Sizzling (Georgia Smoke Series Book 3)

• One •

“You boys must be lost.”

Storm

Well, damn. This little mission that we’d come on was turning out to be more interesting than I’d expected. When King had asked us to come with him to seek revenge on a man who had hurt his fiancée when she was a child, I hadn’t expected we’d end up here. Glancing over at Thatcher, I knew he hadn’t either. He was as intrigued as I was, and getting a reaction from him was hard to do. We’d hunted down and killed many hits in our life, but this was definitely a twist.

“Who’s the singer?” King asked the bartender, although he already knew the answer to the question.

She was why we were here. The only lead we’d been given when the man King wanted to torture wasn’t where he was supposed to be.

“Briar,” the man replied, smirking before setting a glass of whiskey in front of King. “And she’s taken.”

We’d already known she was using the alias Briar Landry, but she’d been born Melissa Ball. That much we had traced down easily enough.

She had gone off the radar from the age of fifteen until she turned twenty, where she reemerged as Briar Landry. She moved around a lot the first three years and had over fifteen different jobs, and from what King had dug up on her, she dated some high-profile men—or rather had affairs with them. Large sums of money were deposited into an account with her name just before she moved out of town. That account had since been drained and closed.

Watching her, I could see how she’d managed to reel in the men she had. A couple of politicians, a minister at mega church, and a CEO. They were always married men with a lot to lose if they were caught cheating. I imagined her tied up, naked, on my bed. Wasn’t like I could go there. Not when King was hell-bent on finding her father and killing him slowly.

Long, dark ginger hair hung in loose curls at the ends, and her blue eyes twinkled with mischief as she held my gaze. The smooth drawl in her voice as she sang while her fingers expertly played the guitar in her hands made a lethal combination. She had every man in here ready to worship at her feet, and she knew it. She expected it. Bastards had no idea they didn’t have a chance.

When the third song we’d listened to came to an end, King drank down his glass in one gulp and set it on the bar. “Let’s go,” he said, standing up.

I already knew we weren’t actually leaving. We were going to find the back entrance and meet Briar Landry backstage. If King tried to talk to her in here, she’d have a roomful of men ready to protect her, and we’d end up causing more damage than was necessary.

“Keep it quiet and tidy,” was all Blaise Hughes, our boss, had told King when he asked if we could do this.

I’d known King all my life, and if this had been pre Rumor, his fiancée, I would have been able to guess how he was going to get the information out of Briar. But seeing as he was now a fucking psycho whenever Rumor was concerned, I wasn’t so sure what to expect. Thatcher didn’t seem too worried about it as we followed King to the exit. But then I wasn’t sure Thatcher’s brain worked like the rest of ours. He was emotionally detached from things. I wasn’t going to be able to let King hurt the woman. Not just because she was a fucking stunner, but also because she was a female. This wasn’t her fault. She hadn’t hurt Rumor.

Sure, I’d pulled a gun on her stepmother earlier, but the crazy bitch had grabbed a knife and thrown it at King. He easily dodged it, but still, that had been unnecessary. Thatcher had taken her knife with ease and held it at her throat, forcing the whereabouts of her husband from her while trickles of blood from where he’d pierced the skin ran down her chest.

When the door to the bar closed behind us, King turned right, which was like I’d expected. We weren’t headed to the SUV. We were going to find another entrance.

“I volunteer to fuck the info out of her,” Thatcher said as we walked around the building.

“Shut up,” King snarled, not looking back at him.

“It’s better than you putting a bullet in her,” he replied.

I wasn’t so sure about that. Thatcher had some twisted shit in his head when it came to sex. But then I didn’t want to see King hurt her either. This was about her father. Not her. As for her profession as a gold digger, that wasn’t our business. If men allowed their dicks to control them, then that was their issue. Not ours. I felt the need to remind King of that.

“You’re gonna let her talk first,” I said, “before you threaten her.”

Thatcher glanced back at me, looking amused. “You offering to fuck her too?”

