Page 53 of Callum

Fourteen: Opportunity Knocks

ROSALIND

Jacob Bishop is a sadist and not the fun kind. He watches me across the room, beady eyes flashing in the dim overhead lights. “You need something?”

My skin crawls at his tone. Of all the people I imagined encountering in my time with the MacAlisters, Jacob Bishop wasn’t on the list.

“Nope. I’m good just watching TV,” I gesture toward the muted screen, but I haven’t looked that way since Bishop stepped through the door. I’m not the kind of idiot that takes their eyes off a predator.

“Anything…interesting?” Bishop raises one unkempt, shit-brown eyebrow at me, and I know he’s calling me out for staring at him.

I remember him from the club. Specifically, I remember how the girls cried after he touched them. The way his beady eyes always followed them around the room. How every Girl would hide herself from him as best she could.

I remember that he killed Haley Riorsen, too. The poor girl was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and she paid the price for it.

The MacAlister Brothers wanted to kill him. The memory of Callum’s violent rants about severing Bishop’s limbs from his body before shoving them back into different parts of his anatomy brings a small smile to my face.

“What has you smiling, pretty girl?”

Your slow and painful death, dickbag. “I remember you from the GiGi’s Club,” I decide to get this part out of the way. It’s clear he knows who I am and what I do—might as well even the playing field.

“Oh, yeah?” He sounds much too excited about that, and I suppress the urge to vomit.

Most of my time on the stage was in the early days…after. I don’t remember a lot of it, thanks to the copious amounts of drugs and alcohol lacing my system and the weight of loss pulling me under. I know I danced on the stages, but Ginetta didn’t make me do any crowd work. I was spared from that particular torture because she didn’t want anyone to see it. That scar running along the base of my abdomen was an eyesore and “not something we need to display to paying customers”.

There was also the genuine possibility of me slitting someone’s throat with how muddled my mind had been. We couldn’t have that, either.

Bishop’s eyes shamelessly run the length of my body. I’m not sure what he’s even seeing at this point since I’m still drowning in Callum’s t-shirt. “Wanna play?”

He shakes a deck of cards at me, and I wonder if he found them in the house or brought them himself. Either way, I have no real desire to play games with this asshole. “Play what?”

“Poker.” He shakes the cards again, this time using them to wave me toward the kitchen table. It isn’t as if I have anything better to do. When I stand to walk toward him, Bishop watches each move with hungry eyes.

“Do you know how to play?” He asks, not even bothering to hide how he’s blatantly checking me out.

Yes, asshole, I know how to play. Probably better than you do, you miserable piece of shit. “Uhm, I don’t think so. You could teach me, though,” I add, channeling that high-school cheerleader perkiness with all my might. It’s the persona I used at the Club, and it appears to be just as effective here. As much as I want to run from this situation as fast as I can, that isn’t really an option here. My best bet is to play along, and hope he doesn’t get angry.

“Yeah, Red,” Bishop smirks, leaning back in his chair as if trying to give me a better view of what he has to offer. “I’ll teach you whatever you want.”

Oh, yuck. I was raised in a sex ring, you dickhole. I can guarantee I knew more about sex at ten than this dipshit does at thirty-five. “Sounds fun!”

Bishop launches into an unnecessarily convoluted explanation of poker, and I do my best to look confused by the rules. Men like Bishop love nothing more than being able to teach a poor, helpless female something. I’m afraid I’ve taken the “dumb and needy” routine a bit too far when a concerned look pinches Bishop’s eyebrows together. “If it’s too complicated, we can play something else.”

“Oh, I don’t think it’s too complicated.” I smile at the surprised look on Bishop’s face, then, because I can’t help myself, I add, “It seems kind of boring, though.”

Bishop laughs, his eyes darting across the cards on the table as if that thought never occurred to him before. His gaze snaps back to mine, raising one eyebrow in a silent challenge. “What do you say we make it a bit more exciting then?”

Fifty-bucks says he’s about to suggest Strip Poker. “How so?”

“Strip Poker.” My eyes roll so hard I’m surprised my entire head doesn’t move with them. I don’t even bother trying to hide it since Bishop is so blatantly staring at my tits that there’s no chance of him seeing my eyes.

Unsurprisingly, Bishop’s version of Strip Poker comes with its own list of rules, several of which revolve around me giving him a lap dance. It’s like the man has one goal in life, and he isn’t exactly reinventing the wheel to get to it.

Twenty minutes and several intentional folds later, I’ve lost both socks and Callum’s T-shirt, but I’m still wearing a tank top, bra, and shorts. Bishop made a big show of losing his shirt to me and has been unnecessarily flexing his abs for the last five minutes.

“Bad luck, Red.” He tsks, shaking his head as if this is actually upsetting, and he isn’t currently smiling from ear to ear. “Do you remember what that means?”

“Uh,” I feign confusion for what I hope to be the last time. All this pretty pouting is giving me a headache. Pulling my uninjured leg into the chair beneath me, I lean across the table to look at the cards in front of him. “Is that a full house or one of those flushy things?”

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