Then I was dropped.
Surprised, my legs didn't react fast enough to lock and hold my weight and I went down on my knees, sucking in a greedy breath. My hair was grabbed from the crown of my head and yanked viciously back. "What do we have here? You his girlfriend?" he asked, jerking his chin toward Barrett's awkwardly twisted body. "Came in at the wrong time, bitch," he said, yanking my hair back harder. His other hand snaked out and grabbed me at the throat hard, using it to haul me back up on my feet. "Ain't gonna kill you. Stop giving me the big eyes," he said, rolling his eyes as he slammed me back against a wall.
Of course the dying thing crossed my mind, but it was more the before-dying thing I was worried about. You know... the likely beating, the possible rape, the definite strangulation. Yeah, that stuff was what was giving me the so-called big-eyes.
That and the fact that it felt like my esophagus was being crushed.
"I need you alive to give your boyfriend a message," he said, leaning in close and, even with most my air supply being cut off, the scent of stale cigarettes on his breath made my nose crinkle up. "You tell him to keep his fucking..."
The rest of his sentence got cut off when he was suddenly grabbed from the back of his neck and hauled backward, thrown so hard he crashed to the floor and slid several feet across it. My hand rose to my throat, holding there loosely, as I watched another man reach down to my attacker, grab his shirt, and pull him back onto his feet where he proceeded to beat the ever loving hell out of him, his hands moving faster than my eyes could follow.
The new guy's back was to me and all I could see was dark brown hair, a tall, lean, strong body clad in dark wash jeans and a somewhat tight dark blue tee.
I watched, horrified and fascinated, as the new guy decimated the guy who had choked me and knocked Barrett unconscious.
Barrett.
I flew toward his body, dropping down on my knees, and reaching my hands out toward his neck and chest simultaneously, feeling for how strong his breath was and his pulse. His face was hard to even look at, swollen and bloodied to nonrecognition. His breathing was shallow, but steady. I reached down for his sweater, hauling it upward to expose his chest and stomach. There were huge pools of red and purple bruises at his ribs. While I was no expert, I was pretty sure that meant they were broken.
"Oh God. Shit. Okay," I mumbled to myself, frantically patting at my pockets, looking for my cell.
"Relax," A deep voice said from behind me, making me yelp and fall back onto my ass. My head tilted up to find the random good (or very, very bad) guy towering over me, looking down at me with deep green eyes that were eerily familiar. It was in the bone structure too: the strong jaw, the straight, almost perfect nose, the brow ridge. Whatever his name might be, there was no mistaking it. Random hot good or bad guy was Barrett Anderson's brother.
"Relax?" I ground out, cringing at the razor blade sensation in my throat. "He's unconscious," I objected, noting that the office was empty save for the splatters of blood all over the floor. Whoever the other guy was, he was bleeding and long gone.
To this, I got a tight nod as he took a step to the side and crouched down next to me, doing a similar, but faster, check of his breathing and pulse. "It looks worse than it is."
"It looks like he was attacked by an entire gang."
"You his?" the guy asked, turning his head to look down at me and there was such an intensity in his gaze that I almost shrank away. I was pretty sure right then that he was very likely a bad, bad guy.
"His?" I repeated, not understanding.
"His. Girlfriend, side piece, fuck buddy..."
"What? No!" I exploded, cringing as my throat did the razor blade thing again.
"Yeah you're too rich-bitch for his taste."
Okay. I was getting pretty freaking sick of people commenting on me being well off. And, well, whoever this guy was, he was obviously bad. And an asshole. Completely.
"Are you planning on sitting here insulting me or getting your brother some help?" I asked with a haughty chin lift that totally screamed 'rich bitch', but I didn't care.
"He never should have gone off on his own," he said, reaching into his pocket for his phone. "Tig, it's Sawyer. Need help getting Barrett to the hospital. Right. His office. Thanks."
I was only half-listening after I heard his name.
Sawyer.
His name was Sawyer.
