Junkie (Broken Doll #1) (3 page)

Oh God, I really need my H
.

As I fought with the door, a meaty hand curled around my rail-thin arm and I was yanked toward the center console, up against Jorge’s huge, sweaty gut.

“First, I want my payment,
puta
.”

“I… didn’t Nicky tell you?” I tried to swallow, but my parched and scratchy throat was too dry. “I don’t have any money.”

Jorge grinned, the scar on his cheek distorting into a hideous, puckered curve. “I don’t want money.” His eyes went dark and Jorge let go. He shuffled around, huffing and puffing until I saw he had his stubby dick out of his shorts, half-hidden by a roll of fat. With one hand, Jorge began to stroke it and I nearly retched.

“You know what to do,
coña est
ú
pida.
”

Stupid cunt
.

I glanced out the window and saw nothing but darkness. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to go, nobody to save a pathetic junkie like me. It was the story of my life. Another cramp hit and reminded me how little time I had before full withdrawal hit.

I really, really need that fucking H.

I sent up a quick prayer that I wouldn’t gag and puke all over his crotch, then I closed my eyes, bent over and paid Jorge’s fee.

If I ever saw Mason again, I was going to kill him.

“
S
omeone is in the yard
, Boss.”

“I can see that, Milo.”

I was snapping at Milo, but my anger was meant for my security team. My missing security team. No one, and I mean
no one
, entered my property without a goddamn invitation and a thorough pat down. So who the fuck was stupid enough to sneak in? And why the fuck didn’t any of my men know about the intruder before Milo saw it on the monitor? Whoever the hell was prowling around could have waltzed right up to my fucking house if I hadn’t turned on the video feed in my study and my lieutenant hadn’t seen the movement on the screen.

Milo and I stalked down the wide hall, guns in hand, and exited through the front door. “Where the fuck is Burke?” I scanned the large expanse of green lawn, lit by floodlights strategically spaced around the house. They shone on the grass until the lawn faded to black at the perimeter.

“Don’t know, Boss. He should be here, or at least one of his guys. Someone was here when I arrived.” Milo shrugged, apologizing for something that wasn’t his fault. Burke was head of security for the house. The place where I goddamn ate and slept. The one location that should be one hundred percent safe. It was Burke’s job to know every single thing that happened on my property and either deal with it or come to me immediately. Now, because we couldn’t find Burke, this became
my
problem. To say I was pissed was an understatement.

Milo and I quietly descended the stone steps and crept along the side of the house toward camera nine. Whoever this motherfucker was that thought they could get to me was as good as dead. On that thought, I motioned to Milo, who came closer.

Voice low, I leaned toward my lieutenant. “Don’t use that fucking hand-cannon out here.” With the muzzle of my smaller gun, I tapped his .45. “Too goddamn loud. I don’t want neighbors calling the cops.” The nearest residence might be almost a half-mile away, but still, that fucking gun sounded like a sonic boom when it went off.

Milo sighed, made a big fucking deal about holstering his precious baby, and pulled out his secondary weapon, a .22 he kept strapped to his ankle. He widened his eyes with a look that asked,
Happy now?

I threw back a,
Don’t fucking start with me or I’ll pistol-whip your ass.

With my gun, I motioned for Milo to go first and followed him around to the side yard. Milo held up a hand and stopped in his tracks. He cupped his ear to indicate he heard something. I froze in place to listen and caught the faint rustling of someone walking through the grass and a clicking sound that reminded me of… of the sounds made by
flip-flops
? The two of us were skirting the building so as not to set off the motion-activated lights. The intruder, however, was too goddamn stupid, and tripped them a second later.

Four blinding spotlights flooded the area, sending spots across my vision as my eyes tried to adjust. A warm gust of night air blew past me. I heard a high-pitched squeal and a low grunt followed by a thud. It took a good twenty seconds of squinting until I finally acclimated my vision. Once my sight was restored, I found Milo in front of me with our trespasser in one hand,
her
wrists behind her back, and his gun pressed against a pale, utterly filthy redheaded girl’s temple.

“She’s got no weapons on her, Boss.”

I blinked several times in disbelief at the physical appearance of our interloper before letting out a pained sigh. I tucked my 9 mil into the waistband of my track pants and shook my head. “Put your gun away, Milo.”

“No fuckin’ way,” he growled, glaring.

“If you can’t handle this…” I waved a hand over the slight, frail, and very sickly-looking female in Milo’s grasp. “…this ninety-pound girl without your gun, I need to rethink your position in my organization.”

Milo huffed, but eventually slid his gun back into its ankle holster, albeit reluctantly. “I can handle her, Boss.” He must have squeezed her wrists because she let out a pitiful cry.

