“Grace told me Penni was out of town tonight.” Ice shifted away, his nostrils flaring at the rank smell stealing through the clubhouse.
Jackal’s mouth tightened as he reached for the whiskey bottle that Rave had set near for him. He hadn’t kept his interest in Penni a secret from the club.
“So I take it that you didn’t know?” Ice probed.
“That’s a fucking understatement.” Even when he had been the poorest in his high school class, the rich bitches had lined up to take him to the movies on a Friday night.
Ice poured more whiskey into his glass as the brothers gathered to listen.
“What happened?”
“She stood me up. Penni told me to meet her at the back of her house. Not only was she not there, but her whole yard was covered in bees.”
Ice was the only one of his friends who didn’t try to hide the fact that he was laughing at him.
Jackal pushed Stump back toward Max when they began waving their hands in the air to dissipate the stink coming from his clothes.
“What did you say to her?”
“She’s not answering the phone.” Jackal grasped the glass in his hand to keep himself from smashing it against the wall.
“That’s some fucked up shit. He could have been hurt.” Rita wrapped her arm around his waist. Jackal kind of admired her for not showing an aversion to the odor fouling the surrounding air.
“Are you going to finally listen to me and quit chasing after that fruitcake?”
Jackal was aware Ice already knew the answer to his question because of the mocking sneer on his lips.
He stared down at his whiskey glass as Ice poured him another one. “I’m never afraid of a challenge.”
“Brother, she’s one bitch that you would be better off stepping back from. You’ve had a hard-on ever since you met her.” Max snorted. “It’s not like you have a chance with her, anyway. You would have to wear a bulletproof vest under your leather to fuck the girl.”
“I’m not worried about Shade. He’ll eventually get used to Penni being my old lady. Besides, he lives in Kentucky.”
“You keep telling yourself that.” Max shook his head, but Jackal didn’t give a shit.
“Penni and I will be good together. If I had never taken her hostage, we would have already been together. I didn’t expect her to hold a grudge against me for so fucking long.”
“You doing crack?” This time, Ice couldn’t hold back his amusement.
“You watch and see.” Jackal began to get angry at the men for laughing at him. “She’s attracted to me.” Jackal had seen the interest in her eyes during the road trip to Treepoint. Penni hadn’t been able to disguise it when they had returned to Queen City, either.
“I believe in you, Jackal.” Rita licked her lips, dropping her hand down to cup his ass.
Ice rolled his eyes. “You never did explain why you smell like dog shit.”
“Had to jump into the neighbor’s yard, and the son of a bitch had two guard dogs.”
Now Ice couldn’t hold in the laughter. “The only way that fruitcake becomes your old lady is hell freezing over.”
Jackal hated to admit it, but he was finally going to have to agree with Ice. He tugged the hair surrounding his face.
Was it his face? Did she find the scar on his cheek repulsive? Were Max and the rest of the brothers right? Was he just wasting his time?
“I need a shower. Want to party, Rave?” Jackal’s voice rose so she could hear him from the other end of the bar.
Rave covered the bottom half of her face as she heaved at the thought. “Sorry, Jackal. Another night?”
The club wouldn’t let him forget anytime soon that his pride had taken a hit. A big hit.
As an enforcer in a club the size of the Predators’, his reputation not only reflected on himself, but on Ice for picking him. An enforcer who wasn’t feared became a liability.
“I’ll party with you, Jackal,” Rita spoke up, ignoring the brothers’ laughter.
Jackal’s eyebrows rose. He hadn’t fucked Rita since she had landed on Ice’s shit list.
“I’ll even wash your back for you,” she offered.
“Why not? Give me enough time to get most of the stench off before coming to my room.”
“I’ve got some shower gel that will get rid the smell right off. I’ll run to my room and meet you there.”
Any humor on Ice’s face evaporated as Rita darted toward her bedroom. “You’re better off waiting for Penni to get back and smacking her ass.”
Jackal shook his head. “Rita is a raving bitch, but I can handle that. What I’m tired of is Penni chasing after every man in Queen City who wears an expensive suit and turning that snobby nose up at me.”
“I don’t think that’s why she doesn’t like you—” Rave started to speak up then hastily snapped her mouth closed at Jackal’s glare.
“It doesn’t matter.” Jackal slammed his fist down on the counter of the bar. “Fuck her. It’s not like I was in love with the girl.”
Max pounded his hand on his back.” Fuck her,” he agreed, showing his support then grimacing as he wiped his damp hand off on the sleeve of Ice’s T-shirt. “The bitches all look good in the dark. No need to put up with the shit Penni’s dishing out.”
“You’re right! She’s not the hottest tail in Queen City.”
“There you go!” Max’s encouragement had Jackal’s sore pride finally kicking in.
“Thanks, brother!” Jackal missed the appalled look behind his back as Max tried to avoid coming into contact with Jackal’s soggy clothes.
Ice leaned against the bar, watching as Max and the men snickered as Jackal cockily headed toward his bedroom. “Since when do you give a flying fuck who Jackal does?”
