Dauntless (Sons of Templar MC 5)

I drummed my fingers on the bar, mostly to distract me from my unease, from the constant itch.

“You sure you’re up to it?”

I narrowed my eyes. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

He regarded me. “Yeah. It won’t go down well. With him.”

I stopped drumming. “Yeah, well, it’s a good thing this has nothing to do with him.”

“Babe, it has everything to do with him.”

I gave him my best level stare. “Nope. I know you guys take this ownership thing pretty fucking seriously, despite the women’s protests, but this woman”—I pointed to myself—“isn’t owned by anyone, not even Gabriel. Especially not Gabriel. Men have been in control of what they do with my body, and I didn’t like it. Not one bit.”

I ignored Cade’s flinch.

“So I’m here, controlling what I’m doing with my own body. Me. No one else. And if you won’t give me my job back, I’ll go somewhere else.”

I made to stand up, though my threat was empty. I didn’t have anywhere else to go. I had no money, and there wasn’t exactly a plethora of strip clubs within spitting distance. I sure as shit wasn’t going back to Carlos’s. I couldn’t, even if I were deranged enough to go back to the employer who had me kidnapped and raped—and trust me, I wasn’t. I heard he dropped off the face of the earth and the club had burned down to ashes not a day after this one had.

Faulty wiring was the official story.

Cade’s hand on mine stopped me. I flinched as his skin came into contact with mine and he clocked my reaction immediately, taking his tattooed hand away.

I let out a breath.

“You can have your job back,” he said quietly. “If that’s what you want.”

“It’s what I want.”

He stood and I did my best not to fucking freak out at his size and the way he towered over me.

I managed. Just.

“We’re opening again on Friday. You up for that?”

I didn’t miss the way his gaze flickered down my body. He was taking in my tight jeans and equally tight cropped Henley. Not in a male way—I was pretty sure all women were invisible to him except his hot wife—but in a way like he was mentally calculating if this physical form could hold itself up on stage.

I’d put on weight. Not a lot but enough to hide my protruding bones. And my most important assets for this job, my tits and ass, were full and healthy, so he had nothing to worry about.

Friday was two days away. I was so not up for that. “Yep.” I hitched my bag on my shoulder. “All good if I come tomorrow to practice?”

He nodded. “Cadence will be here.”

Cadence was the manager of the dancers and a bitch.

We got on famously, despite her having screwed Gabriel.

She’d even visited Rosie’s a week before. She brought tequila and flowers, and a Glock.

Like Rosie, she was insane.

I nodded. “Awesome. Well, I’ll see you. Say hey to the wife from me.” I went to leave his presence and this fucking place. It was making my skin itch like nothing else.

“We’ll get them.” His voice was a low boom.

I froze but didn’t turn.

“They’re gonna pay for what they did, I’ll promise you that,” he continued.

I sucked in a breath and then kept walking.

Yeah, they’d pay. I just hoped I got to make them do so.

I’d been practicing my routine for two days straight, and every inch of my body screamed in protest at the abuse I was putting it through.

Stripping, despite what people thought, wasn’t just gyrating on stage and shedding your self-respect along with your clothes.

It was hard, really fucking hard on your body. There was a reason housewives and idiots who drank green juice started doing it for workout purposes.

And my body had been abused and battered in the most brutal of ways for three weeks. Not as bad as my mind, but still not good. Add to that one month of doing not much at rehab and even less at Rosie’s apart from serial killer marathons. It was safe to say I was rusty.

I wasn’t bad, but I wasn’t good.

Plus, my body hadn’t exactly recovered and it pissed me right off that I landed on my ass when I tried moves that used to be a piece of cake…before.

Just another thing those assholes had ruined.

I was sitting on the stage, my feet hanging off it, trailing the new wood. It was all new, thanks to the fire that had been started the day mine went out. But I could feel the skeletons underneath it. It was where Lily almost died, where Gabriel almost died.

My throat started to close up.

“Here,” a voice interrupted my thoughts, thankfully, and a bottle of water was shaken in front of my face.

I glanced up at Cadence and took it. “Thanks.”