by Susan Stoker
She shook her head at him playfully, but nodded and brought a hand up and rested it on the back of his head. “Sounds good.”
Blake went to move off her to stand, but she stopped him.
“Blake?”
“Yeah, sweetheart?”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For being you. For being worth the wait.”
Blake’s decision to leave the apartment was seriously compromised by her words, but he gritted his teeth and held firm. “I promise you it’ll so be worth the wait.”
“I know it will. I have no doubts. So, thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Now come on, quit trying to seduce me.”
She smiled happily. “Could I seduce you?”
“In a heartbeat, Lex. In a fucking heartbeat.” He moved then, standing by the couch and holding out a hand to help her up. He pulled her into a long hug when she was upright, memorizing the feel of her smaller body against his own.
Finally, he pulled back. “Let’s go.”
“Okay. But Blake?”
“Yeah?”
“I need to change my panties first.”
She said it with such a neutral tone it took a moment for it to register. When it did, all he could do was close his eyes and mutter, “Fuck me.”
When he opened his eyes, she was grinning mischievously at him. He hoped when they were old and gray she could still manage to surprise him.
Chapter Ten
Alexis took a deep breath and knocked on the door of the ramshackle house, Blake’s instructions and tips on staying safe running through her head. The house looked like she’d expected: run-down and creepy. Exactly the type of place she would assume Damian and the Inca Boyz lived in. The sooner she got this party out of the way, the sooner she could get Blake Anderson in her bed. He was her reward for getting through one more excruciating experience; at least that’s how she was looking at it.
She and Blake had killed time that afternoon, getting ice cream and walking around downtown Denver, holding hands and sharing light romantic kisses. She’d learned a lot about him. He liked to read nonfiction books, mostly about military ships, and he hated green vegetables. She’d listed as many as she could think of, asking individually if he liked them. Asparagus, green beans, peas, broccoli, brussels sprouts, spinach, okra, kale, lima beans. He’d just laughed and told her no after each one. It was so . . . weird . . . it was cute.
She, in turn, told him things not many people, other than her family, knew about her. That while she loved the color pink, she wouldn’t wear it. Also, that she was fascinated by anything that had to do with the Titanic and that she dreamed of someday going down in a submersible to the resting place of the infamous ship.
After their stroll, they’d met Logan back at her apartment, and he’d repeated many of the same things Blake had told her about being safe and what to be on the lookout for regarding the party atmosphere turning dangerous. They also discussed what the end goal was for the night: namely to gather as much intel as possible. The bottom line was that Alexis should mostly listen to find out how many jobs the gang had done, for whom and how they were contacted, and if the opportunity presented itself, which they all knew it would, to freely offer up money for whatever scheme they tried to trick her into.
She had two thousand dollars in various denominations in her purse, and another four hundred tucked into her back pocket . . . just in case. She’d kept on the skinny jeans she’d been wearing earlier. There was no way she was going to wear a skirt; it gave way too easy access to parts of her that she wanted to keep to herself, and Chuck had made his intentions abundantly clear at the bar. She had changed into a sequined spaghetti-strap top, and was wearing the wire tucked firmly between her breasts and the camera pendant around her neck.
Even though Blake and Logan were backing her up, and right outside the house, Alexis was still scared out of her mind.
Kelly opened the door with a jerk, startling Alexis. She didn’t look pleased as she jutted out a hip and declared snidely, “You’re early.”
Alexis might’ve been early, but Kelly was obviously dressed and ready to party. She was wearing another extremely short and tight miniskirt and a low-cut blouse tied in a knot at her side. Alexis wasn’t staring, but it was easy to see that the other woman wasn’t wearing a bra. Her nipples were clearly outlined under the thin shirt, which was pulled tight in order to show them off more easily.
Alexis thought she should really get a medal for looking into Kelly’s eyes, as her boobs were really hard to block from her sight. Alexis tittered, “I know. I’m so sorry! I was just so excited to see you again and hang out. I thought maybe we could chat a bit before everyone got here.” She smiled broadly, tilting her head and opening her eyes wide in an obnoxiously friendly way.
