Jackson Stiles, Road to Redemption (32 page)

Instead of making that a known fact, I keep my mouth shut. For now.

“Then let me fucking help you.”

“We’re handling it.”

“Yeah, I see that.”

“You got the information you came for. It’s time for you to go.”

“But I─”

“Goodbye, Jack.”

He starts to leave me, but I can’t have this conversation end like this.

“Thomas. When my kid brother…” Shit, this sounded better in my fucking head. It was easier, too. I’d drop it all together except Thomas’s attention is back on me, and I’m pretty sure if he feels like I’m wasting his time here, he might just change his mind about capping a bullet into my head.

I like my head the way it is.

“When Mikey died, I wanted to crawl into a fucking hole and die myself. I blamed myself for a long time.”

Who am I kidding?

“Okay, I still blame myself. And maybe you’ll always blame yourself for Robert’s death. But you have the opportunity to do something here.”

His eyes fall for only a second but I see it.

Hell, I see it every day I look in the mirror.

“Stop feeling fucking sorry for yourself, man.”

By now, Dice is back with us, and the gun
he’s
holding is pointed at my chest. At the tattoo I’m sporting there, to be exact.

“Goodbye, Jack.” Thomas walks away. When he’s far enough that I can’t get to him easily, but still within earshot, I yell out to him.

“Who was it, Thomas?”

Because I need the confirmation.

I need a goddamn name.

“That I don’t know. Yet.” He calls back without a glance this time. “I never met him face-to-face.”

He calls off Dice after that bullshit comment, and they all disappear into the neighborhood buildings like rats during a flood.

I guess that’s that.

I’m on my own here. Fine by me, but other than the backstory on what Thomas has to do with this shit, I’m still at square one with finding out where the hell Stix is.

I check my watch. It’s fucking early. I need some sleep and time to prep for stalking
Anonymous
tonight.

On to plan B.

X X X

A couple shots of liquid courage later and I’m sitting in a dark corner of the city’s most famously kept-quiet cheaters club, watching Green. I’m slumped like most of the drunks here and the baseball cap I’m sporting will hopefully be enough to hide my face.

Emma however, is out there, plain as day, waiting for her next instructions from the king douche of this whole situation.

A random woman, wearing a cheap wig, slides up into my booth and puts her hand on my dick.

“Hi, I’m Vanessa.”

“And I’m not fucking interested.” I take her hand and move it to her own leg.

“You’re no fun.” She pouts and puts her lips up next to my fucking face. Like that’s tempting.

“Not tonight, honey.” Or any other night, for that matter. No, and thank you.

“Jackass.” She gets angry and pushes herself out of the booth.

“Good meeting you.” I wave as she stalks away, looking for another score. I shiver off the encounter because, blech.

Green giggles over by the bar. She clearly saw that shit. I give her the finger and look the other way to see if anyone here seems like they might be a visitor of the asshattery kind.

When my attention returns to where Green was, she’s gone.

I’d like to say I handle the situation with the cool ease of an experienced detective, but I’m in full on panic mode for about thirty-point-five seconds.  All that changes when I feel warm, familiar lips on my neck from behind me.

My heart rate can’t take giving a fuck about someone.

That’s all I’m saying.

“You’ve got a nice, quiet corner here, Mr. Stiles.” She whispers with this Marilyn Monroe kinda voice going on.

She had to go there.

I turn to give her some of her own medicine when she says, “Kiss me.”

“Damn, Green, we just─”

“Seriously, kiss me. Someone’s headed this way.”

She licks her lips, and my eyes zero in on them like a deer in the headlights. They’re full and tasty-looking, and best of all, they’re not covered with any of that sticky ass lipstick bullshit. Just gloss. Barely any, at that. And it smells like fucking cherries.

“No problem whatsoever.”

Now, should I be more concerned with the fact that this anonymous douche might very well be here, somewhere? Maybe. On the other hand, it’s not like the guy’s going anywhere. Not yet, anyway.

So I press my lips against hers. They’re fucking delicious and soft, and they move with mine perfectly.

Her tongue teases mine. She knows that shit pisses me off. So I give a little back by moving my attentions across her jaw, below her ear. I move some hair and kiss around to the back of her neck.

“Ah. Not there,” she mumbles.

I smile against her skin. “You don’t like it?”

She breathes a little heavier. “I didn’t say that.”

“Then why stop?”

“Mmmm.” She twitches her neck and shoulder together. “Because if you keep doing that, I’m not sure I can continue focusing on what’s going on around us.”

Another kiss. A small suck. A tiny lick.

I slide a hand around her waist into the waist of her jeans.

“This is profoundly improving my day, Green. And you smell really fucking good. Don’t rain on my parade.”

She hums again. Her chest rises and falls. Rises and falls.

“Stiles.” Her brain wants her to tell me to stop. She won’t say it, though. She can’t. Not any more than I can actually stop.

Not right fucking now.

“Jackson.” It’s a whisper this time, and it makes me tense.

It makes my blood run hot.

Don’t get me wrong. Women have said my name before. First, last. Either, or. They groan. They pant. They demand I give them something they can’t find anywhere else.

There’s something about the way Green says it, though.

Something about the meaning behind the way she says it.

Like she’s promising me something.

Like she wants me to promise, too.

