by Stacy Gail
Alice’s eyes widened as the woman’s voice sounded throughout the building over some internal PA system.
“Loki, your presence is required downstairs. It seems someone is messing with your bike.” With that, the woman pointed toward a metal door partially hidden beneath a set of glass block and metal stairs. “Employee parking lot’s through there. You have about thirty seconds to get there. Try not to die. I’d hate to have you on my conscience for the rest of my life.”
“Thanks.” Alice paused just long enough to give her a tight smile. “Seriously. Thank you.”
“Lady, I just organized your death, so don’t thank me for it. Oh, but I should probably know your name. You know, for your epitaph.”
“Alice Halliday. Feel free to donate my body to science.” With a curt nod, she moved through the door and into the parking lot.
All she needed to do was convince this Loki asshole to return the money, she thought, moving past the railing that outlined a nearly full parking lot. She would do whatever it took to make that happen. Threaten to go to the police. Appeal to his sense of compassion—if he had any—about the many lives he’d hurt with his selfish actions. Beat the shit out of him.
No, she chided herself, clamping down on the errant thought like the rabid thing it was. No violence. No matter how desperate her situation was, she wouldn’t give in to that horrible Halliday temper she’d inherited. No matter what, she was going to be the cautious, logically detached person she always tried to be. All she had to do was remember what her first taekwondo instructor had taught her when it came to self-discipline—he who loses control, loses.
Or, in her case, she.
She wasn’t going to lose control. She never lost control. It was a point of pride for her. From the age of twelve, she’d never lost control of her emotions. Not once. She was calm. She was careful. She was detached. Hell, she hadn’t even cried at her father’s funeral. She had this.
She had this.
The Harley was near the back and parked next to a pole bristling with security cameras that swiveled to track her movements. Eyeing the one that homed in on her first, she gave it a little wave.
It was always nice to be noticed.
The door exploded open, and a nightmarish beast of a man surged through.
Holy.
Fucking.
Shit.
Pinkie hadn’t been kidding about the man’s size. Most North American bears were smaller than this guy. He had the dangerous look down pat, too. Biker boots, a patch-covered jeans jacket with the arms cut off, or kutte, ripped jeans, Harley T-shirt and skull rings on several fingers. His close-cropped beard was a darker shade of blonde than his hair that glinted like hammered gold in the sun. He wore that hammered-gold hair longer than chin length, parted down the middle, with the sides tucked behind his multi-pierced ears in a way that should have lessened his overall masculine impact, but instead it only intensified it. She couldn’t tell what color his eyes were from that far away, but that was fine with her. She didn’t care.
The only thing she cared about was taking everything that had gone wrong in her life because of this bastard, and putting it right.
She could do this.
And yet…
Something told her that appealing to this hulk of a man’s compassion was going to be about as effective as asking water to not be wet.
“Get away from that bike, bitch,” he roared, his long legs eating up the distance at an alarming rate. Impossibly he seemed to increase in size as he went. The pink woman’s remark that she’d just arranged Alice’s funeral echoed through her head, but the memory of what this monster had done to poor Felix—and to her and the other gym employees—drowned it out.
No.
Survival instinct be damned.
No way was she running.
“I haven’t touched your dumbass, I’m-overcompensating-for-my-tiny-dick bike. But if you don’t like where I’m standing, why don’t you come over here and fucking move me, bitch?”
His fast roll came to such an abrupt stop it was like he hit an invisible wall. “What the fuck did you just say?”
Ha. “Oh. You don’t like being called bitch? I’ve been called that my whole life, so take it from an expert. Learn to embrace the label…bitch.”
“The name’s Loki, and I have no doubt you answer to bitch just fine. That wasn’t what I was talking about.” He hooked his thumbs in his belt loops and cocked his head, his stance suddenly turning casual. “Did you just imply that I have a small dick?”
She blinked. Five seconds in, and they were already having a dick convo? That had to be some kind of record.
“Dude, you ride a Harley that has more chrome on it than all the cars from the 1950s put together. Either you have terminally shitty taste, or you’re packing a light load that no woman wants a part of.”
“Haven’t had any complaints so far.” The insult to his manhood didn’t seem to land the debilitating punch she’d been hoping for. If his lopsided grin was any indication, he thought she’d made a funny. “Wanna see?”
Geez. “If I wanted something to laugh at, I would’ve gone to the Comedy Club.”
“Such a mouthy brat,” he observed, but again his tone was surprisingly gentle as he stayed rooted to the spot, acting nothing at all like the berserker criminal Felix had described. “Mark my words, that mouth of yours is going to get you into a world of hurt someday.”
“But not today?” That would be very surprising, considering the amount of provocation she’d thrown his way. This wasn’t turning out the way she’d expected at all.
Crossing thickly muscled arms decorated with tattoos, he lifted a shoulder. “I don’t hurt women. It’s a personal code.”
“But you’re fine with hurting guys who are smaller than you, and then robbing them blind?”
That made his eyes narrow. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“I heard your words, but I have no fucking clue what they have to do with me. Who are you, exactly?”
“Answer the damn question. You get off on beating up helpless guys who are smaller than you and have no hope of laying you out, don’t you?”
