In Too Deep Read online

  “Mm, good morning,” she says, resting her head back down against my chest as she snuggles up closer to me.

  “Morning,” I say. I continue sliding out of bed. Starla’s fingers tighten on my chest as she lifts her head back up.

  “Hey, where’re you going?”

  “Somebody texted me,” I tell her.

  “Don’t you wanna stay in bed?” she asks, sliding her hand down to the semi-hard thing between my legs. She wraps her fingers around it and I close my eyes, sucking air in through my nose. But only for a moment.

  “You know I’d love to, babe,” I say to her. “But I got my policy.”

  Her grip loosens on my cock and I take the opportunity to leave the bed completely. I stand up and grab my phone off the bedside table as Starla sits up. The sheets slide down, revealing those perfect breasts.

  “You mean that thing you said about only doing it once?” she asks. “I thought you were joking.”

  I shake my head as I unlock my phone. “Once is enough. I’m sorry, babe. You’re a sweet gal, and an amazing lay. But I gotta look out for myself too.”

  She doesn’t say anything, and when I look over at her I see that her eyes have dropped, and her chin is starting to quiver. I feel a pang in my chest.

  “Hey, hey, Starla,” I say, putting the phone back down and sitting next to her. “Don’t be like that.”

  “I thought …” she says, her voice trembling, “when you threw Anthony out, that maybe … maybe you and me …”

  “Hey, hey,” I put a finger under her chin, lifting her eyes to mine. They’re glistening. “Listen to me. You shouldn’t be with guys like Anthony. And you shouldn’t be with guys like me, either. Okay? You deserve better than us. You’re smart, and you’re beautiful, and you need a guy who’s going to treat you right.”

  She blinks, and a tear rolls down her cheek.

  “Do you really mean that?”

  I wipe the tear away and smile at her.

  “Yeah. I do.”

  She smiles back, and I lean up to give her a kiss on the forehead. Getting up once more, I pick my cell back up and scroll to the text as Starla wipes her eyes dry. The message I got is from Maddox. I give it a quick read.

  “Who texted you?” Starla asks as I type in a reply.

  “My boss.” I send the message and put the phone down. “I’m sorry babe. I gotta run.”

  We both get dressed, Starla wearing the dress from the night before, and me in my blue jeans, red T-shirt, and Bullets jacket. When we’re both ready we head out the front door, taking the elevator down to the lobby. We walk out into the bright sunlight. It feels good to breathe fresh air.

  “You need money for a cab?” I ask her, but Starla shakes her head.

  “No, I’m okay,” she says. “Hey Flynn … thanks for talking to me. You’re right; Anthony’s a jerk. I think I’m going to stay away from him from now on.”

  I smile. “Good. You definitely deserve better.”

  She smiles back up at me, and I lean down, giving her one last, long kiss. When it finishes then it’s over, and she walks over to the street to hail a cab as I walk around to the parking lot to get my bike. I reach my motorcycle and climb on, starting the engine and kicking the thing into life. Then I rev the engine a few times before riding out of my parking space and onto the road, aiming for the warehouse.

  Christ, it’s hot out. I wonder what Maddox wants to talk about. He just said there’s a meeting. Maybe it’s going to be about how stressful things have been lately. Will Silver’s got big plans brewing, we all know it, but I’ll be damned if he lets us in on the details. Instead he just orders us around—through Maddox, of course—and we go ahead and do it, like cogs in the machine. But I guess that’s the whole point. I only wish he would tell us what we’re doing it all for.

  I speed up, leaving my neck of the woods and entering the warehouse district. Even though it’s been eight months, I keep having to remind myself not to go to the old warehouse. I’ve only been back there a couple of times since the shootout. It’s still up, for God knows what reason; they should have just torn it down. But this new place is farther south, which means it’s closer to me. So it’s no surprise when I see it to find that I’m the first one to arrive.

