Chapter 17
Of course, nothing is ever so simple.
Ari changed in the truck before Dom dropped her off close to a busy dance club. She looked around, frowning at the large crowds of people outside the place, inside is going to be exactly the same. She nodded at Dom that she was okay before he drove off. She know she could make this work to her advantage.
She stood next to the road, right in front of the building beside the night club. The opposite side of the club was a line to get inside. She sighed before she walked up to the doorman, knowing she was going to need to convince him to let her in now. She wasn't waiting.
When she stopped about three feet away from him, looking up at him with her best doe eyes. She winked at him.
"You gunna let me in, or what?" she smiled.
The guy looked her up and down, the smile on his face growing more and more until he nodded and let her in, she hurried in before he changed his mind. What she didn't realize is the type of dance club she was headed into, made him think he just sent a willing antelope into a den of lions.
When she got to the bar, she found an empty stool to sit on to give her a little more height over the counter. When the bartender came over, she ordered a rum and coke, thinking her usual choice in beer might stand out more than a glass with a mixed drink.
When he came back with it, she paid with cash and made him keep the change. She sat with her drink for nearly 10 minutes before she spotted who she was looking for. He was already with another woman, who was happy to be there with him. Again, not part of the plan.
She had only touched the straw of her drink, so when she left her half empty drink at the counter, she took the straw and wiped it clean with her jacket sleeve before dropping it under her feet, to be stepped on continuously all night.
Ari watched the girl walk away from Worm, which was the only name she was really given of him besides a picture. Ari went right over to her, within eye shot of the man she was with. As Ari leaned in to whisper to her, she reached her hand over to touch hers, happy to find out the girl was intoxicated enough to want to play along. With a little help, she won't remember much tomorrow either.
Worm watched the girls interact, excitedly as his friends were caught up in a conversation amongst themselves. He was a really, really skinny guy, most of his tattoos looked dark and hard to make out. His hair was buzzed short to help hide the bald spots, and his even darker, sunken in eyes proved drugs were still an outlet in his life. She could see all the track marks on the girls arm too, so he clearly wasn't using them alone.
Taking the girl to the dance floor, Ari pulled her closer as they danced, Worm never taking his eyes away. He continued to watch with pure excitement, not jealousy. Ari made sure not to look towards him too many times, trying to keep her attention on the girl she had wrapped up in her arms.
"You're fun! Let's take this party to the bathroom! I have something you might just love!" The girl whispered in Ari's ear, making sure no one else could hear her over the music. Nodding, with her best smile, Ari pulled the girl towards the hall to the bathrooms.
Worm followed shortly after, still alone.
Once Ari got the girl into the girls bathroom, she 'accidently' hit her in the head with the door coming in, and helped her unconcious body fall without hitting anything else on its way down. She proped her unconcious body against the wall behind the door and ran to check the bathroom stalls.
The deal was, one of Sean's guys would already be there waiting in a stall, by climbing into the high window to the bathroom. She saw no window when she looked around, realizing this whole plan was never going to go the way she was told. The stalls were empty too, of course.
She had to act fast, and she wouldn't waiver from the plan, seeing as that was probably exactly what Sean's guys wanted to see. She leaned down towards the unconcious girl as the bathroom door opened. The Worm stepped in and locked the door, but was surprised to suddenly turn around and see his date on the ground.
"What the fuck-." Worm started getting angry.
Ari pretended to be scared by him, and she jumped.
"Jesus! You can't be in here. Oh, wait! I'm sorry. I think this girl just passed out.. Can you help me get her up?" Ari asked politely, attempting it on her own, pretending she could not physically do it herself.
The worm sighed, mumbling something about a dumbass woman as he leaned down. Ari jumped up and with as much force as she could muster she shoved the back of his head with her hand, and smashed his face off the bathroom wall above his unconscious girlfriend. Ari was hoping he would have been knocked out cold too.
He wasn't. He stood shakily, and after letting out a frustrated yell, he turned toward Ari and ran at her. She ducked to avoid his arms and the two of them tumbled over one another. Worm was holding his mouth as blood escaped from it. He must've hit his mouth off the sink, now even more angry than before.
"You little..." he mumbled
He grabbed her by the hair and dragged her towards one of the bathroom stalls, kicking the door open and throwing her back against the toilet. She cringed from the force and awkward angle her back hit.
Face still bleeding, like in his drugged out, angry state he had lost the feeling or notice of the pain. He unbuckled his belt, pushing his way into the stall in an attempt to grab Ari again.
