His grip, which was before firm but harmless, was bordering on painful as his anger crept upward. Again, the stranger reappeared, and I wondered if the stranger was Luke now.
“Have you been following me?” I accused.
“Not exactly,” another accented and familiar voice cut in.
My head snapped sideways to see Keltan’s attractive face emerge from the shadows.
Luke’s grip slackened and I stepped away from him. “What are you talking about?” I demanded, pointing all my energy at Keltan.
He leaned on the wall, casually. The man was so laid-back all the fucking time it was a miracle he stayed upright. Or pretended to be. In the times I’d hung out with him and Lucy, which was as often as possible, that mask slipped and you saw the man underneath. The man bracing for the next fucking horror.
He didn’t look like he was bracing now; he looked like he was having fun. “Well, I may not be a native, haven’t been here long, but I’m good at makin’ friends.” He winked. “Think it’s the accent. You Yanks find us Kiwis exotic, of all things. Mad, but it works for me.” He shrugged his impressive shoulders. “My friends have been filling me in on this new woman on the block, causing trouble for the scum of the underworld. Naturally, I thought of you. And I wasn’t exactly tickled pink to find out I was right once I put Duke on you. Wasn’t surprised, though. He was impressed, by the way. Taking down three armed men? Even some of my guys couldn’t do that without at least a shiner to show for it.”
“Yeah, well girls do it better,” I snapped. “And it sounds like your employees must be lacking.” I gave a pointed look to Luke, even though he was anything but lacking.
He was the opposite. All-consuming of the space he was inhabiting. He was in all black, so he almost melted into the inky darkness around him, but the lines of his body seemed to jump from the night air, hinting at his muscles beneath.
Luke glared back at me.
“Perhaps,” Keltan said.
“So is this an intervention, or do you want me to take a workshop or something?” I asked, feigning impatience. “Because trust me, you couldn’t afford me. And you definitely couldn’t handle me.” I directed that one at Luke too.
“We can fuckin’ handle you,” Luke seethed.
I tilted my head. “Give it a try, then,” I invited. “Is that why you’re here, to ‘handle’ the female?”
“No,” Keltan said. “We’re here—”
“We’re here to ask you what the fuck you’re doing?” Luke interrupted. “You think you’re some kind of Robin Hood? Or do you think it’s up to you to punish the guilty?”
I didn’t blanche at his anger, his fury. “No, but I think it’s up to someone to avenge the innocent, and I’m as good a woman as any.”
Luke’s glare endured. “You’re a woman. Out here on your own. That’s no place for—”
“Be very careful about what comes out of your mouth next, Luke. About what you say I can and can’t do because of my tits. And my genetic predilection for being more awesome than anyone with a Y chromosome.”
“You’re not doin’ this shit anymore,” he said instead.
I raised my eyebrow at the same time I tapped my gun against my thigh. “Really?” I asked placidly. Calmly. In a tone that most men who valued their lives would recognize.
Luke’s face told me he didn’t currently value his life. Or at least he didn’t take me very seriously as a threat to it.
He wasn’t the first man to make that mistake.
He wouldn’t be the last, either.
“Really,” he gritted out.
The following moments could’ve gone a lot differently had it not been for Keltan, a man who did recognize my tone. Mostly because he was a lot smarter and because he was married to a woman who likely taught him about said tone.
“Okay,” he said, fluidly stepping between us. “Let’s not do anything we’ll regret.”
I smiled. “Oh, I won’t regret it.”
Luke’s anger pulsated through the open air and he stayed silent, his version of disagreement.
I’d never met anyone more stubborn than him, apart from myself.
“Oh, I beg to differ, darlin’,” Keltan said casually, his laid-back demeanor cutting through the tension rippling between Luke and me. “Now, how about you put the gun away and we’ll chat.”
I focused on Keltan and did not put my gun away. “Now, if your chat is going to entail you trying, in your endearing little accent, to tell me not to do something, I’ll tell you that being married to my best friend and having a cute accent isn’t going to change my answer to that question. It’ll just reduce the curse words and death threats.”
Keltan, instead of taking my threat as a promise, smiled. Instead of finding it supremely irritating, it was somehow reassuring, not patronizing as it most likely would’ve been coming from men who underestimated me—i.e. Luke.