Two words. That’s all it takes for the penny to drop.
“You slept with him again?”
“When Carter Trescott left my apartment with not even the courtesy to say goodbye, I knew he wasn’t worth it.”
“What changed?”
“I impersonated a mutant animal on the stage of a sex auction in front of hundreds of criminal men.”
Sadie blinks, trying to make sense of a sentence that probably sounds more gibberish than gibberish. “I’m confused.”
“You know when I asked you to look after Otis that night?”
“The first night?”
“I wasn’t stripping. I attended an underground auction in exchange for some cash. As soon as I realized what I was getting myself into, it was too late. I started acting batshit crazy hoping that nobody would bid on me, and then Conrad O’Neill, the shady organizer, bid thousands. That’s when I saw an even bigger number sail up into the air. And guess who’s holding the card?”
“Otis’s father.” Sadie grimaces. “But hold up, can we backtrack to the part where you said thattheCarter Trescott is your baby daddy?”
“Hot CEO of the year, I know, but that’s not important.”
“He attended an auction like that? You need to report him. Report all of them.”
“I wish it was as simple as that.” I rub my temple, attempting to massage away my headache. “Anyway, I go back to Carter and his friends’ clubhouse because he had a career change and rebranded to become an outlaw biker. One thing led to another and I end up sleeping with all three. And that’s not even the worst of it. Carter Trescott has suddenly grown a heart and apparently cares about my life.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?”
“Uh, no. Negative. It makes things complicated. He was supposed to be the asshole that Otis would be better off without.”
Sadie raises an eyebrow, a smile crawling onto her face.
“I wish it all ended there, but things got real serious last night when Conrad O’Neill gave the bikers an ultimatum. He wants them to hand me over.”
“Are they gonna do that?”
I shake my head. “That means there’s probably gonna be a war. After seeing how much of an influence the O’Neills have in the underbelly of Vegas, it sounds to me like the battle could be a big one.”
The smile vanishes from Sadie’s face. But instead of mirroring my fear, she digresses. “You love him.”
The fact that she’s not even saying it as a question makes it worse.
“What? No! Carter can suck ass. I do not love a man who has more of a relationship with his appearance than he does with other people.”
“But people can change, Carmen. You even said it yourself.”
“People change, but genetic codes don’t. Carter Trescott has been wired by his evil ancestors to be the bane of my existence. I had sex with him and his friends, that’s all. It’s not serious.”
“He’s Otis’s father.”
“He’s not Otis’s father, because Otis doesn’t have a father. It’s only ever been the two of us.”
Sadie stares at me like she’s seeing right through me. For a twenty-one-year-old, she’s ahead of her years. When I was her age, I was drunk more than I was sober. It’s endearing to see that the young adults of today have their heads screwed on properly.
“It sounds like you’re in danger,” she says.
“I know. Hence why I’m back.”
“You want to protect the bikers,” Sadie says, making another one of her brutally honest observations. “You don’t want them to get involved in violence.”
