by J. R. Ward
Moose stood up out of the sunroof again. “Cat’s Meow, here we come!”
Oh, dear God.
* * *
Danny was ready to kill Moose. The guy had sworn up and down that the Local was hosting the party—in other words, nothing inappropriate would be going down. No strippers, no sloppy drinking, just a bunch of hardies hanging out and telling stories and toasting Moose.
This re-routing had taken them directly into naked territory.
Danny didn’t judge strippers or sex workers, but he’d never been into that scene. Even when he’d been an idiot in college with more hormones than brains, he’d always preferred to find enthusiastic partners rather than remunerated reluctants, because the objectification had never been something he was comfortable with.
Yeah, he’d gotten shit for it from his fraternity brothers, but he didn’t care.
Add Anne on top of all that? Yeah, he was riding a whole lot of fuck-this on Moose’s bright idea.
Ten minutes later, the limo pulled up to the Cat’s Meow, a blacked-out tri-decker of iniquity, and Moose was all about it, throwing the door open and falling onto the sidewalk. He caught himself before he face-planted, and Danny had to be impressed by that physical control.
Jack leaned around Anne. “I can’t go in there, Dannyboy. SWAT raided the place last week.”
Mick spoke up, too. “No way we can hit it as members of SWAT.”
“Yeah,” Danny said. “I’m not going in, either.”
A chorus of hollering made them all look out of the door. A pack of some twenty guys came rushing at Moose, and Danny recognized them as fraternity brothers.
Deshaun and Ty shuffled out of the limo. “We’re Ubering. You want to share?”
“Yup.” Jack followed them. “This has shitshow written all over it. And as much as I love the guy, I’m not losing my credentials over Moose’s last hurrah.”
Emilio and Duff also no-go’d.
Danny glanced at Anne. “Hey, you want to walk back to the four-nine-nine with me? I was supposed to bring Moose’s truck home anyway.”
That was kind of BS. But he wanted to spend time with her outside of work and he’d engineer that any way he could.
Call him Mr. Smooth.
“Okay.” She put her beer aside and clapped her hands on her legs. “I could use some fresh air.”
And now the night was looking up, he thought as he emerged and offered her a hand. She shook her head and exited herself—and that made him smile. He always felt like he was chasing her, even when she was right in front of him.
“Where are you guys going?” Moose demanded. “Wait, you’re coming in, right?”
“Uber’s on the way,” Deshaun said. “Got us a minivan.”
“What?” Moose came back over, his arms stretched out, those open containers in both hands technically a violation of the law. “You guys are my best friends! My roommates! What the fuck!”
In the club, that group of frat boys was funneling into the strip club, ready to tear it up, and as Jack and everybody else who was bailing looked at Danny, it was clear he was going to have to lay down the hammer.
“We’re out, Moose.” As the guy started to argue, Danny shook his head. “Illegal prostitution, buddy. None of us are going in there.”
“Come on, man. Don’t bring the drama.”
“This place gets raided while we’re in there, Jack and Mick are fucked because they’re on SWAT. And the rest of us don’t need the headache. I can just see the headline now—‘Firefighters and Search and Rescue sergeant arrested along with local fraternity alums at strip club.’ ”
“You guys are my crew.”
Danny stared at the hurt on the guy’s face and felt like shit. But not enough to roll the dice on an arrest.
“We’ll all be there for the stuff that counts.” Danny clapped a hand on the guy’s thick neck. “You do your thing, but listen. Don’t get caught, okay?”
Moose rolled his eyes. “She’s out with her girls. She won’t know nothin’. ”
Danny took the beers, spun the guy around, and gave him a shove toward the club’s black door. “Use a condom if you slip up. You don’t want to get to clapping on your wedding night.”
As Moose jumped forward and grabbed one of their frat brothers around the waist, Danny turned to Anne.
“You ready?”
“Where we going?” Duff asked.
Danny narrowed his eyes. “She and I are getting Moose’s truck.”
“You want to walk with us?” Anne said.
I will Conan the Barbarian you with my bare hands, Danny telegraphed to his buddy.
“Ah . . .” Duff looked at Deshaun. “Mind if I squeeze in with you guys?”
“No problem,” their engineer said. “We’re going to Timeout.”
“I’ma head there with them.” Duff thumbed over his shoulder. “You know, with them.”
Danny nodded. “Have a great night. Come on, Anne.”
“Bye, you guys,” she said.
The men waved at her and studiously avoided looking at him. But whatever. He was in a weird mood, and he didn’t care who noticed.
His head was a mess for no good reason. Looked like Anne wasn’t the only one who needed fresh air.
chapter
4
As Anne fell into stride with Danny, she put her hands in her parka and liked the cold air on her face. She had long legs, so it wasn’t hard to keep up with him. In fact, they mirrored each other’s footfalls exactly.
So she skipped a step to make sure they were not in sync.
Thinking back to that moment in the tuxedo shop, when things had gotten waaaaay, way, way too real, she reminded herself that it was important not to do anything she couldn’t live with later. They worked together, for godsakes, and even though she’d never had a reason to check the regulations, she was pretty sure that there was a no-fraternization rule for firefighters. If not within the whole department, then certainly within a given firehouse—
Wait . . . was she really thinking that if that wasn’t the case, she might sleep with him?
