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  DEATH BLOW

  A Club Malevolence Novel

  By Ashley Harma

  Copyright © 2014 Ashley Harma

  All rights reserved. This document may not be reproduced in any way without the expressed written consent of the author. The ideas, characters, and situations presented in this story are strictly fictional, and any unintentional likeness to real people or real situations is completely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Twenty-Four Years Ago

  “She’s going to do what we tell her, or none of you’ll be alive by morning.”

  What else could he do? He let her go. Out of his hands, she stumbled, crying and pregnant, over to the Boss. He hadn’t expected her to fight, but he hadn’t expected her to give up so easily. The Boss cupped her face, wiped away her tears. It only seemed to make her cry harder.

  “Come on, sugar. Pain’ll ease with time.”

  She looked over at him, and their eyes met, and they both knew that wouldn’t be the case. She wished she’d been honest with him, then maybe they could have avoided this. If he was honest with himself, he did blame her, just the tiniest bit. He’d loved her so much, taken such good care of her—and now all of it was lost in an instant. Everything that had been important to him two hours ago wasn’t even his anymore.

  “I love you, Deb.”

  “Oh god, I love you, Bill.”

  The Boss passed her off to his lackeys, and they steered her away toward the waiting towncar.

  “Knew you’d understand, Bill. Wasn’t much else you could do, but still. You’re a good man. I know you’ll be true to your word. ‘Cause remember, if you ain’t—“

  At that moment, a sob rose up out of Deb as she was lowered into the car. He knew what they’d do if he wasn’t true to his word. He knew very well.

  He wondered what she’d name them. He wondered if she’d come to love him. He wondered—he wondered, he wondered, and that was all he’d get to do about her now.

  She disappeared into the car, flanked by the lackeys. The Boss was the last one to get in.

  “I’d say see you ‘round—but I sure hope that won’t be the case.”

  Carefully unbuttoning the blazer of his pristine grey suit, the Boss slipped into the back of the black towncar and shut the door, and the car took off silently into the night.

  Chapter One

  Lila laid a menu out in front of the unkempt trucker; he looked like he hadn’t showered in weeks—smelled like it too. He was sweating profusely, and when he picked it up, she could see the damp handprints he left on the laminated paper. She used to get grossed out by things like that. She didn’t anymore.

  “Wings.”

  Lila struggled to keep the smile on her face. It was too early in the night for her to get annoyed.

  “Sure, sir. What kind would you like?”

  The man set the menu down. Why did they never look at the menu? Lila braced herself for the string of questions that were already answered on the sheet in front of him.

  “What kind ya have?”

  “Buffalo, barbeque, spicy Thai, sesame, and chipotle.”

  “Gimme that barbeque, but put the sauce on the side.”

  “You got it.” She leaned over to pick up the menu, and the sweaty man took the opportunity to shamelessly look down her shirt. She wasn’t sure if he was glistening around the mouth because he was sweating or because he was drooling. Either way, she didn’t want to know. She turned to head back to the computer, and the man gave a soft grunt of approval. After so many years working at this grungy dive bar, Lila should’ve gotten used to it. She didn’t know if she ever would.

  She’d worked here for 4 years now, at the Dirty Pint, and it felt like she’d never work anywhere else. Of all the jobs she’d held down—and Lila had held down a lot of jobs—this one was the best and the worst. The best because she, sadly, made the most money she’d ever made here. The worst because it had to be the grossest place she’d ever worked, grosser than the gas station, grosser than the old folks’ home. There were a handful of gross places in Belle Chasse, and Lila had worked at almost all of them.

