Take Me Harder

by Jackie Ashenden

  There was a commotion off to the left where a pool table stood, the sounds of a scuffle, and then five seconds later the bar was empty of bikers except for Smith and Fish, who was holding a skinny dude by the back of his neck. The skinny dude was protesting loudly, but no one was listening.

  “You mean this douchebag?” Smith gave his lieutenant a nod. “Let him go.”

  Fish dropped his hand, and the skinny dude looked around wildly as if for escape. Then, clearly realizing there was none, he straightened, pulling at his denim jacket and trying to look mean. “What the fuck is going on here, prez?”

  “I’m not your fucking ‘prez,’ ” Smith said, his voice dripping with menace. “And this is the last time you’re allowed in Ministry territory. Alive, at any rate.”

  “What? But I—”

  “Shut the fuck up,” Smith snapped. “I know what you’ve been doing, Dev. Telling tales to fucking Jimmy Troy.”

  The guy paled. “I didn’t say nothing. Honest. I had to give him something so I—”

  “I don’t give a shit what you said. Right now you’re going to answer whatever question you’re asked by this guy here, and then, once he’s finished with you, you can answer a few of mine.” He smiled, and it wasn’t pleasant, making the guy go even whiter. “Have fun, you two. Try to leave him in one piece.”

  Smith glanced at Fish, then turned and strode out of the bar, his lieutenant following along on his heels.

  Excellent. Now the party could really get started.

  Dev stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans, his chin lifted as he glared at Rush. He was obviously trying to brazen it out, the stupid asshole. “What the fuck do you want?”

  “Well, that’s no way to say hello,” Rush said, giving Dev a grin that would have sent a more knowledgeable man running from the room screaming. “Where are your manners? I think the words you’re looking for are ‘Yessir. Anything you say, sir.’ ”

  Dev gave an uneasy laugh. “Just spit it out. I ain’t got all day.”

  “True, true,” Rush agreed, taking a couple of casual steps toward the guy. “We’re both busy men, right?” He lifted his gun ostentatiously, watching the light gleam on the barrel. “In that case, I’ll just go right ahead and say it. I hear you have an invitation to Jimmy Troy’s big-ass meeting at his ranch this weekend.”

  Dev’s posture stiffened. “How d’you know about that?”

  “Aren’t you supposed to say ‘What party’?”

  The other man’s eyes widened.

  Rush, beginning to really enjoy himself, tutted. “Oh dear. Cat’s out of the bag now, huh?” He wandered closer, keeping his gaze on the other man, making sure the dick knew he meant business. “You know, poor old Jimmy really needs to hire himself a better class of asshole. Especially when this one can’t even keep a secret. Don’t you agree, Rhys?”

  There was no response from Rhys, just the sight of Dev’s eyes starting to bulge as the sound of a gun cocking echoed in the bar.

  “That’s right, Dev,” Rush murmured. “My friend is pretty much a robot. And if you even so much as think of giving me shit, he won’t hesitate to pull that trigger. Look into his eyes, my friend. That’s death looking right back at you. Oh, and I guess you should know that you’re also going to have a whole pack of bail enforcement agents down on your head, since you skipped bail a couple of weeks back.”

  Dev’s jaw tightened, which was a pity. Because it meant the idiot had just discovered he had balls. “You kill me, and Jimmy will take you out. He’s the baddest motherfucker in the state, you know that. You won’t last two seconds.”

  “Sure. But you’ll still be dead.”

  The other man’s gaze flickered and then abruptly narrowed. “You’re Rush Redmond, aren’t you?”

  Rush stilled. Ever since he’d gotten out of jail and been sending feelers out, trying to track down Troy, he’d tried to keep the fact that he was asking questions on the down-low. No point in letting Troy know he was searching, because he didn’t want the guy coming at him before he was ready.

  So there was no reason for this bastard to know his name. No reason for Dev to recognize him either. Not unless someone had noticed Rush asking questions.

  Rush moved, still nice and slow, keeping everything loose and relaxed, betraying nothing as he came right up to the guy, looking him straight in the eyes. “And who the fuck is that?”

