Prospect’s Curvy Vinyl Girl (Broken Halos MC: The Prospects #6)

1. Wendy

Wendy

Warm dust and old paper. The smell is a fixture in my lungs.

My mother used to say the Vinyl Vault smelled like preserved time, but she was a romantic.

I’m a realist. It smells like dying cardboard, static electricity, and fifty years of other people's memories stacked floor to ceiling in a town that’s rotting from the inside out.

Crimson Hollow is a graveyard with a zip code.

The only reason I’m still standing behind this oak counter is because leaving means handing over the last piece of my mother to the wolves.

The wolves wear suits these days. They carry clipboards.

The Silver Serpent Syndicate doesn’t bother hiding in the shadows anymore.

They have a schedule. They have administrative assistants.

They’re corporatizing their extortion, turning thugs into middle management.

Every Tuesday at three in the afternoon, a man walks into my shop to collect his protection money.

Today is Thursday. I should be safe. I should be cataloging this new estate sale haul in peace, sliding worn cardboard sleeves out of plastic protectors and checking the vinyl for scratches.

This shop is my trap. I inherited the cage along with the key five years ago when her heart gave out. She loved this place. She loved the music. I love her, so I stay. I guard the bins. I pay the extortion fees. I watch the town slowly suffocate under the Syndicate’s grip.

A shadow eclipses the afternoon light spilling through the front window.

The brass bell above the door chimes. The sound is sharp, cutting through the mellow baseline of the B-side track. Cold air rushes into the shop, carrying the smell of exhaust and damp concrete.

My hands freeze on a worn copy of a jazz record.

The shift in the atmosphere is immediate.

The ambient warmth of the shop drains away.

I keep my eyes lowered, adjusting the pricing gun on the oak counter.

Two men step onto my oak floorboards. They move with the synchronized, arrogant tread of men who own the local police department.

Black boots. Dark jackets. They don’t belong in the Vinyl Vault.

They aren’t here to hunt for rare pressings.

I grab a dust rag. I wipe down the polished wood of the counter.

The repetitive motion gives my hands something to do.

The men stop just inside the door. They block the exit.

One of them pulls a folded piece of paper from his jacket.

An asset list. A hit list. Whatever it is, it brings a fresh wave of irritation crawling up my neck.

I don’t have time for these oversized linebackers stinking up my shop.

This is a sanctuary. They’re tracking mud on my rugs.

My gaze sweeps the narrow aisles. I have one customer in the store. He came in ten minutes ago. He’s a stranger.

Crimson Hollow doesn’t get tourists. We don’t get out-of-town foot traffic.

The only people who come here are looking for drugs, stolen car parts, or trouble.

This man is currently standing in the L-section of the soft rock bins.

He doesn’t look like a soft rock kind of guy.

He’s built like a reinforced concrete wall.

Broad shoulders stretch the seams of a dark, worn jacket.

No club patches. No gang colors. Just raw, lethal muscle packed into a frame that takes up too much space in my narrow aisle.

Dark hair falls slightly into his eyes. His jaw looks like it could break a cinderblock.

The scent of dark, roasted black coffee drifts over from his direction. It cuts right through the smell of old paper and dust. It’s sharp. Bitter. Awake.

He flips through the records. His hands are scarred across the knuckles. He handles the fragile cardboard sleeves with surprising care. He pauses on a Kenny Loggins album. If this reinforced-concrete wall of a man actually buys Kenny Loggins, I might eat my pricing gun.

The two Syndicate goons exchange a look. The taller one taps the paper. They look at the stranger in the soft rock section.

The air in the room tightens. The oxygen burns off.

The goons are hunting. They’re matching the stranger’s broad back against whatever description is printed on that paper. They step forward. Their boots thud against the wood. They’re fanning out. Pincer movement. They plan to corner him between the classical section and the new arrivals.

The stranger doesn’t look up. He doesn’t stop flipping through the records.

He acts oblivious. But the line of his shoulders is rigid.

The muscles in his neck are coiled tight.

He knows where they are. He’s waiting for them to close the distance.

He’s unarmed, or at least he has no visible weapon.

The Syndicate men have bulges under their coats.

A shootout in my shop. Blood on my mother’s oak floorboards. Bullet holes in my vintage vinyl. Not a chance. Over my dead body.

