Menace (Scarlet Scars #1)

by J.M. Darhower

Her sleeve moves up her forearm, exposing a tattoo on her wrist. It’s simple, nothing more than a cursive red ‘S’. “What’s this, huh? Your own little Scarlet Letter? What’s it stand for? Sneaky thieving bitch?”

I make my way to the front, to the wide-open club space, the music from the hallway drowned out by whatever vulgar rap song is playing. Something about popping pussies. I don’t know. Don’t look at me. I didn’t pick it.

Barefoot. In a strip club. Yeah, I haven’t seen my dignity in a long time.

The only thing I love is, well, maybe him.

Lorenzo & Leo 🥺

I’m supposed to be the mature one, the role model, but instead I think he might be the only thing stopping me from blowing up the whole goddamn world and everyone in it.

I’m also apparently someone who likes animal metaphors when I need some damn sleep. So blah blah blah, whatever whatever, the point here is fuck feelings, they get you nowhere.

Leo consoled her, holding her, while I stood in the doorway, wishing it were me that was dead. Me, just so I wouldn’t have to listen to her blubbering for one more second.

“Not a fan of threesomes?” “Not a fan of you.” “Ah, that’s crazy,” I say, snatching up the empty shot glass the bartender gave me earlier tonight. I pour some rum into it before shoving it Scarlet’s way. “Everyone likes me.” She picks it up. “Nobody likes you.”

“Who broke you?” I ask, genuinely curious. Who desecrated something meant to be so pure?

Do you know what it’s like to be invisible? Do you know what it’s like to have the world turn its back on you, to turn a blind eye to your existence, like you never even mattered? Do you know what it’s like to scream until your throat is raw only to realize everyone tuned you out long ago and nobody heard a single word? Because I do. I know.

I’m going to have her, though. No doubt about it. I’ve made up my mind.

If she comes back with a knife, I swear to fuck, I’m going to slaughter the woman…

I have to be careful taking a piss, my dick practically bigger than the width of the room. A can’t-walk-into-the-shit closet. A hole in the damn wall. It’s completely ridiculous.

“I watch the sunrise every morning,” I mumble. “I’ve never told anyone that before. I come up here and I sit and I watch as it rises over Brooklyn. The apartment is shitty, and the building smells like piss, but the view from up here is the best I’ve found, so I stay... I stay and I watch the sunrise. I look forward to it, every morning. Another day dawning, another chance for things to finally go right. It’s the only time I feel hope anymore, the only time I feel alive. It’s my favorite time of day.”

“I don’t think you’re any of that,” he says. “I think you’re worth a hell of a lot more than you realize. You want to take your clothes off for money? Do it. But there are better places out there, better ways to do it. You don’t sell something for twenty bucks that’s worth thousands. You’re only fucking yourself.”

He laughs, but I don’t find him funny. Not at all. He hasn’t the faintest idea what it’s like being a woman, especially one in my predicament. I try not to let his flippant reaction get to me, but it stirs up a hurt I sometimes have a hard time hiding.

“But you think I’m broken,” I say. “You asked me who broke me, like I’m made of glass and someone can just shatter me and scatter my pieces, like I’m that fragile. I might be hurt, I might be beat down, but I’ll be goddamn if a man will ever break me, Lorenzo. But the world can’t comprehend a woman being that strong. We’re supposed to buckle and break, like the only time we can possibly have any strength is if there’s someone with a dick standing by our side. It’s like a penis is a prerequisite for an opinion, so if I don’t have one myself, I’ve got to be utilizing someone else’s in order to have any say-so in my own fucking life.”

“Of course you don’t,” I say. “You don’t know what it’s like to have to pretend to be helpless just to stay safe. There’s a reason girls yell ‘fire’ instead of ‘rape’, why we lie and say we have boyfriends instead of just saying ‘no’ when we’re not interested. Because a lot of men respect another man’s property more than they respect a woman’s right to her own body. So while I’m forced to live in a man’s world, I do what I have to do. And if that means taking my clothes off for some schmuck with a few bucks, then by golly, I’ll do it, no matter how you feel about it.”

You don’t want to fuck me? That’s fine. Under no circumstances is fucking me a requirement. But I’ve seen what you’re capable of. So maybe you’re right, about being a woman. I don’t know, because I’m not one. Maybe, to make it on these streets, you need someone in your corner. In that case, you need to reassess who that someone is, because if they’re not taking you seriously, Scarlet? If they don’t see you for the threat you are? They’re doing you no goddamn good, because when trouble comes, they buckle, baby. They’re the ones who aren’t strong.”

“Rules don’t apply to me,” I say, “so don’t get any stupid ideas. You want to kill me, Ricky, and you’re going to have to get creative, because I’ll shoot you in the fucking heart the second you start getting twitchy.”

“You guess? Do you? Because I don’t. I don’t guess. Either you do or you don’t. Either you’re looking for a job or you’re not. If you don’t understand your own motivations enough to not have to take a fucking guess, then we’ve got a problem.”

“As long as you don’t talk down to me because I’m a woman. You pull some misogynistic shit and I’ll kill you. We got a deal?”

Lorenzo sits up, his voice serious, matter of fact, as he says, “That was a terrible story.”

“I might be an asshole, Scarlet, but that little game kept you from fading, didn’t it?”

Instead, he looks me dead in the face and says, “You zone out, I choke you. Whether or not I let go is anybody’s guess. You still okay with this?”

“Oh, can you bring them to me?” “Fuck do I look like, a delivery boy?”

