Chapter 4: Walker

“Vic, we have a problem.” Captain Walker’s voice was low and steady, like he was discussing a flat tire and not something that could bury them both. “Jenny called. The little bitch actually called the station.”

Vic exhaled through his nose, the cigarette between his fingers trembling slightly. The neon sign outside POP’S ADULT BOOKSTORE flickered, casting jagged shadows across his face. “Which Jenny?”

Walker chuckled darkly, the sound like gravel in a tin can. “Your whore Amanda, her friend Jenny. The skinny one with big tits, who always looks like she’s about to cry.” He paused, letting the weight of it settle between them. “She told dispatch she’d seen underage girls being moved through the club’s back rooms. Said she had names.”

Vic crushed the cigarette against the brick wall, grinding it until nothing remained but a smear of ash. His mind raced—he had been sloppy. Letting Amanda and Jenny be free. He’d warned them about telling anyone. He should have kept Amanda and Jenny in the basement like all the other girls. But he thought Jenny would keep her mouth shut when he gave her $1,000 a week plus 10 percent of the profits for using her girlfriend. He thought Jenny was smart and was like him, a pimp. When he found them in the arcade, Jenny was whoring Amanda to the boys for money.

The silence stretched between them, thick with unspoken threats. Vic could hear Walker breathing on the other end of the line, slow and deliberate. The club’s back door creaked open behind him, spilling yellow light onto the asphalt. One of the bouncers leaned out, his silhouette massive against the glare. “Boss?”

Vic ignored him, pressing the phone tighter to his ear. “What do we do now?”

“Relax,” Walker said, the smugness in his voice practically oozing through the receiver. “I intercepted it. Dispatch thinks it’s a prank call from some drunk college kid. But we can’t have her running her mouth again.” The unspoken order hung in the air like the stale scent of cigarette smoke clinging to Vic’s leather jacket.

Vic turned slightly, casting a glance at the bouncer still hovering in the doorway. “Get the car ready,” he muttered, then returned his attention to Walker. “I’ll handle Jenny. What about Amanda?”

“Amanda?” Walker’s voice dripped with amusement. “She’s already in the basement, isn’t she?

Vic’s jaw tightened, the muscle flexing under his stubble. “No,” he said, the word clipped. “She’s with Berry.”

Walker’s laughter crackled through the phone, colder this time. “She will be now, right?” It wasn’t a question. The click of a lighter echoed, followed by a long drag. Vic could almost taste the menthol through the receiver.

“Berry’s doing a BDSM and cherry-busting flick,” Vic said, rolling his shoulders like he was discussing the weather. “Got a crew in from Vegas. High-end shit—4K cameras.”

Walker exhaled sharply through his nose, the sound crackling over the line. “Jesus, Vic. You’re putting her in front of the cameras already?” Walker’s voice was sharp, halfway between disbelief and irritation.

Vic smirked, rolling his shoulders again as he leaned against the brick wall. “Relax, Cap. They’ll be careful—won’t show their faces. Just hers. Plus Momo is with Berry.” He paused, letting the implication settle before adding, low and knowing, “You want a copy of it?”

“Fuck yes,” Walker growled, the hunger in his voice unmistakable even through the phone’s static. Vic could picture him leaning back in his office chair, the leather creaking under his weight, fingers drumming against the armrest.

Vic chuckled, low and dark, as he pushed off the wall and strode toward the idling car. The bouncer held the door open, his face impassive under the streetlight’s sickly glow. “Berry’s not stupid,” Vic said, sliding into the backseat. The leather sighed under him, cool against his forearms. “He’s a billionaire and can get away with everything! I have to go, I’ll talk to you later.”

The car engine rumbled to life as Vic pulled the door shut, the tinted windows sealing him in a cocoon of muted street noise through the glass.

He tapped his knuckles against the divider—once, sharp—and the driver eased away from the curb without a word. Vic leaned against the seat back and dialed Berry’s number, listening to it ring while he watched the city blur past.

Berry picked up on the third ring, his voice smooth as aged whiskey. “Vic. Are you calling to check on your investment?” There was laughter beneath the words, the kind that made Vic’s teeth ache.

Vic exhaled through his nose, watching his reflection warp in the car’s tinted window as the streetlights streaked past. “How’s she doing?” he asked, keeping his voice casual, like he was inquiring about a car engine rather than a girl strapped to Berry’s custom-built Saint Andrew’s cross.

Berry chuckled, the sound rich and self-satisfied. “Oh, she’s perfect. She cried really pretty when we whipped her.

Vic’s fingers tightened around the phone, his knuckles going white against the leather seat. The city lights outside the car window blurred into streaks of neon as Berry’s voice dripped with amusement on the other end of the line. “I want you to put her in chains when you are done.”

“Chains? She’s already in them, my friend. Custom titanium—costs more than your last shipment of girls.” A wet sound in the background, then a muffled whimper that Vic recognized instantly. Amanda.

The car hit a pothole, jolting Vic’s teeth together. He didn’t blink. “Put her in the secondary set. The ones with the shock module.” Static crackled as Berry exhaled sharply. “Walker says she has been flapping her gums to that little friend of hers.” Another whimper, louder this time, followed by the unmistakable snap of a cattle prod. Amanda’s scream rattled through the phone’s speaker.

The scream cut off abruptly—Berry must’ve covered the receiver—but Vic could still hear the muffled sobs, the rhythmic clink of chains being adjusted. He pressed the phone harder against his ear, as if proximity could somehow make Amanda’s suffering more tangible. The car took a sharp left, tires screeching, but Vic didn’t flinch. His reflection in the window was a ghost of a smirk.

“Tell her to write a note,” Vic said. His voice was calm and conversational, like he was ordering a coffee. “A note to her dad that she is running away with Jenny. And I’ll make sure Jenny’s version matches.”

