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Roxy smiled and took the opportunity to straddle him. Even though he was ready to crash, he let her remain there. “You sure live up to the hype,” she said with appreciation, trailing her red-nailed finger down his chest. “A girl could get used to this kind of lovin’.”
“Sorry babe. Not accepting applications for a permanent gig, if you know what I mean.”
She pouted then said, “You don’t know what you’re missing. A man like you needs a good woman on his arm. Someone to look out for him.”
There was something about her tone, something about the mild suggestion lying beneath the proposition that halted the haze train. His gaze narrowed and he removed her from his lap. “Yeah? And what makes you think that I need someone watching my back?”
Realizing her mistake, she tried to backpedal. “Baby, I’m just saying, a man in your position within the club, there’s gotta be people who’d rather see you gone. A man like you needs someone who’ll always have his back.”
“I have those people,” he growled, not letting her back down. “Are you saying that someone out there has it in for me?”
Roxy hesitated and then admitted, “Yeah. You’re not the hero in everyone’s story.”
“What are you talking about?”
Roxy didn’t look happy about spilling whatever information she held but she said, “Listen, I shouldn’t tell you this because it’s my ass on the line but there’s something about you that seems better than you let on. I don’t know, I guess somehow that tugs at something in my heart, though Lord knows, it’ll probably put my ass in a sling or a body bag.”
“I’ll protect you,” he promised her. “Just tell me what you know.”
“I was set up as a distraction tonight. Someone wanted you out of commission and out of the way.”
“Someone, as in?”
His stomach rebelled as she confirmed his worst fear. “Dimas.”
“A distraction from what?”
Roxy bit her lip. “Something about a reporter…does that mean anything to you?”
A cold, hard knot grew in his gut. “Yeah, what about the reporter?”
“I don’t know exactly but I think he’s going to do something to her.”
Dimas? Next to Jax, Dimas was his best friend. They’d shared time together since they were kids running the streets, up to no good and doing short stints in county jail for petty crimes. He and Dimas were fucking tight! And now he had the balls to double cross him using Zoe as leverage? White-hot rage bubbled up from the sense of betrayal and he wanted to kill Dimas. But he had a bigger problem that demanded his immediate attention — Zoe was in danger.
#
A knock at her front door had Zoe’s heart racing. Had Jax come back? Maybe he was remorseful over what he’d said to her. The thought buoyed her ragged heart and as she opened the front door, prepared to forgive Jax immediately, she stopped short with a squeak when she saw someone she didn’t know standing there with a hard look in his eyes that matched the cold grin on his lips. “W-who are you?” she stammered but he wasn’t there to chat. The man, hard as granite and just as soulless, pushed her back into the apartment and kicked the door shut with his fingers pressed to his lips. “What do you want?”
“Shhhh,” he told her as he circled her, raping her with his gaze. She clutched her robe around her body, wishing she’d checked her peephole before opening her door. Rule No. 1 in the Living Single handbook and she totally blew it. “So you’re Zoe Delacourte…can’t say I blame them for losing their focus over you — you are highly fuckable.”
Her cheeks colored and she squeezed her lapels together like a prim maiden. “Excuse me?” She dared to point toward the door with a believable amount of outrage to demand, “Who the hell do you think you are? Get out of my apartment!”
“Sorry, dollface. Can’t do that. You see, there’s a lot of money on the line and I’m owed a good payday after everything I’ve gone through to make this happen. Nothing, not even an old friendship is going to fuck this up for me.”
Zoe swallowed. “What does that have to do with me?”
He grinned. “Funny you should ask. Before you came along, I had everyone playing their individual parts just as they were supposed to. But then you showed up and started poking into things that are none of your business and that started Jax and Hunter asking questions that I didn’t need answering.”
“Simms and Sanchez,” she murmured and he nodded with a subtle sneer. “You had something to do with their murders?”
“You could say that. Not my best work but loose ends have to be snipped.”
“I don’t understand,” she said, stalling for time, trying to think of an exit plan. Her apartment was woefully small and she was regrettably short of defensible weapons. Pepper spray! That’s right, she had a canister of the stuff in her bedroom drawer. Great place for it, right? Zoe refocused on the man stalking her. “I already told Jax and Hunter I wasn’t doing the story.”
