Ridge Creek (12 page)

Relief.

Fumbling my pants back up, I flush and open the door to find
Jake leaning against the wall shaking his head.  Zane is still standing behind
him with Emma flung over his shoulder.

“Clear!” I yell as I stumble forward and crash straight into
Jake’s hard chest.  Without a word he grabs me and flings me back over his
shoulder.  “Ouch!” I grumble again as we squeeze past Zane and back towards the
bedroom.  As my face swings past Emma’s hanging behind Zane’s back, I throw my
hand out in a high five.  With a slap, our palms connect before she vanishes in
the direction from which we came.

Returning my attention to Jake’s firm ass wiggling in front
of me, I receive a rude shock when I find myself upended, stood on my feet and
pushed gently backwards to sit on my bed.

Holy shit, how’d we get here so fast?

Jake’s ass
is
quite a distraction.

“We going to bed?” I look up and ask in a tone that I hope
makes it clear I’m happy for him to come to bed with me.  If he wants.  Which
going by the Mr. Protective attitude he displays around me, I’m assuming he
does?  Or have I got it all wrong?

God I hope not.
 

Right now I’m fifty shades of turned on from watching his
delicious ass bouncing in front of my nose.  I have decided that I would
love
to get me some of that. 

And I’m supposedly mostly healed…

I watch as he considers my words for a few beats.  Shaking
his head, he looks
annoyed.

“Sleep it off,” he announces in a deep no-nonsense tone
before he turns and strides back out of the room.

Well that didn’t go so well.

Is he mad because I’m drunk or is he mad because I asked for
it and he wants nothing to do with me?  Whichever it is, it’s still an
ouch.

Duly noted, I won’t be going
there
again
.

Ever.

Ladies Come First

Jake…

“They’re both out like fuckin’ lights,” Zane mutters as he
approaches the bar in the communal room.

“Good,” I mumble as I check my Glock one last time before
settling it on the bar in front of me.  Shucking my jacket off, I slide my gun
holder over my shoulders, sheathe the gun and put my jacket back on.  “You sure
you still want in brother?”   I need to be sure he’s doing this for his own
reasons.  I’ve got my own and after tonight, there will be no turning back.

“We already agreed brother.  I’m in.  The friend’s here,
she’s distracted.  Time to roll.”

“She’s not your problem brother.  It was me who brought her
here.  You don’t need this on your conscience.  I’ll go on my own.  The fewer
people involved the better.  It’ll be harder to track.  Less chance of
blowback.”

I push off from the bar and head towards the door to the
garage.  As I am about to pass Zane his hand comes out to rest on my shoulder,
bringing me to a stop.  “I told you.  I’m fuckin’ in.  I been watchin’ the way
you are with her.  I know what’s going on.  I can see you’re keeping it cool. 
Giving her time to heal.  I can also see what’s going on behind your eyes every
time you look at her brother.  There’s a fuck load more emotion there than just
lust. I feel it too brother.”

I study the ground in front of me as he continues.  “I’ve
never seen a woman take the knocks she did and manage to not only survive, but
pick her ass back up off the floor and just start again.  She’s resilient. 
She’s accepted her lot and she’s running with it.  She’s not complaining. 
She’s not hiding in her head.  She’s planning to live and if you play your
cards right, she might even move that plan to include living here.  This said -
we both know she won’t do that if she doesn’t feel safe.”

Fuck me, he’s
in.

Swinging towards my brother, I catch his eyes with mine
before saying, “Means a lot brother.”

I watch as he nods, before a grin slowly creeps to his
mouth.  “It makes my decision to help a fuck of a lot easier after meeting the
friend.”

I grin back.  “Emma’s crazy,” I tell him something he
already knows.

“Crazy hot,” he agrees as he throws an arm over my shoulder
and we move off towards the garage together.  “Hardest thing I’ve done all year
was leave her lying drunk on that bed tonight, brother.”

“I hear you,” I mutter as we hit the door.

