I stood up. Stood over him for a while. Just letting him wonder if I was gonna knock him in the face with my fist or kick him, like he’d done tome.
But pain was not my weapon ofchoice.
All I needed wasfear.
“Forget about her,” I said, once I’d let him sweat it out a while—how close he’d come to getting his ass kicked, or worse, in some fucking creepy-ass shed in the middle of God-knew-where.
Let himfeelexactly who had the powerhere.
Then I walkedout.
Chapter Thirteen
Roni
Ispent the night working,mostly at the little desk in my dining room, the one that faced out the bigwindow.
Today, I’d booked our opening act for the New Year’s Eve event. Fabulous. I should’ve been a lot more excited than I was. I wanted to share the news with Jude, actually… but like hell I was messaging or callinghim.
Not when he’d brushed meoff.
After I’d read his text, I’d put my phone aside and dug into my work. I’d had a brief meeting after work with the manager of the Pandora, and another meeting with Talia to go over some things. My lawyer was working on the contract and promised to have it to me tomorrow. I was aiming to have tickets on sale by the start of next week, if all went according toplan.
Lucky for me, the potentially hardest part of my job, on this event, would be the easiest—because ticket sales would not be an issue. I still had a careful publicity plan worked out, which I’d go over with Brody the day after tomorrow. But he’d already assured me Dirty would sell the place out, easily and probably immediately. And I knew both Dirty and DJ Summer would deliver on performance, so really, this gig was just getting sweeter and sweeter the more I pulled all the piecestogether.
But then there was the bullshit withJude.
Canceling on me, like forty minutes before he was supposed to pick me up for our date tonight. I’d been putting on my makeup and I already had my lacy-as-hell push-up bra and thong on—you know, the one I was hoping he’d rip off with his teeth after we had a few cocktails. And then he sent me some lame-assed text to cancel ourdate.
Nothing to make a girl feel irrelevant like putting a bunch of effort into getting sexy for a guy she’s about to see, only to have him blow her off like she meant exactly zero tohim.
Though I was pretty damn sure, after the other night, he wasn’t blowing me off because his dick had magically lostinterest.
Which meant he was blowing me off because he had something else to do—and he wasn’t telling me what that was. He didn’t even make up some random excuse about having to meet Jesse orsomething.
Which could mean only onething.
Clubbusiness.
And I knew whatthatmeant.
I’d dated a few bikers over the years and I knew whatever he was up to, if it wasclub business, he was not gonna tell me the where, what, why or with whom. No matter if I begged, threatened or threw a hissyfit.
Fair enough, really. I understood enough about the Kings and the Sinners, in general, to know why they wouldn’t tell me anything. Their protection. Myprotection.
Fine.
But I also knew “club business” was therefore also a convenient cover for anything at all they didn’t want me to know about. I was pretty sure when Ben, a King I’d dated years ago, cited “club business,” that business often involved fucking a stripper named Lissa. I was also pretty sure that when Taze cited “club business,” it sometimes involved something similar. However, because, you know, “club business,” I could never exactly proveit.
It bothered me, but probably not as much as it should. Maybe because it wasn’t right in my face and I could just kind of ignoreit?
Maybe because I was never in love with either of thosemen.
Maybe because even though I was faithful to Taze, I still kept a Tinder account and flirted with men online, and in person at nightclub events, and honestly had never really stoppedlooking.
Looking at othermen.
Looking for somethingbetter.
