“That so?” I scoot a little closer to him, wanting him to know I don’t care what he thinks. That he has no effect on me, even if that’s a total lie. I want him to know that I’m here and I’ll be all up in his fucking space and this place whether he likes it or not. “Just because you went through my life with your computer doesn’t mean you know shit.”
“I beg to differ.” He leans a little in himself. “You finished college in under three years, spending hours up late writing your papers and studying, that when you can’t sleep you read Harry Potter, and you like to scroll JJ Watt’s Twitter a little too much.” He says the last part with gritted teeth. “You’re too young to be here.”
All the things he said are true, except the part about me being too young, but that’s unimportant. These are things he shouldn’t be looking at. My personal fucking business. Has nothing to do with this club. I get they need to know shit about me, but that is just a little too intimate. He doesn’t have that privilege. I haven’t granted him that privilege.
I also don’t throw in his face that everyone in this room was fighting in a war when they were 18. I’m 21. I feel my age is just fine and not part of this equation because I can do what they need me to do and that’s all that matters.
I reach down, grabbing the knife out of my right boot and slamming the blade down into the wood of the bar, leaving the handle sticking up.
“Shit,” I hear from the other side of the room, but I don’t turn to look to see who said it. Neither does Scribe. He didn’t so much as blink. Not even when I pulled out the knife.
“You can’t see everything behind that computer,” I tell him, pulling the knife from the wood, still looking straight into his eyes as I lay my left hand, palm down flat, on the bar, fingers spread wide. I start to unhurriedly hit the blade between each finger, slowly picking up speed. Moving my right hand faster and faster as the knife lands between my fingers, hitting the wood of the bar. I’m sure it’s leaving nice little nicks each time it hits, but I don’t give a fuck. Finally, he pulls his eyes from mine and looks at my hand. “Not everything is as it appears on your little screen. I think someone like you would know that, because most of you are nothing like you seem.”
“Jesus Christ.” I hear another voice from the other side of the room again.
Scribe’s eyes are now studying my hand, but I still keep looking at him as I move the blade between my fingers with quick ease. I know what he’s going to do. He’s looking for the right moment to grab my hand, and just when he goes to grab me, I pull back, making him jump. It gives me an opening, and I slam the knife right into the center of the keyboard of his laptop. The light drains from the screen.
“Stay out of my fucking business,” I say as calmly as I can. I pull the knife from his keyboard and throw it across the room to the dartboard next to the pool table. I hit it square in the center. “I can handle myself,” I tell him, leaning in so I’m only a breath away. “Even better when I’m close up.”
2
Knox
The first time I saw Violet, I think my balls dropped right along with my jaw. I’d never seen anything like her in my life. Sure, I’d seen pretty girls before, and good-looking women trying to get at me, but she was different.
She was short and trim with a nice little rack and a sweet round ass, but something behind those crystal-blue eyes was dark. She looked innocent and sweet standing alongside Casper the first time, but I could tell something flared under that facade. She looked a lot like her brother Vincent with his dark Italian complexion, but Violet’s got long auburn hair nearly to her waist. Those blue eyes of hers sparkled behind her bangs, and I ached to walk over and grip her chin, making her look into me. To let me see what she was hiding, because there was something there. I could feel it.
I’ve seen the side glances she gives me. I know what an interested woman looks like, and she is most definitely interested. I think it pisses her off. But I can’t get too close. There are a few things keeping me at a distance, and the first one is that she wants to be in the club. It’s not that she’s a woman, and it’s not that she’s Vincent’s sister. It’s the fact that she looks so goddamn sweet and innocent when she’s just standing there, that she’d be a liability to the club.
Anyone wanting to start any shit would just have to say the wrong word to her and I’d lose it. Maybe that’s the real liability. Me around her. Something inside of me makes me want to protect her, and I can’t have that kind of distraction. No matter how bad I want her. No matter that what Cas says is true, she can handle herself just fine.