His Claim: A Bad Boy Romance

3. Faria

FariaWe could hear gunshots in the distance. At least, I thought they were gunshots. It could be so hard to tell in this city, where engines and triggers ran hot. I closed my eyes, wincing as the sounds thundered through the streets, and prayed, prayed, prayed that they weren’t being fired at the Birth of Venus.

“Your aunt will be okay,” I heard Honisha gasp beside me. She was struggling to run in her ridiculous shoes. “She’s a smart woman. She’ll be fine.”

Yes, she was a smart woman. Smart enough to make me run, when I should have stayed behind.

I felt tears prick my eyes, and an overwhelming guilt assailed me.

“Oh, don’t worry so much,” Honisha snapped impatiently as we rounded into a dark alley and threw our hands to our knees, taking a break. “There wasn’t anything at that f*****g whorehouse worth saving, anyway.”

I whirled to her, feeling my self-defense training kicking in. But this time, I wasn’t interested in defense. I wanted pure offense.

My forearm slammed into her throat, pinning her against the wall.

“That whorehouse,” I hissed, “saved us. It saved you. It saved me. And it saved Aunt Venus. You know what whoring was like before Aunt Venus created the house. You’ve heard her stories. She created a paradise for those women!”

Honisha blinked at me, tears in her eyes, and the sight of them made me release her. She slid down to the damp pavement with nothing but her thin stockings to protect her from its chill.

“I’m sorry I said that,” she murmured. “You’re right. Venus has been good to me, but … I can’t do it anymore.”

“Do what?”

“Whoring.”

As she said that word, I felt my heart break. Most of the women who worked for my aunt were there by choice. A few though, like Honisha, had nowhere else to go.

“M-maybe you can try school, like me?” I suggested. She looked so sad and pathetic, curled up on the cold, wet ground. She shook her head violently.

“You know I’m too stupid for that,” she snapped. “The only thing I’ve ever been any good at is spreading my legs.”

I bit my lip. “Maybe you can hire a tutor?”

She laughed harshly. “Oh, yeah. And with what money?”

I didn’t know what to tell her. I was the one who was good at making money, helping my aunt launder and learning new tricks of the trade. Honisha, though … All Honisha had ever focused on was her looks, not her brain.

And there’s only so many things you can get on looks alone.

Yet there was a cunning in her. I saw it when she looked up at me, her eyes bright with an idea.

“Hey, Faria,” she said. “Something obviously went down at the whorehouse. And I heard some of what your aunt was saying. She wants you to go to your father’s motorcycle gang, and that’ll be dangerous. If I… if I stick with you and help keep you safe until all this is cleared away, then maybe … Aunt Venus will reward me, and I can start a new life. Without whoring.”

She gazed up at me, and there was such hope in her eyes. And something else, too. What was it? Deception?

No, it couldn’t be. Honisha and I were old friends. And it would be good to have her to watch my back.

Then I thought about the second thing that my aunt had told me. That I should give Honisha to the motorcycle club, as a ‘gesture of goodwill’. Did that mean she wanted me to sell my friend for safety? Surely not.

I remembered my thought that Aunt Venus was a woman well used to making hard decisions. I prayed that I would never have to make the same decisions as her.

I offered Honisha my hand. “Honisha,” I said, “Once all of this is over, I will do whatever it takes me make sure you don’t have to w***e anymore.”

Once this is over. I could hear the contract I was writing up for her in my own words. Even now, my mind thought and calculated, ways to make the whorehouse flourish, and to keep myself and my family safe.

Honisha smiled. “Once this is over,” she agreed.

After that intense conversation, the more pressing issues of our predicament occurred to us. We were cold, alone, and with nothing but what we had in our pockets when we fled. The night was getting darker, and I could hear drunkards roaming about the streets, looking for easy prey.

“I’m hungry,” Honisha complained.

“Me, too,” I agreed.

She brightened. “There’s a roadhouse not far from here. Some of my … some of my clients go there. It’s cheap, and loud, and crowded, so it’ll be easy for us not to stick out.”

