Colton: Rogue Beginnings (A Rogue Enforcers Novel)

by Grace Brennan

  Another coincidence? Somehow, she didn’t think so.

  Colton narrowed his eyes at the pretty brunette behind the desk—the same one he’d watched going into the hotel the night before. Actually, she was more than pretty. Gorgeous might not even be enough to describe her.

  She had black hair that hung in loose curls to her shoulders, and sky-blue eyes that gazed up at him from a pixie face, with high cheekbones and full, kissable, bow shaped lips completing the package. She was much shorter than he was, the top of her head barely coming up to his shoulder.

  If it wasn’t for the panic rushing through his veins at the thought of missing his cousin—again—he’d be standing there hitting on her. But as it was, he couldn’t afford to get distracted by a woman, no matter how beautiful she was.

  He thought she had to know something more than she was letting on—the night before, she’d been staring at the car Justin was last seen driving, after all. And he was pretty sure his hunch was confirmed when he said his last name and her eyes widened before dropping to the computer screen.

  “Listen,” he said, leaning in as his eyes dipped to her name tag. “Katia, is it? This is important. My cousin, Justin Alexander, disappeared a month and a half ago. I’ve been tracking him ever since. The last car he was seen driving was sitting in the parking lot right before I came in, and now it’s gone. If he checked out, you need to let me in the room. There could be a clue about where he’s going next.”

  She swallowed hard, glancing down at the keycard she held in her hand before meeting his eyes again. “If he’s missing, you should report it to the police and let them search for him.”

  “I’m sure they are searching,” he fibbed, hoping he didn’t look as uncomfortable as lying always made him feel. “But no one will look harder or more thoroughly than I will. I need to find him, Katia. Odds are that he didn’t leave anything behind, but I need to see that for myself. Please.”

  Hesitating, she sank her teeth into her bottom lip as she gazed at him, a debate playing out in her sky-blue eyes. He hated when he had to lie to anyone, but for some reason it made him feel even shittier to do it to her.

  But when it came to this, he had to. He couldn’t involve law enforcement—not the human kind, anyway, and especially not without knowing exactly what was going on with Justin. Whatever he was wrapped up in, it could involve shifters. If that was the case, the last thing he needed to do was involve the human police.

  It wasn’t like he could tell Katia that, though.

  She had a beautiful name—almost as beautiful as she was. He ran his eyes over her face, taking in her delicate features. She looked like she had Russian heritage, and her name fit her perfectly.

  She exhaled, and he looked up to meet her light blue eyes. “Okay. But this is as much as I can help you. Don’t ask to look at the records, or for his credit card number, or anything like that. This is as much as I’m willing to break the rules.”

  He hadn’t even thought to ask about the credit card the hotel had on file. Some detective he was. It would be really helpful in his search—not that he knew how to track charges made to it, although his hacker friend might.

  Katia cocked an eyebrow as she looked at him expectantly, and he reluctantly nodded. “I won’t ask for anything else. I just want to see if he left anything behind.”

  “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she muttered as she put a back soon sign on the desk and walked around the counter. “I’m not sure the guy who was in that room is your cousin, anyway. Like I said, he had blond hair. Maybe Justin’s credit card was stolen.”

  “Maybe,” he replied, considering that. But it would mean he’d been staked out at this hotel for nothing, and he didn’t like the idea that he’d wasted his time. Besides, the car in the parking lot was the same one people said his cousin was driving. “Or maybe he dyed his hair or something.”

  She got in the elevator, hitting the button for the third floor as she looked at him dubiously. “Maybe. What’s your first name?”

  “Colton. Most people call me Colt, though.”

  “Well, Colt, I think this is a waste of time, but I still hope you can find something that will lead you to your cousin.”

  “I do, too. And I appreciate you letting me in, Katia.”

