Asa (Marked Men #6)(3)

The other guy was trying to vet if I was serious or not, so I inclined my chin. “Her best friend is a cop. If you call the DPD, chances are they’re going to send him in since he knows this is where she likes to hang out, and then she’s going to tell him you and your buddies put your hands all over her without her permission and the cameras will back that up.” I pointed to one of the surveillance cameras Rome had installed all over the place. “You think that’s going to end well for you?”

He looked like he was considering how to answer when the lead singer of the band suddenly called out over the mic so that the entire bar had no choice but to listen: “You guys suck. Take your bleeding friend out of here and let everyone go back to having a good time.”

That rallied the rest of the bar-goers and suddenly a chant of “You suck!” went up and the grabby-hands bunch really had no choice but to leave. There was no way left for them to save face and they didn’t want to risk the chance that Royal did in fact know a cop.

They slunk toward the front door as I hauled Royal toward the bar and plopped her fine ass in a seat right in the middle, where I could keep an eye on her. I caged her in between my arms and leaned in close so that our noses were almost touching.

Through clenched teeth I told her, “Sit. Now I can either call Saint to come get you, or you can sit here, drink water, and eat something greasy and terrible until you sober up enough to get yourself home. Those are your only two options, Red.”

She blinked criminally long lashes at me and I could swear she looked like she was going to cry. I saw her gulp and she gave her head a little nod of agreement.

When she spoke it was only a hint of sound. “Don’t call Saint. I’ll wait it out.”

Saint was her closest girl friend, and also my friend Nash’s lady. She was a sweet and shy young woman that somehow managed to balance out all of Royal Hastings’s bold and brash attitude. They were an odd pair, but I knew Saint would drop whatever she was doing in a heartbeat to make sure Royal was taken care of. I didn’t blame Royal for not wanting her friend to have to come collect her in her current state. She was a mess. She was still beautiful, kind of wild and untamed looking, but under it all she was a disaster, courting trouble as well as danger and other bad things, which is what she had been actively doing for the last two weeks. This wasn’t the first disaster I had been forced to avert because of her antics, and the time had come to tell her it had to stop.

I pushed off the bar, walked around the open end, and glowered at Dixie as she smacked my ass on her way back to the floor.

“My hero.”

I grunted at her in response. I was not hero material. I fell more along the lines of arch-nemesis or supervillain. I poured Royal a glass of water in one of the giant beer steins I had behind the bar and thumped it down in front of her without a word. She jumped a little and I could see the regret and remorse starting to work its way into her face. A pink flush was blooming over the exposed crests of her cleavage and filling her cheeks.

I made my way across the entire length of the bar, stopping to refill a couple of drinks, closing a tab, clearing some empty plates until I got to the kitchen entrance that took up the entire back part of the bar. We typically only served food until midnight, but I knew Avett Walker, the new girl Rome had agreed to hire to work in the kitchen as a favor to an old friend, was still lurking somewhere around. I hadn’t seen her hot-pink hair dart out of the front door as soon as her shift ended like it normally did.

She was a mouthy little thing that had nothing but poison and attitude running in her veins as far as I could tell. She clearly didn’t want to be working here. Her mom, Darcy, was the kitchen manager and her father was the guy that had sold Rome the bar originally, but Avett didn’t seem to have any kind of fondness for the place. In fact she didn’t seem to have any kind of fondness for anything at all. She acted like coming to work each day was a prison sentence, which by default made me her jailer since I was her boss. We didn’t exactly get along. I think I saw too much of my old careless and thoughtless ways reflected back at me when I interacted with her.

I called Avett’s name, and when I didn’t get an answer I prowled through the empty kitchen until I got to the massive walk-in fridge. I didn’t have time to screw around, so I found some cheese, some bread, and some random pieces of fruit and figured that would have to do. I needed to shove something into Royal that would soak the booze up so I could tell her to get her head out of her ass and have the command stick.

I was kicking the door closed with the heel of my boot since my hands were full when the door to the beer cooler suddenly popped open and Avett came strolling out, fiddling with the zipper on her obviously stuffed-full messenger bag. She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw me, her eyes widening and then narrowing in defiance.

“What are you doing back here? The kitchen is closed.” Like she had any right to question where I went in this place. It was a diversionary tactic I knew all too well.

I just stared at her and didn’t say anything. I looked pointedly at her bag and then back up to her chilly hazel gaze.

“What’s in the bag?”

She shifted her weight, and there was no mistaking the sound of bottles clanking together. She was trying to smuggle beer out of the cooler. It figured. My night needed one more complicated female I had to straighten out to make it more of a headache.

“Nothing.” She went to move past me and the sound of bottles clanging together got even louder.