Slick (The Mad World Series Book 1) Page 2

  “Guys, guys come on no fighting, not today,” I said, hoping to change the mood at the table. Reed eventually released his hands, and Praxton mumbled an apology to me as we continued to drink in silence.

  A few people who knew mom died came over and offered their condolences, with drunken smiles and offering to buy us a few rounds. They were bastards in my book, acting like they cared when everyone knew they didn't. The empty church was proof of that. We accepted their sympathies and offerings until eventually our little table was covered in bottles, and we were stumbling on our asses. I was laughing so hard I kept hitting the table with my palm causing the bottles to rattle, some even fell off.

  "You're a shit drunk, Izzy," Reed reminded me while looking like he hadn't been drinking at all.

  "I told her," said Prax laughing and slurring as I pressed to his side trying to stay awake.

  “Am not, I could-I could drink you under this table if I wanted to.”

  "Alright." Reed hopped off his stool and strolled over to the bar. The place was more crowded than before as people were spilling out into the street. When did Charlie's get so popular? I thought, before spotting Reed swerving through the crowd with a no label bottle of clear liquid in his hand.

  "Alright, Sis, let's see if your theory is right." He filled a shot glass and it sloshed spilling over as he slid it in front of me. "Drink up," he smirked.

  I was already pretty smashed, but I couldn't let him know that. Reed was a gloater, and this I would hear about for the next six months at least. I grabbed the glass and poured it down my throat in one gulp, keeping my eyes on Reed and a nonchalant look on my face. Shit, it was Charlie's moonshine. That thing could knock out a horse with half a bottle. It may have burned up my insides, but he didn't need to know that. I slid the glass back to him already feeling the effects in my veins. "Your turn, Bro," I smirked tipping slightly to one side.

  He filled it up and threw it back slamming the glass down, with not even a flinch. Fuck.

  "Prax, you in?" I nudged him with my elbow, but he didn't look so good, hell he was practically asleep with his head down on the table.

  "Fuck no," he mumbled not lifting his head and allowing his hand to do the talking. "If you two think I'm burning up my inside with that shit, you have another thing coming. I'm going home."

  He lifted off the stool on wobbly legs grabbing everything in front of him for support.

  "Want me to come with you?" Please say yes I pleaded, my tongue getting heavier with each passing second.

  "You are not getting out of this," Reed warned pouring me another glass. I groaned watching Prax stumble farther away from the table.

  "I'll catch you guys later. Not tomorrow though, I may be a little out of it," he shouted disappearing through the people.

  “Drink up.”

  "Fine." I grabbed the glass and didn't think just drank, and hell it was worse than the first time. I started feeling my inside shutting down. "Damn it, Reed I give up." I slurred stumbling off the stool and somehow moving backward past a few people until my body came to an abrupt halt by someone holding me still from behind. I whipped my head around so fast the room spun, but my sight came into focus when I saw Christopher holding onto me. That sobered me up fast.

  "What are you doing here? I thought you moved to Vegas?" I asked shocked and pulling away at the same time.

  He smiled down at me before those dark eyes turned into a scowl. “I’m here visiting my mother and I heard about your mom. Are you drunk?”

  Anger made my nose flare as my former good mood faded. "That stopped being your business a long time ago, Christopher." I stepped back and moved past him, but before I could get too far he grabbed my arm.

  "Can we talk, please?" he whispered desperately near my ear, but I couldn't stand to look at him let alone be in the same room as him for too long without wanting to punch him. Sure, at some point I may have loved him, but that was at some point. At this point, I hated him and would be glad if I never saw him again. I snatched my arm away from his and continued stumbling without looking back.

