Sneak Attack (9 page)

Doubtful, but maybe.

If it was someone from my past—that made me sound so worldly, as if I’d ever done anything of significance other than getting kidnapped and killing to get free—then it was even less likely it was a young female. I couldn’t be certain the woman tonight had been young, but that was the vibe I’d gotten from her build and style of dress.

Too many threads, not enough knots.

Pressing my back to the wall next to the door, I eyed the girl with the blonde hair until I ascertained she wore jeans, not shorts. Not bright white sneakers with the swoosh on the side. The only reason I’d noticed those in the alley was because I’d always coveted fancy sneakers. My budget hadn’t allowed for anything but the cheapest brand for so long. Now I had a bit more breathing room, assuming I didn’t keep loading on the ink, yet I was still coveting the shiny.

My phone vibrated in my pocket and I dragged it out, exhaling gratefully at Tray’s name. I held it to my ear and waited for his deep, rich voice to fill my head and chase every other thought away. That was his gift to me, and he gave it to me every day we spent together.

“People love me,” he said, his voice lacking all intonation. “
People
.”

Oh man. Had I said
people
? Of course I had. Because those three little words still made me feel too vulnerable.

It had gotten easier to say them. Sometimes I managed it without stuttering. Those times were rare.

Shutting my eyes, I moved out of the store doorway and leaned against the barred plate glass window. The smell of patchouli and weed blew out of the bodega, though I couldn’t blame the combined scent for why I suddenly felt dizzy.

“I love you,” I whispered, and only his exhale into my ear kept me upright. My reaction was so ridiculous. He wasn’t leaving me.
Us
. Telling him how I felt wouldn’t bring down the wrath of God—or whomever lived upstairs—upon our heads. No curse would be unlocked if I admitted I needed him.

“Bet that burned, huh?”

“No. Not at all.” A small fib. “Where are you?”

His laughter wasn’t quite even. It was then that I heard the sounds behind him. Glasses clinking, music playing, voices. “Someplace they serve alcohol. Lots and lots of alcohol.”

I started rushing up the street, weaving around the pedestrians. Tray never drank to excess. I had literally never seen him drink more than one beer at a time in the eight months we’d been together. “You’re not driving,” I stated, though I remembered quite well that Carly had said he’d taken his keys.

“Right now? I’m peeling the label off my beer and fending off chicks. Did you know that apparently I’m a catch?”

Earlier this year, my skin would’ve chilled at the idea of my boyfriend drunk off his ass in the center of a pack of salivating females. Now I just rolled my eyes. He wasn’t going to cheat on me. In my lucid moments, I knew that right down to the ground.

Too bad I didn’t have more of them.

“A catch, huh?” I descended the steps to the subway. I didn’t know where Tray was yet, but it was a good guess I’d need to take a train to get there once he coughed up his location. “I doubt any of them want to dump you in bed after sticking you in the shower.”

That reminded me that I’d feared earlier that Carly would be in the same state. God help me if both of the people I loved got wasted tonight. I’d kick their asses. Or else I’d join them, because why should I be sober when everyone else was freaking drunk?

“You’d be surprised. One of them pinched my ass.”

“Good. Hold onto her so I can kick hers when I arrive.”

His laughter eased a bit of the anxiety lancing through my gut. “I love when you get jealous, baby. Love you. I missed you tonight.”

I reached out to hang onto the railing as I made my way down the last few stairs.
Do not be affected by his mush. He doesn’t know what he’s saying. He needs a firm hand right now.
“Oh yeah? Surprised you could even remember my name, what with all the estrogen clogging your airways.”

“Oh, your smell is unforgettable.”

I stopped on the last step. He didn’t mean what I thought. Nope.

“When I lick my way down your belly, I take extra time just so I can breathe you in. You’re so soft and wet…”

Yep, he did.

“Tray,” I hissed, cupping my phone closer as if the people nearby could hear his ode to my nether regions. “Hush.”

“Why?” He laughed again. “You don’t want me bragging about eating your pussy? Why not? These other guys would be jealous as hell. In fact—”

“Trayherne Elliott Knox, you better start sucking on that beer right quick.” My face was flaming hot enough to serve as a light in the tunnel. “You have talked enough.”

“That’s my father’s name,” he said quietly, and all at once I wished I’d let him continue his playful recitation. My embarrassment didn’t matter. I didn’t want him hurting when he was too drunk and overwhelmed to fight his way clear.

“I know, sweetie.” The word
sweetie
had no sooner left my mouth that I nearly choked on my shock. I wasn’t one for endearments. “Tell me where you are. I’ll come to you.”

