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She ripped the robes that she used to read peoples’ palms from the clothing stand and threw it over her shoulder. Then she took off at a run toward her booth.
A booth that was subsequently close to the food truck area where she’d get lots of visitors intent on hanging around waiting for food, with no other choice but to stare at her and think about getting their palms read.
“You okay?”
I looked over at Tony’s man, Slone, who had shown up out of nowhere.
“Yes,” I answered. “Even though my head’s still spinning, and I feel like I’m low key about to puke everywhere, and the thought of going anywhere near food trucks right now, smelling a smorgasbord of all kinds of different foods, makes me want to run the other way.”
Slone grinned. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, that last little trick was rather impressive, even if what you did do wasn’t intentional. I got a video of it to show Briley.”
Briley, his daughter, who hadn’t been able to come due to a robotics competition with her new school.
“Send it to me. I might look at it tomorrow when I forget how bad it felt,” I offered.
He caught my shoulder with his and pulled me into his body.
I leaned into him and walked with him outside where the rest of our family was already huddled in front of Coffey’s trailer.
“Coffey’s Crater” was his and Simi’s brainchild and was doing really well. Out of all the food trucks in the food truck park, his was by far the most popular.
And right now, the thought of going over there and being friendly with family and friends was the very last thing I wanted to do.
Honestly, I wanted to be snuggled up in strong, muscular arms that belonged to a man who had a perpetual bad attitude while doing so.
Instantly deflated, I pulled out of Slone’s arms and headed in the direction of Val’s ‘tent.’
In actuality, it was a covered awning area that was right off the seating area for the food trucks. It was the most visible spot in the area, and you had to pay twenty dollars for five minutes with ‘Madam Valhalla.’
I walked over and stared as she talked to some young kid that had to be all of sixteen.
His face was bright red, and he was staring at Val like she hung the moon.
This far away where all the people were supposed to stand, you couldn’t hear what was being said—by design, might I add—but I could tell she was giving her same ol’ spiel. That, and I could see the light of her phone underneath the table where she was working with Folsom.
Turning away from the likely illegal activity—but if you didn’t admit it was illegal it wasn’t immoral—I walked a bit away from the food trucks and toward a less busy part of the food truck park.
I was three steps into the shadows when I felt strong arms come around my waist and pull me farther into the darkness.
This time, I was scared.
Because though I was used to being pulled into the darkness by a strong man who I couldn’t get enough of, these weren’t any strong arms that I knew.
I’d just gotten jerked around and shoved up against the red and white tent that covered the concrete building when a hand covered my mouth so hard my head dug into the wall.
“Listen, lady,” the growled words of a man pissed beyond belief. “I can’t afford to lose this fuckin’ job! You need to let me keep it. If I don’t, I die.”
If I don’t, I die.
He moved his hand so I could speak, but I was already denying his request, confident in the security of the area.
Only, I was a little too overconfident.
Because the man who was now holding me against the building had also helped install the security. And the equipment, and he also knew how to avoid it.
“I didn’t fire you!” I cried out.
“That security fuck escorted me off the property.” He snarled directly in my face. “That equals firing in my brain.”
I felt my throat start to burn from here he was holding my shirt so tight at my neck that it was pushing into my esophagus.
“I’m the one in charge of hiring and firing,” I tried. “If I don’t want you gone, you won’t be gone.”
He looked skeptical, but at least he let up his pressure at my throat.
My freakin’ uniform was fantastic—God rest Stefan’s awful soul—and held strong despite the way he was holding me up with it. But that also meant it was being used like a vice around my throat, despite the loosened pressure.
I was also starting to panic, because like the dumbass I was, I’d wandered off into the shadows and nobody had known where I went.