“Let’s go inside. Bring her.” I gave the shivering girl one last bewildered examination and shook my head. Unexpected bullshit like this pissed me off to no end. Now, instead of having a few drinks and crashing for the night, I’d be stuck dealing with whoever the fuck this girl was that managed to slip past my security. Then I’d have to crack some heads, starting with Burke, because this dumb shit girl managed to get past my highly trained, very well paid guards who were either taking a shit or jerking off somewhere while a trespasser entered my property.

U
nwilling to let
the soiled girl sit on any of my expensive furniture, I had Milo tie her to a plain wooden kitchen chair. Hell, it was probably unnecessary to even bother with restraints. The pathetic thing barely looked healthy enough to breathe, let alone fight us off and escape. Still, I was pretty damn ticked off, and better safe than sorry. I learned that the hard way a long time ago. To trust people who appeared harmless only to find out they were anything but was a grave error in judgment. For all I knew, her strung-out look was just an act. Maybe she was some highly trained operative or something, like Jennifer Garner in
Alias
.

The ridiculous thought made me snort in amusement, drawing the confused stares of my security team, who’d finally fucking materialized and gathered in the kitchen on Milo’s request.

Milo and I shared a discreet glance, neither of us quite sure what to make of the half-dead girl. Being
The Boss
, everyone was waiting to see what I would do.
Christ
. Holding back an eye roll, I squatted in front of the chair and held back from flinching away from the stench of body odor and sickness and the grime that covered her head to toe.

“Hey!” I snapped my fingers in front of the girl’s face when her head sagged, her delicate chin falling to rest on a bony chest.

With the effort of a newborn trying to hold up her own head, she tilted her face up. Underneath the dirt, the malnourished physique, the dull, pockmarked skin, I could see that this girl was actually stunning. Tragically so. Though her natural beauty had been completely ruined by drugs.

The symptoms were obvious—sweating, chills, confusion, and deep dark circles under dull eyes. She also had the faded, purple, telltale scars on the insides of both arms. I’d know a heroin addict anywhere. Besides my main product being heroin, both my mother and sister were too weak to resist the powerful drug, which made me very well acquainted with the dark stranglehold it could have on its users. Users like this girl. The lack of control in these people disgusted me because they’d ruined my life as a child, yet they’d also turned into the source of my very hefty, very illegal income.

I was a fucking hypocrite, and well aware of that fact.

I hadn’t witnessed the destruction my product caused firsthand in a long time, but in my kitchen, reflected in the face of this pitiful young woman, the reality was just as I remembered—horrifically unpleasant. My past surged up like an unexpected kick to the head. Watching her was much more difficult than the vague awareness of my shit being sold to nameless junkies somewhere out in the city. Putting a face to my dirty deeds, bringing up painful memories, tugged on my humanity. Something I didn’t have the time or desire to acknowledge.

But then, you’d require at least a shred of humanity to acknowledge it, and I lost mine a long time ago.

I attempted to speak to the girl again. “Why are you here?”

The girl’s rheumy green eyes blinked slowly and she sniffed. She glanced around the kitchen, vacantly taking note of the six other men in the room behind me—Milo, my security team, and Burke, who would be dealt with later—and began crying.

“I just need a hit,” she sobbed, and began coughing uncontrollably. “Mason, he usually—”

“Mason? Mason Smith?” Milo shouted from my left side. It startled the girl so badly, she jerked in her restraints and nearly tipped the chair over while strapped to it. My hand shot out to steady the chair before she crashed to the floor and cracked her head open.

“Calm the fuck down, Milo,” I growled. I was as surprised as Milo to hear of the girl’s connection to my recently departed dealer, but showing any kind of emotion in front of a suspect was poor form and lacked the air of finesse I preferred to maintain. Though I’d rather be doing this in my suit than my sweatpants, and with someone…
ugh
, cleaner. I swallowed back my distaste.

“What?” Milo asked, incredulous. He pointed at the girl and continued. “She knows that motherfucking piece of shit thief. He probably skimmed to give the H to her, Boss. You heard him talk about a whore.”

I released the chair, stepped back, and turned to my lieutenant. Remaining silent, I crossed my arms over my chest and waited until Milo’s bluster quickly drained when he became the sole focus of my attention.

“I don’t want her falling and leaving her fucking brains all over my imported Italian tiles, asshole. And
I
decide what happens to her, not you.”

“Yes, Boss.” Milo looked appropriately chagrined. If he was pissed, he hid it well. I was positive Milo didn’t appreciate being put in his place in front of the rest of the men, and normally, I would have allowed him free rein on someone who not only trespassed, but was an associate of an employee who stole from me. But this girl—while technically just a very foolish, desperate junkie, therefore undeserving of mercy—intrigued me, not that I would tell Milo or anyone else that fact.

