Chapter 4
Joan Wick
Ben
Present Day
Five Years Later…
I slam the door on a drunk Ernie, then tap the roof of the car that’ll be taking him home. Just as the cab turns onto the street, a familiar vehicle pulls onto the lot, honking incessantly. My brother blinds me with his high beams before he skids to a stop less than a foot away.
Parker gets down and bleeps his locks—four times. His horn, like him, is obnoxious and loud.
I cross my arms. “Done?”
“Yeah.” He grins, then does it again.
“You are aware that Charlie’s the baby, right? She’s supposed to be the most immature one of us.”
“A man’s brain doesn’t fully develop until he turns twenty-six, so I’ve still got some time to fuck around before I get old and rationality kicks in.” He shoves his key fob in his pocket. “What are you doing out here?”
“Just got Ernie into a cab.”
Everyone in town knows why Ernie’s a drunk, and where I’m from, we take care of each other.
A couple of hours outside DC, Matchbook isn’t a one-horse town, but it’s not an overpopulated city, either.
On the north side, you’d find million-dollar homes, and on the south, farmhouses on generational land.
Bar Someday and Lawless Protection Agency are in the middle, right in the heart of the town.
Parker gives me a quick once-over, his eyes sharp. “Everything okay? Your knee all right?”
It took a solid year and a half to recover after being shot, but I’m lucky to have survived.
Now my days consist of client interviews, recon, and briefings with the team since I’m not in, what I consider to be, peak physical condition for personal protection.
And my nights are filled with running a bar.
Is that how I want to spend my time? Hell no. But I need to stay busy to keep my mind off what I’m not able to do and what I did to put myself in this position.
Like Parker, who just returned home after three weeks on assignment. While he was off guarding a movie star during her press junket, I was stocking shelves, slinging drinks, and breaking up bar fights.
I lift a shoulder. “Yeah, Park. My knee’s fuckin’ great. Life is sweet, and the future is blinding bright.”
“You know I’m always here if—”
“Don’t.”
“Fine.” He sighs, and I despise that look on his face, the one that says he feels sorry for me.
I don’t need my little brother’s pity to remind me that I’m a broken man. I see him when I look in the mirror, I feel his failure every time I take a step, and I taste the regret when I swallow pills that do nothing for the physical pain.
Another two cars pull in, and I remember that I still have a job to do and pride to manufacture. “I gotta get in there.”
“Me too. I need a beer.”
“You’ve got beer at home.”
“But it’s not free at home.”
He follows me inside, where I join my manager, Kit, behind the bar. She’s setting a cold one in front of the only empty space. He thanks Kit, and I hand him the legal pad with his running tab. “Beer’s not free here, either.”
He scans the paper. “You’re serious?”
“That’s with a friends and family discount, too.” Kit turns the page with a smirk. “Your brother has a business to run, and I don’t work for free.”
“I thought the cash I shoved in the tip jar was enough to cover it.”
“That doesn’t go toward your bill.” I tell him what I assumed he already knew. “It’s tip money only, bro, split between the cocktail servers at the end of the night.”
Kit tilts her head. “Why do you think the girls are always so nice to you?”
“Because of my good looks and charming personality, of course.” He winks.
He clears his tab, and when he leaves for the night, he pays his bill and leaves a wad of cash in the tip jar.
After last call, I take the trash out and shake the raindrops from my hair as I head to the stock room. I do a quick inventory, then grab what I need to start restocking. I’m carrying four cases of booze when the bell chimes. Shit, I forgot to lock the door.
“Sorry, we’re clo—” The boxes slip through my fingers and crash to the ground. Bottles break, and liquor oozes through the cardboard, but I couldn’t care less. I close my jaw, then open it just enough to get out, “Holy shit.”
The woman standing fifteen feet away doesn’t move a muscle. She just stares at me, and I realize I’m staring, too. It’s dim in here, and I almost don’t believe my eyes. Her hair is shorter, she’s not wearing her glasses, and she’s lost too much weight, but I know exactly who I’m looking at.
I’m transported back in time, but in the same breath, it’s standing still. “Annie?”
Her head wobbles, and her body follows suit, like she’s about to collapse, so I move. Liquid sloshes under the soles of my boots, and I push a chair out of the way. “What’s wrong?” I close the distance between us and am shocked at her distraught and disheveled appearance. “Jesus. What happened?”
Her normal bright green eyes are swampy, her skin is pale, at least the skin I can see through the dirt and blood, her teeth are clattering, and she’s shivering. “Are you okay?” Who the fuck hurt you? I grab her too thin arms and give her a little jerk to snap her out of it. “Talk to me, Blue.”
She shakes her head, takes a breath, then finally whispers, “I think I need you.”
“You got me.” Anything but isn’t an option.
“Sorry to just show up like this,” she apologizes timidly. “But I had nowhere else to go.”
I’m eager to find out what she needs my help with, but I don’t want to discuss it in the middle of the bar where we’re so exposed. “You good to walk upstairs, or do you need me to carry you?”
“What’s upstairs?”
I reach beyond her and secure the locks. “My apartment. Are you okay to walk?”
“Yes.”
She skirts the table, and I see how bad she’s limping even though I can tell she’s trying to pretend she’s not in pain. Without a word, I swoop her up and cradle her.
“I said I can walk.” She contradicts her protest as she winds her arms around my neck.
A memory flashes of the last time her arms were wrapped around me…and her lips were on mine. Despite how much I try to forget it, I can still feel the bullets tearing through my skin, can hear her screams, I can taste the blood in the back of my throat.
