34. Ivy
THIRTY-FOUR
IVY
I could hold my liquor. Hell, I’d drank men bigger than these morons under the table many times before now. These three stood no chance of outlasting me.
I quickly realized how wrong that assumption was after I’d called for the third bucket of beers and a second bottle of liquor, this time a cinnamon whiskey.
Coyote sipped his slowly in a lowball glass, ice clinking together at the bottom of the thing every time he ran out. Dingo was a beer kind of guy, working through the buckets single-handedly like a man on a mission.
Jackal was the real trouble. He kept taking shot after shot of the tequila, taunting me with scathing looks and thinly-veiled suggestions that I couldn’t handle my liquor, that I couldn’t keep up with him, that I should just admit defeat and slow down.
And I’d be damned if I’d lose to him.
I matched him shot for shot, the loudness of the music outside of our glass enclosure lending an almost terrarium-like feel to our VIP room. My hand rubbed absently at my neck, though there was no collar there. By the time we’d worked our way through the first half of the bottle of cinnamon whiskey, I was feeling myself—in the best and worst sort of ways.
And when I got drunk, I tended to forget who I was.
The dangerous people-hating bitch disappeared, and in her place arose a glimpse of the woman I’d been before life ruined me, before evil tainted my heart and hardened me to everything good in life.
I wasn’t sure I was safe letting that woman loose around men like this. She tended to get rowdy, out of hand, loose and wild. Usually, I woke up with more regrets than memories. And the Neon Dogs would no doubt take advantage of that for their own good.
No, I needed to stop worrying about meeting Jackal drink for drink and start worrying about keeping my head when we left here.
Of course, Frank, my old boss, would choose this specific moment to come striding into the VIP room with a smug smile of superiority on his lips and that cocky attitude that he never managed to back up.
He looked like he planned to kick us out, which, if I knew Frank, would include a lot of swagger and posturing that wouldn’t go over well with the guys.
I had to defuse this quickly, like I did with the bouncer.
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the job-skipper herself, Ivy.” His head tilted to the side, and I’d have to be an idiot not to notice the malice in his grin, the rage and hatred in his eyes. “How funny that you’re here, in one of our most expensive VIP rooms, when you couldn’t hold down a job long enough to pay your rent.”
Jackal took the shot in his hand and set the glass down very, very slowly, his eyes on Frank like the man might slither away and deny him the fun of playing with his prey before he killed it. “You always treat your clientele like this?”
Frank’s laughter bounced off the walls. “Depends on if they’re paying clientele or not. And I didn’t see a credit card on file, which is our policy.” His smug grin turned back to me, and he crossed his arms like he’d won. “So, unless you’ve got a good explanation for why you’ve commandeered a VIP room we rented out for the night, I’m afraid you’ll have to get going.”
If looks could kill, the one Jackal gave Frank to his back would have seen him six feet under in a heartbeat. Frank, however, didn’t notice it and continued his tirade, stepping closer to me.
Which turned out to be a mistake, one he realized only after Coyote and Dingo both rose from their seats and flanked me, low growls building in the backs of their throats.
“Well, Frank, there’s an excellent explanation for why we’re here in your VIP room without a card on file.” I tucked my hair back behind my ear and flashed him a dazzling smile, wobbling a little on my heels as standing made me realize how drunk I really was.
But Frank was either blind or stupid because his eyes flicked to my ear, then jumped to the men on either side of me, measuring his odds. “I’m waiting,” he demanded, tapping his foot on the floor impatiently.
I pointed to my ear and frowned. “Are you blind? I know you know what this symbol is.”
Frank’s smug grin turned into a scowl as he leaned in, his hot breath fanning over my skin, the stench of cigars and stale chips wafting over to smack me in my face. It was a chore to keep myself from grimacing and making a gagging motion.
“I wouldn’t put it past you to fuck your way into getting a symbol like that.”
In the span of a single breath, Frank was up against the glass wall, Jackal’s hand around his throat, Coyote standing just to the left of him, growling actively now. Dingo had moved slightly in front of me, and his hands were balled into fists now, prepared to swing.
All over a comment made by an insignificant man.
“I think you’d better apologize to the pretty lady,” Jackal snarled, baring his rows of shark-like teeth to the man who’d once been my boss. “And you better learn some manners, too, buddy. You’re staring at three of the most dangerous men in this club.”
As if to drive the point home, he flashed his own Guild pin, Coyote and Dingo following suit. Of course, this little revelation had Frank shaking in his shoes. I figured if Jackal didn’t let him down soon, he might just piss himself.
Not that everyone here wouldn’t enjoy that, save for Frank himself, but I had a reputation to uphold, and letting men do my dirty work would only tarnish it.
“Let him down, dog,” I commanded without even lifting a finger, my voice surprisingly steady. “Now,” I added for good measure, crossing my arms.
Jackal grumbled at the order but did as he was told, snapping his teeth in Frank’s face before he took a step back, clearly still within reach of the fuckwad, just in case.
Frank dusted off his pants, staring daggers at me, refusing to look any of the men in the room who now flanked me like a squad of bodyguards. Ever the moron, his glare turned into a sly grin as he opened his mouth and signed his death warrant in one breath.
“So, which one are you banging?”
