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  "Used... used... sex to get an answer!"

  At this, his head fell backward and he let out a laugh that boomed off the train walls and sent another shot of desire to my poor, underused nether regions.

  His face dropped to mine again, still smiling, but it had turned a little more condescending. "I guess it's been a while for you," he started and I felt my spine straightening, "but that wasn't sex, doll. That was me kissing your ear. Though if you want me to try using sex as a interrogation method..." he trailed off, his hands moving from the wall and sliding intimately down my sides.

  And damn if it didn't feel all kinds of good.

  But that wasn't the point.

  The point was he was having fun at my expense.

  I was already a freaking prisoner.

  That was just... so not okay.

  Before I thought it through, truly before I even realized it was happening, my hand swung back, then flew forward, landing with a satisfying crack to the side of his face.

  Surprise registered in his eyes for a second. Then the condescending smile took a turn toward the mischievous and I knew I had, yet again, screwed up.

  "Like it rough, huh?" he asked, running a hand over his cheek which was a nice shade of red.

  "Go fuck yourself," I said, ducking under his arm, and darting past him.

  I didn't get more than two feet before he swung around and his arm went around my belly, hauling me backward until I slammed my back into his front. "Not so fast," he said, sounding amused.

  "Let go of me," I growled. Growled.

  "Tell me about taking down Lex's empire," he said, his voice deceptively calm. Almost like he was barely paying attention.

  "No."

  "You're sure you want that to be your answer?" he asked, his free hand slowly starting to run up my thigh, slipping dangerously inward. Despite myself, my head fell backward onto his chest.

  This was all kinds of wrong. Like a hundred shades of screwed the hell up. If I wasn't going to end up in a city grave soon, I'd have made sure I went to see a shrink about it.

  Because I didn't want him to stop. I genuinely wanted that hand to keep moving upward, keep slipping inward, until it found what it was looking for. Until I got some relief from the clawing need inside.

  But that was exactly the reason it needed to stop.

  "Stop," I said, my voice a strange mix of shaky and strong.

  Breaker exhaled a breath that made my hair dance around my face. But his hand slid away. "Killjoy," he accused, pushing me away and stepping out from behind me. He went to the door, letting me think I was getting off scot free. But then he turned back. "Got nothing but time to wear you down," he said and it sounded like a promise. "You're gonna tell me what the fuck you got yourself into."

  Then he was gone.

  FIVE

  Breaker

  What the hell was wrong with me?

  I never should have put my hands (or mouth) on her. No matter what information I was trying to get out of her. She was small and scared and very seriously contemplating her own death.

  And I screwed with her head even more.

  It wasn't an excuse that she was fuckin' drop dead gorgeous. Maybe not in the modern way- all ass and tits. She was classic- long legs and perfect bone structure. Couple that with those doe eyes, that sharp tongue, and that temper...

  Fuck.

  Walking out of the building, I took off on foot, leaving my truck parked out front of the warehouse. It wasn't my place. Plenty of kids liked to use it to drink and fuck and fight. But when my truck was out front, they knew to take their fun elsewhere. It was a dead fuckin' town. There were plenty of other abandoned buildings to break into.

  I walked up to the door of the tattoo shop on the corner, slamming my fist into the metal frame until the glass wobbled ominously. It was almost dawn. The place had been closed for hours.

  "Better want to fuck or fight if you're showin' up at this hour," a voice grumbled from inside a few seconds before the door pulled open.

  And there was Paine.

  And, yeah, that was his real fuckin' name. On his birth certificate and everything. It was an ironic twist of fate that he was a tattoo artist.

  He was around my age, three inches taller, and built just about as strong. He was mixed- light skinned but black with startling light green eyes. Shirtless, his entire body was covered in dark black ink up to his jawline. Bitches liked him- partly because he was good looking and partly because he knew exactly what lines to feed them to get them out of their panties in under fifteen minutes.

  He took one look at me and sighed. "Drink?" he asked, already moving back in to the shop, past the tattoo rooms, and down a hall that led to his apartment.

