Kali queen, p.3
Kali Queen, page 3
“You might not value your life but I do,” I whisper, reaching out to grip her hand. “Try to be smarter than this.”
She rolls her eyes at me but squeezes my hand, her own way of letting me know she at least heard me.
2 Ayahuasca
Rebel
As I walk into my dad’s back office, I catch the tail end of a one-sided phone call, and he sounds worried, which is strange because nothing ever really worries him. That's what happens when you’re a mob boss, even as a small-time boss, you get cocky.
“I-I-I understand, ma’am… yes, that will work… Do you have a place in mind? Yes, of course, I can provide tickets… O-o-kay, we will see you tomorrow night.”
“Dad, who was that?” He looks up at me and before he can recover, I see sheer panic in his features.
“Huh? Oh. Uh, nothing, son. Just setting up a business meeting. After the fight, we’ll have to come back to the office.”
Ugh, I hate going to the fights and doing ‘business’ after, but something about all of this is strange. Why is dad so worried?
“Dad, are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yes, Reb, I’m fine. How’s your mother today?” And just like that, he shuts down the subject of whatever has him so worked up.
“Mom’s doing okay, but you know how it goes.” The truth is my mother’s health is declining with every passing day and the sad fact is, he just doesn’t care.
I make my way to the front of the ring to watch our guy compete. When I was sixteen, I started this entire set up as an underground fighting ring after my mother was diagnosed with cancer. Now, we host one of the biggest underground fight shows in Las Vegas, but I hate going to these. It’s all hype. I miss the bare knuckle street fighting days. It’s why I hardly ever get into the ring anymore.
If I can find a street fight, I will join in, but since we’ve made a name for ourselves, those days are pretty much over.
I take my seat on our side of the ring and wait for my father to arrive with his escorts. He’s been acting funny since the phone call I caught him on last night, and I can't figure out what has his panties all in a twist.
When he finally arrives, he looks more nervous than I’ve ever seen in my entire life, and it can’t be because of the fight. Our guy is a shoo-in to win this one.
I’m not going to worry about whatever issue he has cooked up right now. I just want to get this over with, get our meeting out of the way, and then go home to check on my mother.
As I scan the arena, my eyes land on a woman on the other side of the pit. She’s striking with dark brown hair falling in waves all around her. Her tan skin, and full lips are the perfect combination. She wears a long black dress and a matching fur coat. There is a huge guy next to her in a custom-tailored suit that probably cost more than my rent. He looks menacing, with dark hair buzzed close to his head and tattoos covering his neck and hands.
They appear to be quite the pair.
My gaze shifts back to her, and I watch as she scans the room, her eyes eventually land on us — my father and myself. She smirks, leaning into the man to tell him something. He glances our way and nods before they go back to looking around the room.
I wonder who they are.
The lights dim and the spotlights aim at the announcer entering the ring, who begins to go through the motions of announcing the fighters. Then the fight begins.
My gaze keeps going back to the female across the way and her partner. It’s hard to see anyone through the darkness of the room, but I can still make out her general shape. She definitely has my interest piqued.
It isn’t long before our guy has the other contestant knocked out and we’re wrapping up this round and onto the next one. I go through the motions of congratulating our fighters as they win round after round. And before I know it, the night is done and we’re heading toward the office for our meeting.
Despite my best efforts I lose track of the woman in the crowd. Not that I know what I’m wanting to do, seeing as the man she’s with could probably snap my neck. But I can fight with the best of them. There’s a reason I’m still the champion of this ring.
That would be if she even wanted to speak to me, but I guess I’ll never know.
After the fight, we immediately head back to the office, and dad is on edge. He’s been like this for the last twenty four hours but won’t talk about the meeting we're going into. Just seeing him in this state, but him not telling me what’s going on, has my nerves on edge.
