for fifteen minutes.
Spotting a bar on the next corner, I told the cab company I’d be waiting there. Really didn’t want to just stand on the street corner to wait. Somebody might get the wrong idea. The bar’s lights glinted in the night, and I headed for it.
The bar was called Johnny’s and I walked quickly, keeping my head down and a death grip on my purse. Now that the sun had set, more people were coming out of the shadows to loiter on the sidewalk. The streets seemed a hundred times more sinister after Hanna’s story and knowing Niki was dead, her murder a “message” to the women the cartel controlled.
A car was idling in the street as a man leaned in the window to talk to the driver. I’d never seen an actual drug deal taking place before, but I was pretty sure that’s what I was viewing now.
Johnny’s was in no better shape than the buildings that surrounded it and I wrinkled my nose in distaste as I approached the place, my steps slowing. It was on the corner with several cars parked in front and I could see more in the lot at the back. Neon signs proclaiming the various logos of popular beers glowed in the windows.
I stood on the corner, trying to see inside but it was too dark, and wondering if my plan to wait there was really something I wanted to do. As I watched, two men went in and I caught the sound of people talking and music before the door drifted shut.
I made up my mind. There was no way I could go in there, even just to wait for my cab. I’d be an absolute fool to do so.
I turned around, wanting to put some space between me and the seedy-looking bar, and abruptly stopped. A man stood right in front of me, flanked by two more guys.
It was obvious the man in the middle was the leader, the other two his sidekicks. He was the biggest, sported a short goatee and mustache and had massive tattooed biceps. A thin gold chain looped around his neck, and I mentally compared him to 50 Cent. A black cap sat off-center on his head and I somewhat hysterically wanted to tell him that wasn’t how you wore it.
He also looked like someone who could hurt me real bad, real quick.
“Well, lookie what we have here,” he sneered. “Whattsa matter, sugar? You lost?”
My stomach lodged in my throat as panic sent my heart rate skyrocketing. “N-no,” I stammered, backing away from them. “I-I was just leaving.”
“Not so fast,” he said, following me. “We’re heading in to Johnny’s. I know you wanna come with us.”
“No, I don’t,” I said, taking another step back. “But, uh, thanks for the invitation.” Fight or flight took over and I turned to run, only to realize I’d been surrounded.
Four men now grouped around me and baseball cap guy, the one who’d kept me talking, grabbed hold of my elbow. I winced as he dragged me along with him toward the bar.
“Let me go!” He ignored me. I dragged in a breath to scream, then saw the glint of a knife blade in the hand of the man who flanked my other side—sidekick #1.
“Scream and it’ll be the last noise you make,” he said.
I clamped my mouth shut.
Oh, God, what was going to happen to me? Panic and adrenaline rushed through me in equal measure, my limbs trembling with the need for an outlet. Both men had an arm by now and they dragged me inside the building.
Cigarette smoke immediately clogged my lungs and made my eyes water. The room was dark, even by bar standards, and baseball-cap guy and sidekick #1 herded me toward a dark hallway in the back.
Up until then, I’d hoped there’d be some way out of this. Foolish and naive, but also not wanting to accept the inevitable, which horrified me. At the sight of that hallway, I began fighting, the kind of fighting you do when the alternative is too terrifying to consider. I screamed, I clawed, I bit. They retaliated, hitting me so hard my teeth clacked together and I saw stars, but I kept going.
We were up close now, their breath rancid in my face and I saw the glint of gold teeth in the sneer of baseball guy. The sidekick had my arms locked behind me now and I tasted my own blood. I screamed again, the sound pure