The Enforcer (Men Who Thrill Book 1) (3 page)

She delivered the coffee and pie quickly and left. There was no change in her demeanor, but her gaze lingered on me for a split second longer than it ever had before, and that simple look set off an inferno in my blood.

I sat and enjoyed my pie and coffee and enjoyed watching her, the foreign hum of satisfaction that thrummed through me leaving me exhilarated. But when the door opened and two younger men walked in, the exhilaration faded and wariness set in. I was on full alert, my heart now pounding with exhilaration of a different sort.

They were trouble; I could see it as clearly as I could see their faces. I prayed that for their sakes they were only here for a meal, but if they weren’t, I was ready. I didn’t move, but I was aware of what was happening around me, could hear the inane conversation and saw the way April tensed. She could sense the trouble as well, but to her credit, she didn’t seem to be panicking.

Fixing that professional smile on her face, she walked to the table where the two men sat.

“Hello. What will you have?” she asked. Her words were polite, but I could hear the underlying tension in her voice.

This was not good.

“Yeah,” the one I’d pegged as the ringleader said. “How about everything in the register?”

When he finished, he extended his hand toward April, the long gun he held wobbling a bit. April bit out a soft cry and then began walking backward, her hands extended in front of her. As she moved, so did I, slipping out of the booth and making my way toward the others at a methodical pace that in no way reflected the tightness in my gut and the vise that seemed to be squeezing my lungs.

This block, the businesses on it, including April’s I believed, paid a hefty fee to avoid just this scenario. It was known that those who paid were off-limits; I’d delivered that message personally on several occasions, so if these two were desperate or stupid enough to risk my wrath and that of my employer, they would have no compunction about harming April, taking her life. And that they hadn’t even bothered to cover their faces only confirmed what they intended. They were protected or they planned to kill her.

Neither circumstance was good, but at least one of them I could address. That thought twisted the last bit of air from my lungs and helped propel me the last few feet.

Someone might die tonight, but it wouldn’t be her.

Both had stood, and when they finally noticed me, they turned away from April and focused on me. I didn’t recognize either of their faces, and they didn’t appear to recognize me either. I’d place them in their late teens or early twenties, and I was bigger than the two of them combined. Still, my size did not seem to scare them, especially the ringleader, who was standing nearest me. He pointed his revolver in my face.

Fucking amateurs. The revolver was a huge gun, used .44 cal ammo, would probably break his arm if he pulled the trigger, and couldn’t have been more ill-suited for armed robbery. It was a showpiece, not something that a professional would use. But the idiot pointing it at me didn’t know that, and he was freaked out that I wasn’t even marginally concerned by his ridiculous weapon.

I wasn’t; even from this close distance, the fucker would probably miss, especially given the way his hand was trembling in earnest now. I kept my gaze on him after I looked over at his partner and tossed a fleeting glance at April. The millisecond that I saw her revealed her terror, but she held it together. Her eyes were wide with fear, but she wasn’t screaming and she didn’t make any sudden movements. If she stood pat, I’d have this handled quickly.

“Back the fuck up, man! This doesn’t concern you,” the ringleader said.

I stepped closer, moving slowly but steadily toward him.

He cocked his gun. “Unless you want it to concern you. Because I can make it.”

I wanted to laugh in his face; he sounded pathetic not threatening. April was worried, but this guy was a pretender, nothing more. It might be sad for someone who loved him for him to lose his life over this foolish attempt, but he would if he didn’t get that gun out of my face.

I said as much. “I’m feeling generous, so I’m going to let you leave,” I said.

“Man…” his companion said.

“Shut the fuck up! Both of you,” the other responded, waving the gun.

“You need to stop waving that,” I said calmly. “You might hurt yourself.”

“Or I might hurt you, motherfucker!” he said, attempting to sound tough but coming off like a frightened and timid child.

I snatched the gun from his hand and pointed it at him.