  Chapter 2

  Now

  STRAIGHTENING MY BACK, I pushed through the kitchen doorway. This house was extravagant, decorated in rich thick furnishings and crystal glass chandeliers. Fancy stone sculptures lined the walls and the windows were draped in smooth thick curtains. The man was worth billions, so it was only fair his home reflected the money he stole. A vast array of dark arts covered the walls showing his twisted soul in every canvas. Reds and blacks mixed together creating these disturbing images that I couldn't look away from. I spent a lot of time when I was alone staring at the one over the fireplace in the living room. It was an abstract piece, where it seemed like one thing, but as time passed, became something completely different. Anyone with a normal brain would see only blobs of red and streaks of black. I always saw myself twisted and bound at my hands on my knees, bleeding from the hands of Hector.

  I took the short hall toward their voices and felt all eyes on me as I entered the room with my head bowed. Words died as their hungry eyes followed my steps toward the table. Eyes glued to my breast when it moved with every breath, as I tried to steady the heavy beat of my heart. I wasn't afraid, not anymore anyway, he had beaten it out of me. Tearing my skin and shedding my blood all over himself like a prize earned for my disobedience. I remember the pain as the cat o' nine tails ripped through every layer of defiance and anger I had. The excitement in his eyes was like nothing I had ever seen. It was terrifying, not because he did it with ease, but I feared he wouldn't stop. Eventually, he did, but I was too weak to know what came next. When I opened my eyes again two days later he was gone.

  My heels clicked across the black marble floor as I kept my face nonchalant, looking down at the tray of glasses I held. I learned from the best.

  "Keep your emotions hidden because there was no place for them here," he'd said when I first arrived. He had torn all emotion, stripped me bare and shamed me in ways no one should ever be shamed. I was a pet for his pleasure.

  I placed an ice-filled glass in front of each man before proceeding to fill them with bourbon, making sure I served Hector last. When I leaned forward to fill his glass he grabbed my ass, kneading it roughly before addressing the table in his thick broken English.

  "She beautiful, no?" Hector's voice was strong, thick and filled with arrogance. Showing off was his duty. It was why he always invited people over.

  I kept my eyes on the glass, but I could hear a selective amount of ‘hums' and ‘yeses' from around the table. Completing my job, I stood up straight at his side, head still bowed, awaiting his next command.

  "I get her at at auction one year ago. Nothing like pure American cono, I always say. And this one, so defiant I had to beat her many times but look at her now. Perfection. Wouldn't you say, gentlemen?"

  They all agreed with collective yeses. I huffed on the inside, holding in a smile. If he only knew what I would do to him if I had the chance. The man was a spoiled pig, hiding behind his wealth. Without money, he would be nobody but a simple-minded speck of dust under a larger man's shoe. And he knew that, which was why he hungered for so much money to hide behind.

  "What is her name?" one asked.

  His accent was compelling, but I couldn't trace it back to any known country. It was a mixture of Russian and maybe Polish, yet I knew it wasn't either. He sat at the far end of the table, but I knew who the voice belonged to without looking. Handsome, young with a thick head of dark hair that fell into his hard-green eyes when he moved. He was as alluring as his name.

  Nathaniel Versalase.

  He was the only one in the group I knew by name, as he made quite a few appearances to the house prior to this one. It was the only thing I knew about him, besides his handwriting skills. He never seemed quite interested in the trafficking business because whenever he came by he would storm in, never noticing the other half-naked girls in front of him and storm right back out. Without looking at him, I knew he
was looking at me. His gaze was pure heat on my face, the only place the other men weren't looking. But I dared not indulge in him now, with fear of punishment later. I kept my head down trying to moderate my breaths even as the conversation went on.

  "Izabella," said Hector. The others mumbled responses, but Nathaniel remained silent even though he was the one who asked for my name. Never muttering a single word again. I missed his voice once it was gone. Although he only uttered four simple words, it was all I needed to feel anything other than the hate I've felt for the past year.

  “Can we indulge?” asked another man.

  "Si, of course, you are my guests, and it is New Year's Eve. I do know how to share. Take your pick of any of the others I have prepared and when the other guests arrive, we shall play."

