Six Months (8 page)

“Bet it ain’t so mysterious to the face it ran into several times. One of these days I’m going to get you to smoke a little weed and then maybe you’ll loosen up,” Jericho said with a suppressed laugh. “Man, I’d love to see that shit. Bet you’re one of those sissies who holds on to the grass because the planet is spinning too fast.”

“You need to cut that shit out,” Reno suggested, as if his brother hadn’t heard it a million times before. “You’re too old for that mess and I don’t think we need to take another trip down memory lane, if you get my meaning.”

“Maybe you should mind your own business. I don’t do the hard shit anymore.”

Shifters acted the age they looked like more than the age they actually were. Jericho was old enough to know better, but his talents as a musician had kept him stagnant in a partying lifestyle. Jericho had gotten a taste of fame years ago, and it ended in disaster. In fact, it almost killed him. He kept his act local now, but little had changed in how he carried himself. He commanded attention when he walked into a room, and it wasn’t just his height. The women loved his long hair and aloofness. Whether it was onstage or off, that boy had been born to entertain. Breed had to stay out of the limelight; the risk of being discovered by humans was too great for those who lived extended lifetimes. So sacrifices had to be made, and maybe Jericho was a little bitter about that.

Reno sniffed and looked at their reflections in the mirror. “Maybe you should realize life is more than a party.”

“The day you quit having fun is the day you resign yourself to getting old,” Jericho retorted. He eased off the stool and grabbed his longneck. As he passed by, he leaned over Reno’s shoulder and lowered his voice. “Tomorrow, we’re getting you laid. I know just the girl, and she’s had her eye on your swagger for about three years now.”

Reno cut him a sharp glare and a smug grin stretched across Jericho’s face, brightening his milky-green eyes. Jericho raked his tangled dark hair away from his face and winked.

“I know
I’m
getting laid,” Denver announced from the black beanbag chair in the corner.

“Says who?” Jericho tilted his bottle and took a swig.

Denver pointed to his crotch with his index finger. “Says
this
guy.” He had a bag of Cheetos on his stomach and his fingers were tinted orange from the cheese. “It’s been too fucking long, and I don’t give a shit if my wolf is the one who gets laid, but
one of us
is getting a little tail.”

“Well, I know
I’m
getting laid,” Austin announced as Lexi entered the room.

“Don’t be so sure,” she said with an air of confidence, walking indifferently toward the short fridge behind the bar.

Reno silently laughed. All the guys loved her to bits because she put that alpha in his place.

Austin eased up behind her. “That’s the
one
thing I’m sure of, Ladybug.”

She bent over and reached for a wine cooler, tilting her ass just a little bit. Reno had to turn away because it was instinctual for males to become aroused when a female turned her back. The men in that house would cut off their right arm before making a move on a mated female in the pack, but Austin didn’t take kindly to a room full of erections, so they averted their eyes out of respect.

Austin gripped her hips and growled, leaning over to whisper in her ear.

Denver shoved a handful of chips into his mouth and folded the bag. “Well, I’m sick of
that
shit,” he said, pointing at the adorable couple. “Ain’t fair. I got needs.”

“You also got dirty socks all over the bathroom,” Lexi pointed out, turning around and nudging Austin away. “Women don’t want to be a maid and pick up after you.”

“Our mother did.”

“Women you
sleep
with.”

Denver’s mouth turned down and his brows arched. “Maybe I’ll find a girl who will want me for who I am.”

Jericho lifted his bottle in a toast. “That’s so precious I want to put it on a greeting card. Women look at a man like Lynn looks at this house: a fixer-upper.”

“That’s not true,” Lexi cut in. “I didn’t have to change Austin; he changed himself.”

A fierce smile slid up Austin’s face and he reached in his back pocket and removed his fringed gloves. When he winked at her with his ice-blue eyes, Lexi scowled at him.

“That’s it! I’m going to get the scissors and cut those fringes off.” She stormed out of the room and Austin put the second glove on his hand, swaggering toward the hall.

