“Did you hear me?” The guy shouted again as he jumped to his feet. The table shoved forward and his beer bottle crashed to the floor. His face mottled as he pointed at Carlos. “You been starin’ at me the whole damn time you’ve been in here! What do you—”
Carefully, slowly, he put his empty glass on the bar. “I was just wondering … who beat the shit out of you and your crew?”
Ah, not the right thing to say. Now they were all on their feet and storming for him. Good.
He’d been right. They were all big. Had to be over six foot three. Except for that one scrawny guy who was hanging back, nursing two black eyes.
“Boy, you picked the wrong bar.” The leader—a bald guy with snake tattoos curving down both arms—smiled.
Huh. He’d never really liked snakes. Carlos lifted one brow. “That a broken hand you got there?” Si. It was. “Guess you touched something … or someone you couldn’t handle, hombre.”
The leader lunged for him.
Carlos sidestepped and caught the guy’s broken hand. “Now, Mike, you really need to control that temper.” Mike. That was the name the helpful stripper had given him. She’d seen the guy set the fire at Temptation, and then she’d seen the biker corner a woman and her lover in the alley.
The stripper hadn’t helped the couple. Tina wasn’t real big into helping others, but she’d given him the information, for a price.
Finding prey is always the best part.
“How do you … know me?”
For fun, he squeezed Mike’s broken hand. When big Mike hissed in pain, his men swore and came at Carlos.
“Don’t.” His snapped order. He dropped Mike’s hand and faced them all, his back to the bar. Carlos lifted his hands, palms out, and made sure that his claws weren’t showing. “I’m not here to fight you.” Yet.
His gaze met Mike’s fuming stare. “I’m looking for the woman who broke that hand.”
Surprise flashed on Mike’s face. Then he smiled. A twisted, broken smile. “Hoss, there’s no way you could handle her.”
Carlos let his gaze sweep the bar. Only a few other stragglers remained, and they were high-tailing it out because they thought a fight was coming.
Maybe.
“Let me be the judge of that,” he murmured.
“Dumbass, you don’t get it.” Big Mike stabbed a thick finger—one from his left hand, not that swollen right—into Carlos’s chest. His voice dropped as he said, “That bitch ain’t even human.”
So what? Was he supposed to act surprised? No, not his way. Carlos nodded. “Si, I know. That’s why I want to take her out. She killed mi hermano—my brother in Mexico.”
The men around him all glanced at Big Mike.
Mike swallowed. “Mine, too.”
What? Really? Carlos almost smiled. Talk about a f**king perfect cover story! He couldn’t have planned that one better.
“I want her to pay,” Carlos said and let his voice vibrate with fury. “I want her to hurt, I want her to beg, and I want her to pay.”
“Good luck.” Mike rubbed the stubbly line of his jaw. “That vamp’s got some kind of guard dog—bastard won’t let anyone close.”
Carlos tried very hard not to let his excitement show at that news.
“Probably uses him for f**king and sucking …” One of Mike’s gang muttered.
Probably.
“He’s the one who broke my hand, because I was touching his whore,” Mike said.
“Gettin’ ready to stake her …” This came from the same guy who’d spoken before, the one with a big red lump on his forehead.
Big Mike grunted. “He took us all out.” He waved a hand toward his tight-jawed men. “If we couldn’t take him, you damn sure ain’t gonna have any better luck with the guy.”
Maybe. “I will if you help me.”
Now that had Mike looking interested.
“Your mistake was that you tried to take ’em down when they were together.” Huge mistake, especially for humans going up against supernaturals. “We need to separate them.”
Mike started nodding.
“We want the vamp, right? She’s our target.” The idiot would believe anything he said then.
Mike licked his lips. There were murmurs from the men. A few “damns straights” and one “fuck, yeah.” After a minute Big Mike said, “Yeah, that bitch is the one I want to stake.”
“You’ll get your chance.” Eventually. “But first, we’ve got to break them apart. Break them apart, make them weak—then we attack.”