Filthy Dirty Laundry Vol. 2 Page 4

  “What is it?” Mitch pulls me close, cocking his head to one side. He looks confused. “Anyone would say you were uncomfortable! You're not uncomfortable, are ya?”

  I don't know what to say. If I say yes, I might spook him or make him angry, drive him to violence or send him over the edge. So I cough a little until I get my voice back and then whisper “no...” nervously, hoping he can see the reluctance in my eyes.

  “Good,” he says, smiling. His teeth are shiny white, although I detect a faded bruise on his mouth: evidence of a previous fight.

  I look down at his bloodied, bandaged hands. Did he really get them training, as he told me, or was there someone else he's been hitting recently?

  “Come on,” says Mitch Conway again. He pulls me back towards the main room of the suite. I hope that maybe Zack or Nick or Connor will be there to rescue me from this situation, but unfortunately it looks like the party's over by now. The room is completely empty. Except, that is, for me and Mitch.

  I try to get to my phone without Mitch noticing, but unfortunately his eyes are all over me. There's no chance of getting away. He's devouring me with his eyes: looking at me with a passionate and lustful stare.

  “Anyone ever tell you how fine you are, Miss Stone?”

  My heart skips a beat. Only Philip ever calls me “Miss Stone,” and even then there's something a little sexual about it. Like he's waiting for me to call him “sir” – which I do, sometimes. A shock of arousal comes to my cheeks and makes me blush as my body involuntarily recalls the sensation of Philip's hands on me, his mouth on me...passion that only yesterday took over my body. But now I'm in a strange hotel with a strange man in a strange city...how far I've come. Or how far I've sunk. I don't know.

  I have to act cool, I tell myself. Have to act like nothing's wrong. If Mitch Conway really is dangerous, the last thing I want to do is make him angry. He has to think that I'm enjoying all of this. He has to think that I'm entirely cool with all of this. That everything is fine. Dandy. Peachy. So I laugh my best flirtatious-little-girl laugh and coo in his general direction, batting my big Bambi lashes at him. “Aww....Mitch...” I say, tittering. I'm like fucking Little Bo Beep over here. “I bet you say that to all the girls you meet.”

  “Naw....” Mitch looks down and blushes. “Only the pretty ones....”

  Another note of doubt creeps into my voice as I laugh. Can this guy really be dangerous? He seems so nice – pathologically nice? Sure, he's stoned. And he's not the sharpest tool in the box. But there's a genuine warmth to him. If I weren't so wrapped up in Philip – I admit it, I'd almost be attracted to his down-home charm.

  “Sounds like another line,” it's slightly easier for me to smile now. “But I'll take the compliment...if you insist.”

  “Well, I do insist, miss...” jokes Mitch. He's looking at me, beaming, with the most radiant smile.

  “Well, I hope you don't get too insistent,” I say, still smiling. “Because I’m awfully sleepy...”

  “Naw...” he says again, laughing as he leans in for another kiss. His lips are pillowy and smooth. “Little Miss Innocent, are we?”

  My stomach clenches again: a presentiment of danger.

  “Why shouldn't I be innocent?” I say. “After all, I'm not used to hanging around with dirty rotten scoundrels like you.” I smile and bat those Bambi lashes one more time.

  “You're prim and proper, aren't you?” Mitch says. He's still holding my hand in his massive, heavy grip. “I've gotta admit, Sidney. I've been watching you all night. And you've got...something special about you, you know that. “

  “Oh, no...” I blush, trying to avoid his gaze. I want him to get off me, now, to go home, to get bored of me and decide he's ready to sleep. But somehow I don't think anything like that is going to happen.

  “Look, Sid, a lot of girls...they try to get access, you know. That's one of the reason that Zack and Connor and Bill are so careful about limiting my access to girls. They're afraid the wrong kind of girl will get access to my life. You know – con artists, grifters. They say there are a lot of them here. But you, you were different. You didn't try to throw yourself at me or get me to buy you drinks or anything. You were just kind of...maybe a little reserved. A little cold, if you don't mind my saying so. You were different from the other girls and I appreciated that a real lot, Sidney. You have class. I like that. Makes me think of how things were before I got famous. How things were back home. How girls were back home – though of course I was too shy to talk to any of 'em.”

  “I'm shy too...” I say. Finally, an in. “Listen – that stuff about me being...conservative. I really feel that way. It's not just an act. I'm not...comfortable doing a lot of things with a guy I just met. Is it okay if we just...maybe...sit for a while?” I take his hand in mine. “Holding hands?”

  Playing the virgin – that's certainly something after my adventures last night. Imagines of me and Philip rolling around in bed, exploring one another's bodies in ecstasy, flashes through my mind. I almost blush to think about them now.

  “I knew it...” Mitch beams. “They raised you right, huh?”

  “Who?”

  “Your parents, of course, silly!”

