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“They’ll have to break into your apartment because I’m going to lock it behind me.” His voice is surprisingly soft.
I nod again.
“You can keep the key.” I offer half a shrug and try to hide my flinch of pain that resulted from it.
“I intend to.” He cocks an eyebrow, but there’s nothing flirty or playful about what he says. He states it as a fact. It occurs to me that it’s the most we’ve ever spoken to each other.
“Thank you, Carter,” I tell him before he leaves. I can’t pretend to be that girl he sees in the club. The flirty and careless and crazy, sexy bitch everyone likes. “I appreciate what you’ve done for me, but can you please not tell anyone about it?”
“Not a soul,” he promises, then I hear my door slamming shut, and I fall into a hard, drunken, well-deserved sleep.
I hope I never wake up.
Present
“Carter, I need clean up on Aisle 3.” I hear Graham growling low into my Bluetooth. I shoulder my way past the sweaty, obnoxious crowd. Ever since I was a wee boy, I hated people. Not just how they smell and the touch of their flesh, but just in general. People were a fucking disturbance I didn’t need in my life. Now, I’m working in a nightclub, which means that I’m dealing with people all the fuckin’ time, but what can you do? I don’t reckon they’re looking for crazy-ass killers in the Wanted section of Gumtree.
I make my way to the VIP area, AKA “Aisle 3”. We gave each corner of the nightclub a name just to make it more fun, I suppose. Though I don’t really think it’s funny. Then again, my sense of humor is a bit on the dry side. Or perhaps the nonexistent side. Oh, well.
I spot the problem immediately. He’s puking all over the floor, all while roaring at the top of his bloody lungs. “I’m going to kill that bitch even if it’s the last thing I do!” Too bad he is a moment too late, as the last thing he’ll probably do is meet my fist before I send him to Slumberland. I see Graham standing next to the guy, looking both calm and mildly disgusted at the same time. He smooths the edges of his blazer and rolls his eyes simultaneously, motioning for the man and his crowd of drunk idiot friends with a head tilt.
“Throw them out, all of them, except the one who left his dinner on my fucking floor. That one touched one of our own. Bring him to my office when you’re done.”
“One of our own?” I ask, grabbing two men by the collar of their shirts and dragging them across the filthy floor like I am carrying nothing but two grocery bags. “Who did he touch?”
My thoughts immediately drift to Quinn.
There’s something about that girl that consumes me to the point of madness. Everyone knows about my sexual…proclivities, but Quinn makes me want to throw all my rules and compulsions out the window. I haven’t interacted with her much, but every time I do, when I turn my back, when I don’t take her home, when I don’t fuck her on my bed without tying her hands back or washing her first, it feels wrong. I hate being touched, but I want to feel Quinn’s hands on me. I only hook up with blondes, but I want to see Quinn’s fiery locks draped across my pillow. It’s like I’m leaving a piece of my soul with her every time we say goodbye. Which is why I very rarely say hello to her in the first place. I don’t believe in love at first sight. Scratch that shit—I don’t believe in love, period. Which makes my feelings for her alarming at best and unwarranted at worst.
“Calm your fucking arse, Carter. No one touched your precious Quinn. I can hear your goddamn pulse all the way across the floor.” He brushes his hand over his pocket, taking out his cell phone and punching a few numbers. My shoulders immediately relax, and I proceed to throw the men who haven’t even fought me out of the club. Then I go back and throw out two more before I get to the drunk idiot who touched one of the girls at the club. Graham is not there when I’m back in the VIP area, and it’s been cleared so that the cleaners can wipe away the vomit that’s already stanched the place. What the hell did this lad have for dinner? A sausage made of roadkill and anus?
“Get the feck up,” I call out to him as I lift his head by his greasy, dark hair. But he is too out of it and falls back to sleep on the floor, his mouth dripping saliva. He looks to be in his early thirties, with a beer belly poking out of his expensive suit. Goddamn rich people think they can rule the world. They very well can. But not our world. Not the underworld. And definitely not the bloody Savages.
“Get on yer fecking feet before I make minced meat out of your body parts,” I hiss out to his ear. Just as I say that, Sinclair Savage, AKA Sin, walks into the room out of nowhere. The lad hasn’t even been here for six months, and already he acts like he owns the place. I don’t like it. Not one bit. I watch as he buttons his suit jacket, and his sleeves ride up exposing a hint of a tattoo. His hands are clean, at least in the literal sense, and so are his face and neck. But I’ve seen him spar with Cole, and everywhere that his crisp suit covers is painted with ink. Even though the bastard isn’t as big as Cole, I must admit that others might find him just as foreboding. Maybe even more so. He oozes power, and he’s a sadistic bastard.
“You’re wasting your time.” His cold, low voice pierces through the air between us. I raise one eyebrow as I watch him
approach the wasted arsehole and me.
“He is pissed as shite.” I observe, tugging at the drunk’s hair. “And I need to get him to Graham’s office. It was easy enough to drag his mates over there.” I nod with my head to the exit. “But this one…we’ll need fecking PETA to roll him to Graham’s.”
That makes Sinclair snicker darkly and wink at me as he hovers over both of us, the drunkard and me, like a ghost. He circles around us with his arms behind his back and I want to punch him, but I refrain because, for some reason, Graham is quite smitten with his sophisticated arse. And I’m saying ‘smitten’ purposely, because sometimes I do feel like Graham legitimately adores the guy like he is made of Dahlia’s pussy itself.
“You know, Carter, you’re not the freak everyone pegs you to be,” he whispers. He sounds like a snake. Like someone who could award you with a poisonous bite at any moment. And I’ve never been one to scare easily, so this means nothing to me, but I see how people react to this guy. It’s not healthy.
“Thank you. I’ve been holding my breath, trying to figure out what you think of me,” I say dryly.
Sin laughs again and shows me all of his white teeth. “You have a great sense of humor.”
I blink slowly, waiting for him to take a hint.
Sinclair shrugs, unaffected by my lack of social skills and fucks given. “All right, then. I’ll help you with him.”
We both carry the drunk man toward Graham’s office, each of us holding him by one armpit. When we finally make our way through the narrow, dark hallway to Graham’s office, Sin throws the guy onto the leather sofa and shuts the door behind him while I’m still outside, like I was nothing but the fecking muscle. That’s what I hate about him the most—the ability to make everyone else feel like shite. I open the door just to make a point.
“Never shut the door on me again.” I pause, pretending to think on that for a minute. “Unless you want a toothless smile, then the easiest way to get one is to do it again.”
“Someone’s got their knickers in a wad.” Sin cocks one eyebrow, and I watch as he bites the cork of an expensive cognac, opening it with his teeth and pouring the liquid over an open, fresh wound on the back of the drunk guy, who screams in agony and is now very much awake and sober. It is amazing to me that he had managed to both slice open the guy’s expensive dress shirt and create such a deep yet clean wound along his spinal cord. The door’s been closed for only a few seconds. He’s a heavy hitter. I blink away my astonishment, hating Sinclair a little more for his abilities. He’s no amateur.
