branded (phantoms mc #2)

seven: in which she finds her white whale

" I can fight but the devil wins" – Zolita, Holy

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There was a dead rat in the shower stall.

There were a lot of things I wasn't afraid of, and dead rodents weren't one of them.

Come to think of it, I didn't much like them when they were alive, either.

"This is what three hundred bucks a night gets you here?" I grumbled, exiting the en-suite and setting my bag down on the queen-sized bed in the middle of the room. The last time these bed sheets had probably been laundered, I was a fetus.

I felt filthy just standing on the coffee-brown carpeting that ran throughout the room. The air was heavy with the smell of mothballs and stale cigarette smoke. The only windows were in the bathroom.

Ghost had no reservations. He sat on the edge of the bed, untying the laces of his black motorcycle boots before sprawling his large body across the bed. It sank in the middle, creaking beneath his weight. I wrinkled my nose in disgust.

"What?" he said to me. "It's late, I'm tired, and this is a bed."

I poked the toe of my right boot into the carpet. "The floor's probably cleaner."

"You can sleep on top of me if you want," he offered, his voice husky.

I stared at him, lying on the bed looking deliciously disheveled and tired as hell from our last-minute, late night flight to Spain, and then our long-ass ferry ride to Isla de Nueva, as per Nelson the P.I.'s instruction. Ghost had day-old stubble on his jaw and bags under his murky grey eyes. He shouldn't have come. I'd begged him not to come. And here he was.

"You didn't have to come with me," I told him for what felt like the millionth time. "I can handle this. Alone."
Ghost sat up abruptly. "Your P.I. says your sister's working at a brothel. I wasn't about to let you walk into a European sex den, demanding to bring her home, like they wouldn't light your ass up with bullets for being so goddamn sassy."

I chewed my lip. He was probably right. I didn't want any guns. Ghost had insisted. How he'd gotten them through immigration was beyond me, but he'd done it.

I wasn't sure if Camila was selling her body of her own free will or not, but quite frankly, I didn't give a ѕhit. She wasn't well. She didn't know what she was doing.

I just wanted to bring my sister home.

I blew out a breath. "Sassy, huh?"

"The sassiest."

As if pulled in by a magnet, I went to sit on his lap like the feline I was sometimes called. The clock on my phone told me that it was almost midnight.

"I need a shower," I said with a sigh. I wrinkled my nose when I caught a whiff of Ghost. "We need a shower," I amended.

I wasn't looking forward to using a shower that contained the corpse of a dead rat, but what could you do? After Ghost had disposed of it in the toilet and emptied a bottle of Clorox he'd found into the stall, I peeled off my clothing quickly and hopped in to wash off my sweaty travel-weary body.

Ghost washed my back.

***

We knew we were in the right street because of all the half-naked women lining the road. I wasn't sure if prostitution was legal on this little island, but these women were brazen. It wasn't even noon yet.