  My parents. My deadbeat alcoholic sitcom-failure dad and my Playboy model shiftless mom. Sure. They raised me right.

  Well, at least they raised me to not be stupid.

  But that's going to have to be good enough for now.

  “Want some room service?” Mitch turns to me. “I'm craving pizza myself. I'm starving.” He orders without waiting for me to reply: two pizzas, a few pasta, plenty of French bread. “And one of them bottles of nice Pee-not Gree-go.” It takes me a second to realize he means Pinot Grigio.

  “So, uh,” he says. Then he stops. Turns on the TV.

  “Sorry,” he says. “But Connor's in the next room and the walls are thin and I don't want them to hear.”

  “Sure,” I say. Hear what?

  “It's kinda personal.”

  “Go ahead,” I say. Looking smiley. Looking like not-a-FDL-journalist. “You can trust me.”

  Can we trust each other, I wonder?

  “I want you to be my girlfriend, Sidney,” he says. “I mean – you know. Like as a job. You get whatever you want. A monthly wardrobe, a stipend for spending money, tickets to all the ritzy industry events I go to. And I'll get you a place to stay out here. A nice condo near my place. A real nice place. Not super-luxurious but comfortable.”

  As long as it hasn't had a cockroach infestation in the past couple months it's probably a major improvement on my current digs. Still, this whole thing sounds super-sketchy.

  “Sound good?”

  I nod without meaning to. It's shock, rather than agreement, that causes my chin to go up and down like a fucking bobble head. So, Conway doesn't have a girlfriend – so he can't have beat up his girlfriend. But he wants me to be his girlfriend. Jeez, this guy is messed up.

  Note to self: don't ever let me get famous.

  “So, you must really want a girlfriend, huh?” I say.

  “Uh huh”

  “Any special reason?”

  He blushes. “Zack and Bill want me to be surrounded by girls all the time. But I think just one – you know. Is enough. Zack thinks it's good for my image for people to think I'm a playboy. I hate it, though. I know I'm supposed to want all these strange women touching and groping me all the time but to be honest it kind of creeps me out. I was raised pretty conservative. I don't even really want to be a playboy. I only want to have sex with someone I care about....”

  “You seem like a nice guy,” I say, smiling. Poor Mitch, I think. He's really in the wrong business – and the wrong city to boot. “Any girl would be lucky to be your girlfriend.”

  “Would you want to be my girlfriend?” he asks me.

  “Just as a PR thing...”

  “For now,” Conway says. “Just as a PR thing. Unless...”

  The doorbell rings. Conway stands up and goes to the
door. “Looks like pizza's here,” he says, opening the door.

  But instead of room service, it's three burly men with furious expressions on their faces.

  “What the...”

  The first one takes a swing to Conway's jaw: a sucker punch. He collapses to the ground unconscious.

  Then they come after me. I try to scream, but it's too late. I can't run. They're too big, too fast. One of the man presses his hand over my mouth to mute me. The other ties a mask around my eyes. The third cuffs my wrists together.

  We're both trapped.

  Chapter 8

  I hardly remember what happens next. It all goes by in a blur, and I'm so terrified that adrenaline spikes through my system, clouding my brain, overwhelming my judgment. I've never experienced anything like it before. I just – freeze. Just like that. My whole mind goes splat. And I'm completely unconscious, even though I'm staring out my open eyes. I've never felt like this in my whole life. It's just like a nightmare – one of those nightmares when the killer is coming closer and closer, brandishing his knife and grinning maniacally, and you can't do...anything. You can't move. You can't run. You can't even scream. Your feet are just planted to the floor like they're encased in concrete. And all the while the danger is coming ever nearer, ever closer. Doom is certain. That's how I feel.

  A list of the things I should do, the smart things to do, comes into my head, but it's like it's happening to someone else. It's like the person being handcuffed and knocked around is somebody else. This isn't me, no – I'm not the girl watching in the middle of the hotel suite as two big thugs in black balaclava masks knock out the greatest fighter the world has ever seen with a single sucker punch. I'm not the girl standing with her mouth open in a stupid shocked O as absolutely everything goes black, white, fuzzy, red all over.

  “S-s-stop...” That's what I want to say, but the words don't come out. My throat is dry. I'm parched and feel so sick, like I'm going to throw up all over the beautiful pristine MGM penthouse floor. My lips won't even part. My tongue won't move a centimeter.

  The thugs turn to me, next. One of them leers at me. I can't see his face but I can see his eyes: the cold, cruel, pitiless expression in them. Like he's used to killing before. Like he does it all the time. Like he'll do whatever it takes to get me out of the way, keep me quiet.

  Is this how I die? I wonder. Killed by a mysterious masked man? Not even because of something I did, but because I was unlucky enough to be next to someone else when they wanted him? A little bit of rage surges through me. I can't believe I'm going to die over a stupid gossip story about an MMA fighter.

  The thug leers. His teeth are yellow and his breath smells like a blister that's burst open.

