The Hunting Town (Brothers Book 1)

by Elizabeth Stephens

  He was a good big brother until he started getting more responsibility in the drug game. I refused. Loredo had me beaten for it. Padre had me beaten for it. Even Mario thought it was weakness that kept me from it, even though it was just indifference. He was a good big brother but a bad man, and I still loved him.

  “Mer?”

  I look up with a start. “Yeah? Sorry, you were saying?”

  “What were you thinking about?”

  “Karmic revenge. Same as you.”

  Smiling, he takes a sip from his drink, then inhales deeply. He shakes his head – or maybe it’s a shudder. The skinny kid’s oversized tee hides too much of his body for me to be sure. “Just working in this place every day, watching ugly mother fuckers beat the crap out of each other and profiting from it. It only makes sense that I get beat up by a group of ugly mother fuckers.”

  I laugh. “Yeah, actually I can understand that. Karma’s come after my ass many times. I’m starting to wonder if I haven’t started racking up some kind of cosmic credit.”

  Laughing with me, Ollie chugs half of his beer before setting it down. He pushes the long, oily hair from his forehead and as I turn to hand someone else a couple beers, he leans across the bar. The whole thing threatens to topple and we both overreact, reaching to stabilize it at the same time. I grin. He doesn’t.

  “So I actually wanted to ask you…” He licks his lips and I notice they’re dry. His eyes are red and he’s got a vein throbbing near his right temple. “What happened when you were alone with Spade and Loredo?”

  “Woah, Ollie. Out of line.”

  “Sorry.” He touches his hair again, slicking it back along his hairline, and polishes off his beer. “Just…did they talk…about anything?”

  The aching muscle in my back spasms and I catch myself on the bar. “Of course they talked about shit, Ollie. I was there for nine fucking days.”

  “So did they talk about…”

  “Ollie, if you don’t stop talking now, I’m going to reach across the bar and break your other arm. Scale back, son.” I recoil from him and return to the fridge, grab a couple more beers and pocket the cash one of the frat boys gives me. “You’re three short.”

  I grab the kid by his pink popped collar and drag him into the bar so quickly, he crashes through one of the bar stools. A few guys standing nearby turn away from the fight to look at us. My pulse is thumping and I long to bloody his polo as placeholder for Ollie, but Knox intervenes as I should have anticipated he would.

  “We got a problem here?” His face is mean and his tan skin gleams under the light. I suck in a breath and the bloodlust doesn’t fade, but rather, morphs into something else. I can’t believe the man is mine. Mine.

  “N-n-no,” frat boy stutters, trying to melt back into the crowd. My panties are soaked by the time Knox rights the barstool and presses the kid’s torso down to it. The position might have looked erotic with Knox behind him like that, but Knox’s expression is closer to impaling than it is to fucking. He looks to me, as if awaiting my command.

  Maybe it’s the way Knox is rocking those light blue jeans, but I go easy on the poor bastard. “Nah. He’s alright.”

  Knox tosses the kid into the crowd without breaking the line of my gaze. He slides onto the abandoned barstool beside Ollie, then grins. “You both happy being back in this shithole?”

  “Couldn’t be happier.” I pass him a beer and take one for myself. Holding it up, we cheers, then I tap my beer to Ollie’s.

  Ollie lapses into conversation with Knox while I dole drinks out to some of the other guys mobbing the bar. I shout orders to Morgan as he struggles to keep up with me and though Ollie’s got me irked, Morgan and the frat boys and tonight’s bloodied contestants got me grinning.

  “What were you guys talking about earlier?” Knox says as I pop lids free from three beers.

  “Nothing.” I glance at Ollie pointedly but he’s staring at the table as if he’s found gold there rather than battered wood. I pass him a beer, hand another to Knox and take the third. “Ollie’s trying to solve the case of the missing Russians.”

  Knox snorts. “We don’t talk about that here.”

  “That’s what I said.” I keep my stare trained on Ollie and yes, I do mean it as a threat.

  “Besides.” Knox claps Ollie on the back and Ollie’s entire body pitches forward. “Aiden’s on it and so are the rest of us. Don’t worry. There’s no reasons for anyone to go after you.”

