Zed's hand rested on the small of my back as we made our way through to the garage, and it took all my strength not to spin around and pounce on him. I badly should have flicked my own bean in the shower to relieve some tension, but apparently, I loved the torture.
"Maybe it's time you told Seph the truth," Zed suggested, not for the first time. "She's eighteen now; surely she's old enough to hear the whole story."
I snorted a bitter laugh. "You think Seph can keep a secret as important as Cass being alive? No. Sorry, just no. I'd rather have her hating me for something I didn't do than pander to her sense of importance and potentially get Cass killed for real."
Zed sighed, opening the passenger door to his Ferrari for me. His Audi was back in the garage, too, having come back from the body shop a day earlier. The scratch Chase had left was totally gone. "Yeah, fair point," he admitted. He closed my door for me, then circled around to his own side. "I still think she needs to know the rest, though. About Chase, certainly. Maybe if she understands the danger, she'll quit being a pain about all the protection."
I grimaced. He was right, and I knew it. But selfishly, I didn't want my little sister to know the truth. I hated the idea of admitting everything I'd gone through with Chase when I was a teenager. Telling her my whole sordid tale would mean admitting just how much I let him get away with, how much abuse I let him dish out, and all because I stupidly believed I loved him. Or, in the later days, because I was just too weak, too broken to resist. My own sense of self-preservation had been so low that I’d done nothing to save myself. It’d taken a threat to Seph's safety to finally make me act... and that was one of my deepest regrets.
I should have valued my own life higher. I should have done any number of things that might have meant Seph was never placed so close to danger. But I couldn't change the past. And reliving it for the sake of informing Seph? It gained us nothing.
"I know," Zed said with a sigh when I didn't reply. "Agree to disagree. Again." He shot me a quick look as he drove, and I mustered up a tight smile to show him I wasn't actually pissed at his persistence.
"You want me to fill you in on the Reaper bullshit?" I offered, getting comfortable in my seat. "Or leave it as a surprise?"
He gave a short laugh, shaking his head. "I love when you get ruthless, Dare. But you’d better fill me in so I don’t shoot the wrong person in a misguided attempt to impress you."
I rolled my eyes, but a stupid grin creased my lips. Only Zed would think killing someone was the way into my heart—and my panties. Thing was, he was already well into my heart, and I was starting to think my panties may not prove such a barrier after all.
Nonetheless, I gave him all the vague information Cass had offered over the phone and added my own thoughts around this Reaper rat talking smack about PCP. At some point while I was talking, Zed's hand found my knee, and my breath hitched. He fucking heard it, too, because a smug smile crossed his lips, and he kept his hand there for the rest of the drive to Scruffy Murphy's.
The security on the door recognized us instantly and hurried to usher us past the crowd lined up outside. It wasn't even the weekend, but Scruffy's often had popular bands playing and could be busy any night.
"Hades, sir," one of the tattoo-covered security guards inside the club greeted. "Zed." He nodded to my second.
I gave him a cool look, trying to place his name and coming up blank. "Where's Roach?" I asked, giving up on trying to remember his name. It was something to do with snakes, I thought. But then maybe I was just guessing that because he had a huge snake tattoo around his neck and up his bald head.
"He's out back," the snake guy replied. "I'll show you the way."
"Unnecessary," Zed told him. "We know where it is."
The dude gulped and nodded, stepping out of the way. Zed followed me closely as I made my way through the packed bar, his hand on my back again in a touch that I was growing way too comfortable with. We knew that "out back" was the private room in the back of the bar where Reapers hung out like a clubhouse. When Zane had been running the club, the whole place had been a shitty dive bar, not a fraction of the success it was now. The back room then had been full of gangsters sitting around drinking and doing drugs or fucking gang whores in full view of their friends. Typical male-run gang shit.
We passed down the corridor where the restrooms were located, and Zed leaned in close to murmur in my ear. "Oh look, a supply closet."
I snorted a laugh and shot him a clear shut the fuck up look. Still, it was a supply closet that would forever hold fond memories for me. It was where I'd unknowingly taken Lucas's virginity.
When we reached the door at the end of the corridor, I didn't hesitate before pushing through it and strolling in like I owned the damn place. A quick glance around told me it had only marginally cleaned up since the last time I'd seen it. Then again, no one ever expected the Shadow Grove Reapers to be sitting around studying the Bible in their free time.
"Roach," I called out, spotting the new Reapers’ leader at the pool table in the corner. He sunk a ball, then glanced over to see who was calling him. When he spotted Zed and I, his eyes widened, and he slowly straightened back up.
Before he could say anything, though, a clearly intoxicated guy stumbled closer and gave my cleavage a long leer.
"Who's the new whore?" he slurred, licking his lips as he looked me up and down. The entire room went silent, but the drunk fuck didn't even notice. "She's so fucking hot. Tight little waist and shit. I bet I know what else is tight." He lurched forward, his hand extended toward my crotch.
He never made contact, though, as I grabbed his wrist with one hand and drove one of my daggers into his throat with my other. I didn't tolerate sexual assault, and I sure as fuck didn't tolerate disrespect in an environment like this one.
The stupid Reaper remained frozen, my knife in his throat right up to the hilt and blood beginning to pool around the entry point. I held him like that for a moment, then raised my foot and kicked him backward. My knife slid free with a sickening, wet pop, and blood spray arced across the dirty floor as the Reaper collapsed in a heap, choking and gurgling as he died.
Still, the whole room remained silent like no one wanted to draw my attention by moving or making a noise.
Zed handed me a dark gray handkerchief from his pocket, and I used it to calmly clean off my knife as best I could before sliding it back into its sheath.
"Roach, I understand you're new to this position, but I think you can guess my feelings toward disrespect in any form. No?" I tilted my head to the side as I eyed the new Reapers’ leader. Fuck, he was young. I hoped to hell Cass knew what he was doing on this one.
He jerked a sharp nod, meeting my eyes in return and not flinching at the unrestrained violence he must have seen there. Good.
"My deepest apologies, Hades," he replied, casting a disgusted look at the dead man. "Mad Dog has been letting his addiction to our supply get out of hand. This was inevitable."
I arched a brow. "Mad Dog, huh?" That was convenient. I'd planned on killing him tonight anyway. “I imagine that concludes my reason for visiting you this evening.”