  But Dev, seemingly unaware of the danger, was nodding. “Yeah, you are. Man, you look like him—”

  Rush’s fist came out and connected with Dev’s jaw before Rush himself had even had a chance to fully think it through.

  The guy dropped like a stone to the dirty floor of the bar, groaning, his mouth bloody.

  Rush stood there looking down at him, a red haze over his vision. His hand hurt, his knuckles bruised from the force of the blow, yet he wanted to smash his fist into the guy’s face again. And again. And again.

  He didn’t know why. Didn’t know where this sudden, intense burst of rage had come from or why he’d just lost control of it.

  Maybe it had been there the moment he’d walked into the bar, buried beneath the adrenaline and the sheer joy of screwing around with all those bikers. Or maybe it had been there before then, back in the Duchess offices as he’d flirted with Rose.

  But no, he knew. It had always been there. Lurking in his bones, in his blood. An anger that had burned dully away for years and years. Forever.

  You look like him.

  A simple observation that shouldn’t have made him lose it, because what the hell did he care? Normally he didn’t have a problem channeling his emotions into laughter and smart-ass comments. Sure, sometimes he used his fists and he didn’t have a problem with that, though when he did use them, he made sure to keep himself detached from the proceedings.

  He made sure to never let anyone see him give a shit.

  “You fucker!” Dev wailed hoarsely. “You broke my fucking jaw.”

  A hand came down on Rush’s shoulder. “Let me deal with this,” Rhys said, his cold voice like ice on a burn. “We need him able to talk.”

  Rush wanted to tell the other man to fuck off, that he was perfectly able to get the information he needed from the prick, but for some reason his hand kept wanting to come up and punch Rhys in the face too.

  What the hell is wrong with you? Get yourself the fuck together.

  Christ, he didn’t know. He was just…angry. So goddamn angry. And, admittedly, in no position to get information from a guy without causing him significant injury.

  He took a breath, trying to calm himself the hell down to be able to reply without launching his fist again, but Rhys, not waiting for a response, was already moving past him, going down into a smooth crouch beside the man groaning on the floor.

  Rhys said something that Rush couldn’t hear, the tenor of his voice hard and cold and quiet. Dev muttered something in return, the words all mushy and thick.

  Rush turned sharply and took a few steps away, sucking some of the hot dry air into his lungs, trying to get his anger under control. His hand was aching, the weird adrenaline burst of fury gradually ebbing away, leaving him feeling oddly hollow.

  You look like him.

  Stupid words. Dumb words. Why had the guy said that? What did it mean?

  You know what it means. Troy knows.

  No, that couldn’t be true. How could it be? Rush had found out in prison, after asking around and listening to rumors and hearsay that one of the cartel’s assholes knew about how Troy had seduced the wife of a bounty hunter way back in the day.

  He’d lost it then too. Moving before he’d thought things through properly, launching himself at the cartel’s contact and taking him down, his anger going off like a surface-to-air missile and exploding right in the guy’s face. That had earned him a month in solitary and an infirmary stay, since all the asshole’s friends had started in on him too.

  It wasn’t until afterward that he’d taken a different route, gotten his
information a better way, through the gradual buildup of his network of contacts.

  Yeah, he’d learned after that day that fists and force didn’t always work. That they had their place, but sometimes charm and sheer balls worked better.

  Rush closed his eyes, let out a long breath, and curled his aching fingers into a fist, then extended them again, stretching them out. Behind him Rhys was still talking in a low voice, while Dev whimpered like a little bitch.

  Okay, so if Dev knew who he was, then Troy must also know that Rush could be his son. And if that really was the case and Troy had heard Rush was asking questions, then he might put two and two together and realize Rush was coming for him.

  It wasn’t certain, but it might pay for Rush to adjust his plans. Troy still wouldn’t be expecting him to turn up at his fancy party, and if he did, he’d probably turf Rush straight back out again. Then again, maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe Troy was looking forward to a happy family reunion.