No way was it some kind of coincidence that the other PI that I had looked into and contacted, then ultimately decided against because I thought he was intimidating, was also named Sawyer. Looking at him now, 'intimidating' was definitely the right word to describe him. There had been no last name on Sawyer's website, just the name Sawyer Investigations. There was no way I could have known.
"Sawyer Investigations!" I blurted as I watched his profile, a muscle ticking in his jaw which I found almost sexy.
His head jerked, his eyes pinning me. "Yeah, babe."
"You're brothers and you're both PIs?"
"He used to work for me," he confided.
"Used to?" I prompted when the silence drug on and he just kept staring at me, like he was seeing something, like he knew my secrets.
Sawyer's lips tipped up then, but it wasn't a smile. I was pretty sure he wasn't the kind of man capable of smiling. It was more like a sneer. "He's a smart kid. Great with digging up leads. Fucking fantastic with computers. Can find shit that none of my other guys can. But he's a kid. He's soft. No training. He belongs in the guts of the office, not on the streets getting his fucking ass handed to him. He didn't like that. He split. Got his own game. And..." he waved his hand to Barrett's body in a way that would have seemed callous and unfeeling if there hadn't been pain in his eyes.
"And got his ass handed to him," I finished for him, feeling the guilt settle in low in my belly. While there was certainly a chance that Barrett was handling other cases while working on mine, cases that might have been dangerous, my instinct was telling me that whoever the guy was before, he belonged to Third Street. So if he belonged to Third Street, it was my fault that he got his ass handed to him. It was my fault, and Sawyer was sitting there looking like he felt the guilt. "You couldn't have prevented this. He's not a kid. He's a grown man."
"Do I look like the kind of man who can't prevent something if he really wanted to?"
Yeah, well. He had a point.
"Then why didn't you?"
"Does Barrett really seem like the kind of guy who likes being told what to do? I might have wanted to prevent this from happening, babe, but my brother would never forgive me chopping off his balls like that."
"Yo," a deep voice said, no... boomed, from behind me, making me jolt violently, my heart going into overdrive.
"Tig," Sawyer said to him but at me as he took his feet.
I sucked in a breath and followed suit, turning toward the voice and finding the largest man I'd ever seen in my life. Literally. He was six and a half feet easy with shoulders that were so wide that I was pretty sure he needed to turn sideways to fit through the doorway. He was solid muscle with a slight beer gut underneath his tight black exercise shirt. He was good looking in a giant kind of way, with strong masculine features, light brown eyes, and a deep mahogany color to his skin.
Tig and Sawyer were talking in hushed tones but my movement drew Tig's attention. His eyes did a slow inspection, but it was almost clinical, not sexual.
Sawyer waved a hand. "This is Barrett's not-fuck-buddy."
My arms folded over my chest, my eyes lowering. "That's rude."
"So is not introducing yourself, babe."
"You didn't introduce yourself either," I snapped. "I put two and two together."
"Sawyer Anderson," he said with an exaggerated bow, then waved a hand at Tig. "Tig you-don't-need-to-know-his-last-name. Happy?"
"Somehow I doubt you have the capability to make anyone happy," I said before I could stop myself. Tig's laugh was a sound that filled the sm
all space, making it feel like it vibrated up into your skin from the walls and floors and reverberated through all your cells in your body. I felt my lips tip up in reaction to the sound. My eyes slid over toward Sawyer to find that he had really nice, straight, white teeth. I knew this because he was actually smiling.
"Like it when a kitten shows her claws," Sawyer said, his eyes warm. "You got a name?"
"Obviously."
"Gonna tell me or make me run your plates on that sweet Porsche?"
Of course he would know that was my car. I sighed. "Elsie Bay."
Tig, who had started across the room toward Barrett, froze mid-stride. "Of Edward Bay?"
"The one and only," I said and even I could hear the bitterness in my voice.
"You called my office," Sawyer said as Tig moved behind me toward Barrett. It almost sounded like an accusation.
