"If you want to help out, Trix could use an extra hand behind the bar during dinner rush. Nothing too strenuous. Just restocking, washing glasses."
"I'd like that. I've got experience waitressing."
"Good." He studies my face for another long moment, seeming to catalogue every detail. "You need anything else? Clothes, toiletries, anything?"
"I'm fine," I recite my automatic response.
He doesn't look convinced, but nods and turns toward a table where several other men are gathered. I watch him go, admiring the confident way he carries himself, the subtle deference the other men show him.
"He's something, ain't he?"
I turn to find a woman with shoulder length auburn hair and knowing brown eyes watching me with amusement. She's maybe forty, and very pretty, with laugh lines around her eyes and an air of someone who doesn’t take shit from anyone.
"I'm sorry?"
"Wrath. You're watching him like he hung the moon and arranged the stars." She extends a hand with a smile that reaches her eyes. "I'm Lizzie, but everyone calls me Queen. My old man's the president."
I shake her offered hand, grateful for another friendly gesture in this overwhelming new world.
"Cami."
"I know, honey. Word travels fast around here, and new faces are rare." She glances toward where Wrath sits with the other men. "First time I've seen him look remotely human."
Before I can figure out how to respond to that observation, heavy footsteps approach from behind. I turn to see a mountain of a man with a thick black beard and small, dark eyes that immediately set my nerves on edge. Everything about him screams barely contained aggression—from his steel-toed boots to the skull tattoos covering his thick neck to the way his gaze rakes over me.
"So you're the little girly that's got our VP all twisted up," he says, his voice rough as gravel over broken glass. He steps closer than necessary, crowding my personal space in a way that sets alarm bells off in my head.
"Bulldog," Lizzie's voice carries clear warning. "Back off."
He doesn’t. He takes another step closer instead, looming over me with his considerable height and bulk. "I'm just being friendly. Getting to know our guest. Ain't that right, little girly?”
The nickname hits hard and my father's voice overlays Bulldog’s—heygirly, little girly, get over here girly—and suddenly I'm ten years old again, pressing myself against the wall of my childhood bedroom, trying to make myself smaller, invisible. The air tastes like cheap bourbon and cigarette smoke even though I know that's impossible. The clubhouse dissolves around me, replaced by floral wallpaper and shadows that dance with menace.
I’m small and vulnerable. My father reaches for me with those big hands that hurt.
Breathe. You're not there. You're not ten years old.
But I can't breathe. Each inhale stops halfway, trapped behind my ribs. The edges of my vision start to darken, tunneling down until all I can see is my father's face—no, it’s Bulldog's face—no, it’s…I don't know anymore.
The room suddenly feels too small, too hot, too full of dangerous men who could hurt me if they wanted to. I take an instinctive step backward, but Bulldog follows, his grin turning predatory as he notices my distress.
"What's wrong?" His voice drops to a mock whisper that makes my skin crawl. "Cat got your tongue? Or maybe you're just shy around men?"
The words scrape over me like sandpaper. My hands shake so bad I have to clench them into fists to hide it. "Please," I whisper, hating how broken I sound but unable to stop the panic crawling up my throat like bile. My whole body is trembling now, fine tremors I can't control. "Please don't?—"
"BULLDOG."
The roar comes from across the room. Every head snaps toward the sound, and the temperature seems to drop ten degrees. Wrath is on his feet. The fury radiating from him sucks all the air from the space.
In three quick strides, he's between me and Bulldog, and the man actually stumbles backward despite outweighing most normal men by fifty pounds.
"What the fuck did I say last night?" Wrath's voice is quieter now, which somehow makes it more terrifying than the initial roar.
"I wasn't doing nothing, VP. Just introducing myself to?—"
Wrath's hand shoots out faster than my eyes can follow, wrapping around Bulldog's throat and lifting him slightly off hisfeet in a display of strength that would terrify me if it weren't directed at the man who just scared the hell out of me.
Bulldog's face turns an alarming shade of red as he claws at the iron grip cutting off his air supply. Around us, the entire clubhouse has gone completely silent except for the sound of his desperate gasping.
