Snare: Road Kill MC (A Novel) (13 page)

Something on his hand glints like molten butter, picking up the shattered sunlight that permeates the canopy of trees overhead.

Brass knuckles.

Mover nods in a charitable way in our direction.

“Payback's a bitch,” he says with a smile as the big mountain of shit makes his way toward Noose.

I round the bike, heading to stand beside my brother. Knowing we won't live past the next ten minutes.

I won't see Sara again.

I fail her now. Forever.

Sara

I wait in the small room just outside the suite of offices for The Crawl, smoothing my maxi skirt over my thighs for the third time. Actually, the offices serve all the flesh stores owned by Jared McKenna.

The Black Rose was my first choice of the upper echelon of stripping. They'd had some of the same dancers there for five years—almost unheard of in exotic dancing. But when the owner insists on all the benefits that come with a full-time job when strippers are working less than thirty hours a week? Well, that's retention time. Who'd want to leave with those incentives?

Look at me—quitting The Crawl for love.

Stupid.
Right.
It feels like the right thing to do.

My eyes move over Snare's words in the text I got earlier.

He's coming for me
. Like a genuine happily ever after. I didn't think those really happened to people.

I tried not to hope after last night. I've tried to talk myself out of believing.

I can't.
A thrill races through me like a wire of electrified adrenaline. Snare is going to take me away from this.

Just then Thorn moves through a door, catches sight of me, and sweeps his palm through the open doorway as he steps aside for me to pass through.

I stand, swaying. Indecision makes me uncertain. Love spurs me on. I move through the door.

Thorn shuts it softly behind me.

*

Thorn is thoughtful. His dark face has a sort of hard-won rough beauty. He drums his long tapered fingers on his desk.

I get the feeling he doesn't spend a ton of time sitting there. Everything is pretty sterile inside his office.

The gun tucked into a holster graces the back of his chair, and I find myself almost unable to look away from the cold, black metal.

Guns mean death in my reality.

“You're quitting.” He frames his question like a statement, steepling his fingers beneath his chin.

I dip my eyes from his penetrating gaze. “Yes.”

“For a man?”

I inhale deeply, letting it out slowly. My stare reaches him. There's no accusation there. Thorn's been a great boss. I feel like a heel quitting on him.

“No notice, just see ya?”

I nod. “I know you deserve more.”

He nods. “I do. We pride ourselves on selecting girls that have a follow-through type of personality.” There are questions in his dark eyes, asking for more than I'm willing to tell.

“Yeah. Usually, that's me. I'm really responsible.” My words sound lame even to me. I
am
responsible, but when it comes to Snare, that all flies out the window.

The man I spent five years running from is now all I can think about.

Thorn spreads his arms wide, and my eyes fly around his desk, looking at anything other than him. I see a photo of him and his wife, their baby daughter.

Tears fill my eyes.

Thorn leans forward, obviously misinterpreting my tears. “Is this guy threatening you? Because I'm not gonna lie, MCs are bad news.”

I shake my head, scattering the mounting tears on my skirt where they land like dark stains of sadness. “No,” I reply in a low voice. “It's nothing like that. I mean—”
Here goes nothing
. “Snare is my stepbrother.”

Thorn's eyes go wide.

“Gah. Not like that. Really.” A blush saturates my face, heating my skin and making me feel miserable about any confession I give, even if I owe Thorn more than a see-ya.

Thorn's eyebrow cocks. “How's it
like
then, Kitty?”

My hands twist in my lap, but my shame has dried up my tears. “Snare's dad married my mom when I was fifteen.”

Thorn waits, and I go back to looking at my hands. “Riker, my stepfather, was a bastard—
is
. He used to beat everyone—my mom, my younger twin stepsiblings.” My eyes rise, and this part's easy. “He really went after Snare.”

Thorn nods as though in complete understanding. “Snare watch out for ya?” he asks softly.

I nod quickly, staving off fresh tears that come with the memory of all he protected me from.

“Yeah.”

“That's what I did.”

Startled, I look up, trapped by his gaze and the swarming emotion of complete empathy I see on his rugged features. “What—you did?”

“Yup.” Now it's Thorn's turn to look uncomfortable. “Grew up in the projects. Yesler.” His lips twist. “Know the life.”

“Yes,” I whisper. A look of pure understanding flows between us.

“Anyways, my mom whored me and my half sister out while she got fixed up with drugs. Lots of young girls in the house. Sometimes, if I could get the Johns to fuck me up, they wouldn't go after the girls.”

Tears run down my cheeks like an open faucet. My breaths are shaky.

Thorn watches my sadness, his face like granite. “Fucking blew.”

I bark out a laugh that sounds somewhere between a cough and a hiccup of despair. “Yes, it did.”

“Your Snare do that for ya?”

“More,” I say, so embarrassed I don't know how to speak about what happened. Even with a man that lived what we lived. Where we lived.

“This Riker dickhead, he try to rape you?”

I jerk my chin up, and he spreads his arms away from his body for the second time, and strapped on his face is a smile that doesn't come close to reaching his eyes. “Lots of Rikers running around. Need to be stopped. That's why I became a cop. Do undercover here and other places. I can act the part, get in close. Take the fuckers out of their abuse cycle.”

It was part of the nondisclosure I'd signed. Knowing Thorn was a police officer. He's right about fitting the role. He's so rough around the edges people would never suspect he's anything but the manager of a swanky strip club.

Because that's what he wants people to see.

“How old are you?” I ask suddenly, knowing he was raised in the same neighborhood as me, trying to place him.

“Closer to thirty than twenty.” He smirks.

I smile back. “So we just missed each other?”

