Beautiful Prey 2: The Storm Series (BWWM Romance) (17 page)

“So... Tell me about your weekend.”

Natasha looked across the desk at her
psychologist, and wondered if she should be truthful. Dr. Cross was an
impeccably dressed, very attractive, middle-aged, down to earth, intelligent,
and intuitive black woman that could see through Natasha’s bullshit from a mile
away. Figuring that she could only be helped if she was honest, she decided to
come clean.

“I lost it again. I had an emotional
breakdown and cursed Gianni out. Then I beat the hell out of a woman for
spitting on me,” Natasha admitted.

Dr. Cross asked, squinting her eyes,
“A woman spit on you?”

“Yes.”

“She in the hospital?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

           
 “Then you did good,” Dr. Cross said, shaking her head. “Um um. Honey, I
don’t do spitting.” She responded, with a look of disgust on her face. “Tell me
what happened with Gianni.”

In Natasha’s opinion, Dr. Cross was
entirely too focused on her relationship with Gianni.

“Doc, what’s this fascination that
you have with Gianni?”

“No, Natasha my fascination is with
you and why you run from any potential relationships that you might come
across. I suspect that you run because of the neglect that you suffered in your
aunt’s house? Or, is it the fact that you may never have children?”

Dr. Cross didn’t hold any punches.

“Well, it may be all of the above.
But I have agreed to another date with Gianni. He’s picking me up Friday. He
won’t tell me where we’re going. Just said that it’s gonna be fun.”

“Sounds like a good start, fun. I
think I like this free-spirited Gianni for you. Have you ever thought of
bringing him to one of your sessions?”

“No. Damn, we’ve only been on one
date.”

“Do you ever plan to let him in? Or
do you think that he doesn’t care enough to want to be a part of your life, and
ultimately, your healing?”

“I really don’t know what he wants
from me, Doc,” Natasha answered, lowering her head.

“No, Natasha. You will raise your
head and be assured that that man wants you, and he will still want you when
you open up and come clean to him. And, you’d better do it soon, since you say
that he’s the type to investigate a woman. Trust me, you want to be the one to
tell him who Natasha Walker is.”

Natasha nodded, hoping that Dr. Cross
was right.  “Maybe I’ll talk to him after our date.”

“Yes, what’s the worst that could
happen?”

“Yeah,” Natasha mumble. “What’s the
worst that could happen?”

“Before you go, let me say this...
Put forth some effort with this man. From the way you speak of him, he might be
the one strong enough to understand your chaotic life. Gianni might be your
chance at love. Natasha, have you ever been in love?”

Natasha lowered her head and shook
her negative answer.

“Well, beautiful one. It’s your turn.
Seduce that man and make him yours. You can do it. You’re young, smart,
gorgeous, and you got one hell of a figure. And with that being said, our times
up. See you next week?”

Dr. Cross closed her notebook and
stood. Natasha rose from her seat and walked toward the door. “Next week,” she
confirmed, before walking out of the office. When she walked through the
building and out the door, she was immediately confronted by the brightness of
the sun. Although it was a beautiful spring morning, it was Monday and Natasha
hated Mondays. The beginning of the work week was almost always determined by
the fallout over the weekend and the rise in temperature coincided with the
rising death toll. An inevitably dreadful roll call was definitely in Natasha’s
near future.

***********************

Natasha sat in roll call, and as expected, Sgt. Banner was
ranting about the number of homicides over the weekend. He was actually acting
as if they’d gone out and shot the victim’s themselves. Natasha rolled her eyes
and leaned back in her chair, wishing she had the power to heat seal his lips
shut. But since she couldn’t tap into her super powers, the asshole kept talking.

“Apparently, someone shot up a
lockdown on the south side. Two people dead. Walker, are you still in contact
with that hoe?”

Natasha fought the urge to roll her
eyes. “If you mean Tammy, yes. We text every day. And she’s not a hoe,” Natasha
added.

“They all hoes,” he snickered.

