Reaper
“Where’s Anna?” I ask Jake, noticing right away that she wasn’t behind the bar.
“Break room,” he says, his eyes narrowing on a couple of guys, arguing over by the dance floor. I push past him and head straight for the hallway, unable to believe the irony. The first time I’d ever laid eyes on Anna had been in that damn break room, right after Charlotte had shown up in her fucking pajamas, her face bloody and her clothes torn. The woman didn’t even have shoes on her feet, and it was all because of Anna.
It’s getting close to eleven o’clock, and the bar crowd is piling in by the minute, making my path to the hallway a gauntlet of too much perfume and too little clothes. I’m still too far away when I see him walk out. Shiv is wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve, his eyes searching out Jake before he pushes into the heavy crowd and all but disappears.
Part of me wants to follow him, but for what? He’s not my problem. Anna, on the other hand, she and I need to chat now more than ever.
When I finally hit the hallway, I’m relieved to find it empty. I storm down it and come to the doorway to the break room, where the door sits ajar, and I can’t hear a sound on the other side. When I push it open, I pause. The scene before me is not at all what I’d been expecting.
Anna sits on the floor, her legs folded around her, almost as if she’d just collapsed there. Big, fat tears coat her cheeks as she lets out deep, gasping sobs. She doesn’t hear me at first, and I take a moment to watch her.
Her face is buried in her hands, and at first, I don’t see it, but when I do, I don’t bother to tamp down the anger. “Scored a hit, did ya?”
Anna’s head snaps up and suddenly, my emotions are washed away as I take in her bleeding and swollen lower lip.
“What the fuck?” I say, stepping the rest of the way inside and closing the door behind me. “Did that fucker hit you?”
A sudden urge to turn around and track down Shiv almost has me leaving the room, but Anna presses back against the wall, using it to pull herself to her feet, her head shaking frantically from side to side. “No!” she cries. “Please. I…” She looks down at the pill packet in her hand and it starts to tremble. She stares at it in horror, and finally turns and runs into the bathroom. I hear the flush of the toilet.
I step to the door and watch her small frame as she stares down into the swirling water. When the toilet goes silent, I finally speak, “What’s going on, Anna?”
She turns and meets my eyes, forcing a smile that looks more like a pained grimace. “I’m fine, Reaper. Really.” She steps to the sink and turns on the water, her gaze lifting to her reflection in the mirror. She lets out a shuddering breath and proceeds to splash water on her face, then pats it dry with the cheap paper towel from a nearby dispenser.
“How long you been using?” I finally ask when I can’t take the silence anymore.
“Too long,” she whispers.
I don’t know what to do with her. I want to grab her, shake her, and scream at her for being so goddamn stupid. I want to sit her down and clean her wounds and make her stop shaking. I want to chase down Shiv and rip his fucking dick off for hurting her. I might not like her, but any man that lays a hand, or from the looks of this case, his teeth on a woman, needs to lose his junk in the most grizzly fashion imaginable.
“Why are you bleeding?”
Anna pushes off from the sink and turns to face me, clearly hoping I’ll step aside so she can leave the confines of the tiny restroom. I move and turn to follow her as she pushes past me and flops down onto the couch.
“Shiv and I have a history,” she says quietly.
Something about her words makes me lose what little sympathy I felt for her. “Yeah, I bet you do,” I sneer. “And I bet that history has to do with the drugs you just flushed down the fuckin’ shitter too, doesn’t it?”
Her face crumples, but she doesn’t make a sound. She just nods, sadly. “I told him no,” she whispers. “I told him to leave me alone, but he wouldn’t go. He pulled my hair and shoved that pill inside my bra.”
That catches my attention. “Did he fucking hurt you?” I snarl, surprised by how much that pisses me off.
Her answering cry is all the answer I need. Unclipping my phone, I pull up my contact screen. I start scrolling through it, then she’s suddenly in front of me, her hands on mine.
“Who are you calling?” There’s an unmistakable panic in her voice that has nothing to do with that creep touching her.
“Ryker,” I snap. “We need to get this shit sorted. The Kings have enough shit on our plates without adding you and this asshole to the list.”
Her hands grasp at mine, trying to push my phone down and away from my view. “Please,” she pleads, her eyes searching mine as she continues to grip my fists in her tiny hands. Fresh tears form, threatening to spill over the edge. “Please, don’t call him. I didn’t use it. I didn’t want it. I don’t want it. I’m trying so damn hard, Reaper. Please, don’t.”
This is Ryker’s business. It’s not mine at all, and I know damn well that I have to call him. He needs to get this shit sorted, but something about the sincerity in her voice makes me pause.
“Do they know?” I ask.
A tiny crease appears between her brows, and I try to ignore the fact that it’s cute as hell. “Does who know what?”
