And spotting Rad in the crowd?
Too fucking easy.
I adjust the thin black wings strapped to my back as a bouncer leads me into one of the cages near him and his group. My stomach is in my throat when the bouncer closes the cage. I’m trying not to look too involved with watching Rad’s friends, but each time I spin or move around the pole, my eyes are on them.
I don’t recognize the rest of the people in his party.
Still… he’s the biggest tool of them all.
Rad is grinning from ear-to-ear, his arms up, two beers in each hand when he returns to his seat—a petite blonde on one arm who I presume just gave him a private lap dance. Everythingabout his presence makes my skin crawl. My gaze snags on the scar on his forehead, the line of missing hair.
Ripped tulle skirt, bloody blond hair smashing into a grimy sink.
And in that moment, I know for certain that I’m the one who gave him that scar.
Because he was there that night, too.
He was wearing the gamer mask.
He was the one pumping his dick over her after already—
I wince at the memory, eye twitching as it comes flooding back with more detail than before.
MyBonnie.
My rockstar.
If I think too much about this, I’ll kill him right here, right now, and there’s a special place on my mantle for his balls that I won’t be able to rip off here.
Maybe if I get his attention and get him alone, I can break a few things as a reminder.
He sits in a nearby chair and clinks his beer bottle against a friends to his left. The woman who was just on his arm gets pulled into another’s lap. I close my eyes for a brief few seconds to gather my wits, to remember the job, to lose myself a little in the pounding music thudding against my eardrums.
And when I peer his way again—upside down, my ankles locked around the pole—he’s staring right at me.
That’s it.
Remember me, you fucking bastard.
His smile is gone, his eyes somehow darker. He takes a sip from his beer as if he’s angry at it for being wet. And when he stands, when he pads across the dingy carpet in my direction, I right myself again.
He pauses a step from the cage, still staring at me as if he’s trying to figure out if he knows me or not. I squat down, handson the bars of the cage, still moving slightly with the music so as not to draw any attention from the bouncers, then crook a finger in his direction.
The closer he steps, the more my skin feels like I could rip it off. I don’t think I’ve ever hated anyone the way I hate him, the way I wish the earth would open up and swallow him whole.
“Nice wings,” he says. “I liked hers better.”
Bingo.
My teeth clamp on the inside of my mouth, and a smugness flashes in his eyes that I immediately want to claw out with my bare nails.
I grip the bars with both hands, my knees spread wide. “Hello, Radlee,” I say behind the voice changer.
It’s his turn to appear surprised. “How do you know my name?”
I laugh. “I know a lot more than your name. I’ve been looking for you.”
He huffs. “We’ve been looking for you, too. Unfinished business and all.”
