by Tate James
"I'll explain everything when I get home," I told him in a soft voice, reaching out to place my hand on his cheek. Tilting his face back toward me, I rose up on my toes to press a light kiss on his lips.
He gave a frustrated sound as he weaved his fingers into the back of my hair. "You're sending me back to the house, aren't you?"
I nodded, hearing Cass's motorcycle rumble closer by the second.
"I can stay," Lucas tried to tell me, a frown creasing his brow. "Maybe I could be useful, somehow."
Instead of answering him—because the answer was a firm hell no—I kissed him again. He knew what I was doing, but kissed me back hard, his fingers in my hair holding me tight as he devoured my mouth. I lost myself in his kiss for a moment, my body arching into his. Then I reluctantly peeled myself free and shot a guilty look at Cass—who'd just pulled up beside us on his bike.
"You got a death wish or something, Wilder?" Cass growled, glaring pure death at Lucas.
"Quit it," I snapped before that confrontation could escalate. "Cass, I need you to take Lucas home to Zed's place."
The big biker shifted his gaze to me, his scarred brow rising slightly. "What's going on, Red?"
"That's what I'm about to find out," I told him with a grim expression. "Here, take Zed's car." I held the keys out to him, figuring he probably didn't want to cozy up to Lucas on the back of his bike. "Just... make sure Lucas gets back to Zed's safely. He's still an easy target for Chase."
Cass wrapped his hand around my wrist rather than taking the keys from my fingers. With a sharp tug he pulled me close and planted his lips against mine in a clearly possessive move.
I kissed him back a moment because I craved his kisses like a drug. Then I pushed free of his grip and clicked my tongue in warning.
"If you two are both quite finished pissing on me like a tree, I have someone waiting to be tortured in the basement." I levelled a warning glare at the both of them. "Stay alive. Both of you. Or you'll have me to answer to."
Leaving them to hopefully not kill each other, I strutted my ass back inside the fun zone and headed for the cold room.
Several more of my more trusted Timberwolves were posted along the corridor, no doubt tasked with stopping my Copper Wolf bartenders and waitresses from accidentally stumbling into what was quite definitely Timberwolf business. Some days the two facets of my business blended so smoothly, while others the lines were clearly drawn.
Fang hauled the heavy refrigerator door open for me as I approached, and I gave him a tight smile of appreciation. I was glad to know all the faces I'd just passed had been cleared in Alexi's investigation. It would have pissed me right off had my judgment been off on any of those men.
"Gumdrop safely on his way home?" Zed taunted as I stepped up beside him. The man who’d thought he could lay hands on Gigi was now bound to a metal chair in the middle of the walk-in fridge, the ropes holding his arms and legs tied in a decidedly decorative pattern. Either Zed was showing off or I'd taken longer handing Lucas to Cass than I realized.
"You're acting like a jealous girlfriend, Zayden," I muttered with an eyeroll. "Maybe you just need to get laid. I'm sure Zoe would make time for you when we're done here."
Zed scowled. "Chloe. And I stopped seeing her weeks ago when she asked if I would meet her parents."
I snickered. "Well, whatever. You've got enough random pussy in your contact list; I'm sure you can sort it out."
That comment seemed to piss him off more, and he folded his arms with a huff that created steam in the cold air. A deep shiver ran through me, like my body had just remembered we were standing in a cool room, and I rubbed my upper arms.
"Fucking hell. Let's get on with this." I eyed up our victim and grimaced at my lack of equipment. My metal woven gloves had been in my apartment when it went up, which was just fucking great.
"Here," Zed muttered, handing me a set of brass knuckles from his pocket. I arched a wide smile at him, and he rolled his eyes. "You've looked like you were itching for a fight all damn day. Have at him." He nodded to the hairy man tied to the chair. He was still gagged, but neither one of us was bothered by that fact. They never talked on the first hit anyway.
Threading my fingers through the metal loops, I gave a soft laugh. "You know me so well, Zed." I took a step closer to the bound and gagged man and swung a vicious punch that made a sickening crunch and sent blood arcing across the cold room.
