Don't Play With Odin (Trouble For Hire Book 2)

by Cynthia Eden

  He curled his hands around her hips. They’d just reached the bar, and he lifted her up and put her on the nearby stool. His fingers lingered around her. “Warned you already,” he said, as his head dipped toward her throat.

  To be a helpful, team player, Maisey tipped back her head so he’d have better access.

  His lips feathered over her skin.

  Hello. Her breath shuddered out. Since when was her neck that sensitive? Her nipples hardened and her body pulsed.

  “Rules don’t apply tonight.”

  They didn’t?

  “I have to play this scene a certain way. You won’t like what you see me do.” His head lifted. He stared straight into her eyes.

  Her hands rose and pressed to his chest. “I like everything I see about you.”

  “You won’t like what’s coming next.”

  Maisey highly doubted that. To date, she’d pretty much liked everything about Odin. To be safe, though… “Before you get all big and bad, how about we just try asking for the info?” Seemed like a grand idea to her.

  “Uh, Maisey…” He shook his head. “In a place like this, you don’t just sashay up and ask for intel.”

  “I’m not so sure about that.” You never knew until you asked. She spun around on her stool. “Hi, bartender!” Her voice was friendly and warm. In her experience, if you were nice to people, then generally, people were nice back.

  Behind her, Odin swore.

  The bartender peered at her and ambled closer.

  “I’m looking for my friend.” Maisey’s hand shoved into the cute little bag she’d brought along. Odin had given her mace to put inside the bag. She was working on getting her taser. Maisey hauled up her new phone—they’d picked it up today and gotten it synced with her account. She scrolled until she had a picture of Whitney. She flipped the phone around toward the bartender. “By any chance, have you seen her?”

  The bartender—a grizzled guy with a, well, she supposed Odin might describe it as a fuck-you face—looked at the picture for all of two seconds, then glared at Maisey. “You’re a cop.”

  “What? No, absolutely not.” She smiled brighter.

  The bartender’s beady stare darted to Odin. He pointed. “Cop.”

  “This is going about how I expected…once you started talking,” Odin groused.

  “No,” Maisey tried to explain to the confused bartender. “My friend is missing, and we’re just trying to find her. If you’d look at the picture again, I think you might remember her. She was—”

  “I remember her,” he gritted back. Then, “Cop!” he yelled.

  That yell cut over the screaming music.

  “If you know her,” Maisey continued doggedly because she was sure she’d seen a flicker of recognition in the man’s eyes, “then I would appreciate it if you would tell me what you know. I can pay you.”

  “Don’t move,” Odin told Maisey.

  She threw a disgruntled look over her shoulder. “Why would I move? I am making headway here. And we didn’t have to get physical. I didn’t have to see that dark, dangerous side that you—” She broke off because she’d just caught sight of the movement happening behind him. A bearded man was rushing up with a chair held high above his head. “Odin!”

  Odin’s body tensed.

  The chair slammed into him. The wooden legs broke and rained down to the floor.

  Maisey’s jaw dropped. “He hit you!” With a chair. Oh. My. God.

  “I let him hit first,” Odin said as he rolled back his shoulders. “Did that for you. See, I followed the rule—”

  “Odin! He’s getting another chair!”

  Odin spun around.

  And the crazy attacker was coming at Odin with another chair. He’d lifted it high over his shoulders—probably because he thought that would give the blow more force. But Maisey realized the movement had just exposed the guy. Odin simply lifted his foot and shoved his boot hard into the man’s paunchy stomach.

  The air left the attacker with a whoosh of sound, and he staggered back. He bumped into a table, fell, and the chair he’d held slammed down on top of him.

  The band hadn’t stopped playing. In this kind of place, Maisey figured you didn’t stop when one little fight broke out. Though, honestly, this did not strike her as a little fight. Especially not when—

  “To the left!” Maisey yelled. “I think he has friends!”

  Odin’s gaze swung to the left.

  A table of men had gotten to their feet. One slammed his beer bottle onto the edge of the table, breaking it, and then he charged at Odin with the weapon.

  “Don’t you dare!” Maisey shouted. “Don’t you even think of cutting him!” This was madness!

