“Ryker? Wh-what are you doing here?” she stammered, her eyes darting left and right. “Is Elliot with you?”
“Unfortunately for you, darling, yes, he is.” I clutched her upper arm and spun her around, propelling her forward.
She jerked her shoulder upward. I held on tighter, and a hiss emerged from her lips.
“You’re hurting me.”
“And you’ll hurt Elliot if he sees you here behaving like some slut.”
“I am not a slut!”
Arching a brow, I glared down at her. “No? You’re doing a fabulous impression of one.”
I opened a door to one of the private rooms for hire. Luckily it wasn’t inhabited. Not that it would have made a difference if I’d walked in on some fifty-year-old getting his cock sucked by a girl young enough to be his daughter. One icy glare from me, and I guarantee he’d have left so fast his pants would have still been around his ankles.
“In,” I barked at Athena.
She glanced past me, undoubtedly assessing her options.
“Don’t even think about it.”
Her shoulders bowed, and she stepped into the room.
I followed, locked the door, and stood with my back to it. “Talk, Athena.”
She folded her arms over her chest and pouted. “I have nothing to say to you.”
I gritted my teeth at her infantile response. Give me fucking strength. I removed the key from the lock, pocketed it, then went to sit on the couch at the foot of the bed. Slipping my cell from my pocket I sent a quick text to Elliot in case he noticed me missing and decided to investigate my whereabouts.
Something’s come up. BBL. Get as much information from the girl as you can.
“Fine,” I said, glancing up at Athena with hooded eyes. “Then it’ll be a long night for both of us.” I crossed my left ankle over my right knee and fiddled with my cufflinks. “I’ve got the time. Have you?”
She huffed loudly. “You can’t keep me in here against my will.”
I lifted my head slowly, my gaze steady and uncompromising. “We both know I can and, if it suits me, I will.”
“And what if I scream?”
I traced my bottom lip with the tip of my forefinger, a habit I’d had since childhood. “Go ahead. Scream. It’s hardly an unusual occurrence in a sex club.”
She cast a fierce glare my direction. “Fuck you.”
I stifled a grin. Her comeback amused me, even if it wasn’t the most articulate of responses. “Come on, Athena. All that money poured into the highest quality college education, and that’s the best quip you can think of?” I tutted. “Dear oh dear.”
“You’re an asshole, Ryker. You always have been.”
“And you’re a spoiled little brat. I guess no amount of money can cure you of that ailment.”
She flipped me off and flounced over to the bed, plunking herself on the end. Head bent, she picked at the skin around her fingernails and whistled.
I smirked. If Athena thought she could best me, she was wrong. If I didn’t get the answers in this room—and I probably wouldn’t stay here much longer in case we were interrupted—I’d get them at the hotel, or on the plane when I forced her to return home, or after we arrived back in the US. One way or another, she’d tell me what the fuck she thought she was doing working tables in a shithole like this, especially as she most definitely didn’t need the money. And if she’d been doing more than serving drinks…
I dug my fingernails into my palms as an uncomfortable prickling sensation crept across the back of my neck. Nope, not going there. I’d kill every son of a bitch who’d laid a finger on her.
My cell buzzed, providing me with a welcome distraction from the thoughts racing through my mind. Removing it from my pocket, I glanced at the screen. A text from Elliot.
Okay. I’ve got her. She’s pretty scared. I’ll see what I can find out.
I rose to my feet, adjusted my cufflinks, then crossed the room and opened the door. I jerked my head toward the hallway. “Out, Athena.”
She flashed me a triumphant smile. Aww, poor little lamb thought I was letting her go. As she drew alongside me, I clasped her hand and played my trump card. “Let’s go see Elliot.”
She skidded to a halt, pointlessly wriggling to try to free herself. “No! Please, Ryker, don’t.”
To the uneducated observer, it would seem as if Athena was scared of Elliot. She wasn’t, though, not in the slightest. They were as close as siblings could be, probably because of their difficult early years. No, what worried Athena was disappointing him. She’d slit her own wrists before upsetting Elliot. I’d known Elliot virtually all my life—unlike the rest of the ROGUES guys who we’d first met in college—and ever since Athena could walk, she’d looked up to him, her respect for the one true superhero in her life beyond reproach.
“You give me no choice. If you won’t tell me what you’re doing here, when Elliot thinks he’s funding your round-the-world trip so you can ‘discover yourself’, then perhaps you’ll tell him.”
She kicked the door shut, keeping us inside the room. “I’ll talk, okay. Just not here. Please, Ryker, I know you hate me, but don’t tell Elliot.”
A dull ache surfaced from deep within my chest. I didn’t hate Athena. She annoyed the fuck out of me with her lack of direction, her tendency to revert to ‘drama queen’ tactics if she thought it would give her an edge in winning the battle—or the war. Her flighty attitude. But hate? No, what I felt for Athena was, unfortunately and uncomfortably, far removed from hate.
And therein lies the problem. So much for avoiding the woman who held the key to my ruin. And now, instead of staying clear of her, I’d have to sort her shit out.
“Okay. I’ll take you back to my hotel where I can keep an eye on you. You get one chance, one, Athena, to tell me what’s going on, or I’ll call Elliot and you can tell him instead.”
I opened the door once more and, with my hand pressed against the small of her back, eased her forward. As I turned to head back into the main part of the club, she stopped, her eyes darting around frantically.
“Let’s go out the back way,” she said.
“Elliot’s busy,” I replied. “We won’t bump into him.”
“But we might see Hiroto or one of the other supervisors. Technically, I’m supposed to be working.”
She had a point. Nodding my agreement, I allowed her to take the lead. We ended up in a back alley behind the club. I gripped her hand and headed for the front where my driver would be waiting. He leaped out of the car when he spotted me and opened the rear door. I hustled Athena inside, then followed.
“Hotel, please,” I said, immediately activating the screen to separate the front and back. “Buckle up, Athena.”
I spent the journey back to the hotel answering emails that had come in during the last two hours, while Athena buzzed with irritation beside me. We drew to a halt underneath a large concrete canopy in front of the hotel. I got out, waited for Athena to follow, then clutched her hand again. I didn’t trust her not to run off. She wouldn’t get far—I’d run track in college—but an attempt wasn’t out of the question.