Page 41

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Margot

The snow didn’t stick around for long.

But Jigsaw has.

No more waking up alone.

He was right about being clingy.

But he was wrong about how much I’d love it.

He spends his days doing whatever it is he does for his club, racking up a lot of miles between my place and his home charter. When he’s not doing that, he’s at his friend’s gym, getting to know Cain, or setting up a new business for his club.

But almost every night, he’s at my place.

When I’m on call, he gets up with me, no matter how late.

Offers to drive me, even though I always say no.

Paul and I do that on our own. But Jigsaw always waits up for me.

I’ll find him in my living room working on his laptop or in the theater room, watching a movie with Gretel curled up in his lap. Waiting for me.

Tonight, I’m done early. Still on call but done for now.

I find him in my apartment, sprawled out in my lounge chair, working on his laptop. He sets it on the side table, and I jump onto the chair and straddle his lap.

“Guess who has the whole weekend off?”

He rests his hands on my hips, squeezing lightly. “I hope it’s you, otherwise this is the worst game ever.”

“It’s me!” I laugh and lean in, pressing my lips to his.

Movement from the corner of my eye catches my attention.

Frowning, I pull away and glance at his screen.

A pale, thin woman with black hair and zero clothes on fills the screen. Hand between her legs, rubbing something against herself. Her mouth open on a silent moan.

“What the hell?” I scoot back. “Are you watching porn in my apartment, while I’m working?” Worse, is that the kind of women he likes to watch? With her thin frame, small breasts, long legs, and pin-straight black hair—she’s pretty much the exact opposite of me.

“Fuuuck.” He closes the lid. “No, I wasn’t watching porn. I was troubleshooting an issue on one of the websites the club owns.”

“That has to be one of the most creative cover stories I’ve heard.”

He rolls his eyes. “If I was watching it for pleasure—which I’m not—I’d tell you.” He points to his crotch. “Trust me, nothing happy was going on in my pants until you got here. I can’t stand her.” He jerks his chin toward the now-closed laptop.

“Wait, you know her personally?”

He lets out a long, heavy sigh. “Unfortunately. Our last president was…I don’t know what you want to call it—dating her?

Fucking her behind his wife’s back? He was basically obsessed with her.

Bankrolled her website and some of her other business ventures.

So now we run everything and take a cut of her earnings.

We maintain a couple of sites for other girls, too. But she’s the club’s biggest earner.”

That was a lot of unpleasant information to absorb all at once. “I thought you ran a laundromat. And you’re opening one in Johnsonville?”

“I did and I am. Well, technically the club’s going to own it.” He spreads his hands out wide. “I told you I do whatever the club needs me to do.”

“Yes. I didn’t realize the club was such a multi-faceted corporation, though.” I tilt my head. “When were you going to tell me you’re a porn king?”

“Uh, never? I’m not. It’s a club business. I’ve been trying to extract myself from dealing with her for, well, ever. But Rooster does the main?—”

“Wait. Rooster’s in on this too?” Why does that feel like some sort of betrayal? “Does Shelby know?”

“Of course, Shelby knows.” He frowns like it’s an absurd question. “She’s friends with one of our girls in Virginia.”

The way he says “our girls” unleashes something unpleasantly feral and possessive in me.

He jerks his thumb at the laptop. “She can’t stand Stella either, though.”

Stella. Stella. “Why does that name sound familiar?”

He shrugs. “Are you a fan? Her stuff’s supposed to be ‘for the female gaze,’” he says in a mocking falsetto that sounds more B-movie villainess than feminist icon. “Although, ninety percent of her subscribers are men.”

Is he nuts? “Ewww, no. I’m not a fan.”

“She writes feminist essays or something too. I think Hope knew who she was from that. Liked her…until she actually met her.” He chuckles.

“That’s it!” I scamper off the chair and hurry over to my bookshelf. “She wrote a piece about Feminism and Female Serial Killers . As someone who identifies as both, naturally I was intrigued.”

Jigsaw breaks into harsh laughter, and I grin at him.

“Anyway,” I continue, “it examined whether female serial killers kill as a response to violence and oppression they’ve experienced or if it’s a challenge to patriarchal structures in society.”

“That was a lot of big words all in a row,” he says with an amused smile. “What was her conclusion?”

I pull a tattered magazine from a stack on one of the bottom shelves and flip to the page I marked with a red tab.

“Well, honestly, I thought it was mostly navel-gazing nonsense wrapped in a lot of academic buzzwords,” I say, glancing at the notes I’d scribbled in the margins. “She tried so hard to sound neutral and intelligent, that she forgot to actually make a point.”

He bursts into laughter. “Jesus, that describes her perfectly.”

I glare at him, still annoyed he seems to know this woman so well.

“Anyway,” I say, voice crisp, “I only kept it because—” I shoot him a wicked smirk. “The subject matter is obviously close to my heart.”

He flashes an amused grin. “Obviously.”

He holds out his hand, and I pass him the magazine, already open to the article.

“She had a few decent points,” I admit. “That violence can be empowering and how women kill for different reasons and use different methods than men.”

He glances at the article, flipping through the pages but only stopping to squint at my notes. “Well, if you’d like to have her autograph it for you, she’ll probably be at the clubhouse this weekend. Downstate.” He snorts. “Rock would skin us alive if we brought her to Upstate’s clubhouse.”

“No, I don’t want her autograph.” I snap the magazine out of his hand and tuck it back on the shelf.

When I turn, he’s watching me with that unreadable look of his. The one that sees more than I want him to.

“I meant what I said.” He holds my gaze. “I’m not a fan. It’s just work.”

“Some work,” I grumble, crossing my arms over my chest. “Would you like me working with naked dudes all the time?”

His lips twist into a playful grin. “You kinda do.”

“They’re dead. It’s not the same!”

He reaches for me, and I let him pull me into the chair with him again. My body against his, the warmth of his arms, the steady beat of his heart—it settles some of my unease. But not all of it.

“So, were you just never going to tell me about this?”

He sighs and runs his fingers over my hair. “To be honest, I hadn’t worked on the site in a while. But something came up, and Hustler needed me to fix it. I knew you’d find out eventually. I wasn’t sure how to bring up the subject, though.”

I lift my head and find nothing but sincerity in his eyes. My nose wrinkles. “Yeah, I guess it’s an awkward subject to approach. I already knew your club owns a strip club. Tacking on ‘Oh, and we produce porn too,’ might’ve been a bit much.”

He nods and blows out a breath. “She dances too sometimes. But like this high-brow artsy stuff.”

“Awww.” I pull a mock sad face. “She doesn’t rip off her clothes and grind her bits on customer’s faces?”

“No.” He shakes with laughter.

“How rude of her.” Now, I kind of feel bad that I made fun of the woman’s article. And I don’t want to feel bad for a woman my boyfriend’s seen naked multiple times apparently.

“Can we not talk about this anymore,” I say, resting my head on his chest again.

“Yes, pleeease.” His voice rumbles through his chest, followed by a dramatic sigh that makes his whole body sink beneath me. “I’d rather talk about literally anything else.”

My brain won’t stop turning over the situation, though. If she’s the club’s “biggest earner,” whatever that means, he won’t be able to walk away from working with her as easily as he makes it sound.

Not when his loyalty to his club is stitched into every part of him—even the parts I wish were just mine.