Micah

 

Gov and I got the girls situated in a spare room upstairs. It wasn't the Ritz, or even the Hilton for that matter, but it at least gave them a place to take their heels off and have a moment of quiet. As I shut the door behind me, they began talking back and forth.

 

At least they weren't doing anything crazy, or making too much of a nuisance of themselves. That was good. Otherwise, this would be a hell of a lot more frustrating to handle.

 

“Micah,” Gov said as we headed down the hall and started getting the other guys' attention for a meeting, “this whole thing seems wrong, man. We ain't gonna start running girls, are we?”

 

“What?” I asked, surprised he even felt he had to ask. “Fuck no, man, we ain't gonna run girls. But, I gotta feeling that Kaci chick ain't telling us everything. We gotta figure out what the hell she knows. Meanwhile, we figure out our next move.”

 

Gov nodded, seemingly relieved with my response. But, still, I could tell he had misgivings. “You need to be careful about that girl. Think she's got a thing for you, or something.”

 

“Or something,” I agreed as we stepped into the meeting room. “But, yeah, I know I need to be careful. But, damn if it ain't been a while. Maybe I could leverage that, though? Get in sweet with her.”

 

“Hey man,” Gov said, clapping me on the shoulder, “I get it. Been a while for me, too. But, you gotta pick the right head to think with, right?”

 

I laughed and shook my head. “I know, I know. But, man, what would it really hurt? We could get the info we need, and I could get my dick wet.” I shrugged. “What's the difference?”

 

Gov started to make his case, but the guys coming in shut him down. Good thing, too, because he probably would've made it well enough for me to reconsider.

 

“Alright, boys,” I said as the three other officers of the MC came strolling in. Ricky, Spike, and Grin all took a seat around the table. “We gotta problem.”

 

I laid out what happened at the hotel earlier in the night, down to the girls we'd been forced to bring back with us. “So, we ain't got that inside deal we wanted. We're gonna have to keep going like we have been if we wanna keep the money rolling in.”

 

“Shit, man,” Ricky said as he looked around the meeting room at all of us. “So, we got the Port Authority on our tails, and we still got those the Storm’s Bloods laying into us.”

 

The Port Authority was always going to be a problem, even if we'd gotten Abram on board with us. He was just going to mitigate some of that risk. Same deal with the Storm’s Bloods, even though our little turncoat would have given us better goods, and therefore better connections with other elements that could help us strengthen our position.

 

“More or less,” I admitted. “Back to square one. But, square one ain't exactly the worst place we can be, you know? We're still sitting pretty right where we are.”

 

The men scattered around the table, even Gov, grudgingly agreed. We'd been in a hell-of-a-lot worse position before I took over the MC, that was for damned sure.

 

“What about these hookers you picked up, man?” Grin asked. He was a skinny little guy, all sinew and gristle and bad prison tattoos, but he was tough and had a good head on his shoulders. If there was anyone I trusted to have my back in a dark alley, it was him. And Gov, of course, but that went without saying.

 

“Gov and I were talking,” I said as I looked around the table, my eyes falling on each man and boring a hole in their skulls. “I ain't running girls. No fucking way,” I said with finality.

 

A round of head nods.

 

“And if anyone in this room wants to get that idea in their head, we can have a conversation in the parking lot out back. Got it?”

 

A chorus of agreement went around the table. “Dirty shit,” Ricky said, speaking for them all. “Agreed.”

 

“These girls,” I continued, “saw something that we may or may not be related to. We heard their side of the story, but I don't know if it adds up. Gov doesn't think so, and I tend to agree. Now, that said, we gotta keep 'em around ‘til we at least figure out what the fuck happened in that room, and how much our asses are hanging in the wind ‘cause of it.”

 

“Got it,” Grin agreed. “Just wanted to make sure, man. Ain't none of us dreaming of getting hooked to that boat, Micah. That shit's just too slimy.”

 

“Good,” I said. “Glad we're all in agreement then. Y'all wanna do a vote on holding onto them, then?”

 

Everyone looked back and forth between each other, with murmurs of, “Sure, why the fuck not?” going around the table.

 

“Keep 'em, and make sure they stay off the streets?” I asked the table.

 

“Aye,” we all said, our voice having a weird, harmonious resonance in the small room. The single word had a kind of wonderful, golden finality to it.

 

“Good,” I said, nodding once.

 

“Good,” a brassy, sensuous voice said from the entryway. All eyes swiveled that way, including my own. Who should be standing there, but Kaci. A few inches shorter for lack of heels, but still sexy as ever.

 

“Glad y'all made everything official with your little club,” she purred, one hand on a cocked-out hip. “’Cause you better know we're all stuck together now. Unless you got some sort of hooker catch-and-release program y'all run on the side, Sydney and I really ain't got nowhere else to go.”

 

Fuck my life.

