Caged

[Ludub]

Thank you, all of you, for the kind comments. Sorry I never got round to replying like I normally do. Glad you're enjoying it. So I have two chapters ready to go because I wrote one massively long one, but I've now split it into two.  Hope you enjoy this first one!

 

WARNING: ADULT THEMES!

 

Chapter 31

 

 

“Love you” said Kyle, gently kissing the top of Josh’s head as he pulled him in a bit closer. Josh stirred a little but didn’t wake. They were still sitting on the floor of the cell where he’d found him last night. He had his arm around him and Josh’s head was still resting on his shoulder. With a sudden little jump, he opened his eyes, and looked at him. He hadn’t meant to kiss him and he certainly hadn’t meant to say ‘I love you’! But just for one fleeting moment he’d thought that he was Aaron. He was relieved to see that he hadn’t woken him. He could only guess at how badly he would have reacted. ‘He probably would have accused me of all sorts!’ he thought to himself. He looked at his face now as he slumbered in his arms and wondered at how protective he felt towards him. Josh wasn’t his brother. They weren’t even related. Was it because of his relationship to Casey? Surely that was a bit of a stretch? Were they friends then, he asked himself? Had they really been friends when they’d been living together? Not really, when he thought about. There’d been too big of an age gap. They’d sort of ended up thrown together because of old family loyalties and living arrangements, but they hadn’t exactly been friends. Him and Andy maybe, but not him and Josh… He didn’t think that he’d even visited him once when he’d been in the hospital. Housemates then? Maybe… But why would he put his neck on the line for someone who had just been a housemate?! It didn’t make any sense. Why did he care so much about him now? Why did he want to help him so much? It was exactly what Aaron had asked him at the outset. Why did he care? He hadn’t had an answer then, and he had even less of one now. He just did. All he knew was that he couldn’t let him get hurt again. He’d been hurt more than enough already.

He lifted his wrist very slowly to see the time and shook his head with a sad little sigh when he realised that his watch still wasn’t working. It had stopped the day that Aaron had died. He listened for the sound of the guards out in the hallway but things still seemed very quiet. Maybe it was still quite early? It was always hard to tell because there was no natural light.

Josh stirred a little and cuddled in closer to him. He smiled a little sadly to himself. He knew that he wouldn’t be doing this if he was conscious, and that he’d probably be very embarrassed by it, but he didn’t want to stop him. It was nice holding someone again. To feel another warm body next to his. To not feel so alone. He pulled him in a little closer and rested his chin on top of his head.

Suddenly he heard footsteps on the metal walkway outside the cells. It seemed like there was only one guard, which at this time of the morning, was unusual. Normally when they came to unlock the cells in the mornings there were at least four or five guards per floor. He guessed that it must be Smithy.

“Hey” he said, moving his shoulder a little to jostle Josh’s head, “Hey Josh, wake up, someone’s coming!”

Josh opened his eyes and looked up at him in confusion for a moment. He looked like he didn’t know where he was. “Oh!” he said, sitting up quite suddenly and flushing bright red, “Sorry!” 

Suddenly their door opened and Smithy was standing there. He grinned down at them as they blinked and shielded their eyes. The bright artificial light from the hallway was a bit of a shock and it was blinding them a little. “Well, isn’t this just adorable?!” he sneered, as he looked down at the two of them sitting side by side on the floor, “Very cosy indeed!” He looked back over his shoulder as though he was checking the hallway for onlookers and then shook his head at them in mock disapproval. “You should have put a coat-hanger on the door or something… Or a ‘do not disturb’ sign!”

Josh gave him a dirty look and got to his feet as quickly as he could. He backed up against the wall. It was clear that he was trying to keep as much distance between them as he could.

“What do you want?” asked Kyle, getting up and putting himself between them.

Smithy looked down the hallway again to make sure that he wasn’t being watched and then slipped inside the cell with them. He pulled the door closed and then produced a mobile phone. “Prepay” he said, holding it out to Kyle, “Harder to trace.”

“You want me to call Brax on that?!” asked Kyle, looking decidedly surprised, “I thought you were gonna get me call privileges?”

“Yeah, great idea!” he said, rolling his eyes at him, “All the calls on the prison phones are recorded… Use your head!”

Kyle nodded and took the phone. He hadn’t expected to have to make the call in front of Smithy. He’d hoped to be able to explain things to Brax. To prepare him! He wasn’t quite sure how to play this.

“Go on then!” said Smithy, narrowing his eyes at him, “You tell him you need him to come down for visiting later today. No excuses, you need to see him.”

“You want him to come here?!” asked Kyle, “Why?!” They’d originally agreed that he would ask him to meet Smithy somewhere. The same shopping centre where he’d met ‘the blonde chick’. He was surprised that he wanted him to come to the prison.

“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that” he said, “I don’t want anything said on the phone… Just in case they have his phone tapped… You tell him to come down here… Don’t go into details.”

“And then what?” asked Kyle. He was beginning to get nervous now. Had someone tipped Smithy off?! Why the sudden change of plan?!

“Then you do what I tell you to do” he said, nodding to the phone in Kyle’s hand, “Just get him down here. I’ll take it from there.”

Kyle looked at him and furrowed his brows. He’d ‘take it from there’? He wondered what he meant by that.

“What if he’s busy?” asked Josh, standing with his back to the wall and his arms wrapped around his chest tightly, “He has a business to run… Maybe he won’t be able to come today?” He thought it might make it more believable if it looked like they weren’t keen on the meeting taking place. That way he would think that the whole thing was his idea and that he wasn’t being led along by the nose.

Smithy leaned his head around Kyle to look at him. “So, the little princess has a tongue then, does she?” he said, with a raise of his eyebrow, “I was beginning to think you’d forgotten how to speak! Getting your boyfriend here to do all the talking for you?”

“I’m just saying… he might not be able to come” muttered Josh, with his head lowered and his eyes fixed on the floor.

“He’d better” said Smithy. He couldn’t help grinning. It was so easy to put the kid in his place. Any little jibe about his masculinity and it was like he just shrank before his eyes. Cuddles had really done a number on him!

 

“I’ll get him to come” said Kyle, interrupting them, “He’ll come.” He glanced at Josh a little nervously before typing Brax’s number into the phone. He felt a bit anxious as the phone began to ring. It was well before 7am so he didn’t even know if he’d answer. He wondered what they’d do then. This might be the only chance that Smithy would have for them to use this phone and they really needed to get the ball rolling. He wasn’t sure how many nights like tonight Josh would be able to get through.

RING RING!

‘****!’ he thought to himself, ‘What if Brax says something he shouldn’t? Or what if Ricky answers and she doesn’t know about it?!’

RING RING!

‘Oh God! Please, Brax?! Answer the ****ing phone! I want to get this over and done with!’

RING RING!

‘What are we gonna do if he doesn’t answer?!’

RING…

“Yeah?” said a very sleepy sounding Brax, “Who’s this?”

“Brax! It’s me, Kyle!” he said, suddenly smiling broadly. ‘Thank God!’ he thought to himself.

Smithy nodded at the phone and mouthed the words ‘Loud speaker’

Kyle nodded and pressed the loudspeaker icon on the phone. He couldn’t refuse.

“Mate… uhh…” slurred Brax. It was clear he was still half asleep. “Uhhh… what time is it? …What are you doing calling me so early in the morning?” He was beginning to sound more awake, with a hint of worry in his voice. “Are you alright?!”

“Yeah, I’m good, Brax”

“Is it Josh, then?! Has something happened?!”

“No, listen, Brax! I don’t have long!” he said, glancing at Josh who was staring at the phone like it might explode at any moment, “I need you to come down to visiting today. You’re on the visitors’ register. I need to see you.”

“What’s going on?!” asked Brax. He sounded concerned.

“Is Kyle okay?” said Ricky in the background and there was the sound of a small child suddenly wailing in the distance too.

“Yeah, he says he okay” said Brax, answering Ricky. “You are okay, aren’t you?” he asked Kyle again, “I mean, you would tell me if there was something wrong?!”

“Yeah, Brax, seriously, I just need you to come in!” said Kyle, frowning at Smithy who was hanging off every word, “Can you just do that for me?! …I need to talk to you about something.” He wanted to get him off the phone as quickly as possible. He didn’t want to run the risk of Brax or Ricky saying something that they shouldn’t. It was bad enough that Smithy had got this sneaky glimpse into their family life. He’d seen his eyes spark with interest when he’d heard Ricky’s voice at the end of the line and the sound of the baby crying. It was like you could actually see him taking mental notes. He hoped that he hadn’t just put them both at risk!

“Okay, mate” said Brax, “But I don’t like all this cloak and daggers stuff… You’d better have a good explanation!”

“I do” said Kyle, “But I can’t stay on the line now… I gotta go.” He hoped that Smithy would fill him in by the time that Brax got here and that he’d know what was happening. He couldn’t help worrying that he was just leading him into a trap. He needed to warn him in some way. “Say hi to Erica for me” he said when he heard Ricky in the distance again with Casey, “And tell her to give Charlie a big kiss from his uncle Kyle.”

There was a momentary pause. “Will do” said Brax, “You know he misses you.”

“I miss him too” he said, “Visiting’s at three, Brax. Don’t be late!” With that, he hung up the phone and held it out to Smithy with a little shrug. “What now?” he asked.

“Now”, said Smithy, throwing his arm around Kyle’s neck in a sort of headlock so he could drag him to sit on the lower bunk of the bed with him, “You and me are gonna have a nice little chat!”

 

*****

 

“Boys! Wake up!” shouted Brax, as he made his way into the livingroom and pulled open the blinds, “Kyle called! It looks like it’s today!”

“God! Brax!” groaned Heath, as he covered his eyes to shield them from the bright light, “What time is it?!”

“It’s early” said Brax, giving Ash a little nudge with his foot. He was sleeping face down on a blow up mattress on the livingroom floor and he was showing no signs of having woken up. “Oi!” said Brax, giving him another little kick in the leg, “Get up!”

“Yeah, yeah! I heard you!” huffed Ash, as he rolled over and gave a huge yawn, “I’m up!”

“It doesn’t look like it” said Brax, going to the kitchen to put the kettle on. “Come on boys! I need you on the ball today… We need to go through the plan again. We can’t afford any mistakes!”

“We went through it twenty times last night!” shouted Heath, turning over on the couch and burying his face in the cushions. “We know it, inside and out!”

“Well, I want to be sure!” said Brax, putting two spoonfuls of coffee into each cup as he waited for the kettle to boil. “We’re gonna drive the route again today… This time from the prison.”

“Why from the prison?” asked Ash, suddenly sitting up and looking at him in a worried way, “I thought you were meeting him at the shopping centre?”

“Change of plan” sighed Brax, as he ran his hand through his very messy slept-on hair. “We thought that's where he might want to meet, cos of last time with Ric... Just a guess... but Kyle called me this morning... He asked me to come in for visiting… I don't think he was alone though… I think that guard guy was listening.”

“How do you know?” asked Heath, still with his face buried in the sofa cushions.

“He called Ric ‘Erica’ and Case ‘Charlie’” he said, leaning his hands on the kitchen counter and frowning as he stared down at it, “He was trying to tell me that something’s up… It was pretty clear that he couldn’t talk.” He picked his phone up off the counter and scrolled to the call history. “He called from a mobile number too… Not from the prison.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t be going down the prison then?” suggested Ash, “I mean, maybe that’s what he was trying to tell you… You know, but he couldn’t?”

“Yeah, I mean, maybe it’s a trap?” said Heath, dragging himself into a sitting position and rubbing his face in his hands, “Maybe he was trying to tell you that… that this Smithy guy is onto you… onto Kyle?”

“Maybe?” said Brax, coming to perch on the end of the couch by Heath’s feet, “But I don’t know that… He didn’t give me enough to go on and… and all I know is that he asked me to come.”

“So, you’re just going to go?” asked Heath, glancing at Ash in a worried sort of way. He wasn’t so sure that that was a good idea, but he also knew that Brax wasn’t an easy man to persuade. If he wanted to do something, there was rarely any stopping him.

“I don’t think I have any other choice” said Brax, “I mean, what else am I supposed to do?!”

“You’re gonna call Agent Lee” said Ricky, carrying Casey on her hip into the room, “That’s what you’re gonna do! …I’m telling you Brax! If you don’t call him, I will!”

“I’m going to!” he snapped at her, “I told you I would, so I will!”

She frowned at him and then handed Casey to Heath on the couch. “Now?” she asked, picking up his phone and walking over to him to hand it to him. They’d already had a pretty heated argument this morning following the phone call. She gave him a look that said she was in no mood for another, especially not in front of Heath and Ash. “Call him now!” she said, emphasising every word.

“Ric” he said, slipping his arms around her waist, “I said I would call him and I will… but I want to talk to the boys first… Get the plan straight.”

“It shouldn’t be your plan” she said, narrowing her eyes at him, “This isn’t the Darryl Braxton show, you get that right?! …This isn’t about you, or the Riverboys, or you getting to be the boss again… You answer to Agent Lee on this one!”

“I know that” he groaned, “You don’t think I know that?!”

“No, I don’t think you do, Brax!” she scolded, “I think you see this as some big ego trip! You get to be the hard man again! You get to play at being some kind of… of kingpin… or drug lord! Or… God, I don’t know… Walter White?! …Someone who’s important!” She shook her head at him and let out an exasperated huff. “I mean, it’s like you think you’re Heisenberg, and this is Breaking Bad, or something! It’s pathetic! …You don’t think I see how excited you are by all of this?!  It’s like all your Christmases have come at once!”

“Oh, come on, Ric!” laughed Ash, “It’s all just make believe!”

“Don’t ‘come on, Ric!’ me!” she snapped at him, “That’s what I’m afraid of… A group of stupid little boys playing at being drug dealers… What if you end up getting yourselves killed?! What if you get Kyle and Josh killed?!”

“We won’t” said Brax, pulling her in towards him, “I promise you, Ric… we won’t”

“Don’t you dare, Brax!” she snarled at him, “Don’t you dare make promises you might not be able to keep!”

“Ric… I don’t know what you want me to say!” he said, looking up at her with big puppy dog eyes, “You know I don’t have a choice! They’re blackmailing me! I mean, the cops are actually blackmailing me! What am I supposed to do?!”

She held the phone out to him again. “You can call them” she said, nodding at him insistently, “You can tell them what’s going on and they can figure out what you’re supposed to do!” She took his hand from around her waist and forced the phone into it. “That’s what you can do!”

“Ric, I…” Brax started to say but Heath interrupted him.

“I think she has a point!” said Heath, bouncing baby Casey on his knee, ”Bianca would kill me if she knew I was involved in this! …I don’t want us taking any chances.”

“Yeah” said Ash, nodding slowly as he took his phone out of the shorts that were lying on the floor. Six missed calls! He grimaced a little. “Kat would kill me too… I think you’d better call them… Make sure we’re doing things by the book?”

Brax looked around the room at Heath, then Ash, and then back at Ricky. “Fine!” he groaned, taking the phone from Ricky and heading towards the balcony to make the call. He always hated an audience. He dialled the number and stared back through the window of the patio door as the phone began to ring. He looked at the faces of his brother and his mate staring out at him, and wondered when they’d all become so whipped?! Why were they all letting the women in their lives rule the roost?!

“This is Agent Lee” said a voice at the other end, “Is this Darryl Braxton?”

“Yeah, hi” said Brax, “I thought I should let you know… There’s been a development.”

[Ludub]

Thanks everyone once again for the comments. Here's the next chapter as promised! Hope you like it! 

 

WARNING: ADULT THEMES!

 

Chapter 32

 

 

Josh followed Kyle into the mess hall and quickly scanned the room for Kwon and his gang. He was more nervous than he could even begin to put into words, but he knew that he had no choice. This was it! He had to do it! Kyle had talked to Smithy already and promised him a whole new network of dealers and runners. Without the Russians, he had no means of distribution and debt collection, and there were very few of the Russians left after the riot. More difficult still was the fact that only Alexei and Sergei had been aware of Smithy’s involvement and both of them were gone now. He didn’t have his connections anymore. He could get the drugs into the prison but he needed help to make it into a viable business again. Josh and Kyle were going to be the ‘go betweens’. The link between him and the new druglord of the prison, Kwon’s boss. The only problem now was that they’d promised something that they weren’t entirely sure that they could deliver. They needed to win Kwon and his gang round and convince them that there was something good in it for them. It was certainly a very risky gamble but Smithy seemed to have bought it. He’d been surprised, but Kyle had talked the talk. He’d produced Josh’s packet of pills, and managed to make it sound like he had much better connections than he really did. Smithy had given them the green light to set up a deal. Now all they had to do was not get themselves killed.

Kyle gave him a little smile as he glanced over his shoulder at him. His heart was thumping now but he didn’t want Josh to know that he was nervous. He needed him to think that he was calm and collected, and in control. The last thing that they needed was two nervous nellies!

Josh tried his best to smile back but it came out as more of a grimace. ‘They’re gonna kill me’ he thought to himself, as he and Kyle lifted their trays to get their food, ‘I’m gonna die today, no two ways about it!’ He didn’t know why he was going through the motions of getting breakfast because he had absolutely no intention of eating it. He figured it would make him look less nervous. A man who could eat breakfast when faced with certain death seemed like a bit more of a badass.

He held the tray out for two slices of toast and a slop of scrambled egg, or something vaguely resembling it, and then shuffled along behind Kyle. He could feel Kwon’s eyes on him from across the room.

“Over here” said Kyle, directing them towards a table that was currently unoccupied, “Just sit… Eat your breakfast… Try to look like you’re not bothered.”

“Yeah, cos it’s that easy” said Josh, taking a seat on the side of the table that gave him the best view of Kwon. He didn’t want him sneaking up behind him, or any of the others for that matter.

“Just do it” said Kyle, as he sat down opposite and took a bite out of a piece of toast. He nodded at Josh’s tray for him to do the same. “Eat!” he said.

Josh picked up a piece of toast and tentatively took a small bite. He tried to keep his eyes on his tray but he couldn’t stop glancing over every couple of seconds. It was almost like a nervous tic. He could see them staring across at him, and Kwon kept talking to an older Asian man. He took him to be the boss.  The bread felt strange in his mouth. Gritty and dry like sawdust. He chewed for what felt like a very long time and then tried to swallow but he started to choke and cough. He was spluttering loudly and attracting a lot of attention.

“Here!” said Kyle, handing him his cup of water to drink and turning to look at who was watching. “Jesus, Josh! Get it together, will ya?!” He made eye contact with Kwon’s boss and gave him a little nod. It looked like he might have to do this himself.

“Sorry” coughed Josh, throwing his toast back down, “I’m trying, okay?!”

“It’s okay” sighed Kyle, looking back round at him. He put his hand under the table and tapped Josh on the knee. Josh jumped a little and looked up at him in surprise.  “Give the pills to me” whispered Kyle, through gritted teeth, “I’m gonna go talk to them.”

“You are?!” asked Josh, still coughing a little as he tried to drink the water, “Instead of me?!”

“Yeah… I think it might work better” he said, “Just slip them to me under the table.”

Josh glanced across at the large table of men now staring at him intently and slowly reached into his pocket. He hoped that the table would block their view. “Here” he said, palming the pills to Kyle under the bench.

“Okay” said Kyle, slipping them into his own pocket and then taking a gulp of orange from the bottle on his tray, “You come with me. Just stay by my side and keep your mouth shut.” He started to get up and motioned with his head for Josh to follow.

Josh slowly got to his feet, trying desperately to get his nerves under control, and tell his legs to stop shaking. ‘**** sake, Josh! Be a man!’ he told himself, as he tried to walk with confidence, ‘Stop being this snivelling little coward!’ He clenched his jaw and consciously pulled his shoulders back to try to look less cowed. It wasn’t easy. ‘You’re the guy who got rid of Alexei!” he reminded himself, as he took a deep breath and blew it out, “Don’t let them forget that!’

Kyle and Josh arrived at the table, and Kwon stood up to meet them with a grin. “I take it you have our money?” he asked Josh.

“No” said Kyle, interrupting and producing the package from his own pocket. He threw it down on the table in front of Kwon and the balding man beside him. Looking at the older man, he nodded at the paper package on the table. “You’re not getting a penny. He’s not paying because he’s not buying it.”

The man calmly reached across the table for the packet, taking a quick look around to make sure that the guards weren’t watching, and then he handed it to Kwon who deftly pocketed it. Deok-Su was known to most within the prison as ‘Ducky’. He was never known for public outbursts or violent behaviour. Not public ones anyway. He looked a little bit like a Korean Mr Miyagi and spoke in that same calm and reasonable way, but with a distinctly Australian accent. He smiled easily and he laughed a lot. To someone who didn’t know any better, he might have passed for someone’s kind old father, but appearances can be deceiving. He was in prison for multiple homicides! He was not someone to get on the wrong side of! People who crossed him simply turned up dead, both within the prison walls and on the outside. He looked up at Kyle and gave a gentle little smile. “I think you might regret this” he said, with a little shrug of the shoulders, “Normally we operate a ‘no returns’ policy… And I think I should tell you… We take non-payment pretty seriously.”

“He doesn’t want it” said Kyle, “And I think he made that pretty clear…” He looked at Kwon and shook his head at him. “What part of ‘I didn’t ask for this’ do you not understand?!”

