by Davis, Jen
He stomped through the loose gravel up the three groaning wood steps and forged inside. His eyes burned as he tried to focus through the fog of cigarette smoke, but he fought the urge to squeeze them shut as he executed a slow sweep of the room.
A Coors hanging light illuminated the pool table in a hazy glow. He recognized both of the old guys playing as riders from his dad’s generation. He gave a respectful nod as he passed them by.
A dartboard overlooked two banged-up tables to the right. Two women in skin-tight jeans held court with a couple of guys who were “teaching them” how to toss. It was an old dance where everyone knew damn good and well the lessons were only an excuse to put their hands on each other. Dollars to donuts, all four of them would be gone and getting freaky before the hour was up.
The bartender affectionately dubbed “Hangman” waved him over before he finished his circuit of the dark room. “Can I get you a Bud, boy?” Hangman had to be pushing sixty-five, so the nickname gave no insult.
He shook his head. “Looking for my pops. It’s urgent.”
Hangman raised an eyebrow and scratched his head with his index finger. The movement dislodged a gray strand or two from his ponytail and sent it hanging into his face. He blew it away as he leaned forward on the bar. “He’s back in the storeroom.” His voice climbed as Kane stalked off. “But I wouldn’t go back there right now.”
Whatever. Everyone knew what the storage room was used for here, and it wasn’t to store booze. Besides, it’s not like his father made a secret of his extra-curricular activities.
No, Malcolm getting busy in the back didn’t surprise him. The surprise came from who he was getting busy with. “Is there anyone in my family you haven’t fucked?”
Charlene looked up from the crate where Malcolm had her bent over. Her elbows were propped beneath her, and her tits bounced perilously close to the rough wood. “Why?” she purred. “You jealous?”
Malcolm didn’t even have the decency to stop drilling her. “Get the fuck out, son. I’m busy here.”
It would serve everyone right if he did exactly what his father demanded. Let Scott pay the price for his own arrogance with a night in jail. Let his father come home to a trashed house and what was probably police surveillance. But walking away would also leave Cue Ball and the prospect hanging out to dry, to say nothing of his mom’s sorry state.
No, walking away wasn’t an option. He fixed his gaze somewhere over his father’s right shoulder. “It’s a family emergency.” The words were code for club emergency, as in drop whatever you’re doing and deal with this first.
His father muttered a foul curse, and a moment later, Kane heard him zip up.
“Aren’t we going to finish, baby?” Charlene whined.
“Some other time,” Malcolm growled.
Sure his father was on his heels, he turned away from his ex and got the fuck out of dodge.
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
Amanda
For the umpteenth time, Amanda glanced at her rearview mirror, searching for the cause of her disquiet. She spotted nothing but normal traffic on the interstate, but really, what did she expect? A vague paranoia had followed her for days, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why.
She’d pissed off two very powerful men in a short period of time. Neither was the type to simply let things slide, so yeah, the other shoe would likely drop soon.
But there was nothing she could do to mitigate any unknown plans Nathan or her father were making. She needed to keep her eyes on the prize. Focus on the new development.
And Kane.
She swiftly rejected the plaintive voice in the back her head begging for a fix to her love life. That way lay dragons.
It had been only thirty minutes since her very productive meeting with Jared Berringer, and he’d essentially given her carte blanche in organizing the build schedule. He’d also promised her input on the marketing campaign starting after the holidays. She had a flash drive in her coat pocket with about a dozen pitches he gave her to review.
Cooper Construction stood poised on the precipice of a huge leap forward. She only had to play her cards right. Start out on the right foot. Consult her team and rely on their expertise. She’d called Xander and two of her other foremen for a meeting right away. They knew better than anyone what expectations were reasonable and what their men could accomplish.
An hour after her phone calls, she pulled up beside Xander’s truck outside his trailer at the new site. The heels she’d selected for her meeting with Jared looked great with her pantsuit but were clearly a terrible choice for the newly turned dirt. She had to walk on her tiptoes as she approached the short rise of stairs.
