Claiming My Vengeance

by Jessica Blake

  I came very close to facepalming myself before remembering the gazillion unknown bacteria still lurking on my skin and made a fist instead. “You calm down and drive your wife to the hospital. Remember? We’ve gone over this.”

  A thousand times.

  “But I have to work tonight.”

  “Freddie, don’t be an idiot. I don’t want to see your ugly ass face in the next two weeks unless you’re bringing a baby to show me. I mean it.”

  In the background, I heard Freddie’s wife yell at him to get off the damned phone and take the suitcase to the car.

  “Go,” I told him, “before Rosalie calls her mother to drive her instead. Whatever Rosalie tells you to do, you do it. Call me later and keep me updated.”

  Freddie hung up without answering, the threat of his wife’s mother apparently enough to snap him out of it, and I gladly abandoned the kitchen plumbing to wash up and change my clothes. Jeans, a long-sleeved, stretchy black shirt with a dark plaid flannel over the top, and my black boots completed my work uniform since my boss didn’t care what I wore. And even though it meant dropping everything to go to work while my regular night bartender/business manager drove his pregnant wife to the Henry Ford Hospital, I loved being the boss.

  I brushed and re-braided my hair and grabbed my leather jacket, buckling on my helmet before heading out. The pavement was still wet, but the rain had finally quit. The night air was warm, and it was still early enough in the year that I was grateful for the clinging humidity.

  I’d change my mind in scorching August, but hell, I lived in Michigan. It was either summer’s sticky heat, or you were freezing your ass off in ten inches of snow. Michigan weather didn’t believe in middle ground.

  I unlocked the shoebox-sized garage that held my baby and wheeled her out. The original orange paint on the Ducati gleamed as brightly in the motion light above the door as if the bike had just rolled off a 1973 showroom floor.

  I locked up the garage again, pushed the bike around my sad, broken down rusty Taurus, straddled the motorcycle, and jumped on the kickstarter. Thanks to Freddie’s donated mechanic skills, the Ducati’s engine purred like a kitten. Until I throttled it. Then it roared.

  Gary, my neighbor, gave an appreciative wolf whistle from where he sat on his front porch steps, and I waved at the old guy as I turned out of my driveway, knowing the whistle wasn’t meant for me. As far as male attention went, when I was out riding, most guys only had eyes for the bike.

  I was fine with that.

  ***

  Typical for a Friday night, the bar was hopping when I arrived, the street outside crowded with a mix of vehicles, from rusted out Ford trucks to Harleys to a gleaming black Mercedes S-Class. There was a little crowd of smokers outside, where speakers cranking out tunes were mounted above the peeling green-painted siding.

  Freddie had been after me to paint the building for the last six months, but I figured the paint peels gave the place character. The kind of clients I catered to didn’t mind a place that was a little rough around the edges, anyway.

  I waved at a couple of faces I knew and headed for the back lot, wheeling my bike through the back door I’d had widened before locking it up in the back office like I usually did. I could hear the muted roar of voices and the wail of country music through the thin walls. That would change. Whoever manned the bar picked the music, and whoever had a problem with it could suck it, was my policy.

  I scanned the crowd out of habit as I came out from the back, gauging the mood. Friday meant payday for most of the factory guys, and quite a few of them were spending their beer allowances at The Red Stripe tonight. I exchanged nods and grins with some of them as I made my way to the bar, automatically taking note of who was obviously tanked, whether anyone looked belligerent, how much posturing was happening at the pool tables. The lineup at the bar appeared mostly harmless… except for one guy at the end with his back to me.

  I took inventory. Dark brown hair, clipped short, tapered down to the tanned column of his neck. Broad shoulders under a well-worn sweatshirt. Jeans and scuffed-looking brown work boots that wouldn’t have been out of place if the boots hadn’t been Frye and the jeans an artfully faded pair of Rokkers that probably set him back at least four hundred dollars.

  I couldn’t see the front of him from where I was, but the back of him told me he had money, despite the beat-up sweatshirt. I was always on the lookout for anomalies, and the tall stranger was an anomaly. I eyed him for another second, silently willing him to turn around, but he was watching the only two women in the place play pool.

  “How’s it going, boss? Any word from Freddie?”