“He asked me to get him something” said Kwon, throwing Josh a little smirk. He could see him trembling as he stood beside Kyle. “He begged me to get him some stuff…” he said, “All I did was get the man what he asked for.” He looked at his boss and grinned. “Needed something to ‘numb the pain’, ‘block out his bad dreams’, or some crap like that… Crying the place down like a little baby!”

Josh flushed bright red with anger and made a move towards Kwon. He’d had enough of the taunting and the teasing! He wanted to hit him! Kyle put his hand out quickly and caught him by the arm. “Calm down” he growled at him. The two of them locked eyes for a moment and then he just nodded and looked at the floor. Kyle’s apparent authority over him didn’t go unnoticed.

“That true, kid?” asked the older man, with a cruel little laugh, “You having bad dreams? Need someone to tuck you in at night and sing you to sleep?” All of Ducky’s men started to laugh.

Josh clenched his jaw but didn’t look up.

Ducky gave a low throaty chuckle and slapped his hand off the table. “Not got much to say for himself?!” he said, turning his attention back to Kyle, “Has he?! Your little friend here?!” He turned back to Josh and gave him a creepy little wink when he saw him glance up at him. “That’s okay, sweetie…” he laughed, “I like ‘em quiet… Nothing worse than a boy who doesn’t know when to shut his mouth!” He turned and smiled at the shy looking young boy who was sitting on the other side of him and razzled his hair in an affectionate way, “Took this one a while to learn that, didn’t it?!” The young boy just stared vacantly at the table.  Ducky picked up his cup of coffee and took a sip as he began to run his eyes up and down Josh’s slender body. “I think we can come to some sort of… ‘arrangement’…”

Kwon grinned at Josh and sat back down.

Josh cringed under Ducky’s lustful gaze, almost feeling his eyes travelling up and down his body, but he kept his own eyes fixed on the floor. He hated this so much! He felt the sting of humiliation so keenly. Why did it keep happening?! What was it about him that attracted every sexual predator in this place?! Did he have ‘victim’ written across his forehead or something?! Had Alexei ‘marked’ him in some way?! Could they smell it?! What the hell was wrong with him?!

“I think we could work something out” purred Ducky. He laughed and threw him a little air kiss, “Couldn’t we sweetheart?”

“Maybe I have a better offer?” said Kyle, stepping between him and Josh.

“And that would be?” he asked, looking at him with interest. Kyle was a little older than he usually liked them, but he had heard that the guy was gay, so he wondered if he was offering his ‘services’ voluntarily. Maybe he had a thing for older men? Maybe he was simply lonely now that his boyfriend had kicked the bucket?

Kyle looked around him to check that none of the guards were within hearing distance. There was no-one. He pointed to the space on the bench opposite Ducky in a way that asked permission to sit.

“Be my guest” said Ducky, with a little smirk. He nodded for his men to make space for him and watched as he took his seat. There was something about this cocky young man that he found intriguing. More than that, he did actually find him quite attractive. Sure, he was good looking, and he obviously had a nice body, but it was more the way that he’d marched over here and thrown that packet down. It was as though he wasn’t scared of him. As though he didn’t know that he was in danger. He’d been surprised by the insolent way in which he’d spoken. Very few people did that these days. It was refreshing. He thought it might be a good indicator of what he’d be like in the bedroom. He began to undress him mentally with his eyes and found himself fantasising about having consensual sex. He’d never been with a man who was actually willing. Someone who hadn’t been coerced into it, or taken by force. Maybe there were things that this young buck could teach him? It was never too late to learn!

“So, what’s this offer of yours?” he asked, letting his eyes linger on the droplets of sweat now slowly rolling down the young man’s tanned neck into that little notch just above his collar bone.

“What if I could get you a supply of ‘ice’?” asked Kyle, in a low whisper, “Good quality stuff?”

Ducky frowned. This wasn’t the offer that he’d been hoping for! Still, it had woken him from his stupor. Horny he might be, but stupid he wasn’t! Something wasn’t right about this. All his instincts were telling him to be wary. Here was a guy who’d been here for nearly a year and who’d kept his nose clean all that time. Why would he suddenly want to do a drug deal? What would make him think that he could pull something like this off?!

“I have a way of getting it in…” continued Kyle, “Getting it past security… You wouldn’t have to worry about that… We just need someone to handle the… the ‘distribution’.”

Josh looked up at Kwon for a moment. He could see him watching him intently. He didn’t want him to know how much he was freaking out but he didn’t seem to be able to control his own body. He was shaking, and sweating, and fidgeting. He had no idea what to do with himself.

“And you think we’ll be your distributors?” asked Ducky, leaning back in his seat as he stared at Kyle in a decidedly more hostile way. “What would make you think we were involved in anything like that?” Ducky nodded at one of his men.

“We were hoping…” Kyle started to say, but stopped abruptly when one of the men beside him suddenly thrust his hand inside his shirt and began groping his chest. He blanched white when he realised that there was a knife being held at his groin by the man on the other side of him. He had to just sit there while their rough hands travelled all over his chest, all over his back, and then felt around his groin. Their hands then slipped down both legs. It was a very intimate search. He realised that they were checking him for recording devices. From the sounds behind him, he realised that something similar was happening to Josh.

The man beside him withdrew his hand and patted him on the knee. “Nothing” he said, shaking his head at Ducky.

“Why would you think we would make any kind of deal with you?” asked Ducky, now leaning back in his chair in a more relaxed way, “I mean, I don’t even know you… Not really… You’ve been here almost a year, and as far as I can see, you’ve done nothing but rear end that pretty little boyfriend of yours...”

Kyle winced at the mention of Aaron in such crude terms.

“How have you suddenly got some grade A supply of ‘ice’?” continued Ducky, “How are you suddenly some big time player?”

“My… My family” stammered Kyle, feeling so far out of his depth it wasn’t even funny, “They… They never wanted me involved… But I’m stuck in here for the foreseeable… and… and Aaron’s gone now… and I just don’t have…”

Ducky stared at him for a moment and then a smile began to creep across his face. “I see!” he laughed, “Now you don’t have your ‘other pursuits’, so to speak, you’re interested in getting back into the family business?” He looked at Kwon and started to laugh. “Funny how men without a sex life take up all sorts of little hobbies, isn’t it?!” He turned to look at Kyle again and shook his head. “Some men put little ships in glass bottles, some make model airplanes, this one thinks he’ll turn his hand to a bit of drug smuggling!” All his men burst out laughing again as though it was the funniest thing that anyone had ever said.

Kyle flushed a little red. “Very funny” he muttered, “If you’re not interested…”

“Everyone needs a hobby, I guess!” laughed Ducky, “Ever thought of knitting?!”

“Okay, fine…” said Kyle, “If you’re not interested… Then we’ll just go?”

“Did I say you could leave?” asked Ducky, his face clouding with anger as he gave his men a nod. The two men sitting on either side of Kyle suddenly grabbed his arms and dragged them behind him. He heard a sort of ‘ziiiip’ sound as a cable tie was pulled tight around his wrists. Someone had their arm around his neck in a stranglehold too and was choking him a little. He couldn’t turn his head but he heard a sort of scuffle behind him and then muffled cries. They obviously had Josh as well.

“I just… I just wanted to offer you” choked Kyle, as he wondered what on earth he’d gotten them both into “I thought… I thought it could work out well… for all… for all of us…”

“That’s the thing that interests me” said Ducky, “Who’s this ‘all of us’?”

“My family, my brothers…” said Kyle, feeling his heart hammering in his chest. He’d seriously misjudged this whole situation. He’d led Josh into this sorry mess, and now they were both going to end up dead!

“And they are?” asked Ducky, raising his eyebrows at him.

“The Braxtons” coughed Kyle, “The Riverboys, maybe you’ve heard of them?!”

Ducky looked around at his men around the table and gave a little shrug. “The Riverboys?” he asked, in case any of them had heard the name, “Anyone?” They all shrugged and shook their heads. Of course, no-one had heard of them. This was the city, and the Riverboys were small-town, small-time crooks.

“They’re good!” spluttered Josh, “They’re good… at what they do… That’s why you haven’t heard of them… They know… They know how to stay under the radar.”

“He speaks!” laughed Ducky, looking up at his reddening face, “And such a cute little voice too… Just look at him! All puffed up with indignation!” He shook his head and looked at Kwon. “It’s nice when they have a bit of spirit, isn’t it? You don’t want them to just lie there!”

Josh squirmed as the man behind him held him close against his body. The cable ties were very tight around his wrists and his hands had already started to go numb. He glanced across the room and saw a couple of guards chatting by one of the doors. He wondered if he should try shouting. Would they come and help?! As though he’d read his mind, one of the men beside him nudged him a little to make him look and then showed him a knife.

“I think maybe we should take this outside…” said Ducky, with a cruel little smile, “What do you think boys?!” He slowly got up from the table and nodded for his men to bring their hostages. Within seconds, Kyle had been dragged to his feet, and they were being moved across the room towards the door. He tried to drag his feet and slow them down, but someone bent his arms up behind his back and pushed him forward. He cried out in pain, so another stuffed a wad of paper napkins in his mouth. The men crowded around him and Josh as they made their way out through the door of the mess hall.

Ducky smiled and nodded his head at the guard on the door, as they passed by him unhindered, and laughed as he rather comically made a point of looking the other way.

Josh glanced at Kyle in fear as he realised where they were going. They were being led along the metal walkway towards the shower room. He was in no doubt about what was going to happen in there. Suddenly his legs gave out from under him and he slumped in their arms. ‘This can’t be happening!’ he thought to himself, as they dragged him along, ‘Oh God! This can’t be happening again!’ He wondered if he could escape his own mind and go somewhere else again like he’d done with Alexei. He couldn’t be here for this! He couldn’t stay!

They dragged them through the door of the shower room and forced them onto their knees in the middle of the room. One of Ducky’s men took up position outside to keep watch for any sign of the guards. He glanced inside the room for a moment to give them both a little wink and then closed the door.

“Right then, fellas!” said Ducky, grinning at his men as they stood around in a circle. He looked down at Kyle and Josh who were both kneeling and looking up at him in fear. “Let’s teach these boys a lesson, eh?!”

[Ludub]

Okay, so here's the next chapter... Hope you like it... I'm a bit nervous about this one. It's pretty dark (and that's saying something considering the subject matter in this story)... So, big red warning time. You have been warned  

And again, thanks to everyone for the lovely comments on the last chapter! x

 

WARNING: VERY ADULT THEMES!!!

 

Chapter 33

 

‘You’re not here!’ Josh said to himself again and again as he stared at the floor, ‘You’re not here, You’re not here! You’re not here! …You’re on the beach… It’s sunny and beautiful …The sky is blue …You’re lying on the sand… You’re not here… This isn’t real… This isn’t happening! This isn’t happening!’ He’d been repeating it over and over to himself, like a sort of internal chant over the last twenty minutes. It was the only thing that had gotten him through it. He spat out a mouthful of blood and ran his tongue along his upper teeth. At least they hadn’t knocked them out. His tongue and the inside of his lips were cut to shreds and he was pretty sure that his eyebrow and nose were both bleeding pretty badly. His eye was full of blood and stinging so badly that he couldn’t see. He wondered how many blows to the head he could take before they knocked him out entirely. Everything was blurry. He couldn’t see straight! Kyle was already on the floor, lying curled up on his side. He didn’t know if he was still conscious. He hadn’t heard him for a while. There were a number of men just standing around laughing and admiring their handiwork. They’d kicked him and kicked him. So far, Kyle had had it worse than him.

Suddenly Kwon grabbed Josh’s hair from behind and yanked his head back so hard it felt like he’d nearly broken his neck. He cried out, partly from the pain, and partly from the shock.

“Come on now, Sugar-tits!” said Ducky, as he moved forward and gripped Josh’s face hard in his hand. He was squeezing his cheeks in a way that forced his mouth into a bloody pout. “I think it’s time we got to know each other a little better” he said, “Don’t you?”

Josh flinched backwards when he saw him begin to undo his zipper. “Nrrrrrrhhhhh” he grunted, desperately trying to pull his face away and bucking his body to wriggle out of the iron-fast grip that Kwon had of him. But it was no use. “Nnnnoooooo!!!” he cried again as he saw Ducky begin to reach inside his pants. An arm went around his throat from behind and began to crush his windpipe a little. He couldn’t move his head and he could hardly breathe. ‘Oh God!’ he thought to himself, ‘No…Please?!!!... Not again!’

“Now, now, Sweetie-pie!” laughed Ducky, as he exposed himself, “You’re only gonna make things harder on yourself if you keep trying to fight it.” He laughed as Kwon pinched Josh’s broken nose shut to make him open his mouth. “Come on, honey…” he purred as he moved towards him, “I’m not gonna hurt you… much.”

Josh desperately dragged air in through clenched teeth. He was hyperventilating but nothing in the world was going to make him open his mouth for him. Not for that! He wasn’t going to let it happen again! Not again!

“Honey! Honey!” purred Ducky, now standing right in front of him, “If you don’t open that pretty little mouth of yours, we might just pull those gorgeous teeth right out of your head… One… by one… Now, you don’t want that, do you?”

He tried as best he could to pull back from the offending member, but he couldn’t get away.  It was right in front of his face now! He felt the vomit quickly rising up in his throat. ‘This can’t be happening!’ he told himself, ‘This isn’t happening!’

Ducky turned to look and smirked a little. Some of his men had begun to drag Kyle across the floor towards the showers. “Save some for me, boys!” he shouted after them, before turning to grin down at Josh again.

Josh winced when he heard Kyle crying out in pain. He wasn’t sure what was worse. What he imagined was going to happen to Kyle over there, or what was clearly about to happen right here?! He wished that they would just kill him.

“Now, I’m not going to ask you again!” said Ducky, patting him on his bruised cheek.

“**** you!” he snarled through bloody clenched teeth. Kwon shifted a little bit behind him and then he felt the cold steel of a knife biting into the skin of his neck. ‘Please just kill me!’ he pleaded silently ‘I want this to be over!’ He wondered what it would take to push them over the edge? Could he make them angry enough to kill him? “You put something in my mouth” he growled through gritted teeth, “…And I’m gonna bite it off!”

Ducky made a sort of tutting noise and shook his head. “No, I don’t think you will” he said to him, “Not if you know what’s good for you!” With that he turned and whistled at the young Asian boy sitting on one the benches nearby. It was the type of whistle people use to call a dog.

The boy got up off the bench and shuffled over, but he never raised his gaze to look at them. He obviously wasn’t one of Ducky’s heavies. He’d just spent the last twenty minutes vacantly staring at the floor.

“Now, this…” said Ducky, putting his arm around the shoulder of the scared looking young man, “This is my little cellie… My little pet… This is Mark.” The boy kept his eyes firmly fixed on the floor. Ducky grinned at him and then pulled his lip up in the way that someone would if they were checking a horse’s teeth. “Why don’t you show our young friend here your lovely new teeth? Eh, Mark? …The ones I bought for you …Come on, he wants to see!”

Mark obediently reached up to his own mouth and gripped a couple of his teeth between his thumb and forefinger. He began to pull and rock them back and forth. With a sickly sort of squelch, he lifted the lower denture out of his mouth, and then repeated the motion for his upper jaw. He handed the two sets of dentures to Ducky who was standing with his hand out, and then stood there with his mouth collapsed in like an old age pensioner. The boy, who was clearly still in his teens, maybe twenty at the most, now had a mouth like an eighty year old! He looked so sad.

“Show him your smile?!” coaxed Ducky with a sadistic grin, “Show him what happens when you don’t do as you’re told.”

Mark glanced up at Josh for a moment in a despondent sort of way. There was something so dead about his eyes. He gave a little sigh and then drew his lips back to show his shrunken gums. He’d had every one of his teeth removed, obviously by force.

Josh grimaced at the sight of it and tried to look away. He couldn’t begin to imagine the pain!

“Go on” said Ducky, handing the boy back his dentures and ruffling his hair a little, “You might not be so pretty anymore, ‘Marky Mark’, but Ducky still loves you… Now sit.”

Mark slumped off back to the bench where he’d been sitting and slowly replaced his dentures. Everything about the boy said that he’d given up on life a long time ago. There was nothing left.

“Now” said Ducky, turning back to Josh. He gripped his own swollen appendage in his right hand and began to approach him again. “Maybe you want to rethink those idle threats you’ve been making?”

Suddenly the door swung open and everyone stopped what they were doing. “Hey, mate!” shouted the lookout, as three large men barged their way past him, “You can’t go in there!”

Ducky quickly tucked himself away and looked at the three men in surprise. “What the…?” he started to say, “Dimitri?!”

“What you do?!” bellowed Dimitri, charging across the room and crouching down beside Josh on the floor. Another huge mountain of a man followed behind him and then towered over Kwon who was still holding Josh. “Let him go!” growled the man in a thick Russian accent. Kwon looked to Ducky for guidance, and only released him when he saw him give a little nod. Josh just slumped over sideways onto the floor with a pained groan. He’d taken a number of blows to the ribs, and with his hands still secured behind his back, he hadn’t been able to stop himself falling on them. He began to sob a little as he lay there, partly from the pain, and partly from the relief of being rescued. He’d never been more glad to see anyone in his life!

Ducky took a step back and looked around at his men in a confused sort of way. He hadn’t realised that Josh and Kyle had connections to Dimitri Ivanovich. He’d never seen them together in the mess hall or during recreation. He’d never had any inkling that these three were bosom buddies. He was worried now. “You know these guys?” he asked Dimitri, “They’re something to you?!”

“They my friends” said Dimitri, nodding and looking up at Ducky with furrowed brows, “They help me in riot… They good people.”

“Hey, we didn’t know!” said Ducky, holding his hands up in a conciliatory sort of way, “If I’d known they were friends of yours…” He nodded quickly at his men over in the shower area to tidy Kyle up and bring him over. He didn’t think they’d had enough time to do him too much damage. He hoped not anyway. Kyle reappeared, being dragged limply across the floor as they pulled his trousers back up and redid his clothing for him a little. They set him down on the floor beside Josh.

Dimitri shook his head at Ducky and Kwon in disapproval, before turning his attention back to the boys. He gently put his hand under Josh’s chin and raised his face to look at him properly. He was a bruised and bloody mess and he’d started to quietly cry. His whole body was visibly shuddering from shock. “You okay?” he asked, looking him up and down to check for injuries.

He didn’t respond. He looked dazed and vacant.

“Josh?!” he shouted at him as he gave his shoulder a shake and pulled him up into a sitting position, “You okay?!” Josh cried out in pain as he was jarred back to the world by the pain in his ribs. “Sorry!” said Dimitri, giving him a sympathetic little grimace. He hadn’t meant to hurt him. “You okay?”

“He’s fine” said Ducky, hunkering down beside them and ruffling Josh’s hair a little, “Aren’t you kid?”

“Not touch him!” said Dimitri, batting his hand away. “Josh, you okay?” he asked again.

Josh nodded and spat some blood out onto the floor. “It looks worse than it is.” he coughed, glancing over at Kyle who seemed to be unconscious. “Is he okay?” he asked.

Another one of the Russians knelt down beside Kyle and put his fingers on his throat, He seemed to be checking for a pulse. “He’s okay” said Vladimir, “He’s still breathing.”

“I’m okay” coughed Kyle, as he lay curled up on the floor, “I’m… Mrrrhhhmmm… I’m okay.” He was clearly in pain and he had tears streaming down his face.

“Get him up” said Ducky, nodding for Kwon and the others to get him up on his feet. They were obviously handling him with a lot more care this time and being careful not to hurt him further. They hoisted him up by his upper arms, and then lowered him carefully onto one of the benches. He groaned and slumped a little sideways.

“What they do to you?” Dimitri asked Josh, as he looked up at Ducky accusingly. He seemed to be more than aware of the older man’s tastes and predilections, and he clearly didn’t approve. Ducky quickly redid his fly.

“We thought…” said Ducky, sitting down on one of the wooden benches, “I thought they were plants or something… Y’know? …Maybe working with the authorities?”

Dimitri snorted and shook his head. “Vasily choose them” he said, “He choose them to work for us… He check them out…”

“Vasily did?!” asked Ducky, looking back and forth between the two bloodied bodies of his victims. He was beginning to sweat now. Dimitri Ivanovich mightn’t have been the sharpest tool in the box but he was well connected and he knew that the ‘Big Man’ had a bit of a soft spot for him. He could certainly land him in hot water with Nikolai if he wanted to.

“Yes… before riot” said Dimitri, “He bring them onboard.”

“And …And Nikolai?! …He was okay with that?” he stammered, swallowing a little nervously. He wasn’t looking forward to the next of the Big Man’s visits. It looked like he was going to have a lot of explaining to do!

Dimitri nodded at him and then turned back to Josh. He gently pushed his hair out of his face and gave him a soft little smile. “You can stand?” he asked him, “Yes?”

“I think so” groaned Josh, as he began to pull himself up onto his knees again. He didn’t know what was going on. Why did Dimitri seem to command so much respect? He’d thought that he was just Vasily’s simple-minded little brother, but for some reason Ducky seemed to defer to him?! A moment ago, Ducky had been top dog, now he was dancing to a very different tune! It was like he was scared?

