The Devil's Game (Rhodes to Hell Book 1) Read online

  “Yeah, so did I. I guess we should have known,” I bite out harshly, but I know only Hollis can hear me. I love Natasha and I know she deserves someone way better than Benzo. He has always been so nasty to her and finding out she’s been sneaking around with him again makes me so fucking sad for her.

  She can’t see her importance and she is worth so much more than getting slammed up against the wall whenever he’s in a bad mood. She’s got much more value and doesn’t deserve having a gun put to her temple because she speaks in the wrong tone. I love her, but she doesn’t love herself enough to stay away from him.

  We all sit here, staring at each other with the loud music blaring until the first shot rings out. The second and third shots sound a lot closer and I turn around quickly while ducking behind the couch as loud, shrill screams can be heard all over the club. I look to my left and Lucky sits wide eyed next to me with her hands over her mouth and I quickly looked to my right, in search of Natasha.

  She isn’t there and in a last minute decision I stand up into a crouched position, looking around for my friend. She didn’t jump behind the couch like Lucky and I did, and I see why as soon as I spot her laying on the couch. She’s been shot and blood is everywhere, pooled all around her and her face is scrunched up, and even though the gunshots are still ringing out through the club, I don’t care. It doesn’t matter at all.

  “Tasha!” I jump over the couch and my reaction makes Lucky rise to her feet too.

  With tears in my eyes I brush her hair out of her face and hold her cheek with the side of my hand. I can see her chest rising and falling slowly, so I know she’s alive, but it doesn’t look good. She’s covered in blood and her eyes are glassy and big. I can't tell where she is bleeding from but I’m looking anyway.

  A sinister laugh comes from behind me when the gunfire ceases and through teary eyes I look up at Tasha’s shooter.

  Benzo.

  “I told my bitch to stay away from the fellas tonight,” he sneers, still holding a bulky black gun in his hand. The gun means nothing to me as I rise to my feet, squaring up to the saddest excuse for a man I’ve ever met.

  “You fucking son of a bitch!” I scream at him, lunging for his gun. I have every intention of stealing his gun and shooting him right between his eyes. One of the only two people I have in my life could be dying right now and I am out for blood. It only takes him a second to realize what I’m doing before he tries to swat me away with his free hand. I dodge him.

  “I never liked you much, maybe you can be buried right next to that whore,” he laughs, jerking his head in Tasha’s direction. I can hear Lucky comforting Tasha, and sirens blaring from the streets, but I can only focus on killing Benzo.

  With newfound strength, I lunge again hitting low on his side, knocking the gun from his drunken hand. I dive for it. When I feel his weight crash on top of me I scramble to get the gun and as I grip my hand onto the handle he yanks my hair back making me scream out in pain.

  I hold on tightly to the gun as he yanks me by my long hair. My back hits the sharp edge of the table I’d been dancing on and I cry out again as he nails me in the side of my face with the inside of his fist. My head flies to the side but I do my best to hang on to my bearings. I am determined to kill him.

  I can hear new screams erupting, and words being said, but nothing is making much sense to me and my ears are ringing so loudly. As he grips my neck, my vision becomes blurry but I hold tightly to the gun and swing it up and over my head, hitting what I hope is Benzo’s face with the top of the gun.

  I hear him grunt out in pain before he releases me with a shove. He curses me loudly as he holds onto his face and I scramble away from him, still on the floor. There is no time for me to recover before he’s back on me, trying to get the gun belonging to him back in his possession. “Bitch, give me my gun.”

  “Get the fuck away from us, or I’m going to shoot you right between your fucking eyes,” I growl out loudly, getting to my feet and holding the gun out in front of me, my hands only trembling a little.

  A nasty grin grows across his face, he revels in the fact he’s staring death directly in the face and he isn't scared. He’s eager to be shot and his maniacal laugh makes me want to throw up.

  “You won’t kill me, naughty girl,” he spits out, venom dripping from his words. He starts to take a step toward me, and I pull my finger tighter to the trigger, ready to blast him away.