What scares me is I’d probably do it.

And I don’t scare fucking easily, people.

An uneasy pang settles inside my chest, and I stop with the fucking kissing.

The heat in this corner booth is making me edgy.

It’s making me a lot more than edgy, actually.

“I think we’re good.” She slides away from me. “I think that might be my contact over by the bar.”

“Why do you─” It doesn’t take a fucking rocket scientist to figure out why she came to that conclusion when I see who it is she’s referring to.

“Fucking Walker. I fucking knew it.”

“Shit. I have to go over there, Stiles.”

“I don’t like it.”

“I have to.” She’s gone before I can talk her into staying, and when I get up to follow her, I’m stopped by a waiter with a tray full of shots.

“Can I get you anything?”

One of everything. “No.”

He starts to walk away, and I grab him by the arm. “Patron Silver, straight up.”

“Right away, sir.”

While I wait, I make myself scarce in the crowd of horny people and think.

Graham Black is Anonymous. More than likely.

Walker works for Black.

Who’s working for Walker?

That’s when I see him for the second time tonight.

“Dad?” He brushes past Walker. Green doesn’t even notice, but my eyes are trained on him.

I saw everything.

The way he placed a hand on Walker’s shoulder, how he slid a piece of paper into his jacket pocket afterward.  And how he is now making a decided play for the back of the bar.

Exit.

I’m pushed farther into the sea of people by a bunch of drunken sex addicts who don’t know how to fucking say excuse me. As I pass by the bar area, I notice Green and Walker.

“Shit.”

I find Dad again and make a split decision to follow him.

I need to see what the hell is on that piece of paper. ’Cause something tells me that fucker’s gonna give me some of the answers I’ve been looking for.

About the moment I’m heading off, a hand tugs at my shoulder.

“Excuse me, sir?”

I was expecting Green. What I got was tequila.

Same effect, if you ask me.

“Thanks.” I take the shot, hand him a couple twenties, and continue to stalk my father.

The farther back he goes, the darker it gets. Figuratively and literally. The people back here go in and out of curtained rooms. I pass one guy who’s naked, on all fours, and has a goddamn collar around his neck that’s chained to a door.

I don’t even wanna fucking know.

I almost lose sight of Dad but find him again as he’s opening the back exit door.

I push through the crowd of people, frantic now. I can’t let him leave without knowing what the fuck he’s up to. By the time I’m at the door and manage to get it open, I stop short.

About ten bodyguards surround a dark Mercedes. Dad’s nowhere to be seen and I slink behind a corner of the building before anyone can see me.

I watch the crowd carefully for a familiar face, assuming that’s Black’s vehicle. Since, you know, Dad can’t afford that shit. All the while, I want to fucking hurl right now. Not to mention the fact that there’s nothing I can do about confronting the dickhead at the moment since that would most assuredly mean getting tackled by the linebackers he has working for him.

Jesus, I’m all for a good face-to-face chat about what a slime ball he is, but I’m not that fucking stupid, no matter what Green thinks.

Speaking of Green, I wonder where in the hell she is when low and behold, my cell phone buzzes.

I check it to see a text from her.

Where are you?

My fingers take position to tell her, and I stiffen when I hear the distinct sound of a gun’s safety being unlocked.

Cold steel presses up against the back of my head.

“Turn around, nice and slow,” the voice instructs me.

Clearly, he has no goddamn clue who I am yet. I may as well fess up. It’s only a matter of turning around before my cover’s blown anyway.

I hold my hands in the air and turn slowly. When my brother gets a glimpse of who he just caught red-handed, spying on the mayor of the city, his entire expression goes from full-on cop mode to big brother mode.

And by this, I mean he grabs me by the collar and drags me to the alleyway so no one else can see me.

Us.

“What the hell are you doing here, Jackie?”

“I could ask you the same fucking thing,
Nickie
.”

He’s angry and flustered. I can’t tell if that’s because he knows Dad’s here too, or if he’s not really supposed to be here right now.

As we stare each other down, looking for answers neither one of us wants to dish out, I get another text.

It’s from an unknown number. It’s nothing but an address. By the sheer coincidence that I’d even be getting something like that shit rolling through my fucking phone, I know where that address is gonna take me.

I close my eyes and have to laugh.

I have to, right?

Fucking Thomas.

“You in some kinda trouble, Jackson?” Nick asks me. “’Cause I’m pretty sure this is the last place you need to be right now.”

It’s in this moment right here, of information overload, that my desperation reaches a point it hasn’t reached in years.

“Do not fucking tell me you’re in on this shit, Nick.”

“What?”

“Because I swear to fucking God, I’ll have a
goddamn
aneurysm right here and now if you’re in on this shit.”

“Jackie.”

“What.”

He holds me still.

“I don’t know what shit you’re specifically referring to.” He swirls his hands around the air between us. “But I can assure you the only shit I’m in on is putting away the bad guys.”

Tension builds between us, then something hits him like a ton of bricks. “And how do you even know there’s shit to be in on?”

“I just fucking know.”

Flashbacks of arguments past fill me up as Nick and I stand there, each waiting for the other to give in.

He holsters his gun.

I win.

“I’m investigating Graham Black.”

Or, maybe not.

I side eye him, and he adds, “Undercover.”

When I don’t respond, he urges me to give him something.