I drop the dust rag. I step out from behind the oak counter. The amber lamplight catches the dust motes swirling in the air around me. I don’t think. I just move. Surviving in Crimson Hollow means moving faster than the predators. It means owning the space before they can claim it.

I march down the center aisle. My boots click sharply on the wood.

The two Syndicate men pause, thrown off by my sudden trajectory.

I ignore them. I walk right past the taller goon, close enough to smell the cheap cologne masking his stale cigarette smoke.

I don’t flinch. I aim myself at the stranger in the L-section.

He finally looks up from the bins. His eyes lock onto mine.

They’re dark hazel-brown, with chips of green at the iris edge when the amber lamplight catches them, and sharp enough to cut glass. He watches me approach. He doesn’t step back. He doesn’t brace himself. He just stands there, an immovable object waiting for an unstoppable force.

I close the final foot between us. I slide my right hand into the crook of his elbow.

His arm is solid rock underneath the fabric of his jacket. The heat radiating off his body sears through my palm. My skin burns.

The Ignition happens in that millisecond.

A steel vault door slams shut in the center of my chest. The tumblers click into place.

An undeniable gravity anchors my boots to the floor.

The axis of my world tilts, spins, and realigns itself around the man standing beside me.

The ambient noise of the shop vanishes. The Syndicate goons fade into background static.

The only thing that exists is the brutal heat of his arm, the scent of black coffee, and the violent focus in his eyes.

My lungs stop working. The air leaves my body. An engine catches fire deep inside my ribs. It’s not a spark. It’s a four-alarm blaze. He’s mine. The thought isn’t a question. It’s a terrifying fact. It arrives fully formed, bolted down.

He stares down at me. The muscles in his jaw flex.

He feels it. I know he feels it. The air between us is snapping with raw voltage.

The mask he’s wearing almost slips. The quiet danger humming beneath his skin surges forward.

His forearm flexes under my grip. He shifts his weight, subtly angling his body to place himself between me and the two men behind us. It’s an instinct. A territorial reflex.

I force my frozen lungs to draw a breath. I plaster a bright, exasperated smile onto my face. I need a lie, and I need it airborne before the goons close another step. Cousin. Portland. The first far-away city my brain coughs up. I look up at him.

"Hey, cousin from Portland," I say loudly. My voice is steady. It doesn’t shake. "Your record came in. The special order. I’ve been holding it behind the counter for twenty minutes."

The stranger doesn’t blink. He doesn’t hesitate. The violent tension in his frame vanishes, replaced by a smooth, easygoing posture. It’s a terrifying transformation. He shifts from a weapon into a relaxed, mildly annoyed family member in the span of a single heartbeat.

"Bout time, Wendy," he drawls. His voice is a deep, rough gravel that scrapes straight down my spine.

He knows my name. Of course he does. The sign outside says Wendy's Vinyl Vault.

But the way he says it makes my stomach tighten.

"I was about to buy this Loggins crap just to have something to listen to on the drive back. "

He drops the record back into the bin. He turns to fully face me, keeping my hand tucked in the crook of his arm. He rests his hand over mine. His palm is scorching hot. Rough callouses scrape against my knuckles. A sharp possessiveness radiates from his touch.

We turn around together. We face the two Syndicate goons.

They’re standing by the classical section. They look confused. The taller one is frowning at his clipboard. They were looking for a lone wolf. A solitary target. They weren’t looking for the shop owner’s out-of-town cousin.

I raise an eyebrow at them. I channel every ounce of my mother’s stubborn sass. This is my shop. These are my floorboards.

"Can I help you boys find something?" I demand. My tone is razor-sharp. "Or are you just blocking my light? Because the clearance bins are outside, and the new arrivals are ten bucks a pop. You don't look like vinyl collectors."

The taller goon scowls. He looks at me, then at the stranger standing plastered to my side. The size difference is noticeable. My 'cousin' easily has forty pounds of muscle on the Syndicate man. The goon shifts his weight, suddenly unsure of his footing.

"Just looking," the goon mutters. His eyes dart to the clipboard again. He’s trying to match the description.

"Look faster," I snap. "I have inventory to log. And my cousin here has a long drive back to Oregon."

The stranger chuckles. It’s a low sound that vibrates through my chest. He squeezes my hand where it rests on his arm. The gesture is supposed to look affectionate. It feels like a brand.