Chapter 8
Patriot slammedhis fist into Red’s computer desk, sending pens and old banana Laffy Taffy wrappers into the air. The man really needed to clean up his space. It was a fucking trash heap. How did a mind as brilliant as Red’s not get bogged down surrounded by so much clutter? Old food wrappers, empty bottles of Fresca, old, crusty looking socks—Patriot did not want to know why they looked crusty, and crumpled up pieces of note paper were everywhere around his desk chair. His queen-sized bed was unmade, his bedside table was cluttered with receipts, change, several Chapstick tubes, and two red devil facemasks that were meant to obscure everything but his weird as hell dark blue eyes. And Patriot didn’t want to know why there was a tripod and a video camera set up in the corner beside his closet. It was no secret Red had an Instagram and Tiktok following, but Patriot didn’t want to know for what. He could take a guess, though, because while the man was a desk jockey, computer nerd, he was fucking built. He was broad shoulders and tapered waist, like an WWE wrestler. Having spent six years in the Marines, the man was all rock-hard muscles and colorful tats, so it wasn’t a surprise that he made money on the side flashing all those muscles for thirsty bitches. And his face wasn’t too bad, either. He knew from experience that Red got plenty of tail; he’d leave his room during parties just long enough to snag a woman, take her back to his room, do whatever nasty shit he wanted to her, then he’d let her loose and disappear into his room again. Patriot could guess, also, just how dirty the man could get for that camera…for his “fans”.
Patriot shuddered. Red needed to take a hose to the whole room! Scratch that—if he could get away with it without endangering the whole clubhouse, he should set the room on fire. Give it over to the demon gods of garbage and shame.
“Whoa there, asshole, this is my shit—my expensive shit,” Red grumbled, reaching out to gently pat the 27-inch, curved computer monitor—one of four—on his massive L-shaped desk. They were stacked, two by two, so it looked like a box of screens. Perfect for digging up shit, programming, and whatever the hell Red did in his “personal time”.
Red made kissy faces at his screens, then turned to Patriot. “Try not to Hulk out around my babies.” It was weird as shit to hear the man say “babies” with a voice that was all gravel and vodka.
“This is bullshit!” Patriot growled. “That motherfucker walked right up to her door, put that note right on it, then walked away—right in front of a camera, and we still have no idea who the fuck he is.”
Red’s lips thinned. “I don’t know why you don’t just make Jaime tell you who he is. It isn’t like he’s doing her any favors being a creepy ass motherfucker. What does she have to gain keeping him a secret?”
It wasn’t the first time Patriot asked that question, just never out loud.
Jaime had been adamant that none of the Unchained brothers could know about her “predicament”, but Patriot wasn’t playing around—he had too much going on to let Jaime run things the way she wanted. He’d already agreed to fake a relationship with her, for fuck’s sake. He drew the line at being led around by a woman…unless she was Cilla. He’d let Cilla lead him straight to hell, as long as he could kiss her goodbye before she shoved him into the flames. With Jaime, however….
He knew Red could keep his mouth shut about what was going on with Jaime’s “situation”, and the man had the equipment, software, and access to help Jaime. The more help Red could offer, the quicker Patriot could get the asshole stalking Jaime sorted out so she could go back to being on the periphery of his life until her brother came back. And then he’d square off with Stallion and handle that shit, too.
Fuck. His life was a cluster.
Red cocked his head to the side and narrowed his eyes at Patriot thoughtfully, his overlong dark brown hair falling onto his forehead. It made him look like a boy band bitch.
“I wonder if this isn’t just some ploy she’s using to get back into your bed,” Red remarked, making all the muscles in Patriot’s body tense.
It wasn’t the first time Patriot wondered the same thing, just never out loud.
Grunting, he thrust his fingers through his loose hair and cursed.
