MOTHERFUCKING GREAT. That was all I needed. “Awesome. Why don’t we invite the whole town? It’s not like we have anything important to talk about. Nope. Nothing at all. Just the huge-ass hole in the wall. Or the fact that someone blew the shit out of our club when you and I were in it. But no. My dad and his crew stop by because we’re just sitting on our thumbs doing nothing.” What could I say? I was losing it.
“I think you need a vacation.” Max linked her arm in mine, leading me to the office.
“No, what I need is for people to trust me,” I muttered. I knew something was wrong. A piece of me was off. Had I had enough? The men I had to deal with day in and day out felt women had no right. If a woman had any type of authoritative bone in their body, she was considered a joke. I knew it was coming. I held the upmost respect for my father but with his boys breathing down his neck, he had to show rank. And I ended up being the victim. The back of my neck burned, the tiny hairs standing up on end. Glancing over my shoulder, my gaze locked with Angel’s. His face held no emotion but much like myself, his eyes told all. Concern. Want. Need. God, the man was consuming my every waking thought.
“Do you know what they want?” I asked Max once we reached the office. I sat in my chair at the head of the table, fingering the wooden gavel in front of me.
“No, but I can’t imagine it’s good.” Max scowled, but when the other girls strolled into the room, her expression changed from pissed off to happy in a split second. It was why I loved her. She never wanted to worry anyone. With Meeka being the timid one of our crew, Max found that she had to protect her. Meeka’s dark eyes hid a story that none of us knew the words to.
“It’s never good when they show up.” If my dad came by himself, it was fine. But with the guys…? Fuck my life.
“Dante’s Kings are here,” Brogan pointed out, stepping away from the window she was perched at. Everyone was on edge.
My blood rippled, soaring through my body like molten lava. My heart pounded. My palms were sweaty. I didn’t get nervous often but my dad’s crew, although they were family, terrified even me.
A deep rumble of engines vibrated through me. The walls of the clubhouse shook from the impact of the sound. Bracing myself, I took a breath and leaned back in my seat.
Without me having to ask, Max greeted them. She was the friendly one of my sisters. She had a mouth on her like a sailor but could bring any man to his knees just by a pout from her full lips.
“Didn’t feel like greeting your old man?” The deep voice caressed my ears, holding an edge of annoyance.
“You always know where to find me.” I turned my chair around to face him, my breath catching at the sight before me. Four men. Large. Rough around the edges. Tattooed and scarred. They all stared down at me like I was a piece of shit they stepped in. It was a fucked up moment because I trusted these men with my life but when it came to MC business, the little ladies should be left out of it.
“Do you know why we’re here?” My dad moved to the opposite end of the large table, sitting across from me. He motioned to his crew, indicating for them to sit while my girls stood behind me.
My jaw clenched, my hands curling into fists in my lap, but like always, there was nothing I could do. “To drive me fucking insane,” I muttered.
A deep rumble of laughter sounded around the table.
“Now why would we want to do that?”
That voice. Tyler Bone, or T-Bone as he was known, strolled into the room. The vice president of Dante’s Kings smirked, his grey eyes piercing through the heart he had shattered so long ago.
“To get under my skin,” I retorted, watching the man who had destroyed my innocence years before.
His eyes twinkled. He clapped a hand on my dad’s shoulder, leaning down to whisper something in his ear.
“Tell me what was so important you had to show up here unannounced,” I demanded, my patience wearing thinner than a sheet of ice.
My dad looked around the table before his gaze landed on me. “You know I love you, right?”
“Of course.” I crossed my arms under my chest, leaning back in my chair. “Not like you have a choice, though. I am fucking awesome.”
An eruption of laughter exploded through the room, my racing nerves simmering a touch.
“That’s my girl.” My dad’s face hardened. “But we have some business to deal with.”