Three members of Kane’s team worked nearby on the frame for the concrete slab the crews would pour in a few days.
Xander waited inside the trailer, along with her two other senior foremen, Carl and Gene. The men sprang from their chairs as she stepped into the trailer’s warmth.
“It’s good to see you all. Please, sit.” These guys could give some lessons to her shareholders. It was nice to be greeted with manners for a change.
Carl gave up the chair opposite Xander at the desk and moved to sit beside Gene on the frayed loveseat along the far wall.
She shot him a grateful smile and took the vacated seat. “I know you all are very busy, so I will get right to the point. Berringer is giving us the green light to write our own ticket.”
Xander ran his hand through black wavy hair shot with strands of gray. “What exactly does he mean?”
She’d give her eye teeth to kick off her shoes right now. “He means our build schedule is up to us. Or really, up to the three of you.”
Xander didn’t smile, but his tense features relaxed a fraction. “You want us to formulate a rollout schedule.”
“Exactly.” Her left pinkie toe throbbed, but she refused to let it sap her focus. “I know winter is a slow season for contracts and sales, but with five months of lead time, we need to start building the spec houses for May sales. As far as how many of those projects your teams can successfully juggle, I need to defer to you.”
It took about an hour to hammer out a tentative plan. When they were done, Gene and Carl wasted no time getting back to their crews. Xander stood to see them off. “If you’ll excuse me, Miss Griffin, I need to step out to pick up some lumber. No need to lock up when you’re done. My guys outside will keep an eye on things here.”
Her toe now screamed for attention, but she kept her nod placid. “Thank you. I just need to make a quick call, if you don’t mind.”
He lingered briefly at the door. “Take your time.” He may have said something else, but all she could think about was him closing the door so she could take off her goddamn shoes.
When she finally removed the instruments of her torture, she wanted to cry in relief. Her right baby toe was an angry red and swollen to twice its normal size. The left foot was uncomfortable, but no more than normal when she wore these shoes. An inspection of her footwear revealed a tear in the right shoe’s lining, right where her toe had been jammed.
One mystery solved. At this point, she had to figure out how she was going to get back to her car. With her damn shoe finally off, she couldn’t imagine forcing it back on. The other option was walking back through the dirt in her bare feet. Very professional.
She was so busy considering her feet, she didn’t hear anyone climb the stairs to the trailer or even the knob turning to open the door. It’s how she didn’t know Nathan was there until he spoke her name.
“Amanda.”
She jumped.
Dammit.
Way to give him the upper hand. “What are you doing here?” She stood in her bare feet. No way would she have him hover over her any more than their height difference already allowed.
His smile betrayed his simmering cruelty. “I wanted a closer look at where you’re slumming it.”
She eyed the door, but he stood squarely in
the path of her only way out. “You have no business here.” Her voice betrayed none of the terror she felt being cornered by him.
“You are my business as long as I say you are.” He advanced, and she took a step back. It wasn’t fast enough. His backhand threw her back against the wall.
She braced for another hit as he cocked back his fist, but a strong, dark hand wrapped around his bicep and yanked him back.
“Get your filthy hands off me,” Nathan sputtered. “Do you have any idea who I am?”
“A piece of shit as far as I can tell.” She didn’t recognize the voice, and she couldn’t see the face of her savior.
Nathan strained against the man’s grip. “Who the hell do you think you are? Go back to your own country.”
“This is my country. And I’ll tell you exactly who I am. I’m Staff Sergeant Cyrus Amir, Army Ranger. The man who’s going to kick your privileged, entitled ass if you don’t step away from the lady.”
Cyrus? Yes, he was one of the guys Xander had working outside.
Nathan laughed low in his throat. “Lady? The only woman I see here is a whore.”
