“What contract?” She asked.
I quickly caught her up on the details, watching as her face went from amused, to angry, to amused again.
“I’m sorry, Rachel. I really had no idea.”
“It’s not your fault. And even if you did know, what could you have done?”
“I’d have given Shark hell, that’s what. You know we almost broke up when you left?”
“What?” I almost gasped, feeling genuinely shocked. As different as they appeared on the outside—her with her piercings and purple hair, and Shark with his clean cut good looks, and his only tattoo being the club patch—but they had always appeared to be the most stable of couples here.
“I heard about what happened on the boat,” she said quietly, unable to meet my eye all of a sudden.
“Oh. For what it’s worth, Shark looked pretty horrified.”
“Shark should have intervened. But yeah… that’s pretty much the story he told as well.”
“It’s in the past. There’s no point dwelling on it. And look at you now,” I nodded my head in the direction of her son, who was just beginning to stir from his nap.
“And look at you now,” she grinned once more, the seriousness of our previous words forgotten. “Locked into a contract that says you can’t argue, and three enemies at your back who would love nothing more than to see you lose your shit. This is going to be a fun six months.”
Chapter 17
Dante
I opened one of the cupboards in the bar, cursing to myself when two plastic animals came falling out—an owl and a badger this time.
“Fucking Snow White,” I muttered under my breath before pocketing them. With these two new ones, that made six I had found this week. She owed me one for free. I’d find them all if it fucking killed me.
She’d started this whole plastic animal thing as a joke after I called her a Disney reject one too many times. Now it was a whole fucking scavenger hunt, and I was too far in to back out.
“An owl and a badger,” I yelled towards Vienna as I poured his pint. “Make sure you write them down. She’s not short-changing me again. I swear it was already five, but she’s adamant I’m only on four.”
“You could just give up?” He suggested, but he pulled out his phone to write them down on the master list we had set up. We had them all written down—dates we found them, where they were, and what animals they were.
I don’t know why I didn’t give up, to be fair. They were hardly inconvenient, and I had even laughed a few times—especially at the pig she had perched on the very edge of the medicine cabinet. She had glued it to the wood, so it looked as though it was looking down at me, judging me.
Plus, it made Bee laugh.
That much was true. And anything that made her laugh was worth it. We heard so little of her laughter these days. I made a mental note to remember to show her the two new animal additions, as well as a trip over to Snow White’s to visit her pets. It was one of the only things guaranteed to brighten up Bee’s day. Snow White had even been talking about getting an actual beehive that she would help Bee look after.
“Heads up, boss,” Hacksaw said, nodding towards the door when I looked over at him. My eyes quickly went to the window, cursing under my breath when I saw the cop car pull up outside.
“Shall I get rid?” Vienna said, already halfway out of his seat.
“Nah, let him in. Let’s see what he has to say.”
Vienna sat back down, but he was on the edge of his seat, ready to spring at a moment’s notice.
“Ahh, perfect,” Officer Bradley said as he came into the clubhouse. “Looks like everyone’s here.” His eyes went to me, Vienna, Hacksaw and Shark. “Never too far from one another, are you?”
“To what do we owe the pleasure?” I asked, ignoring his question.
“Rachel around?” he glanced around the place, as though Rachel was going to come jumping out to scare him.
“Rachel? Why would Rachel be here?” I asked innocently.
Fuck me, word travels quickly.
