Bad Wolf Read online

  All the rumors, new and old. But can this guy help me?

  “What’s his name?”

  “Jarett.”

  “You’re friends with J? That’s a first.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He finishes cutting up the limes and throws them into a bowl, then does the same with the cucumber slices. “I just never met any friends of his.”

  My heart sinks. “You don’t know him well.”

  “Nobody knows J well, sugar. He keeps mostly to himself.” He turns around, gives me an assessing look. “I take it he’s not expecting you to show up here.”

  I shrug. “It’s complicated.”

  “Isn’t it always?” He sighs. “So why are you here, then, if not to meet him?”

  “Just grabbing a beer.” I take a swig, to demonstrate. “And to see where he works.”

  “Ah-huh.” He folds his arms on the bar. “Ask away.”

  “Ask what?”

  “The questions you came here to ask. I can’t give you his number, just FYI. I should always start with that.”

  I realize I’m gaping. “You make it sound like girls come here all the time to ask for Jarett’s number.”

  He tsks. “Only every other day.”

  Oh crap. My plan officially sucks. I so didn’t need to know that. “So…”

  “No, he doesn’t have a girlfriend. No, he’s not gay. Yes, he has an address. No, I can’t give it to you. Yes, he works here.” He stops. I wonder what my face looks like. “Did I cover your questions, or was there something else?”

  Wait… Is that pity in his eyes? Jesus. I feel sick.

  “Look.” I prepare to jump off the stool and make my escape. “That’s not why I’m here, okay? I knew Jarett years ago, and lost track of him. I just wanted to reconnect.”

  “Sure.” David straightens, his gaze raking over me. “Lucky son of a bitch. All the pretty girls are after him.”

  Suddenly, I don’t like this David all that much anymore. “Listen, asshole. Forget it, okay? I’ll be on my way.” I fish out my wallet and push some bills on the bar. “Have yourself a good night.”

  “Hey.”

  I’m already off the stool and heading toward the exit, furious with David, and furious with Jarett. All the girls asking about him, huh? Wanting his number. Wanting to know if he has a girlfriend.

  Bitches. How could they…? And even worse, how does he…?

  Know what? Never mind. Asking questions. What was I thinking? This is stupid. What would they know about him here, anyway?

  And why am I so set on looking into him when he was such a douche last time we met?

  “Hey, Gigi.” David is running after me. “Your backpack.”

  Shit. “Thanks.” I take it from him, sling it over my shoulder. “Good night.”

  “Wait. Sorry, okay? I’m just used to girls plastering themselves all over him every night.”

  Oh God, another visual I didn’t need. “Right.”

  “If there is any question I could answer for you…?”

  I think about it, my hand already on the door. One question. What do I have to lose, right? “Does he sleep with all those girls asking after him?”

  He blinks. Snorts. “No. Not all.”

  I slap a hand over my mouth. Holy shit, Gigi. What is wrong with you?

  David wanders back to the bar, and I step outside, my heart racing. That wasn’t the question I’d meant to ask, dammit. I was going to ask if he’d ever mentioned his mom, or his past.

  Standing in the cold, I ask myself what exactly I’m doing. Getting jealous of other girls Jarett has slept with? Playing detective and poking my nose where it doesn’t belong?

  Whatever it is, it’s stupid, and it’s getting abundantly clear that it’s time I stopped.

  Chapter Eight

  Jarett

  Fucking frat parties.

  Fucking students.

  I’m in a funk, and I bet it shows. Last place I want to be is here, tonight. After working extra hours until the early morning, then playing watchdog for the gang until dawn every damn night, and then often during the day, too, I’m sleepwalking.

  But Angel is meeting someone in this crowd of drunk students, which means I have no choice but to follow. Sebastian is of course tagging along. He thinks he’s the shit, the bee’s knees, the Pope of Chili Town. Like, no deal will go down without him.

  I wonder if Angel even notices we’re here, and if he’d give a damn if he knew.

  Somehow I doubt it.

  “Angel is heading upstairs,” Sebastian whispers theatrically to me, and I roll my eyes so hard I see my goddamn brain. “I’ll go with him in case he needs anything.”

