Vengeance Aside (Wanted Men 0.5)(7)
The door opened to reveal a middle-aged man with dark hair and glasses. He was wearing an Adidas tracksuit and Nike sneakers but didn’t look as comfortable as he should have.
“Dale?”
“Hey, Dad.” She cleared her throat and tried not to feel like a beggar. “I’m, uh, in a bit of a pickle. Can I stay with you for a bit?” She slipped on her happy mask and gave him a brilliant smile while mentally crossing her fingers in the hopes she wouldn’t get a solid no.
“Well, er, where’s Leo?”
“Liam is at his place, but I’m not anymore. I won’t stay long. Just until I find a new apartment.” She held her breath, thinking a one bedroom would do. She wouldn’t need two bedrooms for a few years yet. “Uh, maybe a day or two?” she tried when it looked as if Wilson was gearing up to give her some excuse.
“Oh, uh, yeah. A day or two…” He tapped on the doorknob with his wedding ring. A nervous gesture. Clink. Clink. Clink. “Ursula left for work already, and she’s putting in a double shift…” He looked over his shoulder. “I’m working tonight…” He drove a cab and had worked nights all Dale’s life. When he came back around to face her, he was bouncing his top teeth on his bottom lip. “Think you could find a place by noon tomorrow? That way, I won’t have to deal with any bitching when Ursula comes home at three.”
Dale’s spine tried its best to curve, but she jammed an invisible steel rod into it. “Yeah, sure. I can be gone by noon.” Less than twenty-four hours to find a new home, and she had to be at work in two hours and wouldn’t get off until after three a. m. That was doable.
Looking only slightly embarrassed, her dad stepped back and waved her into her former home.
She held up a finger and ran back to her car to grab one of her bags. She wouldn’t need both. When she returned, she placed the duffel just inside the house.
As her dad opened the closet and transferred the bag to the far corner, she said, “I’m off to work. Will you leave the door open or do you have a spare key? Oh, and I’m going to need these…” She stepped into the house and went into the closet to open the bag to grab her stillies.
“You’re going to be late, right?” he said as he took a key off the hook under the mirror and handed it to her. “Try not to be too loud. Ursula’s boy is living with us now, and he’s a light sleeper.”
It felt as if he’d just punched her in the chest. “No worries.”
He looked over his shoulder again. “And I guess I’ll have to let his babysitter know you’ll be taking the couch for a couple of hours, so she’s not alarmed if she hears you come in. She’s in your room now, and you know how thin the walls are.”
“Yup. I remember. I should go. See you.” She skipped along the flowerbed and got back into her car, and it wasn’t until she was backing out onto the street that she noticed she was still smiling. Dropping the expression, she turned the music up loud enough to rattle her fillings.
Life is hard, and cruel people make it harder, Magdalena. Because you are susceptible, you will have to learn to shut them out.
Her Oma used to say that to her when Dale would come home from school feeling like shit for some reason or other.
Look for the good that always comes with the bad.
That one had usually been followed by a story about when Oma was small and living in Europe during the war. Dale had hated those stories, but she’d listened and taken in all the fear and sadness in her Oma’s eyes because there had been so much to be shared.
Pushing away the memory, Dale tried to honor the unconditional love she’d been given for too short a time by doing as she’d been told. Find the good. Good, good, good…
Okay. She straightened in her seat and ignored how the donuts were roiling in her stomach. Yeah, life kind of sucked at the moment, but at least she wouldn’t have to camp out in her car and get eaten alive by bugs because, even though it was only March, it was too hot to sleep with the windows rolled up.
There. Done.
Refusing to acknowledge that she didn’t feel any better, she pressed her foot down on the gas and drove faster.
THREE
“Could it be any hotter?” Erika complained a couple of hours later as she and Dale entered Scorch through the back door that was being manned by one of the club’s heavies. Erika flipped her honey-colored hair and yanked at her collar. “Think anyone would notice if I sewed some air panels into this thing, Kong? You know? Like the ones you see on workout gear. I could totally do it.”
Kong shrugged one of his massive shoulders and offered a crooked smile through the piercings lining his bottom lip. His intense stare went down Dale and Erika’s bodies with an almost clinical edge. “You’d probably get spanked for fucking with the goods.”
As Dale started down the hallway, Erika appeared to consider what had started as a joke. She looked deep in thought as she smoothed down the short black trench coat that came with their uniforms. All the girls were required to wear them when they came on shift, and Dale had to admit their boss had great taste. When twenty of the girls were all together in their coats, stillies, and fishnets, they looked fabulous.
Dale was about to turn and tell Erika to mention the idea to Farah, but the words never made it out because as she passed by the doors leading to the basement, one opened and a man dressed in dark clothing stepped out in front of her. She slammed hard into his back, bumped her nose against his spine, and fumbled her purse but didn’t drop it.