Flesh Into Fire Read online

  Contents

  Flesh Into Fire

  DESCRIPTION

  Chapter One - Tyler

  Chapter Two - Maddie

  Chapter Three - Tyler

  Chapter Four - Maddie

  Chapter Five - Tyler

  Chapter Six - Tyler & Maddie

  Chapter Seven - Maddie

  Chapter Eight - Tyler

  Chapter Nine - Maddie

  Chapter Ten - Tyler

  Chapter Eleven - Maddie & Tyler

  Chapter Twelve - Maddie

  Chapter Thirteen - Tyler

  Chapter Fourteen - Maddie

  Chapter Fifteen - Tyler

  Chapter Sixteen - Maddie

  Chapter Seventeen - Tyler

  Chapter Eighteen - Maddie

  Chapter Nineteen - Tyler

  Chapter Twenty - Maddie

  Chapter Twenty-One - Tyler & Maddie

  Chapter Twenty-Two - Maddie

  Chapter Twenty-Three - Tyler

  Chapter Twenty-Four - Maddie

  Chapte Twenty-Five - Tyler

  Chapter Twenty-Six - Maddie

  Chapter Twenty-Seven - Tyler

  Chapter Twenty-Eight - Maddie

  Chapter Twenty-Nine - Tyler

  Chapter Thirty - Maddie

  END OF BOOK SHIT

  About the Authors

  Copyright © 2018 by JA Huss and Johnathan McClain

  All rights reserved.

  Edited by RJ Locksley

  Formatting and Cover Design by JA Huss

  ISBN-978-1-944475-43-7

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  DESCRIPTION

  Payback is owed.

  And Maddie Clayton is going to collect. This time Carlos and Logan have gone too far. People are dead, lives have been changed, and she’s had enough. Plus, she’s got the Devil on her side, so when an enemy turns into a friend with an idea of how to take Carlos down, she’s in.

  Tyler Morgan has been fighting back his whole adult life. He’s ready for anything when it comes to payback. But endangering Maddie can’t be part of the deal. Unfortunately for him, once Maddie gets an idea in her head, there’s no stopping her.

  Her debt has been paid in blood and she wants revenge.

  His fight is still there, but now he’s got more at stake than himself.

  The end is coming.

  But even if they win against Carlos, they can still lose each other.

  Chapter One - Tyler

  My neck itches.

  I hate wearing a fucking collar. I really do. I think it comes from my time in the service and all the gear. I had so much shit all up around my neck and face all the time. Always made me feel like I was being choked. Or suffocated. Sometimes I was, of course, being choked. Or suffocated. So it’s possible that it’s really just a Pavlovian association of some kind, but regardless, I hate wearing a fucking collar.

  Good thing I never considered becoming a priest. For, like, a hundred reasons, but the collar thing is one of them.

  But I’m wearing a collar today, for the second time in the last week, because I want to show the proper respect to the deceased. So I borrowed one of Evan’s fourteen-thousand-three-hundred-and-forty-six-dollar suits (I asked), and God-knows-how-much-they-cost shirts and ties, and stuffed myself into them. (There wasn’t actually a lot of stuffing to be done. They fit great. Evan and I are almost exactly the same size, as it turns out. He and Robert went to Italy—Naples, I think—so they could both have several custom suits made by some famous bespoke tailor. So the suit is designed for his frame, but it might actually fit me just a little better. At least that’s what Robert said. But he may have just been fucking with Evan. Anyway.)

  My neck itches.

  I gotta shave again someday.

  Jeff’s funeral was rough. Even though we didn’t really know him at all, we went. Maddie and I, that is. Seemed like the right thing to do. For a lot of reasons. Not least of all the fact that, even though we didn’t talk about it, I think he reminded Maddie of Scotty just as much as he did me. On some very evident level, it was a makeup funeral for the one I missed seven years ago.

