Dare To Run (The Sons of Steel Row #1)(5)

With one exception.

The man who’d given it to me.

A drunk * leaned across the bar, grinning at me. He came in every Friday night, and he never ceased to hit on me, despite the fact that I shot him down every time. “Hey, gorgeous.”

“Hey, Jimmy,” I said, grabbing an empty mug and filling it up with Bud Lite. “How’s it going?”

“Good. It would be better if you’d go home with me, though,” he said, eyeing my tits. Big shocker there. “Much better. What do you say? Is tonight the night?”

I rolled my eyes while I turned away from him. It wasn’t that he wasn’t hot. He was. But he was a dealer, and I’d be damned if I was going to date a guy who would end up dead in an alley somewhere right after my stupid self fell in love with him. I’d seen way too many women in Steel Row go down that road. There was no way I’d join their ranks. Before I turned around, I forced a smile. “Yeah, sorry. I’m not in the mood tonight. I have a headache.”

“Aw, baby, but I can make you feel like new,” he said, reaching out and gently tugging on a piece of my hair. I slid his beer to him, and he fumbled to catch it. “Oh, I like it when you play rough.”

Holding my hand out, I leveled a look on him. “Sure you do. That’ll be five bucks, hot stuff.”

“One of these days, you’re going to regret turning me away,” he teased, handing me a ten.

“That day hasn’t come yet,” I said, reaching out for the ten. “And I don’t think it ever will, but, hey, whatever keeps your juices flowing, man.”

He caught my fingers, his grip tight. “I know exactly what will do that.”

“Yeah, I’m sure.” I yanked free and scowled at him. “Too bad it’s never going to happen.”

“I love the way you tease,” he said, picking up his beer and heading toward his obnoxious buddies. “Keep the change, baby. It’ll help with your headache.”

I watched him go, flexing my hand. “Asshole.”

“I heard that,” my bouncer, Marco, said. His brown hair stuck up all over the place, but there was no doubt in my mind he styled it that way on purpose. “Was he bothering you again, Heidi?”

“Just being his normal cocky self,” I said, shoving the ten into the register drawer. “Nothing I couldn’t handle. How’s the floor tonight?”

“Rowdy.”

“I noticed that, too.” I eyed the crowd, my eyes lingering on the group of gangbangers, who were watching me with alarming uniformity. “Trouble’s in the air.”

Marco cracked his knuckles, his green eyes locked on the same group of men I’d been looking at. “Don’t go home alone. I’ll walk you.”

“Thanks, Marco.” I put away clean wineglasses, peeking over my shoulder at him. “I appreciate it.”

“Anytime, Heidi. Anytime.”

Marco was one of my rare finds. When I met him, he was living on the streets, like I had at his age. He’d been asleep behind my bar, tucked in under a threadbare wool blanket. It had been freezing that night, well below ten degrees, and he’d been shivering uncontrollably. When I walked over to him, he woke instantly, and he’d had this haunting resignation in his eyes. I think I must have looked the same when Frankie had found me. He’d taken me in. Given me a home. A purpose. A job.

It only felt right that I do the same for Marco.

Now that he was almost nineteen, he paid me rent for an apartment above the bar, while he waited to head off to college. He’d been accepted to Boston College, and had been offered a dorm early as part of his grant. He would leave in a few days, and he was going to do great things with his life. He’d been given the chance I’d never had, to go to college and make something of himself, and was getting out of this hellhole. I’d never been happier for anyone. He was such a good kid.

All he’d needed was a chance.

I might be only five years older than him, but I felt like a mother hen around him. I watched him walk away, smiling, before glancing at the guy who’d just sat down at the end of my bar. As soon as I recognized him, my heart picked up speed. There was something about him, something I couldn’t put my finger on, that made me hyperaware of his very being whenever he was in the same room as me. I didn’t know his name, but I knew he had danger written all over him. In permanent marker.

He watched me with narrowed eyes that did bad things to my equilibrium. I knew from memory that they were green. Like, really green. They looked clean and fresh and happy, but he was none of those things. He always came in wearing jeans and a muscle-hugging long-sleeved shirt, which he always rolled up to just below his elbows to show off his strong arms covered in a thin dusting of fine hair. I’d stared at those freaking arms way too many times. I’d never been one for arms, for the love of God, but on him? They just worked. Everything did. In truth, he looked raw, gritty, and dangerous. And he had the faintest hint of a Boston accent.

As if he hadn’t already been unfairly sexy.

He’d been in every night for the past week, but before then, I’d never seen him. When he came in, he barely spoke two words to me and mostly communicated with grunts and money. He wasn’t rude or anything. Just the strong, silent type.

The only personal thing I knew about him was that he ran the mechanic shop across the street. I wanted to know more, and there was only one way that was going to happen. Straightening, I made my way over to him. “Whatcha drinking tonight, Lucky?”