  She smiled at him faintly while giving him a nod as the elevator doors opened. Following behind her, his eyes dropped to her ass, highlighted in the snug jeans she was wearing, and he watched it as they walked down the hall. He couldn’t pull his gaze away until they stopped at a door and she inserted the keycard. She really was a gorgeous woman, and he wished he’d met her under different circumstances.

  Maybe once he found Justin, he’d make his way back here and try to get to know her better. It wasn’t like he had much to go back to in Montana, anyway, besides the ranch he and Justin owned. But it always felt more like Justin’s place than his, despite the fact that Colton’s name was on the deed, too.

  Yeah. He’d definitely have to see about coming back here and seeing Katia again.

  His dragon rumbled with approval at the idea, and he quickly swallowed the sound down when Katia paused as she opened the door, glancing around with a frown. He did his best to smile innocently as her gaze landed on him, and her beautiful sky-blue eyes narrowed for a moment before she turned around and opened the door.

  Quietly blowing out a relieved breath that she hadn’t questioned the noise, he followed her inside, looking around with interest. At first glance, the room looked pretty tidy, but there could still be something inside that had a clue on it.

  Katia moved farther into the room and he started to follow, but then halted abruptly when his dragon hissed inside him just as a coppery scent hit his nose. He narrowed his eyes on the closed bathroom door, dread welling up inside him as he wondered why the hell the smell of blood was coming from behind the door.

  Inhaling deeply to steady his nerves, he grasped the doorknob and slowly pushed the door open. He walked in, flipping on the light as he went. His eyes went to the sink first and he froze, staring at the blood streaked in the basin. Whoever had been bleeding in here—and he suddenly hoped Katia was right and Justin’s card was stolen, because he hated the thought that that might be his blood—they hadn’t even tried to clean it up.

  Taking a few steps forward, he slowly scanned the room, looking for any other hints of blood, rubbing his chest where his dragon was pacing furiously inside him. His animal was quiet, as he always became when he felt things too strongly, but Colton could feel his emotions.

  He was furious, worried, and he was trying to hide it, but he was scared, too. Colton understood all the emotions all too well, because he felt the exact same way.

  Taking a deep breath, he grimaced at the strong smell of blood as his gaze landed on the trash can. His blood ran cold as he noticed the bloody towels inside, and he steeled himself for what he might find as he grabbed a clean washcloth from the counter and bent to pick up the blood-soaked towels.

  There was something tucked inside the towel, and he sat it on the counter to unwrap it, a curse slipping from his mouth when he saw the severed finger in the middle. Shit. What the hell was going on, and most importantly, whose finger was it?

  Lord, please don’t let it be Justin’s. If it was, his cousin was in even more trouble than he’d thought.

  “Hey, I found some papers in the trashcan in here,” Katia called, her voice getting louder as she came nearer. “Maybe they can help you…”

  He spun toward the door to stop her from coming inside and seeing the mess, but he was too late. Her voice trailed off as she came to an abrupt halt in the doorway, her wide eyes going to the sink and then the finger still sitting on its nest of bloodied towels.

  “Is… is that a finger?” she asked faintly as the blood drained from her face, pausing to swallow hard. “Please tell me that’s not real.”

  He slanted a look at the severed digit, shaking his head. “I wish I could.”

  “Holy shit. They
really were the Russian mafia.”

  Chapter Three

  Feeling queasier than she’d been in a long time, Katia tore her eyes away from the gruesome sight of the finger and bloody towels, turning to make her way back into the bedroom. Walking over to the table in the corner, she sank down onto one of the chairs and blew out a shaky breath.

  What the hell had gone on in this room? She hadn’t had any complaints of noise disturbances, and George, the night manager, hadn’t mentioned getting any either when she first went on duty. But how could someone have their finger cut off and not scream fit to wake the dead?

  “The Russian mafia?”

  Glancing up, she watched Colton as he walked into the main room—sans finger, thankfully. Shrugging, she ran her hand through her curls as she shook her head.

