“We just got cashed out from a big haul. We got money to pay you if you come with us upstairs. You got a man here?”

“No, I don’t have a man here,” I answer, screwing up my face. “And I'm not a prostitute. I'm not going anywhere with you.”

“Why not?” the short one asks. “You think you’re better than us?”

“Two hundred,” the tall one offers before I can answer that.

“What? No!” I answer, even though I was about to ask to borrow a similar amount from Doc.

“How about five large?” the big guy asks. He whips out five hundred bills and spreads them like a fan. “I bet that’ll change your mind.”

Well, I suppose it’s nice to know there are levels you won’t stoop to even when you’re at rock bottom. The money is no contest for my dignity.

“It won't,” I assure him.

“Hey guys, just so you know, she came in here on the back of Waylon's bike,” Doc says behind me in the same tone of voice someone would use to say, “just so you know, you’re about to step into a pit of vipers.”

“Who’s Waylon?” the short guy asks.

“Yeah, we don't know no Waylon,” the big one says.

Doc points to the sign. “I’d read rule number four if I were you.”

“Well, you ain't us. Obviously,” the big one answers without bothering to look at the whiteboard.

“And you’re behind the bar, so we’re not allowed to take you upstairs,” the short one whines like a little kid who’s not allowed to touch the candy behind the glass.

“But she's out here, and she said it herself,” the big one continues as if they share the same lizard brain. “She don’t have a man here.”

“That means she's free game,” the small one declares.

Then he has the audacity to reach out and cup my tit over Doc’s scrub top.

I gasp and draw my hand back to give him the slap he deserves.

But before I can, Waylon appears out of nowhere.

“The fuck you think you’re doing?” he asks the guy who squeezed my breast with fury blazing in his crystal blue eyes.

But before the guy can answer, he grabs him by the back of his hair and smashes his face into the bar.

CHAPTER 3

One moment the small guy with the PROSPECT patch on his vest is laughing after squeezing one of my tits. And in the next moment, his head is being smashed into the bar—courtesy of Waylon's hand fisted in the back of his hair.

The biker I haven’t seen since we walked into the roadhouse slams the smaller man's face down once—twice—three deliberate times.

And when he draws the smaller prospect up a fourth time, his face is a mess of blood and broken teeth.