31. Angel
THIRTY-ONE
ANGEL
She was resilient; I’d give her that. Most women would have caved when their own father turned a gun on them. But I’d seen the fight in her eyes the moment she realized he was too strung out to hold onto that gun for long.
I had to act fast. And playing with her life was risky business. It went against every moral fiber of my being. It set me on edge, made me wanna vomit. But I knew I was right. And I just had to trust that the same instinct for self-preservation would serve her as well as it’d served me over the years.
When I went back in to wipe down the gun and put it in his cold, dead hand, I kicked him in the dick for good measure. The way he’d looked at his daughter made me fucking sick to my stomach.
He deserved so much worse than he’d gotten. But I’d never been the type to enjoy torturing them. That was Nash’s realm of chaos. I just took out a target and moved on. It was efficient, calculated, and quick. But Dante deserved to feel so much more pain than we’d given him.
Prick.
Piece of shit.
Scum of the earth.
He made some of our targets look like saints.
Harper sat on the ledge where I’d left her when I came back out, and the sudden thought that she might not be together enough to hold on for the ride back caused me a moment of panic. However, when she spotted me coming, her long legs stretched out in front of her, and she slipped effortlessly to the ground, her leather boots and their steel accents shimmering in the hot desert sun as she strode over to the bike and grabbed her helmet.
"We rolling out?"
I nodded, taking a single deep breath to calm my frazzled nerves. "Yeah. No point in sticking around for someone to find his body in a few days. The bill’s paid up for a few days, and by the time he starts to smell, we’ll be nothing more than two unremarkable people in a sea of people who come and go for things best left unreported to police." I slipped on my helmet and ensured she was secure before I took off, deciding at the last minute to take her for something to eat before we went home.
Home.
I had begun to think of it as her home as much as my own, but it wasn’t. Not really.
Why did that realization make the pit in my stomach wider?
Harper didn’t argue or ask questions when I pulled into an old diner off the abandoned, desolate highway. She didn’t hesitate to follow me inside with her helmet in hand when I led the way into the sad excuse for an eatery, already turning my nose up at the smell of three-week-old fryer grease and old, burnt coffee.
Places like this were an acquired taste. I’d eaten at them over the years when the situation necessitated it. But Harper, well, she’d always loved these little holes in the wall and their oversalted fries, their burgers dripping with fat, and the fucking sugared-up shakes they always served.
When the waitress showed up at the table we sat down at, I flashed her a smile and ordered for the both of us before Harper could even open her mouth.
"Two burgers—bacon, ketchup, lettuce, tomato, onion, cheese, medium well. Fries for a side, and two chocolate shakes, one with no whipped cream."
The woman was in the process of handing us our menus, and her smile lit up when she realized she didn’t need to wait around for us like other customers. "You’ve been here before."
"Actually, no. But every diner serves burgers, fries, and shakes, right?"
I flashed her a megawatt smile, and the damn girl nearly choked on her tongue as she jotted down the order. "Uh, yeah! Sure thing, mister, I’ll get that right away for you and your, uhm, your . . . sister?" she asked hopefully .
"Thanks," I squinted at her nametag, crinkling my nose unpleasantly, "Tasha."
I didn’t bother to correct her on the whole sister thing. I mean, technically, she was legally my step-sibling. But sister wasn’t a term I’d ever use for her myself these days.
No, not when I thought about fucking pinning her to a wall and ravishing her when she was acting like a spoiled brat. Not when my cock jumped in my pants whenever she walked by in those short shorts she wore for Rowan’s benefit. Or when she handled the fucking top end of a straw with her tongue like it was a toy.
And that was just the tip of the iceberg of filthy thoughts I’d been having about her lately.
I didn’t want this complication that was currently standing at attention under the table. I didn’t want to think about the way she swirled her tongue around her fucking straw when that shake showed up at the table. Had no desire to stare at her like a man under hypnosis when she slipped a fry in her mouth or groaned when she took a bite of the burger and it dripped grease onto the plate.
The way she enjoyed food shouldn’t turn me on like a fucking high school boy with his first pair of tits.
"How do you know what I like to eat?" she asked suddenly, and I smiled despite my growing agitation at the things I felt for her.
"You’ve always liked these places. Used to always order a greasy-ass loaded burger, fries, and a shake. Father would comment about how bad those things were for your figure, and you’d roll your eyes and wink at him, spouting nonsense about how there was only one person that needed to worry about their weight at the table, and it wasn’t you."