  Things hadn’t always been this bad, but they’d been bad for a long time now. Lila had been born here in Belle Chasse, Louisiana and never left. Her parents, Rick and Deborah, high school sweethearts, had run a happy household for most of Lila’s childhood. But right after Lila’s 7th birthday, everything went wrong. Her father had an accident on a construction site, and wound up nearly losing his leg. He still required a cane to get around, even 15 years later, and he’d taken to drinking to numb the pain. Her mother, who’d always been home to take care of Lila, started working as a secretary during the day—but only a few weeks after that, tragedy struck again, and Deborah had been killed in a car accident on her way home. Lila remembered that night, and probably would never forget it: her father, a broken man on the outside, sitting on her bed weeping. It had struck her, even then, as a child, that her dad was now way more broken on the inside than his lame leg would ever convey.

  Deborah had only just started on her daughter by the time she died, and left to Rick, it was a wonder Lila’d turned out feminine at all. She had all the makings to be drop dead gorgeous—athletic build, curves in all the right places, long, dark hair, piercing blue eyes, and a mouth that many men would call dangerous—but she unknowingly hid it all under ratty t-shirts and tousled hair. It didn’t stop the men at the bar from scouring her body with their eyes, though. Lila hadn’t known it was possible to feel used and fucked just by being looked at, until she started at the Dirty Pint.

  Maybe normal women who worked at bars got to go home, shower, and feel clean again, but home didn’t bring Lila any solace. Many nights when she got home, she found her dad wasted and sprawled out on the floor, having missed his cane who knows how long ago, and been too far gone to bother getting himself back up. Some nights he’d pissed himself, and Lila cleaned that up. Some nights he’d puked all over himself, and Lila cleaned that up.

  If she’d ever felt, anywhere, at any time, like a pretty, well-adjusted girl, she couldn’t remember it. Maybe once or twice in high school, before she’d dropped out. She could remember a couple boys who’d had crushes on her but she’d always been too busy to date. At first it was trying to balance school and the jobs she’d had to get to help her dad out. Now she had to work to completely support her father. Those last few years of high school had been rough, with Lila’s grades dropping fast and hard—what kid could focus on schoolwork while holding down the graveyard shift at a gas station? When she’d turned 18, she’d made the decision not to go back.

  “Miss. MISS.”

  She snapped back to the moment. She was standing in front of the computer doing nothing, with the sweaty trucker yelling at her from his table.

  “You going to bring me that Bud Light or what?”

  Lila couldn’t bring herself to look at him, so she yelled over her shoulder.

  “Yep, coming right up, sorry about the wait.” Lila put the beer onto his tab and pretended to busy herself with cleaning the menus while the bartender poured it f
or her. Behind her, she heard the door open, and turned to face the new customer. “Hey there, welcome to the Dirty Pint.”

  “Ooooweee, girl, gone and got all formal on me.”

  “Sheriff!” The Sheriff was one of her favorite regulars. Tall, gruff, rugged—the kind of man that belonged on a horse, against the sunset—the Sheriff was certainly handsome. Lila could only imagine what he looked like 30 years ago, when he was young and in his prime. His temples had become flecked with grey, and the lines on his face were evidence of his life’s troubles, but whenever Lila saw the Sheriff she felt the swell of some prideful kinship. Lila felt like she’d known him all her life. He was the town sheriff, so she guessed it was his job to be around, know the people—but he had a soft spot for Lila, it seemed, and she had one for him too.

  The sweaty trucker cleared his throat, loudly and intentionally. Lila turned to see the pint of Bud Light sitting at the station.

  “Just one sec, Sheriff, I’ll bring your usual right over to you.”

  “No rush, Lila,” he smiled at her. “Hope Arnold here’s not giving you any trouble.” The Sheriff walked over to the man and patted him on the back. Arnold immediately sat upright and, incredibly, he began sweating even more.

  “Aw, no sir, just waiting on my beer, s’all.”

  “Well, don’t give the girl too much trouble, ya hear? Hate to have to arrest you for something unrelated. Everything checked out at the weigh station, I assume?”

  The sweaty man began to fluster. Lila knew the Sheriff was kidding, but she could also tell Arnold didn’t appreciate the joke. She liked to see him squirm a bit. It made the moment he stared at her tits feel a little less degrading.

