She chuckled.
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” he said.
“I’m going to do this to help you. I’m not going to back out.”
“Fay, this is dangerous.”
“You have two years to make up for and a whole lot of secrets to spill.” She put her hands on his chest. “I can do this.”
He nodded.
“Okay.”
They walked out of the bedroom, and Fay followed him.
“I need to drag this sorry fucker out,” he said.
Fay tried to help as they shoved him out of the apartment and then allowed him to roll down the stairs.
“We didn’t kill him, did we?” Fay asked.
“No, he’s alive. He’s just going to be in a lot of pain when he eventually wakes up.”
She nodded. It was morning.
Blaze took her hand, leading her toward his car. The streets were already quite busy, but she didn’t stop, even as she was leered at.
A couple of whistles followed her, and Blaze nudged her into his car.
“At least we know the dress works.”
“Trust me, it’s going to work.”
He started up the car, and Fay glanced at him. His hands clutched the steering wheel in a death grip.
“Are you okay?” Fay expected him to lie.
“No.”
“Oh.”
“This was … I was making money. I wanted to build a good life for you and for Blair. Now she is in danger, and well, I don’t like using you, Fay.”
“You’re not using me. I volunteered.”
“I don’t want to think of anything happening to you.”
“Nothing is going to happen.” She pressed her palm against his cheek. “I’m here for you, always.”
He grabbed her hand and locked their fingers together.
She had never seen Blaze like this.
He loved her.
She wanted to offer him comfort, to tell him it was going to be okay, but she didn’t have a clue what it was going to be like.
They drove toward a seedy part of town. The nightclub had a neon sign, and Fay didn’t like it.
“What’s the plan?” Fay asked.
“Give me two minutes, and then you need to stumble in, distract the guards. There will be three of them, roughly.” He did a calculation. “Yeah, there will be three. O’Neal is a small operation. I took out three last night, one this morning, it leaves three.”
“Wow,” Fay said.
“Don’t do anything stupid, and if you get scared, scream for me.”
****
This was a fucked-up plan.
With every step he took toward O’Neal’s, Blaze wanted to order Fay to stay in the car. There was no guard on the front door, which meant they were all inside.
He ran a hand down his face.
He had to get to Blair. O’Neal had hurt her while she’d been on the phone. She’d begged him to come and get her.
O’Neal didn’t understand who he was dealing with. Blaze had accepted being called a townie. It was where he’d come from, but he believed because he was a small fish in a town, that he was in some way not a threat.
Blaze was about to show O’Neal what happened when you turned him into his enemy. He could have easily dealt with the three guards, taken them out, even all three of them at the same time, but the risk to Blair was too great.
With Fay to distract them, it would get him to Blair and O’Neal.
Entering the bar, he saw the stage wasn’t lit, but three men stood there, waiting, baseball bats at the ready. He should have known O’Neal would do this.
“Boys, I don’t want to hurt you. My beef is with your boss, not with you.”
They all snorted. None of them had seen him in action.
Gus had warned him about what it meant to get involved with O’Neal. He should have heeded that warning. Now, he was going to have to deal with three men.
“It’s time for you to see the boss a little more bloodied, Townie.”
He hadn’t taken the time to learn the bastards’ names because he hadn’t been interested in being around O’Neal for too long.
He had a game plan. One that didn’t include friends.
Blaze tensed up, ready to strike, and then at exactly two minutes, the door opened and Fay stumbled in.
“Oh, my God. What is going on? I can’t think. Please, help me. Someone is after me, chasing me, I don’t know what to do.” Fay started to cry, and Blaze had to glance back to make sure she was fine.
Tears spilled down her face, and she was on her knees, hands clasped together, begging. “Please, help me.”
The men, as predicted, saw Fay, those tits, her body, and were fucking smitten.
Blaze didn’t want to leave her alone with those assholes. He’d seen the way they were with a couple of the strippers, and it wasn’t good.
He had to get to Blair, deal with O’Neal, and then he could gouge out these assholes’ eyeballs for even looking at his woman.
With the men distracted, he left, rushing toward the back of the club. There were several private rooms.