That Girl is Trouble (Soldiers of Sin Book 2), page 2
The song ends, and more cheers and whistles echo across the club.
I smile at a few of the men, shyly waving, because that’s my whole thing. I’m a good girl. Innocent. Sweet. Timid and quiet until I’m not. Until they pay me to be something else.
Head down, I gather up my discarded bra and top, then hustle down the stairs, only to slam hard into the chest of a very tall man.
Ready to make a quick getaway before the guy tries to cop a feel, I tip my chin up. But my stomach twists when I get a good look at the face scowling back at me.
I’ve never seen Axel Donovan looking so angry.
Shit.
2
Two Years Ago
October
A loud thump knocks me awake.
God fucking dammit.
That’s the problem with living in this place. The Sinner clubhouse is never quiet.
I should be used to it by now. Been living here since I got out of lockup two years ago, and so the constant rumble of music playing from the bar below my small apartment should give me solace. I’m here. Behind a door locked from the inside. Not caged up like an animal, staring day in and day out at the same four fucking concrete walls.
This brand of noise should be comforting, and it used to be. When I was locked up, sometimes I’d close my eyes and pretend it was the bass of the music thrumming below me that was keeping me up, rather than the echo of the prison or the asshole snoring in the bed at the other side of my cell.
But tonight, I could use a little quiet.
Thump.
It’s coming from the floor above me, where there’s a half dozen rooms lining a long hallway. Beds to fuck in, mostly, meaning that, normally, the noises are kind of like the ones plaguing my sleep tonight. Thumps. Bangs. The sound of a headboard hitting a wall. The odd whimper from a woman.
It’s the downside of having my apartment on the second floor. These animals are up all hours of the night, stomping around above me and below me. It’s fucking irritating.
Sighing, I twist in my sheets and roll onto my side, pressing my pillow to my head. But it doesn’t keep the sound of another crash from hitting my eardrums.
Un-fucking-believable.
I kick out of bed and stumble to the bathroom to take a leak. I’m halfway there when a scream slices through my apartment.
A scream that sounds a lot like the teenage girl living a floor above me.
Fuck.
A heavy weight drops in my stomach, and without another thought, I barrel through my dark apartment, rip open the door, and sprint up the stairs.
I’m midway down the hall when the stink hits my nose.
Death has a smell to it. It’s metallic. Cold and sour. Heavy and wrong. Been around enough blood and carnage to know that smell—of someone bleeding out, of their insides being exposed to the outside.
Violence, blood, and brutality. It’s the life I live, the one I was born and bred for. The reason I know what I’m about to walk into.
Cautiously, I creep towards the room Kat shares with Jesse. The doorframe is splintered. A puddle of blood is spreading into the hallway. A rhythmic noise floats out from inside the room. It’s the kind that’s made when a blade is jammed into flesh, as the hilt hits skin over and over again. Gushing, oozing. Blood pouring out of a body.
There’s a man shoved against the wall, his head hanging limp against his chest. Rings adorn his fingers. Tattoos mark his skin. That shouldn’t send a shot of relief through me, but god dammit, it does. Because it isn’t her. It’s not Kat’s hand. There’s no blue nail polish streaked across those fingernails.
The body jerks lifelessly with each thrust of the blade. Dead, I assume. But whoever’s wielding the knife doesn’t stop, and that hint of relief quickly slides into a knot in my stomach. If he’s dead, then what the fuck happened to Kat? And who the fuck is the maniac in her room going knife-happy on one of my guys?
My gun is in my nightstand, my blade on my dresser. I should have grabbed them, but when I heard the scream, the only thing running through my mind was getting to her, and now I’m standing here in nothing but my boxers and T-shirt. With no weapon. Like a fucking asshole.
A shirtless Tex stumbles out of one of the far rooms down the hall, his blond hair wild and hanging over his eyes, his face dazed from sleep as he struggles to pull on a pair of jeans with a 9 mm in his hand. When he gets his pants pulled up to his hips, he leans against the wall and quietly cocks his gun, giving me a nod, telling me he’s got my back no matter who the hell is in there.
