Текст книги "Clipped Wings"

Автор книги: Helena Hunting

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4

TENLEY

Hayden’s answering smile dissolved any final reservations, like I’d done him some great service by agreeing to look through a bunch of relics with him. Spending time alone with him was probably a bad idea on my part, but I couldn’t resist the temptation. And I didn’t want to. Over the past several weeks I’d tried to avoid him, but it had become too difficult. After so many months of self-imposed exile, I craved a connection with someone. His hard exterior made him safe–he seemed just as guarded as me. He tugged on my wrist and I relented, taking him to the pile of boxes with his name scrawled on them in the corner of the basement.

“I don’t know how much you’ll want to keep, but this is the stuff that was set aside.”

“You organized all of this?” He took two chairs from a dining set and offered me one. For someone so menacing, he had manners, aside from having no concept of personal space. I dropped onto the velvet cushioned seat as he did the same.

The week after I moved into the apartment upstairs from Serendipity I asked Cassie if she knew of anyone in need of some part-time help. The issue wasn’t money but too much free time. I’d relocated to Chicago in mid-August, more than a month before the fall semester began. While I was content to research my thesis and pre-read for my coming courses, it didn’t keep me as occupied as I wanted. I could only do so much until I met with my professor and that wouldn’t happen for another week or two. Cassie showed me the basement and gave me a job, solving her problem and mine.

“You should have seen this place before I started,” I told him as he opened the closest box. “I almost couldn’t get down the stairs, there was so much stuff.”

“I’ve been down here before; it’s like an anxiety attack of clutter. It looks a lot better now, though.” He rolled his shoulders, dusting off a Victorian-era candelabra. He made a face and looked for a place to wipe his hand. “You got a cloth or something around here?”

“Why? Afraid of a little dirt?” I joked.

“I don’t have a problem getting dirty,” he said with a sly grin. “I just can’t afford to go back to work looking like I rolled around on a basement floor.”

His velvet tone made it difficult not to read innuendo into the comment. Before the mental picture developed further, I stood up and crossed to the other side of the room. The dusting cloths were in the cabinet with the cleaning supplies. Tossing a couple to Hayden, I kept one for myself and sat back down beside him.

He was organized and methodical as he inspected each treasure, wiping them down with gentle hands. The care he took as he handled delicate pieces, even the things he didn’t want, gave me insight into the kind of artist he was. I imagined he worked on his clients with the same vigilant precision.

“You want to tell me what really happened to your hand?”

I peeked up at him, thankful my hair created a barrier through which to view him and still shield my face. I didn’t know why the question surprised me. It shouldn’t have. “Nope.”

He chuckled and remained quiet for some time, sifting through the boxes. He handed me the things he didn’t want, and I put them into an empty box. Each time he did, I surreptitiously inspected the artwork on his arms.

“Lisa tells me you have an idea for some ink.” Hayden stopped sorting to focus on me.

I nodded. I had already entertained showing him the design, thanks to Lisa. Since being near him made me feel like I was having heart palpitations, I couldn’t help but be wary. There was intimacy in committing art to skin. I already found Hayden unnervingly enticing for a variety of reasons, not the least of which had to do with his severe brand of beauty. Being around him more wouldn’t lessen that, and the piece I had in mind was no small thing.

“I’d be happy to check it out if you want to stop by the shop later.”

“I’ll think about it.” After a protracted silence I finally asked, “How long have you been a tattoo artist?”

“Close to six years. I started as a piercer when I was eighteen, but it wasn’t for me.”

“Why not?”

Hayden wiped his hands on a fresh cloth and tucked my hair behind my ear, tracing the shell as he did so. The ladder of helix rings clicked dully against each other. “You’d look good with an industrial,” he said softly. I shivered even though I suddenly felt hot.

He motioned to his face and poked at the viper bites with his tongue. “If they were all this kind of thing, it wouldn’t have been an issue.”

“What was the issue?”

“I’m afraid I’m not much of a sadist, and it takes a certain type of person to be able to stick a needle through a dick.”

Fortunately, I wasn’t holding anything breakable. “Okay. Right. I didn’t think about that.”

He laughed at my reaction. “I pierced for a few months before I started apprenticing to be a tattooist. For about a year and a half I had to do both. After a few years I built up a solid client base and a decent reputation in the business, and Chris and Jamie convinced me we should go out on our own.”

“So you opened Inked Armor?”

