Claiming My Vengeance Read online

  “You know,” Cecil said, giving me a pointed look, “if you’re set on getting in someone’s line, you might have a try at Sam there instead. She ain’t too picky.”

  The brassy blonde with a red scoop-necked top so low the tops of her nipples showed, and cutoffs so short the front pockets hung out? I shook my head in the absolute negative. “Not my type.” I shrugged. “You sound pretty protective of Liv. Not so much for Sam.”

  “Sam’s a good girl. She just likes to have fun and doesn’t care who knows it. But Livvie’s different,” he added, watching me steadily. “She’s good with a baseball bat, but like I said before, we watch out for her around here. None of us want to see her get hurt.”

  “Last call, guys,” Olivia called out on her way back up to the counter. “You don’t have to go home, but you’re sure as hell not sleeping on my floor.”

  There was some good-natured grumbling, but men filed up to pay their tabs. Except for the jealous wife I’d noted earlier, the only other women in the place had left a long time ago. The Red Stripe obviously attracted mostly a male clientele.

  Cecil slapped down a ten-dollar bill on the counter and blew Olivia a kiss, which she returned. He was weaving a little when he stood up and put a gnarled hand on the bar for balance.

  “You need a ride home?” I asked him. The guy reminded me a little of my grandpa, and I sure as hell wouldn’t have wanted Chester walking or driving after closing down a bar like Cecil had.

  “Cecil’s okay,” Olivia cut in but gave me a warm smile. I’d accidentally earned brownie points for the offer. She was obviously fond of the old man. “He lives upstairs. Your granddaughter’s going to be at the community center tomorrow. Right, Cecil?”

  “I’ll make sure she’s there by nine in the morning,” Cecil promised before retrieving his cane and wobbling toward the door with a wave.

  “Community center?” I asked.

  She lifted a shoulder. “I teach classes some mornings.” I had the feeling she was being evasive as she turned her full attention back to counting out the drawer. “You good on that beer?”

  “Yeah.” She didn’t elaborate, and I wondered what kind of classes she taught. Bartending? Baseball? I put down a fifty, and when she started to pull out change, I waved her off and stood up. She looked at me thoughtfully for a second, shrugged, and put the money in the till. A smart businesswoman, obviously. “Thanks. And thank you for teaching Billy some manners.”

  “I’m betting he’ll remember your lesson more. You think you broke that wrist?”

  She grinned, and the suddenness and sheer sex appeal of those slightly parted pink lips made my cock twitch in response. “If not, I’d be disappointed.”

  My cock pulsed again. “Bloodthirsty.”

  She just winked at me and went back to her work.

  Outside, the cool night air was welcome. Sliding behind the wheel of the Mercedes, I watched as the last couple of stragglers left. The open sign switched off. About fifteen minutes later, a short, skinny Hispanic man with a red bandanna tied around his bald head came out, got into a rusted Toyota older than I was, and drove away.

  Sam, the flirtatious blonde waitress, sauntered out and stood beside the building for a moment. A few minutes later, the married man she’d been flirting with pulled up to the curb in a pickup truck with a thundering exhaust pipe, and she climbed in. I had to shake my head when the man’s wife scooted over for her on the bench seat to make room. Hadn’t seen that one coming. When the two women started making out, the man swerved and narrowly missed hitting a curb. I couldn’t blame him.

  The street was nearly deserted, aside from a passing police cruiser, and I rolled the window down a little to let in some of the breeze. The rattling growl of a motorcycle split the night, and a few seconds later, a vintage bike rolled out of the back lot and turned right.

  I instantly recognized the slim figure bent over the handlebars in the weak glow of the streetlights. I let her get a couple blocks ahead and turn left before I started my car and followed.

  Damn.

  Was there anything sexier than a gorgeous woman on a motorcycle? I couldn’t help but wonder if she rode because she liked the feel of a powerful machine vibrating between those long legs. I reached down and adjusted my cock, which was uncomfortably pressing against my fly.

