Page 32 of Threaded Lies

Clank. Clink. Clank.

I freeze at the sound. At the stark reminder of who and what the person who’s holding it no doubt is.

“Those aren’t for you to touch,” the voice at my back says.

I knew I’d come face-to-face with Rothschild or Williams sooner or later. I’d prepared and rehearsed and reminded myself over and over, I need this job. I need this job.

But nothing, and I mean nothing, prepared me for this feeling—this unyielding fury—I feel as I hear Rhett Rothschild’s voice and turn to see him standing there with his cronies at his back. Williams. Porter. Vanderbilt. Dunkirk. Martins.

I clench my fists and then unclench them.

I need this job.

“Cat got your tongue?” Williams asks, glancing toward Rothschild.

The murderer and the accomplice.

I see red.

I see white.

And with all reason turning into rage, I charge at the two of them with fists flying and a feral growl down deep in my throat.

Thoughts are nonexistent as the hurt and the pain and the disbelief rule every part of me.

I connect squarely against them, fists flying and body shoving, pushing them into their friends. But the weight of the whole is no match for me. I lash out with hands and shouts and feet but am restrained within seconds.

And their hands on me, holding me down, is almost even worse. I’ve felt helpless before—when I held Mason in my arms—and I swore I’d never allow myself to feel that again.

But I do. And I am just that—helpless.

A fist connects with my cheek and I grunt at the impact but welcome the pain. To my stomach. To my chin. To my side.

Each punch is the slightest fraction of what I deserve for letting Mason go outside that day. Each one the smallest dent in the powder keg I’ve become.

There’s shouting.

Then more hands grabbing at me but hauling me backward and away.

I look up through blurry eyes and see Darren there, pulling me back, wide-eyed and shocked. “Stay the fuck back,” he growls at me and then holds a finger up. “Stay.”

“What the fuck, dude?” Rothschild shouts as the door to the club shoves open before another worker pushes it back closed to keep prying eyes out.

“Closed for maintenance,” my coworker says as he surveys the scene and shakes his head just like Darren did.

An altercation with a member? Fighting with a member? That’s immediate dismissal and charges for the damages caused.

“Guess the help can’t handle a damn joke,” Porter says as he looks down at himself, checking his clothes as if I got them dirty.

I stare at them all, blinking away tears of shame with the coppery taste of blood on my tongue

Six against one.

“This didn’t happen,” Darren says, eyebrows lifted as he looks from me to them and back. “It didn’t fucking happen.”

Williams snorts. “Says who? I want that fucker’s job and his head on a platter.” He snaps his fingers. “One call to my dad and it’s over.”

“One call to your dad and he’d know about Jenny Tremane, Autumn Glendale”—the blood drains from Williams’s face along with the rest of the guys’—“or any of the other ladies we’ve had complaints from over the past few months.”