HARDCORE: Storm MC(21)

His brow furrowed. “Your sister? I didn’t know you have a sister. No. What about her?”



The wetness that threatened behind my eyes started falling down my face. My voice managed to scratch out, “I had a sister. Had, Dom. Tania. Joey Ronn killed her. Or had her killed. I don’t know. Either way, it was him. So I have to get him back. I have to, Dom. I have to.” I kind of dissolved into my hands.



Dom didn’t just sit there. He pulled me across the couch, turned me so I was cradled in his lap with both my legs draped over his and my back resting half against the couch and half against his chest. He pulled my head back to his shoulder and draped one arm across my upper back, the other resting on my outer hip. He was like a big man-couch. I was breathing in his scent, cuddled in his muscular heat. I was crying on his freaking shoulder, for god’s sake, getting him all sloppy wet, and he just held me through it.



“Tell me what happened, Sienna.”



“I don’t really know the whole thing. But Tan—she wasn’t easy, you know? She was my little sis, five years younger than me. I took care of her, since we were little. But she wasn’t easy. We got on okay, but it was hard. So after I got this gig at the club, I figured, this isn’t bad, and it’s good money, so if both of us are there, we’d have each other’s backs and we’d make like double the money, and we’d be solid, for the first time in forever.



“It started out good. She wasn’t the greatest dancer; it didn’t come naturally for her like it does me, but she could hold her own. I taught her a lot, we’d practiced. She was doing all right. But then, I don’t know, I think Mr. Ronn got to her. Started talking to her about other ways of earning bigger bucks, and it turned her head.



“She was always looking for the easy way out, of pretty much everything. It got her messed up some in high school; she dropped out when she was fifteen. She had gotten into drugs and was drinking too much, ya know? But I finally got her cleared of that mess. Or, I thought so. Maybe not.



“Anyway, the Hardcore scene—hell, maybe I fucked up really badly, bringing her into that. Maybe it made her think less of using her body for money. I never really thought of it like that. I feel like I control what happens with me there, you know what I mean? But maybe, Tania… maybe she felt like, what difference does it make what I do, if it makes more money?”



My mind drifted in that direction, and I got lost in my thoughts for a few minutes.



Dom brought me back to the moment. “So let me guess. Joey Ronn talked her into doing one of his movies.” He totally got it.



“Yeah. Only, something must have happened. Bad. Because Tania never came back, that first day she went to the set. She just never came home. And Mr. Ronn… Mr. Ronn, he just—he laughed—” And my tears got me again.



Dom waited me out, not letting me go. He was like a rock, warm and solid, letting me find my breath again.



“When was this, baby?” he asked softly.



“Just about two months ago. Maybe a little more. End of February. That weekend we had that big snow, you remember?”



He grunted but didn’t say anything more. It was like his mind had drifted off, too. We sat there in silence for a bit, thinking our own thoughts, lost in hazes of memories and mazes of questions.



Dom brought us back to point. “So what else do you know about it? Who else was there? Did Ronn ever say anythin’ to you about it?”



My breath shot out a single ha. “I know it was a porno that she was filming. I don’t know what it was about, but I do know that there was some big secret about it, that Tania wasn’t telling me. She said she was gonna make extra big bank for doing it, not like a typical porno. That he wanted her, special, for it.



“I was the one who dropped her off at the warehouse where they were gonna film it. It was out of town, almost an hour away, by all these industrial parks and warehouses. She was going to get a ride back to Hardcore when she was done, so I didn’t expect to see her till that night. But then she never showed up.



“When I didn’t see her at Hardcore that night, I asked him where she was, and his eyes went all squinty, and then he laughed like some little evil gremlin, and he said, ‘Yeah, Sienna, your little sister, she’s something. I don’t think you’re gonna see her tonight. She’s kind of gone out. Took off. Yeah, she’s took off. The, uh, MC guy took care of that. Found her a nice little hole to lay low in. She won’t be rising up anytime soon. You put her outta your mind, now. No more questions, you hear? Let her go, be all the better for you.’