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“You used to protect the law, Brody. You were a good guy.” He paused, his breath uneven. “What happened to you?”
My fingers clenched around my phone, my earlier smugness brittle and hollow. “I opened my eyes.”
I didn’t wait for a response. Ending the call, I slammed my phone onto my desk, not giving a shit if I cracked the screen. This wasn’t supposed to turn into such a clusterfuck. Of course, I shouldn’t be surprised. Life had delivered one giant middle finger after another since I sank into cartel quicksand. No matter how hard I tried to claw my way out, it kept pulling me under, deeper and deeper each time. Eventually, I gave up the fight and sank to the bottom.
Now, here I sat, completely submerged, trying to fight more than one invisible enemy. How long would it be until I just stopped breathing?
“It won’t be today.” With fire in my chest, I spun around, ready to fire bar bitch just to make myself feel better when a glint of silver caught my eye.
Without thinking, I crouched next to the picture frame I’d tossed like a grenade and picked it up. My white-knuckled grip on it tightened. I’d be damned if I’d go down like this. Straightening my shoulders, I stood and placed the frame back on my desk.
Tugging my tie loose, I shrugged off my jacket and unbuttoned my soiled shirt, reaching for the spare I kept in the tiny closet in the corner of the office. As I rolled the sleeves of the freshly laundered shirt up to my elbows, I heard the back door slam and what sounded like a bulldozer tear through the kitchen.
I glanced at the clock and threw my head back with a groan. “For fuck’s sake, Kiki, this is the third time this week. Your shift started three hours ago. Do you not own a goddamn clock?”
Tearing out of my office, I punched the wall on my way out, more than ready to hand a certain brunette waitress her ass and then toss it out the door.
It was bar bitch’s lucky day.
Chapter Five
Adriana
How the mighty have fallen.
The phrase sat on the tip of my tongue as I rounded the building and opened the door to a pathetically empty Caliente Cantina. The symbolism wasn’t lost on me, and if I had more time, I might have relished in how things had come full circle. However, I didn’t come here to bask in others’ misfortune.
I came to rectify my own.
Although I did my best to blend in, my high heels clicked against the cheap floor, announcing my arrival like a grenade. Stopping mid-stride, I winced and waited for the collective gasp. Surprisingly, the handful of patrons scattered in the worn booths never bothered to look up, much less acknowledge me. Returning the favor, I ignored them, focusing all my attention toward the bar.
It didn’t take long to find him. Slumped in a stool at the farthest end, Brody Harcourt scowled into his beer, gripping the glass mug as if he were squeezing out its last breath. The move might have intimidated a normal woman, but I wasn’t most women.
Besides, I knew more about him in a glance than I suspected most of his “so-called” friends did in a lifetime. The simple key to reading someone was to study their body language. Yeah, he looked ready to kill someone, but his hands were his tell. The glass he held took a level of unsurmountable punishment clearly meant for someone else.
Of course, there was also the obvious alcohol he downed like water. Men tended to use liquid therapy as a crutch rather than dealing with their problems. I’d seen it all my life. Not that it was a bad temporary fix for a highly publicized fall from grace, but killing brain cells just stalled the climb back to the top.
And through all this analysis, here I stood in the middle of this god-awful piece of shit cantina like a flashing siren. Only, like the other customers, Brody found my existence irrelevant. Not that it mattered to me. I wasn’t here to have my ego stroked. There was only one thing I wanted, and I’d traveled too long and too far to hinge it on an obstinate male mood swing. Still, observation was a useful skill, so I continued appraising him from a distance.
The way a man dressed said a lot about him—who they were; what they did; where they’d been. According to Brody’s clothes, I deduced the answers were: a burden on society, two lines up the nose, and saddled up at the twenty-four-hour stripper emporium. The wrinkled white button-up shirt he wore was half tucked in toward the front and wild and chaotic in the back. The sleeves were uncuffed and rolled up to his elbows, exposing ridiculously toned arms.
At some point, he’d undone the first button at his collar, got frustrated, then ripped the next four clean off. The evidence was scattered across the floor with one resting against the soiled toe of my high heel. I kicked it to the side, continuing to study him. With a grunt, one hand flew from his mug and yanked off the tie draped around his neck. The muscles in his forearm tensed as he balled it up and pitched it across the bar railing.
Nice throw.
This version of Brody Harcourt looked nothing like the man I remembered. Then again, I doubted he gave a damn if he lived up to dress code since his mother tried to murder his entire family.
I should know.
Bits and pieces of the last year flashed through my head. The confusion. The loneliness. The pain. Refusing to lose control, I closed my eyes and blocked the darkness from rolling in.
No emotion. Not today.
With renewed determination, I made my way to the bar, my sleek dark hair dusting over my shoulder as I slid into the chair beside him. Before I could say a word, a bleach blonde bartender in a skimpy uniform rolled her eyes as she walked toward me with a cell phone suctioned to her ear and a groan on her lips.
“I guess I’ll have to call you back.” Cocking a hip, she braced one hand against the bar while shoving the phone in the back pocket of her cut-off jean shorts with the other. From the way she glared at me and then Brody, I could tell her crush on him was just as big as her attitude. “So, do you know what you want or what?”
A year ago, I would’ve had her choking on her own tongue for that.