  “I wouldn’t bet your life on your assumption,” I snarl, still trying to catch my breath but my breathing is erratic and unsteady as I wait for him to move. “Stay away from us!”

  “I said, you aren't going to kill me,” he yells, a new wave of anger spreading across his face as he speaks. “Do you know who I am?”

  “A bitch ass mother fucker who just shot a woman you were supposed to be in love with,” I tell him.

  “A bitch ass what? I’m going to fuck you—” was all he got out as he lunges towards be just before a bullet pierces through the side of his head.

  I jump back so hard I drop the gun and quickly cover my mouth as I watch him slump to the floor in front of me. There is so much blood and my heart is pounding so damn hard I can barely hear how loud the sirens are. Especially with my ears still ringing.

  A pair of warm hands find my face and force me look up into eyes searching mine for any detection of life. “Ruby,” he shouts, snapping me into the present. “We have to leave. The cops are coming.”

  I nod my head and look back at Lucky. She’s covered in Tasha's blood and when Hollis notices where I’m looking, he runs over to where Tasha is laying and quickly scoops her up. Lucky jumps from the couch and follows him over to me.

  “Follow me and we will make it out in time. Stay close,” he orders, before taking off across the empty VIP section and heading for the back of the club with Natasha in his arms securely. Lucky and I run behind him and all I can do is hope with all I have Natasha will be okay.

  Chapter Four

  HOLLIS—PRESENT

  “She’s going to die, she’s going to die, fuck, fuck, fuck,” the loud Hispanic girl keeps screaming from the backseat.

  I am about two fucking seconds from yanking her out of my car if she doesn’t shut up.

  “Shut the fuck up,” I grind out when she starts sobbing loudly. “She’s not going to fucking die unless you don’t shut your loud ass yelling up and I crash.”

  Ruby glances at me, and when I glance over to her I expect her to look surprised or even fearful, but her eyes are empty. She isn’t scared. She’s pissed.

  “She’s bleeding all over,” the girl continues, much quieter than before. I don’t respond as I speed up the road towards Preston’s compound.

  “Why aren't we going to the hospital?” Ruby asks calmly, wiping some of the drying blood from her hands onto her dress absentmindedly while looking at me.

  “They’re waiting on us to show up, I can guarantee it. You trying to go to jail tonight?”

  “No,” she says quickly, opening her mouth to say something else, but I cut her off.

  “Then we don’t go to hospitals who have cops waiting for us,” I tell her bluntly.

  She turns her attention back to the road in front of us and I can tell by the look on her face if we don’t pull up to some kind of medical facility fast she won’t hesitate to bring the girl from the club back out. I wouldn’t mind seeing the wild side of her again, but I figure she’s been through enough for tonight.

  And I’m not even sure why it matters to me.

  I pull up to the front of Preston’s private practice clinic and hop out quickly scooping the girl out of the backseat. I don’t wait for the other two because I may not know the girl who got shot, but I know she got shot because of me, and Ruby seems to care about her.

  Why it matters to me is another thing I don’t have time to even think about as I rush to the doors. I only make it about three feet away from the car before nurses rush out with a gurney. They know the deal.

 
; “Where was she hit,” one of the nurses asks.

  “I don’t know, I think the stomach,” I tell her as Ruby and the sobbing girl get closer.

  Ruby sidles up next to me once I lay her friend on the bed and we watch as they rolled her towards the door. The crying girl follows behind the nurses, still talking gibberish through her tears.

  She is fucking annoying.

  “Sorry about Lucky, she hasn’t ever been able to get her crying in check,” Ruby says cooly.

  “Does she cry about everything?” I look down at her with a frown, but it isn’t directed to her. Lucky just gets under my skin.

  “Not everything,” she tells me, sounding extremely unsure. “But she’s been through a lot and it’s just her way of handling things.”

  “Crying doesn’t handle anything, it makes things worse and it’s annoying as shit.”

  She looks back to me without a word and just stares at me for a few seconds before turning her bloodied body back towards the car and looking around, surveying where she is. “Where are we?”