  “Hell, Arnold, I’m just pulling your leg.” The Sheriff gave him one more big slap on the back right as Lila set down his beer.

  “Here you are, sir,” she smiled extra wide this time.

  “Thank you kindly,” Arnold said, sliding his sopping hand around the frosted glass and pulling it towards him.

  “Have a good night, Arnold.” The Sheriff put his arm around Lila’s shoulders as the two of them walked back over to the waitress station. “How you been, girl? Ain’t getting into too much trouble here, I hope.”

  “Not with you coming in every other evening! I can barely get a fight started anymore,” Lila joked.

  “Good. If I can keep you out of just one of your ruthless, fatal bar brawls, I’ll consider my duty to this great town done.” He winked at her as he sat down at the bar. Lila slid under the partition, behind the bar. She was the only one the Sheriff would let make his drink—his usual, his standard, a perfect Old Fashioned. One of the bartenders had made it, once, and never again. Lila could make it in her sleep now, with her eyes closed. Hell, she could probably do it without any hands, if she really had to. “Not too busy in here tonight,” the Sheriff commented, looking around.

  “No, pretty slow,” Lila sighed. “It’s a Tuesday though, so what can you expect? Most guys got their fill in last night and are trying to spend the evening at home with their families. You know they’ll all be in here later. “

  “Probably tonight, unless you’re lucky.” The Sheriff surveyed the bar as Lila slid the cocktail to him. Things were pretty quiet tonight. Some nights he’d stop in to check on Lila and there’d be more shit than he could handle. There was only so much he could do, in the way of the law, but on those nights, when there were tables of men heckling her, or crowds of people treating her like a dog, the Sheriff almost wished he wasn’t an officer of the law. “How’re things otherwise, Lila?”

  Lila ran a check as she caught up with the Sheriff. “Oh, fine, I guess. Same old, same old.” Lila hated when people asked about her life. Nothing ever happened, and the things that did happen, Lila didn’t ever want to talk about. Last night her dad tried—and failed, thankfully—to take a swing at her while she picked him up off the kitchen floor. She figured the Sheriff didn’t want to hear about that.

  “How’s your dad?”

  A twinge of anger shot through her. “He’s fine,” Lila lied through her teeth. “You know him, bit of a deadbeat, but then he has been for awhile.” She avoided the Sheriff’s gaze and put away the menus.

  “Well, I always say it, but you know I always mean it…”

  “Yeah, yeah,” she smiled, “if I need anything, don’t hesitate to call. You know I can handle him, have been for all these years.” She watched the Sheriff swirl his liquor around. He always looked so intense.

  “When are we gonna get you out of here, girl?” the Sheriff asked quietly. He looked up at her, earnest and concerned, and there was something so gentle about it all that Lila wanted to cry right then and there. She felt the tears well up, just a bit, and she busied herself with wiping down the bar.

  “Come on, if you got me out of here, who’d make your perfect drink?”

  At that moment, the sweaty trucker waved a hand at her.

  “’Scuse me, Sheriff.” Lila slid under the bar and walked over to Arnold. He looked like a toddler covered in barbeque sauce, sloppily wiping the corners of his mouth with a tattered napkin. “What can I do ya for, Arnold?” She always made it a point to use names, if she knew them. She supposed that the customers might feel comforted, or special, if she remembered their names, but truth be told, it made Lila feel empowered. She needed all the power she could get.

  “’Nother Bud Light, and the check.”

  “You got it, sir.”

  Arnold gazed at her hungrily, his beady little eyes running the length of her. The Sheriff caught the trucker staring and Arnold diverted his gaze, staring down at his plate nervously. The Sherriff wished he could sit in here all night and keep anyone from treating Lila badly, but he couldn’t do that. He shouldn’t do that.

  The Sheriff threw back the rest of his Old Fashioned as Lila walked back up to the computer. “Don’t let that rat bastard give you trouble, hear?” he said quietly to her. She laughed lightly and smiled at him, and it twisted him up all kinds of awful inside.