"Yes. I was looking for a PI."
"And you picked Barrett over me? Babe, I've got ten years of experience on him. What the fuck were you thinking?"
"Arrogant much? If you must know, Barrett seemed really tech-savvy and less intimidating."
"Don't you think that maybe having a intimidating private investigator is the way to go? Especially if you got yourself wrapped up with that piece of shit that had you up against the wall when I first got here?" Yeah, well, hindsight was twenty-twenty and all that cliche stuff. Though I was still convinced I made the right choice seeing as Sawyer was not only intimidating, but a cocksure asshole. At my stubborn silence, Sawyer sighed, shaking his head like I was an idiot. "Well, like it or not, I'm tapping out Barrett and stepping in. Don't know what the fuck you got yourself involved in, but make damn sure I will find out. I'm gonna be visiting my brother in a hospital room for a good three days and I want to know why. So you can go ahead and try to hide in a gated community behind security guards, but mark my words, babe, I'll get in and I'll get my answers."
I was just opening my mouth to snap when Tig was suddenly beside me, Barrett in one of his arms like he weighed nothing. Which, well, was somewhat true. His other huge hand lifted and moved out toward my neck. I felt myself stiffen, unsure, but all he did was brush the hair away and run a finger down the column of my throat gently, way too gently for someone so massive. "Ice and ibuprofen," he said, dropped his hand, and moved with Barrett toward, then out, the door.
I watched him go before looking back at Sawyer whose piercing eyes were on me, looking right into my soul. Then he wasn't by the door, he was stalking across the room toward me in such a predatory way that I took a few steps back before Barrett's desk stopped me. He kept coming until the toes of his shoes touched mine, his face mere inches from mine.
"Keep your head down until I can figure your shit out. Get your nails done. Have twenty dollar cocktails with your girlfriends. Don't poke your fucking nose in any more of this. I don't have the time to be visiting your clueless ass in the hospital too."
With that, he was gone.
I sank down onto the desk for a second, my heart thumping against my ribcage so hard it was almost painful. My hand rose to the lowest point of my neck and settled there and I realized for the first time that there must have been a bruise there. That was how Tig knew I needed to ice and take pain medicine. Great. That was just great. I would need...
"Get your tight ass in your sweet fucking car and get home," Sawyer's voice barked at me from the doorway. I yelped and jumped to see him standing there, looking decidedly displeased.
"Jesus," I gasped, putting a hand over my heart.
"Now Elsie. I don't have all night to stand here and watch you get all hysterical. Do that shit at home."
"You're such an asshole," I snapped, getting off the desk, snagging my purse off the floor and looking around for my keys.
"Under the pile of shit in the corner."
My brows scrunched together as I moved across the room to where he indicated, not seeing a single key sticking out. But lo and behold, when I moved the papers, there they were. "What, you have x-ray vision too?" I asked, storming over toward the door and slamming him hard in the shoulder to get him out of my way so I could step outside.
"I don't want you involved in my case at all."
"Too fucking bad."
"Fine. Then you're fired and so is Barrett."
"Porsche. Now," he growled, advancing toward me again and damn if I didn't retreat. Again. "I'll be in contact like it or fucking not." When I didn't immediately move, he took another, more threatening, step forward. "You don't get in the fucking car, I'll throw your ass in it."
Somehow, I believed him.
"Fine," I snapped and turned to storm across the street. I turned back suddenly to find he was still standing there, watching me. "I hope he's alright," I said and watched as his hard face softened.
"He'll be fine," he said in a voice that was almost... reassuring.
Before I could rethink my idea that he was just a heartless, arrogant, dickhead, I ran across the street, threw myself into my car, and got home like I was told to.
Then I iced my neck and took some ibuprofen, also like I was told to.
And then I decided that Sawyer was right; I needed to keep my head down. I needed to get my nails done and sip overpriced drinks and let people who knew what they were doing handle things for me from now on.
