SINdicate: A BT Urruela FanFiction Novel: Cerberus MC Book 1.5 (18 page)

I know getting drunk around these fuckers isn’t the smartest thing in the world, but fuck if I’ll survive without a high level of inebriation.

I sit in a dark booth that Vito indicates as he goes to the bar and retrieves our drinks, praying he brings the damn bottle. Shifting my weight, I feel myself stick to the seat. I nearly vomit as the taste of bile snakes up my throat.

It’s just from a spilled drink, I think over and over in my head. Chances are that I’m sitting in years of uncleaned jizz, but if I think too hard about it, I’ll get sick. I already felt like I needed to bathe in hand sanitizer just walking through the front door.

“Fuck I hate this place,” Vito says sitting beside me and placing a large tumble of golden liquid in front of me.

“Why are we here then?” It’s obvious. If he doesn’t want to be here, then we should leave. I’d much rather be beating up poor guys than sitting in this disgusting place, and that’s saying something.

He angles his head toward Frankie, who’s near the stage getting a lap dance from the stripper that was just on the stage. He clearly has mommy issues.

“Frankie’s wife left him this morning. For some fucked up reason he loves this nasty fucking place,” Vito says and brings his own drink to his lips.

“Wife?” I mean I know guys cheat, the sin is as old as the sex industry Vegas is so famous for, but he’s never indicated once that he had a wife to get home to.

“Yeah. A shame really; she was a real stunner too.” He shrugs.
Was?
My blood runs cold as Vito shrugs his shoulders. “She’s no longer a problem for him, though. I think he sort of loved her, so he’s taking it hard.”

Ice runs through my veins because I’m certain he just told me that the wife is now dead for leaving him.

“So what you’re saying,” I begin to press him for information, but the look in his eyes tells me I better not even ask. I reach down for my glass of whiskey. “This isn’t really my birthday party?”

He throws his head back and laughs. He’s too busy laughing at my words to see the tremble in my hands as I bring my glass to my face. What kind of group am I working with if they can kill their wife and visit a strip club like it’s any other regular day?

I tilt the amber liquid up and pour it down my throat. I make sure not to touch the glass to my lips. The last fucking thing I need is catching Hep C in this damn place. The back of my jeans are already covered in previous customers’ donations. The idea has me swallowing the entire contents of the glass.

“Hell yeah,” Vito says as I lower my empty tumbler. He reaches beside him, pulling a bottle up and refills my glass.

“These women are nasty,” I say as another less than desirable stripper takes the stage.

“Keep drinking,” Vito encourages. “Sometimes it helps.”

I watch as he drains his second glass. I tilt mine back in kind. There is not enough alcohol in this fucking city to help with this place. I glance over and see Frankie in the corner of the club, almost completely shrouded in darkness. I wish he was entirely out of sight because seeing him getting sucked off from the granny stripper is now burned into my mind forever. I groan and pour another drink, wishing brain bleach was a real thing.

***

“We need to go upstairs,” I slur as an equally drunk Vito helps me out of the elevator.

“You’re in no condition to go up there,” he responds. “You couldn’t find the wet spot with a map and flashing neon signs.”

“I need her.” I need to shut the fuck up, but the liquor coursing through my veins doesn’t allow me the ability to keep my mouth shut. “I need Aviana.” I reach down and grab my junk. Even drunk I know it needs to look like she’s only a quick fuck.

Vito chuckles as he unlocks my door and shifts me toward the bed. “You can see her on Tuesday,” he says tossing me unceremoniously to the bed. “Get some fucking sleep. We have a shit ton to do tomorrow.”

Tuesday. I get to see my angel on Tuesday. The weekend can’t go by fast enough.

“If her pussy is that good I may need to get a piece of that myself,” I hear him mutter before the door slams closed behind him.

“I’ll fucking kill you before that ever happens” I think before my eyes drift closed.

