She's scared of me.
She should be.
"Yes?" I growl, holding her eyes firmly with my own.
"Um-"
And before I can say a single thing - before I can even open my mouth actually - she's reaching up, grabbing my shirt, yanking me down, and kissing me.
And hell if the whole place, this whole shitty night, and damn near the whole rest of the world doesn't just fade away. Damn if I don't lose my place in fucking time in that moment.
I'm surprised for about half a second before instinct kicks in.
Fuck it.
I kiss her back, and she's sure as hell not expecting it, I can tell. And I don't know what her plan was, but this is me running with it as I grab her tight against me and claim those lips with mine.
She tastes like whiskey and sin, and I want to swallow her down whole.
She freezes, but then suddenly moans as I force her lips open with my tongue. She opens her mouth, letting me taste her deeper, letting me growl into those lips. I kiss her hard enough to make sure she remembers this, and then I pull away.
She pants, her eyes wide as they stare up at me.
Any other night, and I'd be into this conquest. Another night, and I'd see how bad this good girl wants to pretend she is tonight.
But this is a work night, and I've got to get to it.
Suddenly, before I can even open my mouth to tell her to go get him, she whirls. And quicker than I can blink, she scampers away through the crowd.
Well, that was interesting.
"Mr. Roarke."
I pull my eyes away from her ass disappearing into the crowd at the sound of the thickly Russian voice behind me.
Mikhail.
"Glad you could show up," I mutter. I glance back, hoping for another glimpse of her, but she's gone.
I turn back to the tubby Russian, glancing down at my watch. "Let's go."
"We have time for a quick drink first, yes?"
I stare at him. "No, we don't have time for a fuckin'-" I sigh. "Let's go do this thing so you guys can stop shooting each other in my goddamn neighborhood."
Over the years, I've picked up a sixth sense for bad shit. When you've been in it enough, you start to get the hang of feeling it before it hits the fan.
Every hair on my neck raises the second we step through the door into the back room.
Oleg Liski, who I know as Anton's right-hand man, and some Ukrainian dude in a tracksuit I don't know, scowl at me and then hiss at Mikhail as we walk in.
I want to roll my eyes.
This whole thing stems from the Ukrainians being butt-hurt about the Dark Saints being chummy with the Russians these days. The thing is, "chummy" is a good thing. "Chummy" means friendly crime factions, which means we all get a piece of the pie. It means we divvy up who gets which part of the city, which part of the docks - all of it. The Russians stay happy in Roxbury, the Saints stay drunk and rowdy in Southie, and the Ukrainians?
Well, that's part of the issue. The Ukrainians aren't fucking happy anywhere they are, so as long as there are Russians literally anywhere else in the city.
Obviously, this presents a problem. You can't fix the permanently ticked-off.
"So, can we do this now?" I growl. "Let's all shake hands and kiss and make up like big boys, and then we can all go off and do whatever the fuck else we all actually want to be doing with our Friday night. Sound good?"
Oleg grins that crooked, yellow smile of his. Him I know, at least vaguely through reputation. Scummy, unhinged, liable to start fights, and a bit of a drinking problem.
You know, the perfect fucking guy you should be sending to peace negotiations with your sworn enemies.
But Oleg I can understand. Him, I get, because understanding people - even the fucking crazy ones - is what I do. It's his little friend in the tracksuit that's throwing me off, because him I don't know. My eyes flick from Oleg to tracksuit again, and I frown.
He's sweating. Profusely.
My jaw tightens.
His eyes twitch, and I can fucking see the thud of his pulse in his neck.
Yeah, this ain't good.
My eyes drop down further, and I suddenly freeze.
"Stop."
Oleg's been saying something completely condescending to Mikhail about being "pussy enough to come begging for a truce", but I cut that shit off as my voice booms through the room. Mikhail, Oleg, and the tracksuit guy freeze.
The Ukrainian sighs heavily. "What's the problem, Irish?"
"I'd like your friend to take his hand out of his pocket."
The smile drops momentarily from Oleg's face, and I tense up, very aware of the weight of the gun beneath my jacket in the side holster under my arm. The one that's already got the safety off and the holster unhooked.
I'd like to say I'm a cautious man, and I am. But in this case, I just plain don't trust these assholes.