“Okay!” coaxed Dimitri, as he helped to pull him to his feet, “Up you get!” With his hands still tied behind his back and the blows that he’d taken to the head, he wobbled, and fell against Dimitri’s chest. He was dizzy! “Hey, it okay!” said Dimitri, “I here now!”

“Ah, he’s okay!” laughed Ducky, hoping that he hadn’t done too much damage, “Like he said himself, it looks worse than it is!”

Dimitri glared at him for a moment and then helped Josh to sit down on one of the opposite benches. That’s when he saw the cable ties that were savagely cutting into Josh’s wrists. They were actually bleeding! “Cut these off now!” he shouted at one of Ducky’s men, “Now!”

Ducky nodded to Kwon to do as he said. Kwon pulled the flick knife out of his pocket again and made his way over to Josh first. 

Josh hissed a little as the ties were cut. His hands had been tied for so long that his hands were completely numb but the skin in his wrists was extremely tender. His shoulders hurt too. He brought his hands forward and looked at them in concern. They’d gone a pale bluey white colour and he couldn’t move his fingers but they were shaking violently. “Kyle?!” he shouted, seeing Kyle massaging his wrists on the other side of the room from him, “You okay?!”

Kyle looked up at him and their eyes met. He just nodded but he could see that he was shaking and desperately blinking back tears. He was battered and bruised and covered in blood. He wondered what had happened in the showers.

Dimitri got to his feet and looked at Ducky. “I talk to you later” he said, “But first we take friends to see doctors…”

“You’re not gonna tell Nikolai what we did, are you?!” asked Ducky, as he stepped forward to help Josh get to his feet. It was clear to him that Dimitri had formed an emotional attachment to these two, and Josh in particular. He'd obviously made a big mistake here, but it was all about damage limitation now. All he could do was show that he was sorry! 

“Get off me!” gasped Josh, as he jerked his arm away from him, “Don’t you ever touch me again!” His whole body was still shaking violently.

“We talk later!” said Dimitri, as he pulled Josh’s arm over his shoulder to help him walk. One of the other Russians helped Kyle in much the same way.

Ducky watched as the five men disappeared out through the door of the shower room and then slumped back down onto the bench. “****!” he spat, as he stared at the floor and pondered the mess that he’d gotten himself into, "****, ****, ****!"  As much as he liked to think of himself as top dog, he’d really only gained that position because all of his rivals had been killed in the riot. Not only that, but he still answered to some pretty nasty individuals on the outside, and it looked like he may have just crossed one of them?! Nikolai Borokov was a true psychopath. If he wanted you dead, you could bet that it wouldn’t be pleasant! What was he going to do now?!

Kyle and Josh limped along the hallway towards the infirmary, helped along by their newfound Russian friends. Both were bleeding quite heavily and in a lot of pain. They were also confused.

“What just happened in there?!” panted Josh, as Dimitri half-carried him along the corridor, “What’s going on?!” Other inmates were stepping out of their way as they passed by and looking at the injured pair in surprise. The infirmary wasn’t far now but suddenly they slipped inside a cell instead. Josh looked around in confusion as Dimitri lowered him onto the bed. He didn’t know whose cell this was. He saw the other men continue on their way and Kyle glanced in through the doorway with a fearful look on his face as he was carried past. Then they disappeared out of view.

Dimitri stood staring at him with an angry expression on his face. He’d never seen him look like this before. Normally, he looked so childlike and playful. There had always been a kindness in his face, and an innocence, but that was gone now…

“Dimitri… I…?” he started to say, but he was soon interrupted.

“You just had a very lucky escape” said Dimitri, speaking in a low whisper as he walked over and closed the door, “If we hadn’t shown up… I think you know what was going to happen! …And then where would we be?!” He turned back around and went to the sink to wet a wash cloth. He filled a cup with some water and then came to sit on the edge of the bed with him.

Josh looked at him in shock. Gone was the Russian accent! Gone was the slow and child-like demeanour. This man was as Australian as they come! And there was nothing child-like about him! His heart pounded in his chest as he began to wonder who this man really was.

“What… wait…?” stammered Josh, “Who?!” He had a sinking feeling in his stomach. Was ‘Dimitri’ going to hurt him now too?!

[Ludub]

Okay, so here's the next chapter. Hope you like it...

 

WARNING: ADULT THEMES!

 

Chapter 34

 

Josh flinched a little as Dimitri reached forward with the wash cloth to wash the blood from his face. It wasn’t so much that it hurt, although it obviously did. It was more that he really didn’t know who this man was anymore and he was more than a little scared of him. His heart was still pounding in his chest and he couldn’t stop shaking.

“You two really are a couple of numb nuts, you know that?!” said Dimitri, giving him a look that said he was quickly losing patience. He moved forward again, and began dabbing gently at the nasty wound on his eyebrow. It was bleeding quite badly. “You seem to have an amazing ability to get yourself in trouble” he said, “You know that, right?!”

“But… you?” stammered Josh, as he let him clean the wound, “I thought you were… You’re not really Dimitri, are you?!”

“No, I’m not really Dimitri” he admitted, reaching for a small box from under the bed. It was full of first aid supplies.

“Then… who are you?” asked Josh, staring at him in fear. He still couldn’t make sense of what was going on. He’d thought that Dimitri was his friend and he couldn’t help feeling terribly betrayed now. He’d been someone that he’d thought that he could trust. Someone that he’d liked. He’d confided in him and told him things that he hadn’t told anyone else. Had he been ridiculing him?!

“It doesn’t matter who I am” said Dimitri, “We just need to get you fixed up…” He applied a couple of paper stitches to Josh’s eyebrow, pulling the skin together, and ignoring the little hisses that he made in response. “You can’t miss visiting later on…” he said, “It’s all sorted now and it has to happen today… That guy Brax is coming in… Both of you have to be there… The boys are sorting Kyle out…”

“Sorting him out?” he asked, looking worried.

“Cleaning him up” he clarified, “Patching him up, like I’m doing with you.”

“But… who?” asked Josh, wincing as the man’s hand dabbed at his busted lip with an alcohol wipe, “Who are you… I mean, you’re not even Russian, are you?”

He stopped what he was doing and gave a little sigh. It was like he was weighing things up and trying to decide how much to tell him. “My parents are Russian, and I was raised there as a kid… but no, I’m not Russian… Not in the sense that you mean.”  He glanced at the door and lowered his voice to not much more than a whisper. “I’m undercover” he said, “So was Vasily… but who we really are… were… doesn’t matter”

“Wait?! …Vasily was undercover?!” he exclaimed, looking truly shocked.

“Shhh!” he warned him.

 “But… but…” he stammered, in a shocked whisper, “That man… He…He broke my fingers!”

“Needs must” sighed Dimitri, “Although to be honest, he might have let his temper get the better of him there… You really messed things up for us…”

“I… I messed things up?”

“Yeah… two years, Josh!” he said, shaking his head at him, “Two miserable ****ing years it took me and Vasily to worm our way in with Alexei and the rest of the fellas… We were setting up the deal of all deals with that low-life Smithy” He wiped a little more roughly at Josh’s lip as his anger began to shine through again. “We almost had them… We were gonna get to go home, see our families… for this to be over…” He rolled his eyes at him and gave an exasperated little laugh. “Then you and your little mate got it in your heads to dose Cuddles… Viagra of all things… Took him out of the game and ruined everything for everyone!”

“I… I didn’t know” said Josh, feeling a rush of adrenalin again. He glanced at the door and wondered if he could make a run for it? Maybe Dimitri was looking for revenge too? Maybe that’s why he’d brought him here?!

“Course you didn’t!” sighed Dimitri, “Didn’t stop Vasily being pissed off with you though… I mean, you screwed us royally!”

“So… So, that’s why he had me beaten that time? …He was just getting his own back?!”

“Nah, that was for the other guys” he said, “They needed to see us test your mettle… Show that we could bring you on board… Show that you could keep your mouth shut! …An initiation of sorts…”

“So, the other guys… they’re not cops?”

“No, they think I’m Dimitri… They think I’m Vasily’s dumb little brother… Not two brain cells to rub together but useful to have around because Nikolai likes him so much… and I need them to keep on thinking that.”

“But… Vasily… He broke my fingers…” he repeated, staring down at them and remembering the moment that they’d snapped. He’d threatened him and come very close to sexually assaulting him. How could a policeman do something like that?! He still couldn’t quite take it in. “He beat me up…” he said again, “…and you’re saying he was a… he was a cop?!”

“For his sins” chuckled Dimitri, as he put a little paper strip across the split in Josh’s lip, “So’s Keith, but you already know that.”

“But why?” he began to say, “Why me?!” He just couldn’t get his head around this! Why had they chosen him to be a part of this plan?! Bring him ‘on board’ for what?!

Dimitri gave a little sigh and tilted his head at him. “We were out of options…” he said, “Cuddles was gone… Sergei was starting to get suss …so… we decided to use you to get rid of him… and then… Well, then we saw the way that Smithy was with you…. You’d really taken his fancy… He was sniffing around you like a dog in heat… so, we figured we could use that…”

Josh looked up at him in shock. “Use it?!” he exclaimed, “Use what?!”

“We thought we’d use you to get close to Smithy…” replied Dimitri, “Get under his skin”.

Josh just looked at him in disgust. He really didn’t know what to say to that.

“Sorry, mate… but…” he said with an apologetic little grimace, “We thought maybe we could use his… his ‘attraction’ to you to get him to talk… get you to wear a wire or something… or maybe bug your cell so we could record him during some… some ‘pillow talk’… Or something… You kind of screwed things up for everyone… So, we thought maybe you could take one for the team…”

“Take one for the team?!” he gasped. His heart was racing now and he felt like he could vomit at any moment. Was he saying what he thought he was saying?!

“Yeah, well, it’s not like it wasn’t already on the cards…” he said, “It was only a matter of time really… with a man like him… He’d been sniffing around and threatening as much… We were just going to help it along some… Put you in his path… We’d have seen you right…y’know… cut you a deal or something after…”

“Cut me a deal?!” repeated Josh, “After what?!”

“After” nodded Dimitri, with a knowing sort of look, “After we got what we needed… If we got something we could use.”

Josh was staring at him in horror. It was all becoming a lot clearer… They’d wanted to use him in the worst possible way.

“But then all hell broke loose with the riot” said Dimitri, “And… Well, you know what happened!”

Josh’s head felt like it was spinning! The original plan had been to pimp him out?! For him to prostitute himself for a deal?! For him to just bend over and take it?! What kind of sick bastards were these guys?! He felt sick to his stomach…

“And then we got some new information…” he said, “We found out about Kyle’s brothers and a lot about their history… and we had a bit of leverage… so, the plan changed.” He gave him a little shrug. “So, here we are.”

Josh sat for a moment just staring straight ahead of him. This was too much to take in! Too much to deal with!  His head was still fogged up and confused from the blows that he’d taken earlier,  and he didn’t know what was real anymore! “So… the… the ‘Dimitri’ act?” he asked eventually, “None of it was real?”

“A duh, a duh duh…” said Dimitri, making his face look simple and childlike again and mocking the way that ‘Dimitri’ spoke, “Vasily, he read to me sometimes… he good big brother…” He laughed a little and shook his head. “It gets old really quickly, believe me.” he said, “But it’s amazing how people talk around you when they think you’re not smart… They almost forget that you’re there… and they tell you stuff too…. We got more out of Dimitri’s ‘dumb dumb’ act than we ever would have with a wire!”

“So, it was all just a joke…” sighed Josh, “You were just making fun of me… and the stuff I told you…”

“Nah, mate, I just needed to…” he started to say but Josh cut him off.

 “You fooled us” said Josh, staring at the blood on his tracksuit bottoms in a dazed sort of way. He couldn’t help thinking of the way that Aaron had bled out. “You sat in that cell with us when our friend was dying and you said nothing… You let us think that you were our friend…”

“I did what I had to do” he said, with a little shrug, “I wasn’t making fun though… I just saw an ‘in’… A way to get you to trust me.”

“So, Cuddles?” asked Josh, in a distant sort of way, “That… that never happened… Not to you?”

There was a long pause. “Not like I led you to believe… no.”

“Good to know” said Josh, sounding a little bitter and depressed, “Guess I’m just really easily manipulated then…” He couldn’t help feeling humiliated.

Dimitri just gave a little shrug. He didn’t really have much to say to that. He applied a few more paper strips to the cut on Josh’s cheek and then began to pack things away. Josh just sat staring at the blood on his clothes. He wondered if his heart would ever beat normally again or if he would ever stop shaking.

“Seems like I spend all my time clearing up your messes” said Dimitri with a sarcastic little smile. He was gathering up all the wipes that he’d used and throwing them in a waste paper bin. “And now you’ve gone and messed things up with the Koreans too!” he scolded. He reached for Josh’s wrists to have a look at the wounds, but he flinched again involuntarily, and pulled away. “Weren’t you listening to me at all yesterday?!” asked Dimitri, “When I told you I could get you the money?!”

Josh shook his head. Dimitri had offered to get them the money for the pills so they could pay Kwon off. He’d told them to come and look for him this morning, but they hadn’t taken him seriously at all. Everything about him had seemed so child-like that they’d wondered if he even understood money, or how much they were talking about. It had seemed unlikely that he’d have access to that kind of cash. They’d written it off as a very sweet but ultimately empty offer.

“I… I thought…” said Josh, staring at the scars around Dimitri’s mouth and wondering if they were fake too. They didn’t look fake. “I didn’t think you really knew what you were offering… that Dimitri knew.”

Dimitri gave him a sad little smile. It was as though he’d read his mind. “They’re real” he said, running his finger and thumb gently along the scar-lines in his face, “Things happen… Sometimes in this job you get in too deep.”

Josh winced as Dimitri lifted the wash cloth again to wash away the fresh blood from around his broken nose. He was still trying to get his head around all of this. How was this the same man who had driven them crazy singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star?! The same guy that he’d been locked in a cell with for hours and hours that fateful day? Who was this guy?! Did he even know himself?!  “So… You’re a cop?” he asked again, giving a little sigh. He was sad in a way. It felt almost like Dimitri had died. Like his friend had died.

“Yeah, I am” said Dimitri, “A Federal Agent.”

“And you’re telling me this because?”

“Cos I need you to keep it together” he said, “I can’t take you to the infirmary which is where you should probably be… I need you to do what you have to do.”

Josh nodded and looked down at the wounds on his wrists. He was grateful to him for saving him today. He might not be ‘Dimitri’, but he’d come to the rescue just when he’d needed him most. He shuddered to think what had been going to happen. “So, what now?” he asked.

 “Well…” sighed Dimitri, as he rubbed his face in his hands, “Like I said, I have a mess to clear up now… thanks to you two idiots.” He pulled himself over to sit beside him and leaned his back against the wall. “Ducky thinks I still have my connections to Nikolai Borokov” he said, “…and I told him you two were sort of… ‘button men’ for want of a better word… basically runners for Vasily… Hand chosen… and approved.” He shook his head and rolled his eyes a little. It seemed pretty far-fetched, but it was all that he’d been able to come up with in the spur of the moment. How else had he been meant to save their stupid skins?! “He thinks he’s gotten on the wrong side of his boss now… Nikolai… and he’s worried that he’s gonna have to answer some difficult questions.” He got to his feet and started to help Josh to stand up again. “It wouldn’t take much for them to figure things out…” he said, as Josh staggered a little and then righted himself, “All it’d take would be one phone call.”

“So, we’re screwed anyway?” asked Josh.

“Not if I can convince them to get in on this ‘deal’ of yours” he said, making inverted commas with his fingers, “Convince them that Nikolai is on board with this… That you and these Braxtons have been ‘okayed’ by the Big Man… that you two numbskulls should just have introduced yourselves better in the first place… That there’s money to be made…”

“And you think that’ll work?” he asked, feeling even more nervous now. How had he ended up mixed up in something as complicated and messed up as this?!

“You’d better hope it does!”

“I don’t… I don’t understand any of this” said Josh. He just felt so lost.

“You don’t need to understand it” said Dimitri, handing him a small piece of mirror to look at himself, “You just need to do what you’re told for once…” He gave him a little pat on the back. “All you have to do is put on some clean clothes, get to that visiting room, and hope like hell that these Braxton boys of yours don’t screw everything up!”

[Ludub]

Sorry for the delay on this, guys. Just been a bit busy.  It's not the cheeriest chapter, but I hope you like it...

WARNING: ADULT THEMES!

 

Chapter 35

 

'Just get to the cell' Josh told himself, as he limped his way along the metal walkway, 'Just get to the cell and close the door. Maybe Kyle won't be back yet... You might still have time.' He was trying not to make eye contact with the other inmates as he passed, but at the same time he was desperately scanning their faces to make sure that they weren't part of Ducky's gang. He was frightened of ever seeing them again. They'd had him completely at their mercy. Tied up, and vulnerable, and unable to defend himself. There was no coming back from that! How was he ever meant to look them in the eye again?! For them to know what they’d nearly done to him! What they’d been planning to do! He wasn’t their equal! He was a victim, pure and simple. Someone to be pissed on. And that’s all he’d ever be… just like Mark! Dimitri wanted him to play the part of this ‘drug runner’ character that he'd made him out to be. To meet with them again tomorrow. To fake it, and pretend that today had never happened. How was he supposed to sit down with them and talk business terms? Even if he’d been the best actor in the world, it would have been far too much to ask! Was he supposed to have somehow forgotten that Ducky had tried to rape him and had him beaten to within an inch of his life?! That he’d tried to put his penis in his mouth?! That he’d threatened to pull every one of his teeth out and make him his bitch?! How was he meant to do that?! How?! …He'd be lucky if he didn't **** himself on the spot! He was terrified of them!

He stopped for a moment and leant against the wall. He was out of breath and in pain, and he kept flinching any time anyone got too close to him. He couldn’t help it. His whole nervous system was on overload. He would have jumped at anything. Men kept stepping around him, but they’d slow down as they passed to look at him with shocked expressions. He certainly wasn't a pretty sight! He couldn't blame them really, not now that he'd seen the damage himself. He’d expected a lot of cuts and bruises, but even he hadn't realised quite how serious his injuries were until Dimitri had given him that mirror. He was barely recognisable! A man from his hallway passed by and gave him a sympathetic little head tilt but he just looked down at the ground. He couldn’t meet his eye. 'Just get back there and do it!' he said to himself, as he pushed himself off the wall and gritted his teeth against the pain, 'Just do it, don't hesitate... Don’t be such a coward! No second thoughts!' He saw another man step out of his way with a look of horror on his face and he laughed at himself a little when he found himself wondering if he’d be left with permanent scarring. As if that was something that he really had to worry about now! His heart raced as he got closer to the door of his cell. Would he be brave enough, he wondered? Would he have the strength to do what needed to be done?! He hoped so! He wouldn’t have much time! He kept one arm protectively across his injured ribs as he walked along, and the other hand in his pocket, keeping a tight hold of the piece of mirror that he’d hidden there.

Finally, he’d made it! Much to his relief, Kyle wasn’t back yet and the cell was empty, so he stepped inside and quickly pulled the door closed. ‘Okay, this is it!’ he said to himself as he pulled the shard of silvered glass out of his pocket. He looked at his reflection and winced at the sight of his own face. In some ways, this was easier though. It was like he was looking at a total stranger! He started to say a sort of silent goodbye to everyone that he’d ever cared about. The faces of friends and family flashed before his eyes, with little memories of happier times, and he wondered at the mess that he’d made of his life. There were so many people that he wanted to apologise to! He would have liked to make amends. To have the chance to say that he was sorry. To tell people what they’d meant to him. He thought about Evie and Andy… He would have liked to see them and talk to them one last time… to say a proper goodbye. He glanced at the door when he heard voices outside and sighed when they passed on by. For a moment, he’d thought that one of them was Kyle. He felt bad about leaving him to deal with things. To deal with this… He knew that it wasn’t fair… but he was just too tired.  He couldn’t deal with this life anymore. He gave a little sob as he stared at his own face in the mirror. The longer he looked, the more an anger began to build. He hated himself!  “Stupid!” he snarled at the ugly smashed up face that was looking back at him, “Stupid, stupid, stupid!” He sat down on the edge of the bed and began to sob quite violently. “Stupid and weak!” he growled at himself again as tears poured down his face. With trembling hands, he took the piece of mirror and brought it down as hard as he could on the metal edge of the bed. It broke into three pieces. He put the piece in his hand back in his pocket before picking another piece up off the floor. He ran his thumb over the freshly shattered edge and hissed as he realised that he’d sliced into the flesh without meaning to. It was certainly sharp enough to do the job! He lifted the final piece and began to angle it in his other hand as he tried to find what he thought was maybe his jugular vein, or his carotid, he wasn’t sure... This was going to be bloody and savage, but he hoped that it would at least be quick. “Okay!” he said to himself out loud, “Just do it!”