  I ride up to the building and park my bike beside it, then head in. As I push open the front door, I feel the cooler air wash over me like a river. My boots echo loudly in the yawning silence of the space. I make my way through and head for the fridge at the back, taking out a cold beer and cracking it open. Taking a swig, I walk back to the meeting table, but then my eyes settle on the stack of pallets near the office windows. I aim for that instead, and putting my beer down on the top one, hoist myself up and spin around so that I’m sitting with my legs dangling over, waiting for the others to arrive.

  Only a few minutes pass before some of the others start showing up. Matthias comes in first, and then Chloe, followed by Chris. When Jackie arrives she gives me a sly look, and I try to ignore it as everybody else filters in. They all grab beers, gathering around the pallets, and soon we’re all talking and laughing, waiting for Maddox to show up.

  Tyrone grabs the soccer ball and starts kicking it around. I call to him to start setting things up and knocking them down. Ten minutes later people are laughing as I balance a wastebasket on my head, the others taking turns trying to knock it off with the ball. So far nobody’s hit it, but Jackie steps up and positions herself at the far wall, her eyes glowing with determination.

  “You can do it, Jackie!” Alyssa yells.

  “Hit him in the face! It’ll improve it!” Kendal shouts, taking a sip of her beer.

  “Hey!” I yell with a smile as I finish off my own. I put the bottle down beside me and bring my hand back up to join the other, hovering just beside the wastebasket. “Okay Jackie, take your shot!”

  My eyes are up, focusing on the basket, but everybody falls into a hush as I see Jackie’s form rush toward the ball. I hear a punt and a blurry soccer ball flies right at my face, growing at an alarming rate.

  Just as it’s about to hit I close my eyes and then—KSHH!—the wastebasket flies backward off my head, smashing into the wall just beside the office window. Everybody cheers and I open my eyes as my heart pounds in my chest. I see Jackie strut her way toward me, giving me that saucy smile of hers.

  “That was awesome, Jackie!” Chris yells. I pick up my empty bottle and slide down off the pallets, landing on the smooth concrete floor.

  “Way to go,” I say when she approaches me.

  “I was aiming for your face,” she says with a shrug, and a few people laugh. I laugh too and go to take another sip of my beer, only to find it empty.

  “Okay Jackie, your turn,” Tyrone says as he picks up the ball and dented wastebasket. “Matthias, you want first kick?”

  But before Jackie can lift herself up the front door of the warehouse opens and we all stop what we’re doing, looking over to see Maddox walk in.

  “Damn,” I say in a half-whisper. “I was looking forward to seeing Matthias hit Jackie with the ball.”

  She gives me a playful punch on the arm, but everybody grabs their beers and heads to the meeting table without saying anything. Tyrone puts the soccer ball and wastebasket on the top pallet and I go to grab another beer before joining everybody.

  When I get to the table I pull back my office chair, the caster wheels scraping against the concrete floor. Maddox sits down at the head of the table, his weathered face unsmiling behind his long salt-and-pepper hair.

  “I had a meeting with Will this morning,” Maddox says to our silent gang. “He filled me in on some of what’s happening upstairs. The last couple of weeks have been busy for everybody. I know that, he knows that. But basically it all boils down to two things: one good, one bad.

  “First, the bad. We got the body count back from Mario’s. Turns out not everybody was accounted for. Two people were missing, and even in all the little hiding places Gil had they didn’t find �
�em.”

  “Who was missing?” Alyssa asks, and Maddox looks at her.

  “We don’t know,” he says. “They’re checking dental records, but it’s not high priority right now. Will sent out that it was just some workers, so that’s our story. He’s also trying to figure out the insurance, not to mention who burned the fucking place down. We had our suspicions before, but now we know for sure it wasn’t an accident.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Chris says.

  “You think it was an inside job?” I ask. “You think maybe that Gil guy did it?”

  I’d never been to Mario’s Pasta and Pizza, but from the sounds of it Gil wasn’t exactly a saint. Of course, it’s not entirely his fault. I heard he was a pretty good boss until he started in on that coke. Turns out that was a mistake.

  “Pretty sure Gil was one of the guys burned, so it probably wasn’t him,” Tyrone points out.

  “Are we on the lookout for anybody?” Kendal asks.

