I never wanted this shit.

Taking the time to add the lemon on the edge of the glass just like the coed requested, I slide the tumbler across the scuffed wooden bar toward her. I give the chick the fake-ass smile I’ve perfected in the past few years. She giggles, fluttering all kinds of long, dark lashes at me while simultaneously pushing her big, fake tits together in front of my face.

My dick doesn’t even twitch. I’m so far removed from this type of flirtation it’s almost funny. As soon as she slips a wad of folded-up bills into the tip jar I turn away and lift a brow at the next paying customer.

And the night continues.

I wash glasses. I make drinks. I watch as the town’s idiots get drunker and make more bad decisions.

And all I can think about is, maybe bartending was the perfect job for me when I was fresh out of the joint. But now? After what I experienced over the past few weeks, I realize how motherfucking bored I am.

My fingers twitch, itching to do something. Really do something. My brain flashes back to the night I helped my buddy, Ronin Shaw, rescue his woman from a mob boss. The explosives. It had been awhile since I’d made something go boom, but that shit was like riding a bike. Once I started, the rest was smooth sailing.

After I pour the remaining drops from the last bottle of SoCo into a tumbler and pass it to a grizzled old man, I stride down the length of the space behind the bar.

“Be right back. Headed to the stockroom,” I mutter to the other bartender, a recent hire named Kandie who gives me then a nod and a smile in response.

I slide past Kandie, which is difficult because her ample ass cheeks take up more than half the space behind the bar, and she cuts her gaze toward me.

“You tryin’ to cop a feel, B?” she asks with a smirk.

I would abso-fucking-lutely be trying to do just that, because Kandie is as hot as they come. Sexy hourglass figure wrapped up in tight clothing that leaves just the right amount to the imagination. I know she sexes it up more than necessary on the nights she works here, dropping the neckline on her tops and squeezing into the slimmest jeans possible, and it works for her. The girl cleans up in tips from the college-aged crowd who’s been frequenting The Oakes for the past month, and there’s no shame in her game. There are nights she takes home more than I do, and I just laugh while I watch her count her tips. Her brown skin is smooth, and the miles of waves in her thick black hair puddle around her tits tonight, even though she changes her hair up weekly.

But Kandie made it very clear when I hired her that not only does she not sleep with coworkers, I wouldn’t be on her list even if she did. She doesn’t swing my way.

Bumping her hip with mine, I hit her with the Bennett Blacke charm. The fact that she’s immune to it doesn’t stop me one bit. “Fuck yes, I am. Gotta get my touches in when your hands are full of booze, or else you’ll punch the shit outta me.”

She laughs, deep and throaty, and I can see the dude she’s pouring the house draft for visibly swallow as he stares at her. She purses deep red lips at me and blows a fake kiss. “Kiss this ass, B.”

“As soon as you’ll let me,” I toss over my shoulder as I push through the swinging door toward the back hall and the stockroom.

I pass by the open office door on the way there, and then I backtrack a few steps and pause in the doorway.

“Mickey? Didn’t expect to see you here tonight.” Leaning against the doorjamb, I fold my arms across my chest.

Mickey Oakes, the bar’s owner and a longtime friend, glances up from the scattered piles of paperwork on the desk. I’ve been working hard as hell trying to get the books back to their pristine condition after Mickey’s organized crime-bound son, Mick, rolled into the place two months ago and fucked shit up.

Mickey swipes a hand across his forehead. “You done good work here, boy. Can’t tell ya how much I ’preciate it.”

Mickey always sounds like he’s got a wad of chewing tobacco in his mouth, even though he dropped the habit over a decade ago.

I grunt in response. I’ve only been doing what needed to be done. I’m not gonna let him thank me for it. He hired me to do a job, at a time in my life when no one else would. He was there for me while I got my life together, picked up the pieces from everything I’d smashed to hell.

Shaking my head, I push myself off the wall. “How you been feeling?”

As if on cue, a hacking cough starts in his chest and it doesn’t let up until his weathered face is almost purple and he’s wheezing to catch his breath.

Cursing, I rush back out into the bar and grab a glass of water. Bringing it back to him in the small, cluttered office, I watch as he takes a sip, the coughs dying down slowly.

There’s a grapefruit-sized lump in my throat that I try like hell to choke down.

I never knew my own father, but I’m guessing that the way Mickey treats me is the way someone’s old man would treat him. He tried right up until he couldn’t anymore to build a good relationship with his own son, but that weasel screwed it up more times than I can count. If I had a father like Mickey…well, I’d appreciate him. That’s for damn sure.

Looking at me with a worn and exhausted half-smile, he thuds his chest with a fist. “Been better.”

Clearing my throat, my words are more of a grunt than a reply. “Then what the hell are you doing here? You should be home. Resting up.”

