Hard Rider

Troy had been texting and calling non-stop. I couldn’t get myself to answer him. Maybe it was my cautious side roaring back with a vengeance. It was well-aware of what happened to me when I got cute and tried to take a chance.

The one thing that kept bothering more than anything was that I couldn’t figure out why he would do it. Looking back on it, I would have liked to have heard the whole story. I wasn’t sure it would change anything, but the curiosity remained.

Troy kept texting that he had “an explanation for what happened.” I couldn’t get myself to take the bait. I’d think about calling to hear him out, and then rationale would take over and I’d remember that’s what all boyfriends said when they messed up.

I scrolled through the list of countries in my browser. England, France, Italy… China. I’d opened it up on a whim, but now I was getting cold feet. I was a bottle and a half of wine deep, but that, apparently, wasn’t enough. I poured another glass.

The plan was to get away for a while. There was nothing holding me in Chicago, so why not get out of town for a couple weeks? It would be a good chance to clear my head.

Buying a ticket out of the country on two days’ notice wasn’t going to be cheap, but I had more than enough in savings to cover it. Like Troy was fond of reminding me, I guess I really was just a rich girl who could do what she wanted.

I guzzled the whole glass, then set it on the table. My head floated in the clouds. Red stained my lips and the corners of my mouth. I closed my eyes and pointed at the screen. When I opened them, I knew I needed to start packing.

France.

Troy

It was like I willed the message to come. I got a text from Ortiz fifteen minutes after I walked out of the gym asking for a meeting at his restaurant. I didn’t know if the restaurant was really his, but that’s what he called it, and I knew if I ever needed to find him, it would be the first place I checked.

That sad part of it all was that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get Riley to text me back.

I pointed the front end of my beat-up truck toward the restaurant and stepped on it. I was ready. If Ortiz needed someone to take down City Hall, I was his man. There was nothing else in my life to be good for anymore, so why not make a little money?

As I pulled into the parking garage across the street from the spot, my phone alerted. I assumed it was Ortiz telling me he was there already, so I just shoved the phone in the glove box and headed inside.

“Yo, there’s the master car-jacker?” Ortiz said. Eddie and two other guys I didn’t recognize were with him.

“Not for long if you keep broadcasting it to the world,” I said.

“Oh, my bad. My bad.” The four of them laughed like hyenas.

“So, what’s up?” I asked sliding into the booth with them. “You pick up that car alright? I know the cops never found it.”

“The car is beautiful,” he said. “It’s part of my personal collection now.”

“Good.”

They were eating some weird combination of food that looked like oysters and… fajitas? Whatever it was, it turned my stomach.

“I gotta admit, Troy-boy, I didn’t think you’d respond right away like you did when I messaged you.”

Damn, I was just about on board until he called me Troy-boy. In my life, that had always been an instant fight-starter.

I let it go.

“Hey, a man’s gotta make a living,” I said. “I’m assuming that’s what you wanted to talk to me about.”

“You could say that. You could say that I need another… little thing… taken care of and I think you’re the man for the job.”

“I’m here,” I said. “I’m here and I’m willing, so tell me what you’re thinking.”

“That’s good to know Troy-boy, because I’d hate to have to drag that saucy little bitch back into the middle of things just to make you get to work.”

“What?”

“You know who I’m talking about. Don’t act like I’m speaking a foreign language.”

“She’s got nothing to do with this.”

“She doesn’t, as long as you do what you’re told.”

I stood up from the table and almost knocked it over. “You’re kidding me right?”

His two guys tensed up. Eddie stayed where he was sitting.

“When you’re in a business like the one I’m in,” Ortiz said. “It’s good to leave yourself with options. Never paint yourself into a corner is what I always like to say.”

“This has nothing to do with her,” I snarled. “She and I aren’t even together.”

He took a pull from his beer and slammed it back on the table. “Whether the two of you are together or not doesn’t matter to me. The way you just reacted tells me everything I need to know about how valuable she is.”

