by Parker, Zoey
If she were any other woman in the world, especially the kind I was usually around, I would have tested that curiosity. I would have put on the charm and worked my way into her panties by the end of the night. I’d done it dozens of times before, if not more.
But not her. She was different. Not just a princess, which I was still sure she was. She wasn’t just stuck up. She had class. She was a really quality person. She didn’t only pretend to be, the way other people did when they came from richer neighborhoods.
She finally stopped crying, which was a relief. I hated seeing women cry. It was one of my only weaknesses. Maybe because of the way my mom cried when my dad died. Sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night when I was a kid and hear her crying in her room. She never cried in front of us. She was stronger than that. But at night, when she was alone, and the rest of us were sleeping, she would let it out. My room was next to hers, the walls thin as paper. She would cry for hours sometimes, and I always wanted to go in and comfort her. I didn’t. I knew she would hate it if I did. It would mean I knew she was falling apart.
“So if you’re ready to talk, I really would like it if you would tell me what you were doing out there. What was he after you for?” I didn’t need to tell the girl who I meant.
She took a deep breath. “I was taking pictures.”
“Pictures?” I knew the look on my face was probably priceless. “Who the hell goes down there to take pictures? Jesus Christ. Do you have a death wish?”
She bristled, and the color rose in her cheeks. She was prettier that way. “No, I don’t.”
“So why’d you do it?”
“Because I’m trying to get pieces together for an exhibit. I’m a photographer.”
I should have known. Only rich girls like her did stupid shit like that. Sort of like people who went to the ghetto thinking they could help people and wound up getting robbed and having their car stolen. It was what they got for being condescending pricks, as far as I was concerned. She was one of them.
“What were you taking pics of? Poor, lost souls?” I didn’t care that the sarcasm dripped from my voice. I was beyond irritated that this rich little snot thought she could walk around down there and take pictures, and then wonder why some bad guy chased her. He probably tried to steal her camera. Now I remembered seeing it on the ground, and the way she picked it up. They were probably fighting over it before she fell. It would be just like her to fight for it, too, instead of handing it over like anyone with half a brain would do.
“No.” She stiffened, sitting up straighter. “I was trying to find raw, gritty photos to get my name out there. I’ve always wanted to be a street photographer.”
“A what?”
“A street photographer. Like, getting photos of people in their daily lives. I got some really great shots tonight.” I smirked. “Hey—I can only take so many pics of kids smiling and eating ice cream,” she said with a shrug.
“I can see that. But there? Why there? I mean, the daytime is still shitty down there. You could have gone in the daytime, at least.”
She bit her thumbnail, looking at her lap. “I know that.”
I rolled my eyes. “Great. So you were there to get an exhibit together or whatever. How did you meet the Vicious Wolf?”
“A good name for him.”
“True.”
She looked at me, and somehow I knew her well enough already to know she was deciding whether she should tell me the truth. Just like I knew before that she was trying to come up with a fake name to give me. Her face gave away everything she was thinking. Erica didn’t know it, but she caught me on a night when I had plenty of time on my hands. I could wait forever.
“I saw something. I don’t know whether telling you about it is the right thing to do because it might get you into trouble somehow.”
My ears perked up. I’d been sitting with my feet crossed on the desk, but her words made me sit up straight. “Tell me.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. Did he do something wrong?”
She nodded and looked miserable.
“Hey, you can tell me,” I said. “We have no friendship with them, trust me on that. So it’s not like I’ll go back to them and say you ratted.”
“Ratted?” I watched her shiver.
“Yeah, I know, it’s not a fun word. But that’s what they would think. I won’t let them think that.”
“And you won’t get in trouble for knowing?”
“How would I?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know your life. It might affect you somehow.”
“Just tell me.” I already had a good idea what it was anyway. If he had chased her and was ready to attack her, she had seen something she shouldn’t. That meant a very narrow range of things.
And I was right. “I heard him arguing with another man, so I watched from the street. I was taking pictures, thinking they would be good to show two men fighting. Real-life stuff, you know? And they were lit so perfectly…”
“I get it.” I waved a hand. “Keep moving.”
“Oh, anyway, they were fighting, and I was shooting photos. And then the guy…the one who chased me…he stabbed the other guy.”
My eyes widened, though I knew it had to be something like that. “You’re sure?”
She nodded hard. “Oh yeah. I can see it front of me like it’s happening right now. He pulled a knife, and I saw it in the light. And then…it disappeared into the other guy’s stomach. He fell.”
“Shit.” Of all the times for her to come around.