  What, a blowjob?

  “Sure, go ahead. I’ll be here.” I turn my steps toward a table loaded with booze before he has a chance to say anything else. “Waiting.”

  My patience isn’t at its best tonight. I’d better put some distance between us and self-medicate before I punch him.

  Seb has always been an asshole. But since things went to shit and I made his mom a promise to protect him, I’ve managed to keep my cool.

  Mostly.

  He’s my brother. And I keep my promises, even if they will probably get me killed. So what? I always thought I’d die sooner rather than later. The people around me keep dropping like flies. I’ve known death since I was little. You can’t escape it.

  But you can forget about it for a while. So I grab a bottle, ignoring the protests of the students manning the table.

  “Don’t sweat it,” I tell them. “Relax. I’m a bartender.”

  That shuts them up.

  Smirking, I wander away. Maybe what I said made sense to them on some subconscious level. Yo, fuckers, I’m a bartender, so I can handle liquor. Hand it over.

  Bottle in hand, I wander the glorious halls of the frat house. Maybe if I get shitfaced, it will start looking better. Right now it looks like a unicorn farted balloons and rainbows all over the place.

  I pass by groups of boys and girls laughing and doing shots, dressed in glittery, expensive brand clothes. High-class college, this one, I’ll just bet. Not my kind of scene, especially not in the mood I’m in tonight.

  Fucking entitled twats.

  To think there was a time I’d dreamed of going to college, of living on campus, of learning stuff and meeting people…

  Taking a swig from the bottle, I wander deeper into the building. My fucked-up mood is not all from the party, I know, or even on Sebastian and the gang business.

  I just can’t fucking stop thinking about Gigi. It’s consuming my thoughts, my dreams—those that don’t turn into nightmares, but then sometimes those, too. Talking to me, looking at me, smiling at me—dressed in her mini skirt.

  Naked, covered in sweat, writhing in pleasure.

  Or covered in blood.

  Sexy. Moaning my name.

  Or dead—and I’m the one holding the damn gun.

  That’s what happens when you’re running on little to no sleep, I decide and drink up to chase the images away. All of them. Better lose the hot fantasies together with the nightmares, or I’m just gonna find a quiet corner and curl up. The thought of anything happening to Gigi…

  Fuck, no way.

  She’s safe in her little world. As long as her stupid little friend doesn’t get her into trouble, she’ll be fine. Finish her studies, find a good job, a good guy, settle down, have kids.

  I rub at my chest and take my bottle into another room, trying to escape my mind, escape the pounding beat coming from the speakers and the shouts and laughter.

  But no such luck. More people, more noise. Booze, heavy-lidded eyes, painted lips, it all spins around me in dizzying circles.

  A smiling girl lays her hand on my arm, mouth opening to tell me something, and I shrug her off. A guy gets in my path, and I shove him away.

  God, just a moment of silence, is that too much to ask?

  I find a door and throw it open. Then there is another, an
d I cross a storeroom to open it, too, and I’m outside.

  Cold. Quiet. A clear sky overhead, full of stars.

  I lift the bottle to my lips and salute the universe.

  “Fuck you,” I whisper. “Hail the merciful dead.”

  I stop cold. My adopted father used to say that, Connor, the one who came long before the Lowes. The one who’s gone. On most days, I try not to think about him, but sometimes it doesn’t work.

  Like now.

  “To Connor,” I whisper. “If you’re listening, I fucked up, man. I fucked up… your legacy. What you taught me.” I drink up long and deep, feel the vodka burn in my stomach. “It’s all for nothing. You’re gone, and I just…”

  Raised voices shatter the peace, jerking me out of the memories and fucking self-pity. What the hell is going on?

  Two guys and a girl stomp into the garden, coming in from the back street. I don’t recognize the guys, which is a good thing. Not from my gang, or any of the gangs we deal with.

  But when they stop and turn, still arguing with the girl, I hiss through my teeth.

