- CHAPTER FOUR -
COSTELLO
Help me.
That frail voice, that haunting phrase . . . it sliced straight through me. Memory is a funny thing, it exists in your head but also your muscles. Your cells. Hearing Scotch beg for help sent me back years and years, to a time when I was an arrogant teen.
To the moment my life was changed forever.
I looked down on a sight that brought me pure despair. Darien was bleeding, wounded by the gun I’d heard go off—the one in Scotch’s hands. She was straddling him like a lion that had conquered its prey.
Except she didn’t look like a proud hunter.
She looked terrified.
I was working through my shock to come up with a plan. If Scotch had killed Darien, the Deep Shots were going to lose their minds. We hadn’t even gotten to officially meet the new members. We probably wouldn’t now. Most would flee after seeing their comrade had been attacked.
Her eyes were big and brown. They reminded me of my sister Lula . . . of a young woman cradled in my arms as she begged me to keep her alive.
But this wasn’t my sister.
This was a waitress I barely knew with blood on her hands.
Fuck. This was bad.
Staring into my soul, she said, “You need to save him.”
Well, that was the fucking truth, but why did she care? I’d loved puzzles when I was younger—still kind of did. But those were fun and this was not. “You want me to save him?”
“Yes!”
“The man you shot?”
“Yes—I mean no!” She looked at the gun she was holding, seeing it with new eyes. “I didn’t shoot him! I swear, it’s not what it looks like!”
It was the most insane claim ever. Anyone looking at this mess would know it hadn’t been the unconscious stripper who’d pulled the trigger. That left only Scotch. But somehow . . . I knew she wasn’t lying.
My eyes darted to Darien. He was open shirted, so it was easy to see the wound. Bending down, I gingerly checked the area; he let out a pained hiss. Just a surface wound, thank goodness.
I snatched his suit jacket from the floor and pressed it against him to slow the flow of blood. “Tell me the truth,” I said calmly, looking at Scotch. She was so close to me. Almost as close as she’d been earlier in the dressing room and—No! I need to think about what’s happening in this moment.
Her bloodstained fingers gripped my wrists. There was no deceit in her clear voice. “I didn’t do it. He shot himself.”
I froze. “What?”
She let me go so she could scramble over to Gina. I was too aware of the empty spaces where her fingertips had been. “He was suffocating her! I hit him with that bottle over there to make him stop.” The champagne had rolled halfway under the couch—I saw it now. “Darien pulled a gun on me. We wrestled . . . and he shot himself. It was all an accident.”
An accident? An accident was what was going to fuck over several hard months of building trust with the Deep Shots? My father was going to have our heads.
Something must have crossed my face that betrayed my grim thoughts because Scotch grabbed at the leg of my pants. She clutched it and the gun, and somehow, in a way I was wholly unprepared for, she clutched at my heart.
“Please,” she hushed out. “Please believe me. People can’t think I did this. We both know what will happen if one of Darien’s gang mates believes I shot him.”
I worked my jaw, but my brain was struggling. I didn’t know the last time I’d been so thrown off. “It’ll be okay,” I said.
Scotch focused up at me. Her voice was clean and raw. “Promise me.”
Promise her? What an insane thing to ask. Did she think I was a wishing star?
Looking down on her where she knelt by Darien, knowing full well that this was a giant mess in every possible way, I prepared myself to tell her she was screwed. Done. No one could keep her safe from the results of her actions.
In my head I saw the bloody face of my sweet sister. Heard her plaintive cry for help.
I parted my lips; her eyes widened, her throat fluttering as she breathed in. I felt the distress in her soul. My words came out, solid as a thousand-year-old cliff rubbed smooth by the sea. “I promise.”
She squeezed me so hard the gun almost fell from her hands. It would have been better if it had, but I was too busy luxuriating in this rare sense of pride and pure fucking machismo to think the way I should have. The way I always had.
Then it was too late.
“What the—what the fuck is this?” Hawthorne blurted. He was leaning inside, gripping the sides of the booth so tight his knuckles were bone white. In a great swoop of his head he looked from Darien to Scotch.
He thinks she shot him.
Much too late, the girl jumped away from the fallen man and dropped the pistol. The curtains shook; the man who squeezed next to Thorne was bigger than any of us. We called him Ox, and it was a fitting name for the club security guard. “Damn, man,” he hissed. “Is that dude dead?”
There were too many witnesses to this mess. If I didn’t act now, there’d be a ton more—and they’d be far less friendly. I yanked out my phone and texted rapidly with my thumb. “He isn’t dead. Yet.”
