Vice (Tortured Heroes Book 1)

A
ll Rights Reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author or publisher, except where permitted by law or for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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J
ase

You’d think a name like
The Dive Bar
would drive customers away. It should have been one of those kinds of bars where you don’t so much
go to
as end up. You know, when all the respectable places shut down. So in that, maybe the name was just right. Except people weren’t just
ending up
here. Not even a little bit. Eight o’clock on a Thursday night and the line to get in wrapped all the way around the corner. If the name wasn’t a deterrent, the look of the place should have been. A long brown building with a flat roof and tinted windows with chipped beige paint on the shutters. Ugly. Dark. Ivy crawled up one side of it and fat neon lines of spray-painted graffiti covered the side facing the parking lot. It didn’t fit in with the rest of the block either. The front windows had a view of Bernie’s Brake and Muffler Shop. The side windows overlooked an abandoned cathedral. You could say this particular corner of downtown Northpointe, Michigan was in transition.

I didn’t wait in that line wrapped around the building. I didn’t have some VIP pass. Didn’t even know anyone in this town and couldn’t go back to the town I’d been run out of. Call this a leap of faith. My last chance to get back to the life I still wanted. If things went well tonight, I’d have options. If it didn’t, I might be living out of my car next month. I walked up to the hulky dude working the door and jerked my chin at him. He raised a black, bushy brow and ran his beefy fingers over his rough stubble. His green tee shirt with the bar logo in yellow stretched over his broad chest. The guy was big, strong, but whatever muscles he had lay beneath a layer of blubber.

“Guy on the phone said to ask for Devin Marsh. Is he workin’ tonight?” The bouncer’s face split into a smile but he didn’t answer right away. His eyes twinkled with some insider secret. I expected him to give me a line of shit about how Devin Marsh wasn’t here tonight. Or that he didn’t meet with strangers. Whatever. If he wanted a pissing contest, I’d give him one.

A pasty-faced kid behind me with dirty-blond dreads to his waist put a hand on my elbow. “Hey, man. Line starts back that way. You gonna let him cut like that, Boomer?”

Boomer. The bouncer’s name was Boomer. Of course it was.

My muscles went hard and I half turned toward the kid with the dreads. One look and he put up a hand and backed away. “We cool? We cool?”

“Yeah. We
cool.
” I turned back to Boomer. “I’m here about a job.” Until I knew the lay of the land, I figured it was best to leave it at that. There was more than a good chance I was here for
his
job.

“Devin know you’re coming tonight?” Ah. There it was.

I nodded. My first outright lie of the evening. There’d be a dozen more before I was through. And that’s if everything went right. He looked me up and down and again I half expected a pat down. But he moved to the side and pointed with his thumb.

“Devin’s probably in the back. Best bet is to have a seat at the bar if you can find one and wait.”

“Thanks, man,” I said. The bouncer stepped to the side.

I could barely see when I got inside. There wasn’t much to the place. It had a certain hipster charm if you’re into that type of thing. I’m not. The horse-shoe-shaped bar took up most of the floor space in the center of the room. If the line outside seemed unwieldy, this was insane. People four and five deep crowded around it as the bartenders and waitresses hustled to fill orders. They were good at it too. A well-honed choreography as one reached up for glasses while another ducked down into the ice bin. Good service. Good drinks. That’s all you need to make a fortune in a town like this. Like anywhere. Because
The Dive Bar
wasn’t shit to look at on the inside.

No booths. No square tables. Patrons sat on mismatched couches tucked into every corner of the place. It gave the place a cozy vibe, like hanging out in your parents’ basement. I figured that was half the draw after the quick service.

The hair rose on the back of my neck as I kept my back to the wall. I didn’t like it. Too many places where something could go wrong. A darkened hallway at the back of the room could lead to anywhere. Another entrance to my left, crowded with people. My fingers twitched at my right hip, searching for the outline of a weapon that wasn’t there anymore. It still felt like they cut off my fucking arm that day. I set my jaw hard as that tremor of rage passed through me. I couldn’t do anything about it now. Today was about working my way back. Time to focus.

Then something happened. The crowd at the bar started to thin out and move off toward that darkened hallway. My eyes went to a pink neon flyer stuck to the wall. There were scores of them.
The HolyRocks
Live at The Dive Bar & Grille.
Today’s date. Ten minutes from now.

