Page 2 of His Virgin Angel

The following year Jack was looking through his closet for a tie pin when a large box fell on him. Frowning, he glanced down to find the book he vaguely remembered being given. The chubby schoolgirl came back to him, and he had a sudden rush of guilt. Crap, he’d forgotten about her book, and she used it to feel better. He’d simply tossed it aside, without a single care in the world.

Picking it up, he flicked open the page to see her name scrawled across it. He knew nothing about her apart from her name.

Picking up his cell phone, he dialed his contact, Eric, and demanded that he find out the address of a Piper Johnson, giving a brief description from what he remembered. It wouldn’t take long. The girl wasn’t that old. He wondered if she was still as charming as she’d been the day she gave him that book.

It didn’t take long for Eric to get back to him with an address. Leaving his home, Jack got Drake, his driver, to take him to the address. He wasn’t surprised to find the estate he was looking for to be rundown. The apartment flats were in an awful state, and thinking about the girl, it made him marvel at the fact she’d been so damn sweet.

Jack stared at the decay all around him. He was the son of a whore and a gambler. Growing up on the streets, dodging loan sharks, and all kind of other crap, Jack had promised himself he wouldn’t be like this. His fists had gotten him out of this crap, and his intelligence had taken him to where he was today. Feared, respected, and above all, King.

“Sir, what would you like me to do?” Drake said.

Drake had been working for him for five years and had proven his loyalty time and again.

“This place stinks, doesn’t it?”

“It’s not the best part of the city.”

“No, it’s the fucking worst.” Jack stared out of the window wondering what the fuck he was actually doing. He paid men to deal with this shit.

She sat with you that day.

She tried to put a smile back on your face.

Had she missed the book? He didn’t know. Considering the state of the paperback, there had to be a chance.

“Wait in the car,” he said.

“Yes, sir.”

Several of the men hanging around the apartment stared at him. None of them approached him. They all knew better. When he entered the apartment building, the scent of piss and shit surrounded him. He refused to back down, so he made his way up toward the third floor, along the corridor to the door that housed Piper.

On the floor was an array of needles, trash, used diapers, and all other kinds of crap. The sight repulsed him.

Lifting his hand, he knocked on the door and waited.

“Who is it?”

He recognized her voice, and he was shocked by how protective he suddenly felt.

“Piper,” he said. “I don’t know if you remember me. It’s Jack. A year ago you passed me a book, and I took it.”

The door opened, and what he saw made him so damn angry.

Piper was standing in her pajamas, and she held a small boy in her arms. “I remember you.”

One side of her face was black and blue. “Who did that?”

“It’s nothing.”

From the information Eric had given him, she was seventeen years old. He’d gotten her age wrong. She was still a minor, and the bruise on her face didn’t sit well with him.

“That’s not nothing.” Glancing through past her shoulder, he saw the apartment was bare.

“Piper, who is he?” the boy asked.

“He’s no one. Please, you need to leave.”

“What the hell is going on?” Jack wasn’t used to being told he was no one. He wasn’t no one. He was someone!

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