  Either way, Rush had to go. It was probably going to take more than steel-plated balls if he wanted to survive the weekend, but this was likely to be his only chance to find out the truth. To confront the prick face-to-face.

  Then there was the issue of Ava and her mother. He’d promised he’d get her the confirmation she needed—yet another reason he had to go.

  Turning back around, he saw Rhys rise to his feet, tucking something shiny into his boot as he did so. Dev had stopped whimpering and had his head turned away.

  Rhys’s expressionless gaze met Rush’s. “You have the invite. There’s a password I memorized that you have to give at the gate. That’ll get you in.”

  He forced himself to grin. “Fucking excellent, bro. How did you get him to spill?”

  “It’s all about choices. He didn’t like the one I gave him.” Rhys glanced at Rush’s hand and frowned. “You need to upgrade your interrogation technique as well as your piece.”

  Yeah, he was on it. “You know how it is. You see a dumb douchebag and you just want to hit him the fuck in the face.” He shrugged. “Hey, you left shit-for-brains here alive, didn’t you?”

  “He’s alive.” Rhys pushed the door open and went out.

  On cue, Dev gave another whimper.

  Rush stared at the door for a second, then he turned back and crossed over to where Dev lay on the floor, rolling him over onto his back with his boot.

  The man muttered a protest, his hand coming up to cover his face.

  “You said I look like him,” Rush said softly, ignoring the protest. “Tell me what the fuck that means.”

  Dev babbled something meaningless.

  “Oh, I forgot to add, you’d better tell me or else I’ll kick your head in.”

  Rhys was right. It was all about choices.

  Chapter 8

  Ava pulled up outside the Lone Star Bounty offices, parked the car, and got out. And then paused a moment to glare at the Lone Star sign, which was hanging at a weird angle on the brick wall.

  Damn Rush.

  She’d been waiting for his people to call her people for three days now and she’d heard nothing. No one was doing lunch. No one was even speaking, not one word.

  It was like she’d actually expected him to fulfill his promise and stay in contact about what he was going to do to help her track down Troy. All right, so he might have actually been searching for information, might have been taking a few days to plan, but he could have kept her in the loop about it.

  Unless he was still operating under the misguided sense that he was protecting her and thought that the less he told her, the better.

  Of course, he could be staying away because of the whole milk-and-cookies debacle.

  Well, he could be, and she certainly couldn’t blame him for that. Maybe he thought he’d embarrassed her, though it was more likely he’d been embarrassed himself, because really, it wasn’t like she was his usual type of woman.

  And sure, she had been embarrassed when she’d woken up the next day and remembered the night before without the benefit of her bourbon goggles.

  But whatever the case, she’d put it firmly out of her head the night Quinn had dropped her off, and so should Rush. It didn’t matter, and it certainly had nothing to do with finding Troy, that was for sure.

  Anyway, if he thought she was going to play the silly little girl and wait for the big strong man to tell her what to do so she didn’t have to worry her pretty little head about it, he had another think coming.

  She had a few days off between now and the start of her next shift, and she was going to damn well make use of the time. And if he wasn’t any further ahead in getting information, then she’d set about doing some investigating herself. Hell, maybe she would drive out to Troy’s big ranch a couple of hours down the highway. Figure out some pretext to go in and look around.

  Ava paused. Maybe she shouldn’t wait for Rush at all.

  But no, that wouldn’t be a good idea either, because if she went off to do her own investigation and it all went pear-shaped, no one would know where she was. She had no backup, none, and although she was desperate to find out whether Troy had gotten her mother killed, she wasn’t stupid. At least, not that stupid.

  Which meant she had to follow up with Rush, and if he hadn’t done anything, then at least she could tell him what her plans were.

  He’d probably stop you.

  He could damn well try.

  Ava squared her shoulders and headed through the big double doors of the Lone Star offices. Inside in the foyer, a man in cuffs sat on one of the sagging couches reading a newspaper and looking remarkably chilled out for someone who’d been picked up skipping bail.

  At the old oak reception desk, a tall man stood doing some paperwork. Both men looked up as Ava entered, the bail-skipper on the couch curling his lip and going back to his newspaper, while the man at the desk gave her a smile. It was Zane, the youngest Redmond brother.

