Текст книги "Retribution"
Автор книги: Sienna Valentine
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Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 13 страниц)
~ FIVE ~
After the confrontation with the two strangers, Eva asked Charlie to take over serving so she could catch a nap. She assured her overprotective brother that she wasn’t harmed and maybe she had just overreacted, but she couldn’t admit to him how frightened she had been. She also didn’t want to admit to herself how the adrenaline charging through her veins made her feel more alive than she ever had. Instead, she took a slow walk through the forest and back to the house, made herself some tea, and promptly fell asleep, surrounded by her aunt’s creepy porcelain doll collection. Even the lumpy bed didn’t stop her.
It did a fine job recharging her. When she woke, Eva didn’t feel the fear anymore. She told herself she had misinterpreted the exchange with the men. Maybe it was all some joke she and Charlie weren’t in on. Maybe Laura was right—she was seeing things like she was in a story, dramatic and larger than life. Those men probably wouldn’t even come back. She took a shower and grabbed a book before she headed back to the bar, snacking on an apple as she walked.
Someone had started up the jukebox in the corner, which held a fine selection of old outlaw country, and a few classic rock songs. Two men that Eva suspected were farmers talked lowly at one of the tables, sharing a pitcher of cheap beer. One of the regular bar flies claimed his seat at the end of the long oak bar, just next to the video poker machine that went ignored most of the time.
Charlie stood behind the bar, leaning over a book he had spread open on the glossy surface.
She looked down at the small, uniform text arranged around complex-looking diagrams. “Christ, what are you trying to fix now?”
“There’s an emergency generator out back,” said Charlie, thumbing over his shoulder like she didn’t know where “out back” was. “Owen didn’t say anything about it, but it looks like something’s wrong with it. It hasn’t been used in a while.”
“Yeah, probably because something’s wrong with it,” said Eva in a mocking tone. She nudged him out of the way to grab herself a pint glass and filled it carefully from the draught. “You don’t have to repair every little thing broken around here, you know. You can just relax… read a real book.” She shook her own at him.
“This is how I relax,” said Charlie without looking up.
Eva gave him a face that he ignored. She felt a little sting of pain that she recognized as loneliness. She wished her brother could find even some pleasure in the company of others, and not just his constant problem-solving.
She took her beer and her book and settled into the small two-person table just next to the bar, closest to the back room, where she would be least likely to be disturbed should they get some sudden rush of customers. The thought made her smirk as she looked over the perpetually empty room.
It didn’t take long for her to settle in and surround herself in her typical comfort zone. The music of the jukebox floated just soft enough to provide background fodder for her busy brain while it devoured page after page, stopping only for occasional sips of beer. She was five chapters deep when the door to the bar swung open.
For a second, Eva’s heart jumped. Was it the strangers returning? She held her breath until the new arrival walked across the floor and straight for the bar. When Eva saw him, her heart jumped a second time, but it wasn’t from fright. The man was deeply handsome, an unblemished face full of boyish charm juxtaposed with a jawline square and cut like marble. Rust-colored scruff grew in a short beard and moustache, and matched the loose curls on top of his head that looked like they hadn’t seen scissors in a while. His white t-shirt fit snugly over his chest and arms, revealing lean muscle lines. Despite that leanness, he nonetheless exuded a strength that reminded Eva of the strangers from before. Something predatory.
A surprising heat rushed through her chest and into more intimate places. It only worsened when he licked his full lips and absently pushed his hair back from his face as he sat down in front of Charlie at the bar. Christ, he’s so hot it hurts.
As if he could hear her thoughts, the man lifted his gaze and trailed it across the bar until it landed on her. It was then that Eva realized she had stopped to stare at him mid-drink, with her mouth half-open and her pint of beer hanging in the air. She cleared her throat and dropped the beer back on the table as she averted her eyes back to her book, trying desperately to at least look like she was again lost in the text.
When she dared glance back up again, he was still looking at her. Staring, even. His brown eyes were so deep, they looked endless from where she sat, and held a sadness that Eva couldn’t help but feel. His face had gone much softer, and when he looked at the book in her hands, she saw the ghost of an endearing half-smile.
Charlie suddenly looked up from his manual on the counter. “Oh, ‘scuse me, I didn’t see you there. What can I get you?”
The man held her gaze just a second longer before he turned to Charlie. “Two shots of whiskey and a stein.”
Eva’s stomach fluttered at the sound of his voice, a deep timbre spoken softly, deliberately. She couldn’t believe herself, getting all worked up over some… well, what was he? He certainly looked dangerous, but she couldn’t place exactly why. Plenty of guys kept in shape and carried knives. Plenty of guys had scars on their arms, and their neck. It was something else in the way he carried himself. Whatever it was, it didn’t frighten her like it had with the strangers. Instead, Eva felt honest-to-god arousal in a way she hadn’t felt in months—maybe even years.
