Devil's Mark

  For a long, tense moment, nothing happened.

  Holly tried to tell herself this was a nightmare. That this wasn’t really happening. That she’d fallen asleep out on that railroad bridge and certainly wasn’t here in her parents’ driveway, staring up at her father in the full, bright shame of the sort of morning afters she’d heard other girls talk about for years but had never experienced herself. In the days she’d spent shuffling through the house since graduation, waiting to confront her father—wanting it with every fiber of her being and finding herself disappointed each day it didn’t happen, each day her tiny little rebellion carried on unnoticed and unremarked upon—she hadn’t imagined it would happen like this.

  A little after dawn on the back of a Devil’s Keepers motorcycle, windblown and disheveled and clinging to Uptown’s body like she knew it well, looking for all the world as if she’d been doing…exactly what she’d been doing, and a whole lot more.

  Holly had never been in trouble before. She’d always done the right thing, the expected thing. She’d never caused her father a moment’s pause or worry. And even now—even knowing that he couldn’t possibly be who he’d pretended to be all her life and that it didn’t matter anyway because she was an adult who could do as she pleased—she felt raw straight through because she knew she’d disappointed him terribly.

  Maybe, a voice inside of her whispered, you’re getting this all mixed up. The man was just arrested. He disappointed you, not the other way around.

  Her father, it was impossible not to notice, did not look like his usual dapper self.

  She’d never seen him unshaven unless he was ill, and that had happened only a handful of times throughout the whole of her childhood. Today he had the shadow of several days’ growth on his jaw, and it made her stomach feel…uncertain. It made her as uneasy as the undershirt he wore right out there in the full light of day, the khakis he’d obviously thrown on in a hurry or maybe even slept in if those wrinkles were to be believed, and the shotgun he held there at his side as if he was looking for a reason to use it.

  Holly didn’t recognize this man. He looked like a scary, Halloween rendition of her smooth, stylish father, always the mayor, always ready for company, always put together and sure of himself. Looking at him made that raw thing inside of her feel darker, wider. Well-nigh insurmountable. He made her want to curl up somewhere and cry, and the crazy part was, she didn’t know which one of them she’d cry for.

  One moment rolled into the next, and no one moved. No one spoke. As if they were all frozen into place—though not Uptown, Holly thought from a distance. He wasn’t affected. Not the way she was. He was simply waiting as if he could wait forever, his eyes on her father but not as if he found anything particularly threatening about an unshowered older man with a shotgun. If he was even slightly intimidated by the father of the woman he’d just brought home—after clearly keeping her out all night doing god knew what—he gave no outward sign of it.

  If anything, Uptown seemed to find the whole thing amusing.

  Holly had no idea why she found that so comforting. Like a rush of warmth all the way through her.

  Uptown shifted then, one hand coming to gently tug her hands off his stomach, where she was still digging her nails deep into him. He kept his eyes trained on her father, up there on the porch, but Holly noted he still didn’t seem particularly intimidated. Not by the gun. Certainly not by the man. She could feel the total lack of tension in his body as he peeled her hands away and shifted forward on the bike.

  Some part of her filed that away, how calm he was. How that made him seem both infinitely more dangerous and somehow safe as well. It would be something to think about if she survived this awful little confrontation intact.

  Of course, she wasn’t sure that was possible.

  “Baby,” Uptown said in his low, rough way. “You need to climb off.”

  And his voice seemed to cut through the thick, still air despite the fact it was so quiet. His deep rumble of words seemed to ricochet off the live oak trees and descend like a cloud to envelop the whole of the wide front porch. Holly was sure she could feel them all around her like so much Spanish moss, choking her and cluttering up her vision. Making it impossible to get her bearings.

  But she kept her gaze trained on her father. Her heart was in her throat, pounding hard and threatening to strangle her. She had to remind herself that she really was an adult, no matter how it felt at the moment. She could go where she liked, do what she wanted. That this was true even if her father hadn’t been arrested. She had every right in the world to do as she pleased—but that felt like a cold comfort indeed while she was facing down her obviously furious father dressed in last night’s clothes.

