I held out the money so long that my arm started to get tired.
Eventually, though, seeing that I wasn’t going to give in, he took the money.
He glanced down at the bills in his hand, at the new creases that I’d made in them, and he winced.
“You don’t like your bills wrinkled, do you?” I teased.
He shook his head.
I folded the one-hundred-dollar bill up about four times, then shoved it into my pocket.
When I looked up, his eye was twitching.
I suppressed a grin and leaned back in my bar chair, and almost fell onto my ass.
The only thing that caught me from taking the plunge over the back was my knee hitting the bar.
A loud bang echoed, followed by the rattle of about one hundred glasses.
Oh, and Easton’s grip on my arm.
I gasped, feeling my life flash before my eyes, and looked up into Easton’s baby blues.
There was nothing special about his blue eyes.
They were just that—blue.
But I’d been staring at them in secret for so long that they were now special to me.
“Holy shit,” I breathed, looking up into Easton’s eyes.
“There’s no back on your chair,” he teased as he held on for just a few seconds longer.
I snorted as he finally let go. “You think?”
Where his fingers had been wrapped around my bicep felt like a brand, and there was this weird, tingly sensation in my gut that had me questioning everything.
Such as my promise to myself that I would never fall for another man ever again.
That seemed harsh, yes.
But reality was much harsher.
Three years ago, when I’d met my boyfriend, Vito Bundy—yes, I more than realize now I should’ve seen that last name and ran far away—I’d been enamored. I’d thought that I had it all—a wonderful, loving boyfriend who would always protect me.
Well, joke was on me.
Vito didn’t love me.
I found out, much later, that Vito was only around me because he’d ‘won’ me. As in, won me by my brother having lost something, and traded me for his debts. Sold. My own brother had sold me.
I’d thought that I’d met a wonderful man.
I’d jumped in with both feet into this whirlwind of a romance with Vito, not realizing that the only reason he had me, and I was living with him, was due to my naivety.
It’d taken me a while to realize, too.
Until one day, when I’d tried to go back home because Salem was sick, and Vito explained the ‘rules’ to me.
Hell, I had been livid.
Why was it okay for that asshole to be free and breathing easy when he’d done what he’d done?
Well, the Battle Crows made sure that he wasn’t breathing easy.
And I just hoped, wherever they had him, if he was still alive, they made his life a living hell.
And that might make me a callous bitch, seeing as I was his sister, but I really didn’t care.