  And why was Odin just standing there? He should be jumping for cover! “Odin!”

  Odin didn’t seem particularly worried. When the attacker launched toward him, Odin just side stepped, and he let the man’s own momentum propel him a bit too far past Odin. As soon as the man—and his weapon—slipped by Odin, then Odin’s arm flew out. He locked his forearm around the attacker’s throat and jerked him back. Back—then Odin slammed him down onto the floor.

  A groan burst from the man even as the broken beer bottle rolled away.

  Maisey couldn’t even breathe a sigh of relief because two more men were coming at Odin. Two others from that table.

  The band kept playing. If anything, they got louder.

  Maisey stared around in growing horror.

  “Stay back,” Odin told her. “I’ve got this.”

  His attackers closed in.

  Chapter Nine

  Maisey gaped at the scene before her. Odin was being attacked by multiple strangers, and he just kept taking them down like it was nothing. He wasn’t just brute strength pummeling them, either. No, he was moving with a lethal grace that almost seemed mesmerizing as he—

  Three more men went for him.

  “Hell, no.” Maisey’s hand shoved into her bag and came back up with the mace he’d given her. She and Odin hadn’t gone over any fighting techniques that day—they would be correcting that, ASAP—but in the meantime, she was not just going to sit there and watch him get attacked by a gang of men. Yes, Odin was impressive, certainly. But he couldn’t last forever as more enemies seemed to spring from every corner of the dark club.

  She leveled a furious glance at the bartender. “This is your fault.”

  He backed up a step. “Don’t spray that shit in my eyes!”

  “Don’t tempt me.” But her target wasn’t the bartender—and to think, she’d intended to give him a twenty in exchange for information. You just lost your payday, my friend. Maisey dismissed him from her thoughts because her goal was the men attacking Odin. She jumped off the barstool and launched toward the fray.

  And a wall stepped in front of her. “Sorry, but he won’t like that.”

  The wall wasn’t quite as big as Odin. Broad shoulders. Built chest. Her gaze lifted. Dark hair. Bright eyes—eyes a very similar shade of blue to Odin’s. And he was grinning. Grinning as if he’d just been told the very best joke in the entire world. “Get out of my way,” Maisey ordered him. Her hand tightened around the mace.

  “Wouldn’t recommend using that in here.” He pointed up. “The ceiling fans are blowing for all they are worth, and you’ll probably get kickback in your eyes. Plus, when you do manage to spray some jackasses, they’ll just get mad and charge at you, and that will make Odin lose his ever-loving-mind. Man always has a thing for protecting the ladies. Or, hell, protecting anyone he thinks might be weaker than he is.”

  She shot around the stranger.

  He curled his arm around her stomach and yanked her right back. Furious, she slammed her elbow into his midsection—she knew that move from her crime shows. Then she stomped down with her foot, aiming for his fancy tennis shoes. He swore, but didn’t let her go and, in fact, his grip tightened. She was getting ready to head-butt him—another move from her crime shows—when a detail clicked for her. He
called Odin by name. “Wait, you know Odin?”

  At that moment, Odin looked up. He saw her—saw her struggling—and let out what could only be termed a roar.

  “Uh, oh.” The man holding her didn’t seem particularly concerned. “Now he’s pissed. Look what you did.”

  What she’d done? And now—Odin was pissed now? As in, he hadn’t been pissed before? He’d certainly looked pissed to her.

  Odin threw off the men who’d been on him. Threw them so hard one man stumbled about four feet before crashing into the floor.

  “Got to admire Odin’s style.” The man’s grip finally loosened on her. “When he works, it is a thing of beauty.”

  She jerked free and spun toward him. She had her mace up and pointed toward his eyes.

  He smiled at her. His bright blue eyes gleamed. “Hello. I should have introduced myself before. I’m a friend of Odin’s. Looked like he was in trouble, so I thought I’d help out.”

  She heard a crash behind her. Maisey winced. “You aren’t helping. You’re holding me up and stopping me from—”

  “Potentially getting hurt?” he cut in to finish. “Absolutely. You’re welcome. If you get hurt, I have a feeling Odin will burn this place to the ground.”

