Page 82 of I am Dressed in Sin (Death by Daybreak MC 2)
Grainger reaches out his hand and Rhea stares at it like it’s poisoned. Eventually, she realizes she has no choice, laying her palm against his. He very slowly, very deliberately, takes the cigarette out of his mouth.
My entire body goes tense as he puts the burning ember near the girl’s wrist. She starts to shake, sweat pouring down the sides of her face. His movements are impossibly slow, calculated. Meanwhile, his brown eyes bore into hers, and I see instantly why my father chose to appoint that silver sheriff’s star to Grainger.
“If you’re lying to me,” he starts, and Rhea jerks her hand back. She doesn’t get far. Grainger snatches her arm and lifts her up to her feet, pushing her back into the wall opposite the poster. “Last chance for mercy.”
“He doesn’t tell me anything!” she wails, shaking as the cigarette tumbles to the ground at their feet. “He …” Her eyes dart around frantically, searching for an escape of any kind. I hate this. I hate it so much that I want to scream.
“Please let her go,” I murmur, but Rhea isn’t done yet.
“All he does is brag about his watches and his money and his—”
“His money?” Grainger asks dryly, casting a look in Sin’s direction. “So, he’s a braggart?” Cade readjusts his attention to Rhea.
“He gave me a Rolex one week and took it back the next,” Rhea offers, sniffling. She’s shaking so badly, I can practically see her knees knocking together. Grainger releases her and she sags back against the wall.
“Get the fuck out,” he tells her, and she scrambles to obey, so hasty she even forgets to close the door. He very carefully moves over to it and flicks the lock. “Gaz doesn’t make shit. He doesn’t work any jobs on the compound. He’s useless in any official role. He’s basically a waste of life.”
“If he weren’t your father’s son, he’d have been on his final warning,” Crown agrees, looking at me and then lifting his attention to Beast. “But he certainly has charisma. He’s well-liked.”
“By certain people,” Beast drawls, almost absently. That’s some shade being thrown if I’ve ever heard it.
“So where is he getting all that money from?” Sin muses, leaning back in the chair and crossing his ankles on the surface of the desk. It’s impossible not to appreciate the way his t-shirt rides up and reveals the barest sprinkle of dark hair above his waistband. A happy trail that I’d love to follow downward.
I blink.
Fuck, I’m a thirsty bitch.
“Daddy?” Grainger muses in that way of his, the one that makes my claws come out, that sends these dark whispers to my brain that say kill the smarmy bastard before you fall in love with him.
It’s maybe … it might actually be too late for that anyway, but I don’t have the time to examine that particular emotion just yet.
“You’re kidding me, right?” I ask, a bit acerbically. “Isn’t René the Treasurer? You think he’d let Cat give out allowances? Do you think Cat himself would ever give out allowances? I’m not saying he won’t buy a few nice things here and there, but when he kicked Gaz out of the house at eighteen, he told him he was a man who could fend for himself.” I stretch my legs out, and the blanket slithers off of them, revealing all of my scars.
I’ve never been vain, not like Posey or Dena (the bitch with the convertible named ‘the Baby’), but I’m also not an idiot. I’m a fairly attractive woman. Looking down at my legs, I feel for the first time like I’d rather be in any body but this one.
Beast puts his hand on my calf before I can cover it up again, brushing his thumb over a particularly jagged scar across my muscle. His eyes meet mine, and I swallow hard. I’m fighting back a sudden surge of emotion, one that feels like it has no outlet.
I can’t show emotion in front of these men. That’s … it’s absurd. And yet part of me wonders if that isn’t something we could work up to. What happens between lovers in the bedroom isn’t anyone else’s business. If I cried, if they held me, if … They? I think, getting snippy with my own thoughts. It can’t be a ‘they’ forever, can it? These men are one-percenters, Gidget. You think they each want one-fourth of a wife?
“Cat would never allow Gaz to purchase something as lame as a Rolex with his money.” That’s a straight up fact, one that helps distract me from my scars. Beast strokes up my leg, his warm, rough fingers playing with my knee. Crown’s eyes follow the motion, but I can’t quite get a read on his expression.
“So Gaz is getting money from … somewhere,” Sin offers up as the others muse on the information. “I don’t like the sound of ‘packages’. Whether this is related to the mafia or not doesn’t matter; we have to look into it.”