BT

Add no rest when hungover to the long list of disadvantages of being an indentured servant to the SINdicate. Vito shows up at my door right on time with a smile plastered on his face. His chipper fucking mood may get him popped in the mouth before the night is over with.

He laughs when I grumble at him. I know he drank as much as I did last night. He must be immune to the aftermath of drinking a half a bottle of whiskey, but he looks no worse for the wear this morning.

“Do you have some fancy fucking hangover cure I don’t know about?” I ask as I grab my hoodie from the end of the bed.

“I was drinking before I could walk,” he says patting his stomach. “If you were Italian, you’d understand.”

I huff at him. Little does he know, my heritage is closer to his that he knows.

“What’s the game plan for tonight?” I ask as we board the elevator, hating to watch it descend rather than rise to the top.

“Same as usual. Tonight, though, you may be in for a surprise.”

“If that surprise is another nasty strip joint, I’ll pass.”

He laughs heartily. “Fuck, even I can’t do that shit twice in one week. No, tonight you may get the opportunity to see what happens when someone is no longer able to pay back what they owe.”

“I’m not a businessman, but why aren’t you guys going after people who actually have the ability to pay back what they borrow in full?”

Vito looks at me seriously. “Tempt me not a desperate man,” he says.

Shakespeare? Seriously? He’s quoting Romeo and Juliet?

“Desperate men do desperate things. Sometimes we get lucky like we did last week with the bank robber.”

I nod, not showing any disbelief. How this fucking organization has stayed afloat, hoping people rob banks or knock over liquor stores in an attempt to get the money they owed is the most ludicrous thing I’ve ever heard.

“Where’s Frankie,” I ask as Vito indicates for me to join him in the front of the car.

“Police station,” he says. I glance at him, but the look on his face says he won’t be providing any more information than those two words.

I hope his ass is charged with whatever happened to his poor wife when she got the courage to leave him.

I nod and look out the window as we make our way to yet another seedy ass neighborhood. If they have no problem killing a spouse, then they surely won’t have an issue with disposing of me if I become useless to them.

Vito never said they killed Frankie’s wife, and other than what I’ve done to the guys we encounter, there hasn’t been much outward extreme violence. Maybe it’s my need to see some good in each person I encounter, but I pray no harm has come to that woman.

We pull up outside of a motel the SINdicate clients seem to frequent. I crack my knuckles, preparing my hands for a possible fight. Not many of them take a stand against us, but there have been a few.

Once again the door isn’t locked, and we gain immediate access to the room Vito points at. I guess I should count my lucky stars that the SINdicate doesn’t have me in a room as nasty as this one. The Golden Dragon hotel isn’t exactly a five-star stay, but it looks like it compared to this place.

Sticky, threadbare carpet and warped, ancient furniture fills the small room. Our contact is passed out on the bed with a needle laying close by. Chances are he won’t have a penny on him, but that doesn’t mean we get to just walk out without rolling him.

“Hey, fucker,” I yell kicking the edge of the mattress to shake him awake.

He grumbles but stays asleep. I clear his pockets, finding nothing. I kick at him again, this time making contact with his body. We never let them stay asleep since each one needs to be threatened and warned about what will happen if they don’t come up with the money they owe.

He opens his eyes halfway, and I recognize him as a man we made contact with the first couple of days I was forced to work with Vito.

He smiles looking over my shoulder. “My savior,” he rasps and closes his eyes again.

I turn back to see Vito spinning a silencer on the end of a handgun. My eyes widen. I knew he had the weapon, but he’s never brandished it or felt the need to pull it out to threaten anyone with it before.

Without a word, he points it at the man on the bed and pulls the trigger. The man doesn’t move an inch as his life drains out of him from the wound in his forehead. I stumble back away from him.

I’m no stranger to death. I don’t know of any solider that has ever left the pseudo-safeness of a base in the Middle East that hasn’t experienced death on some level, either at their own hands or the loss of a fellow brother. Seeing someone killed in the civilian world, without the pretext of war is totally different.