 

*****

 

Ash got up and began pacing back and forth across the floor of the empty warehouse. It felt like he’d been waiting for hours… Why on earth they’d insisted on dropping him off here before Brax went to the prison, he would never understand. He was bored silly and a little freaked out. It was kind of eerie here. Every little noise echoed back and forth, and he kept thinking that he’d heard someone coming. He’d peeked outside a couple of times to check, but each time there’d been no-one there. He’d been told to wait for the phone call. To just sit here and wait with a bag full of drugs. Like that was no biggie at all! He hadn’t felt this nervous about anything in a very long time. He kept opening the bag and looking at the contents in a wary sort of way. He’d never even seen crystal meth before today. Not in real life anyway. Only on TV. He could see why they called it ‘Ice’ though… What on earth had he gotten himself dragged into?! Knowing that he was working with the Feds on this didn’t make him feel any better about carrying a bag full of drugs around with him. He’d never liked being involved in drugs and just having them around him made him feel jumpy. What if those Fed guys weren’t who they said they were and this was all some sort of set up?! What if he was a sitting duck?! What if he was sitting here just waiting to get busted?!

He took his phone out of his pocket and looked at the picture of Kat that he had on his screen. He’d spoken to her this morning but he hadn’t told her what was going on. The Feds had been pretty clear about them all keeping their mouths shut and what would happen if they went blabbing to anyone else. They’d specifically told him not to talk to Kat about it. Her reputation seemed to have preceded her, even here in the city! She’d gotten a bad name for sticking her nose into investigations that didn’t concern her and jeopardising the safety of the agents involved. The part that she’d played in the death of Agent Decker hadn’t gone unnoticed, that was for sure! They simply didn’t want her to know. Ash really wasn’t too happy about it, but he’d done as he was told for once.

“Agent Lee?!” he said, looking around him and trying to see if he could see the microphones or the cameras anywhere. He figured if he couldn’t see them, then this guard guy wouldn’t be able to either. That made him feel a little better. “Agent Lee?” he said again, “Can you hear me? Can I call my girlfriend again for a minute?”

A text message beeped through on his phone and he gave a little sigh. It said “No”

 

*****

 

“Okay… here you go” said Boris in his thick Russian accent, “You sit here on bed.” 

“Okay” said Kyle, wincing a little as Boris lowered him down onto the mattress, “Can you just go now?” Dimitri had had a private chat with him as well, and then he’d asked Boris to help him back to his cell. He was a little too dazed to really take it in, but the one thing he knew was that he didn’t trust any of them as far as he could throw them!

“Visiting in one hour and twenty minutes…” warned Boris, “If I was you, I would not miss it!” He glanced at Josh, who was sitting on the floor by the toilet, and gave his foot a little kick to get his attention. He had his hands around his own neck and his head leant back against the wall.  His eyes were closed. “You too!” he said to him.

Josh lowered his head for a moment and opened his one good eye to look at him. The other was so swollen that he couldn’t open it at all! “Okay” he said quietly. He sounded tired.

“Good!” said Boris, looking around the cell for a moment. He could see piles of prison issued clothing all folded neatly on their shelving unit. He indicated it with his head.  “You need to change…Men covered in blood do not get visitors.”

Kyle just nodded and stared at the floor.

“Okay” said Josh, “We’ll get changed… We’ll be there.” His voice was quiet and distant.

“Okay then” said Boris, looking back and forth between the two injured men. They were a sorry sight, the pair of them! “I leave now…” he said, “…but remember! …3 o’clock!”

Josh leaned his head back again and closed his eye again as Boris left the cell. ‘You’re even more pathetic than I thought you were!’ he told himself, ‘You didn’t even have the guts to do what needed to be done… You’re a coward, Josh Barrett… Nothing but a stupid little coward!’ He hated himself right now.

Kyle glanced at Josh, and then turned to look at the man that was sitting to his right-hand side. Aaron was back and he was holding his hand tightly with his fingers interlaced with his. He could feel his soft blue eyes watching him, and pitying him. He made eye contact with him only for a moment, but then he had to look away again. He looked down at the ground. He’d never felt so ashamed of himself… or pathetic… or dirty. He couldn’t meet his eye. How could he ever look at him again after what had happened today?! ‘I’m sorry’ he said to him, ‘I couldn’t stop them… I couldn’t do anything to stop it!’

‘Shhhh!’ said Aaron, reaching over and raising Kyle’s chin gently with his hand to make him look at him. ‘This isn’t your fault!’  he said, tilting his head at him in a sympathetic way. His grey-blue eyes filled with tears and he gave him a sad little smile. ‘None of this is your fault!’ he assured him. Kyle raised his eyes to look at him and his whole face began to crumple. ‘I’m sorry, Aaron!’ he began to sob, ‘I’m so sorry!’ He’d been holding it all back since it had happened. It just felt like the dam had burst. His whole body was wracked with sobs as he sat there on the edge of his bed and let Aaron put his arms around him.

“You okay?” asked Josh, opening his eye again and looking up at him. He’d heard him crying and he could see him huddled there on the bed.  He was hugging himself and rocking back and forth a little. He had his eyes closed.

Kyle didn’t answer. In his mind, Aaron was holding him tight and comforting him as he cried. He hadn’t even heard Josh.

“Kyle?” said Josh, speaking a little louder this time and shifting uncomfortably on the floor, “You okay?”

‘I love you’ whispered Aaron, speaking into Kyle’s ear as he hugged him close against his body, ‘I’ll always be with you when you need me.’ Kyle held him even tighter, never wanting to let him go. He needed him now more than he’d ever needed anyone in his life. He knew that he wasn’t really there but he didn’t want the delusion to end. What use was sanity when it was full of pain and misery?!

“Kyle?!” shouted Josh, watching him with concern as tears streamed down his face, “Kyle?! **** sake?! Are you okay?!”

Kyle opened his eyes and glared at him. In an instant, Aaron was gone, and his sudden absence was more jarring than he ever could have imagined. He felt empty and alone. Alone again, like he’d always known he was. In this moment, he despised Josh for making him realise that.

“Kyle?” Josh said again, giving him a sympathetic sort of head tilt, “Are you okay? You’re freaking me out. Can you just say something?!”

“No, Josh!” he spat, “I’m not ****ing okay!” He looked down in disgust at his blood-soaked t-shirt, and the tracksuit bottoms that he was wearing. He could smell Ducky’s men on them, their body odour on his clothes. He wanted them off him now! He dragged his t-shirt up over his head with a loud grunt and then sat there looking at his wounds. He traced his fingertips over the darkening bruises on his abdomen and winced a little from the pain. “I’m not even remotely okay…” he admitted, as he started blinking back tears again, “I’m not okay, Josh… I’m not okay… Okay?!” He still wasn’t looking at him.

“Did they?” Josh started to say, “Did they…?”

“Yes!” he snapped back at him, “Okay?! Yes! …They did! …I couldn’t stop them!”  He was talking through gritted teeth and clenching his fists at his side.

Josh grimaced and nodded slowly to himself.  He’d been hoping that they’d been interrupted before they’d had time. Apparently not.

“Two of them…” said Kyle, keeping his eyes fixed on the floor. “Two of them!” he repeated, bursting into tears again. “I couldn’t stop them!” he cried, “I couldn’t do anything to stop them! …If Dimitri hadn’t come…”

“I’m sorry” mumbled Josh. He knew that no amount of sympathy would make him feel any better, but what else could he say?! “I’m really sorry, Kyle.”

Kyle nodded and clamped his eyes closed. It was like he was silently lecturing himself and trying to pull himself together. After a few moments, he took a deep breath, and blew it out in a shuddery sort of way. Then he looked up at him and wiped roughly at his eyes. “We need to get changed” he said decisively, “We have to…”

“Are you…?” interrupted Josh, “Are you hurt?” He remembered his own injuries all too well.

“We have to get changed…” repeated Kyle, ignoring the question and getting to his feet. He limped over to the shelving unit where their clothes were and grabbed a clean t-shirt. He groaned loudly as he struggled to get the t-shirt on over his head and pulled it down.

“Kyle?” Josh tried again.

“Not now” he said, in a pained sort of voice, “We have the visiting to think about… We have to see Brax… and do the… do the… the… the thing!” He didn’t seem to be able to find the right word and it was pretty clear that he was getting frustrated. “You know? …The… the… the deal!” he managed after a moment, “We have to keep it together!”

“Okay, but…” Josh started to say.

“Not now?!” pleaded Kyle, glancing only momentarily at him as he changed his tracksuit bottoms and underwear. It was clear that he was in a lot of pain. “I can’t right now… Okay?!”

“Okay” sighed Josh, as he leaned his head back against the wall again. If Kyle didn’t want to talk about it, he could certainly understand that. How many times had he said those same words himself?

“Here!” said Kyle, picking up one of Josh’s t-shirts and throwing it at him. He jumped a little when it hit him in the face and he took his hands away from his neck for the first time. “You have to get…” said Kyle, his voice trailing away a little when he saw the small cut on Josh’s neck, “…changed.” That’s when he noticed the bloodied piece of mirror on the floor beside him. It didn’t take a genius to put two and two together.

“Thanks” muttered Josh. There was fresh blood on his hands and it was on the new t-shirt now too. He was obviously bleeding a little more than he’d realised. He just sat there looking at his hands. It was like he couldn’t take it in. Like he didn’t know where the blood was coming from.

“What did you do to your neck?” asked Kyle.

“What? …Uh… Nothing…” he answered, as he continued to stare at his hands.

“You cut yourself?” asked Kyle, “On purpose?” He couldn’t help feeling a flash of anger.

Josh gave a little snort and smiled in a sad sort of way. He’d almost forgotten about doing it. “Yeah…” he said, as he started to laugh a little nervously, “I couldn’t do it though, could I?! …I didn’t even have the guts to go through with it! …How pathetic is that?!”

Kyle shook his head at him and gave a disappointed snort. He wasn’t even going to entertain a comment like that. This had to be Josh’s third suicide attempt. At least that he knew of! On any other day, he might have tried to comfort and reassure him, but he just didn’t have it in him today. If he wanted to kill himself, then as far as he was concerned, he could go right on ahead! Selfish little ****, that he was! He just couldn’t find it in himself to care right now!  “You need to clean that up…” he said, in a cold sort of tone, “…Or we won’t get in to see Brax… They won’t let us in if we’re bleeding all over the place.”

Josh looked up at him and began wiping at the blood on his neck with the t-shirt in his hands. “It’s okay” he shrugged, “It’ll stop.”

Kyle picked another of Josh’s t-shirts off the shelf and a pair of tracksuit bottoms and threw them at him. “Get changed!” he said to him, sounding a little frustrated, “We don’t have a lot of time.”

 

*****

 

“You ready for this?” asked Brax, as he and Heath pulled up a couple of streets away from the prison. He looked nervous, but excited at the same time. Much as he hated to admit it, he did love this stuff. Ricky was right about that! He was bored silly with the life that he was leading now, and its day in, day out, reliability. Get up, go to work, come home, go to sleep… repeat. How did people do this their whole lives?! Where was the adrenalin rush?! Where was the excitement?! He’d imagined himself happy and settled with Ricky but he was just bored. So very very bored… He’d always thought that a life of crime was something that he’d simply been forced into by circumstance, and not something that he’d really chosen for himself. But that wasn’t really true, and he was beginning to realise that now. He needed some drama in his life. He needed danger… This was the first time in months that he’d truly felt alive.

“Yeah, I guess” said Heath, frowning as he zipped his leather jacket up. His thoughts were very different from those of his brother and he couldn’t help wanting to wipe that smile off his smug face. Bianca was pregnant again and he had too many little people in his life now, all depending on him, to be risking his neck like this! He didn’t want this kind of life anymore! He wanted stability. He was angry.

“Cool” said Brax, clearly oblivious to his lack of enthusiasm, “Well, you know what to do.”

Heath stared at him for a moment, wondering why he’d always thought so much of him, and admired him, when they were growing up. He just seemed so childish now. A man who didn’t want to step up and look after his family, but would rather run around the place play-acting at being a drug-dealer?!  He shook his head and gave a little sigh. “After this” he said to him, “I'm done, Brax! I'm never doing anything like this ever again... You hear me?!”

“Hey, I didn’t have anything to do with them making you do this!” said Brax, sounding a little defensive. They’d been through this so many times now. Why did he keep accusing him of something so underhanded?! Surely, he knew him better than that?!

Heath raised an eyebrow at him. He did have his doubts.

“I didn’t!” insisted Brax, “That Agent Lee had information on all of us… Ash included…”

“And where did he get that from?” asked Heath, ”I mean, how did they find out all that stuff?!” He couldn’t quite shake the thought that Brax had sold him and Ash out to get himself a better deal here. It didn’t seem like something that he would do, but on the other hand, he couldn’t figure out how they seemed to know so much about them. How could the Feds have found out the kind of stuff that they knew?! Tiny minute details. Personal information on all of them. They practically knew what brand of toothpaste they each used! It was weird! And Brax was the only one that seemed excited about this whole thing. The only one that didn’t seem to be angry or scared. He knew that he was probably just being paranoid, but for the first time in his life, he didn’t trust his own brother… not completely, anyway.

“I don’t know” said Brax, frowning across at him, “I told you that… I really don’t know who told them, but it definitely wasn’t me...”

“Fine” huffed Heath. He still had his doubts but he tried to push them from his mind. He didn't like thinking badly of him. He just couldn't figure this out! The Feds had information on all of them that could have seen each of them spending a year or two in prison. They’d had no choice but to collaborate with them on this. 

He started to open the car door to get out, but stopped and turned to look at him again for a moment. “If anything happens to me, you need to see Bianca right… She’s gonna need help with the new baby… and…”

“I know that” answered Brax, “I’ll look after her… The same goes for Ric.”

Heath nodded. He really hoped that it wouldn’t come to that! “Be careful” he said, as he hopped out of the car and closed the door. He shook his head to himself as he watched Brax drive away. ‘Bianca’s gonna kill you!’ he said to himself, as he began to walk towards the prison, ‘That’s if you make it out of this alive!’

[Ludub]

Thanks everyone for the kind comments, and apologies for the delay in posting this next chapter. I was a little stuck for a while there and I needed to work a few things out. Hope you like this one.

WARNING: ADULT THEMES

Chapter 36

 

‘What are you doing, Heath?!’ he asked himself, as he leaned casually against one of the parked cars and pretended to smoke, ‘What the **** are you doing?!’ He could see Brax’s car a short distance away, and he had a good view of the door to the prison, so he figured this was probably as good a place to wait as any. He’d be able to see Brax, and this guard guy, as soon as they came out the door. He’d be able to watch how things were unfolding, and step in when he was needed. To any passers-by, he would look just like a normal guy, waiting in the carpark for someone that he’d driven to visiting. He took a forced puff of the cigarette and then stubbed it out on the ground. A few people walked past without giving him another glance. ‘Why am I so nervous?!’ he asked himself, as he took his phone out of his pocket and looked at the screen. There was a text message there from Bianca but he hadn’t heard it because he’d put the phone on silent. 

‘Hey babe. Just reminding you, we have our 3D baby scan tomorrow, 10am. Can you make sure you have the time booked off?’

He felt his stomach give a little lurch. What if something went wrong?! How would he explain things to Bianca?! Would she ever forgive him for this?!

‘Sure thing. Love ya’ he texted back. He hated lying to her but he didn’t need her worrying unnecessarily, especially at this stage in the pregnancy. He slipped the phone back in his pocket and nervously patted the gun inside his zipped-up jacket. It must have been the hundredth time that he’d checked today, just to make sure it was still there.

He jumped when he felt the phone vibrate again in his pocket. Another message! He gave a little sigh when he pulled it out again and saw Bianca’s text. It was a photo of her and Harley eating chocolate cake with buttercream icing smeared all over their faces. They looked so happy! ‘Love you daddy! Xxx’ read the message underneath. He looked at their faces and felt his chest tighten a little. He loved his little family and he didn’t want to do anything to jeopardise it! Why couldn’t Brax understand that?!

‘What am I doing?!’ he asked himself again, ‘Why am I even doing this?’ He stared at the door to the prison and shook his head in anger. He didn’t want to do this! He wondered if he should just go? Maybe he should just turn on his heel and leave right now? He could be home eating chocolate cake with his beautiful wife and little boy, and not waiting outside a prison, ready to ambush a scumbag of a drug dealer. If he left now, he could be home in half an hour!  Would it really make a difference if he wasn’t there? Surely, Brax could handle things on his own? But what would he say to the Feds if they found out that he’d bailed? And what if this guy Smithy turned out to be a total psycho or something? What if it all went wrong and Brax got hurt because he wasn’t there?! He couldn’t just leave. Much as he wanted to…

Part of him wondered if the Feds were just bluffing. They’d claimed to have all sorts of information on each of them, but did they really know? Agent Lee had implied that they knew about what had happened with Gunno out on that cliff’s edge. But how could they know that? Maybe he was just fishing and hoping that he’d confess or incriminate himself in some way? They also seemed to know very specific details about things that he and Brax had done back in Mangrove River, and things that had happened in Summer Bay. They even seemed to know about their dealings with Jake Pirovic. They seemed to know a lot… or did they? …The more he thought about it, he began to wonder what evidence they actually had? Was all of it just based on hearsay? Was it all just empty allegations? If they called their bluff, would they be able to back things up at all? Would any of it stand up in court?! He didn’t think so! The truth was that he would have gotten up and walked away, if Kyle and Josh hadn’t been in so much trouble. He couldn’t turn his back on his little brother. That he couldn’t do. Much as he would have liked to have laughed in that Fed’s face, and told him where he could stick that bag of crystal meth, he couldn’t leave Kyle in there to die. He hadn’t been a good brother to Kyle for quite some time. Not by a long shot! This was his chance to make things up to him, at least a little bit. Maybe it would be the only chance he’d get!

His phone vibrated again and he couldn’t help smiling to himself as he reached into his pocket. He loved Bianca’s silly little texts and the photos she sent. They always brightened his day. He unlocked his phone and opened her message. It was a photo of Bianca grinning at the camera with a happy face drawn in chocolate icing on her baby bump. Harley had his face beside her tummy and was smiling from ear to ear.

“Miss you, daddy!” it said under the photo…

 

*****

 

Brax stood up as he watched Kyle and Josh shuffling through the door of the visitor’s room. They were very late. All the other inmates had been allowed in about twenty minutes ago. Seeing them now, he couldn’t hide his shock. They were beaten black and blue! He might not even have recognised Josh if he hadn’t been with Kyle! “What the…?” he said under his breath as the pair made their way across the room. Kyle had a noticeable limp. He was surprised that they’d been allowed into visiting at all looking like that! He guessed that it was the reason for the delay.

“Jesus, Kyle!” said Brax, making a move forward to hug him, “What happened to you?!” Kyle took a step back, flinching in a way that made it clear that he didn’t want to be touched. Brax looked at him in concern but put his arms down again.  They’d made eye contact for a moment but Kyle was actively avoiding looking him in the eye now. Something about the way that he’d reacted rang alarm bells with him. He’d seen men behave this way before. He hoped that he wasn’t right about it. “Who… who did this?” he asked, tilting his head to get a better look at Kyle’s bruised face.

“Can we just sit down?” asked Kyle. He looked around the room in a nervous way. Brax wasn’t the only one that was shocked by their appearance. People were staring at them from all angles. All he could see was people pointing and whispering. He couldn’t help feeling like they knew. Like what had happened in that shower room was public Knowledge somehow, and that they were all just sitting around having a good old laugh at his expense. All he wanted was to hide!

Brax nodded and glanced at Josh, who was almost hiding behind Kyle. “You okay, mate?” he asked.

Kyle pulled out one of the chairs for himself and then nodded at Josh to take the other one. It was only then that Brax got a full view of Josh’s injuries. He was in an awful state. His eye was a dark purple colour and so swollen that he wasn’t able to open it. He guessed that he probably had a fractured eye socket. He also wasn’t breathing through his nose, and his lip looked incredibly painful. “I’m okay” mumbled Josh, as he lowered himself carefully onto the seat opposite Brax. It was pretty clear from the way that he was guarding his ribs that he was in a lot of pain.

“Christ!” exclaimed Brax, leaning across the table to gently turn Josh’s face, “Have you even had that looked at?!” He wondered why the pair of them weren’t in the infirmary. Josh looked about ready to keel over.

“It’ll be okay” answered Josh, glancing up at him for a moment, “It’s not as bad as it looks.” He stared back down at the table in front of him and stuck his hands in his armpits to hide how much they were shaking. He didn’t want Brax to see how much of a mess he was. It was bad enough that he could feel his eyes poring over every inch of his face and body, and cataloguing the injuries.

“I’m guessing it’s worse than it looks” sighed Brax, “Much worse”. He looked back and forth between the two boys as they sat there with their heads lowered. They were so beaten down. They couldn’t even look at him. He could feel an anger already building in his chest. If he could have gotten his hands on the mongrels that did this he would have killed them himself. No doubt about it. Torn them to pieces with his bare hands! He couldn’t just stand by and let someone hurt his kid brother like this! Or Josh, for that matter! He shook his head and gave a snort of anger. “Are either of you going to tell me who did this?!” he asked.

“It doesn’t matter” said Kyle, glancing around at the other inmates. He could see one of Ducky’s men on the far side of the room and grimaced a little when realised that he didn’t know which of them had done it. Which of them had actually raped him. They’d had him pinned against the wall and he hadn’t been able to see behind him. It could have been any of them.