  No fucking way. That little bitch, again? That… Sydney, Gigi’s bestie. She can’t keep out of trouble, can she? And she just knows all the places where she can get drugs. Not a good sign, if she’s playing the innocence card with Gigi.

  Yeah, these guys scream danger. It’s not the way they’re dressed. The looks on their faces give them away. Blank. Hard. Used to violence.

  But I’m not doing this. Hell, I didn’t even strike a deal with Gigi. This is none of my fucking business.

  Then one of them snarls something and shoves the girl—Sydney—away so hard she stumbles and falls down on her ass, and I’m moving before I know it, the bottle still clutched in my hand. My only thought is getting between the girl and the assholes.

  “Back off,” I snarl, a red tinge falling over my gaze like a bloodied shroud. “Don’t you touch her.”

  “Who the hell are you?” one of them asks, his voice echoing strangely in my ears. “This ain’t none of your fucking business.”

  He comes for me, and dammit, he’s right, this is none of my business, but my head is fucked, and I think it’s Seb shoving at me, I think it’s the punks at the halfway house manhandling me, and the red thickens, distorting everything.

  The guy throws a punch, I turn, catching it on my upraised arm, and swing the bottle at the other guy who’s trying to ambush me from the other side. The bottle connects, and he cries out, stumbling away—just enough for me to focus on the first guy.

  He’s pulling something from his pocket—and I think it’s a gun, but it’s probably a switchblade. Yeah, I was right. I snap my hips, putting force into my blow as I chop at his arm, making him groan and drop the knife.

  In my mind’s eye, I’m at the halfway house, trying to stop the other boys from taking my stuff, from putting me out of commission and eating my dinner.

  But Connor taught me this move, in his backyard. He taught me to shoot, and disarm, what the law says and how fucking dangerous gangs are.

  The guy kicks at my leg, and I stagger back, cursing. The shift from memory to the here and now is disconcerting.

  “Fuck off,” I grunt. “She’s with me.”

  “Then tell her not to poke her nose where it doesn’t belong,” the guy says, and throws a punch that glances off my jaw. “Stay the hell out of it, too. Got it?”

  Stumbling back a step, spitting blood, I nod.

  Just go away, I think. Go away. I’m not sure I can fight much longer with the way my knee is hurting.

  Thankfully, he grabs his friend who’s bleeding from a cut over his eye and is giving me the stink-eye, and they walk away, out onto the street and into the night.

  My jaw is throbbing in time to my racing heart, my knee is misery, and as I turn around to check on Sydney, my boots crunch on the pieces of the broken bottle. The fumes of vodka make the usual dizziness I get after a flashback worse, and I weave on my feet.

  I reach down for Sydney anyway, offering a hand. “Come on. Let’s get you inside.”

  But she’s staring past me at something—or someone, I realize when I hear footsteps behind me.

  Then a familiar female voice says, “What in the world just happened here?”

  It hadn’t occurred to me what Sydney’s presence meant until now— that where this Sydney is, Gigi follows.

  I turn unsteadily around, and sure enough, there she is, like a vision from a dream—a fucking wet dream, in a short black dress and tall boots, her cleavage dipping to show the swells of her tits, her white-blond hair caught in a tall ponytail that’s still swinging, even if she’s now standing still in front of me.

  I blink. Jesus fuck.

  She’s always been hot, but seeing her for the first time in the bright light of the lanterns is a revelation. The grungy girl I knew has turned into a woman, all sexy curves and a full mouth made for kissing, and I’m gaping like an idiot, my brain blank and my dick hard.

  “Jarett?” she whispers, sounding incredulous. Her brows draw together. “What’s going on, I… Syd?”

  Suddenly she’s in motion again, and my addled brain can’t follow quickly enough. Fuck, I need to sit down somewhere, and right now even sitting down on my ass on the wet grass with Gigi’s bestie sounds good.

  But Gigi is dragging Sydney back on her feet and back toward the house, hissing questions at her—asking what happened, I guess, and why I’m here.

  They get inside, and the door closes behind them.

  The fuck?

  It takes me a long moment to start moving again, I’m that fucking pissed—and that fucking dizzy, but whatever.