  He didn’t mean that, of course. Or did he?

  But she didn’t want to find out. The whole scene was insane and she had to take control. She leapt up on the nearest table. Some people were still dancing. The band kept playing and— “I just want to find my friend!” Maisey shouted. A few heads turned her way. “We are not cops.” Though, jeez, she would sure love it if some cops could come to help out. “I’m a history teacher and a podcaster. He’s my partner.” She pointed to Odin. He wasn’t looking at her. “My friend is Whitney Augustine. She used to come here, but she’s been missing, and I just wanted a lead. I wanted something or someone to help me find her.”

  The men at the pool table had stopped playing. Actually, it was three men and two women. One guy from that group turned toward her. Jet black hair. Dark eyes. Tattoos on his fisted hands. He began striding toward her, and Maisey tensed.

  “You just had to attract attention.” It was the fellow who’d claimed to be Odin’s friend. He huffed out a breath. “Here we go,” he muttered as he placed himself in front of her and her table. “I knew this wasn’t going to be a lucky night.”

  But the man with the tats was focused completely on her. “I know Whitney.”

  He did?

  He raised a fist into the air, and the fighting just…stopped. Or rather, the men fighting Odin stopped. Odin continued right on as he plowed a fist into one guy’s jaw.

  Down he went.

  The man with the tats opened his raised hand. She realized that he had a red rose tattooed inside one palm. Her gaze was caught by that tattoo. Maisey remembered that before she’d vanished, Whitney had suddenly taken a keen interest in roses. She’d had a fresh red rose in her office every single day.

  “Who are you?” Maisey asked. She started to leap off the table.

  Odin appeared. He reached for her. Lifted her down. “Raising some hell?”

  No, she absolutely had not been. Why would he suggest that? “I was getting intel.” And doing a pretty fine job of it. “You were the one raising hell.” As evidenced by the wreckage and the injured people scattered around Ramsey’s.

  Odin’s jaw firmed, but he glanced toward the man who’d admitted to knowing Whitney.

  “Let’s take this into the back,” the man with the tats said. He’d dropped his hand. Fisted the rose once again. “No one else needs to hear this.” With those words, he spun on his heel and began walking toward a red door on the right.

  Maisey took a quick step to follow him.

  “Seriously?” It was the so-called “friend” of Odin’s. “Your girlfriend has like, zero self-preservation skills, man. It is a good thing I was here to help you out. Must’ve been fate.”

  Odin’s head swung toward him. “Jinx.” He shook his head, as if he couldn’t quite believe what—who—he was seeing. “What in the hell are you doing in this place?”

  “Oh, you know.” A shrug. “Looking for a good time. A bad time. Anything in between.” He scraped a hand over his stubbled jaw and pointed to Maisey. “That one was ready to jump into the fray with you. I held her back, like the amazing friend that I am.”

  Odin’s attention shifted to her. Then fell to her hand. The one that still gripped her mace.

  “Could we move this along?” Maisey urged. She noticed that there didn’t appear to be even a scratch on Odin. Considering he’d been hit with multiple chairs, she figured that was a miracle. “The man with intel is waiting on us.”

  Odin looked around the bar. She knew by the stubborn set of his jaw that he was not happy.

  She was hardly thrilled herself. Odin could have been seriously hurt. And she suspected his next plan without him having to say a word. “Don’t even think it,” Maisey warned him. “I’m supposed to stay with you, Odin. You aren’t having a chat without me.”

  “Not like I’d leave you out here.” His fingers threaded with hers. “Jinx, you’ll watch the door?”

  “On it,” Jinx said instantly.

  Okay, so, they were friends. Especially if Odin trusted the guy to guard their backs. Odin kept a tight grip on her right hand. With her left, she tucked her mace back into her bag. For the moment, it seemed she wouldn’t be needing it. There was some sort of temporary truce happening in the bar. “Sorry I almost maced you,” Maisey told Jinx.

  “Think nothing of it,” he assured her with a wink. “Happens all the time.”

  Did it? How unfortunate. And what did he do to provoke mace attacks?