“What do you mean ‘it doesn’t matter’?!” exclaimed Brax, “Some guys beat you half to death, and… and… I’m what?! …I’m not supposed to care?!” He glanced at the ligature bruises around Kyle’s wrists and then turned to look at Josh’s too. He shook his head a little when he saw Josh self-consciously tug at the sleeves of his sweatshirt to try to hide them. It was pretty clear that they’d been tied up and unable to defend themselves, which was why their injuries were so severe. “Look at what they’ve done to you! Look at Josh! … I’m your brother, mate… It’s my job to protect you!”

Kyle gave a little snort and smiled a little. It was nice that Brax thought this way, even if he often just made matters ten times worse. How was he supposed to protect them when they were in here, and he was out there?

“I’m not leaving here till you tell me who did this” said Brax, glancing back and forth between the two of them. Josh just stared down at the table as though he was a million miles away. He wondered if he was even listening. “Well?!” he asked, looking back at Kyle.

“It won’t change anything… What happened… happened…” said Kyle, still staring across the room, “Besides, that’s not what you’re here for… You’re here because we need you to do what you’ve been asked to do.”

“Was it him then?!” asked Brax, scanning the faces of the guards on duty today, “Was it this guard guy?!” None of them matched the photos that he’d seen. Smithy wasn’t here. “Is that what that weird phone call was about?”

“No, it wasn’t him” mumbled Kyle, “He’s more of a lover than a fighter…” he said, giving a bitter little laugh, “Isn’t he, Josh?”

Josh glanced up at Kyle with a look of disgust. Smithy had been threatening to rape him for weeks now and had even climbed into bed with him on one occasion. Somehow, he didn’t find that very funny!

“So, who then?” asked Brax, sounding more and more impatient.

Kyle didn’t answer. He couldn’t stop staring at the back of the Korean guy’s head. He wanted to smash it in! He wanted to go over there right now and slit the guy’s throat mid-sentence. He wanted to watch him choke on his own blood. He wanted him to die the most painful death possible….

"Mate...", whispered Brax, as he looked around the room again to make sure that no-one was listening, "Did the cops do this to you?"

"What?! No!" said Kyle, giving him a roll of the eyes and an exasperated sigh. "Why would you think that?" he asked, as he stared off across the room again. He couldn’t take his eyes off that guy.

"Cos they know a lot of stuff about us... about me, and about Heath... and... and even Ash."

Kyle flicked his eyes back to Brax for a moment and narrowed them at him. He didn't like what he was insinuating. "And you think me and Josh told them?"

"I just thought... maybe... maybe they beat it out of you?" he said, looking again at the bruises around Kyle's wrists and thinking that they could have been from police handcuffs. That was a distinct possibility.

"We didn't" said Kyle, wincing as he folded his arms across his chest in a hostile way. "I haven't talked about you to any of them... Anything they know about you, they didn't hear from me."

"Mate, it's okay if you did" said Brax. He wouldn't have put it past the Feds to use brute force to get what they wanted. He'd been on the receiving end of police 'persuasion' in the past and it hadn't been pleasant. They'd never taken it this far though. This seemed a little extreme. Anyone would have talked if they'd taken a beating like this, he thought. He looked back and forth between the two boys, scanning for any sign of guilt. They were both staring at him now, but neither of them looked particularly guilty. If anything, they looked angry and offended. "I wouldn't blame you" he coaxed, genuinely meaning that, "I can see you both put up a fight..."

"I didn't tell anyone anything!" said Josh, "Brax, I swear! ...They just knew..." It was clear that he was getting upset.

"So, what?!" asked Kyle, putting his hand on Josh's arm to calm him, "You've come here to accuse us of ratting on you?!”

“Nah, mate… that’s not what…” Brax started to say.

“That’s what it sounds like” argued Kyle.

“I just thought… I mean…” stammered Brax.

 “Read my lips!” snapped Kyle, “I didn't tell anyone anything about you" He shook his head at him. "I don't know who told them whatever it is they know about you, but it wasn't me... and if Josh says it wasn't him, then I believe him."

Josh looked back and forth between the two Braxton brothers in a worried way. What if they thought he was the rat?! "I didn't!" he insisted, starting to breathe a little too rapidly, “It wasn’t me!” It wasn’t that he was guilty, it was just that his nerves were in tatters and he couldn’t have Brax and Kyle thinking badly of him.

"It’s okay, it’s okay!" said Brax, giving Josh’s shoulder a little squeeze, “I didn’t really think it was you… I just thought with all these bruises… I guess I was adding 2 and 2, and getting 5…”

“Yeah, well, I don’t appreciate you pointing the finger” said Kyle. He glanced back across the room at the Korean man, “I have enough… we have enough to worry about…”

 "Forget I said anything" said Brax, giving them an apologetic little head tilt. "Heath thinks it was me...”

"He thinks you ratted?!" asked Josh.

"Yeah, he's pretty convinced" he said, with an exasperated little laugh, "Like I went to them and told them all sorts of **** about myself ...and all of us... just so I can... I don't know... liven up my days or something?"

Kyle glanced at Josh in a way that said it didn't seem completely beyond the realms of possibility.

"I didn't" said Brax, with a roll of his eyes, "But someone’s been talking… and we’ve all ended up dragged into this…”

“And Heath isn’t happy?” asked Kyle. He wasn’t particularly surprised.

“No, he’s doing his nut” said Brax, with a nervous little laugh, “You know how whipped he is… He doesn’t like lying to Bianca… and with the baby…”

Kyle suddenly flinched, looking down at the table, and muttering “****!” under his breath. The Korean had looked over his shoulder and caught him staring.

“You okay?” asked Brax, watching a redness gradually creeping up his brother’s neck. He turned to see what he’d been looking at and accidentally made eye contact with the Asian man that was now staring over his shoulder with an unsettling sort of smirk on his face. The guy who was visiting him was laughing and gazing in their direction too. There was something they obviously found very amusing! He looked back at Kyle. He could see that something was very wrong. He was shaking.

“Kyle?” asked Josh, turning to look at him.

Kyle had his arms wrapped around his chest and he was breathing very fast as though he was about to have a panic attack. “I’m okay” he said, keeping his eyes fixed on the table in front of them.

“Mate… Was it them?” asked Brax, as he began to connect the dots. He knew that there was a Korean gang in the prison from when he’d been in here himself, and he vaguely recognised that guy across the room as one of the gang members. Not that he’d had that many dealings with them. He just remembered some Mr Miyagi looking little sicko ruling his bit of turf through gang rape and intimidation. He had a very bad feeling about all of this... “Was it… was it the Koreans?” he asked in a low whisper.

Josh glanced up at him, in a decidedly anxious sort of way. He didn’t want him making matters even worse for them.

“Shhh!” warned Kyle, looking around him very nervously, “Keep your voice down!” His heart was hammering in his chest now. He could see Ducky’s guy staring at him from across the room. He hoped that he hadn’t overheard Brax just then!

Brax nodded to himself. It was all the answer that he needed. He was going to be having words with Agent Lee when he got out of here. Had they not seen the danger that they’d put them in?! The injuries that they’d sustained?! How was this acceptable?!

An alarm sounded to tell them that they only had 5 minutes left. Kyle looked up at Brax and began to blink quite frantically. He was surprised to find himself getting so emotional. He didn’t want him to go. Having Brax here made him feel a little bit safer somehow. ‘How childish is that?!’ he wondered to himself.

“So, what now?” asked Brax, keeping his voice very low, “Where do I meet this guy?”

“He said for you to wait in the car park outside” said Josh, leaning forward and keeping his voice to a whisper. “…Just to wait by your car.”

“Yeah… He said he’ll come and find you…” said Kyle.

“And he knows what I look like?” asked Brax. This all seemed to be going too smoothly. Surely, it couldn’t be that simple?

“Yeah, he does” said Kyle, “He saw some of the photos in my cell… our cell.”

Brax nodded and frowned a little. He was getting nervous now. Everything seemed to be going just the way that Agent Lee had envisioned it. Surely, it couldn’t be this easy? Surely, something had to go wrong?

 

*****

 

Brax stood with his back against the driver door of his car. He was sweating heavily now and his heart was racing. He was nervous! He’d been watching the door to the prison for the last fifteen minutes and there had been no sign of Smithy. The boys had said that his shift would finish at 4pm, so surely, he should have been out by now? Maybe he wasn’t coming? Maybe he’d backed out?

He looked around the car park for about the hundredth time and felt his blood boil a little bit. ‘How could Heath do this to me?’ he asked himself, ‘How could he just walk away and let me do this on my own?!’

He knew that Heath wasn’t happy about this whole thing, and that it had taken an awful lot more persuasion on the part of the Feds to get him on-board, but he never would have predicted him abandoning him like this. Heath had always been very loyal. Maybe loyal to a fault. It didn’t seem like something that he’d do… But then again, all he’d done for days now was bitch about how he didn’t want to be involved in this, and how he couldn’t take risks because of the new baby. Maybe he had simply gotten cold feet?! Or maybe there was something wrong with Bianca and the baby and he’d had to go home.

Whatever had happened, he wasn’t here! He’d gone and left him here to deal with Smithy on his own! What was he going to tell Agent Lee? What would he tell him if everything went wrong because Heath wasn’t here?!

Suddenly the door opened and a man with a shaved head and a pencil-thin moustache walked out into the carpark. He slung a gym bag over his shoulder and stood for a moment on the threshold, lighting a rollie cigarette, and gazing around in a relaxed sort of way. He took a draw from his cigarette and then began to walk across the car park, towards Brax.

‘Okay, here we go!’ thought Brax, ‘Just keep it together… You know what you need to do.’ He stood up a little straighter as he watched the guy walk towards him, and got ready to greet him. ‘You can do this!’ he said to himself.

Smithy gave him a little smirk and then just kept on walking! He walked straight to a large black ute that was parked a short distant away and threw the gym bag in the back.

Brax watched, with a look of confusion on his face, as the guard climbed into the driving seat and quickly put the wheels into motion. He stood there, with his mouth hanging open, as he watched him drive away. “What the…?!” he said to himself. He didn’t know what to do!

He climbed into the driving seat of his own car and took his phone out. He needed to call Agent Lee and let him know that the deal mustn’t be going ahead. That something must have happened and that the guy had decided not to meet him. He wondered what the reason was.

He typed ‘Lee’ into his phone and was just about to press call when a message beeped through.

It read “Slattery’s, Comber Street” He knew that place. It was a sports bar. He didn’t know it all that well, but he’d been there once or twice before. It was one of those places with big screens showing the footie, and big groups of university kids ordering chicken wings and pitchers of beer. He could see why he’d picked it. It was loud and lively, and not somewhere that people would be listening in.

He typed ‘Lee’ into the phone again and pressed call. “Yeah, hi” he said when Agent Lee answered, “Change of plan…”

[Ludub]

Thanks again peeps for the lovely comments! Really appreciated! Hope you like this new one! 

 

WARNING: ADULT THEMES!

 

Chapter 37

 

“Here!” said Kyle, dragging his blanket and pillow off the top bunk and throwing it at Josh, “I’m taking your bunk”

Josh nodded and sat down slowly with his back against the wall. This had become his sleeping place since that first night that he’d moved in with Kyle. This little spot beside the toilet. He just couldn’t sleep in the lower bunk. He couldn’t look at the springs of the bed above him and not think of Alexei and that disgusting sweaty body of his weighing down on top of his own. He just couldn’t do it. He pulled the blanket around himself and leaned his head back against the wall. He had a pounding headache and was suddenly feeling very cold. He figured it was probably the adrenalin wearing off and delayed shock from the beating itself. He was exhausted! He couldn’t keep his eyes open. They had a little over two hours until dinner-time so he decided to try to sleep.

Kyle sat down on the side of the bed and put his head in his hands. All sorts of things were running through his mind, but one thought kept overriding everything else. What if those guys were infected? What if they’d given him HIV? He knew that he should go to the infirmary and ask to be put on antiretroviral drugs to prevent the risk of infection. He did know that. But the thought of admitting what had happened to anyone made him feel physically sick. To admit that he’d allowed someone to overpower him like that and force themselves on him?! That he’d been raped?! It was something that only happened to weak people, wasn’t it?! To victims? To other people… It wasn’t something that happened to a Braxton… Kyle Braxton was not a victim! Kyle Braxton was better than that! ……Wasn’t he?!

He glanced at Josh who was softly snoring now. He had his head tilted back against the wall, with his mouth hanging open, and the blanket wrapped around him tightly. He seemed to have fallen asleep almost immediately. Or passed out. One or the other! As he watched him huddled there in that uncomfortable spot by the toilet, he couldn’t help thinking that he looked small and pathetic and broken. No wonder though, he thought to himself. Up until today, he’d had no real understanding of what Josh had been through. He’d felt bad for him, that was true, but he hadn’t really grasped how truly traumatic those nights with Alexei must have been. How devastating! His own assault had lasted no more than ten minutes, whereas Josh had endured hours and hours of torture. Not only that, but he’d had to return to his attacker the very next night, and submit himself to even more abuse. How had he had the courage to do that?! And how had he carried on in the weeks since it happened? How was he even still functioning?! How had he not curled up into a ball and died? He wouldn’t have blamed him… It was exactly what he felt like doing right now!

He rolled onto his side and let out a pained hiss as he pulled his knees up towards his chest. His whole body hurt! They’d kicked him so many times in the stomach and the chest that he didn’t know where one bruise ended and another began. His stomach felt like someone was slowly twisting it, and his lower back hurt from the ‘kidney punches’ that he’d received. He couldn’t help worrying that his donor kidney could be failing. What would he do then?! He knew that he should be in the infirmary, and that his injuries were serious, but he didn’t want to have to answer their questions. He didn’t want to have to lie to them. He was too tired for that. He couldn’t tell them that Ducky and his gang were responsible. Not unless he had a death wish! And Besides, he couldn’t risk being transferred to the hospital. Not when the deal was only partway done. Not when Brax and Heath were out there risking their lives for him. He’d just have to suck it up and get on with it! He had no choice. He lay there with his back to the wall and tried to keep his eyes open. He didn’t want to go to sleep. Part of him was scared to close his eyes in case he never opened them again. What if he was bleeding internally and just never woke up?! Another part was scared that they might come for him again. He could still see the grin on that guy’s face, the one in the visiting room. Maybe he’d been one of the ones that had done it?! Maybe he’d looked right into the face of his rapist?!

“Close your eyes” said a familiar and comforting voice, as an arm reached around his waist from behind, “I’ll keep you safe… I’ll protect you.”

He turned his head slightly and gave a sad little sigh when he saw Aaron lying behind him. Anyone else, and he would have vaulted out of the bed and pushed them away, but Aaron was the one person that he needed right now. He needed him to feel safe. He took hold of his hand and pulled him in close to him. “I’m scared” he admitted, speaking under his breath, “I’m really scared.”

“Shhh…” whispered Aaron, “I’m here now… Close your eyes and try to sleep… I can see how tired you are.”

“You won’t leave me?” he murmured, as he began to drift off to sleep, “You’ll be here when I wake up?”

“I will” promised Aaron, “Just go to sleep”

 

*****

 

Brax pushed the door to the bar open and walked inside. It was dark in here so he had to let his eyes adjust to the gloom before he spotted the weasely looking man at the back of the room. He was reading a newspaper and hadn’t even looked up to see if he was here. ‘Okay, here we go’ he said to himself as he walked across the room. His heart was thumping! There was a particularly rowdy group of young men at another table, and one of them stepped backwards, bashing into him. “Hey, watch it!” he warned, shoving him away from him. He was nervous enough without some idiot getting in his way!

The guy just laughed and put his hands up in a mock apologetic way, while the others at his table laughed and hooted, and gave him a round of applause. They’d obviously been drinking for quite some time and from the fact that one of them was wearing a tutu and a tiara, it was pretty clear that it was a bucks’ party.

“Dave-o! Dave-o! Dave-o!” they began to chant loudly, slamming their hands on the table and stamping their feet. The guy that had bumped into him was chugging down a pitcher of beer now as the others shouted encouragment. “Chug, chug, chug, chug!!!” they yelled.

Brax rolled his eyes as he slipped on past them and made his way to the table. “You got me here” he said, crossing his arms as he stood at the end of Smithy’s table, “So… What is it you want?” He didn’t like the look of this guy at all, with his thin greasy lips, and his sneaky little eyes. He had a cruel look about him.

Smithy didn’t look up at him. He had a newspaper and a racing form on the table in front of him, as well as a basket of chicken wings in barbecue sauce, and a bottle of beer. He tapped his pen on the table and circled a horse by the name of ‘Ice Ice Baby’ in an upcoming race. “For a minute, there…” he said, smirking a little, “I thought you were gonna join those fellas for a bit of a knees up!”

“What do you want?” asked Brax, giving an exasperated huff. He wasn’t in the mood for any stupid jokes. “You got me here… now what?”

“Please” said Smithy, interrupting him and gesturing for him to sit down on the bench on the other side of his booth table.

Brax shook his head and crossed his arms across his chest. “I don’t even know why I’m here” he said, “My kid brother calls me up and says some prison guard wants to meet with me… Some bent guard… threatening him and… and… I have to meet him because he has a business proposal for me… Turns out he’s the guy I already gave 10 Gs to, and he didn’t even deliver on his promises… So, give me one good reason why I shouldn’t just walk out of here right now!”

Smithy folded his newspaper and sat back with a self-satisfied little smile. “You know why you’re here” he said, nodding at the seat for him to sit down again. “We both know I have the power to make life a lot better for that brother of yours …and his little mate… or I can make it a whole lot worse… So why don’t you sit down, and we can have a nice little chat and work something out that’ll be mutually beneficial?”

“Why would you think that I’d agree to work with you?” he asked, “I mean, you haven’t exactly proven that you’re trustworthy… and I only do business with people I trust… I’m weird like that.”

“Oh, come on, Brax! Can you cut the ****?!” laughed Smithy, “You wouldn’t be standing here right now if you weren’t already interested… and you know it! …You’d have had someone take me out… a bullet to the back of the head… a mugging gone wrong… But you didn’t. We both know why you waited outside that prison door for me… I knew when I came outside and saw you there… waiting for me… I knew I had you!” He gestured to the benchseat opposite him again and gave a nod to tell him to sit down. “Come on?!”, he said, “You know you’re curious!”

Brax looked at his smug grin and wanted nothing more than to walk out. He would have done just that if he’d been making his own decisions but he knew that he had to play ball eventually and make Smithy think that he’d won. He had to agree to do the deal. He had to let him think he’d convinced  him. He gave a heavy sigh and sat down. “Fine” he said, “Talk!”

 

*****

 

Josh jumped and gave a little gasp when someone kicked his foot. He looked up to see a blurry form towering over him. He still couldn’t see well. He’d gone through the whole meeting with Brax, hardly able to see more than a foot in front of his face! Everything was fuzzy and out of focus! He squinted up at the dark form above him and felt his heart racing in his chest. There were two more figures standing in the doorway but he had no idea who they were. All he could see was two shapeless green forms. He opened his mouth to speak but nothing would come out. It felt like his throat had seized from pure fear!

He sat frozen stock-still as he watched the intruder turn towards the bed. Then he saw him give Kyle’s shoulder a little shake, and a Kyle-shaped blur jumped a mile high and scrambled to the far end of the bed. He couldn’t really see his face but he could tell that he was frightened.

“No hard feelings?” said the man, sitting down on the bed and sticking his hand out to him for a handshake.

“What?!” gasped Josh, recoiling in horror. It was Ducky! He would have recognised that voice anywhere! He was here in their cell! He’d opened the door and come in uninvited, and he had two of his men with him! He was sitting right there in front of him!  

“What… what do you want?!” asked Kyle, sounding noticeably shaken.

 “Just a friendly chat” said Ducky, turning to look at Kyle, “I just want to make sure that… well, that we’re okay…” He made an apologetic little grimace as though it was just some little mishap that he needed to say sorry for.

“You want to make sure that… that we’re okay?” repeated Kyle. He really didn’t know what to say to that. His heart was racing now.

“Yeah… Y’know… after…” said Ducky, giving him a little nod, “I mean, there’s no need for anyone to overreact and do something silly, is there?”

“Overreact?” repeated Kyle, sounding a little dazed. Was he really asking him to just shrug off the fact that he’d been raped?! To forgive and forget?!

“Ah come on, boys?!” he said, looking back and forth between the two bruised and battered faces, “I just want to make sure we’re on the same page when it comes to… to what you tell Nikolai… I mean, he doesn’t need to know about our little ‘misunderstanding’ earlier… Does he?!”

“Our ‘misunderstanding’?!” spat Kyle, “Our ‘misunderstanding’?! He glanced at the two men now standing in the doorway. They seemed to be smirking at him.

“Yeah… I mean… We didn’t know who you were” explained Ducky, “We didn’t know you had connections…” He gave Kyle a little smile and held his hand out to him to shake. “We just got a bit carried away… I mean, you know how it is.”

Kyle stared at the hand in front of him. He wanted to break all his fingers!

“Come on, mate?!” he coaxed, “Dimitri said you guys were cool… That you knew the score?”

He looked up at him and then glanced towards the doorway. There was a third man standing there now. It was Dimitri.