Finally, holding my breath, I peer in. And fuck me.
The blood.
It’s smeared down the wall, splashed across the white paint, but it’s the man who’s covered in it that catches me off guard. Graves. Jack McKenna. My VP and my best friend. The man I’ve fucking killed for and who’s killed for me.
“Graves?” I croak. The long hair he usually keeps tied back hangs over his face. His breathing is laboured, his knuckles are white as he grips the hilt of his knife. Blood soaks into his shirt, flecks his face, covers his hands and arms. He looks completely fucking unhinged.
The glow of Jesse’s red neon Budweiser sign on the back wall adds a malevolent sort of hue to the scene. Darkness. Blood. Violence. Red.
Tex nudges me and jerks his head to the bed, where Kat is cowering in the corner. She’s covered in blood too. Except it’s not the dead man’s blood, it’s her own. It drips from her nose, past her chin, and onto her chest. She sobs when our eyes meet, and she adjusts her hands to cover her naked chest, her shirt shredded and hanging off her shoulders.
“Fuck,” I growl at the mess on the floor. I know exactly what this dead fuck was trying to do.
I plant my hand firmly on Graves’s shoulder and grip him tight. “He’s gone, man. You can let up.”
Stab, stab, stab.
“Dude.”
Stab, stab, stab. Gush, gush, gush.
“Graves!”
He freezes, his eyes finally focusing on the corpse he’s holding against the wall. When he steps back, the body slumps to the floor, landing face-up.
I study the dead prick’s face. One of the nomads who was passing through South Bay looking for a bed to fall into and a pussy to fuck for a couple days before he moved on. Don’t know the guy all that well, but I like to think I can trust the men I let into my fucking house. The audacity to disrespect the club like this, to disrespect Kat, to take something that’s not his.
And she’s not his.
I snort out a gob of spit and hock it onto his limp, bloodied body. Graves would have killed him quick in his anger. He’s never been good at savouring a moment. But me? I have patience, and I’d have dragged the bastard out of her room, chained him up, and sliced my goddamn knife over every fucking inch of his body.
Graves drips with rage. He’s been pushed over the edge. Don’t blame him for what he did. Must bring back some rough memories, seeing a man try to take her like that, after what happened to his family, to his own mother. But when he gets this way, sometimes it feels dangerous, like I can’t predict what he’s gonna do next, like I can’t control what’s about to happen.
And I don’t like not being in control.
I glance over my shoulder at Tex. “Call the cleaner.”
He nods. “You got it, Prez.”
“Kitty?” I murmur as I approach.
She jumps at the sound of her name, pressing herself even closer to the headboard.
“I won’t hurt you, Kat. No one here will. You’re safe now. Here.” I tug off my T-shirt and toss it to her so she can cover herself.
Another sob escapes her as she snags it off the mattress. She pulls it on, then loops her arms around her knees and dips her head, hiding her tear-stained face behind a curtain of hair.
This is why I didn’t want her here. I told Graves over and over again this place wasn’t safe for her, that Jesse wasn’t safe for her. A fucking teenage girl wrapped up in this shit? I should have sent her packing weeks ago, but I gave in. And now I’m fucking regretting it. She wasn’t hanging around, this never would have happened. She’d be at home safe in her bed at her sister’s house and far the fuck away from bullshit like this.
How the fuck am I supposed to watch her all the damn time? Every night, it’s been me checking in on her, it’s been me pressing my ear to the goddamn door to make sure she’s in fucking bed while Jesse is out drinking until the sun comes up. This was Graves’s job. He’s the one playing big brother. He’s the one who insisted she stay here. But the asshole’s had his head buried between Kat’s sister’s legs for weeks, and he’s barely been around.
And wrangling the girl is no walk in the fucking park. If she had it her way, she’d be sitting at the back of Jesse’s bike on every job we run. I practically had to lock her in her room the last time I sent him out.
Easing myself onto the bed, I reach towards her, carefully, slowly, so she knows it’s coming. “Come on, Kitty Kat. Let’s get you cleaned up.” When she doesn’t move, I scoot a little closer and scoop her up.