  She just left.

  Without saying a word to me.

  “Dammit, Gigi.” I drag my feet toward the frat house, limping as my knee protests the weight I’m putting on it, and feeling like I’m a hundred years old.

  I pull the door open and enter, back into the noise and chaos I’d escaped only to land in worse trouble.

  “Yeah, don’t worry about me,” I mutter, wiping a hand over my mouth and finding it bleeding. Maybe from that punch? “I’m perfectly fine, thanks for asking. And you’re fucking welcome.”

  Talking to myself is probably not a good sign. I just need to find a new bottle of vodka—to ease the pain in my knee, and quiet my churning mind.

  See, I don’t wanna admit that it hurt to have Gigi ignore me, get her friend and go—but seriously, after the way I treated her last time, what did I expect? Asking her to blow me in exchange for helping her friend. Of course she’s pissed with me.

  And that had been the purpose of it all along, to get her to stay away from me. Well, it worked.

  Be careful what you wish for, and all that jazz.

  There’s a crash, and I slam into the wall before my brain catches up, my heart going a thousand miles an hour. “Whoa. Fuck.” All I see is blood, and darkness, and I smell burning flesh and blood.

  Fucking shit.

  It takes me a long minute to realize someone’s standing in front of me, not moving. A dress. A ponytail.

  “Jarett.” It’s Gigi, staring at me like I grew a second head. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, peachy. Just… warn a man, will ya?”

  “Sorry.” She cocks her head to the side, and that damn long ponytail swings, getting me hard all over again. “I was coming back out to find you.”

  “You were?” I grin, relieved.

  “What happened out there? What was Sydney doing?” She steps closer, and I groan quietly, her sweet scent seeping into me, making my mouth water. My jeans are getting tighter by the minute.

  “You know what she was doing.” I have to swallow to clear my throat, force my eyes up from her tits to meet her gaze. “You need to talk to her, Gigi. This is dangerous shit.”

  “You’re hurt,” she says, lifting a hand to my face, and I flinch when she touches my swelling jaw.

  “I’ll live.”

  “You protected Sydney like I aske
d you to.”

  I didn’t do it for you, I wanna say. I’m not an asshole. I don’t let innocent girls get punched by motherfuckers in the night if I can help it. Isn’t it what anyone would do in my place?

  But I keep my mouth shut, because what is the truth? I also did it for Gigi, I looked out for her friend because she fucking asked me to.

  Damn.

  “Just keep your friend out of trouble,” I mutter, my eyes back on her mouth, because Christ, the need to taste it, to touch her, push her against the wall and fuck her right here is driving me insane. “Got it?”

  “She won’t talk to me,” Gigi says, tucking her bottom lip between her small white teeth—and fucking hell, did she set out to kill me? “Look, Jarett…”

  Shit, I’m reaching for her even as I know in the back of my mind that it’s a bad, bad idea. “What, you came to pay the price for my protection?”

  I’m shitting her. She never accepted my douchey deal, and I was never serious about it. But she nods gravely.

  “If that’s what it takes for you to look out for my friend,” she whispers, grabs my hand and starts dragging me away from the storeroom, to a set of stairs.

  What the hell?

  “Come on,” she says. “Fewer people upstairs.”

  I wish I’d thought about that earlier. The steps are hell on my knee, though, and I tug on her hand.

  “Slow down, girl.”

  She doesn’t. “Aren’t you in a hurry to collect your fee?” she asks sweetly, a bite in her voice.

  “About that…” I grunt as we reach the top step, hot needles going through my knee, and she pulls me down a hallway without a pause. “Would you just wait a fucking minute?”

  “I can’t.” She draws me inside a room—a bathroom I belatedly realize when she switches on the light—and tugs impatiently until I’m inside, so she can close the door. “I’ll lose my nerve.”

  Damn, I still haven’t managed to sit down after the flashback, I feel sick and my whole damn body hurts. And I’m hard, harder than I’ve been in what feels like years, my brain a jumble of memories, thoughts and need.

  Still, I try. “Look—”

  “You do remember who I am, right?”