The thief’s head and back make a heavy thud when my rescuer slams him up against the brick building. I stand there, slightly transfixed, as they both seem to forget I even exist.
“I wasn’t doing nothing,” the twerp says, as if he didn’t just get caught trying to take my bag. What blows me away is the fact that this guy even cares.
The alley’s dim, but I can still see the shadow of his profile. His eyes are locked on the man in front of him as he clutches his grimy shirt. “You can go. He’s not going to bother you again.” I watch his lips move as he speaks to me without even a glance in my direction. His tone is low and utterly calm.
It takes me a moment to respond. I expected him to want something in return, not that I planned on giving it, but it still surprises me that I’m being dismissed. “Thank you,” I tell him, even though I wasn’t ever really worried about the creep. I could have killed him already, but I have a thing about only killing people who actually deserve it. I wait another second longer to see if he’s going to look my way, but it’s almost like he’s avoiding it.
I back out of the alley, my eyes staying on the man until he’s out of sight, hidden by the building. I glance up at the place as I pass by. The pink neon sign above the doors says The Dollhouse, and there are a few guys near the entrance. Their gazes rake over me. “Hey, honey, we’re hiring,” one man says, while the other snickers into his chest as he drops his chin.
I keep walking because if I stop, I know I’m going to ask who the man out back is, and I don’t need to know his identity. I have enough shit on my plate, and I don’t need to worry about some wannabe white knight who probably only stopped that guy because he doesn’t want the cops sniffing around. Not that I would have called the cops, but he doesn’t know that.
Still, I find myself thinking about him all the way back to the bus stop, trying to imagine what I couldn’t see of his face. I replay the sound of his voice in my head and wonder if it’s always that low with such a slow cadence.
CHAPTER2
WINGER
Busting a couple heads was not my plan, but I’m thinking it sounds pretty damn good when I exit the club through the alley and see a scuffle. It takes me all of a second to realize there’s a dude trying to pull a bag away from a woman and she’s not letting go.
“The fuck you doing?” I mutter. If someone is desperate enough to gank your shit steps away from a busy sidewalk and you can’t deal with that person, then you let him have the shit and you book it before you get killed.
The guy goes limp and lets me throw him up against the building when I grab hold of him. His head gives a satisfyingthwackwhen it meets the brick. I expect the girl to run, but she just stands there and stares at me like she’s not sure what to do next.
“You can go. He’s not going to bother you again.” I can feel her gawking at the side of my face, well, at all of me really, but my face is the only part that bothers me, even though there’s no way she could see my scars from this angle.
“Thank you,” she says softly and then backs away as if I may change my mind and attack her myself. The minute she’s around the building, I jerk the guy’s shirt and slam him against the wall again to make sure he’s listening.
“Don’t fucking come around here no more. If I catch you on my street, neither of us will have to worry about where you are again, got me?”
I wouldn’t really kill him, unless I caught him fucking with another female, and then I might, but I’ll let him think he’s dead if he crosses my path again, just to make sure he stays away.
“I won’t, I won’t,” he says hurriedly while leaning his head back as far as he can get.
After releasing his shirt, I wipe my hand on the side of my jeans and back away enough that he can skirt the wall to escape. To be honest, I’m not sure I would recognize him if I saw him again. There wasn’t much to distinguish him from the other street rats.
The girl, though, is clear in my mind. Her dark hair was pulled back, allowing me to see her freckled face. She was watching me as if she knew I was more dangerous than the man she was tussling with. Smart girl.
I glance toward the mouth of the alley again. I came out here to get some fresh air, but it stinks like piss and rot no matter how many times I have the guys spray the brick and concrete down. Maybe the smell has just settled into my lungs.
I scan the area again to make sure nobody is hiding behind the dumpster before walking toward the street. I didn’t prop the door open in my rush to break up the fight, so now I need to walk around the building. I could kick the door, like Fel used to. All the dents and chipped paint from her boots are still visible. Thoughts of her ease a little bit of the tension in my shoulders. She was so much easier to deal with than most of the other females here. She kept to herself, stayed quiet, and did her job.
Her safety, and knowing she doesn’t have to worry about her next meal or where she’s going to sleep, reminds me why I’m here, putting up with bullshit, even though her well-being has nothing to do with me and everything to do with Rex.
He would kill anyone who even glanced at her, and that’s what she deserves—to be protected and taken care of. For a while there, I thought she might be the thing that had Rex and I at each other’s throats, but his single-minded obsession with her didn’t end with him hurting her like I feared.
He actually fell in love with her and worships the ground she walks on, and even though that could be seen as a weakness, he allowed it. He’s still fucking insane, maybe more so now because he has something to live for, but I know he would do anything on the planet to make sure she’s okay, and that’s what matters.
I understand why she captivated him. She’s the opposite of us—good and pure and so damn sweet, I thought she would get eaten alive the first week she started working here. Still, she kept coming back, peeling off pieces of her soul just so she could pay her bills and go home to her crippled mom and farm.
Thank fuck I never felt drawn to her the way Rex was. He would have slit my throat without thought, but watching out for her did change how I felt about her. He made her important to me. I paid attention to her and became invested in her well-being, like some fucked-up version of an older brother.
Later, I accepted the fact that I might have to kill him if he tried to hurt her, which is why I attempted to get her away from the club before that happened, because I knew his fixation with her was only growing, but that only pushed him to act on his obsession, and she did the impossible—tamed him. Well, that’s only true for her. To anyone else, he’s still the same Rex who’s more than willing to do what needs to be done to ensure his place at the top, and in doing so, guaranteeing her safety.
“Where’d you come from?” Masher’s forehead wrinkles. He personifies big and simple, but he’s loyal as hell and doesn’t fuck with the girls, especially since he’s dating one of them, and that can start a shitload of drama.
“Some idiot was in the alley, trying to rob a girl.”
“Shit.” Masher looks over my head as if there might be something he needs to handle.
