Chapter 12
Axel
Nik’s hand in mine, we push through the doors of our favorite dive, Psychos.
As the name suggests, it’s not exactly full of saints. It features a rough crowd, sticky floors, ax-throwing cages and two-dollar beer. Basically, heaven.
Nik slides into a booth while I head for the bar. The lighting’s shit and the bar top’s worse, but our favorite bartender, Jenny, is manhandling a row of shots like a pro.
When she spots me, she flashes a grin and holds up a finger. Be right there, she mouths.
I drum my fingers on the laminate bar, resisting the urge to swipe away a mysterious smear.
“Axel!” she greets, slinging a towel over her shoulder. “What’ll it be tonight?”
“The usual,” I say with a grin that’s been known to get me free drinks and poor decisions.
She pours a pitcher of lager and slides it over with two frosted glasses. “Start a tab?”
I nod. “You’re the best, Jen.”
“Yeah, yeah. Stay outta trouble.”
“No promises.”
∞∞∞
One pitcher deep, we’re hustling a crew of leather-clad bikers at the ax cages who say we look “too city” for this. We let them believe that for five whole minutes. Then, we sink three bullseyes and wipe the smirks off their mustached faces.
By the end, they’re clapping us on the backs and joking we must be serial killers. If they only knew my brother. They buy us another round to celebrate, and we collapse into a new booth, just us.
“This was good,” Nik says, sipping his beer. “I needed tonight.”
A drop slides down his chin, and it takes everything in me not to lean over and lick it off.
He catches me staring and smirks. “Keep looking at me like that, and I’ll have to take you behind the dumpster.”
I let my gaze trail down his body, slow and deliberate.
“So… it’s like that?” he chuckles. “Go close the tab.”
We slam what’s left of our drinks and head outside, just buzzed enough to make bad decisions feel like good ones.
The second we hit the alley, Nik’s on me. He slams me up against the brick wall behind the dumpster like a man starved. His mouth crashes into mine, hands already in my hair, on my skin, grabbing a handful of my ass like he owns it.
“You’re such a brat,” he growls into my ear, grinding his hips into mine. “Getting me this hard in public. I ought to tan your ass.”
Yes please, Daddy Nik.
He spins me, presses his body against mine, lips brushing my neck.
“What should I do with you, huh? Spread you out and tongue your hot little hole ‘til you’re begging? Or edge you ‘til you’re crying?”
My brain melts. My knees go weak. I’m about to say yes, all of it, take your pick—
Suddenly, sharp voices slice through the alley. They’re close and angry. Nik yanks me down, hiding us behind the dumpster without a sound. My pulse is thudding in my throat. Then, we hear it. The sound of a gun being cocked. Low murmurs.
A man’s voice says, “I know. And I appreciate it.”
I recognize that voice, I think. But it’s muffled enough that I don’t want to guess.
I inch toward the dumpster’s edge, and Nik clamps his hand around my wrist and shakes his head. I ignore him. And I really, really shouldn’t have.
At the mouth of the alley, Johnny’s got a gun to some guy’s temple. And then, he pulls the trigger. It’s got a silencer, but the pop is unmistakable. The man’s body crumples to the ground. Dead.
I flinch hard, nearly toppling backward, and my back hits the solid wall of the dumpster. I slide down, trying to catch my breath, but all I see is that moment again and again.
Jesus. I knew Johnny was into some shit. But seeing it? That’s different.
His footsteps echo as he walks away.
Nik and I wait, but there’s nothing. No shouts. No sirens. No one comes. After another minute, he peeks around the corner, then grabs my hand.
“Let’s go.”
We move fast, keeping our eyes averted. We step around the body like it’s a pothole and speed-walk three blocks before calling an Uber.
In the back seat, Nik turns to me, jaw clenched.
“What the fuck was that?” he hisses. “What did you see?”
I swallow the bile in my throat. “Johnny.”
His face shifts from confusion to horror to understanding, all in a blink.
“Well, fuck,” he breathes.
Yeah.
Fuck.