“Ryker and Charlotte. Do they know you’re into drugs?”
“No,” she whispers. “Nobody knows.”
My mind races as I try to make a choice. Ryker will be pissed if he finds out I knew about this and never called him, but at the same time, he has enough shit to deal with, and the cops are still breathing down his neck. Charlotte’s stressed already because of that, and this would only make it worse.
“Fine,” I snap. “I won’t call them… yet. But you can’t go home lookin’ like that. I’ll take you to my place. I’ll get you cleaned up, and then I want to hear exactly how you know that slimy little fucker. We clear?”
She nods, her eyes bright with equal parts unshed tears and gratitude.
Anna
Reaper finding me in a collapsed puddle of tears on the floor was mortifying. After leaving me in the break room, he’d gone out to “have a word” with Jake.” I’m assuming that word included both the fact that he was taking me home, and that he’d dropped the ball by not noticing Shiv sneaking back here in the first place.
We slipped out the door to the back alley and made the short drive to Reaper’s house. It’s a surprisingly—to me, anyway—cute little house at the edge of town, not too far from the clubhouse. The brick house looks almost cozy from the outside, and part of me wants to make a smart-ass remark about how girly it looks, but Reaper’s angry vibe and set jaw has me clamping my mouth shut as I follow him up the walkway and through the front door.
The inside is clean, and almost sterile. Every surface is gleaming and polished to a high sheen. Black leather seems to be his go-to choice for furniture, but it goes well with the stainless-steel accents he’s placed throughout. I’m almost afraid to touch anything for fear of marking it up with my fingerprints.
He marches me through the house, dragging me along with my hand in his, flipping on the lights as he moves. When we reach the large bathroom, he pushes me gently, but firmly, down on the toilet seat and digs a wide array of first aid supplies from the medicine cabinet. He sets them down on the counter and begins cleaning my lip.
“Fucker bit right through in a couple spots,” he growls, his angry eyes focused on his task. When the cloth touches my split skin, I hiss and pull away, but his strong hand grasps my chin and turns me to face him once more. “What happened?”
I consider lying to him. The last thing I want to do is tell Reaper my history with Shiv, because I know damn well it’ll only lead to even more questions I’m not about to answer. Reaper doesn’t get to know my past. He’s shown on more than one occasion that he hates me, without ever knowing my story. He doesn’t get to know it now, even if he is being nice, and nice is being generous. His attention is kind, but the blaze in his eyes tells me he’d rather be anywhere but here with me right now.
But I know that if I want him to keep this little fiasco quiet, I need to tell him something, and I know damn well he’ll see right through my lies. “I was going to the washroom,” I finally answer, and wince as he comes at my lip with some sort of ointment that stings like a bitch. “When I came out, Shiv was standing there, accusing me of avoiding him.”
His eyes snap to mine. “And why would he care if you were avoiding him?”
Shit. How do I answer that question without telling him more than I’m willing? “Shiv and I were friends, sort of, when I was here before.”
“You mean he was your dealer,” he states, finished with my lip and coming to a stand. He glares down at me, his eyes making me feel like a tiny insect he’s about to step on and squash the life out of. “You’re a fuckin’ junkie.”
His words are like knives, hitting their target dead-on. “I’m not,” I whisper.
“Does Charlotte know her sister’s a fuckin’ drug addict?” His voice is deep and scary, his shadow threatening to swallow me whole.
Emotion clogs my throat, making it hurt to swallow. I can’t answer, so I simply shake my head.
Reaper snorts. “Fuckin’ figures. And when she finds out, it’ll break her damn heart.” His lip curls as he sneers down at me. “I knew you were fuckin’ trouble, but now I can add trash to that list.” His words start something inside me. A burn, deep in my belly, growing hotter and hotter as he speaks. “Fuckin’ junkie trash,” he spits.
I’m off the toilet seat and in his face before I can stop myself. “Fuck you!” My hands fly out and slam into his chest, managing to knock him back a step. “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you!” Part of me realizes I’m shrieking, and that with every curse, the heels of my hands are slamming into his massive chest over and over again. The other part of me doesn’t care. “You think you know? You think you know one damn thing about me?”
I stop hitting him and stand as tall as I can manage and pin my eyes on his. “You don’t know shit, Reaper.” I say his name like a curse, growling each syllable into his shocked eyes. “Now get the fuck out of my way.”
I fold my arms across my chest and glare up at him, trying my best to ignore just how much I have to tilt my head back to do so. Man, he’s so damn tall. Reaper’s hard gaze searches mine, his nostrils flared, before he finally steps aside. Shoving my way past him, I exit the bathroom and storm down the hall, desperate to escape him, to escape this whole damn night.