  She swung off the bike. Her feet hit the ground in those impractical shoes and she took a step away from the bike, then stopped. Her father’s incredulous gaze ran all over her, lingering on the tank top that hadn’t felt particularly skimpy until that very moment and then spending a little too much time on her shoes, as if each one of them had been whittled directly from Satan’s horns. That part she understood. They were shoes she’d bought to be silly with her sorority sisters last year on Halloween, vampy and trashy by design. They were nosebleed high, deliberately dramatic platform heels that looked like she’d worn them for exactly one purpose: catering to packs of horny bastards. Which, of course, she had.

  But all the fiery speeches she’d planned to deliver, all the righteous indignation she’d practiced in her head and in the mirrors while wafting around this house like a ghost day after day after day, abandoned her now as if they’d never been.

  Her father had been arrested and was on an indefinite, forced leave from the mayor’s office. He was as corrupt as they said he was, Holly was sure, because it made sense of so many things she’d tried to ignore all her life. The truth was, he’d disappointed her deeply, so deeply she hadn’t really let herself consider the ramifications too closely. But he was still her daddy.

  And Holly found she didn’t much like him looking at her like he’d never seen her clearly before, and what he saw standing before him in the morning light was pure trash. She swallowed hard over a throat gone dry and knees that wobbled like she was a scared little girl again. Then she took a few moments longer than necessary to peel off her helmet because her hands didn’t want to work. The soft leather dangled from her fingers when she was done and she liked that, because it disguised the way they trembled with nerves.

  “Morning, Daddy,” she said brightly, to cover the awkwardness. Or anyway, she tried to make herself sound as calm and cheerful as ever. As if there was nothing going on. As if Uptown was a member of the Junior League, dropping her off after a lovely afternoon of enriching charity work.

  She heard a faint noise from behind her, as if Uptown had actually snorted with laughter or derision or some combination thereof, but she didn’t look to see. She didn’t quite dare. Her attention was focused entirely on her father and the glare he was leveling straight at her, with his lip curled for emphasis in case she’d missed the telltale signs of his temper in that glitter in his eyes and the red flush all over his face and neck.

  “Get in the house, Holly,” her father snarled, his cheeks getting brighter and more ominous by the second. “Now.”

  It felt like a punch to the gut. Holly’s breath left her in a rush, because she’d never heard that tone from her father before. Not ever. He was a blustery man, sure. He hollered and carried on. But he’d never spoken to her in all her life with all that sneering, unmistakable contempt.

  She didn’t know how to process it. Her father’s gaze met hers and it was flat and dark. Holly flinched like he’d backhanded her.

  And she would never know what she might have done next. If she would have obeyed him, running shamefacedly into the house and awaiting further judgment, or if she would have stood her ground. She didn’t know which would have been better, or which might have made her feel less raw and undone by this gruesome little scene.
She never would.

  Because Uptown had finished rolling his bike onto its stand and he stepped up behind her. She felt the heat of him, bold and unmistakable, in that quick beat before he slid an arm around her, his hand splaying wide over her belly as he hauled her back against his chest.

  Holly was too shocked to protest—and more shocked to discover that she wasn’t sure if she wanted to protest in the first place. What was the matter with her? What Uptown was doing was the equivalent of waving his middle finger in her father’s face and she was sure he knew it. Her father certainly did. She stared up at her daddy’s face, watching him flush that much darker shade of red she’d spent her life learning to avoid, while Uptown held her against him like he wanted nothing more in all the world than to antagonize her father into doing something stupid with that shotgun.

  It occurred to her in a flash of insight that he did. Of course he did. Hadn’t she ignored the fact he’d seemed a little overfamiliar with her father before? Hadn’t she gone out of her way not to think about why?

