The Vigilantes Collection

by Lake, Keri

  I drew back my hand at the stark reminder that the man came in many shades, including pitch black, and that, as much as he was capable of calm conversation with me while I cleansed his wound, I’d also seen him slice someone’s throat open without a hint of remorse. “Oh.”

  He lifted the bottle like a toast and chuckled. “My life is like a shitty movie that somehow sucks you in, right?” His tongue slid across his teeth while he eyed me warily. “Feel free to add me to your list now.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Whiskey-drinking bastards who can rot in prison. Cheers.” He sniffed, kicking back another sip.

  Placing the cloth back against his cut, I pressed into the wound to keep it from re-bleeding and caught the flinch in his ice-green eyes. “My mom used to tell me men who drank whiskey were the loneliest men of all.”

  “Why’s that?”

  I shrugged. “My dad probably drank it. She always had something bitter to say when it came to my father.”

  “They split up?”

  “Yeah. Well, he walked out on us when I was about ten. The day … in the woods … the kids at school had teased me about him.”

  He lowered his gaze again. For some reason, every time I brought up that day, he wouldn’t look me in the eye.

  “I was … scared of you at first. You know, you came out of nowhere, and you just kept punching them like … like you might kill them, or something.”

  His jaw shifted, eyes still cast away from mine, and I wondered what he thought about. Did he wish he had?

  “I used to torment myself, by imagining what would’ve happened if you hadn’t shown up.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “To remind myself to stay sharp. To remember that men leave, and there isn’t always going to be someone there to save the day.” I paused in dabbing his wound and stared down at him. “Look. Ten years later, and here you are again.”

  Shadows clouded his eyes as his brows came together, and I had a feeling he’d say something to negate what had become a fact in my mind—that he’d saved my life, not once, but twice.

  Before he had the chance, I turned away, tossed the whiskey-sodden cloth onto the bathroom counter, and washed the blood off my hands in the sink.

  Still sitting beside me, he took an exceptional swig of his liquor, gaze locked on me in the mirror’s reflection.

  A swell of heat flushed my cheeks and warmed my thighs. I twisted around to face him, my body tight at the way he set the liquor bottle on the counter without taking his eyes off me, and knots tugged in my stomach when he licked his lips, his stare devouring me.

  Lifting his finger to his cut, he probed the crust-less wound and glanced down toward the tiny bit of blood that returned on his fingers. “You didn’t have to do that,” he said, studying me in a way that had me wishing I could touch the scar at my own eye.

  For a moment, I was taken back to that day, sitting on the kitchen chair while he wiped the blood from the cut where the boys had hit me.

  “I wanted to kill them for hurting you.” His brows came together with the clench of his jaw. “I would have. If you hadn’t grabbed that gun, I’d have killed all of them.”

  I believed him. The ease with which he’d killed those men back at the motel told me he’d done it before. I couldn’t decide if I was stupid or crazy for wanting to stay with him, anyway.

  I lifted the bottle from beside him and took a sip, grimacing as the burn sizzled in my mouth and blanketed my throat. Not the sexiest sight, but at least I managed to gulp it down. “Thanks for what you did back here. Would’ve been a crappy thing to die two days before my birthday.”

  “Tomorrow’s your birthday?” At my nod, he asked, “How old will you be?”

  “Twenty-three. And still don’t have my shit together.” I toyed with the rim of the whiskey bottle. “Doesn’t matter. I stopped counting birthdays.”

  “Why’s that?”

  I shrugged and forced myself to tip back another sip, or risk falling into some woeful sob story that didn’t hold a candle to being shot by my own mother. “For years, I celebrated my birthdays and name days with my best friend and my mom.”

  “What’s a name day?”

