Evan Arden 02 Otherwise Occupied (12 page)

She made the call like her life depended on it, so maybe she did know who I was.  She followed directions and told Steven right where to meet us but not why.  She gave nothing away and sounded very convincing.

Proper little liar.

I pulled her car into a handicapped space in the parking garage next to a small, metal door.  I kept my gun at her face, moved backwards out of the driver’s side door, and then brought her through with me.

With her upper arm firmly in my grasp, I moved her past the piss-stained cement walls and to a small door.  I twisted the knob, and it opened easily.  Inside the room there were three chairs on the floor, a rusted metal toolbox in the corner, and a bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling.

I placed her in one of the chairs and grabbed both her wrists in one hand.  From the toolbox I extracted plastic zip ties and secured her hands behind her.

“What’s going on?” she asked.  The panic in her voice was rising.  I still didn’t think she knew who I was, but she was getting the idea.  “Please, I won’t tell anyone–”

I gagged
her with a rag from the toolbox, made a quick call to Rinaldo, and then waited at the door.  Steven Hobbs arrived just a minute or two later, and I called out to him.

“Looking for a girl?” I asked.  I beckoned with my hand.  “She’s in here.”

The moron came right to the door, where I hauled him in and gave him a slight push towards Nina.  He stumbled a little, turned, and looked at me quizzically as I closed the door behind us.

“What…what’s going on?” Steven asked.

“Have a seat.”  I indicated the folding metal chair next to his girlfriend.

“Maria?” he said quietly.

“Try Nina,” I corrected.

He just stared, confused.  He was an idiot, like all men who did more thinking with their dicks tha
n actually putting them to their natural use.  I didn’t even have to ask him about his past.  I knew it as well as I knew my own.

Overweight in school, bullied on the playground, and always picked last on the team.  He always thought he was much smarter than those who hazed him and thought that someday he’d ha
ve a great job and they’d have to grovel to him instead of laugh.  Instead, he got a mediocre job, no date for the prom, and was now being used by a woman who probably hadn’t even let him come in her.

I raised my gun and indicated the chair again.  He sat and stared at me with wide eyes.

It was only a few minutes before I heard the sound of additional cars parking just outside the little office room.  Footsteps followed, and then four short raps on the door.  I took a step backwards to open it.

Rinaldo, Mario, and Terry Kramer were outside of the door.

They wasted no time in letting Hobbs know exactly why he was there.

“Mario, this man here decided it was a good idea to tell your family business to his piece of ass,” Rinaldo said to his bodyguard.  “What do you think of that?”

“I think he’s an inconsiderate man,” Mario said sternly.

I didn’t really care for the games at this point.  They were both going to have to die, and we all knew it.  I never understood dragging it all out for the dramatic effect.  Wasn’t that the same sort of mentality that always screwed up the comic book villain’s plans?

They went back and forth between berating him and administrating a little light torture until Steven was blubbering about how he didn’t know anything about her.  He went from defending her to accusing her in a short amount of time, and she struggled against her tied hands and gagged mouth as he told them everything she had said and done.

She used him to get information about Moretti’s movements and gave that information back to Greco, who just waited for the proper time to use the information to eliminate the competition and take over his businesses.  Fortunately for Rinaldo, I had been there to stop it from happening.

“She was nice to me!” Steven finally cried out as Kramer broke another knuckle.

Terry laughed.

“I believe Mario would like to take care of this man himself, Evan,” Rinaldo said.

“Yes, sir,” I replied.

“I could help–” Terry started to say, but Moretti interrupted him.

“Shut up, Terry,” he said softly.

At least Terry had the good sense to listen.

Mario hauled Steven up by the back of his collar and hauled him out of the small office.  Terry followed, leaving Rinaldo in the room with me and the girl tied to the chair.

“Mister Arden,” Rinaldo said quietly.  He waved a hand over at Nina.  “Would you finish up please?  Not here, though – this place is a bitch to clean.”

“Yes, sir.”

Nina’s eyes were big as I hauled her up out of the chair.  Comprehension was washing over her face, and if she hadn’t known who I was before, she definitely knew me now.  Whether by name or not, she knew who I was to Rinaldo and his organization.

