Bethany shrugs. “People talk. Walls have ears. Men brag.”
Or women do.
“You stay the fuck out of it,” I warn.
She tilts her head. “You don’t control them. Or me.”
“Don’t push me, Beth.”
Her smile turns thin. “You think they’re the only ones who can make a girl disappear in this county?”
The threat sits between us. Not loud. Not dramatic. Real.
I release her wrist slow. “If anything happens to her,” I say, keeping my voice level, “this club burns before I let you hurt her.”
Her eyes flicker. She didn’t expect that answer. “You’d tear down your own house?” she asks softer.
“If it’s rotten,” I reply.
She steps back first. She always does when she realizes I’m not bluffing.
I stand there long after she walks away, heart pounding, mind running angles. Pearly Gates circling. Bethany watching. The town whispering. Brittany standing smack in the middle of it, stubborn enough to lift her chin at all of it like she’s daring the dark to take a swing.
I drain my drink and slam the glass down harder than I mean to. Royal’s eyes cut toward me from across the room. He saw. Of course he did.
I don’t go back upstairs. I don’t go home. I grab my jacket and keys and head for the door.
Outside, the air is cooler, cleaner, and my bike roars to life under me like it’s daring me to make another bad decision. Maybe I already did. Because one thing is suddenly real clear.
I can fuck whoever I want. I can sleep anywhere. I can pretend nothing touches me.
But Brittany already did.
And if Pearly Gates is circling her, this stops being about temptation and starts being about territory, leverage, survival. When it comes to survival, I don’t play.
I ride out into the dark knowing one thing.
If they touch her, I won’t warn anybody.
I’ll end it.
Chapter 10
Brittany
I hear about it before I really hear about it. That’s how things work in Hell. News don’t travel fast, but it travels crooked, bent around corners, passed through mouths that sound sweet and mean at the same time.
I’m at Slice of Paradise with Lottie, stirring sugar into coffee I don’t want, when a girl two stools down laughs too loud and says his name like it’s candy she’s been sucking on all night.
“Oaks.”
My spoon rattles against porcelain. My spine stiffens before my brain catches up. My body always knows first.
“He was upstairs with her,” the girl says. “Didn’t even shut the door good.”
“Bless her heart.”
A couple men snort. Somebody whistles low. I don’t look right away. That’s the trick in Hell. You never show the first hit. Lottie’s hand stills over her plate like she’s bracing for me to crack.