Thorne peered over his shoulder at the room behind him. “Fuckity fuck. Rush and the others are going to go apeshit when they see their pal’s brand-new ventilation hole.”
“We aren’t letting anyone else see him.” I finished the text and sent it to Korvo—one of our grunts—before burying my phone deep in my jacket. I traced the outline of my gun; it was comforting. “I’ve got a man making sure no one is going to get upstairs.” The gunshot couldn’t have gone unnoticed, and we’d have a crowd of agitated gang members with weapons on us in minutes. “Take Darien out the back staircase. Get him to the Bucket.”
Thorne made a face. The Bucket was a hole-in-the-wall private practice on Wicker Street, a poor excuse for a clinic. The doctor who ran it was on our payroll, and he’d handle Darien without the authorities knowing. We couldn’t just roll up to a normal hospital with a gunshot victim and expect no questions.
Grimacing, my brother picked up the gun on the floor and put it in his jacket. Then he scooped Darien over his shoulder. The half-naked guy coughed, saying, “Motha . . . fucka . . . that hurts.”
“Shh,” Thorne grumbled, wrapping the blood-soaked jacket around them both. “It’s nothing a Band-Aid won’t fix.”
Darien groaned again. “Bitch . . . gonna pay.”
Thorne tossed a suspicious look at Scotch. I followed it, shaking my head so slightly that it could have been missed. My brother didn’t miss it; he got my unsaid message.
We’ll figure it out later.
“Wait,” Scotch said. She was cradling the dancer in her lap on the floor. The young woman had been roughed up, but she was stirring. “We need to call an ambulance. Gina has to get to a hospital!”
“What happened to her?” my brother asked, hesitating.
“He happened.” Scotch nodded at Darien. “I’m not leaving her side until I know she’s okay.”
This was no good. Scotch didn’t understand how much danger she was in—we were in—if we stayed here. And I couldn’t let her go with Thorne to the Bucket; what if Darien started telling people there that she’d attacked him? This was spiraling out of control fast.
“Scotch,” Gina moaned.
“Gina! I’m getting you to a hospital right now.”
“Hospital?” she whispered, trying to sit up. Scotch held her still, and Gina stared at the blood on her friend’s hands. “Oh . . . fuck, you’re hurt.”
“No, it’s not my blood.” Scotch flinched as she said it.
“You mean you killed him? For me?”
“No—no! I just . . . the gun went off.”
Gina’s eyes widened. She studied the room, our faces, and understanding clicked in. “Scotch, you have to get out of here.”
“Don’t worry about me! Let’s get you moving.”
“You need to run. I’ll be fine—I—” Gina was cut off by her own hacking; she forced on a half smile. “Didn’t you hear them? They’re taking me to a doctor. So get out of here before this guy’s friends find you.”
Rubbing the back of my head, I waved Ox closer. “Take her and go with Thorne.”
Always one to follow orders, the hulk of a guy scooped up Gina. Scotch scrambled to her feet; Ox eyed her up and down. With blood on her shirt and hands, she didn’t look like the innocent girl she claimed to be.
A tingle rolled down my tongue. My mouth was numb, it always got that way when I sensed things were spinning out of my control. I wrapped my arm around Thorne and pulled him close. “Tell no one what you saw in here.” My glare shot to Ox; he jerked up straight, clutching Gina. “Same goes for you. No one speaks about this until I say so.”
Ox gave a faithful nod. It was my brother who looked unsure.
Thorne backed toward the curtains. “Korvo better make sure no one sees us. Dammit, this is not how tonight was supposed to go. Why couldn’t I be getting wasted with Kain and Dad instead of dealing with this?” He ducked out with Ox close behind. I strained to hear any sudden shouts of distress. None came. Good, Korvo was doing his job.
“Will they be all right?” Scotch asked. Her voice cracked on the ight sound, and she cleared her throat, gathering herself. She’d noticed she was coming apart at the seams and was ready to hide it.
“I don’t know.” Scanning the small room, I grabbed the bottle of champagne. The cork came out in my teeth. “Hold your hands out.”
Obediently she flipped her palms up for me. I poured the fizzing liquid on her skin, removing the rusty red stains. Then I tipped the rest onto the hard floor. “Wipe your hands on your shirt, then give it to me.”
Her jaw dropped. “Come again?”
“I need to get rid of all the blood.”
Scotch’s eyebrows moved lower. “You do know the cops have something called luminol that finds wiped-up blood.”
