Sprinkles and sugar and shards of glass…it was like some bizarre Food Network crime show, she thought numbly. Or like someone had murdered Strawberry Shortcake.
But that wasn’t the worst of it. The white brick walls had been smeared with some red substance. She hoped it wasn’t blood, but deep down she knew that was what it had to be. She only hoped that it was animal blood.
She heard footsteps behind her and saw Alex coming down the stairs, his face set in a grim expression.
“Fuck,” he muttered when he saw the mess. He turned around and yelled to the others, “Down here!”
The numbness broke then, and a tidal wave of intense emotion washed over her. She vacillated wildly between terror and fury as she worked out what she needed to say to Alex.
“What’s this? What have you done, Alex? What the hell have you done?” Her voice rose from low and forceful and grew to a cracking scream as the meaning of the horror show before her sunk in.
Least of her concerns was that she had just lost hundreds of dollars in supplies. Losses that she was not sure she could recoup, seeing as she had no new product to sell and a tight budget as it was. This might be enough to sink her budding enterprise.
But that was nothing compared to the blood on the walls. That screamed bad news—the kind of thing that maybe ended with her buried in a hole out in the desert. This was related to crime or drugs, or at least something illegal and organized. Alex had been back for maybe a day and already managed to get her tangled up in something involving dangerous people with no concern for who got hurt in their operations.
There had been a few little run-ins before, back when Alex younger, but he’d always wised up and steered clear of anything too serious. But now…now it looked like he’d crossed a line.
The three other bikers filed down the stairs, stopping short of the landing. One let out a low whistle when he saw the damages.
“Shit,” one of the lean ones muttered. “Gotta be Jasper’s guys. Rocco tell you what they want, Cobra?”
Alex shook his head, still surveying the scene of destruction. “Said something was stolen…I don’t know what they’re doing here, though, with this shit.”
Cobra. So he had a new name now, she thought. If she weren’t so shaken she might have tried to mock him for it. It sounded so over-the-top. But when she looked up at him to study his face—the hard lines, the scar, the clenched jaw, the steely glint in his eyes—everything about him seemed dangerous.
Her badass-wannabe boyfriend was gone, replaced by the powerful man she saw before her. He had the look of someone who wouldn’t take shit and who had a tolerance for pain. Like someone who got what he wanted.
He looked deadly.
Yes, Cobra suited him.
But his new name didn’t change a damned thing about the quagmire he’d thrown her into.
“You know who did this,” she hissed. “And you know what they want. This…Jasper. You tell me what in fuck’s name is going on right now, Alex.”
A ripple of pain passed over Alex’s features. “Don’t worry about it, Ashleigh. We’re going to take care of it. You’re going to be just fine, you hear me? Zane, Ajax, Axle, and me, we’re going to handle this. No one’s going to lay a fucking hand on you.”
Ashleigh wanted to smack him with one of the fists balled at her side. She wanted to pound him until he stopped playing these games and ruining her life. But she restrained herself, choosing to rip into him with her words instead.
“You ruined my life, you know that? You broke my heart, and left me penniless, and for six years—six goddamn years, Alex—I wondered whether you were alive or not. Whether you ever even loved me, whether I even meant anything to you. I was a wreck. But I pulled myself together and I busted my ass. I got a business loan and I opened this bakery, and I thought to myself, hell, maybe I’ll make it after all. Maybe my kid’ll have a decent life. Maybe we’re going to be okay.
“And then you show back up, out of the blue, and what do you do? You ruin my life again. I know you’re involved in this somehow. I’m owed a fucking explanation. Hell, I’m owed a lot of explanations, but I’ll settle for this one: what is going on here?”
By the time she finished her rant, her chest was heaving, and she could feel the blood in her face. She could only imagine how she looked in that moment. She was so full of rage that it was a wonder that steam wasn’t pouring out her ears.
“Fuck, Ashleigh,” was his only response, and he shook his head. He almost looked sorry, like he wanted to explain but something was holding him back. “You don’t need to know, okay? Listen, this isn’t going to take long. Maybe a few days. Things are going to get ugly here, but I’m going to keep you out of it. You’re going to just have to stay with me while we figure this out and clean a few things up. You just pack a bag and close up shop for a couple of days, and I promise we’ll take care of everything.”
She scoffed. “This is so typical. There is no way in hell…damn it, Alex, I’ll lose the business! I can’t shut my doors for that long. And I’m not staying with you! You’re a snake! Christ, how do I know you didn’t do this just to scare me back into your arms? You screwed up. We had something, but you destroyed that when you left—“
“Shit, Ashleigh, this isn’t about us! This is about keeping you safe and nothing else.” Alex slammed his fist against the side of the stairwell, hitting it with enough force to leave an indent in the drywall. “You don’t have a choice in this.”
“The hell I don’t! And I’m not buying that load—that you want to keep me safe. You just want back in my pants.”