  “In my mom’s culture, it’s based on the saints, so my name day, or meniny, is December thirteenth. Very similar to birthdays. I didn’t have huge parties like the other kids in my school, but my mom and Milena always made it special. My mom made makovník, or poppy seed strudel, and we’d watch movies and talk about running away to Paris someday.” I chuckled at the absurdity of thinking we’d ever leave Detroit. “I never really had many friends in school, but Milena always made me feel like I didn’t need anyone else but her.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “She was murdered a few years back. A break-in. We’d fallen out of touch—my fault, not hers. My mom’s health had gone downhill, and I just couldn’t … couldn’t keep up with everything.” Tears formed in my eyes, and I blinked to hold them back. Exactly what I’d wanted to avoid, but for some reason, talking to him, even if he remained mostly quiet, felt good. I hadn’t talked to anyone about Milena. “I wish I could go back and fill those blank spaces, the years we didn’t talk, with something that she could’ve taken with her when she died. Some peace of knowing I wasn’t mad at her.” I ran my hand along the surface of the counter, switching focus to keep my emotions in check. I hated crying in front of people, particularly men.

  Without a word, he slid his arm behind my back and pulled me into him, kicking me forward a few steps until I stood before him. Snaking his hands beneath my T-shirt, he lifted the fabric, just high enough to expose my belly, and kissed me there, his fingertips no more than a whisper against my skin.

  My body shivered, stiffening at his touch. So strange to have the hands of a killer, who’d murdered those men with such lethal finesse, touching me as if I were fragile and would break in his hands. Nothing like the time before, when he’d thrown me against the wall and bruised my lips with his kiss.

  I threaded my fingers through his hair, tipping his head back, and leaned forward, my lips just short of his. “I like your hands on me.”

  His hot breath hit my cheek, and he yanked me down onto his lap, where I felt his arousal pressing into the thin fabric of the boxers I’d borrowed. “You got a boyfriend, Lucy?”

  “Define boyfriend.”

  “Someone you fuck. Someone you belong to.” The deep rasp of his voice rumbled in my ear while his fingers curled around my waist in an undeniably possessive grip.

  “No.”

  “No, you don’t have a boyfriend? Or no, you don’t fuck?”

  “No, I belong to no one. Why do you ask?”

  “Because I don’t like fucking a woman with complications.”

  His palm gripped the back of my head, and he pulled me into him, my body tingling with the first brush of his lips across mine, until he fully committed to the kiss, fusing our mouths tighter, forcing me to breathe hard through my nose. A growl rumbled in his throat, against my lips, and within seconds, the kiss turned frantic, greedy.

  His lips held a world of promise, a world I wanted to slip inside and never leave. A place as dark as the mystery that surrounded him, but brimming with excitement and danger, lust and pleasure. Air tugged at my throat, and for one split second, I questioned the need to breathe at all.

  My body fell backwards, startling my muscles to reach out for something, but caught in his tight embrace, he laid me down gently against the bathroom floor, never taking his lips off mine.

  Cold tiles seeped into the thin cotton of my shirt and battled the hot wash of carnality spreading beneath my skin, a steady current of desire humming through my veins. I needed to catch my breath, but his hands gripped either side of my face, holding me in place, and his tongue dipped past my teeth, trapping a moan between us. Couldn’t tell if it was his or mine.

  Clutching a handful of his hair, I bit onto his lip and sucked, his chasing groan inciting the frisk
y beast somewhere inside of me to rear its ugly head.

  He slammed my hands flat against the tiled floor and raked his teeth across my jaw, before he bit into the juncture at my neck and collarbone, sending a hot jolt to the apex of my thighs. His palm skated up my belly and beneath my shirt, where he squeezed my breast, before peeling back the lace bra. The rolling of my hardened nipple between his fingers had me arching off the floor, and a surge of pleasure beat against my core as my body ached to feel him inside me.

  I cried out, bucking beneath him.

  “You’re like a shot of ecstasy in my veins,” he said between kisses across my throat. “I’ve done some good fuckin’ drugs in my life, but you’ve got me so strung out right now, I’m about to explode, mia Luce.”

  His shoulders bunched over me as his body stiffened against mine, and a coldness seeped between us as he pulled himself away.

  “What’s wrong?” I lifted my head up off the floor and hoisted myself onto my elbows. “Did I do something wrong?”

  “I can’t do this.” He pushed himself to a stand and, swiping his liquor off the counter, exited the bathroom.

