Read Online Under Locke by Mariana Zapata - Free Book Online

that I was going to need another surgery, but I kept that tidbit to myself.
     
    Slim, who from what I’d seen over the last few days, was tattooed from ears to toes, nodded in understanding. “They’re addicting. I was only going to get one when I turned eighteen, and then one turned into two, and two into three—“
     
    “And three into—,” I fanned out my fingers and wiggled them, “Everything?”
     
    He snorted. “Exactly.”
     
    I got it.
     
    Pretty much ninety percent of the clientele I’d seen over the week were repeat customers. They’d mostly all been familiar with one or all of the guys working, and while not everyone had the amount of ink coverage that the artists had, two tattoos was more than my whopping zero.
     
    And they were cool. Almost all of the work that wasn't walk-in was original, hand-drawn and transferred. They really were pieces of art or at least pieces of art in the making.
     
    From what I’d seen in such a short amount of time, the tattoos weren’t just random crap people would regret when they were elderly. The pieces clients got seemed to be so much more than that. They were memorials and declarations. They were outpourings of love and pain. Letters and images, icons and symbolism, personal and eternal.
     
    It was eye-opening for me. The art that they created were badges of honor. It was impossible not to get sucked into the emotion that went behind the artwork.
     
    Well, at least that was the case with most of them. I’d already seen a sketch for a flaming penis that made me cringe.
     
    “You have great skin. It'd be a perfect canvas.” He lifted both of his eyebrows before looking up abruptly and lifting his chin, still grinning but past me. “Done hibernating?”
     
    I tensed up.
     
    “Done with three hours of Club financial shit,” that grumbly, deep voice that I’d learned to associate with Dex’s cool mood answered from what felt like just a few feet behind me.
     
    “Bummer.” Slim made a face.
     
    “I don’t see us gettin’ any more business. Ritz, you’re free to go home whenever you’re ready, and Slim, clean up , yeah?” Dex said.
     
    Slim nodded, hopped off the edge of my desk and walked toward the back. I heard the soft sound of Dex’s motorcycle boots lumber off, and I got up. I’d already cleaned everything about thirty minutes before. The frames, the coffee table, all the free surfaces. My stuff for the day was done.
     
    Blake happened to look over when he took a mini break as I was throwing my purse over my shoulder, so waved at him and mouthed, “See you tomorrow.” He closed both his eyes and nodded before I walked out of the shop.
     
    The street, usually heavy with pedestrian and automotive traffic during the day, was eerily quiet. There weren’t any cars besides the two Pins clients’ and it freaked me the hell out. It was like one of those scary movie scenes before the heroine gets chased by some psychopath serial killer but manages to survive. Survive half-naked, whatever.
     
    Instantly, I regretted not asking one of the guys to walk out with me, but I didn’t want to ask them for favors. I didn’t need to get babysat and plus, I didn’t like being that needy girl. I'd been on my own for years. I could walk to my car by myself.
     
    Sucking in a breath, my feet were brave enough to make their way down the strip, passing the real estate agency while I talked myself out of looking in. The last thing I needed or wanted was to see some masked face staring back at me from the other side.
     
    I’d barely made it to the end of the street when someone yelled out, “Yo!”
     
    Under normal circumstances, if I thought it might ha ve been a stranger instead of someone from the shop calling out after me, I ’d start running. But it wasn’t. It took me a second out on that empty street to realize it was Dex's deep voice yelling.
     
    “Hold up!”
     
    I forced myself to turn around and see him jogging over. “Yes?”
     
    He