"Better than anyone, Dare," Zed muttered behind me. Then he stood back and watched intently as I indulged in my own form of therapy and shook some information free at the same time.
Disappointingly, it was only a few minutes before the hairy-shouldered wannabe gangster was screaming muffled pleas behind his gag. Zed tugged the gag away, letting the creep talk, and boy, did he feel chatty.
To our disappointment, though, he knew very little of importance. He'd been recruited after he was picked up for assault and battery against his ex-wife, then released by a dirty cop. A man whose description I didn't recognize was the one who'd given him the tattoo and assigned him this task.
When Zed and I were satisfied we'd extracted everything of use from the piece-of-shit woman basher, Zed put a bullet through his skull.
"Thanks," I muttered, wiping thick blood-goo from my chest. "Couldn't have waited until I’d moved a little further away?"
Zed's lips twitched like he was trying not to laugh at me. "You've got a little something here, boss." He indicated to his forehead, and I swiped a hand over my own. It came away wet with blood, but given how thoroughly I'd beaten the shit out of that guy before he’d died, it was no great shock.
Shooting Zed a glare, I stepped over the mess we'd made and pushed the cold-room door open.
Fang was still waiting outside, and his brows shot right up when he saw me. Zed must not have been bullshitting, because Fang's eyes went to my forehead straightaway. I bet I had a chunk of skull or something stuck in my hair.
"Uh, boss, we didn't want to interrupt earlier," Fang said, stepping aside to let Zed and I pass. "But Cass from the Reapers sent one of his men over. Dropped this off for you." He indicated to a nondescript duffel bag against the wall. It looked largely empty, so I gave Fang a confused look. "Dunno, boss. We told him he couldn't be here and shit, but he said Cass ordered him to deliver that."
Zed swiped the bag up and tugged the zipper open before giving a short laugh. "What a smooth motherfucker," he muttered, handing the bag to me.
Inside was a clean set of clothes and a thick packet of wet wipes. Smooth motherfucker indeed, that was one way to show he was thinking of me.
Cassiel Saint was really living up to the promises in his love letter.
20
As thoughtful as Cass's care package had been, the wet wipes weren't totally necessary. Zed and I headed through to the dancers’ changing rooms and borrowed the showers there to rinse off the worst of the blood. The change of clothes was appreciated, though, and I threw my silk blouse straight in the trash.
"Oh my god," Zed groaned when I emerged from the changing room squeaky clean. My hair was wet—there had been no avoiding washing it—and my makeup gone, and I was wearing activewear—skin-tight yoga pants and a cropped sweatshirt that showed off my toned stomach.
"What?" I demanded, slinging the bag, now containing my bloody skirt and heels, over my shoulder.
He just arched a brow and shook his head. "Nothing. Let's get out of here before our staff see you looking like a real human being."
We took the service corridors to get out to the staff parking lot, and Zed opened the passenger door to his Ferrari for me.
"I should probably drive Cass's bike back for him," I commented, but Zed prodded me to get into his car instead.
"He probably got his guys to pick it up earlier," Zed said with a shrug, climbing into his own seat. "Besides, I like driving you."
I snorted a laugh. "Driving me crazy, more like. You ready to talk to me about that temper tantrum yesterday?"
&n
bsp; His hands tightened on the steering wheel under the leather creaked. "Nope."
"Cool. Good chat, Zed."
I'd been joking, but apparently he wasn't. He didn't say another word for the whole drive home, and I was too busy muttering insults at him in my head to attempt any change of topic. Anyone who wanted to come at me for being childish could kiss my ass. Everyone did it, no matter how old they were.
By the time we’d parked in Zed's garage, I was in a shitty mood myself. I slammed Zed's car door way harder than necessary and bit back a smirk at the angry sound it extracted from him in response.
The sounds of conversation echoed through the halls toward us, making me pause midstep. When it sounded like someone laughed, I gave Zed a puzzled frown. He just shrugged in return and nodded for me to precede him toward the kitchen as he pulled his gun out.
Suspicious fuck. Not that I was arguing; something felt seriously off.
As we approached the voices got louder until I recognized them. Then I needed to second-guess my own hearing because I could have sworn I just heard Cass laugh at something Lucas had said.
