Chapter 38

Corbin

The first three repairs are done with surprising ease.

I make three phone calls to customers who are happy to hear the cost of their bills. I guess they thought it would be a lot more.

Mutt hasn’t been around yet and the place has been quiet.

And masturbation free.

I end up at the desk, searching through invoices and notes. I end up on the computer, digging through previous years records. Clicking tax returns and looking at business reports and company valuations.

Sure, this is a shitty, rundown garage, but it’s land. And a lot of it.

Another thing my uncle did wisely.

There’s the garage and the front lot. But there’s also plenty more.

The back lot. A side lot that’s overgrown but could be easily cleaned up for something. There’s a junkyard which to me has serious value because the more shit that can get piled up there, the more it’ll be worth.

What the fuck are you doing, Corbin?

I touch my chin and then I lean back in the chair.

I put my hands behind my head, interlocking my fingers.

I’m trying to gather my thoughts.

Yeah, they dwell around my Katie girl. How can they not? She’s currently the basis of my existence. Yet there is zero purpose for me right now to be looking at the value of this garage and land. As though, what, I’m going to up and sell it all? Cash out and steal my Katie girl and we’re going to run off and live together forever? I’ll hold her every night after I fuck her senseless. I have her mouth, her cunt, and her ass. Everything is mine. She wants it. She can’t get enough of it.

I make fists and slam them down to the desk.

I stand up, throwing the chair back behind me, letting it slam against the wall.

I grit my teeth.

My Katie girl’s cunt is heavenly. And I’ve already confessed that I love her.

Fuck, I love her.

I’ve always loved her.

I love her in a way that’s just…

I hear the sound of a car door shutting.

I move from the office into the garage and see parked halfway into the lot there’s a shit box of a blue car with a guy standing there. He’s dressed in black jeans and a black long-sleeve shirt. Along with a black baseball hat. He reaches into the car and beeps the horn once and then takes off running.

Stupid me, I start running after the guy. I know I can’t catch him—he’s got a huge lead. And I’m sure there’s a car waiting to pick him up.

Somewhere in my head I scream to myself that the car is probably loaded up with explosives and it’s going to go off and kill me as I run by it.

I end up freezing in place, near the car, staring at it.

The world of drugs is violent, war-based, and there’s no help once you’re in it.

I can’t call the police.

I’m supposed to be a good guy now.

How the fuck would I explain a car full of explosives?

And imagine if a bomb squad has to show up… not exactly good for business.

I have no choice in the matter right now but to figure out what the fuck this vehicle is all about. If my ass gets blown into pieces, then so be it. At least I had my helping of my Katie girl’s ass last night. Waiting all those years to finally fuck her back there. That beautiful, round ass of hers. The way she squirmed and writhed anytime I touched her puckering asshole.

“Fuck,” I whisper.

And the best part of that? She loved it.

My Katie girl loves to get her ass fucked.

I think about her touching herself back there. Her finger pressing, opening that forbidden door to allow entrance.

My cock is aching in my jeans now.

“Fuck,” I call out.

I hear a thud from inside the car. Inside the trunk.

A second thud. Then a third.

Someone is in the trunk of the car.

I approach the car and see the keys are on the seat.

I reach for them and then walk to the trunk and take my chances as I open it.

My right fist is cocked tight, ready to attack.

The trunk pops open.

I find Mutt tied up, with a knife protruding from his right shoulder.

What the fuck else am I supposed to do in this situation?

I slam the trunk shut and get into the car and start it.

I quickly drive the car into the third bay.

Then I shut the large door behind me and pop the trunk again.

“Mutt,” I say. “What the fuck…”

He’s got a piece of silver tape across his mouth. It’s going to hurt to rip it off his face, but it can’t hurt as bad as getting stabbed.

I tear the tape off his mouth and he screams.

And he keeps screaming. Over and over.

I have no choice so I swing my fist, connecting with Mutt’s jaw, knocking him out cold.

I’m doing him a favor right now.

I lift his lifeless body from the trunk and place him down on the oil-stained concrete floor. I need a knife to untie him…

I shrug my shoulders, grab the knife plunged into his shoulder and wiggle it out.

Yeah, it makes that sloppy wet sound you hear in movies. And blood squirts out and begins to soak the floor.

I roll Mutt to his left side and cut him free from the rope around his wrists and ankles.

I’m thinking about my Katie girl again as I do this. Picturing her tied up to my bed. My knife touching her cunt. Teasing her. Touching her supple nipple, pressing, knowing it brought her pain, knowing she wanted to feel the pain. Because she trusted me. She knew I’d know when to start and stop.

Is there anything more beautiful in life than a person’s truest form of trust?

I blink a few times and come back to reality, which is my cousin bleeding out on the floor of the garage.

I roll Mutt to his back and go get a few thick cloths for his shoulder.

I rip his shirt open like a professional wrestler would do in the ring during a promo.

The cut is deep, obviously. It’s nasty, bleeding, but it won’t be fatal.

This is a message. Directly from Axel to me.

He’s pointing out a weakness. My biggest weakness.

Mutt is a liability in this war between Axel and me.

I slap Mutt’s face a few times and he starts to come to.

“Tell me what happened,” I say to him.

His face is in shock. “She stabbed me.”

“ She …? This wasn’t Axel?”

“I don’t know. I think I was set up. She text me. Wanting me. Said no charge.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah. I thought it was someone from here. She said some stuff about her car and me fixing it. A long time ago.”

“And you were trading blow jobs for oil changes while I was inside,” I say.

Mutt groans. “This fucking hurts, Corbin.”

“Sure it does. You got stabbed. But, hey, focus. We need to figure out a story here. This is a workplace accident, okay, Mutt?”

“Yeah. Sure. Of course it is. Can’t tell the truth. Ever.”

“Good thinking,” I say.

I stand up.

My cousin is a brain-dead dipshit for sure, but he knows better than to let anything happen to the garage. This place is all he’s ever had. He uses the place to make money and to get blow jobs.

“Listen, Mutt, this is going to be an awful experience for you, but you’re going to need to drive yourself to a hospital right now,” I say. “You’re going to tell them you were working on a car and you were stabbed by a piece of broken glass. Something like that. If anyone asks anything crazy you just shut up and scream in pain.”

“Corbin, I can’t drive,” Mutt groans.

“I’m not driving you. Things won’t look right. Plus, I’ve got my own business to deal with. Axel wanted to get my attention. He has it. Now pick yourself up, put on a work shirt and get all bloodied up and get to the hospital. You’re not going to die, Mutt. Okay? If you sit around here and keep bleeding or you let that wound get infected, then you will die.”

I walk to the bathroom and scrub my hands.

I stare at my reflection in the dirty mirror.

My Katie girl is back to her upper middle-class life. The one that she hates. The one without dirty hands, ass fucking, being tied up and teased with a knife. The one without being tossed into a cage to sleep with a smile on her face.

The one without heroin and a war over money and territory.

The thing is—I miss her right now.

I miss her cunt. I miss her ass. I miss the taste of her knotted, perky nipples. I miss the taste of her lips and her tongue.

Fuck me, I miss her .

Her eyes. Her presence.

“Fucking love,” I growl.

I punch the mirror, shattering my reflection.

I’m a fucking criminal.

A convicted felon.

I did ten years in prison and I’m on the fast track to go right back if I keep fucking around with these fucking heroin deals.

My term is ex to my Katie girl.

I’m her ex.

That’s just how it has to be.