  "What about her? She seems quite fitting for what I would like to do," chimed another. This one was Spanish like Hector, but his voice was deeper and gruff like he was a big man.

  "No. This one is not to be touched."

  That was a first. I blinked a few times, shocked at this new development. Hector was very sharing with his toys, including me. On his birthday three weeks before he had a gathering of men so crass and vulgar, I hated my own skin after that night. I had been touched by every man, twenty in all, each placing their fingers in my most private places. When they were done touching, it was time for viewing he said. I was told to lie down on the glass dining table and spread my legs wide, so they could see what true beauty was in a woman. He said it was his way of stripping me of my dignity for I had too much pride. I needed to understand that I was his to do what he wanted when he wanted and with whomever he wanted me to do it with.

  "Are we a bit possessive of this one, Morales." He chuckled. "She looks like a good fuck if you ask me. I could wrap that pretty hair in my hands and give her a good tug while she swallowed my cum." That came from the one sitting closest to Hector. His voice dripped with a venom that crept under my skin like a veil of terror.

  "You're fucking lucky you are even here, Carter. Touch the girl and lose a hand. Any of you, she's off fucking limits tonight," he warned. "Izabella, down."

  At his command, I moved. I wasn't always this obedient. There were nights I couldn't lie down because my back had been torn to shreds. Days I couldn't speak because my voice had vanished after screaming bloody murder the night before. No amount of preparation could have prepared me for his cruelty. And it took me a while to learn my place.

  Chapter 3

  Then

  "YOU LOST THE JOB? IT's only been a month, a new record on your part, but a month, Reed. What are we supposed to do now?" I cried placing my head in my hands as I sat on the edge of the bed. My hair curtained my face, so he couldn't see my anger or the angry tears seeping from my eyes. I thought we were finally seeing the light at the end of this miserable tunnel, but it turned out to be only a flicker.

  Reed only got the job at the warehouse because of his friend Adam, who vouched for him. Everything was going fine until he had an altercation with his manager, where he punched the guy almost breaking his jaw. He was lucky the guy didn’t press charges or else he wouldn’t be here right now.

  “It wasn’t my fault, Izz. The guy was a creep, sexually harassing all the girls in there. He had it coming.”

  I hopped to my feet and got in his face pointing my finger at him. “What are you HR? That’s not your job. You were supposed to report it, not go punching people out.”

  "I don't operate like that. I see some fucking sleaze ball making women uncomfortable, I do something about it. What if it was you?"

  "Aww that's so nice, you being all chivalrous and shit," I said sarcastically tapping his cheek before walking past him. "But guess what. I don't need you to protect me and neither did those girls. Don't you think if they wanted something done about it they would've reported it a long time ago?"

  “What do you want me to say, I’m sorry.”

  "Always sorry, Reed. Always fucking sorry. Sorry is not going to fix this. Don't you see, we are on the verge of being homeless."

  The bank called two weeks before and said the mortgage on the house hadn't been paid in six months, so we had to vacate the premises. I had no idea how she kept the house for so long without a job, but I figured it had something to do with a disability document I found in her belongings when I was packing up. She wasn't even disabled, just a low life junky scamming the government. How she got away with it, I’ll never know.

  We lived in that house for years and now we had nothing, because of her.

  "We won't be homeless. I won't let it come to that," he said as if he had a secret money tree growing on the porch.

  "How...howww are you going to fix this? And if you say dealing, I'm going to kick you where it hurts."

  He told me a few weeks before about Jake the drug runner who approached him with the idea to make quick cash by running a couple kilos of coke from point A to point B. I hated the drug world, and it didn't matter if he was doing it or selling it, once he was in it, the only way out was by death.

  He sighed shoving his hands into his pockets. His head hung forward, but his eyes stayed on me.

  “I’ll figure something out. I always do. Don’t you have faith in me?”

  Shocked, as if he had slapped me in the face I turned gaping at him. "All I do is have faith that one day, you'll wake up, pick your brain off the floor and shove it in your head. You can't keep doing this. I can't keep living like this."

