman is just not me.

I could have maybe carried on with this
charade for a little while longer, but after the way Dougy talked
to me in front of Jagger–embarrassing me and causing Jagger to mock
and make fun of our relationship–I have to end this relationship
soon.

Today.

"That's lame, babe. What are we going to do
at your place?" We stop at a red light and he looks over and smiles
at me. "I can think of one thing to do, but that won't take all
night."

Normally I'd roll my eyes at him, or make a
joke about already knowing he can't go all night, but my face stays
stoic. I don’t want to lose focus on what I need to do tonight.

"I think we should talk." I pause,
swallowing deeply. "I think we should finally sit down and
talk."

By the end of the night I'm alone in my
singlewide and no longer Dougy's girlfriend.

Chapter Seven

Jagger

Two years later

"Charlie!" I call out to my sister while
walking into the doublewide trailer we share in our small town in
Arizona. I've lived in this trailer my entire life but it looks
completely different from what I lived in as a kid. Charlie has
renovated the kitchen and living room, had the outside
professionally landscaped, and repainted most of the rooms. The
only place in this trailer she hasn't touched is my bedroom, but
that's only because I won't let her.

Tossing the mail onto the kitchen table I
hold the one remaining envelope in my hand and wait to confront my
sister. She's gotten out of control and I have to put an end to it
today.

I hear rustling in one of the back bedrooms
before my sister huffs her way over to me. "What is it, Jagger? I
just bought Mason new bedding and was in the middle of putting it
on his bed so I could surprise him when he gets home from
school."

My sister can spend other people's money
faster than they can make it. I wonder how much this trip to the
store cost me? I'm already holding a twelve hundred dollar invoice
in my hands.

"Do you mind telling me what this is?"
Taking the invoice out of the envelope, I hand her the sheet of
paper and her eyes scan over the bill.

"This is for the exterior paint job that was
done a few weeks ago. This company is amazing at what they do. They
were able to take our ugly green siding and turn it into a
masterpiece. Don't you love the new colors?"

"I don't love it twelve hundred dollars
worth." I drag a hand through my long brown hair. I'm dealing with
a lot of shit right now and I can't be dealing with her spending
problem as well. "Why didn't you just call Ky? He would have done
it at cost."

"I don't know why you're complaining,
Jagger. It's not like you're broke. You have the money."

My sister, with her jet-black pixie cut and
pale skin, has always been a pain in the ass, but her and her son
are the only family I have now and I love her. I never knew my mom,
but her and my dad had three children together–my sisters, Richie
and Charlie, and me. I was the baby of the family.

Back then we probably sounded like a
traditional family on paper, but when my mom died my dad started
drinking. My sister, Richie, was a runaway, leaving the house when
I was only five. We never heard from her again. My dad died several
years later of liver and kidney failure, complications of his
excessive drinking, and by then I was ten and Charlie was a
pregnant teen.

By the time she had Mason I was already
working the streets and learning from the best on how to swindle
some extra cash so we could eat and keep a roof over our heads. I
stopped going to school, although I never really went anyway. My
dad was supposed to homeschool me but most of the time he was too
drunk to teach me anything. When he died my sister said I was
already so far behind that if she registered me now it would raise
red flags. I probably would have been taken away from her and put
in foster care.

"I know I have money, Charlie, but I won't
if you keep spending it the way you do. Jesus! I promised I would
always help take care of you and Mason and I've held true to my
promise, but you've got to help me out here, too. I don't want to
be hustling for the rest of my life. I'd like to save enough of a
cushion where I can eventually get out of the game."

"I know, Jag."

"Do you? Because the way you spend my money
I'll be working cons for the rest of my life."

Charlie's still in her robe and pink fleece
pajama pants. She plays with the belt of her robe while looking
down at her feet like a child being scolded by their dad. The irony
is she's six years older than me.

"I'm really sorry, bro. I promise to stop
spending. I'm grateful for all that you do for me and Mason and I
never want you to think I'm taking advantage of you."

"That's all I–" I'm startled by the front
door to our trailer bursting open. Angelo struts in, looking around
like he owns the place. I'm not even sure if he's welcome in my
house after the way he's acted this past year.

Angelo and I have been friends since we were
kids. Over the years I've brought him in on a few of the
opportunities that have presented themselves to me, mostly because
he needed to help support his family, too. I've taught the man most
of what he knows, but I forced him to work on his own. He needed to
learn to be self-sufficient. Then last year we had a falling out
after I worked a job he wanted and made sixty G's. He hasn't spoken
to me since, well, until last week.

The asshole asked me to meet him over at
Damien's warehouse and I was cautious of it the entire drive
over.

I should have trusted my instincts; they've
never stirred me wrong.

Angelo had me meet him over at the warehouse
because he now works for Damien Marino. They partnered up several
months back and I've heard they do well.

But I don't believe in partners.

Those two morons called me over to Damien's
warehouse, between a car dealership and medical supply store,
because they needed me to pull off an impossible job for them. A
job that was so crazy even I would never consider it. A job that
would send me to jail for a long time or get me killed if I got
away with it, which I wouldn't so that's a moot point.

Angelo stands in the entryway of my trailer,
looking around the room. His jet-black hair is slicked back. His
skin is dark from the tanning beds he frequents and his bulky
muscles burst out of his gray V-neck that is two sizes too small.
He's wearing black dress pants and snakeskin shoes to complete the
outfit. He looks like something that dropped out of the Jersey
Shore.

"What the fuck are you doing, Angelo? You
can't just barge in here."

"We need to talk."

"The fuck we do. I said all I had to say to
you last week."

"I'm going to give the two of you some
privacy," my sister interjects as she takes in the hostility
between us. Turning around she walks to the rooms in the back of
our trailer. She's been around for several of my business dealings
so she knows the drill.

"Did you have a chance to look over the
file?"

When I left the warehouse last week, Damien
slipped me a manila folder to look over. I would have refused it
but that would have meant staying there with them longer than I
needed to be, so I took the file and got the hell out of there.
What these men have planned is going to put them six feet under and
I want to be as far away from them as possible so I don't
accidentally get buried with them.

"I looked it over, and you're even crazier
than I fucking thought. Stealing from Matteo Esposito? You have a
death wish." Matteo Esposito is the son and golden boy of Roman
Esposito and Lala Manchini. Roman is one of this country's most
feared mob bosses and Lala Manchini is a cartel princess. Stealing
from Matteo Esposito means you'll have the mob and cartel on your
ass.

Angelo moves further into my home and
instead of kicking him out, I walk into the kitchen and grab two
beers out of the fridge. I toss him one and then sit down at the
round table in the kitchen–another recent purchase of Charlie's–and
Angelo sits down across from me.

"It'll be a lot easier than you think,
Jagger. We've already got all our ducks in a row and our contact
inside the bank is on board. We just need you."

I take a sip of my beer before responding.
"And why do you need me so bad?"

"Because you clean up real well. You'd look
like a God damn model if you cut your hair and shaved regularly.
The rest of us scream thugs and criminals, but you, Jagger, you're
a chameleon. You've always been able to pull off any look and job
that's been handed to you."

There are reasons for that. I work best
alone. Every time I've had to bring someone in on a job, it was
always just one other person. I'm a firm believer on the fewer
people who know your shit the better. This job already has too many
hands in the cookie jar, which means too many ways it can be fucked
up.