Taboo Boss - Natasha L. Black Page 0,26

the most excited by the prospect of a showdown, and I had to go over with him a few times that there was to be no threats and no fighting. He sounded like he understood, but I knew him well enough to know that keeping an eye on him was for the best.

As we walked into the bar, I noticed how dank it was. The sunlight from outside was completely filtered out, and the color of the bar was a mixture of dark brown and dark blue. As if the whole bar was a bruise. The other brothers filtered into the bar, taking random positions at the few seats around the place, but Jordan and I went to the bar and sat on two empty stools next to each other.

Danny looked up from where he was putting away shot glasses and saw us reflected in the mirror and turned. The grimace on his face was etched deep into his cheeks, and I readied myself to duck if he happened to throw something at me.

“What in the blue hell are you doing here?” Danny asked, his voice gravelly.

“Came in to get a drink,” I said quickly, before Jordan could interrupt. “Since our bar is kind of, well, nonoperational.”

Danny made a sound that told me he was still leery of us being there.

“Well, I am always open to welcoming new customers,” he said, casually putting the last of the shot glasses away, “but I’m not selling.”

“We aren’t here to buy your shitty dive bar,” Jordan said from behind me, and I raised my hand to shush him. Danny’s eyes turned to him and widened like a mad bull. When he spoke, it was low and even but full of contempt.

“You talk shit, and you start shit. I have no reason to serve belligerent customers,” he said.

“We aren’t here to start shit,” I said, cutting Jordan off from responding. “We’re here for beer. At least I am. Jordan?”

“Whiskey and soda,” Jordan said, his eyes not leaving the rather large roughneck in the corner. Whoever he was, he seemed ready to jump into the fray should there be one. I made a mental note to go after him first if things went south.

There were a few moments of silence after everyone asked for their beverage of choice and Danny handed them out without incident. Mine was last, and he placed it in front of me with just a little too much force, so it foamed up a bit and spilled over the edge.

“Whoops,” he said, deadpan.

With that, Danny left us to go serve other customers, and I began eyeing the rest of the crowd. There was the big guy in the corner, but he seemed like more of the fist-fighting bouncer type than an arsonist. Several other old drunks littered the remaining tables and booths. A haggard old woman sat at the bar several seats from me that I could only describe as a leather Barbie. At one time she might have been a very attractive woman, but what looked like sixty years of booze, cigarettes, and hard living had worn lines deep into her face, and her skin was orange with bronzer. She had a lit cigarette in one hand and a beer in the other, and for the first time I noticed the bar wasn’t smoke-free.

I kept scanning the customers, looking for someone who stood out. Someone who maybe was uncomfortable seeing us there or seemed itchy to start something or run. But everyone there was minding their own business, only giving us the barest passing attention. I took a slug of my beer and grimaced. It was just a little too warm and right on the edge of being skunked. And mostly foam.

“Man, I got so drunk last week,” Jordan said beside me. I turned to respond to him but noticed he wasn’t talking to me. He was directing his words all the way across the bar to Danny, who looked over his shoulder at him. “I went right the hell home and passed out. Good thing I didn’t have a girl with me—I would have been no fun at all. What about you, Danny? What did you do that night?”

My lips pursed as I watched my brother walk right up the edge of starting a fight, draw a line in the sand, and then proceed to erase it immediately.

“What night?” Danny asked gruffly.

Jordan grinned, his teeth shining in the dim yellow light of the bar. He was turning on the