It’d taken over twenty-four hours for Boss to come around and answer Trixie’s calls. Once he’d finally answered, he agreed to pick her up from Yellowstone, only to bring her straight back to the Coyote. Tables were still overturned, chairs splintered, glass everywhere, and while all the clientele had fled, the coppery scent of their blood hadn’t yet escorted itself out when she’d finally waltzed in the creaking back service door.
Boss shook his head at her. His bicolored eyes glared. “You made a real big mess this time, cher.”
The routine had been the usual. Her apologizing for interfering, pleading with him not to enact the terms of her contract and destroy her life with the flick of one powerful, magic hand, swearing that she’d never do anything to undermine him again. The song and dance was all familiar. They both knew he wouldn’t enact the contract terms. She and her abilities were too valuable to him. They also knew she’d do it again the next time she didn’t get her way or he broke a promise to her. It was a mutual understanding. As clear as day but unspoken between them. She’d never been good at obeying without question, even when staring down the terms of her binding spell. Her mother had always said she’d been… What was the fancy word she’d used? That’s right…
Recalcitrant.
Nearly a decade together and Boss was used to it by now, but that didn’t mean it didn’t anger him or that she wasn’t skating on thin ice. But she was careful. When it came to the warlock, she picked her battles. It’d be a good long time before she tested him again. She was certain that was why he always let her slide, because her slipups were few and far between and she was more useful than she was trouble. Even on her worst days.
The cleanup had been long and grueling. Full of broken glass and pint shards. She’d seen enough spilled beer and bloodshed for a lifetime. And bodies. At least Boss had taken care of those. She’d gone through ten boxes of lavender-scented garbage bags hauling the debris out to the alley’s trash cans. She’d never enjoy the flowery scent again.
But cleanup had always been Boss’s punishment.
“You made this mess. You clean it up.”
Every time he said it, it reminded her that he really was an old man. Like a father to her—or as close as she’d ever had in their own strange way. He’d even scared off a few of her boyfriends a time or two, ensured they didn’t get close enough to hurt her. Sometimes the warlock was old-fashioned, particularly in his punishment, but he was also protective. They both knew full well that magic would have made the business open for operation again a hell of a lot faster. But it was a reminder that money wasn’t what was important to Boss. It was power. And he had no intention of helping her when the mess was one of her own making, one that’d taken an opportunity away from him.
He always made that clear.
But at least Jackie had returned home to his family, and a rich man at that. The young coyote shifter may not have won the fight entirely fair and square, but Boss would never acknowledge that. Not publicly. Not without risking the Coyote’s reputation and, more importantly, her life. As a result, Jackie hauled in enough cash to care for not only himself but also his four younger siblings for a good long while. The youngest wasn’t even ten, and thanks to Trixie, Jackie may never have to step into the ring again. For that, she still wasn’t the least bit sorry.
Throughout the long, silent hours of the cleanup, the only thing that ate away at her was the heat that’d passed between her and Malcolm, the change she’d seen in him. When those golden wolf eyes had stared up at her from between her thighs, the wet heat of her center dripping from the stubble of his chin, he’d looked like a savage, wild and feral. More wolf than man. She’d loved that he hadn’t cared that she’d been all over him. She bit her lower lip.
Damn if he hadn’t even licked his lips.
Trixie let out a long breath, slow and steady as she closed up the bar for the night. Malcolm had been everything she’d wanted him to be and more. Hot. Passionate. Dominating. A true giver like she’d anticipated. And to her surprise, he’d even been oddly…tender beneath all that hardened strength. Like he’d push her but never break her, never do anything she didn’t want him to. Hell, he’d even said as much.
Consent matters to me. Authenticity too. His rusty voice thrummed through her, rough and graveled. He’d said it gruffly, like he did everything, but the emotion underneath had been soft, sincere. She’d felt the truth beneath it.
It was like he cared about her or something. And wasn’t that thought weird? Malcolm, of all wolves, caring about her?
Trixie let out a little harrumph of amusement as she tried to start her car. She kept twisting the key but coming up empty. She hadn’t had a man treat her that way in years, like she was worth anything other than a good lay. She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t looking forward to a repeat.
Finally, the engine turned over. The old beater sputtered to life.
“Good girl,” she whispered, rubbing a hand on the dashboard like the car’s engine could hear. It hadn’t even taken a bit of magic tonight.
The drive back to her apartment was a long and silent one. Just her, the steering wheel, and the open road. She hadn’t driven home since Boss picked her up at Yellowstone, and her car was sputtering something fierce again by the time she reached her apartment, but what else was new? She’d need to let the car cool down before she could take it to a nearby mechanic, and thanks to her little screwup with Jackie, she wasn’t about to ask Boss for a cash advance.
