Rogue (Dead Man's Ink #2) (2 page)

“Do I know where the bathroom is?” I ask.
 

“Yes. I’m sorry, you probably don’t have a clue either,” she says, laughing nervously.
 

“Oh, I know where they are. I grew up here.” I sling back the last of the whiskey in my glass and slowly place the tumbler at my feet. I offer her my arm. “Come on. I will escort you there directly.”

She looks up at me like a frightened baby deer, her cheeks flushing, but she places her hand into the crook of my arm and follows me all the same. I don’t take her to the downstairs bathroom behind the staircase. I don’t take her to the one through the servants’ walkway, just next to the kitchen. I lead her up to the next floor, straight to the en suite of one of father’s overly plain guest bedrooms.
 

“Thank you. If you go back downstairs and see a really stressed out looking violinist, will you let him know I won’t be a second?”

I lean against the wall, pulling roughly at my tie. “You’re one of the musicians, then?”

Her cheeks turn crimson. “Yes. I’m…the cellist.”

I have a very witty response lined up about her liking a solid piece of wood between her legs, but I keep my mouth shut. She’s not the sort of girl you use that kind of innuendo on. She is the kind of girl you tread carefully with. I’m not one for the softly, softly approach, though. There’s a fine line between terrifying a woman like this and getting her so wound up that she’s trembling at the knees.
 

“You’re very beautiful. Do you know that?”

She swallows. “I—thank you. That’s very kind of you.”

“Do you think I’m attractive?”

“What?”

“Do you think I’m attractive?”

“Well, that’s not a question people normally ask you five seconds after meeting,” she says, laughing softly.
 

“Maybe not. But you’re here, working, and I’m here, suffering, and it seems to me that both of us are going to be leaving this place soon. We’re probably never going to see each other again. So we don’t have much time to waste. If you don’t think I’m attractive, I’ll happily be a gentleman and go back downstairs. Is that what you want?”

She looks at me like I just told her aliens are invading and the planet is about to be blown to smithereens. Her mouth opens and then closes twice. “I—”

“Don’t worry, little cellist. I’ll go find your stressed violinist and tell him you’ll be down in a second.” I make to leave, but she places a hand on my arm, stopping me in my tracks.
 

“Of course I think you’re hot,” she says quietly. “You’re, like, a young, sexy James Bond in that suit. And your eyes are…” She shakes her head, apparently not sure how to finish that sentence. “Maybe I do want you to be here when I come out of the bathroom. Is that bad?”

Leaning down so that my mouth’s mere inches away from hers, I stare at her lips, knowing she wants me to kiss her. Knowing she wants me to do any number of very bad things to her. “Go use the bathroom. When you come out, I’ll show you just how bad we can be together.”

Her breath catches in her throat, but she doesn’t change her mind. She does as she’s told and uses the bathroom, and when she comes out I make good on my words.
 

At the precise moment Laura bursts into the room calling out my name, I have my tongue down the little cellist’s throat, her dress pulled down to her waist exposing her breasts, and two of my fingers inside her wet pussy.

Laura screeches to a halt, a horrified look spreading across her face. “
Jesus, Jamie.”

“Oh my god.” The little cellist scrambles back into her clothing, hanging her head as she wriggles away from me. “Oh my god, I am
so
sorry.”

“You have nothing to apologize for,” I tell her, but she’s moving so frantically that she can’t hear me. Laura watches her hurry out of the room with her mouth hanging open like a swinging trapdoor. I’m still completely dressed, and thanks to Laura’s untimely entrance my hard-on has completely vanished, too. “Perfect, Lore. Just fucking perfect. Have you forgotten how to knock?”

“Are you
kidding
me?” She throws her hands up in the air, staring at me in disbelief. “You’re the one up here finger fucking some twenty-one-year old, and you’re giving
me
shit?”

It’s kind of hilarious to hear Laura say
finger fucking
, but I manage to keep the smile from my face. “What’s wrong? You never been caught in flagrante before, Laura Preston? Never been caught with your panties down?”

“No!” She looks like she’s lost for a second, and then she’s kicking off her monstrous golden skyscraper heels and she’s, shit, she’s
throwing
them at me.