In Natasha’s eyes, Sgt. Banner was
utterly repulsive and every word that escaped his drunken lips was offensive.

He was totally unfazed by Natasha’s
obvious animosity toward him. “When’s the next lockdown?”

“Thursday.”

“Consider yourself there. Get that
girl to get you in the door,” he ordered. “We need to find out who’s behind
this shit. But, until then, you’ll be doing street prostitution on Madison
Ave,” he added with a snide smirk as if he were handing down a punishment.

In a way, he was. Working in
Prostitution could be degrading, especially when the supervisors talk to you
and treat you as if they were pimping you for real; something Sgt. Banner was
notorious for. Natasha sat quietly through the rest of the roll call, wondering
how Victoria had put up with his snarky and disrespectful comments for so many
years. He had already given Natasha over a hundred “whoosah” moments. Years of
therapy had helped to suppress the anger that built in Natasha, giving some the
misconception that she was a shy pushover. But Sgt. Banner was constantly
clawing and scratching at that shield.

After the team was dismissed from
roll call, Natasha walked over Deon and Steve, who were in the middle of an
intense conversation.

Since she was sure that they were
talking about her, she didn’t mind interfering. “Hey. What’s going on?”

“We’ll talk in the car,” Steve
answered. “I’ll be waiting downstairs.”

As Steve walked away, she asked Deon,
“What’s wrong with him?”

“The same thing that’s wrong with all
of us. These lockdowns…They are dangerous.”

“Deon, our entire occupation is
dangerous. Now, I may not be experienced in prostitution, but I am an
experienced undercover officer. Trust me, I know when to call it,” Natasha
attempted to reassure him. “I gotta get ready. I’ll see you out there.”

Natasha walked out of the office and
down the hall, toward the locker room. Halfway down the hall, Commander Grey
stepped out of his office. He glanced up at Natasha but quickly looked away,
before ducking back into his office. The pasty old bastard actually acted as if
the Ebola Virus was walking in his direction. Natasha stayed on course, not
even pretending to be affected by the cold and unfriendly attitudes of the
bosses. Right or wrong, they all stuck together. She entered the locker room to
dirty herself up enough to be solicited by miscreants on Madison Avenue.

*************************

“Why do you have such a dangerous job, when you don’t need to
work at all?”

Gianni’s question lingered in
Natasha’s mind as she made an attempt at a “hoe” strut down Madison Avenue.

Four Johns down, Natasha was already
praying for the night to end. She had no problem admitting that prostitution
just wasn’t her shtick.  Nevertheless, she was apparently attractive
enough to make horny men pull to the curb and solicit her for sexual
gratification. But, if Natasha was to be honest, harmony was her true love. The
alleviation of narcotics was her calling, but music was her passion.

Natasha would have to deal with her
life choices later, because a pink Cadillac pulled curbside in front of her.

Yes. Really. A pink Cadillac.

Natasha mumbled under her breath,
before walking over to the pimp mobile, “Are you fucking serious?”

The driver’s side window was lowered
and a twenty-something year old, with a mouth full of gold teeth, yelled,
“Bitch! This my corner! If you wanna work my corner, you gone work for me.”

Natasha instantly wanted to bitch
slap the ghetto motherfucker. He actually had the nerve to think that a woman
should work on her knees and back and hand her hard earned money over to his
leaching ass. But instead, she smiled and responded.

“I don’t work for anybody. I’m
self-employed, and I can’t see myself changing that no

time soon.”

The leach was obviously angered,
because he bolted from his automobile and ran toward Natasha. He backed her
into the brick wall of the building behind her. Natasha knew that an ass
whooping was in his immediate

future. She attempted a straight face that reflected fear,
but she was all too happy knowing that “pink caddy pimp” was about to get the
shit beat out of him.

Out of the corner of her eye, Natasha
peeked Steve, casually walking across the street as if he were an average
passerby. Granted, a really big and angry looking passerby, but a passerby none
the less.