  “We're taking you somewhere nice, my pretty,” he says. His voice is deep, gravelly. It's hard to make out his accent.

  Then he hits me, and everything goes black. I see stars.

  When I wake up, I'm somewhere I don't recognize. We're not in the suite, anymore, that much is certain. We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto, I think groggily as my eyes adjust to my newfound surroundings. Drip drip drip. That's the sound of a leaky pipe somewhere: a sound as neat and regular as clockwork. I'm wet – at least, I think I am. Then I realize that the viscous liquid trickling down my face isn't water at all. It's blood. My gorge rises. I feel sick: horrified.

  “Hello?” I try to call out, but I have no voice left. My hands are still bound behind my back. They've replaced the handcuffs of earlier, at least – now my hands are bound fast with tight cord.

  “Is anyone there?” I croak.

  “S-S-Sidney?” I hear a shivering voice next to me. I look over.

  It's Mitch Conway, and he's in a worse state than I am. They've tied him to a chair with rope, and he looks utterly defeated. They've roughed him up a little, and he's got a big black eye and a split lip. I can't help but feel sorry for him. The greatest MMA fighter for a generation and actually Mitch Conway can't fend off a couple of actual thugs who actually want to hurt him.

  “Well well well,” I snap to attention at the sound of the deep voice. It's the one I heard earlier. “Glad you're finally up. Now we can start to ahem – negotiate.”

  “Negotiate?” My eyes are finally able to adjust to the darkness and I can look around. I'm in a dark, dank room with tin walls. A warehouse of some sort, I'd guess. Somewhere far out of the center of Vegas. Somewhere where nobody can hear me scream....I bit my lip and gulp down my fear. I have to keep calm. “What are we negotiating, exactly?”

  “Shut up, bitch!” cries another of the masked men. He sounds stupider and less with-it than his boss. “I said, keep your mouth, shut?”

  “You ready to make a deal with us, Conway?” The lead thug gets into Mitch's face. “You ready to give us what we want?”

  “What's he talking about?” I whisper to Mitch. “What does he want?”

  “The fight...” he whispers.

  “What fight?”

  Then it hits me. The prize fight. The one coming up, with all those millions of dollars riding on the outcome.

  “They want you to do something about the fight?”

  “Yeah,” hisses Conway. “They want me to lose.”

  “I don't understand,” I say.

  “Let me spell it out for you...” The thug grimaces as he takes a step nearer, getting right in Conway's face. “Since clearly you didn't internalize our last message.”

  “I did!” Conway cries. “But my handlers...I can't not train!”

  “You're going to lose that fight, Conway,” says the thug. He takes another step closer and hits Mitch straight across the face. “When we beat up that girl – that tarnished your image, huh? A lot of people wondering if you weren't a sick little abuser.”

  “I didn't even know that girl!”

  “That's not what TMZ thinks,” leers the thug. “And Gawker – they're pretty sure, too, that you're going to get kicked out of the game and forfeit the money. But your sweet little boy act got too many people on your side. That puppy-dog face of yours convinces too many people. So I see we're going to have to try another way. When we beat up that model, you know – you know what story we told people? We forced her to tell people?”

  “No...” Mitch looks miserable. Like a kid that just wants to go home.

  “They all think that you beat up your girlfriend because she found you having an affair with a blonde bimbo. And, lookee here, looks like you are having an affair with a blonde bimbo...!”

  “I'm not...” Mitch begins, but I shush him. Better not to give too much away about who I am or what I'm doing here. If they find out that I'm a journalist, they might not let me walk out of this one alive.

  “Will you look at that?” The men turn towards me. “The girl wants you to shut up?”

  Shit, now I'm in trouble.

  “She thinks she can get lippy with you, Conway. And what do you do with girls who get lippy, huh? You should know all about that by now!”

  “NO” cries Mitch, but it's too late. The blow lands square on my cheek, reddening the skin and breaking my lip. I try not to cry out, but the pain's too great. Tears come to my eyes.

  “What will the public think when the girl you're cheating on your secret girlfriend with ends up beaten to a pulp, just like the first one...”

  “No!” Mitch cries again.

  But there's no point – no use. There's nothing he can do, I think bitterly. We're trapped – stuck.

  As the men walk towards me, I look for ways to escape, but they are all blocked. The look in their eyes are dead serious.

  “How would it look for your career, Mitch, if the tabloids got this headline?” the leader of the men said. “Mitch Conway, raped and killed a young woman at his party when she refused to have sex with him?”

  My eyes widened in terror at Mitch, as the men started unbuckling their belts and leered at me with a sickening lustful grin.

  Dear God, did I go too far in trying to get this story that it would cost both my life a
nd Mitch’s?

  *****

  Philip, Sidney, Kendall, and Johnson’s story continues in

  Book 3 of the Filthy Dirty Laundry Series

  Filthy Dirty Laundry 3 and 4

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