BOSSY BROTHERS: TONY Read online

“Have you ever talked to the bookstore girl?”

  He makes a face. “The fake blue-haired one?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No. She’s dumb.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because she’s…” He pauses for a moment. His smile falters, but he recovers before it can truly turn into a frown. “She’s not real, Belinda. Stay away from her.”

  “Not real how? Not that I don’t believe you. I do. You’re right. There’s something wrong with her. She was… polite just now when I was in there.”

  “Yeah.” He laughs. “Girls who look like her aren’t polite. It’s a carefully cultivated look. Like yours.”

  “Wait. Am I fake?”

  He smiles at me. I’m talking full-on beaming grins at me. “No, toots. You’re not fake at all. You’re the definition of real.”

  “Toots,” I say, tsking my tongue. “You know I hate that name.”

  “But it’s cute—”

  “If you call me ‘cute’ one more time, I’ll clock you, Vann.”

  He shakes his head and points at me. “See. Now that threat? That’s all you, toots. Totally you.”

  I frown. And sigh. “I’m not really real, am I? I’m an invention of the FBI witness protection program.”

  “Just stop it.”

  “Hey, wait! Do you think she’s one of us? That could explain the inconsistency between her cool dark look and her stupid helpful attitude.”

  Vann looks towards the street, kind of in the direction of the bookstore. “No.” He shakes his head and that almost-frown is almost back. “No,” he says, looking back at me. “She’s definitely not one of us. But never mind her. Come on, we’ve got customers.”

  He takes my hand and starts to lead me back towards the front of the shop, but I immediately pull away and slip my fingers out of his grip.

  “Jesus Christ, Belinda. I wasn’t trying to hold your hand. It was a casual gesture.”

  “I know,” I say. “But my hand is all sweaty and I didn’t—”

  “Whatever.”

  I know I frustrate him. I know he wants more. I know this because he’s told me lots of times. He likes me. A whole bunch.

  And I like him too. Just not in the same way.

  Vann Vaughn is my rock. He is the most consistent, most true, most real thing about my life these days.

  And I will not fuck that up by sending the wrong signals and getting his hopes up that we will turn into something more, because we won’t. Ever.

  Plus, even if he is mad at me for pulling my hand away, he’ll get over it.

  He always does.

  Like I said—he’s my rock.

  CHAPTER THREE - TONY

  When my older brother, Alonzo, said one of us needed to come up here to Fort Collins and check out this rumor that the Northern Colorado witness protection program was being run by sketchy black ops FBI agents, I volunteered.

  Here’s why this is important. Alonzo and I, along with our father, run an illegal smuggling ring down in Key West. The only reason we’re not in prison for this is because these same sketchy black ops FBI agents were covering for us.

  I do admit that we should’ve been more suspicious of this little arrangement. But we’re good people and we figured these sketchy black ops agents were too. That they weren’t really sketchy, just sneaky. And they, like us, disagreed with the United States immigration policy and wanted to do the “right thing”.

  We now realize that we were naïve. These black ops partners are sketchy, have some as yet unknown ulterior motive for helping us, and they didn’t save Rosalinda when they offered to send her up here to Fort Collins to start a new, safe life—they were most likely just keeping her out of the way until such time as she could be useful.

  The problem is we can’t prove this. It’s all conjecture.

  Enter me. That’s my job. That’s why I’m here. At least, the official reason.

  I don’t like Vann Vaughn. When he showed up in Key West with Belinda and her friend Tara—who is now Alonzo’s full-time, real-life girlfriend—I hated him immediately. He’s good-looking, he’s charming, and he has inserted himself into Rosalinda’s life in a way that kinda pisses me off, if I’m being honest.

  But. He did mention that he had some inside information about the witness protection program as it pertains to his home town of Fort Collins, Colorado.