  A first responder funeral is a lot like a military one. There was a procession of fire trucks and police escorts all the way to the grave site. All of Jeff’s brothers-in-arms from all the station houses in town wearing their dress uniforms. There were bagpipes. Which is kind of weird. I know it’s a thing they do, but I don’t think Jeff was Scottish. Turns out his last name was Rossi, so I guess he was Italian, but… Whatever. Doesn’t matter. The bagpipes were a nice touch.

  Evan gave a eulogy. He talked about dedication and commitment and honor and all the things I’d expect, but then he did something I wasn’t expecting at all. He talked about Jeff’s twenty-first birthday. The night we went to the strip club. The night I saw Maddie dancing and fell in love with someone I knew but didn’t know I knew. The strip club that burned down and killed Jeff in the process. The strip club that was burned down by people who did it to punish Maddie.

  Fucking hell.

  So understandably, I was a little nervous when Evan began telling the story. And not just for all the personal reasons, but also because telling a story about a guy at a strip club feels like it’s better suited for a bachelor party than a funeral.

  But goddamn if Evan didn’t somehow manage to make it sweet, and kind, and insightful, and full of heart, and when he got to the part about Jeff throwing up on his expensive shoes, everyone was laughing and crying at the same time. It was perfect and made us all feel like we really knew Jeff, whether we did or not.

  I don’t believe in heroes, but if you held a gun to my head and told me that I had to pick someone to claim as my personal hero, it’d have to be Evan Silver. (Actually, if you held a gun to my head and told me to do anything, I’d tell you to go fuck yourself, but privately, inside, I’d be saying Evan Silver was my hero.)

  Maddie was pretty beat up by the whole thing. The funeral, that is. When Evan started in on the strip club stuff, she gasped a little and squeezed my hand tightly. But she was hanging on, not crying too much, being a total champ, especially given how complicated I know her feelings must have been. She managed to stifle her tears pretty well. Right up until…

  Jeff’s dad got up to speak.

  “Um,” he said, “I, uh, I’m not typically inclined to talk a lot, so I’ll keep this short.”

  And he did. Because that was it. That was all he was able to manage.

  He stepped in front of Jeff’s casket, all draped in the American flag, Jeff’s picture on an easel beside it, very classic and traditional, and he readied himself to speak. But he couldn’t. He just flat-out broke down. It started with little spasms in his shoulders, but within seconds he had collapsed onto the coffin and was sobbing uncontrollably.

  Turns out Jeff’s mom passed away a couple of years ago after being hit by a drunk driver, so for the second time in two years, Jeff’s dad had someone he loved taken from him with absolutely no warning at all.

  The whole scene had me flashing for half a second to what my dad would’ve done if I had somehow died after my mom did. It wouldn’t have been the same, of course. Not least of all because Barbara Morgan (née Hudson) died of cancer, so my dad had time to accept that it was coming, but still… I wonder, if I had died in Iraq or Afghanistan and my body had been flown over for the funeral, would he have gotten all busted up over it? Would he have even shown up to the service? Would he have even known it had happened? But then I quickly remembered:

/>   Fuck it. Doesn’t matter. Not about me.

  The person to go and comfort Jeff’s dad was Brandon. New-guy Brandon. Creepy never-says-nothing-to-nobody Brandon. Brandon who ran into a burning building to try to save Jeff and carried his limp lifeless body out of the jaws of hell. Which is the only reason that Jeff is even inside that pine box and not pulverized and burned to a crisp inside the wreckage of a torched strip club.

  We couldn’t hear what Brandon was saying. He just draped his arms around Jeff’s pop and whispered in his ear until eventually the poor guy calmed down and Brandon led him away.

  (I swear to God, I’m gonna figure out what Brandon’s story is. Because it’s gotta be fucking fascinating.)

  Anyway, seeing Jeff’s dad lose it the way he did put Maddie over the edge. She moved around behind me, sobbing into my back, all over Evan’s custom-made suit, and I did my best not to let her feel how much I was crying too.

  So that was a fun day.

