Explicit Instruction (34 page)

Here, part of him had to be torn. Opening that door could reveal the relief he’d been anticipating, or there could be more disappointment waiting for him.

With a deep breath
, Jansen opened the door and pushed it away. Standing here on the side-lines with Rushe, Flick couldn’t read Jansen’s expression at first. Then there was a gasping scream, a wail of torture and delight. Jansen’s own throat bobbed, and he rushed into the room.

Rushe made no move to enter
, and Flick didn’t either. Witnessing the naked love of those rediscovering each other would be moving, but it was also private. So many things had happened to each of them, and both must have thought all hope lost, yet here they were.

Flick swiped at the tears on her face
, and cleared her throat, trying to remind herself that she was a hardened warrior now. Except she wasn’t, and when Rushe’s hand slid up her back to the nape of her neck she curled into his embrace, burying her face against his chest.

‘I thought you were dead,’ he murmured.

‘Can’t get rid of me that easily,’ she said, enjoying the heat of him.

‘You shouldn’t have come back here.’

‘You can punish me later.’

‘I plan to,’ he said.
‘Will you ever do what you’re told?’

‘I might surprise you one day,’ she said. ‘But I doubt it.’

Rushe guided her around out of the way, and she lifted her head to see Jansen carrying Serendipity in his arms. Flick could see even in this blackness the glisten in Jansen’s eyes, but there wasn’t time to soothe anyone.

‘We have to get out of here,’ Rushe said
, and Jansen nodded.

The four made their way down the corridor to the room they’d entered by. Flick could taste freedom, she could smell it, and when they all ascended the stairs
, and Jansen carried Serendipity into the foyer Flick was sure they were home free.

Then from nowhere she was grabbed from behind, and in the suddenn
ess of it she lost Rushe’s hand. He immediately turned, and Jansen paused too.

Flick didn’t have to turn to know
whom that stench belonged to. ‘Little girl, you came back for me.’

‘You’re a worm,’ Flick growled.
‘You should’ve died like a dog at the side of that road.’

‘We were in the middle of something,’
Skeeve said. ‘We weren’t through.’

The barrel of a gun touched her temple
, and when his hand cupped her breast Rushe bared his teeth and bounded forward, but Flick held up her hands.

‘No,’
Skeeve said. ‘No. No. I got her now. You don’t want me to hurt her, do you?’

‘You’re gonna die,’ Rushe snarled.

‘Your girlfriend here was giving me a ride, did she tell you? Oh yeah, in the back of that van, she was all primed and ready for me, you left her all juiced up.’ Skeeve backed her away from the other three, and Flick noticed Jansen tucking Serendipity into the room with their entry window.

‘
She is quite the screamer,’ Skeeve said. ‘Maybe we should do it right here. Right in front of your boyfriend, let me show him how you really like it.’

‘Ok,’ Flick said
, much to the surprise of everyone else. ‘Let’s do it.’

‘Keen now, are you?’
Skeeve asked.

‘You’re right, we never got to finish. Let’s do it. Right here. Let him watch, yeah, it’ll turn him on. Maybe you can take turns.’

Each word she spoke increased Rushe’s blood pressure, until she thought he might actually burst. ‘Kitten.’

‘
Just exploring my curiosity,’ Flick said to Rushe. ‘Skeeve, get your dick out.’

‘You think about it—‘

‘Ignore him,’ Flick said, cutting off Rushe’s words. ‘We’ll do it right here, you can bend me over and fuck me stupid.’

‘You want it?’
Skeeve said, with all the glee she expected.

‘Damn right, all these guns,
the cold, hard metal, and the testosterone. It gets a girl turned on.’ Flick unbuttoned her own jeans and pulled down the zipper, one tantalising tooth at a time. ‘You gonna do it, or what?’

‘I
’ll take you upstairs,’ Skeeve said.

