“What are you talking about?” I asked, having no idea who Venom was.
“Why you went to prison.”
My breath caught, and my heart stopped momentarily before it began to race a mile a minute. “H-how did you know I was in prison?”
He smirked. “You worked in my club. We make it our business to know about our employees.”
Confusion knotted my brow.
“The Shamrock,” he explained, and my mouth fell open. Of course, it made sense. The men that would be in there in the leather vests with Demented Sons on the back. The way the girls always fell all over themselves to serve them. Which was why I rarely had interactions with them—I had no desire to fight over taking care of their tables like the other waitresses had.
My eyes dropped, and I slipped my hand in my pocket to finger the edges of the dreaded papers. I may not have even noticed them had Decker not told me to buckle my seat belt, but they’d been in the way.
“How much do you know?” I asked, wondering the extent of the information in those crumpled pages. I assumed Decker had gotten them from Snow if his club had done a check on me.
“Now? I know it all, but it’s not my place to tell him. Do you think it could’ve been Kelvin tonight?” My eyes bugged at his mention of my ex, and my palms began to sweat.
“But he’s in prison still,” I argued as my heart slammed against my rib cage. The thought that Kelvin might be out terrified me. It was made worse by the thought that he might know where I was. I’d moved up to Podunk, Iowa, in hopes of disappearing. I’d foolishly thought I’d be able to go to a small town and blend in or maybe even remain obscure. Yet I’d stuck out like a sore thumb. Not having come from a small area, I had no idea how small towns worked. The locals had immediately recognized me as an outsider. Despite my aunt having returned there after she’d retired from the military, I wasn’t from there.
My mother had never returned to her hometown. She’d left after graduating high school when my father had taken a job in the oilfields of Texas. My aunt was younger than my mom and had joined the military after Mom was gone. I’d visited my aunt over my summer breaks wherever she happened to be stationed. Well, except for when she was deployed.
The house I’d inherited from my aunt had been their childhood home. When she died unexpectedly while I was on parole and I found she’d left it to me, it had seemed like the perfect solution for a fresh start once my parole was done.
“He got out early for good behavior.” The gravelly words sent my heart plummeting to my feet from fear. The last words Kelvin yelled at me were coming back to haunt me.
“This is all your fault, you dumb cunt! If you would’ve just driven the fucking car right, I wouldn’t be going to prison! Then you testify against me? You’re going to pay for this! Do you hear me, bitch? You’re gonna pay!”
He’d screamed at me as they were taking him away in cuffs during the trial. The trial I’d had to testify at, thanks to my court-appointed attorney’s advice. Kelvin had jumped over the table he’d been sitting at with his attorney and lunged at me on the stand. His screams had echoed down the concrete hallway, and I’d cringed at the hate spewing from him.
“I-I didn’t know,” I stuttered. Suddenly, all of the odd things that had been happening for the past few weeks began to make sense. Honestly, I’d worried that Officer Edwards and his cronies had something to do with it. This option might be worse.
“You were just a kid, Loralei. He manipulated you. There’s no shame in that,” Snow said, but it was my turn to scoff.
“He manipulated me because I was an idiot who made stupid choices.”
“I’m not here to argue the intelligence of your choices. What I’m saying is you were young, inexperienced, and he took advantage of that.”
Repeatedly raking my lower lip between my teeth, I fought off the tears that threatened to fall. Remembering that time of my life was never easy. I’d been so stupid, but thought I knew everything. My parents had tried their best, but when I repeatedly refused to listen, they’d been forced to cut me out of their lives.
Unable to utter a single word for fear of bursting into tears, I nodded. Snow reiterated that he was only a couple doors away if there was anything I needed. Again, I nodded, and he left me alone in the room.
I realized I stank to high heaven of smoke and my clothes were damp from falling into the snow when we’d escaped out of my bedroom window. That propelled me to my decision to take a hot shower. Suddenly exhausted, I went into the small but clean bathroom attached to the bedroom where Snow had left me. Thankfully, there were an assortment of hotel-sized hygiene products.
Once the water was hot, I undressed, climbed in, and let the tears run with the hot water. After I was cried out, I shut the water off, dried off, and went into the room with the towel wrapped around me.
I draped the still-stinking clothes over the dresser and the desk chair to dry and maybe air out. A glance in the mirror told me I looked only marginally better, but at least I was warm and clean.
Unable to keep my eyes open, I climbed between the crisp sheets and dozed off. In my dreams, Decker climbed in behind me with a slight groan of pain and snuggled into my back. Then I drifted deeper into sleep with the security of his arm wrapped around me.