But the anger sitting in my chest hasn’t cooled off even a little.
A minute later the door opens again, and the man who walks out looks exactly like the picture Riot showed us back at the bar. Thick neck, expensive watch, cheap eyes.
Lyle Voss.
He stops a few feet away from me and studies my face slowly, like he’s trying to decide whether I’m brave or just incredibly stupid.
“Well,” he says after a moment. “This is interesting.”
I don’t bother with small talk.
“You trashed The Rust Nail.”
His eyebrow lifts slightly.
“And you are?”
“Rae,” I say. “I work there.”
Recognition flickers across his face, and then his mouth curves in a slow smile.
“Ah,” he says. “The bartender.”
I lean forward with both hands planted on the edge of his desk, close enough now that I can see the faint scar cutting through the stubble along Voss’s jaw. The office suddenly feels smaller than it did when I walked in, the air heavier somehow, like everyone in the room is waiting to see what happens next.
“You know what your problem is?” I say.
His brow lifts slightly.
“I’m fascinated to hear it.”
“You walked into The Rust Nail and thought you were scaring the right people,” I tell him. “You smashed Wayne’s windows, kicked in his back door, and left a note like you expected him to start writing you checks.”
The two men standing near the back wall shift slightly, but Voss doesn’t move. He just watches me like I’m something mildly entertaining he found on his desk.
“And who exactly are the right people?” he asks calmly.
Instead of answering, I glance at the framed certificate hanging crooked beside him on the wall, reach up, and rip it down. The glass explodes when I slam it against the corner of his desk, shards scattering across the surface and onto the floor.
The crack echoes through the office like a gunshot.
For a moment nobody moves.
One of the men swears under his breath.
Voss slowly lowers his gaze to the broken frame on his desk before lifting his eyes back to mine.
“You’ve got some nerve,” he says quietly.
“You break Wayne’s bar,” I reply, shoving the bent frame aside so it clatters to the floor, “I break your office. Seems fair.”
One of the guys behind him moves immediately.
Before I can react, a hand clamps around my arm and jerks me sideways. My shoulder twists painfully as he yanks it behind my back.
“Hey.”
The second guy grabs my other arm and shoves me forward hard enough that my hip slams into the desk. Pain shoots up my side and knocks the breath out of me.
