Better When He's Bad Page 3

  I looked from the photo back to her face. Race was a handsome dude, refined and regal. This girl was basic and ordinary, aside from that hair and her smart mouth. Those green eyes stared at me unblinkingly, and I saw it. It was all in the evergreen gaze that was watching me like a hawk. Race and the copper-top had the exact same eyes.

  “You aren’t going to do anything but fill me in. Race is family to me too, which means I’ll do whatever I can to pull his ass out of the fire.”

  Hell, I had already done five years for the guy; going toe-to-toe with Novak would be a walk in the park.

  CHAPTER 2

  Dovie

  I HAD BEEN AROUND long enough in the worst parts of town to know the difference between a bad boy and a boy who was just bad. Bad was stamped all across Shane Baxter and it had nothing to do with the star tattooed on his face or the ominous and deliberate way he moved, like a coiled snake ready to strike and eager to fill you with poison before you could blink. His dark eyes were flat, like his emotions had long ago been switched off and he had no interest in tapping back into them. I grew up poor. I grew up where sometimes it was a luxury to just be poor because that meant at least you had a little bit of money. So I had seen that look more than once, but I had never seen it worn in a face you just knew could destroy everything you loved and not even blink a ridiculously thick black eyelash. This was a young man who had seen more—lived more—in his short years than most people did in a lifetime. You survived in his world by being the best of the worst and there was no doubt in my mind that was exactly what Bax was.

  Sure, Race had given reassurance after reassurance that Bax was a good guy. That once he was out, he would be able to help my brother fix the situation with Benny and Novak, that he was just a guy who had been handed a hard lot in life and did the best with what he had. But looking at him in my run-down apartment, I could see that Race was way wrong. My brother wasn’t familiar with desperation, with having to suffer without; he couldn’t see what I saw in the man before me, and that was the undisguised willingness to do whatever it took to survive. Five years in prison hadn’t beaten him down when he went in as a scared kid. It had made him stronger, made him a bigger threat, and if I wasn’t mistaken, probably a better criminal. I didn’t want him anywhere near me, but if he was my only option to help Race, I would do whatever it took, give him whatever he wanted. Race was that important to me.

  Bax didn’t bother to ask if I cared if he smoked, just lit a cigarette and put it between his lips. The bottom of his mouth was puffy and cracked like he had smacked it on something. His dark eyes roved around my space and I felt like he was taking stock. I hated it. I lived on what I made, I supported myself by working my ass off, and I knew how to live and protect myself in the slums. I wouldn’t let him judge me and find me lacking. He was a convicted felon after all. I might not have had much, but everything I did have I came by honestly.

  “What do you know?”

  His voice was scratchy, rough, like he didn’t use it often. He walked over to the cracked window and pulled the sheers I had over it away so he could look at the diner across the way. He was probably worried about his precious car.

  “Not much. Race showed up at the group home I was dumped off at when the last foster family I lived with moved right after you went away. He told me he was my brother. He gave me the basic rundown on the Hartmans and I realized my father was as much of a nightmare as my mother. Race took me out of a really bad situation, gave me a pretty good life for a brief minute, made us a family, and then he brought me back here to wait.”

  “Wait for what?”

  I shrugged and flopped down on my ancient couch. “Wait for you, I guess.”

  I sent Carmen a text to let her know so far things were okay. I had the entire neighborhood keeping an eye out for the elusive thief with the star tattoo for the last week. It was almost a relief he had finally shown, even if he thought breaking and entering was appropriate. It bugged me that I had missed with the Taser. I needed to spend a couple more sessions at the local Y working on self-defense. A single girl in this kind of neighborhood could never be too safe or take too many precautions.

  “I grew up in a town just like this, in a place just like this, but a state over. From what I managed to piece together by listening to Race when I shouldn’t have, Lord Hartman paid my mom off and she was supposed to get rid of me and disappear. She didn’t. Took the money and ran; only she didn’t want me so much as she wanted a fix. I was in the system—foster care, group homes—and Race found me just as I was getting ready to get placed in a notoriously bad home. The dad had grabby hands, mom was a drunk and didn’t care. I wanted to take off, but Race talked me out of it; told me he would take care of me. He bribed the lord to step in and claim his parental rights so I wouldn’t be in the system anymore, and we stayed in the town where my school was at together until I graduated. He never told me why he couldn’t come back to the Point and I got tired of asking. And then a year ago something changed, and he packed us up and moved us here like he was on some kind of mission. Like he had a plan. I felt like I owed it to him to come along without question. He saved me.”

  I shook my head and twisted my hands together. “I don’t know what he had going on, but I liked this neighborhood, liked the community college, so I settled in. He kept to himself and kind of skulked around the streets. I thought he was just waiting for you to get cut loose, but then the guy in the suit showed up. He roughed me up a little, scared the hell out of me, and Race went off like a lunatic. I’d never seen him that fired up. I know he went to see Novak. He said he was done being a puppet, that he was done letting other people call the shots. He told me he never forgave himself for what happened to you, and that if you came around I needed to trust you. That was weeks ago, and no one has seen or heard from him since.”

