Page 25 of Road to Ruin
CHAPTER SEVEN
TOMMY
This woman’s a spitfire. Honestly, I could have let her drive home by herself and I wouldn’t have worried. Everyone watched David and me leave with Nikita, so they wouldn’t have gone after her for fear of running into me. Alex is right; my reputation does precede me. But if I let her drive home alone, I wouldn’t have been able to quiz her about how she knows Alex. And I wouldn’t have been able to check her out some more, either. She’s pure fucking fire. Seriously, the girl knows no fear. There are grown men out there, murderers, killers and rapists, who wouldn’t dare talking to Alexander the way she did. It was amusing. Fuck that, it was a fucking turn-on. I’m just trying not to admit that I’m attracted to this woman. I’ve been back in New Orleans for all of a day, and the very last thing I need in my life is a woman to complicate things even further.
When I was fighting full time for Alex, before Serena died, I made a game of seeing how long I could go without sex. I constantly walked a tightrope with my temper, battling to keep my rage under control, and denying myself sex seemed fucking easy in comparison. I realized in L.A. that I’d been going about things all wrong, though. Sex is the one thing that helps keep me in check. If I’m stressed, or tense, or about to lose my shit, a quick tumble with a girl helps take the edge off. A hard, fast fuck would probably clear my head right now, given that I’m definitely tense, stressed and on the verge of losing my cool in the most epic way, but I already know trying to seduce Nikita would be bad for my health. Potentially fatal, in fact. She’s grinding her teeth as she drives through the night, changing the gears of her Challenger with ferocity and precision, like she’s auditioning for a part on the next “Fast and Furious” movie.
We sit in silence, the engine revving and snarling as she punches it through the outskirts of town. Eventually, she asks, “Where are you gonna go?”
“Go?”
“You said you weren’t going to fight. You’re not planning on meeting up with West. That must mean you’re leaving town, right?”
I look out of my window, my eyes not really focusing on anything. Buildings and parked cars tear by in a blur. “He said he’d hurt her if I didn’t oblige him. I can’t leave until she’s safe.”
“Genevieve didn’t seem too worried about that back at the vault.”
“She’s good at keeping a cool head. Always has been. And Alex…well, you know. He can smell fear the way a shark can smell blood in water. It excites him. Turns him on.”
She says nothing, but her shoulders tense. I’m a dick. I’m so fucking curious about the relationship she clearly had with Alex; I’m curious as to why he let her walk away with her life tonight, when he’s killed so many more people for so much less. She’s a brick-fucking wall, though, a mile high and a thousand miles wide. I can ask her as many questions as I like right now, but I already know she won’t give me any information. Some people get chatty when they’re pissed off. Others shut down, batten down the hatches and wait for the storm to pass. I’m one of those people. So is Nikita.
“Can you stop staring at me?” she says. “It’s really off-putting.”
I stifle a laugh. “I’m looking out the window.”
“Ha. You forget, I’ve worked with men like you for years, Tommy Kendrick. I know when I’m being watched.”
Well, she has me dead to rights, there. “Men like me?”
She nods. “Men who watch the entrance to a room at all times. Men whose self worth is directly linked to their height, or their weight, or how much they can bench. Men who think they’re God’s gift to women, and everyone else on the planet for that matter.”
“I’m none of those things. And I’m sure as fuck not a gift. If anything I’m a punishment. I’m karmic retribution. I’m the universe’s idea of a cruel joke.”
She must ease off the gas a little, because gravity ceases to push me back into my seat. Just for a second. “Why do you say that?”
“You don’t need to shrink me, Nikita. I’m not on your roster for the day. Just get us back to your place and we can go our separate ways.”
She sounds scathing when she speaks. “You and I both know that there’s no such thing as ‘separate ways’ now. Our paths have converged. Life doesn’t shove people together like this and then allow them to part so easily. I’m gonna want to see Junior. You’re gonna want me to do something for you at some point. And you’re being eaten alive by questions. How does she know Alex? Why does she seem to think she’s invincible? How did she learn to fight like that?”
Damn. She’s good. I hate that. I fucking hate being judged and assessed. Worse, I hate that she’s completely and utterly right. “You could always stay away from Junior. Accept that he’s safe and happy. In return, I could always accept that I’m not going to get answers to my questions and make sure I never run into you again. That would be a start.”
“I met him in high school,” she says. “We were fourteen. He wanted to be a vet. Can you believe that? A fucking vet.”
I open my mouth, but I can’t think of anything to say. The idea of Alex Bastien wanting to help wounded animals is just so alien to me that it simply won’t compute. I saw him shoot a dog in the head once. He didn’t even flinch.
“And I think I’m invincible because I am. At least I tell myself I am every goddamn day. I have to, working where I work. If I start believing otherwise, the men I counsel will be able to read my doubt. They’ll smell it on me, just like Alex can. They’ll take advantage of it.”
Just when I think I’ve got her figured out, she goes and pitches a damn fastball at my head. I guess she’s not one for subtlety. It’s refreshing, in a way. The women in L.A. can be so vapid. More often than not, it’s exhausting trying to have a worthwhile conversation with a chick out there. They’re all actresses/models/musicians. They think they’re hot shit because they had a walk-on line in some crappy procedural show, and they expect everyone to treat them like queens.
Crappy cop procedurals makes me think of Lucas Braddon, the guy I left lying in that alley outside Elysium in L.A. with a needle hanging out of his arm. I wonder if the fucker made it through the night or not. Weirdly, I find myself hoping he did. “You’re very different from the counselor they sent me to in the Parish, that’s for sure,” I say quietly. “That motherfucker wouldn’t have been caught dead showing up to an illegal underground fight in the middle of the night to check on a parolee. He’d cross the fucking street just to avoid one, I’m pretty sure.”
Nikita takes a left onto a wide, sweeping suburban street, lined with tall, leafy trees. She pulls into the driveway of a small two-story colonial house, the exterior painted haint blue. The front garden is a riot of weeds and knee-high grass, ivy choking the live oak that’s listing drunkenly toward the street from the side of the property. “Wasn’t called Rossi was he?” she asks.
I almost shiver at the sound of the bastard’s name. “You had the pleasure of meeting him, then?”
She nods, then huffs heavily out of her nose as she turns the key in the ignition, killing the engine. We both just sit there, staring straight ahead at the shadows playing across the porch that wraps around her house. After a number of long minutes play out, she lets her head roll on the headrest so that she’s looking at me. “I’m going to ask you inside,” she says.
I turn my head so that I’m looking at her, too. “You are?”