He nods. “Ya know how it is. Yesler is big.”

I lace my fingers into a knot. “But small,” I finish for him, and he shoots a finger my way like
exactly
.

“Tell you what, Kitty. I'll give you a two-week leave of absence. If your stepbrother”—he pauses over the word, just like Lola did, and I gulp my embarrassment back again
—
“doesn't pan out, you got a place here at The Crawl.”

My nose begins to run as my tears pile up at my chin. Drip, drip, dripping onto my hands and dampening my long skirt. “Thanks, Thorn.”

“I'm not a charitable guy,” he states.

I look into his face, studying the compassion he keeps at bay. I think Thorn might be more gentle than he admits, but I'm not stupid enough to say.

“You love your stepbrother?” he says.

I nod. “I know how it sounds, how—eww.” I keep my eyes on his. “And for the record, I don't love him”—my voice goes low—“I'm
in love
with him.”

Thorn holds up a large palm. A hand built for breaking skulls, and I'm suddenly glad he's not my enemy.

“Don't explain. He's a man that loved you more than his own skin. Or he wouldn't have risked it for you. That's worth a lot.”

“I've only ever been with him,” I confess in a quiet voice, my face blushing so fiercely my head's probably bursting into flames.

Thorn is silent for a second. “Pretty impressive, considering the lifestyle.”

I don't comment.

Finally he says as he stands, “He know that cute kid ya got is his?”

Fuck.

I look up at him looming over me and shake my head. “No.”

“Take some advice, Kitty. If everything you've told me about this guy is true—and it's too fucking wild to be made up”—my blush comes back to miserable life—“then he's not the kind of dude who doesn't want to know a piece of him's out there. His own flesh and blood. Tell him. Now.”

I stand, and he grips my elbow, his fingers encircling my entire arm, he's just that big.

I blink back more tears. “What if he hates me because I didn't tell him sooner. Find him?” My gaze searches his face for clues before he speaks.

Thorn shakes his head. “No man that lived through what you guys endured is gonna hate the mother of his child.” His head cocks, the warmth of his hand bleeding through my thin blouse. “Why did ya leave him to begin with?” His dark eyes search mine.

I tell him in as few words as possible, and his hand drops. Thorn shakes his head. “He's for real. Let Snare do
him
. If he wanted you then, it was for all the reasons that matter. Don't be scared for him to love you. Don't be scared of love. Period.”

My smile's crooked. Sounds like he's speaking from experience. “You're pretty deep for a strip club boss.”

Thorn puffs up his chest dramatically. “I'm more than meets the eye,” he says, tapping the corner of his eye.

I laugh, and he walks to the door and opens it for me.

Passing through the threshold, I turn.

Thorn is leaning against the jamb with his arms folded across an impressive chest. “You take care. If you don't come back after two weeks, I figure you found your happily ever after.”

His words make my mouth drop open, and he frowns. “Something I said?”

I give a soft shake of my head. “No, something I thought.”
Long for.

I turn away from Thorn, and The Crawl—hoping it's the last time I ever have to darken that particular door.

*

“Mommy, what are you doing?”

I turn, wiping the dust off my nose.

Jaylin's little face is screwed up into a pout, her spoon dripping milk all over our four-seater kitchen table.

I sigh.
The lies keep piling up.
But until Snare appears to take me away, I can't get Jaylin's hopes up. Dammit.

“We're taking a little vacation, baby.”

Her small frown becomes a big one. “Ya mean moving, Mommy?”

Shit.
“Not exactly.”

Jaylin purses her lips, dipping her spoon into her cereal and swirling the donut-shaped pieces around, creating a whirlpool of milk.

I've already packed a small cooler of food, and since we woke up so damn late after my crazy night last night... Cheerios it is.

“What about school, Mommy?” Her voice has shrunk into itself, and I hate—
hate
—having to do the white lie program.

I keep telling myself that soon I won't have to lie. Soon it'll be a house, the same school, and a life where I put my clothes on and the only time they come off is to shower.

I shiver.
Or when Snare removes them from my body.

I shake off my fantasy. “Finish your Cheerios, baby girl. We don't need to worry about school this week.”

“Okay.” Voice sullen.

I glance her way, and her cheek is propped in her little hand as she takes a lackluster bite. Her black hair sweeps forward, hiding her from me.

I drop what I'm doing and walk over there. Packing can wait a few minutes. “Let Mommy braid your hair, monkey.”

A smile lights her face, her blue eyes sparkling. “Yes, Mommy, yes!” She frowns. “No pulling.” She pouts again, folding her arms in front of her.

“No pulling,” I agree.

I brush Jaylin's hair, and we settle into a familiar rhythm that never gets old. Just a mom and daughter performing a soothing ritual.

While I wait for my handsome prince to come rescue me.

*

I try to keep the faith. But as four-thirty in the afternoon rolls into seven at night, even I have to admit that Snare's not showing.

I've cried so much in the last day that my eyelids are slightly swollen. Probably not quite done either.

Except for Lola checking in, my cell remains dark. Silent.

I clutch the hard rectangle of plastic to my breast, willing Snare to text. Remembering every thrust, every lick, every look from him is so painful to think about I can barely breathe through it all.

“Let's go to Gasworks Park!” I announce to Jaylin in false cheer when a five-zero-zero flashes on the digital clock in my living room.

I am
not
pathetic, I tell myself. I will not wait around for Snare. After last night and our heart-filled confessions,
I was so sure.
Sure that he loved me as much as I loved him.

Sure that he'd be that white knight I didn't even know I was waiting for.

My lips quake, so I press them together in a line. An I'm-not-going-to-bawl lip lock.