Page 50 of Rev

I don’t know—there are so many things I don’t know. My upbringing tells me that getting involved with Rev is wrong, that letting him touch me or kiss me before we’re married is wrong. My heart—broken, shredded, destroyed—tells me to run far away from him. He’s dangerous. To my heart and possibly to my health. He’s scary. Monosyllabic most of the time. Closed down, hardened, rough, terse.

But I’m intrigued by him. Attracted to him, in a scary big way.

I don’t know what to do. I don’t know why I’m working at that club. Why I’m staying in Vegas.

All I know is, I’m drawn to Rev like a moth to the flame. Probably with the same end result.

* * *

It’s a crazy,busy night. I’m still with Ingo, training. I’m going to shadow him and work with him for a few days, and then I’m really on my own. And, oddly, unexpectedly, I enjoy the work more than any job I’ve worked.

I barely even see Rev, except in passing—he’s everywhere, all the time, like a ghost. Every once in a while, I feel him looking at me, leaning against a wall or a pillar, just watching me.

I’m scheduled to work three days a week for now, to make sure I fit and can hack it. And the money I make is honestly bananas.

A week passes, and then two.

I settle into a pattern, working nine at night to four in the morning. Having always been a night owl naturally, this works for me.

For those two weeks, there have been no run-ins with Rev. I’m trying to find my place and my rhythm in a new job, and honestly, I’m also trying to ignore my feelings—physical, not emotional. My emotions are on a hiatus. I’m being childish and stupid, I know, but I’m refusing to deal with my emotions for a while. Years of clinical depression made worse by my ex-husband’s neglect and emotional abuse, compiled with finding out he was cheating on me with ateenager, a nineteen-year-old receptionist at his gym. See, he went to a gym with a bunch of friends from work and spent hours there. Or so he told me. I went to another gym, one populated mostly by women, run by a woman, geared toward fitness for emotional and mental health as much as physical fitness. It was a safe place. Actually, lifting is the one thing I miss.

I should find a gym.

It’s after three, nearing closing time. I’m at the end of my first solo shift, working one of the upper-level bars where it’s not as chaotic as the lower levels. I still make bank. I manage to keep up without losing my head.

I’m exhausted, ready for the night to be over so I can go home and drink some herbal tea and watch stupid reality TV until I fall asleep. I’m operating on autopilot, taking orders and filling them, running tabs and making change, letting the frenzy of the work carry me through.

A shout breaks me out of my daze—a female shout. Angry. Scared. “Letgo!” She’s furious, and terrified. “I saidno, dammit!”

I don’t even think. I just act. Duck under the gate and beeline for the commotion—a young girl, barely old enough to drink, if that, dressed in a mini skirt and lace top with pasties over her nipples, being accosted by a much older, overweight man in a sweat-stained red silk button down, black trousers belted underneath his gut.

I have a bottle opener in my hand, and I use it to gesture, getting in the man’s face. “She saidlet go, sir.” I grab her wrist and yank it free of his grip—I think he’s surprised by my appearance more than anything. “You donotwant to continue this behavior. Not here.”

He’s red-faced, hammered, sweating. The music pounds around us, deafening, hypnotic. A slow, ugly grin spreads across his porcine face, turning his beady eyes dark and glittery with amusement. “O-ho. You’re even better.” His hand is meaty andstrong, gripping my wrist. Yanking me forward. “She don’t wanna play. You don’t wanna let her play. So guess what, hot stuff?You’regonna play with me.” He jerks hard, and I slam up against his body.

I gag, shove away—he smells awful. “If you don’t let go and leave the clubnow,” I snap, struggling against him, “you’re going to regret it.”

“This is Sin,” he mutters, easily overpowering me, hand grabbing at my backside. “Anything goes here. I can do what I want. No one’s gonna stop me.”

“Anything goes,” I repeat. “Except the two rules.”

“There are no rules.” He fumbles at the hem of my shirt, which I have tucked into my track shorts.

I’m remembering Rev’s warning—let security deal with issues. Oops.

“There are two rules,” I say, struggling, knowing someone is coming and biding my time, hoping they get here before something worse happens than being groped. “No fighting, and no means no.”

“I give a shit about your rules?” He has my shirt untucked, clammy, sweaty hands on my bare skin, now, and I’m nauseated, terrified.

I glance past him, and see a shadow moving behind the bar, emerging from the service corridor. A tall, broad shadow. He moves into the light bathing the bar—Rev.

As I watch, he takes two long strides, plants a palm on top of the bar, and vaults over the four-foot-high bar like it’s nothing. God, is that hot. The crowd parts for him—and if they don’t part, he none too gently shoulders them aside.

His eyes flash with rage as he reaches me, and the man who has me clinched in a grope, one hand on my buttock, the other up the front of my shirt.

Rev’s hand latches onto the man’s, and I watch Rev’s grip tighten. The man’s face pales in the strobing light, and he releases me.

Too little, too late.