Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her slip her feet out of her shoes. She began to raise them to place them on the dash, and my hand shot out to stop her. “Keep your feet down. This is a ‘69 Mustang, not some POS car.”
Lowering her feet to the floor, she snorted in anger. “Fine. I won’t hurt your precious car, which is so quintessentially you, by the way.”
“Really? Why?”
“A ‘69 Mustang Boss, one of the most badass cars there is? It fits you perfectly. Big, tough, and definitely you.”
I pulled into a spot behind Club X and turned off the car. Easing my arm from behind her, I smiled. “That’s nice of you to say. I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Take it any way you want. I’m out of here.”
And in a flash, she opened the door and ran from the car. Thankfully, my much longer legs made catching up to her easy, and by the time she hit the road that ran alongside the club, I had my arms around her in a hold much tighter than I’d normally use on a woman so much smaller than me.
“Damnit, Abbi! I can’t trust you, can I?”
She flailed in my hold but got nowhere. “Let me go!”
I leaned down and whispered in her ear, “No. I didn’t want to do it this way, but you’ve made it necessary. Stop fighting or I’ll carry you in.”
Pushing against me to get away, she growled, “Don’t you dare pick me up again!”
Her fingernails caught my cheek, and I reared back in pain as she scratched the full length of my jaw.
“Fucking woman!”
Scooping her up, I threw her over my shoulder and walked toward the back entrance of the club, all the while feeling her hit my back with her fists.
I marched up the four floors to my apartment and sat her down hard on the bed, making sure to block the door so she couldn’t run away again. Abbi sat there with a hurt look on her face, but when she opened her mouth, I couldn’t help but be hurt myself.
“Just in case you think you’re different from any of the men who hit me, they all said I made it necessary for them to act the way they did too.”
Jesus, she had a way of being able to cut me to the quick. I couldn’t have this conversation right now, though. I walked to my closet, never taking my eyes off her, and grabbed a new shirt. As I dressed, I explained the best I could, even as I fought the defensiveness she so skillfully brought out in me.
“There’s no point in running, Abbi. I’ll find you and just bring you back here. I’ll be back in a few hours, and hopefully by then you’ll be calmed down.”
Her hurt expression morphed into one of shock at my words. “You can’t just keep me here. I promise I won’t go back to The Carousel Club. Gemma’s working tonight, so she’ll make sure I get home.”
I walked to the door and shook my head. “No. You’re staying here. You’ve shown me you can’t be trusted to stay put. You’re free to eat all my food, drink all my liquor, and watch TV until I get back. Don’t bother screaming or yelling because you’re in my part of the club and no one will hear you. The door will be locked from the outside, and you’re on the fourth floor with no way to get to the street even if you squeeze out the bathroom window, so don’t try because you’ll hurt yourself.”
“Kane, you can’t do this! You can’t keep me prisoner here,” she said with a sob in her voice as she walked over to stand in front of me. Looking up at me with her big blue eyes, she asked, “Why are you doing this to me?”
Christ, I wanted to take her in my arms and never let her go when she looked at me like that. And I didn’t know why I was doing any of this since I knew being with her would bring nothing but bad, but I’d gone too far to turn back now.
“I’ll be back later.”
Before she began to cry, I got the hell out of there and locked the door from the outside. Turning to head back up to my post on the top floor, I heard her call my name, but it didn’t matter. I hadn’t lied. Nobody would hear her there.
I found Samson waiting for me at the top of the front stairs where I’d left him. Barely ten o’clock, it was still early and I hadn’t missed anything important other than some problem between two of the dancers. Nothing new.
“You have a few rooms to handle tonight, but I’m going to need you back here to stand in for me by one. I have something I need to take care of.”
“Whatever you need, Kane. I’ll be here anyway.”
“Thanks, Samson. Oh, by the way, we’ll have a new dancer soon. She’s good.”
The news of an addition to the dancer ranks made him smile. “Good. For a moment there, I thought you might mean a new guy. I thought you were nicely telling me I was going to need a second job soon.”
Samson was too important to the success of the fantasy part of the club, and I wasn’t a fool. Slapping him on the back, I assured him of his status at Club X. “No worries, man. I know this business, and you bring in a lot of customers with a lot of money. I’d call that job security. Plus, I can trust you to take care of my business when I need you to.”
“Thanks, Kane. I appreciate that. I’ll be back by one.”
He left me standing there alone, and even though I had a full night of members’ fantasies to handle, my mind was one floor down with Abbi. I had no idea what I planned to do about her. All I knew was every fiber of my being wanted to protect her from all the men who’d hurt her.
I DIDN’T know how long I pounded on the steel door and yelled for Kane to let me out, but I finally gave up when my voice went hoarse. Who the hell did he think he was kidnapping me and keeping me hostage in his shitty apartment? Exhausted, I threw myself on his bed and let the tears finally fall. I cried for what Aaron had done to me. I cried for how fucked up my life was. I cried for being stuck in these tiny rooms of a man who was basically a stranger to me.
I cried until there was nothing left in me.
When there finally were no more tears, I wiped my face and looked around at my prison cell for the night. Kane owned part of Club X, and he lived in this cheap three room apartment? Why? Was he a lesser owner than Cassian and Stefan? Or maybe the club didn’t make much money.
The white painted cinder block walls stood bare of any pictures of family or friends or even cheap wall art people hung up to give their homes some feeling of warmth and hominess. Looking down, I saw the wood floor looked old and beat up, like something heavy had been dragged across it, leaving deep scratches and dents, and hundreds of feet had trampled over it when the building was a factory.