“I’m going to be honest here—I get off on a lot of things. Long legs and pouty lips. Fragile porcelain skin and raven hair. Big, dark eyes that burn with a deep-seated need for murder. Oh, yeah. I get off on a lot of shit. Randomly attacking crybaby weaklings isn’t one of them.”
Grimly she ignored the basic description of how he obviously saw her and gripped her hands together in an effort to quell her anger. “I’m not into murder.”
“Trust me, you are. I’ve seen that look before.” He sucked in a sharp breath between his teeth and gave her a hot and heavy glance. “Mm. Gotta say, you make it look sexy as fuck.”
Good grief. “Also, Felix isn’t a crybaby, or weak. He’s just smaller than you.”
“Felix, huh? He’s your man?”
“My friend.”
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right. You got your pretty little ass down here to bitch me out over a friend. Uh-huh.”
She who loses control, loses, Alice chanted to herself, gripping her hands so tightly her fingers went numb. She who loses control… “That’s right, pal. You put that friend—who was also my employer—in the hospital. What’s more, you stole the payroll off him after you broke him up nine ways to Sunday, which means none of us got paid.”
That stopped him cold. “Bullshit.”
“On top of that,” she went on, undeterred, “I’m out of a job, because Felix has decided to declare bankruptcy now that he’s got months of rehabilitation to go through. I’ve literally got nothing in the bank, I have no job, and it’s all because of you. You’re going to give that payroll back, and I’m here to make you do it.”
“Lady, I have no fucking clue what you’re talking about,” he announced, his brows snapping together in a scowl so terrible it took most of her strength to not crawl away into the nearest hole she could find. “I
didn’t jump your man, and I sure as hell am no thief.”
Wasn’t he listening? “Felix is not my man.”
“And if this Felix fuckface dude told you that I just randomly beat him up out of fucking nowhere, then he really is a damn weakling by not copping to his own actions,” he sneered in obvious disgust. “Damn, I’m sorry I wasted my time on such a spineless little pissant.”
“Aha! There! You just admitted to tuning Felix up.” Finally.
“I’m not admitting shit, lady. All I’m willing to say is that I may have tuned your man up, but I don’t know that for a fact.”
Clearly, he believed she was an idiot. “You honestly expect me to believe you don’t know the man you jumped and robbed?”
“Again, I’m no thief, so you’re barking up the wrong fucking tree on that score. And I don’t usually get the names of the people I bust up.”
“But you do bust people up.”
He gave a negligent shrug. “I do whatever I have to do whenever I need to blow off steam, but taking down names is the last thing on my mind whenever I’m in that kind of mood. Obviously that weak-ass Felix fuckface of yours is a different story. After all, he sent you here, so he must’ve picked up my name and where I work somewhere along the way.”
“Felix didn’t send me. It was my idea to come here.”
“Why? You want an apology?” A snort of what sounded like amusement escaped him. “That shit’s never going to happen, lady, no matter how hot you are.”
Holy crap. “I came here to make you clean up the vat of shit you’ve dumped onto Felix’s life—and therefore my life and the lives of all my fellow employees.”
“And how am I supposed to do that, Stems? Unbreak him?”
Stems? “You need to give the payroll back.”
“For the last time, I didn’t steal any fucking payroll, so there’s nothing for me to give back. I don’t know what happened to the money that this Felix fuckface dude says I took, but I’d be willing to bet he does. Talk to him again and see if his story changes.”
That dreaded Halliday rage built, fueled by desperation when she began to realize she might not be able to fix things after all. Don’t lose it, she silently pleaded with the rising tide of emotion. She who loses control… “I don’t have time for this shit. Give the money back, or I swear I’ll bring in the police.”
“Why haven’t you already?” Slowly he sauntered toward her, still looking surprisingly nonthreatening, despite being the largest tower of pure, muscle-bound masculinity she’d ever clapped eyes on. Even his tattoos looked like they had muscles, for crying out loud. “Why is it I’m talking to you, and not the police? If I robbed this Felix fuckface guy—”
“Are you seriously going to keep calling him that?”
“Yeah, I am. If Felix fuckface actually got robbed by me, why didn’t he call the cops? He obviously knows my name and where I work. If he really believed I took that money, all he had to do was pick up a damn phone. But it’s been ten days now, and no cops.”
“Ten days,” she hissed, pouncing. “There. You see? You do remember robbing Felix and beating him to within an inch of his life.”
“Ten days ago was the last time I threw hands with someone, but that’s all it was. I never robbed anyone, Stems. You’ve been straight-up lied to, but you’re just too damn loyal and stubborn to see it.”
“Stop calling me Stems.”
“Your legs are the longest damn stems I’ve ever seen on a pretty little flower like you, so that’s never going to happen.”
Okay, screw this shit. “Look, if you don’t give the money back, then I’m going to have to go against Felix’s wishes and call the police.”
“Go ahead.” He stopped several paces away from her, a terrifyingly beautiful statue of masculine brutality just waiting to be unleashed, with the broadest shoulders she’d ever seen, a powerful chest Hercules would’ve been proud of, and muscle-corded arms as thick as her legs. “But before you do, answer the damn question. Why hasn’t Felix fuckface called the authorities himself? Think, Stems. I’ll bet deep down you know the answer.”