  I turned onto the next street in time to see the bike’s taillights disappear down a driveway. The houses were all dark, featureless shapes pressed in close together, but between streetlights, I could make out children’s toys littering the postage-stamp-sized front yards and some older-model cars, one up on blocks. From what I could tell, though, most houses looked neat and well-kept. Lower-middle-class families, probably. I’d started my career flipping houses in neighborhoods just like this.

  I slowed the car and pulled up at the curb, switching off my lights, and watched Olivia disappear into one of the houses. A light switched on in the main floor, and through one of the front windows, I could see her taking off a jacket and removing her helmet. I sat there for another few minutes, simply drawn to her every movement. She really was lovely in a rough, untamed kind of way.

  A dog barked, pulling me out of the fog the woman had woven around me, and though I thought I might be able to watch her for hours, I felt like a creeper, sitting out in the dark and staring through her window. Putting the car in drive, I opted not to turn this into a stakeout and left.

  Driving back to the hotel room I’d rented earlier in the day, I had a lot to think about. First priority was a cold shower and then a couple of hours of sleep. I had to be back on this side of town by eight-thirty. Thanks to Cecil, I knew about what time Olivia would be leaving in the morning, and I wanted to be there to see where she went. There were a lot of community centers in Detroit, but what she would do at any of them was a mystery at this point.

  I still wasn’t convinced that Olivia hadn’t at some point had access to her stepfather’s money. I also had no idea if she kept in contact with Devlin. For all I knew, they were best buddies. But after listening to Cecil and watching her in action, anyone would think she was some kind of beloved neighborhood Wonder Woman.

  Olivia Cunningham had an angle, though, because everyone had an angle. To figure out hers, I would just have to watch a little longer. Watching a woman as hot as Olivia wouldn’t be much of a sacrifice at all.

  She had secrets in those dark eyes.

  And I wanted to know them all.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Liv

  I overslept.

  In my defense, I hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before, having been too keyed up to go to bed, from both the incident with Billy and my conversations with Gabe. He was definitely the kind of man that got stuck in a girl’s head.

  After I finished putting the kitchen sink back together, I took a hot shower and crashed at about four in the morning, only to be tormented by some sexy dreams that featured big hands and icy gray eyes.

  Freddie called at six, waking me up to let me know that little Mateo Oliver Mitchell had finally arrived, and momma and baby were both doing great. I cried because they gave him the middle name Oliver in honor of me, his godmother. That made Freddie cry, and when he handed the phone to Rosalie, she cried.

  I promised to visit later that morning and hung up, exhausted and teary. When my eight o’clock alarm went off, I hit the snooze button four times before dragging my ass out of bed.

  Dressing in a rush at eight-thirty, I pulled on black stretch pants, a sports bra, and a loose-fitting wide-necked black top that fell to about mid-thigh. I tugged on my combat boots, since I was doing my class barefoot anyway, and my leather jacket. After grabbing my cell phone, a granola bar, and a bottle of water to shove in my pocket, I was out the door and on my bike by eight-forty.

  The skies were clear, and the air was still cool as I pulled my hair back in a ponytail. It was June in Michigan, though. It could be eighty-five by the time I got home. I preferred the chill to heat and humidity, so mornings
were my favorite time to ride.

  The closer I got to the community center, the shabbier the neighborhood became. This was one of the worst parts of Detroit, with high crime rates and the primary employers being drug dealers. Renovation efforts and the Detroit gentrificationists hadn’t reached this part of the city yet, and burned out former homes stood side-by-side with houses stuffed with multiple families.

  A few early rising souls had ventured out on their front porches, and I felt eyes on me as I drove by. Seven years ago, I would have been terrified to ride through areas of town like this alone. That was one fear I’d managed to conquer.

  I was almost there when I started to get a tingle at the nape of my neck. Checking my side mirror, there was no one behind me but a black car about a block away. I didn’t scare so easily anymore, but I wasn’t stupid, either. I’d learned to always be aware of what was around me. I didn’t have any definite reason to feel uncomfortable, but I’d also learned to always trust my gut.