“We did. I was only twenty-one at the time, but it’s been four years and we’re still doing well.”

“You were so young.” I couldn’t imagine taking on that kind of responsibility at this point in my life.

He shrugged. “I’ve been on my own since I was eighteen, and it seemed like a smart thing to do. Anyway, I haven’t put a hole in anybody’s junk since we opened our shop.”

“So you’re not a fan of piercings from the neck down?” Heat climbed my chest toward my cheeks. I shouldn’t have asked that question, because all sorts of inappropriate images popped into my head.

“I didn’t say that.”

I opened my mouth, searching for words. None came.

“The ones from here down aren’t just decorative.” He ran his hand over his chest, down to his belt buckle.

“You’re not one for holding back, are you?”

He grinned. “It’s not really my style.”

I changed the subject. “So you like it? Being a tattoo artist?”

My curiosity was genuine, as was my long-standing interest in body art and art in general. It had played a significant role in my decision to pursue a master’s in sociology. It gave me a valid reason to focus on what most considered social deviance. After the crash I turned toward what I really loved—art and modification, delving deeper into subcultures and extreme factions. My advisor, whose school of thought was rather antiquated, seemed to have a difference of opinion on the direction my thesis proposal should take.

“I get to be an artist and not starve, so that’s a bonus. Some of the tattoos can be boring, standard shit, but the pieces I get to design? Those are the ones that make the job worth doing. I don’t think there’s anything quite as gratifying as creating art out of someone’s experiences. Well, some things are more gratifying.” He looked me over, his perusal blatant. “Are you hiding any ink under those clothes?”

“No,” I lied. I rooted around in a box to conceal my face lest he press for more information.

“I think you’d look good with my art on your body.” Judging from the rapacious gleam in his eye, his phrasing was purposeful. “Anyway, the offer stands. You should come by again when you have a chance, maybe stay longer than two minutes. I can show you my albums, and you can show me your idea for ink. Maybe I could work on you.”

“Okay, maybe.” I didn’t miss the dig at my boomerang visits, or that he’d noticed them in the first place.

“I’ll take maybe over no.”

I’d been working on a sketch for a long time; even before the crash I’d had several ideas for tattoos. Originally the piece had just been art, but it had changed in the past several months into a symbol of my loss. It would be rather revealing to hand something so personal over to Hayden.

“Did you design any of your own tattoos?”

“Most of them.” Hayden shoved the sleeve of his shirt up above his elbow and held his arm out toward me, the inside facing up.

There was an anatomically correct heart wrapped in thorny vines set close to the crease in his elbow. Blood ran down the vines in rivulets, dripping from the thorns. Budding flowers juxtaposed the darkness of the piece, tempering it. As the flowers moved away from the heart, the tiny blossoms became more vibrant and open. Hayden rotated his forearm, and on the other side, the same vines traveled from his wrist to his elbow, but they were thicker. The ones at his wrist were dry and cracking, the flowers dying, petals falling off, but as they closed in on his elbow the flowers exploded into life, pulled into a wave of water. The head of an orange-and-white fish peeked out from his sleeve, the rest of the design obscured.

I reached out to touch a length of vine on his forearm and hesitated, seeking permission. “May I?”

“You asking to feel me up?”

“Um—”

“Sorry, you’re easy to rile, it’s hard to resist. Be my guest.”

He rested his arm on his knee, palm up, hand relaxed and open. He didn’t look all that sorry with the way he was smiling, but I was too curious, and he was willing. The muscles in his arm flexed when I traced the vines leading to the heart. The inside of his forearm seemed a sensitive place to tattoo. Wherever there was color, the skin was slightly raised, not by much, but enough that I could feel the dimension of the design.

“This must have taken a long time. Did it hurt a lot?”

“Pain is relative, isn’t it?”

I gave him a quizzical look.

“These—” He skimmed my ear. “They hurt, right?”

“Sure, but not much.” Disappointment followed when he dropped his hand.

“But there’s still gratification in the pain, yeah?”

I nodded, even if I couldn’t be sure how much I agreed with that statement. Hayden must have picked up on my uncertainty.

“Any kind of modification, whether it’s to alter physical features, like cosmetic surgery, or to decorate, like piercings and tattoos, cause some degree of discomfort. But that’s the point, isn’t it? It’s cathartic because it’s the promise of change in some form or another. My tattoos give the memory related to the art a place to exist outside of my head, on my body. At least that’s my interpretation, but not everyone feels the same way I do.”

