Claiming Their Cat (2 page)

Ah, more hot coffee. Just what
I
need
.

“What do you want me to do, offer her a job?” asked
Fred
.

She wouldn’t
take
it. He’d seen that look before. Running anywhere but here.
“Sure. Just let me know how much I owe you
, and
I’ll
settle
up the next time I’m through
this way
.”

“You know that’s a bad deal for me.”

Rio eyed Fred from under his hat.
“Yeah? How do you
figure
that?”

“Your line of work has a
high mortality
rate.
Collecting from you is iffy.”

“
It’s
high
for the other guys. Besides,
I ain’t dead yet.
I’ll leave you a
big
tip
to
cover
a couple of weeks, but I
bet
she
wo
n’t stay long. She’s running from some
body
.”

“Hell, we’re all running from something.”

Rio
agree
d, but
he wasn’t going to dwell on
it
right now
, maybe not ever
.
The woman
carried
a backpack
,
so he wondered if she had a change of clothes
, preferabl
y
dry
.
Most likely, all her worldly processions w
ere
crammed into it.
“I’ll
leave
some extra money in case she stays around. She’ll need some clothes.”

“I ain’t running no damn halfway house.”

Fred
was
complaining
, but underneath all that piss
and vinegar
, was nothing but an old softie. If
Rio
hadn’t come to her rescue,
Fred
would
’
ve.
“I know
.
If she’s still
here
when I get back, I’ll take her someplace safe.”

“Humph.”

Rio
rolled his eyes.
H
e was
good
for his word, but
Fred
just liked to give him shit.

“I’m glad I put that
cot
in the back. She can sleep there.”

That
’d
work. It wasn’t
a
motel, but
Rio
had installed a damn
good
security
system
for this hole
-
in
-
the
-
wall
diner
. She’d be
safe
. If anyone tried to break in, alarms and shit would go off and scare the
bejesus
out them a
s well as
alert
the
cops
.

Not that there was anything to steal…besides the weapons
Fred
let him hide in the broken cooler. Of course, this wasn’t his only
stash
house, but he believe
d
in
being prepared and protecting his one and only
friend
.
Fred
was an
old
Marine
and a werewolf
, getting up in years, but he could sure
brew
a
killer
cup of coffee
. He chuckled. For that reason alone,
Rio
would keep him alive
.

Her coughing drew his gaze.
“There are some antibiotics in my truck. I’ll get them before I leave.”

“Yes, Dr.
Rio
. I’ll see she gets them.”

“
Kiss my hairy balls.
”

“No thanks
.
I’ve seen your balls, and they did nothing for me.”

Seeing
each other naked before or after a shift
was a
pack
thing.
Fred
went back to the counter
, and
Rio
closed his eyes and inhaled his coffee. Damn, that was pure
heaven
.

“I have a place you can sleep tonight,”
Fred
said to the
lady
as he wiped down the counter for the hundredth time.

She ducked her head.
“I…I can’t stay. I’ll
wash
the dishes and sweep
, and
then I’ll
head
out.”

“
It’s raining.
Where are you going to sleep tonight?” asked
Fred
.

“
I…I
have somewhere to stay.”

Sure you do
.

Fred
shot
Rio
a
look
across the counter
. The
woman
didn’t
want
charity
,
just
wanted to eat and pay her
debt
. The real question was why
she
didn’t
want to stay somewhere warm and dry, at least for one night.
She
was
obviously
in
trouble
.

Fred turned on the charm.
“
Ah, come on. It’s just for one night.”

She shook her head. “Thanks, but I need to keep moving.”

Keep moving. It was a
simple
tactic
of evasion.
Keep moving and hope you’re
one-step
ahead of whoever is after you.
Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn’t.

“
Listen lady, it’s none of my business, but your
body
’s running on fumes. I don’t
want
to
find
you in the ditch tomorrow when I
come
into work.
You’d
give
this old heart of m
ine
a reason to
give
out.
Just
stay
one night.
”
Rio had to
give
Fred credit, he’d played on her
heartstrings
, turned the
burden
around.

She shoved another fry in her mouth and shook her head furiously.
Damn, he hated stubborn women. Why couldn’t they just listen to common sense?
Most were more trouble than they were worth.

Li
ghts flooded the
diner
, and
she
immediately stood up, her eyes round
ed
like a deer caught in the headlights.
“Do you have a back way out?”

The fear in her voice scraped down
Rio
’s spine. This was it. The hairs on his neck
stood on end
again. Before
Fred
could answer, the front door
flew
open
,
and four
young men
slithered in
from the rain.
Fred
mov
ed
to the shotgun stashed under the counter.
Rio
didn’t take his eyes off the four.
The
young men
w
ere dressed like thugs
with baggie pants, wife beater shirts,
and full
of bravado with no brains.
It was gonna be a shame to have to kill them.

“There you are, puta. Alvarez
wants
you back something
bad
,
”
the apparent leader said.

Damn. Everybody was running from
Jose
Alvarez. His Mexican cartel ruled by instilling fear in people
, and
those he couldn’t scare ended
up unpleasantly dead. Defy and d
ie was
his
motto.
Not that
Alvarez
was really
a
Mexican.
He was from Arizona
,
and somehow used his half-Mexican heritage to create the biggest cartel in Mexico
just over the border
,
so he could laugh at the American’s and their drug prevention efforts
.
Alvarez was below scum, but he paid well.