  Paine liked nice shit. The inside of his studio apartment had been completely redone. Walls skimmed then painted a deep blue. Floors refinished and stained a dark color, just shy of black. The kitchen (which he didn't use) was all state of the art- white subway tile and white cabinets, white marble counter, stainless steel appliances. To the opposite side of the room was his enormous California king bed with a white comforter. In the center of the room, a living area with a deep blue sectional and the biggest flatscreen available.

  He walked over to the kitchen where several bottles of booze were standing and poured us each a glass.

  I walked over, taking my first round in one shot, and leaning against the counter.

  "What you got yourself into now?" he asked, nursing his drink.

  "Lex Keith took Shooter."

  The air got noticeably sharper. "What?" he asked, his tone turning lethal.

  See... the thing was... me and Shoot went back. Went way back to me finding him sleeping up against my place when I was nineteen. And by "my place" I meant the abandoned storefront I was squatting in. No one gave a shit and I had been there for half a year. Hell, I had the place rigged with cable and electricity by that point.

  I walked out my front door, and there he was. Fifteen, small, scrappy.

  "Yo," I said, kicking his creepers with my boots.

  His eyes bolted open, his body somehow going from sleeping and sitting to alert and standing in the course of a blink. He wore a pair of black skinny jeans, a white tee, and a leather jacket. The nice kind. The kind that cost a few bucks. He wasn't a street kid. Or he hadn't been for long. His face was on the thin side, his hair a shade of blonde that teetered the edge of brown, cut short, slicked back slightly and dark green eyes.

  "What're you..." the rest of my sentence trailed off when, in a blur, his hand went to the waistband of his pants and came back out with a gun. Pointed. Aimed perfectly to put a plug between my eyes. And his fuckin' hand was steady as a sniper.

  "Know it's a coward's play, but I'd never beat ya in a fight," he said, shrugging a shoulder.

  "Wasn't gonna fight you, kid," I said, shaking my head. "Was gonna take you to get some breakfast."

  "Why?" he asked, eyeing me suspiciously.

  "Because I'm hungry," I said, turning away from him and his gun and making my way down the street.

  I didn't get more than five feet before he fell into step beside me.

  "You know how to use that gun." It wasn't a question. Fifteen and he held a gun like a seasoned professional.

  "Ain't grow up in Al'Bama without learnin' to use a gun," he drawled, making it clear he had actively worked to drop his accent.

  "Long way from the South," I remarked, opening the door to the diner up the street.

  "Long way from the sonbitch who raised me," he said easily, giving the waitress who was at least ten years his senior a smile that made her blush. Blush. "So what?" he asked, reading over the menu. "You just a Good Samaritan? Helping out the homeless kids on your doorstep?"

  "Fuck no," I said, shaking my head. I had been one of those homeless kids at one point. I knew how important bootstrapping was to their pride. I didn't do handouts unless someone was really hurting. And even then, half the time it was thrown back in my face. Such was the attitu
de of the streets. It was something I respected.

  "Just the ones who pull guns on you then?" he asked, grinning over his menu.

  "Somethin' like that," I agreed, nodding.

  "So you got a name?"

  "Breaker," I said immediately.

  At this, I got a brow raise. "Well if you can have a dumb fuck name like Breaker, I can be Shooter."

  From that day on, he was.

  "What do you do, man?" he asked a few minutes later, digging into a huge pile of French toast.

  "Nothin' I can talk about in a crowded diner," I said, slipping my eyes toward the table less than two feet from us- an old couple making it no secret they were eavesdropping.

  To this, Shooter shrugged. "Need any help?"

  And from that day on, he did help.

  Fifteen was a lot older in street years. And it was even older when you grew up with a father who used to beat the ever-loving shit out of you anytime he drank. Which was daily. Shooter was fifteen going on thirty. Sharp. Aware. With a surprising control over his emotions. Probably even more so than me. He was funny. Quick with a smartass remark. Even faster with a pickup line. And it always worked. He was a Goddamn teenage Cassanova.

