Trouble on Tap

by Avery Flynn

  She’d done all the talking but it was Mateo who’d gotten her in the door. When they weren’t arguing or tearing each other’s clothes off, they made a pretty damn good team. Was that how love worked? Maybe it did for them.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll figure out a way to make you pay me back.” His stomach growled as he turned onto Main Street. “But first, dinner and then some pie.”

  “I don’t know what Ruby Sue puts in it, but it’s addictive.” She giggled. “I think you need to investigate.”

  “If by ‘investigate’, you mean eat it, then I’m all for it.”

  Mateo pulled into The Kitchen Sink’s parking lot and stopped next to a cherry-red sports car near the front door that made her eye twitch.

  It couldn’t be.

  He’d already fucked-up her life, what was left for her ex to ruin?

  Her hand shook as she grasped the handle and pushed the door open. She held her breath as she stepped out onto the asphalt lot and looked around for signs of Larry.

  “You okay?” Mateo asked after coming to stand by her on the sidewalk leading to the diner.

  Giving the outside of the diner one last look, she turned her gaze to Mateo. “I’m sure it’s noth—”

  The Kitchen Sink’s door opened and her ex-boyfriend stepped out, wearing a bespoke suit and a slimy grin. Whatever the hell she’d seen in him, she had no idea. The man was a generic pretty boy with a gambling problem and an ugly heart. Compared to Mateo, he was nothing but smoke and mirrors.

  Larry paused outside the door and withdrew a cigarette from a half-empty pack. “Hey there, good looking.”

  It took a second for her brain to process that the man who’d posted pictures of her playing with her breasts on a revenge-porn site was standing within bitch-slapping distance. However, once it did, a white-hot anger blasted through her body, hot enough to turn her lungs to toast. Her hands curled into fists and she took a step forward before her mind caught up with her body. Beating the shit out of the scumbag would feel good, but it wouldn’t help her. The last thing she needed after working Salvation like a politician on election day was to remind everyone in town how crazy the Sweet girls could be. As good as it would feel to slap the smug look off Larry’s smug face, it wasn’t worth what it would cost her future niece or nephew.

  “What in the hell are you doing here?” she snarled.

  Seemingly unaffected by her reaction, Larry lit his cigarette and took a slow drag before bothering to answer. “Is that any way to greet your boyfriend?”

  “Ex-boyfriend, Larry.” Fury ate at her until even her hair vibrated with barely leashed rage. “That’s what happens when you post naked pictures of me to the web, get me fired from my job, empty out our joint account and sell everything else to pay off your gambling debts.”

  “You shouldn’t hold grudges; especially not against someone giving you a chance to get back something you want.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” Her nails bit into her palms, the pain helping to keep her temper on lockdown. “It’s a little too late for that, don’t you think? The damn pictures are already on the internet.”

  Larry tilted his chin toward the sky and blew a series of smoke rings. “This time it’s a video, not pictures of your tit-jiggling show.”

  “Watch it.” Mateo took a threatening step forward, chest puffed out and a look on his face that would send smarter men than her ex scurrying for cover.

  Instead, the idiot tossed his cigarette down and stubbed it out. “Cool it there, Two-Face. My business is with the chick, not you.”

  She slid between the two posturing men, ready to claw Larry’s face to pieces herself. “Larry, I’m going to string you up by your balls if you don’t get the hell out of Salvation.”

  “I will as soon as you pay me for the video.”

  The man was unbalanced; he had to be. “ You’re the one who emptied our accounts. I don’t have anything left.”

  “You better find some or the world is going to be fapping to this.” He held out his phone, keeping it angled so that she could see the video playing, but not Mateo.

  She glanced down. A black-and-white video of an elevator interior played. A man and a woman were in one corner. At first it didn’t register—and then the memory came rushing back.

  Her and Mateo’s last night before his deployment. The striptease in the elevator.

  Fear and panic squeezed her chest hard enough that she was surprised her ribs didn’t crack under the pressure. If this got out, everything would be ruined. Mateo would never forgive her for putting him under such an unsavory spotlight. The town would turn its back on the fundraiser and the Sweet family. Her future niece or nephew would grow up under the same harsh community glare that she and her sisters had.

