Chapter 3
THREE
SILAS
“I’ll show you to your room.” I didn’t look back at her as I started across the property in the direction of the clubhouse.
Since apparently she thought she had to pack her entire fucking closet, I had a suitcase in each hand and a giant duffel bag slung across my body.
Boots pounding the dirt while I did my best to keep my shit together when every single thing about this situation had me riding a crumbling edge.
Nerves frayed and guard so fucking high I couldn’t see over the top of it.
Could feel her gaze whipping between me and her scumbag brother’s retreating car, irritation and befuddlement stirring her into a ball of disorder as he peeled out onto the road.
Dude tucking tail when I’d strode up to him like I was gonna give him one of those affable man hug/claps on the back thingies, only instead, I’d leaned down to his ear and rumbled, “Get the fuck off my property before you don’t have the ability to do so.”
Coward had her bags out of the trunk and was shoving his car into reverse in ten seconds flat.
She was still wavering there, anger billowing off her in waves, before she finally gave a little shriek of frustration and scrambled to catch up to me.
A wildfire enclosing fast.
“What, do you expect me to just follow you wherever you tell me to go?” she huffed at my back.
“That’s exactly what I expect you to do,” I grunted, barely glancing her way.
A fall of honey-strung brown hair whipped around her stunning face, red and gold strands lighting up beneath the sunlight that slanted through the air as the sun began to descend to the west.
Rays of it struck along the ferocious slash of her cheeks. Her pink, full lips glinted like blades as she curled her mouth in dissatisfaction.
No woman should be that beautiful.
Or that pissed off.
It pushed me one more inch closer to that edge.
“Well, my brother might have caved to whatever debt he owes you that you called in, but I’ll have you know, my loyalties do not belong to you. I’m not about to fall for however you manipulated him into bending to your will.”
Is that what she thought? That I manipulated her brother?
That fucking little weasel.
I tried to ignore her, but she just kept right up behind me. “If you think I’m going to concede to whatever sick, twisted games you’re playing, you picked the wrong girl.”
My nostrils flared as her words impaled me in the back.
And did she stop firing them?
No.
Not this one.
“I’m not afraid of you,” she spat.
Her suitcases hit the ground with a thud, and I whirled on her so fast she jarred back like she’d slammed into a brick wall.
She might as well have with the way every muscle in my body had gone rigid and hard.
The air between us simmered and shook, and it took everything I had not to fist my hands in her tight white tee.
Her tits pushed up over the top. That riot of a body burning with hate.
I leaned in her direction, trying to shield myself from her scent that suddenly invaded my senses.
This intoxicating mixture of almonds and apples, all encased in a sweet cream I had the sudden urge to dip my fingers into.
“You sure about that?”
Those harvest eyes went wide. A swirl of browns and reds and golds whirling with exactly what she said she didn’t feel.
Fear.
Though it was nearly obliterated in the hatred that blazed within it.
Wildfire.
“Very,” she tossed back.
Air puffed from my nose, and I cocked my head to the side. “Let’s get something straight, Brinley.”
I said her name like it was a curse, my words coming out slow and sure.
“You can think whatever you want about me, but while you’re here, on my property, you operate under my rules.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Because you’re the king, I presume?”
She shot a glance in the direction of the row of bikes lined against the left side of the shop like she was offering up some sort of evidence of my guilt.
She wouldn’t be wrong.
“President,” I corrected.
“Right,” she said with enough vitriol to supply electricity to the compound for an entire week. “And what exactly does the president plan to do with me?”
My imagination took it upon itself to catalogue all the plans I really wanted to make.
Pushing her up against the wall of the shop and fucking her out in the open sounded like a really good place to start, knowing she’d be chanting my name rather than the virulence she was spewing.
Or maybe just stuffing her smart mouth full of my cock would do the trick.
It didn’t really seem to have a preference of the location. Either would do.
But that was not gonna fucking happen.
I already warned my entire crew that she was abso-fucking-lutely off-limits.
I needed to remember that command for myself.
“You’re going to be a good girl and do what I say.”
Spite narrowed those eyes, and I knew there was zero chance of that.
But hey, a man could try.
“And how long am I supposed to stay your prisoner?”
My brows shot for the sky. “My prisoner?”
“That’s what this is, isn’t it?”
Maybe it was best she thought so. Maybe I should inject her full of fear.
Warn her of the things that would happen to her if she didn’t obey.
Instead, I snatched up her bags and mumbled, “Think whatever you want to,” as I turned on my heel and returned to storming a path across the area between the shop and the clubhouse.
Through the massive white oaks that stood proud over most of the property, the two-story building came into view.
The square, block structure hedged within the dense, leaf-laden branches.
It basically looked like a bar out front, two swinging doors leading into the fray normally going down within the walls.
A slew of motorcycles were parked facing it, and heavy music poured from the walls. No doubt, my crew had already kicked the unwinding at the end of the day into gear.
They’d be getting messy by six and devolving into complete debauchery by ten.
Which was why I angled around the side of the building toward the staircase at the back, hoping to keep Brinley out of the thick of it the best that I could.
I glanced back at her to make sure she was keeping up.
She glared at me with that prideful head held high, a pro as she strode along in these black patent leather heels that were sky-fucking-high.
