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I pressed my finger to the photo and pushed it back across the table toward him. “I don’t know who told you—”
“I know you can find her,” he asserted, snatching the photo from beneath my finger and holding it up so I couldn’t help but look directly at the bruised and tortured teenage girl. Calli was older now, but I remembered her teen years like they were yesterday—worrying about her every time she went to some party or caught a bus to the mall, hoping like hell I’d done everything I could to make sure this never happened to her.
But at that moment, for a second—just a blink—when I looked at that photo, I saw my own daughter’s face on that beaten body.
No.
I couldn’t make this personal. The club members weren’t vigilantes, saving young women from the streets and returning them to their rich and powerful parents.
“Listen, we don’t—”
“I will pay you.”
Frustrated that he wasn’t hearing me, my fingers curled into a tight fist, and I leaned in. “We. Don’t. Do—”
“You bring her home to me,” he cut in again, but before I could rip him a new asshole, he pulled an envelope from inside his jacket and dropped it with a hard thud onto the table. “I’ll pay you fifty thousand dollars.”
Well, fuck.
Chapter Five
SHAY
“I had a really great time with you last night,” Brad announced from the side of my bed as he tugged on his jeans.
At least, I think his name was Brad.
Possibly Brian.
I wasn’t sure if the tequila shots had made my memory a little foggy or if it was just that Brad/Brian had been extremely unmemorable.
“We should do it again sometime,” he continued with a grin before pulling on the beige-colored sweater I swore had screamed cute as hell last night, but this morning was clearly giving rich kid spending daddy’s money.
I pressed my lips together into a forced smile and nodded my head. “Yeah, sure, absolutely,” I tried to agree with some enthusiasm, though there was no chance I was winning any awards for my acting. I quickly leaped from my bed and rummaged through the clothing pile in the corner of my room, pulling an oversized hoodie from its depths and slipping it on over my practically naked body. “Sorry, I’ve got a really busy day today,” I tried to explain as I rushed over to the bedroom door and pulled it open, stepping to the side, hoping he would get the memo.
The smell of coffee wafted down the hall and hit my nose. It cut through the fog swirling inside my head, making me even more desperate to get this man out of the house so I could drown myself in a cup. “Oh, I totally get it,” he agreed, stepping out into the hall. “I’ve got to head—”
He paused, his eyes growing wide and his mouth dropping open as he stared down the short hall toward the kitchen.
“I’ve gotta… I need to…” he stammered, stumbling backward.
Cautiously, I stepped out, following his horrified gaze.
The tension instantly dropped out of my shoulders when I saw exactly what—or should I say who—had caused him to freak the hell out.
With a heavy sigh, I turned back to Brad/Brian, who was still inching backward. “It’s fine, that’s just—”
He hit the apartment door with a loud thud, his hand searching frantically for the handle. “I’ll um… I’ll call you.” He finally managed to turn the knob and almost ripped the door off its hinges as he yanked it open and, without another word, scarpered into the hall and disappeared.
That was one way to get rid of unwanted overstayers.
Rolling my eyes, I pushed the door closed and flicked the lock over before sucking in a deep breath and turning to face the scrutinizing gaze that was burning holes into the back of my skull. “To what do we owe the pleasure?” I asked dryly as I walked down the hall. Calli’s and my bedrooms and bathrooms were on either side of the apartment entrance, while at the other end was an open-plan kitchen, dining, and lounge room.
“Boyfriend?” Bishop questioned, casually sipping from the mug in his hand as if he wasn’t sitting at the kitchen island of an apartment he didn’t live in.
“No,” I answered sharply, avoiding eye contact and hoping he wouldn’t notice how my cheeks were alight with embarrassment as I rounded the kitchen counter and pulled a mug from the cupboard. “Definitely not my boyfriend.”
“That’s good. The way he ran out of here without even bothering to check you fucking knew who the hell I was tells me everything I need to know about the selfish bastard.”