  Drew, my daytime bartender, was a short, sweet-faced guy from the neighborhood with skin the color of dark chocolate and a wide smile that always lit the room. When he applied for a part-time position two years before, I’d had to card him, but he was legit, in his early thirties, and studying nursing at Baker College. He looked so innocent and naïve, I’d worried about him holding his own with some of the rougher customers, but everyone responded well to his easygoing nature, and he’d never had any problems.

  “Hey, Drew. No word yet. I appreciate you for staying over your shift tonight, but what have I told you about playing that shit in here?”

  “You have no taste, Livvie,” he shot back good-naturedly. “And no problem on staying.” He paused, pouring a shot of Jack with practiced grace and handing it over to a customer before shooting me an apologetic look. “Teresa called in sick. Janie too.”

  I stared at him for a few, soul-sucking moments. “Crap. Seriously?”

  “Same bug, apparently.” He rolled his eyes and raised his voice over the sudden clatter of billiard balls. “Probably just a coincidence that Khalid’s in concert over at Meadow Brook. You didn’t see me calling in sick when Jason Aldean was in town last week. But that just leaves you with Sam and Roger. You want me to stay?”

  Against my better judgement, I shook my head. “No. Sam and I can handle things.” I privately had my doubts about that, since Sam was new and seemed more interested in shaking her tits in the faces of the bar patrons than serving drinks efficiently.

  Roger was a good guy and could be counted on in a pinch, but he preferred never to venture farther than a few feet from the deep fryer in his microscopic kitchen. But Drew had a middle-school daughter who was home alone after school until he got there. “You get home to Tasha. It’s already late.”

  “You’ve got my number. I can call my mom to come sit with her if you need me.”

  “You’re a good guy, Drew. Even if your music does suck.”

  I kissed him on the cheek, and as I leaned back, I made eye contact with the well-built stranger sitting just behind Drew. He had a face that was just a little too fierce to be good-looking, cheeks brushed with stubble just a shade lighter than his dark brown hair. Chiseled cheekbones, a nose that had a slight bump at the bridge, like it had been broken before. Firm lips, unsmiling, and gray eyes as bitter cold as winter frost.

  A tingle started at the base of my neck and ran down my spine. Those eyes fixed on mine, and I froze for a second before he dropped his to his bottle of beer, like the charged moment had never happened.

  “Get out of here, Drew,” I ordered, mentally shaking off the weirdness of my reaction to the stranger. “Don’t worry about the drawer. I’ll count it down at closing.”

  I succeeded in squashing the quick second of fear and electrical attraction I’d felt and dragged my mind back to the business at hand. I was too busy for the next couple hours to do much more than pour liquor, sling beers, pass orders for nachos or French fries to Roger, and yell at Sam to hustle her ass, but I was always completely aware of only one man at the bar. He didn’t talk to anyone, just nursed his drink and watched as the crowd around him got louder and more boisterous.

  Things began to thin out a little after midnight, but one of my troublemakers, a mean drunk we called Bitchass Billy, wove in with swagger and a sneer on his ugly, bearded f
ace that meant he was feeling pissy. He dropped down on the stool next to the silent stranger, jostling the other man’s shoulder roughly. I braced myself for an explosive reaction since it always seemed to be the quietest ones who could snap the quickest, but the man just looked at Billy steadily out of those cool gray eyes until Billy shifted away a little in his seat.

  “Hey, Livvie,” he hollered gruffly, even though I was right in front of him. “Gimme a boilermaker.” I winced. Billy’s breath smelled like he’d been sucking on garlic and cigarette butts since last week.

  Billy was mostly harmless, but I could tell he’d already hit his limit at another bar, and the more he drank, the more he earned the “bitchass” in his name. I slid over a glass of the Bell’s Two Hearted I had on tap and poured him his Wild Turkey. But before he could grab the whiskey, I held it back and gave him a hard look. “This is it, Billy. Your limit with me tonight is one, so pay up now.”

  “Why you wanna be so mean all the time, honey?” he whined. I ignored him, took the grubby bills he handed me, and turned to another customer. I could hear him mumbling something under his breath behind me that sounded an awful lot like, “stupid cunt.”