  He blew out a stream of smoke and pushed the hood of his sweatshirt back. He had on a black knit hat that made him look like he was up to no good. In fact, everything about him made him look that way. The bruise on his cheek, the black pants and heavy boots, the small tattoo of a cartoon Road Runner on the back of his hand by his thumb, the thick, dark eyebrows over emotionless eyes, and the downturn of a mouth that was too soft and pretty to be on such a hard face. With the obvious power harnessed in his big frame, he was not a guy I wanted to be in a tiny place with on a good day, and I hated—absolutely hated—that he didn’t say anything to me or that I couldn’t tell what he was thinking behind that curtain of black in his gaze.

  “He never went to school?”

  That seemed like a weird question to take away from everything I had just laid on him, but I had no choice but to play along.

  “No. He used his tuition money to support us for a few years. He also pulled me out of public school and put me in private school for my last two years.”

  “Altruistic bastard.”

  I bristled automatically. “The school I was at had metal detectors, the students and the teachers were armed, and a girl got raped in the locker room. I never knew if I was going to get homework or attacked. It was awful. Race wanted something better, and since Lord Hartman refused to do anything about it, he took it upon himself to.”

  “He couldn’t save me, so he decided to save you?”

  I had thought the same thing, many, many times, whenever Race brought up his incarcerated best friend. A guy who looked that tough shouldn’t be so sharp. He should be all muscle and no brains. His perceptiveness made him a million times more dangerous in my mind.

  “I don’t know what his reasons were and I didn’t care. I had someone who loved me and cared more about me than a hit. He offered me a chance at a normal and stable life; he showed me what family could be. He went to battle with the lord and lady of the manor for me, and I will do anything—and I mean anything—to keep him safe.”

  Race was more than just my big brother. He was my hero. He was my savior. He was the only thing in the entire world I couldn’t live without. Money, objects, sec
urity—none of it mattered; it was all an illusion. The sacrifices Race had made for me, the way he had swooped in and showed a lonely sixteen-year-old from the way, way wrong side of the tracks that there was more to life than just getting by . . . I could never repay him for that. I would give anything and everything I had to keep my brother safe.

  He put out his cigarette on the heavy tread of his boot and pushed away from the window. He pulled his hood back up around his face and walked past where I was still on the couch. When he got a few steps away, he looked down at me. Those eyes of his were just an endless dark void in a face I was sure I would never forget.

  “Keep your head down. If Benny or anyone shady comes poking around, call this number.” He rattled off a bunch of numbers I would never remember but I nodded anyway. “If Race makes contact, any kind of contact, tell him I’m out. Tell him to find me, that Novak is my problem, not his. Tell him the slate is and always was clean until I say differently. You got all that, Copper-Top?”

  I hated that nickname. Being broke was one thing, being broke and having flaming red hair that everyone wanted to make fun of on top of it was another. However, he was not the type of guy I was going to quibble with over a stupid nickname. In fact, he didn’t look like the kind of guy that took to quibbling, no matter what it was over. He moved toward the door and I jumped to my feet.

  “That’s it?”

  He looked over his shoulder at me and pulled the rickety door open.

  “Unless you know anything that might actually help me, then yeah, that’s it.”

  I glared at him. “I meant, what happens now? What do we do to find Race?”

  He lifted a dark eyebrow at me and the corner of his mouth pulled down in a frown.

  “We do nothing. I hit the streets and make people talk. I need to figure out what Race was working on the back end that Novak wants bad enough to have Benny looking for him. You just let me know if you hear from him.”

  He was out the door so silently and quickly I had to scramble to follow him to the stairwell. I was tall and had long legs. He was taller and had longer ones. He also moved like one giant dark shadow against the other ones on the wall.

  “I want to help you. I need to help. I owe Race everything.”

  From a few steps below he looked up at me where I was nervously hovering. It made me shiver. No one’s eyes should be that cold, that flat.

  “He might not be my brother by blood, but he’s my brother just the same, and I know him well enough to know that whatever he did for you, he did because he wanted to, not because he had to. Race loves being the hero.”

  I didn’t know how to take that, and by the time I got my thoughts in line, he was already all the way down the steps. I knew if he disappeared, I would never see him again and I couldn’t let that happen. He was my only link to Race, no matter what that meant for me.

  “I need to help.”

  He looked over his shoulder at me and I knew enough not to follow him any farther.

  “You couldn’t even help yourself. You really think you’re going to stop anyone with a Taser and a frying pan?”

  I also had a loaded nine-millimeter in a nightstand next to my bed that Race had made sure I knew how to use, but I figured that was information he didn’t need to have.

  “I’ve been waiting for you. I knew it was you.”

  “And if it hadn’t been me and you missed with the Taser, you would’ve been fucked. Literally. I work better alone. I don’t know what’s going on and I don’t need some farm girl slowing me down or messing with my flow.”

  I felt my eyebrows shoot up to my hairline. I had heard a lot of things about the way I looked, some more flattering than others, but never had anyone insinuated I looked like I belonged on a farm.

  “Excuse me?”

  He laughed, at least that’s what I think the noise was supposed to be, and jumped down a few more stairs.