  And when he said he knew how to use a gun, well, it was an understatement. He was a junior champion shooter back in the Yellowhammer state. Best shot I had ever seen.

  Until he was in his early twenties though, he worked for me. Helped me case jobs. Gather intel. Grab people if I thought I would have a problem. As he aged, he didn't get big and bulky like me, but his wiry thinness had its own benefits in a fight.

  Then, around the time he hit twenty-three, he decided it was time to branch out. Be his own man. It was a move I had been expecting for a while. And I had also been expecting what he would do.

  When you had skills like his with a gun, well, what else would you get into but contract killing?

  He took out big gigs- working for the mob or the other crime families, the empires, the big guys.

  When it came to my jobs, I made bank.

  Shooter made my income seem minuscule.

  He sent his shit father a case of the finest scotch money could buy every month.

  One could say he was still harboring some daddy issues.

  And he had been, for all intents and purposes, the only family I had. A little brother. Someone I gave a fuck about.

  And Lex Keith was holding him against me.

  "Wanted me to pick up someone named Alex Miller," I told Paine, snapping out of my memories. "Told me he'd give back Shooter in one piece if I did. So I agreed. The fuck didn't tell me that Alex Miller is a fuckin' chick."

  To this, Paine's shoulders fell. "Shit."

  "Yeah," I agreed. "Got her in the warehouse as we speak. I didn't get much in the way of instructions. Grab her. Hold her. Didn't say till when. Sounded like he wants to... do the dirty work himself," I said, my words feeling venomous on my tongue.

  "Can't let him have her," Paine said, surprising me.

  Paine, unlike me and Shoot, came from a good family. A poor one. With way too many kids in a two bedroom apartment in a shit area. But a good family. With a strong mother and grandmother. Three kickass aunts. And two little sisters. He had a strong, ingrained need to respect and protect women. So, yeah, while he used a lot of them for sex, he never so much as raised his voice to one or made promises or declarations he had no intentions to keep.

  He knew exactly what Lex would have in store for Alex.

  And no way would he be okay with that going down when it could be avoided.

  Problem was, I didn't know how to avoid it.

  "I agreed to get her some H so she could end it before he got to her."

  Paine's eyes slid from mine, looking out the window where the sun was starting to pierce through the sky.

  "Look, you know I got love for Shoot," he started, and I knew it was true.

  Paine and I got tight just from knowing each other, frequenting the same watering holes, making bets on which one of us would land the hottest chick of the night (up to current times, we were pretty evenly matched). And when Shooter became a big part of my life, he by proxy became a big part of Paine's. It also didn't hurt that Shoot spent a large chunk of his income keeping Paine's tattoo business going. Shoot was a big fan of body modification- piercings (huge gauged ears, tongue piercing, then sometimes his lip, sometimes his nose. It varied. Then there was the ink. He was covered: arms, chest, back. He even had a tattoo of an eagle across the front of his neck, the wings spread out back toward his ears. Shoot spent a lot of time in Paine's chair. The two were close.

  When Paine said he had love for Shoot, he meant it.

  "But he's a grown ass man. He got into this business. He, like you, knew all the risks. And he looked them in the face and said, 'bring it mother fucker'. Now, this girl... this girl didn't make that choice. No matter how she got herself wrapped up with Lex, no way would it be a fair fight. She's innocent."

  He was right.

  Fuck.

  "I know that," I said, pouring myself another round. A silence hung, both of us not sure what lines we were willing to cross. I spoke first. "She's a hacker. That's what she does. And she admitted to try to take him down."

  "Take him down with a computer?" he asked, his voice a mix of amused and disbelieving. "Mini armies haven't been able to take him down. Carting AKs and Molotov cocktails."

