Chapter 1

one

Wrenlee

“Would it kill you to buy a tube of lipstick?” Addy scowls from over the bar as she pushes the tray topped with a colorful line of sour puss toward me, not spilling a drop. Someone’s gonna be hung over the toilet bowl tomorrow.

“A tube of lipstick is like—” I think because I don’t actually know. “Ten dollars.” I lean closer so she can hear me over the roar of the guitar and bass, and the girls who scream in response. I might work here, but this—the rock band, the screaming, and the insane hero-worship the crowd has for the four guys on stage is bizarre to me. It’s not my thing at all.

If I’m being honest, I kind of hate it. The crowd. The loud. The bodies slamming together on the floor. The way the stage lights crawl through the large room like sentient serpents as their glow clings to mist-thick air and tendrils of smoke.

This scene isn’t mine. It pushes every comfort I have. No, no. That’s a lie. It obliterates it.

But—there’s money here. Because I’m desperate for the green stuff, I’m here.

Still, chasing the dollars or not, there’s no denying I don’t fit in. I’m a bookworm through and through. I’m more comfortable escaping into worlds beyond the firm dimensions of this cold, lonely place—navigating those foreign worlds and politics—than I am even attempting to understand the world in which I actually live in.

Addison gives me a look that says my ass is on the fast track for the next round of layoffs. I feel my face scrunch in response as she huffs. “You’d make that ten times over if you painted that pouty set you’ve got a fuck-me red. Honestly, Wren, the investment potential is there. You just gotta take it.”

The lead singer, Cash Jagger, practically makes out with the microphone as he jumps in on the action, smoky rough voice like a ribbon of sin weaving through the crowd, pulling them in.

The crowd goes wild.

I take advantage of the ear bleeding racket and pretend I can’t hear Addy as I swipe the tray of shots and weave between tables, avoiding the mosh pit that is the dance floor. It’s Friday, and Fridays are always busy.

At Addy’s Ace, the weekend is all about live entertainment. When Addy can, she books Devils Heartbreak. I’ve heard the talk about the four guys on stage, and I can’t say they don’t live up to their title. Every night they’ve played at Addy’s Ace, they leave with a new woman. Sometimes, one of the devils leaves with more than one woman clinging to his arm.

The girls always come back, begging for more that the devils don’t give. I’ve seen it all. Ludicrously beautiful young women resorting to humiliatingly degrading acts of desperation in failed attempts to catch the attention of a man who has already gotten everything he wants from them. I’ve seen it all from sexual stunts, angry blowouts, and tears. But there’s one commonality that every woman shares—a broken, or if not totally broken—wounded heart.

I just don’t get it, these girls. They know the devils don’t collect hearts. I mean, their band name spells it pretty clear: they care not one thing about the heart.

After the last few months of watching them perform weekend after weekend, watching the hearts they stomp on with their big black biker boots, I’ve settled firmly on the conclusion that they not only don’t care about hearts, but they likely don’t have anything beating in their own chests. Well, okay, maybe this excludes Ian. From what I’ve seen, he’s only got one girl.

The rest of the guys, though? Just cold, black voids where a beating organ should throb.

The table screams and hands snap out to claim the shots from the tray as I arrive. Someone spills red sour puss on my hand and the drunk guy closest to me makes fast work of snatching my hand and licking me.

Ick.

My stomach revolts as I yank my hand from his grip, hating the way he throws his head back and laughs. “Oh, come on. Have some fun.”

“Touch me again and you’re out, got it?” Entitled little poop.

“Touch me again and you’re out,” he mocks me. “So serious.”

The table erupts in laughter and my face burns. My heart kicks in my chest as my anxiety soars.

The guy beside the one who literally doesn’t know how to watch his tongue leans forward. “Don’t mind Billy, here.” He claps Billy on the shoulder. “He’s a bit drunk. But, uh, we’re just here for a good time, so what do you say you walk that sweet little ass back to the bar and fill us another round?”