I pressed my back against the wall and let out a breath. Those here for the show went off to see it, leaving the rest, more sedate crowd seated on bar stools or watching from their couches.

Boomer opened the front door and let a few more people in. The kid with the dreads must have either gotten impatient or left, or pissed Boomer off enough he lost his place in line. Either way he wasn’t with the crowd coming in from the street. A big group. Giggling college girls. A couple of them looked too young to drink. But that wasn’t my problem anymore either.

I could have headed to the bar right away. Something told me to hang back. Maybe I could learn a lot. The minute I sought out Devin Marsh and made my presence known, people would start to notice me. They’d react to me. If I stayed invisible, I might be able to figure out who a few of the players were.

God, I didn’t think I’d ever seen so many knit beanies in one place before. You had your typical guys on the make. Leaning in, laughing at jokes that weren’t funny. Girls in groups trying to pretend they weren’t just as much on the make as the men. I looked for somebody else like me. Somebody watching, waiting, apart from the crowd. My shoulders relaxed a little when I didn’t find anyone like that. At least not at first.

And then I did.

At the corner of the bar, a guy in faded jeans and a white button-down shirt looked twitchy. He bounced his knee off the bottom rung of the bar stool. He nearly jumped out of his seat when a light hand touched his elbow.

Smooth. Subtle. A guy in a light brown leather jacket reached around him for a cocktail napkin. They didn’t make eye contact but I was watching Twitchy’s hands. Just a flash of white, wrapped in plastic. Twitchy palmed it and slid it into his jeans pocket.

I wanted to follow Leather Jacket out the door, but it wasn’t time yet. Too soon. I was here for bigger fish.

Then I saw her.

She ducked under a hinged partition in the bar and stood in profile. Her face hard as she wrote on a piece of paper while patrons shouted out drink orders at her. Cute, in a pissy sort of way, with a button nose, high cheekbones and heart-shaped lips in a permanent scowl. She arched one dark brow when one of the bartenders asked her a question, then went back to writing. She had a mass of black hair gathered into a bushy mess of a ponytail with one side cropped short and a shaved part curving around her ear. She wore an oversized white tee shirt and green leggings with black combat boots. Pure Laundry Day Chic but I couldn’t help staring at how those leggings cupped her round ass.

One of the customers came up to her and slid an arm around her shoulder. The guy was thick and swayed on his feet. Twice her size. She went rigid and so did I, my fingers playing at my hip again, looking for that damn weapon that wasn’t there. I could still get to the ankle strap if I needed to, but it wouldn’t be half as smooth or fast. She cocked her head to the side and looked up at the gropey loser. God. She was stunning. Big brown eyes that stared through him even though she curved her pink lips into a half-smile. He wasn’t lucid enough to see the threat in her eyes the way I did. In a way it felt like a secret I shared with her. She wanted the world to see one thing but kept something else just to herself. The neck of her tee shirt slipped and I got a glimpse of the black bra she wore underneath. More than just my back went rigid and I wish I’d had a chance to order a damn beer.

She put her hands up and gave him a playful, but strong shove. He lifted his own hands, laughed, and backed away. One of the bartenders slid a beer down the bar and she caught it. I half wanted her to crack it over the guy’s skull, but she barked out a laugh and handed it to him. He moved away and I settled back against the wall.

I turned my attention back to the crowd. I knew I should go to the bar and start asking questions, but I’d never have this moment again. For now, I was wallpaper. No one even knew I was there. A drumbeat vibrated beneath my feet as the live show in the back started up. The crowd at the bar thinned out even more leaving maybe a dozen patrons out on the main floor, another dozen at the bar. These had to be the regulars.

The girl with the side cut and ponytail went back behind the bar and tapped her orders into the screen by the register. I realized then I wasn’t the only one watching her. The guy on the corner stool sipped his beer and tilted his head when she bent down to grab something under the counter. He licked his lips and leaned forward to get a better view.

My fingers curled into fists and I did a mental ten count. His hand slid out of view below the bar. He rubbed himself. The mother fucker actually rubbed himself while he watched her.

