CHAPTER 37
CHRISTIAN ‘VICIOUS’ VOLKOV.
“The padre died of a heart attack, that’s the official report”, Maximo informs me as we lean against the silhouette of my car taking in the dump that is the southside of Chicago.
This place isn’t just cold but crime reeks faster than the stench building up in my nostrils.
And that stench is garbage alright.
“What do you think is happening in there? You think they killed the kid”, humor laces his voice faster than the annoyance festering in my veins like potent poison.
Getting rejected is one thing but being denied sex hits harder.
‘But I’d kiss that pussy again to erase the pain.’
‘No, thank you. Now get out.’
Not that I haven’t tried getting sex elsewhere but two steps breathing in another woman’s direction and my dick falls flat, languishing in dissatisfaction and grief.
I don’t give two shits about whatever her deal with Demetri was. After the near-death scare, I don’t think I give two shits if she’s plotting my death or not.
That’s how crazy I am for pussy.
Add in her fucking scent that hits me every two seconds reminding me she kicked me out.
Told me not to show my face in case it was an emergency.
I couldn’t touch the child either or hold her till she stopped crying.
Fuck.
I gaze at the metallic makeshift trailer home ahead of us and shake my head.
This neighborhood is worse than any of the places I’ve visited. And in my line of work, I’ve visited many.
But Guepos? Guepos puts the sh in shit.
“No. Troy wouldn’t kill him before talking to me”, I quip before two men appear from inside the trailer with rifles bidding us that their boss wants to see us.
“Fucking amateurs”, Maximo murmurs as we both stand to our feet moving.
“Don’t shoot, don’t do anything crazy.”
“Don’t do crazy? You’ve been doing things out of protocol since the nurse and the kid left. If anyone’s trigger happy, it’s you, Volkov.”
“Troy isn’t worth it.”
“Killing the padre in front of witnesses wasn’t worth it either. Let’s get the kid.”
The trailer-bus-turned-house looks like the regular beat-down houses you see around junkyards.
The living room is squeezed in but Troy Sullivan and his men make it seem like eight men including us isn’t a crowd.
Troy, the son of a gun, is licking grease off his fingers, his meal being the boneless chicken splayed on top of the coffee table.
Some chick sits on his lap all scared and trembling and the kid we came to rescue is on the floor beaten black and blue with wrists chained together by rope.
“Vic, Vic, my man. I had a feeling you’d show up”, Troy starts.
Maximo and I prefer to stand instead of sitting on the unsanitized couches behind us.
“You threatened to kill one of my men if I didn’t show up so here I am Troy. Speak your terms.”
Years of being raised in this dump and this man not only has an unfiltered mouth but also an unhinged mind that would rattle whoever came up with building the atomic bomb.
Troy Sullivan is a genius but the type of wacko man who doesn’t know who his friends are and who his enemies are.
Any other person and Troy would have killed them.
But me? I’d destroy him in an instant.
He knows that, I know that. This whole meeting is a waste of time.
“Nah, Vicious. I’m one of your men too but this…this kid doesn’t get to walk out here alive. He broke the code.”
I look at the man on the floor.
His right eye is closed shut, his lip is busted and his whole demeanor screams ‘I’m pissing my pants off’.
Days of training and the kid is a disgrace to be called one of ours.
But he’s new and way too young to die in this place.
“What code?”
Troy grins, looks at the little lady in his arms and barks, “He touched my sister. You know we don’t do that around here. No one touches my sister, no one especially from your side of the wall comes here and takes what isn’t his.”
“Jesus Christ, Jude. Troy Sullivan’s sister? Do you have a fucking death wish?” Maximo asks Jude.
I look at Jude and feel like grilling his balls for making me be here tonight over his balls being deep in Sullivan’s sister.
“I-I didn’t know. S-she was at the bar and we hit it off. One thing led to another and-.”
“What did you say, boy?” Troy grows on edge.
He draws his firearm out.
The sister that was in his arms minutes ago falls to the couch as Troy points his gun’s nozzle on Jude’s head.
“You saying my sister seduced you or something? Are you saying my sister went to Vicious’ club without my permission? Is that what you saying?”
“No. No. I mean yes. I mean she wasn’t…she was.”
I’ll murder this kid myself.
“Put the gun away, Troy”, I encourage, Troy’s finger looms over the trigger.
“Nah, Vic. You are here to take this punk’s dead body and bury it. That’s the courtesy I owe you.”
“Please…don’t”, Jude whimpers, I groan into the night.
“Quit the crying, you are not going to die. Not yet at least”, Maximo fires.
Jude’s eyes are on me.
“You kill him and whatever business I have with you runs into the mud. Guepos is a small division in my grasp. You are as easily replaceable as the cups in my kitchen, Troy.”
“You can’t replace me. I’m the best you got.”
In Guepos? Yeah, he is. In the larger picture that’s Chicago? No, he is not.
“The interesting thing about cups is they are all the same and they do the same work too”, I turn my direction to the woman on the couch, squatting on the ground to get her to focus on me and not her brother,” You know what your brother does for me, don’t you?”