  “It’s the freckles and the ivory skin. You look like a little girl on the farm. You definitely don’t look like you belong in the inner city, and you sure don’t look like you’re twenty.”

  Well, he didn’t look like he was just a couple years older than that, but there was no denying he totally looked like a criminal and all the dark and dangerous things he supposedly was.

  “Well, I’ve never been on a farm in my life and I will do whatever it takes to keep Race safe and bring him home, with or without you.”

  I wanted to sound strong. I wanted to sound like I would be valuable to him. I didn’t. I sounded scared and unsure. He heard it.

  “Without me, Copper-Top.” And then he was gone. Just vanished. Disappeared into the night like the thief he was.

  I sighed and went back up to my apartment. I wasn’t worried about any more unwanted visitors. Lester, the homeless guy who lived on the stoop, didn’t let anyone in the building that wasn’t supposed to be there. All I did was bring him a plate of food and pass along a six-pack every now and then and he kept an eagle eye on me. The only way Benny and his goons had managed to find me was because they had ambushed me on an early Sunday morning when Lester took his stinking self to church. They were lucky. I was not. I was also scared.

  I was scared for Race—scared for me. And if I was being honest, I was one hundred percent terrified of Bax. I was street-smart. I knew how to take care of myself, but there was nothing in my bag of tricks that made me think I was capable of dealing with a guy like him. He was a very scary wild card, but I needed him. I had never needed anyone in my life before Race showed up at my door.

  My cell phone was ringing just as I was twisting the locks shut on the front door, even though I now knew they were useless, thanks to my midnight visitor. I snatched it up and went to the window to wave down at Carmen.

  She laughed in my ear and I flopped down on the couch. She was sweet. A single mom . . . Marco and Paulie kept her busy. They were good kids. She was a good mom but this wasn’t a fairy tale, so I knew life was hard for all of them, especially since Marco was thirteen and Carmen was only six years older than me. We tried to watch out for each other, but living like this was every man and woman for themselves, and the sooner you learned that, the better off you were. Expectations were foolish to have. The reality of the situation kept all of us honest and allowed us to form loose bonds with each other.

  “So? What did he say?”

  I sighed and twisted one of my orange curls around my finger and stared up at the yellowish-tinted ceiling. It wasn’t a great apartment, but it was far from the worst place I had ever lived.

  “Not a whole lot.”

  “He have any idea where Race might be?”

  “No, but he didn’t seem overly concerned that something bad had happened to him either.”

  “Your brother told you that he was all kinds of ‘take care of business.’ You should’ve believed him. Race was always up front with you, even when you didn’t want to hear it.”

  She was right, so I sighed again.

  “He’s not going to be back. I’m not going to know what’s going on. Race could be out there anywhere. Hurt, in trouble, or worse, and I’ll never know.”

  She muttered something over her shoulder and there was the clatter of dishes in the background. She got back on the line and sighed.

  “This Novak guy is no joke. He’s a bad man and Race told you all along that getting tangled up with him was the worst thing he had ever let happen in his life. I hate to tell you this, honey, but this might just be a situation for the bad guys to outdo each other. Heroes have no place in this kind of fight. It takes nasty to fight nasty, and the word around the Point is that nobody is nastier than Novak.”

  I knew Race wasn’t perfect, that he had made a lot of really bad decisions, decisions that had life-changing consequences, but despite that, he was MY hero, and if that meant hitching my wagon to the devil’s black horse to see this through, then that’s just what I would do.

  “If Novak is that bad, I don’t understand how some two-bit criminal wh
o’s hardly old enough to drink legally can stand a chance against him. Not only that, how does he have enough clout to do anything about Race? He’s been locked up for the last five years, how does he even have a leg to stand on in this kind of fight?”

  Now, having just spent an hour in his presence, I had to admit Bax radiated all kinds of scary, bad things that made me want to believe he could be my brother’s saving grace, but I couldn’t get over those eyes. If he didn’t feel anything, anything at all, how was he going to care enough about Race to find him and help him? I needed to make him understand how important helping find my brother was. No one had more invested in Race’s safe return than me.

  “Honey, you heard the way your brother talked about this guy, like he’s some kind of superhero. This guy is your brother’s best friend. They had a bond strong enough that he was willing to go to prison for Race. That means something, Dovie.”

  Logically I knew she was right, but I was having a hard time separating fear, adrenaline, and panic from rationality.

  “I gotta go. I just had a big group of kids walk in. I wonder if their parents know they’re out this late.” It was said ironically because she knew good and well that Marco and Paulie were anywhere but in bed, sound asleep, where they should be. “I tell you all the time, hon, people are going to ultimately be who they are. If this guy is bad news, then maybe he’s bad enough news to tangle with Novak. You just keep your head up and watch your back. I don’t trust the suit, and I don’t trust a boy with that kind of trouble in his eyes.”

  I snorted. “There was nothing in those eyes, Carmen.”

  “Oh, honey, if you look close enough, everything is in those eyes. That’s why they’re so dark. They are full. Full of every secret, every promise, and every temptation that can make a good girl do really bad things and enjoy every second of it. Watch yourself, Dove. This could get ugly for you really fast.”