“Hold on, where are you going?” he asked.
“I’m going to take care of some business with Gage,” I told him. “This is not okay, and he knows I’m not okay with this kind of behavior. He was not supposed to treat you this way. He’s supposed to let me talk to you and get answers from you humanely.” It wasn’t lost on me, though, that he had finally talked only after being beaten by Gage’s men, but I wasn’t about to admit there was any possibility he could have been right.
“Are you coming back?” he asked.
I stared at him. I didn’t know Dimitri well enough to risk coming back down here again. “I’m probably not coming back, Dimitri. I’m done. And I’m sorry, but you’re part of all this. I don’t need to get mixed up with you while I’m trying to get out of here.”
The truth was I didn’t know if I could even make myself leave. Things had become surprisingly complicated. The only thing I did know for sure was that I couldn’t be connected to what they were doing to Dimitri. Not any longer. I shouldn’t have agreed to help Gage in the first place. I’d seen how he looked when he walked through that door. He had that outlaw biker look, rough and tough, not like the pretty boys out pretending to be in motorcycle gangs.
I had a career to think about, and what was happening in the basement of the Kings of Hell HQ was enough to destroy that career. I couldn’t allow that.
He sighed, and the sound reminded me I was still in the basement with him. “I get it. Well, at least you see what kind of man you’re working for now,” he told me.
“I know.” I sighed. “I know.” And to make things harder, I’d just had sex with him the night before.
I walked out of the interrogation room and closed the door, leaning my head against it once it was closed.
“What were you thinking?” I asked myself. I didn’t know anything about either one, Gage or Dimitri. Yet I was willing to sleep with Gage, and I was willing to trust Dimitri.
“Dammit, Julia,” I cursed to myself. The amazing sex we’d had made it hard for me to just run up the stairs and tell Gage I was done. It was nearly impossible to imagine leaving now.
Chapter 15
Gage
I knew it was coming. I knew Julia would storm upstairs to find me still sitting at the same table, sipping another cup of coffee, once she saw what the guys had done to Dimitri. I sent the guys off to collect some money owed to us by a local dealer, getting them out of the way of her wrath. It wasn’t that I was afraid of her, I just didn’t want them to have to deal with her. She was going to be mad at me; it was my job to deal with it.
“What the hell were you thinking?” I could hear her from across the room, shouting before she was even fully up the stairs.
I set my cup down on the table and turned around to see her petite body angrily coming my way. Her anger was apparent in her face, scowling at me like she believed her eyes could burn holes through my skin. Her fists were clenched at her sides. Her feet stomped on the floor as her legs pumped her across the space between us. Her perky breasts bounced in her tank top, threatening to come out of her bra.
“You lied to me,” she accused me. “You said he wasn’t going to be harmed while I talked to him.”
A few of the girls hanging out with some of the members of the MC got up and left quickly, keeping their eyes on her as they backed away, trying to avoid whatever drama was unfolding in the clubhouse. It was a regrettable occurrence, that was for sure. I simply watched as she approached me. She wasn’t the first angry woman who had attacked me at HQ, accusing me of lying and a multitude of other offenses.
“Well, what do you have to say for yourself? Anything?” She stood in front of me with her fists clenched, seething with anger.
I stood up calmly, realizing for the first time just how much taller I was than Julia. “You need to keep your voice down in here,” I told her quietly as I took her arm in my hand and started to walk her up to the third floor, where we had private rooms for members who needed a place to crash for the night.
She tried to jerk her arm away, but my grip was too tight. “What are you doing?”
“We’re going somewhere to talk in private. Now, act like you’ve got some sense and come with me,” I urged her in a low tone.
She fumed but walked with me to the stairs leading up to the third floor. Old wooden doors lined the hallway. Some of them were open, some closed as the rooms were probably occupied. The floor was quiet, with just a hint of noise drifting up from the second floor and some outside sounds spilling in through open windows. I led her to the closed door at the end of the hallway, my own private room.