It was a struggle to keep the disgust from my voice. “The cops aren’t coming here.” Not if I have any say about it.
She glanced at the smear of crimson on the tiles where Darien had been. “You’re right. It’d only make things worse.” She hooked her fingers under her shirt. “Am I . . . really going to be okay?”
Champagne puddled at my feet; time was running out. “I don’t make promises lightly.”
Without a hint of shame she yanked her top off. In spite of how perilous this situation was, I was transfixed by the vision of her soft curves. Why did she waitress instead of stripping? She could have made a fortune.
When she handed her shirt to me, I mopped up the mess, then stuffed it into the champagne bucket and offered it to her. “Hang onto this.” She cradled it like a football. “Now follow me, keep your head low. And whatever you do, do not look at anyone. If you do that, you’ll be fine.”
The lines across her forehead grew deeper. “Fine for now, you mean,” she said.
Clenching my jaw, I swung out of the curtain and took a hard left. There was a small stairwell along the back wall. It wove down to the dressing-room hallway—a secret exit for the girls if they needed one. It also gave us access to the alley.
Something gripped my elbow. I wasn’t used to such contact; I nearly shoved Scotch off me by reflex. Why was she holding me? For comfort, or because she thought I’d leave her behind?
After kicking the alley door open, I burst into the crisp night air. It shredded my lungs and cleared my head. I motioned at the dumpster. “Bucket, in there.” She tossed it, shirt and all, into the big rusted box. My silver Corvette was waiting in the shadows. “Get in the car,” I huffed, settling into the front seat.
She dove into the passenger side and clicked her seat belt shut. “Where are we going?” I revved the engine and pulled us through the alley and onto the street. “Away. We can’t stay here.”
“What hospital is Gina going to? And Darien?”
“One that’s good enough.” I’d been to the Bucket; it was run by some less-than-stellar people, but their skills weren’t in question. Just their ethics. “Thorne and Ox will get them help. Gina looked roughed up—”
“He was choking her!”
“But she should recover. As for Darien, the bullet wound seemed shallow to me. Amazing, considering how close you were to him when the gun went off.”
Scotch’s head swung around so fast I expected to hear her brain sloshing. “I really didn’t shoot him. It’s not the way it looks.”
Turning down a back street, I sighed. “It’s the only way people will see it. Your one hope is that Darien clears it up himself.” Did he really choke that dancer, then try to kill Scotch only to fumble the shot?
After a long pause, she leaned between her knees, hugging herself. “Your brother and that guy, Ox . . . The way they looked at me . . .” I knew the look she meant. “They think I pulled the trigger.” Covering her mouth, she moaned. “Fuck. The rest of the Deep Shots are going to want me dead if that rumor gets around!”
A small snake of distress slid through my guts. “It won’t happen,” I said firmly. Her hair had been in her face. She pushed it back, burned-caramel eyes glowing in the occasional streetlamp we passed. “Thorne and Ox will stay quiet. There’ll be no evidence.”
“And the gunshot?” she asked. “What will everyone blame that on, the club music?”
My phone vibrated in my pocket. I ignored it. “Yeah. One of those new hot mixes the kids listen to.”
Her teeth were white as peppermints, her relief invigorating me. “I—thanks,” she whispered. “I mean it.” Her fingers caught the ends of her blonde strands, rubbing them over and over.
“It’s Gina who should be saying thanks. You risked your life to save hers.” It was an act I respected. The kind I was intimately familiar with.
Her skin grew a hint paler, and when she spoke, her voice quivered on the corners if you paid attention.
I always paid attention.
“I didn’t think about it until now, but if you hadn’t stolen me out of there . . .”
Stolen. Fuck. I loved that word, that idea.
She went on, saying, “I’d be facing down the Deep Shots. They wouldn’t believe that I didn’t shoot him, not like you do.”
Again she reminded me that I did think she was telling the truth, and of just how insane that was. The woman had been on top of Darien with the pistol in her hand! Was I nuts, gullible, or something even worse?
I said, “Don’t thank me yet.”
“Too bad, I already am. I’m super thankful that you knew what to do—even if I had to lose a shirt for it,” she added, laughing.
Why’d she need to remind me of that? Helplessly I scanned her from the corner of my eye. Her sitting in my car with her chest bouncing from the occasionally uneven road was a sight that left me shifting in place.
My phone buzzed again. It brought me back to reality. Scanning the number, I put my phone to my ear. “What’s happening?” I asked.
Thorne’s voice crackled at me. “Drop-off is done. I don’t want to talk over the phone. Where can we meet?”
