Girl Six: Forsaken (A Maya Gray FBI Suspense Thriller—Book 6)

CHAPTER ONE If there was one thing that Tommy Delany didn’t like, it was people who wouldn’t do their jobs properly. People who promised that they would be hard workers, but never quite lived up to it. All his life, it seemed that he’d been dealing with slackers and incompetents. Well, he’d learned a long time ago how to handle people like that. “Sam! Get over here!” He was currently standing in the back room of the Lucky Duck, the bar he owned out in Grantston, New Jersey, staring at the mess that threatened to overwhelm the place. He was not happy, and Tommy was a man who liked people to know when he wasn’t happy. He liked the looks of respect and fear that he got from them. He was a big man, broad shouldered and heavily muscled, with a shaved head and the kind of cold blue eyes that could look right through someone when he wanted. The kind of look that made people back down, because of what might come next. He wore a sharp suit, because a man should dress for success, but never wore a tie, because he didn’t want anything that someone could grab in a fight. When Tommy had been growing up, that kind of consideration had been important, and even now that he was in his thirties, some habits died hard. It wasn’t that he went looking for fights, but you couldn’t be seen as weak. People took advantage if you showed even the slightest hint of weakness. “Sam!” he repeated. “I told you to get in here.” Sam came in. He was in his twenties, far too cool for his own good, with his hipster beard, his flannel shirts, and his designer jeans. If he weren’t so good at working the kitchen at the bar, Tommy would have fired him a long time ago. That would have been the easy thing to do. But Tommy wasn’t a man to look a gift horse in the mouth. Sam was a good cook, and he brought in money. That was more important than anything, so Tommy wasn’t going to let him go. Just whip him into shape a little. “Is something wrong?” Sam asked, and there was something about the easygoing way he said it that was just guaranteed to set Tommy off. He had to know it by now. He ought to know how to behave around his boss by now. “Is something wrong?” Tommy asked. “Is something wrong? Look at this place! Why is nothing put away where I want it?” There were boxes out of date order, some stacked up on the floor, trays that seemed to have been moved, as if someone thought they knew better than Tommy where things ought to go. “I don’t know,” Sam said, and that was another stupid thing to say. It was his job to know, damn it. “You don’t know?” Tommy was instantly there, right in front of him. He found that his bulk helped to concentrate people’s minds, whether it was the patrons or the wait staff. It reminded people of all the places this could go. “Is that the best you’ve got? You don’t know?” “What do you want me to say?” Sam asked, with a note of defiance that Tommy wasn’t about to accept. He didn’t seem to get how this worked, even now. It was about respect. It was about him remembering who was in charge here. Tommy pushed him then, in a sudden, sharp reminder that Tommy wasn’t the kind of man you messed with. “What I want is for you to do your job. Clear all this up. Put it where it’s meant to be.” Tommy went upstairs to the bar, enjoying the sensation of being in charge. The Lucky Duck was full, because it was a Friday night, and it was always full then. Currently, it was the after-work crowd, and the first few people out on dates. Later, it would be the harder drinkers, the ones who planned on staying out all night if they could. Tommy liked those. He often joined them, and if one of them got out of hand, well, he dealt with it. Crystal, one of the wait staff, came up to him then. She was twenty-three, dark haired, and lovely in that slightly hard-edged way people sometimes got when they’d worked in a bar too long. Annoyingly, she’d always turned Tommy down when he’d suggested the two of them might work well together. She wasn’t in her uniform for the bar, with its slightly too tight t-shirt with the bar name. Instead, she was in her street clothes, with a skirt and a dark sweater. She was holding out her door key. Tommy wasn’t in the mood for this, whatever it was. “What’s this now? I’ve just had to bawl out Sam for messing up my stockroom, and now you’re… what? Trying to leave early?” “Not leaving early. Quitting.” “What?” Tommy demanded, not caring who heard, not caring that people in the bar turned around to stare at the two of them. “You heard me. I’ve had enough. I heard you shouting at Sam. The way you treat people-” “I treat people with respect, until they disrespect me,” Tommy said, not quite able to believe what he was hearing. “Like threatening to quit, for what? So you can try to get more money out of me?” “So I don’t have to put up with this bullshit,” Crystal snapped back. Tommy moved closer to her, looming over her, the same way that he’d loomed over Sam. “Now, listen to me. You aren’t quitting. Not in the middle of a shift. Not if you want to see any of your paycheck for the last month. You think you can quit on me? I’ll tear down your entire life if you try. You think for one moment that I can’t?” He could see the fear there on Crystal’s face. Good, the b***h deserved it. “So stop whining, put your uniform back on, and get to work,” Tommy said. He was sick of dealing with people who wouldn’t do what he wanted today. His life would be so much easier if people just did what they were meant to do. He stalked off through the crowd at his bar. People got out of his way. They always did. He headed for the back of the place, out of the main bar area and through into the office space behind it. He kept going, opening up the rear exit to the building, deciding that this was a good moment to get some air. This wasn’t the kind of night that did anything good for his stress levels. His doctor had told him that his blood pressure was too high, but what was he meant to do when he was surrounded by idiots who seemed to be actively trying to mess up his business? Tommy knew that people didn’t like him shouting, or getting in their faces; but if they didn’t want that, maybe they should do their jobs properly. It wasn’t easy, trying to run a business like his in a small town like Grantston. It would only work if everyone had the same need to succeed that Tommy did. If people couldn’t handle him being passionate about his work, then that was their problem, not his. For now though, he headed outside, into the night air, taking deep, calming breaths. Not that there was anything particularly calming about an alley behind a bar, with its dumpsters and graffiti, but at least it gave him a place to smoke, the way the law didn’t allow him to in his own bar these days. The full moon was out up above, casting a pale sheen of moonlight down onto the ground. Tommy heard a sound nearby and turned towards it on instinct. Was it that punk, Sam? Maybe he thought that he could have it out with Tommy. Maybe it was Crystal, trying to tell him that she was quitting again, like he was going to allow that. Either way, they were going to pay for it. Tommy was still looking that way when the rope slid smoothly around his neck. He fought back on instinct, hands going up to the rope, fingers scrabbling for purchase. He tried to drive an elbow backwards, but it didn’t buy him any space. No, he wouldn’t allow this. He was tougher than anyone. He was Tommy Delany. He was… He was on the ground, unable to breathe, and as the blackness closed in around him, he realized that he was dying.