I'm also a calculating man, and I've calculated this one already. I've already figured out the variables, and right there in that room, with the shady guy with his hand still in that pocket, I'm recalculating those variables.
"Five seconds," I say evenly, with an edge to my voice. "Five seconds, and if slim over there doesn't show his hands, we're-"
It all happens in slow motion.
The room freezes, everything moving through space like we're underwater going at one-quarter speed. I watch as the tracksuit guy's arm flexes, his hand making a fist in that pocket as he starts to pull it out. I see the flash of black and silver, and I see Oleg reaching behind his back.
I'm reaching for my gun, but tracksuit is fucking fast, even at slow motion.
Mikhail grunts as he doubles over, and I feel the flash of heat across my shoulder, knocking me back a half-step. I whirl back with a snarl on my lips, just in time to see the two Ukrainians booking it for the back door. The pain is ignored as I grit my teeth through the it, bringing my hand up and squeezing the trigger.
Tracksuit catches it in the back of the head, red mist splattering the wall as he drops like a bag of sand.
That's when I'm aware of the presence behind me, and that's when I whirl.
And none of my calculating - none of my analyzing the scenarios and outcomes here could have ever in a hundred million years imagined the scenario where the girl from the bar I just kissed walks in on me and two dead bodies, with a gun in my hand.
Fuck.
I see her eyes go wide, I see the color drain from her face, and I see her mouth open as she gets ready to scream.
And I act.
I'm not a bad man, but I am one to make the moves that have to be made. And I'm sorry this one has to go like this, but it does.
I grab her, yanking her small body against my large frame. She kicks and lashes out, gasping, squirming, fighting me.
It's not one she's going to win.
My arm goes around her throat, squeezing just hard enough to make her know how serious I am. The gun goes against her temple and my words hiss into her ear.
"Do not scream."
She freezes.
And I know what to do here. Deep down - or even not that deep, really, I know the solution to this mess. I've got the silencer already on my gun, the music is insanely loud back there in the venue.
She's a loose end, and I don't have those, not ever.
I know the move here. I know what I'd do in every other version of this scenario.
It'd be clean. It'd be quick. It's the obvious choice.
She squirms against me again - still fighting, despite the arm on her throat and the gun to her head. It's like she's still trying to get free - like she still wants to believe there's some sort of scenario here where that happens.
And I like that she's still fighting.
Something clicks inside of me. Some little part of me fights the rational outcome, and the clear move, and the obvious choice.
I grab her instead, shoving the gun into my belt and covering her mouth with my hand. She's light as I easily lift her up, moving past Mikhail's body and stepping over tracksuit's.
Every part of me is screaming to just fucking stop this madness and just finish it right here, but I keep moving.
I keep ignoring that voice.
I'm parked right outside the back door, and the music is so loud, and she squirms so sweetly against me.
"Please," she manages to gasp as my hand slips from her mouth. "Please don't kill me," she whimpers.
"I'm not going to kill you," I growl as I kick open the back door of the bar, glance around for anyone, and stride for the trunk of my car.
And I'm not.
Because I'm going to take her instead.
Chapter Four
Sierra
I'm screaming in the darkness, even though I'm positive no one can hear me. Even though I'm gagged.
I kick out, screaming in agony this time as my ankle catches something sharp and metal, sending pain shooting up my leg. The gag bites into the corners of my mouth, and whatever he's used to tie my hands behind my back digs into my skin, rubbing it raw.
The car jolts, like we've gone over train tracks, and I cry out as my head thumps off the floor of the trunk.
It's dark back here.
And cold. And it smells, and I'm freaking the fuck out because I've just been fucking kidnapped.
The space between me kissing this man and him tying me up and throwing me in the back of his car is a blur. It's a whirlwind, culminating in me screaming as he grabbed me in his powerful arms.
I'd screamed through the hand cupping my mouth as he dragged me out the back door, even knowing it was worthless with the band blaring in the venue.
Jayson's band.
I close my eyes tight as the car takes a turn, rolling my body cross the floor of the trunk.
Why did I come here tonight? Why has any of this happened?
The answer is choices - my bad ones, specifically. And now I'm in the trunk of a car of a killer, and I'm almost one hundred percent sure I'm going to die. I wonder briefly if he's going to be more like the Saw movies, with elaborate torture machines, or more like Dexter with a clean room and plastic sheets everywhere.