I might have been stubborn and determined, but two run-ins with very dangerous guys and an innocent guy getting caught in the cross hairs, yeah, I wasn't stupid. I needed to step back.
So that was what I was planning to do.
Six
Elsie
So the next night, I did what was expected of me. I got home from work; I ate a light meal of yogurt and almonds (pretty much the only food I kept in the house in case of a late night snack craving); I showered; I got into a skintight deep purple dress with lots of leg and a fair amount of cleavage; I got my hair extra dolled up; I made my eyes smoky and my lips tinted; after I sprayed on some liquid bandage, I slipped into sky-high silver heels.
I tried my hand at covering up the bruises on my neck. After a night of sleep, I woke up to a room temperature icepack on my neck and really vivid purple and blue bands and fingerprints on my throat. Problem was, I didn't have the kind of makeup one needed to cover bruises like I had. I had a little greenish concealer for when I was hormonal and got a breakthrough pimple or something that I needed to mask the redness of. But I didn't have the yellow tones I would need to cover what I had going on. Besides, if my teen experiences with trying to cover up hickeys was anything to go by, I knew makeup was rather useless on bruises anyway. So for work, I tied a funky scarf on and called it a day. It looked appropriate with work attire.
The silver and purple scarf I tied around my throat that night, yeah, well... it didn't exactly look right. Who wore a scarf with a club dress? No one. No one did anything that stupid. But what choice did I have? I couldn't cover it with makeup and I couldn't leave the house with strangulation bruises on my throat either. I thanked my lucky stars that it was a long scarf, tied it tight at the throat, then left the ends to dangle, one down the front, one down the back.
It would just have to do.
On a sigh, I walked through a mist of perfume, grabbed my clutch and cell, and headed out the door.
Chaz's wasn't the kind of place you expected to see a bunch of silver-spoon men and women. In all honesty, it looked like and usually was, a biker bar. That being said, it was about all Navesink Bank boasted that had a genuine bar atmosphere. There were upscale restaurants we could head to that had a bar area, but it just wasn't the same. When we all turned twenty-one, we started going to Chaz's just because we knew it would piss off our parents that we were slumming it. But, in the end, it was somewhere we genuinely liked to go.
The outside was nothing to write home about, just a brick building with a simple sign. The inside had been redone, all the woods stained dark, the walls painted a deep color, the back bar boasting a whole plethora of uni
que looking bottles. They added a cocktail menu that, while not twenty dollars a round, was still overpriced. I guess that was the pink tax seeing as the beer was cheaper than you'd find almost anywhere else.
The clientele was a unique mix of bikers, middle class men and women, college kids, and well, me and my friends.
The music was always of the top-forty variety on the weekends and there was plenty of room to dance or scope guys.
"What's with the scarf?" Bea, a friend who was really not a friend at all, asked as I walked up and air kissed two of the other girls who were actual friend-friends. Bea was thin to the point of concern, making me wonder since adolescence if her "vacations" she took every year or so were actually vacations at all or trips to eating disorder clinics. She had a crop of short dark hair that worked with her pixie-face and huge gray eyes. To put it mildly, bones sticking out aside, Bea was freaking gorgeous. She was gorgeous and rich and she really liked the things that came with being gorgeous and rich, like gorgeous and rich boyfriends that she constantly cheated on with 'downtown strange' as she called them. Meaning, guys she met at Chaz's, fucked in bathrooms or cars, and never thought of again.
She was a real peach, let me tell you.
"Oh, just something different I'm trying out. Hey Rome," I said, quickly trying to turn my attention away from her. "I didn't know you were coming."
I didn't know because for the past couple of days, I had been really hit or miss about answering his texts. It was something he was too cool of a guy to comment on, but the flash of hurt on his face said it hadn't gone unnoticed. I sidled into his side and rested my chin on his shoulder for a second.
"Sorry I suck. I've been crazy at work this week." My stomach twisted painfully at the lie and I tried hard to ignore it.
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