Criminal: A Bad-Boy Stepbrother Romance (3 page)

“Kaiden?” I practically shout, and I want
to run closer, but the heels are way higher than anything I’ve
walked in before, and I have to take each step gingerly, especially
on the uneven asphalt.

He doesn’t stop as he sucks face with the
latest floozy. I already know it isn’t the one from last night,
or the night before, or the night before that.

He pins her hands above her head before he finally
turns to look at me, shooting me the most arrogant, cocky look I’ve
ever seen on his face.

Did he time this just to piss me off?

I scowl at him as I push past them, yanking on the
door with a “Whatever” thrown in their direction.

It would’ve been really smooth and badass if
the door didn’t choose that moment to get stuck. I yank on it
and, of course, it sends me backward, my heels giving way beneath me
as I drop unceremoniously to the greasy asphalt.

I’m ready to sink into the ground when I hear
her laughter. My cheeks burn hot until suddenly I can feel Kaiden’s
rough hands on my bare shoulders, hoisting me up as he tosses a “Shut
up” at his most recent fling.

She obeys, but I’m already humiliated, and
tears sting my eyes.

“I told you — you aren’t cut out
for this,” he whispers in my ear, his words dark and low so
that she couldn’t hear him.

I want to punch him. The nerve!

Instead, I tug on the door again, and it blissfully
opens as I pull myself away from him.

“I didn’t ask for your opinion,” I
remind him as I step inside.

I have to blink as my eyes adjust to the dim light,
but the bigger adjustment is the smell of stale beer and vomit.

This is not a place for someone like me. I know that.
Honestly, if Kaiden weren’t standing right outside the door
believing that I couldn’t do it, I’d turn around right
now. I’m terrified, and it’s gross in here.

I look at the few rickety chairs and booths, the
fabric torn and some of the chairs looking as if they’d been
broken and haphazardly put back together. It’s a place where
more than a few bar fights happened.

A place an eighteen-year-old has no business being.

I push myself forward, trying to look confident as I
teeter in my heels over to the bar. The floor is sticky and makes a
sickly sound that I can feel as well as hear over the noise of loud
rock music playing out of a jukebox past its prime.

There are a few guys at the bar, hard and mean
looking with grizzled faces and beer bellies, but their expressions
soften as they look me over in the lewdest way.

I guess “soften” isn’t the right
word.

I look behind the bar at the greasy-looking man with
the thin mustache and the long, black hair and give him what I hope
to be a glowing smile. I don’t want to look apprehensive or
terrified, or to give away any of my impressions of him, about his
patrons, or about his job.

“Hi! I’m looking for Ryder?”

I guess Ryder was looking out for me, or maybe just
has cameras in his little dive, because the words are barely out of
my mouth when I feel a tap on my shoulder. I turn to see a towering,
blond man.

“You’re looking for me, hun,” he
says, his words patronizing, but his deep voice making it seem
natural. Just like how Kaiden speaks to women.

He’s broad and built more like a bodyguard than
an owner, but I guess they sometimes double up.

I stare up at him, and I can’t help but be a
little shocked. He’s not like the slimy patrons or the greasy
bartender. He is probably thirty-five if I was to guess, and if it
weren't for the scar that nipped the top of his lip, he’d be
flawless. Like, model-flawless.

“Oh! Right, yes, hi,” I say with a bright
smile, offering him my hand. “I’m Abigail; we talked on
the phone?”

“Yeah, I remember. Shot-girl,” he says as
his steely eyes wander up and down my body, inspecting me like I’m
a piece of meat. It made my stomach turn when the others did it, but
when he does, it’s something different.

I like it a little bit. It’s flattering.

I don’t want to think about what that says
about me, and I don’t get a chance to. Kaiden pushes his way
into the bar, without the brunette he’d been so recently
sucking face with.

He looks at me with his green eyes, his tall and
broad body so imposing in the small space. But I shift my gaze back
to Ryder, forcing a confident grin on my made-up lips.

I’m an imposter. I’m not a
twenty-one-year-old girl, and I don’t go around in dark
eyeshadow, low-cut tops, short skirts and towering heels.

But I’m going to act like I am.

“You said I could start tonight?”

“Yeah,” Ryder says in that deep voice of
his. “Yeah, you can start tonight.”

He doesn’t ask for my ID, my references,
nothing. Just like that.

I feel so relieved, almost smug, until I look at
Kaiden’s face and see the anger brewing beneath the surface.

I guess he’s going to have to find another
place to pick up chicks if his little sister is going to be around
all the time.

That gives me a little bit of joy too.

***

My legs are killing me. All night was spent standing,
walking around from one table of middle-aged men to another, the bar
littered with younger men who’re trying to suck up to Ryder,
from the looks of things.

And to my surprise, the place is packed with women.

Women who call me sugar-tits and spank my ass as I
walked by, just like the men. As if they’re one in the same.

Women who wear too much perfume and chew gum with
their mouth open, and men who leer at everything and smoke pot
wherever they please.