It scared me more than a little to realize how far I’d go for him. The ends of the earth didn’t sound out of the realm.

“No, better if you don’t. I’m a miserable drunk.” He let out a halfhearted chuckle. “Don’t want you to leave me too.”

My eyes stung and I dropped my shoulder against the nearest wall. I needed the extra support. Hearing his pain cracked me open in ways I’d been unprepared for. As much as I loved him, he’d never been anything but a pillar of strength. I was the bag of crazy. He was the stoic one who didn’t need therapy and didn’t lose his temper every time anyone looked at him funny.

Knowing he had a breaking point too crushed me more than I’d thought possible. And it made me desperate to help him become whole again. I’d do anything. Say anything.

Be
anything.

“I’m not leaving you. Do you understand me?”

“Yeah.” I could hear the smile in his voice, and it triggered one in me until he continued. “My mom left again. She always picks him. Even when he hurts her.”

I clutched the strap of my backpack. It was a pathetic substitute for holding him, and for once, I was certain he needed that every bit as much as I did. “All I want right now is to be with you. I’ll even drink with you. Tell me where you are,” I pleaded.

Muffled noises came over the line, then I heard his very distinct question, “Hey, where are we again? I know it’s a strip joint but what’s it called?”

I shot straight up against the wall. Strip joint? He did not just say he was at a strip club.

Jealousy reared up in me as fast as a geyser as I stared down at my threadbare jeans and snug Vinnie’s shirt. It made the most of what nature had given me, but that wasn’t saying much. The girls there would be flaunting a bounty I could only dream of.

Not that I would. Ever. I didn’t care about stupid tits. Besides, that’s what push-up bras were made for, and why I might’ve bought two that still had the tags on.

Tray came back on the line. “Gio says it’s called The Pyramid Club.”

If possible, I startled even more than the first time. “Gio? As in Giovanni Costas? The guy you hate?”

He wasn’t hanging out with his best friend. Oh no, that would be too logical. He was getting drunk with the guy he’d hissed at and nearly cold-cocked earlier in the day.

Maybe I’d have to rethink my preference of the male gender, since they appeared every bit as unpredictable as females.

“Yup. He was at the gym. Said he was heading out, and I figured I could use a distraction so why not? I knew you wouldn’t care.”

I sat down heavily on a bench. I’d need to look up the address of this strip club, once my brain stopped spinning like a mad pinwheel. “Oh you did, did you? Did I forget the conversation when I said you were free to go to any strip joint that tickled your…fancy? And it better be just your fancy that’s being tickled, by the way, because I won’t hesitate to hit a chick with collagen lips.”

Or collagen other things.

I hadn’t changed my mind about him cheating, and he was right that I probably wouldn’t care that he’d gone to a strip club after I’d had a drink of my own. But the fact that he’d gone there with a guy who probably had a tattoo that said
built for your pleasure
above his genitals put me a bit on edge.

Tray laughed. “I’d like to see that. Trust me, none of them are my type.” A deep voice that I recognized as Giovanni’s rumbled next to him and Tray laughed again, setting my teeth on edge. “Gio says hi.”

“You’re going to regret this in the morning,” I warned.

“Why? You gonna dump me?”

“You wish. I mean, fraternizing with the enemy.”

“Oh. Huh.” He had another muffled conversation with said enemy. “I wouldn’t call it fraternizing. I still don’t like the guy and he doesn’t like me. We’re just…imbibing together. You know.”

“And looking at tits together.”

“Always your weak spot,” he said sagely. “They shouldn’t be. I like yours just fine.”

I refused to let the warm glow suffuse my face. The day I started feeling a sense of accomplishment at having nice breasts was the day I gave up my fighter card for good.

And that hadn’t happened yet, despite what I’d told my therapist and the people I loved. In my head, I was still a fighter.

Perhaps I’d get to show off my skills tonight after all if I arrived at this club and found a bevy of painted princesses swarming my man and Gio.

Frigging
Gio
. He was the cause of all of this, I was sure. I shouldn’t have dropped my guard even a little in his direction.

I’d learned my lesson well.

“Where is this fine establishment located?” I asked, enunciating each word carefully. It helped my blood pressure return to a more manageable level.

“Aww, you’re really coming to get me? Wanna see some tits too?”

He’s drunk. Out of his normal mind. Wait until he’s sober to kick his ass.
“If I did, I’d look down my shirt. Now where are you?”

“Near Central Park. Hell’s Kitchen. There’s a neon curvy girl sign out front and the bouncer is a real dick.”

Fabulous. “I’m taking the train.” I dug out my Metro card and moved to the platform. “I’ll get there when I get there. So stay put.”

