There is no one waiting for me.
Growing frustrated, I raise my ass from the stool and lean over the bar. I look Becky dead in her blue eyeshadow. I feel my eyebrows furrow I’m glaring at her so hard. “Look, Becky, woman to woman? A week ago, my boyfriend left me without warning. I came home to find all of his shit was gone, and I haven’t heard from him since. I just got my car repoed about three-seconds ago in this very parking lot while inside the pawn shop next door trying to pawn everything I own that might still hold some value because I’m broke. Beyond broke. Like I’m not even going to be able to pay for the drink I’m arguing with you over even if you do serve me kind of broke. And do you want to know why I don’t have a penny to my name? Because that boyfriend I mentioned earlier? He didn’t just leave. He drained my bank account on the way out and left me with nothing but unpaid bills, questions, and a goddamned fake sapphire.” I take a deep breath. “So, belong here or not, if anyone in this bar deserves a fucking drink right now, can we at least agree that person is me?”
Becky pulls a glass from under the bar and turns it upright in front of me. “It’s on me. What ya having?”
“Vodka,” I reply, sitting back down on the torn barstool. “Ice please.”
“What do you want for a mixer?” she asks, dumping ice into the glass.
I sigh and rub my eyes. “Vodka.”
Becky chuckles and sets the glass in front of me. “One vodka-vodka coming right up.”
I drain it in three gulps. “Thank you,” I tell her, setting the glass back down onto the sticky bar.
She leans forward on her elbows. “Men are shit. Had that happen to me once, too. My fiancé left me, and I lost the house, my dog, and then the motherfucker went and married my sister.”
“I’m sorry that happened to you and that your fiancé couldn’t see what was right in front of him.” I sigh. “For what it’s worth, I’m pretty sure I’m about to lose my house, too.”
Becky grabs the bottle again and refills my glass. “No, I mean I lost the house because he hitched my trailer to his fucking truck and dragged it right out of the goddamned trailer park.”
I can’t help but laugh, holding my mouth closed so I don’t lose any of the precious free booze inside.
“Did you ever find him again?”
She smiles. “Oh yeah, I found him alright. My cousin Irwin lives two towns over and when Joon came driving on through with my house on his hitch he told my cousin he’d rather see it burn to the ground then bring it back to me.”
“So, what did you do?” I ask, taking another swallow. Maybe, I can learn something from Becky’s story.
Becky smiles with a kind of wicked satisfaction I yearn to feel. “What do you think I did?” She leans over the bar once more. “I burned it to the ground.” She winks and pushes off the bar, heading to the far end to serve another customer.
I finish my second vodka-vodka and fish my phone out of my pocket to call Yuli for a ride, since I’m pretty sure sympathy and pity carries a two drink maximum. Only, I can’t get a signal.
I look around and spot a side door that’s been left propped open. Rather than face the hoard of leering bikers in the parking lot, I make my way through the crowd to the door. Once outside in the narrow alleyway between the pawn shop and the bar, I hold up my phone to the sky. Nada.
“Damn it!” I huff. Like this day could get any worse. I’m trapped in a fucking Tina Fey comedy where everything bad that could happen does. Only, my movie isn’t funny because it’s a tragedy.
“You need to make a call?” A voice asks. I turn around, and there are two huge men approaching. They don’t look like bikers. One of the men is bald, wearing a fitted black t-shirt over black dress pants and the other larger men is dressed in a blazer over khakis with slicked back black hair. “You can use my phone,” he says holding it out. “I’ve got signal.”
Feeling less than comfortable in the alley with two strangers who are smiling and snickering as if they’ve just told a joke I don’t get the punchline.
I hold up my hand and take a step back. “No, thanks. My friend is waiting for me inside.”
The larger man, Big Thug, I nickname him in my mind, approaches, blocking my way to the door. “Liar, we saw you come in alone. You ain’t got no friend in there.”
Little Thug grabs my arm. “You’re going to take a ride with us. Got someone who wants to…let’s just say talk to you.”
