Page 33 of Down & Dirty: Rage

“No problem. We’re used to dividing and conquering,” Lexi said. “Right, ladies?”

Vi smirked. “It’s the only way to deal with the pig-headed men in our lives.” She sliced her hand through the air horizontally. “Divide.” She did a karate chop next. “And conquer.”

The bell jingledabove the front door when he entered the premises. Rage glanced around but didn’t see who he was looking for. Instead, he found Carl, one of Lyric’s employees, sitting at the drawing desk and shoving gummy bears one after the other into his trap.

“Where’s Lyric? Have an appointment.”

“I don’t know. She was here earlier. Now she’s gone. She never said she was leaving.”

Rage’s eyebrows pinched together. “What the fuck does that mean?”

The heavily tattooed, black-eyeliner-wearing man with dyed black hair shrugged. “Exactly what I said. She opened the shop and when I got back from a break, she was gone.”

“Gone.”

Carl rolled his eyes. “Yes. That means she was no longer on the premises.”

For fuck’s sake.Rage sucked a breath in through his nostrils. “Know what the fuck it means. What about Trish? Or that other one?”

“They’re at lunch.”

“Where?”

Carl frowned. “I don’t know since I don’t keep tabs on them. That’s Lyric’s job.”

“Well, you fuckin’ should!”he wanted to scream.“You’re the only goddamn man that works in this fuckin’ shop! You should be lookin’ out for the women!”

He pulled in another breath and swallowed all that back down. Lyric was really picky with who she hired. He didn’t want to be responsible for this asshole quitting.

Or ending up in the hospital after Rage punched him in the throat.

He tipped his head to the left, cracking his neck, then tothe right, cracking it again, then pulled in a third long breath and unclenched his balled fingers.

He dug his cell phone out and texted Lyric. He waited sixty seconds for her to respond, and when she didn’t, he called. It rang three times before her voicemail picked up. “Where you at? My appointment was fifteen minutes ago.”

Yeah, he was late, but whatever. He had a fucking business to run. With a bunch of catty women who liked to claw at each other’s eyes, rip out each other’s extensions, and try to pop each other’s breast implants.

His jaw shifted.

Gabi needed to do a better job of keeping those crazy bitches under control.

“Know what time she left?” he reluctantly asked Carl.

“Like Isaid,I was on break, so…”

What a motherfucking asshole.

He waited another minute for her to return the call. When she didn’t, he rounded the front counter and headed toward the back.

“Hey! You can’t just?—”

“The fuck I can’t,” he muttered. He strode into her office and stopped dead at seeing her desk.

Jesus fuckin’ Christ.It looked like a tornado had hit it.

She needed a part-time secretary or something. Crow and Jazz had always kept the shop organized and neat. Clearly, that gene had skipped Lyric.

He pulled her laptop out from under a small mountain of paperwork. For fuck’s sake, she better not be ignoring any important bills. The office chair groaned when he sank into it before opening the computer.