Expelling pain by giving in to it held quite the allure. The reasons I wanted to put my own art on my skin were difficult to reconcile. I swiped at an inked droplet of blood, almost expecting to feel the wetness against my fingertip.

“It looks so real.”

“Jamie’s an amazing artist.”

“Lisa’s boyfriend?”

Hayden nodded.

On the occasions I’d dropped by Inked Armor he’d always been with a client, but I’d seen him and Lisa leave together many times.

“So he did this?” I asked.

“Most of my tattoos were done by either Jamie or Chris.”

“You designed them and they put them on you?”

“Yeah. Or we collaborated. The only one I didn’t design was this one.” He pulled up the sleeve on his other arm. It was covered in a black pattern I couldn’t decipher.

“How far does it go?”

“All the way up my arm and over half my torso.”

“What is it?”

“If you come to the shop, maybe I’ll show you.”

The idea of Hayden shirtless was like a shot of fire through my veins. I didn’t hesitate this time. “Okay.”

“That’s better than a maybe.”

He was openly flirting. As apprehensive as he made me, part of me enjoyed the nervous anticipation and the warmth under my skin. The heavy strains of a rock anthem came from Hayden’s pants, and he dug in his pocket. He looked annoyed as he checked his phone. Instead of answering the call, he silenced it.

A minute later Cassie appeared at the top of the stairs. The call he avoided had been Lisa; his client had arrived and she was still waiting for her latte.

“Duty calls.” Hayden hefted the box filled with keepables under his arm. “I’ll go through the rest another time. You’ll stop by the shop?”

“Sure.” I wasn’t sure at all. Talking to Hayden had only served to ratchet up my infatuation with him; indulging in his presence wasn’t likely to make that dissipate.

He gave me a look but dropped it. “Thanks for keeping me company.”

“No problem.”

In an unexpectedly tender gesture, he leaned down and kissed my cheek, those steel rings piercing his bottom lip treacherously close to the corner of my mouth.

I stood there long after he left, my fingers pressed to the spot where his lips had been. Warmth radiated out with the echo of sensation, moving down until it settled low in my stomach. I felt suddenly vulnerable as the vortex of emotion that followed threatened to lift me up and take me away. I hadn’t expected him to do that. At all.

If I’d been stronger, I would have left him to sort through things on his own. But I didn’t, and now I had this memory of his lips on my skin. As innocent as it might have been, it brought with it unexpected feelings. I hadn’t felt anything close to lust in almost a year. That one simple gesture of affection had awoken the dormant desire I’d been fighting since the first time he came into Serendipity.

Hayden was the opposite of everything I’d ever known. He defied convention at every turn, and it made him that much more of a weakness. He was not only inordinately gorgeous but intelligent and passionate as well. Beyond the hard exterior, the brash comments and flirtation, a sensitive side lurked. But, like me, he was closed off; his tattoos formed his walls. I knew all about walls. I had built my own. With him I wanted to let them down, if only just a little. It was a dangerous thing to contemplate because in doing so they could very well crumble completely.

Until now I’d thought I had been managing well enough, that I was making progress and moving on. But even after all these months, I was still so broken. This man could very well be my undoing.

5

HAYDEN

Early on Tuesday afternoon, Tenley—who still hadn’t stopped by since we hung out in the basement of Serendipity—left her apartment. The entrance to the apartments above was at the rear of the store. There was a narrow alleyway between Serendipity and the adjacent low-rise apartment building giving her access to the storefront. I liked it, because it allowed me to see when she was coming or going. Not that I was watching for her or anything.

Instead of going into Serendipity, she turned in the opposite direction and headed down the sidewalk. She was wearing a dress that hugged her curves but still managed to be conservative. On the plus side, it ended midthigh. She had great legs, the kind I wanted wrapped around my waist, or my head, whichever. I wasn’t picky.

After my dreams last night there was relief in seeing she was okay. My subconscious alternated between lurid fantasy and horrifying nightmares, which had been dominating my sleeping hours as of late.

I couldn’t get the images out of my head. The bad dreams weren’t unusual; there were past mistakes I couldn’t undo. The part that was messing with me the most was Tenley’s arrival in my subconscious and the way I managed to insert her into the clusterfuck of a nightmare. Usually they revolved around the same theme—death. In this dream, though, the loser from the bar hadn’t let her go. He’d pulled a gun and aimed it at her chest. I couldn’t get through the crowd to help her. I woke up before he pulled the trigger, but it didn’t make me feel any better.