“Be back in two hours, boys. My girl loves it when I pull out the leathers. It gets her all fired up in the sack.”

“You see?” Denver said, throwing his head back. “That’s
killing
me. It was fine until she came into the house.”

Jericho tossed a dart at the board, hitting dead center. “Bitch all you want, man. We know you ain’t got game.”

Denver’s legs flailed as he struggled to get out of the beanbag chair his ass was adhered to. The bag of Cheetos spilled on the floor and his face bloomed red. “Why don’t you just shut it?”

“Why don’t we make it interesting with a friendly wager?” Ben suggested.

Reno turned his back, ignoring the ruckus.

Wheeler slid in the seat beside him at the bar, shoving a deck of cards away. “You okay?” He eyed the new scar on Reno’s left arm as he reached in a plastic bag on the bar and pulled out a flat stick of spicy beef jerky. Wheeler was the only one in the house who ate that stuff and he could eat bags of it at a time.

“Just a scratch,” Reno said dismissively, taking a swig of beer.

Wheeler and Ben were identical twins. They looked alike in almost every way: amber eyes with angled brows, a strong nose, and carved features. They had brown hair, but Ben kept his styled neater than Wheeler, who wore his short on the sides and long on top, combed upward and every which way. They were six feet tall, which was a smidge taller than Denver but shorter than the rest of the brothers. Their build was average, but Wheeler had a tougher stance. He had a no-nonsense mean streak and had quickly gained a reputation in the family as the black sheep. Ben, on the other hand, was easygoing and always enjoyed a game of cards. In fact, he had entered a number of card tournaments and played the circuit. Everyone got along with him better for the simple reason he was less trouble and joked around more.

It was as if Wheeler was trying to sever his connection to Ben. He’d inked himself up, grown facial hair, and developed a serious attitude problem. He used to be a whiz at finance, working for some of the wealthiest immortals, but now showed no desire to go back to work. Austin had once confided to Reno he thought Wheeler might have been involved in a financial scandal, but they didn’t ask questions because everyone who decided to join with the Weston pack was each given a clean slate. They all had a past, but you can’t force someone to show you their ghosts. When a man wants you to see his house of pain, he’ll open the door and invite you in.

Everyone has a few dark years on them. At least with PI work, Reno didn’t have to travel as much, but he still armed himself. Shifters didn’t have official law enforcement, so PIs worked independently. Only proven crimes would go to the courts run by the higher authority, and that left the rest to good old-fashioned street justice. So Reno didn’t exactly have clean hands, but it’s not something he talked about. He’d seen a lot of shit go down in his life, and sometimes those memories haunted him in quiet moments. Like the fifteen-year-old runaway he’d found living under a bridge who’d revealed what her father had done to her. Reno could have driven her home and let her pack deal with it, but he’d understood the humiliation she would have to endure. No woman deserved to have a man’s eyes look upon her with pity. He’d taken her to a respectable pack up in Colorado and given her a new lease on life. The Packmaster had owed him a favor, so he’d assigned one of his best men as her watchdog. Reno had driven home and couldn’t sleep for weeks. Not until he’d tracked down her father and delivered a beating that man would never forget.

“I’ve got someone I need you to check out,” Wheeler said in a low voice.

Meanwhile, Denver and Jericho were in a verbal argument about who had the bigger dick, and who
was
the bigger dick.

“What’s it for?”

Wheeler leaned on his forearms, staring at their reflection in the mirror behind the liquor glasses. “Austin wants me to help Lexi get the business on its feet, and dammit, I can’t get out of it until I review some of the documents that dead human left behind. I found a couple of wire transfers I can’t account for. Large sums of money.”

“So? Maybe her boss bought a few cars.”

Didn’t seem like breaking news for a business owner to spend money.

“No,” Wheeler said. “I tried searching the name on the Internet and nothing came up. It’s an unusual name.”