  “Will says not to worry about it for now,” Maddox tells her. “We’ll wait till we get the dental records, then we’ll figure out what to do.”

  “It was probably that asshole Jackson,” Alyssa says. “Or that hitman they hired. Chance.”

  “Lance,” Matthias corrects her.

  “Yeah. One of those two, maybe both.”

  “Maybe,” Maddox agrees. “But again, we’re not sure. Will said it may have been revenge. This last guy he had hit. Might’ve been one of his friends who did it.”

  “Who was the guy?” I ask.

  “Part-timer, did some work for Gil. Allan Willow. He only did small jobs, nothing crazy. Then he stole some money, so Will put a hit out and Gil got that guy Lance to kill him. Then a week later, Will puts out another hit, this time on the guy’s kid.”

  “What did the kid do?” Chloe asks.

  “Nothing,” Maddox tells us. “He’s only a year old.”

  I feel my jaw drop.

  “What the fuck?” Tyrone says.

  “Jesus,” says Jackie.

  “Will wanted to kill a baby?” I ask, incredulous. I’ve only met Will Silver a couple of times, but I never would have pegged him to do something like that.

  “It sounds like it. Gil never got back to him before the restaurant burned down, so—”

  “Whoa whoa, wait a minute,” I say, interrupting Maddox. “Did Will say why he wanted a fucking one-year-old killed?”

  Maddox gives me a look as everyone else goes quiet.

  “It’s not in my place to question what Will wants done,” he says.

  “Well maybe it should be your fucking place to question it.”

  “Flynn, it’s okay,” Alyssa puts a hand on my arm, but I pull it away.

  “No, it’s not okay!” I shout. I pound a fist on the table and the beer bottles all jump. “We can’t just sit here and let this fucker—”

  “WHAT?” Maddox yells, interrupting me. He stands up, planting his hands on the table and staring into my eyes. “We can’t just sit here and what, Flynn? Tell me now and choose your words very fucking carefully. What can’t we sit here and do?”

  Blood beats hard in my ears. Part of me wants to flip this table over—none of them have been through what I’ve been through. But Maddox is staring me down and I give myself a moment to think, to cool off. Finally I drop my eyes and let out a deep breath. I hear Maddox sit back down in his chair.

  “Nobody here thinks that what Will did was right, Flynn,” I hear Maddox say as I stare at the table. “But it’s not our place to question it. Is that understood?”

  I clench my jaw and nod. Alyssa’s hand finds my arm again and she gives it a squeeze. I don’t pull away from her this time.

  “Anyway,” Maddox goes on, “Gil died before Will could find out if the hit went through, but Gil’s guys always got the job done quickly, so who knows? Maybe it was finished after all.”

  There’s a quiet around the table as I keep looking down. I pick up my beer and take a sip.

  “That’s it for the bad news,” Maddox finally says. “Now for the good news: the cops have been very busy taking out our competition. You may have seen some of it on the news, but there have been raids left, right, and center. Will told me to put some extra cash aside to pay them all off, but it means we’ll have clear sailing ahead of us.”

  Murmurs of approval, and this news does make me feel better. I’m glad the cops are finally getting their asses in gear on this. There’s nothing worse than having to rough up some teen who’s just trying to make a few bucks.

  “Will said they’re starting on the suburbs, and they’re making a big public thing of it, letting everybody know the streets are going to be safer or whatever. It’s going to take a lot of the heat away from us.”

  “That’s good,” Kendal says. “Did Will say what our next task is?”

  “He’s got some new buildings to gut, so once the paperwork goes through we’ll have to do those. Other than that, no. He’s keeping a pretty tight lid on everything.”

  “What about the Chains?” Jackie asks. I look up and see that her eyes are gleaming. “Did he say we can do anything about them?”

  “Nothing,” Maddox says. “So that means we leave them alone for now.”

  “I can’t wait till this fucking truce is over,” she says. “Those cocky fucks won’t know what hit ‘em.”

  Everybody agrees. Jackie looks over at me, that fire still in her eyes. I nod to her before taking another sip of my beer.