“Whatever. You’re here, so come in,” Kelly said with an eye roll, backing away from the door.
“Thanks!” Alexis chirped. She entered the dilapidated house and glanced around. There was only one man in sight, which was good. Alexis would’ve been discomforted if there had been too many people there already. He was slouched on a brown couch that looked like it had seen better days. Stuffing was coming out of the seams in clumps. His feet were propped up on a low coffee table, which also looked like it was on its last leg. The top was gouged and stained with every color imaginable. The worn carpet in the room was also brown, which made its own plethora of stains somewhat blend in. There was a large older-model television on an entertainment center made out of planks of wood and milk crates, and a few uncomfortable and disgustingly dirty chairs, which probably were obtained from someone’s front yard next to a “Free” sign.
There was an odd funk to the room, most likely the result of the now-legal pot—which could be smoked in Colorado—cigarette smoke, spilled liquor, body odor, and who knew what else. Alexis knew she’d get used to it, and that almost made her gag right then and there. The last thing she wanted was to leave the house smelling like the room she was currently standing in. She made a mental note to take a long, hot shower before letting Blake anywhere near her.
There were hallways on both sides of the room, leading to who knows where and a sliding glass door in the back that led out into a smallish backyard surrounded by a tall wooden privacy fence. From what Alexis could see, the weeds looked to be as tall as a small child. It definitely wasn’t the kind of outdoor space anyone would go to, to feel rejuvenated or to commune with nature. She and Blake had scoped out the house via satellite, but experiencing it in person was way different. They’d only gotten the outside view; the interior and smell were things that couldn’t be experienced via technology.
All in all it was the dirtiest, nastiest, most disgusting place Alexis ever had the misfortune to step foot into, but she was careful not to let any of what she was thinking show on her face.
“Want a beer?” Kelly asked. “Don’t have any of that froufrou shit you said you liked.”
“A beer would be great,” Alexis reassured her, secretly happy Kelly hadn’t immediately started pushing shots of vodka, Everclear, or, God forbid, tequila, on her this early in the festivities. The memory of puking her guts out while Blake crouched behind her was still too vivid in her mind and wasn’t something she wanted to repeat . . . ever.
Alexis followed Kelly past the man on the couch, who hadn’t bothered to say a word to her, although his eyes bore into her back as if he could see right through her. He watched them walk through the room and down the hallway, to a small kitchen on the right. The linoleum on the floor was cracking in several places, and there were blotches of indeterminate origin on the floor. Alexis tried not to think about what could possibly have made the rust-colored stains and smiled at Kelly when she handed her a Natural Light beer.
Knowing from conversations she’d had with her brother how awful the beer was, Alexis steeled herself as she popped open the can and took a gulp. Yup, it was horrible. “Ah, that hits the spot,” she told Kelly, barely
controlling her natural reaction to curl her lip or to wrinkle her nose at the taste of the awful brew.
“It’s cheap,” Kelly told her, shrugging, then tipping her own can up and swallowing half the contents down.
“So who’s coming tonight? Will Damian and Chuck be here?” Alexis asked, trying to get the conversation started.
“Of course. I told you this is Damian’s damn house. Chuck heard you’d be here tonight and said he’d be around as soon as he took care of some shit.”
“Great. Who else?” Alexis took another small sip of the beer and held back a shudder at having to see Chuck again. She didn’t know what “shit” he had to take care of, but whatever it was couldn’t be good if Chuck was involved.
“Well, everyone. It’s Saturday night,” Kelly said as if Alexis was stupid. She leaned against the cracked countertop and eyed Alexis over the edge of her beer.
“Cool. I can’t wait to meet everyone,” Alexis chirped, as if she didn’t hear the censure in Kelly’s tone. “Is everyone in your gang?”
“What the fuck do you know about it?” Kelly bit out. “You live in your fancy-as-fuck apartment downtown. You might go slumming at the bars, but you don’t know shit about what it’s like to actually live out here.”