Reno cocked his head, considering Wheeler’s insinuation. All Breeds had alternate identities. It was essential to use their fake IDs in human establishments so the Breed could keep tabs on them. Reno had once fallen off the radar after being arrested by human law enforcement, and his partner was able to run a trace and bail him out. Unusual names were easier to spot as one of their own. The Breed functioned as a completely separate society from humans. They had their own banks to avoid dealing with the IRS, their own jails, and their own clubs.

“Give me his name and I’ll see what I can find out,” Reno said in a quiet voice. “Are you going to transfer the Sweet Treats money over to a Breed account?”

“It gets sticky,” Wheeler said, chewing off a piece of jerky. “They’ve already filed taxes and Lexi is making quarterly payments. The only way around it would be to sell the business and start over. I talked with Austin and she can run it until she gets old enough that it might attract attention, then we can move it. It would make more sense to open it up on the Breed side of town where we have more control on leasing and don’t file taxes. Humans just love those taxes,” he said with a shake of his head.

“I don’t normally track down humans, but as a favor for a brother…”

Wheeler jotted down a name on a paper napkin and slid it over. “’Preciate ya,” he said, slapping Reno on the back and strolling across the room.

Reno glanced down at the name.

Maddox Cane.

That evening, Trevor and I whipped up some beef tacos with refried beans, guacamole, and tortilla chips on the side.
Nobody cooked tacos like Trevor; he made his own seasoning and deep-fried the shells. When he had extra time, he’d make salsa from scratch and it was out of this world and over the moon.

As delicious as it all tasted, my stomach twisted in knots over the thought of meeting up with Sanchez later that evening.

Trevor and I sat at the tiny table, eating off our paper plates, listening to the radio, and chatting. We mostly talked about dream vacations. Trevor wanted to see a shuttle launch at NASA, and I’d always dreamed of walking along a sandy beach where the waters were as crystal blue as the sky. I’d never been to the coast and loved the idea of standing with my feet in an ocean that stretched across the world. Just the idea of it made me smile, close my eyes, and imagine the warm sun on my shoulders and the powerful roar of the surf.

“You’re a romantic at heart,” he said, pinching a heap of fallen lettuce and nibbling on it. “No one would ever know it because of the mixed signals you give out.”

“What signals?”

“
Slippery When Wet
mixed with
Library, Next Exit
.”

I swiped the last of the guacamole from my plate and licked my finger. “You’re one to talk, Mr.
Public Recreation, Next Five Miles
.”

“Oh, is
that
how it is!” he said with a boisterous laugh. Trevor’s eyes danced with amusement. “At least I’m not falsely advertising. I knew you were a romantic the day you fell on your ass in front of the escalator and looked up at me with those dreamy eyes.”

“They weren’t dreamy!” I tossed a piece of chopped tomato at him. Well, maybe they were a
little
bit dreamy, but Trevor knew me too well. Sometimes people just get you, and those are the people you never have to explain yourself to.

“Your nose looks a lot better,” I said. Remarkably so. I couldn’t even tell he had been hit except for a tiny bit of swelling.

“I put some ice on it.” He arched an eyebrow and glanced at me. “It wasn’t broken after all.”

“And your lip?”

He wiped his hands on a paper napkin. “That was just dried blood from where my nose dripped.”

“You still want to go to the party?” I asked, picking a morsel of beef from my plate.

Trevor licked the guacamole from his thumb and crunched on another chip. “If you work with Lexi, then there’s no avoiding it. You don’t need my permission to go—it’s your life. But if
you’re
going,
I’m
going,” he said reluctantly.

“It doesn’t have to be like that. We don’t have to go.”

“Yeah, we’re going. I know how you operate and you don’t fly solo to these things. You need to get out and have some fun for a change. You’ve been cooped up and not socializing. I’m here to rectify that. All this,” he said, pointing around at the trailer, “it’s bullshit. It’s not who you are or what your life is about. I don’t want to find you twenty years from now, chain-smoking at this table with a stack of scratch-off lottery tickets, dreaming your life will get better. That’s what your grandma was—a dreamer. Not in a good way. She couldn’t accept the cards she was dealt and always wanted somebody else’s hand.”

