Page 69 of Bullseye
“Maybe. But Sen, they say this guy who works for Don Bordono, he comes from a family of sharpshooters. You’ve got to be careful. They say he’s a real Bullseye.”
“He’s a…?”
The words won’t even form in my mouth. It could never be. It would all be way too coincidental.
With my heart thumping, my brain keeps racing with thoughts. Why did Avery want me back in Hoppa so badly? Why was there talk of keeping me safe in the club? Who the hell is Avery “Bullseye” Pairings, anyway?
“Seneca, no. I can see the gears turning. I told you about this guy to scare you and get you to stay clear.”
Peering through a break in the branches, I look Johnny in the eye. “Really? Did you really think that would make me back off? Matt is rotting away injail.”
Sighing, he starts coiling up his hose. Thank God. I couldn’t take being any wetter or colder.
“Seneca, you know you’re like a daughter to me. So I’m going to say this only one time. Keep your nose the hell out of it.”
“Johnny.”
As he slings the hose over his shoulder, he holds up his hand to quiet me. “But as a surrogate father who knows his child well, I know you won’t. So all I’m going to say is that you don’t have to do it alone. From what I’ve heard about the Steel Knights, they’re fair guys but tough guys. If one of them likes you enough to risk his life to help you, let him.”
Nodding, I swallow hard. That’s the one thing I don’t want to happen. Avery has unknowingly risked enough by just being with me. Now, there’s only one thing I can do. And that’s find Mikey and Tony and beat them into submission.
“I miss you, Sen. Be careful.”
Coiling the last bit of hose around his arm, Johnny turns and heads back to his garage—and I sneak out the back of the bush, balance my bike, and walk it as far down the road as I can, before I hop on and take off for Manhattan.
***
Shifting my bike into low gear as I glide through Alphabet City—which has been gentrified almost past the point of recognition—I think about how alike this area and I really are.
Like this area of the Lower East Side, my life has changed dramatically. When I was in high school, I used to come into the city by limo with my mother, father, and Matt, to go to an event at the Met or a gallery. Most weekends, I’d spend strolling up and down the streets of the East or West Villages, shopping with my friends, and grabbing lunch. I never really enjoyed it, but damn…
The Sloane of then could never imagine the life of the Seneca of now. Here I am, chasing down low-level drug dealers to try to force them to come clean about my brother while avoiding getting killed—and more importantly—getting my bad-ass, biker boyfriend killed.
I lull my bike to a hum while I downshift again, skirting past my target—the entrance to a trendy noodle shop. College students and brave tourists flock to this shop that has some of the best dumplings in Manhattan, but they’ve got no freaking clue what’s located below ground…
The heart of Ironclad’s operation. The place he calls “Mammon”. It’s named Mammon after the god of wealth and profit. And to Ironclad, wealth and profit come by any means necessary.
No, I can’t go waltzing into Mammon alone and unarmed, demanding Mikey and Tony’s heads on platters, but I can do some snooping around… just to see where they are and more importantly, find out who this mystery shooter on the Bordono payroll was.
Taking a deep breath, I slide the bike into a parking garage on the corner, and hopping off, and clutching my bag tight to my chest, I muster up all the courage I can. I’ve got close to ten grand in this bag. I’m just praying I won’t need to use it, but if I do, that it’s enough to get someone to tell me who the other shooter was, without getting me killed. Above all, I really need to save it for another round of attorney’s fees for Matt.
Crossing the street and walking past the entrance of the noodle shop, I check over my shoulder before I disappear down into a staircase that leads to Mammon. My clumpy boots make a dull thud with every step I take closer to uncertainty.
I’ve only been here once before, when Matt first went inside, and I tried to get help from Ironclad by pledging with one of his motorcycle clubs, like Lucifer's Riders. Thing is, the initiation for women in his clubs requires taking a beating to prove your strength, and then sex with a member, or members, to prove your femininity. Ironclad and his whole enterprise sucks.
Just thinking about it makes my hands ball into fists and my breathing grow deeper and slower… He’s going to need a hell of a lot more than the fear of an initiation to stop me this time.
Because this time, I have nothing left to lose.
Raising my hand, I pound on the door with the side of my fist. There’s a whole world down here—a wild party of drugs and sex and orgies—but all I need is to get past the front guards, find Mikey and Tony, and toss them a beating. No one will bother me once I start. In Ironclad’s world, if a woman is pounding the shit out of you, you deserve it.
Once I’ve beaten them into submission, they’re going to tell the truth about Matt—I don’t care who else they decide to blame, it’s not my problem—and then they’re going to tell me who the other shooter was. As long as I can handle both guys at once, and Ironclad doesn’t see me and decide I’m too much trouble, I should be okay.
Despite the below-freezing temperatures, a bead of sweat trickles from my temple to my jaw. I’m too focused to wipe it away. Once that door opens, I need to fight my way inside.
Pounding on the door again, my heart accelerates when it opens slowly.
“Yeah?” A man in his late thirties with a bald head and an earring pops his head out. That earring has to be what I go for… before he can think to go for any of mine.