“Yes, ma’am. I love you.”

I sighed. I totally couldn’t help it. The man had me wrapped. “Yeah, yeah, ditto. You already got it out of me once tonight. Your allotment is used up for a while.”

He laughed. “See ya soon.”

After hanging up, I pocketed my phone and looked up the address for The Pyramid Club. I so loved traveling into the city this late.

“Stupid tits,” I muttered, moving to the platform to glare at an oncoming train.

Tray owed me. Big time. Yet what was I going to do while I waited for my train?

Search online for hotels for us to have a night of—dear God—romance. Together. Voluntarily, without anyone holding a gun to my head.

I looked around at the assorted people crowding the platform with me. Kids in hoodies and women in minidresses mingled with guys dressed in workout gear and even a few suits. And not one of them was staring menacingly at me, thereby distracting me from my arduous task with a pending robbery.

Didn’t it just figure.

“
F
ox
, it’s a shame you stopped fighting. You were my favorite.”

My head felt like someone had stuffed it with a box of cotton, but I did my best to give the men across from me a bleary smile. I was used to women saying those words to me, not men a few years older than me who were wearing suits more expensive than a month’s rent on my old place.

One of them—Mateo, Marco, Marzo? No clue—had shed the jacket but still sat in his pinstriped vest and dress shirt, drinking from a short glass of Maker’s Mark. His giant gold wristwatch kept clinking against the glass. The other guy, Lorenzo, kept smiling at me in this smarmy, semi-disturbing way.

Apparently they were friends of Gio’s. And at least one of them was packing heat, right out in the open.

“I’ve never seen you guys at a fight,” I said, grabbing my latest bottle of Harp. I’d had a few different things tonight. Beer, shots.
Lots
of shots. Even a mixed drink or two bought by kind ladies. I hadn’t taken their numbers, but I’d enjoyed their free alcohol.

I was drunk enough not to see a problem with that.

“Oh, we come and go.” Lorenzo smiled wide, showing a mouthful of flawless teeth before he snapped his fingers at a passing waitress. Instead of taking his drink order, she perched on his knee and he slipped his hand into her top, nudging her nipple out right there at the table.

Which he then proceeded to suck.

I leaned in close to Gio. “Nice friends.”

He only grinned and slung his arm on the back of our booth. He’d been drinking all night too, but somehow he didn’t seem drunk. Come to think of it, I hadn’t noticed him ordering for a while. My ability to recollect wasn’t too great right now, so I might’ve been wrong.

Goddamn, I was drunk.

It was possible I’d never been more drunk in the whole of my life.

“Big on the coming part, I’d wager,” I said, gesturing with my beer bottle at the tongue-and-tit action across the table.

All three men let out rich, appreciative laughter and I sneaked a glance in the direction of the exit. When it had been just me and Gio, we’d had a surprisingly good time. He wasn’t a complete asshole twenty-four/seven, as I’d understandably assumed. He had a good sense of humor, and he’d been happy to buy a few drinks to start me off.

From the amount of cash he’d flashed when he opened his wallet, I figured he could afford it.

With all of the subtlety of a drunk, I shifted closer to Gio again and made a paltry effort to lower my voice. It still made me wince when it came out, so I had to think I hadn’t succeeded. “They betting on you? Is that why you’re so fuckin’ rich?”

Gio barely blinked an eyelash but Lorenzo removed his lips from his teat and wiped his mouth with his heretofore pristine napkin. “Nothing wrong with a little honest betting on the matches, Fox.” He reached down to undo the button on his jacket, and it fell open to show his matching piece. An accident, I was sure. “No different than betting on the college kids during March Madness.”

“Well, yeah, it is a little different since MMA is still illegal in New York.”

Marco/Matzo/Mateo leaned forward and locked his fingers together around his glass. “Now, Fox, that’s a strange thing to hear from a former fighter.” He glanced at Lorenzo and grinned before looking at me with his weasel eyes. Their smallness didn’t match the rest of his features. “You trade in your dick for a pussy when you swapped out those gloves?”

“Hey, hey guys,” Gio said, laughing as he shot me a measuring stare. I knew he was worried I’d decide to upend the table and start a brawl to show them I could still fight.

Tempting, but I hadn’t been brain-damaged enough in the ring to start shit with two guys wearing Smith and Wessons, no matter how much I wanted to erase their smirks.

Instead I leaned back in the booth and widened my legs, slow and sure, like the smile that spread across my face as easily as butter on toast. “Why don’t you come on over and check for yourself, buddy?”

