Snare: Road Kill MC (A Novel) (5 page)

Viper nods, serious as a heart attack.

“Thinking his girl might actually be in a spot of trouble after all.” Noose pauses, letting his words sink in. “Riker, Snare's old man, has been sniffing around Sara.”

My fingertips tingle. “You said that, but I didn't get an explanation.”

He turns in my direction. Shrugs. “No time. Church first.”

“Go on.”

“Intel's churning that your younger brother and sister are testifying against Riker.”

My mouth drops open. I'm catching flies with the thing. I snap it shut. Denny and Micah would be... I'm twenty-six; they're eighteen. I don't ask what they're saying. Should have kept up on where they were, what happened to them. But once kids get in the system, there's nothing anyone can do. Especially not an early-twenties college student.

“Apparently, Riker's under the fucked-up idea that Sara can testify in his favor.”

“What the fuck?” I yell. “That fucker is not going to get within ten miles of Sara.”

Noose looks away, and my stomach drops with the gesture.

“Talk to me, Noose.”

“Fuck,” he mutters.

The brothers crowd around, and the smell of danger is in the air. Aside from women, nothing on this earth is more attractive to a man.

“He's seen her strip. Hell, he's a regular.”

“Mother. Fucker.” I think I'll spontaneously combust or something.

“Free country, man. Can't stop your perv dad from checking out sister's goods.” Storm must have a death wish.

It takes three other brothers to pull me off him.

I'm not really pissed at Storm, he's just an easy pathway for my anger. I'm pissed at myself.

Should have moved heaven and earth to claim Sara. She was my property when I tore her innocence away in that dark closet five years ago.

Sara's my property now.

Sara

Jaylin drags a stool from the closet inside Lola's tiny studio apartment and moves it in front of a large fish tank with holes pierced through the top third.

There's no fish inside. Just Rex. He spins on his wheel. Doing
him.
Hamster stuff.

Jaylin has a handful of chopped carrots.

“Don't give him too much, baby girl.”

Jaylin giggles, covering her mouth with a hand. “He's so cute!” she squeals.

Rex looks like a chubby champagne-colored rat.

We have to wait until nighttime to feed Rex. He hides in his little hamster hut until late. Jaylin is used to coaxing him with delicious carrots. He'll get all poopy if she gives him too much.

Jaylin stuffs small diced carrots through a hole.

Rex squiggles over and, sniffing the carrot piece, seems to inhale it. His cute hamster nose twitches. After he eats about four more pieces, I tell Jaylin that's enough.

“Ah!” she gripes.

“Time for bed, monkey.”

She hops off the stool, drags it back into the closet, and comes to my side. Her wide blue eyes look up into mine. “Mommy still sad?”

I shake my head. Grief-stricken, actually. But I have more than just me to consider. My inhale is sharp, my voice, dull. “Nope. The school gave me a little time to find another school for my monkey.”

She makes a disdainful face. “Monkeys throw their poop.”

I laugh, taking her hand and leading her toward the door. “Oh really? Who told you that?”

“Collin from school.”

A four-year-old expert on shit throwing. Fantastic. I wonder how Ms. Cronin would feel about those special details being discussed between nursery rhymes. Yeah.

I exhale softly. “Okay, but you don't throw your poop?” I smile, quirking my eyebrow.

Jaylin giggles. “No, gross.” Her nose scrunches. “I go somewhere else now?” Jaylin rapidly switches the subject.

I nod. I don't know where yet. I'm trying to avoid a day care setting. But I can't do much about that. As it is, I have to have an older woman come in and sit on the couch until two in the morning when my shift ends.

“Don't worry, Jaylin. Mommy will find another good school.”

“Okay.” Her voice is unsure.

I feel like shit.

We walk out of Lola's apartment and move to the elevator. The apartment building is old, defunct. But I love it. Lola loves it because it was built in the late 1930s and has that vintage flavor. The building is pretty tired around the edges, but the spaces are bigger than the newer buildings and the view is nice. Lots of the old apartments have been made into condos, and they were built closer to the water back in the day. I can lift my kitchen window and sometimes smell the Sound. If there's no cloud cover, I can see the edge of the pier.

