“Perfect.” He beams me a smile through that caterpillar above his top lip. “All I need is your driver’s license and registration. I’ll get them scanned into the system, and you’ll be ready, Mr. Taylor.”
“Just Havoc,” I snap as I unclip my seatbelt and fish out my wallet from my back pocket. I reach over and search the glove box for the registration, and once I locate it, I hand both items to the guy. “Here.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“I’m no one’ssir,” I grind out. “It’s just Havoc,” I repeat.
He makes a quick scan of my documents into the iPad before handing them back to me. “I’m Jerry Klein. Wess Meyers and Charlie Bristol, they’re the other guards. To get to the Wards’, you follow this road almost to the end and make a right on Cranberry Drive. You’ll make a left on Katan Street, which will take you directly to it. If you see the gazebo, you’ve gone too far. You’ll have to swing around at the cul-de-sac and—”
“I’ll be fine.” I point to my dashboard, where the screen displays the GPS. Even I want to cringe at the heavy undertone of irrational and unnecessary hostility in my voice.
“Right.” Hecluckshis tongue and hugs his almighty iPad. “I’m trying to be helpful, friend.”
I rarely feel like a giant bag of shit, but I do now because he’s right. Jerry was helpful, and I allowed twenty-five years of ingrained prejudices to precede this moment. The man has been nothing but friendly, and here I am, acting like a dick instead of saying thank you and being on my way. Dirt, who practically raised Discord and me because, obviously, our mother was busy doing other things, would slap the shit out of me for being rude.
See, the thing is, stealing and killing a motherfucker who deserves to die, those things are perfectly acceptable. But there’s never a reason to leave your manners home.
“Appreciated,” I say between clenched teeth.
Jerry gives me a cordial nod. “If you are a guest of Kerri Ward, you must be good people.”
Fuck me.
People in Brighton are supposed to be jerk-offs. But Jerry seems like decent folk. I chalk it up to him being working class. The real test is when I meet Kerri’s mom. Christ. What the hell have I gotten myself into? This is relationship-level shit, and I’m the last person she should want at her side for this. But it’s done because I’ve come this far, and I’m…itchy…as I drive away from the security booth. I can’t believe I agreed to this. And as for Jerry’s claim of me beinggood people. Holy shit. Anyone who knows me wouldneveraccuse me of being a noble person.
I follow the GPS and try not to gawk at the gated mansions or notice how the air really is fresher. Then I roll up the window before I fucking freeze to death and turn up Candlebox’s “Cover Me” because ’90s grunge never goes out of style. It’s easy to imagine Kerri playing on these streets as a little girl. Pretending she was prim and proper. Meanwhile, secretly, she was dying to break free because her soul couldn’t be caged, and when I make the right and then the left, I’m sweating and need to turn off the heat. My palms are slick on the wheel as I pull up to a white fucking monstrosity on the end of a stately block that overlooks a lake.
A goddamn lake.
With a fountain.
All thumbs and two left feet, I park in the driveway behind a sleek, black Bentley. There’s also a white Jeep Wrangler. And a black Cadillac Escalade beside a red Maserati in the open garage.
The Unholy, we’re powerful. With power comes wealth. My work as an enforcer doesn’t come cheap. My house may not be fancy, and my zip code is considered shitty, but I do well for myself. If I never work another job and spend the rest of my days in Mayhem living as I do now, I’ll never hurt for money. But right now…? I’ve never felt like the no-good son of a crackhead like I do as I climb out of my truck and stalk toward the front door.
It swings open even before my booted feet hit the first of the five steps that lead to the double wooden doors of the grand entrance.
And she’s there.
My duchess.
“You came.” Her voice is brittle, and when the cold breeze hits her, she crosses her arms to ward off the chill. The stance pushes up her tits, and the off-the-shoulder pink sweater does a piss-poor job of covering the outline of her hard nipples.
I bring my gaze back to meet blue eyes dulled with grief. Her sorrow shames me. Shakes the depraved thoughts out of my head. The fuck? I came to help her get through her father’s death. Not eye-fuck her on her parents’ front porch.
“I said I’d come, didn’t I?” I march toward her, chewing up the space that separates us.
She tucks the stray hair that’s escaped her messy ponytail behind her ear. Her throat bobs when she swallows. “Yes, but you hate Brighton, so I wasn’t sure you’d actually make it.”
I ignore her startled gasp as I reach around her to rip out the tie holding her hair. The golden mass tumbles down her back. “I like you more than I hate this fucking city.”
Christ, her smile kills me. It absolutely levels me. A bullet right through my heart. She steps aside and sweeps her arm wide. “Well, come in.”
With my bag left in the cab of my pickup, I walk past her, close enough that our fingers deliberately brush. Although I honestly don’t know who initiates the contact. It’s something casual. Something natural now. Like she’s my own, personal gravity. I want to kiss her. No, Ineedto kiss her. Kiss her so fucking badly, I have to fist my hands to keep from grabbing her and slamming her against the nearest wall so I can do bad things to her.
Damn, she smells nice.
So does the house. I walk deeper inside and take a healthy whiff. Yep. The foyer reeks of lemons. Sage, too, I think. And as I follow her, we pass a formal room with white sofas and regal chairs, none of which I’d dare sit my low-rent ass on. Everything is too tidy and impersonal. Look, but don’t touch. A showroom. With artwork hung everywhere. Fancy shit, like you’d find in a museum. Big and bold to counter the subdued, buttery color of the walls.