I smiled at her. “Honisha, two beautiful ladies like us—it’s impossible for us not to stick out.”

She chuckled. “Either way, I still think we should go. Maybe celebrate our escape and your return from college or something.”

“And your change in careers,” I added, and we both grinned at each other.

God, how stupid those grins seem now.

She took my hand and, together, we walked to the roadhouse.

Once we were heading in the right direction, it was not hard to find. The noise coming from it could be heard a block away, and the parking lot was crowded with a mix of expensive sports cars, old junkers, and motorcycles. That was the odd mix you often got in this club community: wealth and criminality, upper class and underclass.

Just like Honisha and me.

The bouncer smiled when he saw us, then nodded us in. I felt his eyes latch onto me a while, trailing from my face to my breasts, and, as we passed him, down to my ass. I was pretty used to guys gawking at me, but for some reason, his gaze felt different. It’s just nerves, Faria, I told myself, and shook the feeling off. Still, I told Honisha that I wanted a table in the corner, far out of sight from the door.

We sat and ordered a pair of beers and a couple of burgers from the hapless looking waitress. As I shuffled about with my wallet, double checking how much money I had, my hand brushed over the envelope my aunt had given me right as we ran. It baffled me. Why had she wanted me to have it so badly? I fingered it in my pocket, wondering.

“That was really weird, what happened at the Berth,” I mused. As I said it, I was reminded of something I had noticed right before my aunt had appeared, which I had forgotten it in all the chaos that followed. “Hey, Honisha,” I continued. “Did those cops look funny to you?”

She scowled. “Of course they looked funny. They always look funny. Fat and stupid in their silly blue bus-driver uniforms …”

“No,” I interrupted. “I mean, did they look familiar? I feel like I’ve seen them somewhere before, and not in uniform …”

“Oh, Faria, lighten up,” Honisha snapped. She downed her beer in less than a minute and waved to the bartender for another. “We escaped. We’re fine. So why do you have to worry?”

Her ease annoyed me. I felt there were a million things to worry about.

“Well, because the Berth could be in trouble, or Aunt Venus, or any of our friends who work there, or our finances. Anything!”

She shrugged and looked around the room, catching the eyes of some of the biker men sitting nearby. While Honisha had always been great for discussing things like clothes and boys, I had saved all my serious conversations for my aunt. I gave up trying to talk about this with Honisha, and instead thought, I’ll just have to discuss it with Aunt Venus when I see her again.

I was sure I’d see her again. My aunt had been dealing with men far more dangerous than cops for most of her lifetime.

Usually, Honisha and I had no problem thinking of things to talk about, but tonight she seemed, I don’t know, distracted. Like there was something on her mind. I could only imagine what, after the discussion we’d had. So I let her sip her beer, flirting with the guys to the side of her. I let my gaze meander around the room, lost in thought.

That was when I saw him.

He was sitting alone, not like the other biker guys, who tended to congregate in loud, obnoxious groups. He had a whiskey in his hand, and as he sipped it he played with the ice, as if distracted by deep thoughts. This deep, pensive mood was not what caught my eye, however.

It was his muscles. Large and full-blooded, they bulged from the cut-offs of his leather vest like two pythons emerging from a deep jungle. His hands were tough, scarred, and so massive that his drinking glass practically vanished in his palm. A rough stubble lined his strong, angular jaw, brooding in a powerful frown which only increased his sense of steady disquiet. His dark brown hair, meanwhile, was rich, shaggy, and so soft looking that even at first glance I longed to run my hands through it, for how could something so impossibly silken and gleaming exist on so rugged a guy? He must have noticed me staring, for he turned and c****d a smile and his brow at me, revealing pearly white teeth and eyes as rich and flecked with shades of brown as roasted coffee beans.

I smiled, feeling suddenly vague and stupid, and gave him a little wave. So busy was I staring at him, in fact, that I did not notice the cop stepping through the main door, nodding at the bouncer as he went.