I'm on a lease with an option to own. I got in right before they spent thirty grand on an elevator. If I'd tried to get a lease after that, my rent would be two thousand a month instead of fifteen hundred. For a seven- hundred-square-foot apartment. This is the first time we've had a home for more than six months.

I hide who we are, pay cash for our living expenses with my tips, and gave Jaylin a different last name than mine. Jaylin Isabelle. Always knew my middle name was good for something besides being yelled at.

I smile, letting Jaylin hit the familiar number ten button, softly lit within the new elevator panel.

The original staircase opens to each level where there’s access to the elevator. Ornate wrought-iron rails run together like fancy black bones of metal.

I hear footsteps and turn automatically. The elevator chime dings, signaling the door opening.

But two bloodshot eyes hold me captive. I don't think. I react.

The bandage of my self-control rips off. I go so fast into survival mode it's like I never left it.

Snare's father moves from the top of the wrought-iron railing without a sound.

I spin into the elevator with Jaylin smashed against my front and smack the flat of my palm on the red button that says “close door.”

Riker moves to the gap, his fingers sinking into the space.

I swing my purse up into his hand as the elevator doors shut with a hissing whisper.

We begin ascending with a lurch.

I dial 9-1-1.

“Mommy, who was that man?” Jaylin asks, her eyes wide, her heartbeat slamming against my forearm. I tighten my hold around her front as a woman's voice fills my cell. “Nine-One-One, what is your emergency?”

Shit.

What
is
my emergency? I can't very well say,
Oh, my stepfather's found me and wants to do... what, exactly?
I can't say
anything
. Snare might get dragged into everything.

Riker Locklear is dangerous.

“Ah—no emergency.” I thumb swipe
End
, and my phone immediately  rings back seconds later. I shut it off.

“Mommy, who's calling?”

“I don't know.”

“Where's that man?”

My hand hurts from gripping the cell as I cover my heart. The beats of my fear thud against my fingers.

“I don't know.”

“Mommy, I'm scared.”

I hug her more tightly against my side.

Me too.

* 

I peek outside the elevator door.

Tightening my hold on Jaylin, I make a run for my apartment door. Riker stands in front of it.

I halt. A sound of unadulterated fear slips from my mouth.

He holds up a hand. The ghost of Snare seems to echo its way across his features. Where Snare's face is all angles and planes of rugged handsomeness, Riker's features are brutal, sharp. Like knives of flesh.

Meant to hurt.

I flinch, and Jaylin begins to cry. “It's okay, baby,” I lie.

I look into the mud brown of Riker's eyes, his hair swept back in a tight black braid, graying at the temples. “Get away from us.”

“Sara. I'm not gonna hurt you.”

Right.
If I had a dollar for every time he said that before his fist found my face, I'd be rich.

“Right,” I say in a breathy voice, hating the fear that threads through my answer. I don't ask about my mom. I don't care. She
chose
Riker. She chose this abusive fucker over my welfare.

He takes a step forward, and I hitch Jaylin higher on my hip, retreating a step.

“Stay back.”

“Fine.” His hand falls to his side. “I need a favor.”

A sharp bark of laughter shoots out of me. “Are you kidding? Just—go. I'm a grown woman, I have a child, just leave me alone.”

“I know you're a grown woman, Sara.” His voice is like sexual vapor caught in the air between us.

I suck in a painful breath.
Oh God, oh God, oh God
.

His eyes pin me from ten feet away.
I'd know the look anywhere. I've seen it a thousand times.

He knows I'm an exotic dancer.

On the heels of that revelation, it occurs to me that he might be one of the Dicks. If not the biggest Dick.

Fear weakens my knees. Love for Jaylin straightens my spine. “Get out of here, Riker. I don't have to give you anything.”

“How's Snare?”

His question takes me by surprise. I switch Jaylin to my other arm. She's so heavy. Her tears have dried to salty tracks on her cheeks.

Riker's eyes move over Jaylin.

Don't you look at my child.

A heartbeat of silence drives between us, and a sick grin spreads across his face. “Does he know?”

Oh my God.
Play dumb, Sara.
Play it like you mean it. “I don't know where Snare is. Why would I care?” I care so much I can hardly breathe through the days without him.

Riker's smile widens. “Because that's his kid. She's a Locklear if I ever saw one.”