“I’ll do what I need to in order to get the info,” King replied as we reached a single metal door at the back of the bar.

Two cars were parked back here, and there was one surveillance camera, but it wasn’t working. I could tell just by looking at it. The twenty-four-hour surveillance warning that was posted beside the door was a joke.

King tried the knob, and it was locked, so he stepped back so that Thatcher could work his magic. He pulled out a tiny screwdriver from his back pocket. I’d seen him use it countless times over the years. It took him less than five seconds, and the door was open wide. King stepped in front of him and stalked inside with a determined look on his face.

Hopefully, the woman gave him the location of her father. I didn’t want her to end up like the stepmother. Sure, we had left Netta Ball alive, but she’d been tied up in the small, filthy apartment we’d found her in with a sock shoved in her mouth. King had told her if she was lying, he’d be back to finish the job. Although I knew when someone was lying, and the woman had told us the truth. Which was why we were here.

King opened doors as we passed them until he finally entered one. When I stepped inside the room, I didn’t see anyone else, but it was clearly a dressing room for a female. The light scent of perfume that lingered in the air, the full-length mirror and vanity table that sat beside it, and the pair of heels placed neatly on the floor beside a brown leather duffel bag made that obvious. However, it was the guitar case that stood in the corner that was the clue King was looking for.

“Search her things,” he said, going over to the duffel bag and picking it up.

Thatcher went to the vanity, and I headed for the guitar case. These were the obvious places to look first. I doubted we were going to find information on her father here, but best to be sure. She’d be back here soon enough.

“You boys must be lost.”

The feminine Southern drawl stopped me from picking up the case, and I turned to see Briar stepping inside the room. There was a flirty smile on her full lips, which either meant she wasn’t very smart to walk into a room where three men were going through her things or she relied too much on her looks in life and thought they were gonna save her. In this case, they just might. Because up close, she was even better, and I hadn’t thought that was possible.

King dropped her duffel and glared at her, which was unnecessary. “You can take us to Roger Ball.”

I watched her as she continued to smile as if she were charming a roomful of her fans. “Excuse me?”

Don’t do that, darling. This will go bad real damn fast.

King took a step toward her, and I had to force myself not to move. Not yet. I was here for King. Not some female I didn’t know who used her pussy as a weapon.

“Not gonna play games,” King warned her.

She let out a soft laugh. “Well, I didn’t accuse you of such, now did I?”

Dammit, she was going to piss him off. I glanced at Thatcher to see if he was going to step in, but he just looked like he was enjoying the show.

“We just need to know where to find him,” I told her. “We know he’s your father, and Netta said he was last seen with you.”

She blinked, and for a moment, a small glimpse of panic flashed so quickly in her eyes that I would have missed it if I hadn’t been so damn focused on her. King would have seen it too. She was going to have to talk—and fast. When she took a step back, I thought she was about to run, but instead, she closed the door behind her. Was she stupid? At least if someone heard her or walked by, it would keep King from making things messy. Dammit, she wasn’t helping me at all here.

“I do pity you that you were forced to breathe Netta’s air,” she said sweetly as she bent down. “She’s a nasty bitch.”

Perhaps if I hadn’t gotten distracted with the view of her ass in the jeans she was wearing, I’d have seen the warning sign or question why she was bending down. But even then, I had to give it to her. She was fast, and the pistol she pulled from her right boot was pointed in King’s direction before she was even standing straight up again.

Gone was the flirtatious smile. The hard line on her lips now reassured me this wasn’t her first time pulling a gun on someone.

“Fuck me,” Thatcher said with a touch of awe in his tone.

King’s gun was out of his holster and pointed at her as he took another step in her direction. “Put the gun away,” he told her.

“Thank you for the suggestion, but if you don’t mind, I think I’ll keep it out,” she replied, her tone dripping with sarcasm.

“Disarming you would take seconds. Don’t test me. Just take me to the fucker, and you can leave. Free. You aren’t who I want,” King said.

She smirked. “You made that clear, but seeing as how y’all aren’t known for your goodwill and all, I think I’ll take my chances.”

