Under Locke(4)

They weren't.



Still he stared right at me looking completely indifferent. So absolutely different from the scowling, bleeding man I'd seen tugging a petite blonde behind him as he left Mayhem last week. There was only a small crusty fleck on the edge of his eyebrow that served as a reminder of that night.



"You're late."



Uhh, what?



I glanced down at my cheap, electric blue watch to see it was four in the afternoon on the dot. "Oh. I thought I was supposed to be here at four."



Wasn't that what Sonny had said? I thought back on the call. There was no way I'd heard differently.



He looked at me, his expression unmoving. That handsome, hard face was a block of stubbled concrete. "I have a business to run, girl. I'm doin' Son a favor by hirin' you. The least you could do is show up on time."



Cue my mouth gaping wide.



Was this guy insane?



"I'm sorry," I told the man, eyeing the blue-black hair that went in ten different directions, only slightly tamed by the cap on his head. There was no way I got the time wrong, I knew it, but what was the point in arguing with him? I needed the job. "I really thought he said four." I flashed him a careful, wary smile. "It won't happen again."



He didn't even bother responding. Flicking two tattooed fingers at me, he waved me forward. Leading me toward a life I wasn't so sure I'd been destined for. "C'mon, I don't have all day to show you how to do shit."'



Chapter Two



"I need you to update this every Friday. Got it?"



Got it? Got it?



Ef me. No, I didn't have it.



How the heck does someone go through the inner workings of QuickBooks in less than twenty minutes? I was going to need someone to explain to me how that was possible because I had no clue.



I wasn't an idiot, or slow by any measure—or so I liked to think—but he'd blown through the program with mouse clicks quicker than my poor eyes could keep up with. One minute he was explaining something about expenses and the next he'd started babbling about saving the files into a specific folder. I'd caught onto...maybe half.



Okay, realistically, more like a quarter of it.



For a brief moment, when I was looking down at the legal pad he'd slid across the desk when I'd followed in after him, I thought about asking him to show me one more time so I could write better notes. Because that wasn't uncalled for, right? I mean, who learned things perfectly the first go around? It'd taken me at least three tries to figure out how to use the cubed ice feature on Sonny's refrigerator correctly.



And then I glanced up at him, Dex Locke. His big body leaned over the edge of the dark brown desk, a red tattoo peeped out at the world over the collar of his shirt, the side of his surprisingly full mouth twisted just barely to the side...and I balked.



"Got it."



What. A. Liar.



A little coward of a liar. Pathetic.



He nodded at me briskly and started pulling up a file on his desktop that said 'Waivers' on it. We were off again.



Curt words. Brisk nods. All business.



At one point, he got up to "go take a piss" and I took the opportunity to look around for the first time after following behind him like a lost puppy. When I'd come in, those hard, pure blue eyes were some form of impatient so I focused in on sitting at the chair he'd dragged over around the desk, and followed along. My chance to snoop had finally presented itself.



The office wasn't at all what I would have expected. The walls were a plain bright white, nearly empty with the exception of two framed pieces and… were those television screens mounted in the corner? Maybe. He didn’t seem like the type to watch daytime soaps though.



The colorful art was the first one to catch my eye. An angry, flaming red octopus looped across the paper in what looked like oils. Tentacles swirled and curled in bisecting lines. Bright and full of so much life, it seemed strange to be held captive on paper.



The other frame, directly next to the octopus, was done in black ink. Black ink that sketched out an immaculate replica of the Widowmakers' Motorcycle Club insignia. The one I'd seen bearing down on my father's bicep for years. The one that up until coming to stay with Sonny had only been a sign of the supposedly terrible things I'd been shielded from.



Bad things my mom had told me about to keep me fearful but I pushed that thought away and kept looking around. My mom's memory was meant for a different time. She already took up so much room in that designated little area I let her memory rest in. A place that I didn't want to get sucked into.



The rest of the small office consisted of the large desk, two matching padded chairs, and a cabinet that crowded the corner. It was almost immaculately clean. There was also a hint of cigarette smoke that clung to the air.