  "Yeah," I agreed. Those early days had been a mess. Cops everywhere. In everyone's business. I took out of town for a year, taking jobs on the other coast just to keep my ass off the radar. Shoot came with, still trying to build up a clientele so he worked part time for me and took off the rest of the time on his own. Lots of sun and money and bitches. Those were the good times. Suddenly, I wished we never came back.

  Shoot would be free. I wouldn't have some sexy piece sitting in my train car. And I wouldn't be faced with the impossible choice between them.

  "I cross Lex, I get dead too," I mused out loud. He wouldn't stop by just killing Shoot. That would just be to torment me before he came and took me out as well. Probably making me watch him rape and torture Alex before he did me in just to prove he had the upper hand. "And so would Alex," I added.

  Paine sighed. "Just hide her somewhere, man. Give her some food and cash and a burner and tell her that if she doesn't hear from you in two weeks, to take off. She's a hacker... she can get herself a new identity. She can disappear."

  "Then what, man? Wait for Lex to drag me in and kill me?"

  Paine shrugged. "Or find a way to take him out."

  "What? By myself? You said yourself, criminal armies have tried and failed, man."

  "Yeah, but the girl you got locked up... she's been looking into him... she's prolly got a lot on him. Stuff you can use. Ask her for access to it. See if you can use any of it to find a way to take him out."

  "And you expect me to be able to do this all fuckin' level-headed knowin' he's got Shoot and doing God knows what to him?"

  "Ain't helping him by standing here talking to me now are ya?"

  Well, he had a point.

  "Go home. Get some sleep. Get that poor girl some food. Then get her to agree to let you look over her files."

  "Yeah," I said, putting my glass down, suddenly feeling the weariness seep into my bones.

  I couldn't bring myself to go home, instead grabbing a sleeping bag and sleeping at the top landing of the stairs leading to the train car. When I had checked in on her when I got back, I had found her burrowed under the blankets I had given her, lying on her side, hood up, hands under her face in prayer position, dead asleep.

  On a cold, hard, dirty, bloody metal floor.

  Feeling very much like the worst kind of savage, I fell into an exhausted sleep.

  SIX

  Alex

  Waking felt a bit like death warmed up. Every bone in my body felt brittle. My skin felt frozen and the entire side that had been lying on the ground felt sore. I sniffled against the cold morning ai
r, pushing slowly into a seated position, grumbling as everything creaked and objected to motion.

  My hand went up and across my body, massaging the sore muscles of my shoulder.

  "Sorry about the floor," Breaker's voice found me and my head jerked up to find him watching me from beside the doors, leaning against the wall, looking very much like he had been there a while.

  "Were you watching me sleep, you creep?" I asked, my words more than a little surly. I was not, in any way shape or form, a morning person. Least of all when I spent my night tossing and turning on a cold, hard floor.

  "It's noon," he said, shrugging.

  "That's not an answer," I said, slowly getting onto my feet, rolling my shoulders.

  "Come here," his voice called, sounding almost soft.

  My brow went up. "Is that an order?"

  "Christ, woman, how are you so moody the second after you wake up?"

  "Maybe it has something to do with being held against my will," I said, crossing my hands over my chest.

  "Or maybe you're just a bitch," he said, giving me a smirk.

  I felt my eyes lower. "You're an asshole."

  "Yep," he agreed, not the least offended. "Now come over here," he urged, letting his hands drop down by his sides.

  Alright.

  It was crazy to go to him.

  I knew that. On a rational level.

  But someone did not tell my feet that.

  Which may or may not have had something to do with the fact that the cold, hard floor wasn't the only reason I had been tossing and turning all night. No, that also had a little something to do with a dream I kept having involving the badass blonde-haired, bearded, Hulk of a man telling me to come to him.

  Let's just say the dream was very vivid.

  And very dirty.

  When I was within a foot of him, his arms moved out, reaching for my shoulders, and sinking into them- wrenching a half-groan, half-whimper out of my mouth. At that, the humor dropped from his lips and his eyes got intense.

  "Why are you massaging my shoulders?" I asked, having to lick my dry lips.