I look down at my feet on the debris-strewn floor. If you kick aside bits of loose stone and gravel, you can see the pretty flagstone pattern. It seems odd, actually, that my feet aren’t smoking, aren’t on fire. This is supposed to be holy ground, right?
The sound of more bikes arriving gives me pause, and I glance over my shoulder just in time to see Crown and Grainger pull up to the church. My heart stutters, stops, and then starts back up again at hyper speed. Shit, fuck, and damn. These guys are distracting as hell.
“These fucking Wolves,” Crown growls out, pausing too close to me. “They take a shit on your front lawn and then leave without cleaning it up.” He looks up, at what’s left of the church’s spire. “What are we doing here?” With his hands on his hips, chin lifted slightly as he studies the architecture, he looks every bit the vice president.
My throat gets tight, but only until Grainger talks and annoys the crap out of me.
“Wasting our time, that’s what,” he says, but he’s here, so I guess I have to give him credit for that. “No casualties. Damage is minimal. It’s a distraction. So what is it we’re being distracted from?”
I look at the key again, turning it over and over as I try to puzzle this out. Grey clearly didn’t have a lot of time to plan this, but he’s clever. He’ll expect me to be cleverer.
“It’s something to do with this key,” I say, wrapping my fingers around it and squeezing it hard enough that it leaves marks in my skin. Crown places his hand over mine, soothing some of that ire.
“Your father doesn’t know you’ve left the compound; the sooner we get you back, the better it is for all of us. If you think about something else, we can always come back.”
He’s making sense, even though I don’t want to believe it.
“Will you at least get some guys to bury Reba’s parents?” Crown is already nodding, but I haven’t fully finished my request. “In a place where I can find them again? She deserves a place she can visit.” He hesitates before nodding reluctantly, his eyes cutting over to the guys behind me. He doesn’t believe Reba is alive, but I do. Because only I can understand the real game we’re playing here.
Me and Grey.
The corruption and salvation for both our families—even if neither set realizes it just yet.
The house is quiet when we get back, so it’s easy to sneak in, change clothes, and fall into bed with a book before Cat finds me. I can’t focus on any of the words though. Instead, I relive every single moment I’ve ever spent with Reba, obsessing over details that, at the time, seemed meaningless but now mean everything.
That scares me because that’s how I think about my sisters. When they were alive, ehh. Posey and I were like oil and water; we fought a lot. After she died, I would spend hours, I would spend days, obsessing over the color of her earrings on the night of her senior prom. Or the name of the guy she first slept with. Or maybe the way she always touched her throat when she laughed.
Cat raps his knuckles on the doorframe before stepping into the room. Technically, Sin is still in charge of me for the night, but he’s sitting on the balcony, looking at the stars. We both knew Cat would stop in at some point tonight.
“You still alive?” he asks as I lift my eyes up to his sun-weathered face. Cat’s a pale ass motherfucker, but he tans well. That means whenever he changes his favorite brand of t-shirt, there are distinct lines between gold skin and milk white. Same deal for me. We really do have a lot in common, physical and otherwise, much as I hate to admit it.
“I’m impossible to kill,” I quip back, but we both know that isn’t true. Cat could kill me whenever he wanted to. Shit, if he had any idea—any idea at all—about what I did, I wouldn’t be here.
He pauses near the bed, watching me with an inscrutable gaze.
“Your brother thinks you’re a double agent or some shit,” he grumbles, watching me in a way that promises this is no casual visit. I’m being studied, examined. It’s not unsurprising, considering what happened this morning, but it’s scary nonetheless. “Why do you suppose he thinks that?”
“Because Gaz is crazy, and he’s hated me since I turned ten?” I suggest, shrugging my shoulders loosely. “Do you think I’d willingly assist the people who killed my sisters?” My voice is like ice as the implication sits in the air between us like early morning fog. I never take my eyes off my father’s; that would be a sign of weakness. Gidget Kesselring is anything but weak.