“No thanks. I’m good on magazine subscriptions, and whatever you’re selling I can’t buy because I’m broke. And I do have a friend in there. A very large friend with muscles and uh...tattoos, yeah, and anger issues. So, if you’ll excuse me.” I try to push between the men, but now they’ve each got a hold on one of my arms and they’re lifting me in the air, walking through the alley. “Let go of me!” I scream, but it’s not like anyone can hear me over the blaring music.
“Don’t’ think that your friend is going to hear you, sweetheart,” Little Thug says.
I spot a large, military green Hummer behind them in the alley and fear stabs me in the heart. I kick and I scream and I fight but I’m outweighed by over a hundred pounds on each side.
Big Thug laughs and opens the door to the Hummer.
All I can see is darkness. Darkness inside the vehicle. Darkness in my future. Darkness in death.
I spread my legs so one foot makes contact with each side of the door, resisting being pushed inside until I feel like my thighs about to give way and snap off my hips.
“We got a fighter,” Little Thug laughs. “So, who is this imaginary friend of yours anyway? You know, just so we can be on the lookout for tall, tattooed, angry, imaginary men.”
“It’s me,” a deep rough voice echoes through the alley.
Both men turn to face the newcomer who emerges from the shadows in all of his tattooed six plus feet of muscular man glory. Black and grey feather Tattoos that start beneath his tight white V-neck t-shirt extend from his short sleeves down the length of his strong biceps making it look as if he has wings. His jeans are slightly baggier than the trendy tight pants I see a lot of men wearing these days. He’s got a thin silver chain double looped around his neck and two more similar chains wrapped around each of his wrists. His bright white sneakers squeak on the damp pavement as he approaches. A vein ticks, making the ring through his right eyebrow jump.
Holy shit. I manifested a real live person.
“Oh yeah, and who the fuck are you?” Big Thug snaps.
“They call me Nine,” he answers. His nostrils flare, his dark eyes unblinking and hyper-focused on where the men are squeezing me on each bicep.
Big Thug shrugs. “Eh, never heard of you.”
Big Thug may have never heard his name before, but I have. My trembling intensifies with my fear, staring but not really seeing the apparition of a man standing before me. A man whose name I’ve heard whispered over crowded dinner tables a thousand times, but have never seen.
Even the most self-absorbed narcissist from the other side of the Causeway knows of King, Bear, and Preppy and the reputations that come with the names. It doesn’t matter who our government officials are. Those are the men who run this town and the people in it. Those three names instill both fear and respect from every walk of life in Logan’s Beach.
Nine is Preppy’s younger brother. Over the last few years, he’s become just as infamous for both his intelligence and unforgiving brutality.
I’ve heard of this brutality firsthand from Jared who told me that Nine shot three of his friends a few years back. Apparently, they were just sitting around a bonfire on the beach when Nine walked by and didn’t like the way the three were looking at him, so he pulled a gun and started firing.
“Put her the fuck down now,” Nine demands in a tone that sounds nothing less than a warning that ends with ‘or else’.
“You’ll have to take that up with our boss,” Big Thug says. “This little bird here is flying away with us.”
“I’d rather t
ake it up with you.” Nine charges the men, giving my captors no choice but to release me to reach for their weapons and keep from being trampled. Nine pushes on my shoulder, sending me sailing to the ground where I land with a thunk on the dusty pavement and crawl towards the wall where I crouch down as low as I can as if I can somehow make myself invisible.
Nine tugs on the thin metal chain hanging from his neck, and it pulls apart in two sections, holding half in each hand like two shiny whips. He flicks his wrists and the chains slice into the skin on the men’s wrists holding their guns, forcing them to open their hands and drop their weapons.
Little Thug charges at Nine. Bending at the waist and baring his teeth, he growls and runs head first quickly on his way to barreling into Nine. But Nine steps to the side, cocks back his arm and connects his tattooed knuckles with Little Thug’s face, sending him flying backwards into the wall. Blood from his nose sprays like a fountain into the air.