  “I mean, that was my first thought when I saw them in the diner last night, but I didn’t honestly think I was right. I was positive my imagination was just running wild. Something felt off about them, though. I had a bad feeling in my gut, both last night when I waited on their table and then again when they checked out of here earlier.”

  There was still a part of her that was saying she was crazy to even entertain the thought that the creepy dudes were the mob—because that shit didn’t happen in real life, right?—but there was a freakin’ severed finger sitting on a pile of bloody towels in the bathroom that said she probably wasn’t too far off the mark.

  Maybe they weren’t the mafia, but they were sure as hell Bad Guys with capital letters, so her gut hadn’t been wrong when she saw them.

  It was just so different from her normal, mind numbingly boring life that she hadn’t been willing to entertain the thought that it was anything other than a combination of too many suspense novels, her uncle’s crazy stories, and her own wild imagination.

  Colton brought her attention back to the present as he sat on the edge of the bed, gazing at her intently. She took a moment to just drink him in, desperate to get her mind off how crazy her life had become in the space of the past twelve hours.

  If there was ever anything that could make her think about something other than what was sitting on the bathroom counter, it was him. God, he was gorgeous. She’d never thought she had a thing for cowboys before, but he was sexier than a man had a right to be, from his black cowboy hat all the way down to the worn boots on his feet.

  His hazel eyes were still greener than she remembered them being when she first saw him, but at least she wasn’t imagining that his pupils were elongating this time. He reached up a large, calloused hand, running it across the short brown beard on his face that perfectly highlighted his lips. The bottom was slightly fuller than the top, and they looked incredibly soft.

  “Just how many jobs do you have, Katia?”

  She blinked, coming out of the short-lived daydream she’d been starting to have about feeling those lips pressed against hers. Dammit. Now she was back in reality, where men like Colton didn’t go around kissing women like her—and where there was someone’s finger sitting a few feet away in the bathroom.

  Her imagination always had been way better than her real life.

  “I have two. Here and the diner. And I go to night school, too.”

  His eyebrows rose as he nodded slowly. “You’re a busy woman. So, you saw them in the diner last night? Does that mean Justin wasn’t alone? Who were the people he was with?”

  Shrugging her shoulders helplessly, she shook her head. “I don’t know who any of them are. There were three of them, all men. They came in to eat last night, and I got a bad feeling about them right away. Two of them were keeping the third close to them. When they walked in and when they left, one of them kept his hand on the man’s arm the whole time. It made me uncomfortable, but I tried my best to ignore them.

  “I only looked at them directly when I took their order. I wanted to make sure the one they were keeping close wasn’t in distress, and when I couldn’t see any obvious signs, I kept my gaze away from them until one of them paid the tab. It was the same when they checked out earlier. This time, the other man paid, but the one who paid last night looked at me like he recognized me, and it creeped me out.”

  “You think maybe he did recognize you?”

  She couldn’t hold back a shudder. “I sincerely hope not.”

  “But you recognized the car they were driving, right?”

  Cocking her head, she arched an eyebrow at him. “What makes you think I even saw what they were driving at all?”

  He smiled sheepishly as he shrugged. “I was in the parking lot last night when you pulled up. I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss Justin if he left. I saw you look over at the last car he was seen driving. A black Toyota Camry with an Alabama tag and a Tasmanian Devil sticker in the back window.”

  “Yeah, that was it. I felt like someone was watching me—I guess that was you—and then I saw the car. I thought it looked like the one I saw them get into at the diner, but I didn’t know for sure, since I couldn’t see the plates from where I was.”

  Colton went quiet for a few moments, glancing at the bathroom door, and when he looked back at her, his greenish hazel eyes were full of worry and pain. Her heart clenched with sympathy as it hit her what finding the severed finger could mean for him.