She nods.
“You know the rules, you know the ins and outs and you know how much of a cut I get and your brother gets, don’t you?”
She nods.
I turn to Troy, ”See? Just as replaceable.”
“He touched my sister”, Troy grits.
“Your sister seems fine to me. Did Jude force you to do anything?”
“He didn’t. I like him-.”
“No you don’t, Glynn. No you don’t!”
Troy looks like he’s about to burst into a splat of tantrums and it’s only seven pm.
“Let my man go, let’s call this a night or else I’ll let Maximo handle this and you know how my enforcer handles things, don’t you?”
Maximo will torture him and his band of yahoos that are holding the rifles like kids from an apocalyptic bad tv movie.
Troy backs off from Jude.
I step forward and grab Jude from the floor by the shoulder helping him up.
“You broke my man’s nose, Troy. Not giving you something back wouldn’t live up to my name.”
“I just let him go. He touched my sister and-“.
The sound of bone cracking fills the air.
Troy drops to the floor with one punch from Maximo.
Troy’s passed out. Our business here is done.
“T-Thanks boss.”
“On a scale of one to ten, how bad do you need to go to the hospital?”
“Boss I’m fine, just a little bruise here and there that can’t be-”
“You are gravely injured. You need a nurse.”
“Boss really I’m fi-.”
“You are seeing the nurse, you little piece of shit, for dragging me all across town to get you out!”
“O-Of course, boss.”
Jude occupies the back seat.
I hop into the bloody car pissed off than I was when we got here.
Maximo starts the engine but not before he says, ”Your obsession with the nurse is going to get us all killed, won’t it Volkov?”
It might.
My dick’s already dying.
My sanity is hanging by a thread.
***
Her blue eyes avoid mine as she attends to Jude’s bruised lips and possible cuts on his brows.
“What did we say about fights?”
“Unfortunately the fight came to me this time around, doc. I swear”, she rubs what looks like cotton swabs on Jude’s lips and he winces.
She blows on it.
She blows on his miniature wounds like he is a kid.
“Did the same person beat you up this time around?”
What person?
How long has Jude been coming here to the clinic?
Last time this kid got hurt, I beat him up and cut his torso with the same knife he was supposed to attack me with.
“No. I got into a mess, boss got me out of that mess”, Jude says something that’s at least earning him brownie points with me.
“I’ll prescribe this for the pain and as for the eye, a good ole ice pack out to reduce the swelling.”
“Thanks, Lex.”
“I don’t want to see you here again, Jude. No more fights, I’m serious.”
“No more fights.”
Jude stands up, I take a few dollars from my wallet shoving it in his chest.
“Get a cab. Go sleep like a baby this week because next week, work just doubled up for you, kid”, I whisper, the kid takes my money exiting the other way.
It’s just me and her now.
Her back to me as she discards everything she used to clean the kid’s wounds and my feet pushing me towards her.
She’s in scrubs. I bet she’d look better with nothing on.
“You are not going to speak to me, Little Nurse?”
“You are not a patient, I’m not obligated to speak to you except to render my services if you need them.”
Damn, firecracker and her lying mouth.
The sexual tension between us is off the charts.
I’d tell her I visited her when she was in the hospital, I’d tell her I’m delaying going home because she is not there in the first place but I’m not that kind of man.
The kind of man for sentiments or what men call love.
I’d never love her.
What I’d do because my dick couldn’t get the memo however was fuck her and move on.
I take the scissors by the counter. The clean ones at least, running the edge of the blade on my palm.
“What about now?”
She turns around, her face goes pale at my bloody palm before she starts doing what she’s good at.
Fixing the broken.
“W-why would you do that? You are bleeding, those scissors might not have been sterilized-.”
“You wouldn’t speak if I wasn’t your patient. I’m your patient, speak to me.”
“You are crazy.”
“I know.”
“I hate you.”
“You should.”
“Why are you doing this?”
She dabs an antiseptic soaked stuff on my hand and I wince, the small wound stinging.
“I need a distraction. A distraction from the pain. From hurting you”
She’s the only one who can hurt me and I won’t react. She doesn’t know that yet.
I don’t need a distraction.
She’s five feet hell of a distraction.
“Ooh I almost forgot but if you hurt me, I will come back to haunt you because this is your fault in the first place. Fine… umm a distraction. Lemme think.”
Lemme touch your tits. One time. Maybe ten times to remember the feel of them?
“Oh, I know. A joke.”
Stab me in the heart with those scissors right now.
“What do you call a three humped camel?”
I’m starting to hate camels.
“What?” I ask.
“Pregnant!”
She chuckles, doing whatever it is she’s doing to my wound.
I wonder if she’s gonna blow it.
“Tell me another one.”
Her eyes latch onto mine and in slow motion she pushes her chair back and steps away from me.
“I don’t have to. You’re all patched up, boss. Now, get out and God so help me if you think of stabbing yourself with those scissors I will leave you to bleed to death.”
I look around. Everyone’s gone for the night.
“Who’s driving you home?”
“That’s none of your concern.”