*****

Twenty four hours later
…

“Fuck. I’m gunna go blind if this doesn’t end soon,” I
murmur to Zane as he cringes his face back at me.  We are both crouched down
low in what I now know is Arianna’s front yard in the Eastern Suburbs of
Melbourne.  We’ve been waiting for nearly two hours for Tony fucking Giotti to
finish pumping the filthy meth whore he brought home with him earlier that
night.

“How the fuck he can even got it up has me astounded. 
Moving on from Arianna to that filthy skank is fuckin’ insane.  I’m gunna be
havin’ nightmares for years from watchin’ this.  Fuck, doesn’t he even realize
the reason he has to keep spitting on his dick is she’s fakin’?  Is he
seriously that dumb?”

Zane cringes again and I watch as he raises a hand to rub
his eyes as he says, “My fuckin’ eyes
and
ears are bleeding.  Fuckin’
shoot
me
will you?”

Hearing another loud groan, I watch as a shiver of disgust
rolls over Zane.  I bob up to see Giotti has finally dumped his second load and
he’s now lying flat on his back on the living room couch while the skank starts
dressing.

“Thank fuck for that,” I mutter and Zane throws me a hopeful
look.  Holding a finger up, signaling for him to wait, I watch as the skank
shuffles around the room.  Giotti mumbles something unintelligible and then
starts snoring.

Hearing his snore, skank heads back over and stands staring
at him for a few beats.  Seemingly satisfied that he’s asleep, she smirks and
leans down to the floor.  Rifling through his clothes, she locates his wallet,
flicks it open, empties its contents into her hand and flings the empty wallet
on the floor again.  I then watch as she wanders the room, opening and closing
drawers at random.  Finally finding a small bag of meth in a coffee table
drawer, she holds it up to a light, smiles cattily and shoves it in her back
pocket.  She then picks up her bag and leaves via the front door.

I silently thank the Lord above the skank is
finally
gone
and signal to Zane that we should move.  Moving along the side of the house, we
slide up to the back door.  Using a gloved hand, I pull my lock picking kit
from my jacket pocket while Zane stays alert, scanning the yard behind us for
movement.

There is none.  It’s dead quiet.  The most noise at three in
the morning in this street had been Giotti and his skank.  As the lock clicks,
I gently push the door open and put my kit back together to shove it in my
jacket pocket again.  Reaching into another pocket I pull out my gun suppressor
with one hand while drawing my Glock with the other.  Screwing them together
quietly, I nod to Zane who settles next to the back door.  He will wait and
keep lookout.

Sliding through the door, I move quickly through the house
towards the front living room.  I can hear Giotti’s soft snores coming from the
couch as I approach.  Walking straight past him, I head to the front curtains
and quietly draw them.  Something the dumb fuck should have done himself before
he started pounding the skank.  I cringe mentally again at the thought.

Wandering around his living room, I locate his television
and surround sound system.  Grabbing the remote, I turn and walk back to stand
directly in front of Giotti.  He’s naked, sprawled on his back, his soft,
greasy dick hanging limply against one thigh. 

Fuck, I’m seriously gunna have to scratch my fuckin’
eyeballs out after tonight. 

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Lifting my gun and suppressor, I aim straight between the
dumb fucks eyes.  Holding my stance for a moment and listening to his soft
snores, memories of Arianna’s screams echo my through my head. 

He deserves this.

Lifting the other hand and pointing it towards the sound
system, I press the on button.  The sound of music instantly starts blaring out
of the speakers.  The heavy beating pulse of Hinder’s,
Ladies Come First
,starts
booms from the speakers.

Giotti startles and I smirk at the irony of the song.  As
his eyes pop open I watch as he blinks and then stares at my gun barrel pointed
straight in his face.  “Who the fuck are you?” He growls, a pissed off look on
his face.  “Who sent you?”

“Arianna,” I announce as I watch understanding dawning on
his face.

“That cunt,” he yells as he starts to sit up.  The words
have barely left his lips as I squeeze the trigger and let two rounds rip
straight through his forehead.  Twitching violently, he falls straight back
down onto the couch.