Still in shock, she barely struggled as I hauled her out of the little garage office and back to her car.  She did whimper a bit as I opened the trunk and shoved her inside, but I couldn’t blame her for that.  I
t was the last ride of her life after all.

I turned off the radio as I drove down to the water.  It was late, and there wasn’t much traffic as I crossed the West Grand Avenue Bridge and then
drove down a side street.  It was a short trip, and I didn’t want to listen to half a song.  I pulled into a little drive area with a big sign that said the area was under twenty-four hour surveillance.

Sometimes they just made it easy.

I barely had to aim since I had shot out this particular camera so many times.  It shattered into pieces all over the asphalt as I got back into the car and headed to the parking lot just south of the bridge. I pulled up close to the building and parked in the shadows.

Nina struggled as I pulled her out of the trunk and onto her feet.  She didn’t come close to breaking away from my grip, and I wasn’t sure where the hell she thought she was going to go, anyway.  The building was inaccessible, and there was nothing here but gravel and the edge of the river.  Even i
f she did make it the full five-hundred yards and over the fence without me catching her – which she wouldn’t – what was she going to do?  Hide in one of the nearby ocean containers?

My grip on her upper arm tightened, and I hauled her down to the edge of the water.  There was a ledge between the building and the water where boats coul
d come up and exchange supplies if any of that shit still happened today.

“Please…please don’t,” she begged.  Her nails dug into my knuckles, which stung a bit.

I didn’t answer her; I wasn’t really listening.  I’d heard it all before – the pleas, the promises – they meant nothing to me.  I had a job to do, and I was going to do it.  Nothing she said was going to make any difference in the outcome.

“Go on,” I said.  I gave her shoulder a little push ahead and got her walking while I followed closely behind.  I wanted her under the bridge where it was darkest.  If someone did happen to hear the shot
, I didn’t want to be visible from Chicago Avenue.  She tripped over the asphalt once in her high heels, but I kept a hold of her so she wouldn’t fall onto the concrete.

No reason to die with skinned knees.

“Why?  Why?” she asked over and over again.

As if she didn’t know.

We made it to the spot on the ledge in the combined shadow of two buildings and a roadway.  I positioned her close to the edge, where there was less than a ten foot drop into the river.  She looked over the edge and into the water, turned around, and dropped in front of me.  She reached out to me with her hands, like she was trying to reach the hand of some god she saw in my eyes.

As if she’d find salvation there.

I looked down at the pricey heels on her feet, now covered in mud, and the designer dress strangling her twiggy figure.  I pulled my Beretta out of the back of my jeans and fitted the end with a silencer.  There wasn’t any reason to make unnecessary noise.

“Please,” she cried.  “I’ll do anything you want – I swear!”

Tears streamed down her cheeks as I raised the barrel of the weapon to her face.  There wasn’t any reason to drag it out – that would just be cruel.

I pulled the trigger, and her body slumped sideways.  One shove from my foot sent her into the water.  She’d be found, no doubt – probably before morning.  It wasn’t about making her disappear – it was about making sure Greco knew what had happened to her.

With the Beretta down the back of my pants again, I climbed into her car and drove it out to the airport to leave it in long-term parking, and then I took the L back into town.

I love
d riding the trains and buses in Chicago.  I was a people watcher, and it was always entertaining as hell to be on public transportation with anything from a drunk, crazy homeless guy to an equally crazy high-class, sorority bitch.  If you were lucky, the two would run into each other and some kind of explosion would ensue.

No such luck this time, though.  All the nuts must have taken the night off.  Instead, I ended up leaning back in the seat and closing my eyes.  I didn’t drift off or anything – I still couldn’t sleep – but my mind started wandering.

“What’s your name?” she asks.

“Evan,” I tell her.

“I’m Lia,” she says with a smile.  I’m not sure if it is due to her continued nervousness or if she really just wants to be polite.  I watch her closely but don’t respond.  “Um…Lia Antonio.”