An unwelcome, paranoid thought protruded into her mind—that maybe this dark, handsome stranger was related to the earlier ones. Was he here to continue the work they had started? He didn’t look particularly agitated. She did hope he wasn’t with them. It would certainly tarnish his handsomeness.
Charlie served him and Eva heard the man ask, “You new here?”
“Yeah, there’s been a bit of an ownership shake-up. Temporary,” said Charlie, holding his hands up as he said the last word. He stretched one of them out to the man. “I’m Charlie Murdock. Owen had some family business to attend to. My sister and I will be running things in the meantime. Hopefully, you shouldn’t feel too much of a difference.”
The man looked at Charlie’s hand a moment before he shook it. “Will.” He took a pause. “You and your sister?” he added, trailing his gaze back over to Eva before Charlie could answer.
“Eva, over there,” said Charlie as he nodded toward her. Both men looked at her and Eva squirmed a bit in her chair. She raised a hand in an awkward wave, and then pretended to dive back into her book. She could feel Will’s eyes on her still, but she didn’t dare look up and confirm it. Laura’s gonna love this, she thought.
She didn’t hear Will say anything else, but she did hear the sound of both the shot glasses being put back on the counter, one after the other. Her gaze flicked up and over the book for another quick peek. The man was just sitting on his stool now, staring at some empty point behind the bar, lost in thought. And not a happy thought, if she had to judge. She didn’t envy whoever he must have been thinking about. There was an air about him that reminded her of a half-sleeping wolf.
The song on the jukebox changed to something from Jimi Hendrix and Eva started to try and get back into her book. She’d only read a few paragraphs before feeling compelled to pause for another glance up at dark, handsome Will at the bar. After a few minutes, she realized she wasn’t digesting anything she was reading. All she could think about was how strong Will’s hands would feel on her.
Eva cleared her throat and blushed to herself. She saw the stranger look up for just a moment and again, like before, his face softened just a touch when their eyes met. She took that as a sign that maybe he liked what he was looking at.
The door to the bar swung open again, and Eva heard the approach of multiple footsteps at once. Her heart dropped when she saw the familiar leather coats and dangerous faces of the Latino strangers who had threatened her before. She froze. The blood drained from her face.
When her gaze flicked back to Will, she saw something come over him, like he was reading the thoughts on her face. His back straightened, and the lines from his face disappeared as his expression became a blank slate of coldness. Something dark erupted in his eyes.
Oh, Christ, thought Eva. Was this Will’s cue to attack? Was he with them, after all?
From her left, she heard Charlie call out obliviously, “Afternoon, guys. What can I get you?”
Her eyes stayed fixed on the men as one of them stalked over to the farmers’ table and suddenly slapped the half-empty beer pitcher into one of their laps.
“Closing time, gentlemen! If you would be so kind as to collect your shit and get the fuck out of our bar,” shouted the man with the close-cropped hair, exaggerating every word and syllable.
The men groused and leapt from their seats, only to be shoved harshly for the door with cruel hands and threats of broken bones. The old barfly near the poker machine didn’t wait to be told; he lurched off his stool and bee-lined out the front door and into the sun. The man with the bun walked up to the bar.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?!” yelled Charlie, his arms up.
Eva held a white-knuckled grip on her book as she watched the man in the bun approach Will from behind. She waited for him to clap a trusting hand on his back, call him by name.
Instead, the man in the bun put one of his arms on the bar on Will’s left side. He leaned in to give Will the same threats the others had received.
“Did you hear that, asshole? Get on your fucking feet,” the man in the bun growled right near Will’s face.
In a flash, Will turned into an animal. He held the man’s wrist steady with one hand and lifted his thick, half-full stein glass with the other. The heavy stein came crushing down on the man’s forearm, filling the room with the sound of snapping bones and painful screams.
The man in the bun grabbed his broken arm to his chest and stumbled backwards into the wall and over a table only a few feet from where Eva sat. She leapt to her feet and scrambled out of the way, scared he would try and hurt her in revenge, but he only writhed on the floor, screaming in Spanish.
Breathing hard, Eva looked up. Will was on his feet, a deadly coldness in his eyes as he turned to face the other thug. Even though the Latino man had height and weight on him, Will looked like twice the force, standing there with his back straight as an arrow, his broad shoulders puffed out. He waited like a patient viper until the thug took a heavy swing at him. Will ducked quickly beneath the punch and came back up with his own, straight into the man’s nose. Blood gushed from the wound almost instantly and the thug howled in pain.
“You picked the wrong fucking bar,” said Will quietly to the man as he stumbled, bleeding, trying to fumble for the door. Will turned and grabbed the collar of the man on the floor and yanked him harshly to his feet. The man howled in pain, spitting at him and calling him terrible things. He pushed and shoved both of the injured men, one after the other, until he had them both out the front door and disappeared from sight. Eva and Charlie could only stand, frozen and staring, completely overwhelmed.