‘Oh,’ she said
, zipping her jeans back up. ‘I know you’re scared that Rushe does it better, but you said to me that... if you’re limp I can help you. I’ve heard a lot of guys have that issue, it’s never happened to Rushe, but—‘

‘No problems here little girl,’
Skeeve snapped, and released her to go for his fly.

Flick darted out the way
, and she saw the flash of horror in his eyes at the moment everyone realised the game had changed, and Skeeve was now the prey.

Before any of them could make another
play, noise and movement from the top of the stairs drew their attention. Shiv, Glen, and the Kid appeared in front, with Simone close behind, and Victor coming in their wake. All of the players were on the stage for a showdown.

Without realising it
, Flick had crossed to Rushe who shoved her behind his back.

‘
I’ve got all the guys out looking for you. Here you are, right under my nose,’ Victor said. ‘I’m surprised to see you, Jansen. Thought you’d have killed yourself by now.’

‘Wouldn’t give you the satisfaction,’ Jansen said.

‘Heard you put a bullet in John last night. How are you going to explain that one to your superiors?’

Flick didn’t understand it
, and Victor’s men were surprised too, but Rushe didn’t seem to blink. Then again, Rushe never blinked first.

‘I’m not gonna lose any sleep over it,’ Jansen said. ‘I know what he did for you.’

‘Every man here has a purpose, or had one, men like John are difficult to find. He was competent, unlike most of the bastards around here.’ Victor shoved Skeeve away when he reached the bottom of the stairs.

Shiv
, Glen, and the Kid stayed on the stairs. Shiv was the only one of the three with a weapon, and he kept it trained on her, Rushe, and Jansen. Luckily, Serendipity was out the way but if the shooting started Flick didn’t think it would stop, and certainly something as measly as a wall wouldn’t prevent these men from causing pain. Victor had a weapon too, with a silencer attached, but it hung loose in his hand at his side.

‘And little Felicity Hughes,’
Victor said, and she poked her head around Rushe. ‘You turned out to be quite the distraction, didn’t you? You just wouldn’t give up. But we had you, I really thought we had you when we sent you out with that shipment. Who knew that the pig was going to pop up again.’

‘Pig?’
Glen asked.

‘
That’s right boys, you all know Jansen, we all do, he was part of the gang, of the crew, one of us, but all the time he was a cop. A cop here to bring us all in.’

Flick didn’t know this. In the time she’d spent with him
in the last few hours Flick thought he might have slipped that into conversation. Maybe it was habit to cover his true identity, but that left Flick wondering how much truth there was in anything he’d said to her.

The murky air around them was sinister, making this scenario all the more ominous.
There were no artificial lights in this space. Only the gleam of moonlight slithering its way through the cracks in sharp wedges illuminated them. The room was cold and with its two-storey domed ceiling, the cavern echoed the voice of the villain holding court.

‘Let the
women go,’ Jansen said. ‘This has nothing to do with them.’

‘It has
everything to do with them,’ Victor said. ‘They’re here because of you. Both of them actually, because we find out now that your friend Rushe isn’t a cop; you brought him in to save your woman. We brought his girl in here to keep him quiet, just like we did to you, Jansen. Your Serendipity did what she was told. Felicity on the other hand...’

A
s aggrieved as Victor sounded, Flick took the statement as a compliment, and rested her head on Rushe’s back, not in the slightest bit apologetic for her actions, or for mouthing off.

‘Are you regretting it now?’
Victor asked. ‘I offered you a deal, Felicity. If you’d agreed to my terms you’d be on this side of the standoff now. Instead you stand with the losers.’

On opening her mouth wide Flick took a breath
, and was about to skirt Rushe when his arm came around and he enfolded her against his back, holding her in place. Presumably foreseeing her retort, Rushe apparently thought that she wouldn’t make things any better. She probably wouldn’t, but Victor was winning the war of words because no one else got a chance to play.

‘What are you gonna do?’ Jansen asked.

‘Maybe we sell your women,’ Victor said. ‘With both of you here there’s no one to stop the shipment from going out.’