The second she’s in my arms, she buries her head in my chest, her whole body shaking.
Seeing her like this guts me. Most days, Kat is annoying and stubborn. This fierce, mouthy, intrusive girl who’s somehow inserted herself into every part of my life. She’s always there, always talking shit, always scowling at Graves or lecturing Tex about how he eats like garbage. Hands at her hips, finger pointed in someone’s face.
But seeing her like this? Hurt and scared out of her mind? I don’t think I’ve ever hated a sight so much in my life.
She drapes her arms around my neck and tenses, squeezing tight when she gets a look at the body on the ground.
“You’ll sleep in my room,” I murmur.
Graves is suddenly in front of us, his face twisted in anger. “The fuck she will.”
I glare at him. “I’ll sleep on the fucking couch, asshole. You seriously saying that to me right now? You think I’d touch her after… after this?”
Pain flashes across his face. He’s no doubt picturing his mom, who he couldn’t save before they got to her. Before they fucked her and beat her bloody. And like déjà vu, it almost happened to Kat, the girl he’s been playing father to, or big brother, or whatever the hell he’s been doing to get into the pants of Kat’s hot lawyer sister.
“Course not,” he growls.
“Good. Then shut the fuck up and get out of here. Don’t come back until you’ve got your head on straight. Tex will clean up your mess.”
With fury still fuelling me, I carry Kat to the floor below, push through the door of my apartment, and stride straight to my bathroom. I set her on the counter and steady her, then pull her chin into my hands to examine her nose. That fucker didn’t break it, but there’s blood all over her mouth, chin, and neck.
“It’s fine,” she mutters, batting me away, her focus fixed on a spot on my chest.
“It’s not.” Anger burns through me as I snag a hand towel from the drawer next to the sink. I run it under warm water and wring out the excess, then carefully press it to her nose.
“Don’t make me leave,” she whispers, her lip trembling.
I sigh and blot at the blood beginning to dry on her chin. “It’s not right. You staying here.”
“Please, Axe? I… I didn’t mean for him to come in. He just did and—” She snaps her mouth shut and drops her eyes to the floor.
“Kat,” I grit out, maybe harsher than I’d meant to. “You think I blame you for this?”
The next sob that falls from her mouth tears a fucking hole in my chest.
Cupping her chin, I pull her face closer and force her to look at me. “None of that was your fault. It was mine. Fucking Graves too. For not watching you better, for sending Jesse out on a run and not keeping you safe.” I shake my head. “You should be back home. A proper home. This place isn’t good for you.”
“Axe. Please,” she pleads again. She steadies her hands on my cheeks in a way that’s far too intimate. I shouldn’t be this close to her. Close enough for her thighs to touch my legs. She shouldn’t be pressed so tight to my body when she’s not wearing any goddamn pants.
I clear my throat. “Kat—”
“Promise, Axe. Promise me. It’s too quiet there. I love my sister, I do. But it’s silent all the fucking time and I hate it. I’m always alone. And here, I’m not. Here, even if you don’t like me, even if you hate me, at least someone’s around to talk to me. She’s always gone. Always working. And before that, it was just me and my mom, and she didn’t talk to me either.”
My chest twists again. “No one hates you, Kitty. Let’s talk about it in the morning, yeah?”
She nods, wrapping her hands around her middle.
I don’t want to ask. And I almost don’t. I’m not sure if it would help, bringing that up. Did Graves get there on time? Did he stop it?
“Did he…” I swallow. “Kat, did he—”
“No. No, he didn’t… he didn’t get that from me.”
With a sigh of relief, I rinse the towel, then get back to cleaning up her face. We don’t speak again, and when I finally soak up the last of the blood, I scoop her up and bring her into my room, where I deposit her on my bed. When I turn to leave, she grabs my wrist.
“Stay with me?” she asks.
I give her a once-over. The only thing covering the girl’s body is my fucking T-shirt, and I sure as fuck am not crawling into bed bare chested with a fucking teenager.
