Tame his Beast - Claire C. Riley Page 0,22

that Echo was my problem. That I was his sponsor now for being such a dick. Told me that I had to take him under my wing and make it work. Fucking hated those first few months of babying that little shit; caused me endless amounts of stress, but he’d come out the other side and had ended up one of our best prospects and eventually he’d been like a little brother to me.

God, I missed him.

“You still need me?” the prospect asked.

“No, get the fuck out,” I replied, and he nodded and turned to leave. “Wait, what’s your name, kid?”

He looked back at me with a frown. “Joey.”

“You thought of a road name yet?” I asked.

You didn’t get to pick your own road name, but all prospects tried to think of one for themselves. He shook his head, his expression remaining neutral, yet I saw something behind his eyes that told me more than he was giving away.

“What is it?” I asked, knowing he’d come up with one for himself. They were normally dumb and didn’t fit them at all, but I was still curious to hear it all the same. “Go on, I know you’ve thought of one.”

He licked his lips and smiled. “Demon.”

Fucker sounded so proud of himself, not realizing he’d be laughed out of the club if he said that to anyone but me.

Hell, I wanted to laugh at him—probably would have if I could remember how to laugh. This was exactly why you didn’t get to pick your own road name. Demon was a name given to an enforcer or someone who’d shown that he had a screw missing in that big old brain of his. That was not this kid in any way.

“I’m a demon in bed and a demon on the road,” he continued, his grin going wider.

Jesus Christ, this kid wasn’t going to make it.

Chapter Nine

~ Belle ~

The letter hitting my mailbox had made my good mood dissipate quicker than you could say lickety-split, but when Joey had stormed into the room pointing his gun directly at my abdomen I almost peed my pants. I was a positive kind of girl, but there was just no way I could spin anything good from this. The letter, then Beast’s rage at me for not being gentle or attentive enough, and then the prospect of being shot because I was clearly terrible at my job... It was just too much.

I just wanted to go home and go back to sleep. Or heck, maybe just quit this day altogether. Could I bypass Tuesday and pretend it didn’t exist? Just skip straight over into Wednesday. Heck, maybe skip Wednesday too and go straight to Thursday for my day off. That would be a better option.

Making quick time on the rest of my rounds, I headed into the break room to try to grab a quick coffee before heading back to Beast’s room. Seeing to him was the first thing I did in the morning and the last thing I did before I went home. I wasn’t looking forward to seeing him again—not after this morning. I wasn’t sure if it was because I was more afraid of him now or I just felt entirely awful that I’d hurt him when I should have been taking care of him. Either way, I felt awful and nervous and just wanted to go home and climb back into bed.

Pushing open the staff room door, my day got worse when I found Jenna sitting at the small table by the window with her own coffee in hand. She paused mid sip and I started to back away because I was too exhausted to deal with this right now. We hadn’t spoken since Beast had effectively fired her and hired me in the same breath. I could understand her thinking that I’d come in and stolen her job—though honestly, she should know me better than that—but she hadn’t even given me the chance to explain that I had no choice and that I was going to give her all the money because I didn’t want it. She’d just shut me out and refused to talk to me.

“Belle,” she said on a sigh, “we should talk.”

That was the last thing I wanted to do.

I was tired.

I was upset.

And I still had to go and tend to Beast one more time before I could clock out for the evening and go home and pass out. And after how I’d handled him that morning,