  Ollie mumbles an apology under his breath before sliding off of his stool. He drains his beer, sets the bottle down and makes his way out of the barn with the rest of the college kids. Regulars are the only ones who linger.

  “Plumeria.” Knox’s voice is sharp and I turn to face him. He smiles softly, bashful in a way that makes me want to throw him across the bar. If he’ll let me. Big fucker. “Are you actually okay? You’re not feeling tired or anything?”

  I am feeling tired, but I’m not about to tell him that. “Tired of not being back in the ring.” Even now, the barren earth draws me to it as most other women are drawn to jewels and fancy things. I glance at the dirt patch. Dust rains down on it from the platform seats overhead, occupied now by Marcus and Dean and a few others representing the home team. They’re laughing uproariously and I am warmed from the inside.

  He pushes off of his barstool and rises to stand. “The only person you’re fighting anytime soon is me and it’ll be for who gets to be on top.”

  “Then we better get started.” I follow him around the bar and call over my shoulder, “Morgan, take over for a second.”

  Knox laughs and shakes his head softly. “Hell no.”

  “To what?” I advance until he’s forced to the pit’s perimeter, marked only by a line drawn in the dirt each night before a fight. It’s mostly faded now.

  “Fucking or fighting.”

  “So what? You planning on losing then?” I slap him in the face lightly, but the sound still turns heads. A few of the guys start “ooh-ing” and almost everyone among the dozen or so dudes still in this dingy place turns to watch. Marcus and Dean and the rest peer down at us from the railing.

  Knox’s face flares a bright and dangerous cherry. “I’m not going to fight you.”

  I slap him again, harder this time and when he looks at me his lips are tense and his green eyes glitter ominously. I can see why he scares the hell out of people but right now, I’m racked with a different kind of anticipation. “You’re going to have to if you want to make it out of here.”

  “You’re trying to get me excited, but I don’t break that easy.” His gaze pans down the length of my body to reach my feet before travelling back up again. “You can’t have sex…”

  “For four weeks. It’s been five, cariño. I’m done waiting.” I slap him a third time – now with the back of my hand and hard enough that I leave a red imprint behind. He clenches his jaw, I curl my fingers into a fist and I aim for his lower abdomen. I fully intend to hit him, but as my hand glances his tee shirt, he takes a half shuffle to the side and grabs my wrist.

  I tumble forward when he twists behind me and I would have fallen had his left arm not coiled around my body while his right came to cup the front of my neck. His right leg crosses over mine so that I can’t move at all, and when I struggle I feel his erection press against my lower back through his jeans.

  His breathing is hard and when he tries to speak, his voice catches. I laugh. “Fuck you, Plumeria,” he growls against my ear.

  “That’s the plan, Knuckles.”

  He releases a low grunt and suddenly, I’m being hoisted into the air. He throws me over his shoulder and turns back towards the bar. “Morgan, can you lock up on your own?”

  Morgan mumbles something hesitant and incoherent. Knox turns to face him and I can’t see him anymore with the way my face brushes Knox’s tee shirt, hair swaying by Knox’s ass. I’m draped over Knox’s back like a messenger bag in a way that manages t
o avoid crushing my injured ribs, or lighting up the healing muscles near my spine. I laugh as I bounce along.

  “I’ll give you five hundred dollars,” Knox blurts out. We’re moving now, and we’re moving fast.

  “Oh shit. I mean yeah. That sounds good.” Morgan says, “But wait! Where are the keys?”

  Knox and I are already at the door and the guys we pass on the way are cheering. “In the safe,” I shout, “you know the code!”

  And as Knox carries me out into the rising night, I forget momentarily about the cartel, Loredo, Spade, Ollie’s nagging questions, Dixon’s hate, and all the rest. After all, it’s been five weeks. If they wanted to revenge against us for what happened to Spade or Loredo then they would have done so by now. We might be in the clear. We must be.