  So I tolerated him and before we all went our separate ways, we got his theory. Which goes like this:

  The FBI in this area are all corrupt. He offered up some evidence for this idea—all of it based off an encounter his brother-in-law, infamous custom motorcycle mogul Spencer Shrike, had with the FBI about a decade ago. He spilled some details about that involved crazy assassins, a secret shadow government called the Company, and, of course, a dirty FBI agent who was exposed and took the fall for a bunch of complicated illegal shit that his brother-in-law and friends were actually responsible for.

  But he figured that wasn’t the end of it—just a new beginning. And all the “witnesses” who have been sent up here ever since were a part of some bigger, darker scheme.

  And since Alonzo and I had a part in the plan to send Rosalinda up here to start her new life, we’re also—unwittingly—a part of this darker scheme too.

  And that will not do. We do not risk our necks and our freedom twice a year to smuggle good people into the United States for a chance at a better life just to let our supposed partners take us down in the endgame.

  So that’s the official version of why I’m here. I need to talk to Vann, get more info, poke around town, find some other witnesses to corroborate his theory, and then take that back home to Alonzo and our team so we can stay a few steps ahead of the dirty FBI.

  Because we have a sneaky feeling about all this cooperation they’ve been handing out over the years.

  A sneaky feeling that we’re the fall guys in some grand plan. That they’ve been setting us up and we’re about to go down for all kinds of sins that have nothing to do with smuggling refugees.

  Rosalinda works at Vann Vaughn’s family tattoo shop called Sick Boyz Ink. I’m standing across the street from it right now. Hiding in the shadows of an alley next to a restaurant called Anna Ameci’s.

  It’s one forty-five AM and Old Town Fort Collins is still pretty busy. There aren’t a lot of bars on this part of College Avenue, but there are enough to keep the crowds steady. And the Fort Collins Theatre, which doubles as a restaurant and coffee shop, is running some kind of black-and-white movie fest so there’s a ton of people over there milling about near the street.

  My focus is on Sick Boyz, where there is also a crowd of people, all of them college students from the university just a few blocks south of here. A few ponytail girls, a few sporty guys, and the blue-haired girl who I know works at the bookstore next to the tattoo shop.

  She’s in the alley between the two establishments, leaning against the side-entrance door to the bookstore, talking to another girl who is holding the leash of a frantic, yippy white dog wearing a green and white CSU sweater.

  Plus there’s a ton of people just walking by. Not just students. Regular young couples and a few older ones too.

  Rosalinda gets off work in fifteen minutes and then she either gets into Vann’s truck for a ride home, or they walk the two blocks down Mountain Avenue to his family mansion. She lives in an apartment above the detached garage.

  Mansion is probably a generous word for this house. It’s big, I’m not saying it’s not. Huge, actually. And Mountain Avenue is lined with similarly large houses on this particular block. Some blocks further down have smaller homes. Some much smaller. Almost cottages. But this block is where the rich people live.

  Except the Sick Boyz people aren’t rich and the house is mostly a falling-down mess. There’s a few reno projects going at the moment. New roof in progress. New porch halfway finished. Someone started to paint it, but then maybe ran out of paint?

  In fact, all the reno projects are in s
ome halfway stage of completion. I’m sure the neighbors are thrilled.

  Anyway, the point is—she leaves work at two AM and most nights she’s with Vann Vaughn. Sick Boy number four. The youngest tattoo-artist brother working in the shop.

  He has a thing for Rosalinda.

  Lucky for him, she doesn’t feel the same way back.

  If she did feel the same way back, I’d have to step in and take control of that situation. Because she’s still mine. She will always be mine until we kill each other, or get sick of the hate fucks, or get that therapy we desperately need.

  Or something.

  But she doesn’t feel the same way about Vann, so I’m ignoring him and stalking her.

  I’ve been stalking her for three days now. And tonight there is no Vann to get in my way. It’s his night off. So tonight, when she comes out of the shop at two AM, she will be alone. And tonight, I will follow her in the shadows. And then I will take her by surprise. Scare her a little, probably. At first, anyway. She might hit me. No, she will definitely hit me. Probably grab my hair with both hands, knee me in the balls, and then punch me in the mouth.