Cat thinks about that for a while. He’s like that, actually, very careful with his decisions. You wouldn’t think it, considering his appearance and the way he handles me, but in every other aspect of his life, he’s a calculating man.
“I don’t,” he agrees, almost reluctantly. There’s something in his eyes as he studies me, a quiet sort of desperation that I’m not sure I understand. Does he wish I were a traitor? That he could kill me in front of the club, and they’d all applaud him for the effort?
“Cat is your father; he’s as gray as they come.”
That’s what Beast said. It’s what he believes. Cat raided that cathedral to save me? I don’t believe it for a second. If anything, it’s because he had to save face with the club. Letting a rival not only steal your hostage but also your daughter out from under your nose? Crown’s lie changed everything about the world as I knew it.
“Any news about Reba?” I query, but I already know the answer before Cat even gives it. There won’t be any news about Reba unless I figure out what that key means. What the Palm Motel represents.
For now, the war will go on, hot and violent, blood running in the streets. I shiver and close my eyes for a moment.
My father reaches out and tugs the book from my hands, turning it around so that he can see what I was most definitely not reading.
“Jane Austen?” he scoffs with a bit of a drawl. It isn’t much, but where my father grew up in central Oregon, there’s some sort of accent that creeps in every now and again. “You’re kidding me. Never pegged you for a romantic.” He gives me a look. “Never thought you’d fuck my enforcer either. Gotta give it to you girl, you’ve got chops. You know how to work with what you’ve got.”
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife,” I say, quoting Pride and Prejudice. I’ve never read it, but Reba was obsessed. She spent the entirety of our freshman year spouting lines and dreaming of her very own Mr. Darcy.
Cat quirks a brow at me and tosses the book back into my lap.
“The wives are already afraid of you, and you haven’t even joined their ranks yet.” He snorts and shakes his head at me, reaching up and removing the bandana he wears over his graying hair. “You sure you don’t have anything else to tell me? Any other reason that Grey boy will deal with you and only you?” he asks, and this time, it’s a warning.
The hair on the back of my neck stands on end.
“Tell you?” I bite back, giving him what I hope passes for a haughty teenage sort of look. I’ve long since shed that persona, and we both know it, but it makes it easier for us both to pretend. “You want to know if Beast likes me to spit or swallow? If he enjoys it from—”
“Alright, alright, enough of that shit,” Cat snarls out, giving me a look with his lip curled up at one corner. “I should rightfully kill the man for touching you, you know that? You’re both damn lucky.”
I hold his stare, but at the same time, I bite my tongue. Just like I did during my engagement dinner to Grey. Bite, bleed, burn. Burn and rage. Rage. “Like you did to Kian?” sits heavy and potent on my lips. But I don’t say it aloud. I don’t dare bring that up.
Yet.
Cat turns and leaves the room, slamming the door closed behind him. A few minutes later, Sin opens the doors from the balcony and lets my dog back in. My dad’s seen him. Beast was assigned to check the Kellers’ place out, I discovered. Technically, the only rule he broke was taking me.
“Come here, Fem-fem,” I coo, tapping the b
lanket and then throwing my arms around his neck when he jumps on the bed. Sin watches me from the doorway, one shoulder leaned up against the jamb.
Our conversation hangs heavy in my mind, but it’s obscured by the fear I feel for Reba.
“I’ve been thinking about your key,” Sin tells me, tapping the toe of his boot against the floor in a rhythmic pattern, one that promises all those ideas I have about him and music … they might be true. “I’ll go over the records again, look for patterns. Maybe even interview some of the girls—”
“With me present,” I correct, and he gives me this look.
“Oh, we’re going to play the possession game, are we?” he queries, sounding so young and cocky that I want to melt. Want to, being the key word. I most certainly will not do that, not after he tied me up with his belt earlier. “You’re going to get pissy about me talking to a bunch of hookers with missing teeth, but I have to watch you marry Beast? Fuck Crown? Make eyes at Grainger?”
I give him a sharp look, one that demands his full attention.
