I Am Dressed in Sin: A Reverse Harem Age Gap Romance (Death By Daybreak Motorcycle Club Book 2)

by C. M. Stunich

  As much sympathy and empathy as I have for these women, there’s always that one who just manages to make you pity and hate her in equal measures.

  That’s the girl I want to see, the one with the fake tits, the one that my brother apparently prefers.

  What I find most disturbing is that she almost, sort of, kind of looks like me. Dark hair in a raven wave down her back, full breasts (even if hers aren’t real), hips for days, thick-ass thighs. I curl my lip a little and shove the implication back.

  “Bring her in,” Crown warns, giving Grainger that special, trademarked VP look of his. “It was Rhea, right? Her name.” I give him a look, and he hooks a deprecating sort of smile. For himself, for me, for the hooker, I’m not sure exactly. “Like a ray of sunshine,” he repeats in a mocking voice, and I roll my eyes.

  “That’s right. It was Rhea Bundy.” I sigh as Sin opens the door to the hotel lobby and calls her back, taking his seat in the chair behind the desk. The boys have borrowed the manager’s office, this haphazard nightmare with stacks of old paperwork and bags of empty recyclables that’s clearly all for show.

  The club is much more organized than it looks. As with the mafia, nothing here is accidental. We just hide behind gruffness and decay the way they duck beneath jewelry and tuxedos.

  The little ray of sunshine takes a seat not on the chair set before the desk, but on the corner of it, her fishnet tight-covered legs disturbingly close to Grainger’s denim clad thighs. He continues to smoke his cigarette, but he doesn’t move.

  My jaw clenches with irritation.

  “Tell us a little more about your time with Gaz,” Sin begins, using his status as an officer to outrank my brother. This girl has little choice but to answer the questions. I feel sorry for her, actually, considering the tight spot this puts her in. She knows better than to lie to two DBD officers, but if she reveals too much, she’ll face Gaz’s wrath.

  If the situation were any less dire, I wouldn’t even bother. I’d let her go to spare her the pain. But sorry, Rhea, Reba is much more important.

  “What’s to know? He likes anal, and he tips well.” She shrugs her bare shoulders and gives Grainger a long, studying look before hooking a coy smile. “I’ve never seen you around before.”

  He just stares at her. I’m surprised she’s pushing so hard; he doesn’t seem amused.

  “More specifically, I’m asking if there’s anything about Gaz’s visits that seemed unusual to you. Anything of interest.” Sin leans back in the chair and then grabs an envelope, studying it for a moment before tossing it over to the girl.

  She picks it up, opens it, and thumbs through the money there.

  “This for the two of you? I usually charge a bit more for threesomes.” She glances up, takes in Grainger, takes in Sin. “But you know what, you’re both handsome enough. No kinky shit though.”

  “This isn’t for sex, but I shouldn’t have to tell you that,” Sin says, his voice darkening slightly. I see now why he was offered the security job. He appears relatively unthreatening at first. I mean, with the tattoos, the piercings, the denim and leather, the blue hair, he isn’t exactly a kitten, but he seems young and fresh-faced enough to be trustworthy.

  Until he just isn’t anymore.

  “Tell me about Gaz.” This time, it isn’t a request. Sin sits forward in his chair and Rhea shifts uncomfortably. She isn’t aware that Crown, Beast, and I are watching. If she were, I imagine it’d be even harder to get answers out of her. Grainge’s phone is set up in just such a way that you’d have to really be looking for it.

  “He comes here all the time,” she says, shrugging her shoulders. “I’m hardly the only girl he fancies.” She looks up toward a picture on the wall, some faded poster that looks like it belongs in a Florida tourism brochure from 1986 or something. “Why don’t you go ask some of them about his habits?”

  She tosses her hair over her shoulder, simultaneously slipping the envelope under the waistband of her skirt. I would guess her to be around twenty-two, twenty-three. She’s pretty, too. Svelte, but a little overbalanced because of the fake tits.

  There’s a certain … something about her that seems off.

  I prop my elbows on my knees, carefully absorbing every move she makes. Her eyes keep straying to Grainger. At first, I thought it might be because she was into him—he is handsome, even if he’s an asshole—but now I’m starting to question myself.

