“Get out of here, bitch,” he rumbled. He spat as he talked, and she shuddered. God, she half-expected him to walk around with his knuckles dragging on the ground and drool dripping from the side of his mouth. He might have been attractive. Once. Now he was a fucking mess. His skin was covered in sores from whatever drug he was hooked on, his eyes glazed, his brain slower than a sloth after a midday snooze.
“You gonna come fight someone more your own size?”
She wasn’t. She wasn’t anywhere close to his size. But she had a damn better shot at surviving his rage than petite Sophie did.
“Ria!” Sophie cried out from where she lay on the floor. “Don’t!”
She glanced down at her friend, rage filling her as she took in the bruise covering the side of Sophie’s face and the way she held her arm. Probably broken.
She shifted her hold on the bat. “Come on, asshole. Come get me.”
“Bitch!” he roared.
“That’s me! I’m the bitch who helped Sophie escape you. She’ll never be your punching bag again.”
Jerry let out a roar and ran towards her. It felt like the whole building shuddered with each thud of his feet. Ria’s heart raced, her mouth going dry. As he grew closer, she swung the bat. But he simply grabbed it out of her hand, ripping it away from her.
“Run, Sophie!” she screamed, ducking as he swung a punch.
Unfortunately, as she straightened, he managed to grab her, flinging her against the wall. She landed with a heavy thud, her head slamming back.
Ouch.
Before she could recover, he had his body pressed against hers, her wrists held firmly in his hands. He squeezed, pressing them against the wall above her head. She was at his mercy. Vulnerable. His breathing came in hot, hard pants. His body was sweaty, his odor questionable and there was absolutely no mistaking that he was fully aroused.
It was all she could do not to hurl.
“Caught you, bitch.”
“You know that’s not actually my name, right?”
Fuck. Fuck.
She was in so much trouble.
“Bitch likes to fight. Jerry likes that too.”
Oh, God. Oh, God.
Don’t show him you’re scared. Give Sophie time to get away. He squeezed her arms and she had to bite her lip to hold back a scream of pain. Was it possible for him to break her arms like this? God, it hurt. Tears filled her eyes. Her heart raced.
He leaned in. “Don’t you, bitch? Want a bit of Jerry to tame you.” He started humping her, pressing his dick against her stomach.
“What I want is for you to use a breath mint once in a while. Deodorant wouldn’t hurt either.”
It took him a moment but then his face registered what she’d said. “You bitch!”
“Yeah, we established that. I’m a bitch. And you’re a dumb fuck who needs to get a clue. Leave Sophie alone dickface.”
She knew it was the wrong thing to say as soon as it escaped her mouth. But sue her, fear made her mouthy.
“You cunt!”
“Oh, you learned a new insult. Well done. If you let me go, I’ll get you a gold star.”
He let out a roar, let go of her hands to draw his fist back. Ria closed her eyes, prepared for a world of pain when she heard several people yelling.
“Police! Let . . . go! . . . her go!”
She couldn’t hear everything with so many people talking at once. But she heard enough to know the good guys were there.
Thank fuck. Trembles rocked her body. Talk about fucking timing. She sucked in a breath as Jerry didn’t move.
“Police. Let . . . woman go!”
With a scream of pure steroid-induced rage, Jerry swung. Ria pushed herself to one side as he slammed his fist into the wall next to her head. It went straight through the drywall. Holy shit. Then he let her go as the police continued to scream at him. She stopped trying to figure out what they were yelling. It didn’t matter. She leaned back against the wall, trying to remember how to breathe as the cops got him down on the ground, hands behind him before they searched and cuffed him.
“Miss? Miss . . . all right?”
Breathe. In. Out. Fuck. Fuck.
“Ria! Oh . . . Ria!”
Suddenly, Sophie was there. Leaning into Ria. She put her arm around the shaking woman, holding her close.
“Oh God, Ria. I . . . he was . . . to kill me.”