“And I screamed. I couldn’t help it.” She looked panicked, probably because the look on my face wasn’t friendly. Of all the stupid things to do, she went and screamed.
“And he came after you.”
“Right.”
I shook my head, amazed at the way it had played out.
“Did you know him?” she asked.
“Like, did I recognize him? No.” It wasn’t a lie. I had remembered his face before I hit him, and I hadn’t seen it before. He must have been a newer member. He might have been just a nobody. Then I had a thought. “Did you get a good look at the other guy?”
She shrugged. “Sort of. He was wearing a leather vest thingie, like you do.”
I grimaced. Amateur. “It’s called a kutte.”
She shrugged like it didn’t matter. I decided not to pick a fight over words. “Anyway, that’s what he wore,” she said. “He was very tall, and sort of skinny. He had dark hair.”
Well, that narrowed it down. “Did you see the back of the kutte? Did it have a patch that looked like the other guy? A wolf?”
She shook her head. “Sorry. He had his back to the wall.”
I hoped against hope it was Alexander York, head of the Wolves. He was tall and lanky with dark hair. I doubted that a member would kill the group’s president over a fight, but it had to be a big deal if the guy was willing to chase Erica down for it.
No. It wasn’t who he killed. It was the camera.
“He saw the camera, didn’t he?” I asked.
She nodded. Her big eyes and the way she screwed her mouth up at the corner reminded me of a kid who knows he did something wrong.
“I know he was going for it,” she said. “Or he would have, had I not dropped it. He asked about it.”
“You dropped it? Is it broken?”
She reached into the front pouch of the shirt to pull it out. The lens was cracked, and some of the outer casing was crushed. “Shit. That looks expensive.”
“It was.” She touched it gently like it was her baby. I guessed it was, if taking pictures was her job.
“I’m sorry that happened.” I held out my hand, expecting her to give it to me.
“Uh, what do you want?” Her tone shifted. She held the camera away from me, sort of off to the side.
“The camera. I wanna see it.”
“No way!”
“It’s broken anyway, isn’t it?
“S
o what? Why do you want it, then?”
I heaved a sigh. “Because! You caught a fucking murder on it. I want to see if I can see who was killed.”
She smirked. “Yeah, right. Good luck with that. You wouldn’t even know how to get the pictures off it now.”
“And you do? What, is it something you learned in college, rich girl?” She had gotten deep under my skin, and I couldn’t hide it. I was sick as hell of her tone, like she was so much better than me. And why? Because I saved her ass? It didn’t make sense. I hated the entitled way people like her talked to people like me. She was no different than the rest.
“I didn’t need to go to college to learn but, yeah, it was one of the things I studied.”
“Some of us had more important things to do than go to college,” I said.
“Really? I would have pegged you for the Ivy League.” She smirked.
“Ouch. I guess I’m not supposed to know what that means.”
Her eyes went narrow. “Do you?”
“I didn’t skip college because I’m stupid, princess. And I’m gonna bet you didn’t go to the Ivy League, either.”
“Why’s that?”
I had to crack a smile. “If you did, the name would be on your sweatshirt.”
She looked stunned—then laughed. “You’re probably right.” The tension in the air was broken. Sure, I got that from what I had seen on TV and in movies. I’d never met an Ivy League student in my life, except maybe a public defender or judge. But it must have been right if she laughed.
She wasn’t happy about it, but she handed the camera to me. “Damn, this thing is heavy,” I said, weighing it in my hand.
“Yeah, you get used to carrying it around.” She shrugged.
I turned it over and over. The display on the back was cracked, too. Damn it. I tried turning it on, but nothing happened.
“Where’s the memory card go?” I asked. I glanced up, and she was smiling.
“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t expect you to know anything about it. I underestimated you. That was rude.”
I shrugged it off. “Whatever. So where is it?”
“Along the bottom. But it’s sort of crushed in. You see what I mean?”
I did, and I was so frustrated I was ready to throw the fucking thing against a wall to break it open. There was a little spring-loaded plate at the bottom that should have slid open when I pressed it with my thumb. It wasn’t moving.
“Wonderful.” I put it on the desk. “I need to know who he stabbed.”
“Why’s it so important?”
“It just is.” I wasn’t ready to go into it with her, and besides, the less she knew, the better. She was already in enough trouble. She didn’t even know it yet. Taking her away from there wasn’t the end of her night. I thought it over. “Do you think there’s any way to get it out of there?”
She shook her head. “I really don’t know. I was planning to take it to a store to see if they could do it.”
“No way.” I shook my head. “We can’t bring anyone else into this.”