She glanced over. Danny’s expression was grim, his brows down, his jaw locked. And as they left the Cat’s Meow in the dust, an image from the week before barged into her brain.
The crew had just come back from a box alarm. It had been a no-BFD, only a minor kitchen fire, hamburger patties cooked past well-done and into incineration. Deshaun had backed the engine into the bay and they had all gotten off.
It was the kind of thing that they did over two hundred times in a month, nothing unusual or remarkable. But it had been at sundown, and the golden rays penetrating the firehouse’s vehicle floor had bathed Danny in a glow that was unreal. Anne had ducked her head and watched him as he’d shucked his turnouts, peeling off the heavy flame-retardant jacket and hanging it in his locker, then shucking his suspenders and stepping out of his boots and pants.
His shoulder muscles had flexed as he’d twisted and turned, his biceps stretching his T-shirt sleeves thin, his pecs bulking and then releasing. He’d been laughing at something Deshaun had said, that smile cocky and sure, those Irish eyes flashing blue.
And then he’d caught her staring.
An expression similar to the one he had now had overtaken his face, and that big body had stopped in mid-motion.
As Anne refocused on the sidewalk ahead, she thought of When Harry Met Sally—the part where Harry tells Sally that men and women can never be friends.
Funny, she had been alone with Danny so many times at work. Whether they were going into a burning building together, or playing pong in the rec area, or working out in the bays, there had been countless incidences of them isolated from the rest of the crew.
Tonight, it was different.
Then again, she had never hung out with him by herself on her off time. Tonight . . . things felt date-ish.
“My SCBA still needs a new mask,” she said. “Do you know whether Captain Baker’s submitted the equipment order for this m
onth yet?”
When in doubt, talk shop, she thought.
“Yeah, he has. But I’ll find you another medium. The lens get scratched again?”
“Remember the three-alarm on Monday at that dry cleaning store?”
“The one where you busted that window out with your body?” He glanced over and smiled. “You were like a stuntman going through that pane of glass. You blew that shit up.”
She laughed. “It was so much fun. But Captain Baker was not happy.”
“In his defense, the front door was about three feet over.”
“Dead-bolt required a key. I tried that exit first.”
“Really? I wondered what was going on. I was charging another line from the hydrant, and I looked up to see this explosion. I thought the contents fire had gone flash point, but nope. It was just Ashburn, using herself to vent the flames.”
“I didn’t have any other tools with me, and we needed to get that temperature down before the damn thing went structural. What was I supposed to do?”
As Danny chuckled, she tried to claw her way back to normal, to the way it had always been between them, with her just one of the guys. She was on a slippery slope, however, and she felt like she was falling into a destination she didn’t want to put a name to.
To distract herself, she looked around. They were passing by another strip club, the sound of pumping music vibrating through its walls. A wait line had formed to the left of the entrance, three bouncers checking IDs before they let groups of partially dressed women and tattooed men inside.
“If Moose had picked here, would you have gone?” she asked. “I’ve never heard of any problems here.”
“Only if I could pay the dancers to put their clothes back on.”
“I never pictured you as a prude.”
“I’m not. I just don’t like that scene.”
No, he liked full-on naked, from what she’d heard.
As a spike of lust shot through her, she wanted to kick her own ass. Just friends, damn it, they were just friends—no, they weren’t even that. They worked together.
Colleagues was the word.
“Let’s walk faster,” she muttered as they crossed the head of an alley. “It’s cold out.”
“You want my coat?”
Sure, that was exactly what she needed. More of his aftershave in her nose. “Nah, I’m good—”
“Help! Oh, God, help! He’s been stabbed!”
Stopping short, Anne looked at Danny and then zeroed in on a disembodied female voice emerging from the shadows down the alleyway.
“Come on!” Anne said, grabbing his arm.
* * *
Danny took off behind Anne as she fell into a run toward the commotion, the pair of them tearing down a narrow lane created by a boarding house on one side and the blood donation clinic on the other. Halfway down, in the dim glow from a security light six stories up, a man was circling someone who was sprawled on the pavement. Another person, a woman, had thrown herself over the injured, putting her body in the way.
“—fucking asshole! You fucker!” The knife in the aggressor’s hand flashed. There was blood on it. “I’ma fucking kill you!”
“Leave him alone!” the woman yelled.
As the attacker noticed Anne, he tucked the blade behind his back. “Walk away, bitch. Just walk away.”
“I’m an EMT.” She put her palms up. “If he’s hurt, let me treat him—”
“Get the fuck out of here!”
“Help us!” the woman begged as she reached out with a bloody hand. “He’s bleeding bad.”
“Shut up.” The attacker outted the knife again and pointed it at the woman. “You fucking shut your mouth—this is your fault—”
Danny lunged forward into the hazy circle of light, battling for control of the weapon, locking a hold on a thick wrist. The attacker torqued and threw a punch that landed on the side of Danny’s head, but Danny knew that he couldn’t let go or he was going to be stabbed next. Grunting, he put all his weight and strength into a pivot that swung the man in a circle and slammed him face-first into the boarding house’s brick walling.