  “How?” It took a supreme effort just to get the single word out.

  Larry smirked. “A source at the hotel contacted me after he saw the photos of you that I had posted. I paid a pretty penny for this. You’re going to repay me for that, plus interest, and then you’ll get the file.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Pounding this douchebag into an over-cologned pulp sounded good to Mateo. Too good—especially for a police chief. So instead, he stepped closer to Olivia and placed a comforting hand on the small of her back while giving her ex the death stare.

  The guy did a double take and took a step back, which was the first smart thing the prick had done since he’d had the balls to talk to Olivia.

  “Oh my God, it’s you,” Larry gasped. “The dude in the video. It took me a second but it’s definitely you. Damn man, what happened?”

  The world jarred to a stop. “What video?”

  “The before and after of this could jack up the interest,” Larry said as he eyeballed Mateo’s scars, as if he could catalog each crooked line. “Some people really go for that kind of thing.”

  Olivia stepped out of his embrace. “Larry, stop. Please.” Her voice trembled. She pivoted in his arms, unshed tears pooling in her blue eyes. “I’m sorry, Mateo. I had nothing to do with this. Really.”

  Nothing made sense beyond the fact that this dirtbag had a video that could turn Olivia from a fighter to a woman on the verge of tears. “What video?”

  “This one.” Larry flipped his cell phone around.

  It was a little grainy and in black and white, but there was no mistaking Olivia in a trench coat dress that he’d remember on his death bed—leather, red and easily unwrapped. She’d strutted into that bar and the rest of the world had ceased to exit, including the security cameras in the elevator.

  Up until the end, it had been the greatest night he’d ever had until last night—and now some douchebag who thought blackmail was an enviable skill was treating that moment like it was a dirty bargaining chip.

  On the phone, Mateo turned, revealing the unmarred left side of his face, the way it would never be again. It was the face of a cocky asshole who thought the world would always fall at his feet; the overconfident jerk who never thought that one bad judgement call would result in his team turning into a bloody mist in front of his eyes; and the idiot who didn’t realize how much Olivia meant to him until he’d pushed her away.

  Olivia’s image on the phone caught his eye. How could he see the love so clearly on her face now when in person he’d missed it completely?

  Because now his outside matched his inside: ugly and unworthy of Olivia. She deserved better than the cocksure pretty boy he’d been and she sure as hell deserved more than the scarred wreck of a man he’d become. The best thing he could do for her to make up for it all was to get out of her life.

  “Larry, you’re a real piece of shit.” Olivia grabbed at the phone, but her ex pulled it away before she could yank it out of his hand.

  “I can live with that as long as you give me my money,” he replied.

  “You took all of my money, you moron.” Olivia trembled with anger.

  “ Our money, and that’s too bad.” Larry’s eyes narrowed into strips of evil i
ntent. “I already have buyers on the line.”

  That was it.

  Mateo swiped Larry’s phone out of his hand and threw it to the ground. It exploded, sending pieces of plastic flying into the air.

  Larry responded with a haymaker that barely grazed Mateo’s chin.

  Mateo grabbed the other man by his collar and jerked him close. “That video never sees the light of day. If it does, you’ll just wish you were dead because it would be a helluva lot better than the pain I would rain down on you. Do you copy?”

  “Ease up, man; it’s not a big deal.” Larry squirmed ineffectively. “Everyone will congratulate you for banging her and think she’s a slut for getting naked in the elevator.”

  Olivia gasped and clasped her hand to her mouth.

  A fierce rage erupted from a dark place in Mateo’s soul, pouring through him like the hottest lava, scorching his control until all that was left was its charred remains. He hauled Larry up until his tiptoes barely touched the sidewalk. “No one talks about her like that. No. One.”

