Page 26 of Shaken Knot Stirred

“How did you know we were pack?”

She dug some more and picked out a black demi bra that had matching panties. Both had a subtle flower pattern splashed across the silky fabric.

“Thanks for this.” She waved the panties at me.

Tucking her wet hair behind her ear, she stood with a groan. “I’ll be a good prisoner. Don’t worry.” She winked and stepped out of my room.

I dragged the bra bin over to my closet. I’d leave it out for Moxie to rummage through. Pulling out the navy dress and a few more items I thought she’d look good in, I then flipped hangers until I found my old coat. It was worn and ugly. Beg wouldn’t be caught dead with me in it. I retrieved an equally battered wallet from the pocket. I thumbed through the bills. There was 10 large in this wallet. I had other stashes of cash, maybe $50,000 in total.

Touching my lips lightly, I wondered if that would be enough.

Chapter 14

Nico

The sound of myboots clicking on the dull tile rattled through my whole body. I had to punch the code twice before the door would allow me to escape into the garage. Surprisingly, this was the only place not scoured by cameras. Beg didn’t want evidence of his comings and goings.

I dug my fingers into my hair, pulling at my roots.

“Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.”

I had trusted Moxie to be smart enough to completely disappear. I had trusted Beg to be dumb enough to never find her. I’d been wrong on both accounts.

Fuck me.

I squeezed my fists to stop my fingers from shaking. The taste of bile coated my tongue. Wished this was a garden-variety panic attack, but the gods weren’t that benevolent. This was the onset of rut. Had to be. I didn’t have time for this.

The cardboard box was dusty, so the packing tape gave easily. Twelve bottles of Bedivere Whiskey Special Select were lined up like soldiers. Beg was going to kill me anyway, so what did it matter now if I dug into his spoils of war?

The bottle’s wax top fought me as I peeled it back and unscrewed the cap. The first sip fought me, the second behaved. The third was smooth as amber. I circled the garage as I waited for the ridiculously expensive booze to do its thing. Beg’s lifted truck dominated the space. It was flashy and obnoxious, dwarfing Lana’s sedan. My bike was tucked in a corner like an afterthought, which is how I preferred to be in Beg’s little kingdom.

With the toe of my boot, I nudged the random collection of car care debris into a neater arrangement. Lana’s car wasn’t running. It needed an oil change. There was a leak in the anti-freeze line, and other maintenance that was beyond me. It didn’t matter because she rarely left the Pax.

And now Moxie was stuck here, too.

She was fucking gorgeous, even after enduring a day with Beg. My skin crawled at the thought. I rubbed my knuckles. Guilt stirred up the whiskey in my stomach.

The last time I saw her, I had to burn every single bridge so hard that she’d hate me forever because Beg would see the tapes, eventually.

Moxie had always said I should stick to straight-up theft and leave the con games to her. I should have brought her in on it from the start. But I hadn’t wanted her anywhere near Beg Knightbridge.

He’d sucked me in with small things at first. Floated my fee for a fight night. I got my ass soundly kicked, but it had been the only way to get access to a lockbox key that hung around the neck of some highbrow douchebag alpha slumming it in the Pax. That lockbox scored me my bike and a new apartment for Moxie.

But I had to pay Beg back. Small jobs at first. Petty theft shit, really, that he could have gotten any one of the hundreds of alphas and betas that wandered down Pleasant Street to do for him. Before I knew it, I was tangled in a blackmail scheme extorting the general manager of the Hotel Pantheon. The exact same hotel where Moxie had just started as a mixologist.

Like a fucking idiot, I had panicked and blown it all up. Moxie walked away with my take, and I ended up in a pack with Beg.

I kicked an empty oil bottle across the cluttered space. My phone dinged. I couldn’t even claim one second to myself to wallow in how I fucked everything up.

Ethan:

Fight spilling out onto Pleasant. Beg wants to give Junie to the winner.

I tucked my phone in my inside pocket. This was exactly how Beg operated. He’d threaten you with what you thought was the worst, just so you’d be practically gleeful when he offered you another terrible way out.

One last swig of the whiskey before pushing the box back under the workbench. The garage door rolled back with the sound of grinding metal. It would be faster to get to the street through the parking garage than going through the Pax. I didn’t have it in me to fuck up saving another damsel tonight.

Chapter 15

---