  Maybe, just maybe, it was time to pull her head out of the sand.

  Holly knew she had to do something here, because no one else would. She had to calm this situation down and appease her father before something truly bad happened—and she realized as she thought it that what she was concerned about was Uptown getting shot. Not about the damage the powerful man holding her could do to her father, probably with no more than one punch. When had that happened? Had she really shifted a lifetime of loyalty from her father to a man who was little more than a stranger to her—and a decidedly lethal one at that? After a little bit of kissing on a railway bridge?

  It didn’t matter how she felt. That her life had changed. It sounded ridiculous to even think such things. Uptown had moments like that all over this town, from family tomb to railroad tie, with an ever-revolving cast of women just as willing as she’d been, and she was a fool if she thought there was anything more to it than the physical.

  I guess that makes you a big old fool, that voice inside her whispered.

  But there were bigger things to worry about than her own humiliation, or the jolt of something like recognition that went through her at the thought of being really, truly loyal to a man like Uptown and getting his loyalty in return. All the things that could mean. She thought of Crystal Guillot’s swagger through a crowded bar, utterly certain not one of the ruthless, dangerous men there would dare lay a finger on her. A little burst of something that felt a lot like power surged through her—

  You kissed him, she snapped at herself. And he refused to have sex with you despite the fact he’s had sex with everyone and everything in St. Germain Parish. Including the kitchen sink. Maybe hold off on planning the wedding, you idiot.

  She pulled in a breath to do what she could to ease the standoff on her father’s front porch, and who cared that she didn’t really understand what was happening inside of her, but Uptown beat her to it.

  “You planning to do something with that shotgun, Benny?” he asked, a drawling note in his voice Holly had never heard before, as if he was a predator toying with his neatly trapped and much smaller prey. It made him sound infinitely more dangerous than he already was. A little shiver started at the base of her skull and then skated down her spine, making her feel chilled in the damp heat of another stifling Louisiana morning. “Do you think taking me out will make your situation any better?”

  “Why don’t you go fuck yourself,” her father suggested, all snarl and glower.

  Holly actually gasped. Like the pearl-clutching vestal virgin she supposed she was, technically. It wasn’t the word “fuck” itself, which of course she’d heard and even used herself on occasion, though she generally tried not to curse. But she’d never heard such a thing come out of her father’s mouth. She could count on one hand the number of times she’d heard him use foul language, ever. It had always been in response to accidentally hurting himself. And it had never been that word.

  “Benny, Benny.” She’d never heard Uptown use this particular tone, either. Lazy and hard at once. Provoking, even. To say nothing of the upsetting way he used her father’s first name. Like they went back, the two of them. A notion that made that shiver trickle down her back all over again—or maybe that was because of the way he was dragging his thumb in an easy up-and-down pattern where it rested on her belly, slow and insinuating, like a lover’s caress he couldn’t quite help. “Is that any way to talk to a friend?”

  Her father’s cheeks quivered with rage. “You’re not my friend, son.”

  “Call me that again,” Uptown invited him, and there was nothing but straight murder in his voice. Holly stiffened, happy she couldn’t see his face but also suddenly wild with panic about what seemed to be happening here whether she wanted it to or not. She tried to pull away from him, but Uptown’s palm tightened against the tender curve of her belly, holding her in place. Firmly. “I didn’t fucking like it when I was ten. I like it less now, and guess what, Benny? I’m a whole lot bigger than I was back then.”

  Holly’s head spun at the confirmation she hadn’t wanted. That her father and her…But she didn’t know what to call him. Almost lover? Fellow railroad bridge aficionado? Either way, Uptown, whoever he was to her, had a history with her father.

  “I’m still the mayor of Lagrange,” her father threw at him. “Don’t you dare talk to me like I don’t deserve some respect.”

  Uptown laughed. “Respect, Benny? You want to talk about respect? Now? To me, of all people?”

