Warhead (Blue-Eyed Bomb Book 4) Read online

  “I do have something for you,” I said, leaning over the bar so my breasts pressed against it. The kid’s eyes went so wide I thought they’d pop right out.

  “Yeah?” he replied, swallowing hard.

  “Yeah…” I crooked a finger at him, beckoning him over. He practically ran to the bar. “I need you to do something for me,” I said, my voice husky and low.

  “Wha—what?” His voice caught in his suddenly dry throat.

  “Come around the bar and I’ll show you.” I leaned closer to him, and I swear sweat started to bead on his forehead. Seconds later, he was looming over me, his eyes focused and hungry.

  “Show me what?”

  “This,” I said, reaching behind my back. I pulled out a bag of trash and tossed it to him. The moment he realized I’d played him, he scowled at me. “I’m sorry,” I said, laughing. “I had to—don’t be mad.”

  “You’re cruel, Sapphira,” he said, his features tight with anger. “I hope one day you know what it’s like to want something you can’t have.”

  He stormed out of the room without another word, leaving me doubled over by his verbal gut punch. What had seemed funny when I decided to do it suddenly wasn’t funny anymore. Somehow, I hadn’t recognized that his flirting had been serious. I’d thought he was just a horny teenager, not a boy with an actual crush. I felt shitty for hurting him. I guess my instant karma was the nerve he’d hit in return.

  I knew all too well how Michael felt.

  Too bad I hadn’t thought of that before I’d broken a tiny piece of his heart.

  Before my guilt could ramp up further, Michael came flying through the back door, screaming for Jenkins. The two of us were at his side in a flash, taking stock of his pale face and shaking hands. Something had scared the shit out of him.

  I prayed it wasn’t something that would scare us, too.

  “What’s wrong?” Jenkins asked, doing his best to calm the freaked-out teen.

  “There’s…” he said, trying to catch his breath. “There’s a body…in the alley.” Jenkins was out the door with me right behind. “Should I call the cops?” he called out after us.

  “NO!” we shouted back in unison.The cops were the last thing we needed until we knew who—and what—had been murdered.

  “Stay in here and lock the door,” Jenkins told him, doing his best not to arouse suspicion in the teen. Mikey started to argue, especially when he saw me pass Jenkins as I headed down the alley, but his words were cut off by the door slamming shut.

  Jenkins started to follow me, the crunch of gravel underfoot echoing down the narrow way, but I stopped him short.

  “Stay there,” I said with an outstretched arm. “This might be PC business, and my uncles were very clear that if you want to remain on their good sides, you need to stay out of our shit.”

  Jenkins let out a low growl. “This is my neighborhood, Phira…”

  And out came the alpha in the lone—and possibly True Born—wolf.

  Jenkins stopped (though his growling did not) as I slowly approached the dumpster just down from the bar. I could see pale legs poking out from beyond the rusted green metal. Not really wanting to look at the corpse but knowing I had to, I walked around the corner to find a young woman with dark curly hair propped up against the adjacent building. Her cold brown eyes stared at nothing; her hands rested in her lap. She looked like a doll waiting to be played with.

  “Dammit!” I cursed under my breath as I laid my hand on her face to close her eyes.

  “What?” Jenkins yelled at me.

  “She’s human…”

  “Aw fuck.”

  ‘Aw fuck’ was right.

  “So what do we do?” he asked, heading for me.

  Again, I thwarted his approach. “Wait,” I said, crouching down next to the dead girl. It was then that I noticed something in her perfectly folded hands. A piece of paper. A note. I pulled it from her cold grasp and unfolded it.

  “Jenkins,” I said, rushing over to him. “I think this is for you.”

  I handed him the threat, and he read it aloud. “Pick a side.”

  “Jesus, Jenks…” I said, every bit of my concern clear in my voice.

  His bright blue eyes searched the alley around us as if the murderer might still be there. He (or she) wasn’t, and we knew it, but something else was coming. Something even worse.