  I’d been called worse and didn’t respond, but a sudden roar from everyone else in the bar made me swing around. The stranger had Billy caught up by the collar of his black leather vest with one massive fist, and Billy’s florid face was turning purple. “Apologize to the lady,” the man ordered calmly, his voice low and smooth.

  “F- f- fuck you,” Billy gasped and lashed out with a booted foot, but the man simply tossed him backward so that he landed hard, ass first on the beat-up hardwood floor, knocking an empty chair over. A few guys hooted and called out encouragement to Billy.

  Billy wasn’t popular, and everyone likely wanted to see him get his ass kicked. Emboldened by what he interpreted as the crowd’s support, Billy scrambled to his feet and pulled a knife out of his back pocket. He flicked it open and made a couple of clumsy jabs with the wicked-looking blade.

  The stranger didn’t seem concerned. He just watched, booted feet slightly apart, hands loose in a deceptively casual stance that I recognized as one of a person completely capable of taking someone apart. That was enough for me. I hated cleaning up bloodstains. I grabbed my Louisville Slugger from beneath the counter and vaulted over it as Billy made another, closer jab at the sexy stranger.

  In one smooth motion, I swung the baseball bat around and down hard on Billy’s wrist, where it made a satisfying cracking sound. He dropped the knife and howled, clutching at his arm. “Fucking bitch.”

  The other man growled and took a threatening step forward, but the crown of my bat in his chest stopped him. It was like poking a brick wall with a stick.

  “I’ve got this.” I was proud of how firm my voice was. Nodding to a couple of regulars, big guys who worked at the auto plant, I said, “If you two can help Billy here find the door, your next round is on the house.” I turned my attention back to the stranger. “As for you, your chivalry’s misplaced, but your next drink is on me too.”

  He was obviously spoiling for a fight, and his eyes gleamed with the frustration of not being able to finish one, but he nodded. “Thanks, Olivia.” The sound of my name coming from his lips in that deep, velvety voice caused a curl of heat to spiral through my belly.

  “Liv,” I corrected.

  “Gabe,” he offered.

  I lowered the bat. “Let me get you another beer, Gabe.”

  Everyone I knew called me Liv. It didn’t occur to me then to wonder how he knew my full name.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Gabe

  After I watched the drunk stumble out, still bitching about his wrist and flanked by a couple of bruisers, I tried to unclench my fists and focus on clearing my head. I wanted to punch that fat cocksucker’s fleshy face so badly, my hands still tingled with the urge to pound something. But the woman who had deprived me of the privilege was still watching me cautiously, and a few guys had clustered around to slap me on the back, laughing about Bitchass Billy and how he probably wouldn’t be around for a while.

  The noise level in the bar then dialed back up to deafening, rowdy conversation competing with the nineties rock pouring out of the loudspeakers in a grinding, driving rhythm, and the raucous laughter coming from the direction of the pool tables.

  I looked down at Cunningham’s stepdaughter, her large, nearly black eyes framed with thick lashes that contrasted starkly with her fair complexion. A couple of strands of silky black hair had come loose from her braid to caress her cheek, and I felt my cock start to harden.

  Olivia must’ve read something in my expression that warned her to keep her distance because she finally turned away and headed back to her position behind the bar. I sat back down on my barstool to hide my thickening erection.

  Olivia was nothing like what I’d expected.

  She didn’t look like the pampered offspring of a crooked real estate investor, a spoiled brat who had spent her years after high school in Europe. She looked like a cold, sexy badass, tall and slim, who could swing a bat like Miguel Cabrera and wasn’t squeamish about who might be on the other end.

  She moved with the fluid grace of a dancer and had the sophisticated looks of a model, but wore a flannel shirt and combat boots. She traded insults with the guys in her bar like she was more comfortable with them on Holbrook Street in Detroit than she would have been with a pack of gal pals shopping on North Michigan Drive in Chicago.

