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Scooby
A week or so later, I was back at Rowan’s.
“You want quesadillas?” I asked her after we’d had another marathon fuck session.
“Mmm, yes, that sounds great. I’m just going to grab a quick shower, okay?”
“Yeah, baby.” I kissed her quickly and headed out to the kitchen.
For the past month, we’d been living in virtual bliss, and I had started to relax and let her goodness sink in. I was at her place pretty much every night and if I couldn’t be there, someone was watching her. She was protected at all times. We were getting to know each other, and we were getting closer than I’d ever gotten to anyone.
I was pulled from my thoughts when Lord suddenly leapt to his feet, barking violently, and nosing at the crate door, followed immediately by Rowan’s screams from inside the bathroom. I grabbed the kitchen knife from the counter and bolted down the hall to the bathroom as quickly as I could. Swinging the door open I found Rowan, wet and naked huddled on the floor as a masked man dressed in all black climbed through the window in the opposite corner.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She didn’t answer right away, so I asked again.
“I just froze,” she rasped.
“Baby, it’s okay, that happens,” I said. “Are you okay?” I asked again, and she nodded.
“Get out of here and stay with Lord until I say,” I said, placing myself between her and the intruder.
“Sh...sh...should I c...call the police?” she asked, her voice trembling uncontrollably.
“No cops, just go,” I commanded, and she ran out of the room.
The intruder wore a black hoodie and face mask and was outfitted with some sort of armor that covered his chest, back, and arms. He was also holding a tactical stun baton. The kind capable of delivering three-hundred-million volts through heavy clothing.
I was in my boxer briefs.
“Hey, Batman. If you’re smart, you’ll turn around and go back the way you came,” I said.
“Drop the knife and hit the floor, face down, with your palms to the sky,” he replied, pointing his baton at me, blue sparks arcing loudly at its tip.
“You talk like a cop,” I said, ignoring his order. “What are you, an ex-cop? A strip mall security guard? I don’t see a gun on that fancy belt of yours.”
“Keep fucking with me, man, and you’ll find out exactly what I got.”
“Wait a minute,” I continued. “Are you one of those guys who always wanted to be a cop but couldn’t pass the psych eval portion of the police academy entrance exam?”
As I spoke, I mentally measured the distance between us. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to build up enough momentum to take this motherfucker to the ground before he tagged me with his shock stick. I also had no idea if his body armor was used for paintball or was heavy enough to withstand a full thrust of Rowan’s fancy kitchen knife, so I was gonna aim for the neck.
“Shut the fuck up and get down on the floor,” he repeated. “I’m only here for the girl, but I’ll kill you too if I have to.”
“That’s it, isn’t it?” I continued to taunt. “You’ve gotta tell me. I’m dying to know. How many times did you take the exam? Four? Five times?”
“I swear to God, if you don’t drop the fucking hero routine right now, I’ll kill that bitch slowly and make you watch.”
“Wrong answer,” I said, lunging towards the intruder with all the force I could muster.
However, the bathroom tile was soaked from Rowan’s hasty exit of the tub, making it impossible for my bare feet to gain proper traction. My knife struck deep into the intruder’s chest, but his armor was thick, and the blade’s tip snapped clean off. He was able to deliver a direct blow with his baton to my mid-section, knocking the wind out of me and sending me to the floor gasping for breath.
I was flat on my back, barely able to move, and the knife lay on the floor next to the tub, just out of my reach.
“I told you to stay out of this, lover boy,” he said, before delivering another shock to my solar plexus, all but paralyzing me. He stood over me and shoved the baton under my chin. “Now I’m gonna make you go nighty-night for a little while, while I take care of your lady friend. Don’t worry, though, I’ll make sure you’re awake when I rape her. At least for the first few times.”