After a few tense moments, Will came back in, yelling at them with a fury that Eva had never heard from anyone. Even though it wasn’t directed at her, it terrified her just the same. “You tell whoever the fuck sent you that they just made the last mistake of their short, pathetic fucking lives!”
He slammed the door shut, the color in his face already making him look more alive. Without a word, he turned and locked it, pulling the chain on the neon Open sign. “Lock the back door,” he said to neither of them in particular.
Eva nodded, and scrambled to shut the back door that was still open to the drifting, quiet meadow. She clicked both the locks and returned to the bar room. Charlie finally began to move and react, talking to himself in speedy, curse-studded sentences as he paced behind the bar. Will put his hands on his waist and walked slowly back toward the bar, looking suddenly out of breath and tired. He reached to drain the tiny bit of beer left in the stein he had just used to break some guy’s arm. Even from a distance, Eva could see the blood on his knuckles.
She looked up at Will’s face, and he met her eyes. Her knees felt suddenly weak.
I guess he’s not with them…
~ SIX ~
As he put the stein back down on the bar, Will saw the faint stains of blood left over from where bone had pierced skin when he broke that motherfucker’s arm. He looked at his hand, fascinated to see that it was still. No matter how righteous the violence, he typically got the adrenaline shakes, even if they didn’t bother him. But not now. He didn’t feel his heart rate jump at all the entire fight.
Not sure that’s a good thing, he thought.
Will came out of his battle haze and remembered he wasn’t alone in the room. The young guy who’d introduced himself as Charlie raved around behind the bar like a robot whose circuits had been splashed with water. In his stress, Will could hear a clipped accent from the city on Charlie’s voice as he rambled. “What the fuck was that?! You have got to be fucking kidding me. What the hell am I supposed to be, some gladiator? I’m running a bar!”
And then there was the girl, Eva. Well, girl wasn’t quite the right word—the soft curves of her thin body gave her away as a grown woman, but she had a delicate air, like a doll. She was attractive in a way that Will hadn’t seen in a long while, surrounded as he was by women with edge and coldness. She stood in the doorway that separated the bar from the employee areas, frozen in fright, staring at him with her mouth hanging half-open. At her feet lay the book she had been reading, pages crushed and haphazard.
Will stepped toward her wordlessly, watching her big brown eyes get wider as he approached. He bent in front of her and picked up the book, straightening the pages between the cover before he offered it to her.
Eva stared up at him like she couldn’t process what he wanted. Her soft brown hair fell in waves that framed her pale, heart-shaped face. He couldn’t help but stare at her full, pouty lips as they quivered, trying to find words. An unmistakable bolt of lust raced down his spine and hardened his dick just a little.
He held the book closer to her and she finally looked down and took it in nervous, shaking hands, holding it to her chest like a shield. When her gaze lifted back to him again, she wore a confused, but soft, expression.
“You all right?” he asked.
Will saw redness flush across Eva’s cheeks, saw her pupils dilate when he spoke. It excited him. “Y-Yeah, I’m fine,” she finally responded, voice cracking.
Will nodded at her, and held her gaze a few minutes more. He could feel the growing heat in his veins and turned away before he could get too distracted by it.
“What the holy fuck is going on?” said Charlie, hands on his hips. He had come out from behind the bar and stood now in the middle of the room. “Who the shit are you, and what just happened?”
Will came toward him and was impressed to see that Charlie didn’t back away. “Mr. Murdock, that was racketeering.”
“What the fuck is this, some Scorsese movie? I’ve seen more criminal behavior in the week we’ve been in this shit town than I have my whole life in the city!” said Charlie, arms still waving excitedly as he spoke.
“You said you were taking over for Owen—looks like there’s some stuff he failed to mention before you showed,” said Will as he stretched the fingers in his right hand. Already they throbbed with ache and pain, knuckle wounds once again torn open and bleeding down his arm.
“Fuck you,” said Charlie. “He’s our uncle, he didn’t set us up to get killed by gangsters. Our aunt is dying, he moved with her to hospice care. We’re just trying to help out.”
“Well, I can tell you, it’s bad form to just come into a new joint and start wrecking the place,” said Will, gesturing to the spilled beer from the farmer’s table. “Violence attracts attention. Money is a better lubricant.”
“Your point being?”
“This isn’t their first time here. Maybe your uncle made some enemies before he left—”
From behind came Eva’s voice. “No, this isn’t their first time here. I’ve met them before.”
When Will turned around, he saw her walking up to them, her flowery sundress swishing around her thin legs. She held a bar towel out to him, giving a knowing nod to his bloody knuckles. Will could see the fear from before was all but gone, her eyes lit up by adrenaline. He took the towel from her and wiped the blood off his arm and hand.
