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But curiosity is a raging bitch where I’m concerned, and I’m on a mission to find the girl from the other day and figure out who she is to Kal.
If she’s the one who betrayed him.
The bouncer outside gives me a once-over as I unfold myself from the back seat of Kal’s town car, folding his massive arms over his chest. The bottom half of an anchor tattoo peeks beneath his shirt sleeve, and his eyes are the most crystal clear blue I’ve ever seen.
I stand there stupidly for a second, getting lost in their translucence.
He clears his throat, waving a palm in front of my face. “Sorry, no minors allowed. Dunkin’ is that way.”
Confused, I glance behind my shoulder to see if someone’s stepped up behind me. A woman in a floral maxi dress passes by, chatting away on her cell phone about some Hollywood scandal, but otherwise, there’s no one else on this part of the sidewalk.
I look back at the bouncer, pushing my hair off my shoulder. “Um, no, I’m not looking for Dunkin’. I was hoping I could wait inside at the bar? I’m... trying to find someone, and I’m hoping they’ll show up if I stake this place out long enough.”
“That’s loitering, and it’s strictly prohibited.”
His clipped, dismissive tone makes me bristle. “It’s actually not loitering, because I’ve just told you my express purpose for wanting to hang around.”
The man looks at me and shrugs. “You enter the bar and don’t order a drink, that’s loitering, according to business policy.”
“Okay, then I’ll order a drink.”
He snorts, but somehow his face remains still. “Sweetheart, if you think I’m about to believe you’re over twenty-one, you’re a lot dumber than that short little dress you have on makes you look.”
Fire bleeds into my soul as he hurls his insult, and I reach up, tying my hair into a low knot at the back of my head. “Dress stays short so I have free range to do this.”
My leg kicks up, my body shooting first, asking questions later, aiming for his crotch. But then someone’s gripping my biceps and yanking me away, twisting so I’m facing the street. I lock up when he grabs me, fear shooting so suddenly through my gut that I almost double over from the way it seizes up.
“Whoa, whoa, what in the bloody hell’s going on here?” a vaguely familiar British accent asks, the hands leaving my biceps almost as quickly as they appear, like touching me burns him. I peek up, noting the full, dark beard and the leather jacket, letting out a slight breath of relief when I realize it’s the man from the back office the other day.
Wolfe something. Kal’s friend or confidante, the part owner of the bar.
Recoiling from his touch, I cross my arms over my chest and lean to the side, shooting daggers at the bouncer. “What’s going on is that I’m being insulted by your employee, who refuses to let me go inside because he thinks I’m bad for business.”
“We have enough of a problem keeping the riffraff away as it is,” the bouncer says to his boss, shrugging. “Just trying to maintain an orderly bar while we’re still understaffed.”
Kal’s friend frowns, flipping his head so the mop of dark brown curls atop it falls from his eyes. “Blue, you have a habit of harassing potential paying customers?”
Jonas Wolfe, that was his name.
“I wasn’t harassing her, I was—”
Scrubbing a hand down the side of his face, Jonas sighs, glancing at me. “Maybe you should pay a little bit more attention to who you’re keeping out of the bar before you go insulting their intelligence. You know what Dr. Anderson would do if he knew you called his wife stupid and implied she’s a whore?”
The bouncer—Blue, apparently—eyes me, raking over my form more fully now. He lingers a little too long on my legs but snaps up to my gaze before I have a chance to feel creeped out by it.
I don’t get unsettling vibes from this guy—no part of my girlish intuition is telling me to run, or steer clear the way it did with Vincent. Blue just seems like an asshole.
“His wife?” Jonas nods, and Blue puffs his cheeks out, releasing a slow breath. “She’s a little young for him, don’t you think?”
“Nobody asked what you think,” I snap, but Jonas holds his hand up as if to silence me.
The gesture infuriates me more.
“I’m going to murder both of you,” I say in a low voice, grumbling mostly to myself as I envision a bloody end for the two of them.
The image flashes across my brain before I have time to think it through; violence, crimson painted around a room, their mangled bodies strewn about haphazardly, waiting for someone to come clean them up.
Blinking it away, I press a hand to my stomach, trying to ignore the heat coiling there. I don’t even know these men, and yet here I am, imagining being their executioner?
