The back door has just opened and strolling into Twain’s Diner are five, beefy, dirty-looking bikers wearing matching leather jackets and bad attitudes.
She and I both observe their entrance.
“Shit,” she grumbles. “As if my day didn’t already suck.”
As she walks off with my cup, I call at her back, “Start a new pot, Alice.”
Over her shoulder, she snarls, “My name’s not Alice.”
Like I care.
Striking grey eyes bore into my awareness from the biker with blonde hair. He’s locked on me, as the rest of his motorcycle club takes up the entire counter on one side, each with a seat between them. I read the patch on their backs: The Ciphers.
The spinning stools groan under their muscular weight, and their conversation hasn’t stopped. Someone says something about being so hungry he could eat the register, and each takes turns upping the last in weird things to digest. It ends in, “Your balls,” and dissolves into guttural laughter.
Fucking dumbasses.
I glance over to Grey Eyes because I feel the stare. It rumbles through my cells and we hold a look so I can drink him in.
Partly I’m pissed he’s eying me so boldly like he has the right.
Partly because he’s fucking hot as hell. Can’t help but look. It’s been a long time since my body was under a man. Too long.
They’re all big. One kind of reminds me of The Hound from Game of Thrones, minus the burns. He notices that Grey Eyes isn’t partaking in the convo and he glances over his immense shoulder to size me up.
Apparently I win his approval.
Like I give a shit what these guys think of me.
Bikers.
What the fuck.
Sighing impatience, I turn my attention to the window to watch expensive cars drive up and down Coldwater Canyon.
I’m in Los Angeles on business. Not pleasure.
That’s the story of my life.
It’s been this way since I was ten.
Hell, maybe before that, too.
Maybe I was born to do what I’m about to.
Maybe that’s why God conceived me into the horror that he did. Maybe I was destined to crush it and him, the sadist. The one who has no idea I’ve found him, and that I’m coming for him. I can’t wait to see his face when I’m pointing my gun into his twisted face.
It doesn’t matter that Grey Eyes is boring a hole into the side of my head right now.
It sure as fuck doesn’t matter that he’s that masculine kind of sexy I’d love to melt into if I was another girl.
I don’t have time for distractions like him. Not when I’m this close.
Annoyed as hell, I call over with a dark challenge, “What are you looking at?”
An amused smirk tugs up those smooth lips of his and he keeps right on staring at me.
And says nothing.
Cocky bastard.
Alice hands them menus, but he doesn’t turn around. His buddies greet the waitress with a grunt each.
Luna, stop looking. If you don’t put wood on a fire it eventually goes out.
Rummaging through the backpack that carries my whole life, I feel the cool, comforting metal of my 9mm. It’s not legal to carry a concealed weapon in California. The evil this is meant for has bigger guns than these. But those machine-gun toting bodyguards will be too late. I have the element of surprise and years of experience sneaking around, on my side.
I get away with bringing this gun with me everywhere.
No one expects a woman to have a weapon.
And if they knew, they’d believe I wouldn’t dare use it. How fucking wrong they’d be.
Pulling out the silver pocket watch I stole at fifteen, I read the time and finger the gentle engraving on the back before slipping it into my bag. I had it engraved myself with a one-word promise: Soon.
“Five sausages. Double stack of pancakes. That come with potatoes?” Grey Eyes asks Alice. She nods, pen and small ticket book in hand. “What kind?”
“Home fries.”
“Extra of those. Four pieces of toast. Two cups of coffee.”
Alice raises her penciled-in eyebrows. “Two cups? You don’t just want a refill?”
He shakes his head one time. A pudgy, scary-looking fucker to his right is talking under his breath to the guy on the end who can’t be older than twenty-two, but who definitely belongs with these dark-souled bastards. He’s the tallest of the group, hunching down so he can hear the quiet information being given him.
Outside of the cooks, the only other person in this shithole is an old man with the Los Angeles Times spread out in front of him. What’s he got to read about? The perpetually sunny weather? Which star divorced who? The drought? How often can you publish: We Need More Water?
I watch ‘Alice’ go to the kitchen window to talk to men who look like they could be my family. And there they are slaving away for minimum wage. I will never do that.