“Hoe, I own Madison. If you ain’t
working fa me, yo ass ain’t working.” Yuck mouth said, entirely too close to
Natasha, invading her personal space.

“Man, fuck you!” Natasha taunted,
totally ready to get a work out, kicking the shit out of the low-level pimp.

The pimp was obviously enraged
because he balled his fist and hurled it toward Natasha’s face. She
instinctively ducked, causing Goldie’s fist to contact the brick wall. Hearing
the crack of his knuckles against brick, Natasha knew that more than one bone
was broken in his hand. Pinky winced and clutched his hand, oblivious to the
fact that a pissed off Marine was approaching his rear. He looked as if he was
going to cry like a baby, but Natasha wasn’t given enough time to find out
before Steve’s fist made contact with the side of the whoremonger’s head,
repeatedly. Frankie and Miguel hopped out of an enforcement vehicle and ran
over to assist in the administering of justice. As Pimp Daddy cried like a
little bitch from the beat down that he brought on himself, Natasha walked over
to Deon, who was on camera phone patrol.

Natasha chuckled, “Did you hear that
fool?”

“Yeah, as soon as he said that shit
Steve turned the recorder off.” Deon said, surveying the area so that the big
bad Chicago Police didn’t show up on the ten o’clock news.

The pimp screamed like a teenage girl
in a bad horror movie as the enforcement team tuned him up, a punishment befitting
a bully. Natasha could hear sirens a few blocks away, someone must have called
the police and reported a man being beaten. Two squad cars sped around the
corner and pulled in front of the commotion. Deon waved and pointed to the dash
camera on the police vehicle. The officers inside the car nodded and drove
away.

Natasha turned to see the pimp being
handcuffed. He was yanked from the ground and being dragged to the wagon, where
he can join his brethren. She walked across the street, to Steve’s car, and sat
in the passenger seat. When the pimp was tossed in the wagon, Natasha assumed
that the scene would calm. But she couldn’t have been more wrong, because she
heard the sound of screeching tires, coming from halfway down the block. She
turned to see a white van that was moving at a high rate of speed, and heading
in her direction. The driver obviously didn’t have control of the vehicle. The
van recklessly weaved in out of traffic, sideswiping parked cars along its way.
Natasha found herself in the direct path of the speeding van. She checked to
see if the key was in the ignition, it wasn’t. She wouldn’t have had time to
move the car anyway. The van quickly advanced on her. In a split second
decision, Natasha opened the door and leaped from the vehicle, just as it
plowed into Steve’s car. She hit the ground

hard, slid across gravel and skidded to a halt. Natasha
scrambled to get away from the collision, ignoring the burning pain shooting
through her shoulder. She faintly heard Deon and Steve yelling her name, and
she could see them running toward her. She crawled a safe distance and fell
back against the ground. Inhaling deep breaths, Natasha closed her eyes and
attempted to slow her heart rate.

“Why do you have such a dangerous
job, when you don’t need to work at all?”
Gianni’s question plagued her subconscious.

Before Natasha could contemplate an
answer, Deon was kneeling over her. “Tasha, you ok?”

She could hear chatter from the radio
and inquisitive pedestrians.

“Tasha!” Deon yelled, ready to panic.

Natasha opened her eyes and focused
on Deon’s worried face.

“I’m good,” she grunted, slowly
lifting herself from the ground, with Deon’s assistance.

Natasha wiped dirt and rocks from her
body while her team watched sympathetically. Suddenly feeling self–conscious,
she forced a smile. “What the hell?” She chuckled, waving toward the object of
her near death experience.

Natasha and her team slowly
approached the van. The enforcement officers, with weapons drawn, opened the
rear double doors, revealing eight women that were huddled together in fear.
The women were dirty, half–dressed, and barely legal, if legal at all. They
were shackled to each other and seemingly terrified. The women pleaded
frantically in a language that wasn’t English. Natasha looked to her team and
they were apparently as stunned as she was to see a van full of imprisoned
women.