“Too late,” he said with finality. “You’ve already got Jax and Hunter thinking. Hell, somehow you managed to get Jax and Hunter to have a meet-and-greet with Bronx and I would’ve thought that’d never happen. You must have a powerful pussy to get them to override their burning hatred for the guy to ask questions.”
“I never told them to talk to Bronx,” she retorted, but a small part of her was proud of them for trying to hunt down answers for the greater good of their club, even if it meant talking to someone they couldn’t stand. “What they did, they did on their own. I had nothing to do with it. If you have a problem with them asking questions, why don’t you take it up with them?”
He laughed as if she were stupid. “If they even had a clue what I’ve been up to for the past six months, they’d dump my body in the desert and forget I was ever born. They don’t take kindly to traitors. And for that matter, neither do I, but I’ve earned this payday, far more than Jax and Hunter ever did. I secured the deal, I took the risks, and I’m the one who spent a year in prison for a stint that should’ve been Hunter’s. So yeah, I earned this.” By the way his eyes blazed at the mention of his prison time Zoe took a wild guess that it hadn’t been easy time. Was he raped in prison? Was it bad that she hoped so? “Enough talk, get dressed. You’re coming with me.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” she disagreed vehemently. Statistically, if she walked out that front door with him, chances were she wasn’t coming back. “You’re going to have to drag me kicking and screaming if you want me to come with you. I should warn you, my neighbors are incredibly nosey. The minute I start screaming, they’ll come running.” That wasn’t entirely true but Zoe was completely fine with stretching the truth until it broke if it meant she’d live to the see the morning. She made a little scoot gesture with her fingers, telling him, “Why don’t you run along and threaten someone else? Maybe I won’t tell Jax and Hunter what you’ve been doing.”
His gaze narrowed as he growled, “Wrong answer,” and then sprang at her, scaring her into sudden motion. She bolted for the bedroom but it was a mad dash of futility because he tackled her way before she could reach her dresser drawer. They crashed to the floor and Zoe managed a pained scream before he clocked her right across the jaw, silencing her with a starburst of agony. MOTHERFUCKER! That hurt! Get up, Zoe! She tried to scramble to her feet but he was too fast and his grip was like iron when he wrenched her head back with a handful of her own hair. Lifting her from the floor by her head, she blinked back the tears and sucked in great lungfuls of air as the pain in her jaw nearly caused her to pass out.
“Tough girl, huh?” he crooned in her ear before roughly pushing her to the bed. Was he going to rape her? Noooooo! She kicked at him, not caring that her robe had opened and she was nearly naked underneath. She’d been preparing for a shower when she’d heard the knock and her silly heart had fluttered like a dumb girl at the hope that Jax had returned. Would Jax or Hunter even know what’d happened to her? He punched her hard in the thigh, giving her an immediate Charlie horse a
nd she screamed, her leg useless. He took advantage and jerked her to her feet, griping her chin hard. “Now listen up, sweetheart, this is how this is going to play out. With you out of the picture, Jax and Hunter will be too preoccupied with your pretty ass to pay attention to what’s going on right in front of their faces.”
“You overestimate Jax and Hunter’s feelings for me,” Zoe said against the grinding pain in her jaw and leg. “I’m just a booty call to them.”
“For your sake, you better hope not.” He released her chin with a jerk. “Now get dressed.”
For a brief, fleeting moment, she considered trying to run again but her leg was almost useless and she could barely put any weight on it. If she tried to run, she’d end up face-planting on the floor with the creep’s laughter ringing in her ear. She sent him a dirty look before asking, “Care to give me some privacy?”
“I think I’ll stick around and make sure you don’t tuck a knife into those bloomers of yours — they’re damn big enough.”
“Oh, a fat joke, real original,” she hissed. “Top of the class weren’t you, huh?”
“Keep it up, honey. I’m in a real playful mood,” he said with a cruel smile. “But I don’t think you’ll enjoy my games. My games leave scars.”