“It’s okay. It’s okay.” Her voice sounded like it was coming for miles away, and she realized she was close to passing out.
A male face moved into her vision. Shit. She realized then she had her right ear pressed against Sophie’s body. She turned her head.
“Sorry, what was that?”
“Are you . . . right, miss?” The officer gave her a funny look.
She cleared her throat and reached up to run her hand through her hair, wincing as her arms protested the movement. Crap, she looked down at the angry red marks on her wrists. She was going to be lucky if she didn’t bruise.
“Miss . . . what . . . okay?”
Shit. She was completely missing what he was saying.
“She’s deaf in her left ear,” Sophie told him.
The officer’s face cleared, and he gave her a look filled with . . . pity. Wonderful. She grimaced. She thought about telling him where he could stick his fucking pity but figured it was neither the time nor the place. Sophie was a mess and from the way she still held her arm, she was going to need medical attention.
There were questions to be answered and she didn’t have her hearing aid. She could read lips pretty well, but not when she was shaking and felt like hurling. So, she figured it was best the cops knew why she was acting oddly. Still, she didn’t have to put up with someone’s pity.
“Maybe best . . . you,” the officer said to Sophie.
“I’m partially deaf not stupid,” she snapped at him.
Sophie turned to her, facing her head on. She didn’t have a problem hearing one-on-one, without any background noise. She’d definitely had no problems hearing Jerry. He was loud enough to wake the dead. But add in a crowd, and things became a lot harder. Her right ear was good, but she was mostly deaf in the left. No one knew why or when it had happened. She’d always had the best hearing aids money could buy. The one she had now nestled right into her ear canal.
And it was upstairs on her nightstand. Hadn’t seemed like a priority when she’d needed to get to Sophie.
“She . . . needs . . . aid,” Sophie was saying.
Ria pulled away from the wall. Hey, look at that, she could stand on her own. Yipee. It was the small victories.
“Going to get dressed and get my aid,” she told Sophie. She knew she wasn’t catching most of their conversation. She also wanted a few minutes to herself. And, you know, wearing something other than a pair of white panties and a well-worn T-shirt wouldn’t hurt either.
One officer accompanied her up to her apartment while two more carted Jerry off and another one stayed with Sophie.
“Worried I’m going to do a runner?” she asked the boyish-looking cop once they were out in the quieter hallway.
He turned to look at her. “No offence, ma’am but you’re not looking too well. Thought it was best to come with you.”
He spoke slowly and clearly. With some understanding in his face. She didn’t want to feel thankful for that. She wanted to snipe at his thoughtfulness. To tell him she didn’t fucking need his understanding. She recognized the need to lash out and forced herself to rein it in. It wasn’t going to help anyone, least of all her. She hated that about herself. It never made her feel better. In fact, it made her feel worse. And it kept people at a distance. And wasn’t that the point?
She hadn’t always been this guarded and suspicious. She’d been happy and friendly. Freddy used to warn her she had no sense of self-preservation. She’d joked that she didn’t have to when she had him to take care of her. Any problem, he’d fixed. Any pain, he’d mended. Any fear, he’d taken away.
Fuck, she missed him.
And she hated him.
And loved him.
It was enough to make her feel ill. And mushy. And she didn’t do mushy anymore.
She didn’t bother to explain her hearing impairment, just led him up to her apartment. Each step felt like she was weighted down by concrete. Her body started to shake.
Shit. Not good. She walked through her apartment door quickly, moving into the bedroom after giving the police officer a wary look. She’d learned not to trust anyone.
He must have caught her look, or maybe he just had more experience with than his babyface would suggest because he waited at the just outside the entrance to her apartment. She quickly closed the battery door on her hearing aid to turn it on and slipped it into her ear. She hated it. Hated her impairment.
Ugly. Imperfect.
She took a shuddering breath in. Very few people knew about her disability, and she preferred it that way. She’d dealt with enough pity, disgust and rejection in her life. And most of that had come from her asshole father.
