Taylor’s blacked-out Escalade waited at the end of the walkway, and he reached out with his free hand to open the door for me. But before I tucked myself into the safety of the car, I pulled him in for a tight hug and squashed my face to his chest. “Thanks, T. You’re seriously the best brother a girl could ask for.”
“‘Course I am! We’re family, and that’s what family is for. Now, you want a burger or what? I’m about ta gnaw my arm off over ‘ere.”
With another quiet chuckle, I hunched lower into the plush leather seat of his SUV and kept my eyes solidly turned from Frank’s house. Just because I had some squishy feelings for him, didn’t mean I was just going to roll over and let Grant walk all over me. “What about the girls?” With the dark windows between me and the rest of the world, I finally pulled the mask off and tossed it into the back seat.
Taylor leaned forward to glance either way before turning left out of the driveway. “Sent them to the club with the other half of the crew. They looked… pretty roughed up.”
“Did you call Doc Leroy?”
He snorted and threw me a ‘duh’ look. “Of course I did. You think I’m just the brawn or what?”
“I’ll refrain from making judgment,” I snickered, jabbing him in his muscled biceps. “Thanks for coming and picking them up. I feel like shit it took so long to find them.”
“Lore…” He had that disproving tone in his voice I hated. “You can’t save every girl. You know that, right? Sometimes bad shit happens to good people. And you don’t know how long they were down there for. You helped them as soon as you could.”
“It wasn’t soon enough, Taylor.” I didn’t yell or even raise my voice, but he flinched from the emotionless tone. “I need to do better at keeping innocent women safe here. We need to increase patrols and put more eyes on clubs, schools, large shopping centers, anywhere—“
Somehow, Taylor managed to pack ten years’ worth of pity into one word. “Lore.”
I kept my arms crossed tightly to my chest and glared out the window. “Don’t, Taylor. I don’t wanna feckin’ hear it from you again.”
“You can’t do this forever,” he kept on, like I hadn’t spoken. “You can’t keep beating yourself up over something you couldn’t predict would happen. What Ryan did was…” Taylor huffed a sigh, the sound of a weary soldier after a long battle. “I just don’t wanna lose you again, sis. Either to them, or to yourself.”
“At risk of sounding like a bitch, the girl you grew up with is dead. Do what the fuck I say and get more feet in the streets.” My tone brokered no further discussion, a message Taylor thankfully got as we sat the rest of the ride in silence.
Over my dead body would I knowingly let even one more woman experience the nightmares I still lived with. Even at the risk of my own life.
Break In
Grant
Iknew it was only a matter of time before Vixen contacted me again. She did say she would contact me, even when I had no idea how she'd manage that. I couldn’t say I was overly excitedat the prospect after seeing Frank’s mutilated body hanging over the edge of his sink. In the bustle of the Red Riot’s cleanup crew, I snuck out the back door without incident, so I must not have been part of the directive. Instead, I counted my limited blessings, somehow making my way back to Andrea’s condo to faceplant onto the bed, clothes and all, and sleep until late this morning.
Needless to say, the day was spent in unsettled paranoia and in an excessive caffeine haze. And trying to decide how to break the news to Andrea that Frank was, in fact, killed over his transgressions to the Riot. I knew she would come for me. What I didn’t expect was finding her in my fucking living room, draped over my loveseat like she owned the place when I came back from a quick trip to a local burger joint for takeout. I could have had it delivered, but the walls felt like they were closing in on me, and I hoped a breath of fresh air would settle my hyperactive senses.
“Hey, puppy.”
“Fuck!” My heart jumped into my throat, and I leaned back against the front door—which had been locked—in a desperate attempt to collect myself. The phone previously in my hand had clattered to the floor, and I cursed again.
Cracked screens were peak annoyances for me. And I just knew the burner’s screen was shattered.
Even worse, a tingling sensation crawled across the top of my scalp that sent a bolt of dread straight to my chest and seized my lungs. My hand flew up to brush against the silky fur of a fox ear. More tingling raced down my spine toward my tailbone, and I desperately tried to concentrate on not letting a tail pop out from beneath my shirt. Betas typically didn't shift unless they were under duress, so it wasn't like I had a ton of experience with controlling partial shifts. I literally had the fox scared out of me.
And of course, the woman responsible for all this was busy cackling, as if this wasn't already mortifying beyond recovery. Bending her head back over the armrest, she practically howled at the ceiling with mirth while wrapping both arms around her stomach. "I can't… I can't breathe," she finally wheezed.
"Oh, fuck you!" I spat.
Vixen’s trailing laughter was garbled by the voice modulator. “Not today, Satan. But I’m open to being charmed into bed in the future.” Her booted feet hung over the armrest of the very white, very stainable couch, while the rest of her slouched across the cushions. Long pink pigtails draped over the armrest to brush the floor. I noted the black leather gloves covering her hands as she pulled one arm away from her middle and tapped something into the phone one-handed. Even if I called the police—which was a monumentally stupid idea in itself—I doubted they would find evidence of her breaking into the condo. Assuming she was associated with Red Riot, I could also assume she was under their protection when it came to dodging trouble with the LVPD.
She raised the phone high enough to clear the back of the sofa, pointing the camera straight at me while her thumb tapped the screen. "Did you just… take my picture?" My brain short-circuited with the ridiculousness of this whole situation. I knew Vixen was fucking unhinged after my encounter at Frank's house—of which I had yet to recover—but this was a whole new level I hadn't expected.
"Yup," she chirped in that modulated tone. "I'm setting this as my wallpaper. So fucking cute!"
The sheer audacity of this woman had me frozen in place. Never in my life had I met someone with the balls or lack of sanity to break into another person’s home and wait around for them to come back, mob protection or not, much less take a damn picture of them tosave as a wallpaper. And I dealt with alot of fucked-up mobsters with inflated egos. I could feel my ears twitching in agitation.
“What’s wrong, puppy? Cat got your tongue?” she snickered. “Or maybe it would be ‘fox got your tongue,’ but that’s not a popular saying, is it?” Vixen swung her feet down to plant on the beige rug, and she pulled herself upright. Knees spread wide and elbows pressed against them, she flipped her phone between her hands as she stared at me from behind that creepy mask.
“Just shocked at how far you’d go to send a message,” I said coolly, trying to scrounge up what little pride I had left. “I was anticipating a text, or a phone call if you thought I deserved it.” With an eye glued to her relaxed form, I bent to pull my shoes off and pluck the phone up where it had skittered across the floor. Small cracks branched out from the bottom right corner of the screen. “You were sitting in that fucking meeting at the club just gloating at me, weren’t you? I’m sure you got a real kick out of acting like a whore and letting me think you had no other involvement in the mob.”