I gasped for breath and tried to brace myself for the brain scrambling I was about to receive, when suddenly Lord leapt through the doorway, knocking the intruder and his baton in opposite directions to the floor. Lord snarled like a mad dog as he viciously tore at the now screaming man’s face and hands. I grabbed the knife and plunged the tipless blade into the intruder’s unarmored inner thigh causing him to shriek further.
I scrambled back to my feet before ordering Lord to release the intruder. I then grabbed the man by his hair and dragged him over to the tub as blood poured from his thigh, mixing with the pools of water on the floor.
“Are you okay?” Rowan called out from the hall, sounding utterly terrified.
“I’m okay, baby, and Lord’s okay too,” I reassured her. “But don’t come in here until I say, okay?”
I didn’t wait for Rowan’s response before plunging the intruder’s head under the bathwater, holding him as he kicked and flailed.
“Oh, my god. Is this your blood?” Rowan gasped as she stood in the doorway.
“No, it’s his. I told you not to come in here,” I bellowed.
“What are you doing?”
“I was just... about to get to know... our unexpected guest, but felt like he needed...a bath first,” I replied as the intruder struggled.
“Please don’t kill him,” she begged.
“He came here to kill you, Rowan.”
“Scooby, I don’t want you to go to prison,” Rowan cried.
I pushed his head down deep into the water until I could feel his skull hit the bottom of the tub.
“Please?” she begged.
I pulled the intruder’s head out of the water and held the knife to his throat as he coughed and gulped for air.
“I already know the answer to this question, but I’m gonna ask it anyway. I want to know if you’re capable of telling the truth. Who hired you to come here tonight?
“Some guy named Morter. Stanley Morter. I never met the guy before in my life, I swear. I’m a bouncer at the Fancy Cat, and this guy just walked up to me three nights ago and told me he had a job for me.”
“To kill us?”
“This guy Morter, he said he’d pay me twenty grand to kill the lady and make it look like a home invasion. He didn’t say anything about you, though. She was supposed to be alone.”
“How about the rape? Were you gonna throw that in for free?” I asked, punching him twice in the face before plunging his head underneath the water again.
“Scooby! He’s not worth it. Please,” Rowan begged as our would-be killer’s jerking began to slow.
I pulled his head out of the water moments before he would have passed out and turned him to face Rowan.
“See that woman?” I asked. “Despite what you came here to do to her, she wants me to let you live. That’s the woman you came here to murder tonight.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” he said, his face covered in snot and blood. “I needed the money. I have a family and I’ve been out of work and the bouncer gig’s only part—”
“Fuck your sob story, you piece of shit,” I said, before slamming his head into the rim of the cast iron tub so hard his eyes rolled into the back of his skull. Then I gave him one more blow to the head, partly to make sure he was subdued, but mostly because he’d pissed me off.
“We have to call the police,” Rowan said.
“I thought you didn’t want me to go to prison?”
“It was self-defense,” Rowan said. “He broke in while I was in the bath and then you came in and stopped him.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Baby, the scales of justice don’t tend to tip in favor of club members.”
“What does you being a biker have to do with this?”
“Me being a biker has everything to do with everything. Especially when it comes to cops, judges, and members of the jury. No matter what the cops and courts do to this guy, which trust me won’t be enough, they’ll find any way they can to put me in the cell right next to his.”
“So, what do we do?” Rowan asked.
“First I need to know if you’re all in?”
“All in?” she asked, but the look on her face told me she knew exactly what I was asking.
“All in. No more secrets. Total and complete trust in me, my club, and how we do things.”
Rowan nodded, her eyes to the floor.
“Look at me, Twinkles. I need to hear you say it. Tell me you’re in and we’ll decide what to do with this guy together.”
Rowan’s eyes met mine. “I’m all in.”
I threw the soaking wet, half-unconscious man to the floor, picked up his stun baton and handed it to Rowan.
“Keep this pointed at him at all times. If he does anything you don’t like, shock him in the balls,” I said, and began unlacing his right boot.
“What are you doing?” Rowan asked.