“Jaime isn’t like that. If she says some asshole is bothering her, then some asshole is bothering her. If anything, she sees this as an opportunity to try her hand at getting me to stick close. But she knows the score between us—” Red snorted, rolling his eyes, “—and she knows games won’t ever work on me. Besides…unless she’s an Oscar winning actress, that fear I saw on her face this morning was real. She was terrified, man.”
Red stared at Patriot silently, his striking midnight blue gaze too knowing—and with all the shit he saw in the depths of the internet, Patriot wasn’t surprised the man had knowledge.
“Right,” Red finally said. He tipped his chin toward his central monitor that had a blurry image of a man in all black, head covered in a hoodie, face covered with a hockey mask, and sleeves pulled all the way down to wrists that met with black gloves. There wasn’t a single identifying feature about the man other than he was skinny, about five-feet-eight-inches, and he knew where to park out of the view of the camera.
Neither Red nor Patriot could see anything in the ninety second footage that gave them any clue as to who the man was.
“So, what do you want to do now?” Red asked, leaning back in his creaking leather desk chair. “This footage is a bust, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other cameras in the area that might have caught something.”
Patriot nodded. “Yeah. Look into that.” He didn’t have to add when you have time. They both knew that club business took precedence, and Red was elbow deep in investigating two new potential prospects and eight potential new brothers from Bone Dogz for any dark secrets they may be hiding. Unchained weren’t one percenters, but that didn’t mean they were squeaky clean. And that meant that any man looking to be a member had to be vetted. They didn’t need one of the fucking alphabet agencies getting a mole in their club.
Turning to leave, Patriot caught sight of a poster on the wall nearest Red’s bed.
ALL BLACK HATS LOVE A LITTLE BACKDOOR ACTION
Curling his lips, Patriot shook his head before leaving the club tech perv to his business. Patriot had a “boyfriend stuff” date to plan for a woman he didn’t actually want to date, just so he could uncomplicate his life enough to date a woman he actually wanted to date.
Fuck.
His life was a goddamn mess.
He just hoped his plan to take Jaime out in Clarks Summit meant that Cilla wouldn’t see…that she wouldn’t know. He couldn’t imagine her confusion with his kissing the shit out of her one day, then taking Jaime out on the next.
Once it was all done, he’d sit down and explain everything to her—from his mistake three years ago with Jaime, to the dumpster fire of his current problems.
Cilla’s cool, she’s sweet; she’ll understand.
Fuck.
Well, so much for his commanding her not to avoid him.
Patriot not coming around the last three days made not avoiding him that much easier.
Apparently, he finally realized that his duty as Horde’s wingman was fulfilled, and he didn’t need to bother with silly ol’ Cilla any longer.
That’s what she wanted, it was why she’d avoided him those days after the party in the first place—to put space between them so she could move on.
Mission accomplished, right?
She should be satisfied, feel victorious, right?
So why did she feel…empty?
Lonely.
She never realized how deep and agonizing loneliness could feel until Patriot was no longer there, chatting with her in the diner, running into her at the grocery store or Roseanna’s, invading her space in her house, kissing her….
Pinching the bridge of her nose, she squeezed her eyes shut to force out that last thought.
He’d kissed her out of some weird obligation—there’d been no attraction there, on his part, anyway. Maybe his absence meant his quiet disgust of her could no longer be hidden—he’d forced himself to kiss her, had grossed himself out, and now couldn’t face even looking at her again.
…disgusted….
That thought pushed the blade already embedded between her ribs deeper into her heart.
The chiming of the bell over the door jerked Cilla from her self-recriminating thoughts. She opened her eyes and sighed. She only had two more hours on her morning shift, then she could clock out and enjoy what was left of her Friday.
Which meant she was going to take a quick trip to the Shur Save, grab a frozen pizza, and peanut butter cookies, then veg out in front of the TV to binge K-Dramas like they were the cure for heartbreak.
Lifting her head and plastering a smile on her lips to greet the newcomers, her smile immediately died when she saw four people she never wanted to see again slink into the diner, their lips curled in disgust. Sasha, Tasha, Marci…and Jaime.
