Chapter 4: Rent Collector's Surprise
The pounding wasn’t rhythmic or polite. It was a fist hammering against the apartment door like it owed it money, each blow shaking the frame in its jamb. Boom. Boom. Boom.
Inside Logan’s bedroom, the sound was a distant thunder. Ashanti rode him, her body a slick, desperate arc in the milky dawn light seeping through the filthy window. His hands were locked on her hips, his fingers digging into the soft flesh, guiding the brutal, upward piston of his thrusts. She took him deep, her cunt stretched and burning, each impact jarring a choked gasp from her throat.
“Fuck, Logan,” she panted, her head thrown back. Her magic flickered; the discarded condom wrapper on the nightstand spontaneously crisped into black ash.
He grunted, a low, animal sound. His grey eyes were fixed on her face, watching her come apart. “Ignore it.”
Boom. BOOM. BOOM.
“Open the fuck up! I know you’re in there!” The voice was a guttural roar, muffled but unmistakable. Zenu.
In the living room, James groaned, lifting his head from between Jackie’s thighs. His mouth and chin were slick with her. “You gotta be shitting me.”
Jackie, sprawled bonelessly across the couch cushions, grinned up at him. Her violet hair was a vibrant magenta against the stained fabric. “Time’s up, baby,” she purred, not moving an inch.
The pounding intensified. “Rent! Now!”
“Fuck!” James snarled. He surged off the couch, his cock still hard and jutting, glistening from Jackie’s mouth. He stalked naked to the door, his muscles coiled with a rage that had nowhere else to go. He didn’t check the peephole. He just yanked the door open.
Zenu filled the doorway. The Oni landlord was a mountain of crimson flesh, his gut straining against a stained wife-beater, twin ivory horns curving from his brow. His small, black eyes bulged with fury. He held a clipboard like a weapon.
“Three weeks!” Zenu bellowed, spittle flying. “Three weeks you parasite fucks are late! This ain’t a charity!” His eyes dropped, taking in James’s naked, aroused state without a flicker of surprise. They swept past him to where Jackie still lay exposed on the couch, one leg hooked over the back. He sneered. “Selling it cheap today, whore?”
From the bedroom, Ashanti’s pace faltered. Logan’s grip tightened, his hips snapping up harder, a silent command. Don’t stop.
James didn’t blink. “We got it.”
“You got shit! You got until I finish this sentence to produce four thousand, two hundred, and sixty-seven dollars, or I start hauling your garbage to the curb!”
James turned, walked to the cracked coffee table, and picked up a thick, rubber-banded stack of bills from a pile of loose cash and baggies. He peeled off a few more notes from a second stack. He turned back and flung the wad.
It hit Zenu square in the broad, red chest. Bills exploded, fluttering in the doorway like green and white leaves. Two thousand dollars, give or take.
“There’s two grand. Take the rest out of our asses,” James said, his voice flat and deadly. “Now fuck off. We’re busy.”
For a long second, Zenu just stood there, his chest heaving. The fury in his eyes didn’t fade; it cooled, congealing into something more calculating and hateful. He looked down at the money at his feet, then back at James, then past him into the apartment—the squalor, the drugs, the naked succubus, the sound of frantic fucking from the back room. His gaze lingered on the dark, wet patch on the carpet where they’d tried to clean the blood.
He bent, slowly, with a grunt, and gathered the scattered cash. He didn’t count it. He stuffed it into the pocket of his sagging pants.
“This is a warning,” Zenu said, his voice dropping to a gravelly rumble. “Only one. The… atmosphere around here is changing. Bad for business. My business.” He tapped his clipboard. “Clean up your act. Or get cleaned out.”
He turned and lumbered down the hall, his heavy footsteps receding.
James slammed the door so hard the crack in the TV screen lengthened an inch with an audible snap. He stood there, breathing heavily, his back to the room.
In the bedroom, Logan heard the door slam. His rhythm broke. With a final, deep plunge, he held himself inside her, shuddering as he came. Ashanti felt the hot pulse, her own climax triggered by the violent finality of the sound, a smaller, secondary ripple clenching around him. They collapsed together onto the sweat-damp sheets, sticky and spent.
The apartment was silent, the air now thick with a different tension.
Ashanti pushed herself up on trembling arms. “What did he mean? ‘The atmosphere’?”
Logan was already moving, pulling out of her, disregarding the mess. He grabbed his jeans. “He means Sylvan Grove is leaning on him. Pressure from upstairs. They’re making the ground hostile.” He zipped his fly. “James!”
James walked into the bedroom doorway, leaning against the frame. “I heard.”
“We’re accelerating. The Nacre, the Red-Eye, everything in the stash. We move it by tomorrow night. Before they can cut off our buyers or convince Zenu to change the locks.”