  All she’d been thinking about up until that point was how freaked out she felt, how nervous and scared, and it made her realize that she’d been being selfish. His cousin was missing, and he’d just walked into a hotel room rented in Justin’s name to find someone had their finger cut off in there.

  Either his cousin was one of the Bad Guys, which wasn’t good, or he was now missing a finger and possibly in more danger, which was even worse. Regardless, in either case it was a shitty situation all around.

  “Hey,” she said softly, waiting until he met her eyes before continuing. “He might not have been here at all. He could have had his car stolen, and maybe his wallet was inside it when it happened. He might not even be in Atlanta at all.”

  He inhaled deeply and something passed quickly through his eyes, too fast for her to see what it was, as he shook his head. Opening his mouth, he paused, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his cellphone. His thumb quickly swiped over the screen a few times before he handed it to her.

  “This is Justin. Do you recognize him as any of the men you saw?”

  Accepting the phone, she hesitated and took a deep breath before she looked down. She hated to be the one to give him any kind of bad news, but she knew if it was her cousin who was missing, she’d want answers, no matter what they were.

  Finally making herself look, she studied the image on the screen. It was of Colton and the man she assumed was Justin, standing with their arms around each other’s shoulders. Colton was grinning at the camera, his hazel eyes bright and his smile infectious. Justin was smiling too, but it wasn’t as wide as his cousin’s, and it didn’t reach his blue eyes.

  She studied it closely before handing the phone back to him. “He wasn’t one of the threatening men, but I honestly can’t tell you if he was the other one or not. He looks about the same size, but I didn’t get a good look at the man the other two were leading around. He had a hat on, and he never once looked up or even gave me much of a profile view.”

  “I don’t know whether to feel disappointed or relieved,” he replied softly as he put his phone back in his pocket.

  “I found a few receipts in the trashcan, but I don’t think they’ll be much help in figuring out where they went next.”

  He took them all from her and stuffed them into his pocket without looking at them as he stood. “Okay. We need to figure out what to do with that finger, and then we need to get out of here. We shouldn’t have stayed as long as we did since they might have come back for something.”

  “Um, what do you mean, get rid of the finger? We need to call the police!”

  “No, we don’t,” he replied grimly, pausing in the bathroom doorway to look back at her. “I can’t really expla
in why right this moment, but I promise I will once we’ve put some distance between us and this hotel.”

  She felt her eyes widen as her mouth popped open, and disbelief flowed through her as she quickly stood and followed him to the bathroom. “Okay, first of all, what in the hell makes you think I’m going to leave the hotel with you? And second, the police can run the print off that finger, and then you’ll know exactly who it belongs to. You’ll know whether it’s your cousin’s, and if it’s not, you’ll know who he’s with.”

  “You said they saw you here and at the diner. You even said one of them recognized you. And judging by this finger and all the blood, something bad went down here. You can identify them, Katia. They could decide to come back and take care of loose ends at any moment, and my gut says they will. You need to come with me, at least until this is over. I promise I’ll protect you. No one can do it better than I can.”

  Biting her lip, she hesitated, torn. He actually had a good point with that. She was almost a hundred percent positive that one of them, at least, had recognized her as the waitress from the diner. It was possible that they took turns paying at different places to try to avoid anyone recognizing them, but they probably didn’t count on visiting two different places with the same staff.

  And maybe the only reason they hadn’t already done anything about it was because it was daytime and there were too many potential witnesses around. They could plan on coming back after dark, or maybe they were still lurking, waiting on her to get off work so they could follow her home.

  Either way, her gut said the same thing his did—they weren’t done with her.

  Shuddering, she wrapped her arms around herself as she gazed at Colton. “Maybe you have a point with that, but I’m not sure it’s any safer to go off with a virtual stranger, either.”

  His mouth kicked up on one side. “If you have someone you can go to who’s not related to you, that they won’t be able to track you to, you’re welcome to go there instead of coming with me. But I really do think you shouldn’t come back to work at either job until this is over.”