“Kat—”
“Please.”
I run my hand over the short bristles on my head. “Wouldn’t look right, Kitty. Okay? Graves finds us like that after what just happened, and Tex would have another body to clean up.”
Her eyes are pleading, her lip trembling again. Fuck. Me. “Just… just until I fall asleep?”
Huffing out a sigh, I drop my head. “All right, but no touching.”
I slide in next to her, and she curls her still-shaking body close to mine. Swallowing thickly, I resist the urge to pull her into my arms. I don’t know how to comfort a woman after she’s been through a thing like that. Do I touch her or keep my hands off her? Do I talk about it? Stay quiet? Kat says she hates the quiet, but in this moment, maybe she’d prefer it.
When her breathing evens out, I know it’s time to get up, to pass out on my couch because I drank too much tonight, fucked the wrong woman, and then was woken by Kat’s screams. I’m fucking exhausted. I need sleep, and I can’t be sleeping next to this girl.
But I don’t move. Kat looks peaceful when she sleeps. So unlike her usual temperament, and as each minute ticks on, her body sinking further into mine, her hand resting on my chest, her forehead pressing to my shoulder, it gets harder to fucking leave.
So I lie here, studying her, telling myself I’ll get up in a minute and spend the rest of the night alone on the couch, away from her, where I should be.
When the sun wakes me up, she’s in my arms, her head on my chest, her hand resting softly on my stomach.
It’s wrong. I shouldn’t be this close to a woman so young. Particularly this one. Graves would fucking skin me alive if I touched her, but instead of slinking out of the sheets and leaving her by herself, I pull her tighter and let myself drift back to sleep.
Hours later, she stirs beside me. I ease my eyes open, only to find her face so close to mine it might actually be a crime. It sure fucking feels like one.
She shuffles closer and presses her palms to my cheeks.
Gripping her wrists gently, I pull her away. “Kat,” I warn. “No touching. It’s not right.”
“Just for a second,” she whispers, sweeping her hands back up my chest and over my chin, pulling me closer.
The pads of her fingers trace the line of my jaw and move up my cheeks once more. Her touch is light. Barely there. But still wrong. So fucking wrong.
Seventeen. Seventeen. Seventeen.
No. Not even. Not yet.
Sixteen. Fucking sixteen.
“Thank you for keeping me safe,” she murmurs, her lips almost on mine, a phantom kiss sliding over my mouth.
“Kat,” I say again, my tone harsher, but she’s already pulling away and pushing out of my bed.
Relief hits me when my apartment door clicks shut. I don’t know what the fuck that was, but there’s no goddamn way I’m letting that girl anywhere near my bed again.
3
Axe has an iron grip on my arm as he yanks me across the club.
“Axe!” I hiss.
His hold on me only tightens, and as much as I’d like to fight him off, I’m currently feeling very… exposed.
Minutes ago, I was twirling around a pole with my boobs out for a couple dozen strangers. But Axe finding me here when I’m in this state is far more uncomfortable. Like I’ve been unmasked. Stripped bare and spread out.
I clutch the small swatches of lace and cotton tight to my naked breasts as he drags me into the dressing room and thrusts me forward. My arm twinges in pain, but I don’t make a move to console my throbbing skin. I know better than to show weakness in front of this man.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Kat?” Axe snarls.
I take a step back, noting the anger twisting across his face, the glint in his dark eyes. Axe is the kind of man who takes up a lot of space in a room. It’s not just his six-foot-something stature, but the way he holds himself. He’s the kind of man you can feel even when he’s not touching you.
It’s easy to forget sometimes, how imposing the Sinner men can be. And dangerous. A storm of violence and wildness and freedom, of reckless abandon.
And Axe Donovan is the epitome of that.
Like Jesse, he’s everything I can’t help but step into, but even I know to tread lightly when Axe is angry. The man is a stone wall of calm, cool, and collected until he’s not. And right now, he’s most certainly not. Still, though, I could never help but push him—anyone, really—to get a reaction, to prove that I can get under his skin as much as he gets under mine.
