“You think I don’t hear things?” she asks. “You think I don’t notice who people look at?”
“Move,” I tell her quiet.
She doesn’t.
“I married you for this club,” she says. “For the good of it. And I won’t be embarrassed by some little pawn shop girl.”
So she followed Brittany. I knew it. That does it.
“You married me because your daddy wanted leverage,” I say, low and flat. “And because you wanted something you couldn’t ever have.”
Her eyes flash. “Careful.”
“I’ve been careful for years,” I reply. “That’s why I’m sleeping on a couch and not in a grave.”
Her hand comes up like she might slap me. I don’t move. I don’t flinch.
She drops it.
“I’ll show your new toy who holds your leash,” she says. “You don’t protect her, or I’ll make sure everybody knows your sins. The club, the town, all of it.”
“Is that a threat?” I ask.
Bethany’s known to shoot first and ask questions later. Known to shoot, period.
She doesn’t answer. She glares at me, then turns and walks away.
I don’t follow.
I don’t go home either.
I crash at the clubhouse, boots kicked off, jacket tossed over a chair. The couch smells like old farts. Fits.
I stare at the ceiling and think about Brittany. About how I’m owned and I can’t even look twice at a girl I wouldn’t just hit and quit without a fight.
Chapter 5
Brittany
Hell shows its teeth on a Tuesday, the way it always does. Quiet first. Polite about it. Like it’s deciding whether I’m worth the effort.
It starts small enough that I tell myself I’m imagining it.
A look held a little too long at Slice of Paradise when I’m refilling the same cup of coffee for the third time. Whispers that die the second I turn my head. Lottie stopping mid-sentence in the back room of the pawn shop like she forgot what she was about to say, then pretending she didn’t.
I’m twenty. But I’ve been on my own for years. I know the difference between nerves and trouble.
This is trouble.
By Thursday, I can feel it in my bones.
The first time I see him, I’m locking up after dark and the air’s gone thick and damp like it’s holding its breath. He’s across the street, leaning against the brick wall of the feed store with a phone in his hand like he’s scrolling. Clean haircut. Pressed jeans. Button-down tucked in tight.
Pearly Gates.
You can always tell. They stand out in Hell, Kentucky like fresh blood on gravel. Too neat. Too careful. Like they’repretending to be normal people instead of whatever the hell they really are.
He avoids my eyes when I glance up.
