Page 91 of Cruel Games

Jackal grumbled at the order but did as he was told, snapping his teeth in Frank’s face before he took a step back, clearly still within reach of the fuckwad, just in case.

Frank dusted off his pants, staring daggers at me, refusing to look any of the men in the room who now flanked me like a squad of bodyguards. Ever the moron, his glare turned into a sly grin as he opened his mouth and signed his death warrant in one breath.

“So, which one are you banging?”

I expected one of them to fly off the handle and smash his face in.

I didn’t expect it to be Dingo.

His fist connected with Frank’s nose in a beautiful display of violence that shouldn’t have turned me on like it did, blood spurting from behind the asshole’s hands as he covered his face and screamed like a bitch.

I’d never liked Frank. If you weren’t fucking him in the break room, you weren’t worth shit to him. But he thought because he made the schedule and divvied out the tips (which I was convinced he was skimming off the top of), he was entitled to do whatever, say whatever, his little corrupt heart desired. Frank, by the basest definition of the word, was scum.

The exact same kind of man who, when given power and control, would eventually end up on the Neon Dogs’ radar if they were to be believed.

But Frank wasn’t trafficking women or drugs or guns. He was just a lowly bar manager with too much power and a God complex.

He hadn’t earned a complete killing by a group of feral hitmen.

“The fuck did you say to her, you wanker?” Dingo snarled at him, his hands still balled into fists, ready to go for anotherround with Frank’s face. “Got something to say to someone your own size?”

I reached out, my hand falling a little unsteadily on Dingo’s arm as I used him as a steadying support. “Come on, Dingo, leave him alone. He’s not worth it.”

Frank spit out a glob of blood and snot on the floor in front of him, his hand rising to inspect his cut lip. I watched him reach for his little walkie-talkie on his hip, no doubt preparing to call for security, but I was a step ahead. My shoe connected with his handheld device and sent it careening across the room in a pretty little arc that all eyes in the room followed.

Don’t get me wrong—I didn’t care if security showed up or not. I didn’t have a thing to worry about as far as my own safety. No, it was the safety of the security and bouncers I worried for. Because if I let these men loose on the bar, there would be hell to pay, and it wouldn’t be pretty. Or clean.

And then there’d likely be issues to deal with back at the Guild. I didn’t know Lilly St. Clair well, but I knew she would frown on this particular possible outcome.

“Come on, guys,” I muttered, staring down my nose at Frank as he tried to stand. “The booze is better across town anyhow.”

As I led the three of them to the door, Frank’s annoying chuckle that meant he thought he’d won reverberated down my spine and made me hesitate. His words, however, finished the job and had me turning around like I’d been slapped.

“Bitches like you are only good for one thing. When that well dries up, they’ll leave you, too. Just like all the others.”

It hit too close to home. Too close to my deepest fears of being unloveable, undesirable, my bone-deep issues with self-worth and value as a person. For so long, all I’d done was seek revenge. I let the rest of my humanity go, turned into a machine with a single-minded focus and one solitary goal. I’d alienated people who seemed to care about me, my only companion a cat with claws that sank into me more often than not.

But who the fuck was Frank to give voice to those fears, those issues, those inner doubts?

Nobody, that’s who.

I spun around and planted my fist right in his face just as he got to his feet, launching myself at him like a vicious bear in defense of her cubs.Thwack, thwack, thwack,went my fists as I beat him to a pulp, shoving him to the floor again so I could crawl atop him and keep up the torment I rained down on his face.

His screams drew attention, though. And before I could blink, someone was lifting me off Frank’s broken, battered body, and my worldview shifted as that same someone threw me over their shoulder and bailed on the club before security could catch up to us.

By the time we emerged into the chill night air, I was full-on cackling, a burst of hysterical laughter that neither wanted nor needed permission to take over my vocal cords. I couldn’t stop it, couldn’t cut it off, and soon enough, hyperventilation set in, and the world started to spin.

“I think she’s snapped,” I heard someone say, but my mind was too far withdrawn to figure out who was speaking. “Put her down, Coyote.”

So Coyote was the one holding me. The one who’d escaped with me over his shoulder. The one whose hands were warm on my thighs as he dragged my body down the front of his, every part of me on fire as it connected with the hard planes of his torso. The same one whose eyes came into view a second later as his hands cupped my face and he stared into my soul, looking for proof that I was truly broken.

“Ivy?” he said slowly, his lips forming words he didn’t vocalize as he struggled past his habit of not speaking to say what he wanted to say. “Are you with me?”

Me. Not us, me.

A slight distinction, but one that settled in the pit of my stomach and refused to release its claws.

I tried to nod, but my brain and body were disconnected, like someone had shut off a set of lights by flipping the breaker. Coyote still stared at me like he wanted me to speak, but I couldn’t.

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