24. Bay
TWENTY-FOUR
bay
Loud music— "W.D.Y.W.F.M” by The Neighbourhood—and the screams of guests pierce my ears as I stride right into the Speakeasy Brewery on a mission.
It’s a place I remember Torin talking about starting one day. His ambitions were in the sky, and he told me some of them. Even had the name down and everything. And, throughout the years, I’ve heard about it from random people, so I decided to do a little recon.
Juice walked in, confirmed he was in the building—not sure how, but I didn’t ask any questions—and we all strode in.
The only thing on my mind now is looking for an office, because important people sit behind the doors and let everyone else make the money.
And I want it to be Torin Wildes with everything I have within me.
The pepper of an assault rifle goes off behind me, followed by more frantic screams and furniture being knocked over in fear, but I’ll let Juice and Hot Rod handle all that since, ya know, they’re The Nameless and all that with ski masks on.
I entered without one, appearing like a customer, when two minutes later, all hell broke loose in the middle of my downing a shot of Jack.
And, when I find the basic brown door with all my hopes and fears behind it, I reach around and grab my 9mm to settle in my palm.
Twisting the gold knob of the door, I throw it open, an immediate bark sounding as it flies open and before my eyes can even focus on who’s in the room or anywhere my arm is raised with my weapon on the ready.
There, behind the large oak desk, sits a calm Torin Wildes.
Around him is a fully decorated office with black bookshelves and dark hunter-green walls. The lighting in the room is a dim warmth, good for just relaxing during a stressful day.
And in front of the massive desk sits two big-ass rottweilers, whose lips are curled back and baring their white teeth at me.
“Hey, Pretty Boy,” I greet smugly, even though I have a pretty good chance of getting eaten alive. “We have to stop meeting like this.”
His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t say a word as he rises, keeping his hands smartly at his sides so I can see them. “I’d ask you what the fuck you’re doing here, but I have a pretty good inkling on why.”
“Why?” I press. “Is it because you think you have something of mine?”
Torin lifts a placid brow. “His name wouldn’t happen to be Levi Wallace, would it?”
I mock his expression, keeping a safe distance from his dogs and the room in front of me. “Where is he?”
“Not here, I’m afraid.” He lifts his shoulders, all high and mighty and about to catch a bullet. “But I’ll let him know you stopped by.”
I move forward, but the dog on my right with cropped ears growls, causing me to halt.
I might be a bitch, but I’m not going to turn into an animal killer on the list of names I’ve gained over the years.
Torin begins to round his desk, gaining my immediate attention and finding his eyes already latched onto me like he’s about to give the magical word for his big mutts to move on me. “Do I need to keep repeating the conversations we have, or are you good?”
“I’m good.”
He leans against the edge of the desk and studies me. “Why are you here?”
“Didn’t I just make myself clear?”
Torin doesn’t waste any time pushing off the furniture, confident that the closer he gets won’t mean that I won’t yank on this trigger. “All this for Wallace?” He tsks and shakes his head. “I’m hurt that you’ve never done it for me.”
“For what? You’ve never been anything to me.”
“Haven’t I? I remember my name off your pretty lips once upon a time.”
“Where is he?” I press, the adrenaline coursing through my veins a clear reminder that this isn’t me. I don’t hold up 9mms to people and demand answers.
“How does this conversation end, Wildfire?” he asks me, only a few feet away. Those light browns the color of amber holding me to my spot and to barely breath. “I just wanna know if I’m going to have a mess that I have to clean by the time it’s up.”
“Depends.”
“On?”
“You givin’ me back Levi.”
One side of his lips quirk in a cocky smirk, still holding that contemptuous expression that seems to be embedded in every boy that’s from The Landings. “Then you’re gonna have to shoot me.”
My index finger flirts with the trigger, when he suddenly reaches out to seize my weapon. I instinctively pull on it, the bullet cracking through the air and piercing through the ceiling. Chards of wood rain down around us Torin’s body slams into mine, squeezing my wrist to keep hold of another “accident.”
We struggle for what seems to be only a few seconds before my spine hits the back of the wall, which happens to be right next to the door he just closed.
My head thrusts forward, trying to catch him as I did the last time on Marine Boulevard, but he’s too fucking smart for that.
Instead, he only pulls back and seizes my throat with his free hand.
“You missed,” he mutters over my heaving breaths before I kick him in the shin.
He doesn’t falter, only roams his hand farther up mine to get better access to the 9mm.
I growl, pinning him with my glare and meeting his level of calm.
“You gonna try again, or...”