After another gut-splitting round of coughing, Mickey gulps more of the water and winces like he’s in pain. “I got emphysema, son. Goes right along with the cancer eatin’ away at my lungs. Ain’t no amount a restin’ gonna help. Wanna make sure I help you get these books straight after my fool son done messed it all up.”

Then he glares at me, but his lips twitch in his attempt to hide a smile. “I don’t need no babysitter. Ain’t you got customers to wait on behind my bar?”

I wave my hand at him, my stomach knotted up with worry, and continue to the stockroom.

What’s that old man gonna do with this place?

Running a bar was never in my grand life plan. Shit, I never even had a grand life plan. Claw my way out of the rural, backwoods town where I was raised in the low country of South Carolina, be the best soldier I could while I was in the army, and that was about it. That was as far as I got before it all went to hell.

When I almost ruined my whole life within two minutes of blind rage.

I pull liquor bottles down off the shelf and place them in a crate, which I haul back out to the bar. After I shelve them and toss the crate under the counter, I scan the bar area and note that I have new, familiar arrivals.

Sitting at a couple of high-top tables just behind the row of stools are a group of faces I never expected to see.

My buddy Ronin Shaw wears his usual too-intense expression on his face. The man always looks like he’s carrying the weight of the fucking world on his shoulders, and I’ve told him on more than one occasion that he needs to lighten up. He’s seated beside his boss at Night Eagle Security, Jacob Owen. My gaze skates over Jacob toward Jeremy Teague, his long hair pulled back into a bun at the back of his head. Sliding over to the table beside them, my eyes land on two more NES team members, Grisham Abbott and Dare Conners before finally settling on her.

Sayward Diaz.

The woman they call Viper.

I can’t help it when my eyes travel from the exotic features of her face straight to the hint of cleavage visible above the vee of her T-shirt. She might think she’s hiding the luscious curves hidden underneath her uniform of jeans and a zipped-up hoodie, but there’s no running away from how sexy she is. When I force my gaze back up to her face, it’s to find her looking at me with irritation-filled hazel eyes. She shifts, her nose twitching with a show of disinterest as her sensuous, full lips roll between her teeth. Her long, dark hair is pulled into a messy bun and she’s not wearing any makeup, but who the hell cares with a face like that?

When a woman looks this fucking perfect without even trying, she’s a danger to society. I’ve also seen what she can do when she’s sitting behind her computer, so the Viper tag? I get it. She’s straight-up nasty with her tech. No one can hide.

“Two Coronas with limes please.” I don’t even notice as the barely legal girl bats her lashes and slides her credit card across the counter. “And I wouldn’t mind if you wrote your number on the back of that receipt.”

“What the hell are they doing here?” I mutter aloud as I pull two Coronas from the fridge and stick a lime into neck of each. I grab the girl’s credit card and swipe it, offering her a distracted grin as I slide the white slip of paper back for her to sign.

“I’m off the menu, baby girl, but if you keep comin’ into this bar I might be persuaded to change my mind.”

I don’t bring home women from the bar. It’s a choice. The last thing I need is some chick hanging around for weeks afterward, searching for a repeat performance that won’t ever happen.

I’ll flirt with them until the cows come home, though, because it’s what they want, and they pay nicely for a little attention.

The girl bites her lip and grabs the beers, making sure to lean over the bar as she does so. I look, because I’m not blind, but then I glance at Kandie when she elbows my side.

“You know that bunch?” She inclines her head toward the Night Eagle team, and I nod.

“Yeah, I do. Just not sure what they’re doing here. Didn’t expect to see most of them again anytime soon.”

When Ronin’s woman was taken from the parking lot of this bar by Wilmington’s most notorious organized crime family, I got involved. Not only because he’s my friend and he needed me, but also because Mickey’s son, Mick, was at the center of the bullshit and I took personal exception to the fact that he’d dared to do it all on my turf. I backed Ronin up, worked some of my magic with explosives, and helped rescue Olive safe and sound.

I knew there were a few members of the NES team that didn’t like my past or my attitude.

Doesn’t matter to me. They can all go fuck themselves, because I don’t answer to anyone. Not anymore.

“Well they’re a pretty bunch.” When I glance at Kandie, her dark brown eyes are locked and loaded on the two high-top tables. “Especially little Miss Converse Sneakers over there. That nerdy vibe she’s got goin’ on works for her.”

Kandie watches Sayward, and I follow her gaze without meaning to. My cock stiffens in my jeans, growing uncomfortable as hell, and I turn toward the wall so I can adjust myself without looking like an asshole.

Kandie chuckles. “Looks like I’m not the only one who noticed.”

With a sigh, I’m getting ready to face the music and find out what the NES crew wants with me, when a commotion at the end of the bar pulls my attention. I turn that way just in time to see one dude’s fist slam into another one’s face.

And then the bar erupts in absolute fucking madness.