Wait … what?

“You know who we are?” I asked her, not sure I understood that right.

A real smile briefly tugged at the corners of her lips as she kept her eyes on King. “I’ve not made it this long, living on my own, without knowing who to stay clear of.”

Thatcher chuckled. “You’re just full of surprises.”

“Then, you know this isn’t a casual threat,” King sneered, clearly not amused by this.

She held her shoulders straight as she looked him in the eyes, not backing down an inch. “I’m well aware. But I can’t give you want you’re asking of me.”

King took another step in her direction, his finger too damn close to the fucking trigger. “I can make you disappear. No one will find a trace.”

She let out a heavy breath, finally showing some concern for her life. “Roger is dead. Unless you want me to take you out on a boat in the gulf to the general vicinity his body was dumped in. Seeing as it’s been three weeks now, I’d gamble the sharks have eaten his body, so it would be a pointless activity.”

Damn.

“Is that so?” King asked, clearly not believing her.

“She’s not lying,” I told him. I could see the truth in her expression.

She barely flickered a glance in my direction before going back to King and the gun he had pointed at her.

“How do we know she’s not telling us what was told to her?” he shot back at me. “I want to know who told you that and where I can find them,” he demanded.

Her eyebrows arched as she lifted them. “No one told me,” she replied.

“Listen, I’m done with your bullshit. You’re wasting my time,” he growled, taking another step toward her.

“Well, I’m done with you being in my room, demanding things from me,” she snapped at him, then took a step back.

“Listen, as entertaining as all this is, you’re real close to setting him off,” Thatcher told her.

She swallowed and let out a sigh as she lowered her gun to her side. “I know because I killed him and dropped his body in the gulf. I don’t know what he did or why you want him, but you’re late.”

Truth.

“Storm?” King asked, not lowering his gun.

“She’s telling the truth.” Or she was the best goddamn liar in the world.

“I just got hard,” Thatcher muttered.

“What? The hot one is a human lie detector?” she asked, her eyes shifting to me.

“Close enough,” I replied, unable to keep from smiling at the fact that she’d called me the hot one.

The interest in her eyes made it hard not to act on. It was always King’s face that drew the females in. When he was in the room, they always noticed him first.

“Why would you kill your own father?” King asked, still not convinced.

Her eyes swung back to him. “Is that a demand or just a nosy question?”

“Does it matter? There are three of us, armed. If you shoot, one of us will return the favor.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Because he molested me from the time I was nine years old until I escaped that hellhole. Is that enough for you? Or are you going to demand details?”

King lowered his gun and slid it back into its holster. A sick knot twisted in my gut. I’d had a feeling that Roger Ball had done the same to Rumor, although King never said more than he’d hurt her.

“I have a question for you,” she said pointedly. “What did you want with him?”

King didn’t say anything at first. I watched his jaw clench as he stared at her.

“He did the same to the woman who owns me.” He never said love. Claimed it wasn’t strong enough of a description.

Briar swallowed hard. “A former foster kid, I assume.”

King nodded.

A pained expression crossed her face. “Maybe you do have a reason to shoot me after all. That would be my fault. After I left, he hooked up with a woman because she was a foster parent. He needed another little girl to take my place. He must have moved on to Netta after that. But I made sure that cycle ended. And I’m sorry I didn’t kill him sooner.”

King’s hands fisted at his sides, and I knew he didn’t blame her, but hearing about what Rumor had been through was hard on him.

“It’s no one’s fault,” I said, wanting her to stop talking about it. For all our sakes.

She looked back at me then. “I poisoned him and watched him suffer as he foamed at the mouth and convulsed. He didn’t go quickly. He didn’t deserve an easy death. And if I’d known the Mafia wanted to kill him, I’d have gladly handed him over.” Then, she reached for the doorknob. “If that is all I can do for you, then I need to get back onstage. My break is up.”

King nodded. “But if we find out you lied, we’ll find you.”

“No one wanted that bastard dead more than me,” she replied, then opened the door and walked out.