That she had been in any kind of danger, imagined or not, left me unsettled and raw. Awake or asleep, I didn’t like the loss of control.

“Have you heard a thing I said?” Chris stepped in front of me, blocking my view of the empty sidewalk.

“What?” I asked testily.

“What’s up with you? You’ve been all over the board this week.”

“What are you talking about?” I leaned back in the chair and laced my fingers behind my head, feigning nonchalance. His rare moment of perceptiveness stunned me. I hadn’t realized I was so damn obvious.

“If you were a chick I’d say you have PMS. Since you’re not, I’m saying you need to get laid instead, which brings me back to the original one-sided conversation I was having while you so rudely ignored me. I’m going to the peelers tonight, you should come.”

That meant The Dollhouse. Sometimes I believed the only reason Chris asked me to come was for company in his pit of moral decay. As if my being there somehow made what he did okay. Just because I tolerated his actions didn’t mean I condoned them. Not anymore.

“Seriously? Why there?”

“You need to ask?”

“I don’t know.” I wasn’t eager for a trip down memory lane, and there was a good chance I’d run into Sienna. I had successfully avoided her for the past year. I was inclined to keep it that way.

“Come on, there’s this new waitress I’m digging. I think I’m starting to wear her down.” He flashed a grin.

I could only imagine what his version of wearing her down would consist of, but the distraction in the form of visual stimulation might prove helpful. “I’ll think about it.”

I swiveled in my chair, turning back to my station to prepare for my next client. Tenley was gone anyway, and I doubted she’d stop by tonight. I shouldn’t have kissed her on the cheek. It was too fucking forward, which was laughable, considering the alternative scenarios I’d been entertaining.

It was just before closing, and I was inking an American flag on some guy’s ass. Most ass tattoos took place in one of the private rooms because the general public preferred not to show off their parts in a busy studio. But the guy in my chair flat out refused. Maybe he had a thing for exhibitionism, because he insisted on baring it all front and center in the shop.

The only benefit to the awkward situation was the chance to keep an eye out for Tenley. It was late by the time she came home. She looked in the direction of the shop and her steps faltered, like maybe she was thinking about coming in. She didn’t, though. Instead she continued down the narrow alley leading to the back of Serendipity. A minute later, lights came on in her apartment. It was the last I saw of her that evening, but that didn’t stop my mind from wandering in her direction.

* * *

Against my better judgment, I accompanied Chris to The Dollhouse. By the time we got there I wished I’d downed a few shots of tequila to help make the evening bearable. But that would have meant relying on Chris to get home. I wanted to be able to make my own escape if necessary. Our waitress was a girl named Sarah, who had pale blond hair. Chris had chosen the table specifically because she was working the section. Given the fact that she was his most recent conquest target, I felt bad for her. Chris could be persistent.

From what Chris said, she hadn’t been working there long. Staff turnover at such establishments tended to be high thanks to people like Sienna, who treated her employees like commodities rather than human beings. Everything could be sold for the right price, especially dignity. Sarah seemed unaffected by Chris’s charm, which meant his reputation probably preceded him. Rather than titter like an idiot over his compliments, she ignored them and told him off when he asked for her number. I liked her.

It took him all of five minutes to get over the rejection. Chris stuck a five-dollar bill in a dancer’s thong. She shook her ass in his face. I sighed and checked the time.

“You need to relax, you’re too uptight,” Chris said, exasperated with my attitude.

“I’m always uptight.” I took a long draft of the overpriced, crappy beer and surveyed the club. No Sienna. Thank fuck. I’d been on the fence about coming in until we’d pulled into the lot to find her car wasn’t there. If I was lucky, I’d get in a couple of beers and leave without running into her at all.

Chris left me alone for a few minutes while the dancer rubbed herself on the pole. I imagined it would require a heavy-duty sanitizing by the end of the night. Once her set was over, Chris started up again, seeking a way to rectify my pissy mood.

“What about that one?” He pointed to a nondescript girl making her rounds with a tray of shooters.

I barely glanced in her direction. Unlike our waitress, she was artificially blond. “Not my type.” Not that naturally blond was any more my style.

“Since when do you have a type? Seriously man, you should unwind.”