Tugging on the trigger again, the gun goes off for the second time, actually startling Torin a little bit, because I don’t think he expected me to shoot at nothing.
But it was to do just that.
And also, to hurl my curled fist into his ribcage.
Torin bows over just a tad, enough for me to slide myself out from his body and the drywall when his hand snaps out and seizes the belt loop of my jeans.
Tugging me forward, I spin and get us to switch positions, him against the wall and my—well, not having too much of the upper hand, because he’s taller, bigger, and could possibly get the gun batted away that’s currently under his chin.
“She likes gunplay, too,” Torin muses, biting down on his lower lip and rewarding me with that cocky asshole facade that fits his look and attitude.
“We’re gonna go for a ride, Pretty Boy.”
“Oh, are we?” His long fingers are wrapped around my wrist with the gun so I’m not sure if we are or not. “And where, pray tell, are we goin’, Bay Astor? I hope it’s somewhere far, far away, because?—”
“It’s called a trade,” I quip. “Remember?”
“Me for Levi Wallace?” After a breath, he continues with the obvious. “You’re fuckin’ crazy, you know that?”
“You’re finally catchin’ on to that?”
Torin leans closer before I shove the gun deeper into the soft and vulnerable part of his jaw. “Tell me, Wildfire…how much do you love your King of South Shore?”
“Enough to kill you without losing much sleep,” I deadpan.
“I don’t know if I should be impressed or tell your friends to keep you on a shortened leash because you don’t listen for shit.”
I turn my head, listening for Hot Rod or Juice. “I listen sometimes, Pretty Boy,” I divulge, my tone husky with intrigue. “Depends if I like what’s on the other side of the leash.”
“I missed you.” His comment gets me to snap my attention right back to him. “I was hoping one day you’d come and find me. And here you are.”
“This isn’t a social call,” I clip back. “I need?—”
“Levi Wallace,” he fills in for me. “You said that about three times already. I heard.”
“Then give him to me.”
“What’s he worth to you?”
Anything and everything.
“What do you want? Because you’re not in a very good position right now.”
Torin lifts his shoulders. “I like it just fine. Plus, you’re really not in an aggressive stance right now, baby. If that gun was pointed anywhere on my body, maybe, but?—”
“Shut up, and tell me how this ends.”
Pretty Boy tightens his gaze on me. “Haven’t I already told you? Stay…away…from Emilio Wildes.”
“And then?”
“And, if I don’t see you at that fucked up Friday dinner, he’s yours.”
I scowl. “You want me to wait days in order to get Levi back.”
“I do. You want him…you wait.”
“How about I blow your dick off right now?”
“You don’t want to get wrapped up in Emilio, Bay. I’m serious. It’s not because of my Titan seat—which I would fight you for, by the way, so don’t even think it’s yours. But because he’s bad news, you know this.”
“I’ve heard.”
“You gotta get out of here. You have to leave South Shore.”
My expression tightens. “I’m not leaving South Shore because your daddy wants a role in my life.”
“He will tear that town apart.”
“And are you going to help him?”
Torin stares at me, those golden ebbs of his so pretty that I get lost in them for a second when he says, “I don’t want to.”
“But you would,” I press, not really wanting to know the answer. “If he asked.”
“I don’t want him to ask.”
“You’re not answering the question. I’m not easily swayed by your pretty words and promises anymore. They did nothing for me before.”
“They made you come.”
I scoff because big deal. “That’s a dime a dozen at this point.”
Torin frowns. “You’re not a whore, Wildfire. You’re many things, but that whole bullshit about you fuckin’ half of South Shore isn’t going to stick with me. Especially when I saw fear in your eyes every time you were with Matteo.”
I hate him for remembering that part of my life and that he noticed.
That I didn’t leave with him.
I knew what Torin was before and, honestly, he was right. At the time, he was a better choice than Matteo. Maybe he could’ve been something more, too.
“I believe I remember South Shore slut leavin’ your lips,” I scold lightly.
“I was irritated.”
“You’re a prick.”
He lifts his shoulders. “Never said I wasn’t.”
“Anything else?”
“Yeah,” he mumbles. “I want you to be—” The door to the office is suddenly kicked open next, and Torin has me spun around and up against his chest.
Even better…my gun is now in both of our hands with the barrel pointed at my temple.
Flicking my attention to who came in, Juice stands frozen to his spot, barely breathing as Torin holds my life in the balance.
“You South Shore scum ever hear of fucking knocking?” Torin barks out, his arm that’s wrapped around my waist tightening. “Fuck.”
