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I’m about to show him the barrel of the loaded Smith and Wesson 9mm handgun stuck in the back of my belt, but then Durand appears from the clouds of smoke inside the club.
“Yo, he’s with me,” Durand calls out loudly, grinning wide to show tobacco-stained teeth behind a silver grill that matches his silver hair and white-speckled beard, making the heavily muscled biker look like a silverback gorilla. “So it’s true. Killer Murphy is buying his way out, hanging up his cut. Shit, you look naked without your patches. Where’d you get that nice clean jacket? Walmart?”
I grin even though I’m not in a smiling mood. Durand and I never got along. He likes to cross all those lines that I don’t go near. Sick motherfucker who I thankfully didn’t have to deal with regularly or else I’d have killed him myself. Of course, he’s one of the club’s three top leaders, an MC elder to whom I need to pay this final installment of the exit fee as tribute, so I have to at least pretend to respect him.
Durand glances at the leather satchel in my left hand, then gestures for me to follow him into the main auction hall. I shake my head, hold out the bag for him to take so I can get the hell out of this sick place, saddle up and ride away from this life, towards a new future, a new fate, a new destiny.
“Not yet.” Durand flashes a grin, cocks his gorilla-sized head towards the auction hall. “Let’s have a drink first. Talk about why you’re leaving. See if I can get you to change your mind. By Skulls Rules, it’s not a done deal until I accept that final payment.”
My gut tightens. I’d already been on alert after Durand sent word he wants me to make the trip to Mexico for the final payoff. Sure, if the Skulls suspected I was going to betray them I’d already be dead. But Durand knows I didn’t approve of him getting the MC involved in the sex-trafficking business, knows he’s the reason I’m cutting ties with the Skulls, leaving the pack to become a lone wolf. Maybe he thinks I spoke against him to the other members. Maybe he really wants me to stay with the Skulls.
Or maybe he just wants me dead. Fuck, maybe this whole thing is a setup by the Skulls leadership to bring me down to Mexico and kill me here.
“Relax. Auction doesn’t start until midnight,” comes Durand’s taunt from the auction hall that I still haven’t entered, like there’s some part of me that doesn’t want to cross that threshold, enter a world that sickens me to the core. It’s hard enough to look the other way when I don’t have to actually see the monsters and perverts who roam this underworld which seethes and throbs with the worst kind of human darkness. “Besides, last few auctions have been duds. Kazi isn’t finding much worth selling these days. Juarez isn’t exactly prime hunting grounds for world-class pussy.”
“Ah, but tonight I have something special, my friend,” comes Kazi’s gravelly Russian-accented voice from somewhere in the shadows, his heavy footsteps echoing off the walls in the empty auction hall. The big Russian emerges from somewhere in the back, then stops when he sees me. I know who he is, but Kazi’s never met me, and I wish it had stayed that way. “Who is this?” he growls.
Durand grunts. “Just some club business. It’s no problem. Murphy’s all right.” He narrows his eyes at me. “You are all right, aren’t you, Murphy? You’re looking a bit pale. Though maybe it’s just the squeaky-clean new jacket.”
Kazi walks over to me. He’s a lumbering beast of a man with knuckles the size of golf balls. Rough beard that he keeps trimmed short enough that you can’t grab hold of it in a fight. Dark eyes that are oddly small for his big head, making him look like a perpetually angry bear. They dart all over the place like pinballs.
Except right now those feral eyes are inspecting my leather jacket. He frowns, rubs his beard, flicks his gaze towards my stubbled face. “You have no patches. Hey, Durand, why does he have no patches if he is Skulls MC?”
Durand grins. “That’s what our business is about. Murphy here has suddenly developed a conscience. Says he won’t ride with the pack no more. Wants to be a lone wolf now.”
My body stiffens, fingers of my right hand curling alongside my faded jeans, creeping towards my loaded gun as I wonder if this is about to turn into a shootout. But then Durand swipes at the air, cracking a shit-eating grin that’s got an edge to it but not the dangerous kind of edge. He’s fucking with me, maybe trying to see if he can either shame me or scare me into staying with the club.
Kazi’s ugly face furrows. He glances at the bag hanging down by my side, then meets my gaze and holds the stare. “You are sure he is not going to become FBI informant? Maybe he already is informant.”
Durand chuckles, striding past us towards the long bar in the back. “Murphy’s got more blood on his hands than your local butcher, Kazi. Dozens of kills on his résumé. Some of which we got on video as insurance.” Durand leans his heavy body on the bar, says something to the ponytailed barman, who lays out two whiskey glasses and deftly fills them from a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels. “If he goes to the Feds, the only deal they’ll give him is twenty-to-life instead of the lethal injection. Murphy’s all right, Kazi. Wouldn’t have brought him here if he weren’t. Hell, he’d already be a rotting corpse if Skulls leadership thought he was a risk on the outside. He’s dirty like the rest of us.”
Yeah, but not the same kind of dirty as you two, I want to snarl before managing to keep my trap shut. The wooden auction-stage is empty, and so are the tables on the main floor. One drink with Durand to show respect to the MC elder. Sit through his sales pitch and guilt trip, some taunts, maybe a threat. Then pay my dues, buy my way out of this life, get up and walk away from this sleazy place that reeks of despair, stinks of misery.
Kazi clicks his jaw, then grunts and steps past me, joining Durand at the bar. I take my time strolling over, raising my glass of Jack Daniel’s and touching it to Durand’s in salute.
Kazi watches us, then raps his golf-ball-sized knuckles on the black glass bar. “Three shots vodka,” he orders the barman. “My private stock. Cold from the freezer.”
I’d rather not do the shot of ice-cold vodka with this goon, but my priority is to get this meeting over with, hand over that money to Durand, and ride the fuck out of here a free man. So I gulp down the cold clear vodka, grunt out a thanks, then sip my whiskey and glance at Durand, hoping he excuses himself from Kazi so we can finish our business before this auction gets started. I’m no virtuous knight who rescues stolen maidens, but I’m not going to sit around and watch while some rich perverts buy women like they’re property instead of people.
Unfortunately, Durand’s already got some liquor in him, and his mind seems to be racing ahead to the midnight auction.
“Speaking of private stock,” Durand says to Kazi after wiping his mouth with his sleeve. “How about a preview of that special girl who’s going to be on the auction stage tonight.”
Kazi grins, showing off his two gold front teeth. Then he wags his sausage-sized index finger, his eyes flashing with a strange glint. “No preview. She has to be cleaned up and prepared for the auction. She will be the centerpiece.”
Durand raises one bushy eyebrow. “Now I’m curious. She must be a real stunner. Where’d you get her? Did she fall for one of those fake-modeling-agency scams?”
Kazi chuckles, throws back another shot of vodka, then shakes his head. “That trick only works on dumb girls from Eastern European villages who think they are being sent to Paris or Milan. It does not work on Americans. These we get the old-fashioned way. We just take them.”
Durand and Kazi both laugh, then do another shot together. I don’t laugh, and I don’t do another shot. My patience is wearing thin. A part of me wants to drop the bag of cash at Durand’s feet and leave. But I’m this close to making a clean exit with approval from Skulls leadership, a guarantee that they won’t come after me unless they get solid evidence that I’m snitching on them—which, of course, will never happen, not in a million years.
Because Durand’s right about me.
I’m as dirty as they are.
Just a different kind of dirt.
Durand loses the grin now, raises his other eyebrow at Kazi. “You’re putting an American girl on stage tonight? Isn’t that risky so close to the border? Thought you didn’t sell American girls in the auctions, just privately to trusted customers that you know will never let them go free, will put them down when they get tired of that pussy and want something fresh.”