  “It doesn’t matter, but you’re safe here,” I assure her, and she looks back at me with a frown, her eye swelling already getting worse by the second.

  She is covered in blood and her face is already bruising but she has a pouty frown on her face. It fits her perfectly.

  “Why does me being safe even matter to you? I know who you are, and I know what you do,” she states, squaring her shoulders so she is standing right in front of me.

  I start to tell her I’m not sure why I give a fuck about her, but I don’t want her to know how much I seem to care. “I don’t care, you just looked worried.”

  “I’m not.”

  She is so defiant and if she was anyone else I would be ready to smack her, but she is interesting to be around. I just want to piss her off more. I want to see how sassy she’ll get with me. I want to push her away so she’ll heed the warning I gave her earlier about me not being someone to get involved with. I have a hunch my plan isn’t going to go any way like how I intend for it to, but I am going to try anyway.

  “You sure? You’ve been through a lot tonight.”

  “I’ve been through a lot in my life, Hollis …” she pauses and scoffs before turning back to me. “I’ve been through more than most people could ever think about going through. So while you say you don’t care, your actions are saying otherwise and for what it’s worth, I appreciate you bringing us here. I didn’t want to have to deal with the cops tonight.”

  “Are there certain nights you'd like to deal with them?” I ask, surprised I’m even making conversation with this girl let alone joking around with her.

  She narrows her eyes. “Is this your way of being funny?”

  I just look at her and she smiles before shaking her head and looking over to where her friend was wheeled inside. She scoffs again.

  “Today has been one of the weirdest days of my life,” she admits as she sits down on the curb. “And for me, it’s really saying a lot.”

  I don’t make a move, only observe her from above and before I can dig myself into an even deeper hole with the little crazy woman in front of me, my phone rings. She looks up at me with her eyes narrowed and I glance down at my screen. Elijah’s name flashes on the screen.

  “Hey man, you good?” I say into my phone.

  “Yeah, bruh, but where the fuck did you go? You good?” His concern was cute, but it made me smirk. I knew he just needed me alive to get our next target.

  “I’m good, but I’m at the clinic,” I tell him, and I hear him curse under his breath.

  “I thought you left before the shooting shit popped off, man here I come.”

  We never talk business on the phone, and I know he’ll be here in a few short minutes anyway so I slide my phone back into the pocket of my joggers and turn my attention to a nurse who is coming out of the clinic. In my peripheral vision, I can see Ruby follow my gaze to the nurse and she hops up quickly to her feet just as the woman gets to us.

  “Your friend is going to live, sweetheart,” the nurse tells Ruby, but I notice her shoulders stay rigid. “The entry wound is in her lower abdomen but luckily for her, the angle of which she was shot made it to where the bullet didn’t go through her body much at all.”

  “What was with all the blood?” she asks, and a smirk creeps across my face.

  “The exit wound is much larger than the entry wound which was the source of all of the blood was coming from.” The woman begins to explain but Ruby cuts her off.

  “So, she’s going to be okay? Not any big damage?”

  The woman smiles as she nods. “She’s going to be just fine in a few months. She lost a lot of blood so we will help her with recovery after we get her all sewn up, so she doesn’t lose anymore. We also gave your other friend a little something to calm her nerves. She’s allowed us to put her in one of the rooms next to where Tasha will be.”

  “Great,” Ruby tells her, still showing no real emotion. “Thank you.”

  The nurse smiles before looking to me and giving me a slow nod, averting her eyes quickly. When she turns around to head back into the clinic Ruby turns to me.

  “Thank you.”

  I narrow my eyes but before I can open my mouth Elijah’s McLaren P1 comes to a quick stop next to us. He hops out and I notice the quick second when Ruby’s eyes grow three sizes even though she tries to hide it well.

  “Bruh, what the fuck happened? People are saying Benzo is dead.” Elijah has a hand on his head and is more than likely wondering if it was me who shot him. It isn’t the fact he’d would have a problem if it was me, but it would bring a whole heap of problems with it. We both know the consequences of something so brazen.