As we pull up, there is a black town car waiting out front, and dad visibly swallows the panic clearly forming on his face. The guy from the fight is here and he is waiting out front of a town car that is parked. I wonder if he is the one dad is so worried about. Like I said, he is menacing, but I don’t understand why dad would be this nervous. He deals with this type all the time.
As we exit the car, we slowly walk over to the guy, who looks us over with a murderous expression on his face.
“You Mr. Spencer?” His voice is deep and gravelly and sets the hairs on the back of my neck on edge. Who the fuck is this guy? I’m tall, six foot two, but this guy towers over me, and I’m not going to lie, he’s actually scary as fuck.
My father is clearly trying to appear like he’s not afraid and that he has his shit together. I wonder if we're starting a new deal or expanding and this is the guy we'll be dealing with. If that’s the case, I’m pretty sure I don’t want to deal with him.
“Yes. I’m Mr. Spencer and this is my son, Rebel Spencer.”
The guy doesn’t introduce himself, he just double taps on the back passenger window, then puts a finger to his ear like he’s listening to something and nods his head once in confirmation to whatever he was just told.
Then he bends down and opens the car door. It's dark outside, and the inside of the car is pitch black, so I can’t see who is inside. The mountain of a man who I thought we were meeting bends down and helps the woman out of the back seat.
She’s even more striking up close, and I have to suck in a breath. She has natural sun kissed skin. Long dark brown hair with deep red highlights that fall down her back in loose curls and honey eyes so bright they seem to glow in the dim alley. She wears a long black dress with a slit so high up her thigh, I have to question if she has any panties on, a matching fur coat, and black studded boots with a small heel adding three inches to her tiny height. Her crimson red lipstick is the perfect addition to her pouty lips.
I’m finding it exceptionally hard to breathe, let alone think straight. She’s the smallest person here, but somehow, she gives off a vibe of pure power like nothing I’ve ever felt. She’s like a tiny evil pixie.
I can see my father break out into a cold sweat, but I have a feeling it’s not because of the way she looks.
“Ms. Kane, I’m Mr. Spencer and this is my son, Rebel Spencer. It’s a pleasure to have you here. Did you enjoy the fight?”
She takes a moment to appraise both of us, and it’s clear from the smirk on her face that she can clearly see how nervous my father is, even though he’s trying not to show it. Instead, when she looks at me, she tilts her head to the side, and she makes no move to hide the way she looks me up and down. Now I’m trying really hard not to get hard, pun intended.
“Yes, Mr. Spencer, we had lovely seats. Thank you for the accommodations. Shall we go inside to discuss the matter at hand?”
“Yes, of course. Follow me,” he says and moves to go inside.
Once inside my father’s office, he takes his seat behind his large oak desk and motions for Ms. Kane to take the seat across from him. I stand off to his side, while mountain man stands just off to Ms. Kane’s side, glaring daggers at my father and me, while also noting all the exit points and weapons. Clearly, he’s ex-military or law enforcement of some sort, trained to know every way out of a situation.
“Now, Mr. Spencer, you know why I’m here, correct?
“Y-yes. I do.”
“And how are we going to fix our little issue in LA?”
LA? What’s going on in LA? I'm trying to follow their back and forth, but I feel like I am missing key details.
“I-I’m terribly sorry, Ms. Kane. It won’t happen again. I don’t know what I was thinking, but I clearly wasn’t. I understand that’s your territory. We’re not trying to move in or push you out. I just thought I could help my brother in law get started over there. I was just going to supply him, no one else I swear,” and now my father is rambling. Who is this chick, and why does my father have his panties all in a twist over her?
“I trust it will not happen again. As you’re aware, I own LA. I own everything north of San Diego. If you want a piece of anything inside my borders, you come to me. You disrespected me when you helped your brother in law, in order to get your shitty cut coke into my town, and it will not happen again. Are we clear? You helping nearly got your brother in law beaten to death.”
Well, that is a surprising turn of events. My uncle went into the hospital late last night and we were informed he was in a car accident.
