Rough and Rugged: Shameless Southern Nights Novels

by Ali Parker

  “What do you want?” Sonny’s tone was laced with ice and malice, but Ken ignored him.

  His cold blue eyes looked over Sonny like he was nothing more than a gnat to be squashed, then slid over to mine. “I gave you a choice, son. It looks like you made the wrong one. It won’t just be your father and your mother who I will have wiped off the map, but your entire family.”

  “You fucking—” What insult Sonny was about to hurl at Ken died on his lips when the menacing presence of one of Roy’s bodyguards stepped between us and Ken. Sonny narrowed his eyes at him. “Who are you?”

  “I’ll tell you later.” I grabbed his arm and manhandled him into my car. He didn’t like it, but eventually, he slammed the door in my face and crossed his arms while waiting for me to climb into the driver’s seat.

  I didn’t waste any time, shoving my car into gear and racing out of the lot. Sonny glared at me. “Who the fuck was that?”

  “I took the liberty of getting a couple of bodyguards for Dad for the time being. That was their team leader, Greg. You’ll be seeing him around a lot, so direct your anger over him cutting you off at me. I told him to intervene if he ever saw us with that guy.”

  Checking my rearview mirror when the light at the intersection to turn out onto Main Street turned red, I was just barely able to make out Greg stepping up to Ken. I only hoped he was as effective in dealing with the man as he had convinced me he would be when I interviewed him a couple of days ago.

  Go get ‘em, tiger. Right now, Greg was the only person preventing Ken from finding out where Roy was spending his first night. I had no way of knowing whether some of his people might have followed my brothers earlier, but I was betting they wouldn’t have been able to get into the staff parking lot.

  If Greg could hold him off now, we might have gotten home free. For today, anyway.

  Chapter Thirty

  Eve

  “What do you think of this one?” Penny asked, twirling in front of her mirror before scrunching the material of her blood red dress between her fingers as she spread the skirt. “It’s a first date, so tell me if it’s too slutty.”

  “I can’t see your cleavage or your knees. It’s not slutty.” I sat on the wide windowsill in Penny’s bedroom, staring up at the white, puffy clouds coming and going in the infinite blue sky. I had planned to stay in bed today, feeling too melancholic to really be out and about.

  When Penny called, I had been settling in with my second cup of tea for the morning and was scrolling through my tablet, looking for a book to read. All the paperbacks I’d purchased recently were in the romance genre, but that was the last thing I felt like reading about. I needed mystery and murder, possibly some blood being shed. Anything to keep my mind off a certain dark haired, blue eyed DA I had to force myself to get over.

  “Hello?” I was barely aware of Penny’s voice until I saw her dainty fingers clicking right in front of my eyes. “Earth to Eve. You didn’t even look at my dress. Why bother coming over to help with my fashion emergency if you were going to sit there, wrapped up in your own little world?”

  Why indeed? Truthfully, I didn’t know what I was doing at Penny’s either. I couldn’t say no to her when she called, though. I was definitely going soft. One phone call from a friend and I dropped my plans to spend the day getting my head right and jumped in the car instead. Or maybe my head just doesn’t want to be right.

  “I did look. How else would I have known you weren’t showing any skin?” I lifted my eyebrows, gesturing at her very conservative dress. “The color is the only thing daring about that dress. Do you have anything that says I’m young, hot and interested instead of How do you do?”

  Penny laughed, doing a cute little curtsy with amusement lighting her eyes. “What if I’m more interested in How do you do? huh? It could totally be the look I’m after.”

  I rolled my eyes, but despite my somber mood, my lips crept into a smile. “If that really was what you were after, you wouldn’t have called someone to help you decide. You could have gone in your sweats then. Your pajamas even. You’re so after more than that.”

  “Maybe.” Penny sighed and plopped ungraciously onto her bed. “I’m just so nervous. I haven’t been on a date in forever.”

  Recognizing her dwindling confidence, I lifted my butt from the comfortable seat I’d taken when I walked into the room and sat down beside her on the edge of her bed. “You’re going to be fine, Penny. You’re gorgeous, and obviously this guy is interested in you if he asked you out.”