“Who is Mason to you?” I asked and pulled a second chair over to sit across from the redhead, my eyes now level with hers.

The girl licked her cracked lips, her enormous, dilated pupils darting all over the place to avoid my direct stare.

“He, uh, I’m not sure. I-I don’t know. I just need a hit.” She sniffed, almost breaking down again.

“Listen to me.” I raised my voice so there was no doubt who was in charge here. The girl shuddered violently and a lock of greasy red hair fell over one watery, bloodshot eye. My gaze trailed over her damaged skin. Scratches mixed with hideous scabs dotted what I envisioned was once a creamy, pale landscape. Natural redhead, I thought, noting the high number of rust-colored freckles dotting her arms and face. “I will give you a hit after you answer my questions. Otherwise, I’ll have you taken out back and shot in the head, got it?”

Milo shifted nearby, clearly excited at the thought of disposing of the intruder and at the same time likely agitated by my offer of drugs to a stranger. One he deemed guilty by association. To Milo, this entire interrogation was unnecessary. I glanced over my shoulder and shot him a glare, once more reminding the brute who was in charge, before returning my attention to the girl.

“Okay. Okay. Okay,” she mumbled over and over in a near-hypnotic state while rocking back and forth on the chair like a redheaded Raymond Babbitt.

I resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of my nose in frustration. “Who are you? How do you know Mason Smith?”

“Mason. Yeah, he’s, ummm.
Oh God
.”

The girl paused to let out a long, pitiful groan, doubling over as much as she could while tied to the chair.
Belly habit.
That meant her withdrawals were getting worse. Fuck, she better not throw up in my house.

She drew in a shaky breath and continued. “He’s my b-boyfriend, sort of but not r-really. I-I mean, I live with him, but… He didn’t come back and I need… I need.”

“Shhhhh.” Using a finger, I shocked myself by tucking an escaped lock of hair behind her ear and not immediately jumping up to wash my hands. “Good. Now, what’s your name, doll?”

The girl shook her head. “No. Not Doll. Miri. My n-name’s Miri.”

Without warning, she began to shake all over, her feeble body straining at her bindings. Miri threw her head back, and the taut tendons stuck out from her skinny neck like guitar strings.

“Oh god! Help me, please.” Those sad, desperate eyes locked on mine, a thin ring of green visible around massive pupils.

Despite Miri’s disgusting appearance, her nasty addiction to heroin, and the fact that her maybe-boyfriend had been stealing from me to feed her habit, I felt responsible for her. It was my shit she got hooked on, and she just seemed… frail and in need of someone to take care of her. It was almost as if she were sent here as penance for my past failures to take care of my mom and sister.

Besides, Miri intruded on my property. She knew where I lived. I couldn’t just toss her out. It was highly unlikely, but she could call the cops and get them down here with a warrant in the blink of an eye.

Better to get her dosed up and calmed down before trying to talk.

“Jase,” I barked.

One of my men immediately appeared at my side. “Yes, Boss.”

“Bring me the kit.”

With a sharp nod, he left the room and reappeared in less than two minutes to hand me a small zippered pouch. “Here you go, Boss.”

“All of you leave,” I ordered as I began prepping the kit. One by one, I lined the items up on the table, in the order I would need them. Everyone obeyed my command but one.

“Boss, come on…”

“Milo, don’t push me any further tonight.” I turned to give my lieutenant a dark stare that said
don’t fuck with me.
He better not press his thoughts in front of a stranger.

Milo’s lips pressed tight as he struggled to keep his mouth shut and follow my orders. Nothing new from the big, strong-willed man. He was very opinionated at times. Tense and agitated, Milo gave in and agreed. “Fine. I’m going home then, Boss.”

“See you in the morning.” I dismissed Milo and returned my attentions to the sweaty, gross, trembling girl in my kitchen.

I snapped on a pair of latex gloves, no way was I touching her filthy skin with my bare hands. Using an alcohol pad, I wiped the gloves to kill any germs. Then I picked up a tiny packet of white powder, careful not to spill any, and poured it into a spoon designed to lie on a flat surface without tilting. The rubber tourniquet was long compared to Miri’s razor-thin arm. I knotted it around the tiny limb, holding back a pained grimace at touching her, despite the gloves. When I glanced up to check on the girl, I found Miri intently watching my every movement. I blinked and tore my gaze away from those wide green eyes to search for a vein. There wasn’t a single usable one on her scar-riddled arm.