The Mysterious Stranger (The Confidence Game 3)

When he got to the chorus, where the song rocked out, he spun her out with that belt-loop maneuver and they danced around, headbanging and stomping in the starlight, shout-singing the words to the song and pretending they didn’t almost start a fire with the heat crackle coming off them, and that everything between them was just the same as it always was.

Chapter Thirteen

Zeke had only just gotten as comfortable as he was able to on the hard earth, when the kick caught him on the hip and torchlight blinded him. “What the fuck?” He couldn’t shield his face because his arms were trapped inside the sleeping bag.

“Get up.” Mike’s voice.

He sensed the next kick coming and rolled so it missed, raising a cloud of dust. “Jesus Christ.”

“He’s not going to help you, city slicker.”

Out of the bag and on his feet, eyes adjusting, Zeke could see it was Mike and Ted with the rest of the crew behind them. One on too many. Fear roared through his body. He was barefoot, practically naked.

“What’s going on?” He couldn’t afford for this to become a fight he had no chance of winning, so easy does it. “Was I snoring too loud? My ritual nighttime teeth grinding keeping you up?”

“Funny isn’t going to save you any more than being a card shark,” said Ted.

That didn’t take long to get around. Keep it light, but don’t show too much fear. “Tell me what this is about or there’d better be a defib unit in the truck because you guys are scaring the shit out of me.”

“Shut up,” said Ted and then the click, clickety clack sequence of a rifle loading and cocking. Fuck. A camp chair appeared behind him. “Sit.”

He sat. Cooperation was his best asset in the face of intimidation. More lights came on. Everyone else was fully dressed. Chuck had the rifle. At least that was the only weapon he could see through the flashlight they kept trained at his eyes. This had

to be some kind of hazing, an initiation rite. He’d survive being frightened and humiliated.

“We need to have a little talk,” Mike said.

“Sure, about?” A hand came down on either shoulder to hold him still. He’d survive a beatdown if it came to it. But if they put a bullet in him, he was in big trouble. He had to stay cool, not raise the temperature, let them see he had no fight in him.

“If it’s the cards, that was just fun. I didn’t mean any harm. I’ll apologize.” He’d talked his way out of worse scares.

Mike laughed, and the other men echoed him. “Aw hell no. About time someone showed Earl up.”

“Is it how I treated Susan? I was a dick to her.”

“It’s about whether you and your sister are the right fit for Abundance.”

Ah fuck, what were they doing to Rory? Didn’t matter how many of them there were, he would fucking take them apart. He tried to stand with a roar and was shoved down. “If any of you motherfuckers breathe on Rosie, you’re going to discover my hands are good for more than hammering nails and card tricks.”

Ted went to his haunches, in direct eyeline, blocking the light source. Zeke would’ve headbutted him, but he was being held back. “Now, now, hustler. No need to get steamed up. This is a just a friendly chat.”

He struggled against the hands restraining him. “If it was friendly you wouldn’t be holding me down.”

Ted stood, hooked his booted foot behind the front crossbar of the chair and pulled. Zeke crashed backwards into the dirt, trapped in the chair and coughing in the dust. They could kill him, dump his body and no one would know. Rory would be alone. One of the men hauled him, staggering to his feet, by his hair. The chair was righted, and he was shoved into it with enough force to almost tip it again.

“All right. All right. I’m listening but leave Rosie out of it. You can do whatever you want to me. I don’t matter, but she deserves a good life.”

“You’ve got that right. And it’s your lucky day because no one is going to hurt Rosie. She’s earning her place here and she’s earmarked for Orrin. But you’re disposable.”

None of that made him feel any less rage. It burned in his limbs. He gripped the arms of the camp chair to ground his focus because Rory belonged to him. He’d been fascinated by her his whole life. She was the girl who liked all the same things he did: being outdoors, shooting hoops and setting things on fire, stolen books with sex in them and sleights of hand. That was confusing enough at twelve. At sixteen, he couldn’t get enough of touching her, smooth to his growing coarseness, round to his bony edges. The prettiest thing he’d ever seen. But he hadn’t known what to do with that sensation welling inside, made him feel small and weak and he was rougher than he should’ve been with her. Tackled her so hard one day he broke her collar bone. She didn’t even cry. He didn’t touch her for a long time after that. Ashamed. More confused. And when he did, it was the same as the way he touched Cal and Halsey, a nudge, a shove, a slap, a tug on her clothes, a yank to her hair. He never touched either of his sisters, or any other woman with such little gentleness.

Unless they were dancing on a bar top, it was the way Rory touched him, right up until that night she’d run into his arms in the dining hall.

Since then he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about touching her differently; in all the ways he knew women liked to be touched. To learn the softness of her skin with his hands and his mouth and his cock. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about making her come.

And these goons weren’t going to fuck with that fantasy.

He squinted into the light at Ted. “Rosie gets to choose who she sleeps with.” He’d defend her forever for that right.