  Dixon

  I’m in my home office on the second floor. It adjoins my bedroom and I’ve been avoiding it until now for precisely this reason: Mer stands on the other side of my desk with her hands folded across her chest. She’s got pale brown scars on her arms and welts on her neck that look fresh. No, not welts. Hickies.

  “I know you have a problem with my being here and that you and Knox are brothers. I have jeopardized everyone’s safety with my existence and honestly, I used to be sorry for it. Recently though, Knox has made me rethink the whole self-hatred thing.” She laughs lightly and glances to the window that overlooks the wide front lawn. From here, you can’t even see the street.

  “Now, I’m just sorry. If you still want me to move out, I understand, and you and Knox can hash out the details because it’s honestly not my place to negotiate between you two. I am however, hoping there might be some way we can learn how to co-exist. What do you say?”

  “No.” I’ll be happy only when Aiden makes good on his promise, a promise I still mean for him to keep. Where the hell is he anyways? I shoot him a text to come see me and scroll through our past correspondences. Messages beckoning him or ordering him to hurt people are the only I’ve ever sent him, and he’s never responded. He just does. Usually.

  She sighs and shakes her head very softly, making me feel as if I’m being unreasonable. “Well I tried.” Shrugging, she turns and stalks to the door. Even her stride is no nonsense and I imagine that she would be the kind of person I might admire if she were a man, and wasn’t trying to ruin one of my brothers.

  “You should have that talk with Knox then,” she says from the doorway. “We can move out if it’s that much of a torture for you.” She disappears and I glance at my phone, hoping Aiden will text me back or better yet, appear on the other side of my desk with Mer’s body in a bag and no blood for me to clean up. I don’t dislike the woman, but rather, hold a deep hatred for her and everything she represents.

  We. There was a we before she arrived. Now from where I sit, there’s a them.

  Aiden doesn’t show up for another hour and when he does, he doesn’t announce himself. Looking up, I see him out of the corner of my eye and jump in my seat. “Christ, Aiden. You’re a goddamn ghost. How long have you been there?”

  He doesn’t answer me, but instead steps into my office and moves to the bookshelf against the opposite wall. He looks at the titles and says nothing for a long while, but I don’t prompt him. Aiden isn’t one to prompt, so I wait. I’m not one to wait and the act is painful.

  “There was something else in the house.”

  “What?” I push my computer aside. Aiden eyes my bourbon glass and though his expression is flat, I feel condemned. I’m drunk again and though my eyes aren’t bloodshot and my speech is clear, it’s a Tuesday and it isn’t even four pm. “In what house? Mer’s?”

  He nods. “And the Russians are looking for it.”

  I sit back and think for a moment, until it clicks. “You said something. Not someone. They’re not looking for Spade or his killer?”

  Aiden shakes his head.

  I go to say the word “shit”, but don’t make my way through it, and suddenly I’m reminded of the dancer, Sara Elan. At least that was the name she wrote on her Camelot contract; she, the reason I haven’t gone back since. I don’t want to be thinking about her and the things I said when I was wasted, but seeing that car seat in the back of that piece of crap car infuriates me, even now. What man lets his wife and kid out…and even if the man is no longer around what type of woman…what mother…I can’t head down this road. Shaking my head, I try to clear my thoughts and focus on the present.

  “You got any ideas?” I ask him.

  Aiden sets his hand on the corner of my desk and doesn’t move. For a moment, he looks like a statue. “It’s something small. At least, small enough to carry. Very valuable.”

  “We don’t have it. Any chance the Russians think we have it?”

  “More likely the cartel, but not impossible.”

  I sigh out a curse. “So we’re nearly in the clear. We just have to keep looking for whatever it is they want and hope that either we find it or they do.”

  He blinks once, ice blue eyes clear. “We need her.”

  I clench my fist and, as if accepting that as tacit endorsement, he heads to the door. “But after?” My voice breaks and I sound hoarse and weak.