  She’s afraid of him.

  Sin, too, but not as much. Because Sin isn’t the sergeant-at-arms. Sin isn’t responsible for upholding law in the club.

  “Tell her that Beast is coming in to talk to her,” I suggest, and Sin’s mouth twitches. Grainger scowls. They’ve both got earbuds in, listening to me as I talk but unable to answer back while Rhea’s in the room.

  “If you haven’t thought of anything special just yet, that’s okay,” Sin tells her, letting Grainger do his thing, standing there silent and scary in the background. “Beast will be here soon, and you can tell him.” Right away, Rhea’s face blanches. She’s chalk white, as white as Cat without the suntan. “Do you know who Beast is, Rhea?”

  “I …” she starts, swallowing hard, her eyes flicking between the two men like a trapped rabbit. Again, I feel a pang of sympathy for her. If she really is up to something—or if Gaz is—then she’s in big trouble. Huge. I just don’t see how any of this relates to Reba or the casino, to Kian and Queenie, me and Grey. “Sometimes Gaz makes me deliver packages for him.”

  This last part tumbles out of her red-painted lips in a rush.

  “Packages?” Sin muses, exchanging a look with Grainger. He turns back to Rhea. “What sort of packages?”

  “I don’t know!” she all but wails, sliding off the desk and falling to her knees. She puts her hands on Sin’s thighs, but he brushes her off and she clasps them together in prayer instead. “He never tells me what’s in them. I asked once, but …” The girl reaches up to touch the side of her mouth. There’s a tiny scar, one that I hadn’t noticed before. It’s nearly invisible beneath her makeup, but when she turns her head just right, the light catches on the small indentation.

  My temper flares. My brother beats prostitutes? Like, could the asshole get any worse?

  “Where do you take these packages?” Grainger asks, moving around the desk to Sin’s other side. He squats down in front of her, and I find myself chilled to the core to see him in his element. This is all new for me, seeing the guys work. This is a part of their lives that I wasn’t privy to until now. If I’m being honest with myself, I have to admit that the three months I spent with the mafia was worth it, just for this, for being part of their team.

  It’s exhilarating.

  “Just down the street,” she assures us, looking between Sin and Grainger with a desperate pleading in her gaze. “To that old church. I put the packages at the base of the spire thingy, and then I leave. That’s it. I swear it.” She shakes her prayer-shaped hands at Sin, perhaps mistaking him for the more forgiving of the two men. “Please don’t hurt me. I don’t know anything else, I swear it. I swear it.”

  Grainger reaches out his hand and Rhea stares at it like it’s poisoned. Eventually, she realizes she has no choice, laying her palm against his. He very slowly, very deliberately, takes the cigarette out of his mouth.

  My entire body goes tense as he puts the burning ember near the girl’s wrist. She starts to shake, sweat pouring down the sides of her face. His movements are impossibly slow, calculated. Meanwhile, his brown eyes bore into hers, and I see instantly why my father chose to appoint that silver sheriff’s star to Grainger.

  “If you’re lying to me,” he starts, and Rhea jerks her hand back. She doesn’t get far. Grainger snatches her arm and lifts her up to her feet, pushing her back into the wall opposite the poster. “Last chance for mercy.”

  “He doesn’t tell me anything!” she wails, shaking as the cigarette tumbles to the ground at their feet. “He …” Her eyes dart around frantically, searching fo
r an escape of any kind. I hate this. I hate it so much that I want to scream.

  “Please let her go,” I murmur, but Rhea isn’t done yet.

  “All he does is brag about his watches and his money and his—”

  “His money?” Grainger asks dryly, casting a look in Sin’s direction. “So, he’s a braggart?” Cade readjusts his attention to Rhea.

  “He gave me a Rolex one week and took it back the next,” Rhea offers, sniffling. She’s shaking so badly, I can practically see her knees knocking together. Grainger releases her and she sags back against the wall.

  “Get the fuck out,” he tells her, and she scrambles to obey, so hasty she even forgets to close the door. He very carefully moves over to it and flicks the lock. “Gaz doesn’t make shit. He doesn’t work any jobs on the compound. He’s useless in any official role. He’s basically a waste of life.”