  Sirens blared from every angle, a chorus of wails converging on our location.

  “Do you think…” I asked before he shushed me.

  “Inside. We need to get inside. Now.”

  The two of us bolted for the back door to the bar, banging on it until Mikey opened it up. We rushed inside and slammed it shut, cutting off the blaring sirens as they grew closer still.

  “Is this a setup?” I asked, hoping he had an answer.

  He just looked at me, uncertainty in his blank stare.

  “What’s going on?” Mikey asked. “Why are you two acting so weird?”

  “Because we just saw a dead fucking body, that’s why,” I snapped at him.

  The screech of tires could be heard through the door. Voices shouting orders at one another soon followed: things like “secure a perimeter” and “start knocking on doors.” That one made me nervous.

  “I need to call my brothers,” I said, fixing Jenkins with a knowing stare. He waved me toward his office. I shut the door behind me and dialed Nico.

  “Hey—big problem over here,” I said before he could get a word out.

  “What happened?”

  “I found a body. She’s human, so I thought we were in the clear until I found a note for Jenkins in her hands—”

  “We’ll be right there—”

  “No!” I screamed before lowering my voice. “You can’t come here. The cops are swarming all over.”

  “Shit,” he cursed, then quickly filled Alek in on what was going on. “Did you touch anything?”

  “Just her eyelids.”

  “Okay…” I could practically hear his mind working through the phone. “If she’s human and there’s no trace of you at the scene—and you have the evidence tying Jenkins to this—then we should be all right.”

  I heard pounding on the front door of the bar, and my heart leapt into my throat.

  “The cops are here,” I whispered. “I have to go—”

  “Stay where they can’t see you, and tell Jenkins to keep his shit together. They can’t search anything without a warrant. Just have him be cool and you’ll be good.”

  I stuck my head out of the office to find Jenkins heading into the bar area. I shook my head no, and he seemed to get my meaning. He gestured for Mikey to join me in the office, then shut the door to the back room, cutting us off from the soon-to-be interrogation.

  “I have to go,” I told Nico. Mikey stared at me with suspicion. “I’ll call you as soon as I leave, okay?”

  “Do I need to have Trey come and get you?”

  I understood his meaning but said no; I couldn’t exactly have my uncle appear out of nowhere and whisk me away with Mikey looking on. That wouldn’t do much for the balance between the human world and ours.

  Kinda like the dead body in the alley that Jenks still needed to explain…

  “Can I help you, Officer?”

  Jenkins’ muffled voice grabbed my attention, and I quickly got rid of Nico and pressed my ear to the door.

  “Yes. I need to speak with the manager.”

  “I’m the owner,” Jenkins replied. “Is something wrong?”

  “Have you been here all evening?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you hear any sounds of a disturbance tonight from the alley out back?”

  “No, sir.”

  Sir…nice touch.

  “Have you or any of your staff been out in the alley this evening?”

  “I mean…I’m sure they were at some point to run trash out or grab a quick smoke, but nothing happened that I know of—everyone’s accounted for.”

  “Are
any of them still here?” the cop asked, and I could feel my body tense.

  “No, sir. They all left for the evening after closing. It’s just me here now.”

  Mikey shot me a look of concern brimming with suspicion. Looked like Jenkins wouldn’t be the only one needing to explain.

  “Mind if we have a look around?” a different cop asked.

  “Am I in some kind of trouble?” Jenkins asked, letting just the right amount of disbelief and irritation into his tone; the kind that a tired, law-abiding bar owner would, given the hour and circumstances.

  “No—”

  “Then why do you want to search my bar?”

  “Do you have something to hide?” the second cop asked.

  Ah, yes…a little game of good cop/bad cop was afoot.

  “No, but I do have places to be—namely, home in bed—so if there’s something specific I can help with, I’m happy to. Otherwise, I’d like to finish closing up.”

  Silence loomed for a moment, and I feared they’d hear my heart pounding in my chest through the door.

  “Yeah—there’s one more thing,” good cop said, the shuffle of papers punctuating his response. “Have you ever seen this woman?”