“You kill her, dude, you’re so fucked it’s not even funny,” Juice warns, his grip on his Glock firm.
Meanwhile, I’m trying to breathe through my nose and out through my mouth while these two idiots hash out details that aren’t going to matter depending on how it looks outside.
“Yeah, I heard. Levi’s girl and all that. Though—” Torin’s head coils around the side of my neck, and he places his chin on my shoulder. “—I never got repayment for my guns that were stolen from me over a week ago.”
Juice shrugs. “Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, man.”
“Sure, you don’t.” Torin’s nose runs up the column of my neck. “Tell me, Wildfire…what would you do to someone that stole from you?”
“Like what you’ve just done to me?”
“You started it with the guns.”
I take a page out of Juice’s book when I reply. “Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”
“I hope you don’t like any of your dogs, Wildes,” Juice announces to the room to speed this whole process up.
However, the man behind me doesn’t even flinch when his teeth sink deep into my neck, and I clench my eyes closed from the sharp edges and the slight discomfort of it.
What is he trying to be Damon Salvator without the whole vampire thing?
“I’ve warned you away from my sight, Wildfire,” he warns against my skin, his warm breath softly grazing around the marks I’m sure he left behind. “Yet, I think you want me to catch you.”
“You’re an idiot.”
A feral growl sounds closer, alluding that the dogs have moved, and Juice snaps his neck to it.
Torin doesn’t look when he orders out calmly, “Silence.”
And the room falls that way.
“Good job, Wildes.” Juice tugs him out of the hold that my gun has Torin in and smacks him upside the head in the next second. “I would’ve killed them both.”
Lies.
However, Torin doesn’t know that and doesn’t need to.
“You wouldn’t shoot me here, would you?” I coo as calmly as I can. “Sounds a little suicidal to me, Pretty Boy.”
“Who’s gonna know, Wildfire? I’ll pop a cap in your buddy’s head first to get him out of the way, then…” His lips curl into a slight smile against my skin, like he just thought of something. “We’ll just have to see about the rest.”
“It’ll start a war.”
“We’re practically already at war.”
I shift my weight, tempted to see what Torin is going to do, but he doesn’t do anything crazy. “We callin’ a stalemate on this one, then?”
“When I have you right in my arms?” he emits. “I still feel like I have the upper hand here.”
“What do you want for Levi?”
He quirks a brow. “We tradin’ now?”
“Isn’t that what you people do?”
“Bay, cock your head to the left,” Juice commands smoothly. “I’ll have the perfect shot.”
“I want my guns.”
I turn my head to Juice as Torin states what he wants. “What can we do about it?”
“I can get him the money for it,” he replies, and I can practically hear his teeth grinding together. “But that offer is about to expire in twenty seconds.”
“There was a quarter mil in that truck,” Torin grounds out. “I doubt you have it.”
“Guess you ain’t gonna find out if you start popping people off,” he mocks. And it’s true, so I start to make moves of my own.
Releasing the gun, I pull my hand out from underneath Torin’s and begin to slowly turn my body.
His fingers glide along my stomach, allowing me to move now that I’ve given him the one thing I could use to put him six feet under.
“Looks like you’ll be seeing me again, after all,” I tell him, still feeling the trail of his touch and the bite of his teeth.
He keeps his face placid, accepting the fact that, if he hurts me, Levi is going to kill him. But I can’t yank myself out of those golden eyes for the life of me.
They’re so memorizing that it’s disgusting.
“I’d love nothing more,” he says. “But not like this.”
Amber eyes bolt to mine, hinting that if Pretty Boy does, in fact, get me within his grasp, I’m in deep shit.
“Juice.” Hot Rod’s voice comes in from my right, out of breath and urgent. “We gotta go. Trail’s hot.”
“Fuck,” Juice mutters disappointedly, green eyes coming to me. “Gotta go, babes. You gotta leave dickhead here.”
“Wh—”
“Damn, baby,” Torin taunts smoothly. “And I was looking forward to seeing how you’d have your way with me.”
He shares a sly and confident smile, and there goes my rescue mission for my best friend.
“Aww,” Hot Rod coos mockingly next, raising his Glock and pointing it at Torin’s head. “You fucked up by dropping your weapon. Didn’t Daddy Wildes teach you how to keep your shit trained on the hostage?”
Juice’s hand suddenly wraps around my forearm and pulls me with him, through the door frame and out the back way of the brewery.
I crane my head back to see where Hot Rod is and, to my absolute relief, he’s shoving Torin ahead of him as his hostage now.
We’re going to get Levi back.