When he finally opened his dark eyes, they were no longer filled with murder. Hell, they weren’t filled with anything. His eyes were blank in a way that screamed ‘serial killer’ and I wondered why it made me wet. I liked it when he went cold and deadly like this, so much that I made a soft noise, drawing his attention to me. He’d shown me that he wouldn’t hurt me by calming himself down like that. I’ve never seen someone control their rage so effectively. Not only had he taken his anger out on inanimate objects on the other side of the room, when he noticed my fear, he instantly calmed down in order to comfort me. I didn’t know if I could trust him, but I did know he wouldn’t harm me. This knowledge relaxed me and made me feel brave, like a woman approaching a lion without a chair or whip. I didn’t like Smoke thinking about murder so I decided to distract him.
“Hey now,” I muttered and kicked at his leg. He gave me a look like I’d lost my mind, “I’m not ‘the bitch’. I may be a bitch but I’m not the bitch. And don’t try to lie, I heard you call me that while you were having your anger management issues. I can translate Spanish swear words and some Puerto Rican.”
I swear the temperature in the room rose ten degrees. In a hot flash, life returned to his gaze and he slowly smiled at me then said in Spanish, “My apologies, beautiful girl.”
“You’re very bold,” I replied back in badly accented Spanish that was kind of sort of right, maybe, then switched back to English. “And to be honest, you can be a scary prick. You need to work on your people skills.”
Before Smoke could figure out if he wanted to kill me or laugh, the man with my sister’s name on his neck chuckled and shook his head at us. Poor guy. Having her name there was like carrying the mark of Satan. The intimidating man leaned over his desk and held out his hand. “Name’s Beach.”
I shook his hand touching him as little as possible and trying to not be obvious about attempting to wipe away the creepy crawly sensation I got in my fingers from touching him. “Nice to meet you, uh, Beach?”
He sat back in his chair and watched me. “You know where Sarah is?”
“Fuck no. If I find that bitch I’m going to rip her ovaries out and strangle her with them.”
Smoke groaned from behind me, but the president guy grinned. “You know, I didn’t believe her when she told me about you, but she was right. You swear more than she does. She’s kind of in awe at how when you’re mad you sound like a drunken soldier.”
I couldn’t help but laugh and the knot of worry I carried for Sarah strengthened in my chest. “That’s probably the nicest thing she’s ever said about me.”
The president sat down at his desk, bringing his face even with mine. “You know where she’s at, Swan?”
I adamantly shook my head. “She called me last night, or was it tonight, sounding upset.”
The president tensed. “Did she say what was wrong? Was she in pain?”
“Like I said, she sounded upset, but not, like, hurt or anything. She did ask me to meet her for drinks after I got off my shift.” I darted a glance over at Smoke who was watching us with a slightly troubled expression. “Except, instead of my sister waiting for me in the parking lot, it was a bunch of big dudes who knocked me out before I could explain to them that they had the wrong fucking chick. You guys really suck at kidnapping.”
Smoke gave me a dirty look before he said, “Swan snuck out the side entrance. Vance was dealing with a drunken asshole in the parking lot that tried to touch our bikes. By the time we noticed she’d gone, she was already on her way to where those fuckers were waiting for her.”
The president sighed and sat forward, making me look away from Smoke and back to him. The laughter fell from his face and a chill raced down my spine as I got a glimpse of just how scary this man could be. Maybe he was the perfect psycho match for my sister. “I need to find Sarah, Swan. I will do anything I have to in order to make that happen. She’s in trouble, big trouble, but I can’t help her if I can’t find her. Los Diablos are a Mexican gang who’d love to get their hands on either you or your sister.”
“Of course.” I took a step back, relieved when he let go of my face. “I have no idea where she is. Have you talked to my mom?”
His eyelid twitched. “Can’t find her either.”
I frowned at him. “That’s not a good sign.”
“No, it isn’t.” His voice was so calm, almost a purr, but it was deadly. Beach was really, really pissed off and I swallowed hard. Okay, so evidently my body found it hot in a totally disturbing way when Smoke was angry, but not Beach. Good to know. Hopefully my newly found nympho tendencies would remain focused on my Spanish god.