The bathroom was gross, so I took care of business as fast as I could and scrubbed my hands like I was getting ready for surgery. I was slicking on a layer of lip gloss and trying to ascertain just how drunk I was by touching the tip of my nose with my index finger, when the door to the small room rattled. I jumped away from the mirror, and hollered that I would be out in a minute, but that didn’t deter whoever was trying to get in. Had I been sober, I probably would have been way more freaked out. As it was, when the shabby knob finally gave up the fight and the figure crowded into the room with me, it was all I could do to muster up some startled surprise.
I most definitely hadn’t been expecting the lurking stranger that I had seen around my neighborhood, the man who I was sure had tried to manhandle Cora, to appear in this gross bathroom and be instantly up in my face. He grabbed my shoulders and shoved me against the sink. Now that only a fraction of space separated us, I no longer had a hard time placing him.
“Silas.”
I said it like people said the word cancer, which is really what he was. Silas Anderson was all the bad things to all the bad people, and if he was who my brother was running from, then whatever Asa had told me was only half the story. The reason I hadn’t recognized him earlier was that life clearly had not been kind to him since I left Woodward. He was a year older than Asa but looked like he was fifty. His skin was gross and taunt, his eyes wild and sunken, and his once decent hair hung stringy and oily around an ugly face. It was hard to believe that at one point, this guy had been considered a catch. It was equally hard to believe that at one point, I hadn’t considered sleeping with him to be all that bad of a chore, if it kept him off my brother’s back. Now, the idea made my stomach lurch and my head spin.
“Where’s the book, Ayd? I know Asa is here. I knew that pussy couldn’t resist running to you to fix his shit, like always. I need that book back now.”
I tried to shake him off, but the space was too small and he was fueled by desperation and panic.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” My teeth clicked together hard when he started to shake me.
“I don’t know what your idiot brother told you, but this isn’t small-time stuff he stumbled into. If he doesn’t give the book back, these people won’t just kill him, they’ll take out their anger on your ma and then they’ll come after you.”
I got a hand on his chest and shoved him back enough so that I could wiggle toward the door.
“What are you talking about? Asa told me he owes someone twenty grand for something he took.”
Silas barked a laugh that made my skin crawl. “No way. That moron jacked the little black book from one of the local MCs. It has the totals due and money owed from anyone and everyone over most of the fucking south. I don’t know what he thought he was going to do with it, but now he has everyone and their goddamn mother on his ass to get it back. You know he’ll sell you out faster than a greased pig to get out of this mess, Ayd. Just tell me where it is.”
“Did you try to break into my house?”
He looked around the room and his eyes were buggy and wild. “Little bitch almost Tasered me in the nuts.”
“You’re lucky she didn’t shoot you. She’s from Brooklyn, and she doesn’t mess around.”
“Stop avoiding the question. I know he’s here. I followed you around for days waiting for him to ask you to make it all better. Just like he always did.”
I tried not to convulse in disgust when his eyes raked over me from head to toe.
“I don’t do that for him anymore, any of it. This is his mess to clean up.” I made sure my point was clear. “I don’t know where he is and I don’t know anything about a book.”
Silas swore and I jumped when his meaty fist smashed into the dingy mirror over the sink, shattering it into a shower of glass bits.
“This isn’t a game, Ayd. This is a bunch of pissed-off bikers who run drugs and guns, and they have no problem putting your entire family in the ground in the backwoods if it suits them. Asa screwed the pooch and I’m just trying to minimize the damage.”
“By following me? By scaring the crap out of my roommate and trying to break into my house? This isn’t Woodward. None of that is going to fly here.”
I pulled the door open and glared at him over my shoulder. “I’ll talk to Asa. If I can get him to hand that book over, you better make sure nothing happens to my mama. But chances are he already did something stupid with it and he lied about needing the twenty grand so he could disappear. This is Asa, you know what he’s capable of.”
Silas’s gummy eyes skirted over me from the top of my head to the worn toes of my boots. “So do you, Ayd, and if you think for one hot second that piece of shit would be above selling your fine ass to an MC, if it meant keeping his own skin safe, than you’re dead wrong and that fancy college didn’t teach you shit.”
I walked out the door shaking from the inside out. I had tried so hard to keep the past from interfering with my new life, tried so hard to forget about the things I’d done and the way I had lived, but it seemed like fate was bound and determined to keep right on cramming it down my throat. At that moment, I could say in all honesty that I hated my brother, hated everything he represented, and yet I was still going to have to try to figure out a way to keep him breathing. It grated that I couldn’t just let him hang from the noose of his own stupidity and greed.