Even if he’d likely give it to her. Maybe Dani would give her a ride for her next shift. The poor, sweet thing had been texting her of late. Malcolm may not have liked her since she was a feeder, but Trixie didn’t think she was half-bad. Not when you got to know her.
Trixie parked her car at the nearest available spot to her door, sliding out of the driver’s seat. Her feet were aching from her decision to wear a pair of even-higher-than-usual heels—clear, platform-like things that occasionally lit up when she walked. They’d clearly been meant for a stripper rather than a bartender, but man, they would pay off in tips once she broke them in.
It wasn’t until she went to slide her key into the locked door of her apartment and didn’t feel any resistance that her good feeling about the night came to an abrupt end. The door to her room blew open an inch, like it had never been locked to begin with. Trixie froze, hand suspended above the metal handle. Her heart raced. The magnolia scent of her magic came along with it, a subtle means to protect her. Something wasn’t right, and years spent dealing with drunks had taught her to trust her instincts.
But there was no one else here. No one else to look inside except her.
She swore quietly under her breath, wishing for once in her life that she wasn’t so single and alone, so goddamn self-reliant, before she pushed the door open. The breath rushed from her chest in one fell swoop, like someone had taken a bat to her stomach.
Her apartment was trashed. The shards of her potted plants lay smashed throughout the room. Clothes scattered everywhere. Her signed Dolly poster hadn’t only been torn from the wall… It’d been ripped in two. In case there had been any doubt that the destruction was intentional. The mess was nearly as bad as the Coyote had been, except this was worse.
This place meant something to her. It was hers.
Or it had been.
Trixie stepped into the room, wading through the carnage. Tears pooled in the edges of her eyes, but she didn’t let them fall. She stared down at her rhododendron, torn from its potted home and displaced. Judging from how dry the roots were, they’d been sitting like this for over forty-eight hours. There’d be no saving all of them. Maybe some, but not others.
Inching farther in, she made her way to the bed. The sheets had been downturned, but it was the only thing left mostly undisturbed. Save for the unfamiliar cell phone that lay atop it. Trixie swallowed down the lump in her throat, hands clenched as she glared at the burner phone. There was already a number keyed in. She knew what would happen the moment she dialed it. But what choice did she have? Boss wasn’t going to help her run from this, not when the mess was of her own making, and Malcolm…
She still wasn’t certain what she was to him, but it wasn’t enough that he’d put his pack at risk, that he’d protect her again.
I didn’t do it for you. His words echoed in her memory.
He’d said that after he’d saved her at the bar. Before he’d promised her protection with the subtle tip of his Stetson.
You will be. I’ll make sure of it.
Empty words. She’d believed him, but now she wasn’t so certain.
Staring down death at the hands of the Triple S changed things.
It’d been a nice thing to say, a pretty lie that she’d wanted so badly to believe that maybe she’d ignored all signs to the contrary. Sure, he might not have hated her, but when it came down to it, could she really trust him?
She was no dummy. She had her and her alone to rely on. No one else. Especially a man. At the end of this little party, there was no way she’d be the one stuck with the check.
Snatching the burner phone from the bed, Trixie hit Call and pressed the thing to her ear. A girl caught more bees with honey than vinegar, and she wasn’t above fooling anyone to get her way. The moment the other line connected, she put on her most sugary Georgia drawl. “What do I need to do to get off the hook for this, honey?”
Stan didn’t answer at first, just laughed.
She didn’t ask how he knew it was her who fixed the fight for certain.
It didn’t really matter.
Five minutes later, Trixie hung up the burner, feeling sick to her stomach as she trudged into the bathroom. She threw the phone into the toilet. She watched the water seep into the plastic cracks, beneath the screen. Satisfied, she made her way back through the wreckage of her room, grabbing several outfits and pairs of shoes that’d been scattered in the melee and dumping them into some garbage bags from beneath the sink. When she’d hauled all but the last of her clothes and the plants she could salvage out to her car, she stood for a moment in the doorway. She tried not to let her lip quiver.
“Good riddance,” she whispered.
Turning on her heel, she threw the last garbage bag over her shoulder, trekking back out to her car. She tossed it into the back seat, sealing herself in the cab and locking the doors behind her a moment later. Trixie rested her head on the steering wheel.
She needed to get a dog. A huge, monstrous thing that she could take with her everywhere she went. Not a wolf like Malcolm, but a true canine who’d be loyal to her until the end and preferably bite anything but her within a ten-foot radius. And then she needed a plan. To steel herself against the world again. Her lip quivered.
Only after she’d had a good, long cry…