I inhaled deeply, turned the knob, pushed in the door, and froze. The sight of a burly frat boy straddling an unconsciousAndie shattered something inside me. Suddenly, I was watching Thea again, helpless while John’s clients?—
No, not this time.
“Get off her, you sick bastard!”
The naked giant barely looked up, his hands on Andie’s underwear. “Fuck off,” he growled, his dark eyes swimming with sexual hunger I’d seen many, many times before. “Or maybe you want to join us.” He stroked his erection, grinning. “I could fuck both of you with this.”
Blinded by red fury, I charged him and was met with a fist to the nose. Stymied, I stumbled. “You fuckwad.”
He yanked Andie toward his dick.
Oh my fucking God.
My hands shook as I pulled out the Glock from my purse, its weight grounding me to what needed to be done. “Hey, asshole, unless you want me to shoot off your dick, I would get off her right now.”
He laughed. The black-haired, pockmarked-faced bastard laughed then proceeded to guide his erection toward Andie.
In that moment, I saw every man who’d ever hurt us, every girl I couldn’t save. But I wasn’t that helpless teenager anymore. I was a grown fucking woman who didn’t take shit from anyone.
Growling like a mother bear, I pulled the trigger.
2
BRIAN
The smell of bourbon wafted up my nose from my drink beside me as I stood behind the bar and counted the night’s receipts for the third time at my upscale restaurant in Nashville. The numbers weren’t adding up for the fifth night in a row.
I mumbled swear words under my breath as I sipped my bourbon, staring out at the now-empty dining room where crystal chandeliers cast shadows across the empty tables, their light catching on the hand-polished cherry wood.
Despite the steady stream of customers, I couldn’t keep up with high prices or constant mistakes made by the waitstaff. I was losing money left and right, and it was a challenge to keep Rogues afloat.
I hardly failed at anything, but I had to call a spade a spade. The restaurant business wasn’t for me. I would be lying if I said I didn’t sometimes miss my drug-dealing days or, rather, the money I’d made running an empire for the Colombian cartel.
How could I work for the mob, making a fuckton of drug deals, without so much as a blip or slip-up? Yet I couldn’t run a legitimate business.
My best friend, Duke Hart, would laugh his ass off if he could see me now, playing at being normal while my past sat in the shadows, waiting to pull me back in. But I couldn’t go back. I’d promised myself and my daughter, Fran, I would live a better life—one that didn’t involve illegal activities or seeing lives destroyed by the cartel.
I looked at the bottom line again, tempted to recount for the fourth time. But who was I kidding? If I was good at anything, it was math, and no matter how many times I punched numbers into a calculator, the result would be the same.
I set my drink down and squeezed the bridge of my nose, a headache beginning to bloom. I usually didn’t wallow in self-pity, but regret was a motherfucker.
After Duke had gotten pinched by the Feds and spent a year in prison, I couldn’t have sold my dealerships fast enough. I’d seen the writing on the wall—the neon sign blaring in my face urging me to get the fuck out of New England before the Feds decided to zone in on my ass. Not to mention, Rosario Mendoza, my boss and head of the Colombian cartel, had gone to jail at the same time as Duke. If she hadn’t, I might’ve never left Boston, since it wasn’t easy to just walk away from the cartel.
“What’s wrong? Another bad night in sales?” Sabine’s voice carried across the mahogany bar as she sashayed over.
I ground my back teeth, regarding my lead waitress—average height, short dirty-blond hair, single mother—who was much too interested in becoming more than my employee, as she slid onto a stool.
“Who the fuck on the waitstaff can’t do their job?”
“It’s probably the new gal.” She leaned forward, her tight blouse exposing her cleavage.
I had no interest in her, yet my eyes dropped to her tits, even though my cock didn’t react in the least. Only one woman hadthat control, and she was off-limits. I wouldn’t dare make a play for my best friend’s sister, Grace Hart.
It had been over three years running, and I kept my desperate longing for her hidden from everyone. All I could allow myself were stolen glances whenever I had the chance—each one both a blessing and a torment. Back then, in Boston, I would stand in Duke’s nightclub, rooted to my spot as Grace swept into his office—chestnut waves cascading down her back, those big brown doe eyes filled with hope, and a devastating smile that could bring the strongest man to his knees to worship her. Even at Thanksgiving dinners with the Harts, I had to refrain from stealing a look across the dinner table or to tamp down the urge not to react in a boyish way whenever she laughed at something I said or batted her long lashes at me.
Sabine reached over the bar, her touch on my hand extinguishing the high I was on as I thought of Grace. “I’ll work with the new girl more,” she said.
I pulled away as if her fingers burned my skin. “Doesn’t matter. The keys to this place will be handed over to the new owners this week. It’s not my problem anymore.”