The first heel misses me by a mile. The second one buzzes my head and hits the huge gilt-framed mirror hanging on the wall behind me, smashing the glass into a million tiny pieces. “
What the fuck, Laura?
”

“You! I can’t…” She clasps her hand over her mouth and that’s when I notice her eyes are filled with tears. “I can’t fucking believe you,” she whispers.
 

Oh, crap. This is not how someone reacts to busting their friend doing something questionable. This is not how they react at all. I cross the room, holding up my hands as I approach her, stooping slightly so I can look her in the eye. “Hey.
Hey
. I’m really fucking confused. Do you want to tell me what’s wrong, or should I go get Cade?”

“Don’t you dare go and fucking get Cade,” she hisses. “You and Cade, joined at the hip, twenty-four fucking seven. You and Cade vanishing off to fucking Afghanistan, leaving me here on my own. I waited here for you for four goddamn years, Jamie. Four years of waking up every single night in a cold sweat, wondering which one of you was going to die first. And then you come home and hardly even…hardly even look at me and…”

Oh.
 

Fuck.
 

Seriously
?
 

Her hair, perfectly pinned back when she came charging into the room, has now come loose and is tumbling into her face like it used to when she was a little girl. I reach out, tucking it behind her ear. “Laura—”

“No. Don’t! Fuck, Jamie, you just had your fingers inside some girl’s vagina.”

I consider pointing out that that was my other hand, but then come to the swift conclusion that Laura will probably strangle me to death with my own necktie if I do. I slide my hands inside my pockets, clearing my throat. “Lore,” I say carefully. “Is there something you wanna tell me?”

“Fuck you, Jamie. I shouldn’t have to tell you. You should already know! Ahhh! Men! Why are you all so fucking oblivious? How can you be that completely blind to what’s been staring you in the face since we were kids, Jay. I just…I gotta get out of here.”

She’s a whirlwind of tense energy and clenched fists as she storms out of the bedroom. I go after her, grabbing hold of her gently by the wrist, trying to stop her, trying to figure this whole thing out in my head fast enough to deal with it right here and now, but Laura has other ideas. She turns on me, hand raised, and her palm makes contact with my face, slapping me hard. I can see from the pain in her eyes that she regrets it immediately.
 

“
Shit
.” She covers her mouth with her hand. “Shit, I’m so sorry. I just—”

“It’s okay.”

“I just can’t—” Tears roll, round and fat, down her cheeks, dangling like tiny little crystals from her dark eyelashes.
 

“It’s okay,” I repeat. “It’s fine. We can talk about it tomorrow.”

She nods, just once. “Tomorrow,” she says. And then she goes, running down the sweeping staircase in her bare feet, tiny sparks of light bouncing everywhere like silent fireworks as the sequins of her dress catch the light.
 

It’s not until the next morning that Cade calls to tell me his sister never made it home.

ONE
 

REBEL

War isn’t always a loud, brash thing.
 

Sometimes, it’s a car rolling slowly by the front of your house at night. Sometimes, it’s an anonymous call to the police. Sometimes it’s the head of a Mexican cartel showing up in small town New Mexico to make your life a living hell. And sometimes, it’s three men sneaking through tall grass with guns in their hands, ready to shoot you in the head while you sleep.
 

I’m bleeding fucking everywhere. One of Hector Ramirez’s perimeter guards cut me open with his knife and now the wound is pouring my DNA out all over the grass. I can’t be thinking about that right now, though. Honestly, I’m not thinking at all. I’m gripped with the same insanity that’s had hold of me since I walked into my father’s kitchen and found Leah dead on the floor, her throat slit from ear to ear, and that smug motherfucker toasting me from the other side of the room. There’s no room for sanity inside me now. Not after Leah. My uncle was one thing, but add on another innocent woman who I was supposed to be protecting, and there is no more Jamie. Even Rebel doesn’t exist anymore. There is only madness and fury, held together with the burning acid of revenge. It’s eaten away at everything else until there’s nothing left.