  Her bar was a far cry from the Violet Hour. It took up the bottom floor of a crumbling brick, two-story building, and the outside was bare except for a couple of banners advertising beer and a small window nearly covered by a blinking open sign. The front door was metal, painted a faded green, rusted and dented to match the rest of the faded green paneling out front. Inside, there were neon beer signs and an etched Budweiser mirror behind the bar instead of velvet curtains and displays of top-shelf liquor. Rather than parquet floors, The Red Stripe had hardwood that was dinged, scuffed, and sticky with spilled beer. It was a typical hole-in-the-wall dive you’d find in any city, and I was starting to get the feeling that Cunningham’s money hadn’t bought it for her.

  “You in town on business?” she asked me, her slightly husky voice low, but carrying like crystal to me over the noise. She slid me another bottle of Black Note Stout, only my third of the night, though I’d been there for hours.

  “You could say that,” I said, nodding my thanks and taking a sip of the dark brew.

  “We get a lot of out-of-towners in because of the GM plant.” She was obviously pressing, her eyes curious, but I just nodded again. Let her think what she wanted. She’d know what I was after soon enough.

  Her eyes narrowed at something over my shoulder. “Dammit, Sam,” she muttered. “Excuse me.”

  I watched the sway of her tight little ass in slim-fitting jeans as she went after the petite, giggling blonde waitress who had draped herself over one of the bar customers. The man’s wife was sitting at the same table, glaring daggers at the waitress and looking ready to break a bottle over the girl’s head. I wondered just how often Olivia had to use that baseball bat of hers to break up fights.

  “Thanks for the entertainment,” a gravelly voice spoke up from beside me. An elderly man occupied the stool next to mine and grinned up at me blearily. “Ain’t nobody around here ‘bout to let anything happen to Livvie, but nobody minded watching you shake up Billy, either.”

  “Thanks,” I said and held out a hand. “I’m Gabriel. Gabe.”

  He gave me a smile wide enough to show a missing molar and shook my hand, his grip surprisingly strong. “Nice to meet you, Gabe. Cecil.”

  “Good to meet you too.” The old guy looked like he was up for talking, and I figured it wouldn’t hurt to direct the conversation Olivia’s way. “How long’s the badass bartender worked here?”

  The old man chuckled. “Livvie don’t just work here, she owns the place. Opened it up a few years back.
Such a pretty, sweet kid, barely old enough to drink herself. But she made it work.”

  “Is that right? Most girls her age are fresh out of college, not running their own businesses. And this isn’t the greatest neighborhood. Does she have to use that baseball bat a lot?”

  “Nah. Not much anymore. A couple of folks awhile back made the mistake of thinking Livvie was an easy mark. One of our local dumbasses got to feeling brave one night and brought a gun in. Tried to rob the place. Our girl kicked his ass with some crazy karate shit. Between that and her Slugger, there wasn’t much for the police to pick up once they got here. After that, word got out that she wasn’t such an easy target after all, so she mostly gets left alone. But she did hire Freddie on not too long after that, probably for the muscle. He’s the one who usually does the night shift.”

  That was something to picture. Delicate prom queen Olivia Cunningham going Chuck Norris on a burglar? “Freddie, the guy who was here earlier? Before Olivia came?”

  “Not even close,” Cecil wheezed out on a laugh. “That was Drew. He prolly ain’t much good in a fight, but he’s got an easy way about him. I’ve seen him talk down some mean drunks.”

  “Olivia got a thing going with him? Drew?”

  Cecil stopped laughing, and his faded brown eyes sharpened on me for a second, considering. “No. Drew’s just a friend of hers, like most of the guys around here. Livvie’s right picky when it comes to men. You thinking about stepping up in line? ‘Cuz if I ain’t mistaken, you look like you’re just passing through.”

  I shook my head and took another sip of my beer, surprised at the old man’s sudden protective attitude. “Nope, just appreciating the view.”

  “Well, I can’t fault you for that,” Cecil agreed, still sounding cautious. “I’ve been married fifty-two years, but I’m not dead.”

  We both looked over at Olivia. With her long black hair and that killer body, a straight man would pretty much have to be dead not to appreciate that view.

  Olivia had finished her conversation with Sam, who was looking sorry for herself and wiping up the wobbly tables that were starting to empty. At some point, Olivia had ditched the flannel shirt, and the black one she wore underneath had just enough of a v-neck to hint at a beautiful pair of breasts. She stretched upward to the speaker and turned the music down a couple of notches, and my mouth went dry.