I studied the buildings around me and spotted a Motel 6. “Corner of Fountain and Benjamin. I’ll text you the room number.”
“Was that your brother?” she asked the second I hid my cell phone again.
“He’s coming to meet us.” Guiding my car into the parking lot, I turned toward her. Pointedly I looked over her half-naked state. Catching my eye, she blushed—I loved the rosy color of her long neck. “Stay here.”
Her frown went deep. “Why?”
“Because the front desk will take one look at you and assume you’re a prostitute. I don’t want to risk them denying us a room because they think I’m paying you for sex.” I was used to being blunt. What I wasn’t used to was visualizing the exact scenario I’d just described.
Scotch adjusted herself on the seat, facing away from me. “All right, I get it. I’ll be right here.”
As quickly as I could, I climbed into the cool air. The lot was relatively empty, the woman running the front desk barely awake. I paid her enough cash for a single night. I wouldn’t need longer than that, no matter what Thorne and I decided to do.
When I returned with the key, I tapped Scotch’s window. Stepping out of my car, she steadied herself next to me. A gust of clawing air shredded us both; her shiver was visible, and her arms curled around to hug her.
In just her skirt and bra, she was hilariously underdressed. It was my fault and I knew it. I gripped my jacket’s zipper and pulled it down my body. “Here,” I said, leaning close to drape it over her shoulders.
When she turned to watch what I was doing, the breeze grabbed her hair, tickling it over my cheek. Her smell invaded me. I wanted to bury my face in her blonde strands and imprint this scent in my memory.
Fingering the edges of the leather collar, I stared down at Scotch. The jacket was too big on her—it made her look as if she had nothing on beneath it, her bare legs seeming more naked than ever.
The giant neon sign buzzed overhead. Something rustled in the patchy green dumpster nearby, a cat looking for a warm spot to spend the night. No one would put this moment on a Hallmark card, and yet . . . desire throbbed through the air between us. I could have waved my hands and seen it move, like steam in a sauna.
“Thank you,” she mumbled, backing away from me.
The cold weather was doing nothing to cool the hot pressure between my thighs. “Let’s go inside before we get pneumonia.” Or before I do something very, very stupid.
Something worse than what I’d already done tonight.
We were barely up the rickety stairs when Thorne pulled into the lot below us. His lights went dim, and his hair was jet black in the low-lit area as he stepped onto the cement. My brother wasn’t smiling as he often did; his quick scan of Scotch wearing my jacket deepened the lines around his nose.
She ran to meet him, pushing past me on the landing. “Is Gina okay?”
He ducked his chin into the tall collar of his coat. “She’s fine. Just a little shaken up.”
I waved at him. “Come inside our room.”
“No. Let’s talk out here.”
He doesn’t want her to listen. “Here,” I said, handing her the key. She clutched it, her thumbs rubbing over the well-worn surface. “Get in there and warm up. We won’t be long.”
With some reluctance she backed toward the doorway. It was one of several on the open second-floor landing. Her nervous eyes lingered on me. Then she was through the door, gone.
The motel was a ghost town as far as I could see, but we still walked toward the far corner of the shadowed railing. Thorne faced me, his hands deep in his peacoat. “What the fuck happened back there?” he asked sharply.
“First, tell me what the doctor said about Darien.”
He dug his fingernails through his hair vigorously. “He’s still unconscious, no clue when that will change, but Doc thinks he’ll live. We’re lucky she didn’t kill him.”
“She didn’t shoot him, Thorne.”
“Like hell she didn’t. Look, I like Scotch. She’s worked at the Dirty Dolls forever. I’m sure she did it because he was messing with Gina, but we both saw the same thing. She was literally red-handed.”
I was shaking my head. I couldn’t stop. “He shot himself while they were wrestling for the gun.”
He laughed so loud it made clouds in the air. “Come on! What are the chances of that?”
“Thorne.”
“She was holding the gun.”
“Thorne!” I snapped. “She didn’t do it.”
With a low groan he leaned against the railing. “Doesn’t matter. Word is at least two people saw her go into that champagne room.”
It felt as if centipedes were marathoning up my back. “What?”
“She was spotted.” A car engine snarled in the distance; he stared out at the road, waiting for it to pass, before he kept talking. “The Deep Shots know a blonde waitress with a nose piercing went into the room where Darien was. By morning, everyone in this city who’s friendly with our brand-new buddy-buddy gang is going to be looking for her.”