Satisfied he’s dead, I bend down to pick up the two shells. 
Rolling them slowly in my hand, I listen to the sound they make clinking
together before I slide them into my pocket.  Turning to the stereo, I point
the remote and turn the stereo down to a low background noise and then slide
the remote into my pocket as well.

Without a second look, I walk past a very dead Giotti and
through the house to the back door.  Closing it behind me, I nod to Zane and we
leave.

*****

Flicking the last of the bullets from the magazine into my
left hand, I toss them in my pocket.

With a massive welding glove on his hand, Zane reaches out
to me, palm up.

I drop the Glock, the magazine, the two casings and the
remote control into his hand.

Nodding to the beefy guy to his right, I watch as the guy
pulls some levers and the top of the furnace lifts.   Extreme heat hits us in
the face, taking our breath away.

Without hesitation, Zane tosses the contents of his hand
into the furnace and I watch as the lid closes.  “Sixteen hundred degrees is
fuckin’ hot,” he grunts as he slides the glove back off his hand and hangs it
on a hook near the furnace.  The beefy guy nods as we both give him a chin lift
and head back towards the door of the furnace room in the huge steel recycling
plant in the Western Suburbs of Melbourne. 

It's four in the morning, I haven’t slept for nearly two
days.  I’m exhausted and it's still a four-hour ride home. 

Four hours to think.  Four hours to rehearse how I’m going
to tell Arianna what I have done.

IT Specialist

Arianna…

I haul my ass off the bed with a groan.  My mouth is tacky
and dry.  My head is thick and thumping.  My stomach is contracting and the
contents are curdling.

Jesus, whose bright idea was this?

I look down at my clothes and realize I am still fully
dressed.

What the?

My bladder thuds dully in my abdomen alerting me to the
reason I woke up in the first place.

Walking down the hallway towards the toilet I pass Emma’s
room and find her door wide open.  She looks like she is in slightly better
shape than me.  This is because I can see her clothes are on the floor and
she’s at least under the covers.  Not sprawled fully clothed and drunk assed
across the bed, she looks to be sleeping peacefully.  I guess Zane is better at
putting girls to bed than Jake is.

Damn.

I cringe as I remember last night and relive the realization
that I misread the situation with Jake so badly.  How dumb am I thinking he
might possibly have an interest in me?  The broken girl he picked up off the
side of the road.  The girl who now has ugly scarring all over her back.  The
girl without a life, without a family.

It would appear he was just being protective because I was a
woman who needed some help.

I am such a dumbass.

Oh well, I’ve had worse things done to me over the past few
weeks than receiving a knockback.   Although, being my first
ever
knockback
explains why it stings the most.  I’ve never had an opportunity to be knocked
back before.  This is because I’ve been attached to Tony for as long as I can
remember.  As long as I can remember being since childhood.  This is also
because as stupid as I was, I thought I was in love with Tony.  Which also
meant I never looked at another man twice or created any opportunities for a
knockback.

More fool me.

Time to add Jake’s knockback to my new slate of experiences
and treat him with the
proper
respect he deserves as my savior and
landlord.  In other words, quit panting over him, let him get back to his life
and learn to get on with my own life.

Poor guy.  He does me a favor and then I start throwing
myself at him.

Classy.

Finishing my toilet mission I decide it’s time to get Emma
up too.  We’ve got a lot to do.  The first priority being to get me a new bank
account, a credit card, a mobile phone and maybe even a car.

Heading to the bathroom, I dig a packet of Panadol out of
the cabinet and then head to the communal room to grab two bottles of water
before heading back to Emma’s room.  She’s still sleeping soundly, her dark
hair splayed out and shining silkily on her pillow.

Damn it, wake up bitch, you caused this pain…

Sliding onto the bed next to her, I break the seal on the
first bottle of water and pop three pills from the Panadol packet.  Tossing
them back, I gulp a few mouthfuls of water.

“Yes,
please,
” Emma mumbles from beside me.

Shifting my weight so I am lying slightly on my side to face
her, I find her stormy gray eyes watching mine.  I can see the pain burning
behind them.