He stared at his now-empty appendage in disbelief, and his companion started freaking out. The robber looked from me to his gun, which I casually held in my palm aimed dead center on his forehead, like he couldn’t believe what his eyes were telling him. For a moment I wished April wasn’t here so that I could teach this guy a lesson. He was probably some fucking rich-kid-wannabe gangster out for some fun. He gave people like me a bad name, terrorized innocents like April with no regard. I hated him. And I would have killed him if she wasn’t here.

But she was, and after tightening my grip on the gun, I tilted my head toward the door.

“Like I said, I’m feeling generous. But that could change at any moment,” I said, my voice going low. “Leave. Forget this place exists. Or you’ll regret it.”

I pulled myself to my full height and moved through the open area so that I was between April and the thugs, who’d started backing toward the door.

“Let’s go, man!”

The second robber didn’t repeat himself, and instead booked out the front door, running down the block. But his friend waited for one beat and then another and then seemed to consider the situation before running out. The door slammed closed behind him, and for a moment I stood silent wondering if I might see him again. But my reflection was broken by a soft sound escaping to the left of me.

I followed the sound with my gaze, which landed on April, who stood stock-still, probably in shock. She looked up at me her brown eyes wide, and the low cry that had emerged from her throat was cut off short. She went silent and then after another moment walked toward the door.

Her steps were shaky, unbalanced, and I could see the tremor in her body. When she reached the door, she lifted her hand toward the lock, but it shook so violently that she couldn’t seem to get a grip. I put the gun on the bar and then walked up behind her, and I reached out, letting instinct guide me, and rested a hand on her soft shoulder. Then I rested my other hand atop hers. I pushed her hand down and gripped her fingers tightly for a moment, before reaching up and locking the door.

The
click
of the lock resounded through the room far louder than it should have been, and the sound seemed to break her. She released another quiet cry and her tremors intensified. And then they were followed by sobs, and deep, racking motions that had her entire body shaking.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice thick with tears.

I tightened my grip on her shoulder, and she collapsed into the touch.

“Should I call the cops? Will it matter?”

“If you want to,” I said.

She released a sound that was a mix of sob and sigh, and at the noise, I wanted to go find those two fuckers and beat them until they were stains on the asphalt.

“It’ll probably take them forever to get here anyway,” she said sounding defeated. “If they get here at all.”

“You should call if it would make you feel better,” I said.

I wanted her to do nothing of the sort, wasn’t quite sure how I’d be able to get out of here if she decided to, but I couldn’t see her like this, so sad and confused and terrified.

She sighed again, and then she said, this time her voice stronger, “It won’t make a difference. They won’t do anything, so it’s not even worth the time.”

She had no idea how right she was. If she were lucky enough to get a good cop, it wasn’t like they’d be able to do anything. The investigation, what little there would be, would be stymied from on high. There would be no recompense for her; there never was for the good.

Unless…

I shoved the thought aside. I had already gone too far, and I couldn’t let myself go further, get more involved. In fact, I needed to get the fuck out of here. But my feet stayed bolted to the floor, my hand glued to her shoulder.

“I won’t call,” she said, “but I guess I should…” She trailed off. And when she turned to look at me, the fear in her eyes caused a stinging pain in my chest. And it stirred an unfamiliar—and undeniable—need to protect her, ease that pain, make her feel safe.

“I’ll take you home,” I said, my voice harsher than I had intended.

I wouldn’t have been surprised if she said no, but she didn’t. She nodded but remained silent and walked over to the cash register.

“There’s less than fifty dollars cash here. Everyone pays with credit, except a few holdouts like you.” A faint smile crossed her lips and then fell away. “Oh God if they had known that, they would have–”

“April, right?” I hastily added, the ease and familiarity with which I said her name sounded suspicious even to me.

“Yes. April. I guess we’ve never been officially introduced.”

Unbidden, my name fell from my lips, and she offered another faint smile in return.

“Pleased to meet you,” she said.

“I’ll take you home,” I repeated, all the while chiding myself for having told her my name.

For a moment, it again looked like she would object, but after a few beats’ pause as she stared at me, her gaze openly assessing, she nodded.