I feel a hand on the center of my back, grabbing hold of my t-shirt. It’s Cade, trying to tell me to slow the fuck down, but I jerk myself away, hurrying forward. Behind me, I hear him cursing me to hell. Carnie’s back there somewhere, too. Just the three of us for this job. As the newest member of the Widow Makers, I shouldn’t have brought Carnie along on this particular ride, but the guy’s keen as fuck. He totally busted Cade and me as we were leaving the compound. He would have followed us here, regardless. He’s had Margo, the gun he named after his mother, locked and loaded ever since he climbed on his Ducati.

The very day after Sophia and I returned from Alabama, Hector showed up with his entourage, walking the streets like he owns the fucking place, drinking coffee outside
my
fucking tattoo shop, sending out a very clear message:
I am here to end this.
And if that’s what the guy wants, who am I to argue with him?

I’ve had enough. I should have sent Sophia away the second I saw that body in my father’s kitchen and I realized this thing was never going to make it to trial. Never going to make it past pure, old school,
knife-in-the-chest-while-you’re-sleeping
revenge. Soph should be at home with her family, and instead I have her under guard back in my cabin, probably tearing the place apart, raging mad, and all because I’ve put her in this shitty position. Because where Hector Ramirez goes, so follows Raphael Dela Vega. And after what Sophia told me—that Raphael threatened to kill her whole family and do way worse to her—I’m not letting her out of that cabin until the fucker is dead and in the ground.

 
“Dude, slow the fuck down. They’re gonna see us coming,” Cade hisses behind me. Up ahead, the ground floor of the small, innocuous farm house Hector’s taken up residence in is lit up against the darkness, pouring yellowed light out onto the wrap around porch that skirts the property. Shadows move inside. I didn’t really think for a second I was going to be rolling up on a sleeping house but it’s frustrating that there are so many people flitting from room to room. I’m only interested in killing one person: Hector.

After Afghanistan, I have enough blood on my hands to drown myself in. I don’t particularly want to add to the body count, but if they stand in my way, if killing them means I get to put an end to Ramirez, then so be it. My soul is already damned to hell. I might as well
really
earn my place there.

The night smells like gasoline and bad weed, the latter of which must be coming from the house. Crouching down low thirty meters from the illuminated building, I scan the darkness, trying to see if there are more watchmen that need putting down. I made a stupid, reckless error before. I wasn’t expecting there to be guards so far out on the very perimeters of the farmhouse. When the first guy emerged out of the black night and slashed at me, he took me by surprise. Between me, Cade and Carnie, we managed to put down the four men who rallied to take us on, but it was close. Stupid. I should have been more wary. I’m not just risking my own life here, but Cade and Carnie’s too.

“How many?” Cade whispers. My best friend scratches at the beard he’s managed to grow in the past few weeks, frowning severely. I can’t count how many times we’ve found ourselves together in this position, crouching in the dark, planning on doing wrong. It’s little comfort that the majority of times it was on behalf of the U.S government. We may not be desert rats anymore, but we’re still soldiers. We’re still fighting a war. Except this is one of our own making, and there’s no getting out of it. No backing down. It’s
necessary
.

“At least six,” I reply.

“I only count five,” Carnie chips in. “Three in the living room, one in the kitchen. One in the hallway.”

He’s right, but his eyes aren’t as sharp as mine. I glare up at the farmhouse, holding my breath, slowing my pulse. “And one more. Upstairs. Front left window. He’s watching us right now.”

Carnie makes a disbelieving sound. “You’re fucking crazy. The room’s pitch black. You can’t see shit.”

“Oh, he’s there all right. I can see him just fine.” In fairness to Carnie, maybe I can’t see him in a traditional sense. The room
is
in pure darkness, but I can sense it—Ramirez is there, standing in the murky shadows of the room, waiting patiently for my arrival. I can feel his presence so intensely that the hairs on the back of my neck are standing on end. He’s been there all along, just waiting for me to show up. With all the showmanship and blatant peacocking in town, he’s been stabbing at my buttons, knowing that with each and every sighting he’s coming closer and closer to drawing me out.

I’m a stupid motherfucker.

I’m normally so much smarter than this, but the fury over Ryan and Leah’s deaths has had me taking temporary leave of my wits. Cade nudges me with his elbow, grunting softly. “We’re here, man. You wanna do this now, we’ll do it. But maybe—”

“Yeah, I know.” I sigh heavily. Angrily. I want to pound my fists into the dirt in frustration, but where the fuck would that get me.