The Good Girl In My Bed (Dangerous Desire Book 2) (4 page)

Fuck.

“Ronnie?” I whispered, the prompt drawing her attention back to me again. “What did he say?”

She licked her lips. Her frown turned irritated. “He kept calling you Tripwire. Why?”

My gut clenched. Tripwire. My old Trinity name. Fuck.

“It was a name I went by in Trinity,” I answered, keeping my voice calm. “What else did he say?”

Her frown deepened. “The idiot threatened to hurt me if I didn’t call out to you. As if I was going to do that.”

I bit back my chuckle, even as a sense of unease settled over me. God, I loved her. “Did he say anything else? A name? Who sent him?”

Who exactly had tracked me down here? The corrupt cops? Were Detective Dewey and Kitchner not the only two trying to fuck me over? Or was Trinity out for blood? I’d cut my ties to the violent gang. Loco, its leader, had declared me dead after I’d saved his little sister from being raped by a rival gang, as a way of showing his gratitude, but there were those in Trinity who would gut me in a heartbeat if they knew I was still alive. Not just because I’d pissed them off, but because it might have become known I was a C.I. Of course, that knowledge could only have come about because of corrupt-as-fuck cops with Trinity members in their metaphoric bed.

Ronnie shook her head. “No. He was just here when I climbed out of the pool, told me he was going to…going to hurt me if I didn’t call out to you.”

Something about the way she faltered over
“going to hurt me”
drilled a dark point of tension into my chest. “What were his exact words, babe?”

I had to know. So I knew exactly how much to fuck the bastard up.

She looked away, biting at her bottom lip. “He said he would tie me up and fuck me with his gun until I bled.”

The second I heard the depraved threat, I knew who the guy was.

Fuck.

Grub. A sniveling worm with his nose planted firmly up the ass of Trinity’s wannabe leader, Rufie. Rufie was not a fucker to mess around with. Power hungry, ruthless, with a taste for violence that sickened me. We’d clashed more than once when I was a Trinity member. I’d broken more of Rufie’s bones than anyone inside and outside the gang. Loco had despised him but recognized him for what he brought to the gang—the ability to terrorize and kill. There were no empty threats with Rufie, only sincere promises.

He’d promised me once he was going to skin me, strip by strip, until I was dead. Loco had told him to shut the fuck up and back off, threatening to do the very same thing to him. If Rufie was sending his grunt pets after me…if he knew where I was…

Cold fear roiled in my stomach. If Rufie knew I was here, if he knew about Ronnie…

Forcing a languid ease into my body, I gave her a calm smile. “I’m going to have a few words with our uninvited guest, babe. Go inside.”

She didn’t move.

I drew a slow breath, even as an inferno of dark excitement flowed through me. There was a reason I’d been drawn to a violent life. The reaction in me now unsettled me as much as it charged me with adrenaline.

A low groan sounded at my feet, and my heart smashed into my throat. Grub was coming to. I needed Ronnie gone.

Shifting enough to block her view of Grub, I cupped her cheek again. “Go inside, babe,” I repeated, holding her stare. “He’s not going to hurt me. I promise.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “You think I’m worried he is?”

I chuckled, loving her even more. “I’m not going to kill him, either.”

“Okay.” She frowned again. “Do you want me to call Doctor Winchester?”

Not the cops. She wouldn’t suggest the cops. Not after what Detective Dewey had done to her.

“Lila’s in New York,” I answered. “Besides, I need our friend here to be able to report back with a message from me. Lila’s not a fan of leaving walking diseases to the human race like Grub alive.”

Ronnie swallowed. Worry shone in her eyes again, the emotion growing stronger when Grub once more groaned.

“Please go inside, babe.” I brushed a soft kiss over her lips. “And don’t look out the window, okay?”

She gave me another one of those tiny nods and then hurried away. I began to turn toward Grub but stopped when Ronnie ran back toward us.

“I forgot this,” she said, sheepishly grinning at me as she snatched up the
tonfa
from the ground.

Before I could chuckle, she pivoted on her bare feet and left. She didn’t look back. Her grip on the
tonfa
was loose, exactly as it was meant to be.

A finger of cold rage scraped up my spine at the sight—the toxicity of my past life was already impacting her. My good girl was already handling a weapon like it was second nature. Christ, what had I done to her?