“You’re fucked up in the head,” I said.

“No, Troy-boy, I’m a smart business man. And when I saw how high you were willing to jump the other night when you got me that car, it started me to thinking I could use a man of your talents in some other areas of my enterprise.”

I hammered both fists on the table. Silverware jangled and bottles tipped over. “No.”

“That’s what I thought,” he said. “Now, you see why she’s such a valuable part of the equation.”

That’s when it all came together in my head. I didn’t need any of this. I was a fighter, not a crook. I didn’t need to fall back into doing this anymore. If I wanted the other life, I was gonna have to work for it, and I’ve never had a problem with work.

“You know what?” I said. “Fuck your offer. Fuck your offer and fuck you, too. I’m not doing anything for you anymore. And you can take that threat and shove it up your ass because I won’t let you anywhere near her, you understand me?”

I leaned across the table until I was so close he could smell my breath. “Stay the fuck away from her.”

One of his thugs couldn’t take how close I was getting and he finally reacted. He charged at me from the left and swung for my head. I went low and let his momentum carry him into me. I flipped him over my back on to the table. When he landed, it exploded into a shower of dishes and half-eaten food. A lady at some other table screamed and I felt the room start to empty out around us.

“Goddamnit, Troy,” yelled Ortiz, “you better take what I’m offering.”

“I’ll never work for you again.”

The other guy came at me now. He had a pocket knife clutched in his right hand and he swung it like a mad man. I jumped back out of range and felt behind me for something to defend myself with. I finally found purchase on a wine bottle. I wielded it in front of me just in time to fend off his attack.

“Put that knife away,” said Ortiz. “We don’t need the cops coming here.”

His guy didn’t listen. Instead, he made another lunge for me. I parried it with the bottle and cracked him in the jaw with a straight left hand. He was as soft as ice cream. My knuckles connected with bone and his eyes rolled back in his head. He was out before he hit the ground.

I turned my attention to Ortiz, who was trying to scramble out from behind the wreckage left at his table. “Eddie, get the fuck up man, and do something.”

Eddie stood, took one look at me, and ran for the door. I let him go. He wasn’t who I needed to impress my point upon.

“Don’t run,” I warned. “If you make me chase you, I’m gonna make you start working for me.”

“Hey, chill out man,” Ortiz said as he stumbled over his downe

d bodyguard. “You and I need to talk about this like a couple of business men.”

“No, you’re done talking. Now it’s time for you to listen to what I have to say.”

There was red sauce splashed all over his normally neat shirt. Ortiz took pride in appearances, but in the moment, all of that had gone out the window. All he cared about now was getting out of this restaurant with his life.

“Come over here.”

“Naw, man. What? C’mon Troy, let’s be men about this.”

“You don’t know the first thing about being a man. And I told you to shut your mouth and listen.”

“Okay, whatever you want. Just calm down.”

I booted the table out of the way. It tumbled across the dining area and crashed into an empty booth by the kitchen. The place was devoid of any other customers and the restaurant staff had all congregated behind the bar to watch. I had a pretty good idea that they were enjoying seeing Ortiz and his people get smacked around a little bit. I was sure they were tired of dealing with the group every day.

He stumbled in front of me and cowered like a dog. “Whatever it is, Troy, we can work it out.”

“You are never going to mention her to me again, understand?”

“I can deal with that,” he said. “We’ll just keep it between us. I didn’t realize how much she meant to you, man.”

He was backpedaling faster than a blind man in a snake pit. The whole reason, as he had so delicately explained earlier, that he was threatening her was precisely because of how much she meant to me. “It was good business” in his book. Now, his book was changing.

“We’re not gonna keep anything between us,” I said. “Today is it. You tell your man Eddie never to call me again.”

“Okay, alright.”

“This isn’t gonna be one of those things where you think you’re gonna come back on me later,” I said. “It’s over. I wanna here you say it.”

“Yeah, fine Troy.”

“No, say it. Tell me you’ll never bother her.”