  “He is,” Ruby states. When I look at her, I already see the determined look in her eyes, and I can already guess what she is about to do. She knows the shit storm it would create, too, and while lying to Eli isn’t something I do often, I let Ruby lie her little ass off. “I shot him.”

  Elijah turns his big frame towards her and studies her stance before dragging his eyes back to me slowly.

  “Why is the girl who shot Benzo here at the compound?”

  His voice is calm and even, but I know right away if he doesn’t hear what he wants to hear it isn’t going to end pretty for little Ruby. Luckily for her, I know what I have to say will be justifiable in his eyes.

  “Her friend is the reason why we came. Benzo shot her and Ruby took his gun,” I relay, leaving out the part of me actually being the one to shoot him. If I try to tell Elijah something different now, he’ll never trust Ruby, no matter the reasoning behind her deceit.

  “What does all of this have to do with you?”

  “I was the reason the girl got shot. Apparently, Benzo didn’t like the fact I was talking to who I assume was his girl’s friend,” I tell him truthfully.

  His eyes slowly trailed back to Ruby and his eyes narrow even more. “Your friend got shot? Who I’m going to assume is a woman?”

  Ruby nods, her eyes narrowing as well and there was something like sarcasm on her face. This tiny little five foot firecracker is holding her ground with one of the most ruthless criminals I know and isn’t even batting an eyelash.

  Elijah likes it because something rare happens. He smiles.

  “Who is she to you?” He chuckles before looking over at me.

  “Just someone who doesn’t seem to be afraid of the big bad wolf.”

  He tutted her, shaming her mockingly. “You afraid of the big bad wolf … Ruby, was it?”

  She looks at me and in all seriousness I can’t imagine being as small as she is and standing between Elijah and me. In this moment, Ruby shows me something no one has ever shown me in my life. She doesn’t have the upper hand, but the confidence pouring from her says the complete opposite. It intrigues the fuck out of me, and I know as soon as she answers him this girl will be something to me, I just haven’t quite figured out what yet.

  “Yeah, It’s Ruby … an
d no, I’m not afraid of the big bad wolf.”

  Chapter Five

  RUBY—PRESENT

  “You plan on staying out this way too?” The handsome guy, Elijah, asks Hollis and I feel odd when his eyes meet mine before he answers.

  “I figured I would, since I’m already out here. I don’t feel like driving back into the city tonight,” he explains, which I don’t think is the full truth.

  “Yeah, me too. I’m gonna head over to the house, I’ll see you in the morning. Night,” Elijah replies before tipping a nod in my direction, his almond eyes dragging over me painfully slow as he backs up towards his car.

  I hear Hollis reply as I stand and turn around to look up at the building we are in front of. It’s a plain building no one would ever know is a fully equipped clinic with doctors who just saved my friend and I still am not entirely sure it is fully equipped, but they helped Tasha. I am just glad she is going to be okay.

  I walk closer to the doors and they slide open to welcome me into the building. I’m met with the clinic’s dim seating area. It looks just like a regular hospital waiting room except it’s empty.

  It’s oddly homey but I am glad for the change because I don’t like hospitals. I hesitated to come in at first because hospitals give me the creeps and while I know this isn’t a real hospital, I didn’ think it would smell like anything but wrinkly old man hands. I don’t smell old man hands at all, but I can’t tell if it’s because of the cologne Hollis is wearing is overpowering all of the others smells in the best way possible, or if this place is just more like a big house instead of an actual hospital.

  I can’t lie. I am attracted to Hollis and I know he is bad news. Bad news radiates off him and I remember the stories I’ve heard about him over the years. I know I’ll get hurt helping him but I still can’t stop the curiosity of figuring him out. I want so badly to know what makes him tick and why he chooses the lifestyle he lives. I don't live the best, I know I have questionable ways of getting what I need to survive and my track record with people isn’t the greatest. But Hollis makes money by killing people and with no judgement to him. I bet it fucks him up inside. Killing someone changes a person, at least it changed me.