OMEGA: A New Adult Urban Fantasy (Mackenzie Grey Book 4)
Page 29
Taking the Benjamin from the bar top, I noticed a phone number and the name “Kendall” written on it. Sashaying her way to the bachelorette party, she looked back at me and bit her glossed lip. Chuckling, I nodded her way, acknowledging her flirtation.
“Raven!” Dean called out. “I’m going on break,” he said as he took off his apron.
Nodding in his direction, I went to take care of the customers in his section. They were simple enough—mostly beer and the occasional fruity drink. I was wiping down the countertop when a husky man plopped himself on the bar stool in front me. He had beads of sweat on his upper lip and was running his hands through his greasy hair.
“How about you give me your coldest beer, and slide your number with it, Doll.” He grinned and turned to his pals who were behind him, egging him on. They were uniformed in dirty jeans, work boots, and an array of wife-beaters and flannel. Construction workers.
Tilting my head, I stared at the man until it got uncomfortable. He chuckled awkwardly and licked his lips. “C’mon, baby, don’t leave a guy hanging.”
I turned to grab a glass and fill it with the cheapest ale we had when his paws latched onto my arm. My eyes turned to slits as they followed his hand, up his arm, to his shoulder and then face. Once we made eye contact, he released me, obviously nervous.
“Touch me again and I’ll cut your hand off.”
There was a pregnant pause. I’d caught him off guard, the wheels spinning in his head as he tried to come up with something to say.
Finally, he laughed. “A spitfire, I like it.” He turned to his buddies. “Especially when she’s on her knees.”
I froze. This could go one of two ways: I could ignore the bastard and let him spend the night rattling on about the bitch behind the bar to his friends, or I could …
“Like your mom.”
The laughing stopped.
I filled up his glass with beer piss and slid it toward him. “She gave me quite a lashing last night,” I smirked, pouring another shot of tequila for myself. I knew where this conversation was headed and it wasn’t going to be friendly. Maybe I could go for another shot …
“Fuckin’ bitch. You’re gonna be begging for this real soon,” he sneered as he groped his unimpressive package. He reached over the counter for me, but I swerved out of his way.
“It’s all fun and games until someone loses their shit.” I sighed.
Using the back wall, I lifted myself up, my legs shooting out and over the bar top, hitting him square in the chest. He fell out of his bar stool, knocking a few others on the way down. I slid across the counter, my boots landing with a thump on the sticky floor of The Hidden Monkey.
Taking a beer bottle from another patron and smashing it on the counter, I held the neck of the bottle, its jagged edges aimed for the guy as I strutted toward the fat bastard, hovering over him like a dark cloud.
“Shall I take a finger, or be a woman of my word and take the whole hand?” I inquired as I popped a squat on his stomach.
With my tall, lean stature, it was obvious he didn’t expect the rock that landed on him—the Valkyrie strength I hadn’t used in many years.
He shook his head. “What the fuck?”
“It’s rude to leave a girl hanging. What’ll it be … finger or hand?”
His head whipped back and forth as he bucked under the weight I was putting on his abdomen.
“Get off me, you crazy bitch!”
I dug the sharp glass under his chin, the edges pricking his sensitive skin, and a trickle of blood spilled out.
“Want to repeat that again?”
His body locked up, eyes wide, and he shook his head slowly.
“Thought so.” I lifted some of my weight off him, but not before landing a swift punch to his jaw. Standing, I tossed the broken bottle over the counter.
He knocked over a couple of stools as he attempted to stand, his friends trying to help him. His face was beet-red, like a tea kettle that had been on the stove for too long, the steam blowing out of his ears and the whistle the only warning he was about to blow.
“I’m gonna—”
“You’re going to do nothing,” I said, and kneed him in the balls. Pinching my bottom lip with my thumb and forefinger, I whistled to the bouncers at the door. “Come into my bar again and see what I do,” I threatened.
Freddy, one of the security guards, came bounding through the throng of onlookers and hauled my annoyance out of the bar.
“Anyone else want to join him?” I asked his pals. They shook their heads, dispersing into the crowd.
Hopping over to my side of the bar, I began to clean up the mess I’d made.
“Raven!” Donnie, the owner of The Hidden Monkey, called out to me. “Back room. Now!”
I rolled my eyes.
Here we go again. Play nice, Raven. Play nice.
Donnie was not only my boss but my landlord. He rented out the apartment above the bar to me for dirt cheap.
“What the hell is your problem?” he yelled as I poked my head into the back room that was a storage/office area. The bar was left unattended, so I didn’t go completely inside. “This is your third altercation this month. I like you, but you cost me money, girl.”