  Or at least she’ll try.

  But just before she does all those things, I’ll spin her around, cover her mouth with my hand, and lean in to her ear and say something hot like… “I’m gonna fuck you now, Rosalinda.”

  And then she’ll know it’s me. And she’ll be pissed. But not that pissed. And she’ll let me drag her around the side of her garage-slash-apartment and fuck her up against the weathered old wood siding.

  I really hope there’s enough light to see her tears.

  Maybe I should reconsider the fuck spot?

  I’m thinking about this when she comes out of the shop. But… she’s not alone.

  She’s not with Vann. She’s with Sick Boyz number two and three. The twins. I’m not sure which is which, but it doesn’t matter. They live at the Vaughn family mansion. They are walking her home.

  Plans interrupted, but no big deal. I’m not one of those rigid dudes. I can bend. So maybe I have to put a little more effort into that final leg of this plot. Or maybe I have to actually sneak into her apartment after she goes inside. That could be fun. So I deal with the twins by keeping a safe distance as I stalk them, taking in small details about Rosalinda that I hadn’t had time to notice before. I catch a glimpse of her pink ponytail under the streetlights. It appears and disappears as they walk down the block. Pink. Black. Pink. Black. A lot of hair has fallen out of the elastic holding the ponytail up. And I wonder if she wears it like that on purpose or if she’s just had a long day. She wears skirts a lot. And cowboy boots. Sometimes she wears jeans, but they always have rips and tears in them. Rips and tears that look genuinely worn instead of artfully placed by some fashion designer.

  That’s her new Colorado look. Her new Belinda look. Her new life look.

  I call it the long-rough-day look.

  But every glimpse of her I’ve seen since arriving in town, she’s been smiling.

  So which is it, Rosalinda? Are you weary? Or are you excited about this new life?

  This girl is Belinda. She is almost nothing like the Rosalie I once knew. I saw it immediately back in Key West and it kinda pissed me off. Not that she turned into someone new, but that her new look was as alluring to me as the old one.

  I almost feel like she did that on purpose.

  Like she’s been planning this moment for eight years. Like everything she’s done since she was brought to this town totally against her will and forced into taking a new name, and a new job, and a new look was done with the express purpose that when I came looking for her—and she knew I’d come eventually—I’d see it.

  I’d see that she moved on, and forgot all about me, and embraced something new.

  Does she cry after she fucks her new men?

  I can’t think about it. I’ll just get irrationally jealous. And it is irrational. Because I do not want her. I don’t. I might not understand why I’m here, or what I’m doing, or how I’ll feel after I fuck her tonight—but I do know how it will end.

  It will end with us going our separate ways.

  That’s the only way it can end.

  I do not love her. She does not love me.

  We are sickly twisted. Illogically entwined. Irrationally connected.

  None of it makes sense and this connection needs to be severed for good. I’m counting on this ex-sex hate fuck—or possibly fucks in the plural—to break my obsession so I can figure out what’s going on with the witnesses and then get my ass back home where I belong.

  So I forget about the men she might or might not be fucking, and instead I concentrate on the twins because I know she’s not fucking them. Not with their little brother, Vann, throwing himself at her every chance he gets.

  Everyone in the little group in front of me is wearing boots. I recognize the dull thud of footsteps on the concrete sidewalk. Vaughn brothers number two and three are much taller than Belinda. They tower over her, glancing at each other frequently, only occasionally looking down at the small girl between them. But they laugh easily. Telling inside jokes, maybe, or recounting some customer experience they shared today.

  All three of them wear black leather jackets Belinda painted. I noticed that the first day I saw her with the brothers. Her artistic style is easily recognizable. Maybe the only thing about her that hasn’t changed in the past eight years. She has a color palette that she almost never deviates from. Muted grays and pinks. The occasional splash of sea blue and light violet.

