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Wells nodded. “Got into it after high school.” He laughed and raked a hand over his face. “My old man thinks I’m a loser.”

I frowned. “You own this place though, right?”

He nodded. “Took me a while to save the money while I learned under Hamish, but it’s all mine now.

“Your dad sounds like an asshole,” I said.

It was something Otis would have said — tactless but true. Wells had been one of the few kids I hadn’t hated in high school. I didn’t have to mince words with him.

He laughed. “You’re not wrong.”

“You got time for a piercing?” I asked.

“What are you looking at?” he asked. “I don’t have any appointments for a couple of hours.”

“Dick. Adding to the Jacob’s ladder,” I said. “Two more.”

He nodded like it was totally normal to stab your dick with pieces of metal, and I guess here, it was.

“You got it.”

He showed me some rods and I chose ones that matched the other three before settling on a table behind a screen at the back.

“You get these in the joint?” he asked when he saw the other three bars marching up my dick.

“Yeah,” I said. “Guy in there did it for cigarettes, porn, or money in his commissary account.”

“He did a good job,” he said, swabbing my dick with alcohol. “Any infection?”

I shook my head.

“Good.” He started assembling his tools. “How many of these are you planning?”

I thought about Daisy, her legs spread for Wolf at the Orpheum, the pleasure on her face when she’d come, Wolf’s face buried in her pussy on the security cam, right down the hall the night before.

I tried to relax as Wells approached with the needle. “As many as it takes.”

Chapter 48

Daisy

Iwas outside, dumping a bucket of gross water I’d used to scrape the last of the wallpaper off the library walls, when I heard an engine approaching from the driveway. It was loud, and a second later, I realized why: it was a box truck, the kind I’d planned to rent before Jace bought the pickup.

I lowered the bucket to the ground and watched the truck approach, wondering if the driver had gotten lost. But then it pulled up to the pathway leading to the house and I saw there was a car behind it, a black Mercedes I recognized.

My dad’s car. Or one of them.

I walked toward it, feeling self-conscious about my booty shorts and tiny tank top, but when it came to a stop behind the truck, I saw that it wasn’t my dad at all.

It was Calvin.

I crossed my arms over my chest, even more self-conscious with my tits on display for my dad’s right-hand man, and walked past the box truck to the driver’s side of the Mercedes.

Calvin stepped out, wearing an expensive suit and looking every bit as uptight and disapproving as always. His hair was combed back, Gucci sunglasses shielding his eyes.

“Hi,” I said. “What’s all this?”

He took off his sunglasses and I had to force myself not to shy away from his dark eyes. They were vacuous, completely empty of emotion and humanity, like staring into a bottomless well.