“Compromising.”
“What the fuck?” the intruder asked, as he began to regain full consciousness.
“Make a single move without my permission and she turns your dick into a French fry, and then I cut your throat. Got it?”
The intruder nodded.
“What’s your name?” I asked, removing the boot from his right foot.
“Gary Barnes.”
“Okay, Gary Barnes. Here’s the situation. Your days as a hitman are over. If I had it my way, your days as a living, breathing human being would be over, but my partner wants to let you walk. What do you think?”
“I swear to God if you let me walk, you’ll never hear from me again,” he pleaded.
“So, that’s two votes for walking and one opposed,” I said, removing his sock. “So, here’s the compromise, Gary. I’m gonna let you walk, but you’re never gonna walk quite the same again.” I grabbed ahold of his foot and severed his Achilles tendon with the broken kitchen knife.
He screamed out in agony before passing out again. He’d already lost a good amount of blood from the cut on his thigh, and the pain from the Achilles tendon put him out cold.
“Grab my phone. I need to make some calls to get this all cleaned up and taken care of. Until then, I’m gonna have a couple of brothers take you to one of the club’s safe houses.”
“What about him?”
“Needles will make sure he doesn’t die, and I’m gonna make sure no one else like him ever comes after you again.”
“You’re leaving me here with him?”
“Believe me, he’s not going anywhere. Besides, I’m gonna zip tie him to the tub and my brothers will be here within minutes,” I reassured her.
“But you’re bleeding,” she said. “You’ve reopened that cut on your head.”
“Shit,” I said, my hand going to the freshly reopened wound.
The last thing I needed was a trail of my blood leading to where I was headed.
“Sit on the edge of the tub and keep an eye on him while I grab my medical supplies,” Rowan said.
“I’ll just glue it,” I growled.
“Scooby, you’ve already glued it once. And you’ve ripped it open again—”
“I promise I’ll have Needles take care of it as soon as I’m back at the clubhouse. But for now, you can clean it up, and I’ll close it with the help of Dr. Elmer.”
“You’re gonna have a bad scar,” she said.
I gave her a smile. “Chicks dig scars.”
“Well, you’re racking them up like Frankenstein’s monster at this rate.”
“I can bleed later. Right now, I need to go,” I said.
“Promise me you won’t do anything that leads to more scars, will ya, Frankie?” Rowan was putting on a brave face, but I knew how terrified she must be by all of this. That’s why I had to go. To put an end to her terror.
“I promise I’ll come back to you in exactly the same way I’m leaving, only better.”
“Why better?”
“Because you’ll be safe.”
After securing Gary’s near lifeless body to the feet of the heavy cast iron tub, I got dressed quickly then grabbed a few things from my makeshift workbench, throwing them into a duffel bag. As soon as I was out of Rowan’s place, I called Sierra.
“Hey, Scooby. How’s my favorite Scorpio?” she asked, answering on the first ring.
“Ready to sting the shit outta someone,” I replied. “But first I’ve got to get to him.”
“What can I do?”
“I need Stanley Morter’s home address. It’s unlisted.”
“No problem. Gimmie a second,” she replied, furiously typing away in the background. “10526 Overland Drive. He’s in a private gated community called Pinecrest.”
“I’ve gotta get into his place unnoticed. Can you tell me if he has a security system?”
“Sure thing,” she said, returning to her typing. “Top of the line. Cameras around the perimeter of the house as well as throughout the inside, as well as sensors on every door and window. The works,” she said cheerily.
“I’ve gotta get inside the place. Why do you sound so happy?” I asked, climbing onto my bike.
“Because it’s nothing I can’t walk you through doing with your cell phone as long as you’re in range of the home’s wi-fi router.”
“Well, that’s fucking disturbing.”
“Blessed are the geeks, for they shall inherit the earth,” she replied.
“I’ll call you when I get there.” I hung up and headed for the hills.
