Page 1 of Property of Whiskey

Chapter One

Twila

The woman currently trying to choke me with her thighs calls herself Kentucky Fried Carnage, which feels like false advertising considering I’ve spent the last four minutes beating her ass across the ring. She’s neither from Kentucky nor particularly anything like carnage breaded in eleven herbs and spices. Her real name’s Sheila, she works the cosmetics counter over in Official, which is what anybody born around here calls Paradise, and she once cried for twenty minutes because somebody left a shopping cart too close to her Buick.

Tonight, however, she’s painted black streaks beneath both eyes, teased her blond hair until it looks electrocuted, and squeezed herself into a red vinyl bodysuit that squeaks every time she moves.

The crowd loves her.

But they love me more.

“Break her arm, Twister!” somebody screams from beside the bar.

I hook Sheila’s ankle beneath my arm, roll my weight across her back, and drag her toward the middle of the ring before she can grab the bottom rope.

Yeah, my wrestling name is Twister Dix.

I didn’t choose it. The bikers at Heck’s Kitchen did, and by the time I realized the announcer had been encouraged to say it fast, loudly, and repeatedly, the name had already appeared on a hundred T-shirts and a poster featuring my ass in denim cutoffs.

My daddy bought every poster he could find and burned them in an oil drum behind the sheriff’s department.

That only made the damn thing collectible.

“Tap,” I tell Sheila, sinking deeper into the hold.

“Go to hell, daddy’s girl.”

“We’re already in Hell, bitch.”

The crowd roars loud enough to rattle the glasses behind the bar.

Heck’s Kitchen squats at the edge of town in what used to be a courthouse, back before Hell became less of a place and more of a collection of bad shit held together with scrap metal and unpaid county fines. The roof leaks when it rains, the floors are permanently sticky, and half the walls are covered in old license plates, rusted road signs, and framed mugshots belonging to people who still drink here.

The wrestling ring sits where court benches probably used to be, surrounded by crooked rows of folding chairs beneath a grid of mismatched lights. Heat pours off them hard enough to bake the sweat onto my skin. A battered bar runs along one wall, beer taps gleaming between old stickers and gouges in the wood, though most people have abandoned their stools now and crowded around the ring, stomping boots and yelling for blood like Sheila and I are gladiators instead of two women making cash on a Wednesday night.

She tries to crawl.

I shift my hips and sit deeper into the hold.

She slaps the mat three times.

The bell clangs, loud, and I release her immediately. Sheila rolls onto her back, sucking air while the referee catches my wrist and drags it upward. Wildcat, one of the Kings, is wearing referee stripes instead of his cut tonight, which somehow makes him look more dangerous instead of less.

“Your winner,” Holler bellows from the announcer’s table, stretching the suspense as if anybody in the building missed what just happened, “the law in Daisy Dukes, Paradise County’s own Twister Dix!”

The place erupts.

At damn near six feet tall, I don’t need much help towering over most women, but I climb the turnbuckle anyway and raise both hands. My long blonde ponytail sticks to the back of my neck, sweat slides between my shoulder blades, and my lungs burn pleasantly with the aftermath of a good match.

Somebody near the front throws a pair of boxer briefs into the ring.

Somebody else throws what appears to be a fried chicken leg.

I duck the chicken.

The boxers land across my boot.

“Classy,” I mutter.