Page 34 of Bourbon & Blood

“You heard me,” I told her.

She chewed her bottom lip in apprehension and looked both troubled and thoughtful.

I slipped a card out of my cut, one of my plain ones with my burner number on it, and I held it out to her.

“Take all the time you need to decide,” I told her. “Just remember, your friend is out there somewhere, and I’m probably, more than likely, your best bet at finding out what happened to her.”

She took the card from my hand and took a deep, fortifying breath.

“I don’t think I need to take any time,” she said, but she didn’t sound sure. “I want Maya found. I want her home.” Now,that, she did sound certain of and I felt pretty confident that I’d be hearing from her.

I nodded slowly and said, “Call me. We’ll negotiate the details somewhere else when you’re not at work,” I said, and it was as though she woke from a dream. She startled and looked around us and stood up quickly.

“I’ll call you tonight, after I’m off,” she said evenly, and I nodded, thinking that I could wait and maybe we could have that conversation in person.

She rushed off back to her bar, and I settled back to watch her once more.

I would be lying if I said that it didn’t please me that her eyes tracked back my direction every time she had a moment to spare a thought.

CHAPTERFIFTEEN

Alina…

He stayed, and I kept stealing glances in his direction.

I didn’t understand him. His fearsome appearance was hard, his tattoos the stuff of nightmares, and those eyes… they were horrifying, the inky blackness butting right up against the deep dark brown of his irises that were so damn dark that in certain light, like the dim lighting of the bar – well, they might as well just be black, too.

His card was burning a hole in my pocket and I wanted to finish our conversation even though that single little word had seared its way into my mind and made my heart quail…

You.

He wantedme… as currency; as a trade to find Maya. It should have frightened me way more than it did and I think that almost frightened me more – that it wasn’t as scary as it should have been. But I wasdesperateby this point.

I knew in my heart, if it wasmewho was missing, that Maya would be spread eagle and waving him and his whole club in to bring it on.

But I wasn’t Maya. I wasn’t half so bold or unafraid, and I was certainly confused about La Croix.

I needed time to think, but Maya didn’thavetime, which just made things worse when it came to the jumbled confusion of thought and emotion in my head.

The bar closed, and La Croix seemed to move like a shadow. One minute he was there, and the next? He was gone. I hadn’t seen him leave, and I was sort of hoping he wouldn’t, that I would get the chance to talk to him more tonight. To tell him my decision before I could talk myself out of it.

I didn’t know what to make of him, but there had been nothing but surety in the set of his body, in his dark gaze, when he’d said he could find my best friend.

I didn’t believe he was trying to take me for a ride on that.

Well, hewas, but not of the scammy variety.

Shit.

“Hey,” I looked up at Sandra across from me.

“Yeah?”

“The creeper,” she said. “He left this for you.”

I frowned and she handed over the patch…

Silence is better than bullshit…

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