“Everyone friends again” said Dimitri, giving Kyle a big smile and a rather insistent sort of nod that told him to play along. “Ducky say he be nice now… Not hurt Kyle and Josh again… and we all do business together.”

“See?!” smiled Ducky.

Kyle stared at Dimitri with a look of pure hatred. He wanted to wipe that smile off his face for him. How could he not understand what a big thing he was asking of him? These men had raped him!

“Shake hand!” said Dimitri, narrowing his eyes at him. It was clear that it was an order.

He continued to stare at him for a moment, wondering what would happen if he disobeyed, and then sullenly looked away. Dimitri and this ridiculous plan was his only hope of getting out of this nightmare. He’d have to do what he was told. He put his hand out and let Ducky shake it without even looking at him.

“See?!” laughed Ducky, “That wasn’t so hard, was it?! …All water under the bridge, isn’t it?”

Kyle yanked his hand back and wiped it on the leg of his tracksuit bottoms. “Yeah” he muttered, in a bitter tone of voice, “Water under the bridge.”

“Good!” laughed Ducky, clamping his hand on Kyle’s knee and giving it a squeeze. He looked up at his men and gave them a little smile, “That’s what we like to hear, isn’t it?! …All happy families!” They both laughed in a forced sort of way and he rolled his eyes at them. He looked back down at Josh and gave him a little wink. “Your turn” he said, sticking his hand out to him.

“Josh shake hand of Ducky” said Dimitri, emphasising each word and glaring down at him, “We all friends now…”

Josh gave a defeated sort of sigh and let Ducky shake his hand. He didn’t have the energy to fight this. What was the point anyway? He had the gangsters on one side and the cops on the other, both trying to take advantage of him. He knew when he was beaten.

“Good!” exclaimed Ducky, clapping his hands off his thighs in a celebratory sort of way, “I’m glad we’ve got that sorted! We can all move forward now!” He stood up and walked to the door before turning to look back at them again. “Think of today as a sort of initiation… a welcome to the family, if you will…” he said with a raise of his eyebrow, “Looks like you’re one of us now!”

 

*****

 

“Okay” said Brax, taking his phone out, “I’ll make the call then.” Smithy had outlined a plan to smuggle a bag of crystal meth into the prison as a test run. A small bag to begin with, and if all went well, then it would become a regular thing. There was money to be had! A lot of it! And seeing as Josh and Kyle had offered to handle the distribution, they’d have a somewhat privileged position in the prison. They’d be off limits! No-one would lay a hand on them from here on out, including himself. What better could they ask for?! “I’ll tell him we’re coming…” he started to say, knowing that Agent Lee and Ash were waiting for this call.

“I’m not going anywhere” said Smithy, gesturing to the waitress to bring them two more beers, “You get your guy to come here.”

“I don’t think so…” said Brax, setting the phone down on the table and shaking his head, “I don’t conduct my business in the middle of busy restaurants… I have a place we can go to…I’ll take you there.” He picked up the phone again and shook his head. “We do it my way, or I’m gonna walk straight out that door.”

Smithy picked up his beer and took a long drink, making an exaggerated ‘ahhhh!’ noise at the end to show how much he’d enjoyed it. He set it down again and smiled. “I don’t think you’re gonna do that, Darryl!” he said, giving a little chuckle, “I’ll tell you what I think you’re gonna do…”

Brax raised his eyebrows at him in a way that said he was getting tired of this. Inside he was panicking though. What if he couldn’t make him come to the warehouse?! What if he really refused to go?! What would he do then?!

“I think you’ll stay exactly where you are” continued Smithy, “And I think we’ll order some food and a few beers and… we’ll watch a few horse races like we’re the best of mates… and you’ll call your little friend, whoever he is, and you’ll get him to come down here… Just like I said…”

“Why would I do that?” asked Brax, folding his arms across his chest in a hostile sort of way, “Why on earth would you think I’d want to stay here and hang out with you?”

“Oh, I think you will, Darryl” he teased, “You don’t mind me calling you Darryl, do you?!”

“My name’s Brax” he growled back at him.

“See, what I think, Darryl?” he said, “What I think, is that you’re gonna make that call, because I said so… Your mate is gonna come down here and we’re gonna have a nice little chat… and maybe a couple more beers.” He smirked in a knowing sort of way, “That’s what I think you’ll do.”

“Okay, that’s it!” said Brax, starting to slide across the bench to get out, “I’m going… The deal’s off!” He got up and began to make his way back across the room. He wanted to get out of here now! This whole thing was making him anxious and he needed to speak to Agent Lee to see what he wanted to do. If Smithy wouldn’t come to the warehouse like they’d planned, then maybe they needed to rethink this whole thing? Maybe even come up with a new plan?

Just before he got to the door, one of the boys from the Buck’s party bumped into him again. He went to give him a shove to get him out of his way but the guy pulled him in close as though he was hugging him and whispered in his ear. “I’d think twice about walking out on Uncle Danny” he said. It was then that he realised he had a gun! “That’s right” he said in a coaxing sort of voice as he turned him back towards Smithy and began to walk him back towards the table, “I suggest you sit down again, and we can all talk about this reasonably?”

‘****, ****, ****!’ Brax thought to himself, as he was forced back into the bench seat opposite Smithy, ‘How am I gonna get out of this now?!’

“I knew you’d have a change of heart” said Smithy, picking up a bottle of beer that had been delivered to the table and setting it down in front of Brax, “All it takes is a little gentle persuasion.”

Brax shook his head and glanced at the young guy now sitting beside him. He didn’t look like Smithy. He was a good-looking kid, about 20 years old, with a hipster sort of look. He really didn’t look like he should be threatening people with guns!

“Now you’re gonna make that call” said Smithy, nodding at Brax’s coat pocket where he’d seen him put the phone.

“I’m not doing it” said Brax, “You’re making a mistake here…  I don’t think you understand who you’re dealing with!” He hoped it wasn’t too obvious that he was bluffing!

The waitress came to drop off some chicken wings and a basket of French fries and gave them all a little smile. She obviously couldn’t see the gun that was now pressing into his side. All she saw was a table of men who were there to watch the racing and have a few beers together.  He watched as she walked away and shook his head to himself. How had he gotten himself into a mess like this?!

“Darryl, Darryl!” scolded Smithy, “I don’t think you realise who you’re dealing with!” He gave him a little wink and nodded for him to look at his nephew. “I got me a little insurance policy!”

Brax’s eyes widened in shock when it finally registered. His heart began to really pound in his chest. How had he not noticed it before?! How had he not noticed?!

“Recognise that jacket he's wearing?” laughed Smithy, “Pretty distinctive, isn’t it?”

[Ludub]

Thanks everyone for taking the time to read and comment. So here's the new chapter... I really hope you like this one 

 

WARNING: VERY ADULT THEMES & VIOLENCE!

 

Chapter 38

 

“Breathe, mate!” laughed the agent, “All you’re doing is making a delivery…” He was a little surprised by how nervous this guy was. He knew that he had a bit of a rap sheet, and Agent Lee had made out that he was some lifelong criminal, so it seemed a little laughable that he was sitting here quaking in his boots. Surely, he’d done this kind of thing before? Wearing a wire wasn’t going to make much difference, was it?! “Think of it like delivering a pizza.” he said, giving him a little pat on the shoulder.

“Yeah… thanks” mumbled Ash, as he sat in the van with the surveillance equipment. It was parked about two streets from Slattery’s bar where Brax and Smithy were.

“Okay, that’s you wired up!” announced the agent, with a self-satisfied little smile. “I’d challenge anyone to find that sucker!”

“What?!” exclaimed Ash, looking up at the technician in surprise, “You mean you don’t have to do all that taping microphones to my chest and stuff? …That’s it?! Just that tiny little pin?!”

“Yeah, mate” laughed the agent, “Things have moved on a bit… We’re not living in the 70s anymore!”

“But… I can’t even see it?” said Ash, peering down at his leather jacket with furrowed brows, “I don’t even know which one it is!”

“That’s kinda the point!” he chuckled, as he began to pack his things away. 

Ash shook his head in amazement. He knew that the microphone was teeny tiny and silver, but he couldn’t find it. It was lost now among the studs on his leather biker jacket. He really couldn’t see it! He gave a sigh of relief and looked up at the agent with a little smile. “That’s pretty cool!” he said, leaning his head down to talk closer to the microphone, “Hello… testing…”

“Yeah… You don’t need to do that” said the agent with a look of concern. ‘This guy really isn’t the brightest!’, he thought to himself. “We’ll pick you up just fine” he said, “You do that and you’re gonna give yourself away!”

“Yeah… righto…” said Ash, flushing a little red with embarrassment, “Gotcha!” He looked down at his feet and blew out a long laboured breath. He was scared!  He glanced across at Agent Lee and another of the agents. They were wearing head sets to listen in to the conversation between Smithy and Brax, but from the frowns on their faces it was clear that something wasn’t right.

“Hey!” he called out to them, “What’s wrong?!”

“Shhh!” warned Agent Lee, holding his hand up for him to be quiet. He sat forward, holding one of the ear pieces closer to his ear, but motioned to one of the tech guys to get Ash a headset so he could listen too.

“Thanks” said Ash, looking up for a moment as the techie handed him the headset. He put it on, fiddling for a second or two to get the ear pieces in, and then frowned when he heard Brax speaking. He sounded quiet and tense.

“I’m not calling anyone till I know my brother’s okay” said Brax, “How do I know you haven’t already killed him?!”

Ash glanced across at Agent Lee’s notepad to try to see what he’d written. All he could make out was ‘Heath… Unconscious… Possibly injured?… Boiler room / possibly basement in close vicinity?? …Hostage situation… Heat???’

“I need to talk to him!” he heard Brax plead again.

“No, what you need to do is lift that phone and call this little mate of yours” said Smithy, “You need to get him down here with a bag of your finest stuff… and if I get even a sniff of a hint that the cops are involved, or there’s any funny business of any kind, I can promise you… it’s not gonna end well… I wouldn’t want to be this brother of yours! I’m telling you that right now!”

“Let me talk to him” begged Brax, “Please?! I’ll do what you want… I just need to know he’s okay… Do you even have someone there with him?! What if he’s more injured than you think he is?! …That cut on his head…”

Smithy gave an audible snort. “Look at you getting your little knickers in a twist!” he laughed, “Mate, he’s got a bump on the head! …And, okay, I’ll admit, he’s probably not too comfortable right now… It is pretty hot down there…”

“Down there?” said Agent Lee, writing it on his notepad, and nudging his colleague to look. The other guy nodded and started typing into his laptop on a sort of live chat.

“Hey!” shouted Ash, getting to his feet and giving Agent Lee’s shoulder a shake. “Heath is my mate! You need to find him and… and help him!” he shouted. He didn’t understand why they were just sitting around like this if they knew that Heath was in real danger. From the sounds of it, he was being held in a hot boiler room, injured, and possibly left there to die! Why weren’t they out there searching for him?! "WHY ARE YOU JUST SITTING HERE?!" he roared at him, as he grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him to his feet, "YOU NEED TO FIND HIM!"

“And you need to sit down!” said the Agent, now up on his feet and giving him a stern look. “What do you think this is?!” he asked, facing off against a red faced and angry looking Ash, “I gave you those headphones so you’d stop bothering me… If you keep distracting me like this, I’m going to miss something important! …Now, SIT DOWN!”  

Ash stood for a moment, wondering whether to hit him or not, but reluctantly let go of his shirt and sat down again. He glared at him, when he heard him whisper to his subordinate to keep ‘the blonde idiot’ under control. He put the headphones back on just in time to hear Smithy give a throaty laugh.

“If… If I make the call...” Brax began to say, “What happens…?”

“When you make the call” Smithy corrected him, “When”.

“If I call” he asked again, emphasising the ‘If’, “What happens then? …How do I know you’re gonna let Heath go?”

“You don’t” laughed Smithy, “But trust is a wonderful thing, Darryl… Without it the world is a cold and grey sort of place…” There was a long pause and then the sound of a bottle being set back onto the table. “See?!” said Smithy, “…I’m gonna trust you to not be a total ****ing idiot… and you’re gonna trust me not to kill that handsome brother of yours… or that gorgeous blonde wife for that matter… or your precious little baby…”

There was a sort of scuffle, and a small groan from Brax, followed by the sound of Smithy and his nephew laughing. Ash glared across at the two agents who were busy comparing hand written notes. He couldn’t believe that they were just going to sit there doing nothing! This guy had Heath tied up god knows where, and now he was even threatening Ricky, and little baby Casey! What did he have to do to get these guys riled up?!

“See?!” chuckled Smithy, obviously tickled pink by Brax’s non-verbal reaction. All they could hear was Brax’s heavy breathing. “‘Trust’… It’s a wonderful thing…” continued Smithy, as though nothing had happened, “It’s what makes the world go round!”

“**** you!” grunted Brax, obviously in pain.

“Oh no, wait!” chuckled Smithy, “What am I saying?! That’s money! Money makes the world go round… I always get those two mixed up!”

“Aren’t you going to do anything?!” shouted Ash. He wasn’t able to keep quiet anymore! Why weren’t they trying to help him?!

“Shut up!” growled the two agents as they tried to listen. Another agent came over and put his hand on his shoulder, shaking his head in a scolding way, when he looked up at him.

He gave him an apologetic little grimace and furrowed his brow as he began to listen again.

“…but he’s still in the land of the living!” continued Smithy, “What happens next is up to you… So, tick tock big bro! …Time is of the essence!”

There was the sound of numbers being dialled and then the phone in Agent Lee’s hand began to ring. “Looks like it’s show time!” he said, throwing a gym bag across the floor to Ash’s feet. He blew out a long breath and then pressed answer. “Yeah?” he said into the receiver, “Brax? What’s up?”

 

*****

 

Kyle glanced across the table at Josh and widened his eyes at him in a ‘How the **** did we end up here?!’ kind of way. It was the last place on earth that he wanted to be! They’d made them come to the mess hall with them and now he was sitting at a table with the men that had beaten him and raped him. How did something like this happen?!

Josh grimaced and stared back down at his uneaten tray of food. He had Ducky on one side of him, and a particularly unpleasant looking man on the other. His stomach was tied in knots with anxiety and he’d bitten his tongue badly during the attack earlier. He couldn’t have eaten even if he’d wanted to. The man beside him kept taking pieces of food off his tray. He couldn’t bring himself to care.

“You not eating that?” asked the man beside Josh, as he reached across the table and swiped Kyle’s burger off his tray. He began to stuff it in his mouth with a smug sort of grin stretched across his ugly face. He was taunting him and all the others were watching to see his response.

Kyle glared up at him. He’d had enough! He didn’t want the burger, but he knew that letting him steal it like that was basically the same as saying ‘Go ahead! I’m fair game!’ It was the dinner table equivalent of undoing his own trousers and bending over. He could see the others watching and waiting to see what he’d do. He looked back at the ugly man, with his stupid grin, and the half-eaten burger still hanging out of his mouth, and he felt his blood boil! Considering what had happened earlier, there was only one way that he could claw back some self-respect. Not much, but maybe a little… He lunged across the table and knocked the burger out of the guy’s mouth with as hard a punch as he could manage. He actually knocked the guy backwards,almost off the bench!

Within moments, fists were flying in all directions, and Kyle and the ugly guy were rolling about the table on top of everyone’s food. The others were yelling encouragement as they watched them tear lumps out of each other. “Jae! Jae! Jae!” roared the men around them as the ugly man got a few good shots in. They were screaming in Korean too. The trays began to fall onto the floor, making massive clangs and some of the guards turned to look, as well as a lot of the other inmates. A large crowd started to gather around the table, shouting and whooping, and baying for blood. No-one seemed to be too interested in stopping it.

Kwon had grabbed Josh, twisting his arm up behind his back, and holding him in a headlock so all he could do was watch on in shock. He gave a gasp when Kyle got flipped onto his back and Jae began to strangle him. Kyle clawed at his hands, desperately pulling at his fingers, and trying to free himself. His face began to turn a deep purple and the blood vessels started to burst in his eyes.

‘Oh God!’ thought Josh, ‘What if they kill him?! I can’t just stand by and watch this! I have to help him!’  He was really starting to panic! He bucked and wriggled his body in an attempt to free himself, but Kwon just tightened his grip around his neck. He was choking now too!

Suddenly Jae gave a loud squeal as Kyle brought his knee up hard between his legs. Everyone laughed when he let go and reached for his own groin out of instinct. In that moment, Kyle raised his head up as fast as he could, and headbutted him hard in the face. He heard his nose give a terrible crack and blood began to gush immediately. In a matter of seconds, Kyle managed to roll him over, so that he was on top, but he screamed when the guy grabbed his arm with both hands and sank his teeth into his forearm. He had to punch him in the guts with his other hand a number of times before he’d let go. “**** you!” he roared as he began to smash his fist over and over into the man’s bloody face, “**** you! **** you! **** you!!!” He was almost crying now. It was like all the pain and anger that had been building for the last few weeks had suddenly found a release. He couldn’t stop! “**** you!” he screamed again, smashing the man’s head off the table repeatedly.

The crowd whooped, and shouted, and roared encouragement. It was like they were watching a dog fight. No-one was going to step in to stop it.

“Kyle?!” cried Josh, as he watched him pulverise the other guy’s face, “Stop!” Jae had long since given up the fight. He was either unconscious or dead! “Please?! Kyle, stop!” he shouted, trying again to free himself, “Stop!” ...This time, he managed to slip out of the headlock, and shoved his way forward to where Kyle was. He grabbed his arm to try to stop him, but Kyle reacted badly and threw his elbow in his direction instead. He caught him in the mouth. It was like he’d turned into an animal! Josh staggered backwards, and Kyle went back to punching the lifeless form below him on the table.

“Jesus! Kyle?! STOP!” cried Josh, as he nursed his bloodied mouth, “Stop!” He was scared that Kyle was actually going to kill the guy.

Suddenly an alarm rang, loud and shrill, and piercing. The guards were coming!

Kyle stopped and looked around him in a dazed sort of way. It was as though he’d suddenly come to his senses. He sat there, on top of the other man, panting heavily, and gazing around at the grinning faces surrounding him. “Josh?” he said, giving an apologetic little head tilt when he saw his freshly split lip. He vaguely remembered hitting him and realised that he’d done it. As the crowds began to part, he looked down at the bloody mess of a man below him, and gave a broken sort of gasp, as though to say ‘What have I done?!’ He couldn’t tell if he was breathing or not. “Oh God!” he said out loud, “Oh God!”

Men began to scatter in all directions. The guards were coming…

“You need to go” said Ducky, grabbing Kyle’s arm and dragging him off the table. He stumbled onto his feet. He was covered in blood but he couldn’t tell which was his blood, and what had come from the other man. He was dizzy. “Go on!” insisted Ducky, turning to look at the guards as they made their way across the floor, “Go… now!”  

Josh grabbed Kyle’s arm and began to yank him towards the door. He didn’t want him getting caught. They needed to get out of there now! “Come on?!” he pleaded.

Kyle dragged his feet. It was like he was in a trance. He couldn’t take his eyes off the lifeless form on the table. He needed to know if he was still alive or not. ‘Please don’t let him be dead!” he pleaded silently, ‘Please don’t let me have killed him!’ He hated those men more than he could put into words but the thought of actually having killed someone made him feel physically sick. He was not a murderer! This blood covered monster was not him.

Josh yanked his arm even harder and dragged him forcefully towards the door. “Kyle!” he shouted, “We have to go!”

Just as they made it to the door, they heard Ducky talking to the guard. “No, I have no idea who did this” he said, speaking loudly and holding his arms out in mock surprise, “Ask anyone! No-one saw what happened! …I think he just fell…”  The guard glanced towards the door and made eye contact with Kyle just for a moment before pointedly looking away. “We picked him up and put him on the table here.” added Ducky, as he patted Jae’s lifeless body.  It was clear that Ducky had this place sewn up and a good number of the guards in his pocket.

Kyle stood there and watched as another guard checked the body on the table. “We have a pulse” he said into his radio, “Regaining consciousness… We’re gonna need the paramedics here now!”

With that, Kyle let Josh pull him out through the door. ‘Thank God!’ he thought to himself, ‘He’s alive! …At least for now!’

 

*****

 

"Hey, Sweet cheeks!" called Smithy as he made his way through the doors to the security entrance of the prison. "How's my favourite girl?" he asked as he walked towards an older female security guard who was manning the metal detector.  He had a large family sized pizza box in one hand and a cardboard holder for two large takeaway cups of milkshake in the other. With his gym bag slung over his shoulder, he was making a great show of having his hands full.

"Oh, you know" giggled Doris, as he walked towards her, "Same old, same old... Better for seeing you though!" She was blushing a little.

"Have you spotted it yet?!" he teased, tilting his head in a way that told her to look at the top of the pizza box.

Her eyes lit up when she noticed the little paper bag with the name ‘Il Fornaio’ printed on it. It was resting on top of the pizza box. She looked up at him with a hopeful smile. "Is that?! …Is that what I think it is?!" she asked with an excited sort of squeal.

"Sure is!" he laughed, leaning the pizza box forward to her so that she could take the bag from the top. "Handmade cannoli, from that little place you like!" he said.