  I slowed down and put my blinker on, turning right. Sure enough, I was passing an abandoned factory, keeping an eye on my side mirror, when I saw the black car turn. If whoever in it was following me, they weren’t trying to stay close.

  Slowing the Ducati just enough to make a quick right with no turn signal, I started to weave a confusing path down random streets, carefully keeping track in my head of the turns I made so I didn’t end up lost. I came out on a busier street with light traffic, heading in my original direction. I didn’t see the black car behind me, but I still felt weird about it and knew my orange bike was conspicuous, so I gunned it through a couple of yellow lights and turned off the main road again.

  The community center was just a few minutes away, and by the time I saw the brightly painted building, I was dripping with sweat and feeling lightheaded.

  “God, please don’t let me have a panic attack now,” I muttered. I’d had them all the time when I first moved here, but the last one had been years ago.

  I sat for a few moments, focusing my concentration, getting my equilibrium back. Once my head was clear, I locked my ignition, set the front rotor lock, ran a padlocked chain through the wheel spokes and around a telephone pole, and set my alarm. Standard procedure for when I went anywhere that I couldn’t bring my bike into the building with me. She was not only my baby, she was my only means of transportation at the moment.

  Ericka, my contact, was waiting for me at the front door. She’d followed instructions and had on some yoga pants and a Pistons t-shirt that hugged her generous curves.

  “If it isn’t the badass biker bitch,” she grinned.

  “Running late but reporting for duty.” I forced a smile onto my face. “What’s our class looking like today?”

  She turned to head down the hall. “A pretty even split. Got some hookers, some high school girls, a couple of older women. Somebody even brought their grandma.” She glanced over her shoulder at me with a warning look when we got to a set of metal double doors. “There’s one you might want to keep an eye out for. Tasha. She’s a little mouthy and has had some bad experiences with anyone she thinks might have a little authority. She has a quick temper and doesn’t have a problem showing her ass.”

  “No worries.”

  We walked through the doors, and a group of about twenty chattering women all looked up at once. “All right, ladies,” Ericka said, her voice booming off the high ceiling of the gym. “Who’s ready to kick some ass?”

  Someone yelled back, “Hell, yeah!” and there was a smattering of laughter and applause. Cecil’s granddaughter, Naomi, waved from the back of the room, and I waved back.

  But a tall, heavyset woman with fire-orange hair and narrowed eyes stepped forward. “What? Somebody tell me this skinny bitch ain’t tryna teach no self-defense.” The crowd behind her immediately turned uncertain and conversation hushed.

  I smiled and ignored her for the moment, taking off my leather jacket and setting it down by the cinderblock wall with my helmet. “I’m Olivia Redmond. You can call me Liv. I’m not here to lecture you, but before we get started, I’m going to give you two statistics. One in six women in this country will be sexually assaulted or raped. And it happens every ninety-eight seconds.”

  There was more murmuring and head nodding, but most looked stunned, like a spotlight had been aimed just at them.

  I made eye contact with everyone in the room. “I’m a one-in-six. I’ve been there,” I emphasized, knowing that most of these women either had experienced assault or were afraid that they eventually would. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be at my class so early on a Saturday morning. I went on. “My attacker didn’t get a chance to rape me, but it wasn’t because he didn’t try. It was because I got lucky, but not lucky enough that he didn’t hurt me badly in the process. So, after that, skinny bitch or not, I learned how to defend myself, and I’m going to teach you. Grab a bottle of water out of that cooler there, and let’s take this outside, ladies.”

  Out on the sunny lawn, bordered on all sides by a ten-foot chain-link fence, I stood in front of a line of curious faces — plus one skeptical one — as I unlaced my boots. “Who wants to hit me?” I asked, stepping out of them and taking off my socks.

  Tasha stepped forward, smiling like I’d offered her a fifty-dollar bill. No one was surprised, I was sure.