“Run the video, Donnie. He assaulted me.”
He stared me down, but I didn’t flinch. For once, I was in the right.
“Have you been drinking again?”
I smirked. “What do you think?”
He sighed. “Get out there, Raven,” he relented. “But half your tips go to damages.”
“You got it, boss.”
I went back out to the bar where Kendall was waiting for me. Her eyes full of mischief, I began to busy myself with drying beer glasses.
“That was hot,” she said as she leaned over the counter. She bit her plump, bottom lip, her blue eyes sparkled against the dim lighting, and her low-cut top exposing more than it should have.
I raised a brow. “You like to be flung around?”
“Oh, yes.” She released her lip slowly, my eyes glued to her every movement.
I tossed the white rag over my shoulder and crossed my arms over my chest. “I close at three.”
“Noted,” she grinned, and got lost in the crowd.
Humans were so easy.
I closed the bar at two fifty-five in the morning, locked up, and shut off the blinking Open sign. Leaning against the door, I watched Kendall who was the only person left. Music hummed in the background as she danced around the empty bar, filtering between tables like a pixie in a meadow. Her strawberry-blonde hair came down to her mid-back and she spun around one more time before facing me. Her crystal-blue eyes pierced me with a knowing look that told me everything we’d be doing tonight.
She tossed her pink Maid of Honor sash on the ground, her shirt following.
“Upstairs,” was all I said as I tilted my head toward my second-floor apartment. She bit that damn lip again and ran up to my place as if I’d chase behind her. Reaching over the countertop, I grabbed the first bottle my hands touched—rum—and uncapped it. Taking a swig, I followed the little human up the stairs.
For the first time since I’d been in the human world, I thought I was going to die. The constant pounding was like someone playing the drums, with the bass right next to my ears.
Grabbing my pillow, I put it over my head to drown out the pounding. I’d only had a couple of pain killers and had chased them with a bottle of rum—oh, and the sleeping pills. It was tame compared to other nights. With my metabolism, I needed more than your average human.
The pounding continued.
“Raven Romero!” someone yelled, and I realized the pounding was actually someone banging on my door. I thought about Kendall, but I’d sent her home in a taxi around six in the morning. She could have come around for seconds, but I didn’t remember her sounding like a man.
“Raven Romero, open up! This is Portland Police!”
Frowning, I poked my head out from under the pi
llow. Portland Police? Well, that was new.
With a groan, I rolled out of bed. Leisurely, I stretched my back and arms, feeling the two massive scars that ran from my shoulder blades to my lower back—where my wings once were. I’d ripped them out myself and had refused to let them grow back. In doing so, it disfigured my skin, leaving thick, mangled scars in their wake.
I shuffled to the kitchen, where I grabbed a beer from the fridge and rinsed my morning breath in the sink. “Just a minute!” I called out. The banging continued.
With the speed of a sloth, I trudged to the front door—keeping the chain in place—and cracked open the door.
“Yeah?” I grumbled.
Two men stood in front of my apartment door, both wearing cheap suits that gave away their yearly salary. The one with the receding hairline was forgettable, but the young man to his left piqued my interest with his dark hair, bedroom eyes, and a scruffy five o’clock shadow that was more sexy than homeless-chic.
“Are you Raven Romero?” Forgettable One asked, but I kept staring at Bedroom Eyes.
“Who’s asking?”
“We are,” he grunted before flashing his badge. “I’m Detective Leroy Thompson, and this is my partner Detective William Masters. Could you step out of your apartment please?”
I raised a brow and finally acknowledged Detective Thompson. “Why?”
“What were you doing between the hours of five and seven in the morning?”
“Sleeping.”
“Can someone corroborate that?”
“Yeah. My bed.”
Detective Thompson huffed. “Ms. Romero, have you not heard the commotion downstairs?”
I shrugged. “I’m a deep sleeper.”
When I mixed pills and alcohol, I was out for the count. It was the whole purpose—to get uninterrupted sleep without the nightmares keeping me up.
“Are you drunk?” Detective Masters sniffed the air, his voice raspy and deep.
I smirked. “Well, aren’t you perceptive.”
“Ms. Romero, we’re going to need you to step outside.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re under arrest for the murder of Kendall Carter.”
Also by Karina Espinosa
Mackenzie Grey Series:
SHIFT (Mackenzie Grey #1)
CAGED (Mackenzie Grey #2)
ALPHA (Mackenzie Grey #3)
OMEGA (Mackenzie Grey #4)
Sins of the Fallen Series:
Sins of the Fallen
Greed (Sins of the Fallen #2)
Lust (Sins of the Fallen #3)