Page 35 of Direct Action

I could’ve lost him.

Not that I had him, not really, but he could’ve been gone in a forever kind of way.

“Is that where you go?” I asked, already knowing the answer but for some twisted reason needed to hear him confirm. “When you’re supposed to be camping or whatever.”

“Yes.”

My stomach revolted. I’d been home in my comfy bed, thinking of all the dirty things I wanted him to do to me, while he was somewhere in danger.

I’d torture myself with that knowledge. Instead of sexy time with my fictional Ryan before I went to bed, I’d now think of what a horrible person I was.

“Why are you telling me this? I mean, why now?” I carefully asked.

Ryan’s lips flattened into two thin lines that formed an epic frown that rivaled his earlier scowl.

Apropos of nothing he announced, “You need to quit the Vault.”

Not this again.

“I’m not quitting.”

“You are, Chloe,” he demanded.

His steely tone should’ve had me immediately backing down. Instead, it flared my rebellious side to life. “I’m not, Ryan. Not that it’s your business, but I need the money.”

“We’ll switch your base pay to a manager’s salary, and you’ll still make tips,” he told me without conferring with his business partners.

I had no idea what the manager’s salary was, but it could be double what I made at the Vault and I’d still decline the offer.

I turned to Pete. He was less approachable than the others, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a fair boss. “I don’t take handouts—”

“First,” Ryan interrupted. “It’s not a handout. You’d be working for it. Second, and more importantly—is the money you make at the Vault worth putting your life in danger?”

I rolled my eyes at his dramatic outburst.

“Driving down a canyon at night is hardly putting my life in danger.”

“Think about everything I just told you. Then ask yourself why we were at the Vault.”

“What?”

“We own a bar,” he unnecessarily told me. “Why would Pete, Mason, and I spend our night off sitting at a table drinking someone else’s booze?”

I glanced back at Pete. His clenched mouth gave his jaw a more chiseled appearance. His brown eyes were darker than Ryan’s, but right then they didn’t look a shade deeper, they looked murky, shadowed with something I couldn’t read.

That alone should’ve curbed my sarcasm, yet it didn’t. The nerve of Ryan to think he could tell me to quit—no, demand it. Thus, I couldn’t keep my snap out of my tone when I replied.

“I don’t know, Ryan, scopin’ out the competition. A change of scenery. A new place to pick up chicks.”

“No, Chloe, we were there to follow up on a lead.”

“A lead?”

He didn’t answer, or he did, he just didn’t elaborate. “A lead,” he said firmly, like I was a dim bulb.

That didn’t piss me off, it infuriated me.

“You’re going to have to use more words, Ryan, if you want—”