  “Hey, Ava,” he said. “Recovered from your evening at Jack’s?”

  Oh, that’s right. The night Rush had brought her back to Lone Star, they’d passed Zane and his girlfriend, Iris, on the way out. Wonderful. Yet another person who’d had to witness her drunken stupidity.

  “Yes,” she said, trying and failing to make the word not sound so stiff. “I mean, yes, thank you. I have.”

  Zane’s brilliant blue eyes were bright with amusement. “Good. A hangover’s a mean son of a bitch. So, what can I do for you? You’re not here to pick up Sammy over there, are you?”

  “No, I’m off-duty. Actually, I’m trying to find Rush. Is he here?”

  Zane’s expression lost some of its amusement. “No, he’s not. What do you want with him?”

  “It’s for Dad,” she lied. “He’s got a few things he needs to clear up with Rush and asked me if I could track him down.”

  Zane seemed to buy this. “Well, you could try Jack’s. Or maybe text him.”

  “I did, but he didn’t reply.” She’d sent him a couple of texts earlier that day, followed by a phone call that afternoon, none of which he’d responded to.

  Zane leaned back against the desk. “I saw him this afternoon. Dunno where he’d been, but he was in a foul mood when he got back here. He left pretty damn quickly again and he didn’t say where he was going.”

  Voices drifted out through the doorway that led to the bar, and then a woman came through it. She was slender and dressed in a fitted dark blue pencil skirt with a ruffled white blouse and high navy patent heels, her platinum blond hair in an elegant chignon at the back of her head.

  Lily Hammond, aka Duchess from Duchess Bail Bonds.

  “Officer St. George,” Duchess said, pausing and giving Ava a look full of cool amusement. “How nice to see you again.”

  Ava resisted the urge to pull at her T-shirt, an impulse that always gripped her whenever she was faced with Duchess’s icy poise. The woman was flawlessly lovely, always seemed to be in control, and made Ava feel like an outsized, bumbling oaf. “Ms. Hammond,” she said
stiffly. “And likewise.”

  Another man appeared behind Duchess. Quinn. He leaned against the doorframe and folded his arms, his scowl somehow even more ferocious than usual. “You owe me, Duchess,” he said flatly. “And one of these days I’ll come to collect.”

  Duchess didn’t turn. “But not today.”

  “Next time you come crying to me wanting something, don’t expect me to give it to you.”

  “Oh, don’t worry, I won’t. Besides”—she gave Ava a wink as she passed—“I never cry.”

  “Do you know where Rush is?” Zane asked, looking at Quinn.

  “Try that strip club,” Duchess said as she went out. “He practically lives there.”

  There was a silence as the doors shut behind her.

  “Got a great ass, that woman,” Sammy said to no one in particular.

  “You shut the fuck up,” Quinn growled. “She’s none of your business.”

  Zane lifted an eyebrow at his brother. “Uh-oh. Trouble?”

  A muscle jumped in Quinn’s hard jaw. “Nothing I can’t handle.” His gaze found Ava’s. “But she’s not wrong. You’ll probably find Rush at Sugar Daddy’s.” He paused. “Though I’m not sure going there is a good idea. If you remember what I—”

  “Thank you, Quinn,” Ava interrupted, before he could get going on another lecture. “But like you just said, it’s nothing I can’t handle.”

  “Sure.” His gaze didn’t waver. “Except you don’t want to go down there on your own. Why don’t you wait here while I go drag him home?”

  A bolt of irritation went through her. Boy, was she done with overprotective alpha males. Aside from the fact that she didn’t appreciate being treated like a soft, breakable thing, she didn’t want either of the Redmond brothers hovering over her while she tried to get information out of Rush. Especially because if they knew what she was trying to do, they’d probably go straight to her father, and then she’d never be able to get the justice she wanted.

  Damn men.

  “Thanks, but no thanks. I’ll do just fine on my own.” Without waiting for a response, she turned on her heel and headed back out of the Lone Star office again.