“Sure, we’re about done. She’ll be ready when you get here, and can Momo stay the night? I need to play with her tits?”

“No. She has a client in a couple of days.”

“Fuck.” Berry muttered, tapping the phone screen to end the call. Outside, the city lights streaked past in smears of sodium orange and neon blue. The driver hadn’t spoken once since they’d left Pop’s, and Vic liked it that way—silence was a commodity in his line of work.

Vic said to the driver, “Dex, go to Jenny’s house; we need to grab her.”

“Are you sure she’s home?” Dex muttered, leaning forward in the driver’s seat until his seatbelt went taut.

“Yes, I’m sure, I hope.”

Dex rolled the car to a stop half a block from Jenny’s place—a squat duplex with plastic flamingos planted crookedly in the front yard. One had lost its head. “Saw her Civic in the driveway when we passed,” he said. “Unless she traded it in for a bicycle.”

Vic cracked his knuckles against the back seat, the sound like dry twigs snapping. “Alive,” he repeated, as if tasting the word. “But not necessarily intact.” The corner of his mouth twitched upward when Dex shot him a sideways glance. “Relax, I know the drill. Just saying we’ve got options between roses and a body bag.”

“Dex, I’ll go in, you stay in the car.”

The radio hissed static, some distant station bleeding through the speakers like a ghost transmission. He reached over and twisted it off.

The car door creaked like an old bone as Vic shoved it open. He paused halfway out, one foot on the curb, and turned back to Dex with a look that wasn’t quite a smile. “Alive doesn’t mean unhurt,” he said, tapping his temple. “Just means she’s breathing when we’re done. And talking. Preferably screaming Amanda’s name.”

Dex exhaled through his nose, fingers drumming the steering wheel. The dashboard clock flickered—11:45, then 11:46. Time stretching like taffy. “Five minutes,” he said. “I’m circling the block. If you’re not back by then, I’m peeling out.”

Vic snorted, already halfway up the cracked sidewalk. The headless flamingo wobbled as he kicked it on his way past, sending it spinning into a patch of crabgrass. The front porch light buzzed faintly, throwing jaundiced squares across the warped door. He didn’t knock. The knob turned easily under his grip—unlocked, like she’d been expecting Amanda home soon. Or maybe just stupid.

The living room smelled like stale beer and microwaved burritos, the kind of greasy, lingering stench that clung to the walls of places where people stopped caring. Vic stepped over a pile of laundry—mostly men’s flannels and crusted socks—and eyed the lump on the couch. Jenny’s old man was out cold, one arm dangling over the edge, fingers brushing a half-crushed can of Miller Lite. His snores rattled the coffee table, where a pizza box sagged open, showing off two congealed slices and a single, defiant mushroom.

Vic moved past him like a shadow, the floorboards creaking under his weight. A hallway stretched to the left, doors cracked just enough to reveal slivers of darkness. The last one, slightly ajar, with a peeling Keep Out sticker stuck crookedly to the wood, had to be hers. He pushed it open with two fingers, the hinges sighing.

The bedroom smelled like cheap vanilla body spray and sweat, the kind of scent that clung to motel sheets after a long night. Jenny was sprawled across the mattress, one arm flung over her face, the other draped across her bare stomach. A thin sheet tangled around her legs, barely covering anything, her skin moon-pale in the dim glow of a salt lamp on the nightstand. A chipped I Heart NY mug sat beside it, half-full of something that might’ve been tea once.

Vic stood in the doorway for a beat, watching the rise and fall of her ribs. He stepped inside, toeing a pile of clothes out of the way. A denim jacket. A pair of lace panties. A half-eaten granola bar still in its wrapper.

Jenny’s breath hitched just slightly as Vic’s shadow stretched across the bed. She didn’t wake, but her fingers twitched against her stomach, nails digging faint crescents into her skin. Vic crouched beside the mattress, close enough to count the freckles dusting her collarbone. Close enough to see the bruise blooming along her ribcage, purple as a storm cloud. Her dad’s handiwork, probably.

The salt lamp flickered when he reached for Jenny’s wrist, casting jagged shadows up the wall. Her pulse fluttered under his thumb like a trapped bird. “Wakey wakey,” he murmured.

Jenny moved the bedsheet away and spread her legs apart. “Again, Daddy,” she said as she opened her eyes. Jenny’s gasp caught in her throat like a fishhook, her pupils dilating fast enough that Vic could almost hear them click. She jerked upright, the sheet slipping further, but she didn’t scream. Just stared at him with the same hollow-eyed look deer get right before they bolt or charge.

“Is Amanda ok?” Her voice was raspy, like she’d been crying or smoking too much. Probably both.

Vic tilted his head, the ghost of a smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. “Now why would that be your first question?” He kept his grip loose around her wrist, thumb still pressed to the frantic flutter beneath her skin. The salt lamp’s glow deepened the shadows under her bruise-colored, sleep-starved eyes.

Jenny swallowed hard, throat working. “Because she’s not answering her phone,” she whispered. “And you’re here.” Her free hand inched toward the nightstand, fingers brushing the edge of the chipped mug. Vic watched her with lazy amusement, like a cat letting a mouse think it had a chance.

Vic’s smirk widened at Jenny’s fingers twitching toward the mug. “Careful, sweetheart,” he murmured, watching her knuckles whiten around the chipped ceramic. “Amanda’s not picking up because she’s busy.” He leaned in, close enough to catch the way Jenny’s breath hitched. “You know where she is right now? That penthouse on 45th. You know who she’s with?” His thumb stroked the inside of her wrist, slow and deliberate. “Some silver-haired bastard with a Rolex and a thing for broken birds.”