"Oh, my God! I LOVE you!" she squealed, as she reached in the bag and pulled one out. It was a large cannolo with choc chip ricotta and a heavy dusting of icing sugar on top. She devoured it for a moment with her eyes, before taking a massive bite out of one end. "You're too good to me!" she mumbled, with her mouth crammed full of pastry and cream cheese. The ricotta was smeared all over her lips, and the icing sugar had formed a light dusting on her moustache.

"What would I do without my lovely Doris?!" he asked, beaming a big warm smile at her. He set the pizza box and the milkshakes down and hopped up to sit on the desk in front of her. "I tell ya...” he said, giving her a gentle and slightly embarrassed looking smile, “…Working in a place like this?! A place so full of anger and sadness? …It does my heart good to walk in here and see your lovely smiling face every day... You’re like a little ray of sunshine! …Ask anyone! A woman like you brightens the place up!"

She smiled up at him with her little piggy eyes, from behind her glasses, and wiped the ricotta away with the heel of her hand.

“See?!” he laughed, “There she is! Look at that smile!”

"Really?!" she asked, blushing bright red, "People say that?! That I brighten up the place?!" She'd always thought that most of the men here thought she was an unattractive dowdy old woman with a little too much facial hair and a bad temper. In fact, she might have described herself that way if anyone had asked! But something about the way that Danny Smith looked at her made her go weak at the knees. It was not a feeling that she was accustomed to. She’d never felt this way about anyone before! Maybe it was the fact that he called her things like 'Sweet Cheeks', and 'Sugar Plum', and 'Princess', and no-one had ever called her kind and affectionate names before? Not even her mother! Or maybe it was because he always brought her little treats and didn't look at her like she was a revolting fat pig when she sat and ate them in front of him? He smiled at her, and he made her feel pretty. Of course, she knew that Danny wasn't really interested in her. She was almost old enough to be his mother! But it was nice for a man to treat her like a woman, and not like one of the boys, like most men did! Just because she was larger than most women and had to wear a man's work uniform did not mean that she wasn't all woman. Or that she didn’t like to be treated like a lady. Danny seemed to be the only man that could see that! Part of her was in love with him… even if she did know how silly that was! She couldn’t help it! She looked forward to seeing him, and often found herself checking the rota and swapping shifts to be on when he was on. On those days, she even wore a little lipstick!

"Course they do!" he said, pulling one of the cups of milkshake out of the holder and handing it to her. "Got you one of these too! Oreo flavour!" He waggled it at her and cocked his head to one side with a little smile. “I know how much you love these!”

"Danny!" she said, in a mock scolding tone, "You can't keep wasting all your money on me!" She'd already taken it off him though, and was busy unwrapping the straw that came with it. “What am I gonna do with you?!” she scolded as she sucked greedily on the straw.

"What?!” he laughed, holding his hands up in mock surrender, “I like to treat the special people in my life!" He reached forward and softly tucked what little hair she had at the front behind her ear. "You're good to me, Doris...” he said, “I just like to give something back."

Doris flushed an even deeper shade of red and looked at her computer screen as though there was suddenly something very important on there.

“Well” he said, giving a little sigh as he looked at his watch, “No rest for the wicked, eh?!” He hopped down off the table and put his gym bag on the conveyor belt of the metal detector. He patted down all his pockets and took the contents out to put into a small tray and then set the tray on the belt too. He glanced at Doris as she watched the items pass through on the screen, and gave her a little wink, as he walked through the scanner himself.

“Looks like I got away with it this time!” he announced theatrically, as he appeared on the other side by her desk, “No naughty step for me today!”

“No, you’re good to go!” she laughed, picking up his pizza box and his milkshake to give to him, “I won’t have you arrested this time… but only because you came bearing gifts!”

“You’re very easy to bribe!” he teased, “A couple of pastries and a milkshake is all it takes… Is that what you’re telling me?!”

“Yeah… a couple of cannoli and I’m all yours!” she blurted out, before she realised what she was saying. Her face went bright red and she looked away.

He couldn’t help laughing. “Good to know!” he said, giving her a little wink as he took the milkshake and pizza from her. He gave a little sigh and looked at his watch again. “Better go” he said, nodding with his head towards the staff entrance, “The boss man will be cracking the whip if I’m late again!”

“Will I see you later?” she asked, as he began to walk away, “On your break?”

“You can bet on it” he said, turning to give her a little smile again, “Wouldn’t miss my little chinwag with my best girl, now would I?”

She giggled and shook her head in a ‘what are you like?!’ kind of way. “Okay, don’t work too hard!” she called after him as the door closed. “Mrs Doris Smith” she wrote on the notebook in front of her, mouthing the words as she wrote them. “Mrs Daniel Smith…. Mrs D Smith… Danny & Doris Smith… D&D Forever…”

Smithy walked into the staffroom and set the pizza box down on the table. He looked around to check that no-one else was in there and then slipped inside the staff toilet with the cup of milkshake. He took the lid off and scraped away the thin covering of ice cream on the top of the large zip lock bag of crystal meth that was inside. “Thank YOU, Doris!” he said under his breath, as he pulled the bag out and ran it under the tap, “You little beauty!”

[Ludub]

Thanks again peeps for all the kind feedback. Here's the next chapter. Hope you like it!  (I might not get a chance to update this again until next weekend. I'm going to be very busy this week - boo )

WARNING: ADULT THEMES!

 

Chapter 39

 

“How about another couple of beers?” asked Joel as he called the waitress over, and held up three fingers. She nodded and turned back towards the bar to go and get them. Joel smiled across at Ash and gave him a little wink. “Just because we have to wait here doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy ourselves… Uncle Danny’s not a bad guy when you get to know him.”

“Your Uncle Danny has my brother” growled Brax, “And God knows what he’s done to him…”

“He’ll be fine!” laughed Joel, “He’s with my brother… Calvin’s a bit of a loose wire, I’ll give you that… but he won’t do anything till Uncle Danny gives him the nod.” He grinned at the waitress when she came to drop the bottles of beer off at the table and then watched her as she walked away.  “As long as he doesn’t do anything to **** him off… and you two idiots sit here… and play nice” he said, looking pointedly at Brax, “It’ll all be plain sailing…”

Brax grimaced, and took his hand away from the side of his head. It was covered in blood. He looked at it in concern and then glanced across at Ash to see if he looked worried. He saw him wince at the sight of it and wondered how bad it was. He did feel a little strange. He’d made an ill-advised grab for the gun earlier and received a heavy blow to the side of the head for his trouble. Smithy had hit him hard with his truncheon!

“So, what?” asked Ash, “We just sit here drinking beer and eating chicken wings till your Uncle gets in touch?”

“Yep!” said Joel, taking a slug from his bottle of beer, “That’s exactly what we do… Why? You gotta be somewhere?”

Ash rolled his eyes. “No… I’m just wondering what you’re gonna do if he doesn’t call?”

“Why wouldn’t he call?” asked Joel, narrowing his eyes at him a little. He had his right hand under the table and the gun resting on his knee. Neither of them were in any doubt that he could, and would, shoot them if given the order.  “Is there something I should know?” he asked.

“No, that’s not what I meant” said Ash.

“He means if something happens…” said Brax, “I don’t know… something outside his control… an accident or something?”

Joel smirked a little, as though to say they were being ridiculous, and then looked away across the bar. The young waitress gave him a little smile and waved at him in a flirty sort of way. “I’ve had her” he said, curling his lip up on one side into a cheeky little smile, “Last year…” Suddenly the phone sitting on the table in front of him began to ring. He looked down at it and gave a little smile. “Uncle Danny!” he said, turning to look at Brax, “Looks like the moment of truth for you boys, hey?!” He picked up the phone and pressed answer.

 

*****

 

Josh dragged Kyle along the metal walkway towards their cell. All he wanted was to get back there and close the door, but Kyle wasn’t making things easy. He was lagging behind and limping badly. “C’mon?!” pleaded Josh, pulling him by the sleeve of his top, “Please… just move!”

“I didn’t mean to…” mumbled Kyle, as he stared in a dazed sort of way at his blood-soaked clothes and shuffled along.  Suddenly he stopped in his tracks and stared around at the faces of the men in the hallway. For a moment, he couldn’t think where he was or who these people were. They might as well have been aliens. All he could see was sinister looking eyes and cruel grins. They all looked like monsters to him. He looked down at his own clenched fists, all swollen and bloodied, and broken. They didn’t look like his hands. He couldn’t even straighten his fingers. That’s when he saw that his arm was bleeding. There was a large flap of skin on his forearm, torn in the shape of a human bite mark. Blood was running like syrup down his arm and dripping onto the floor. He stared at it in wonder because he couldn’t really feel it. He knew that he was injured, but all he really felt was a strange sort of numbness. Or more accurately, everything hurt so much that it was almost like white noise. Like when your hands are really cold and you can’t tell the difference between hot and cold water.

“Kyle?!” begged Josh, “We have to move… You can’t just stand here!”

He looked up at Josh in a blank sort of way. He could see that he was shouting something at him but he couldn’t understand what he was saying. It was like the world had become warped and distant and distorted. Almost as though he was watching it on TV with the sound turned off. He didn’t understand.

“C’mon?!” Josh pleaded again, trying to make him move. He managed to get him walking again, but he was plodding very slowly with a totally blank expression. It was like taking his pet zombie for a walk!

Suddenly, one of Ducky’s men stepped out of an open doorway and blocked their path. He stood there with his arms folded across his chest, just looking at them, without saying a word. He looked angry.

Josh was in front. His heart was pounding! “What… what do you want?!” he asked, wondering if they were going to get another beating. Was this guy going to take revenge on behalf of his mate in there?!

The guy just continued to stare at them with an icy expression on his face.

“Listen… uhhh… we…” Josh stammered, “We… we don’t want any more trouble.” He needed to get Kyle back to the cell and he was desperately hoping that they could get past this guy without getting their heads kicked in. He started glancing around him. He still couldn’t see all that well, so all he could really make out were green blurry shapes in the distance. Part of him was hoping that Dimitri might be around somewhere, and that maybe he’d come to the rescue. If he was, then he certainly wasn’t making his presence known! “Can we get past?” he asked the man, as he tried to lead Kyle around him.

The man put his hand in the middle of Josh’s chest to stop him and stood there eyeballing him. “You think you guys can beat up one of my mates?!” he asked, looking back and forth between them, “And then what… just walk away?! …Untouched?!”

Josh glanced back at Kyle. He was dripping blood from multiple wounds on his head and arms and he was clearly limping very badly. For his own part, he looked like he’d been hit by a bus, and his mouth was bleeding again too. In what world, could that be defined as ‘untouched’?!

Suddenly the Korean man’s face broke into a big wide grin. “Just kidding!” he laughed, razzling Josh’s hair in a rough sort of way and then grabbing him by the back of the neck to turn him back towards Kyle. “That was impressive!” he said, clapping his other hand on Kyle’s shoulder and ignoring the big flinch that he gave. “Jae’s a big guy!” he said, “…and I mean BIG! …I’ve never seen him take a beating like that! Not like that! …And I’ve known him for years… Never had his ass kicked before …I can’t believe you got the better of him! …I mean, you tore him to pieces…” He squeezed the back of Josh’s neck as he spoke and shook him a little to emphasise every word. “And just when I thought that ugly mug of his couldn’t get any uglier!”

Kyle just stared at him in a vacant sort of way. The lights were on but no-one was home.

“We… uh… we have to go” said Josh, wriggling to free himself from the man’s grip.

“I reckon you’ve really impressed The Duck today” the guy continued, “And that doesn’t happen easily!” He squeezed Kyle’s shoulder and raised his eyebrows at Josh with a knowing sort of smile. “You two are just full of surprises!” he said, “First Alexei, now Jae!”

“Yeah… uh… thanks?” said Josh, pulling the man’s hand away from Kyle’s shoulder, “We need to go” He looked down the hallway and saw that one of the guards had started to make his way along their corridor. He turned back to the man in front of him and looked at him a little pleadingly. “He needs to get cleaned up before the guards see him… The blood’s a bit of a giveaway!”

Ducky’s guy looked Kyle up and down and gave a little smirk. He couldn’t really argue with that. He was a mess alright! “Yeah… I guess you better” he said, stepping out of their way, almost theatrically, and waving for them to go on. Kyle was visibly shaking as they made their way past.

“Never thought you’d have had it in you!” he shouted after them, “Not a couple of little queers like you! Not after today!”

Josh flinched a little and glanced back over his shoulder at the man. He could see him grinning from ear to ear.

They finally made it back to their cell and slipped inside. Kyle just stood there in the middle of the floor, with his arms hanging limply at his sides, and stared in a vacant trance-like way.

“I’ll uh… I’ll get the door” said Josh, turning to pull it closed. He peeped outside and gave a sigh when he realised that the guard had started to head in the opposite direction again. It looked like Ducky’s man had diverted him. “I’ll get you a wash cloth” he said, when he turned back round, “We need to wash that blood off you… You’ll feel better when we’ve got you cleaned up.” He walked over to the sink and began to wet Kyle’s facecloth under the tap. He filled the cup beside the sink with water and turned to face him again. “Why don’t you sit down?” he coaxed, nodding at the lower bunk, but he didn’t move.

“I nearly killed him” said Kyle in a quiet and distant sort of way. He was staring into the distance and seemed to be talking more to himself than to Josh.

“I know” said Josh, “But you didn’t… He’s gonna be okay.” He walked over to him and began to gently wash some of the blood off his face, softly dabbing at the open wounds on his already bruised face. He hissed a little when Josh wiped at his reopened eyebrow wound. “Come on, Kyle…” he said, “Come and sit down?”

He didn’t move. He just stared down at the open wound on his arm. It didn’t feel real.

Josh looked down at it and gasped. “Oh Jesus!” he said, eyeing it with concern. It looked like it needed stitches. He went to the bed to get a pillow case to use as bandages. He managed to rip it into a number of strips and then bound them tightly round Kyle’s arm. Kyle just stood there and let him do it.

“I just lost it” said Kyle, staring at Josh in a way that seemed like he didn’t even see him, “I couldn’t stop…”

“I know” Josh said again, as he picked up the washcloth and cup of water again, “But they drove you to it… No-one would blame you… Not after…”

“I nearly killed him” he said again, “I nearly killed him”

“Shhh” said Josh, in a comforting sort of way as he continued washing his face for him, “It’s okay”. The cloth had turned a dark red colour and he hadn’t even cleaned half the blood away yet. He went back over to the sink to rinse it out. He wondered when he’d become the carer? Kyle was the one who normally sorted him out. This was a strange reversal of roles and he wasn’t sure that he was up to the job.

When he spun back around, he was surprised to see that Kyle had sunk to his knees on the floor and begun to cry. His body was shuddering violently and he was letting out quiet little sobs. He couldn’t hide his shock. He’d never seen Kyle like this before! He was always the strong one! The one that held him together and wiped away his tears. He’d never seen him really lose it! He’d never seen him cry like this! “Uhhh…” he said, just standing there, watching him, and unsure of what to do. “Kyle… It’s okay” he said.

Kyle nodded and cradled his injured arm with his good one. His face was a swollen mess and his nose was running with both blood and snot.

Josh let out a groan when he hunkered down as best he could beside him. His ribs were killing him! “Mate, it’s okay!” he said, tentatively putting his arm around his shoulder to give him a hug. He’d expected him to pull away but he didn’t. He just leaned into the hug with his eyes closed and started giving big shuddering sobs.

“It’s okay” said Josh, hugging him closer and gently stroking his back, “It’s okay, Kyle…”

 

*****

 

“We’re doing everything we can to find your brother” said Agent Lee, holding his hands up in a conciliatory sort of way. He was keeping his voice deliberately low and calm, a sharp contrast to the yells of the men in front of him. A number of agents were having to hold the two men back, and the blonde one in particular kept pointing and lunging towards him, no matter how much he tried to reason with him. They were both highly agitated. “We will find him…” he repeated for the umpteenth time, “I promise you that.”

“How can you promise that?!” shouted Brax, “You have no idea where he is or… or what they’re doing to him!”

“Yeah, what if they kill him?!” shouted Ash.

“You didn’t see that video!” exclaimed Brax, “He’s in a bad way…”

“No, I didn’t see the video” replied Agent Lee, “But, Brax, you did a good job in there… You kept your head and you gave us information that we could work with… A lot of people would have lost it…”

“I nearly got my head caved in!” said Brax, showing him the blood on his hand, “He could have killed me and you guys wouldn’t have done anything to stop it… I was on my own in there!”

“We wouldn’t have let it get that far” said Agent Lee, “It was under control”

“Like hell it was!” shouted Ash, “That guy had a gun pointed at us the whole time! He could have killed us both!” He ran his fingers through his hair and turned away for a moment, trying to get his temper under control. “You sent us in there like lambs to the slaughter!” he said, turning around to face him again, “And now he has Heath… and he’s keeping him till we do the next deal!”

“We’ll find him before that” he said, “We have eyes on Smith and his nephew… With a bit of luck, they’ll lead us right to him.”

“That’s it?!” asked an exasperated Brax, “That’s the plan?!”

“It’s the best we have right now” shrugged Agent Lee, “Heath’s phone was discarded in the car park outside the prison so we can’t locate him using that. The listening device we had on him was on his jacket so it’s been here in this bar all evening… so that’s out.” He gave him a little half-smile. “You did good though… You gave us some useful information… You described what was on the video…  Thanks to you, we at least have a clue where he’s being kept… We have our team looking through city planning maps… We’ll find out which buildings have boiler rooms like that… if there are any near Smith’s home… We have people out searching…” He tilted his head at him in a pleading sort of way. “Getting upset like this isn’t going to help your brother…”

“What are we meant to tell his wife?!” asked Brax, “You know she’s pregnant, right?!”

Agent Lee nodded and gave a sympathetic little grimace. “Yes, I do know that” he said, “You need to keep her calm… lie to her if you have to… Like I said, we will find him!”

 

*****

 

“Ooooh-wee!” exclaimed Smithy, as he opened the cell door and saw Kyle and Josh on the floor together, “For a bloke who keeps telling me he isn’t gay, I keep finding you in some awfully compromising positions!” They were lying on the floor and Josh had his arms around Kyle. Smithy took a step back in surprise when they lifted their heads to look at him. “Jesus!” he gasped at the sight of them, “What the **** happened you?!”

Josh pulled himself painfully back into a sitting position and blinked up at the bright light flooding in from the hallway. Kyle just lay where he was.

Smithy flicked the light on his flashlight on and then stepped inside. He pulled the door closed behind him and came to sit down on the side of the bed. “One of you want to tell me what happened today?” he asked, “Or are you gonna try to tell me that this was just some lover’s tiff?” He laughed when he saw the disgust on Josh’s face. It never failed to amuse him how easily offended the boy was.

Neither of them answered him. Kyle hadn’t moved, so he nudged him with his foot. He jumped a little himself when Kyle scrambled across the floor and crouched in a ball as far away from him as he could get. “Christ!” he said, looking genuinely surprised, “Was it that bad?!” Some of the guards had told him about the fight in the mess hall, but he’d been led to believe that Josh and Kyle had gotten the upper hand. He’d assumed that it had gone a lot more in their favour than this.

“What do you want?” asked Josh, hugging his arms protectively around his injured ribs.

“Now, is that any way to greet your business partner?” asked Smithy. “’What do you want?’!” he said, mocking Josh’s voice in a high falsetto.

“It’s the middle of the night” sighed Josh, “Can you just say what you want to say… or do whatever it is you want to do…”

“Well, lookie here who suddenly grew some balls?!” laughed Smithy.

Josh stared up at him for a moment with unbridled hatred. “I don’t care” he said, spitting the words in a bitter sort of way, “I don’t care if you kill me…” he said, “…Or what you do… So… Can you just get on with it?!”

Smithy looked down at Josh’s terribly swollen face, all brightly lit by his flashlight, and shook his head at him. There was something that he recognised in that look that he was giving him. Something slightly murderous in his gaze, even if he could only open one eye. Maybe it was because the kid’s pretty boy features were replaced by purple and black and yellow bruises, and swelling, and cuts? Or maybe he was just a young man who really had nothing to lose? Nothing left. Nothing to hope for… It was a transformation that never failed to amaze him, even though it happened all the time. He could see it in him now. It wouldn’t be long! Just one more push… Something would drive him over the edge. Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but soon… He knew a potential murderer when he saw one…

He got to his feet, gripping his flashlight in his hand, and pulled the large bag of crystal meth out of the groin of his trousers. He dropped it into Josh’s lap and gave him a curt little nod, before moving towards the door. “Don’t **** this up” he warned, smiling down at them as he began to open it. He glanced at Kyle who was sitting in the corner of the cell.  “By the way…” he said, smirking a little, “Your brother Heath says ‘Hi’…Mess this up, and you’ll never see him again.”

[Ludub]

So here's the new chapter. Really hope you all like it!  

Also, thanks to Christine King and Suzza whose comments I haven't had a chance to reply to. Just been really busy this week, sorry!  I really appreciate the feedback though, and I'm so glad you're enjoying it! Hope you like this one!

 

WARNING: VERY ADULT THEMES!

