Monica.
The satisfaction in her eyes makes my stomach curdle.
All of the women in the room have seen what Dee did, but none of them interfere.
Even Pip, who’s in front of me now, looks torn, like he doesn’t know what to do with himself. “Spider’s gonna have my ass, Dee,” he growls at her.
Dee ignores him, glowering at me. “Got nothing to say for yourself?” she snaps.
There are no words that seem good enough. Loss squeezes my heart and guilt eats up my insides. “I’m sorry,” I say lamely, clutching my jaw and working it slowly.
“Sorry?” she hisses. “Are you for real right now?”
She doesn’t need to tell me why it’s not good enough. She did more than take me off the street. She gave me a job, a place to live, letting me pay the rent back a little at a time. She even gave me the clothes I wore when not working at The Devil’s Den. She saved my life and I stole from her. Considering what I’ve done, my apology falls woefully short of the mark.
“I know.” My voice comes out small and cracked.
I’d give anything to explain. Anything to tell her why, that I felt cornered and saw it as the only way out. But if I do that, I’d risk being found by the Colony. Jacob was in the strip club looking for me. Someone might tell him. Besides, the men in this…MC are dangerous. I’d be putting the people I care about there at risk. And Sarah, if they found out about her.
“I wish I had something better, but I don’t.” I meet Dee’s eyes, imploring her to understand. “It kills me that I did what I did. If I’d had a choice, I wouldn’t have done it.”
I wish I could bring myself to be angry with her for hitting me, but all I feel is shame.
Dee’s eyes blaze with so much anger that I half expect her to hit me again. Instead, she shakes her head, looking disgusted. “You’re not worth the energy,” she mutters. “What Spider will do to you is a lot worse than anything I could do.”
She turns on her heel and walks out.
“You okay?” Pip’s voice is flat as he examines my head and jaw. I can’t tell if there’s sympathy in his eyes, but there is annoyance. With Dee for putting him on Spider’s bad side.
“I’m okay.” I shake off the throbbing in my head and jaw.
Monica comes up behind him, slipping her arms around his waist and resting her chin on his shoulder. “She’s fine, baby. She can handle a few knocks. Can’t you, sticky fingers?”
Pip shakes her off and examines my head. “You look okay. Finish your breakfast.”
I finish eating in silence, but I don’t taste any of it, casting long looks at the door. Monica disappears, and everyone else goes back to their business. Pip flops into a seat at a table and doesn’t take his eyes off me.
Tequila was right. I have no friends here. Spider isn’t the only danger I have to worry about in this place. I’m on my own.
I need to get out of here. Soon.
Over the next hour, Tequila puts me to work serving drinks. It’s easy work, a job I’m used to, which unfortunately leaves me with plenty of time to think.
Keeping my mind on the need to escape, I drink as much water as I can between serving, trying to make it look like I’m just thirsty, not like a woman storing fluid for a long run through a hot desert. If Tequila or Pip notice, they give no sign. Once, I take a bathroom break, checking that window in Spider’s bathroom. Men work out back fixing bikes, so it’s a no-go.
There’s nothing to do but wait for the right time.
According to what Pip said earlier, Spider should have been back before now, but he still hasn’t returned. I hate that part of me wishes he would walk through the door. Why, when I’d only have to deal with him?
No one says a word to me except Tequila, and only when she has to. Dee emerges from that office only once to talk to the girls about a party happening that night. She doesn’t even look at me.
Monica doesn’t appear again, thank God.
I’m wiping down the tables when the door opens. I lift my head and my heart immediately skips a beat.
Spider marches into the tavern with three other guys. He’s as sinfully gorgeous as he was last night. The sunlight from outside makes his slicked back hair look like spun gold. Whatever is keeping it back is losing its hold, because a few stray strands fall into his eyes. He and the one I remember as Striker carry a large crate between them, and Spider’s tattooed muscles bunch and flex with the weight of it.
The two men behind him, the silver-haired one with the patch over his eye whom he called Cap, carries one end of another box, Reaper carrying the opposite end. Both men set the crates down beside the bar.
Bent over a table, frozen in place, I watch Spider through my lashes. He stalks to the bar, his huge shoulders tight. Anger pounds off of him. A shiver races up my spine.
“Tequila, where’s Dragon?” he growls.
Tequila furrows her brows with worry and hands a guy at the bar a beer slowly. “He’s not back yet. Is everything okay?”
“No. When will he be back?”
“He went to see Penny in the hospital. She took a turn for the worse a couple of hours ago.”
“Fuck. A shitty day all around. Is she okay?”
Tequila pours Spider and the other men glasses of water and hands them out. All of them look worn out and sweaty. “Don’t know. Haven’t heard anything back yet.”
Spider’s shoulders fall and he drops his head in what looks like regret for Penny. He takes out his phone and types a message. “Fucking hospitals. I’ll be lucky if he gets the message before he leaves there.” He pockets the phone.
Catching myself staring like a dolt, I drop my head and finish wiping the table, moving onto the one Pip is sitting at.
For all that I’d been hoping Spider would return, now that he’s there, I pray he doesn’t notice me. Everything about that man is dangerous. I don’t want to know what he’s like when he’s angry.
To keep myself from watching Spider, I put my back to him while he talks to Tequila. For some reason, Pip is watching me with amusement. I pause, raising a brow at him, but he just shakes his head.
I move onto the table beside him.
While I’m bent over the table, Spider is silent, and I swear I feel his eyes on me, his gaze burning into my back. I hear someone swallowing. Probably him, gulping down the water Tequila gave him.
“Pip, help the men get those crates into storage,” Spider says.
Pip gets up and I hear him grunting with effort, moving the crates toward the back of the bar with the Striker, Reaper, and Cap.
I noticed there was a hall at the back that led to another part of the clubhouse, and they disappear down it, their voices fading.
Maybe I imagined the feel of Spider watching me. He seems to be ignoring me now, and for some reason, the feeling causes loneliness to wrap around me like a shroud.
“And how is my little thief doing?” Spider says to my back. “Haven’t been giving Pip any trouble, have you?”
I bristle, the cloth stilling on the table, any desire to be acknowledged tricking out of me.
Little thief. That’s still all I am to him. Guilt and hopelessness stab at me, and I straighten, drawing a deep breath to calm my rising anger.