When he reached for her hair again, also trying to pull his pants off with his other hand, Ari punched him in the kidney. He grunted, as he leaned forward in a surprised amount of pain, Ari pulled his face down and cracked it off the toilet. He didn't seem to move after that first hit, but Ari didn't stop until she couldnt make out who it was that she was beating.
She hit his head off the toilet so hard, and so many times there was chunks of ceramic mixed onto the floor with what was left of Worm. She stepped out of the stall and stood there, completely still, assessing and trying to catch her breath.
She stood there for quite a few minutes. Trying to get her emotions straight. She turned to the mirror, seeing herself covered in splatters of blood.
She stole the unconscious girls jacket, took her money and anything else on the two of them of value before she left. Flushing all the drugs she found on them, too. Clearly now it looked like a robbery gone too far.
After she threw the jacket on and let her hair down to try to cover the rest. She unlocked the bathroom door, and turned further down the hall, which was thankfully empty, and found the unattended back entrance of the club. It was only locked on the outside, so she exited out of it into the alley beside the bar.
Inside the alley, she saw two of the guys in the distance that she remembered from earlier with John. She walked over to them, and their conversation was cut short at the sight of her.
She stood in front of them and said nothing. They stared back without an idea of what to even say, until finally..
"No way.." the short, older guy grumbled.
Again, Ari said nothing. She was clearly in a state of shock, but they wouldn't know her well enough to know she was currently so unstable. The shock did put her into a very calm, well thought out place in her mind, and she felt like things were slowing down.
The guys lead her out of the alley towards the street parallel to the clubs street, where they had a car parked across the road waiting for them in another dimly lit alley way.
"Get in. We'll take you to Dom."
She climbed into the backseat without a word, and as they drove she stared out the window, replaying the nights events in her head. She definitely killed him, she knew that. No one spoke in the car until one of the guys in the front seat got a phone call.
"Yeah." he answered it.
"No, she's fine. Why?"
There was a long silence on his end before he hung up the phone and turned in the passenger seat to look back at Ari in amazement. She met his gaze boredly, before snapped her eyes back to the car window.
"What is it?" the driver asked the other guy.
"Nothing.. She did it. They think it was a robbery that went bad. Knocked out and robbed the girlfriend too.… How did you pull it off?" The passenger turned back to her to ask. She only shrugged.
"I hear she isn't much of a talker." the driver mentioned, and the two of them left her alone to her thoughts until they pulled into a parking lot with a single SUV parked in it. They parked side by side, and when the driver put the car in park, Ari got out and climbed into the back of the black SUV.
Dom was driving, and Sean was the passenger. Both vehicles took off in separate directions. Ari was the first to speak.
"Why didn't you follow the plan?" Ari wasn't upset, but she wasn't thinking straight right now, either.
"I am sorry. Apparently my men had doubts, and instead of trying to discuss them with me, they felt you needed to prove yourself on your own.." Sean then turned in his seat to lok at her. "You're not hurt?"
"Not badly, no." She remembered the hit to the spine, but she couldn't feel the pain anymore.
Dom was driving a little more aggressively than usual, but Ari made no effort to pay it anymore attention. Sean reached back with a fairly large stuffed envelope and Ari took it, putting it into her pocket without a glance or word.
"Daniel was paid directly. This is your own bonus as an apology." Sean said, and Ari nodded. Sean seemed to feel that was forgiveness enough for what happened, and Ari wasn't going to complain.
When they got to hotel the others were staying at, Sean drove off with the SUV with a wave. Dom lead her towards the inside, until she stopped suddenly in her tracks.
"I have to call Jackson." She was about to grab her phone, but jumped at the sound that came shortly after she spoke.
"Dom called me."
Jackson was already behind her, clearly. Coming from the back entrance of the hotel. Dom nodded good night to the two of them before he disappeared inside. Jackson came over to move her hair out of her face and pulled her jacket off to assess her state.
"You're in shock." He looked into her eyes, her pupils were diolated. She stared silently at him, not sure what to say or how to feel at the moment. She knew he was right, though. "Come on, kitten."
Jackson led her by the hand into the hotel by a secondary side door and down the hall of the first floor. He knocked on a room door, 125. Sid opened it, the relief of seeing that Jackson had Ari with him was obvious. Sid backed up and let them in.
She turned back around to face Sid, who had a better look at the state she was in now. She frowned at them both, not exactly sure what she was supposed to do, about anything, ever, at all... She just felt lost.