  Today we’re in my car headed to Raven’s house for Pete’s wake. Maddie’s fidgeting in the passenger seat, chewing her nails. Is it fucked up to say that she looks beautiful and sexy in her black dress that cinches tight at the waist and showcases her fabulous tits? Or that the tulle or whatever it’s called at the bottom causes me to imagine what it would be like to pull the car over to the side of the road, open the passenger door, lift all the poofy fabric over my head, and eat out her glorious pussy?

  Rhetorical question. Of course it’s fucked up. We’re going to a goddamn wake. But I feel like if Pete knew that this was what I was thinking, he’d give me the thumbs up and tell me to go for it.

  “No,” says Maddie, out of nowhere.

  “No, what?” I reply, still thinking about pussy eating.

  “You’re thinking about eating my pussy. Not now. OK? We’re going to a wake.”

  How the fuck did she know—? “How the fuck did you know—?” I start, before she cuts me off.

  “Because you’re staring at my lap, kind of swirling your tongue around.”

  Jesus. Really? “I was?”

  “Hey,” she says, “I’m flattered and honestly, I’d love you to go down on me—”

  I start to veer the car off to the side of the road.

  “But—!” She puts her hand on the steering wheel and directs us back into the flow of traffic. “We’re going to a wake.” She really emphasizes the word. “And…” she starts, but then stops herself.

  “And what?” I ask her, noticing a little furrow in her brow.

  “I have… a lot of shit on my mind.”

  I nod. I don’t have to ask. I know what she’s talking about. Carlos Castillo. The money she owes him. The fact that he and his dipshit nephew, Logan… Huh. I should find out Logan’s last name. The more you know about a douchebag, the better your shot at wielding some power over him. Anyway…

  She’s thinking about the fact that both Jeff and Pete are dead because of the debt she owes Carlos. It’s not her fault, of course. On some deep level, she’s aware of that, but she still feels guilty. Shit. How could she not?

  I tell her, “I’ve told you, I will”—I stop myself and autocorrect—“we will pay that dick-sucker back, OK? And then you’ll be clear and then—”

  “Fuck that,” she says decisively. “I’m not giving that asshole one penny of my money.”

  Technically it’s my money, I think, but wisely avoid saying out loud.

  “But I do owe him. Do I fucking ever,” she says, staring out the window, still biting at her nails.

  Which concerns me just a tad. She’s been saying stuff like that since the fire. I’ve made the choice not to question her too much about it, but I’m getting a little worried that her hinges might have gotten knocked a bit loose with everything that happened and that she might actually be considering doing something like… oh, I dunno… murdering a Mexican drug lord. Which, hey, I get the impulse. I wanna kill the fucker too. But to me, actually doing it seems ill-advised.

  “Hey,” I say, reaching over and patting her knee. Which gets me hard. And which I’ve just accepted is what’s going to happen every time I’m near her for the rest of my life and I’ve made my peace with it. “It’s all going to be OK. OK? I promise. One way or another, we’re going to handle this Carlos thing.”

  She keeps staring out the window.

  “OK? Maddie? Madison? Mads? Angel?”

  “Mm-hm,” she mumbles, still biting her nails.

  Shit. I really thought I was done helping kill people.

  Raven’s house is nice. I don’t know what I expected, but it’s just totally suburban and basic and kind of sweet, tucked away in a cul-de-sac that’s all decorated with holiday lights, looking kind of like a Currier and Ives Christmas postcard. If Currier and Ives had made postcards set in the desert, with cacti and iguanas instead of pine trees and horses and shit.

  We stride up the walkway, Maddie in front of me, her ass swaying along with her skirt, causing me to hold the flowers I’m carrying in front of my junk so that when she opens the door, the first thing Raven’s greeted by won’t be me and my big old pal, Chuckie Stiff. (I used to call it Johnny Butch, but Chuckie Stiff sounds funnier.)

  We reach the door and Maddie rings the bell. It gives one of those cathedral-like chimes, which is a very Vegas thing for a doorbell to do. I love it.