“Can you seriously imagine Penni as Jackal’s old lady?”
Ice frowned at the brothers’ expectant faces. Obviously, all of them believed he would agree with them.
“You don’t think Jackal could handle Penni?”
“Brother, I think she’d shoot off his dick.”
2
Penni stepped out of her car. She had barely managed to pull into the parking lot before her car had died. It wasn’t the only thing not working.
Penni gave a frustrated sigh when she tried to call Grace back. Blanking, she glared at the cell screen, hoping the bars would mysteriously reappear.
“What the hell?” She had just had phone service when she’d talked to Grace. Penni had decided to call Grace back to have her help find a road service.
A car was parked beside the dark bar, the dark windows showing no welcoming gleam from inside. The only thing that resembled a saloon was the crooked sign and the music she could hear escaping from inside.
Penni snagged her purse from inside the car, sliding the strap firmly over her shoulder. The assortment of self-defense weapons she had inside gave her flagging confidence a boost as she walked toward the front door. With her other hand, she kept trying to call Grace back.
Her fingers trembled as she opened the door. Penni’s instincts screamed, telling her to run, and Shade had always warned her to follow her instincts. However, before she could take her brother’s advice, she felt the door jerked from her grasp.
Panni gasped as a man barreled into her. Horror had her gasp becoming a scream when she realized the man’s chest was covered in blood. The lethal weapon poking out of his back seemed incongruous. Her first instinct was to try removing the weapon, but her survival instincts kicked in when she realized there were two occupants involved in the deadly duel.
Unable to stop herself, Penni reached forward to aid the man who seemed to need the most help with the vicious weapon sticking out from his back.
His brown face was filled with agony. He appeared to be Shade’s age, in his thirties. While Shade was lean and athletic though, this man had a slim frame, which wasn’t a match against the muscular guy intent on finishing the fight that had started before she had come in the door.
/> The two men directly in front of her were silent, temporarily stunned by her appearance, but the scream that filled the dingy saloon had each scrambling to find an advantage to break away from the deadly struggle.
The poor man with the knife sticking out of his back stared at her as if she could somehow help him.
Penni dropped her phone to the floor as she reached out to catch him. The one standing behind him didn’t give her the opportunity, though, pulling the knife out with a sickly squish, only to thrust downward again into his helpless victim.
Penni scrambled back a step, holding the man as he slumped into her.
The other man stood as if frozen to stone. He appeared to have just come out of the bathroom. He was young than the other men, his actions showing he didn’t know how to react to the life and death struggle. Penni didn’t think he was friends with the other guys; his clean clothes might have come off the rack, but they had high price labels. Penni had the feeling he had been as shocked by the stabbing as she was. He must have come out of the bathroom as she had entered the front, both of them getting a shock they didn’t know how to respond to.
Penni didn’t have much time to react before she felt the victim grasping her harder. The man’s weight buckled his thin frame as she frantically tried to catch him. She was sickened by the fear she saw staring back at her.
“Help us,” Penni appealed to the man across the room who was coming out of the bathroom.
He gripped the backpack slung over his shoulder. “What’s going on?”
The shaky voice didn’t belong to a man with a backbone. Penni considered herself a good judge of character. Shade had often bragged to his friends that she could guess which of them had swiped another beer out of the refrigerator or who had taken the last piece of chicken leftover from dinner. Penni would bet her last dollar the stranger gawking at her was going to run.
She felt her own legs give out under the weight of the man she wanted to save.
“Please …” Penni flinched at the womanish sound that emerged from the man at her plea.
The stranger across the room released a squawk before the coward ran across the room, sliding between her as the stranger hanging on to her released his final breath.
The man who had jerked his knife out of his victim’s back tried to stop his escape, slipping in the blood that showed the brutal evidence of his crime.
“Striker, hold on. Be cool.”
Another feminine groan brushed past her ear, and the coward disappeared out of the closing door.
“Fuck me!” Penni toppled over when the murderous rage was directed to her as his other victim escaped out the door behind her.
“Bitch, you’re going to pay for that!”
Penni found herself trying to struggle free from the limp body pinning her to the ground. She finally gathered her senses and managed to scoot out from under the body to make her own dash for freedom. A hand burying in her short hair brought her to a sudden standstill.
“Who the fuck are you?”
Penni tried unsuccessfully to pull her hair out of his grasp. The more Penni tried to tug away, the harder he held her.
“Let me go!” Penni’s demand was ignored as he pushed her farther inside the bar.
Penni blindly stepped over the blood-soaked man she had been unable to save.
She was released, finding herself staring up at an angry male face. It wasn’t the first time she had dealt with that reaction, but she wasn’t used to having a knife pointed at her. For the first time in her life, Penni found herself speechless.
She felt the sharp point of the knife under her chin.
“Who are you? This is the last time I’m going to ask!”
“Penni!” she barely managed to gasp out.
“Your DJ’s girl?”
“No.” Penni tried to shake her head yet stopped when she felt the knife nick her skin. “I don’t even know who DJ is.”
