Rock Chick 05 Revenge (26 page)

The SUV following us missed the uey and I kept driving like a madwoman, bent over the wheel, eyes glaring at the road.

I drove this way for awhile then Sissy said quietly from beside me, “Ava, you’re kind of scaring me.”

I slowed.

“I think we lost him,” Daisy murmured, looking behind her.

“Shee-it,” Shirleen breathed.

“I need cookies,” I declared.

* * * * *

I dropped a shaking Sissy off. She wandered into her Dad’s house looking dazed.

Shirleen and Daisy followed me to Luke’s. I went in and they drove off, Daisy behind the wheel of my Range Rover.

The back of the Range Rover was damaged. Shirleen and Daisy were taking it to “a friend” so he would fix it, thus hiding the evidence from Luke that I’d been out, doing stupid shit and getting into trouble.

I went up to the loft directly to my computer, flipped it on and decided to work and not think about any of this.

I had no idea who this new person was who was after me and I was just going to pretend it didn’t happen. I was going to find a happy place in my mind and live there forever. I was going to forget about hot guy, macho man Luke Stark wanting to get in my pants, about Dominic Dickhead being a jerk, Uncle Vito ordering people to be murdered and me to be kidnapped, and the upcoming call from Ren Zano, which would lead to a big wedding and lotsa babies.

I had walked into Nightingale Investigations on a Thursday. It was Sunday and my life wasn’t just pretty fucking complicated, it was completely out-of-control.

I managed to quit shaking. I did this not with cookies because, after a very thorough search of Luke’s kitchen, I found that Sandra Whoever-She-Was hadn’t stocked Luke’s cupboard with cookies, only healthy eating crap which didn’t do anything to stop the shakes. I did it by alternately working, tidying Luke’s loft and drinking diet liberally mixed with splashes of Sailor Jerry.

I finally was able to focus and was coming close to finishing my deadline project when I heard the elevator doors slide open. I turned in my chair. Luke walked in silently, eyes on me.

Or, I should say, his dangerously shining, dark blue eyes were on me.

Uh-oh.

I slowly stood and turned to face him. He walked directly to the semi-circular bar and dropped a pair of cuffs and what looked like a weird gun on it.

I stared at the cuffs and the weapon, thinking upsetting thoughts.

He rounded the bar and came into the kitchen area. He stopped, put a palm on the counter and leaned into it. The whole time he did this, he kept his eyes on me.

“Hey,” I said, trying for innocent and casual. “You have a good afternoon?”

“Come here,” he replied and he did
not
use his soft, gentle, affectionate voice.

Eek!

“Everything okay?” I asked, still clinging onto innocent and casual with all I had.

“Come here,” he repeated.

Okay, innocent and casual weren’t working.

“What’s going on?”

“Ava, if you make me say it again…”

I went silent.

He moved, just slightly but it was enough to make me jump. This made him smile, not a Sexy Luke Smile, a Dangerous Luke Smile.

“Luke, tell me what’s going on!” I demanded, beginning to freak out.

This was not smart. He bit his bottom lip with his teeth and looked away from me. When his eyes came back to me, my body went still.

Oh dear,
Good Ava muttered.

Holy SHIT!
Bad Ava exploded.

One could say I knew Luke pretty well. I hadn’t been around him in a long time but I had watched him grow up (with avid interest). His Mom was friends with my Mom. He and I had shared some laughs and some intense moments. Still, you didn’t have to know Luke to know that grown up, tough guy, macho man Luke was barely controlling what appeared to be a very scary fury.

“Was it good?” he asked.

I blinked, not expecting that question not even understanding it. “What?” I asked back.

“When you touched yourself, was it good?”

My mouth dropped open and my lungs seized.

Ho-ly crap.

“How did you –?” I breathed.

“Cameras,” he told me and my body jerked. My eyes swung around the loft but Luke started speaking again and they went back to him. “You won’t see them. I had the place wired, surveillance put in so when I wasn’t here with you, the boys could watch out for you. When I’m not here, they’re monitoring the loft.”

Ho-ly
crap
.

“Did they see –?”

“Jack turned it off. He knew I’d break his neck if he watched you do that. He gave you some time. Apparently too much time. By the time he turned on the cameras, you were gone.”

I was certain I was going to die. I actually
wanted
to die. The very idea of the Nightingale Investigations men knowing what I’d done, it was mortifying.

“Where’d you go?” Luke asked, breaking me out of thoughts of how best to off myself.

“I spent some time with Sissy,” I told him immediately and that wasn’t a total lie.

“And Shirleen and Daisy?” Luke pressed.

I didn’t know how he knew this, but I thought it was safe to say, “Um… yes.”
 

“Spent some time being pursued by a dark blue SUV down Hampden Avenue? Your back bumper completely fucked up. Losing him after nearly rolling onto I-25?”

Holy crap!

How did he know this shit? It was just bizarre.

I kept my mouth shut. I thought that was the sensible way to go.

“It was reported to the police, by about two dozen other drivers. In detail, with license plates and descriptions of the people in the vehicles.”

Crapity, crap, crap,
crap
.

“Luke –”

“Come here,” he said quietly and his voice was not affectionate, it was lethal.

“I don’t think I want to,” I told him.

“That may be the smartest decision you’ve made today,” he said back.

Okay. Hang on a second.