  Aiden watches me from the doorway, then leaves. It takes me far too long to follow him out of my office and down the hall. I don’t find him though. He’s gone as quickly as he came. I stand in the center of the kitchen and glance around myself. I’m well dressed and clean and standing in my own home, but somehow I still feel homeless. I unbutton the top two buttons at my collar and roll up the arms. I’m restless and warmer than I should be so I head to the garage. Next thing I know, I’m driving towards town. The radio is off and I’m made uncomfortable by the silence.

  The sun is shining through sparse cumulonimbus clouds and I don’t know if it’s the booze but everything feels somehow muted, like I’m interacting with the world through a veil. I’m stopped at a red light on the corner of Forty fifth and Owl. The music thumping in the car to my right steals my attention away from the crossing traffic and I’m fully stalled by a sight just beyond that. Literally.

  A car honks behind me and my Audi lurches forward half a foot. I manage to restart it and pull over onto the curb, roll my window down and squint against the encroaching twilight for what feels like the full duration of a lifetime.

  The haze of the liquor clears and I see the grocery store parking lot clearly. I wish I couldn’t, but I know that these images will play tonight in my dreams. The sight chokes my throat and several times I close my eyes against it, but I don’t leave until the rusting jalopy crawls out of the parking lot, a baby boy bouncing in the back seat.

  Sara

  I’m nervous as heck as I approach the back door, though I told myself I wouldn’t be. The weather took a turn for the worse, and though last week I’d walked into Camelot wearing a skimpy skirt and tank top, over the weekend the temperature dropped below fifty. I chafe my hands together and approach the black back door and the woman standing beside it.

  “Hello,” I say, shooting her my warmest smile. I hold out my hand. “I’m Sara. I think I’ll be…dancing with you tonight.” I was going to say stripping, but catch myself.

  Rather than shake my hand, the blonde lifts her cigarette. “So you’re the new girl?”

  There’s something cagey about her, but I don’t let it bother me. I just shove my hand back into my pocket and nod. “Yep. That’s me. And you are?”

  She scrunches her nose and straightens up to her full height. In plastic platform heels, she’s almost a head taller than I am, which makes me wonder if I’m going to have to wear shoes like those tonight.

  “Some of the girls were saying that you gave Dixon a private show in order to end up here. I’ve been here for the past four years and I didn’t have to suck Dixon’s dick to get the job, so don’t think you can swoop in and take business away from me or any of the other girls because of it. This is a real job that some of us take seriously.�
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  The tip of her cigarette has burned down to the filter, so she flicks it beneath the wheel of the first car in the lot – a black Audi. It was one of the first things I noticed – not because nice cars do anything for me, but because the contrast between it and mine is stark. I think back to last week when I’d left Dixon, to my most embarrassing moment of a sequence of embarrassing moments – trying to storm off and not knowing whether my car would start. It had, but barely, and I’m reminded again of why I’m here tonight. If I do well, I could maybe afford the down payment on a safer car for Brant.

  Focusing hard on that rationale, I give the woman my best, most Southern grin. “Thank you. I was really just asking for your name though.”

  She grunts and, without another word, stalks through the back door. She doesn’t hold it open for me either, but marches instead down a short hall, takes a left and disappears behind a heavy black curtain. Up ahead, another black curtain has been drawn to separate this hallway from the mayhem of the bar beyond it, and beyond it I can hear glasses clinking and men hollering and laughing.

  Trap is playing, bass so loud the floor pulses in time with some great god’s heart. The vibrations reverberate through the soles of my boots and I’m smiling nervously as a cool gust of air hits me, lifting my hair from my shoulders. The back door clangs shut with a racket and I turn, only to be startled by the presence of a body standing too close for comfort.

  I look up at Dixon glaring down and I try to will away my body’s first reaction, but my mind is weak. I’m Icarus and for all the darkness he exudes, Dixon is the sun and I’m incinerated. He’s wearing dark blue jeans and a white tee shirt that he fills out too well along with the same black leather jacket he used to cover me. I wish I could forget that happened. It felt too much like genuine concern. Maybe more than that. Possessiveness. The desire to claim me. And he’s just the type of guy I always wished would. Before I inherited Brant, that is. Now it’s just the two of us and the good lord only knows I don’t need to worry about any other boys at the moment. Or men.