One of the bikers gave a wolf whistle at her accusation, but Ashleigh ignored him. “You didn’t care about me before and you don’t care about me now,” she yelled.
“I do!” Alex thundered. His words were so loud that she felt them vibrating through her. Something she said seemed to have really hit a nerve. He was breathing hard, his body trembling, and his blazing eyes scorched her. He closed his eyes for a moment, visibly composing himself. Then he continued, his voice lower. “I do. I know it’s hard, but you just have to trust me.”
She could have laughed. Trust him? Had he heard a word out of her mouth?
Instead, she turned wordlessly and started heading up the stairs. She sidled past Alex’s three acquaintances, keeping her gaze focused far ahead of her. He didn’t want to tell her anything? Fine. She would handle this herself.
She heard footsteps behind her. She didn’t have to turn around to know they were his. She reached the top of the stairs and slipped behind the counter, barely registering that things had been returned to their rightful places. At least Alex’s gang of assholes had cleaned up after themselves, she thought bitterly.
“Ashleigh, where are you going?” Alex demanded. “What are you doing?”
She picked up the landline phone from its stand behind the register and drew in a deep, calming breath.
“Answer me!” Alex growled. He closed the distance between them in a few long strides. He reached her side and spun her by the shoulders to meet his fierce eyes.
Again, the intensity of his gaze threw her off balance. But she quickly recovered, angry that he could still get this kind of reaction from her. It didn’t matter how pretty he was, she reminded herself. He was trouble. He wasn’t worth it.
“You want me to answer you?” she inquired through gritted teeth. “When you haven’t told me a damn thing?” She dialed 9-1-1 and pressed the receiver to her ear.
Alex ripped the phone from her hands and cancelled the call before it even rang once. “Don’t do that.”
She slipped away from him, searching for where she’d set her purse down. She needed her cell phone.
“I’ll make you a deal,” he said, dropping the phone on the counter. He grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her over to him. She struggled against his grip, but she didn’t have the strength to match his. “Stop, stop. Listen, if you come back with me and just wait this out, I promise I’ll tell you everyt
hing. Why I left, where I’ve been, what’s going on here. Fucking everything, okay? You come back to my place and I’m an open book. But if you call the cops, things are going to go south really fast. The guy who did this has a few of the force in his pocket, and he hates snitches.” Alex let her go.
Ashleigh’s eyes darted back to the phone. “You’re not going to stop me? Have your guys rough me up if I make that call?”
Alex held his hands up innocently. “The choice is yours. I’m going to do whatever the hell I have to do to keep you safe either way. You’re just going to make my job a lot easier if you come with me, no call to your friends down at the station.”
Ashleigh continued to study him for a while, searching for any sign of insincerity in him. But he seemed genuinely committed to protecting her, hard as it was to believe.
And the way he stared down at her, cool and absolutely confident, made her believe that he could. He wasn’t cocky, just self-assured.
And hell, she needed to know what had happened. Imagining why he’d left so suddenly and never even tried to get back in touch had almost driven her mad. She could always just stay with him for the night, get her answers, then ditch him and call the cops anyway.
She didn’t owe him a damned thing, especially not honesty, and it was gratifying, in a way, to feel like she was the one deceiving him for once.
Penny. Hell, she couldn’t take Penny to his place. She didn’t even want her daughter on the same side of the planet as her father, but there was nothing she could do about that.
What else was she going to do, though? Call the police and hope that Alex—or Cobra, rather—kept his promise rather than just forcing her to go with him? It wouldn’t even be difficult. He had the numbers. And she needed her answers. There was no guarantee she’d ever have another opportunity after this.
Maybe it was time to cash in on a huge favor with Nancy. She was, after all, partly responsible for the mess Ashleigh was in. If Ashleigh hadn’t agreed to cater her stupid charity event, she never would have ended up staying late and never would have run into Alex. The woman owed her.
“Well?” Alex demanded impatiently. His hands flexed at his sides.
“You’ll tell me everything?” she clarified.
He nodded. “As much as I can.”
“Fine. I’ll go.”
Chapter 6
Cobra
Cobra glanced back at Ashleigh. She stood in the middle of the walk leading up to the house, looking around nervously, her overnight bag clutched in one hand. The break-in had shaken her up pretty badly, and it was clear that she didn’t fully believe he could keep Jasper’s men from getting to her.
He’d given her the better part of the day to make arrangements and get her stuff together. He’d wanted to give her space since she’d agreed to stay with him and hear him out.
Still, he’d worried that she would take off and do something stupid. She’d always been bull-headed. It was something he admired about her, but now it was a quality that might get her killed if she wasn’t careful.
That was why he’d had Zane keep eyes on her to make sure she didn’t do anything reckless.