  He followed me into the kitchen of our new apartment. It was a small, one room with barely any space for decent size furniture, but it was all we could afford at six hundred a month.

  Apparently, the drug goon Marcus wasn't the only one mom owed money to. Unpaid bill after bill showed up, and we were quickly drowning in debt. I could no longer have any of the small luxuries I once had because every penny was quickly taken away by someone or something mom owed.

  "What are we going to do? How are we going to afford rent this month, if all my money is tied up and you don't have a job, again?"

  Shoving my hands into my jacket, I grabbed my keys and pulled open the door, glaring back at him. He looked defeated and angry, not at me but at himself. He never wanted to be a failure. He tried so hard to make something of himself, I know that and that's why I push, and I take his crap because I know he's trying. But he lets his anger get the better of him, and that's his downfall. After this, I couldn't defend him anymore. I had to make my own way in this world and if it had to be alone, so be it.

  When I walked into work, Praxton was on me immediately. He knew my moods and somehow already heard that Reed lost his job; hence his hand was outstretched with my favorite chai tea.

  "Thanks. You know my soul so well," I said with a sigh taking my first sip. The Grind was the best coffee in town, and we got free coffees since Praxton's mom owned it.

  "And that's why you love me. So, what was his excuse, although I can pretty much guess? Your brother’s got a temper. A seriously hot temper," he said. Although they argue every time they were together, Praxton's always had a little crush on Reed. Ever since he saw him in a towel after his shower one afternoon, I think that's the only image in his mind whenever Reed opened his mouth.

  "Stop fantasizing about my brother in a towel," I said flipping the closed sign on the door to open. Prax and I were the only employees at Elegant Garments. Our manager Nikki only stopped in once a week since she had better things to do, like screw the owner all day every day besides Thursdays at three. We had a fair amount of customers, mostly out-of-towners who had the kind of cash these clothes demanded. Other than putting up with Nikki's bitchiness on Thursdays and the little cash we made, it was an okay place to work.

  "I can't forget something that's so easy to remember, baby girl. Hmm, what I would've given to be just a drop of water on his chest that day..."

  "Eww," I said dryly. "Enough said, stop focusing on his body and focus on the fact that he screwed us. I actually thought we had a chance of ge
tting out of this massive debt hole my mother left us with, but nope, one month later we’re back to square one."

  "I told you, you needed a backup plan. Reed isn't capable of not fucking up a situation. He is a fucking situation all on his own. You knew this because you grew up with him and saw all his fuckups first hand. Why act surprised? He was going to lose the job eventually."

  I laid down on one of the leather couches we have set up in the corners and stared at the ceiling. Fuck if he wasn't right; I was crazy.

  Growing up with a doped-up mother who barely recognized our faces, only left us with each other. I watched Reed flunk out of high school claiming the teachers were assholes who were trying to keep him down. Ever since then it had been one dead end thing after another, and he didn't seem to care or notice that it was only going to get harder the older he got. I kept thinking that I should give him the benefit of the doubt and hoped that one day he would catch up with reality, but there wasn't a fast-forward button on his radar, only backward and rewind. "Well, then thank you, Captain Obvious, for telling me how stupid I am."

  “Only tells it like I see it. You would have told me if I was the one being stupid.” True. My phone buzzed with an incoming message as Christopher’s name lit up my screen. I instantly scowled at his words, “we need to talk.”

  “Something up?” Prax asked.

  I looked up and shook my head back and forth.

  "It's nothing," I lied. I wasn't about to get into the topic of Christopher, not now after everything. I dated Christopher throughout high school and like most first loves, he was a big part of my life. Prax always thought he was hiding something because he had these mysterious dark eyes that made him look devious and cold. He adopted his eyes from his father who was some rich asshole from some one of those South Asian countries. Or at least that's what Chris told me, I'd never met the man and neither had Chris.