“Nobody sent me,” she insisted.
“So, you want to fuck, huh?”
Bianca noticed that every time he got angry and started cussing, she could hear his Latino accent come out.
“Well, guess what, puta? You are the one who is about to get fucked!” He angrily walked over to the door and banged on it. The fact that he couldn’t get out on his own let Bianca know that the door locked from the other side.
“Yeah, boss,” a man said as he opened the door, gun drawn. “You okay in here?”
“I’m okay,” the boss replied. He then looked to Bianca. “But that one over there isn’t.” He looked at Bianca with a wicked grin on his face. “She came here to get fucked, so before she goes home tonight, make sure she gets exactly what she came for.” His evil grin spread further before he exited the door, leaving Bianca alone in the room with the stranger. With one last remark, he maniacally teased, “By the way, my name is Fitz.”
CHAPTER 18
“Are you okay?” Sammy asked after he pulled up in front of The Den, practically on two wheels, and jumped out of the taxi. He’d even left his door open. He rushed over to Bianca, who looked like she was recovering from the worst hangover in the world. He grabbed her by the elbow to walk her over to the taxi.
Bianca jerked away from Sammy. “I’m fine,” she snapped.
Sammy held his hands up in surrender. When she realized her words had come out a lot harsher than she’d meant them to, she said it again, much softer. “I’m fine.”
Sammy walked over and opened the door for Bianca. He didn’t try to touch her again to help her inside the vehicle. Once she was all the way inside, he closed the door and got back into the driver’s seat.
“Back to the Marriott?” Sammy asked, putting the car in drive. He looked in the rearview mirror at Bianca.
Bianca had her ripped dressed wrapped around her, clutched in her hand along with her purse. With her heels still on, she sat with her feet up under her, staring out of the window. She looked like her mind was in a faraway place.
Sammy exhaled. He’d seen things like this before. Not this Bianca literally, but in other young girls like her, girls who thought they were big and bad and grown enough to handle cities like Miami and places like The Den, only to be in for a rude awakening. He didn’t even bother repeating himself. He just drove slowly through the five a.m. early morning streets with barely any traffic, trying hard not to hit any bumps. His mission was to perhaps give her time to gather her thoughts. Maybe even to possibly forget anything that could never be forgiven.
A half hour later, Sammy pulled up to the Marriott. He looked in the rearview mirror at his passenger. She was still in the same position. She hadn’t budged. Probably hadn’t blinked an eye either. “We’re here,” he announced as sympathetically as he could. Still, Bianca didn’t respond. He got out of the car and went and opened the door for her.
Even after doing so, it took a minute for it to register in Bianca’s head that the cab was sitting in front of the hotel. She looked around the cab, not that there was really anything for her to gather, with the exception of her clutch. She then pulled her feet from up under her, flinching at the pain of forcing her legs to move after having been in the same position for so long.
Again, Sammy didn’t try to help her out of the cab. He just let her manage on her own in getting out, which was pretty difficult for Bianca to do while trying to hold her dress together. Once Bianca got out of the car, she stood and adjusted her dress as best she could. It didn’t necessarily look torn. It did make it look like she had gone overboard on the slit up the side, which really wasn’t a slit at all.
She looked right past Sammy. He was staring into her blank, empty, lifeless eyes. In just the blink of an eye, she was no longer that same young woman full of zest that he’d dropped off at the club just a few hours ago. She’d been violated. He’d seen that same look before in other women’s eyes that had hopped into the backseat of his car after a wild night that got out of control, having drunk too much, been slipped a Mickey, or just outright violated. Their souls were gone.
Bianca took a step toward the hotel doors. “Oh,” she said, stopping in her tracks. “The fare.” She opened her purse. Just when it seemed her facial expression couldn’t have gotten any gloomier, it did. She stared down into her near empty purse. There was nothing there.
Her money was entirely gone. Eight one-hundred dollar bills and loose bills were gone. There were no pills, either, or her phone. Everything was gone; there was just a tube of opened red MAC lip-gloss that had spilled everywhere, and Sammy’s business card. She’d placed it back in her clutch after being allowed to call him for a ride to come pick her up from the club. She was too relieved to be getting out of that spot to even notice her missing items.
“Don’t even worry about it.” Sammy waved his hand. “This one’s on the house.” It wasn’t really on the house considering that Bianca had overpaid him each time he’d driven her somewhere.
“No, just let me go upstairs to my room and get you some money.” Bianca had only carried a thousand dollars on her that night in the form of ten one-hundred dollar bills. She was glad, seeing as though someone