And was it too late to stop it?

Grub groaned again, the wounded sound louder this time, more aware.

I dragged my stare from Ronnie, a heavy weight on my chest, and turned to the fucker.

He was trying to push himself off the ground, his shoulders wobbling beside his drooped head, his chest barely off the ground. Blood dribbled from his mouth and nose, pooling on the pavers.

Lowering myself into a crouch directly in front of his head, I snagged a handful of his greasy hair and smashed his face hard into the limestone blocks. “Long time no see, Grub,” I said with a conversational tone, raising his head again.

His eyes rolled. Blood and snot flowed from his mashed nose, a grotesque river on his top lip. “Trip…” he mumbled. “I’m gonna kill—”

I smashed his face down into the pavers again.

The satisfying crack of splintering bone accompanied the equally satisfying thud of flesh against rock. Vibrations tickled the bottom of my bare feet through the stone, sending a grim satisfaction through me.

I jerked his head up again, my heart rate slowing. What did it say about me that I was growing calmer the more pain I caused Grub?

Blood and snot oozed from his ruptured face. A glistening white stub on the ground told me I’d broken one of his teeth.

Good.

Adjusting my crouch to a looser squat, a distant part of my brain reminding me I was buck naked, I tugged Grub’s head up higher. His arms and shoulders trembled as he attempted to support his weight on his hands. Without a word, I whacked the side of my hand into one of his wrists. His arm shot out beneath him and gravity grabbed at him. I tightened my fist in his hair, jerking his head back towards his spine, turning his neck into a severe backward bow.

“Fug,” he protested, blood and spit bubbling and drooling from his nose and lips. I assumed he meant
fuck
. “Gonna fuggen kill—”

I slammed his face into the pavers once more.

He wailed, agony clear in the muffled sound.

“Now,” I said, lifting his head up so I could find his eyes. “We’re going to have a talk, you and I. It’s not going to go well for you. But if you do the right thing, you’ll walk away from here with a message for Rufie.” I paused, chewing over my declaration as I adjusted my grip on his hair. “Maybe
walk
isn’t the best word. But you and I both know that, right?”

Grub tried to nod. “’Kay.” His right eye looked like a jellied Ping-Pong ball shoved into his eye socket. I felt no remorse or guilt at all. He’d set the playing field with his threat to Ronnie. It wasn’t my fault he wasn’t up to the game.

“This is what you’re going to do, Grub,” I said, forcing his head back farther. He whimpered, clawing at the ground for my feet. His own feet drummed against the ground. I pictured the joints of his spine compressing as I forced them beyond their normal flex. “You’re going to tell me why you’re here. You’re going to tell me who sent you—I’m guessin’ Rufie, but you’re going to tell me for certain. Then you’re going to go back and tell whoever it was to not come anywhere near me or anyone I even
think
about unless they want to start wearing their small intestines as a neck tie. Got it?”

I relaxed my grip on Grub’s hand. A little. Just to see what he would do.

He didn’t let me down. He reared back in a wobbly, unstable lurch and spat a wad of blood in my direction. With the blood came snot and more chips of his teeth.

None of it struck me. Grub was too beaten to expel the energy required.

I chuckled, clamped my hand into a tight ball in his hair once again, and drew my face closer to his. “I applaud your efforts, fuck-knuckle, as idiotic as they are. Of course, it’s only going to get worse for you from here on out. You know that, right?”

Grub’s eyes rolled. He tried to scramble away.

Tried. Failed.

“No,” he gibbered, staring at me. “I’ll dalk, I’ll dalk.”

I chuckled again, nodding. “Yes. You will.”

We began our conversation.

I
t took Grub roughly ten minutes to spill his guts.

Ten minutes, two broken thumbs, a lungful of pool water, and one eye-gouge. I stopped before rupturing his eyeball. As violent as I can be, I’d yet to cross the line that would make me a monster. One day, Grub would sit back and thank fucking God for that fact. If he made it to one day, that was. It was very likely Rufie would kill him when he returned to the new Trinity leader and told him what I’d said and done.

When Grub was finished answering all my questions, I made sure he wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry without assistance. Basically, I knocked the bastard unconscious and tied him to one of the pool fence’s poles with Ronnie’s towel.