Leo runs his hands down his face as Lorenzo’s voice echoes from upstairs: “Oh, give me a break, I know you’ve seen a dick before, Firecracker. I hear my brother fucking you all the time.”

“You just touched a nerve, you know.” “Don’t make excuses, either. Calm your tits and it’ll be okay.” “Calm my tits.” “Yes.” His eyes flicker to my chest, and I know he’s imagining them. “As gorgeous as those tits are, calm them.”

“I know.” He breaks off a wedge from the orange, holding it out to me. “Want some?” I hesitate, staring at it in his hand. “Ugh, no.” “I swear to fuck, Scarlet. I’ll forgive a lot of things, but if you tell me you don’t eat oranges, we’re going to have a problem.”

I was there when he started kindergarten, and I was still there the day he graduated from high school. I taught him manners, gave him medicine, and made him eat his vegetables. I made the boy a man... the man I wasn’t. The one I’d never be.

She just keeps on talking, telling me shit I don’t care about, answering questions I never asked. “Well, then,” I say loudly, interrupting. “This has been fun, but I have business to attend to.” I walk out. She’s still talking. Maybe Leo’s listening, I don’t know.

Not that I’m disabled, because fuck you, I’m not. I like to think we’re only really limited by our lack of creativity, and I can get pretty creative.

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” I mumble. “Falling.” “I swear to fuck, Scarlet, if you jump off of this roof…” “I’m not planning on it. I’m just saying, there are worse ways to go. And when death catches up to me, well, it won’t be as instant as going splat. He’ll make it much worse than that.”

Grinning, she does some bullshit little bow before turning, like she thinks she’s going to walk away from me. Yeah, right.

So I do some meditative woosah bullshit and calm the hell down, since I’m not into necrophilia, and I’d rather be fucking her than killing her at the moment. I might be a bit screwed up in the head, but I’m not that far gone.

“Twenty-five years next month,” he says with a smile. Married longer than I’ve been alive. “She was my high school sweetheart. Married her right after graduation.” “Regrets that shit every day,” Lorenzo says as he dishes out food onto plates. “I’ve never once regretted it,” Seven says, “not even when she rides my ass about the company I keep.”

“The trying to riddle shit out look,” he says, grabbing the plate in front of me, shoving it closer. “Eat your breakfast, Scarlet. I’m not opposed to taking you over my knee, either.” “I’d like to see you try,” I mutter, grabbing a fork and stabbing the pancake on my plate.

“Who is it?” “Blocked number.” “I don’t talk to cowards,” Lorenzo says,

“That’s not a bright side, kid,” Seven says, laughing. “Without you around, keeping him straight, there’s no telling what he might do. Besides, you’re his saving grace. That’ll never change. No matter where you go, that man is a part of you, just like you’ll always be a part of him. That’s how it goes.”

“Well, then, he better be dead along with it,” Lorenzo says, “because no longer breathing is the only justification for blowing me off this morning. I don’t care how long your night was, don’t care how drunk you got, don’t care how much pussy you fucked... I say be here, you show up.”

All I had to do was look the other way a few times and slip them a bit of information, you know, so they could stay one step ahead. I had a family to take care of, a mortgage, private school to pay for, and I thought, hell, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to afford a vacation? So I did it. And then I did it again. And the next thing I knew, I was so deep in their payroll there was no separating me from them.”

“More like they fired me.” He laughs dryly. “Got locked up six years for bribery. Came out, had nowhere to go, but I needed money, so I had to do something. My wife was working herself half to death trying to stay afloat, and with college tuition, well... there never seems to be enough money. Life is expensive.” “That it is,” I mumble, turning back to the paperwork, feeling bad for the guy. He’s just doing whatever he has to so he can take care of his family.

Counting oranges, it turns out, is harder than you’d think. I pull them all out, a few at a time, trying to divide them into smaller piles to count, but the sons of bitches want to roll all over the place. I try three times, losing track and miscounting, ending up so far off the mark I have to start over. Ugh. It takes me two hours.

don’t have a driver’s license.” “Have you ever driven before?” “Yes, but…” Lorenzo waves me off, silencing me with the flick of his wrist, before saying, “I’m sure you can handle it.” Sighing, I start the car, hesitating again. “Out of curiosity, on a scale of one-to-ten, how much are you going to want to kill me if I hit something?” “Just drive the damn car, Scarlet.”

“Scarlet?” I glance back at him. “Yes?” “I should’ve killed you.”

He should’ve killed me. I’ve stolen from him, used what belongs to him without permission, taking what I have no right to take. But yet I’m still alive, he’s kept me breathing, long after he would’ve killed others for doing what I did. I’m not sure why that is, why he grants me leniency that he doesn’t give others, and judging by his expression, I’d wager a guess that he doesn’t know why he does it, either. I nod. “You should’ve.”

“That’s not what it stands for.” “I’m starting to think it doesn’t stand for a damn thing,” I say. “Sucker. Me. For fucking thinking it had any meaning. Maybe you just like the letter S.”

“So fuck them,” I say for the third time. “You have to be careful who you give pieces of yourself to, because even a little bit here and there adds up to a hell of a lot eventually, and it’s not worth it, losing yourself to them, giving yourself to people who don’t give a fuck about you. You keep pouring yourself into other people and you’ll just wind up empty.”

I learned long ago that when someone says ‘no offense’ there’s about a seventy-six percent chance they’re about to offend the fuck out of you.

“They got their guns back out, Georgie,” I say. “Are we using them this time? Because I’m not opposed to pulling the trigger if that’s where we’re going with this. Just say the word and I’ll blow this artery apart.”