Page 2 of Cold Foot Revenge
Why?
Because he would be hunting monsters bigger than himself.
“Call me,” Tawk said softly as Dylan passed him.
“Sure,” he said, but he knew he wouldn’t.
This was something Dylan had to do so he could move on with his life.
He had to go back to his past.
He had to figure out what had happened.
He had to get revenge on whoever the fuck had Changed Garret without his knowledge.
He had to punish Garret’s Maker for abandoning him.
He had to kill whoever, or whatever had hurt his brother.
Dylan had built a dark need for vengeance inside of his heart, and now that everything was settled here, the time had come to unleash it.
He needed answers, and the only way to make that happen was to revisit his old life.
No place could feel like home until he went back and fixed everything that had gone wrong.
Chapter One
Dylan Hoffman used to run this town.
He squinted up at the sign above the bar. Rabbit Hole. Huh. This was the place where his brother, Garret, had been Turned into a grizzly shifter. This was the bar where he’d found his brother in an alleyway with a split across his forehead that he’d watched heal up in minutes. It was the place where he’d first heard the grizzly growl and known without the shadow of a doubt that his brother would never be the same again.
This had been the Rusty Nail years ago when that had happened, back before he’d had to take Garret to Montana and away from people so his grizzly wouldn’t do something unforgiveable. Now? The Rabbit Hole looked vastly different from the Rusty Nail. Sure, the bones of the building were the same, but the loud, heavy beat of rock music sounded from inside, and the windows were all covered in black paper preventing him from seeing inside.
Years ago, they had avoided involving the cops in Garret’s Turn, because Dylan hadn’t wanted him to register, in case his Maker had bad intentions for him. He’d asked around a little, but he must’ve missed something. Someone had to know something. They just had to.
He pulled the door open and a barrel-chested bouncer stood from a chair near the front entry. He looked him up and down, then nodded. “No touching the girls.”
“Okay, no problem. Do you know what happened to the Rusty Nail?” he asked.
The guy crossed his arms. “Who’s asking?”
“A guy who enjoyed a drink or forty here back in the day. I’ve been out of town for a while and was looking for a familiar bar. It’s a simple question, man.”
The guy cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. “The Rusty Nail closed a few years ago. You can still get the same drinks though. Some of the same people work here. The menu is still the same too.”
Huh. Okay. At least he would have a starting point if he could recognize anyone who still worked here from that night.
“I’m serious, bro. No touching the girls. You have to pay for that.”
A sick feeling filled his stomach. Did this place have problems with guys groping the servers or something? Dylan made his way past the guy, then froze in the mouth of the cavernous room.
The music was louder here, and there were strobe lights going off, lighting up the three stages where topless women were dancing on poles.
What the hell?
He scanned the room just to make sure this was the right place. The bar was the same on the left-hand side, and there were a few tables to eat at near it, but the main dining area had been converted to the three-part stage. All around it, chairs were lined up at a lower portion where guys could eat while they looked up at the dancers.
Dylan was no shifter like Garret, but to him, it smelled like desperation, sadness, cigarette smoke, cheap perfume, and greasy food in here.
