by Stacy Gail
His dark eyes widened. Then sharpened. Then tried blasting her to pieces. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“Are you saying you’ve been here working hard for a full eight-hour shift… and you haven’t eaten a goddamn thing?”
“That’s right.” And she had a headache that was as much from hunger as it was from pure fury, thanks to him. “Guess whose fault that is?”
“Yours, you pigheaded little idiot—”
“I think I’m going to start charging you a fee every time you insult someone, Twist.” Scout emerged from Angel’s booth, looking like she wanted nothing more than to clock him. For his part, Twist backed up a step, making Angel swallow a sudden, totally inappropriate desire to smile. Twist might be hell on wheels, but Scout was one person he didn’t mess with. “Just imagine how much money I’d have by the end of the year. I could retire.”
“I call it as I see it,” he muttered, his voice pitching lower as irritation crackled around him like an ominous dark aura. “Outside of political activists and revolutionaries, it’s idiotic for a person to make their point by refusing to eat.”
When he put it like that, Angel and her empty stomach had to admit he might be right. But she’d starve to death before she’d take even a crumb from him. Some things were a matter of principle. “It’s your fault I’m standing here lightheaded from hunger, not mine. I had my meals covered.”
“You were going to eat total shit—”
“And for the millionth time, my life is none of your business, so keep your nose out of it!”
“Enough of this.” Payne appeared at the mouth of the hallway, looking like he’d love nothing more than to knock their heads together and leave them for dead. Angel jumped and glanced at the founder of House Of Payne, a yummy specimen of manhood with brown hair, well-maintained scruff and a sexual aura that clung to him like cologne. She’d crushed on Payne hard when she’d first come to the House, but that had died out long ago as he’d become more of a big brother with slave-driving tendencies. Still, there was no harm in looking. “I heard you bitching at each other all the way from the other side of the offices. Way to carry out a professional image.”
“Excellent point.” Scout glanced at her watch. “Luckily the store’s almost closed. Otherwise we’d have clientele all over the place wondering what in the world is wrong with our staff.”
Twist glanced at Payne. “Did you call me in for trying to teach Angel how to eat like an adult? Because if so, that’s a conversation that could’ve been done over the phone.”
“I can’t believe you.” In pure frustration Angel shook her head while the utter arrogance of the man nearly made her choke. “How I eat or what I eat is none of your… freaking… business.”
“Indoor voice,” Payne growled at her before shooting Twist a hard stare. “Though I can’t blame her for yelling at you.”
“Neither can I,” Scout muttered.
“I’m getting pretty damn tired of telling you to stay in your own lane as far as Angel’s concerned,” Payne went on, his voice dangerously quiet as he eyed the other man. “It’s like you have some kind of hearing impairment when it comes to listening to me. Is that the case? Because you can bet your ass I’ve got other ways of making myself clear.”
Ha, Angel thought. Suck on that.
“The only thing I hear right now is that no one seems to give a damn that Angel’s about to faint,” Twist said, jerking his head in her direction, and she could have kicked him for deflecting attention to her. “If you called me in to ream me about trying to make sure she doesn’t die of frigging scurvy, then fine. Consider me reamed. Now if that’s all, I need to drag her to the diner across the street before she wastes away to nothing.”
Her spine stiffened so quickly it popped. “Like hell you—”
“No, that’s not all,” Payne snapped, talking over her like he hadn’t even heard her. “You and I need to hammer out your concierge schedule that’s starting up next week.”
“Concierge schedule?” Angel blinked and glanced swiftly at Scout, who looked like she’d just bitten into a lemon. “I thought selecting tattooists for home visits hadn’t been decided yet.”
“They’ve been decided.” With a quick glance at Payne, Scout stepped forward. “We don’t have to do this here and now. I was going to talk to you privately about this tomorrow—”
“Why wait? I’m right here.”
Scout blew out a short breath. “Okay, here’s the thing. You’re not going to be part of the House’s concierge tattooing service.”