Smooth, flawless skin and warm, brown eyes.  When I thought about her, I always pictured how she looked when I woke up with my head resting on her stomach and her fingers running through my hair.  It had gotten long while I was in Arizona.  Well, long for me, anyway.

She smiles at me, and it feels like I’ve been turned inside out.

I close
d my eyes and shook my head.

“Stop that shit,” I muttered.  “She was just some girl you fucked.”

A pair of tourists with shopping bags glanced at me nervously, but I ignored them.

It was late when I arrived home, but if Odin was ticked off at me he didn’t show it.  I took him for an extra long walk around the park and played fetch with him in the living room for a bit before I had a bite to eat.  He appreciated the extra attention when I sat down on the floor and rubbed his belly.

“I’m gonna have to ditch you for a while again,” I informed him.  He looked at me and snuffed through his nose.  “Just a couple days, I think.  No more than that.”

His tail thumped against the carpet, and I rubbed his stomach once more before I got up and headed to the shower.  The water was extra hot, and I loved the feeling of the moist heat.  It relaxed me, and I hoped it meant I was going to get some decent sleep tonight.

My shower finished, I crawled into bed naked.  Just as I was about to drop off, the phone rang.

Rinaldo.

“Sir?”

“You did
good today, Evan,” he said.  “Real good.”

“Thank you, sir.  It just needed to be done.”

“It’s good to know there’s someone around I can really trust.  Damn good thing to know.”

“Anything you need from me,” I assured him, “just
tell me.  It’ll get done.”

“I know it will, son,” Rinaldo said.  “I know it will.”

Son.

Leaning my head back, I closed my eyes and smiled slightly.

There was just no better feeling than pleasing the boss.

New Year’s Eve.

Every year I was invited to Rinaldo Moretti’s house to celebrate the coming of a new year, and every year I went.  Each party was exactly like the previous
year’s with only the dates on people’s paper hats changing.  I clanged champagne glasses with Rinaldo at midnight, kissed Mrs. Moretti on the cheek, and put up with a bunch of assholes patting me on the back and telling me how promising the next year was going to be.

Whatever.

At exactly one in the morning, I felt I had paid my due respects and had the valet bring my car to me.  He dropped the keys to the Mazda in my hand with a look of distaste, but I only took the convertible out in nice weather.  Apparently a forty-thousand-dollar car wasn’t up to his usual standards, so I didn’t bother to tip the asshole.

The Audi convertible I had was actually acquired without cost to me since I kept it after killing its original owner.  I never would have spent that much money on a car.  I was a relatively frugal guy, and
tended to keep my money liquid and close to me.  At some point the winds could change, and having a good escape plan involved a decent amount of cash.  Why waste it when the public transportation was so close to my apartment?  I liked taking the bus most of the time, anyway – it was always good for people watching.

The ride home brought me within a couple of blocks of where I figured Bridgett would be.  I had almost considered giving her up as some kind of New Year’s resolution – I was starting to feel dependent on her.  If I was in town on the weekend, I almost always had her over for a night.

Sometimes two.

It didn’t exactly fit my miserly nature, but I needed the release and the sleep.  More and more often, I was finding myself unable to think as clearly as I normally
did, and it worried me more than I cared to admit. My sessions with Bridgett were more expensive than going to see Mark the Shrink, but they kept me going, and I had a lot to get done.  Talking to him left me cold inside – Bridgett was warm.

I had
seen Mark Duncan again the other day.

“How do you think your experiences changed you?”

“They didn’t.”

“Evan, no one comes out of something like that without some damage.”

“Not a mark on me – they were really careful about that.”

“There are other kinds of scars.”

I blinked a few times to bring myself back to the present.

After a bit of internal debate regarding resolutions and finances, I finally came to a conclusion.  I had no actual target to go after for the evening, and I decided New Year’s Eve was really a crappy night to start resolutions after all.

The light changed to green, and I looked behind my shoulder before I quickly changed lanes and headed in the opposite direction from my apartment.  There were nothing but drunks, cops, and me out on the road, so I drove with caution over to the red light district and the street corner by the drug store where Bridgett’s pimp could usually be found.

Two minutes later, Bridgett was in the passenger seat, and I was driving us back to my apartment.

