Chapter One
CECI
This place smelled like shit. Granted the place in question was a dark, cramped closet in the back of a motorcycle bar and I’m pretty sure my hand was broken. Still, would a little air freshener kill anyone?
Okay. Let me back up.
The reason I was currently getting better acquainted with the inside of a closet located in a room that was more than likely used for sex, passing out, and maybe even some shady backdoor deals could have something to do with the fact that a few minutes ago, I punched a biker in the mouth. Or at least I thought he was a biker, but I assumed everyone in motorcycle bars were bikers, so.
Why was I even at a motorcycle bar? Well, the bar that my old high school friends chose had gotten old pretty quick. Way quicker than I thought it would when I first agreed to meet them out for drinks. I hadn’t seen Paige and Sarah much since we graduated. Only during the summers when we were all still in college visiting home. But since I was pretty scarce in the friend department nowadays and my only other unmarried friend was inconveniently out on a date, I thought it might be fun to reunite and catch up.
I thought wrong.
While in high school, these had been the girls I could count on not to suck up to me for being the youngest daughter of one of the biggest business empires in the country. But spending time with them for the first time after college was different. The talk around our wine glasses—because apparently a wine bar was now their equivalent of a night out like we were forty or something—had been strictly centered on their new lives as full-time employees in corporate America. Which wouldn’t have been a problem had they not asked me a myriad of questions about whatIwas doing now that we’d all graduated college and what my plans for my career were.
Essentially, the types of questions Ihated.
When had it become customary to berate people about what they were doing with their lives anyway? In my book that was a pretty damn private thing. I guess that was only my book though, because the questions were constant as of late. Which made it incredibly annoying to deal with them on my night out.
Still, no matter how annoying, I had made the premeditated decision to be “Good Ceci” tonight. To take whatever they gave me in stride, because they now lived outside of Seaside and this random impromptu meeting would probably be the only time we would get to see each other like this for a long time. And for some reason I thought I cared.
Turns out, I didn’t.
I didn’t care about their corporate lives or their five-year plans. I didn't even care about their college memories, as mine were less than memorable. And when those bitches started asking me about myconnections—Connections that, yeah sure, I had but I sure as hell didn’t want to actually use. Connections that were made primarily through my family andnotme. Connections that theyknewI hated to be used for—Yeah, let’s just say my toleration for the reunion ended way before the night did.
And was Ireallysupposed to stick around for girls who didn’t bat an eyelash at doing so many things I outwardly disliked? Girls who didn't even know me anymore?
No, no, andhellno.
The night wasn’t what I expected, not even a good enough distraction to warrant agreeing to it. I had little tolerance for things I didn’t agree with. So I slipped out on my old friends and made my way down the quiet streets of inner Seaside.
I didn’t want to go home.
Large glass buildings—some new, some old—decorated the clean streets. I never spent much time in the city before moving here after college.
Just half an hour away were the stylish Rhode Island beaches I’d grown up on, but all my family’s businesses were located here in town. As was one of my brothers, who lived not too far away, and both of my sisters too. But I didn’t want to see any of them then either. They were also offenders of the dreaded‘what are you going to do now?’questioning. Lately everyone was.
Everyone but him.
My mind drifted to a cozy cottage along the Seaside Beach, and I let it. That’s where I wanted to be, or at least with who usually occupied that home.
Hmm. I guess Icouldcall him to get me out of this mess. But I’m pretty sure I hadn't heard him wrong. He definitely said he had a date tonight. And I didn’t want to messthatup…
Looking around myself, I sighed. Then I shifted so that I was sitting on my ass instead of crouching in front of the closet door. It was solid wood, not one of those shuddered doors that you could see out the openings, therefore I had no idea what was going on the other side of it. The guy I’d punched in the face could have already forgotten about me, or he could be on the hunt for me at this very second.
Risking scabies or maybe herpes of the face (if there was such a thing), I moved again to lay my front flat on the ground. Cautiously, the side of my cheek followed suit. I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t see underneath the bottom of the door without doing it—And yep, it was just as sticky as I thought it was going to be.Yuck.
On top of me wearing the stickiness of the floors, now that I was leaning weight onto my hand, I was a thousand percent sure something had broken in it. The pain that screamed through the limb was sharp enough that I felt my eyes water. Not in an‘I’m going to cry’way. I almost never did. This hurt in more of a‘knock the breath out of you’kind of way. The kind of pain where you can't control the rest of your bodily reactions. Hence the eye moisture.
Biting back a hiss, I tried to ignore the pain and train my one available eye to the shadows moving underneath the door. There were definitely people back here. And judging by the way they were pacing back and forth they were looking for something.
Probably a five-foot something with tawny brown skin and reddish gold hair who decided it would be a good idea to not only walk into a motorcycle bar because she was bored, shark them at pool, and call the greasy guy that came onto her a‘Sons of Anarchy wannabe prick.’—But also, punch him in the mouth two times and the nose three when he started to get handsy.
It was overkill, I know. But in my defense, he had been gripping me like he planned on taking me back here to this musty-ass closet anyway. As much as it was overkill, it was also self-defense, and he did deserve it. Plus, I'm pretty sure it was instant karma that the final punch had been the one to hurt my hand, sending reverberating pain shooting through the entire appendage and up my arm. So there, we were even.Hedidn’t seem to think so, though.
Damn.
I turned over gingerly, careful not to use my hurt hand and careful not to make too much noise as I flipped over onto my back. I’d have to scrub my body top to bottom after I got out of here, but first I had to actually leave. And to do that I needed a getaway driver.
