Page 38 of Sinner's Malice
For the first time since I was sixteen, I felt like a veritable stranger around my family. Like I wasn’t wanted.
Sitting behind the bar, I tried to get my head to shut off, yet nothing I did worked. Everything from the brothers’ cautious glares to the look of disappointment in Montana’s eyes bombarded me when a familiar sense of peace blanketed me. While familiar, it was darker, more sinister, more dangerous, and it had the hairs on the back of my neck standing up.
Slowly looking up, I turned toward the front doors and stared at the two men who were looking directly at me. Their cold, dead, dark eyes bored right down to the heart of my soul. I knew they saw everything. Every sordid and depraved detail of my life and when they smirked, I blinked.
“Who the fuck are you?”
Jumping at Montana’s gruff voice, the newcomers frowned, then, one turned toward the voice.
“Not fucking asking you again, asshole.”
As one of the men stood firm, never taking his eyes off me, the other adjusted his expensively tailored suit, and smiled. “Who we are is not your concern. We are here to speak with your bartender.”
Montana chuckled. “Oh, fucker, that’s where you’re wrong. Everything regarding my bartender is my concern. Now get the fuck out before I remove you.”
“Is she though?”
“Excuse me?”
“Your concern? We heard she belongs to another.”
“And where the fuck did you hear that?”
“From me.”
From behind the men, another walked in.
One I was familiar with.
One I’d only met once but knew Malice.
Slowly getting to my feet, I walked around the bar and headed straight toward the familiar face. I could see club brothers coming out of the shadows, watching, waiting for him to make one wrong move. Even Montana glared, keeping a tight watch on me as I stood before the familiar man.
“Hello, Little One.”
“Is he with you?” I asked, keeping a tight rein on my emotions. Malice told me point blank when I first met the man to hide my emotions. That he hated them and would use them against me to get what he wanted. The man was cunning, smart as a whip, and deadly. More deadly than Malice, if that was to be believed.
The man lightly shook his head.
“I’m sorry, Little One. No. He is not with me.”
“Will you help me find him?”
“Is that what you really want?”
Without thinking, I nodded. “Yes.”
He smiled wickedly.
“Then I will do what I can.”
I was about to thank him when someone grabbed the back of my shirt and pulled, forcing me to step back. The second I was against a familiar chest, Montana carefully pushed me behind him.
The man glared at Montana but didn’t move.
Instead, he took a long hard look at the man who’d taken care of me, protected me, loved me since I was sixteen years old and shook his head as we all heard Pippen saunter in from one of the back offices, singing like a fool to some stupid song.
Turning, we all watched the club’s new intern jam to whatever he was listening to in his headphones, when he looked up and stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes widening in fear. Gulping, Pippen slowly removed his headphones when I heard a man growl.