Her laughter was magical as it reached my ears and echoed around us. Heads turned, eager to see where such an angelic voice came from, no doubt. Every pair of eyes that fell on her soon after found my own steely stare as I lowered my shades to stare them down in warning.
She wasn’t some random bitch to pick up in a stranded ass diner for a quick romp. Harper was worlds above the cretin who hung out here. And I wanted them to know that they’d meet with a not-so-warm welcome if they so much as rose from their seats to head in her direction.
Only one seemed oblivious to my visual warning, and when he reached the table, I was clinging to my sanity by a thread.
I couldn’t afford to make a kill so rashly, in front of all these witnesses. I could get my rage under control. I would.
Mister Oblivious stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked back and forth on his heels, clearing his throat in that annoying way preppy kids in college had when they wanted your attention.
"Ahem," he started, his eyes on Harper and only Harper. "I couldn’t help but stop by and set eyes on the woman whose laughter reminded me of angels from heaven."
Harper looked him up and down, then her upper lip twitched in annoyance. "Uh, hi. Sorry to disappoint, but I’m here with my broth?—"
"Her boyfriend," I spat, narrowing my eyes as I slipped the shades lower on my nose so I could look over them at him with an air of disgust and contempt. "She’s here with me, her boyfriend. So run along now, buddy. I’d hate to have to ruin that fancy coat of yours."
He frowned but beat a hasty retreat, shooting me glares filled with daggers over her shoulder when he thought I wasn’t looking.
I shoved the sunglasses back up my nose and hmph’ed. "Fucking pigs. Hitting on a woman when she’s with another man."
"So when it’s the pretty waitress flirting, you’re my brother. But when it’s another man trying to pick me up, suddenly you're my boyfriend, huh?" She leaned in conspiratorially, shooting me a wink. "Sounds like someone’s jealous."
"Don’t fool yourself, Harper. I’m just being cautious. Don’t want any stray Tomcats following us back to where we came from. Not good for business, you see."
"Sure, sure," she muttered, waving me off as our waitress wandered over with the food and shakes. "Oh my god, this smells amazing." She beamed up at the other girl as soon as the hot plate was in her hands and shot her a wink when she passed off the shake, their hands touching briefly. "You know, my brother here is celebrating his first anniversary with his boyfriend back home. But I bat for both teams, if you know what I mean." Another wink, and I could barely avoid choking on my sip of shake as the waitress blushed profusely, set down my food, and hurried off.
"You’re a bitch," I mumbled as I shoved a fry in my mouth and rolled my eyes, amused despite myself and trying desperately to hide it from her. "You just had to have the last laugh, huh?"
She leaned back in her seat, cradling that shake with her tongue making little swirls around the tip of it as she smiled at me, and fuck all, but there went my cock again, twitching at the idea of replacing her straw for a split second.
Her comment on the bridge flashed through my mind again, unbidden and unwelcome.
Should I drop to my knees and suck your dick?
Fuck, yes. Please, do. Maybe then I can get you out of my mind, bitch.
"Wouldn’t want any stray pussy following us back to the hideout, now would we?"
She never hesitated to use my own words against me, and fuck if it wasn’t sexy as sin to feel the jealousy emanating from her. I was sure of it. It wasn’t my imagination. I’d seen her like this several times before, over boys she’d dated in high school, or when she caught her best friend with Rowan.
Oh, man, I’d almost forgotten about that.
Rowan hated her friend. The girl was a two-timing, backstabbing bitch whose only concern was using Harper to get to my brother and his dick. Rowan knew that and yet still stuck his dick in it, if only to get back at Harper when she came home with that rich boy for a boyfriend.
The one we all hated.
All he wanted was to say he’d gotten the best of a Blackwood. And since none of us were interested in giving him the time of day, he turned his attention to our sister to piss us off.
And it worked.
When he broke her heart, we broke his face. Or rather, Nash did when he caught him red-handed after football practice one day.
Rowan warned him never to speak to Harper again. And the whore he’d been making out with suspiciously changed schools the next day.
Had nothing to do with the fact that our father was a benefactor for the ritzy private school he sent us to. Nor did it have anything to do with the envelope of money I’d slipped him to grease the wheels and change all the asshole’s classes so that he had to look at one of us for every period.
We weren’t obsessed. We were protective. Harper was our sister.
And at some point, she became . . . something more.
"Strays of any kind are bad for the image, brat."
She waved me off with a smile over the lip of her shake. "Right, right, right. You got it, boss." Her smile widened, and she got that glint in her eyes that warned of mayhem and mischief ahead. With her, there was never a dull moment. "Just wait, though. Payback’s a bitch."