“Thank you,” she said, her appreciation clear.

It seemed I’d passed whatever test she’d given, and I found myself uncharacteristically humbled. I didn’t want to read too much into it; she’d been traumatized, and given the choice of walking home alone, or having someone with her, it was only logical that she’d choose an escort—even me, a hulking stranger who dwarfed her.

So I ignored the faint warmth that stirred in my chest and waited, eyes hawking every inch of the deserted street as she turned off the lights and locked the door.

“This way. I’m a few blocks over,” she said as she began walking east.

Chapter Five

I let her set the pace, and she moved with the same efficient grace that was her hallmark in the restaurant. She was silent during the walk, her face tight and shoulders tense. As much as I disliked the unease that had marred her usually warm demeanor, I did appreciate the silence. I was on guard and needed to be focused on our surroundings, on the beasts that lurked in the night, and I didn’t trust myself to do that while preoccupied with her, as I inevitably would be.

We made it to her house with no incident, and though it was dark, I recognized the neighborhood. This was a quiet section of the city, the streets lined with small bungalows that had been built during the city’s manufacturing heyday, and somehow, this little portion had maintained a sense of community that had fallen away as other parts of the city had decayed.

She walked up her porch and unlocked the door, gesturing that I come in. I hesitated.

“It’s okay, April. I saw you home safely. No need to invite me in,” I said.

“I want to. It’s the least I can do, and I…” Her voice faded, and then she turned her head sharply, her dark eyes glittering in the darkness. “Unless, I mean, if you’d rather not…”

That I wanted to so much was the root of my hesitation, but at the faint tremor in her voice, I relented.

“No, I will,” I said, hoping my voice didn’t reveal how much I wanted just that, even though I knew nothing could come of it, and I climbed the three wide porch steps to stand behind her.

She smiled softly and entered, and I followed her, closing and locking the door behind me. I watched as she removed her shoes and lined them up neatly in a row next to several other pairs. My gaze zeroed in on a pair of black loafers. Men’s shoes.

When she caught the direction of my gaze, she chuckled and shook her head. “My grandpa’s. He’s been gone for a couple of years now, but I haven’t been able to bring myself to move them. It just wouldn’t feel like home without them there like they’ve always been.”

I ignored the relief I felt at her statement and instead focused on how she’d so easily managed to detect the direction of my thoughts. I kept my emotions and my thoughts hidden, another requirement of the job, but she seemed to have no trouble uncovering them. I’d known it before, but was again reminded that this woman, the way she disarmed me without even seeming to try, was dangerous.

“Oh, you don’t need to do that,” she said as I toed off my shoes and placed them next to hers.

“It’s fine,” I said, keeping my eyes focused on my shoes and away from her.

“Okay. Well, this way,” she said and began walking across the small living room.

Again I followed, letting my gaze move around the small room, noting the homey little touches, pictures on the mantle of her and an older couple, her grandparents I guessed, an old picture of what looked to be the front of the restaurant many years ago, the pale blue throw rug that lined the dark hardwood floors, a shelf that had snow globes from different cities. I hadn’t really imagined what her home would be like, but this felt right, and I could easily picture her here, living her life, just as I could easily—far too easily—picture myself here as well.

I turned my eyes to the front, hoping to shut off the unfruitful and risky direction of my thoughts, but almost groaned out loud when my gaze landed on her ass, the full curves filling her pants in the most enticing way, the gentle sway as she moved, mesmerizing. My cock was at attention in an instant, and I adjusted my jacket, hoping to mask my response. She’d been through enough tonight, and I wouldn’t let my inability to control my reaction to her add to her burden.

“Please, have a seat,” she said when we reached the kitchen.

The light she’d flicked on cast the surprisingly large space in a soft glow that was centered on a round four-person table set in the middle of the room. The sink, stove, and refrigerator were on one side and a row of cabinets, where she headed, on the other. Without looking back at me, she began rummaging through the cabinets, opening and closing them seemingly at random.