  I spotted her thin golden necklace dangling from the arms of a jewelry stand on her dresser and moved to get it. Penny’s room was painted light blue, all of her furniture whitewashed wood. It was a whimsical, happy place occupied by a woman who had none of the darkness in her that I had.

  I held up the necklace, noticing a little golden heart pendant hanging at the bottom. “Here, this will be perfect with that dress. May I?”

  Penny nodded and lifted her blonde hair so I could fasten the necklace without getting it tangled. As she lowered her hands and stood up, I wished I was more like her. Perhaps if I were, I wouldn’t be in this impossible situation, and my relationship with Tyson would have stood a snowball’s chance in hell of surviving.

  As it was, we were balancing on a knife’s edge. I hadn’t seen or heard from Tyson after Roy got out of prison, but I didn’t know yet if that was because Roy had told him the truth or because he was just busy with family stuff.

  Either way, our days together were numbered. They always had been, but we were in short finals now. It could be over any day now. Any hour, even.

  I sighed just as Penny turned to look into the mirror, touching the heart that rested perfectly between her collarbones. “Thanks for coming. I appreciate it. You’re a real friend.”

  “Anytime.” I meant it too, and not only because very soon Penny would be the only person in town I really knew again. She had become a good friend. “Anything for you. Do you want me to wait with you?”

  She shook her head. “It’s not even noon, and he’s not picking me up until four. I just wanted to get my outfit ready.”

  “Okay.” I offered her a tight smile, which was the best I could do given my mood today. “Have fun. Just relax. You’re gorgeous. He’s lucky to have a shot with you.”

  Her answering smile was radiant and genuine. “If I call you later, you might have to talk me off the ledge of canceling.”

  “You got it.” My smile was a little more sincere this time. “Let me know how it goes because you’re definitely going. I’ll make sure of it.”

  I might have been weepy about my own relationship status, or lack thereof, but for some reason that made me want Penny to be happy. Someone as truly sweet as her deserved it more than I ever could. Let go of this self-loathing bullshit.

  Squaring my shoulders, I decided to take my own advice as I said goodbye to Penny and walked myself out. I had a life before Tyson, and I would have one after. All I had to do was—

  My thought was cut off by my phone ringing in my purse. My heart leaped and soared when I saw who it was. It didn’t even matter that he could be calling me to tell me to fuck off, I answered immediately anyway.

  “Hey, you.” Oh, God. Why did I have to sound so happy to hear from him?

  Despite my best efforts, my somber mood lifted as soon as I heard his voice. “Hey, beautiful. Want to meet me for lunch?”

  I breathed out an internal sigh of relief. It was clear Roy hadn’t told him anything. Yet. “Sure. Do you want to meet at Crusty’s again, in about twenty minutes?”

  “I’m guessing that means you’re not getting naked again.” He sounded vaguely disappointed. “But okay, I’ll see you there.”

  My spirits lifted on the drive over to the restaurant. Maybe I had only been granted a brief reprieve, but at least it meant one more day with Tyson, which was more than I had been expecting. I was still playing with the idea of telling him myself. If he heard it all from me, there was a chance
I could explain it properly.

  By the time I arrived, I had made the decision. Tyson would know the truth before leaving here today. I was going to tell him everything. I couldn’t live with this sword dangling over my head anymore. I wanted something real with Tyson and being honest with him was the only way I was ever going to be able to get it.

  “Hey,” I greeted him when I walked in, surprised to find him waiting for me right by the door. He pulled me into his arms, holding me tight.

  “Hey,” he whispered against my hair. When we pulled back, he wrapped our fingers together and led me to the same table outside we’d had drinks at just the other night. “How was your big day yesterday? I meant to call you last night, but I ended up getting stuck at the office until nearly midnight.”

  “It was okay. How did the hearing to release Roy go? Is he all settled?”