I swallow the metallic taste as I carry her through the bar, push through the steel door, set the security system, and then climb the slim staircase. We get inside, and I don’t put her down until I get to the couch.
I take her muddy, wet shoes and socks off, then hold my hand out. “Sweatshirt.” I hold my hand out.
She slides the oversized hoodie off, and rolls her lips together as she looks around. “Will your, uh, girlfriend be okay that I’m here?”
“I don’t have a girlfriend, but if I did and she was the kind of woman who wouldn’t be okay with me bringing you home, then she wouldn’t be my girlfriend in the first place. Will your boyfriend be okay that you’re spending the night at another man’s place?”
“I don’t have one.”
Good. “Be right back.” I toss her stuff in the laundry closet, grab a pack of wipes from my kitchen drawer, and get her some water. I twist the cap off the bottle and sit on the coffee table in front of her while she drinks, clearly dehydrated.
She sets the empty bottle on the floor and looks quizzically at the wet wipes I’m holding out. “Thank you.”
“My niece, Mazie, comes over a lot,” I explain as she’s cleaning her hands. “And I give her a lot of candy.”
“I’m sure you do.” A tiny smile pulls at her lips, and it gets a tiny bit bigger when I grab the dirty wipes and throw them behind me. I lean over to grab a blanket, and she flinches, then immediately apologizes. “Sorry.”
“Just want to warm you up a bit.”
She turns her head, and her eyes close as I wrap the blanket around her shoulders.
She’s embarrassed by her reaction, but I’m pissed off by it, and that’s exactly why she’s here.
She knows I’ll chase away whatever caused that unease.
I’ll do everything possible to keep her safe. For her, I’ll do anything she asks.
“Your couch is cool.” She pokes the brown leather.
“I know.”
“I’m getting it wet.”
“I don’t care.” I look pointedly at the cut on her forehead. “What happened?”
I see the wheels turning in her mind, and I’m about to lose patience when she finally opens up. “I was running and fell and hit my head. I twisted my ankle at the same time.”
“Why were you running?”
“Because I didn’t know if I was being followed.”
My spine stiffens, and I sit up straighter. “Why would you think you’re being followed?”
“Well, see. I…” She huffs and says in the same breath, “You’re going to think I’m crazy.”
“I would never think that.”
“The cops didn’t believe me.”
Cops? “What the fuck happened, Annie?”
“So…” She twists her ring. “There have been a few times over the past year that I’ve had the feeling someone had been in my apartment and—”
“How many is a few?”
Her gaze darts around, then lands on my shoulder. “Three, four…” Eyes back to me, she adds apprehensively, “Twelve.”
“Jesus Christ!” I explode to my feet and pace in a circle, squeezing the back of my neck from the knots of rebar.
I try to control my temper as I think about what she must have been going through.
Especially because I know how scared she was with me in a safe house.
I can’t imagine how terrified she’s been all alone.
Unless she hasn’t been alone.
But she wouldn’t be here if that were the case. She’s here because she needs me—not some other man, not even her father.
I don’t sit, I’m too ramped up to, so I stand on the opposite side of the coffee table. “What do you mean by a feeling? Did you notice things out of place?”
“Nope. It’s really just a feeling…uneasy, uncomfortable.”
“Did you tell anyone else? Your dad?”
Her eyes get heavy and wet. “Dad died, Ben.”
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.” I feel like I should have, and I don’t know why I didn’t. “Want to talk about it?”
“He had a stroke and fell down the stairs, or his falling down the stairs caused the stroke. The doctors aren’t really sure. But regardless, it caused a brain bleed, and he was essentially bedridden until he passed away.”
I want to know more about it, the details, little things. I want to find out how she’s really feeling now and how she really was when it happened, but my focus has to be on her safety, so I’ll come back to it another time. “Explain the cops not believing you?”
“That probably wasn’t the right way to put it. I went to the station a few times, but they said there’s nothing they can do about a feeling.”
“Did you at least file a report?”
She shook her head. “I’m probably just paranoid.”
“You’re not. I believe you.”
“But there hadn’t been proof, no evidence. I thought it was probably because I never got over my past…trauma or whatever.”
I put my hand up to stop her rambling. “If your gut is telling you something, you never ignore it.”
“I know. You always told me that, but I still felt stupid and—”
“You’re not stupid.”
“Okay, not stupid.” She makes little circles by her ear. “Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.”
If I wasn’t this close to losing my mind, I’d laugh. “You said there hadn’t been evidence, did something change?”
“Tonight, last night, whatever, I came home from being out with a co-worker, and my window was open by the fire escape. I never leave my window open because my cat would get out.” She sniffles, and I sit in front of her again and hold her hands.
“I’d never risk that happening, but the window was open, and she was gone, and I know I didn’t leave it open, and I’m so sick of being scared, and I just…
she was gone, and I thought I heard someone walking up the fire escape, and I freaked out, didn’t even look for Joan Wick and ran. ”
My grip tightened. “To me.”
“To you.”
“I’m glad you did, sweetheart, but I gotta ask—Joan Wick?”
Her chin quivers. “I found her in an alley surrounded by dead mice. I thought it was fitting.”
I really try not to laugh. Joan Wick. “Well, it sounds like she can take care of herself at least.”
“Maybe three years ago, but now she’s domesticated. The streets are no place for a cat with a sparkly pink collar who sleeps on an orthopedic bed and has an automatic feeder.”
“She’ll be okay. But right now, you’re not, so…” I cup her face and brush my thumb across her swollen cheek. “It’s time to get you out of these clothes.”