Big Thug uses the moment when Nine’s back is turned to go after him. Nine turns back just in time, sending an elbow into Big Thug’s jaw with a sickening crack. He groans, toppling over like a tree onto the pavement.
Nine looks over to me. My pulse races as he takes long strides in my direction. I hold my breath as he gets closer and closer. He pushes a section of light brown hair from over his eye. In addition to his eyebrow ring he has another through one side of his thick bottom lip. His nose is slightly crooked, probably from previous fights because this obviously wasn’t his first.
My reasoning and ability to properly process thoughts is definitely flawed due to shock. It has to be. Otherwise, why in this moment of all moments, while I am still fearing for my life, would I also be admitting to myself or even noticing that Nine is by leaps and bounds the absolute most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.
“What are those things?” I point to the chains around his neck that are now reattached and look like a simple necklace.
“They’re called Buddha beads, although mine have been altered to be smaller and…sharper.”
“Sharper…” I hear myself saying.
I mean to ask him why he’s here and why he just bothered to save me when he doesn’t even know me, but in my confusion, I hear myself ask instead, “Who— who are you?” Even though I already know the answer.
“They call me Nine,” he says, looking down at me with his own confusion marring his face. He frowns and runs a hand over his smooth chiseled jaw as if maybe I’m not the girl he thought he was saving, and his rescue is simply a case of mistaken identity.
He reaches down and lifts me to stand, but he doesn’t back away. With nowhere to go, my back is now pressed to the wall. He rakes me over, his gaze trailing from my eyes to my lips as if he’s searching for something.
I swallow hard. My voice shakes. “Why do they call you Nine? Like the number?”
His frown flattens to a straight line. He reaches out and twists a lock of my hair in his hands. “Nine, like the number, but that’s not the reason for the name. Guess again.” His sly grin is irritating yet beautiful which makes it all the more irritating. My pulse is still racing from my near kidnapping and didn’t think my heart could beat any faster but suddenly it’s at full gallop.
I’m confused and scared out of my mind and can’t remember what he just said.
“Guess the right answer, and I’ll step aside.”
I just want to be home wrapped in several layers of blankets for possibly days, maybe even the rest of my life. “Uh…like nine-millimeter? Are in a gang or something? You can be scared straight. I saw a documentary on it once.”
He cocks his head to the side and slowly a small grin spreads across his lips. He chuckles, low and deep. I feel it in my chest, specifically my nipples. He licks the silver ring through his lower lip. “Or something. Keep guessing.”
I look to the back wall of the alley to think. “Nine…as in your favorite number?”
“Close, but still no.”
“Nine, lives? Like a cat?”
He shakes his head.
“What else could it be?” I ask, a small notion creeps up in the back of my brain.
“You’ll get it. In three, two…” His voice trails off.
Without thinking, my eyes drop to his crotch.
“One.”
My cheeks burn. My skin suddenly feels too tight.
“I…I…” I’m tongue-tied. Words are something I’m never at a loss for, but this man has managed to steal them away without much effort at all.
Asshole. Talking is my main coping mechanism. If I don’t have words, I don’t have anything.
“It’s not exactly true though,” he says, leaning over me with his elbow on the wall right beside my very red cheeks. His nearness is like a morning fog, clouding my thoughts with his masculinity. It’s like a drug I’ve never tried but know I’d be addicted to after the very first high.
“Wait, it’s not true?” I ask, hating how breathless I sound.
He reaches out and tips my chin up. My lingering gaze is forced to leave his crotch, locking on his gleaming hazel eyes.
“No,” he leans in, his warm soft lips brushing over my jaw like a soft caress. I have to stop myself from leaning into him and rubbing my face against his touch like a cat begging to be pet.
He lowers his voice to a whisper.
“It’s bigger.”
I ignore the embarrassment creeping up my neck. “Why did you save me?” I ask, searching his dark hazel eyes for an answer that doesn’t come.