She didn’t have to see the punch Cyrus threw. She heard the hard crack of his fist against Nathan’s face. And she couldn’t miss the way Nathan’s head snapped back with the force of the blow.
He didn’t fight back at Cyrus, though. He charged at her, wrapping his hands around her neck, cutting off her oxygen before she could gasp for air. “Is this the one? The man who scratched up your pretty face with his beard? The one you were fucking when you were supposed to be mine?” His eyes bulged, and a vein pulsed on his Botox-riddled forehead.
As her vision darkened, she glimpsed several hands pulling at Nathan’s arms and shoulders. Or maybe she was seeing double. Triple? The world was spinning. The trailer—Nathan—everything was getting further away.
Until his iron grip released, and her lungs filled with air. Her knees buckled, and she dropped to the floor in front of the loveseat, gasping like a fish on land. The sounds of violence echoed around her, but her brain struggled to make sense of what was happening only a few feet away.
Nathan lay flat on his back, a man straddling his chest, pounding his face like his fists were mallets. Blood splattered warm onto her skin. She heard yelling, but it was as if her ears were stuffed with cotton.
It wasn’t Cyrus pummeling Nathan. It was a white guy with burns on his neck and the side of his face. Cyrus was trying to pull him off, him and a big man. What was his name? He was Kane’s friend. The one who got shot.
She was still trying to remember his name when the world went dark.
***
Kane
Kane almost ignored his phone when it buzzed in his back pocket. Only the haunted look in his mother’s eyes at the kitchen table the day before made him reconsider.
What if the cops had come back? What if they found the storage unit with the drugs and the guns?
He tugged it out and glanced at the screen, expecting to see the photo Mama V had attached to her contact.
“Brick?” He could count on one hand the number of times his friend had called him. “Everything okay?”
“You need to get over to the new site. Fast.” Though Brick pitched his voice low, it nearly vibrated with intensity. “It’s your girl. Some guy messed her up really bad.”
He may have said more, but those were the last words Kane registered. If he were thinking clearly, he might have asked questions or tried to find out exactly what had happened. He didn’t need to clarify his friend was talking about Mandy. There was no other girl, and they both knew it.
The normal drive time to the new development lasted about five or six minutes. The Harley got him there in three, weaving in and out of the cars on the road, even taking him over a couple of sidewalks.
He drove straight up to the steps outside the trailer, where he noticed right away the door hung open, but two men blocked it. He shouldered his way past them.
Mandy lay on the floor, her back propped against the wall next to the desk. Her left cheekbone was red with the telltale swelling he’d seen on his mother’s face too many times to count. Her blouse was ripped at the sleeve, and she winced as her fingers slid back and forth over her neck. From the unfocused look in her eyes, it was obvious she didn’t register his presence.
White hot rage nearly froze him in place, but the need to touch her, to comfort her rose to the surface. He knelt beside her, resting his hand on her shoulder.
She lashed out, leading with her fists and following through with the weight of her slight body. Her knuckles skimmed over his chest, but she kept fighting, either unconcerned or unaware her strikes weren’t landing.
He slipped his hands around her wrists, holding them immobile, and the wild look in her eyes twisted his gut.
“Let me go,” she rasped, struggling against his grip.
“Mandy.” He said it gently, the way his mom had said his name when he’d woken up in the hospital. “It’s Kane. Baby, look at me.”
Her body stilled, and her gaze shot around the room. From the corner of his eye, he could see no sign of Brick, but Cy and Evan still crowded around the door. She would hate having witnesses to something like this. “Can you give us some space, guys?” He had a feeling they could help him fill in the blanks, but his first priority was taking care of his woman.
The door clicked shut behind him, and Mandy’s shoulders slumped forward. She made a small cry as he pulled her into his arms. “Shh. You’re okay now. Everything is going to be okay.” He kissed the top of her head and rocked her gently.