Thanks to Chris’s irritating insistence that I needed some sort of action tonight, he ended up paying some poor girl who smelled like stale cigarettes and cheap perfume to give me a lap dance. But instead of feeling aroused, a heavier emotion settled into my gut. It felt something like guilt, maybe? Halfway through the song, I couldn’t take it anymore. I ushered her over to Chris, where she resumed dancing. Chris looked annoyed, which inflated my mood. We politely declined when she offered additional services, compliments of management.

Shit. Our presence hadn’t gone unnoticed. Across the room I spotted Sienna sitting at the side of the bar closest to her personal security guard, chatting with a suited-up businessman. Looked like she wasn’t taking the night off after all. She flipped her bleached-out hair over her shoulder and tipped her drink in my direction. I looked away, uninterested in whatever game she wanted to play, when Damen pulled up a chair beside Chris. I wasn’t surprised to see his ugly face. If he wasn’t working at his tattoo studio, Art Addicts, he was here, pushing other addictions. At least he knew better than to sit beside me. He and Chris engaged in some stupid-ass handshake-shoulder-bumping garbage like they were best buddies.

It bothered me the way Chris always sought Damen’s approval, like he was some messed-up version of a father figure. I supposed that in a lot of ways Damen assumed that role for Chris when we worked for him years ago. From what I understood, he took Chris in when his parents would no longer deal with his antics. Damen’s accommodations had turned out to be more of a den of iniquity, but Chris hadn’t been in much of a position to complain. Not that he had. Chris hadn’t seen his own family in years, and Damen was a master at exploiting insecurities. When it had come to Chris, he’d heaped on the praise, knowing how little it took to gain Chris’s loyalty and lead him astray. Chris was a talented artist, but sometimes he lacked common sense, and that got him into trouble.

Even back when I was a kid, barely eighteen and working my first job at Art Addicts as a piercer, I never fell for Damen’s bullshit. Sure, I took advantage of the drugs and the access to women, but that was where it ended. I hadn’t needed his approval. Which was why, after three years of dealing with him and all the crap that had come with him, I’d gotten out. I hadn’t done it on my own, though; Jamie had been the driving force, and Chris had come along for the ride. If I hadn’t escaped the drugs, I would have OD’d at some point.

Damen reclined in his chair, looking like he owned the place. His black hair was slicked back, his receding hairline pronounced. His aquiline nose and vicious smile made him look like the vulture he was.

“Hayden, it’s good to see you. I was telling Chris the last time he was here he should bring you by. You here for the women, or are you looking to do business?”

“Chris is here for the women. I’m here to ruin his night.” I swished my beer around in my glass.

Damen had been hounding Chris about merging studios for a long time. I adamantly refused the offer. Damen had a hard time keeping artists at his shop. I’d witnessed the slow decline as they got hooked on blow, or whatever else he was selling, until performing their actual job became a challenge. I’d been at risk of going down the same path at one point. I had no intention of being dragged back into his bullshit crooked dealings. I ran a clean shop, made legitimate money, and served no one’s interests but my own. Partnering up with Damen would mean bending to someone else’s whims. Chris was too caught up in keeping things amicable to say no outright, so he always pussyfooted around an answer.

“You seem a little tense. I think I’ve got exactly what you need to relax.” Damen slipped his hand inside his jacket and discreetly pulled out a small baggie. It looked like coke was the drug of choice tonight.

“I’m good with the beer.” I held up the almost-empty glass.

After offering it to Chris, who declined, Damen slid the baggie back into his pocket.

“Maybe you need a different kind of relaxation?”

Damen raised his hand in the air and a tiny brunette rushed over. The bra she wore didn’t even cover her nipples, and her skirt could have doubled as a headband, with the way her ass was hanging out the back. He beckoned her closer and said something in her ear. Her eyes moved over me, then back to him, whispering so we couldn’t hear. He laughed and slapped her ass, leaving a palm print behind as she scurried away. He was such a cocksucker.

“From what I’ve just been told, Sienna’s still interested. I’m sure she’d be more than willing to help you out,” he said.

I wanted to punch Damen’s ugly grin off his face, but I didn’t. I snorted into my glass. “Not likely.”

He shrugged, like it didn’t matter either way, and turned to Chris, done talking to me for the time being. “Candy’s back.”

