7. Ivy
SEVEN
IVY
“Jesus, Dingo, did they drug you or shoot you with a tranquilizer gun?”
Around the corner from where I now stood were the men I planned to kill. Men who had consumed far too much of my life. Men who didn’t deserve to be walking around tonight, breathing up the air of more worthy and deserving people.
People like my father.
I grimaced as the images of his last minutes alive raced through my skull, layered over the assholes on the other side of this wall talking, their voices unchanged over the years it’d taken me to find them.
If I were you, I’d turn that gun on myself and make it quick.
“Come on, Dingo, how quick did those roofies kick in, bud?”
Nothing keeps a dog like me down.
“You’re so fucking heavy, man. I’ve gotta set you down.”
. . . turned her face into tire tracks.
“We’ve gotta get him to the car, Coyote. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Can you bring back the dead?
“He sleeps like the dead, man. Fuck, what have you been feeding him?”
It made me sick. Made me see red. The memories and the reality blurred together, making it hard to focus.
I shouldn’t be struggling like this. They were right there. All I had to do was reach out, knock one out, and then chloroform the other.
Yeah, and then you’d be left in the back hall of a busy club with three fucking trained killers, no means of escape, and a very real CCTV camera in the corner that would catch it all.
Fuck.
I couldn’t take them tonight. I had planned to subdue the one, lead him into the alley where the car was waiting, and then lock him up in the warehouse I’d been renting on the side.
If I didn’t find another job soon, it’d be where the fuck I was living, too.
But now, that plan was down the drain, and I’d have to be satisfied with the fact that I’d confirmed they weren’t immune to drugs.
Especially not the one I’d targeted tonight.
I hadn’t planned on drugging a mortal enemy at the Swizzle Stick tonight. I was here to apply for a bartending job. But when the opportunity presented itself, when I spotted his bike outside, the paint still coated with flecks of blood here and there, his mask’s emblem spray painted on the side of his gas tank, I couldn’t resist.
I had hoped to find the other one, Jackal, facedown in a bottle somewhere. But what I found instead was a room devoid of his presence.
It hadn’t taken long to identify the one here, though. His pin gave him away.
Shiny, prominently displayed on the lapel of his leather coat, it did nothing to hide his identity and affiliation. His eyes had been on me from the moment I walked in, and until I knew who he was, it had made me feel . . .
Desired.
Something I hadn’t let myself feel in a very long time.
Of course, the feeling was ruined the second I spotted the pin and knew him for who he was.
Now, it just made my skin crawl.
I fingered the edge of my cutoff vintage knit sweater and wound the red bow around my fingers a few times, focusing only on the smooth sensation of the silk ribbon sliding across my skin, trying to regain my composure as the voices neared. My breath hitched in my throat, even though I knew damn well I had no reason to panic.
It wasn’t like any of them had ever seen me before .
You’d better man up, bitch. You’ll have to handle worse situations than this if you want to make them pay.
With that thought in mind, I tugged the edge of my shirt up to reveal a little skin, tugged the waistband of my shorts down, undid the first button like all the girls these days wore, and fixed my face like I was going to battle.
Because I was.