  The first tendrils of remorse bit into my conscience as my mind replayed the last five minutes, wondering if I’d said or done something unattractive. The shame quickly turned to anger, though, and I pushed myself off the floor.

  Twice he’d teased me. Led me on, only to leave me cold and wanting. Whatever game the bastard played, two could play at it.

  I entered the open floor of the apartment, where he stood by the window, staring down at his phone. Without looking up, he tucked the phone into his back pocket and gathered his knife and gun from the nightstand. “I gotta go. Something came up.”

  “Jase.” I took a step toward him, coming to a halt as he held up his hand to silence me.

  “Listen. You’re sweet. And pretty. And all kinds of shit that I might’ve hounded after like a dog chasing a bitch in heat a year ago. But I’m not looking for sweet. I’m looking for temporary and unattached. You’re a liability. And believe me, I’m sure as fuck no good for an innocent thing like you.”

  The sting of rejection shot at my pride like an invisible slap to the cheek. I searched for something else to say. Something that didn’t make me feel like an asshole tweenie all giddy over the popular guy who’d just copped a feel. “I need something from my apartment. I need to go back to get it.” Dumb? Yeah, but the way he flicked from hot to cold made me nervous that he’d toss my ass out in a heartbeat, and I didn’t like feeling stranded with no cash or even a pair of shoes.

  “No.” He slid the knife in its holster.

  “I’m not asking you to grab it. I’ll go myself.”

  The way he casually shook his head, as if he had the audacity to tell me what I could or couldn’t do, hit my nerves like a nail scraping against my bones.

  “Hey, in case you didn’t happen to notice, this isn’t the nineteenth century, and you’re not my slave master.” I scowled at the lift of his brow and the amused, slap-worthy expression on his face. “I can go anywhere I want. And you can’t stop me. You were going to send me off, anyway. Remember?”

  He rolled his head against his shoulders, his eyes a deep shade of no bullshit, and he lurched toward me. “Would you like me to tie you up again?”

  “Try it.”

  His stare pinned me with challenge, and he tipped his head, cracking his neck, sending my oh, shit alarms off.

  “Okay, listen.” I threw my hands out in surrender. “I have a friend. She’s going to go bat-shit crazy, if I don’t call her soon and let her know I’m alive.”

  “First, you want to visit your apartment, now you want to visit friends?”

  “Both, actually. I thought I could kill two birds with one stone.”

  “Only one bird will be getting killed, and that’s you, if you try to go back there. You don’t think they’re swarming that place right now? You don’t think they’ve already figured out who your friends are and might be watching them?”

  “All the more reason I should call my friend, don’t you think?”

  “Come on, brainy.” He slid his jacket up over his massive shoulders. “Don’t you have any street smarts?”

  “Don’t you have any emotional receptors? Jesus, what if one of your boys thought you were dead? Wouldn’t you want to send up a smoke signal, or something? Let them know you’re still here?”

  “My boys did think I was dead. For almost a year. And it was better that way, otherwise I might’ve been buried by the same set of knuckledusters that ended my brother.”

  A year? “What happened to you?”

  “You’ve already asked too many questions. The answer’s no. You leave? Don’t fucking bother to come back. Your ass is out. On your own. I don’t have time to chase after stupid bitches with death wishes.”

  Hatred had me grinding my teeth, as I curled my fingers into tight fists at my side that I wanted to crack against his cheekbone and laugh when this stupid bitch popped him like one.

  Irrational, or not, he’d pissed me off.

  So much so, I planned to leave the first chance I got.

  29

  Jase

  I stormed out of the apartment and down the flight of stairs toward the Camaro, biting back the ache in my balls and the anger coursing in veins.

  Christ, I’d called her mia Luce, as if she belonged to me. As if my life wasn’t fucked up enough, I was staking my claim on her now? Making her mine?

  The woman had my muscles knotted up, and my head all swimming in thoughts I didn’t need. Like how goddamn good it’d feel to have her perfect, tight pussy clenching around my dick as I made her come all over it.

  Warm vanilla-lilac hit my nose, and I lifted my shirt, breathing it in. Sucking her into my body. She was everywhere on me, that lilac scent and her touch still hot on my skin. Her taste on my tongue.