‘This was your last deal, and you didn’t deliver,’ Jansen said. ‘
Your benefactor is gonna be out looking for you now. They fronted you a lot of dough.’

‘Let me worry about that, you worry about your woman being tied to some bed in Asia, and raped by every business man with a credit card. You think she’d like that?’

‘You’re full of shit,’ Jansen said.

‘We might just let them have her for free.’

‘Why you fucking—’
Rushe grabbed the back of Jansen’s pack and prevented him from crossing to Victor.

‘Always cool
, Rushe,’ Victor said. ‘I can understand now. I think we’d have to pay them to take Felicity off our hands. But she’s got a body, oh she has... maybe we just cut out her voice box, more room in there for the thousands of dicks she’ll have to swallow to pay her way in the whorehouse she’s shackled to.’

‘Yeah,’
Skeeve laughed. ‘Send her out to swallow for a living, see what shuts her up then.’

‘Why don’t you shut up,’
Victor snapped over his shoulder. ‘Snivelling piece of shit.’

‘That’s all you are,’ Rushe said to
Victor. ‘You’re no better than Skeeve, scum who thinks he’s something, but you’ll never measure up. You’ll never be the best. You can’t even get being the worst right.’

‘What the fuck would you know?’
Victor barked.

‘I know a lot,’ Rushe said without intonation. ‘
I know about the cash you got overseas. I know about the money that’s missing, the eighty grand... and I know about the two million fronted to you, money you promised you’d pay back.’

‘I did. I did pay it back,’
Victor said. ‘I sent you with the ransom and...’

‘That’s right,’ Rushe said. ‘You sent me.’

‘John,’ Victor said. ‘I sent John too, you both...’

‘
He drove,’ Rushe said, pausing to let Victor comprehend the truth. ‘I know about your high school sweetheart who fucked you over for your best friend, they got six kids now, did you know that? All inferiority issues, it’s why you’re threatened by Skeeve.’

‘
Threatened by shit like that?’

‘
Skeeve, you ain’t never getting respect,’ Rushe said. ‘I don’t respect you, and Victor sure doesn’t, none of the men here do, and all of the women think you’re lower than shit. You want to know how to get a woman like Flick. How guys like us, bottom feeders with nothing to offer, get women like Felicity Hughes, who could have any man in the world she wants? When you’ve got respect like that you don’t need to rape women, Flick begs me to fuck her every minute of the goddamn day. Just now, downstairs, she’s gagging for it, I have to pry the bitch off my cock, and we could get shot in the head by any of you fuckers any second.’

‘Shut up!’
Victor said. ‘No more of this.’

‘You’ve got to take control,’ Rushe said
, and Flick wondered why he was appealing to the weakest man in the room. ‘You follow around like a fucking sheep, and they’ll lead you to the slaughter.’

‘I’m sick of this shit,’
Shiv said, and started down the stairs, but Skeeve brought his gun up and Shiv stopped.

‘Don’t be a fucker,’
Victor grumbled. ‘He’s playing you. You want to shoot somebody, shoot Rushe.’

‘No man, no, I don’t need to work for you,’
Skeeve said, holding his gun in both hands, he began to back in the direction of the door, widening his target angle. ‘You’re no better, no better than me, this ain’t your house. I could get me one of these, bring in bitches, get my own crew.’

Flick wasn’t ready to move
, but when Rushe started walking backward and guiding her to the room Serendipity was in, she didn’t hesitate. But if Rushe thought she was going in there without him, or leaving him behind, then Flick would have her own speech to give.

‘Yeah right, and where are you getting the money?’

‘Shiv’s been skimming off, where you think the eighty grand went?’ Skeeve cackled.

Victor
spun in a rage to observe the wide-eyed Shiv, then he looked to Rushe who nodded once. When Victor raised his gun, Shiv began to babble. But with three decisive strides, Victor brought up the barrel of his gun.