  Tyson nodded, taking a seat next to me instead of across from me again. “My brothers are all at the house with him now.”

  “Is he okay?”

  “I don’t really know.” He shrugged. “I haven’t seen him after he got out.”

  “You haven’t?” I frowned, but I guessed that explained why he didn’t know about me yet. Thank God for small miracles. It gave me this last chance to tell him myself, which I was going to do. Even if it freaking killed me. I just wanted to make sure Roy was okay first. “I would have thought you’d have spent his first day out with him.”

  “I was going to. Sonny and I were on our way to him, but I got called back for an emergency bail hearing. I dropped Sonny off and went back to the office. Once I was there, one thing led to another and the next thing I knew, there were only twenty minutes left to midnight. It was way too late by then to talk to you or to my dad.”

  “Are you going there today?”

  “As soon as we’re done here.” He smiled, and suddenly the pressure of his big hand was on my leg. “I wanted to see you first. You seemed kind of weird when you left the other night. I wanted to make sure you were okay. Like I said, I meant to check in with you yesterday, but it was just too busy.”

  “I’m okay.” I took a deep breath, desperately searching for a way to tell him the truth. “I wanted to talk to you too, actually. There’s something I need to tell you. Please just hear me out before you say anything. It’s about—”

  “I was hoping I would run into you.” A chill ran down my spine when I recognized the voice that had spoken. Slowly sliding my eyes away from Tyson’s, I came face to face with my worst nightmare in this very moment.

  Time’s up, Eve. You should have just come clean when you had the damn chance. And now, I wasn’t sure I was ever going to get the chance again.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Tyson

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” I asked Ken, who had appeared next to our table like a damn ghost.

  Flashing his white teeth in a smile that looked like a shark about to attack, he slid onto the bench across from us. I felt Eve stiffen beside me and grasped her hand under the table. If I’d seen him approaching, I would have told her to go to the bathroom or the bar before he got to us. As it was, I had been so absorbed in telling her about Dad and then too curious to know what she needed to talk to me about that struck such fear into her gorgeous green eyes to be paying much attention to our surroundings.

  Now she was stuck here, sitting at a table with this lowlife motherfucker who, if we weren’t in public, I would’ve killed with my bare fucking hands. I was staring into the ice blue eyes of the man responsible for my mother’s death. The man who was threatening my father’s life and who had threatened my brothers more than once.

  Generally, I really did believe in the justice system. It could be corrupted, yes. It was fallible, and it had its flaws, but it was a system I was proud to be part of. Vigilantism and mob justice didn’t fit into that system, but when facing guys like this, street or mob justice was often the only kind of justice available.

  And I’m all about justice. I’d already learned that he had enough power to manipulate the system I loved, which would have been bad enough for an indictment in my book even if he hadn’t had to account for the downfall of my family. Any kind of justice is better than no justice at all.

  The vehemence behind the thought surprised me, but I’d already resigned myself to the reality that while and when dealing with this guy, the law-abiding citizen in me was as dead as my entire family would be if Ken was given his way.

  He watched me with a knowing darkness in his eyes, like he knew exactly what I was thinking before he tipped his chin up with a silent challenge. “I wanted to talk to you.”

  “I’m busy.” I glowered at him, my blood simmering in my veins. If only Eve wasn’t here…

  The white teeth disappeared behind his thin lips, only to be replaced by something much more malevolent. “Yes, well, what I need to talk about is much more important than whatever this is.”

  Ken’s ice-blue eyes narrowed on Eve’s, then flickered away from her. The way he was dismissing her was rude, but it didn’t surprise me. Dismissing her was much better than taking an interest in her because of her connection to me, so it suited me just fine. “You have a lot of nerve showing up here like this, Ken.”

  Saying his name made me want to vomit in disgust. I nearly gagged, but I kept it together somehow. His mouth twisted into a cruel kind of smirk. He ignored my comment. “I need to see your father. I know you know where he is. Tell me now, and I’ll leave you alone.”

