Page 1 of Sizzling

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“You boys must be lost.”

Storm

Well, damn. This little mission that we’d come on was turning out to be more interesting than I’d expected. When King had asked us to come with him to seek revenge on a man who had hurt his fiancée when she was a child, I hadn’t expected we’d end up here. Glancing over at Thatcher, I knew he hadn’t either. He was as intrigued as I was, and getting a reaction from him was hard to do. We’d hunted down and killed many hits in our life, but this was definitely a twist.

“Who’s the singer?” King asked the bartender, although he already knew the answer to the question.

She was why we were here. The only lead we’d been given when the man King wanted to torture wasn’t where he was supposed to be.

“Briar,” the man replied, smirking before setting a glass of whiskey in front of King. “And she’s taken.”

We’d already known she was using the alias Briar Landry, but she’d been born Melissa Ball. That much we had traced down easily enough.

She had gone off the radar from the age of fifteen until she turned twenty, where she reemerged as Briar Landry. She moved around a lot the first three years and had over fifteen different jobs, and from what King had dug up on her, she dated some high-profile men—or rather had affairs with them. Large sums of money were deposited into an account with her name just before she moved out of town. That account had since been drained and closed.

Watching her, I could see how she’d managed to reel in the men she had. A couple of politicians, a minister at mega church, and a CEO. They were always married men with a lot to lose if they were caught cheating. I imagined her tied up, naked, on my bed. Wasn’t like I could go there. Not when King was hell-bent on finding her father and killing him slowly.

Long, dark ginger hair hung in loose curls at the ends, and her blue eyes twinkled with mischief as she held my gaze. The smooth drawl in her voice as she sang while her fingers expertly played the guitar in her hands made a lethal combination. She had every man in here ready to worship at her feet, and she knew it. She expected it. Bastards had no idea they didn’t have a chance.

When the third song we’d listened to came to an end, King drank down his glass in one gulp and set it on the bar. “Let’s go,” he said, standing up.

I already knew we weren’t actually leaving. We were going to find the back entrance and meet Briar Landry backstage. If King tried to talk to her in here, she’d have a roomful of men ready to protect her, and we’d end up causing more damage than was necessary.

“Keep it quiet and tidy,” was all Blaise Hughes, our boss, had told King when he asked if we could do this.

I’d known King all my life, and if this had been pre Rumor, his fiancée, I would have been able to guess how he was going to get the information out of Briar. But seeing as he was now a fucking psycho whenever Rumor was concerned, I wasn’t so sure what to expect. Thatcher didn’t seem too worried about it as we followed King to the exit. But then I wasn’t sure Thatcher’s brain worked like the rest of ours. He was emotionally detached from things. I wasn’t going to be able to let King hurt the woman. Not just because she was a fucking stunner, but also because she was a female. This wasn’t her fault. She hadn’t hurt Rumor.

Sure, I’d pulled a gun on her stepmother earlier, but the crazy bitch had grabbed a knife and thrown it at King. He easily dodged it, but still, that had been unnecessary. Thatcher had taken her knife with ease and held it at her throat, forcing the whereabouts of her husband from her while trickles of blood from where he’d pierced the skin ran down her chest.

When the door to the bar closed behind us, King turned right, which was like I’d expected. We weren’t headed to the SUV. We were going to find another entrance.

“I volunteer to fuck the info out of her,” Thatcher said as we walked around the building.

“Shut up,” King snarled, not looking back at him.

“It’s better than you putting a bullet in her,” he replied.

I wasn’t so sure about that. Thatcher had some twisted shit in his head when it came to sex. But then I didn’t want to see King hurt her either. This was about her father. Not her. As for her profession as a gold digger, that wasn’t our business. If men allowed their dicks to control them, then that was their issue. Not ours. I felt the need to remind King of that.

“You’re gonna let her talk first,” I said, “before you threaten her.”

Thatcher glanced back at me, looking amused. “You offering to fuck her too?”

“I’ll do what I need to in order to get the info,” King replied as we reached a single metal door at the back of the bar.

Two cars were parked back here, and there was one surveillance camera, but it wasn’t working. I could tell just by looking at it. The twenty-four-hour surveillance warning that was posted beside the door was a joke.

King tried the knob, and it was locked, so he stepped back so that Thatcher could work his magic. He pulled out a tiny screwdriver from his back pocket. I’d seen him use it countless times over the years. It took him less than five seconds, and the door was open wide. King stepped in front of him and stalked inside with a determined look on his face.

Hopefully, the woman gave him the location of her father. I didn’t want her to end up like the stepmother. Sure, we had left Netta Ball alive, but she’d been tied up in the small, filthy apartment we’d found her in with a sock shoved in her mouth. King had told her if she was lying, he’d be back to finish the job. Although I knew when someone was lying, and the woman had told us the truth. Which was why we were here.

King opened doors as we passed them until he finally entered one. When I stepped inside the room, I didn’t see anyone else, but it was clearly a dressing room for a female. The light scent of perfume that lingered in the air, the full-length mirror and vanity table that sat beside it, and the pair of heels placed neatly on the floor beside a brown leather duffel bag made that obvious. However, it was the guitar case that stood in the corner that was the clue King was looking for.

“Search her things,” he said, going over to the duffel bag and picking it up.

Thatcher went to the vanity, and I headed for the guitar case. These were the obvious places to look first. I doubted we were going to find information on her father here, but best to be sure. She’d be back here soon enough.

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