The alley door swings all the way open, and Becky appears, cigarette in hand. She surveys the scene and the two unconscious men and rolls her eyes. “I told you this wasn’t no place for you, darlin’.” She lights her cigarette.
Nine pushes off the wall and away from me. The heat from his body gone. The humid air feels a thousand degrees cooler between us.
I release a breath I didn’t know I was holding. “You were right, Becky. This place isn’t for me. I was just leaving.”
Without another word, I dart through the door and leave Becky and Nine behind in the alleyway. As I pass through the crowded and loud bar and run out the front door and sprint halfway down the street, I swear I can hear Nine’s frustrated growl trailing me the entire way.
Chapter Nine
NINE
I didn’t expect Lenore Leary to be so…interesting.
There’s beauty in her sadness. Depth to her despair.
Something about it, something about her calls to me.
Protect her, a voice in my head says.
I laugh it off. That’s not going to happen.
After all, I’m the one she needs protecting from.
I watched her from the parking lot as she entered Pike’s Pawn and was taken aback. I expected her to be the trophy wife type since she was Jared’s girl, but I’d painted her as demonic in my mind, and she’s anything but grotesque or hellish.
A little thing, at least a foot shorter than myself. Long brown, wavy hair. Large wide-set eyes are a pale green-blue that reminds me of sea glass dressed in a pair of navy-blue rimmed glasses. Thick rosy lips. Long eyelashes that batted with fear and confusion.
Lenny isn’t in-your-face pretty, but there’s something there. Something natural. I almost brought attention to myself and laughed out loud as I watched her down vodka at the bar like it was water and she’d just crossed the fucking Sahara. She’s different.
Adorable, even.
Adorable? Get your shit together, Nine.
I shake my head to clear any thought away that doesn’t involve locating our money. I can’t afford distractions. Especially if the distraction at hand is my current target. I’ve got questions for her, and for her sake, Lenny Leary better have the right answers.
“How exactly do you know her?” Pike asks, as I come back in from the alley. “Because holy shit, she’s a fuckin’ smoke show.”
I’m still amped up from saving her ass from Ricco’s men and pissed that Becky prevented me from taking Len
ny with me as I’d planned. I shoot Pike a death glare as if I wasn’t just thinking the very same thing. “She’s Jared Cox’s girl,” I grate. “Ex-girl.”
“That was her?” He notices the blood splatter on my white shirt. “What the fuck happened? I thought you were just following her to the bar so you could wait for the right time when she’d be alone to pounce.”
Pike’s choice of the word pounce is eerily accurate for what I wanted to do to Lenny when I saw her.
“I followed her right into the alley where Ricci’s men appeared and tried to haul her off. They’ve been taken care of. Tied up in their Hummer. I’ve got one of Bear’s guys driving them and their Hummer into the Everglades.”
“He going to take them out?” Pike asks.
“Does it matter?”
Pike twists his lips. “Nope. It really doesn’t. But what about the girl? Where is she now?
“No clue, but I’ll be finding out.”
I walk over to the back wall and pull down one of my guns that’s not for sale even though it may look like it is. I think of it as hiding in plain sight or a convenient storage solution.
“I guess your plan to sit back and let her lead you to the cash is on the shelf,” Pike laughs, lighting a joint. He passes it to me, and I take a deep hit.
I rub my temple with my wrist. “You’d guess right. There’s no way in hell I’m letting Ricci’s men get to her.” I tuck the gun in my waistband and head for the door.
“At least, not before I do.”
Chapter Ten
LENNY
These past several days, I’ve felt nothing but suffocated, although it’s a suffocation of my own doing. On the pretense of wanting to spend as much time with her as possible, I’ve spent the last week locked inside Yuli’s apartment, doing nothing but checking the help wanted ads and helping Yuli pack. And it’s true. I do want to spend as much time with her as possible before she leaves for Africa, but after what happened in the alley, I also just didn’t want to be alone.
Nine, the Tale of Kevin Clearwater Page 7