I could barely breathe; I blamed it on the painfully cold night air. Fuck, why hadn’t I worn my jacket? Because she has it. I gave it to her. Just as I’d given my word. I’d promised a dead girl I could keep her alive.
Swallowing, I said, “They know her face, do they—”
“Know her name is Scotch?” He squinted at me. “She introduced herself in front of them all.”
I remembered that moment clearly. I’d burned with disgust at how Darien was treating her, and in spite of the risk, I’d stepped in and gotten involved.
And now I’m more involved than ever.
“Shit,” I whispered.
“Yeah, shit.” His chuckle was empty of any real humor. Thorne was the master of cynicism. “So even if I believe that she didn’t do this—and I don’t know that I do—it won’t matter. No one is going to wait around for her to share her side of the story.”
Right, there were always two. Scotch might be a suspect, but that could be fixed. “When Darien wakes up, he’ll be able to explain everything,” I said quickly. “If I can hide her until then . . . we can wait this out.”
My brother leaned away as if I’d struck him. His expression was grimmer than the boiling sky that threatened to snow on us. “We?” He pointed over my shoulder at the motel door. “This girl fucks up our meeting tonight, the one our not-so-understanding father trusted us to handle because he’s in frigging Vermont, and your response is to protect her? This isn’t like you.”
He was right. This wasn’t like me.
Scotch’s pale face and pleading words sank into the grooves of my memory. Thorne grabbed my shoulders, startling me. “Make a plan. You always have a plan!” His smile went crooked, manic. Thorne was freaking out, and I knew we were thinking the same thing.
Our dad is going to string us up for this.
“It’s only going to get crazier,” he mumbled, hardly talking to me. “It’s a miracle Dad hasn’t called us yet to check in. Fuck, maybe the horse farm has no cell reception and no one from the Deep Shots or the club can reach him. Wouldn’t that be fucking lucky for us, huh?”
I gnarled my fists in the front of his coat. “That’s perfect!”
“Wh-what’s perfect? What are you talking about?”
My heart was expanding and shrinking so rapidly that I couldn’t feel the winter air any longer. “The horse farm, the whole damn wedding. You said everyone here will be looking for Scotch.”
My brother’s mouth went slack. “You want to bring her with us to Kain’s wedding?”
Our youngest brother’s wedding would be the perfect escape. “Mom and Francesca expect us to fly out with them in the morning, right? I’ll bring her with me.”
He shoved me; I let him go, my smile clearly infuriating him. “Yup. You’re definitely insane. Costello, you can’t bring some rando to Kain’s wedding. Don’t you think that will look strange? You aren’t exactly Mr. Relationship, no offense.”
I wasn’t offended. I couldn’t be when he was only being honest. I’d never dated anyone seriously, never brought anyone home to our family. Taking Scotch to the wedding and pretending she was my girlfriend would be risky, but . . . “Mom will be thrilled,” I said with a soft chuckle.
“Uh-huh. And Dad will do a damn jig at the idea of his son dating the woman who shot a member of his shiny new gang.”
“He won’t know who she is. Trust me, this will work.”
Thorne started to sputter. “I don’t know who you are anymore. Jeez, does she have a pussy made of diamonds or something?”
I’d been moving toward my room. Thorne was following closely, so it was easy to spin around, ball my fists in his coat, and slam him against the side of the motel. “What was that?”
His eyebrows vanished into his hairline. “Whoa! Chill out, man! I was just making a joke.”
My hold on him tightened; we both heard my joints pop. “Never make that kind of joke about her again. Understand?”
“Yes, yeah, okay! Fuck, man.” Thorne stayed where he was when I released him, dusting himself off. “You’re really doing this. You’re going to flaunt her right in front of our family and pretend nothing went sour tonight?”
A car drove by; both of us froze, watching the lights on the road until they’d vanished. Now that I knew people were looking for Scotch, I was incredibly paranoid. Ignoring his question, I said, “Check in with Ox. Tell him to say nothing, and if anyone presses for details, remind him that Darien ran off with one of the girls for the night. That he’s asleep between their legs somewhere.” If we can breed confusion, it’ll help keep Scotch out of the spotlight. It was probably too late for that, but . . .
“And the gunshot?” he asked incredulously. “Everyone in the Dirty Dolls heard it.”
That was a problem . . . but something Scotch had said during the drive gave me an idea. It was such a good excuse I started to laugh.
My brother groaned in exasperation. “What’s so funny?”
“I was just thinking about how crazy club music is these days.” The motel room’s doorknob had gone ice cold. Twisting it, I cast one final look at my brother. “It can sound just like gunshots.”