Gaby released her with a small shove. “Maybe now you’ll live to see your next birthday.”
Dismissing her now that she’d seen to her safety, Gaby turned to the tall man. An electric sizzle sparked in her veins.
Recognition. Wariness.
Her stomach churned with a nameless dread. Never had she felt anything like it.
She knew this man.
In some indefinable way, she was already acquainted with him.
Smothering the aberrant sensation, Gaby stuck out a hand. “Bogg told me to talk to you. But that was before someone trampled him. I understand the dumb fuck may never walk again.” She shrugged, showing how little she cared about that probability. “His brother told me you could still be trusted.”
Appearing entranced, the tall man took her hand and held it.
Gaby saw it in his eerily memorable blue eyes: a sense of intimate knowledge.
So he felt it, too?
He shook his head as if to clear it. “Tell me. Is there a reason you attacked Desiree?”
“I schooled her, actually. There’s a difference.” Gaby withdrew her hand, made a show of wiping it on her jeans. “If I had attacked her, she’d be dead.” Her voice lowered. “Believe it.”
The man watched her hand as she cleaned it, then propped it on her hip. Slowly, he brought his puzzling gaze to hers. “I am Fabian Ludlow.”
“Gaby.” She met his stare with frigid resolve. She wanted him to know upfront that he didn’t matter—whoever he was. “The big gorgeous dude behind me is—”
“Link.” Luther held out a hand to confirm the alias.
Gaby slanted him a look. “I was going to say off-limits.”
Annoyance growing, he gave a brisk nod. “Obviously that, too.”
Fabian accepted his hand, but kept it quick to turn his attention back to Gaby. “You said you’d found me.” He all but sizzled with curiosity. “I sense that I know you, but I can’t place where we might have met.”
“We haven’t.” Or he’d already be dead.
Fabian didn’t believe her. “No, I’m sure we have.” He looked her over, walked a circle around her. “Could it have been years ago?”
“No.”
“I’m sure we’re acquainted.”
“Not before now.” But somehow they were, and Gaby knew it.
His expression cleared. He wasn’t giving up on his theory, but for now, he’d let it rest.
Gaby read him as easily as she did everyone else, and yet . . . there was some mystery to him. Something anomalous and sketchy and very unclear.
He smiled. “So why were you looking for me?”
Pulling up her sleeve, Gaby showed him the healing scar left from the bullet wound. “I want a tattoo to conceal this. Most tattoo artists have told me I have to wait a year, maybe even two.”
“And?”
“I want the tattoo now.”
He shifted, and as Gaby breathed in his unique scent, she knew she had the right person. That faint aroma of ink and the reek of insanity had wafted from the human refuse he’d dumped—just as it clung to Fabian now.
If he denied being a tattoo artist, that would only add measure to his guilt as far as Gaby was concerned. “I’m told you’re the most talented artist around.”
Fabian contemplated her for a long time before finally reaching for her arm. “Let me see what we have to work with.”
Behind her, Gaby felt Luther loosen a tight breath. Had he expected her to start slicing and dicing? She’d told him she’d try to cooperate with him, would try things his way.
If it didn’t work out, she could always go back and kill Fabian later.
Tracing a delicate line around her scar, Fabian explored her skin with his fingertips. It gave Gaby the creeps and sent a frisson of unease down her spine, but no way in hell would she flinch or show her revulsion.
“What did you have in mind?”
Gaby shrugged. “I don’t really give a fuck. I just want the scar hidden.”
He smiled. “With the jagged edges to the wound, I would suggest a barbwire design. It’d give us more opportunity to tie in each small cut in your skin.” Holding her wrist, he looked up at her. “Gunshot?”
She stared at him. “More like ‘none of your fucking business.’”
His chuckle showed that the set-down didn’t faze him. “I’m not cheap.”
She nodded her head toward Luther. “Link is paying, so I don’t give a shit what it costs.”
Luther made a choking sound. Being treated as a lackey was new for him, but he deserved it for keeping her in the dark about the rave. Before the night was over, she’d make him regret that decision in a dozen different ways.
“By the way,” Gaby added, “the big dude wearing the plum smugglers out front? The one who tried to guard the door? He might need some medical attention.”
Fabian’s brows pinched down. “You injured him?” he inquired with as much aplomb as he could muster.
“Guilty. But, hey, he tried to stop me.” She pulled the sleeve back down over her arm. “Big mistake, that.”
“I see.” Fabian’s eyes went cold in consideration. “If he failed, then he deserved whatever you dealt.”
“Yeah, cuz, like, I never deal undeserved shit.” Smirking, she turned to mock Luther with her sarcasm. “Ain’t that right, Link?”
Luther gave a low snarl, flexed his jaw, and ignored her. “When can you do the tattoo?”
To Gaby, Fabian asked, “How about—?”
“You’ll do it tomorrow, late.”
Her bossiness started to wear on him. The small muscles in his face twitched and tightened. “We close at seven P.M.”
“Close whenever you want. It’s no skin off my nose. But you’ll let me in at ten. I want this done on the down-low.”
They did a visual standoff, each of them unblinking, unrelenting. Gaby yawned, but other than that, she didn’t give an inch, and, visibly perturbed, Fabian acquiesced.
“Fine, we’ll do this your way.”
“Course we will.” Had there ever been any doubt? “My way is the only way I do things.”
Fabian wasn’t nearly as schooled at hiding his emotions. He was pissed, and it showed in his tense shoulders, the slant of his mouth, the tightness of his features.
Ah, too bad.
Trying to act cavalier, he asked, “Do you know where I work—”
“Sin Addictions.” Gaby bestowed on him a menacing stare. She lowered her voice to a provoking whisper. “Come on, Fabian. Did you really think I’d approach you without knowing everything?”
Annoyance heightened his breaths. His shoulders went back, his mouth pinched. “Everything is a rather massive concept. Perhaps you don’t know me as well as you think you do.”
Oh yeah, Gaby thought. Brag to me, you sick bastard. “And maybe you’re not as slick as you look if you believe that.”
Her knife appeared in her hand as if by magic. She touched the tip of the blade to his chin. “Be at the shop at ten P.M. tomorrow. Don’t make me come looking for you. You’ll find I’m not the most patient person when I want something.” Gaby leaned into his space. “And I want that tattoo—from you.”
He didn’t recoil from her knife blade. If anything, his sarcasm sharpened. “To hide your wound from the cops?”
She tapped the blade against his cheek, then returned it to the sheath. “We sick fucks all think alike, don’t we?”
Before anyone could say more, Gaby turned to leave.
Luther stalled her by going to the small table holding the drugs. He began folding the tablecloth up and over everything.
Fabian scowled. “What are you doing?”
“Since you said this isn’t yours, no reason to have it go to waste.” He saluted Fabian, put a hand to Gaby’s back, and started out.
A brief struggle ensued as he and Gaby each tried to take a position in the back to protect the other.
Of course Gaby won, but mostly because Luther didn’t want to cause a scene and she didn’t give a shit either way.
They had to step over the behemoth in the G-string. He was still collapsed across the entrance.