“I thought she moved on.” For a brief moment Chris’s apathy was replaced with concern. He’d had a thing for Candy back in the day. It was probably the closest he’d ever been to a relationship, if one could call it that. She was a stripper who dabbled in prostitution, so clearly it wasn’t monogamous, but he’d actually cared about her, made a real connection for once. He’d ultimately walked away, though, unable to deal with the bullshit that came with dating someone who got naked for a living.

Damen’s smile was malicious. “You know how it is. They think the grass is greener on the other side. Eventually they end up back where they belong.”

“You’re such a fucking dick,” I said, unable to rein in my contempt. “You know the only reason they come back is because you get them hooked on whatever smack it is you’re dealing, so they can’t function without it.”

“No one forces coke up their noses.”

“You might as well. It’s quite the little setup you and Sienna have going here, isn’t it? You’re an entrepreneurial genius.”

“Hayden, man, chill out,” Chris said, clearly uncomfortable with the topic.

“It’s fine, Chris. Go ahead, Hayden, it sounds like you’ve got something on your mind.” Damen leaned in, like he was ready for some epic revelation on my part.

Too aggravated not to feed into it, I motioned to the stage. “Do you really think any of these girls like this?”

He jeered at the half-naked dancer. “It’s a job, and not a very difficult one.”

I shook my head in disgust. “You think no one sees what you do? The way you and Sienna play them? Offer the girls the easy stuff like weed or hash because it doesn’t interfere with productivity. Then when that isn’t enough to make getting naked for a bunch of horny assholes tolerable, you up the ante and get them addicted to the hard shit until they don’t have a choice but to solicit to pay for the habit.”

Damen’s expression hardened. “Like I said, no one forces the girls to do anything they don’t want to.”

“Is that what you and Sienna tell yourselves so you can sleep at night?”

Damen only provided enough product to keep the dancer sedate and in debt. Invariably tips from dancing wouldn’t cover the cost, and Sienna would suggest other ways to pay down the money they owed. And thus began the endless loop. She knew damn well the damage it did, but she condoned it, even benefited from it.

Back when I was working for Damen at Art Addicts, she was under his thumb as well. Before Sienna took over The Dollhouse, she danced there. Every so often she would leave the club and try something else, like bartending or whatever, but the money wasn’t good enough and she always came back. No matter how hard she tried to get clean, she never stayed that way.

When the club switched hands, Sienna got involved with the new owner, which was a smart move on her part. It gave her access to a lot of opportunities. There were some interesting rumors about how she ended up managing the club after he went to jail for assault and battery, but none of it really mattered. From the look of it, the move from dancer to desk job hadn’t changed how she lived. She was just as messed up now as she was when I met her.

Damen was still yammering away, talking at me again, like I cared about what he had to say. “There was a time when you took full advantage of the range of services provided here, Hayden. You could have unlimited access again if you wanted it.”

“I think I’m past the point of needing your kind of services, thanks.” I polished off the rest of my beer, ready to call it a night. I’d had about as much of Damen as I could handle.

“You’re sure about that? Looks like you’re running out of room to put your baggage, son.” He aimed a pointed glance at my arms.

I fought to keep a lid on the sudden rush of anger he inspired. I hated it when he called me “son.” No one would ever replace my father, especially not a dickhead like him.

I ignored the comment and turned to Chris. “I’m gonna split. You’ve got five minutes if you want a ride home.”

“Ah, come on H, don’t bail.”

Chris always tried to keep the peace between us. He still felt like he owed some allegiance to Damen. I sure as hell didn’t. I shoved my chair back and stood up. Our waitress was at the table before I could blink. Sienna already had her well trained.

I palmed my wallet, and Damen put up his hand. “I’ll get her for you.”

“I can pay my own way.” I pulled a hundred out and passed it to Sarah. She took the money and looked from me to Damen and back again, panic flaring in her eyes, like she thought something more was expected of her.

“That’s for the drinks. Consider the rest a tip for having to deal with those assholes.” I waved in Chris and Damen’s general direction. “I’ll be in the car. I’m gone in five.”

I stepped around a stunned-looking Sarah. It never took long for the girls to break and succumb to the harsh realities of the business they were in. Maybe Sarah would be different, but I had my doubts. Lisa was pretty messed up when Jamie got her out of The Dollhouse and brought her with us to Inked Armor. I thought he was crazy at the time, but he was in love with her even then. It took months of detox before she began to function again, as normally as was possible. People like Lisa weren’t cut out for that kind of life.