  Nobody can wait to end this truce with the Chains, but personally I think things have been better since it happened. We’ve had fewer petty fights, for one thing. You feel safer going out and getting drunk, knowing the night’s not going to end with someone getting beaten up. And it’s not like they ever tried to pick a fight with us; it’s always been us who attack them. Of course, everybody remembers things differently.

  “Okay, that’s everything,” Maddox says, and we all push our chairs back to get up. I down the rest of my beer, and when Matthias calls for us to head to Point Blank I think that sounds like a great idea. Taking my empty bottle with me, I walk over to the beer fridge, tucked in beside the office. There’s a box of empties on the ground and I slide the bottle in. When I turn around, though, I almost shout in surprise at the sight of Jackie standing right in front of me. She smiles that smile of hers.

  “I snuck up on you,” she says in a low voice. Her eyes are gleaming, not full of fire now but playfulness and delight.

  Behind her I see everybody heading to the front of the warehouse, ready to go out. Jackie shortens the distance between us, putting her hands on my chest. I stand my ground as she reaches up on her tiptoes, leaning her weight into me, planting her lips onto mine.

  My cock is already stirring in my pants, and I can’t help but put my arms around her, feeling her strong frame, her supple body, and firm, round ass. She moves into me and her lips leave mine, sliding up next to my ear.

  “I can’t stop thinking about you,” she whispers. “Your hot body … and your enormous cock.”

  A hand moves down my chest to the front of my pants and I groan in bittersweet agony. But I take my hands off of her and slide them up to her shoulders, where I push her off of me. She takes a step back, and so do I.

  “Fuck,” I say. I feel out of breath, and my cock is throbbing in my pants.

  Jackie’s looking at me. That smile is still on her lips, but there’s something behind her eyes: hurt.

  “Come on, Flynn. What do you say?” she asks. “Everybody’s gone. No one would have to know.”

  Indeed, the warehouse is empty and silent now. We have the whole place to ourselves, and I know that sex with Jackie would be absolutely incredible, just like it was the first time.

  But I have to pull myself away. I shake my head, as much as it pains me to do it.

  “No,” I say to her. “I can’t.”

  Her smile begins to slip.

  “Because of Elizabeth?” she asks.

  I nod. “Because of
Elizabeth.”

  Jackie’s smile is entirely gone now, but she nods even as she blinks and her eyes shimmer.

  “I think that’s really noble, what you’re doing,” she says. “I should do the same. For George.”

  I look at her. I remember hearing reports the next day about the shootout at the old warehouse. A lot of us died, including Jackie’s fiancé, George. She broke down when Maddox told her. I remember watching Alyssa hold her as Jackie cried and cried and cried. She was a wreck for almost half a year. And then one night she and I were up late drinking, and Jackie told me how much she missed him. I told her how much I missed Elizabeth. And before I knew what was happening we were having sex.

  It was like seeing Jackie in a whole other light. We knew what the other was going through. She needed to feel something—anything—just to remind herself that she’s still real, even if George isn’t. We talked afterward, and she cried. That was just over a month ago.

  “I’m not doing this for Elizabeth,” I say to Jackie. “I’m doing it for myself.”

  She furrows her brow, taking a wet sniff.

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s to stop myself from getting hurt again,” I say. My cock is finally starting to go down, though my balls are throbbing. “If I don’t get attached, then I won’t feel that pain again.”

  Jackie nods. “I get it,” she says. Trying out a smile, “Is it weird to say that I’m happy I got to have you?”

  I give her a smile in return. “No. It’s not weird at all.”

  I step forward and pull her into a hug. We hold each other for a while. I can feel the warm wetness of her tears on my chest. Then we let go.

  “Come on,” she says, giving a short laugh as she wipes at her eyes. “Let’s go to the bar.”

  The two of us leave the small space together, walking out into the large and empty one. We get to the front door and step into the sunlight, almost blinding after being inside. It feels like it’s gone up twenty degrees since I got here. Once I blink enough to clear my vision I see that Jackie’s already mounted her bike. She kicks it into life.