You’re not going to be a part…
“What?” Thunderstruck, Angel froze in place so hard it hurt. She couldn’t possibly have heard that right. “What?”
“You weren’t chosen to be one of the tattooists working the concierge service.”
Oh God, she had heard it right. “Why? I’m one of your top earners. I’m booked solidly for months in advance. I’ve been with House Of Payne since before it opened.”
“Angel—”
“You wouldn’t have even had the concierge idea if it weren’t for me.” That was true. Six months earlier during yet another incident where Twist had intruded on her professional life, she’d been goaded into telling him the totally fabricated story that she was going to clients’ houses to tattoo them as a side concierge business. Amidst the kerfuffle, Payne had fallen in love with the idea and gone full steam ahead to make it a reality. Now, with the rush of summer behind them and the slower months of autumn knocking on the door, House Of Payne was still making publicity waves by unveiling its latest facet—a concierge tattooing service that brought its world-famous designs to their clientele for a price tag that was staggering. This new service—and the fact that people were more than willing to pay for it—only proved that the House was the undeniable leader in the world of ink. It was all but guaranteed to make an insane amount of money for both the House and the artists who were a part of the service.
But obviously she wouldn’t see a dime of it.
“Logistics make it impossible for you to be a part of the concierge plan, Angel,” Payne said, and though his expression softened, the steel in his voice didn’t. She’d known him long enough to recognize he wasn’t going to budge on this. “You’d cripple yourself lugging equipment in and out of the van, not to mention there’s no way I could guarantee your safety when you enter someone’s private home. You’d be all on your own, and anything could happen to you. You’re out.”
The explanation echoed inside her head, along with a wave of disbelief and a white-hot fever of humiliation. Damn it all, she really should have taken Scout up on her offer to talk privately, she thought bitterly, trying to ignore the painful tightening in her throat and stinging in her eyes. This was just verification for Twist that all his problems with her had merit. From the beginning he’d made no secret that he thought she was an inept kid. Now, with Payne shutting her out of the idea that she’d come up with—albeit out of pure smartassery—it was like telling Twist he’d been right all along about her.
And it had happened right in front of him.
Her face heated with a prickly, awful burn, and she couldn’t make herself look Twist’s way. If she even glimpsed his smug face, she wouldn’t be responsible for her actions. “Rocket’s the only other female tattooist currently on staff,” she said, and she was grimly pleased with how quiet her voice was, when all she really wanted to do was scream. “Is she being excluded from the concierge roster as well?”
“Rocket was a long-haul trucker for fifteen years, tattooed every biker she met out of the cab of her rig and can bench-press me into the ground. She can handle herself.”
Damn it.
“Which means I can’t.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Actually, you did.” Yes, he totally had said that by excluding her from the new service. As she stood there, wishing in vain for the floor to open up and swallow her whole, she had to accept the truth. Payne had no con
fidence in her. Obviously in his eyes she wasn’t competent enough, or smart enough, or whatever enough, to take care of herself.
And everyone, including Twist, now knew it.
Enough.
Something snapped deep inside, a terrible tension that had been building for months of having to endure being thought of as less than equal. Less than worthy. She’d had to take that hit while growing up, but she didn’t have to accept being disrespected now.
“Okay. I’m done.” With a feeling of vast relief and zero regret over cutting her losses, Angel looped her bag over her shoulder and headed for the stairs without a backward glance.
She should have known leaving the House would never be that easy.
Chapter Two
“Wait.” Ignoring Payne’s command to leave Angel alone, Twist followed in her wake, not taking his eyes off the long fall of platinum blonde hair interspersed with thin dreads tipped in cotton-candy pink. Like the rest of her, the way she wore her hair was both whimsical and impractical. If any of those mythical fairies she loved to create actually existed, they’d probably wear their hair just like that. “Angel, hold up.”
She didn’t hold up. So what else was new? She never did what he wanted her to do. Even when he was in a good mood he suspected she’d been put on the earth to do the exact opposite of whatever it was he wanted. But ever since last week, when he’d learned that his own personal demon had been released from prison to once again walk the streets of Chicago, his mood had been downright black.