  He slammed the dirtbag against The Kitchen Sink’s brick wall hard enough that the impact vibrated up his forearms. Then he did it again. And again. He curled his hands into fists and landed a right hook against the other man’s check. He deflected a weak punch and then followed with a pair of jabs that landed square in the man’s soft belly. By the time he stepped back, Larry was breathing hard, a shiner darkened one eye and blood dripped from the corner of his mouth.

  The urge to keep going rushed through Mateo, pounding against his brain and refusing to be ignored. But he had to. He was the police chief. What he’d done—though deserved—was bad enough. There would be consequences, for him and for Olivia.

  “Get out of here,” Mateo said, his fists heavy as iron by his side. “And don’t come back.”

  “I’m going to sell this video for cheap now.” He spit a bloody glob of phlegm on the sidewalk, nearly hitting Olivia’s shoe. “See you at the movies, skank.”

  Red ate away the edges of his vision. “You really are a stupid motherfucker.”

  Mateo’s fist crashed against Larry’s nose. Bone crunched under the impact. The other man stumbled back, but Mateo wasn’t letting him get far. He’d had his chance to escape and had blown it. His fist landed an uppercut to the guy’s cheekbone. His head snapped back.

  “Stop, Mateo!” Olivia grabbed his arm. “You have to stop.”

  He swung his arm in a wide arc to shake off her hold. He couldn’t stop, it was too late now. Once again, he’d fucked-up someone else’s life because of his poor choices. He’d gotten the penthouse suite. He’d talked her into undressing in the elevator. He’d said no when she’d asked for more. The anger and frustration filled him to the bursting point. It needed an outlet and Larry made the perfect target.

  Again and again, his fists found their home as the other man struggled to stay up. Then, as Larry wavered on his feet, Mateo landed a solid punch to the other man’s jaw, knocking him flat on his ass. Mateo stood over him, adrenaline rushing through his veins and roaring in his ears. But he wasn’t staring down at Olivia’s scumbag ex-boyfriend.

  “Chief!” The voice sounded so far away.

  All he could see was the bloody mess of Ferrante and Hamilton and Washington and Perth after the IED explosion. Stopping to help the kid, who couldn’t have been more than four, had seemed like the right thing to do. He was so young, sitting in the middle of the road and crying. Matteo had gotten out of the vehicle and approached with caution. He’d held out his hand and helped the kid up. That’s what had trigged the bomb—the kid standing.

  “Chief!” The voice was louder this time.

  He looked over. Simons. What was his grandmotherly dispatcher doing in Afghanistan?

  “Chief, I need you to stand down.”

  Blinking, he brought the world around him—the real world—back into focus. Bloody and bruised, Larry cupped his jaw as he got back to his feet. A crowd had spilled out of The Kitchen Sink, surrounding them. An ambulance siren grew steadily louder as it approached.

  Belly turning into poisoned lead, he pivoted to face Olivia—and nearly threw up. A red mark slashed its way across her cheek. That split second when she’d tried to stop him and he’d shaken her off flashed in his mind. He must have done that to her.

  “Olivia. I never meant—” He took a step forward, but Simons curled her fingers around his arm, holding him back.

  “I need you to come with me, Chief,” Simons said, her voice a little too calm and too kind. “Just get in the cruiser here and we’ll get all this straightened out back at the station.”

  He couldn’t look away from Olivia and the fear in her blue eyes. He’d put it there. Defending her honor had seemed like the right thing to do, but all he’d done was make things worse. He hadn’t realized until right now just how right he’d been that night in the hotel, when he’d told her he wasn’t someone who could be depended on. And a woman like Olivia deserved that; she deserved more than him, even if he was the sad sap in love with her.

  That’s what it was, what it always had been, from that first hotel getaway—love. Now it was too late. He had to sever ties, permanently. It was the best thing he could do for her.

  Cutting his gaze away from her, he turned and walked to the cruiser. He reached for the door handle and noticed that his knuckles were swollen and bloody. They should hurt like a bitch but he didn’t feel a damn thing. He hoped he never would again.

  Fear for Mateo ate away at Olivia as she rubbed her cheek, bruised from stumbling into the brick wall, and followed him toward the police car. A small hand wrapped around her wrist, stopping her.