  “Don’t think he’ll try it again after the look you just gave him,” she replied. She saw that the Sheriff had finished his drink and was reaching for his wallet. This was another standard of theirs, the payment. “Don’t even!” she laughed. “Don’t even try it tonight.”

  “Got to let me pay for this fine cocktail!” he said loudly.

  “I didn’t even ring it in, so there’s no cocktail to pay for, old man,” she played her part.

  “Then I guess I’ll just have to leave this $20 here and see what happens to it. If there’s no cocktail to pay for, maybe it’ll end up in some nice young woman’s wallet.” He smirked at her, laying down the bill. He stood up, adjusted his holster, and winked at Lila. “’Til we meet again, fair princess.”

  They shared a laugh, he tipped his hat, and he was gone again.

  “That pint and that check, girl,” Arnold snapped at her—once the Sheriff was gone, of course.

  Chapter Two

  Soft rock was playing, familiar tunes from the playlist they put on when nights were slowing down and the bar was close to closing. Lila checked the records—she was missing a receipt: an order of wings and two pints of Bud Light.

  “Ugh, Arnold,” she sighed, hopping off her stool. She went through the billets—no receipt. She walked over to where he’d been sitting—no receipt. She checked the menus, the floor, the bar. Nothing. Sometimes, bits of paper would get stuck against the far windows of the bar, dragged to that border by the opening and closing of the door. Maybe it was over there. Lila walked over and bent down to get on her hands and knees to search for one dumb, white slip of paper—the tip, she’d sure, would be insulting, if present at all—but as she did, the door opened.

  “Y’all not closed yet, are you?” a delicate voice asked.

  Lila looked up, and her eyes were immediately drawn to an impeccable pair of Louboutins. She wasn’t much interested in fashion, but even she knew what those were—and more importantly, she had a decent ide
a of how much they cost. She followed the line of this person, up her smooth and shaven legs, to the hem of a sleek, silver lamé dress, up the dress to the tanned shoulders that peeked out of the sleeves, and finally, up to the face of a woman who looked like she’d just stepped out of the pages of Vogue. She had perfectly cut blonde hair and vibrant green eyes. Lila wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d seen a photo of this woman in a magazine before.

  Lila was dumbstruck for a moment. She swallowed hard and found her voice again. “Uh, no ma’am, we’re open for about another—“ Lila realized she wasn’t quite sure what time it was, but it didn’t matter. The woman swept in and clicked her way up to the bar. Lila got up off the floor and hurried over. “What can I get you, miss?”

  The mystery lady sat down gracefully, laying her shiny black leather purse beside her. “Hmmm,” she surveyed the place. “How y’all’s cocktails ‘round here?” The other bartender scoffed a bit from the opposite end of the bar.

  “Well, we’re not a cocktail bar or anything, but I can make you whatever you’d like. Old fashioned, martini, sidecar, you name it.”

  “Well, look at you. Gimme a vodka martini, dirty, two olives.”

  “Yes ma’am.” Lila got to work.

  “Don’t call me ma’am, Christ, girl. Call me Cassandra.”

  “Cassandra,” Lila said as she strained the martini. “That’s beautiful.”

  “Ain’t you sweet. What’s your name?”

  “Lila.” She dropped the two olives in effortlessly, splashed the juice two or three times, and slid the drink over to Cassandra.

  “You one to talk,” Cassandra smiled. She picked up the martini and sipped it. Lila watched her. “Shoot, girl,” she slapped the bar, “and you can make a cocktail too.” Cassandra looked at her more carefully. “Worked here long?”

  Lila nodded, settling up against the bar. “Too long.” She couldn’t imagine what brought a woman like Cassandra into a place like the Dirty Pint. Cassandra looked like a million bucks, or more—and looked like she was married to a billion bucks, judging by the enormous diamond that sat on her ring finger.