Give Me a Reason (Redemption Hills 1)

My hands curled into fists. Animosity glowered like red destruction, a haze in the murky night. Wanted to bust it wide open.

I leaned over him, up real close, my voice the poison that I wanted to dump down his throat. “You think you can come into my bar and touch one of my girls?”

“Fuck you, man,” he spat as he hopped onto his feet just as his crew was getting tossed out beside him. He swiped a violent hand over the cut on his face.

That’s right, bitch, let’s get violent.

Hands squeezed into fists, I silently begged it. The depravity taking over. The demons clawing through my spirit, screaming to take possession.

The stain of who I was.

Ghost.

It sloshed through my veins in a bout of aggression.

Wanted to beat this fucker bloody for the fact he was the one who’d proven my point.

Eden didn’t belong here.

Not in the mix of the corruption that crawled its way to our door.

Not in the mix of the iniquity that was me.

Absolution was nothing but an invitation for sin.

The girl was blameless. I felt it to my bones. Felt it at odds with my spirit.

Goodness.

Grace.

“Don’t want to see any of your faces on my property. Not ever again.” I pointed between them while I forced myself to remain rooted and not go after what I was thirsting for.

Jud and Kult came to take up my sides, three of us a seething wall of menace.

Blond prick smirked like it didn’t affect him a bit, beady blue eyes pinned on me as he cracked a grin. “Not a very nice way to treat paying customers, now is it?”

The tone of his words were mocking, but it was the way he was looking at me that left me unsettled. Something awry. Something more than a junkie prick who’d wandered in from off the streets.

“You’re no longer a paying customer, now, are you?” This from Jud. His muscles ticked and jumped, dude wanting to tear into the asshole every bit as much as I did.

Rage barely bridled.

Blond fucker laughed. Another mocking sound.

A disturbance rustled through my consciousness.

He cocked his head to the side. “You sure you wanna take that stance?”

I stepped forward, getting in his face, words lowered with the threat. “Get cocky, motherfucker. I’ve slit throats for much less.”

He leaned back, still wearing that smirk, like it was me who was the brunt of a joke. He angled his head to his friends. “Let’s go.”

They started to walk but not before the guy lifted his chin with a sneer when he said, “See you around.”

They spun and strode out into the lot, and we watched until they piled into a pickup truck, engine grumbling to life and the headlights cutting through the haze. They whipped out of their spot and gunned it when they hit the street.

“Fuck,” I hissed, whirling around and storming back inside, ignoring the eyes that were watching us from out front. Didn’t draw much of a crowd from inside since it wasn’t exactly rare for someone to get kicked from the bar.

There were plenty of assholes who got too handsy or unruly, and it was a rare night when some beefed up douches didn’t end up in a fistfight.

But this…

“Somethin’ doesn’t sit right.” Jud was at my side, angling in so I could hear him over the roar of music.

“Nope.”

“You’re sure you’ve never seen them before?”

“Positive.”

“Prick was glaring at you like he knew you.”

“I know.”

Dread curled in my chest as I shouldered through the mob, heart slamming at my ribs as I scanned the throng.

No sight of the girl.

Jud kept pace, words shards. “You think someone is looking for us? Old debt?”

Foreboding stirred the adrenaline into rage. How many enemies had we made over the years? “Don’t know. Fuckin’ hope not, but I think we both know better than to stop watching our backs.”

Jud exhaled a heavy sigh. “Ghosts don’t ever stay dead, do they?”

My chest tightened. “Not in our world, brother.”

Terror gripped me. Thought of my son getting in the middle of a crime I’d committed. A sin I’d perpetrated.

Ghost.

I could almost hear my piece-of-shit father hissing it in my ear. Branding me who he wanted me to be. Forming me into a monster.

And a monster I’d become.

Vicious.

Merciless.

Didn’t matter how far I ran, I could never outrun who I was or what I’d done. My debt was deep. Ugly and cruel. And I knew one day, I would have to pay.

Exact reason I knew better than giving into this feeling. The feeling that spurred me across the packed floor and sent me stalking down the hall. The feeling that this girl meant more than she should.

I tore into the employees’ lounge and locker room.

And there she was, sitting on the bench with Leann kneeling in front of her.

So goddamned beautiful.

So fuckin’ wrong in this place.