“Y-yes, ma’am, I understand. Again, I’m sorry.”
“Very well then. I see we're done here.” She looks like she’s pissed she had to come here and deal with us. Yet I still don’t know who the fuck she is.
My father visibly exhales a breath that I’m sure he’s been holding for a while. But I’m still struggling to follow this conversation. I feel like I’m missing a lot of important details. Like we’re dealing in LA now? Where? When did this happen? She owns LA? And everything north of San Diego? This sounds vaguely familiar, I’ve heard of a huge crime syndicate on the West Coast that controls a huge portion of California and the Pacific Northwest. Does she work for them?
She moves to stand, and my father does the same, ever the gentleman. Then she looks at me, and there is something in the way her eyes scan my large frame that has me on edge. If any other woman looked at me like this, I’d want to take her to bed, but right now, I feel like I should run. She doesn’t look at me like I’m a snack she wants to eat, she looks at me like I’m a predator advancing on her cubs and she wants to rip my throat out to make a point.
“This is your son?” she asks, motioning her hand toward me. Now my dad looks scared again. What. The. Fuck. Is going on here?
“Y-yes.” I have never heard my father stutter so much in all my life.
She taps her finger to her chin like she’s thinking, “Hmm, is he set to take over this shit operation?”
Damn, she’s a savage.
“Y-yes, I’m hoping to step down in two years.”
“I see.”
Then it all happens in slow motion, she slips a hand inside her coat, pulls out a .9mm and shoots me in my fucking leg. Fuck, this shit hurts. I’ve never been shot before. I drop to the ground, and clutch my leg, crying out in pain, while my father just looks stunned. She casually tucks the gun away like she didn’t just fucking shoot me and turns to speak to my father.
“This is your only warning, Mr. Spencer, 'cause I’m fucking nice like that.”
“Nice? Nice! You fucking shot me!”
She looks at me like she couldn’t be more bored of this exchange. “You’ll live. Stop crying like a little bitch.”
Then she turns to speak to my father again while I’m seeing fucking spots from the pain. She shot me! I can’t believe this shit, I don’t even know what’s going on here and the bitch shoots me.
“You cross me again or set a foot inside my borders before I okay your entry, I will hunt down every person you’ve ever had a warm feeling toward and I will skin them alive, then personally deliver their heads to your door step until you clearly understand who the Queen of Kali is.”
She looks at me with absolute glee in her eyes, like the idea of skinning someone alive is her idea of a party. As she continues to look at me, she keeps on with her threat and I can now understand why my father has been on edge. Queen of Kali, or Kali Queen, doesn’t work for the West Coast crime syndicate, she leads it, owns it. She’s pure evil. How did I not recognize her name? The crazy, evil, sexy as sin little pixie in front of me is Amber Kane. Soulless crime lord with a black heart. Now, I’m surprised she shot just my leg. She must like me.
“I will start with your whiney son. Do you know how long a person can survive their skin being removed from their body? Quite a while if you do it just right. I could keep him alive for days, while I record his screams.”
Okayyyyy. Maybe she doesn’t like me so much. She taps her chin thoughtfully and continues talking in an almost dreamy voice like she wishes he would cross her again.
“I’d, of course, send you the recordings. I’m thoughtful like that.”
She claps her hands and her face lights up like she just got a pony for her birthday. “Oh, I could probably set his screams as my ringtone! Now there’s a plan. Or maybe your ringtone. Yeah! Then you could hear him screaming every time you got my call and remember just what you did to cause him so much pain.”
She turns back to me and walks over. At this point, I’m in so much pain that I can’t even fully comprehend how bat shit crazy she is. She bends down, and I have such a perfect view of her amazing breasts that I almost forget the bitch just shot me. Until, of course, she digs her finger into my leg, and I scream in pain.
“Hmm, you’re lucky. Looks like there’s an exit hole. Guess I won’t need to dig in there again to remove the bullet.”