For an instant silence reigned over the table. That was a misnomer, because annoying pop music still filtered through unseen speakers and asses still shook on the stage halfway across the room. Laughter and voices still mixed like oil and water, pounding in my temples until I had to rub the spot near my eye—the socket that Gio had busted—that always signaled pressure first.

Giovanni chuckled the loudest, looking uneasily between the other men and me. I didn’t want to test which side he’d be on if violence erupted. Despite the fact we’d come together, I highly doubted Gio would have my back. Hell, maybe he’d even hold me down for his buddies to whale on.

There was a life lesson in this somewhere. Never drink with a man who’d as soon as knife you as pat your arm, as he was doing right now.

“Ah, Fox. He enjoys his drink a little too much,” Giovanni said with false affection, narrowing his gaze at me in warning.

He didn’t need to bother. I wasn’t spoiling for a fight. All I wanted was to go home and sleep it off with my girl curled up beside me.

Or you know, look up and watch her stare down a table of unsmiling men—and a wide-eyed waitress, who still had an exposed breast—with her hands on her waist like an angel of deliverance.

“Who got him drunk?” she asked, throwing her braids back over her shoulders. “I suspected you,” she said to Giovanni, “but I see you brought reinforcements.”

“Who is this?” Marco said under his breath to Lorenzo, who merely shrugged. But I didn’t miss the way his dark eyes lit as they roved over Mia.

I might be a mostly affable drunk, but any jerk who eyefucked my girl in front of me was asking for it. Smith and Wesson aside.

“Gentlemen, this is Mia Anderson,” Giovanni said smoothly.

“The fighter,” Lorenzo said with obvious reverence, and the gleam in his eyes only grew. He displaced the waitress from his lap, sending her off with a flick of his fingers along her bra to adjust her nipple and a pat on the ass. He rounded the table to Mia. “I’m Lorenzo Donato. I’ve heard much about you, Ms. Anderson. It is a pleasure.” He extended a hand and she took it, confusion written all over her face. He lowered his mouth, his intent clearly to kiss her knuckles.

I rose.
What the fuck
.

But Mia reacted before I could. “Sorry, I’d rather not have the mouth that was just on some babe’s breast on my hand.” She yanked hers back and wiggled her fingers with an artificial smile. “I’m kind of a germaphobe.”

The grin that split my cheeks didn’t help the throb in my skull, but it damn sure dialed back my aggression. Giovanni cleared his throat, but I could tell he was on the verge of a grin too. As was Marco, if that was even his name.

Lorenzo, however, seemed to have developed a tic. He flexed his jaw several times before he stepped back, still not taking his chair. His expression toward Mia had iced over, and that prompted me to shift onto the balls of my feet. I still hadn’t sat down again.

“You know, I hate to end the evening this soon, but I have an early day.” I was none too gently shoved aside by Giovanni as he slid out of the booth. “Gentlemen, it was good to see you as always.” He leaned across the table to fistbump Marco, then shook hands with Lorenzo, who continued to stare at Mia as if he’d forgotten how to blink.

I didn’t like it one bit.

“You got a problem?” I asked when I couldn’t take another second of Lorenzo’s scrutiny. “If you do, let’s settle it here and now.”

Finally the hard planes of his face cracked into a small smile. “And who will be doing the settling? You, a pathetic drunk?” His smile sharpened. “You’re no better than your father.”

Mia grabbed my arm. “Tray,” she warned. “Not here. He’s not worth it.”

“Oh, I assure you, I’m worth more than either Trayherne Knox’s useless son or his whore girlfriend can afford to pay.” His mouth curled dismissively as his gaze flickered to Mia. “Tell me, does he know about your penchant for rich men? And what you do to them when you decide you’re finished?”

I didn’t think. Didn’t breathe. I lunged around the table, my hands clenched, but Mia was closer and she got there first. Goddamn my sluggish reflexes. Fucking alcohol.

Without hesitating, she reeled back and slammed her fist into Lorenzo’s jaw. The other man hit the floor, and Marco scrambled out of the booth to help him, his expression incredulous as he looked from Mia to his fallen friend.

“Giovanni,” he barked.

“I’ll handle this,” Giovanni said in a clipped voice, grabbing my arm and Mia’s and shoving us away from the table. I was on the verge of prying his hands off me when he spoke close to my ear. “We need to leave now. Trust me.”

I glanced at him and was staggered by the intention burning in his eyes. He wasn’t kidding around.

Handling us or not, he wanted us gone. Not just us. He was coming too.

