CHAPTER EIGHT
Jess
S hit, so close. So fucking close to walking out of this damn place.
Dragging a breath into my lungs, I face him. The big, bad Nikolai Wilder.
He’s gorgeous, around late thirties, maybe early forties, and I never really had an older man thing, but I can see why it gets girls going. I can see why it should get me going.
I mean…eyes that are straight up from the sexy region of hell, chiseled features, and dark hair I like. The man is drop dead beautiful. And the perfect suit that looks made to fit him helps.
So.
Why the fuck am I having trouble keeping my eyes from straying to the blond in the corner? And I know his eyes are full of wicked amusement. He pulls me to him, and kissing him was the biggest mistake of my life.
And I’ve made a few.
“Excuse me?”
Rush takes a sharp breath, I hear it, and can feel him straighten. But he doesn’t move to me and I don’t think it’s out of deference to his cousin. Well, at least not completely. It’s clear Nikolai’s the boss, but Rush wants to hear what I’ve got to say, he wants to see how I react.
They both do.
“I can continue playing nice,” Nikolai says, “or I can fucking pull you apart like the wings off a bug. You need to heal, you managed to get yourself here, so you stay until I find out why.”
This time my gaze slides to Rush and our eyes meet. It slams into me. Right between the tits, making it hard to get breath, making me want to reel back. “I got stabbed and Rush got me out of there. Against my will.”
Fine, I don’t remember if it was my idea or his to get the hell out of Bunny Munroe. Parts of that event are still lost in haze. Others flare bright like under a halogen lamp.
“And he brought me here,” I say, trying to work out just how far to take the attitude as I take a step forward.
Not far at all.
Not if the warning in Wilder’s gaze is to be obeyed.
And something tells me while I can fuck around and taunt the fuck boy, I’ll end up in various unmarked graves if I try it on Nikolai.
“Under your guidance?”
“No.” Rush steps forward, ignoring the warning glance from Nikolai. “I made that decision. Something was—”
“Rush.”
One word and Rush falls quiet.
One word and I can see Nikolai’s more than after something he’s casting for in the dark. He knows what he’s looking for. The lights are on. Spotlight on me and—
I think the word’s fuck .
This isn’t what I signed up for. Not the stabbing or getting close and in the danger zone of the patriarch of the Wilders.
Gather information on Nikolai Wilder—that’s what I was told—and Bunny’s is a good place to do it since I’d just started there. It’s a dive, but the kind of dive that pulls clientele from all over.
And Wilder men and women go there.
“I didn’t plan on getting stabbed. I didn’t ask to come here. Rush brought me here.”
Nikolai fixes me with a hard stare and how a man can make it feel like he’s got his hand around my throat and is ready to snap my neck by sitting there is anyone’s guess. But he does.
I don’t like it.
And I reassess just who his Rosalind is.
She seems sweet and innocent.
But then she has that steel in her.
I cast a glance at Rush, but those clever, flirty eyes are shuttered and the sexy mouth straight. His expression is unreadable.
Him…I’m not a fan of that expression, that battening down, but him? I can take him and what he serves. Rush, I don’t think, will kill me.
His cousin?
A whole other story.
“Don’t fucking look at him,” Nikolai says. “He won’t fucking help you. He’s loyal to me. Not you. You’re a piece of fucking cheap ass.”
I flinch and my hands curl. But before I can say anything, Rush jumps in.
“Dude—Nikolai, not cool, man. Not cool at all.”
“Which part?” Nikolai asks, a total cold-blooded predator.
Rush steps up, waves a hand. “All of it. Most of it. Some.” He pauses, casts me a look and then looks at his cousin. “The bit about her being a fucking cheap piece of ass?”
I’m so touched.
The big mafia boss tilts his head. “She’s expensive?”
“Nikolai.”
“Calling it how I see it, Rush,” Nikolai says silkily.
Oh, fuck is it hard keeping my mouth shut.
“I didn’t sign up to get insulted,” I snap.
Yeah, too hard.
Nikolai’s gaze hits me. “You didn’t sign up to get dead either, but that could fucking happen.” Then he waits a beat. “Signed up?”
My mouth’s too big. And I didn’t sign up. “Figure of speech.”
“Or Freudian slip.”
“Nikolai, she got stabbed for me.” Rush steps in front of me like he’s my conquering hero.
I gently move him out of the way.
He’s harder to move than I thought, and the only reason gentle works is he does it himself.
“I’m aware.” Nikolai keeps his gaze on me. “Who owns Bunny Munroe?”
I think fast. I can’t say the Ten64. They’re new here, but I don’t know his history with the gang. All I know is that their reputation’s unsavory.
And they have a lot of strength now. Numbers. Ask me, which no one ever does, going against someone like the Wilder crime family’s an utterly foolhardy thing.
They haven’t said they’re doing that, just that they want information on the family from whoever ventures into the bar.
Things like that can be seen as acts of war.
But digging up information and muscling into the Queenstown territories to carve a piece for themselves is stupid without permission.
I know they’re trying to find allies. The little pockets that always thrive in dark corners, like vermin. Or roaches.
But Nikolai Wilder, dangerous as he is, seems like he’s got sanity on his side. Gangs like the Ten64 thrive on chaos and insane moves because it feels good.
I don’t want to be on the wrong side of anyone.
Problem is, I’m not the only one who could get hurt.
I think. Very carefully.