  “If he weren’t your father’s son, he’d have been on his final warning,” Crown agrees, looking at me and then lifting his attention to Beast. “But he certainly has charisma. He’s well-liked.”

  “By certain people,” Beast drawls, almost absently. That’s some shade being thrown if I’ve ever heard it.

  “So where is he getting all that money from?” Sin muses, leaning back in the chair and crossing his ankles on the surface of the desk. It’s impossible not to appreciate the way his t-shirt rides up and reveals the barest sprinkle of dark hair above his waistband. A happy trail that I’d love to follow downward.

  I blink.

  Fuck, I’m a thirsty bitch.

  “Daddy?” Grainger muses in that way of his, the one that makes my claws come out, that sends these dark whispers to my brain that say kill the smarmy bastard before you fall in love with him.

  It’s maybe … it might actually be too late for that anyway, but I don’t have the time to examine that particular emotion just yet.

  “You’re kidding me, right?” I ask, a bit acerbically. “Isn’t René the Treasurer? You think he’d let Cat give out allowances? Do you think Cat himself would ever give out allowances? I’m not saying he won’t buy a few nice things here and there, but when he kicked Gaz out of the house at eighteen, he told him he was a man who could fend for himself.” I stretch my legs out, and the blanket slithers off of them, revealing all of my scars.

  I’ve never been vain, not like Posey or Dena (the bitch with the convertible named ‘the Baby’), but I’m also not an idiot. I’m a fairly attractive woman. Looking down at my legs, I feel for the first time like I’d rather be in any body but this one.

  Beast puts his hand on my calf before I can cover it up again, brushing his thumb over a particularly jagged scar across my muscle. His eyes meet mine, and I swallow hard. I’m fighting back a sudden surge of emotion, one that feels like it has no outlet.

  I can’t show emotion in front of these men. That’s … it’s absurd. And yet part of me wonders if that isn’t something we could work up to. What happens between lovers in the bedroom isn’t anyone else’s business. If I cried, if they held me, if … They? I think, getting snippy with my own thoughts. It can’t be a ‘they’ forever, can it? These men are one-percenters, Gidget. You think they each want one-fourth of a wife?

  “Cat would never allow Gaz to purchase something as lame as a Rolex with his money.” That’s a straight up fact, one that helps distract me from my scars. Beast strokes up my leg, his warm, rough fingers playing with my knee. Crown’s eyes follow the motion, but I can’t quite get a read on his expression.

  “So Gaz is getting money from … somewhere,” Sin offers up as the others muse on the information. “I don’t like the sound of ‘packages’. Whether this is related to the mafia or not doesn’t matter; we have to look into it.”

  “He’s probably skimming product and sending his pet prostitute to drop it off for the dealers.” Grainger’s eyes practically glow as he says that, and I see him flick his tongue across his lower lip. He’s excited by the prospect of Gaz’s wrongdoing. “Oh, shit, I hope so. Do you know how long I’ve waited to pin that fucker with something that’ll stick?” He rubs at his stubble with his right hand, contemplating Gaz’s doom. It’s a surprisingly sexy sight to bear witness to.

  “If Grey sent me that key,” I offer up, breath catching slightly as Beast’s hand works up to my thigh. The skin gets smoother and softer the closer he gets to my cunt, the scarring lessened near my pelvis. I was wearing a skirt that day, so the protection wasn’t great, but it was better than the complete nakedness of my lower legs. “Then this is something bigger than skimming product. Where would Grey get that key? Why hook it to my dog’s collar? Think about it.”

  “Don’t confront him,” Beast warns, and then he’s sliding one warm finger over the front of my panties. My eyes threaten to flutter closed, and my stomach muscles clench tight. His jacket is hanging over the back of the headboard; I can smell it from here. Books, ink, Earl Grey tea. Shit, shit, shit, shit, fuck. Cursing is an art, but I’m painting with a sloppy brush right now. I’m too twisted up by Beast’s slow, deliberate strokes.

  His movements, however, are not about putting a fire out—they’re intended to start one and let it burn.

  I shove his hand away, and he has the audacity to smirk at me.

