“My heart pounded in my chest as I waited for them to notice me so I could take their order.
“Well, hello there,” Spider said, his eyes lingering on my denim shorts before dropping down the length of my bare legs.
“Hello, what can I get you?” I asked, and Dante’s eyes fixed on me, and my blood chilled. His lingering gaze fixated on parts of me and left me caught between wanting more clothes, and imagining my fists colliding with his leering smile.
“I’ll have my usual, Sugar,” Dante said as he licked his lower lip, not seeming to care if the bimbos at the table noticed it or not.
His usual, what the fuck was his usual? This was the first time I had ever seen him in here.
“Okay,” I said. “And you?” I turned to the one named Spider. He came in here often and always made me feel as if I’d been violated even though he’d never touched me. His slow smile peeled across his thin face, revealing crooked teeth. I found myself pitying every girl who ever felt that mouth against her skin.
“Whiskey,” he said, and I nodded as Crow echoed the order.
“Easy?” Crow asked, and I met Easton’s hard gaze. My pulse quickened as he sat silent, glaring at me. Those frown lines and tired eyes did nothing to diminish his handsome face, and I marveled that they’d chosen to call him Easy rather than Pretty or something along those lines.
“Tequila,” he said as he leaned back in the chair, giving me a slow look like the others, though his didn’t fill me with nausea, just a suffocating longing.
“I’ll get those ready,” I said and hurried away, disappearing behind the counter.
“Sasha, what is Dante’s usual? That is all he said, I didn’t want to interrupt him and ask him.”
“Good girl. He likes Jägermeister and Red Bull.”
“I didn’t think we carried Jägermeister.” Sasha’s wasn’t exactly a full stocked bar, she carried three drinks only.
“I hide it behind the whiskey, he’s the only one allowed to drink it,” Sasha explained.
“It’s a shot, right? Jager bomb?”
“Not for Dante, put it in a short glass.”
I nodded and then reached under the counter for empty glasses and ignored the looks Easton was shooting me from his table. I came up empty and looked toward the hallway that led to the kitchen.
“Fuck, I was going to wash those glasses but forgot,” Sasha said.
“No worries, I’ve got it.”
I gnawed on my lower lip as I stood a moment longer. I gave one final look to Easton’s table and excused myself to the kitchen.
I waited for the swinging door to still and then glanced over my shoulder to ensure no one could see me before pulling out my phone and dialing Detective Getty.
His phone rang and chills racked down my body. I had to do this, this was for Jared but at the same time, I was scared shitless.
His phone rang again. My knees shook.
His phone rang once more before rolling to voicemail. I glanced around once more, “Friday night, South Street overpass, shipment of oxy.”
I hung up and slowly stilled my shaking nerves, then quickly washed some glasses.
Easton
I sat stony faced and stared where Kobe—AKA Allie—once stood behind the bar at Sasha’s. What was she doing here, this was no place for her. Jared and I had spent a great deal of effort sheltering her from this kind of lifestyle. Just like Jared and Kobe, I was born poor. My parents never had enough money to pay all of the bills. Just like Kobe, my house was in a seedy neighborhood. Somehow, crime seemed to engulf us on all sides. Jared and I spent most of our extra money buying shit for Kobe so she fit in at school. My chest tightened, I never wanted this for her.
“I was telling Easy earlier about how Dante claims all women first,’’ Spider said, pulling me from my memories. Spider’s voice was low and calculating, he was gauging my reaction as he leaned across the table. His dark eyes searched my face, and I could tell he wanted me to slip up, to make a scene in front of Dante who sat beside me, and as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t let that happen.
God, I hated the way they all had looked at her, the way they talked about her—it made my skin crawl. I wanted nothing more than to land my fist hard against Spider’s laughing face. I could almost hear the sick sound of my fist colliding against his flesh, and a smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. Maybe I’d spent too much time with the DT Coyotes—I was becoming more comfortable with violence, and I wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or not. At least in Spider’s case, he would have it coming.
“Oh?” Dante asked, mildly interested as he followed my gaze to the bar. “What about it?”
“Allie,” he said as he licked his lips. “How you get all girls first and then hand them over to us so we can break them into our way of life. Whatcha think, Easy? You never did say.”
“Why does it matter what he thinks about it?” Dante asked as he ran his hand along the thigh of one of the girls that he brought with us.
She smiled and angled her body toward him, giving him better access to her barely there skirt. It made me sick to think that their lives had been so awful that Dante seemed like an acceptable alternative, a viable option. The girl smiled seductively and her pretty blue eyes flickered down to his lips then back up again. I had to look away. “I think it matters,” Spider said, his voice careful as he cast a side glance at Dante.
