Fatal Instincts (Book 1, the Fatal Trilogy Series)

Chapter 5.

The walk to my place after leaving The Bar isn't long. I don't ever bother buying a car anywhere I go. It's too easy to track down and too expensive for something I end up having to ditch after a few months. It's much easier and more beneficial to just find a place that's close enough to everything for me to walk. 

Kansas summer isn't too bad either. Not much is after growing up in the humid hell that is southern Georgia. Out there the air tries to drown you, here it goes down easy.

Four blocks away from The Bar is the old two story building that probably used to be blue but now who can really be sure with the amount of 'art' that covers the exterior walls. Two brick stairs lead to the front door that is always propped open since the glass window in it is shattered out anyway.

I push in and head down the hall, bypassing the stairs that lead up to my place, and walk into the open door at the end of the hallway. The smell of weed smacks me in the face the moment I walk in, practically having to shove through the clouds of smoke to find the back room. "Dom?"

"Back here." His voice calls back.

I follow it into a side office which is really probably supposed to be a closet. He stands in the doorway, hand out towards me.

"I owe you $200 more that I'll slide under your door when I get back from my shift tonight." I explain, putting the $300 I do have in his palm.

He brushes his stringing beard with one hand while he counts through the bills with the other. "This going to be a regular thing?" He asks, looking back up at me.

"No." I shake my head. "There was just this asshole-."

Dom steps to the side as another man emerges from the office.

"Hello again." The guy from the bar, Toby, with the cool tattoos, grins. "Doll, was it?"

"Alyssa." I roll my eyes and he laughs. He's got the same jacket as Daimon, but his doesn't have any patches on the front.

"Right, Alyssa." He nods, looking down at me. Was being a freaking tree a requirement for their little biker club? "I know Kross can be a little...cross?" He chuckles to himself.

"You come up with that one all by yourself?" I raise a brow and he sighs, still pleased with himself.

"I've been holding out for someone to use it with that won't kick my ass."

He winks but I shrug, always playing it cool. "Never know, I might."

"You always so feisty?"

"Yup." I blow a bubble with my gun, letting it pop loudly.

"Figures."

I look past him to Dom who is now being dwarfed by the giant beside him. "Anyway, I will have the rest of your money tonight." I tell him.

"Don't let it happen again." He warns as I turn.

I shoot him a salute on my way back through the apartment. "You got it."

"I think we're done here," I hear Toby saying. "Daimon will be in touch." I'm hardly a few feet away when Toby takes two steps and has already caught up with me. "I'll walk you out."

"You going to be my muscle?" I ask. "Who knew bikers were so chivalrous."

"Trust me, we aren't." He says under his breath. "But you couldn't have picked a worse place to hole up in. This place gets rough at night."

"Well I work at night, so I'm never here. And right now it's light out, and I'm a big girl, so I think I can handle myself." He follows me nonetheless, right out of Dom's apartment, up the stairs, two doors down to my place. "Plus, beggars can't be choosers." I shrug.