Page 14 of Rev

Hot. The air tastes like sweat. Everyone is desperate and crazy and drunk and stupid.

I shove the stupid mirrored sunglasses up onto my head, lift my shirt by the hem at my belly to wipe my face with it.

“Yo, Rev.” I hear Chance’s deep voice on my right. “Need you out on the floor in Hel.”

I suppress a groan. “I just came from topside. Can I get five fuckin’ minutes?”

Chance approaches from the shadowed hallway between levels and rooms. He’s six-eight and built like a tank. Half-Hawaiian, half-Mexican. All brute. My best and oldest friend, a man I’d throw myself on a grenade for. Hair down to his shoulders, regrown from the high and tight he wore when we were in the Recons together.

“Oscar Wendell is here,” he rumbles.

I wipe my face with one hand. “Fuck. Dude is a sick bastard.”

“Yeah, and you’re the only one he’ll listen to.” His voice is gravelly, deeper than a canyon. “Inez won’t let us kick him out, so we got to do damage control. Or prevention, if possible.”

I toss the plastic bottle into the trash can nearby and push off the door. “Fine. But one of these days, bud, I’m turnin’ his face into fuckin’ spaghetti.”

Chance laughs. “Yeah, and I’ll hold him. But unless he breaks a rule, we can’t touch him. He’s a diamond-level member.”

“Shove his diamond status up his pissant ass,” I grumble, following Chance down the hallway to the back stairs down to Hel.

Oscar Wendell is a predator. A mean one, and a chameleon. You don’t see his true nature till it’s too late. He pays five figures a month for the diamond status, in order to have free rein of Hel, and obviously Sin above; this means he can take any of the girls he wants at any time. Doesn’t pay for booze, blow, or food. You can’t tell him no.

The only no that matters is a girl’s. The girls who work here know better—they won’t say no to pretty much anything except the sickest of kinks. But a honey from up in Sin who finds herself in his clutches? God help her. She’ll go with his sick-fuck ass because he’s Oscar Wendell, and they’ll think they’re getting in good, gonna have a grand old time with the most famous rock star on the planet. Then they’ll realize, too late, exactly what he is.

Usually by then, they’re committed, and it’sOscarfuckingWendell, so they won’t say no.

But if they do…

Hehasto listen.

That’s the first rule of Hel: No Means No.

The other rule: No Fighting, Period.

If you start shit, you’ll fight one of us, in the ring inside Fisticuffs. And by one of us, I mean we who are pledged and branded members of the Broken Arrows. And youdo notwant to fight one of us. Trust that.

We emerge from the service hall in a shadowed corner of the main room of Hel; the entrances to the service corridors are hidden and disguised. I stand in the shadows and take stock of the room.

Danni is behind the bar, shaking her tits as she mixes a drink, and making the barflies drool and wish in the process…which is the whole point. Abby is on the pole. Candi is servicing a member, so is Tamra.

And there’s the asshole king himself, Oscar, at the doorway, his ever-present posse behind him. And he’s already up to his usual tricks.

He’s got the finest piece of ass I’ve ever seen gripped by the wrist, and she’s struggling. I take a moment to blink back my stunned shock, because she is, no shit, the sweetest, sexiest angel I’ve ever seen, and that fucker’s filthy hand is on her wrist preventing her from getting away, his other pawing at the bubbliest, juiciest ass my eyes have ever spied.

She’s tall, wearing strappy sandals at the ends of mile-long legs, short, tight khaki shorts that cup her fabulous ass, and a filmy, not-quite-see-through sleeveless top. Hair like sunlight and honey, loose and wild, down to mid-back. Body of a goddess, five-nine and so much curve my dick is twitching, and that’s while she’s across the room, clothed, and in trouble.

Struggling, pushing at him with her free hand, stumbling, crying.

“Rev.” Chance’s voice at my ear, snapping me out of my appreciative, amazed perusal.

“Got it.”

I prowl across the room, fury rising in me like bile.

“You can’t hit him,” Chance calls.

I flip him off with both hands over my shoulders.