He cocks his head to the side. “You spread your legs for him, but not me, you little whore.”

I cover Jaylin's ear that's not pressed against my chest. I hear a sound and realize it comes from me. A whimper.

My body remembers Riker. My armpits, crotch, and hands begin to moisten. Not from excitement, from terror.

Snare's not here to help me.
I’m swamped by shame and the desire for Snare's protection. “Are you going to rape me in the middle of the hall in front of my daughter?”

Riker smiles. “I don't need that as much as I need your cooperation.”

“Then go away. Just leave me alone. I've done nothing to you. I left.”

Riker's fists clench, and my stomach tightens at the movement—remembering. “Your mom left too.”
His smile leaks satisfaction.

Thank God.
At least she got smart.

“By ambulance.”

Oh no.
That ball of anxiety in my stomach hardens. “Is she okay?” I hear myself ask.

“I don't know. She's not awake enough to answer questions. What with that nasty tumble she took down the stairs.”

I close my eyes, sick. When I open them, he's in front of me.

I yip, jerking backward. But the load of Jaylin has me unbalanced, and Riker's strong hands grab my shoulders. “Careful, little Sara.”

I mewl, and Jaylin begins to cry again.

“You're gonna come to the courthouse and testify.”

I blink up at him, momentarily surprised out of my terror. “What?”

He nods. “Fucking Micah and Denny are testifying—lying about how things were.”

The two faces of the twins float into my mind's eye.

“Goddamned brats lied their faces off to the foster parents and got all the bleeding hearts all riled up. They're looking to press charges.”

I gulp back my fear. For Jaylin. “What—” I clear my throat, the heat of his flesh bleeding through my shirt. I've never wanted to be somewhere else worse than I do at that moment. “What do I have to do with Micah and Denny?” They're the much younger half siblings of Snare. He took plenty of beatings for them too.

He gives me an abrupt shake, and Jaylin's head lifts from my shoulder, bouncing back down on my collarbone.

She cries out at the impact, and Riker takes a hand off me to touch her.

I yank back. “Don't touch her.”

Riker stares, seeming to consider. “She's mine like you're mine, Sara.” His lips twist. “Or is it Kitty?”

I feel all the breath leak out of my body. I flatten my palm against Jaylin's head and back away.

“If you testify that Micah and Denny are lying, then I won't tell Snare about your kid.”

“Snare knows,” I bluff, lifting my chin.

He laughs.

I shudder, remembering him coming through the house, searching for me. The scent of alcohol preceded him like a foul perfume. He's stone sober now. Meaner than ever.

“If that fuck of a son knew where you were, he'd be here playing white knight. We're cut from the same cloth, Snare and I. We don't give up shit we own. Especially pussy.”

I gasp, pressing my daughter's head against my chest. Willing her not to hear and understand this nightmare of a man.

“But he's not here, is he, Sara?” His voice is soft. “You weren't happy with his dick, no-oh. You had to have a whole shit ton of dicks. Right...
slut
?” 

I'm dizzy from his names, his assumptions. Riker's presence.

“Lots of strippers use drugs. Heroin, coke—meth.” His change of subject is abrupt, and my body goes still. “Hell, your mom was using heroin. That's how she took the swan dive down those pesky stairs.” His grin widens. Tobacco stains his teeth. But a raw intelligence burns in the gaze he directs at me.

The kind of intelligence that someone from the street might have.

I was too scared of him when I was younger to ever notice if he was smart. He was my drunken abuser, and I needed to survive. It's funny how the finer things are lost when one is fighting to stay alive.

“Nobody will think twice about another stripper biting the dust because she had to end it all.”

I suck in a starved breath, not even realizing I'd been holding it. “What do you want?”

“Mommy,” Jaylin says in a pitiful voice, “I wanna go nigh-night.” Her tiny hand fists my T-shirt. Her bright blue eyes flick at Riker then back to my face.

“Yes, baby,” I whisper.

“Sissy kid you got there,” Riker comments, swinging his gaze toward Jaylin.

I hug her tighter. “What do you want?” I ask again in a quiet voice.

“I want you to go to the courthouse and say what a sweet home life you had.”

I have an idea. “You said nobody would take the word of a stripper.”

We look at each other for a space of seconds, like opponents on a chessboard.