  It’s very Key West.

  And you’d think that grown men calling themselves Sick Boyz would go for a color scheme that’s a little more… masculine with their leather-jacket paint jobs.

  But the designs on the jackets aren’t feminine at all. Even with the muted colors. Her designs are skulls and flowers. Birds and hearts. And if I were to just describe that to someone and tell them she was a tattoo artist, it would make sense.

  But it doesn’t make sense. At least not to me. Her designs aren’t something you see in tattoo form. They are street art of the highest quality. That’s what she used to do back in Florida. She would paint murals. It was graffiti at first, but she did one actual commission on the side of a building near her mother’s motel before she left.

  Things changed a lot over the years she’s been gone. That building was sold, the mural painted over, and that was that. All evidence of her art was wiped away. I told her she should put her designs on canvases, but she didn’t listen to me.

  But I guess… she did listen to me, didn’t she?

  I understand the draw of painted leather jackets, but she’s not fooling me with this tattoo artist dream. We had one last fight before she left Key West to go meet up with her new best friend, Tara. It was a brutal fight over her decision to leave Key West again and go home.

  Like this place is her home.

  It’s not.

  Our words came out like sharp daggers, meant to wound more than kill. But it wasn’t her words that pissed me off when we had that fight. It was her tears.

  I hated them. And I get it. It’s not fair. How can I love the after-sex tears and despise the fight tears?

  I can’t explain it, but it makes perfect sense in my head.

  She dug in her heels during that fight, insisting that this tattoo shop, these Sick Boyz, this town—all of it was her future.

  Key West was over.

  We were over.

  I walked away first. I said something mean, turned away, and never looked back.

  Because of course we were over.

  That wasn’t what I was trying to say. At all.

  And yet here I am. Stalking her at two AM on a dark night. Two thousand miles away from where I should be.

  I think I’m in the middle of a crisis. That has to be it. I mean, of course I’m in the middle of a crisis. My family runs a human smuggling ring in Florida propped up by some, most likely, sketchy FBI agents. And now those sketc
hy people propping us up aren’t on our side anymore. They might even be angry enough with us to hurt us. Not just a get-you-busted kind of hurt either. They do carry guns, after all. People get killed when mutually beneficial deals with sketchy organizations suddenly become un-mutually beneficial.

  So yeah. That’s a fucking crisis.

  But that’s not what I’m talking about.

  Like, I don’t even have time for that actual, real-life crisis shit. Because Rosalinda. I don’t know what it is, I just can’t get her out of my mind.

  So. The hate fuck. I’ve done some research and there is evidence that this is a cure for old wounds and past-the-expiration-date relationships.

  That’s how I’m rationalizing my odd behavior. I just really don’t have any other explanation for it.

  The three of them duck into a driveway and I walk a little faster now that there’s no chance of them noticing me. But by the time I get to the mansion where they live, all three are inside.

  The main house is mostly dark. But there’s a glow leaking into the front rooms from the back of the house and I can see tall shadows crossing in and out of view as I invade their privacy with my unwanted voyeurism.

  The garage apartment has no windows on this side, so I can’t tell if Rosalinda went home to her place or is inside the main house.

  I take a chance and slip around the side of the garage, heading for the back where there’s a set of stairs leading to her deck.

  When I round the corner to the back of the house I bump right into her.

  “You asshole,” she growls, taking a step back. There’s a little bit of light from the porch above us, just enough to see her eyes blazing. “I knew that was you.”

  “Relax,” I say, taking a step back as well.

  “Relax? Why are you stalking me?”

  “Stalking you?” I laugh. “I’m not stalking you.”

  She puts her hands on her hips and lifts her chin up. “Really? Then what the hell are you doing here, Tony? Not exactly your neighborhood.”

  I could make something up. Or just tell her the half-truth. That I’m here checking on the witnesses because there’s something amiss and it might affect the secret missions I run down in Key West with my brother.