Chapter 35: CASH

Thirty-Five

CASH

O ske sticks her head out the door of the trailer. Her high, Indian cheekbones are a raw, red color from spending too much time in the sun.

"I'm not letting your white ass in this trailer until you pay up," she says, practically spitting on me over her $1,400.

"Ever considered your girl left your ass because of your attitude."

"MONEY!" Oske yells at me, some of her spit landing on my three day old beard. I glare at her and wipe it off before reaching into my back pocket. Southpaw had better compensate my ass for having to deal with this wolverine of a woman. I've met softer cacti. She snatches it and presses it to her nose, calming down only slightly as she thumbs through hundreds.

"All there," I tell her. Oske looks up at me without the slightest hint of fear.

"Ruger has her locked in my bedroom. He's drunk on the couch."

"Where do you sleep?"

"Outside," she says through gritted teeth. "I'm not falling asleep in the same room as Ruger Blackwood."

There's genuine fear in that last sentence and considering Oske doesn't give a shit about anything, I notice that fear. I grab her forearm, yanking her out of the trailer and shutting the door. She hits me several times until I let go of her forearm.

"Grab me like that again and you won't have to worry about having more bastards."

"Excuse me?"

"I heard you fucked around and had a baby," she says, getting all puffed up when she notices my slight reaction. "What? I'm allowed to listen to conversations in my own house."

I roll my eyes. Confidently wrong. Typical. I'm not here to set the record straight. I need to find out how quickly I can get this fucking job done so I can get Quin back from Juliette's. I'm sure it won't take more than three days around Juliette for them to get into trouble.

"How has Ruger been?"

"He's worse than Gideon," he says. "He called me a squaw. I should charge Wyatt for that too."

"Ever considered charging us money for actual work?"

"I'm not a whore," she says, wrinkling her nose. "So get that out of your head."

"That's not what I meant," I growl. "Although if you keep pissing me off, I'll charge Ruger fifty bucks to use your disrespectful ass however he wants."

Oske thinks better of pushing me. I'm not like Southpaw. I'll let Ruger on her ass and go have a smoke at the gas station while he does it. Ruger must scare the shit out of her.

"He's a psycho. He spends all day cursing out that pregnant white woman through the door and threatening to kill her. She's pregnant. What does he think is going to happen to the baby?" Oske sounds genuinely upset when she gets to the part about the baby. Her rising emotions remind me of Quin.

Quin would want me to do something… kind.

"You know his wife cheated on him, right?"

"So what?" Oske says. "That doesn't give him a right to hurt her."

"She joined a gang of Neo-nazi bikers after getting out of prison and those bikers murdered our brothers. He can do whatever he wants with her.

Oske looks frustrated rather than angry now.

"White people are so stupid."

"Excuse me?"

"You catch more flies with honey than vinegar," she says, glaring at me. "But whatever. Not my problem. I'm going to go pay my landlord and buy some weed."

She struts past me with a haughty swagger that makes me seriously wonder how Southpaw handles this completely unreasonable woman. I watch her strut towards some shitty ass motorcycle and get on the back – without a helmet.

"HEY!" I yell at her. Oske looks at me, deciding if she's going to listen.

"Bring some of that weed back for me."

"That's going to cost you, white boy!" she shouts back.

I wave her off. Cost me? I'll get her couch back from Ruger. That's about as much as she can expect from me. I walk into Oske's trailer. Either the conversation or the sound of Oske's motorcycle outside woke him up. I can't tell which. I can see why Oske doesn't want to be around him.

"Where's your shirt?"

"Don't know," Ruger says, yawning and nearly allowing his sweatpants to slide down far enough to expose his dick. It's bad enough that I can see a tuft of blond fur sticking out the top.

"You look like a fucking mess."

"Darlene cheated on me," Ruger says, wiping his eyes. "What do you expect me to do?"

I can't hear her, so Darlene must either be quiet in the back on purpose or fast asleep. Ruger has made the rest of the trailer a fucking mess. He has white powder in a heap on a round mirror seated at the edge of Oske's coffee table.

"I expect you to get yourself together."

"Fine," Ruger grunts, sitting up and leaning his muscular form over the table. He starts cutting his line as I take personal note of everything in the room. Guns. A belt. A baseball bat. A pair of black leather gloves. Duct tape. Ruger taps whatever the fuck he's snorting into a thin line with his razor blade.

"Oske's a slut bitch," he grunts as he works on the line.

"What's going on with Darlene?"

"Pregnant."

"It's not yours."

"No, it's not fucking mine," Ruger spits, like I'm the one who knocked the bitch up. He bends his head to the table and inhales enough to knock out an elephant.

"HEY!" I grab him by his neck and yank him back. "ARE YOU FUCKING CRAZY!"

I tilt his head back and Ruger just starts laughing. Probably because he's high out of his fucking mind. A trickle of blood flows from his nose as he laughs louder. His long, blond hair sticks to his neck.

"I don't give a fuck."

"Well you're no good to any of us dead."

I toss him back against the couch. He groans but whatever drug he did must have some type of upper because he sits up and his pupils are so wide that they cover his icy blue irises.

"I don't care…"

"You have to care."

Ruger shakes his head. "She's pregnant with another man's kid. The Nazi guy? He was the guard at her prison. Can you fucking believe it?"

"Does it matter?"

"No," he says. "And I don't need a fucking babysitter."

He wipes the blood away from his nose and onto his pants. He might not need a babysitter, but he definitely needs some goddamn rehab. Or some other way out of his misery.

"I'm not here to babysit you. I'm here to make sure we don't go to prison because of Darlene."

"She's my fucking wife. I can put her in the ground if I want to."

He wipes his nose again and I try to remind myself that he's high before I lose my shit and punch him. Gideon would have tried to maim him just for that line he just hit. Darlene… What Ruger ever saw in that skank, I'll never understand.

"You can put her in the ground once we have what we need."

Ruger grimaces. "I got her to tell me last week."

He leans over the table and starts cutting up another line. I don't know what part to react to first. I let him work on the line, just because he seems more likely to answer my questions if I don't stand between him and his drug.

"Why is she alive then?"

"Because. I want that bitch's baby. I'm gonna get the baby before I kill her."

So it's exactly like Oske said. Worse. How long does he expect to keep this woman captive and torturing her while pregnant? I didn't see myself as the type to care but… it's like a bit of Quin Nash weaseled its way into my head. And my heart.

"If you torture her, the baby could come out fucked up."

Ruger wrinkles his hose. "How?"

"Brain development."

"That's a load of liberal bullshit," he says. Then he does another line. I sigh. Oske's demands for $1,400 sound more reasonable after a few minutes around Ruger.

I agree, liberals in this country are responsible for a lot of bullshit. Couldn't tell you what exactly, but they cause a lot of problems. Doesn't mean you can run around fucking with pregnant women.

"How far along is she?"

"Seven months."

Damn.

Ruger gets up and whirls around towards the bedrooms.

"I should go talk to her again. Get the fucking truth…"

I grab Ruger's shoulder. "You have the truth. And before I let you go in there and lose your head… I need you to tell me."