“Happy New Year,” she said with a smile.

“Nice outfit,” I commented back.

Bridgett looked down at her dress, if you could call it that.  It showed the top of her nipples, with her tits outlined in red sequins.  Happy New Year was scrawled in blue sequins across her bare belly.

“You like it?” she asked with another big smile.

“It’s atrocious,” I replied honestly, “and you look like you’re freezing.”

“I am,” she admitted.

I cranked up the heat.

“You’re all decked out,” she said as she reached up and ran her fingers over the edge of the bowtie. 
“A tux?  You been out partying?”

“I guess,” I said.  “I was at a party, anyway.”

“You aren’t much of a partier, are you?”

“Probably not in the way you mean.”

Her fingers made their way down the lapels of the jacket and then to my thigh.

“You look nice,” she said softly.

Her hand gripped my leg, and my cock seemed to recognize the touch.  I was briefly temped to have her blow me or jerk me off there in the car, but it was New Year’s Eve and I was bound to get pulled over with her lips around my dick.

“Save that thought, babe,” I said.  “I don’t think you want us to get arrested.”

Bridgett’s hand moved up and brushed the edge of my dick before she pulled it away and ran it up her own thigh.  Her skirt moved up a little, following the motion.

“Vixen,” I murmured.

Bridgett giggled.

By the time we reached the elevator of my apartment, her hands were all over me.  She reached around the cummerbund and into the tux pants, yanked out the button down shirt, and ran her hand down inside and over my ass.

“Eagar tonight?” I asked with a raise of my brows.

Her response was to crush her lips to mine.  My hand grabbed the back of her head and held her there as my tongue explored her mouth.  Her fingers dug into my ass, and my free hand moved up to cup one of her tits, which was still seriously cold from the night wind.

Then the elevator door opened.

Bridgett tensed and jumped back a bit, but there wasn’t anyone there.  I took her hand and led her out the door but only just into the hallway.  I quickly undid the tux trousers and pulled them open.

“On your knees,” I commanded.

“Here?” she asked as she glanced up and down the hallway.  “What happened to not wanting to get arrested?”

“No one is going to arrest me here,” I told her.  “My boss owns this place.  Now get on your knees and suck me off.”

I took a step back and leaned against the wall.  Pulling her closer to me, I put a hand on her shoulder and guided her down to the floor.  She glanced down the hall once, then back up at me as she positioned herself right in front of my crotch.

“Did you think you could just tease me in the car and get away with it?” I asked with a slight smirk.  I reached in, took my cock out of my tuxedo pants, and guided her head to the tip.  “Suck.”

Her warm mouth engulfed me, and I watched her eyes seduce me as her lips moved around my shaft.  My fingers traced over the frigid skin of her cheek, and I found myself mildly annoyed that her pimp had them all out in the cold dressed like they were.

All hookers should work in Florida or something.

“You look good like that,” I told her.  My hand moved into her hair and set a slightly faster rhythm for her. 
“On your knees, out here in the open with your lips around my cock.  You love pleasing me, don’t you?”

She hummed around my dick, and I tilted my face towards the ceiling as I unloaded into her warm mouth.  My eyes dropped back down, and she sucked and tongued until there was nothing left to clean off.

She’d definitely honed her skills in the blowjob department.

I reached down and helped her up with one hand and put my dick away with the other.  Bridgett wiped her mouth, and we went into my apartment.  I took Odin out for a quick piss and came back to Bridgett hanging out on my couch.

It looked very…familiar.

With a slight shake of my head, I went into the kitchen
, pulled out a bottle of water, and offered one to Bridgett as well.

“So what party did you go to?” she asked.

“Just a basic New Year’s party,” I answered.

“That’s all you have to say about it?”

“Pretty much.”  I took a long sip of my water, leaned back against the couch, and closed my eyes.

She didn’t take the hint.

“You don’t like holidays much, do you?”

“Not really.”

“Why not?” she asked.

I sighed and opened my eyes enough to glare at her.

“I really just want to rehydrate a bit and then go to bed, okay?  I didn’t pay you to run your mouth.”