  The door swings open and Raven is there. Not unrecognizable, per se, but certainly more like someone masquerading as Raven and less like Raven herself. She’s wearing a dark blouse and black, silk trousers, with what look like closed-toe black shoes. The blouse has a high, ruffled collar and one of those silky cravat/bow things that society chicks will occasionally wear. I got invited—by terrible accident—to a party in the Hamptons once, and there were a couple of older broads wearing that kind of shit. What’s surprising about seeing it on Raven is that it doesn’t look out of place at all. It looks right at home on her. And suddenly, the idea that she works… worked… in a strip club is actually what feels weird.

  “Maddie,” she says, and gives Maddie a hug, which seems to take Maddie by surprise. She lets her arms dangle for a second before she realizes herself and hugs Raven back.

  After a long moment, they release their embrace and she waves us inside. When she takes the flowers from me, she gives me a hug too. Which I was definitely not expecting, and I kind of shift to the side so that I don’t poke her with my man, Chuckie.

  The house is pretty full of people milling around. Mostly girls I recognize from the club. I got kind of familiar with the regular dancers while I was sitting around on stakeout, so I see faces I recognize even if the non-wigged hair and the pasties-free tits force me to take a second to remember the names.

  I nod at Monet, and Roxy, and the delightfully-monikered Cessna, as Raven brings us into the living room. She takes a seat on the sofa, Maddie sits beside her, and I plop myself in a chair, facing them, on the other side of the glass-top coffee table.

  “You guys want any food or anything?” she asks us.

  We both decline politely and then Maddie asks, “How you doing?”

  It takes her a second to answer, like she’s debating the response. Then, “Um, pretty fucking shitty. How about you?”

  “The same,” Maddie says with a smile.

  Then Raven smiles too, and then I smile even though I don’t really want to, but I’m trying to be a good boyfriend. Which, over the last couple of days, I’ve decided is what I am. I’ve never actually been anyone’s boyfriend before, but I mean… once you put on suits and go to funerals and shit with a person, and hold them while they cry, and listen to them as they pace around their living room muttering about maybe killing people, I dunno. That sounds like some boyfriend shit to me.

  “Do they know what happened yet exactly?” Raven’s asking me. And Maddie’s looking at me too.

  “Oh, uh, yeah, I’m not really sure to be honest. They’re still waiting on the inspection report and, y’know, this shit takes time. So…” It’s not
a total lie.

  “Yeah,” she says. And then, looking back to Maddie, “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure. Of course,” Maddie says.

  “What exactly is your story with Carlos Castillo?”

  I don’t know why it feels like we just crested the first major drop on a roller coaster, but it does.

  “Um, what do you mean?” asks Maddie.

  “How did you come to fall in with him on whatever it is that you’re in with him on?”

  “Uh…” Maddie looks at me. I look back at her with a very helpful ‘fuck are you looking at me for’ expression. (Nice job, Ty.) Maddie goes on, “He, I mean, I was trying my hand at running a wedding planning business and he just, like, found me.”

  Maddie gives her the whole story. How she planned the wedding for his skank daughter (I’ve actually never met the daughter, she might be a lovely person, but her dad has totally fucked Maddie’s life, so I’m being petty), and how she went off and got pregnant with some other dude’s baby, and how Maddie had already spent most of the preposterous two hundred grand he gave her for wedding shit, and how he’s being irresponsible and irrational about getting it back.

  Maddie tells the whole story unemotionally, being careful to omit anything that might let Raven know that it’s Carlos who killed Pete and burned down the club. Raven sits and listens, barely blinking the whole time.

  Once Maddie finishes, Raven asks, “The money. When did he start demanding it?”

  “What do you mean?” Maddie asks.

  “I mean, did he lean into you the way he has been before you started working for Pete? Or after?”

  Maddie thinks for a second. “I dunno. Um…”

  “Like, sending that dickhead Logan to find you and all that noise. When did that start? Was it after you started dancing? Or had you seen him before?”

  Again, Maddie considers this. “I—I mean, I don’t necessarily remember the timeline, but I guess I don’t remember meeting Logan until after I started dancing at Pete’s.”