When I got back to the table, I wasn’t at all surprised to see that we had visitors. Shaw was sitting on Rule’s lap while he finished her beer, and Jet had taken up post in the seat I had recently vacated. They were all laughing at something Cora was saying, and I felt my heart sink. This was the family I had always wanted. These were the people who I could count on, who would love me through the good and the bad and not ask a thing of me in return, and all I had done was fool them into thinking I was worth more than I actually ever was.
Jet’s dark gaze found mine and I tried to force a smile. There were so many questions shining out of those dark depths. I wished so badly that I could just answer a single one of them. I stopped at his side and smiled for real when his hand curled around my hip.
“What’s going on?”
“We were hanging out at Rule’s when Shaw called in an SOS. I figured since I was close by I could just scoop you two knuckleheads up and take you home, so you didn’t have to wait for a cab.”
It was sweet; he was sweet, and so ridiculously hot. Man, oh man, was he hot. His black hair was standing all over the place like it tended to do and he had on a tight, black long-sleeved T-shirt with a pentagram and cow skull on it. I’m sure it was some band logo that I had never heard of, but it looked good on him, almost as good as those painted-on black jeans he liked to wear, which were tucked into the top of his unlaced combat boots. I liked everything about him, from the silver rings on every finger to the devil spikes at the top of each ear. He looked like a rock star and I knew firsthand that those skills extended way beyond the stage. I licked my lips and felt his fingers press even harder into the soft skin on my hip.
“Well, that was awfully nice of you.”
I didn’t want to think about Asa, or Silas, or my mom. All I wanted to do was get somewhere alone with him and let him make me forget everything. I could fall asleep with him singing in my ear, and pretend that everything would be all right.
Rule laughed and lifted one of his dark eyebrows. The barbells made him looked wicked and sinister, and I had no trouble seeing why Shaw had been his for the taking for so long.
“You don’t have to thank us. It’s totally to our benefit that you’re all liquored up and ready to get down to business. I told Jet on the way over, girls’ night out is one of my favorite nights of the week. Shaw always comes back ready to play.”
She gasped in outrage and smacked him on the forearm. The guys shared a laugh and I couldn’t help but grin when she turned hot pink under the scrutiny. Playing with Jet, drunk or sober, sounded like a whole lot more fun than hanging out in the bar, so I tried to catch his eye and indicate anytime he was ready, so was I. Cora ordered one more round of shots and by the time we finished them it was way past time to go. She was draped over Jet and me, and he had to fold her small frame into the back of the Challenger. He gave us both a level look and warned that if we puked in his baby, we were cleaning it up, wasted or not. Cora found that hilarious and laughed and laughed, until I heard her gasping for air.
Jet let out a low whistle, and honked the horn when we drove past Rule’s massive truck. I saw Rule flip him the bird, but it in no way deterred him from whatever he was doing to Shaw. He had her pressed up against the driver’s door with her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist.
I tried not to wince when the music came blasting out of the speakers. It was so loud and so violent sounding, and I hated that it was what he related to. He turned it down with a shrug.
“Wolves in the Throne Room.”
“What kind of name is that for a band?”
He shot me a look out of the corner of his eye. “An awesome one.”
I snorted and settled back into the seat. We were never going to see eye to eye on musical preferences, just like I was never going to ask him to go line dancing. Plus, if he ever tried to drag me into a mosh pit, I was going to strangle him. It was a good thing we connected on so many other levels.
Cora was rambling something in the back and had flipped herself over, so that she was lying on her stomach with her face smashed into the leather seat. I jumped a little when one of Jet’s hands landed on my thigh, right where the hem of my short skirt had ridden up.
“You looked stressed out when you came back to the table. Is everything okay?”
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him all of it—Asa, Silas, and the whole ugly, sordid mess—but instead I put my hand over his and moved it higher on my leg.
“The bathroom was dirty, and I was surprised to see you. You’ve been really busy the last couple of days. I thought you would still be at your studio.”
His thumb brushed back and forth across soft skin and climbed even higher until I had to remind myself to breathe and that we weren’t alone.
“Yeah, I’m just working on getting things together.”
I was drunk, but not drunk enough not to know he was being purposefully vague. “Getting things together for what?”
He sighed and went from stroking to squeezing. I shivered a little and shifted in my seat, which gave him even better access to flesh that was rapidly getting wet and ready.
“You really want to get into this now?”
I blinked at him and narrowed my eyes in irritation. “Well, I was starting to wonder if you were going to say anything at all, or just ask me for a ride to the airport one day.”
His thumb hit the edge of my panties and for a second I forgot that I was working on getting pissed at him, because I saw stars.
“I’m going on tour for a couple of months.”
I sucked in a breath through my teeth when I felt him maneuver the lacy material out of his way. I wanted to peek back at Cora to make sure she was still out of it, but I was scared to move, afraid I would give away all the naughty things he was doing to me.