“I have never once made eyes at that man. If you say that again, I might reconsider the possibility of having any sort of relationship with you.” Feminist growls in response to my words, his lips curling up over his teeth. Getting shot has only seemed to make him more aggressive than he was before. I’m going to have to work on training him to allow the officers near me.
They’re all damn lucky they didn’t pull the trigger on my dog; the only part they were present for was when that prospect dumped Fem in my lap. Even that was almost too much for me. Knowing them as I do now, I imagine they weren’t fans of that little stunt.
“I’ll work on a list and meet with the girls after we switch rotations.” He taps his boot against the floor again as I stare at him. “What? You really want to meet with those women? You might not like what they have to say.”
“How so?” I ask, feeling my skin prickle with imagined conversations. I’m pursuing four bikers. Four much older bikers. I’m not even quite sure how I ended up in this situation, but here I am. And despite the sheer bizarreness of it, the unbelievability, it feels so damn right. More right than anything I’ve experienced in my life thus far. “You’re familiar with these women then?”
I really don’t mean to make my voice sound so … snooty? But there it is. My estimation of all four men hangs in the balance of this conversation.
“Familiar?” Sin asks with a bit of a scoff. He shakes his head. “I could never … after my mother.” He bites the inside of his cheeks, as if cutting off a painful memory. “No, Gidget, I don’t hire hookers.”
“Crown?” I query, thinking about Amber, how he used her name against me once yet barely remembers dating her at all. Or so he says. Anyway, she is most definitely not engaged to him.
“He dates groupies and …” Sin trails off and then shrugs. “Well, he dated groupies anyway. Before he started pining after you.” A slight twitch of his lips is the only outward sign of annoyance. “Does he sleep with prostitutes? I doubt it.” Sin pushes up from his position and double-checks to make sure the balcony doors are locked before closing the heavy drapes. I like this, seeing him do something domestic. It reminds me of the past in the best possible way. “When I told you he was into you, I wasn’t fucking around.” His voice sounds dry and irritated, stretched and peppered with jealousy, the same voice I was using on him earlier.
“You can’t tell me that Grainger doesn’t screw hookers?” I growl out, and Fem stiffens up, lowering his head like he’s getting ready to take a bite out of Sin’s deliciously tight ass. I hug the dog just a bit tighter, closing my eyes as I press my face into the side of his neck. Three months away, believing that I was never coming back here, and this goddamn husky was one of the things I missed the most.
“Why would he need to? He goes out and meets people. Goes dancing, I think.” Sin turns back around and makes his way over to the side of the bed, giving the dog a healthy bit of space. Smart move. He meets my ruddy eyes with his gray ones.
“Grainger dances?” I laugh, but Sin is already leaning down toward me, putting his hands on his thighs. His blue faux hawk is all mussed up, strands of color splayed gently across his brow. I pretend not to notice.
“And no, Beast doesn’t fuck hookers either. At least, not to my knowledge. I’ll be honest with you, Gidget: I thought Beast was like, too much inside his own head to give into something as basic as sex. I’ve never seen him sleep with anyone, date anyone, look at anyone.” Another pause, a sigh. “Except for you.”
He stands back up and then heads for the door, his shift coming to an end with the chime of the clock on the wall. Like a prince, descending from his princess’ tower.
“You four are some of the only people in this club who haven’t slept with Nellie,” I say softly, thinking about my mother, about her strange confession to me a few days ago, the one that makes a surprising amount of sense.
That gives Sin pause. He reaches up a hand and grabs a book from the shelf at random, coughing at the dust and waving his hand to clear the air before he absently cracks the cover.
“Dying is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well. I do it so it feels like hell. I do it so it feels real. I guess you could say I’ve a call,” he reads, frowning and then turning back to me. “Sounds like you.”
A shiver of pleasure races across my skin, these electric tingles that make me wonder if I shouldn’t put Fem in the bathroom for a minute so that Sin and I can be alone.