Red-painted toes peeping out.
Black pants hugging every delicious curve, that delectable body making her plain white tee appear designer.
God.
Just what I needed.
A stunner strutting around on my property.
I rounded to the back of the building. The volume of the music faded to a dull throb on this side, and I started up the set of wooden stairs.
She hesitated at the bottom.
“You’d better hurry up so I can show you to your cell.” I injected as much sarcasm into it as I could.
I could feel the huff of her breath, then those heels began to click against the slats as she hurried to catch up.
With her breathing down my neck, I dropped one of her suitcases and punched the code into the pad next to the door.
“85641. Don’t forget it,” I said as the lock beeped and automatically disengaged. “Only my vice president and sergeant at arms have this code.”
I held the door open for her.
She scowled at me as she passed. “Is that supposed to make me feel better? Like I’m supposed to trust them?”
I pushed through the doorway and had her pinned to the interior hallway wall in a flash.
That sweet apple pie scent nearly bowled me over.
I angled in close, my voice a low scrape. “I would think that would be preferential to trusting your brother.”
Harvest eyes widened.
Wild and confused, and her mouth popped open like she was looking for the appropriate retort.
I didn’t wait around for it. I grabbed her bags and stalked to the first door on the left. I shoved it open and tossed her things inside.
I felt her hovering at the doorway, peering in, that gaze burning up my back.
“This is your room while you’re here. It’s off-limits to anyone but you.”
Had to at least give her that assurance.
She blinked. Confused again as she wandered into the space.
Elena’d had a field day when she learned about our guest. Descending on the square box in a furor of pink and confetti.
There was a new pink comforter on the full bed on the left wall, pink towels in the attached bathroom.
She had stocked the little bookshelf next to the door full of every kind of girly book you could imagine. Romances and self-help and what I was pretty sure were makeup manuals.
And on the desk, she’d left a handwritten note that said ‘Welcome’ like she was greeting a guest at the Ritz.
Bewildered, Brinley took a hardback, staring down at it as she edged deeper into the room, her attention snagging on the message Elena had left her.
I forced out, “I’ll have someone bring you dinner up here tonight so you can get settled. Breakfast is served downstairs at seven, then you’re due at the autobody shop at eight.”
I pulled the last one out of my ass right at that moment.
I’d asked Cash Cunningham, Sovereign Sanctum’s hacker over in Moonlit Ridge, for every detail he could get on Brinley Webber.
I remembered seeing that she worked as a bookkeeper in an accountant’s office, and I knew to survive this, I was going to need to keep the woman busy.
A frown knitted her brow.
Fuck me.
It shouldn’t be so damned appealing.
“The autobody shop?”
“Heard you were good with numbers. You’re going to be working in the office.”
That frown reached for the sky. “Are you serious? You have me staying here to work off my brother’s debt in your office?” Her voice was full of suspicion.
Yeah, it sounded like bullshit to me, too.
Her eyes narrowed as she shook her head. “This whole situation is truly messed up. I don’t know what you’re holding over my brother, but I’ve got some money saved up. You just need to take me back to my apartment, and I’ll get you whatever he owes.”
There was a hint of desperation that tinged her words. Worry and dread for her brother. Her care bleeding out.
My stomach twisted, sure that she really had no fucking clue the kind of danger she was in.
“You aren’t going anywhere, Brinley.” The words left me like barbs. Scraping my raw throat.
Anger rushed in to take her worry’s place. “You can’t keep me here. I’ll leave, and if you try to follow me, I’ll go to the police. You know this is extortion…or…or kidnapping.”
I had the urge to tell her what her brother was in, but it had been agreed upon that it was best if she wasn’t in the know.
Sometimes it was safest in the darkness.
I dumped her duffel onto the floor, and I took one step toward her, then another, until I was standing in her flames.
She was fucking tall, but I still towered over her.
She kept that fierce chin tilted up toward me, though I could feel her trembling all the way down to the bones.
“You want to run to the cops? Go for it. See what happens. But if you want to see to it that your brother makes it out of this with his head still attached to his shoulders, you’ll do exactly what I say.”
Each word curled out of me like a bullet.
A pure, blatant threat.
My voice hardened further. “You won’t stray from the boundaries of this compound without my approval and an escort. You’ll eat when you’re told and sleep when you’re told, and you’re going to show up at the shop at eight-fucking-o’clock in the morning like the good girl you are.”
Was pretty sure that good girl wanted to spit in my face.
Just to drive home the point, I lifted my hand and ran the tip of my index finger down the side of her neck.
Shock parted her mouth, and she stood frozen minus the shaking that wracked her body.
Outrage and something else blistered from her being.
Forcing a smirk, I said, “Paying off your brother’s debt at the autobody shop is a whole lot better than paying it off with this body, don’t you think?”
Dick move, yeah.
But I needed this woman afraid of me. For her to grasp what was riding on this without her truly knowing a thing.
I didn’t give her time to answer before I turned on my heel and strode to the door, holding onto the knob as I turned to look back at her.
“I’ll see you at eight tomorrow morning.”
I snapped the door shut one second before the book she’d been holding crashed against the wood.
“Fucking wildfire,” I grumbled as I shoved out the main door and into the approaching twilight.