She got quickly dressed. She chose some yoga pants and a sweatshirt, not bothering to attempt to put on a bra. She didn’t care what the cops thought about her boobs swinging around. There was no way she could get a bra fastened with the way her hands shook. She stepped into the bathroom and took a look at herself in the mirror. With a grimace, she tidied her hair, and splashed some water on her face.
Her wrists screamed with pain. She studied them. They were swollen and already bruising.
How was she going to keep that hidden at work? Luckily, she wasn’t due back until Friday night. But Sophie had work tomorrow. She checked her phone; it was two in the morning. Correction, Sophie had a shift starting at seven tonight. No chance of her doing that with her bruised face and arm.
She took a deep breath and let it out. Sometimes, she wished she didn’t have to do this alone. Sure, she had Sophie and she loved her, but she didn’t know the full truth of who Ria was. She wasn’t so sure Sophie could handle it. Sophie needed someone who would take care of her. Who would keep all the bad shit away and just love her the way she was.
Ria needed . . . well, right now she needed some pain reliever and a bottle of bourbon. But she wouldn’t be getting it. Getting drunk wasn’t something she could allow herself. It was too risky. She’d be too vulnerable.
That was part of the reason she didn’t play anymore. She was too frightened that the walls she’d erected would be blasted through and her shit would leak out everywhere. Plus, she didn’t think she could trust another Dom enough to let go.
She heard the officer call out.
“Coming,” she snapped back. “Pull it together, Ria. You’re the only one at your back. And you need to have Sophie’s too. Be strong. Be fierce. Be a fighter. And don’t let ’em see your fears.”
Freddy had told her that the day they’d stood over their parents’ graves. She took a deep breath. She could do this.
She had to.
4
Fuck.
Connor stared at the monitor, watching last night’s feeds and hoping like hell he was imagining things.
Fuck. Fuck.
He wasn’t mistaken. The images couldn’t have been clearer. And almost as though she’d known it was there, she’d turned her face up towards the camera, giving him a perfect view.
He hadn’t guessed it was her. She wasn’t his main suspect. Hell, she didn’t even reach number five on the list.
He groaned and leaned his head into his hands. Every night, he’d studied the video feed from the day before, trying to see where the money was going missing, and who had their greedy hands in the till. After ten days of nothing he’d started to wonder if the thief wasn’t going to strike again.
He should be happy he’d found the culprit. His job was basically done. He’d inform Roarke, ask him how he wanted it handled and then he could write his report and walk away.
Fuck. This wasn’t going to be so easy to walk away from. And he knew there was one person he had to tell before he told Roarke. He shouldn’t. But this was going to kill him when he found out. And just his luck he got to be one the one to tell him.
He just hoped like hell Ajax didn’t believe in shooting the messenger.
“Are you sure?” Ajax looked up at him in shock. “Sophie is the thief?”
“Yep. I’m sure.” He wasn’t insulted by the doubt in the other man’s voice. Obviously, it was a shock. Connor had been surprised too.
“Caught her on camera if you want to see it.”
Ajax nodded, frowning. “Yeah, Roarke will want to see that too. Fuck. I can’t believe it’s her.” He looked pale.
“I know this is hard to hear, man,” Connor said sympathically.
“Why would she steal from the club?”
That was something Connor didn’t know. And it didn’t much affect his job. What mattered to him was that she was guilty.
“I never, for a moment, thought it would be Sophie. Was kind of hoping it would be . . .”
He trailed off before he said anything more.
“Trevor?” Connor guessed.
Ajax grimaced. “Yeah, nobody likes working with him much.”
“If it makes you feel any better, my money was on him too. And not just because he’s a douche.”
Ajax leaned back, looking up at him in interest. “Yeah, why’s that?”
“Because his finances don’t add up. He’s working as a bartender, he’s got a nice condo, drives a late-model Nissan Z, and wears two-hundred-dollar shoes.” Connor looked down at his own sneakers. Clothes and shit had never held much interested for him, but he supposed he could probably do with owning a pair that didn’t look like he’d dug them out of a dumpster.