“If you saw the exit hole, why the fuck did you just dig your finger in there anyways?” I yell, absolutely exasperated.
She just shrugs her shoulders, stands, and says, “funsies, duh.”
With a sadistic smile still on her face, she turns and leaves the room, her henchman following her without so much as a glance my way.
Once the door closes, my father rushes to my side and applies pressure to my wound as I try my best not to scream out in pain.
“I need a doctor,” I grit out.
“We can’t go to the hospital. They’re required to report gunshot wounds,” my father tells me.
“I. Don’t. Care.”
“I do,” my father tells me. Standing up and moving over to his desk, he makes a call to our fight club doctor.
I roll my eyes as I writhe on the ground in pain, waiting for him to show up and tend to my newly inflicted wound.
The wait gives me time to think about the woman that shot me. The beautiful, bat shit crazy woman dressed in black, holstering a gun where no one could see. I want to learn more about her, but I feel like getting close to someone like her is a death wish.
3 Methamphetamine
Amber
Five Years Ago
It's five in the morning, and the sun is just barely starting to light up the summer sky. I’m exhausted since we’ve been gone for two weeks on a cocaine run. It was supposed to be simple. Head down to Mexico and check on the new operation, make sure the warehouse is in order, the trucks are running smoothly, and that everyone that needs to be paid off is happy. However, this shit never goes according to plan, and I just spent two weeks dodging bullets, and burning bodies while protecting my newly acquired coke stash. When normal twenty-one year old’s spend two weeks in Mexico, it’s on a beach, day drinking tequila, tanning, and buying weed and molly to have a hell of a party, but I’m not fucking normal.
I'm exhausted, I look like shit, and I can't tell whose blood is staining my clothes and skin. I’ve got at least three bullet wounds, and I can feel the painful scratch of glass in my shoulder that needs to be taken care of. The club doctor is meeting me here, since I can’t exactly walk into the ER with bullet wounds. They have to report that shit, and I heard there’s a few new cops on the force that I haven’t been able to pay off yet, so that shit is a no go.
I walk into the back room and head straight for my whiskey stash. When I turn around, my father is there smirking at me like he knows the hell I just got back from and doesn’t care. There is a very large man standing in front of my father, with dark hair buzzed close to his head, and tattoos peeking out of his shirt collar and sleeves. He wears black combat boots, black slacks, and a white button up shirt that’s rolled up to his elbows. His face is clean shaven, so I can clearly see that hard set of his jaw. Clearly ex-military, and I’m guessing a new member of our security detail. And he’s hot, like panty melting hot. I sigh 'cause no matter how hot he is, he’s not Dylan, and I’ll never put someone else in that same position. I may have taken more lives than I can even remember, but Dylan’s is the only soul that weighs me down, my only regret, and the only person I feel remorse for.
“Amber honey, how was the trip? Did you enjoy yourself?” I look at my father and honestly question if his idea of a good time is all out-gorilla style warfare. Hell, it probably is.
“The trip was fucking peachy, Sir. The coke is locked down, the rebels are handled, and everyone’s paid off. It took a bit longer to finish, but now we shouldn’t have any problems from here on out,” I say, tipping a bottle to my lips and chugging the whiskey.
“Good, good. Here, Amber, I want you to meet Matthew Greene, the newest member of your team. He’ll be filling in Denny’s position.”
I snap my gaze to my father, who’s clearly amused by this reaction “I don’t need Denny’s position filled and I don’t need a babysitter. I can take care of myself.” I haven’t had a babysitter since I was eighteen and “Uncle Denny” retired.
“Clearly,” he deadpans and motions at my blood-stained body. “How many bullets is Eric removing this time, Amber?”
“One or two...” I mutter under my breath. It’s not like I was strolling down the street and got caught in gangland cross fire. I was just in a literal rebel war in Mexico with no protection other than my tank top. Most people would have died in my situation. Hell, most people did die down there since there’s now a mass grave filled with dead rebels on the border of the warehouse property.