“Sylvia Plath,” I say, because I might not be well-read, but I know some things.
“I’m not going to tell you that we’re saints, Gidge,” Sin says, still absently flipping through the pages of the old book. “But we’re not evil either. Stop looking for things to hate. You’ve already got enough ammo as it is.” He tucks the book under his arm which I find amusing, and then gives me a look, one that smolders, one that burns. I shift desperately beneath my blankets and grab the dog’s collar, seriously considering the moment.
But then I think about Reba.
I have to stay focused on my friend, no matter how much my mind tries to shy away, a horse that’s smelled a cougar. No bucking. No running. Just a slow, steady pace.
“If I were you, I wouldn’t worry about other women. You have enough shit to stress over.” He reaches for the door and gives me one, last studying look. “I’ll set up a video chat when I go talk to the girls—if I talk to any of them. If I don’t see any patterns worth my time, I won’t bother.”
I exhale sharply, nodding and closing my eyes until I hear the door close, Sin’s boot steps loud on the stairs. I’m not sure who’s next on duty, but I settle back into the pillows anyway, opening the Jane Austen book and letting my mind spin.
The Palm Motel. A key. Room two.
There’s a pattern here all right; I just have to find it.
Sin manages to get together a list of girls who’ve frequented room two. Apparently, that’s the room favored by most of the DBD members when they want a night out with a call girl. It’s the only ‘suite’ in the motel, with one of those tacky whirlpool tubs in the room that I want to hate but am secretly interested in trying out. It’s also free for club members to use and often left vacant so that it’s there when they need it.
The names listed on the room are of the girls only—either for safety reasons or because some of the club wives wouldn’t like the idea of their husband’s um, shall we say, extracurriculars getting around the clubhouse. If their men are there, they’ve likely given their permission, but permission from a place of submission is often just coercion at its finest.
There are three girls in particular that stand out. Not because of their frequency in the room—most all of the girls have at least three or four visits in the last month—but because of the names they give us when we ask about their clients.
Gaz, in particular, comes to my attention.
Crown is tapping a pen against the corner of his mouth, sitting in a chai
r beside the bed where I’m watching this all unfold on his phone screen. Beast is here with us, but he’s sitting beside me. Guess he has more self-control than anyone else in our ragtag little alliance. Grainger is with Sin in the motel office with the girls, and his clear disgust at being hit on by them proves to me better than anything that he also isn’t a connoisseur of for-hire pussy. Not trying to be a prude or anything, but I could never get into a guy who paid chicks to fuck him. Can’t get laid on your own? Like, is there something wrong with you? For the life of me, I can’t think of many things less manly or more pathetic than that.
“What was that one girl’s name?” I ask, leaning close to the screen. The strap of my satin nightgown falls down my shoulder. You’d think I’d just launched myself on the bed and done a striptease for the way the four of them look at me—two guys on either side of the screen. “Get yourselves under control; this was my grandmother’s nightgown.”
“Hate to tell you this, sweetheart, but that isn’t your grandmother’s nightgown anymore.” Grainger smirks at me as he lights up a cigarette, his gaze tearing me apart, even with the glass of the screen between us.
“Which girl?” Sin asks, sounding exhausted. I’m not quite sure that he’s gotten any sleep in the last several days. “The blonde? Something about her was off.”
“She was high as a kite,” I say matter-of-factly, thinking of my brief brush with that sort of thing. It isn’t something I intend to make a habit of. In fact, I doubt I’ll ever touch anything harder than alcohol or pot again. “I meant the one with the fake tits.”
“Shouldn’t you be in science class or something?” Grainger quips under his breath, and I suddenly see his insults for what they are: fears. He doesn’t like that I’m sitting here, doing this. He maybe didn’t feel that selfless need to eject me from the club’s orbit the way Sin did, but he isn’t a fan of me spending my time interviewing sad, broken girls either.
I Am Dressed in Sin: A Reverse Harem Age Gap Romance (Death By Daybreak Motorcycle Club Book 2) Page 20