Patriot’s Jaime.
What was she doing there? It was Friday at 9:30, why wasn’t she at work?
Dana, thank God, greeted them, speaking with Sasha in low tones, before directing the group to her own section.
Good. At least she wouldn’t have to deal with the petty meanness she knew would be thrown her way if she’d been forced to serve them.
It wasn’t like she hadn’t dealt with women like them her whole life, she was just…so freaking tired of having to hear the same insults over and over again. She got it—she knew she was ugly and fat—they didn’t need to remind her of it like it was their sacred duty to make her feel like shit all day, every day.
After leaving high school, she spent a few blissful years living on her own, working at the diner, and existing in relative peace without the bullying. Then…she followed Stephie into the Unchained clubhouse, and it was like high school had been resurrected. The club women lived and breathed venom and toxic beauty. The ol’ ladies were nice enough, but they kept to themselves. It was the hangarounds, the clubwhores, and the unofficial girlfriends that were vipers, immediately seeing her as prey.
From the beginning, Sasha, Tasha, Marci, and Jaime had made it their mission to make Cilla feel small and worthless. Funny thing was, they hadn’t needed to do anything to make her feel that way. She existed in small and worthless. It was her reality.
Except…for a few short months, she’d felt…meaningful, significant. She’d felt seen. She’d honestly believed that a man like Patriot saw something worthwhile in her, something he wanted to nurture.
But she’d been so wrong.
The burn of tears behind her eyes made her spin toward the swinging kitchen door. She ducked her head and hurried away from the piercing stare she could feel searing a whole in the side of her head. No doubt, the Unchained women were watching her, waiting for her to do something they could humiliate her about.
Entering the tiny locker-slash-storage room opposite the kitchen, Cilla leaned her forehead against the cold, hard steel of her locker. She wiped at the lone tear that escaped, and cursed.
She just needed to finish her two hours, and then she could go home and just…deal. That’s all she could do. Deal.
A familiar notification sound dinged from inside her locker, and she pushed off it to open the door. She snatched her cell from inside her purse and checked the screen.
Two unread texts; the ding was a reminder that she had texts waiting on her phone.
Deciding to take her ten-minute break, she input her code, opened the texting app, and immediately tensed.
Patriot: Pizza tonight?
The time delivered was an hour ago. The next text came in sixteen minutes ago.
Patriot: And don’t bother avoiding me. I’ll find you.
What the ever-loving hell? Not knowing how the heck to respond, she hovered her thumb over the keyboard and nearly jumped out of her skin when Dana banged through the door.
“What the fuck are you doing back here? Tables five and seven want service. I’m tired of picking up your slack. Just because you want to be a lazy ass, doesn’t mean I’m gonna keep covering for you,” Dana sneered, before slamming back out the door, not even bothering to wait for Cilla’s response.
Dana? Picking up her slack? Cilla snorted, rolling her eyes. The woman did the bare minimum to eek by, which was why her tips were always to dismal. Then she’d whine and complain that Cilla got all the best hours and tables. Well, if she didn’t half-ass everything, maybe Millie would schedule her for the busier times during the week.
Blinking down at her phone, she decided to ignore the text. There was no way Patriot was going to show up at her house with pizza tonight. He was waiting to claim Jaime.
But he kissed you….
Then he forgot about her for days.
What could he possibly want with her now?
Yeah, she wouldn’t worry about him showing up. She had no idea what his reasoning was for continuing to insert himself in her life but, eventually, he’d get tired of playing with her. Once he finally claimed Jaime, he’d focus on her as his ol’ lady. And he’d never bother with Cilla again.
Suddenly, her skin was too tight, and her chest throbbed beneath her skin, like her heart was in its death throes. She rubbed at it, gritting her teeth. God, the idea of Patriot never coming around again, of never seeing him again, or worse, seeing him with Jaime—kissing her, touching her, giving her everything Cilla had yearned for, it was like someone was sticking bamboo needles under her fingernails.