  I licked my lips. Yeah, she was there, too.

  I’d never wanted anything so badly in my life, but it wasn’t the time for me to be chasing tight, honey-toned thighs and perfect tits.

  After adjusting my raging hard-on, I put the car in reverse and backed out of the lot.

  No way she’d leave, and so what if she did? I couldn’t afford to be playing house with her, not when the bastards who’d ruined my life still walked free.

  Yet, the thought of any one of them laying a hand on her had me white-knuckling the steering wheel with the urge to bash their faces into a concrete wall.

  I wanted her to go, but I needed her to stay. Or was it the other way around? Goddamn, she had my head all messed up.

  Good thing Dax had texted when he did. He’d asked to meet up at a bar we used to hit every weekend, along Mack Avenue. Nothing but a hole in the wall, owned by a former drug dealer everyone called Rev. Good guy, but I’d hate to be on his shit-list. Old bastard was like the godfather of gangs, the Pied Piper of thugs.

  I pulled into Lion’s Den and parked in the usual spot toward the back, catching sight of Dax’s Cuda. The instinct to watch my ass had me looking over my shoulder, as I pulled my hood up over my head and strolled up to the front of the bar. Not much to worry about in Rev’s territory, made up of mostly locals, but I wasn’t taking any chances.

  Rev sat at his usual spot near the entrance, greeting everyone who walked in like he welcomed them into some backyard barbecue instead of the one joint on the strip where drug deals and prostitution went down in the open. At least the chicks at Rev’s club were of age. He patted my back, as I slipped past, like no time had passed since I’d last been there.

  At the end of the bar, Dax pounded back a shot, and I caught the tremble in his hands as I approached. A white pallor clung to his face, like he’d gotten into a bad batch of something.

  I fell onto the barstool beside him and signaled the busty bartender, Talia, who walked over, chomping her gum as usual and shot me a wink.

  “Howdy handsome. What can I getcha?”

  “Whiskey,” I answered, and at her
nod, I turned my attention to Dax. “What’s going on?”

  “I, um … just …” Beads of sweat had gathered at his temple, and black circles rimmed his eyes like he hadn’t slept in days. “I was … doing okay, you know? I got out of the shit. Got myself off the heroine. Out of the sex club scene. And boom. I’m falling again.”

  “'The fuck, man? You were fine a couple days ago. What happened?”

  “Jase.” He leaned in to me, lowering his voice, and the way his eyes kept from focusing on me, I could tell he was high on something. Tripping out. Paranoid. “You kill these men. It’s personal, right? I mean, that makes it okay. Because you’re … you’re doing it for justice. It’s the right thing.”

  I didn’t like talking so freely in the bar, and I glanced around, making sure no one happened to be in earshot. “'The fuck’s up with you?”

  “I need to do right by Olivia. That’s what up.”

  Christ, he was tripping out. Maybe having a bad night. Maybe he’d hooked up with a stripper who reminded him of his slain sister, or some shit. Whatever had him wired, he needed to go home and sleep it off.

  “I told you. When I find Pasák, you’re in.” A shot of whiskey slid beneath my chin, and I sat back, giving Talia a sharp nod, before she walked off. “Go home. Sleep it off, man. And chill the fuck out.” I kept my voice low and tipped back the shot. “I’m not taking some tripped-out zombie on a revenge kill.”

  Taking deep breaths, he nodded. “You’re right. I’m going to go home. Get some sleep. See how I feel tomorrow.”

  I patted him on the back. “I know you loved her, man. She was like a sister to me, you know? And Reed … that kid had a lot of shit going on, but he loved her. I know he did. He’d never hurt her.”

  “I know Reed didn’t hurt her. I know that.” Rubbing a hand across his chin, he nodded, brow furrowed, and his hand slid across the bar top, stopping in front of me. “When you get a chance, check this out.” He lifted his hand to reveal an SD card. “Crazy shit.”

  “Yeah?” I lifted the card, grateful for the change in subject and slipped it into my coat pocket. “I’ll check it out tonight.”