Old habits die hard. Growing up poor meant he was now careful with every penny. But he might be headed towards miserdom if he wasn’t careful.
“Not a crime to have money,” Ajax said. “Family money?”
“Not that I can see. Grew up middle-class. Couldn’t see any investments. Looked into his bank account going back six months, just money coming in from this job.”
“Huh, that is suspicious.” Ajax gave him a look. “You look into everyone’s background that thoroughly?”
“Just doing my job,” he said easily. Trevor had been at the top of his shortlist because he had such easy access to the money. When he’d seen a few suspicious things, he’d dug deeper.
The other man’s face grew cool. And this was the reason he didn’t have many friends. Because once they discovered just how easily he could invade their privacy, people tended to not like that.
Strange, right?
“Guessing you keep all that shit private.”
Ajax glared at him, but he didn’t back down. He might hide it well, but he had a dominant core just as strong as Ajax’s.
“Yes, I do.”
Ajax nodded. “Sophie should be down on the floor. I’ll get her up here. Fuck.” He ran his hand over his face. “I really wish it had been Trevor. And if you tell anyone that, I’m going to remove your balls and play racquet ball with them.”
“You can try,” Connor said calmly.
Ajax shot him a look. “Not as easygoing as you look, are you?”
He could be easygoing. But he’d learned to take a stand when something was important to him. And, as it happened, he was quite fond of his balls where they were.
Ajax picked up his phone. “Yeah, Trevor, send Sophie up.”
He listened for a moment, his frown deepening. “She’s what? Who’s covering? Ria? Yeah, okay, send her up.”
Connor frowned as he hung up. “Ria?”
“Sophie’s not at work. Ria turned up to work her shift. Said Sophie isn’t well.”
He wondered what Ria knew about all this. He kept his distance a bit from her since Saturday night, deliberately not sitting in her section on the nights she was working.
“Don’t like that look on your face. Ria’s a good girl. She’s no
t involved in this.”
Far as he could see she wasn’t a girl at all. She was all woman. But Ajax was throwing off a brotherly, protective vibe so he didn’t bother to correct him. Getting into a fight with the big brute wasn’t on the top of his to-do list. At least not for today.
Another day could be another story. Sometimes there was no substitute for getting rid of tension like a good punch-up.
There was a confident knock on the door. Ajax gave him a warning look before bellowing for her to enter. Connor had to bite back a smile.
“You wanted to see me, Ajax?”
“Come in, Ria,” Ajax told her.
Ria gave him a wary look as she stepped forward and sat in the chair next to him. “What’s going on? It’s getting busy down on the floor.”
“This won’t take long,” Ajax reassured her. “We just wanted to talk to you about Sophie.”
If she tightened up any further, she was going to injure something. She sat ramrod straight, her hands clenched together on her lap.
Not a sub, huh? Yeah, he had to admit she didn’t act very submissively, but he’d caught the way she’d often glance down when a Dom spoke to her, before forcing her gaze back up.
“What about Sophie?”
“Trevor said you’re covering her shift.”
“She’s sick.”
And lovely Ria was a liar.
“If she was sick, she should have called in.”
“I thought it would be easier if I came in rather than you having to find someone on short notice.”
Ajax leaned back in his chair, giving her a thoughtful look. Connor waited for him to bring down the hammer. Instead he just stared at Ria. Connor figured out the reason why when Ria started to shift in her seat. The other man knew what he was doing. Questioning her would only get her back up, and make her build up those walls. But she didn’t have the patience or power to outwait Ajax.
Ria let out a sigh. “Look, I figured I’d cover for her.”
Ajax’s phone buzzed and he picked it up. “What? Shit. Yeah, be right down.”
He gave them both a look. “Problem downstairs. I’ll be back.”
“Wait, Ajax—” she called out, but he was out the door and running down the stairs by the sounds of it.
Reveal Me, Sir (Doms of Decadence Book 9) Page 4