“You’re right,” Alexis agreed immediately, knowing she was treading a thin line and wanting to sound as if she understood but not wanting to go overboard. “I don’t know much. But I do know that it pisses me off how hard some people have to work to get basic shit, and just because of who my family is, I don’t have to work at all. I figure Damian must be doing pretty well for himself to have this house.” Alexis waved her hand at the surroundings. “I don’t know what you do, but I sure hope it’s easy. I mean . . . I’m saying this badly, but I say, if you can get money easily, and I don’t mean by selling drugs, because it has to be hard to stay ahead of the cops and crooked dealers, but by doing shit for people who have a ton of money, then good for you.”
“What the fuck you talking about, bitch?” a voice said from the doorway.
Alexis jumped what seemed like ten feet at the loud, pissed-off voice and spun around to see the man who’d been lounging on the couch earlier, staring at her threateningly.
“Oh, you scared me,” she said as cheerfully as she could, trying not to show how badly he’d frightened her, putting a hand on her chest. “We didn’t meet earlier. I’m Alexis.” She held out her hand to the man as if they were at a thousand-dollar-a-plate fund-raiser.
He didn’t reciprocate but leaned against the doorjamb and scowled at her. “I don’t like to repeat myself, but I will. What. The fuck. You know. About what we do for money?”
“Alexis,” Kelly drawled, smiling like a Cheshire cat, pleased as she could be that the man was obviously not impressed by her old classmate. “This is Dominic. Damian and Donovan’s brother and second in command while Donovan’s locked up.”
Holy shit. They knew there was another brother, but they didn’t have a lot of information on him and hadn’t known exactly how much he was involved. Obviously, being second in command was a huge deal. Alexis’s heartbeat increased, and she struggled to keep the surprise and shock from her face.
She made sure to face Dominic dead-on so the camera would pick up his face clearly. “Hi. It’s so great to meet you,” Alexis chirped. When the man scowled harder and made fists, she hurried on before he might decide that knocking her around was a good way to get her to answer his question.
“I didn’t mean anything bad, promise. I was just tooling around on Facebook one day when I was bored at work and found your page. Cool banner picture, by the way. Anyway, I saw a comment on the page from a chick who said she wanted to hire you. I don’t know what she was talking about, and it was gone the next day, but it got me to thinking. You guys are all strong and you know everyone around here. It just makes sense that you hire yourselves out.”
She held up a hand when it looked like Dominic was going to beat the shit out of her, trying to keep up her ditzy persona even though she was scared out of her mind. She hoped the beating of her heart wasn’t being picked up by the mic and drowning out the conversation. “I know you know who I am. That I’m the sister of the guy you guys were hired to take pictures of with that chick a few months ago. It was all over the papers. My brother is a big wuss, and it’s not like he was hurt or anything, so whatever.” Alexis rolled her eyes, as if Bradford irritated her, and took another sip of the beer, making it look like she drank more than she did. “I’m so sick of him looking down on me and telling me I’ll never amount to anything just because I like to party. He’s such a fucking nerd. Anyway, I got to thinking . . . it’s pretty smart to charge people through the nose for things they don’t want to dirty their hands with.”
Alexis spoke faster, wanting to wrap this up. If Dominic really was related to Donovan and Damian, it’d get back to them what she’d said in no time. She had no doubt. “All I’m saying is good for you. It’s American entrepreneurship at its finest. You have a service that others want. It’s only fair that they pay you fair market value for it.”
Dominic pushed off the doorjamb and stalked her way. Alexis wanted to be brave and stand her ground, but her feet moved without her even thinking about it. She took a step back, then another, until her butt pressed against the edge of the rickety table. Shit.
“You got a job you want done, bitch? That why you’re slumming? A boyfriend you want to teach a lesson to? You want to take an Inca Boyz’ cock down your throat to get back at him? Have us rock him to sleep early?”