I stare back at Vito, trying to regain my composure. If I had any doubt the level of violence this organization is willing to go to, those thoughts have been cleared up now.

“You’ll get used to it,” he says nonchalantly as he twists the silencer from the tip of the murder weapon.

“Fat fucking chance,” I say as he turns to leave the room.

I use my t-shirt to clean the doorknob on the way out of the room and pull the door closed to what has now become that poor fucker’s tomb.

***

The rest of the night, thankfully, goes by without more bloodshed. I’ve never been more grateful to be enclosed in this room than I am right now.

I sit on the bed for a couple hours trying to get my thoughts lined up. My brain tries to make sense of what happened tonight, but no such luck. Evil and abuse surround the entire SINdicate organization.

You’ll get used to it.

Vito’s words bounce around in my head. I’m no shrink, but I imagine some pretty messed up stuff had to have happened to the man for him to be so blasé about taking another man’s life.

I think back to the kids we encountered overseas. We never knew if the kids were in fact part of the organization and there to kill us. They had been raised around death, destruction, and so much hate for American soldiers that they were sometimes even more volatile than their adult counterparts, like baby rattlesnakes, not knowing the amount of venom needed to disable a threat. They go for the gusto every time. I have a feeling that Vito may be the latter.

I shake my head trying to clear the image of that man’s blood pooling around his pillow. I stand and retrieve the phone stashed inside the bedside lamp.

I dial the number Shadow gave me last time we spoke. It’s four o’clock in the morning, but I know he’ll answer.

Two rings and he answers with a gruff, “Urruela.”

“Hey, man,” I say sitting back down on the edge of the bed.

“How’d you like that strip club?” He asks with a sick chuckle.

“Nastiest fucking place I’ve ever seen in my life,” I answer honestly. “So you guys in town?”

“The whole team got here Thursday. A couple of us got here beginning of the week,” he responds.

“They’re more sophisticated than I thought,” I tell him. “Vito just put a bullet in some guy’s skull at the
Paragon
.”

“We found him,” he answers. “But they’re not all too sophisticated. Doesn’t take much to put a bullet in someone’s head. These guys aren’t operating with rules of engagement you expect from an organization.”

“It’s like being back in the desert,” I mutter to him.

“Pretty much,” he agrees.

It’s true. Thugs, idiots, and assholes kill people every day with no level of organization or skill.

“You find out anything?”

“They carried a girl out the back of the hotel last night.” My body stiffens. “It wasn’t Aviana,” he says easing my mind. “We know where they’re taking those girls now. The next move is up to you.”

“I need to be with her when it goes down,” I tell him.

“I figured,” he says lightheartedly.

“They told me we’d go back up there on Tuesday.” I look up at the ceiling hoping she’s okay. I pray I’m not too late to save her. There’s no telling what she’s going through right now. I have to trust that while she still has time left on her father’s extension, combined with the fact that they think she’s ‘working off’ some of the debt will keep her from harm.

I hear Shadow pull the phone from his mouth and say something to someone else in the room.

“I think we can work it out for Tuesday.”

“I have no idea what time we’ll go in.”

“We’ll keep an eye out. We’ll move on it around half an hour after you guys enter,” he assures me.

A couple of days and all of this shit will be over. Hopefully, both Aviana and I will still be standing when the dust clears.

Aviana

A soft knock at my door makes my pulse race. It’s been too long since I’ve seen BT and the days seem to be fading into each other. My skin is growing pale, and I know it’s because I haven’t seen the sun in weeks. In Tampa, I was in perpetual sunshine even though most of my days were filled with pitiful sadness and self-loathing. At least there the sun was always a guarantee. Now I don’t even have that. I can tell a horrendous bout of depression is setting in, and there’s nothing to keep it away. The promise of seeing BT again is the only thing keeping a little bit of life in my heart.