Page 13 of Deadly Little Sparrow

I replay every moment in my mind, right down to the vicious expression on his face as he stood over the body. Was tonight the first time he’s killed? Is he rattled or riding the wave of adrenaline? And, most importantly, did Velcro manage to hurt Sparrow before my little bird gave him what he deserved? I park my car across the street from his building and huff out a laugh to myself. Everything I know about Sparrow so far tells me he’s the last person I need to worry about, but I can’t seem to help it.

I want to knock on his apartment door and check on him. I want to soothe him or let him use me to work off the excess energy still coursing through his veins. I want him to tell me what he needs me to be for him. My throat tightens and my cock swells again.

It’s only his command to stay out of his way that keeps me from walking through the door to his building. Instead, I slip around the back, hoping it’ll be one of the nights he spends out on his fire escape.

I find him with his legs dangling through the bars, just like I’d hoped. My blood heats and every cell in my body vibrates as I look up at him from the shadows below. I can’t see anything but the shape of him. Is he happy? Scared?

Lonely?

Who are you, Little Sparrow? Will you let me close if I promise to be everything you need? We could be so beautifully dangerous together. Until then, I’ll keep watching.

Chapter 5

SPARROW

There’s a new swagger in my step when I strut into Babylon a week after leaving Velcro’s body in the alley to stain the pavement and serve as a harbinger of what’s to come for his friends. There hasn’t been a word about his murder on the news or in the papers. But in a city like Wildcliff, I didn’t think the death of a man with a criminal record longer than my dick would even ping the radar.

I wonder whether Xaviaro knows about it. He did say that it’s his job to know what’s going on in the city. He’s a smart man. I doubt he would have any trouble putting two and two together and figuring out what happened to that waste of oxygen. Assuming I’m still on his mind at all. His nose must be healed and the bruises faded by now, all reminders of me completely erased. For some reason, that thought sours my mood momentarily.

I shake it off and sweep my gaze over the bar, zeroing in on the Sleepless Reapers’ regular table. Personally, if a buddy of mine was murdered in the alley of a bar, I don’t think I’d return to that same establishment the following week. But I had a feeling that these idiots wouldn’t feel quite the same, and what do you know? I was right. Drunkie and Dry Paint are exactly where I left them last Thursday, and tonight they’re joined by two other men with club patches who I don’t recognize. One of them has a colorful mohawk and tattoos filling in the bald spaces on his skull. The other is rocking a handlebar mustache like he had to park his horse outside before getting a drink at Ye Olde Saloon.

Do they suspect I’m the one who doled out the karma Velcro had coming? They have no reason to since, as far as they knew, I was falling down drunk and stumbled home before anything went down. My heart beats faster with the excitement of sliding onto a barstool mere feet away from the friends of the man I bled out. Maybe I’m more fucked in the head than I realized. And maybe I don’t mind all that much. The world is a vicious place full of dangerous, bloodthirsty people. Shedding my conscience and growing some claws is the best thing I’ve ever done.

I order a soda and subtly angle myself so I can listen in on the Reapers’ conversation. Anticipation vibrates through my bones, waiting to hear the worry in their voices, the fear that any one of them might be next.

Drunkie snorts at whatever Mohawk said while I was ordering my drink.

“He’s at the bottom of some bottle. Mark my words,” he declares with only a slight slur tonight.

Mustache shakes his head. “I don’t know. ’Cro usually manages to crawl home after a multi-day bender. It’s been a week.”

Drunkie shrugs, seemingly unconcerned.

“Then he fell into somebody’s bed and hasn’t gotten bored yet or stuck a needle back in his arm. You know how he is. He always stumbles back to the clubhouse eventually,” Dry Paint says, seeming to share Drunkie’s confidence that Velcro is alive and well… or at least well-ish.

All four of them laugh in agreement and the subject is dropped in favor of a conversation about their bikes. I huff quietly and set my teeth with an audible click.

How can they not know he’s dead? I knew they were shitty friends, but none of them went to check on him when he didn’t come back? So, who the fuck found him? Is he lying in the county morgue with ‘John Doe’ scrawled on his toe tag?

Fuckity fuck fuck.

The stool on my other side scrapes noisily against the floor and I turn my head, ready to take my foul mood out on whatever idiot got the bright idea to come sit next to me when half the seats at the bar are unoccupied.

“Do you—” The words die on my lips when my gaze lands on all six feet of the olive-skinned stud in his signature jet-black suit. Xaviaro.

My eyes roam over him silently for several seconds while my thoughts scramble to sort themselves out. The skin around his eyes is unblemished now, the purple bruises long since faded. The bandage is gone from his nose too. The only evidence of the break is a slightly off-center bump on the bridge of his nose.

It can’t be a coincidence that he just happened to choose Babylon as his bar of choice tonight, sitting down barely five minutes after I arrived…

But… what? Has he been following me? The back of my neck prickles with a reminder of the feeling of being watched that’s been a near constant since I arrived in Wildcliff. No… it’s been a constant since I met Xaviaro. And if he’s been following me…

The pieces all click into place and my body runs hot and cold at the same time as rage washes over me.

“Can we talk?” I grit the words through my clenched teeth.

A flicker of a smile dances on his lips. “I’m all ears, Little Sparrow.”

“Outside,” I snap, hopping off my stool and make a beeline for the backdoor without glancing over my shoulder to make sure he’s following me.

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