Her head turns slowly so she can see Mick’s large hand gripping tighter onto her shoulder. The fear that drifts from her is palpable and sickening.
“You tell your brother we’re sorry we couldn’t get it to him tonight, Jenny,” Jase speaks up and instantly Mick’s grip on the girl loosens.
I can practically hear her heart beating as she looks at Jase wide-eyed. She’s frozen still until he leans back in his seat and tells her with a wink, “We’ll have it for you next time.”
“You let us know if you want to talk anytime now, you hear me?” Jared says as he opens the door to the club and the music flows into the small back room.
Jenny nods her head furiously, stumbling into the empty chair next to her before taking off out of the room without another look back.
“Follow her,” I tell Mick and with a single nod he’s gone. Jase’s blunt nails tap against the table as the door closes and the sound of the nightlife beyond it is muted once again.
“You let her off easy,” I say quietly under my breath.
“Girls don’t need to be dragged into this shit.” That’s his only answer and he doesn’t bother to lower his voice like I did.
The same table he’s tapping, I’ve covered with blood in the past. It wouldn’t have come to that with the blonde, but a little lie to get her talking wouldn’t have hurt her. Showing our cards that we know she’s buying for someone else, well that might have gotten a word or two from her. Maybe a name.
“Maybe he’s sending girls because he knows you’re weak for them,” I suggest. All of us have our limits. And women happen to be the common thread between us.
“Fuck you, I’m not weak,” he tells me although I can see him considering it. It’s in his eyes.
The corners of my lips tip up into a smirk as Jared lights up a cigarette. But with a puff and the words that come out of his mouth, the smile vanishes. “With the Talvery girl shit, they should know we aren’t pussies when it comes to women.”
The silence stretches in the room for a moment with neither of us commenting.
“The Talvery girl,” I say beneath my breath and it gets a comment from Jared, but I don’t bother to listen to him. “She’s mine,” I tell him, cutting off his joke or whatever the fuck was coming out of his mouth.
I stand abruptly, letting an anger I haven’t felt in a long time dictate my words. Staring into Jared’s eyes, the words rip from my mouth, “The next time someone refers to her as that, the Talvery girl,” I practically spit out the name, “you tell them, she’s all mine.”
My teeth grind against each other so hard, I swear they’ll crack.
Jared doesn’t speak, doesn’t move. I don’t think he’s breathing, although the cigarette in his mouth stays oddly still with the glow of amber making his expression look even paler.
My muscles coil, waiting for him to call her that again. She’s not the Talvery girl. She doesn’t belong to them.
“What’s her name?” I ask him, tilting my head and that cigarette wavers in his mouth. “Take out the fucking cigarette and tell me what the fuck her name is.” My eyes pierce into his as he drops the cigarette from his mouth, barely catching it between his fingers and swallowing thickly. The cords of his neck are tight, and I can hear him swallow.
“I—I—” he stutters, and I lean in closer to scream in his face, the words of my question scratching and ripping their way up my throat, “What’s her name?”
“I don’t know,” he says in a quavering admission.
“It’s Aria,” I say then pat his shoulders with both of my hands as he struggles to look me in the eyes. The anger wanes as I feel his sweat beneath my hands.
“It’s Aria, and she doesn’t belong to the Talverys anymore.” My words are calm, eerily so.
“Of course, she doesn’t,” Jared shakes his head slightly, his lips turning into a hesitant smile. “She’s yours. Aria is yours and she’s called Aria.”
He won’t shut the fuck up, the poor prick.
“You let anyone who calls her otherwise know,” I tell him, nodding my head once toward a spot on the brick wall. The bricks are redder, newer and don’t blend in.
“I’d hate to lose it and have to blow some fucker’s poor skull open because he pissed me off.”
“Yeah,” Jared’s answer is a whisper of fear. “Aria, and she’s yours.”
Jase’s hand hitting the back of my shoulder is the only thing that rips my gaze away from Jared’s.
“Keep up the good work, Jared.” Jase adds, “Good job tonight,” and pushes the door open to go back out into the bar.
He holds it open for me and I move around Jared, still very much stuck in his place and only nodding his response as if he’s scared to speak. As I take a step to leave, I glance down at him, the disgusting smell of piss overriding the scent of cigarettes. The fucker pissed himself.