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She scrambles to her feet and snatches her dress from the floor before sprinting out of the bedroom, moving faster than I’d expected in heels. “Fucking psycho!” she screams before the front door slams shut behind her.
Now what?
I take in the rumpled sheets, inhale the cloying scent of the woman’s perfume, and instantly I know I can’t stay in here a second fucking longer.
I have to get out. I have to—
Stormy blue eyes flash in my mind. There’s no reason in the world she’d be at the bar. If she’s going to be anywhere, it’ll be at Aden’s apartment. He’ll be with her, easing her mind, being the charming, reassuring Aden Shaw women can’t get enough of.
“I should stay the fuck away from her,” I mutter as I gaze out of the window. “Just let Aden save her, or whatever the fuck he’s doing.”
As darkness settles over the city like a heavy blanket, my gaze searches out to the Cerberus. I can’t see it from my penthouse apartment, but I know which direction it's in. East.
The same direction the bar is in.
And so is she.
The reason he rented a place close by was if anything triggered the alarms, he could be there in minutes to investigate if someone was trying to break in.
But before that, we lived together in a place that never felt as empty as this one does.
A memory shoves itself into my mind without warning. Mona sitting on Dariel’s lap in just a t-shirt, her head thrown back as she laughs, blonde hair loose and sleep tousled, green eyes sparkling. Dariel was smiling, too. Can’t remember why—no, I remember—Aden’s joke as he served her breakfast.
In the seat beside her, I say something and she turns to me, leans over, and I know she’s going to kiss me, so I stretch out to meet her halfway, a smile curving my lips as I do.
I force myself to blink and the memory drifts away again.
Maybe the problem is they’re always blonde.
I head for the bathroom to wash and dress. At six, it’s earlier than I’d usually head out, especially after the bottle of whiskey I’ve emptied and the lack of food in my belly. But that’s never stopped me before.
I should try a brunette.
20
SAIGE
"Three hours.”
Aden’s voice draws my gaze from my reflection and the dark-haired woman in a long sleeve black blouse, slim knee-length skirt, black flats, and her hair in two braids that lie flat on either side of her neck.
The braids make me look younger than twenty and slightly ridiculous, but better customers think I look ridiculous than see the state of my neck.
I pushed to keep my hair down, but Aden was firm about me having my hair tied back for health and safety reasons. With the mass of bites on my throat, braids were the only style I could think of hiding them.
“What?” I ask as I turn to face him.
I haven’t taken one step out of the changing room and already I’m regretting pushing Aden for this job. It was hard enough walking past the security guards and into the Cerberus staff changing room so I could dress in the clothes Aden had waiting for me. The uniform, he said, was a spare belonging to a waitress who said I could borrow them.
“That’s how long your shift is.”
I frown. “Three? But it’s only seven, and—”
“We only do table service at the front until ten. There are VIP tables upstairs that we continue until three, but—”
“You don’t want me anywhere near those,” I cut him off, surprising myself with the bitterness in my voice. “I get it.”
He gazes back at me for so long that I don’t think he will speak until he does. In the silence before he speaks, dance music drifts from the main room behind him. “What I don’t want is to send a girl with a broken wrist out to work.”
