Tempted & Taken (Men of Haven #4)(109)
Snatching Callie’s purse off the counter, she let out a serrated breath, shook out the wadded wet towel, and started wiping the black streaks off her sister’s cheek. A man like him wouldn’t be interested in her anyway. At least, not the new and improved her. And the odds of them running into each other again in a city like Dallas were slim to none, so she may as well wrangle up her naughty thoughts and keep them in perspective.
On the bright side, she didn’t have to worry about the tab. Plus, she had a fresh new imaginary star for her next late-night rendezvous with BOB.
*
Damn if this hadn’t been the most problematic New Year’s Eve in history. It wasn’t Jace’s first knife wound, but getting it while pulling apart two high-powered, hotheaded drug dealers promised future complications he didn’t need. Add to that, two more customers arrested at his own club, Crossroads, in less than three days, and nonstop visits from the cops at The Den, and his New Year wasn’t exactly top-notch.
Thank God his brother Zeke wasn’t working trauma tonight or he’d have had to have Trev stitch him up. That motherfucker would’ve hacked the shit out of his tat.
“You ’bout done?” Jace said.
Zeke layered one last strip of tape in place and tossed the roll to the desk. “I am now.”
“Took you long enough.” Jace straightened up, tucked the toothpick he’d had pinched between his fingers into his mouth and rolled his shoulder. It was tight and throbbing like a son of a bitch, but not bad enough to keep him from day-to-day shit—assuming he didn’t have any more drug dealer run-ins.
“I don’t know. Our straitlaced partygoer didn’t seem to mind me taking my time.” Zeke packed his supplies into one of the locked cabinets, the same triage kit they kept at every residence or business they owned. It might have been overkill, but it sure as hell beat emergency rooms and sketchy conversations with police. “Thought for a minute there the sweet little thing was going to combust.”
“Sweet little thing my ass.” Trevor dropped into his desk chair, propped his booted feet on the corner of his desk, and fisted the remote control for the security vids mounted on the wall. “I’d bet my new G6 that woman’s got a titanium backbone and a mind that would whip both your asses into knots.”
Jace snatched a fresh white club T-shirt from Trev’s grand opening inventory and yanked it over his head, the wound in his shoulder screaming the whole time. “Based on what? Her courtroom getup or her uptight hairdo?”
“Like I judge by what people wear. You know me better than that.” Trev punched a few buttons, paused long enough to eyeball the new bartender he’d just hired ringing in an order on the register, then dropped the remote on the desk. “You ask me, you’re the one judging. Which is kind of the pot calling the kettle black.”
The setback hit its mark, the Haven tags he wore weighting his neck a little heavier, a reminder of their brotherhood and the code they lived by.
It’s not where a man comes from, or what he wears, that matters. It’s what he does with his life that counts.
Twenty-seven years he and Axel had lived by that mantra, dragging themselves out of the trailer park and into a brotherhood nothing but death would breach.
“He’s right,” Zeke said. “You’re letting Paul’s campaign crawl up your ass and it’s knockin’ you off course.”
Damn, but he hated it when his own mantras got tossed back at him. More so when he deserved it. He let out an exhausted huff and dropped down on the leather couch facing the string of monitors. “Play it again.”
Trevor shook his head but navigated the menu on the center screen anyway.
“Not sure why you’re doing this to yourself, man.” Zeke pulled three Modelos out of the stainless mini-fridge under the wet bar and popped the tops faster than any bartender. God knew he’d gotten enough experience working as one through med school. “Paul’s a politician with a grudge, nothing else. Watching this again is just self-inflicted pain. Focus on the real problem.”
Jace took the beer Zeke offered as the ten o’clock news story flashed on the screen. The third-string reporter’s too-bright smile and pageant hairdo screamed of a woman with zero experience but eager for a shot at a seat behind the anchor desk.
“Dallas’s popular club, Crossroads, is in the news again this New Year’s Eve as two additional patrons were arrested on charges of drug possession with intent to distribute. Undercover police are withholding names at this time, but allege both are part of a ring lead by Hugo Moreno, a dealer notorious in many Northeast Texas counties for peddling some of the most dangerous products on the street.”
“She’s not wrong on that score.” Zeke plopped on the other end of the couch and motioned to the screen with his bottle. “The number of ODs coming in at Baylor and Methodist the last six months have been through the roof. The guys from DPD swear most are tied to some designer shit coming out of Moreno’s labs.”
Trevor leaned in and planted his elbows on the desk, eyes to Jace. “You think Otter’s going to hold out long enough to waylay Moreno?”
If Jace knew the answer to that one, he’d be a lot less jumpy and minus one slash to his shoulder. Pushing one pharmaceutical genius out of his club by strong-arming him with another was a risky move at best, but it sure as shit beat ousting Moreno on his own. “Otter’s a good man with a calm head on his shoulders and a strong team. If he says he’ll only let weed in the place and keep Hugo at bay, I’m gonna give him all the backing he needs. DPD’s sure as hell not going to help. Not the ones in Paul’s pockets anyway.”