“We all want something better.”

“At what cost?” He lifted his brown eyes to mine and they softened. “Forget all this. Go out and have fun.”

I lifted my plate and set it on the counter behind me. “So you want me to live in denial?”

He shrugged. “Nothing wrong with that.”

“There is, Trevor.”

He shook his head and scooped up another bite of dip. “Works for me. I go out, have fun, and don’t think about all the bullshit that tethers you to a life you don’t want. Better than walking around all depressed, and that’s what I’m seeing in you lately. I don’t like that, April. I hate seeing you change.”

“I’m just going through a patch these past couple of days. It doesn’t mean I’m changing, it doesn’t mean I’ll never laugh again or take a chance and go to a party. But this is my life, and I have to accept it even if I don’t like it. You can’t live in denial or it catches up with you.”

“
Fuck me
. I feel an argument coming on,” he said in irritation, walking to the sink and rinsing out his glass.

I glanced at the clock and it was fifteen until eleven. I had to get out of there but didn’t want Trevor to get suspicious. “So then run away from your problems and go play some pool,” I suggested. “That’ll make it all better.”

I hated being so cruel, but when Trevor got mad, he usually bailed. I wasn’t sure where he went—probably the bar.

“April Showers used to be a pet name,” he said. “Now it’s just a shower of tears.
Woe is me, I live in a trailer
.”

I threw a pillow at him.

Hard.

“Go to hell! I’m giving you a place to stay and doing the best I can to work out my problems and make it right. I’m not the one who hooked up with a guy because he bought me tickets to Linkin Park. Oh, excuse me—backstage passes
and
a limo ride.”

Trevor flipped my paper plate on the floor, grabbed his keys, and stormed out the door. As I heard the engine to his hatchback rev, I wanted to run out and say I was sorry. We never bickered like that, and I was certain that I might have fractured our relationship. But I was protective of Trevor. He was like the brother I’d never had, and it was more important that he didn’t get involved in what I was doing.

I waited until his car drove off before running out the door. I had gone to the bank earlier for a withdrawal and stuffed the money in my oversized brown purse. If I had it my way, I would have just wired him the money. Loan sharks worked on their own terms, so I wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible and put it behind me.

The building where Sanchez wanted to meet wasn’t far from where I worked, so I jogged most of the way. When I arrived, I slowed my pace because the road leading up to the warehouse had some major cracks and potholes that weren’t easy to see in the dark. Out of breath, I warily looked around and observed nothing out of the ordinary, although I’m not sure what I was expecting to see. A tactical unit? Police dogs? A crowd of mobsters holding machine guns?

Just to the right of the road, the pale moonlight illuminated a white BMW in the parking lot.

I swallowed hard and approached the main door, clutching my purse tightly. Most of the windows had been boarded up or smashed in, and graffiti covered the dark brick on the exterior walls. It was an eyesore, but since it was away from the road, no one had bothered to have it torn down or painted. It probably cost more to demolish than it was worth.

I wondered how he’d gotten the key to open the door, or if it had always been open. Maybe squatters lived inside. I cupped my elbows and peered through the doorway to make sure no one was in there. When I saw it was clear, I headed toward a white glow of artificial light down the hall to my right.

The concrete floors were covered with pebbles, dirt, cigarette butts, and old soda cans. An acrid smell of filth infiltrated my nose and I couldn’t identify the scent, but it reminded me of the time I found a dead dog in a ditch. My stomach knotted when I glanced behind me at the dark corridor. I thought about leaving the money right at the doorstep and taking off, because I had no business being out here by myself.

“I’m in here,” he called out impatiently from a lit room.

I peered through the open doorway and Sanchez was sitting at a metal table, smoking a cigarette. He made little donut rings, which floated up to a hanging light and quickly broke apart. When I realized the room had working electricity, that’s when I got the impression he used this location frequently.

“I have the money,” I said.

He glanced at his gold watch. “Sit down.”

Across the table from him was a dirty chair and I wiped the seat with my hand before sitting, despite his chuckles.

