Allegiance - Chiah Wilder Page 0,53

her to have a good day. The jerk also asked her out for dinner the following night. The fact that he was working down the street right now made the text that much more bittersweet. What kind of game are you playing? Dinner? I don’t think so. She shoved the phone in her pocket and stalked back to her office.

Normally, she went out of her way to answer him, so if he had half a brain—something she was doubting at the moment—the fact that she didn’t respond should clue him in that something was up between them.

Which led her to the question of whether Quinn showing up was really a coincidence. There was no way that snob just happened upon her bistro with such a ridiculous demand without any provocation. Lena had a sinking feeling that there were no such coincidences in Quinn’s world, though what that meant for her relationship with Tank left her reeling. For a moment, she let herself dwell on the fact that Tank might have told Quinn about their night together, but hadn’t told Lena a thing about Quinn. That thought brought on a slew of emotions—betrayal, confusion, hurt, and foolishness.

Lena packed away all those thoughts into neat little boxes in the back of her mind to go over tonight, when she was back at home alone, vulnerable, and able to pick over everything to her heart’s content. For now, she had a business to run. The restaurant wasn’t going to close down because she hit a snag in her love life. The only thing that could cause any problems at this point was the lack of profits she was drawing due to the thugs who were hungry for her bottom dollar.

If they ran her out of business, they wouldn’t have any more revenue to steal from her. Yet they didn’t seem too concerned about that problem.

A long sigh slipped through her lips. Turning back to the computer screen, she began to work.

Tank

“Yo, Maniac, pass the fries.” Tank jerked his head toward the communal basket of fries at the center of the table.

“Sure thing, bro.” Maniac stuffed a handful in his mouth and passed the basket down the table at Dominic’s bar, a local hangout on the main strip the club frequented more often than not. “You get the next round.”

“Yeah, in your dreams. This is gonna be my last one for the night. I gotta head home.”

“You got a nice piece of ass waiting for you there, huh?”

Tank nursed his beer and checked his phone.

Still nothing.

Why he was even bothering to worry about the fact that Lena hadn’t texted him back in her normal two-hour window was beyond his comprehension. Meanwhile, Quinn had been blowing up his phone for the past half hour after her little surprise call that afternoon. Whatever the hell that was all about was another thing he wasn’t going to entertain. He rubbed a hand down his face and looked around the mostly buzzing bar.

“Not so much, man. Keeping my shit on ice for a while.”

“I get you. Stupid, but I get you.” Maniac saluted him with a beer and took a big swig. “What about Quinn? You been tappin’ that? She’s practically following you around wherever you go, isn’t she?”

“Pretty much.” Tank dug into the fries sitting in front of him.

Things had been electric with Lena—amazing, even. But women were always on their best behavior in the beginning. He remembered that clear enough during his first marriage. Trish had blown his mind six ways to Sunday, and he hadn’t thought it was possible to find anyone so perfect for him. That had been the first few months of bliss, knock-his-socks-off sex, and devoting herself to making him happy.

It had been a honeymoon without a marriage, the best of both worlds, until it had gone so fucking wrong. As soon as she had a ring on her finger, she’d done a complete one-eighty. He couldn’t even fathom that she was the woman sleeping in bed with him every night. Not that he was sleeping in his own bed at that point, anyway. By then, she had it in her head that he was cheating on her with anything in a skirt that moved. Her suspicions were immoveable, so he had a permanent spot on their couch.

Fuck, that had been a shitty time. He hardly liked to think about it, let alone dwell on it. Because of Trish’s hyper-crazy ways, he became well-aware of how intimately women could draw a man