Chapter Three
You will not be punished
for your anger. You will be
punished by your anger.
Buddha
It's one of those things you can just tell—the sky is blue, puppies are stupidly cute, and this woman is a raging bitch. With flashing green eyes, vivid red hair, and a curvy figure, she’s also every man’s wet dream.
But I’ll let you in on a little secret—Prince Charming doesn’t want to marry a raging bitch.
And judging by the fire in her eyes, the same fire that matches her red hot hair and the insane amount of sass she’s been dealing to my stoned-out-of-their-minds security technicians, she has a bone to pick.
With me.
I look at her, hiding my unease like a seasoned professional. She’s a new entity, and new is never good. It occurs to me that this, whatever this is, can be a trap. An elaborate ruse connected to the fucking bounty on my head.
I take a moment to feed on my paranoia, allowing it to fester, build and consume me. After all, it’s what has kept me alive this long.
And against ridiculous odds, too.
I hide my suspicion well behind a familiar mask of indifference, and instead, I casually arch my brow as if to say, “Well?”
After all, she still hasn’t answered my question.
She juts her hip out and places a slender hand on it, the epitome of sassy. She even manages to look poised while doing so, which tells me all I need to know about this woman. “Who are you to get into my business? Go away. I’m perfectly capable of dealing with this”—she gestures to the guys behind her—“by myself.”
Even if I was just a bystander, I would be able to see that the opposite is true. She can’t even tell that these guys are acting like this because they’re too high to function properly. Luke and Tristan may be the best at installing security systems, but they’re also shit at passing up a joint. I’ve never seen them not high.
I debate whether or not I should be saying something, but I’ve seen her walking around the neighborhood a few times before. Once is enough to merit my concern, but a few times is disturbing. If I don’t treat this situation delicately, it may become a problem for me.
So, remembering to speak tactfully, I say, “You’re on my property,” which is a Hell of a lot better than “get the fuck out of here.”
Her eyes widen, and she shifts her body away from Luke and Tristan, turning her full attention on me. Behind her, they go back to their work, already bored with our conversation. Then again, it may just be me they don’t want to look at. Like most people I’ve met, they’ve always had trouble making eye contact with me.
“You,” she seethes, her venomous voice an invisible but lethal weapon. I can even imagine it slicing through the air.
A lesser man would back down. He would see the craze in her eyes and surrender. I’m many things—an asshole, a jerk, and a douchebag, to name a few—but a lesser man is not one of them. I can’t help but rise to the challenge in her voice, something in me wanting to draw nearer and match her anger with my own.
Truthfully, it’s not her I’m mad at.
I’m mad I had to spend a month in the middle of Nowhere.
I’m mad at Lucy for breaking in.
I’m mad that I have to revamp my security, installing parts from at least a dozen different companies in the case of another break in attempt using a master key.
And mostly, I’m mad that my little brother ordered a hit on me after word had gotten out that I had helped Asher raid a warehouse.
These are the things I’m mad at—not this firecracker of a woman. But man, is she an easy target. Huffing and puffing in front of me, I have no doubt she thinks she’s the big, bad wolf. Little does she know, I eat wolves for breakfast.
“Me,” I mock, my voice cold and belittling.
The condescension in my tone is obvious. After standing upright and taking a step closer, I lean against the railing closer to her and cross my arms casually. My face is the epitome of aloof as I, with careful precision, slowly run my eyes up and down the length of her trim and curvy body.
Anyone can see that, with her clothes on incorrectly and hair disheveled, she’s doing the walk of shame right now. I deliberately paste an amused expression on my face, instinctively knowing it’ll piss her off.
It does.
She takes a step closer, ballsy for such a little thing, and says, “You’ve woken me up every darn day for the last month. This is the last straw.”
I raise a brow. “Darn?”
She isn’t amused. “Yes. Every. Darn. Day. But not anymore. I’m reporting you to the city.” She frowns at me. “If you were nicer, I would have given you a warning.”
“Somehow, I doubt that,” I say, unconcerned.
There’s a reason it has been a month of nightly noise, and my neighbors on either side of me haven’t reported a thing. We—John, Dex and I—have an agreement here. They turn a blind eye, field some questions about the mysterious neighbor, and should the need arise, I do favors for them.
Those favors usually involve bloodshed.
If you ask me, businessmen are worse than mobsters.
And between the three of us, we have enough connections in the city to do whatever the Hell we want. That includes making noise at 6 A.M., though it shouldn’t matter. Dex and John are my only neighbors close enough to hear.
They won’t say shit.
“B-but yo—”
I cut her off. “Listen, sweetheart,” I say, intuitively knowing the pet name will piss her off further, though I’m not sure why I want to. It’s probably because I’m an asshole. “You’re clearly out of your depth here. I’ll save you the trouble and let you leave now, with a quarter of your dignity still intact.”
She flounders for a long moment, staring at me with the greenest eyes I’ve ever seen. She really is beautiful. I’m not surprised to see her lurking around here, given the resident playboy that lives next door.
With a killer body, a light smattering of freckles on the bridge of her nose, and a cocky gleam in her eyes, she looks like an eclectic mix between the Queen Bee and the Girl Next Door. Like she won’t hesitate to tear your heart out and feed it to a homeless puppy, because he’s starving, she feels bad, and she doesn’t like you.
She also looks like Dex’s type. Any man’s type, even, but especially his. Dex is a thirty-years-old, self-made tech millionaire. He’s a blue blood through and through, but the money he’s made is one hundred percent his own and a byproduct of his technological prowess.
Dex hooked me up with my untraceable home network and surveillance system. He’s an average looking guy but an absolute animal when it comes to women, cycling through them quickly, sometimes even multiple times in a day.
I have no doubt that this is one of those girls, though for some reason, she’s acting like she’s staying around here for much longer. I’m tempted to uncross and re-cross my arms, using my strong build to daunt her, but I figure there’s such a thing as too much intimidation. I wouldn’t want her to go running off to the damn cops.
She opens her mouth to say something, but after a moment, she closes it again, huffs, and walks away from me. I try not to watch her retreat, but I can’t help myself. She has a nice ass, and it’s been a while since I’ve had the opportunity to check out a woman.
But when I turn in the direction of Dex’s house, she’s not there.
I swivel back, surprised when I see her quietly entering John’s brownstone. He doesn’t have a family. He doesn’t have a wife. He doesn’t have a daughter. So why the fuck is she doing her walk of shame to a man almost three times her age?
And why the fuck is it bothering me?