  Another long stretch of quiet threatened to undo me.

  “Yeah,” he said, “I know her.”

  “What’s her name?” bad cop asked.

  “Sapphira.”

  Sweat broke out instantly across my body.

  “Got a last name?”

  “No,” Jenkins replied.

  “No?” Bad cop clearly didn’t buy a damn thing Jenkins was saying.

  “No,” he repeated. “Do you get the last name of every girl you bang? You’re a good-looking guy. I’m sure you have your share of holster-sniffers just waiting for a chance to get you out of that uniform.” To that, bad cop had no reply. “So yes, I know her—intimately—but I don’t know her last name.”

  “How about a phone number?”

  “I didn’t bother getting it,” Jenkins lied. “Girls like her—they’re not really the kind you call again, if you know what I mean.”

  I swear bad cop chuckled at that, and I wanted to kick the door down and bury his face in the counter.

  “But if you need me to pick her out of a lineup, that won’t be a problem—and I would recognize the little birthmark on her right ass cheek that’s kinda shaped like Idaho anywhere.”

  Another tiny chuckle from bad cop. “We were told she comes here a lot.”

  “Yeah, she’s been here a few times. Doesn’t come around much now after…”

  I swear I could hear Jenkins’ eyebrows waggling.

  “Do us a favor, if you see her, call this number right away. We need to talk to her ASAP.”

  “Sure thing,” Jenkins said. “Have a good night, Officers.”

  I held my breath until I heard the door shut and lock behind them. I waited about five seconds to break into the bar area, fear and anger driving me.

  “What the fuck, Jenks—”

  “It got rid of them, didn’t it?” he said, cutting me off. He ushered me out of the bar and back into hiding. “I couldn’t lie about knowing you—that would have gotten me busted too easily. That was just enough truth with the lie to work. Hopefully.”

  “Why did you lie at all?” Mikey asked, frustration in his tone.

  “What was I supposed to do? Tell them that I had a questionably legal underage kid in the back who found the body? Do you want to be deported?” The way Mikey winced at his words made his answer clear enough. “And there’s nothing to tell them anyway—there’s a body in the alley. They know that now. They don’t need me to tell them we found it first.”

  “But why are they looking for Phira?” Mikey asked. He stared at me with his big brown eyes so full of disappointment that I had to look away.

  They reminded me too much of Gabe before the Dream Weaver broke his mind.

  “I don’t know,” Jenkins said.

  “I don’t either, but I’m going to have to find out…”

  I grabbed my purse off the hook on the wall and headed toward the bar. Jenkins caught my arm to stop me.

  “There’s a cruiser in the alley. You need to wait until they’re gone—”

  “They’re going to be here for hours.”

  Jenkins just stared at me, willing me to see my limited options. “Mikey, set up the couch in my office. You’re going to have to sleep here tonight.”

  “What about Phira?” he asked.

  “I’ll sneak her out somehow,” Jenkins said, though he wasn’t nearly as convincing as usual. Once Mikey was out of earshot, Jenkins turned to me. “You have a plan for that?”

  “Yeah…I have an uncle that can take care of it, but Mikey can’t see him.”

  “Fine. Call him or do whatever you need to do to get out of here—then don’t come back, you hear me? I don’t know why they’re looking for you, but you can’t let them find you.”

  “What about that note?” I asked. “Are you going to be all right?”

  His brow furrowed. “I’ll be fine.”

  “You need our help, Jenks—”

  “And I can’t get it if you’re in jail. Get your ass home so I don’t have to worry about you. We can stress about the note later.”

  I wanted to argue, but he was right.

  “You mean the ass with a birthmark the shape of Idaho on it?”

  His self-satisfied smile grew wide. “Yeah. That one.”

  I bit back my need to know why Idaho above all the other states and pulled out my phone instead. I texted my uncle Trey to come get me and bring me to the warehouse where I’d face a barrage of questions I had no way to answer. Who wrote the note? Who was the girl? Who called the cops? Who found the body…?