“Get her,” the
youth
said.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
Rio
spoke over the rim of his cup.

The leader spun and glared at
Rio
. “What did you say?”

“I
said
…I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
Shame to kill a boy who was hard of hearing.

“And who’s gonna stop me? You and this old man
?
”
The
teen
and his friends laughed.
Rio
was sure they’d just pissed
Fred
off by calling him an old man.

“No, just me.”

Rio
pushed his hat up on his head and locked gazes with the
leader
.
These men weren’t part of the death squads or the
enforcers;
they were
young,
low-level dicks
with shit for brains
.

“You? Just you?
Ain’t nobody that
good
.”

The leader hitched his head
,
and
the o
thers grabbed the woman.
She didn’t scream or cry which was a
good
thing because crying grated on his
soul
.
Her fear was strong, assaulting his nose, ripping a hole in his
gut
. His wolf was pacing, getting antsy about something, but he didn’t have time to dwell
on it.

“What do you want her for?”
Best to find out why these boys were gonna die.

“She belongs to Alvarez.”

Belongs l
ike property, probably treated worse than the dog.
Good for only one thing.

“Hey, I know you,” the leader said. “You’re Rabid
Rio
.”

He didn’t miss
her
sharp intake
of
her
breath and knew if he
glanced at her face, fear would be there
.
I
t didn’t take long for her panic to reach his nose. So she knew who he was.

Rio
hated that name except in times like this.
These
punks
had no idea how rabid he could be
when an innocent was involved
.
“Then you know you don’t want to fuck with me.”

“But you’ve worked for Alvarez before
.
I know you don’t want to fuck with him.”

Rio
didn’t give a shit that this was Alvarez’s woman. She obviously didn’t feel the same way, so there was no way in hell he was letting them take her back.

“You’re not taking the girl. Now which one of you wants to remain
breathing
s
o you can tell Alvarez that Rabid
Rio
said to leave her
alone?
”

“You’re kidding, right?”
the leader asked.

Rio
shook his head.
Kidding wasn’t something
he did or even knew how to do.

“There’s a reward for bring
ing
her back.”

Rio
didn’t doubt that. Alvarez had plenty of money
and thought
it
could solve any problem.
Sure
Rio
had taken
Alvarez’s
money to do special
,
odd jobs, but so far,
Rio
’s conscience
was intact.

“The way I see it is you have two options. You can walk out th
e
door
without the girl
and live or you can stay here and die.”

Indecision crossed the
boy
’s face as well as his friends.
T
hey
were in a no
-
win situation.
If they went back to Alvarez,
he’d s
urely
kill them
because they didn’t die trying to take the woman.
And if they
were stupid enough to
tr
y
to take the woman, there was no question they would die.
“The best thing you can do is leave and
pretend you didn’t find her
.”

Fear was a
wonderful
thing
. N
ow this thug had to
figure out
whom
he feared most.
Rio
always figured that fearing the closest threat was the best option
, but shit
-
for
-
brains probably wouldn’t figure that out
.

“Nah, man. I can’t let that money slip aw
ay.

Wrong answer
.

Rio
waited. He saw the fear replaced by determination in the
young
man’s
eyes.
Rio
didn’t particularly want to kill the
m
, definitely wouldn’t like it, but at some point in everyone’s life
,
they had a choice to make.
The
men’s
lives for the girl’s.
Punk boy
was making his
choice
,
and
Rio
made
his.

Rio
planned on living up to his name tonight. When he got into that mode, h
e
was like a rabid wolf intent on finishing the job at all costs.
His eyes narrowed as he waited.
Calm moved over his body.
A
cute aware
ness pulsed through him. The
soft hum of the overhead lights,
a single drop s
p
lashing in the coffee pot, the hostage’s ragged breath.

When the
leader
reached for his piece,
Rio
hesitated
until
it
cleared
the thug’s
back
. Then
he
drew and
fired three times
. T
hree
young men
lay dead on the floor. The fourth pulled the girl in front of his body
,
a pistol aimed reck
lessly at her head.

Her eyes
rounded
with fear
. S
he looked like she was going to puke
up
all
that good food.

“You want to be the one to give Alvarez a message for me or do you want to join your very dead friends
on the
cold, hard
floor
?”
In Rio’s mind, it was a no brainer

The
guy’s
gaze
dropped to his dead compadres
.
“
No,” said the
lone
kid
. “You’ll let us walk out th
e
door, or she’s going to die.”

The
teen
and his hostage inched toward the door.
Rio
took a sip of coffee while he waited. All he needed was a few inches of that ugly face
, and
the
youth
would be dead.
Over the rim of his cup, he saw her eyes narrow.
Oh, shit! What was she going to
do?
Stay c
al
m, little girl.
In a smooth move, she pretended to stumble
, and
Rio
didn’t waste the opportunity. As
the bullet sent
the man careen
ing
backwards, the woman broke free and charged for the door.

“Why is she running?”
Rio
asked
Fred
. “I just saved her life.”

Fred glanced at the carnage on his diner’s floor.
“You’ve killed four men without leaving your seat at the same time you’re sipping
your
coffee.
Hell, you even scared
the shit out of
me.
Or maybe she’s afraid of the Rabid part of your name.
Or maybe you’re just
butt
ugly.
”

Rio
stood, holstered his pistol, and stretched his back to ease the tension. “I’ll go get her
, and
then I’ll help you clean up this mess.”

“Be careful
. S
he’s armed and dangerous.”