  “Nothing you can do for him right now,” Ruby Sue said as she tugged her back toward The Kitchen Sink’s front door. “Best thing to do is to get your ducks in a row for bail.”

  Still trying to process what had just happened, her brain hiccupped. “Bail?”

  Ruby Sue shook her head. “Come on, girl, it hasn’t been that long since you had to get your parents out of the county jail.”

  “More than ten years.” Her dad had protested the closure of the drama club, her most loved extracurricular activity, by sitting down buck naked on the fifty-yard line during the high school homecoming game.

  Ruby Sue shrugged. “When you’re my age, ten years is an eye blink. Come on inside, we’ll get you some pie and figure out what to do next.”

  They weaved their way through the gossiping crowd surrounding Larry as the paramedic evaluated his obviously broken nose. Everyone there was determined to get a good look at the damage Mateo had inflicted, no doubt so they could exaggerate it sufficiently at the Boot Scoot Boogie honky tonk later that night.

  The cold march of ants up her spine told her the exact moment Larry spotted her in the crowd. She knew she shouldn’t look. She should just keep moving.

  “Unless you come up with the cash,” he hollered, “I’m going to sell that video to the lowest bidder!”

  Something inside her snapped and she jerked to a stop. After everything, he still thought he could cow her into doing what he wanted. The man was a moron, and so was she for ever thinking she saw something in him. The crowd buzzed around her. She and her sisters may be the only Sweets left in Salvation, but the town still knew what Larry had no clue about. You could push a Sweet only so far before they let their freak flag fly and invited the world to come sit down and see all their ugly up close.

  The initial blast of anger gave way to a crystal clear understanding of what had to happen next. He thought he had a bargaining chip? He had nothing, and she was going to show him just how little of nothing he had.

  “You lost whatever hold you had over me with this video when I came back home. In Salvation, I’m just one more in a long line of crazy Sweets. We’re expected to do things that cross the lines like get naked in an elevator. Hell, my grandmother allegedly burned down the DMV; we, of course, maintain it was an electrical fire. Do you really think that video would harm my reputat
ion in this town?” She laughed. Hard. For once, being an unhinged Sweet was going to work in her favor. “You want to sell that video? Go for it.”

  “I will.” He tried to smirk but the way his lips were swelling up made it impossible.

  Now to turn the screws. “Just remember that everyone here heard you threaten me unless I gave you cash. That’s blackmail.”

  “Semantics.” He shrugged, but his gaze darted around the crowd as if confirming they’d heard. “I was giving you first right of refusal.”

  “The cops won’t see it that way. Not to mention that video wasn’t a gift to you, so you can’t sell it like you did the photos. You stole it from a hotel’s security system. I may not be able to hire every attorney on the West Coast to go after you for that theft, but I bet a massive high-end hotel chain like that one can.” She paused to let her words sink into his thick skull. “After all, they don’t want their guests to think they sell security footage to the highest bidder.”

  “They wouldn’t come after me.” His voice was firm but there was no missing the sweat making his forehead wet.

  “And that’s just civil penalties.” Time to bring it home and scare the ever-loving shit out of Larry so well that he’d never bother her again. “The theft would still catch the prosecuting attorney’s eye—especially a high-profile, sexy case like this would be. I still know a lot of media folks and I won’t be the least bit shy in asking them for coverage. Everyone in the western hemisphere would know what a scumbag you are and that the video is stolen goods. You’d never be able to sell it. Even the shittiest of porn sites would know not to touch you with a twenty-foot pole dipped in hydrogen peroxide. Face it, that video is worthless.”

  Heart hammering in her chest, Olivia savored the rush that went with taking an asshole down a couple pegs or twenty. Then she turned on her heel and left, leaving Larry and more than a couple of gawkers with their mouths hanging open, and stormed into The Kitchen Sink. Only a few people remained inside, including her least-favorite mayor, Tyrell Hawson. Just the sight of him leeched some of the fuck-yeah adrenaline from her. The man sucked the joy out of everything.