I expected one of them to fly off the handle and smash his face in.
I didn’t expect it to be Dingo.
His fist connected with Frank’s nose in a beautiful display of violence that shouldn’t have turned me on like it did, blood spurting from behind the asshole’s hands as he covered his face and screamed like a bitch.
I’d never liked Frank. If you weren’t fucking him in the break room, you weren’t worth shit to him. But he thought because he made the schedule and divvied out the tips (which I was convinced he was skimming off the top of), he was entitled to do whatever, say whatever, his little corrupt heart desired. Frank, by the basest definition of the word, was scum.
The exact same kind of man who, when given power and control, would eventually end up on the Neon Dogs’ radar if they were to be believed.
But Frank wasn’t trafficking women or drugs or guns. He was just a lowly bar manager with too much power and a God complex.
He hadn’t earned a complete killing by a group of feral hitmen.
“The fuck did you say to her, you wanker?” Dingo snarled at him, his hands still balled into fists, ready to go for another round with Frank’s face. “Got something to say to someone your own size?”
I reached out, my hand falling a little unsteadily on Dingo’s arm as I used him as a steadying support. “Come on, Dingo, leave him alone. He’s not worth it.”
Frank spit out a glob of blood and snot on the floor in front of him, his hand rising to inspect his cut lip. I watched him reach for his little walkie-talkie on his hip, no doubt preparing to call for security, but I was a step ahead. My shoe connected with his handheld device and sent it careening across the room in a pretty little arc that all eyes in the room followed.
Don’t get me wrong—I didn’t care if security showed up or not. I didn’t have a thing to worry about as far as my own safety. No, it was the safety of the security and bouncers I worried for. Because if I let these men loose on the bar, there would be hell to pay, and it wouldn’t be pretty. Or clean.
And then there’d likely be issues to deal with back at the Guild. I didn’t know Lilly St. Clair well, but I knew she would frown on this particular possible outcome.
“Come on, guys,” I muttered, staring down my nose at Frank as he tried to stand. “The booze is better across town anyhow.”
As I led the three of them to the door, Frank’s annoying chuckle that meant he thought he’d won reverberated down my spine and made me hesitate. His words, however, finished the job and had me turning around like I’d been slapped.
“Bitches like you are only good for one thing. When that well dries up, they’ll leave you, too. Just like all the others.”
It hit too close to home. Too close to my deepest fears of being unloveable, undesirable, my bone-deep issues with self-worth and value as a person. For so long, all I’d done was seek revenge. I let the rest of my humanity go, turned into a machine with a single-minded focus and one solitary goal. I’d alienated people who seemed to care about me, my only companion a cat with claws that sank into me more often than not .
But who the fuck was Frank to give voice to those fears, those issues, those inner doubts?
Nobody, that’s who.
I spun around and planted my fist right in his face just as he got to his feet, launching myself at him like a vicious bear in defense of her cubs. Thwack, thwack, thwack, went my fists as I beat him to a pulp, shoving him to the floor again so I could crawl atop him and keep up the torment I rained down on his face.
His screams drew attention, though. And before I could blink, someone was lifting me off Frank’s broken, battered body, and my worldview shifted as that same someone threw me over their shoulder and bailed on the club before security could catch up to us.
By the time we emerged into the chill night air, I was full-on cackling, a burst of hysterical laughter that neither wanted nor needed permission to take over my vocal cords. I couldn’t stop it, couldn’t cut it off, and soon enough, hyperventilation set in, and the world started to spin.
“I think she’s snapped,” I heard someone say, but my mind was too far withdrawn to figure out who was speaking. “Put her down, Coyote.”
So Coyote was the one holding me. The one who’d escaped with me over his shoulder. The one whose hands were warm on my thighs as he dragged my body down the front of his, every part of me on fire as it connected with the hard planes of his torso. The same one whose eyes came into view a second later as his hands cupped my face and he stared into my soul, looking for proof that I was truly broken.
“Ivy?” he said slowly, his lips forming words he didn’t vocalize as he struggled past his habit of not speaking to say what he wanted to say. “Are you with me?”
Me. Not us, me .
A slight distinction, but one that settled in the pit of my stomach and refused to release its claws.
I tried to nod, but my brain and body were disconnected, like someone had shut off a set of lights by flipping the breaker. Coyote still stared at me like he wanted me to speak, but I couldn’t.
So I shook my head, tears forming in the corners of my eyes that burned with shame at my weakness.
“No,” I managed to whisper as his forehead came down and pressed against mine, his eyes so close I could see the reflection of my own in them. “I’m not.”
“Good,” he replied, his lips curling into a smile filled with sass I was more accustomed to seeing on Jackal or Dingo’s faces.
“Good?” I muttered, anger boiling away my frustration at myself and replacing it with indignation. “You think it’s good that I’m—” I stopped mid-sentence, realizing I had almost admitted a weakness in front of this man, one of three I’d sworn to kill. “Fuck you,” I spat, shoving him back with both palms against his chest.
His smile only widened as those predatory eyes skimmed over my body in a possessive, covetous manner that had me shivering in arousal and anticipation. “Let’s go,” I heard him mutter, his hand grabbing mine to drag me along behind him.
And I . . . let him.