She reached the bottom of the stairs and zipped around underneath them toward the back exit, shoving matchstick-thin arms into her jacket as she went. As she moved, he caught a glimpse of pale flesh decorated with a grinning Cheshire Cat. It was depicted as using its psychedelic-patterned tail to pour tea into a cup held by a dreamy-eyed, hookah-smoking adult Alice in a blue and white corset, panties and thigh-highs. Angel’s design, of course. He would have recognized her color-filled, Anime-influenced style anywhere. Both little-girl cute and Lolicon sensual, no one could mesh innocence and sex better than Angel.
In her art, and in real life.
He caught up to her just feet from the exit, and hooked a hand around her arm. “Damn it, I said stop—”
“Don’t touch me.” In a burst of movement she whirled out of his grasp, her elbow just missing his nose. Though Angel was a total hippie-style pacifist, he had the strangest feeling she hadn’t wanted to miss. “Don’t talk to me. Don’t look at me. For the last time, leave me the hell alone.”
The white-hot vehemence in her tone brought his hands up to show he was unarmed and harmless. “Will you calm down?”
“Did you hear the part where I said don’t talk to me?”
He dropped his hands. Obviously she wasn’t buying that harmless shit. “It’s not the end of the world that you’re not doing the concierge gig. Cut the melodramatic bullshit and take a deep breath, all right?”
“Gee, what a surprise. Once again I’m not taken seriously, and my reaction to getting royally screwed is discounted as trivial melodrama. Thanks so much for this one final reminder of why I’m so done with this place.”
“Sorry, but since it’s not a tragedy that you’re not going to be a concierge tattooist, I’ve decided not to cry.” Then her words sank all the way in, and everything inside him went still. “Wait. What do you mean, you’re done with this place?”
“I hate coming here,” came the ferocious reply, and as the words were pushed through the barrier of her teeth it occurred to him that he’d never seen Angel furious. Pissed off, yes. Irritated, sure. But this level of angry… it was light years beyond that. This was a vicious kind of rage that could gouge out dark places and leave a soul bleeding for a long, long time. No one knew that better than him. “And you know what’s sad? It didn’t used to be that way. House Of Payne used to be my second home—no. It was more than that. It was my favorite home, and everything else played second fiddle to it. But as time has moved on, I’m now at the point where I dread coming to work. And it’s all because of you.”
“Me?” The sudden attack brought his brows crashing together, while her words stung him somewhere deep. Since he had no clue what to do with that, he went on the defensive. “Listen, I don’t know what it is you think I’ve done, but I swear I had nothing to do with Payne’s decision to keep you off the concierge roster. I mean, I agree with the decision, but it had nothing to do with me.”
“I’m not talking about that, though I wouldn’t be surprised if subconsciously he was influenced by the way you treat me.”
What the fuck? “How do I treat you?”
“Like I’m a moron,” she shot back, her voice shaking with such fury it began to crack. Her hands balled into fists, and he prepped to take a step back just in case she took a swing at him. “From the first day you came in here and said, ‘Oh, you’re the chick whose tats look like cartoons’ you’ve done nothing but disrespect me. You call me an idiot both in private and in public, and you’ve never missed an opportunity to make fun of my work—work that means everything to me, just as your work means everything to you. But you’ve never taken that into consideration, have you?”
He stared at her in genuine bewilderment. “What the hell, Angel, I’ve never—”
“Remember when you offered to give me private lessons on how to be a serious artist? If someone had said that to you, you would have ripped them apart, and rightly so.”
He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “If you weren’t so dead-set on making me out to be the bad guy, you’d remember that you were talking to Rocket about wanting to expand your horizons by messing around with new techniques.”
“Yes, talking to Rocket. Not you. And I certainly wasn’t talking about getting serious with my art. My art is the most serious thing I have in my life, a fact you obviously don’t get because you’re too busy slamming me like the bully you are.”
