Page 33 of Ruthless Son

“Who are you? We ain’t been told there’s a new woman here,” the older of the two started, rising off the couch and giving me a greater view of her attire. It couldn’t be later than mid-morning, and this woman was dressed up for a night out. Her short denim skirt fell to just above mid-thigh, and her buttoned up shirt was open to reveal the sides of her bra. She was mutton dressed as lamb, her dry hair bleached a bright blonde and her make-up heavy to try and give her some semblance of youth that had left her at least a decade ago. Her foundation was a shade too dark for her complexion, and it enhanced the lines in her face tenfold. “Well? Who are ya?” She strutted over on heels too high, but she still only came eye to eye with me.

“I’m just looking to grab a coffee and then I’ll head on back to my room,” I said gently, trying to diffuse some imagined insult that my presence seemed to be.

“Your room.” She cackled, turning to look at the other woman. “Did you hear that, Denise, she said her room.” Her thick acrylic nails were tacky as hell, and she pointed one ugly ass nail in my face. “Listen, Miss Prissy Pants.” I snorted in amusement, was that supposed to be offensive? I’d been called far worse by my own friends just for fun, calling me Miss Prissy Pants was more humorous at this point. “You’re in the wrong place. You don’t have no room here, they’re the men’s rooms and you’re just some whore they picked up last night.” She raked her vicious gaze up and down. “And you need to be leaving.”

She grabbed my arm, trying to pull me around. Cementing my feet to the floor, I jerked my arm away, my patience with this woman wearing thin. “Don’t touch me. Now I’m going to ask you politely, where is Rex… or hell, I’ll speak to Sly if he’s around.” I didn’t want to make enemies on my first morning here, so I spoke as calmly as I could manage at this point, hoping she just got the hint I wasn’t in the mood for an argument. I’d left my sister sleeping and I didn’t know what kind of state she’d be in when she woke up, but I didn’t want to be gone too long.

She watched me with what I could only decipher as disgust. “Rex… or… Sly,” she muttered slowly. “Both of them?” Her eyes narrowed on me, and her lips pinched in a tight line. “Are you kidding?”

“Oh, for god’s sake, I don’t mean I’m with both of them, look… I’m sorry to have disrupted your little chat with your mates, I’ll let you get back to it and I’ll have a look for them myself.”

The second woman gasped as I turned toward one of the doorways that I hadn’t been down, there must be a kitchen somewhere, or another living room where I’d find the men so I could get my goddamn stuff.

“Oh no you don’t.” The woman stalked in front of me, blocking my path. “You’re not allowed down there. I don’t fucking know you. You… you come in here like you own the place and now you think you can just prance about.” Her face was inches from mine, her layers of makeup hiding something far more sinister. A ring of open sores lined her lips, the lumps looked inflamed and painful and yet she had pasted thick concealer over them, and lined her lips with bright pink lipstick to try and hide them as much as possible.

She continued her abusive tirade, calling me names and poking her finger in my chest, the acrylic blunt, but the light padding in my bra was offering my boobs some protection from her stabbing. I was far too caught up in the cracking scabs around her lips that were being irritated by her continuous talking.

“I’m in charge here, prissy, and you’re not welcome here. You’ve done what you needed to do and offered up some fresh meat to the boys, but they don’t want you, otherwise they would have told me about you. Since I have no fuckin’ idea who you are, it means you’re just not important enough.”

“Your own sense of self-importance is far too high. Why would you need to know who I am?” Jenna was the president’s wife and she hadn’t even spoken to me in such a way, and I’m pretty sure in the hierarchy of things, Jenna was way above this woman with poor personal hygiene.

“I’ve been around since before you were born, lady.” My lips twitched as she attempted to emphasize her value, but it only preceded to highlight to me how out of touch she was with reality.

“That’s not really something to brag about,” I stated confidently. “ You really should speak to the men about my presence here. I’ve been told I have to stay a while, so get used to my presence, which will only be for a short time,” I stressed. “Because I don’t want you speaking to my sister?—”

“Sister!” she screeched. “There’s another one of you prissy bitches around here?”