  “Definitely not,” Crown agrees, frowning as he stares at Beast’s hand. He taps his fingers against the chair arm in either annoyance or thought, I’m not sure. “He’s a loose cannon. If he is, somehow, related to this thing with the mafia …” Crown lets out a sharp laugh and swipes his hand over his face. “I don’t like where this is going.”

  “Because maybe Gaz is a traitor?” I ask, but mostly to myself. I stare down at the silk covering my lap and think about why, exactly, it is that I have these scars, these ruined legs. “Because I’m also one, and how do we handle this?”

  All four men give me harsh looks, but it’s the truth, and they all know it.

  I am a traitor to the Death by Daybreak Motorcycle Club.

  The Last Judgement.

  A final and eternal deliverance of the club—whether they know it or not.

  Whether I know it or not.

  Speak of the devil, and he shall appear.

  My brother, Gaz, is sitting at the breakfast table with Nellie when I come downstairs the next morning. If I didn’t have Grainger standing right behind me, I might’ve actually turned tail and run.

  Or … who am I kidding? No, I wouldn’t. I’d stay, but he might murder me for real this time.

  The atmosphere in that room is thick with violence. That, and Nellie’s sporting a mark on her wrist that looks suspiciously like fingerprints.

  “If you touched our mother, I’ll tell Cat, and he will quite literally kill you.” The words come out of me before I can stop them, spilling into the air with the essence of a threat. Cade curses behind me, putting a rough hand on my shoulder and giving it a very obvious squeeze. The move actually serves in two capacities, proving the brute isn’t as dumb as he looks. Well, okay, he looks like the demon of lust, sent to this earth with the sole purpose of tempting me, but anyway, it’s a good move.

  He’s telling me to reel it in.

  He’s also reminding Gaz that he’s here, that he’s watching over me.

  “Did I touch you, Mom?” Gaz asks, looking over at her in just such a way that she flinches. Nellie … She really is afraid of her own son. But I know why she doesn’t tell Cat about it. Cat will visit absolution on his son if he hears about this. Told ya the club’s morals were fucked up. These men will die to protect the honor of their women. They also tell their daughters that their pussies make them worth less inherently, keep their wives in the dark about the very machine that both protects us and puts us in danger, and then they go and pimp lost girls for profit.

  It all makes my head spin.

  “No,” Nellie says, staring down at her food. She’s been really into like ‘world cuisine’ lately, cooking things from different countries, different cultures. Today’s breakfast is ju
st eggs, bacon, and toast which is great but also seems out of character. That is, the character of this Nellie, the one who stopped fucking dudes at the clubhouse and turned into some sort of weird, tattooed Betty Crocker after my sisters died.

  I smell Gaz’s influence here.

  Even though I want nothing more than to run away from this, Gaz is my only clue to getting Reba back thus far. He’s the only part of this equation that makes any sense.

  Gaz’s eyes drift up to find Grainger’s, just before Grainge pulls out the chair between me and my brother and takes a seat.

  “You fucking her, too, or something?” Gaz asks, as crude as ever. I glance over to see if Grainger’s pissed off—because he usually is, about one thing or another—but instead, he just smiles. I’ve never seen that before, that expression on his face. It’s a hair trigger that smile, something that could snap and spring a trap at any moment. Ensnare Gaz. Destroy him.

  Grainger leans forward, resting an arm on the edge of the table. His smile is like a guillotine. I’m mesmerized by the look of it. What the hell have I gotten myself into? Cade isn’t just a cranky thirty-something with a handsome face, and a leather vest. He’s dangerous. All four of them are.

  “If I were, would it be any of your business?” he quips, running his big mouth. Reminds me of … well, me. Anyway, he may as well have just come out and said it, that’s how obvious his answer is.

  I roll my eyes and pretend to be uninterested in a situation that’s quickly spiraling out of control. Didn’t Beast just tell us not to provoke my brother?

  Gaz’s eyes narrow slightly, his hand tightening around his fork enough that the metal bends under the strain. Shit, Gram’s silver. It’s ruined now.

  “Whore in training, just like I thought,” Gaz says in a conversational tone. He’s testing Cade right now, looking for a reaction. “How many guys you got on rotation, Gidge?”