As much as she hated to admit it—least of all to this badass biker giant—that question had nagged at her from the get-go. There had been that one time, right before the death of Felix’s mother, that had shown Alice just how flawed her foster brother was… “I’ve tried reasoning with you. I tried appealing to your sense of compassion. Like I knew it would be, that was an epic fail. I’ve even threatened police. The only thing left to do is…is beat the money out of you.”
She waited for him to laugh. She supposed she should have been thankful he didn’t. “Uh… what?”
“You’ve left me with no other choice.” Methodically she plucked her phone and car keys from the pockets of her jeans, shoved them into her jacket’s pockets, then took her jacket off to drape it over the railing. For half a second she thought of setting her wallet aside for safekeeping as well, but this was Chicago, after all. She and her wallet would part ways only after her death.
Which, admittedly, might be in the next few minutes.
He looked like he was having trouble getting his jaw rehinged. “You can’t be fucking serious.”
“Since I was twelve years old, the only family I’ve had in this shitty world is Felix and his sister. I’d do anything for them. You went and fucked with Felix, so that means you fucked with me. Worse yet, I’m going to be homeless by this time next week if I don’t get back that payroll you stole. I literally haven’t slept in days, and I’m probably not thinking too clearly—”
“Yeah, that’s kinda apparent at this point.”
“And,” she plowed on, determinedly ignoring him, “beating the shit out of you won’t solve a thing. But I guarantee you it’s going to give me a moment’s true happiness in a world that’s been full of hurt for days on end. Right now, getting that kind of moment is good enough for me.”
He shook his head as if he needed to clear it. “So… basically you’re a ride-or-die chick for this Felix fuckface, is that it?”
“In a nutshell.”
“That term’s been hijacked, you know. It used to mean that if bikers couldn’t ride and be as free as the wind, they’d rather be dead. Nowadays it describes women being goddamn idiots for shitbird men who don’t deserve that kind of brainwashed loyalty. In other words, you.”
Her eyes widened as her rage bounced up another notch, and the mantra of not losing control slipped away like it had never been. That was what losing control was all about, but she was too lost in it to notice. “Okay. Done talking now. Get your ass over here and take what’s coming to you.”
“No thanks.” The bastard had the audacity to yawn. “As much as I hate to repeat myself, I’m going to go ahead and repeat myself for you, because you’re sexy as hell, and you seem to be a slow-learner. Ready? Here it is. I. Don’t. Hurt. Women. Period. Even when they’re so fucking stupid, a good slap would probably knock some much-needed sense into their heads.”
Goddamn it. “You fucked with the only people I have as family. My life is in shambles. You should’ve thought of the consequences before you pulled any of that shit.”
“This Felix fuckface guy was the one who didn’t think of the consequences, lady. He should’ve thought of you and your life before he stepped up to me. Obviously, he didn’t.”
Her brain shut down. Everything in her shut down. Everything… but the Halliday rage. “Get over here.”
“No.”
Eyes on him, Alice put a hand on the bike’s chrome ape-hanger handlebars. Grim satisfaction speared through her when he went statue-still.
Hello, Achilles heel.
“Lady,” he said, his voice so soft it sent a shiver down her spine. “It’s your turn now to think about consequences, yeah? I don’t raise a hand to women, that’s true. But whether or not you’ve got a dick won’t mean fuckin’ shit to me if you’re looking to damage what’s mine.”
She gave the handlebar an experimental shake, then
hesitated. It would take some muscle, but she could push it over. But the pink lady was right; it was clearly the one thing he loved, and enough damage had already been done. In good conscience, she couldn’t add to the misery. “Go ahead and try to stop me from—”
Holy shit, he was fast.
And he’d caught her in the middle of a sentence.
How rude.
It only took a couple steps for him to close the distance between them. As he did, his arms came up like a huge clamp to grab her in a smothering bearhug. She whirled away, keeping her weight on her toes before she dropped and spun into a low sweeping kick, the back of her leg slamming against his booted ankles.
She’d executed this sweep kick a thousand times before, both while in taekwondo tournaments and in teaching self-defense classes at Felix’s gym. She knew this move like she knew her own face. But, wow, pitting it against this breathtaking specimen of raw masculinity was something else again. It was like she’d kicked a tree trunk at its base. The impact of it jarred her so much it rattled her eyes in their sockets.
Holy crap, this guy was solid.
Luckily the ankle sweep did the trick—no doubt because she’d surprised him—and he went down on his ass. Smoothly she whirled with the momentum she’d created with the spin kick and struck a defensive pose. If she’d seen one of her self-defense students acting this way, she would have screamed at them for not running like hell at this point.
But she wasn’t trying to get away.
This man had to pay for the misery he’d caused, either in the money he’d stolen, or in blood.
The choice was his.
“Look at that.” The light in his eyes turned savage as he pushed to his booted feet with a fluidity that made her back up another step, her moves light and on her toes. “Little girl’s got some moves in her bag of tricks.”
“I haven’t been little since I was ten.”