But the guy was a fighter—and strung out on something. Even as his nose exploded with blood, he yanked and shoved against Danny’s grip, trying to pry the knife loose. And then Danny tripped, his hold slipping free.
The blade slashed in an arc, and Danny ducked just in time, the whistling sound so close to his ear, he put a hand up to make sure he wasn’t cut. But then the knife was coming at him again, the stabbing, sharp tip aimed at his gut. Jumping back, he bent at the waist and was missed by a millimeter.
Given that the attacker’s weight had shifted forward, Danny jerked to the side, clasped his hands together, and brought them down on the nape of the other man’s neck. The force was so great, it drove the aggressor to the pavement, and Danny jumped on top, digging one of his knees into the small of the back as he grabbed onto the wrist controlling the weapon again. With his other hand, he palmed that skull and pushed the man’s face into the asphalt.
“Drop the knife,” Danny growled. “Or I’ll break your fucking arm.”
“Fuck you!”
“Drop the knife!”
The bastard tried to get up, and Danny looked over at Anne. She was bent over the downed man, and her face was composed as she opened a Red Sox parka to inspect the injuries. But as she put her cell phone up to her ear and glanced at Danny, her eyes were dilated with adrenaline.
I am not going to die in front of that woman, Danny thought.
The man underneath him bucked hard and almost got free, but it was time to end this. Danny cranked that hand with the knife around and twisted, twisted . . . twisted.
“I’m gonna break your fucking arm,” Danny gritted out. “Drop the knife!”
Anne started talking into her phone. “I am a trained EMT. I am in an alley at Harbor and Fifteenth with a stabbing victim. I need an ambulance and a police unit—my partner is subduing the assailant. I suspect we have an internal bleed in the gut, pulse is weak, and victim is in shock—”
Snap!
The attacker let out a howl of pain as his arm dislocated from its shoulder socket—and that meant the knife was no longer a threat. As everything went limp, Danny tossed the weapon across the alley.
The woman by the victim started weeping. “Is he going to die?”
As she looked back and forth between the men, it wasn’t immediately clear which one she was talking about.
* * *
Every move.
Anne had been aware of every move Danny had made as he jumped the guy with the knife. That deadly weapon, already dripping with blood, had slashed and stabbed as the two had fought for control of it. Terror had threatened to freeze her, but she couldn’t give into the emotion. She had a victim to triage.
Crouching down, she’d identified herself as a medic and asked the woman to ease back. The instant Anne had opened the parka and yanked up the shirt from the jeans, she’d known that they were in trouble.
The puncture wound was in the lower gut, where a lot of messy stuff was located. There were also some big blood vessels down there, as well as an artery that, depending on how deep the knife had gone, could lead to a mortal event.
She had the man’s blood on her hand as she dialed 9-1-1. Putting the phone to her ear, she’d looked over at Danny.
That was when their eyes had met.
The look on his face was one she would never forget. They had been through a lot together on the job, had walked into burning staircases, and rooms where the wall paint was bubbling up, and attics that were hotter than stoves. But they were trained for all that.
This situation was doubly dangerous because there was human blood on that blade and there was no telling what the victim could transmit. And then there was the very real possibility that Danny could be killed outright.
I don’t want to lose you, Anne thought. Not tonight.
Not ever.
As the realizati
on hit her, there was a loud snapping sound—and she had heard enough bones dislocate on the job to know what it was.
And then the knife got thrown away.
Danny cranked a submission hold on the attacker, but the guy was out of gas, lying limply on the pavement and moaning in pain.
“I called for help,” she said in a voice that cracked. “They’re on the way.”
Danny was breathing hard. “Good.”
“Is he going to die?”
Anne looked at the woman who couldn’t seem to decide which man to worry about. “Can I have your scarf?”
The woman pulled the wool length free. “Here.” Then she focused on the unconscious man. Looked back at the attacker. Refocused on the other guy. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
Anne wrapped the length around itself and placed it onto the wound. Pressing down, she said to the woman, “What’s your name? I’m Anne.”
“C-c-candy. This is Rob. That’s Antonio.”
Leaning upward, Anne said, “Rob? Can you talk to me?”
Sirens sounded far away and grew in intensity, doubling up. Meanwhile, the victim was non-responsive, his breathing shallow, his eyes closed.
Please let that ambulance be for us, Anne thought.
“Does he have any medical issues you’re aware of?”
Candy shook her head. “None. He’s my boyfriend. And that’s . . . my brother.”
Rob started to shake his head and mumble just as a police unit came around the corner. As the bright headlights shone down the alley, Anne got her first clear look at Candy. The woman looked forty under her heavy makeup, and her hair was dyed badly. Her skirt was so short her pink panties were showing, and even though it was thirty-two degrees out, she had nothing but a blouse on under a light windbreaker.
There were ligature marks around her throat, the bruises not fresh but a day or so old, showing purple against her skin.
And she was bone thin.
“Rob,” if that was indeed his name, popped his eyes open. “Pimp. Not brother, pimp.”
Candy sagged. “No, he’s my brother, and I’m not pressing charges.”