“Ed used to own it. But, according to rumor, he lost it in a card game in Santa Fe, of all places.” Where the Ten64 came up from. “I don’t interact with the owners. Most of my money’s cash in hand, tips. Chad, I think, is the one who comes in to do payments and the like.”
I can’t say I don’t know at all. There’s a difference between not knowing someone and not knowing who they are.
I just hope I haven’t fucked up.
Chad’s the one who signs the checks. Chad’s a member of the gang. Beyond that… I keep my thoughts dampened down.
“But I don’t know much about him. I do my shifts and go home.”
Nikolai leans back, almost casual. Except he’s taking up too much space and his expression’s anything but casual. Combine that with Rush’s silence and…yeah…he’s full on predator, one who knows he doesn’t need to bare his claws or teeth.
“Maybe, when you go back, you know, when they start asking fucking questions about where the hell you are, you can dig into things. For me. How about that?”
I swallow, my skin cold, itching. And I want to scream. I look at him. “I’m not a spy.”
“Aren’t you?”
Ignoring the other meaning to that, I say, “I keep myself to myself, head down.”
“Except when you jump into the fray and fucking fight on behalf of Rush, who knows how to fucking fight.”
“It wasn’t a fair fight.”
“And you thought you could save him?”
This time I stalk up to the table. I’m shaking. And it’s stupid, the muttering from Rush also tells me it’s stupid. The only one who isn’t radiating I’m stupid is Nikolai. He’s radiating cold dispassion.
“I didn’t think. I can fight, I grew up having to look out for myself. And it was a bunch of big guys with weapons who jumped Rush. These guys don’t play fair.”
“Neither do I,” Rush mutters. “But it was an ambush, Niko-olai.”
He moves in to stand near me and I wish he wouldn’t because he radiates warmth, a strange calming presence that curls into the corners of me, and my tiny amount of control slips. He smells too good. Tastes better.
And with Rush so close that taste comes back, the dark velvet of trysts and laughter. That hot, sexy laughter that comes when lovers connect and have their own, secret language; of touch and the cool drift of sun-kissed pools of water. He’s light and dark. His dark isn’t dipped in the hell of Nikolai Wilder. It’s a wicked darkness, something that compels, and with him there, right there, I’m filled to the brim with him.
I want more.
That’s what his closeness brings about, me wanting more.
Rush also smells divine. Rich and luxurious, a breath of summer in the Mediterranean, heady nights with sparks of honeyed immortelle, the delightful bite of spice and black pepper, and bergamot.
He’s champagne on a yacht, stolen kisses in a garden at night.
The man distracts saints and I’m no saint. I need to keep my head and I know if I step away it’ll be cataloged by the predator he’s related to. Cataloged and turned into a weapon.
I’ve had enough of weaponized situations to last a lifetime.
Gang life’s chaotic by nature, the order pecked out and shuffled by death, violence, bloodshed. Whether the gang roams the streets in cars or on foot, or if they’re one who like the wild freedom of the road on the back of a motorcycle, that chaos can be—if a girl’s smart—manipulated.
This man is organized and beyond dangerous and Rush? He’s cut from the same cloth. He just clothes it in charm and sunny wit.
Because I think if it came down to it, Rush would let his cousin kill me.
“An ambush,” Nikolai says, “one your… friend saved you from.” His gaze locks on me and I shiver. “The heroine of the hour.”
“Just doing my job.”
He raises a brow and Rush turns to me, too. “Job?”
“Protecting my patron.”
There’s utter silence and not even the compelling presence of Rush is going to save me.
Nikolai glances at Rush, then at me.
And he waves a hand. “Rush, seems we have a guest.”
“I want to go home.”
Nikolai’s mouth turns into a lazy smile, a killer one. In all the ways. “What’s the address? Tony?”
“Sir?”
I almost fucking jump from my skin. I forgot he was there. That I was escorted down here. And clearly, I’m not to be left alone. Or maybe the man’s just at Nikolai’s beck and call.
“Get the girl’s address.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Check her place to make sure it’s fine.” Nikolai’s gaze doesn’t leave me. “Rent due?”
“Not yet.”
“We’ll pay. I’ll pay. Nikolai, her rent’ll be taken care of, right?” Rush asks in surprisingly steel-like tones, tones that make his cousin’s smile grow. “And her missing hours at work.”
There’s definitely a complexity to their dynamic and Rush is more than I thought.
More than I got when we were in my prison-room.
Rush is intriguing.
He clearly doesn’t mind pushing his cousin’s buttons.
No. He clearly doesn’t mind making stands he wants to make with a little dash of fuck you to Nikolai.
Cousin or not, color me the fuck impressed.
Rush isn’t done. “And we’ll protect her job.”
Oh, man, I’m now more scared than impressed. Especially as a note of satisfaction settles on the older man’s face. Protecting my job means having a reason to go in, ask questions. Poke around.
All the things I’d rather these people don’t do.
“Tony?” Nikolai asks.
“Consider it done.”
Nikolai watches me and I fight to keep my face neutral. Then he waves a hand.
“Show her around, since she’s our guest until she’s well.”
“I feel fine.”
His dark head bends and he goes back to his computer. Dismissing me.
“Am I a prisoner?” I ask.
“Guest,” Nikolai says, tapping something on the keyboard, not bothering to look up, “until you heal.”
Sounds like a prisoner to me.
I want to argue but the subject and conversation are over. The door’s shut and the only option I have is to follow Rush out of the room.