Firstly, he was not the boss of me. Secondly, I was a free woman. I could do what I wanted, when I wanted, where I wanted, with whom I wanted. I didn’t need his permission for one goddamn thing. Thirdly, no one asked him to be Mr. Over-Protective. He’d given himself that role. He even put cameras in his house, cameras he didn’t tell
me
about which was a serious invasion of privacy beyond making me move in with him, sleep beside him and the list could go on (and on). Fourthly, he was not the boss of me.

I’d had enough.

“You’re not the boss of me,” I told him.

“Ava, I’ll give you one last chance to get your sweet ass over here.”

“No!” I snapped. “I’m not going to be freaked out by you. I’m not going to be pushed around by you. And I’m not going to be told what to do by you. I’m alive, I’m breathing. So are Sissy, Daisy and Shirleen. I don’t know what happened and I don’t care. I’m ignoring everything, including you having your buddies watch me when I didn’t know they were doing it. I’m ignoring
everythin
g. I’m going to live my life and let all this shit blow over.”

“You haven’t clued in yet but this shit is not gonna blow over. Who was the guy in the SUV?”

“I have no idea. I’ve never seen him before. Maybe he had road rage. Maybe I pulled out in front of him and didn’t notice it. Who cares?”

“I care.”

“Well I don’t!” I snapped.

“Why are you all of a sudden the focus of some seriously scary shit?”

“How should I know?”

“Maybe because it’s happening to you?”

“Well, I don’t know!” I yelled. “I don’t even want to know!”

He glared at me. I glared back.

We were locked in another Luke vs. Ava Glare of the Century Contest when my phone rang. I was kind of glad it did because I was about to back down from the glare and this gave me an excuse.

To save face, I made a “huh” sound and grabbed my phone from the desk, flipped it open and put it to my ear. “Yo.”

“Ava?”

“Yes?”

“It’s Ren.”

Oh
fuck
.

My eyes snapped to Luke. “Hey,” I said.

“Hey, Uncle Vito told me about Dom. You okay?”
 

“Yeah.”

“You okay after Uncle Vito sent his goons after you?”

I blinked in surprise at his question and turned away from Luke. “What?”

“Santo and Lucky are idiots. They were supposed to be cool, tell you it was Vito who wanted to see you. Not scare you half to death and send you running through traffic on Broadway.”

Wow. That was news.

“Sorry about that,” he went on like he apologized for mistaken kidnappings every day.

I moved away slowly and went to the window at the side of the loft. All the while, I was very conscious of Luke watching me. “Um, that’s okay.”

Did I just tell Ren it was okay that his uncle had me kidnapped? Maybe I
was
nuts.

“Listen, Ava, don’t worry about Dom. I’ll take care of him,” he assured me.

Oh no.

My eyes went back to Luke. He was still leaning on the counter, still watching me and now his eyes were narrowed.

I looked away again. “I think someone’s already working on that,” I told him.

“I know, you got Stark doing it. Tell him to back off. We want to take care of this in the family.”

Oh shit.

No way was I going to tell Luke that Ren Zano was going to take care of Dom for me and he could back off. No way in hell.

I would never have expected my life could get more complicated but there it was.

“Ren,” I said softly and stupidly for the minute I uttered his name, the air in the room changed and
not
in a good way. It took all my efforts to keep my eyes looking out the window and ignore the scary air.

“I’ll take you out to dinner tomorrow night, apologize properly for all this shit.”

“I’m busy,” I said immediately.

“Tuesday.”

I felt Luke get close rather than seeing him do it. I felt this because the not good air in the room started pressing on me.

“Erm…” I said, too focused on the scary air to come up with another excuse to avoid a date with Ren.

“I’ll take you to Carmine’s on Penn. You love it there.”

I did love it there and I thought it was kind of sweet that Ren remembered. We’d all gone out, Sissy and Dom, Noah and me and Ren and one of his women; I forgot her name (Ren had a lot of women). We’d had a good time and the food was orgasmic.
 

“Seven o’clock. I’ll pick you up at your place. See you then.”

Before I could say a word, he disconnected.

Okay, there were a lot of not good things happening in my life at the moment but this was
seriously
not good.

I flipped my phone closed and turned.

I was right, Luke got close. Real close.

And I was also right about the not good air.

If Luke had been barely controlling fury before, he was visibly losing his battle with controlling rage now.

Eek.

Chapter Twelve

Pins and Needles

Luke’s hand came up to rest on my neck, his thumb under my jaw.

“Why is Ren Zano phoning you?” he asked softly.

I needed to make a split-second decision and I made it. I wasn’t going to live in fear of tough guy, macho man Luke Stark. He was nuts and he was a badass but he wasn’t going to hurt me. Sure, most of the way he behaved, and nearly all of the brutally honest shit that came out of his mouth, was shocking but he would never hurt me. Maybe he would cuff me to the bed again or do some other macho man shit but I could handle that.
 

I was in control of my mind and my body (okay, the last one wasn’t really true but I did have a pretty magnificent orgasm not too long ago so I should be topped up).

I wasn’t his woman. It was time to stop acting like I was.

“He says you should back off from Dom, he’ll take care of it,” I told him, instantly going back on my pledge never to tell him that, ever.

Luke’s fingers tensed at my neck. “That it?”

I took hold of my liberated woman and shared further. “He’s taking me out to dinner on Tuesday to apologize for everything.”

I felt Luke’s body go still as he stared at me. “You’re tellin’ me you made a date with Zano while you were standin’ in my living room?”
 

I was
not
going to think “Eek!”

“It isn’t a date. I don’t date. I’ve sworn off men. This is an apology dinner.”