Checking he had no hope of reaching the knot, let alone undoing it, I walked back into the house.

Ronnie waited for me in the kitchen.

She watched me walk into the living room, her eyes unreadable, her hands cupped around what I assumed was a hot cup of tea. When Ronnie was stressed, tea was her go-to drink.

There was no fucking way she wasn’t stressed right now.

“Is he still alive?”

Drawing a steadying breath, I gave her a brief nod. While I’d been talking with Grub, she’d dressed. The baggy sweatpants sitting low on her hips belonged to me. The retro
Ghostbusters
T-shirt hugging her torso was hers. The combination was sexier than I suspect she intended. It made me horny. If it wasn’t for Grub tied up by the pool, I’d strip her of the clothes and fuck the stress right out of her.

Instead, I gave her a gentle smile. “I promised you I wouldn’t kill him.”

A dry snort fell from her. “It sounded like he was dying.”

“Did you watch?”

She shook her head and then looked down at the mug in her hands.

Fuck. She may not have watched, but she’d seen some of it.

“I’m going to get some clothes on, get Grub off the premises, and then we’ll talk,” I said.

She nodded, took a sip of whatever was in the cup, and turned away.

My heart tore.

Forcing a cold calm over my mind, I hurried up to our bedroom, dressed in appropriate Grub-handling gear, and made my way back down to the living room.

Ronnie stood at the glass door leading out to the back deck. She wouldn’t be able to see Grub where she stood, but I still didn’t like she was near the door.

If Rufie had sent Grub, it was possible he’d also sent others.

I could count at least eight Trinity members who’d give their left nut to be the one to deliver Rufie’s message.

“Don’t leave the house, Ronnie,” I said to her back.

“Sure,” she answered without turning.

Fuck.

Grub was still out of it when I returned to him. I bound his wrists with two cable ties I’d grabbed from my office, and then released the towel tying him—by the neck—to the pole.

He slumped to the pavers, blood still leaking from his face.

A grim smile stretched my lips. Regardless of what he said to Rufie, my message to the new Trinity leader was clear—mess with me and you’ll pay for it.

I hauled Grub to his feet, slung him over my shoulder, and carried him to the front gate of our compound. I dumped him outside the gate and then closed it.

He knew what he had to do.

He also knew what I would do to him if he was stupid enough to try and come back inside. He’d delivered Rufie’s message to me, now he had to deliver
my
response.

Just to make sure Grub got on his way quickly, I’d called Lila Winchester’s assistant, a man who knew ten different ways to kill a person with a spoon, and arranged for him to collect Grub and deposit him—aka, throw him from the car—somewhere on the highway at least twenty miles away from here.

When I walked back into the house, Ronnie was not in the living room.

Or the kitchen.

Or the bedroom.

Fuck.

I hurried downstairs. If she wasn’t in the gym, I didn’t know what I was going to—

Soft grunts rose up the stairwell. Breathless grunts. Grunts of exertion.

What the fuck?

“Ronnie?” I called, charging down the last few steps and into the gym.

My feet tripped at what I saw.

Ronnie stood in the middle of the workout area, her back to me, the
tonfa
in one hand, one of my
sais
in the other.

I stood motionless, watching her move the weapons. Fluid if somewhat lacking in form, she swung them with an aggression I couldn’t help but admire, even as it tightened the knot of guilt making itself at home in my gut.

It took me longer than it should to realize she was watching a YouTube video on her cell as she moved.

Teaching herself how to fight.

How to defend herself.

Fuck, I hated myself right there and then.

“Ronnie?” I said again.

She startled, whipped around to face me, the
tonfa
extended out in a defensive position.

A ragged breath burst from her as her stare locked on my face. “You scared the shit out of me, Pratt,” she complained and reached for her phone to pause the video. “Is the grub gone?”

I chuckled at her question. “The grub is gone.”

I crossed to where she stood, smoothing my palms over her hips to tug her closer to my body. “We’re good now.”

I wanted to believe that. Unfortunately, I knew the reality of the situation. Still, if I could make Ronnie believe it…

She didn’t.

“Bullshit,” she said, wriggling out of my arms and stepping backward. “Don’t treat me like I’m dumb, Lucas. After all these years of you lying to me about who you are, I’ve become quite attached to your truth. Don’t fuck that up now by spinning shit.”