Swallowing hard, I looked back as a crowd formed. Who the hell were those guys? People were shouting, and the panic level in the club didn’t match what had occurred. Everyone was rushing about as if a visiting dignitary had been attacked, not just an ordinary guy who’d gotten into a bar scuffle. I tried to process what I was seeing, but between my alcohol-dulled reactions and my lack of coordination, I found myself propelled by Giovanni onto the sidewalk.

What shocked me more was that Mia had gone too. Without fight. Without speaking.

He kept his fingers clamped around my arm and looped his other arm around Mia’s waist. The way he was herding us up the block set off a million sensors in my brain, but I couldn’t quite transmit my concern into action.

But Mia wasn’t drunk, and she wasn’t reacting at all.

“Stop,” I finally snapped at Gio, pushing his arm away as I reached for Mia. She didn’t glance at me. She was like a mindless doll, just putting one foot in front of the other as we made our way through the Friday evening crowd. Somehow people kept moving aside to let us pass, three-as-one, as if they sensed something major had happened.

Weird. This was all so fucking weird.

“Not here,” he snapped back, driving his elbow into my back to keep me going. “We need to get gone. Out of the area. Now.”

“Who are those guys?” I asked, lowering my voice as I glanced over my shoulder.

“I made a mistake,” he said instead of answering my question. “Never should’ve brought you there. Never should’ve waited around for Mia. I didn’t know.” He studied Mia’s blank, emotionless face before shifting his focus to me. All the while, he continued to haul us up the street as if our own pace simply wouldn’t get the job done. “They’d run you both.”

What the fuck was he talking about? “Who are they?” I repeated. “I thought the guns were a bit much for a…” Jesus, what was the word I needed? My thoughts were fuzzy, the alcohol taking over in spite of my struggle to remain clear. My lack of tolerance was really kicking my ass tonight.

“They would kill you as soon as look at you. And now…” He shut his eyes for an instant before staring straight ahead. His jaw worked, over and over. “You’re going to have to stay with her, every minute. Every fucking minute, Tray.”

The first frisson of real fear cracked the glaze of alcohol. “Of course I will.”

Even in the middle of my confusion, I knew something was very wrong with Mia. She wasn’t responding as Giovanni talked about her as if she were a little woman who needed protection. She wasn’t doing anything but walking.

Fragments of what had been said in the club pinged through my muddied brain.

Penchant for rich men…what you do with them when you’re finished.

He knew about Mia’s past. About her kidnapping. Somehow that fucker had known.

“Who is he?” I asked again, my voice rising. I had as much control of it as I did the rest of myself.

Giovanni just dragged us with him into the parking garage where we’d parked earlier and pushed us up the ramp.

I’d let him drive. Now, I couldn’t remember why. But as I climbed into the back of his Escalade with my spookily silent girlfriend, I was grateful. As much as I wanted to rid myself of Gio and this night entirely, at least I could wrap my arms around Mia. At least I could tip up her chin to gaze into her eyes.

Dark, empty pools reflected back at me.

“Mia.” The fear was back, stronger than ever. He could warn me of death threats, and I’d only be marginally afraid. No one would touch her in my presence. I would die for her without thought, without question.

Staring into her eyes now, I wondered if she’d gotten there first.

“What’s wrong with her?” Giovanni demanded, throwing the vehicle into reverse and rocketing out of the lot with a squeal of tires.

I don’t know.
I couldn’t find the words. She was in my arms, but she was just…gone.

A tremor went through me and I lowered my forehead to hers. Softly, I breathed against her mouth until I heard hers hitch as if she’d begun to inhale and exhale once again. Her eyelids shut, blocking me from the vast expanse of nothing her eyes had become.

“Is she okay?” Giovanni asked, taking another corner so fast that the vehicle skidded. “Goddamn you both, fucking talk to me.”

“I’m okay,” she said hollowly, and it was as if a stranger had spoken. She looked like Mia, sounded like Mia, but she wasn’t the girl I loved. She was a facsimile, a passable reproduction.

Giovanni glanced at me in the rearview mirror, and in his gaze were the questions I would never answer. He knew, as I did, that Lorenzo had hit on something she couldn’t bear. All people have weak spots, places too sensitive too touch. Mia’s was an exposed nerve, raw and aching. Even a wisp of air brushing the root was enough to make it throb.

No amount of camouflage makeup or thick layers of scar tissue would ever be enough to cushion the agony.

“Where am I taking you?” He slowed slightly to swerve around a lumbering bus before punching the gas again.

I rubbed my cheek against hers, struggling against the helplessness that seemed to seize me all too often. Where were we going? Where had I started this goddamn night? Nothing made sense in my jumbled brain. I just wanted to be in the dark with Mia, every part of our skin touching, her breaths mine. I would heal her the only way I knew how. Not with sex, or words.