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I knew it was a risk to come back here so soon. But when I saw a new bouncer at the door and realized the asshats were too dumb to remove my fake name from their list, the thrill of the hunt had me tempting fate.
My boy here had a 10K bounty on his head. Chump change in the grand scheme of things. But it was one of those few instances where the client didn’t care if the fucker was brought in dead or alive. I didn’t know what Mr. John Porter had done to piss off the Russian mob. But between the FBI and the Volkovs, every bail enforcement agent and hitman in the city was looking for this one target—some dumb fuck who was apparently either too stupid or too horny to stay in hiding.
Me? I walked that fine line that separated the good guys from thenot-so-goodguys. I was neither hitman nor bounty hunter. If anything, I’d call myself a hired hand. A recovery specialist? Fuck if I knew. I didn’t exactly have an office or a business card. What I did have was no interest in making a name for myself.I liked keeping to the shadows, spilling a little blood, making a little more cash, and calling it a day.
Sometimes I would take down a target. My hands sure as fuck weren’t clean. But I didn’t like to stick to one thing. I enjoyed the change of pace, never knowing what I was walking into. And what I loved were the wordsdead or alive. It meant anything could happen and there was no way to predict what the day would bring me.
I didn’t have a boss exactly. Well, I did. My boss was me. But outside of myself, I reported to no one. I’d drop my target or what was left of 'em off to a third party that would pay me cash. Up front of course. Double the listed bounty. And then make a deal with whatever side submitted a better offer. Sometimes that meant handing the mark over to the coppers. Other times, well, you could see where this was going…
Which was exactly how I fell between the two sides of the law. Not really bad, but not so much good either.
Oh, right, but I was in the middle of something, wasn’t I?
I looked down at the floor of the panel van. I hadn’t even remembered knocking the fucker out and shoving him inside. But here he was. Though I wasn’t sure if that was another blackout or if I had been so lost in thought I went into autopilot again.
What I did remember was someone calling out to me. A voice I recognized.
I slammed the back doors in place and secured the outside lock before glancing over my shoulder at the darkened alleyway behind Mollies. There was no one in sight. Had I imagined it? Wouldn’t be the first time I heard voices, though usually they were made up by my subconscious. A way to self-regulate and kick my ass into gear.
I cracked my neck from side to side and popped a piece of chewing gum into my mouth. Needed to get the taste of cheapsoap and ball sweat off my tongue. Apparently there were some things even alcohol couldn’t kill. Then I jumped into the driver’s seat and shifted the van into reverse.
“So, where we going, B?”
The question had me choking on my Spearmint and aiming a fist at whoever the fuck thought it was a good idea to stowaway in my truck and then get close enough to whisper in my ear.
3
My ma always told me I was thick-headed. Some kids only had to get burned once and quickly learned not to touch the stove. Not me though. Third time was the charm. Usually. I liked odd numbers. Call me curious, experimental, adumb fuck. Didn’t matter. I needed to make sure the result was always the same before I cemented it in stone. Before I accepted something as fact rather than chalked it up to being the luck of a 50/50 coin flip.
So when I saw a certain she-devil in a cheap blonde wig dragging a fucker twice her size out the back door and into the alleyway, I did what any wayward son of a strict Irish Catholic mother would do. I followed them. And watched the slight thing that she was heft the guy onto her shoulder and shove him into the back of one of them pedophile vans—the kind with blackout windows that might as well sayfree candyacross the sides.
Of course, my ma also raised me to be a gentleman. So I called out and asked blondie if she needed a hand. She looked in my direction before continuing on with her evening plans like all six-foot-four of me wasn’t there.
My metaphorical flame was so lost in her head she didn’t even notice when I opened the passenger door, climbed inside the van, and waited for her behind the driver’s seat.
Why? Because I was a dumb fuck and she was a pretty girl, remember?
“So, where we going, B?” I caught an elbow in one hand and then a fist in the other before she could land either.
Some things I picked up after the first try—one was an odd number too. And I wasn’t about to let her knock me on my ass twice in less than twenty-four hours. Nope, learned my lesson quick when she got the drop on me at the door last night.
Before I realized what she was doing, blondie released the parking brake and was speeding out of the alleyway, which had me clutching the headrests to stay upright.
Yeah, couldn’t say I thought this through very well. I must have missed my ma’s lecture on getting into creepy-ass vans with strangers. Because here I was, holding on for dear life with a chick who appeared hell-bent on ending it.
“B?” she questioned over her shoulder while her eyes remained fixed on back roads that appeared too tight to fit the likes of us in this big-ass van. Especially as her speedometer teetered dangerously close to eighty.
I smirked. “Yeah, short forbusy, very busy.”
“Cute…” she replied in a tone that told me she didn’t think it was cute in the least. Which honestly just made it cuter.
“I thought so.”
“I don’t do cute.”
“Got it, lovebug,” I hummed by blondie’s ear before nipping at her lobe. She smelled like vanilla and… gunpowder?
She reached a hand behind her head and swatted me aside.