 

Chapter 40

 

“So, that’s it, is it?!” snapped Ricky, as she slammed her whiskey glass down on the counter, “Heath is God knows where, and they’re not going to do anything about it?!” She shook her head in disgust and started to pour herself some more. She’d had a couple of glasses already this evening, in an effort to calm herself down, but it wasn’t working! She hadn’t been able to get any of the boys on the phone all day, and she’d been going mad with worry. Even Agent Lee hadn’t been answering! She’d been left here, literally holding the baby, while all sorts of terrible things had been running through her mind. Now some of her worst fears had been realised! Heath was missing! Not just missing, but being held captive by that total creep of a guard! God knows what was happening to him, or even if he was still alive! She knew that she should be concerned about Brax, and asking if his head was okay considering the big bandage around his temple, but a big part of her wanted to smack him herself!  How could he have messed things up so badly?! “What are we going to do?!” she asked, in an exasperated tone.

“There isn’t much we can do” he sighed, as he set his own empty whiskey glass down on the coffee table and then folded his arms across his chest, “Like I said, they’re trying to find him… We just have to sit tight and hope that they… that they know what they’re doing…” He was perched on the arm of the couch so he could watch Ricky in the kitchen. He looked exhausted. “They reckon they can follow Smithy to wherever he’s keeping him… or that nephew of his… That’s the hope, anyway…”

“And what do we tell Bianca when he doesn’t come home?” she asked, “She’s already been on the phone with me three times today! Do you have any idea what it’s been like lying to her?! ‘Oh don’t worry! His phone probably just died…’, ‘No, I think they’re just busy with some stuff for the restaurant!’, ‘I promise you, Bianca… I would tell you if something was going on!’ …I hate lying to her, Brax! She’s my best friend! What if she doesn’t forgive me?!”

“You did the right thing” he assured her, “The last thing that Heath needs is Bianca finding out about this… and Bianca doesn’t need the stress… It wouldn’t be good for the baby.”

She rolled her eyes at him. It was true, of course. Bianca’s was a high-risk pregnancy, so she didn’t need any unnecessary stress or worry, but his attitude seemed quite patronising too. Bianca wasn’t stupid. She did know her husband, and she also knew Brax. They wouldn’t be able to keep her in the dark for too much longer. “And when he doesn’t show for the scan tomorrow?!”  demanded Ricky, “What do we do then?! …You know she’s gonna freak?!”

“You’ll think of something” he said, desperately hoping that she would. “I don’t know… something with mum, maybe?”

“Fine” she said, blowing out a big breath and running her fingers through her hair. She’d have to try to figure something out… “So, what?!” she asked, swirling the golden liquid round in the glass and fixing him with an icy stare, “We just sit around here… and… what?! Do nothing?!”  She couldn’t understand why he seemed so calm about things. Had he taken a harder knock to the head than he’d said? Was he concussed or something?! This didn’t seem like Brax!

“Do you have a better idea?!” he asked, with a sudden flash of anger. He was tired and worried, and he really didn’t know what to do. He’d never felt so out of his depth.

“Brax…” she started to say but he cut her off…

“Well, do you?!” he asked, again, “Because I’d really like to hear it! …I mean… What do you want me to do?! Go out in the streets and just start shouting his name?!” He got to his feet and pointed angrily at the window. “I mean… Do I go out there?!” he asked, cupping his hand at the side of his mouth like a loud speaker, “Do I go around shouting ‘Heath?! …Heeeeeee-eeeeaaaaathh! Here boy! Here boy! C’mere, Heath!”

“Don’t be facetious!” she scolded him, “I’m just worried!”

“And you think I’m not?! …He’s my brother” he said, sitting down on the arm of the couch again and hugging his arms around his chest defensively, “You don’t think I’m scared for him?!”

“You don’t seem it!” she snapped back at him.

“What do you want from me?!” he asked, his voice catching a little with emotion, “…You want me to cry?! How’s that gonna help?!”

“I just wanna know you’re as worried as I am” she said, “That you aren’t secretly getting some kind of kick out of this.”

He gave an exasperated huff and rolled his eyes at her. He definitely wasn’t getting any kind of kick out of Heath being missing! Maybe in the beginning, he’d been quite excited about this whole ‘working with the Feds’ thing, because it had broken the monotony of his humdrum little life. But now that he was in the middle of it, he wanted out so badly! He’d come to the terrible realisation that he’d bitten off much more than he could chew. They all had! And now Heath was probably going to pay the price! “I didn’t want this thing!” he groaned, “I didn’t ask for this… and I’m just as worried as you are!”

“I know you are…” she sighed, carrying her glass and the bottle of whiskey over to him, “I know that… I’m just so… angry!”

“I get that, Ric…” he said, hanging his head, “…and I know you think this is my fault… and… and fair enough! …Maybe it is…”

“I didn’t say that” said Ricky. She could see now that he was upset and only just holding back the tears.

“You don’t have to say it” he said, taking the whiskey bottle from her and pouring himself another glass. “I know it is… It is my fault.” he said, shaking his head as his voice broke a little, “I know that.” He threw the contents of his glass back and grimaced a little. “What if he doesn’t come home?” he asked, looking up at her with teary looking eyes, “I mean, what if that bastard kills him?! …What if…”

“He won’t!” she said, putting her arms around his neck and leaning her forehead against his.

“What if he’s already dead?” he said, “For all we know, he’s already killed him!” A few tears were slowly tracking their way down his cheeks. “I can’t… I can’t lose another brother, Ric… I can’t!”

“He won’t kill him” she said, trying to convince herself as much as she was him, “He wants this deal, doesn’t he? He wants money… Heath is just leverage.”

Brax gave her a sad sort of half smile and nodded a little. He hoped she was right. “Heath’s never gonna forgive me for this” he sighed, “He didn’t want to do this thing in the first place… and he thinks I’m the one that got him caught up in it… What if he’s hurt? What if he doesn’t get out of this okay?”

“There’s so many ‘what if’s’, Brax! …You can’t keep torturing yourself with them!”

He put his arms around her waist and leaned his head against her chest. “I don’t know what I’ll do if anything’s happened to him…”

Suddenly the intercom buzzer went and he looked up at her in a startled sort of way. She seemed surprised too. It was after 2am. It was not the time of night for casual visitors!

“It’s probably just those Uni kids downstairs again” said Ricky, frowning a little as she looked towards the now silent intercom, “Probably just drunk again.” She didn’t sound too convincing. “Just ignore it.” she said.

He nodded, but continued to stare across at it in a worried sort of way. Silence…. “What if it’s Heath?!” he said, getting up and starting to make his way over to it. He didn’t really think that it would be him, but there was some small glimmer of hope inside him. Could Smithy have let him go?! Maybe he was human after all?

Just as he got there, the intercom began to buzz a lot more insistently, like the person had their finger on the button and wasn’t letting go.

He glanced at Ricky and made a sort of grimace before swiping the handset out of the holder. “Hello?” he said, in a tentative sort of voice, “Who’s there?” His eyes widened when he heard the voice on the other end and he pressed the buzzer to let them in immediately. “Come up!” he said.

“Who is it?!” asked Ricky, pulling her dressing gown around her a little more tightly, “The Feds?! Have they found him?!”

“No, it’s Bianca” he said, going to open the front door to let her in. They could see the numbers on the lift counting down. She’d be here in a moment.

“What’s going on?” asked Ash, as he stumbled bleary-eyed out of the spare room in nothing but a pair of boxer shorts. He’d clearly been sleeping. “Is there someone at the door?!” he asked.

“Bianca’s here” said Brax, pointing down to indicate the ground floor, “She’s coming up now… She sounds upset.”

 “Oh God!” whispered Ricky, slipping her hand into Brax’s in an anxious sort of way, “What are we gonna tell her?!”

“As little as possible” said Ash, leaning his back against the couch as they waited for her to arrive, “Heath wouldn’t want her to worry…”

 

*****

 

“****ing hell!” laughed Ducky, when he saw Kyle and Josh limping towards him along the corridor, “You two look like the Elephant Man…” He clapped his hands together a little theatrically and then leaned against the man beside him as though to say ‘This is just so funny, I can hardly stand up!’ “Christ!” he exclaimed, “I mean… I’m not even sure which one of you is uglier!” He clearly found this whole thing very amusing but he was also putting on a show for everyone’s else’s benefit. He was actually holding his stomach and practically bending double with laughter! His men were laughing too, but in a much more forced ‘better laugh because the boss is laughing’ kind of way.

Kyle winced with every step, as he shuffled towards Ducky’s cell. His whole body felt like it had simply seized. Like the muscles didn’t want to cooperate anymore. Josh was staying close to him, and limping almost as badly as him now. Neither of them had slept very well. They’d talked a bit about what they’d do this morning when the cell door opened and how they’d go about doing the handover. Josh had offered to try to do it on his own, but Kyle had insisted that they stick together. He didn’t want to be on his own right now and he didn’t want to send Josh into what could possibly be a trap. They were both shaking with fear.

Ducky pointed at Josh when he got closer and shook his head in amazement. “I thought this one looked bad yesterday… but… Jesus! Look at him! …I mean, seriously?! Look at him! …He can’t even open that eye, can he?! …****, you can’t even see where it opens! …Is he… Is he actually drooling?!”

The boys stopped in the doorway, surrounded by a throng of Ducky’s men, and tried their best to ignore the obvious ridicule that was being directed at them.

 “We have the thstuff” said Josh, slurring a little and struggling to get the words out with his badly swollen mouth. He refused to react to the taunting.

“What was that?!” teased Ducky, as he cupped his hand around his ear and pretended that he couldn’t make him out, “I don’t think I understood that!”

“We have the thstuff” he repeated again, trying to enunciate a little more clearly. It really hurt to talk!

“Nope!” laughed Ducky, “No idea! …Guess you’re the Elephant Man, then! …So, who’s your mate?! Quasimodo?!”

All his men burst out laughing like it was the funniest thing that anyone had ever heard.

“He said ‘we have the stuff’” said Kyle, glaring at the grinning faces of the other men, and then back at Ducky, “Do you want it or not?!”

“You boys seem to be in quite the rush!” laughed Ducky, “Don’t you?!”

Kyle gave a shrug. “Can we just get on with it?!”

“I’m impressed!” teased Ducky, as he beckoned for them to follow him into the cell. He sat down on the bed and shook his head at them in wonder. “You guys really know how to take a beating!” he chuckled.

Two of the larger men in the hallway shoved Kyle and Josh forward. They stumbled into the cell, so that they were standing directly in front of Ducky.  

“I mean…” he continued, “Most blokes would have lain down for weeks with the beating you two got… especially after our little ‘misunderstanding’”

Everyone burst out laughing again and Kyle glared at the large man beside him who seemed to find it particularly funny. He wanted to wipe that smile off his face!

“…I mean” he continued, “I guess I thought a couple of little pansies like you would have gone running to the infirmary… Got those boo boos looked at?!” He curled his lip up on one side into a sarcastic little smile. “But not you two, hey?! … I mean, look at you! …Like a couple of eager beavers! …Bright eyed and bushy tailed this morning! Aren’t ya?!”

“You said to come straight here once we had it” said Josh, making an effort to make himself understood.

“That I did!” he chuckled, “That I did! Well remembered!”

“Thso… We just hand it over?” asked Josh, as he began to pull his t-shirt up.

“My my!” snorted Ducky, “You two really are in a hurry, aren’t you?!” He shook his head in amusement, and then motioned to a couple of his guys to stand in the doorway, partly to block anyone from seeing inside the cell, and partly to keep watch for any guards. “Go on then” he said, eyeing Josh’s stomach, “Let’s see what you got?”

Josh lifted his t-shirt and revealed a zip lock bag of crystal meth, tied around his waist with strips of white linen. He’d used the remains of the pillow case to make a sort of rope and used it to bind the bag in place. He untied it, and slipped it out of the front of his tracksuit bottoms. He was so thin now that hiding a large bag of drugs on his concave belly wasn’t too difficult. No-one had noticed.

“****!” exclaimed Ducky when he saw the darkened patchwork of bruises on Josh’s abdomen, “Did we do all that?!”

Josh glared at him and dropped his t-shirt. “Here!” he said, holding the bag out towards him.

Ducky held his hand up in refusal and then nodded for Kwon who was standing over by the sink to come and get it. “I don’t handle the goods” he said, with a little wink, “You know what they say… Why have a dog, and then bark yourself?!” Everyone burst out laughing again in a tense sort of way and Ducky rolled his eyes. He knew fake laughter when he heard it.

“I’ll take that!” said, Kwon, lifting the bag out of Josh’s hands and giving him a little smirk. He looked at Ducky and gave him a little nod, before giving Josh a shove in the chest to get past him.  He slipped out the door with the bag in his hands and spoke to another man for a moment out in the hallway. Then the two of them disappeared into the cell next door.

“Good!” said Ducky, patting the space on the bed beside him. “Now that we’ve got that out of the way…” he said, motioning with his head for Josh to come and sit down, “Why don’t you let your old friend Ducky see if he can kiss those boo boos any better?!”

Josh didn’t move. He stood there practically glued to Kyle.

“Kwon might be a while” said Ducky, raising his eyebrows at Josh in a suggestive way and giving him a little smile, “Just doing a bit of ‘quality control’, so we might as well get comfortable…” He started motioning with his head again, for Josh to come and sit down. It was clear that it was becoming less of an offer this time, and more of an order. He patted the mattress a little more insistently.

Josh shook his head. He didn’t want to be anywhere near this man if he could help it, and he definitely didn’t want to sit on the lower bunk of a bed with him! A whirlwind of bad memories was flashing through his mind and making him feel sick. “I’m okay where I am” he mumbled.

“Come on, sweetheart?!” Ducky purred, “I thought we’d put all that nastiness behind us?!”

Josh grimaced and glanced sideways at Kyle but he was looking equally uneasy and panicky. He wondered what would happen if they both just made a run for it? Ducky and his men had their drugs now. What more did they want?!

“Come on!” coaxed Ducky, using the kind of voice that you’d use to call a dog, “Come on… sit with Ducky and we’ll have a nice little chat?” He could see the obvious discomfort and fear written all over Josh’s face and couldn’t help finding it amusing. “Come on, kitten? I don’t bite!”

“I’d rather stand” said Josh, trying to take a step back. He was really starting to panic now. He could feel his heart pounding.

“I’m not gonna ask you again” he warned.

“Ducky asked you to sit down” growled a man’s voice behind him “You do as you’re told!”  Suddenly he was being manhandled very roughly and made to sit down on the mattress beside Ducky. He winced badly from the pain in his ribs, from being forced into a sitting position, and took a moment to steady himself.

“That’s better! Isn’t it?!” laughed Ducky.

Josh felt his stomach churn when he felt him put his hand on his thigh. He didn’t want anyone touching him like that! His immediate instinct was to pull the hand away but something in the sadistic grin on this man’s face told him not to. He just sat there cringing as the man’s thumb ran up and down his thigh in a lazy sort of way. He glanced at Kyle, but he seemed distracted. He wasn’t looking at him. He was staring at something near Ducky’s feet. He turned to look, and that’s when he noticed Mark. The boy was lying on the floor in the space under the lower bunk bed. It looked like that was where he slept. He didn’t even have his teeth in, and he looked sad and distant. He might as well have been a very ill-treated pet dog!

“So, we just wait for Kwon?” asked Kyle. All he wanted was to get out of there. They’d done their part. They’d delivered the drugs… Ducky just needed to call his guy on the outside and tell him to make the drop. As long as Smithy got his money, they’d be onto phase 2 of the plan, and hopefully one step closer to this whole thing being over! He could hear Kwon laughing in the cell next door. He just wanted him to hurry up!

“Yeah…” said Ducky, with a sarcastic little smile, “We just wait.”

“And if it’s okay…” asked Kyle, eyeing the mobile phone on the bed, “You’ll make the call? You’ll get them to do the drop?” Phones weren’t allowed in the prison but Ducky had one. He didn’t even seem too careful about hiding it!

“I’ll make the call” agreed Ducky, with a little wink, “I’m a man of my word.”

 

*****

 

“Is there anyone there?!” shouted Heath as he tried to reach the window to see outside, “Help! Anyone! I’m in here!” He banged with an empty saucepan on the wooden table and shouted and roared for the umpteenth time this morning. “Please?!” he shouted, “Someone help!” He knew in his heart that no-one was coming. Whoever had kidnapped him had decided to leave him here to die. Here, alone in this old house… And he didn’t even know where ‘here’ was. It looked like the kitchen of an old farmhouse. A very basic wooden type of house with lots of wood panelling everywhere, and a few sticks of old style wooden furniture. The white paint on the walls was peeling badly and there was mould all over the ceiling. There were ragged yellow curtains on the windows, an old rug on the floor that had seen better days, and a hell of a lot of cobwebs. The place looked sad. It was pretty clear that no-one had lived here for a very long time! …And he was going to die here…

He’d woken with a start in the middle of the night and been met with total darkness. He’d panicked completely! The chain around his ankle had come as a shock, as well as the fact that his hands had been tied behind his back. He didn’t remember what had happened. He couldn’t even remember where he’d been, or what he’d been doing, or even what day it was. Everything was a blurry blank! His head hurt! It was like his brain was sloshing about inside his skull and bashing off the walls. It throbbed every time he moved it! He’d tried to shout for help, but his voice was so hoarse that it took a few attempts to make himself heard. It felt like his throat had been cut with razor blades. He was so thirsty! “Is there anyone there?” he’d asked in a frightened sort of way. He hadn’t been sure that he wanted someone to answer. What if it was the person who had chained him up, and they had unpleasant plans for him?! What if he’d been kidnapped by a serial killer or something?! A terrifying thought had begun to take hold. What if it wasn’t dark?! What if he was just blind?! What if there was someone there with him, watching him, and he didn’t even know?! He’d sat there for what felt like an eternity just listening for the sound of any kind of movement... The silence had frightened him more than he could even begin to explain. He’d never been anywhere so quiet before. Every time he’d moved, the floor creaked, and he’d nearly jumped out of his skin. The only other sounds had been his own thumping heartbeat and rapid breathing. The minutes had ticked by so slowly! It was like his own personal hell!

It wasn’t until the morning that he’d been able to see the place that he was being held. Although, being able to see the room didn’t really help. He’d still had no idea where he was! He could see the heavy chain around his ankle. It was like something you might use for livestock, or that might have been used on people back in the days of slavery. There was an iron sort of cuff around his ankle and it was locked closed with a padlock. The chain attached to it was looped around the foot of a particularly heavy range style cooker. He’d spent the early morning sawing his way through the rope on his wrists by rubbing them back and forth on the blade of a shovel that was leaning against the wall. He was exhausted but at least his hands were free! He couldn’t get anywhere near the window, or the door, even if he stretched to his fullest, although that didn’t stop him trying. At least if he could get a little closer, he might be able to shout loud enough to get someone’s attention. He couldn’t just sit here and wait to die. There wasn’t even any water!

“Hey” he shouted again, banging and banging on the table with the saucepan, “Someone! Someone help!” He staggered and leaned on the table. He was dizzy and out of breath. He eyed the sink and wondered if he might be able to stretch far enough with the saucepan to knock the tap on and then collect some water. He was dying of thirst!

He dragged the heavy chain towards the sink and stepped as far towards the sink with his free foot as possible. He leaned and pulled and leaned, stretching his arm as far as he could, and stuck his tongue out for concentration. It really hurt his ankle but he tried to ignore that. The need for water was greater than any discomfort. He needed it! He could just about reach the taps of the sink… almost! He pulled and pulled at his chained ankle and stretched a little bit more. “Come on!” he grunted at himself, as he knocked the tap gently to try to turn it, “Just a little more.” He hit it two or three times but nothing happened. The tap didn’t turn! He grunted as he pulled a little more at the chain, and then hit the tap again. This time it did turn but nothing happened. He hit it again and it turned a little more. The taps shook a little, shuddering and grumbling, as though coming to life. He took it to mean that the water was coming and gave a little smile. He hit it again and turned it a little more to try to speed things up. He was licking his lips with anticipation! He held the saucepan under the tap and waited… and waited… and waited… and waited… but nothing came! There was no water!

“Noooooo!” he roared, throwing the saucepan to the floor and overturning the kitchen table, “****! ****! Nooooo!” He kicked the chair, turning it over, and began to stomp on it. It broke apart quite easily, but he continued to stamp over and over again. Suddenly he stopped. He was feeling dizzy and breathless! He slumped to the floor and pulled at his own hair in frustration. It was still crusted with blood and he hissed a little when he touched the wound on his forehead. He pulled some of the dry blood out of his hair and rubbed it between his fingers. “I’m going to die here” he said to himself, as he started to sob. He hugged his arms around himself and sat there on the floor crying. He couldn’t understand why this was happening!

Suddenly he looked up. He’d heard the sound of a vehicle of some sort approaching. It was distant, but it was obviously some sort of engine. In a flash, he was up on his feet, and his heart was hammering like it might burst. “What if it’s them?!” he said out loud, as he began to look around in desperation for a weapon. He needed something!

A car pulled up outside, a car door opened and closed, and then he heard a man talking on the phone. “Yeah, he’s fine!” said a laid back sort of voice, “I’m here now… Don’t worry Unc! I’ve got it all under control…”

Heath picked up the shovel and held it behind his back in both hands. At least he might have the element of surprise!