  “Don’t believe anything he says,” Odin told her gruffly as he steered her toward the red door. Everyone seemed to be giving them a wide berth. Everyone but Jinx. He ambled behind them. “The man is never serious.”

  “Life is too short for that,” Jinx called, obviously overhearing. “Besides, you’re serious enough for both of us.”

  She frowned back at him. “I do not like the tone. Odin has a wonderful laugh and a great sense of humor.”

  “Oh.” Jinx nodded. “You’re drunk. I didn’t realize that. It would explain why you were dancing on the table.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “I absolutely was not dancing—”

  Odin kicked open the red door. “Guard it,” he snapped to Jinx.

  Jinx saluted him.

  Odin pulled her inside.

  When the door shut, it was like stepping into another world. Silence. Immediate and intense. The blasting music vanished as if it had never existed.

  “Soundproof.” Odin nodded. He still held her hand in his. “Perfect place for you to do business, huh, Ramsey?”

  He knew this guy, too? And, wait—Ramsey? As in, this man owned the place?

  “Ah, my reputation proceeds me.” The man he’d called Ramsey gave a half-smile that never reached his eyes. “Sorry, but I don’t know you.”

  “He’s Odin,” Maisey supplied, and her voice sounded too high to her own ears. “I’m Maisey. I’m—”

  “Maisey Bright.” Ramsey took two steps toward her. Studied her with that faint smile still on his face and not in his eyes. “Now, you, I do know. Whitney mentioned you a time or two.”

  Oh? Maisey didn’t trust this man. Not for a second. “Funny, she never mentioned you.”

  His smile disappeared. “That’s because our relationship was private.”

  Relationship? “You were involved with her?” Ramsey was attractive in a dangerous and deadly sort of way. If you went for that. But…

  “We were fucking,” Ramsey told her.

  Okay. That cut to the chase. Blunt.

  “You realize you just jumped to the top of our suspect list,” Odin said. He let go of Maisey’s hand. He angled his body so it was in front of hers, but if she inched to the side, she could still see Ramsey.

  She inched.

  “I didn’t hurt Whit
ney. I’d never hurt her.” Ramsey’s voice was flat.

  “Ramsey…” Odin sighed. “You have a record a mile long.”

  Ramsey shrugged. “So? You tell me once when I have ever hurt a woman.” His gaze slid to Maisey once more. “I’ve been looking for Whitney, too. The night she vanished, she was supposed to come and meet me. Here, at the bar. Only I waited and she never showed.” His eyelids flickered. “Thought maybe she’d changed her mind.”

  “Changed her mind?” Maisey latched onto that. “About what?”

  Another shrug. “Does it matter?”

  “Yes, it does.” How could he think it didn’t? “Everything matters. She’s missing. She’s the third woman to go missing like this and—”

  “Third?” Ramsey’s voice dropped. Became lethal. “What in the hell are you talking about?”

  Maisey wet dry lips. “I’ve been researching. There were two other cases like this before Whitney was taken. Two other women who just vanished, leaving all of their belongings behind.”

  “You’re saying she was taken.” His eyes had turned to slits.

  “Well, yes, that’s why we’re here. We wanted to see if anyone here knew what had happened.” She brushed back a lock of her hair.

  “What Maisey means…” Odin said. “Is we are looking for other suspects. And you just conveniently jumped into our path. You were fucking Whitney. Did you get mad when she rejected you? Did you make Whitney Augustine disappear?”

  Silence.

  “That wasn’t very tactful,” Maisey whispered to Odin.

  “Screw tact.” Not a whisper.

  Okay. If they were going down that path, then she’d be blunt, too. “You gave her the roses,” she told Ramsey. “The ones that kept appearing in her office each day.”

  Ramsey jerked.

  She took that response as a yes. And if he’d been giving Whitney the roses that made her smile so often… “It wasn’t just about fucking.”

  Ramsey’s lips pressed into a thin line.

  “Her face lit up when she showed me her roses. She cared about you.” Maisey scooted around Odin’s formidable frame so she could better face-off with Ramsey. “You were going off together, weren’t you? Running away?”