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“Real award-winning personality you have there,” I muttered to myself. I clutched my measly belongings to my chest and hurried to catch up. He went through a hall that divided the upstairs in half, then took a right. We passed several rooms until we approached the end of the hall. Pensively, he paused. His attention seemed to bounce between the four rooms at the end—two on each side of the hall. It reminded me of a hotel or apartment building up here.
Finally, he seemed to decide on the room second to the end on the side that faced the interior of the building.
“This will be your room,” he informed me as he took the key out of the knob and held it out.
Palm up, I raised my hand. When he gave it to me, one of his fingertips brushed my skin, and it was like I’d been hit by a bolt of lightning. A gasp of surprise escaped my lips and my gaze shot to his. From the flare of his dark eyes and his ticking jaw, I believed he felt it too. I tilted my head at the appearance of silver flecks that appeared in his dark irises. He quickly stepped back and opened the room.
Cautiously, I peeked in before stepping over the threshold. It was surprisingly clean. It did seem a bit austere though. There were white sheets and a dark green comforter on the bed, a small rectangular table with a chair sat against one wall, a single nightstand, and a chest of drawers. Two open doors revealed a small bathroom and an equally small closet. Not that I had much to fill it. There was also a window on the wall beside the headboard of the bed.
“Thank you,” I told him as I fidgeted with the handle of my bag.
“Venom will let you know what he decides as far as employment. He’ll give you a rundown of the place and what to expect.”
“Okay.”
He stood there with a torn expression as his now silver gaze darted over my face.
“Your eyes. They change colors,” I murmured aloud as I tried to get a better look, but he dropped his lids and squinted, shadowing them.
At first, I thought he was going to say something, but he seemed to decide against it. With a curt nod, he left me standing there alone, wondering what the fuck I was going to do if my memory never came back.
“Great talk,” I muttered.
I sighed and closed myself into my new “home.”
Curious, I shuffled over to the window and moved the black curtains to check out my view. Right as I did, he started down the steps. He was so handsome, he took my breath away. Too bad he was so cold and had the personality of a thumbtack. When he got to the bottom, he went through the passageway under the stairs.
Unsure what to do, I decided to unpack. I placed the plain white socks in the top drawer with my ugly cotton underwear and extra bra. My whopping five shirts went in the next one, and the other two pairs of jeans went in the third along with the three pairs of plain black leggings.
Not that I was complaining, Detective Santiago—Mia—had bought what the police department didn’t have laying around. That was why all of my shirts had the police department logo on them with the exception of the two that were pale pink and the white one I had on. She offered to buy me more, but she’d done enough by paying for my hotel for so long.
She had also tried her damnedest to find something that would tell us who I was. She had gone above and beyond. She paid for my room because I had no money and couldn’t get a job or rent anything without identification. Finally, her bosses told her enough was enough and she needed to cut me loose, which upset me, though I understood. None of them were responsible for me.
Except I had no one else.
Essentially, I didn’t exist. I was a living person absolutely invisible to every bureaucratic system, a mystery to both myself and society. It was frustrating, but evidently, there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. When Mia said she was going to call in a favor to try to get me a job and a place to live, I was thankful. When she told me there was a group of people she knew, I didn’t think it would be a motorcycle club. But if she trusted them, I had no choice but to do the same.
It was bad enough that I didn’t know any of them. It was worse that they were big and scary. I wanted to scream at the unfairness of my current predicament.
Afraid to leave my room, I kicked off my shoes and curled up on the bed. My eyes were heavy, and I figured I might take a nap.
There was a knock at the door that jolted me awake right as I was dozing off. My heart slammed against my rib cage, and I had a disoriented feeling as I processed what woke me. The knock sounded again, and I climbed off the bed.
“Yes?” I called out through the door.
“Soleil? My name is Loralei, and I have Jasmine with me. Venom wanted me to bring some things up to you,” a woman replied. How was it not weird to hear myself called Soleil? Was it possible that it was my actual name?
Slowly, I opened the door. Nervous to make myself any more vulnerable than I already was, I looked through a crack in the door. Two women, one of them obviously pregnant, stood there, and when I didn’t get a bad feeling from them, I stepped back to allow them in.
“I’m Loralei,” the tiny brunette announced with a wave. Her big blue eyes appeared sincere and friendly, but I was wary. “Venom is my husband.”
“And I’m Jasmine. Angel is my brother, and my ol’ man is Chains,” the other woman added as she rested a tan hand over her protruding abdomen. She had an easy smile, but her golden brown eyes appeared haunted. Her long, dark, silky hair hung partially over her face, almost as if she was hiding from something.
“Hi,” I replied, unsure what to say next. We all simply stood there without saying anything more for a moment.
“Oh! Venom sent us up here with this stuff.” Loralei shook a full plastic bag. Then she carried it into the little bathroom and put shampoo, conditioner, and body wash in the shower. She set a bottle of lotion on the bathroom counter along with hand soap.
“There are towels in the cabinet under the sink,” she added as she opened one of the doors to point at the tan towels folded neatly inside. She grabbed out a smaller one and hung it on the loop by the sink.
