I didn’t thank him. He wouldn’t appreciate it.
Chapter Fifteen
Something had Remo excited. I checked his face occasionally, knowing things that excited Remo usually involved blood and destruction.
Soto came in, dragging a woman in by her arm.
I stifled a sigh. Women weren’t my field of work. Remo knew I preferred to handle men, and in the last couple of years, he’d allowed me that leniency. I doubted he understood, nor approved of my reluctance to deal with women, but hurting them had never given me the thrill punishing men did. Soto on the other end got off on degrading the weaker sex in more than just the literal sense.
Degrading. Leona’s expression when I’d asked her to give me a blow job flashed in my mind, but I banished any thought of her.
I threw Remo a questioning look. Why was I supposed to watch him dish out punishment to some run-down crack-whore?
Soto shoved the woman in our direction. She teetered on her too high, red patent leather shoes, and eventually tumbled to her knees. She got back up, revealing ripped fishnet stockings, and a tight red patent leather dress that hung off her emaciated body. When she lifted her face to stare fearfully at us, a jolt of recognition went through me. I masked my shock before Remo could pick up on it. He had been eyeing me closely in the last few days since I’d asked him for help.
Dazed eyes, cornflower blue like Leona’s, peered from me to Remo to Soto. There was a distant resemblance. Perhaps in younger years Leona’s mother had looked even more like her daughter. Before the drugs and the alcohol and the constant beatings from johns.
She wobbled on her high heels. Her fingers were trembling and there was a fine sheen of sweat on her worn-out skin. She needed her next shot.
“Found her,” Remo said, an excited gleam in his eyes that told me this was about more than just helping me. More than once I’d regretted my decision of approaching him. Leona was no longer one among many to him. She was someone with a name and a face, someone to be wary of.
“Had to hand over a few thousand in cash to the President of the fucking MC for the worthless whore because she worked his streets. I wonder what part of her is supposed to be worth five thousand dollars. Look at her.”
I didn’t have to. She wasn’t worth that much money.
Five thousand dollars.
Fuck.
The MC Tartarus had ripped us off. And Remo had let them. Not good.
“What do you say whore? Are you worth that much money?” His voice was dangerously pleasant. People who didn’t know him might have mistaken it for a good sign.
She quickly shook her head. She knew how to handle dangerous men. With a past like hers, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise. “Wh-where am I?”
“Las Vegas, my property, and now you are too.”
She nodded slowly, dazedly, then her expression shifted. “My daughter Leona is here.”
Shut the fuck up. I didn’t want Leona’s name in this room. I needed to figure out a way to get her out of Remo’s head.
“That she is,” Remo said, eyes slithering to me, lips tightening. “Now back to those five thousand dollars you owe me.”
Damn it. It would have been easy for me to pay the money, but I wasn’t out of my mind.
She smiled crookedly. “I earn good money. I know what men want.”
Remo’s dark eyes traveled over her body. “I doubt any man would want to get his cock dirty like that.”
She didn’t even flinch at his words. She’d heard worse. Whatever pride she’d once had, it was gone. She had no honor, she had nothing. That was why Leona clung to her virginity like it was her only salvation. And even knowing that, I still wanted to take it from her.
Remo pulled a small see-through bag with two meth cubes from his pocket and let it dangle from his fingertips. Leona’s mother sucked in her breath, a sharp, raspy sound. Her body became taut, eyes keen and eager. For him it was nothing. Our storage was full of meth and heroine and ecstasy, full of money too.
She took a step toward him, licked her cracked lips.
“You want this, hm?” he asked in a low voice. She gave a jerky nod.
“What would you do to get it?”
“Anything,” she said quickly. “I’ll suck your cock and you can have my ass. No condom.”
As if Remo would have to settle for someone like her. He was Las Vegas. He could have anyone. Remo’s mouth tightened with disgust. “There isn’t enough detergent in the world to clean you.”
“Then perhaps him?” she nodded towards me.
Remo’s eyes turned to me. “I think he prefers a younger version of you. Less used up.”
Leona wasn’t used up in any way. She was pure and innocent. She was mine.