“When did you meet them before?” he asked.
Eva licked her lips and put her hands on her delicate waist. Will felt a distracting twitch in his nether regions. “They came into the bar earlier. They asked for the owner, and I was the only one here, so I told them it was me. They didn’t like that answer, so they…” She paused and looked down, gathering some composure before she continued. “The one whose arm you snapped got a little touchy and left some vague threats. He said the real owner better be here when they return.”
Will felt anger rise in his blood at her words. He raised an eyebrow and turned back to Charlie. “You sure they didn’t know your uncle?”
“No,” said Eva. “They didn’t. It was clear they didn’t know who they were looking for, only that it wasn’t a woman. They couldn’t have met Owen.”
“What makes you say that?” said Will. He was impressed with how this girl seemed to know what she was talking about, despite being clearly in over her head. His tone may have given that away, because she immediately blushed and looked self-conscious at his question.
“By the questions they asked. People betray their prejudices that way, if you know what to look for.”
Before he could stop himself, Will felt a smile tugging at his mouth. Eva returned it for just a moment before she cleared her throat and walked away, back behind the bar, busying herself with something.
“Look, who the fuck are you, anyway? How the hell did you do that to those guys?” said Charlie, pointing at the door.
Will paused. Fuck, who am I? he thought. Before he let them make their cowardly escape, he twisted the literal broken arm of the one in the bun until he told Will what he wanted to know. Those fuckers came from the Ramirez cartel. Right now, all those men knew about Will was confined to the injuries he’d dealt them. But if they found out he was a Black Dog, they could use it as leverage to amend the truce to their favor, or even start a turf war.
But if they really were cartel men, they were breaking the truce, too. Howlett and LeBeau were strictly off-limits to them, at least when it came to anything more than temporary transport and storage of goods. Hassling a bar owner to no doubt start laundering money or running drugs from his business was not a gray area—it was a clear violation. He could call Henry right now and potentially have the MC behind this problem.
What makes you think Henry will suddenly change his tune on diplomacy? He has a treaty now to back up the idea—illusion, clearly—of peace. He’s not going to listen. You might as well bury both these kids out back right now.
“Hey, asshole, I’m talking to you.”
Will shook out of his thoughts and looked at Charlie. “I’m Will Bowers. I live around here.”
“And how the fuck did you learn to fight like that? Military?”
“Right,” said Will with a lying nod. “Lucky break for you guys.”
“Lucky, yeah, that’s the word in my mind for sure,” said Charlie with bitter fire.
“It is lucky, because I’m going to keep you both alive and with a bar that isn’t reduced to a steaming pile of rubble.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Those men will be back, or if not them, others like them. They might take a bit of time to try and figure out what just happened, but once they feel prepared, they’ll hit again. And next time, they won’t be so easy to push out the door.”
Charlie shook his head and released a deep breath. “Christ. We have to go to the cops.”
“Cops clean up crimes, they don’t prevent them,” said Will. Plus, our cops will probably just call Henry, putting us right back on the path to Armageddon. “We have to stop them ourselves.”
“We?”
Will gave Charlie a withering look. He turned toward Eva behind the bar, halfway through a pint of beer and trying to gather herself. He raised a hand at her. “I’m sorry, which one of you is the secret kung-fu master that’s going to fight them off next time?”
“So, what then, you’re just gonna stay here and wait for them to come back? Let me guess what that’s gonna cost me,” said Charlie. He lifted an angry finger at Will. “You’re probably a part of it, aren’t you? These guys hassle me, and then you come in and offer security, take all my money, and probably let them burn the place down anyway, is that it?”
Charlie couldn’t know what his words meant, but that didn’t stop Will from stalking over to him like an angry predator. Charlie took a half-step back in surprise. Even though the muscles in his chest and arms from years of obvious hard labor could probably have dealt Will quite a bit of trouble in a fight, Charlie didn’t seem aware of his own strength, not in that way. He didn’t even raise his fists up.
“I’m not with them,” said Will quietly. “And I don’t want a dime of your fucking money. I’m not offering you long-term anything. I’m just going to shut down this rabid dog problem you’re having.”
Charlie searched his face, likely trying to tell whether Will was being honest or not, but this kid didn’t have the skills for it. It didn’t matter, anyway; he wasn’t lying. “Why should we believe you?”
“Because I’ve seen it before,” said Will. His ears filled with the sudden faraway roar of fire. He swallowed. “And I don’t want to see it again.”
Charlie paused, and turned back to look at his sister, as if he wanted her input. Eva looked at them both from behind a glass of beer as she drank, but didn’t say anything. Her eyes were wide like a scared animal.
Charlie said, “Fine. Help us.”