Her eyes narrowed at me for a moment, but then she smiled what I assumed was supposed to be an apology and snuggled up to me.  I put an arm around her shoulders, leaned back against the couch again, and just felt her fingers trace over my chest.

Of course, that didn’t last long.

“You’ve been picking me up at least once a week for three months,” Bridgett said, “but you never tell me anything about yourself.”

“That’s because you’re my favorite hooker,” I replied, “and not my shrink.”

“You have a shrink?”  Her head tilted up to look at me, and her hair tickled my chin as she moved.

My eyes flicked over to her for a moment as I studied her expression.  She was surprised to hear me say it and waited for the confirmation.  There was something else in her gaze as well, something that wanted to claim she knew it all along.

Her expression softened slightly before she spoke again.

“For what happened to you…over in the Middle East, right?”

Unexpected words.

I was taken off-guard and couldn’t respond right away.

“What makes you say that?” I finally asked.  I cleared my throat, turned my eyes from her, and sipped my water.  I racked my brain trying to remember what I might have told her, but I didn’t come up with much.  She knew I was in the Marines, but I hadn’t told her anything else.

“You talk in your sleep.”

“What the fuck?  I do not.”

“Not often,” she said, “but you have – a couple of times.”

I watched her carefully, but she didn’t appear to be lying about it.

“What did I say?”

“Oh no,” she replied.  “I’m not that easy.”

I had to roll my eyes at her, which earned me a giggle.  I set my bottle of water down on the end table and reached over to grab her by the waist and pull her into my lap.  With one hand, I held her down against my cock while the other one circled both her wrists and held them behind her back.  I brought her up against my chest and leaned forward until our noses were almost touching.

“Not easy?”  I raised an eyebrow at her.  “I think you need to remember who’s paying for you tonight.”

“You don’t have to say shit like that you know.”

“Say what?”

“Say that you pay for me.”

“I do pay for you.”

Bridgett sighed and looked away for a moment.  Her lips mashed together, and her chest rose with a deep, frustrated breath.

“It’s only fucking,” I reminded her
again
.  If she kept this up, I was going to have to replace her.  Actually, I was already quite sure that was the right thing to do, but something was keeping me from just heading to another street corner for another convenient ass.

“It would only be fucking if you ever fucked me,” Bridgett countered.  “You don’t fuck me.  You just want to fool around and then fall asleep.”

I raised an eyebrow at her but had to consider her words.  I hadn’t fucked her – not really.  Blow jobs, titty fucking, hand jobs in the car – all of that, but I hadn’t actually fucked her.

I pulled her down against my cock again and tilted my hips at the same time to push up against her core.  She gasped a little, and her tongue reached out to wet her
bottom lip.

“I want your ass,” I told her.  “You don’t like it in the ass.”

“Why do you say that?”

I rolled my eyes.  The sheer
amount of evidence I had collected on that subject would have taken a good ten minutes to divulge.

“Are you saying you
do
like it in the ass?” I asked, challenging her.

Her eyes stayed on mine for a moment.

“It would be okay with
you
,” she finally said.

There were other words on the tip of her tongue – words about what other men had done to her – but she was smart enough not to say anything about them.  When I was paying for her, I didn’t want her talking about other johns she was fucking.

“I don’t need this,” I informed her.  “You’re here to help me relax and sleep, not to give me a line of bullshit.  If I wanted that, I’d get a real girlfriend.”

She tensed a little.

“Don’t do that,” she said quietly.

My fingers grabbed a hold of her chin, and I forced her to look at me.

“Do I need to find someone else?” I asked her.

“Why are you saying that?”

“Because you’re trying to take this someplace it’s not going,” I said.  “You are trying to make this shit something it’s never going to be.  I told you this was about fucking from the beginning, and you’re still trying to make it something else.”

“You don’t fuck me,” she said again.

“You want to get fucked?”

“At least it would be about fucking then!” she snapped back.

For a long moment we just stared at each other.  Her fingers flexed and gripped my shoulders, and my hardened cock pressed tightly between her legs.

I felt challenged, and I wasn’t sure if I liked the feeling or not.