It’s like working in the Wild West. No law, no
order, no nothing.

I’d have been out of there a dozen times over
if it wasn’t for the fact that my tip purse is risking
overflowing.

I haven’t seen Ryder or Kaiden in a while, but
time is passing so fast.

The town is small, but I swear, most of the people in
it are in the bar tonight. I’ve lived in this place for six
weeks and barely see anyone except for at the stores, and I guess I
know why now. They’re spending all their time here.

And they’re all spending their hard-earned
money on drinks and tips, and if I’m not being blissfully
unaware, I’d guess a little something extra. But I have to turn
my head on that because I don’t want to get involved in any
dirty business.

But when Kaiden emerges from the back office, his
face red as he makes his way over to me, I feel a bit scared. My
brother is towering, to say the least, and he looks pissed.

His hand wraps around my upper arm as he stares down
on me, and I can tell he’s already drawing the eyes of the
crowd. There’s a tense energy in the air, like everyone’s
waiting for something like this to happen.

He bends down, leaning in towards my ear and
practically growling at me.

“You gotta come home with me. Now,” he
says, his strong hand tightening around my bicep. His hand is huge,
just like the rest of him, and it encircles my thin arm easily.

Still, I try to yank it away.

“Buzz off, Kaiden,” I hiss back. “I’m
doing this for
you
, remember
?
” I spit though it’s
only half true. Sure, I need money to pay him for rent, but I also
need money for my own stuff, like moving out and getting a real place
to stay in a real city.

He won’t let me go, though, and starts dragging
me to the door. I’m helpless against his strength, and even as
I try to yank my arm back, nearly stumbling to my ass, he just keeps
dragging me like I’m a dog on his leash.

I am humiliated beyond compare, even though most of
the crowd is probably too drunk and high to remember much of tonight.

Still, it’s the principle of the thing.

When the cold air of the outside hits my lungs, and
the flashing light above the door spins eerie shadows around us, he
finally lets me go as if I wouldn’t just run back inside.

I guess he’s right on that count because I
don’t. I don’t want my older brother dragging me out of
the bar again.

“What the hell, Kaiden?” I spit out as he
takes a few steps away from me, putting distance between us. I don’t
know if it’s because he’s afraid of me or, more likely,
afraid of what he’s going to do if I’m too close. The
thought sends a shiver down my spine.

“You can’t work here,” he says.

And I roll my eyes with exasperation.

“You aren’t the boss of me,” I say,
and anger starts welling up within my chest. Is that what this is all
about? “And I got this dumb job to pay your rent since
apparently letting your sister live with you when she’s
homeless
is such an inconvenience to you!”

“It
is
a fucking inconvenience.”
He spins about and glares at me, his green eyes flashing with anger.
“And you have no idea what you’re talking about. What
it’s like in there,” he says, pointing his finger at the
closed door as his other hand runs through his hair.

I wonder if he’s been drinking. He’d
disappeared a long time, after all.

“I know what it’s like, Kaiden. I’m
not a baby, and I’m just doing it for the money, not because I
want to be like
you
.”

I feel bad throwing that in his face, but it’s
true. I don’t want the lifestyle he has. I don’t want to
come to a bar just to hang out, to waste my life away and chill out
with my friends.

Not that I have any friends.

He sneers at me, and it gives him such a perfect “bad
boy” look it’s uncanny. Like out of a movie.

That makes me hate him more because I know exactly
why all the girls want him. Despite his assholish arrogance, he has
the body and the face that lets him get away with murder.

Well, not quite, considering his bail. But close
enough.

“If this is just about rent, you walk in there
right now and tell Ryder you’re through. You can’t cut
it,” he orders. And if I were anyone else, I likely would’ve
backed down.

But I am his sister, and he owes me. More than owes
me.

I reach into my purse, taking out the wads of dollar
bills, flashing them to his face.

“Look! Rent! Aren’t you happy now,
Kaiden? I’m not a liability anymore,” I sneer right back,
and by now I’m pissed.

He is the reason I couldn’t go to college; he
is the reason I had to take this job, and now he’s trying to
force me to quit?

He can’t control every aspect of my life, damn
it!

He’s breathing heavily, and he takes a few
steps closer to me. He has over a foot on me usually, but in my
heels, I come up almost to his shoulders though he’s over one
hundred pounds of muscle more than me too.

Kaiden is an intimidating guy.

But he’d never hurt me. Not like that.

“Abigail, I mean it,” he says darkly.

I take a step backward and shake my head.

“You can’t tell me what to do, Kaiden.
Get over it,” I say as I shove the money back in my purse.

He reaches out, grabbing my face and forcing me to
look at him, and there is so much emotion in his expression that I
don’t understand. Couldn’t comprehend. The intensity
behind his eyes is unlike anything I’d ever seen, and it gives
me pause.

But then he releases me and storms back into the
club, leaving me alone in the chilly, dark outside to catch my
breath.