“Kinney, I gotta go out back,” she said, heaving a bag of trash over her shoulder. Even her voice was sexy, with a deep, smoky quality. One of the other bartenders—Kinney, I guess: black guy with a ripped, bodybuilder physique and a baby face—gave her a nod and held up a thumb.

She passed right by the guy on the corner stool and headed out a service door toward the back of the bar. Corner Stool watched her go. He took a swig of beer then looked around to see if anyone was watching him. He only looked around the bar though. He didn’t see me in the darkened corner of the room. He downed the last of his beer, slid a bill across the counter then hopped off his stool. He ran a hand through his hair, darted his eyes toward the bar one last time then pushed through the door and went after her.

Fuck it all to hell.

I went to the service door and followed him. It led to a darkened alley behind the bar. A blast of humidity hit my face and I squinted trying to adjust to the glaring light from a streetlamp at the end of the alley.

I pressed my back against the brick wall and stayed to the shadows. Blood roared in my ears. She sang. Something old and bluesy and it made the hair stand up on the back of my neck and heat shoot straight through me. Where the hell was the guy? Hadn’t she heard him come out the door right after her? Hadn’t she heard me?

Hinges creaked and she slammed the top of the dumpster hard as a gunshot. He made his move then; coming out from the other side of the dumpster he hovered over her. She didn’t jump. Didn’t flinch. She just looked up at him with those big brown eyes and put a hand up.

“Wrong door, Amos,” she said, putting a flat hand on his chest and shoving him backward. “Bathrooms to the
left
of the back hallway. Did you forget again?”

“Oh, I didn’t forget darlin’. Just didn’t think it was safe for you to come out here all by yourself. You never know what kinda danger might be hiding behind some dark corner.”

He advanced and leaned down. The fucker actually tried to plant a kiss on her. But she was faster. She ducked beneath his arms and took two steps backward. If she was scared, she hid it well.

“You need to get home, Amos. Lemme call you a cab.”

“Night’s still young.”

“Not for you it isn’t. You’re cut off. In fact, I don’t know how you managed to sneak in that last round. Kinney must be slipping.”

He moved pretty fucking fast for the condition he was in. He grabbed her by the arm and had her up against the wall. She said something filthy and brought up her knee hard, catching him square in the sack. He took two staggering steps backward and when he lifted his chin I saw the evil in his eyes. I didn’t wait for him to act on it. I came down on him like a hurricane, grabbing him by the shirt collar and hurling him back so hard he pushed the dumpster back against the opposite wall when he hit it.

I stood over him, fists curled, red rage clouding my vision. “I think the lady said you’re done tonight. Were you having some trouble hearing?”

He held up his hands to shield his face. “No, man. Fuck. No. We’re cool.”

“You know, guys like you say that a lot. But I don’t really think we are.” My eyes came back sharply into focus. I couldn’t trust it all the way, but instinct told me this douche was defused for now. I reached down and hauled him up by his shoulders. “Go toward the light, asshole,” I said, shoving him toward the street lamp at the end of the alley.

He took two staggering steps forward, tripped, then managed to get to his feet. But he kept on going and that was all I cared about. I turned back to see if the girl was all right. She stood with her back against the wall, her arms crossed in front of her and her full lips curled into the sexiest smirk I’d ever seen. Not scared. Not impressed. Defiant.

“You okay, miss?” I wiped my palm across my back pocket and extended my hand to shake hers.

She cocked her head to the side, sizing me up, then she held out her hand and shook mine with a strong, respectable grip.

“How do I know you’re not worse than he is?”

A beat passed between us. I swear I heard myself blink. Then I couldn’t help it. My faced cracked into a smile and I laughed. “You don’t. But hopefully I get points for smelling better.”

She let out the hint of a snort and raised a brow. “Slightly. Yes. Since you’re out here, you think you could help me with the rest of that too?” She pointed toward the dumpster. Three full bags of garbage rested beside it. I had a wisecrack about whether Guinevere made Lancelot haul trash but I swallowed it. Something told me she’d be a hell of a lot more impressed by my helping her with the trash than my idea of chivalry. I gave her a nod and heaved the bags into the bin. The third one felt heavy as a bag of anvils and made a great hollow clunk when I pitched it in.