Chapter 5: The Nod

Jarek

The second I walked through the door, I felt her latch on.

Kandy. With a K and no boundaries.

Like clockwork.

She wrapped herself around me before the damn door had even shut, tits smashed to my side, arms locked like I might vanish if she let go.

I didn’t stop her. Didn’t pull away.

Just grabbed a handful of her ass, fingers sliding under that skirt that barely qualified as fabric. Lifted it halfway up her thighs in one rough motion, just enough to remind everyone exactly who she was orbiting tonight.

She gasped. Squealed. Rubbed against me like a cat in heat.

I didn’t smile.

Didn’t say a word.

But yeah—guess it’s her turn again.

She knew it, too. That’s why she was already halfway through her performance, throwing every ounce of desperation into being the favorite. The chosen. The maybe-if-I-try-harder-this-time.

She never was. None of them were.

I walked us toward the bar, her clinging like glitter in a strip club—unwanted but impossible to ignore.

Hannah spotted me. Didn’t flinch. Just poured the usual.

“Whiskey. Double. And whatever she wants,” I said.

“Same,” Kandy purred, still hanging on me.

I grabbed the glasses. Turned.

And froze.

Just for a second. Just long enough to register the girl at the end of the bar.

Slumped a little. Hoodie zipped halfway. Hands curled around a glass like it was a weapon.

Sable Arden.

Four years older—and yes I remember how long it’s been.

And looking like she’d been thrown down a flight of stairs, crawled out of hell, and dared the fire to chase her.

Her left eye was swollen shut—purple, raw, angry. Her lip had split again. A cut along her cheekbone looked fresh, like she’d wiped blood off with the back of her hand and kept walking.

She looked like hell.

And still somehow sat like a queen who’d just ordered someone’s execution.

I gave her one nod. That’s all. Then turned back to Kandy and walked away.

But the image burned behind my eyes like gasoline meeting flame.

She shouldn’t have been here. Not in this bar. Not in my world. Not looking like that.

I’d heard whispers earlier that someone was back in town. That a girl had walked into the Bullet half-dead alongside Hannah.

Didn’t take long to put it together.

And now that I’d seen her?

That nod had been the most control I’d shown in months.

Because every instinct in me wanted to cross the bar, haul her into a shadowed booth, and find out who the fuck laid hands on her.

Not because I cared.

Not because I was a good man.

But because that girl didn’t look breakable five years ago, and now she looked like someone had tried—and failed—to prove otherwise.

Someone had tried to make a lesson out of her.

Someone was going to learn what it felt like to be the wrong kind of footnote in my day.

I shouldn’t have kept looking. But I did. Every few minutes, my gaze drifted back to the her.

She hadn’t moved much. Still nursing that glass like it owed her. Still hiding behind that hood like it could make her invisible.

Except it didn’t. Not to me. Not when every inch of her face looked like a map of someone else’s rage.

Not when I remembered her with fire in her eyes instead of bruises on her skin.

“Babe?” Kandy purred, pulling at my arm. “You’re real quiet tonight.”

I didn’t answer.

She slid onto my lap, practically grinding against me in front of the table.

“Something got you distracted?”

I flicked my gaze back to her. “Bitch, you ain’t my Old Lady. You don’t get my attention. You rent it.”

She blinked, caught between insulted and trying to figure out if that meant she’d already paid.

I shoved her off my lap. Not hard. Just enough to make a point.

“Go find someone else’s dick to jump on tonight. I’m not in the mood.”

She stumbled, caught herself on the table. Eyes went wide. Then narrow.

I didn’t wait for the fallout.

I stood and walked toward the hallway.

Toward the bathroom.

I was halfway through pissing when the door creaked open behind me.

“Jarek?”

Fucking Kandy.

“I’m sorry, baby.” Her heels clicked as she stepped inside. “I didn’t mean to upset you. Let me make it up to you.”

Of course she would.

I didn’t answer. Didn’t look at her. Just finished.

I didn’t bother to zip up. Instead, I turned—undid the rest of my fly, pushed my pants down just enough.

She took that as invitation. Dropped to her knees. Didn’t even flinch when they hit the piss-slick floor.

No hesitation. No shame.

Just desperation.

Her mouth opened. Tongue out like she’d been trained.

And I slid my cock in her mouth. She didn’t even flinch when someone walked in. He straddled over her legs in front of the urinal so he could piss without stepping on her.

I didn’t close my eyes. Didn’t groan. Didn’t give her shit.

Because I wasn’t there. I wasn’t in that bathroom.

I was four years back—watching a girl with bare shoulders and a sharper tongue lean against the jukebox and tell me I wasn’t her type.

I was remembering the way she walked away from me without flinching.

The curve of her mouth when she smiled like she’d already won.

The way her body moved when she didn’t think anyone was watching.

I pictured that version of Sable. Not the broken one.  Not the one bleeding on the edges.

The one who hadn’t been crushed yet.

I finished in her mouth then I tucked myself back in, stepped away, and didn’t even look down at Kandy still on the floor.

She wiped her mouth. “Feel better?”

“Go home.”

“What?”

I opened the door. “I said go home. We’re done.”

Her mouth opened like she might argue, but one look shut it.

She slipped out with her heels clicking louder than before.

I followed after.

And that’s when I saw it. Sable was gone.

Something cold settled under my skin.

I stepped outside. Lit a cigarette with shaking fingers.

And then I heard it. A muffled scream. Then movement inside Hannah’s truck. Legs kicking. Arms flailing.

And something dark curling up my spine.

No thought. No hesitation. Just movement. Fast. Deadly.

And this time? I wasn’t imagining her.

She was real.

And she was in trouble.