Page 5 of Brutal Mate

“Do you know a Lindsey Coleman, Deneen Mathews or Tommy Lewis?” the mysterious man asked, his shoulders squared as if he were prepared for a fight. Clearly, he knew her parents weren't going to give up any information they had willingly.

“Everybody knows everybody around here, mister,” her father snapped, “But we don't know you, so why should we tell you anything?”

The man leaned over then. He placed his hands on the counter and glowered silently at her father.

Miley's entire body shivered. Her father hated people in his face. Once this guy was gone, she and her mother were sure to pay for it.

“My name is Kane. And as I said, I work for the mayor,” the man said with a clenched jaw. Miley saw the way the veins pulsed in his tatted neck. And odd shiver ran through her at the sight of it. She had never seen anyone look at her father like that. “Now you know who I am, and I know very well who you are, Mr. Peters. I'd be grateful for any information you might have on the missing persons.”

“We don't know shit,” her father spat back, but he at least had the good sense to shrink away when the man growled. He actually growled. It wasn't any old human grunt. He actually sounded like some kind of wild animal, threatening and deadly, and for a second Miley imagined him pouncing over the counter and tearing her father's head clean off his shoulders.

She sucked in a breath, excited by the thought.

The man’s head whipped around then, his eyes zeroing in on her. Those eyes were so dark they were almost black, a hint of intrigue sparking in them that took Miley's breath away with the way he stared.

Where he had looked at her parents with disdain, he looked at her with something else, something she couldn't quite put her finger on.

Though she trembled under his gaze, she tried her hardest not to show it as he pushed himself off the counter and strode toward her.

She felt like a doe caught in headlights as he approached, unable to blink or breathe, or even move her little finger. Her hands clutched so tightly to the mop that she was sure her knuckles would be bone-white.

“And you, miss? Do you know anything?” he asked. His tone was much softer than it had been before, and it made Miley's insides turn to butterflies.

“I…umm…” Miley gulped. She wanted so badly to tell him that she knew Deneen and Tommy from her school days. They had been three or four grades below her in high school, but she knew their names and their faces well enough. Nightstar was a small town. Everybody knew everybody, just like her father said. But she could feel her parents watching her, and she knew what would happen if she so much as opened her mouth in front of them.

So she dipped her head, shook it, and pursed her lips.

“You're sure?” Kane asked, his attention entirely on her now. The heat of his gaze on her made her skin tingle and the hair on the back of her neck rise.

The urge to side-step into his shadow, to hide from her parents for just one moment, was almost impossible to ignore.

“No, I'm sorry,” she said, bile rising in her throat at the lie. Lindsey Coleman had been in just last week looking for mousetraps to be rid of the little critters in the basement of the bar, but she couldn't tell him that, either.

“See, we don't know shit,” her father snapped, and the mere sound of his voice made her head whip up in fear.

It was an instant, gut reaction to the fright her father had instilled within her over the years, but what happened next was like nothing she had ever experienced before.

Her gaze locked with Kane's. Close now, she could see his eyes weren't black at all; they were the deepest and darkest charcoal gray she had ever seen. In fact, she had never seen anyone with eyes that color before.

They were, quite simply, breathtaking.

The way Kane's lips twitched upwards in a slight smile suggested he had noticed her sharp inhale.

Was he laughing at her for her fear of her father, or was it something else? Heat rose in her cheeks, and she forced her gaze from his.

“We don't know anything, mister,” Miley said loud enough for her parents to hear before she whispered quickly, “You should leave.”

She could sense her father growing more and more irritated by the man's presence, and his fingers were likely itching to grab the shotgun he kept under the counter.

Though the man standing before her certainly looked like he could take care of himself, she suspected even he was no match for a bullet to the back.

Kane remained where he was, still watching her, and Miley thought for one brief second of letting her father grab the gun.

She knew all too well what her father had been planning for her before Karl Ryker’s mysterious disappearance. He had spoken multiple times about how he was going to marry her off to pay his ridiculous debts to the man, and those kinds of things didn’t just disappear because a man did. Jack Blackwell, the new mayor of the town, didn’t seem all that much different from the last. Sure, he hadn't come knocking for money yet or to scare anybody—although maybe that was why Kane was really here—but Jack Blackwell did have a group of mean-looking guys around him just like Karl had. And they were surely just as bad. All men were.

Her father was bad enough. It was best to not even look twice at the man before her.

Yet Miley couldn’t help herself.

---