  I cringed inwardly at Mikey’s involvement, however slight. He’d managed to dodge the bullet this time, but if the packs were after Jenkins, there was sure to be a next. I knew what happened to humans that learned of the supernatural world—it never ended well. I needed to keep him from meeting that fate at any cost. Even if it meant lying to my family.

  Again.

  Chapter Eight

  Nico and Alek were waiting when Trey and I appeared out of thin air in the warehouse, their expressions equally dour. I expected them to start in right away, but they never got the chance. Instead, Muses walked in, looking more put-upon than usual. The interrogation that I feared might never quit began moments later.

  “I’ve been summoned by your brothers because it seems that, as per usual, you’ve managed to get yourself into a sticky situation—with that werewolf friend of yours, no doubt.”

  “I don’t think finding a dead body in the alley is—”

  “That wasn’t a question,” he said, shutting me down with a palm in my face. “Perhaps, in the name of expediency, you could do us all a favor and run down the details in bullet form without adding your usual sentiments. It would make this far less painful.”

  I looked to Nico, but he seemed to silently agree with our uncle.

  “We found a dead girl behind Jenks’ bar. It looked like she’d been placed there. She had a note in her hands that was meant for him. We read it. I called Nico. The cops showed up. Jenkins half-lied his way out of their fishing expedition. I came home. The end.”

  My recap of the evening might have been a bit lacking, judging by the tight set of Muses’ mouth.

  “What did the note say?” Nico asked.

  “Pick a side…”

  “This is regarding the pack war, no doubt,” Alek said, his narrowed eyes scrutinizing.

  “That would be the obvious answer, but I didn’t get a chance to verify,” I said, hedging on whether or not I should add the reason why. “Mikey was still there. We couldn’t talk about it.”

  “So the kid knows about the dead girl?”

  “Yes, but only because the cops came, and Jenks kept them out front while Mikey and I hid in the back. So don’t worry about him. He just thinks it’s a regular murder—y
ou know, the kind that happen in Chicago all the time.”

  “And did he see the body?” Muses asked, stepping closer. There was an edge to his voice that made me uneasy. A test lay somewhere in his question. The possibility that he would go and muse the answers from the kid seemed highly likely, given the glint in his eyes.

  “Maybe? I mean…when we found her, I wasn’t exactly looking to see if Mikey wandered out behind us. And so what if he did? Again, it’s a dead human body, not a dead werewolf or vampire or troll. Nothing out of the ordinary at all—”

  “Except for the note,” Muses said, cutting in.

  “Which he didn’t see or know about!”

  He stepped closer still. “I wonder if that’s the truth.”

  I saw his hand lift slowly and backed away.

  “Fuck off, Muses,” Nico growled at him, putting his body between the two of us. “We have other shit to deal with.”

  “Like learning the meaning of this note,” Alek added as he came to join Nico at my side.

  “I’m calling Jenks now,” I said, pulling my phone out just as the Fates walked through the sliding metal door. The others briefed them as I listened to Jenkins’ phone ring and ring and then go to voicemail. I dialed again immediately, concern rushing through my system. With every passing second, I wondered if whoever had sent him that message had decided to send another, much bolder one already.

  One that involved my friend in a heap-ton of shit.

  “C’mon, c’mon,” I muttered to myself as I tried him a third time.

  Thank the gods, that time, he answered.

  “Jesus, Phira—I was just dropping Mikey off—”

  “Don’t you ever do that to me again!” I shouted, not giving a shit what the others thought. They all stared at me, the mix of expressions on their faces ranging from irritation to concern and everything in between. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m on the phone with you, aren’t I?”

  “Nothing else happened?”

  “Wasn’t a corpse by my bar enough for you—”

  “I’m not in the mood for your sarcasm right now.”

  “Listen, I’m sorry. It’s been a long night,” he said with a sigh. “Are you okay? Your vanishing uncle got you back there in one piece?”

  “Yeah.”