  I widened my stance slightly and made a cocky little “come on” motion with my fingers, grinning at her.

  She swung at my head, fist tight and thumb untucked, so I knew she knew what she was doing. I ducked right, grabbing her closed fist and giving it a slight tug, just enough to make her stumble forward. I wasn’t trying to humiliate her or put her on the ground. This was about proving myself and nothing else.

  “Try again?” I offered.

  She didn’t try to hit me this time. She grabbed my wrist in a fierce grip that I knew would leave bruises and pulled me toward her. I bent my elbow inward and upward, dislodging her painful grip. Tasha recovered quickly and stuck one foot behind mine, trying to trip me up, but I spun out of her way.

  She was breathing a little more heavily, but she gave me a hard smile. “One more time. You got some white girl ninja moves, but I was raised up on these streets.”

  “All right,” I agreed.

  I’d barely gotten the words out before she was coming in low and hard, aiming for my middle. I turned to the side to dodge the blow, but she’d been bluffing, and got hold of my ponytail. I heard her laugh as she pulled hard, yanking my head back and down. Wincing at the sharp pain in my scalp, I lifted both hands up to cover hers and hold them in place, and did a quick rotation, taking her arm with me until she was forced into a bent-over position.

  “You give?” I asked as Tasha squealed in surprise. The position wouldn’t hurt too badly if you were careful, but by twisting faster and fully around, you could easily break someone’s wrist.

  “I give,” Tasha gasped, and I let go.

  I was out of breath too, and grabbed two bottles of water. Uncapping one, I chugged some and offered the other bottle to Tasha.

  “You want to teach this class?” I asked. “You’re a straight-up brawler.”

  She took the water and nodded once, taking the compliment as her due. “Where’d you learn all that?”

  “Some Taekwondo, some Israeli Krav Maga, and some common sense.”

  Tasha looked at me for a second before giving me a real smile and facing the rest of the class. “I don’t know what this Krav Maga shit is she’s talking about, but skinny white bitch got some moves. She’s all right.”

  Just like that, the tension was broken.

  Things went smoothly after Tasha gave me her approval, and everyone was soon practicing blocks, jabs, punches, and avoidance maneuvers. There was a lot of laughter, especially when seventy-two-year-old Judith, Shania’s feisty grandmother, brought me down hard on my back with a move I showed her.

  By the time we were wrapping up, we had a line of bystanders watching us from the sidewalk, clapping and
whistling. This was the best kind of class. Everyone learned something. Everyone had fun. And everyone left feeling just a little bit more empowered, with a circle of new friends who would back her up.

  ***

  Tasha caught me outside of class, and we spent an enjoyable ten minutes bullshitting and trading insults. She promised that she’d talk to some friends and asked me to email her when I was doing another class. She also wanted the name of the dojo I used, and I grinned, picturing her paired up with the tiny-but-deadly Sensei Adachi, the elderly Japanese woman who ran the place where I took classes three times a week.

  After Tasha had gone, while I was sitting in the shade with Ericka and Naomi waiting for Cecil to pick Naomi up, I started getting the uncomfortable feeling again that I was being watched. Casually, I checked out the street, but bystanders that had watched the self-defense class had dispersed, the women who’d attended the class had gone their separate ways, and the only car heading toward us was Cecil’s red Pontiac.

  I hung around for a few more minutes after Cecil pulled up, while sixteen-year-old Naomi gave her grandpa an excited play-by-play of what we’d done. When she finally wound down, I said goodbye to Ericka and waved to everyone else.

  Unlocking my Ducati, I told myself that my unease was just because I had been thinking of Gabe during the class for some damn reason. Probably because he was clearly a brawler too, but whatever kept making his handsome face spring to mind had kept me feeling off-balance.

  I’d been thinking of Devlin Cunningham too, another face I couldn’t seem to kick. But he left me with another emotion…dread.

  Pushing the vague sense of disquiet away, I buckled on my helmet and set course for the nearest Target. I had to buy my godson a gift.