I turned and headed for the back door. “Come on, sweet thing, I ain’t got all day.”

I didn’t wait to hear her heels clicking and following me down the hall, but within a few paces, I knew she was behind me. How? Because she was spittin’ fire. “Sweet thing? Really? Did you already forget my name?”

I stopped abruptly and turned. She ran smack into my chest. I lowered a hand to her hip to steady her. “I didn’t forget your name, Elle.”

“Then the nickname is unnecessary, isn’t it? I don’t know what it is with you and your brother and nicknames, anyway. I mean, Lord? What kind of nickname is that?”

It wasn’t the first time I’d gotten the question, and I was sure it wouldn’t be the last. “Not a nickname … you can check my birth certificate if you want.”

Her mouth dropped open just the slightest bit, and I fought to keep my mind from going to all the things I could do with and to that mouth.

“No way.”

“I’ll give you the rundown on the ride. Let’s move.” I dropped my hand from her hip and headed for the back door. The clicking followed immediately this time. Outside, evening was descending, and a pink and orange sunset blazed over the rooftops of the rundown buildings across the alley. I cringed to think of her walking alone through this neighborhood in even a hint of darkness. Not fucking happening again.

I crossed to the service entrance of the big brick building covered in graffiti. Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out my ring of keys and flipped through until I found the one I wanted and unlocked the bars shielding the door and then the double dead bolt.

“Jeez, what are you hiding in there? Fort Knox’s gold?” I glanced over my shoulder to see Elle watching closely. Instead of answering, I pushed open the door, entered the alarm code on the panel on the wall, and flipped the light switch. Elle followed as the old sodium tube lights came to life. Slowly, the darkness revealed the other piece of the equation that had Chains running so close to the red. A few big purchases, and then Bree’s stealing, and I was dangerously close to having to sell off what I’d just bought, and not nearly at the profit I knew I could make.

“Whoa. Not what I expected in the creepy, graffiti warehouse.”

I shut the doors before doing up all the deadbolts, but Elle wasted no time closing in on the gleaming black Hemi ’Cuda, skimming her hand along the hood.

“Now that is a sexy car.”

The fact that she went to the ’Cuda first—restored over the last two years by my own hands—boosted my ego. Out of the four classic cars parked in this garage—and the half dozen bikes and choppers—that was the only one it would absolutely gut me to sell. I grabbed the metal box hanging from a ceiling cable and pressed the red button to lift the door as Elle strode to the next car. Eleanor. A 1967 Shelby Mustang GT500.

“Damn, I didn’t know cars could be so mean and pretty at the same time.” She was right, but I snapped myself out of enjoying watching her excitement. Off limits, I repeated to myself.

“Come on, let’s go.” I pulled open the passenger side door of the ’Cuda before returning to the driver’s side and climbing in. I waited for damn near an entire minute before Elle slid into the black leather bucket seat. The flash of her thighs where her dress rode up—and the slow and sexy way she smoothed it back down—was not helping. I’d get her home and out of my car. End of story.

I fired up the engine and let the rumble run through me. Never failed to calm me down. You want to soothe a big, tatted-up motherfucker like me? Put his hands on the wheel of a muscle car with 425 horses under the hood. Worked every time.

“Buckle up,” I said, my eyes cutting to Elle. But she was already belted in. Shifting into first, I pulled out of the garage, reaching up to hit the remote to lower the overhead door. I slowed in the alley to make sure it closed all the way before punching the gas again.

“So, you were going to tell me how the hell you ended up with a name like Lord?” Elle asked.

I kept my eyes on the road, sliding into the flow of traffic.

“You tell me where you live first.”

“The Quarter. You ever heard of a vintage clothing store called Dirty Dog?”

“Yeah.”

“I live right above it.”

Like most any real estate in the Quarter, it wasn’t cheap. I slowed to a stop at the light.

“So … Lord? Not a nickname?”

She was like a dog with a bone. It wasn’t a story I particularly liked telling, but then again, I didn’t particularly like sharing anything about my past or myself. But on the scale of shit I didn’t want to share, this fell on the mostly harmless side.

“My mom was a junkie; she ran off when Con and I were kids. I was six, and he was three. Con doesn’t remember her at all, but I do. Pop told me a few months later she OD’d in a gutter.” At six, it was the stuff of nightmares—and I still vividly remembered mine about walking home from school and finding my ma’s bones in a gutter.

“Oh.” The sound was more of an exhale than an actual word.

I accelerated when the light turned green and headed for the Quarter. Even though it was only a couple miles away, it was a completely different world from the one I’d made my home. I continued, “And if that’s the truth, then she OD’d just like her idol—Janis Joplin.”

“Janis Joplin?”

“Yeah, Ma came from Texas, and Janis was the girl who’d made it big. To hear her tell it, she’d listened to that song ‘Mercedes Benz’ over and over while she was pregnant. She named me Lord because she wanted me to grow up and buy her one someday.” I huffed out a humorless chuckle. “Just one reason you’ll never see me drive or buy anything but American muscle.”

“You made that story up, right?” Elle asked. “That can’t be true.”

I changed lanes and glanced over at her. “You really think I’d go to the trouble of making that up? I could just as easily have given you some bullshit excuse about her thinking I was going to be a prophet. Probably would’ve sounded better.”

I slowed to dodge the people already clogging the streets near the Quarter.

“It’s not a bad story … just surprising, is all.”

We finished the rest of the ride in silence, and I parked in front of Dirty Dog. A few mannequins—one with jeans and a ripped T-shirt and one with a funky dress—stood in the front window. “Charlie used to work here, didn’t she?” I asked, remembering the tatted-up badass of a girl who’d worked for Con at Voodoo Ink.