Wylder watched the proceedings with no shift in his faintly amused expression. I resisted the urge to claw his eyes out like the cat he kept saying I was and tugged up my shirt collar to cover my nose. It wasn’t enough protection from the stench to prevent me from wanting to gag every five seconds.
It also left a band of skin around my waist bare. “Love it,” Wylder called out teasingly. “Getting a bit of a strip show too.”
I’d have stuck my tongue out at him, but he wouldn’t have seen it anyway through the shirt. Tuning him out, I concentrated on my work as well as I could, humming a soft tune to distract myself.
Bit by bit, I worked through the disgusting mess. I let my mind detach, paying no attention to what I was putting my gloved hands on, just getting through this chore. Everything I could easily pick up went into a garbage bag until three were stuffed full.
Beneath a pizza box that’d been wedged under a chair, I found one treasure amid all the trash: two tightly rolled fifties with a faint dusting of white powder. Fucking rich assholes who could afford to snort coke with a bigger bill than some people in the Bend ever had in their wallets—and to forget those bills on the floor. But hey, their loss was my gain.
When I looked up, Wylder was gone. I guessed watching me wiggle my ass in the air while grabbing junk off the floor hadn’t been so exciting after all. I definitely wasn’t disappointed to have lost his company. I wiped the powder off the fifties and tucked them into my pocket.
Then it was time to get down to scrubbing.
For a little while, my nose had gotten numbed to the horrendous stink. As soon as I started working the worst of the offenses out of the carpet and the furniture, the smell rose up twice as strong. Only now it was combined with the pungent tang of the cleaning fluid.
My stomach lurched, and I nearly lost my breakfast to add a second pool of vomit to the room’s décor. Gritting my teeth, I pushed through the nausea. Why not imagine that with every rub of the sponge, I was throttling Colt’s neck? Bashing his arrogant face in. He’d deserve nothing less.
Less than twenty-four hours ago, I’d still thought I was going to marry him. The idea seemed so foreign now I almost laughed.
In the most horrible of ways, he’d given me what I’d wanted, hadn’t he? I didn’t have to answer to Dad anymore, that was for sure. But—God, as much as I’d hated my father sometimes, as many times as I’d pictured pulling a gun or a knife on him myself just to make the torment stop, I hadn’t enjoyed seeing him go down.
Colt had killed him without provocation while under a treaty of peace most people even in the Bend would have considered sacred. There was no justification for that, let alone what he’d done to every other Claws member in that building. What he’d tried to do to me.
It wasn’t even just killing them. Who would have been left to mourn any of them if he’d succeeded in taking me down too? Even with me still alive, it wasn’t as if I could organize a dozen wakes, say a full farewell to any of them. If no one else, Grandma should have gotten a proper send-off.
But Colt’s people would be searching for me, I was sure of it. He wouldn’t take the chance that I’d come back for revenge. I was a loose end, and men like him didn’t get where they were without learning to stamp out every one of those they came across.
I thought back to our last couple of dates—the lunch we’d grabbed at that new café he’d recommended, the chick flick I’d dragged him to less because I was eager to see it than because I wanted to see how wellhe’dendure it. Colt had laughed with me, held my hand, looked at me as if he couldn’t wait to discover more of me on our wedding night.
And it had all been a lie. Even if he hadn’t been planning the massacre all along, he must have known by then, right?
How could I have been sostupid?
I wrenched my hands against the rug in a particularly brutal motion, and the last of the vomit stain disappeared. Sitting back on my heels, I let out my breath and surveyed the room.
There were still a few splatters of what looked like cola to deal with and a scattering of crumbs I’d take the vacuum over later, but I was getting there. And Wylder had thought this request would be enough to send me running.
Rolling my eyes, I got to work on the next stain. I’d zoned out so deeply that the voice that broke through my thoughts practically gave me a heart attack.
“Who the hell areyou?”
I startled and lost my grip on the sponge. Three beefy middle-aged guys with polos tucked into their jeans were standing by the door. Tattoos edged up their necks from beneath the folded collars. Nobles men, and pretty high up in the pecking order from their slightly posh clothes.
The man who’d spoken, a bald guy with another tattoo decorating his scalp, stepped toward me with a scowl. “I asked you a question, girl.”
One of the other men snickered. “Just look at her, Axel. She must be one of the groupies.” His open leer sent a wave of disgust through me. Suddenly I missed Wylder.
I kept my gaze steady. The trick with every gangster I’d ever metotherthan my father had been to show no fear, not even any concern. If you outdid them in boldness, they stopped seeing you as prey and decided it was easier not to see you at all. “Wylder told me to clean up this room. I’m just about finished.”
The first man—Axel—narrowed his eyes at me as if he had expected me to simper. But now that my initial shock had faded, I considered the layout of the room and how easily I could dodge around these jerks to the door if they came at me. It never hurt to be prepared.
The guys turned away from me, muttering to themselves. “Why the fuck did Wylder even let an untried chick in here?” the leering dude said in a voice not quite hushed enough. “It hasn’t even been two weeks since the Titan bit the dust.”
The Titan? Was that one of the Nobles’ people—he’d died? Here? I frowned. If it’d been bad enough for these guys to be disturbed about the death two weeks later, it mustn’t have been a typical loss while on the job.
“Who knows what goes through the kid’s head,” Axel said. “He’s a loose cannon.”
The third guy shot me a dark look and grumbled to the others. “Not as much as that hulking thug of his we all know did Titus in. First he brushes that off, then he’s hauling more trash in here?”
I scrubbed the carpet very emphatically, torn between wanting to remind them loud and clear that I could hear them and knowing I was probably much better off if they thought I wasn’t listening at all. Just some ditz at Wylder’s beck and call. A “groupie.” I restrained a shudder.
That hulking thug of his. Did they mean Kaige? I couldn’t see anyone describing Gideon or Rowan as hulking or a thug. They thought Kaige—flirty, laid-back Kaige—had killed some dude named the Titan or Titus?
Axel let out a huff. “I hear you. Hopefully Ezra will too when he gets back. By now, the kid should be more careful about who he lets into his quarters.”
They walked away, and I realized I’d been scrubbing a spot that was already clean for the last minute. I paused, catching my breath.
Either those assholes were wrong… or Kaige was the kind of guy who’d murder one of his own colleagues. I’d better keep that in mind—and be a little more careful how I dealt with Mr. Flirtatious going forward.