“As much as I hate to kill the ‘poor me’ roll you’re on, I’m not going to let you hang the bully label on me,” he shot back, now just as pissed as she was. “I’ve never said you weren’t a serious artist. I know you are. All I meant was that I’d be happy to share my tricks of the trade with you in order to bring a more serious tone to your art, which was what I thought you might be interested in.”
“Yeah, I can imagine what those tricks would be, coming from you—just add black.”
“Now who’s knocking whose artwork?”
She had the grace to look ashamed. “Whatever.”
“The problem you’re having isn’t me, you know.”
“No, really. It is. Trust me on this.”
“Your problem is that you take everything so fucking personally. You need to grow up, stop acting like every little thing is an attack, and open your eyes so you can see what’s right the hell in front of you.”
“I’ll tell you what’s in front of me. The House’s new service that’s going to make everyone a shit-ton of money, a service that wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for me, yet I’m excluded from it. How is that fair?”
“The world isn’t fair and it doesn’t owe you a goddamn thing. Throwing a tantrum about the unfairness of it all makes me want to turn you over my knee and spank you until you—”
She didn’t bother to listen to the remainder of his statement. Instead she punched the exit door open and stalked out into the night-washed parking lot as if it was suddenly beyond her to speak another word to him. For a full five seconds he wrestled with the urge to smash the door off its hinges and charge after her before he made himself calmly walk away. Talking to her now wouldn’t do any good. She was too pissed off to hear anything he had to say, and though he wasn’t about to admit it, he’d never been great with words in the first place and horrible with them when he was angry. His art was what spoke for him.
Just as her art spoke for her.
Slowly he ground to a halt.
Damn it.
Of course her art spoke for her. Like any artist,
her creations defined who she was at her core. And it was this art that he may have likened to cartoons when they first met. He couldn’t remember for sure, since he’d been so affected by her presence in other ways. But… yeah. That did sound kind of familiar.
That had been a dick thing to say.
Offering to share his techniques with her hadn’t been dickish, though. It had been a straight-up legit offer, as he had assumed she wanted to make her art more serious. Because in all honesty, the term serious was the last word he’d use to describe her creations. Not that he was knocking them; he never would. The stuff she produced was brilliant in its mind-blowing imagination. It evoked feelings of leaving the mundane world behind for worlds that were far, far grander. It was light and innocent and just a little mad, and completely the opposite of his own work.
Because his work was…well, serious.
Once again I’m not taken seriously.
“Shit, shit, shit, that’s not what I meant.” With a rough sigh, Twist turned on his heel and made himself push through the exit, all the while trying to figure out how best to explain he hadn’t been trivializing her art, or who she was as an artist. He’d never do that.
Maybe he should tell her that he’d bought her Gretel painting at her last exhibit and had hung it in his studio at home, he thought, peering through the darkness. Or maybe he should just cut to the chase and invite her to punch his lights out, because if anyone had accused him of not being serious about his work, that would have been his response. And with those toothpick arms of hers, it wasn’t like she could do a huge amount of—
A scrape and a muffled curse in a deep male voice set Twist on high alert, a leftover survival response that had come with doing four years behind bars. His head snapped up, eyes sharpening in the unlit parking lot as he zeroed in on where he knew Angel’s tiny electric smart car was parked. His blood flash-froze when a hulking shadow enveloped Angel’s much-smaller frame, her pale hair glowing almost white in the gloom.
“Motherfucker, get away from her!” He rocketed forward, moving faster than he ever had in his life, yet it wasn’t fast enough. In nightmarish slow-motion, he saw a meaty fist cock back in a move all too familiar before it let loose. He yelled again, his own hand reaching out even as the blow connected. Angel, whether alerted by his yell or somehow saw it coming, flinched back just enough to dodge most of the hit. The fist struck the side of her head to send her flying into her car, her head whiplashing back against it with a solid-sounding thunk, before she crumpled to the ground, unmoving.
