Free Rage by Kaylee Song Page A

out.
    Since she wasn’t making a lot of sense, I spoke over her.  Made my point.  “Knock your shit off, Brandy.  I warned you.” With a heave I threw her right out of the club and onto the pavement, where she landed on her ass.  Hard.
    “Owww, Cully,” she whined.  “That hurt .”
    I fucking hated when she called me that.
    “Get the fuck out of here.  Now.  I don’t want to see you again.  You keep it up and I’ll get you fired from the Cat House.  I swear.”
    She pouted at me, but I slammed the door and turned around.
    All the boys were leering, shouting, or clapping.  But not Layla.
    She was staring at me, disgust blazing in her eyes.

Layla
    “So, what exactly do I do?” I asked my uncle as he showed me around my new work space.  I’d gone to school to be an accountant, but each organization had their own system.  The garage’s dingy little office and half-legal accounts weren’t what I had had in mind. 
    “It really isn’t that hard.  You put the invoices into the software, you process payments as they come in, and if Donna gets backed up on calls in the lobby, she’ll buzz you and you’ll cover for her.” He walked over, through the books and piles of paper, and turned on a little machine that sat on a big, steel desk.
    “This isn’t the hardest job ever, and I’m sure you’ve had better.  But it’s something.  Something to get your mind off…” He trailed off.  I knew what he meant.
    Something to get my mind off Sean.
    “You can’t wallow forever.” There it was again.  That insinuation that I was wallowing.  I was grieving for my brother and for the relationship I never got to have with him.  The relationship that this very club had destroyed.  Grief took time.  Went through stages.  Isn’t that what they said? Stages of grief? Something about refusing to believe it, then guilt.  Or was it anger?
    I certainly felt anger now as Mick’s words stoked it in my chest.  Like little embers that were just starting to fade.
    They rose up now, a burning flame through my belly and along my tongue.
    “It’s only been a few days,” I snapped.
    “Two weeks, Layla.  It’s been two weeks.  If you work, if you put your mind on something else, it’ll go faster.  Besides, you’re gonna stay? You need a job.”
    He showed me the computer and opened up the software.  I’d already been trained on it at school, so it wasn’t difficult to deal with.  I was set up in a matter of minutes and Uncle Mick was out of my hair, leaving me alone with the smell of grease and motor oil.
    I got to work immediately, starting with the largest stack of invoices and working my way through them.
    I was almost halfway through the first pile when Cullen burst into my office, not saying a word to me.  Which was just as well, because I was pissed at him, too.  The way he’d handled that woman was barbaric.
    I tried to ignore him but he was rooting noisily through the paperwork.  It was like trying to ignore an ornery dog.  Left to his own devices, he was going to really make a mess of my office.
    That seemed to be exactly what he intended too.  “You’ve moved everything around, and I don’t fucking know where you put it,” he said, messing up my freshly arranged pile.  He sighed.  I sighed back.  He was really starting to piss me off.
    “Why in the hell don’t you just ask me, instead of wrecking my entire setup?” I finally asked when I couldn’t stand it anymore.
    “I need the damn invoice for this bitch of a client.  She doesn’t like the work I did on her car.  Wants me to show her exactly what I did and go back through each piece, but she doesn’t have her fucking copy of the invoice.” Cullen worked as a mechanic for the Club garage.  They all did.  It was a good job, decent pay, and a good cover story for the club.
    “Let me know what you’re looking for.  Maybe I could help—”
    “I’ll do it myself.” He looked into my eyes, leveling a direct