 

# # #

Kaci

 

“Besides,” I said, taking a few tentative steps into the room, “Abram said I was supposed to be your girl from tonight on, Don. Said I was supposed to be a surprise.”

 

I didn't have anything else to lose at this point, and I knew it. Aside from Sydney, Rommy had been the one remaining bright spot in my life. But, Abram had went and fucked that up for me, hadn't he? Every time I closed my eyes, I saw my poor baby brother's face, with the blood running from his mouth. Dying, bleeding out, then dead. On a hotel bathroom floor.

 

I thought killing a man would tear me up more. I'd been wrong. Abram had bled out in the hallway like a stuck pig, and I'd barely flinched. I'd just numbly wiped the gun down, like they do in the movies, tossed it aside, and ran into the arms of the Don.

 

Of course, the real question was, what was this sexy Micah guy really the boss of? It hadn't been me or Sydney, that was for sure. They all seemed completely confused and put off by the two of us, and clearly we'd just dropped unexpectedly in their laps. Must have been that Abram had been running some kind of side deal with us girls, some shifty shit to bring in extra cash.

 

Whatever the case, Micah was still the dead Russian's boss. And, owing to that, he was responsible for enabling what had happened. I didn't care if Micah hadn't pulled the trigger himself, if it hadn't been for him, Rommy and Abram wouldn't have been in the same room together.

 

I'd fuck him. Hell, I even wanted to fuck him. I'd get him so settled in, so well-screwed, his defenses would be down. Then, when his guard was down, I'd put one between his eyes. After all, killing my first man had been easy. That probably meant killing my second would be even easier.

 

Besides, I'd felt his eyes on me all night long, felt the way they traveled up and down my curves when he thought I wasn't looking, or couldn't tell. I could feel the heat coming off him earlier in the car, when I put my hand nearly in his lap. He wanted me in his bed just as badly as I wanted him dead.

 

Micah, though, surprised me. He just sat back in his chair, laughing as he shook his head. “My girl? I don't need some hooker gifted to me. Especially not from some dead wannabe Russian gangster.”

 

My heart, at least what little I had left of one, sank. Did I just get rejected? Was that my only chance, gone out the window? But, then, I considered my other options. They had to keep me around, didn't they? They'd all said it, and all five of them had voted to keep me and Sydney here. Until, of course, they got what they needed from us.

 

With my eyes locked on Micah's sexy, pale blue ones, I stalked into the room, rolling my hips with each step. Even though I was making bedroom eyes at the Don, I could feel all his underlings shifting their gaze to my slinking body and what it was doing beneath my tight skirt. “Really?” I asked as I stopped next to one of the bikers I hadn't met yet, a short, wiry one with nasty-looking tattoos covering both arms in blackened sleeves. I felt his gaze as he traced my every curve and cranny.

 

“Yeah,” Micah said, his voice a little less certain than a moment earlier, a little more breathless sounding, “really.”

 

Let's see how he liked this, then. Nothing quite like having what's been given to you taken away, especially in front of your buddies. I put my arm around the shoulders of the skinny little guy next to me, lightly raked my nails across his rock-hard muscles. He was tiny, not much taller than me, but I could tell he could still throw me around the bed like it was nothing.

 

“You know,” I said, trying to keep that purr in my voice, “a working girl like me, we develop certain appetites. Big, dirty, nasty appetites.” Which, honestly, was kind of true. I liked my sex hard and rough, with a good, strong man who could make me do what he wanted. I'd slept with lots of guys in my time, more than I could count even at my age, and I'd learned one thing: You know that soft, whimpering kind of fucking, where the guy worships the girl’s feet?

 

That ain't my thing.

 

“And,” I continued with a flash of teeth, and a tip of tongue running over them, “all your boys seem to really fit my bill, if you take my meaning. Y'all boys know what a girl likes, don't you?”

 

Micah shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Whether it was because I was getting to him one way, or another, I couldn't tell. He was either nervous in front of his men, at having me so quickly rebound from my earlier advances, or I was getting to him in another, more tangible, way.

 

“Now, I don't want you distracting the men,” Micah said, his voice getting a little more stern.

 

“Oh,” I said in a low voice, as my free hand slid up front of my top, pulling it up a little at the hem to show a bit of midriff, “I like it when you talk that way, Don. He always sound like this, boys?”

 

The other men, even Gov, chuckled.

 

I saw my chance right then, as I moved the smallest fraction of power away from Micah. “How about you, boys?” I continued, going for broke with my hand sliding up under my shirt again, pulling it up a little farther as I smiled as invitingly as I could. “You boys wanna be firm with me, too? Teach me a couple lessons?”

 

The three men I hadn't met yet laughed, and one of them even gave a little hoot of enthusiasm.

 

I grinned as I went to pull my top off over my head, even though I knew I might have just bitten off more than I could chew.