  Holly expected her father to explode. But though the flush all over his round face got darker and more ominous, he stayed silent. And somehow that was the most disturbing thing by far, with the little, knowing laugh Uptown let out a close second.

  “You better hope that we’re friends,” Uptown said after a moment, in that same tone. Hard as nails. Insinuating. As if he thought something was funny, but not in a good way. “Because friends might give friends a little leeway when it comes to paying back debts. If your friendship with the club is over, Benny, where does that leave you?” His hand tightened against Holly’s belly and all she could do was suck in a sharp breath, too much sensation washing through her and over her. Too much everything to move, and the worst part was, she didn’t know what she wanted. One part of her wanted to hide herself away. Another wanted to press herself against Uptown like a cat, and who cared what her father thought about it. She wasn’t sure she recognized either version of herself. “You know how this goes. If you’re not a friend, you’re an enemy. Is that what you want?”

  “You assholes did this to me,” her father threw out, his wide face tight and red and dark, making him look smaller, somehow, the more he puffed himself up. Desperate. “Do you think I don’t know you could have stopped it and you didn’t? You wanted that dickhead sheriff to arrest me.”

  “Where’s our money?” There was nothing teasing or lazy in Uptown’s voice then, right there over her shoulder, and Holly was absurdly glad—again—that she couldn’t see the expression on his face. She could see her father’s reaction to it and that was alarming enough.

  It shuddered all the way through her, making her feet tingle with its force, and later, when she could breathe again, she’d have to face the unsavory truth that something inside of her she’d never encountered before found the fact that the man holding her was that intimidating, that he could unnerve the father who had loomed so large over her all her life…thrilling.

  There’s something wrong with you, she told herself sternly. But her father had been such a challenging presence as long as she could remember. Thundering this, demanding that. She’d never imagined that could change, or that when it did, it would be because of a man who’d kissed her like he needed her and could make such a massive figure seem small in comparison. She’d never imagined it could be so easy to topple her daddy’s little throne.

  And she was all too aware what kind of terrible daughter it made her to think these things.

  Up
town laughed again, because her father didn’t answer. He only stood there, glaring down at them, his hand clenching and re-clenching on that shotgun like he kept talking himself out of stupidity—but barely.

  “You think if you ignore this it will just go away?” Uptown asked, still sounding merciless. “What—we’ll forget? The money you personally owe is enough to make anyone nervous, I grant you, but you and that fat fuck piece of shit lawyer played your games with the club for years. Where do we begin to tally up that shit, Benny?”

  “Leave Ward Thayer out of this,” her father blustered, when even Holly could see he was in no position to demand any such thing. “He’s a good man with a family—”

  “He’s a dead man,” Uptown promised him in a matter-of-fact, yet lethal tone that was as vicious as the cut of a knife. Holly had no doubt that he was not being remotely metaphoric. She shuddered, but his hand on her belly held her still. “The only question you should be asking yourself is how much you’re gonna wish you were him. He’s getting off easy, if you think about it. You’re not going to have that option. Because between you and me, friend, I’m the one who gets to decide how this goes for you. And guess what? I want you to pay and pay and pay.”

  Holly shivered. Uptown’s hand tightened against her belly again, and it didn’t seem to matter that he’d just made all kinds of threats right there in front of her. She could still feel all that wildfire streak through her, lighting her up and making her crave him. Even here. Even now.

  What did that make her?

  “I don’t have any money,” her father said bluntly. Then he laughed, a hollow scrape. “Or didn’t you hear? That pissant do-gooder sheriff and his asshole prosecutor froze all my assets.”

  “Then it looks like we have a problem,” Uptown said, and Holly was so busy hating herself for finding him hot even while he did and said such savage things that it took her a moment to understand what that note in his voice was.

  Satisfaction.

  She went a little cold at that. A little numb. And a whole, ragged host of other things she couldn’t quite name. They sloshed around inside of her, making her feel outside herself. Making her head spin and her stomach knot.