Jackie appeared behind James, wrapping his discarded t-shirt around herself. Her hair had dulled to a wary slate grey. “He wasn’t just talking rent. He was scouting. He saw the carpet.”
“He saw a problem,” Logan corrected, pulling a worn duffel bag from his closet. “We need to turn that product into cash, and then we need to find a new hole to operate from. They want to flush us into the open? Fine. We’ll be waiting. With teeth.”
Ashanti got off the bed, her body aching. She felt raw, used in too many ways. The adrenaline of the fuck was gone, replaced by a cold, sinking dread. “The pharmacy… Gotherik. If they’re squeezing landlords, they might squeeze employers.”
Logan looked at her. “Can you get the rest of the inventory today? Everything you can carry.”
She nodded. “He’ll want a fuck. A long one.”
“Give it to him,” James said, no humor in his voice. “Drain him dry and take everything in the back room. This is scavenge time.”
The plan formed in the grim air. James would reach out to their street contacts, setting up bulk deals, slashing prices for quick turnover. Logan would touch base with Dre and the higher-ups in the Black Aces, seeing what support, if any, would be coming. Jackie would work her clients, listening for whispers about Sylvan Grove movements or safe properties.
Ashanti showered quickly, the water doing little to cleanse the feeling of impending doom. She dressed in practical dark clothes, pulling her hair into a tight bun. She packed a large, empty tote bag.
The walk to the pharmacy was tense. Every passing car felt like a threat. The storefront, with its flickering neon ‘Rx’ sign, seemed smaller, more vulnerable.
Inside, the bell chimed. The smell of antiseptic and dust was familiar. Gotherik, a gaunt man with perpetually greasy hair and nervous eyes, looked up from behind the counter. His expression shifted from boredom to a familiar, hungry gleam when he saw her.
“Ashanti. You’re early.”
“Need the hours,” she said, forcing a smile that felt like a cracked plate. She came around the counter. “Slow morning?”
“Dead.” His eyes travelled over her body. “I was just about to inventory the back. Could use… help.”
“I bet you could,” she murmured, letting her hip brush against his as she passed.
The back room was cramped, shelves lined with overstock and controlled substances locked in a flimsy cabinet Gotherik thought was secure. He barely had the key turned before she was on him.
She pushed him against the cold metal shelving, her mouth on his, her hands fumbling with his belt. It wasn’t desire. It was excavation. He groaned into her mouth, his hands clawing at her ass through her jeans.
“Get them off,” he panted.
She obliged, shoving her jeans and panties down her thighs. He didn’t wait. He turned her around, bending her over a box of adult diapers. He yanked his pants down just enough to free his thick, heavy cock. He spat into his hand, slicked himself, and shoved into her from behind.
Ashanti braced her hands on the box, her eyes fixed on the locked cabinet. He was fucking her with short, frantic strokes, his body slapping against hers. He was mediocre, always was. She closed her eyes and thought of Logan’s commanding grip, James’s reckless energy, the brutal, mind-numbing fill of the half-orcs. She conjured the heat, stoking the magical energy in her core, not for pleasure, but for distraction.
A wave of thermal energy pulsed from her skin. Gotherik yelped. “Jesus, you’re hot!”
“Just fuck me,” she growled, pushing back against him.
He resumed, moaning. She timed it. As his breathing hitched, signaling his approaching end, she let her hand drift to the ring of keys jangling at his hip. With a deft twist, she freed them.
He came with a whimper, collapsing against her back. She clenched around him, milking him, keeping him docile and spent for a few extra seconds. She pocketed the keys.
“Wow,” he breathed, slumping away. “Just… wow. Give me a minute.”
“Take your time,” she said, pulling her clothes up. “I’ll start on the inventory out here.”
He stumbled to the small bathroom, locking the door. The shower started.
Ashanti moved. She fit the key into the cabinet lock. It clicked open. Her tote bag gaped. She emptied shelves: bottles of potent painkillers, tightly packaged stimulants, vials of sedatives. She took everything, replacing some items with empty boxes to buy time. She filled the bag until it strained at the seams.
She heard the shower stop. She relocked the cabinet, wiped the keyring of her prints, and slid it back onto the hook by the register just as Gotherik emerged, hair wet, looking flushed and satisfied.
“Feeling better?” she asked, zipping the now-heavy tote bag closed.
“Worlds better. You’re a lifesaver, Ashanti.”
You have no idea, she thought. She hefted the bag. “I’m gonna run these expired things to the disposal in the back alley. Be right back.”
He nodded, already tidying his desk.
She walked out the back door into the alley. She didn’t stop at the disposal bin. She kept walking, turning the corner, moving fast, the weight of the stolen pharmaceuticals a palpable promise of capital and conflict. The bag bumped against her leg with every step, a clock counting down to the next confrontation. Zenu’s warning echoed. The atmosphere was changing. It was becoming hard to breathe. And when wolves are cornered, they don’t whimper.
They bite.