Cilla blinked back tears, angry that she’d allowed herself to fall so far, so fast for a man who saw nothing wrong with toying with her while he waited for the chance to make things official with the woman he really wanted to be with.
That annoying voice in her head told her she was wrong, that Patriot wasn’t the type of man to mess with a woman’s feelings, that he was a man of honor.
But Cilla couldn’t think about anything else right then. It took up too much energy to try to wrangle her stampeding, wayward thoughts.
Stallion, Jaime’s brother, couldn’t get home fast enough. Once he was there, Patriot would claim Jaime, and Cilla could move on.
Until then…she’d endure.
Hearing Dana call for her, Cilla tossed her phone back in her locker, and hurried to answer the sharp summons.
Maybe the next two hours wouldn’t suck.
Three hours later, Cilla was aching all over. Her feet, her legs, her back…and her heart.
Nothing beat a person down quite like a full day of serving tables…and a heaping helping of mean girls with vicious tongues. From 7 AM to two hours closing at 5 PM—because Dana had taken off early, leaving Cilla to do all the closing chores alone—she’d schlepped and pasted on a smile, and now she was ready to do absolutely nothing until her alarm went off tomorrow morning.
As she trudged up the stairs to her front door, she couldn’t stop the memories from pummeling her.
“…God, she looks like a fucking pig in that outfit. I bet people tip her with food scraps,”Sasha declared loud enough to be heard across the restaurant. Which meant Cilla heard it, but so did the people at the table she was serving. She forced a smile, ignoring the looks of pity from the patrons.
“I heard that she threw herself at Cluster and he had to push her off him—and that man’ll fuck anyone,”Sasha said, snickering, once again uncaring about who heard her.
And so it went, for the eighty minutes the women were there. They’d only ordered diet sodas and salads, but they’d stayed longer than necessary just to continue watching her, throwing barbs, and laughing when they landed.
During their nearly hour and a half long bitch session, Dana got more and more frustrated—with Cilla—blaming her for the fact the women were still there, taking up a table during a meal rush. And it got exponentially worse once the women left…and “forgot” to tip Dana. The woman had been livid, demanding Cilla pay her the 22% the club women hadn’t for her services.
Exhausted and not in the mood to deal with Dana’s bullshit, Cilla had given the woman her “due”, which left her with only $100 of the $150 she’d earned that day in tips.
But losing the money, dealing with customers who’d stiffed her—not a rare occurrence, and taking hit after hit from Tasha, Sasha, and Marci hadn’t been the straw that broke her back. It had been what Jaime had said right before the quad squad had strolled out the door.
“Patriot ordered my property kutte, and he’s coming by tonight to give it to me. He says he doesn’t want to wait for Stallion to get home, that he can’t wait to make me his….”
Cilla wasn’t a fool; she knew Jaime had meant for her to hear that. Obviously, she knew about Cilla’s feelings for Patriot—all the club women knew. And they’d gloried in their merciless teasing.
Unlocking her front door, Cilla came through the door and let it swing shut behind her. Her body felt like it weighed a ton…and her heart felt like it weighed a million pounds. It hurt. She hurt—everywhere.
Closing her eyes, she sucked in a deep breath and stilled.
Oak…sage…and motor oil?
Only one thing in the world smelled like that.
Her eyes popped open, and she gasped.
Patriot was there, lounging on her couch, his arms crossed behind his head, one ankle rested on his knee as he stared at her. He looked the picture of relaxed…except for the tension rolling from his large frame, and the look of frustration pinching his handsome features.
Cilla shook her head, desperate to clear it, because she couldn’t be seeing what she was seeing.
Patriot was here. In her house. With her.
But what about Jaime? The woman had taken great pleasure in telling her that Patriot would be with her tonight.
So why was he in her house, on her couch, looking like he had no plans to go anywhere?
And why was her traitorous heart leaping?