What in the—
"Babe!" Lucas was the first to see me as I entered the kitchen with Zed on my heels.
Cass looked over at me with a lazy smile on his lips and a half-smoked joint between his fingers. Ah. That explained that.
Zed put his gun away, brushed past me, and turned around to mouth babe in the most infuriatingly condescending way known to man. Prick. I flipped him off, then headed over to the dining table where Cass and Lucas had apparently been playing with knives.
"What... is going on?" I asked them both, eyeing the seven-inch hunting blade currently sticking out of Zed's wooden tabletop. A deck of cards sat off to the side in a messy pile, and a couple of half-drunk beers completed the scene.
"You're buying me a new table, asshole," Zed snapped, glaring at Cass as he pulled out a chair and sat down.
"Just killing time until you got back," Lucas told me with a grin, accepting the joint from Cass and taking a drag. Based on his droopy eyelids, I'd guess it wasn't their first.
Cass sat back in his chair, slouching in that sexy, tall-man kind of way as he blatantly eye fucked me. "Everything okay at Anarchy?"
"None of your fucking business," Zed grunted, answering for me. Cass levelled a threatening glare at my best friend, and Zed met it stubbornly.
Mother-shitting tit balls. That drama needed to be nipped, and I was having a hard time seeing any better moment than the present.
Pulling out a chair, I sat down and plucked the remains of the joint from Lucas's fingers. I took one long drag, finishing it, then dropped the butt into one of the mostly empty beer bottles.
"Alright," I announced. "Let's clear the air before our secrets and miscommunications lead to one of us being kidnapped, tortured, or possibly killed. Shall we?"
Lucas coughed a small laugh. "Yep, that seems like a sound plan, babe."
I wrinkled my nose. "Sorry. I meant again. I can't even remember who knows what at this stage, so I'm just going to... lay it all out there and make sure we're all on the same page."
Zed gave a sound of protest, shaking his head. "Dare, they're not—"
"I know," I snapped, shooting him a vicious glance. "I know. They're not even Timberwolves. Hell, Cass is the Reaper, for fuck’s sake. But sue me, I like them both. So whether you agree or not, they're involved in this."
Zed wasn't backing down so easily, though, his eyes flashing with stubborn defiance and his chin lifting in a way that said he was ready to fight me over this decision. He'd have lost. So it was a damn good thing the gate buzzer sounded and broke our staring contest.
"Who the fuck is that?" Zed demanded, swinging an accusing glare at Lucas.
He raised his hands defensively. "Don't look at me."
Cass just shrugged and sipped his beer. "I was hungry. Figured you might be too." He eyed me carefully as he said that, like he was trying to see inside my mind.
Zed grumbled shit about his privacy and security but went to answer the gate buzzer anyway. As usual, he waited with his gun ready for the delivery driver to drop the food at the front step. Only once the driver was gone did he step out and collect the bags.
Paranoid? Sure. But better safe than sorry.
"Where the fuck did you even order from?" Zed demanded, carrying the food back through to us in the kitchen. "This isn't one of our restaurants."
By our, he meant a Timberwolf establishment. We had slowly bought up all our favorite eateries in the area so that we knew—or had more confidence—that we wouldn't get poisoned ordering take-out. And I didn't mean that as a euphemism; there had been an incident in the past where a gang leader was assassinated through arsenic in his Chinese food.
So Zed and I tended to stick with places we knew and controlled.
"It's safe." Cass... man of many words.
Zed arched a challenging brow. "Says who? You? For all we know, you deliberately ordered a special meal to take out the competition."
Cass scoffed a husky laugh—damn that was a sexy sound—and shook his head in disbelief. "If I wanted you dead, De Rosa, you'd—"
"Stop it!" I snapped, slamming my hand down on the table. "I've had enough. Sit down, shut up, and don't fucking speak unless you're spoken to."
With fire in my eyes, I glared all three of them into submission—not that Lucas needed it—then stood up and dragged the bags of food closer to inspect.
I recognized the logo on the napkins as I pulled out cardboard boxes of food and gave a small smile. "I didn't know Nadia's delivered."
