Blade

 

“Blade, we might have a problem.” It was Hatchet, and I could tell he was trying to keep anyone else from hearing what he had to tell me.

 

“What’s going on?” I asked. I got up and stepped into the hallway in front of my office to see if anyone was in earshot of the conversation. Then, I ducked back in and closed the door.

 

“I just got a call from one of our guys on the street, who said there’s an older guy going around flashing a photo of someone who matches Lucy’s description. He’s asking where she is,” Hatchet told me.

 

“What did he tell her old man?” I asked him.

 

“He said he told him he hadn’t seen her and to get lost.” He chuckled.

 

“Good. We don’t need him sniffing around. Her father is bad news, Hatchet.” Having him sniffing around was bad news, indeed. We didn’t need the extra attention, especially not from someone with as much power as Bryan Smithfield was supposed to have. It was only a matter of time before he followed the trail of girls to the strip club and started asking questions.

 

“You don’t have to tell me, Blade. Make sure your girls know what to say if he shows up there.”

 

“Got it.” I hated that Brick’s punk ass kid had more power in the MC than some of us who’d been riding for the Thrills longer than he’d been alive. I tried to hide my resentment when I talked to him, but it didn’t always work out.

 

“I’ll let everyone know to be on the lookout. If he gets too close, though, you know what will happen,” he said.

 

I laughed. “Why are you telling me? You know how I feel about all that. He kicked her out of the house, man. He cut her off from her money, cut her phone, everything. He’s how she ended up here. Man, this isn’t her life, Hatchet, but it’s all she’s got. We can’t have him snooping around trying to take even this from her.”

 

“Well, don’t worry about it, Blade. He won’t find her, not if I have anything to do with it.”

 

“Thanks. Keep me in the loop on it, though. If he comes around, I want to know,” I told him. I had a habit of talking to Hatchet like I was above him. I should have been. When Nomad got taken out in prison, everyone thought I was going to be Brick’s pick for VP. Even Hatchet had been shocked when I wasn’t.

 

We had an understanding. He had authority over me, but he always tried to treat me with as much respect as possible. I was supposed to be in his place.

 

“You got it, boss,” he said, joking with me to let me know I was starting to step over the line a little.

 

I honestly didn’t care. When it came to Lucy, I was the boss. I wasn’t going to accept any less than the utmost respect as it pertained to her.

 

“Just make sure you don’t say anything to her about it, okay? I don’t want her to know he’s looking for her yet. She’s been through enough, man,” I said before we finished up our call.

 

“Yeah, I understand. Don’t worry. She doesn’t have to know anything. I’ll make sure everything comes to you,” Hatchet told me.

 

“Thanks, brother.”

 

We hung up to the phone, and I stared at the wall for a few minutes, wondering what to do about Lucy’s father. As far as I was concerned, he’d given up his right to check on her. She was an adult, and he’d run her off. He had no business coming after her.

 

I needed to figure out what to do about him before he got himself hurt getting too close. It was only a matter of time before he asked the wrong one or ended up at the club.

 

This was her new life. She didn’t need her old life trying to creep in on her. She needed to be surrounded by people who were going to look after her and take care of her, especially with the baby coming. I was glad she was at the clubhouse, where she was safe.

 

If I could have stayed away from the strip club completely, I would have devoted all of my time to making sure Lucy was settling in all right at the clubhouse. Fortunately, she was going to have just about everyone there. Brick had assured me that he was going to throw her a kind of welcoming party so he and Carla could introduce her to everyone for me. I hated that I wasn’t there for her, but I knew she could handle herself. As independent as she was, it really would have been insulting if I had insisted on standing over her the whole time. I didn’t want to do that to her.

 

Still, despite knowing she was perfectly safe under the watch of the MC, I couldn’t stop worrying about her. She was an incredibly strong-willed young woman, and she was having to put up with a lot. Her world was being turned completely upside down. I just hoped I could help her keep some dignity through it all. I couldn’t believe she had even considered dancing for me. There were people out there who could put her to work, like Robby. They just didn’t exist in the world where she was from. They flew below her radar, which put them below her father’s radar, too. Thankfully.

 

Meanwhile, I sat in my office, listening to the music thump through the walls while one of the new girls took to the stage. She went by Ruby, and she’d been blowing the guys away so far. She had platinum blonde hair and large natural breasts with a small waist and a perfect, round ass. She looked like any number of blondes in porno magazines, but the customers ate her up. She was quickly moving to headlining status, which was going to be good for Ariel. It meant I was going to be able to give her some time off every once in a while.

 

I decided I wasn’t going to say anything to Lucy when I talked to her. I was going to keep the news of her father quiet for a while, until we had a plan, or until I was sure he wasn’t going to be a bigger problem.

