Page 4 of Their Princess

Inside the dimly lit and oily smelling shop, my heels clapped on the concrete. It took a second for my eyes to adjust, so I blinked rapidly, as if that would help. The smell of gasoline snaked up my nostrils, and I swallowed a gag. How did people live like this?

The temperature had dropped thirty degrees as soon as we stepped out of the direct sunlight, and a pack of leather-wearing hairy men gathered at the back of the room. Some wore vests, but others still sported full jackets, and I couldn’t fathom how they could bear it in the heat. All of them had patches decorating the leather.

They looked at ease, though. Enough so that I now wanted one of those leather jackets. It would be killer with a pair of distressed skinny jeans and stiletto boots. Maybe even one of those leather vests but cut for a woman’s body. Even how they wore them with blue jeans and black boots screamed of sex and danger.

What a look.

Papà’s men were dangerous, but something about the edginess of these men inched them a notch above the Mafia on the ruthless scale.

My father stood in front of them, his superiority sucking all the air from the room. He hooked his fingers, beckoning me forward. If he expected me to act meek like I always had, he had another thing coming today. I lifted my chin just in time to see the fury flare in his gaze.

But then he smiled.

Of course he wouldn’t give away that I was acting defiantly with him.

All the eyes that had been on Massimo Parisi turned to me. I was the prized pig, wandering ignorantly into a slaughterhouse. After—of course—Mamà stuffed me into a short skirt and painted my lips. My father wrapped his arm around my hips, pulling me closer, and I rolled my eyes, scanning the room one more time. The bikes, in various state if repair, and the parts and tools weren’t my scene.

Then my gaze landed on a woman standing near one of the work benches, her belly protruding between low-rise jeans and a cropped tank. Her eyes on me were super intense, as though she didn’t want me here anymore than I wanted to be here. At least we had that much in common. Using a shop rag, she polished the chrome on some contraption attached to an air tank, and what looked like a scar peeked out from her tank top’s scooped neck.

I released a breath. Thank God I wasn’t the only girl here. Though I wasn’t about to become pregnant like her.

“My daughter,” proclaimed my father. “A beauty, isn’t she?”

No one in the MC said a word, and I didn’t know what offended me more. That I didn’t get a whistle or a moan or that a few of them actually scoffed. My father, however, peeled his arm off me when it was obvious that he wasn’t getting the response he wanted. That much was satisfying as fuck. Look at the failed showman.

“Well, president?” asked my father.

A man with a skull cut and a tattoo of a rose on his neck sauntered out of the shadows but kept up with his silent routine.

Papà fidgeted, though. “Do you require a DNA test?”

“No need,” said the man, the apparent president of the MC. “You have the same nose.”

My hand twitched. Did he have to pick out the one feature I tried like hell to hide with makeup?

The bald man shouted, “Sas.”

What kind of name was that? A hulking man walked out of the back, taller than anyone I had ever seen, and that was saying a lot. We held season tickets for the UNLV Runnin’ Rebels. Hell, I’d even dated a couple of the college players, one of them topping out at 6’8”.

This man’s lengthiness, though, wasn’t as honed as a basketball star’s. The T-shirt he wore under his leather vest hung off of him like he shopped big and tall, but it only leaned on thebigportion of the term. The way his clothes hung off him made him seem awkward on first appearance. But he made up for what might’ve been seen as a weakness with the darkness in his eyes. The shadow of his gaze dragged across my skin like claws.

Sas stood beside the president. “Sasquatch, meet you?—”

A laugh jolted my body, and I slapped a hand across the lower half of my face. Too late. Everyone stared at me, but I couldn’t stop laughing. Sas was short forSasquatch? Were they fucking serious? They couldn’t be serious.

“Adelina,” hissed Rafe over my shoulder in a warning tone that told me this wasn’t the time or place.

I forced my mouth into a straight line and fought to hold it there. The laugh hadn’t been intentional. Not really. It just spewed out, like vomit.

Maybe they preferred vomit all over the concrete floor, but I probably couldn’t manage. My appetite had been nil this morning with my nerves, and I had begged my sister, Caterina,to cover for me. I think she’d told them that I was just fussing over my appearance. The words had only been a partial lie, but the last thing I’d needed was someone pushing me to eat.

I swallowed my laughs, but the sound reverberated through the shop. Sucking in a deep breath, I said, “Nice acoustics.”

But then I started laughing again. This was just so ridiculous I couldn’t hold it inside.

I probably sounded mad, so that should’ve been a red flag. The MC dude—because I couldn’t call him Sasquatch—didn’t want a crazy chick, did he? Perhaps I should keep it up and see if he’d send me back.

His eyes lit up like a hound that had smelled meat, and I thought twice about the idea. Seemingly, hedidwant a crazy chick.

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