Nadia's Cakes was an awesome coffee and cake shop in Reaper territory, but she also did awesome meals and burgers.
"They don't," Cass replied. "I just thought you might want some real food when you got back, rather than frozen dinners or whatever the fuck Zed has in his kitchen."
I bit back the urge to laugh, and Zed was clearly having a hard time not reacting to that dig.
"Quit it," I scolded Cass. "Zed's a fucking fantastic cook, and you damn well know it. This smells amazing, though. Thank you."
I pretended to ignore the antagonistic looks passing between Cass and Zed because, for fuck’s sake, they weren't teenagers. Hell, the only teenager in the room was acting the most emotionally adjusted out of the lot of us.
After opening all the boxes of food to display a range of mouthwatering steaks, chicken wings, fries, and various other sides, I went to the kitchen to retrieve plates and cutlery. Lucas—shocker—got up to help me, and when I murmured my thanks, he informed me that his mother had raised him with manners.
At that comment both Cass and Zed turned their glares on Lucas, and I couldn't fight my snort of amusement.
"Okay, calm down," I told them, rolling my eyes. "Eat your food before it gets cold. I'll talk and you three can just listen."
No one argued with that, but Zed did keep glaring in my direction like he wanted me to kick Lucas and Cass out and keep our problems private. Too bad. Things had already escalated past that point. Way, way past that point.
"Alright." I drew a deep breath then released it in a long sigh. "Where do I even begin on this?" It was rhetorical, a filler phrase while I tried to gather my thoughts.
But Cass answered me anyway. "Start with Chase Lockhart. Start at the beginning. How'd you two meet?"
My gaze flicked up instantly, locking with Zed's pained eyes across the table. Cass didn't realize it, but he'd struck right on the turning point in my life. So yeah, what better place to start explaining than my fucked up history with Chase Lockhart?
A grim smile curved my lips as I held Zed's sad gaze. "In hindsight, I should have seen this whole violent mess coming," I said with a small laugh. "I met Chase—and Zed—when they tried to kill me."
Zed's face softened with nostalgia, and I grinned at the stunned expressions on Cass’s and Lucas's faces.
"In fairness," Zed added, rubbing his palm across the stubble on his cheek, "I was
just along for the ride."
I rolled my eyes but couldn't fight the smile on my face. "Yeah, whatever. Anyway, knowing what I know now, that was a really big red flag for how things would turn out with Chase." I grimaced and combed my fingers through my damp hair. "I was ten. After that, my father decided to send me to Phillip D'Ath's training camp so I wouldn't ever be an easy target for his enemies again."
Zed gave a grim smile, taking over my story. "Little did Garrett Timber realize Chase and I were enrolled in the same season. Because we'd failed to execute the Timber princess, our families had lost faith in our potential to lead the next generation of criminal syndicates." He pushed his half-eaten plate away and went to the kitchen to grab a beer.
I rubbed a hand over the back of my neck, remembering. “Chase and I bonded over our mutual interest in learning how to kill a man seventeen ways without a weapon.”
"Seventeen ways with just your hands?" Lucas asked, an amused smile playing across his full lips.
Shit. He was so stoned. Maybe this wasn't the best time to have this discussion after all.
"I'm gonna fast-forward this," I decided out loud, "and just hit the key points for now. We can go into details another day."
Cass jerked a nod of understanding, but I could see a million questions buzzing behind his eyes.
"Chase Lockhart," I explained for Lucas's benefit, "was the oldest son, the heir, to the Lockhart fortune. They were known on paper as an old-money family who’d made their fortune in the stock market. In reality they ran drugs and dabbled in human trafficking."
Lucas's brows rose in surprise, but he didn't interrupt. I appreciated that.
"He and I started dating when we were really young—too young to have any fucking clue what we were doing." I heaved another sigh, bitter at my own past self.
Zed placed a beer down in front of me, then touched his leg to mine under the table. "You were," he corrected. "Chase wasn't. He knew, he just didn't care."
I hummed a sound that was neither agreement nor disagreement. Sad fact of matter was that by the time I’d worked it all out, it was far too late. Kill or be killed, and we all knew which option I'd taken to escape.