The table erupts in cheers again just in time for the song to end and the entire club to scream for another. In the center of the club, bodies jump as the drummer beats his drums. I feel the thud of every jump like a heartbeat in the floor.

I want to use my tray to slap Billy and his asshat of a friend upside the head. Unfortunately for me, Addy doesn’t take well to her patrons being abused by staff. She’s not a fan of staff being abused by patrons, either, but since I’m always the one who seems to have the issues, I can’t help but feel like maybe I’m the problem.

I can’t be the problem. I need this job, and as much as I know Addy likes me, she likes no-hassle business better. I don’t want to be the woman who puts up with crap like Billy and his friend, but I also need to eat. Rent in New York isn’t cheap. It’s so not cheap, I’m sharing a bedroom with a girl I go to school with while the living room in our very tight apartment serves as a bedroom to another girl. But I’m not just paying rent and utilities. I’m paying tuition—and I’m drowning.

So, I can’t lose this job.

Gritting my teeth, I give a single nod as I step away from the table to fetch the ‘good time’ group another round. I hope Billy and friend chip a front tooth on the toilet bowl when all the booze decides to come back up. Sadly, they’re the kind of jerks more likely to assault a pretty flowerpot on a brownstone step instead.

I’m halfway to the bar when Cash Jagger’s voice flows into the mic. It’s a new song for them, slower and less rough than the usual. His smoky voice is doused heavily in sin as it washes over the crowd, and I can’t help myself as I turn to look at him.

Like his bandmates, Cash is sinfully good looking. Everything about him is dark. Hair, eyes, aura—it’s all twisty and jagged and dripping with inky sin. Not only is he impossibly good looking, with his sharp square jaw and hard muscles, but he’s got that bad boy thing girls can’t help but love nailed down. He’s darkly beautiful, and he totally knows it.

My eyes lift from his body to his face, and I feel my body jerk in surprise when I lock eyes with him. Fire from deep in my core heats me from the inside out, and I just know I’m blushing. He might be the kind of attractive that renders the entire female species starstruck, but he’s not even close to the kind of guy I’d give five minutes of my time. Not that I have the time to date, but when I do, I’ll be going for the sweet guy. The one who makes me feel safe and cared for.

Cash Jagger is all danger.

Cutting his stare, I head for the bar. Slapping my tray down, I mutter, “Another round of sour puss.” These guys are really going for the puke your guts out/headache combo.

Addy lifts one pierced brow. “Jagger’s looking at you.”

My heart decides to act like a diva in my chest—totally flipping out. “No, he isn’t.”

She doesn’t even need to look as she pours shots. “Yeah. He is.”

“Well, I donno why.”

She shakes her head. “Girl, with some fuck-me red and a smoky eye, you’d lock down a killer night in that man’s bed.”

Thrills—I feel thrills. No, Wren. Ew. “No.”

Addy narrows her eyes before sliding them to Chloe as she slides up next to me with her tray. “You got the chance, are you going home with Jagger?”

“Hell, yeah,” Chloe says quickly. “No question.”

I swing my head to Chloe. “You’re engaged.”

“But he’s Cash Jagger!” She leans close to whisper-hiss. “Even my man would understand that.”

“Ew.”

“Why?” Chloe asks, dropping her elbows to the bar before she drops her face into her hands as she leans in curiously. “Who’s going home with Jagger?”

“Wren could, she grew a set of lady balls.”

“Addy!” My face is on fire. “He glanced at me. Once.”

Chloe gasps. “O.M.G. He’s still looking. Why is he looking?”

“I’m not talking about this.” I shake my head as I swipe my now full tray from the bar, enroute to ass-hole table number one. I’m almost there when a girl in front of me shimmies out of her bright red panties, tossing them with a damn good arm onto the stage. Her aim is true, and they land on the toe of Cash’s black boot.

I roll my eyes before they slide up to his face, completely of their own accord, and connect with his for all of one second before I sever the connection again. He kicks the panties away as the crowd screams, and I focus every ounce of my attention on looking anywhere but at the stage for the rest of the night.