  I narrowed my eyes to slits, leaning forward across the table. Eve was clinging to my hand so tightly my fingers were going numb, but it was the only thing keeping me from leaping across the table and pummeling him to a bloody pulp right here on this deck.

  I was smart enough to know better, but I didn’t care if it earned me a cell or cost me my career. The scum sitting at my table had killed my mother. Murdered her in cold blood and gotten away with it.

  The edges of my vision turned red. “Listen to me carefully, because I’m going to say this once. I will kill you before I tell you where he is. If you don’t believe me, think about it this way. I know some people who are far more dangerous than you are who wouldn’t mind having the DA owe them a favor.”

  Ken raised an eyebrow, his expression morphing into one of amusement. “Threatening me and repeating my own words back to me? You’re a fast learner, Mr. Lovett. I’ll give you that much.”

  He didn’t move. If anything, he made himself more comfortable by reaching for Eve’s glass of water and taking a long sip. “Now, where is your father? This would really all be so much easier if you’d just tell me. I will find him, you know. You and your brothers can’t keep him squirreled away forever.”

  “It’s not happening.” Eve squeezed my hand when I temporarily forgot where I was and who I was sitting next to, shifting forward on my seat. “Forget it. Better yet, forget about all of us.”

  My tone was low and seething. Every muscle in my body was locked. If he didn’t get out of my sight soon, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself. He was the only person who had ever made me feel this way, and I didn’t blame myself for it.

  “This is your last chance, boy. I’ve already given your family more warnings than I ever do. I thought we could make a deal, that you boys might want to make this easy on yourselves. Save your pretty girls and their pretty kids. I thought you, especially, were smarter than this. You’re supposed to protect them, Tyson. You’re the big brother. Tell me where your father is now, and you get to keep your brothers, their wives and kids, and her.”

  He jerked his head briefly in Eve’s direction before he met my eyes dead on. “I’m not kidding, Tyson. My sense of humor is long gone. I need to speak with your father urgently. Tell me where he is, or you’re going to regret it.”

  Releasing Eve’s hand, I placed my palms flat on the table and allowed every bit of malice I felt to bleed into my tone. “Fuck. Off.”

  Ken’s hands curled into fists and slammed onto the tabletop in
front of my outspread fingers. “I’ve had enough, you fucking ignorant asshole. You have no idea who you’re dealing with or the kind of deadly game you’re playing. I’m going to burn you to the ground, Lovett. You and your entire family. I gave you so many chances to save them, but I’m done now. You hear me?”

  He pushed to his feet, those icy eyes firmly locked on mine. “Once it’s done and all that’s left of the mighty Lovetts is a smoldering pile of ashes, I’ll have a drink on you and your idiocy.”

  “You’re delusional.” My tone was as deadly and sharp as his had been. I followed him to my feet, refusing to be talked down to. I was taller than him, and I made sure to draw to my full height. It was clear the guy thought he could beat me, beat us all. “I’m not intimidated by you. Frankly, I think your bark is worse than your bite or you wouldn’t have delivered so many warnings to me.”

  For the moment, I was choosing to ignore that my family had experienced Ken’s bite the first time. We knew exactly how deep he could sink his razor-sharp teeth into us. Hell, he’d already ripped out the heart of our family when he murdered our mother.

  What he didn’t consider then, and wasn’t taking into consideration now, was that if you left something alive but without its heart, you created a monster. He’d turned us into the kind of people who were capable of doing what we planned to do to him.

  Crossing my arms over my chest to keep from taking a swipe at him right here, right now, I dropped my voice to something just above a whisper. It wouldn’t do to have witnesses overhearing this conversation, I knew that better than anyone. The deck was still pretty empty, but the lunchtime crowd would be filling it up soon. I’d better get this over with.

  “You’re going to regret the day you first laid eyes on any of us very soon, Ken. If you were anyone else, Sonny might have arrested you. I might have prosecuted you and put you away for the rest of your pathetic life, and that would have been that. It’s too bad for you that you’re not anyone else. You took our mother away from us, and for that, I will personally make sure that your death is slow and painful.”