Page 48 of That Girl is Trouble

My boss.

That was stupid. Playing that game, taking his ring, making that wager. Axe says the man’s dangerous, and the look he gave me before he left the dressing room tells me that’s the goddamn truth.

And I will be fucking you.

No the fuck you won’t be.

When I’m back home, I change into my sweatpants and set my newest playlist of random mood music to shuffle. I’m about halfway through rolling myself a very thick joint when a loud knock sounds across my apartment. Cautiously, I approach the door and peek through the peephole to see who the hell’s paying me a visit so damn late.

God dammit. Anger heats the back of my neck, and I swing open the door.

“Hey, Kitty,” Axe says, a dark smile curling up his face. “Hand or belt?”

14

16 months ago

July

“What kind of purse we lookin’ at tonight?” Graves asks.

I pull my attention from my phone, from the message I’ve been waiting for all damn day.

Bane: All good. Back on the road.

“Twenty grand, give or take,” I say, scanning the garage, where tonight, instead of rusty cars and shiny bikes and piles of tools, there’s a fighting ring. More like a cage, really. Hexagonal in shape, high up on a platform, snake-wrapped skull painted at the centre. The place is packed with Sinners, hang arounds, women, and a hell of a lot of liquor.

It’s our annual Sinner Slam, where charters from all over come to South Bay to beat the absolute shit out of each other. And this year, we got ourselves a ringer.

Rooster grins at me from the cage, his shock of red hair damp with sweat. He spits out a mouthful of blood before raising a fist to the crowd, his opponent defeated and lying unconscious at his feet.

The kid is a hell of a fighter. Not big by any means, but cut, lean, and fast as fuck. He’s won every single fight tonight, and other than the few punches he took in this last match, he’s absolutely decimated the competition. He just needs to win one more.

I thumb out a quick reply to Bane and then shove my phone back into my pocket. Product is secure. Shipped in on a boat early this morning and safely loaded onto our truck for distribution. The first one since the two we lost last fall. We had to lay low after getting pinched by the feds, but as of today, shit’s moving again. It’s a fucking relief. The shit that went down in December made me jumpy. I’ve been hesitant to move product again, but the club’s gotta eat, and we can only keep this place afloat so long with our main source of income on the back burner.

Still, even with that shipment safely in our possession, the unease doesn’t wane. I was expecting a war. A battle of bullets, bloodshed, and absolute fucking anarchy. My anger that night chewed through me like a damn disease, and I needed someone to pay. I needed the man who’d come for us to fucking die. Only problem? Decker was right. The guy’s a fucking ghost. And since that night, there’s been nothing but silence.

No threats. No whispers about some asshole trying to push us out of town.

Fucking nothing. I don’t trust it.

“Sorry I’m late.”

When I turn towards the woman’s voice, Triss gives me a tight smile, then quickly looks away. She takes in the room, the cage where two men are collecting Rooster’s unconscious victim.

She shakes her head, her dark ponytail swinging behind her. “You guys are animals.”

Graves pulls her into his chest by her ass and grins before taking her mouth with his. “Thought you liked that about me,” he murmurs against her lips, tightening his grip on her when she fights to get away. “Moody already, babe? It’s barely nine o’clock.”

All those months ago, after we found her tied up and bloody in that barn, Graves came to his senses and ended things with the woman. He saw what I saw—someone who didn’t belong in this world being pulled into it, someone who wouldn’t be able to handle the life.

But something deep inside Jack broke after he left her, and it was fucking unbearable. The drinking. The sulking. The fucking misery. Christ. The man drove me nuts. Didn’t have much choice but to nudge them back towards each other. I needed my VP. Needed him focused. Not drowning at the bottom of a damn bottle.

And yeah, maybe Triss has grown on me a bit.

“I’m not moody,” she snaps as she finally wiggles free of his grasp. “Have you seen Kat? She’s not responding to my texts. She said she’d be here by now.”

“Kat’s here?” I ask, trying to keep the surprise from my voice.

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