My jaw ached as I grit my teeth around my words. “You stay the fuck away from my sister, do you understand!” I spat at the bitter woman. “And while we’re having such a lovely little chat,” I stepped a touch closer, my breath coming in harsh pants as I reined in my instinct to stamp on her open toed sandals—I’ve seen enough damage to feet by women on a night out, “I think you really should see a doctor about that rash, it looks infected.” Her hand came up and covered her mouth, and she glared at me over her fingers. “I’ve seen this before, that herpes virus is a real bitch, which is fitting considering its host. Your lips will eventually turn black and rotten, and then no matter how much you protest and cry about your importance, no man here will want you… not even the dog will seek you out for scraps,” I whispered, the dog in question, an old bloodhound, lay sprawled in a corner, completely oblivious to the war waging between us.

Applause had us snapping our necks to see a line of leather standing by the rear exit, Sly’s hands slapping together as if they’d been listening to the whole thing.

“Rex, baby, this… woman…” she stressed, her hand falling away from her scabby lips, “says she knows you.”

He narrowed his eyes on her, his thick arms crossed over his wide chest, his hair damp and scraped back off his face. With his cut on over a wifebeater, his arms were left bare and I could see every thick vein lining his forearms. “She’s mine,” he declared, her face falling and looking back at me, with what seemed to me like loss.

For just a brief second, I felt a pang of sympathy for the woman. She clearly had a view of herself that the others didn’t share, especially judging by the disdain on some of their faces when they looked at her teetering on her heels.

Rex stormed toward me, completely ignoring everyone around us, his eyes locked on mine with determination. I was frozen in place as he grabbed my arm in the exact same place that the woman had touched, but this time, I didn’t stop my feet from following him back toward the bedroom. His hand burned his touch into me felt like what I’d think their brand felt like. The barbed wire mark on his arm on prominent display nestled within the dark tattoos that stretched around his arm.

“You can’t walk around looking like you just rolled out of bed, princess.” He unlocked the door to his own room, the one opposite the one I slept in last night, and flicked the light on. Easing me into the room before him and shutting us both in, the dim light barely reaching the corners of the double room, leaving parts of it in secret, the top of the bed just a shadow of my imagination.

“But I did just roll out of bed,” I huffed. “I have nothing else to wear, and I was wearing this yesterday when I was in the flower shop, you never said anything then… anyway. I don’t have my st?—”

He grabbed a large duffel from the side of the room, and dropped it on the bed. “You were behind the counter yesterday, if I’d have noticed, things would have been different. This is all of yours and your sister’s stuff.”

“You packed my stuff?” I muttered in disbelief. “You went through my things?”

“I didn’t, no. One of the brothers did.” He unzipped it, rifling through the things and pulling out items, checking each one before throwing it in a pile. “Don’t you have anything that covers you more than that?”

“I’m wearing leggings and a T-shirt,” I argued, hugging my chest.

“Well, those pants are too tight. Here,” he threw a pair of joggers at me, “put these on.”

“These aren’t mine.” I held them to my waist, they were huge, and most definitely his. “They won’t fit, Rex.” I sighed in exasperation, throwing them back at him and reaching over the bed to grab my own clothes. The door to the bathroom was ajar, it was laid out exactly the same way as the room opposite but a mirror image of it, everything was reversed. “I’m going for a shower. If my sister wakes up, tell her where I am,” I shouted the last part through the door, as I closed it on him and locked it for good measure. The snick of the lock was loud in the silent bathroom.

Without wasting any time, I got down to business, stripping and hopping in the shower. The hot spray washed away the dregs of my fatigue and I stood under the fall letting it carry away my worries, replacing them with some semblance of control in the chaos of the last few days. The wall was lined with hair products that any woman would die for—this is why Rex had such gorgeous hair, because he spent so much money on conditioners.

Using a large dose of his detangler, I worked the soft conditioner through my tangles, finger combing the bigger knots out until my hair hung in wet tendrils down my back.

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