 

Out of paranoia, I walked out to the main room of the club to keep an eye on things with Molly. We had the place packed out with Ruby and Ariel both performing. Ruby had been one of the girls I didn’t want to hire, so I’d lucked out there.

 

“Hey, got a second?” I asked Molly when I stepped up to the bar.

 

She held up a finger and checked along the bar to make sure everyone was okay. She signaled to one of the other girls to watch the bar, and then she stepped away with me. She could already tell we needed to talk.

 

We stepped outside where I could get a good look at the parking lot. I could feel trouble coming.

 

“What’s up?” she asked in her razor sharp voice. She always sounded like she was ready to kick somebody’s ass. With Molly around, it wasn’t often that I needed a bouncer.

 

“Has anyone come around asking about Lucy?” I asked.

 

“Oh, someone’s looking for her? Damn, you really are robbing the cradle with that one, aren’t you?” she teased.

 

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah, I guess so. Unfortunately, that tree rocked and he cradle came tumbling down.”

 

“Oh shit.” I could tell from the shift in her tone that she got what I was trying to tell her. “So, her folks are trying to take her home now?” she asked.

 

“Her father is snooping around. He’s asked at least one of the guys on the street if he’d seen her,” I told her.

 

“Everyone knows to keep their mouth shut, right?”

 

I laughed again. Molly sounded like she was ready to handle someone for snitching. She wasn’t a member of the MC, and she’d never been anyone’s old lady, but if we ever opened it up to women, she would have been the first one brought in. She’d proven herself for us time and time again over the years. They didn’t make people more loyal than Molly.

 

“Yeah, and I told them to run anything they find through me. So means you might get some calls when I’m not around if anything comes up,” I warned her.

 

“Okay, before everyone goes home, I’ll make sure no one has seen her,” she assured me.

 

“And if anyone has?” I asked, because I loved to hear her talk shit.

 

“Oh, no one has. Trust me.” Her voice was as solid and hard as the pavement beneath our feet. What most people didn’t realize was that her fists were just as hard.

 

I glanced out at the parking lot again, looking for any indication that something was off. “Just keep an eye out for me,” I said absently. “Something’s coming. I’m getting a feeling in my gut. This man is going to end up causing some serious trouble.”

 

“Nah, you’re just paranoid, Blade. You need a drink. Come on, let Molly take care of you,” she said as she put a hand on my shoulder and pushed me back inside.

 

As soon as we opened the door, the steady rhythm of the music hit me. There was so much going on. I had new girls on the stage, cops keeping an even closer eye on me than normal because of those idiots trying to run their own business in my establishment. I was falling for this young, innocent girl. And her dad was looking for her. He was powerful, too.

 

It wasn’t like the others, when some drunk from the trailer park on the south side showed up with rot gut whiskey or shine on his breath. Usually one good beat down took care of them. No, Mr. Smithfield was a force of nature. He controlled a lot of the city. His reach didn’t quite make it to where we were, but he had enough influence to give me a migraine if he caught wind that she was with me.

 

“Hey, Molly, remember how we used to give the police free draft beer?” I asked as she slid a glass of whiskey to me.

 

“Yeah, I remember those days. You thinking we need to go back to that?” she asked.

 

“Yeah, off duty, on duty, whatever. You see law enforcement, let them know they get drafts. That goes for pitchers, too,” I told her, tapping the bar.

 

“Whatever you think will help.” She was amused. She had that smile that she got when she thought I was making a mistake. Maybe I was, but it was hard to be too careful with so many people snooping around.

 

“I think we could use all the help we can get,” I told her, knocking back the whiskey in one gulp, like it was a shot. I winced as it burned all the way down. Straight whiskey with no ice was good for burning off stress and most ailments. When I opened my eyes back up, I felt like I could see for the first time in days. I looked around the room again.

 

I noticed a couple of plain clothes officers sitting at a table near the stage with untouched beers. They just looked like cops. They were probably on duty. That probably explained the untouched drinks.

 

“Molly, see those two cops up front with the full beers?” I asked her.

 

She stopped wiping the bar down and looked. “Yeah, they’ve been sitting there for a while,” she said.

 

“Take them a couple of glasses of ice water so it looks like vodka on the rocks. Take those beers back and don’t charge them. Those bottles are a dead give-away. If they have ice water in rocks glasses, they can at least look like they’re drinking,” I told her.

 

She laughed. “Rookies.”

 

I watched as she prepared the glasses and took them over to the table. I could see her explaining to the men that it was water instead of vodka. They sipped their glasses and thanked her as she picked up the bottles and started back to the bar.

 

The cops looked over to me and raised their glasses. I nodded. I hated having them in the bar, but I needed to keep them happier than anyone else in there. Happy cops seemed to ask fewer questions.