She’d just run errands, made phone calls, picked up her little girl from school, and took her over to some other woman’s house. She’d met him right where they said they’d meet—in an abandoned parking lot behind a church and the dry cleaners.
She hadn’t said a word during the ride to his house. He knew she was still mad. He hadn’t expected any less, but it bothered him that he could feel it in the way she held onto him. They’d spent so much time in the old days on his bike, her chest pressed hard against his back. In the old days, she used to cling to him with all her might not because she was scared, but because it felt good, she told him, to crush herself against his broad back.
Today, though, she’d only wrapped her arms loosely around his waist and kept a full inch of space between their bodies. He’d barely felt her behind him. It bothered him more than he’d thought possible.
Zane, Axle, and Ajax had followed him over, and now they loitered on the street as they hammered out final details with Cobra.
“You sure you don’t want us to stick around?” Ajax demanded. The big man leaned against the “No parking” sign just outside the place Cobra was staying at—a little two-bedroom home in a residential part of town.
Cobra flicked a few ashes from the cigarette he was smoking. “I’ve got it handled. Just keep an eye on the bakery. Call me if anything changes. Rocco’s guy is still doing some digging, rattling trees and seeing what falls out. He still doesn’t have an answer for me on why the hell someone like Jasper’s sending his dogs into a fucking bakery….”
Zane’s gaze hadn’t left Ashleigh. The smaller man had been fascinated by Cobra’s old flame ever since he’d first set eyes on her. “She’s really got some fight in her, eh? Maybe you should send her after Jasper. She’d give him an earful.”
Cobra scowled. “That greasy, shit-eating bastard isn’t going to get close to her. Not until I pay him back for his hospitality by ramming a buck knife up his ass.”
“The day’s coming,” Zane promised him. “Good luck, man.”
Cobra waited until the three Devils had ridden off on their bikes before walking over to Ashleigh’s side.
“This house isn’t yours,” she stated flatly, a flash of accusation in her vivid green eyes. “It had better not be. Because if you tell me you’ve been fifteen minutes away this whole time—“
“It belongs to one of the guys in my MC.” Alex took her bag from her shoulder and started moving up toward the front door.
Ashleigh followed. “The War Devils. Great.”
Cobra held the front door open for her, indicating that she should enter.
She glanced back at him warily before stepping over the threshold into the house. Cobra followed close behind, pulling the door closed and locking it behind him.
Ashleigh made her way down the hallway slowly, inspecting every inch of the house. He didn’t know why she was looking things over so closely. It wasn’t his place.
“You want a beer or something?” he called over his shoulder as he made his way back toward the bedroom. He tossed her bag lightly onto the queen bed and headed for the kitchen.
Ashleigh still stood stiffly in the entryway that connected to the rest of the house, looking lost and a little dazed.
“Beer, Ash?” he repeated.
She snapped out of her state at that, her focus returning to him. “Hm? Oh, sure. Why not.”
Minutes later they were both sitting at the kitchen table, sipping at their drinks in silence.
Cobra couldn’t help but watch Ashleigh closely as she swigged her beer, the way her soft lips caressed the rim before she’d take a sip. The taste he’d had of her yesterday hadn’t been enough; he wanted to feel her against his mouth again. He wanted to crush her soft body against his and lose himself in the scent of her.
No, he told himself. He’d promised her that staying here wouldn’t be about them. It was only about her safety. He’d keep his word, and when he’d finally taken care of Jasper, then he’d go back to her and court her properly. He had all the time in the world to make up for the last six years, and to show her that he was right and that she still felt something for him.
“So,” she began, finally breaking the silence, “I see you moved up in the world. No longer drinking the cheapest, shittiest beer out there.” She tapped the label on the beer bottle.
Cobra’s lips twitched in a reflexive smile. She’d always complained about the brand he bought, claiming that if he was going to drink, he might as well enjoy it. “Yep. Now it’s the fourth cheapest and shittiest beer.”
Ashleigh stared at her beer for some time. Cobra watched her in silence, deciding to let her make the first move here.
“So,” she said at last, “are you actually going to explain anything? Or are we just going to sit around all night?”
Cobra sighed and ran a hand throug
h his hair, trying to alleviate some of his exasperation. “I told you I’d answer your questions. Shit, I just thought we’d relax a minute before jumping right into things.”
“I’ve had six years to relax. My business was torn apart today and I have no clue why. Christ, I’m scared, Alex, and unwinding together over a beer isn’t going to fix that.”
Cobra could see it in her eyes. She’d always been a tough woman, even when they were younger. Stubborn with thick skin and a sharp tongue. But now, after everything she’d gone through in the past day, he could start to see the cracks in the front she put up.
She looked hurt and vulnerable in a way he’d never seen her before. And seeing her like that made his blood boil. It brought out a primal urge in him to tear limbs and break bones until she felt safe again.
BAD INFLUENCE: A Dark Bad Boy Romance Page 32