A tug on the back of her hair had her figuring out the man lying near her feet was the unlucky DJ.
“You were with Striker? Did he have you waiting outside?”
Penni didn’t flinch as his hand threatened to cut out her throat if he thought she was lying to him.
“I ran out of gas.”
Her eyes widened when she heard him begin to laugh.
“You don’t know DJ or Striker?”
“I’ve never seen either one of them in my life,” Penni confirmed truthfully, praying he would believe her.
The smug look filling his face did not bode well that she would escape unscathed.
“Then you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Nope, it isn’t going to go down well for me at all, Penni thought dismally.
“You’re not going to let me go, are you?”
“What do you think?” His sarcastic reply had her unobtrusively searching for her purse, which wasn’t easy with the knife pointed at her.
“You could just let me leave,” Penni mumbled with forlorn hope when she saw the spark of desire in his eyes as he glanced down her body.
Penni’s breath caught in her throat. The beating of her heart sped up when she felt the danger race toward her as he moved closer to her.
“That could be hard to do since you’re out of gas.”
“I can walk.”
The man didn’t seem to appreciate the humor.
“That doesn’t work for me. You might decide to call the cops.”
Penni wrinkled her nose as the smell of alcohol on his breath wafted closer.
“I know you don’t know me, but I’m really good at minding my own business.”
“Shut your trap.”
Penni winced as a drop of blood slowly dribbled down her throat. She didn’t dare glance toward her purse. Carefully, she used the heel of her tennis shoe to drag her purse closer.
When the stranger cupped her breast in a forceful gesture, Penni didn’t scream, trying to keep him distracted.
“Are you just going to leave him there?” She nodded toward the dead body.
“Why not? It’s not like he’s going to complain.”
The man became even bolder when she didn’t struggle against his hold. Her top was slipped from under her jeans as he burrowed his hands underneath, wrenching several buttons loose on the front of her blouse. Penni was tempted to use one of the chairs on a table to brain the man intent on raping her.
Biding her time, she used her tennis shoe to reached for her purse. She bit the inside of her jaw, ignoring the sensation of his tongue entering her mouth. She damn near vomited. She wanted to rake her hands down his face. Instead, she pretended to like it as she searched her purse for what she wanted. The disgusting excuse of a man really believed she was responding to him. Thankfully, her fingers curled over what she wanted.
“Woman, we’re going to have a lot of fun.”
“Yes, we are,” Penni promised as he shoved his disgusting tongue down her throat.
Not able to control her gag reflex any longer, she pulled her tongue from harm’s way. The teeth that her dentist had charged a small fortune for bit down, nearly ripping the offending invader from her mouth, but he couldn’t seek sanctuary.
She ignored the bloodcurdling screams that filled the bar as she pressed against his chest, engaging the trigger on her Taser.
Penni didn’t let him go until he was writhing in agony and had pissed himself. Then she stumbled to her feet, grabbing for her purse as she ran toward the door. She almost lost her balance in the flight but managed to right herself as she reached the door.
The humid air filled her lungs as she took a flying leap off the step. Then …
“No!” Penni found herself pinned within a pair of strong arms that refused to relinquish her struggling body.
“I didn’t know we’re having a party, Hennessey.”
Penni found herself surrounded by at least twenty men. She was under no illusions that she had found a savior. The arms that were wrapped around her roughly were covere
d in tattoos. The one who had two tear drop tattoos at the corners of his eyes had her wishing fervently Shade would miraculously show up.
The dark-skinned man came to stop next to him. “If Ricky and DJ are screwing around when they’re supposed to be watching for Striker, I’m going kick their asses. Cruz, you’re responsible if they screw up this meeting,” Hennessey threatened, coming to a stop, his eyes widening in surprise.
Penni saw the expression mirrored on their faces when the door opened behind her.
“What the fuck happened to you?” The man holding her—named Cruz—was obviously angry.
“The bitch almost bit off my tongue.”
“What did he say?” Hennessey questioned the man Penni guessed was his second in command from his appearance.
Penni tightened her lips. Damned if she would help the bastard explain himself.
The man who had tried to rape her jerked her out of Cruz’s arms. She wasn’t given time to react before she felt her cheek absorb the shock of landing on the ground.
“Fucking bitch! I’m going to kill you.” Boots kicked out at her out, one after another, as she tried to catch her breath.
Penni used her nails to crawl away from the attack until a large pair of boots had her looking up.
Hennessey stared down at her furiously. She refused to flinch as he picked her up.
Penni waited for the attack to continue. She was smart enough to realize the man holding her wouldn’t be as easy to escape from.
As soon as the dark man had touched her, Ricky had stepped back. The man who had her now was the one calling the shots. Yes, this man was the president. His towering height had her standing up straight, glaring into his eyes. Penni made sure to notice every detail she could use as a weapon, like the diamonds in his ears glinting in the light from the door.
The expensive jewelry could potentially be used as a weapon, but it would be one of the only ones. The president was easily as big as Max with a bald head that made his frown even more menacing. Penni knew he was the more dangerous one.