She didn’t make another sound, but her uneven breaths and shaking shoulders spoke volumes. Someone had hurt her beyond words, and he would not rest until the perpetrator paid the price in blood and fucking tears. But Mandy came first.
Five minutes may have passed—or maybe fifty—but it felt like an eternity before Mandy’s breathing evened out, and she relaxed against him. “I want to go home,” she whispered.
He helped her to her feet, which he realized were bare. “Do you have any shoes?” When her face started to crumple again, he didn’t hesitate. He swept her into his arms and carried her to the door, swiping her purse from the desk along the way.
Cyrus and Evan were keeping vigil at the foot of the stairs, and Evan nodded gravely, jaw clenched, as they passed by. Cyrus rushed ahead to Mandy’s car and opened the passenger door so Kane could release her inside.
Kane closed the door as she wrapped her arms around her legs and buried her face into her raised knees. He turned to Cyrus. “Who did this?”
Cy shook his head in frustration. “I didn’t get his name, but he was definitely Old Money, and he definitely had a history with your lady.” He stepped closer and lowered his voice. “I think he might have thought she and I—” He cleared his throat. “He asked if I was the one who scratched up her face with my beard. If she was sleeping with me while they were still together.”
Mother fucker. His jaw clenched. “Was this before or after he put his hands on her?”
“I knew something was up when he went storming into the trailer. He looked like he was ready to burn the place down, you know?” Cyrus cracked his knuckles as he spoke. “I followed him, but he was a little ahead of me. He’d already hit her once by the time I got inside.”
“And then?”
Cy’s hands balled into fists. “When he called her a whore, I let him go long enough to clock him in the face. I didn’t count on him going for her throat afterward. I had to call Evan and Brick to help me pull him off her.”
His instincts tugged him in separate directions. The drive to find this guy and kill him was a fire in his veins. But the need to protect Mandy, to comfort her, and help soothe whatever pieces of her the attack left broken, jagged, and raw…that duty was paramount. He would keep her safe, full stop.
“Where is this guy now?” More importantly, was Mandy still in danger?
“We were going to hold him for the cops
, but your girl wouldn’t let us. She was afraid he’d manage to turn it back around on one of us—get me or Evan thrown in jail.” He scoffed. “The day I’m afraid of a prick like him will be the day I need to trade in my nuts for a handbag. But she was kind of freaking out, so Brick took him out of here. Evan really cleaned his clock. Don’t know if the guy will be eating any solid foods for a while, much less coming back around here to make more trouble.”
Seemed like he owed the new guy big time. “Thanks for everything. I’m going to get her home.” He flashed Cyrus a look, meant to convey the depth of his gratitude, then rounded the back of Mandy’s car to approach the driver’s seat.
He was going to kill her ex, but first, she needed him to take care of her.
When he climbed behind the wheel, she hadn’t moved from her curled-up position on the passenger seat. “Hold on, sweetheart. I’m talking you home.”
She finally lifted her head. “Not mine.” Her voice was like sandpaper. “Yours.”
She wanted to go to his place? The idea hadn’t even occurred to him, though it probably should have. Her ex had no idea who he was, much less where to find them. He simply never invited women over; something about the idea of a person he may never want to see again imprinting herself on his personal space. It wasn’t the case with Mandy, though, was it? She was already imprinted on every part of his heart, body, and soul.
“You got it. Buckle up. We’ll be there before you know it.”
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
Amanda
Amanda wasn’t sure what she expected Kane’s apartment to look like. Something cheap or messy, maybe? Dirty clothes on the floor or empty beer bottles on the coffee table. Not the clean, comfortable space he led her into.
She focused on her surroundings, forbidding her thoughts from reliving the events in Xander’s trailer.
All Kane’s furniture matched. The plush brown sofa against the wall clearly came from the same set as the overstuffed chair near the sliding glass door. The same unblemished walnut used on the coffee table made up the two end tables and the small entertainment center supporting the TV.