Alexis’s heart was beating way too hard, and she knew without a doubt Blake and Logan could hear it through the microphone now. She knew he was asking if she wanted him to murder someone. She did not want to go there. Uh-uh. She giggled—it sounded wimpy and scared to her—but that might work out better in her current situation.
“No, no, nothing like that. I just wanted you guys to know I had no hard feelings about what you did to my brother and that other chick. I don’t care. I admire you for living the way you want, and doing what you want. Everyone has the right to make money, and you earning it by doing jobs for people is brilliant. That’s all. I just wanted you to know I’m okay with it. That you don’t have to keep it a secret while I’m hanging around.”
Dominic leaned closer to her, and Alexis could smell a combination of the pot he’d smoked recently, rancid body odor that wafted up from his torso, and the cigarette smoke in his clothes. She held the beer can between them as if it was a shield, her fingers brushing against Dominic’s black T-shirt as he pressed into her. He was trying to intimidate her—and it was working, dammit. The chain hanging from his back pocket, attaching his wallet to the jeans riding low on his hips, jingled as he moved into her space.
“For the record, A-lex-is”—he annunciated her name as obnoxiously as his brother had when she’d met him in Snake’s Bar—“I don’t mind you slumming around the Inca Boyz, but no one gets a free ride around here. You want to hang with us, drink our beer, take our men’s cocks, you pay for it.”
“Oh, I have money,” Alexis chirped as if she wasn’t a second away from either throwing up or fainting. “I can pay for my beer.” She tried to make it clear that’s all she wanted—and not to take a man’s cock, as he so crudely put it.
Dominic took a step back—thank God—and held out his hand, palm up, wiggling his fingers at her obnoxiously.
Alexis put the disgusting beer on the table behind her and fumbled in the small, but expensive, crossbody leather purse she was wearing. She dug inside and pulled out her wallet, opening it and pulling out a hundred-dollar bill, making sure Dominic saw the other bills in there in the process, much as she’d done at the bar the other week. She closed the wallet and put it away at the same time she laid the benjamin in Dominic’s outstretched hand.
“There ya go. I’m sure that’ll pay for some of the drinks tonight.” Alexis smiled big, hoping he’d take another step away from her now that he’d gotten
some cash. “If you need more, just let me know!” She held her breath as Dominic looked from the bill in his hand to her and back again. Finally, he smirked, and the money disappeared into his back pocket.
“It’s a start, princess. Later.” And with that, he turned and went back down the hallway to the living area.
Alexis let out a covert, relieved breath and turned back to Kelly, who hadn’t said a word throughout the exchange with Dominic.
“I didn’t know Donovan and Damian had a brother.” It was the first thing that came to mind, and Alexis mentally winced after she said it. In a weird way the three brothers reminded her of Blake, Logan, and Nathan. It was as if she were in an alternate world, where instead of the brothers being on the side of good, they were on the side of evil.
Kelly didn’t seem to notice anything off about her tone of voice. “Yeah. They’ve always been close.”
“Cool.” Alexis wasn’t sure what else to say, when they heard several voices from the other room.
“Looks like the party’s starting,” Kelly said, chugging the rest of her beer and throwing the now-empty can into the sink behind her.
“Yay,” Alexis chirped, picking up her beer from the table behind her and following Kelly down the hall to the other room.
Two hours later, and thirty minutes longer than she’d wanted to be there, Alexis hadn’t found a way to unobtrusively extricate herself. She stood by a wall and looked around in barely concealed disgust. The party was in full swing now, and she hadn’t seen Kelly in at least half an hour. There were around fifteen men in the room, who were obviously a part of the Inca Boyz. They were all wearing the same thing: jeans that rode low on their hips, black boots, and black T-shirts, which Alexis could now see were inside out. She wasn’t sure what the design on the other side was, but it looked like some sort of cartoon character wearing an odd-looking hat and holding up its hand, which only had two fingers, mimicking a gun. It was weird, and she wished she could get a clear picture of the image for the gang task force, but she wasn’t going to ask anyone about it. No way. They’d have to deal with the still shots from the video to re-create it.