“We are,” I said to redirect his attention.
His gaze snaked over to me, two black marbles that were meant to roll a deadly chill down my back. But this time, they didn’t. Besides, he was too smart to start something in his own club.
He clasped his hands behind his back. “You’re not where you’re supposed to be.”
I leaned against the booth seat and spun my beer bottle in half circles, relaxed despite the rushing blood between my temples.There is no debt.Maybe it was true. If anyone knew for sure, Rose would.
“I’m not,” I said coolly.
He could smash my fingers all he wanted, threaten me, whatever he needed to do to feel that almighty power he craved so much, but he didn’t have shit. Not anymore.
ButIdid. I had Paige by my side, her questioning stare scorching the backs of my ears, and that right there changed everything. If I stood a chance with her, at making her mine, then I needed to switch lanes. Anything Hill spewed from that pinched mouth of his I could deny. It was his word against mine, and who would Paige believe? A stranger? Or the man who had always been in love with her? Yeah. I loved her. From the second I first saw her.
Still, doubt could fester at the back of her beautiful brain, and I didn’t want that. All I wanted was a chance. All I wanted was something real with her, to be her home, and that couldn’t happen if it was all built on secrets.
So, no more. Fuck Dad and Riley’s dick pics. They weren’t my responsibility. Hill could leak all of that to the press. But if my little sister didn’t owe a debt to the man who destroyed her, then she didn’t need me to put a yellow band aid around her finger to give her superpowers. She already had them.
Hill’s eyes narrowed to lethal slits. “I believe we had a deal, son. You know what happens if the deal is broken.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said, pulling Paige out of the booth with me. “Fuck the deal.”
22
Paige
SUMMER RAIN PUNCTUATEDthe tense silence between Sam and me on the way home. He clenched the steering wheel hard as if to hold it up while his gaze darted to the rearview mirror. His lead foot careened us around corners nowhere near the route toward home.
Sam—a thoughtful, brooding, funny package who snapped at random strangers in dance clubs—was a terrible driver. Especially when focused on something other than the wet city streets. What deal could he have had with that guy? And why is it that only females are labeled as moody?
Surprisingly, I wasn’t. I felt free, more so than I had in a long time, even though I’d blown my chance at a job at the LOC. Rick’s naked pictures of me were staying on Janice’s desk. After he texted me more threats, I sent him only one.
Fuck off.
That was me taking back the fifty years of feminism I’d single-handedly lost. Maybe I should make a pin that read Scratch and Sniff for Feminism! and make it smell like bacon.
Finally, we pulled into the empty driveway, and I let out a relieved breath at still being alive when he cut the engine. The patter of raindrops unbunched my shoulders, and I glanced over at him.