“We?” Her eyes bugged out. “Since when did this become a ‘we’ thing?”
I closed my eyes, praying for strength before I tore her blonde head off. I wasn’t used to controlling my temper. “Since you took a picture of one of my club’s enemies killing another guy. I have to know who it was.”
“Why?”
“You don’t need to know why!” My voice echoed throughout the room, and her mouth clamped shut. Good. She needed to be scared. She was overstepping her boundaries. It was time to remind her who was in charge. I hardened myself against her. I was being too nice and passive.
I stood, slamming my hands on the desk for effect. She jumped a little, and I felt strangely good inside. “You’re gonna get the memory card out of there. And you’re gonna get me those pictures.”
She glanced at the broken display. “I need a computer for that,” she whispered.
“I know you do. I’m not a fucking idiot. You’ll get what you need.” I turned to walk away. I needed to get out of her presence for a while, or else I was going to kill her. Or fuck her senseless. I wasn’t sure which one yet, but I didn’t think she’d be a fan either way.
“Where are you going?” she asked, and I heard her stand.
“I’m getting a breath of air, maybe a drink. Maybe I’ll play a few hands of poker.” I pointed at the chair. “I suggest you sit your ass down and get comfortable because you’re not going anywhere until I say so.”
I watched her change from a scared little girl into a vicious wildcat. Something inside me roared, loving it. “Who the hell do you think you are? You can’t tell me what to do!”
“Who do I think I am? I think I’m the man who saved your ass tonight. You’re gonna do as I say, then I might let you go home.”
“You might?” Her hands were on her hips, her jaw jutting out fiercely.
“Maybe. If I decide you’re safe going home.”
“Safe?” I saw uncertainty flicker behind her eyes, in her voice.
“You don’t get it, do you?” I started at her, almost wanting to laugh. “You’re good as dead out there right now. I made the mistake of leaving that asshole alive. If I had known he killed someone, I would have killed him.”
“You’re not serious.” She laughed nervously.
“Aren’t I? Let’s see. He’s probably conscious by now, probably came to by the time we got here. He’s back with his crew, and he’s telling them all about the blonde girl who caught him on camera when he stuck his knife in some other guy’s gut.” I walked back to her one slow step at a time. She started shaking.
“Then,” I said, “assuming the man he killed wasn’t one of his own men, he knows the other crew is gonna be coming after whoever killed their guy. And there’s evidence out there somewhere of what he did. And he let you go—with the camera. And you were with me. And he got a good look at you, and a good look at me. Somebody’s gonna be watching this place now. They’re going to keep an eye out for when you leave.”
She started shaking harder. I wanted her to. Somebody had to show her how deadly serious this was. She was treating it like a game.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered.
I nodded my head. “Yeah, oh, your God. See why it’s not a good idea to leave?”
“But…what happens with my life? My job? My parents?”
I shrugged. “I guess that’s why you’d better hurry the hell up with that thing.” I glanced at the camera. “Otherwise, you won’t be seeing any of your life for a long time. Get my message?”
She nodded her head, looking like she might cry again. I turned away and left the room before she could start. Once she did, she would know I was putting on an act for her.
Sure, she was in big trouble. I hadn’t lied about that. But she needed to keep thinking of me as a brutal guy to be afraid of. If she was afraid of me, there was less chance of her coming face-to-face with someone who was really out to hurt her. I was nothing compared to them.
Chapter Six
Erica
I was still shaking long after Vince left the room. I allowed myself to sit back down, my head spinning.
Did he mean it? Was I in serious trouble? I didn’t doubt it, remembering the way that savage had glared down at me. He’d wanted to kill me. Vince was right—he would have gone back to his club by now. Men like him didn’t go to the hospital when they got the crap kicked out of them. They went back to their den and licked their wounds. I imagined him now, in a place like this, blabbing to everyone about me. About my camera and what I’d picked up on it. I wasn’t out of danger yet.
This was so unfair! I slammed my hand on the desk. These criminals got to run the city while people like me had to live in fear. I had never hurt anyone, and I never planned to. I didn’t run in the circles in which these men ran. I had no experience. I didn’t even know what a kutte was. I didn’t deserve any of this. I was only trying to get my life moving forward.
Now
, I was in a position where it might be ending sooner than I’d planned.
I slammed my hand again, and again, the pain focusing me for a moment. Otherwise I would have gone off the deep end, spiraling out of control with my thoughts. I looked at my palm, still scraped and dirty. There was a small powder room attached to the office, and I went in to wash my hands.