Sanchez narrowed his eyes as he took another long drag from his short cigarette. I reached in my purse to pull out the envelope.

“You’re late,” he said.

“I’m sorry. I couldn’t get here any faster. Here’s the money.” I pushed the envelope across the table with a shaky hand. “It’s all there.” My eyes skated to the open door and back to him. I kept telling myself that my grandma had done this all the time, and she never came home missing a finger.

Sanchez bit the end of his cigarette between his teeth and tore open the envelope. Very meticulously, he separated the bills by denomination and counted the money. Then he eyed me closely and put his forearms on the table, patting out the butt of his smoke.

“Where did a vanilla girl like you come up with this much green so fast?”

“I had some tucked away,” I lied. “That should square me away with Delgado.”

He tapped a fingernail against his tooth as if contemplating whether to believe my story. “The man will be pleased he got his money.”

“Good,” I said, rising to my feet. “Let him know we’re even.”

“Not quite,” he said softly, beating me to the door. “You were late. There’s always a penalty for tardiness.”

I stared at him dumbfounded. “I paid what I owed.”

He clicked the door shut and leaned against it.

“I need to go home. Someone’s waiting for me,” I said calmly, reasonably. “If Delgado has any issues, he knows how to get in touch with me.”

Sanchez grinned in such a way that all the muscles in his face relaxed, as if it were drug-induced. “Sit down.”

Collecting my nerves, I said, “Open the door. You have the money and—”

“Sit the fuck down. Last warning.” He bared his teeth and chomped down once, causing me to step back at the sound his molars made when they clicked together. “I know you walked here, because there’s mud on your shoes and I didn’t hear an engine. You think you can run away from me? Let’s negotiate like civilized people and things won’t have to get ugly.” He folded his arms and waited for me to comply.

I did as he asked because the man scared me. He not only had a car, but I could never outrun him. Plus, the idea of being chased like an animal frightened me enough that I decided we needed to have the conversation. It would also give me a moment to recall if I’d seen any objects I could use as a weapon. The chair would be a last resort, but getting out of the room would be a smarter option than trying to take down a man who outweighed me. Since this was a business transaction, I kept my wits about me and calmly sat in the chair, folding my hands on my lap.

Sanchez strolled back to his chair and sat across from me. The light from the bulb that shone on the table wasn’t soft, but harsh and sterile. The metal shade directed the light so that it didn’t illuminate the outer walls of the room—just the table.

“I charge one hundred dollars for each minute my clients are late,” he said, looking down at his watch. “You came in at 11:14 p.m. That means you owe me…” He tapped his finger on his chin, lifting his eyes to the ceiling.

“I’m not paying you $1400 for arriving a few minutes late. You never stated there was a penalty.”

His eyes lit up, not having expected me to respond so calm and businesslike. Sanchez chuckled dryly while pinching the small patch of hair on his chin. “I like you, Vanilla Frost. You’re a clever little girl. If you’re as smart as I think you are, then I’m sure you can come up with alternatives for cash that would clear your debt with me. This has nothing to do with Delgado. When it comes to dealing with his clients, I have my own separate rules. So, what ideas can you come up with?”

My heart constricted and then galloped in my chest. I put my hands on the table to show him how in control I was.

“We’ll negotiate a payment plan,” I suggested. “But only on the condition you lower the amount to half. You didn’t disclose the penalty up front.”

A smile crept up his face. “I like that idea. But I don’t do payment plans when it comes to cash.” His brow rose and my stomach turned. “Some collectors will pound your ass to the floor and beat you with a wrench, but I’m a guy who sees opportunity. I like to build that trust between my client and myself. So take off your shirt.”

Stunned, the words became caught in my throat and I didn’t reply. I hoped my silence would erase the reality of what he’d just asked me to do. My eye twitched involuntarily and I had the urge to rub it, but kept very still. I’d read a book on body language hoping it would help me during job interviews. There were certain “tells” that would give away if you were lying, nervous, or feigning confidence. The wrong gestures created a lack of trust.