And there it was. “Every week you come in here, expecting me to change my mind and shut down my club. You were the one who convinced me to start the King’s Harlots in the first place. But the last couple of months, something changed. What happened, Daddy?” A hot tingle raced down my spine. The more I spoke, the angrier I became. “Did you put this idea into his head, T?” I asked my ex. “Are you feeling threatened? A bunch of ladies making you feel like the pussy you are?” Bodies shifted. Gasps sounded. Glares were passed my way. Did I care? No. Would they do anything about it? No. I knew I could get away with what I said, and that made me happier than it should have.
“Jay, watch your mouth,” my dad snapped, slamming his fist on the table.
I feigned a yawn. “Are we done?”
“No.” Tyler placed his hands on the table, leaning on his knuckles. “We’ve just begun.”
“Something’s wrong,” Max whispered.
No shit. “Fine. Talk. Tell us what’s going on.”
“We got news that someone else knows about the missing girls,” my dad explained.
“Okay. Why is that news? I’m sure the families contacted the police about it.” We needed all of the help we could get. If someone else tried to bring those fuckers down, more power to them.
“No. Someone else,” Tyler added.
“I don’t understand why this is a big deal.” I shook my head. “We need to get these girls back.”
“It’s a big deal because someone is stepping on our turf trying to get the recognition for being the hero.” Tyler paced back and forth.
“You’re telling me right now that you would rather save the girls yourselves, risk more of them dying, than to get the extra help all because you’re worried about a pissing match?” When no one responded, I laughed. “Dad, you’re the president, you have nothing to prove. Why are you letting him influence you?”
My dad didn’t say anything.
“What the hell does he have on you?” I demanded, needing to know what I was getting myself into.
“Jay,” Max said, grabbing my hand.
“No, Max. I’m sick of this,” I told her.
“I know.” She looked toward the group at the table before gazing back at me. “Just trust me on this.”
I searched her face. Her eyes pleaded for me to calm down. “Fine.” I rose from my spot. “I think this meeting is done. Dad, if you want to talk to me, you know where to find me. Alone.”
“Nugget, we need to talk about this now,” he insisted. “T-Bone has nothing on me.”
He glanced down at his fist resting on the table before meeting my gaze.
I knew he was lying but I didn’t press.
“As always, we have to clean up the streets for the fucking police. This small town would burn to the ground if it weren’t for us,” my dad continued.
“That’s a bit dramatic, don’t you think?” I asked. It wasn’t like the cops didn’t know about the missing girls.
“No. What’s dramatic is the fact that women are disappearing and we can’t do shit about it because no one cares,” Max bit out.
“Jay.” My dad’s gaze softened. Pity.
“Don’t.” A lump formed in my throat. I didn’t need pity. I needed fucking answers.
“We need to talk about it.” My dad placed a file on the table in front of him. “But we don’t have to right now.” He pushed the file toward me. “On a different note, have you thought about what I said?”
“Why would I?” I asked, staring at the file like it was on fire. What was inside would no doubt burn me, leaving scars on a piece of my being that was stolen years before.
“Because this—” he waved a hand between us “—is dangerous.”
“Too dangerous for women?” I snapped. “Just because we don’t have dicks between our legs, it makes us weak?”
“I never said that,” he ground out through clenched teeth.
“Daddy, I love you but I think you should leave.” My gaze fell on each and every one of the large men surrounding the table. “All of you.”
The men grumbled, attempting to argue with me, but I was having none of it. I slumped down in my chair and turned around. Facing the bay window, I stared out the tinted glass, waiting for the silence.
“Come on,” Max said. “Let’s go.”
“We need to talk about this,” my dad argued.
“You don’t know your daughter. She’s done talking,” Max pointed out.
Grumbling.
Arguing.
I ignored it. As always, praising the silence when it came. But the quiet was louder than the noise from just a moment before.
Thought after thought bounced around in my head. I couldn’t control the day-to-day nightmares that invaded my mind. They threatened to consume me even while I was awake.
I was twenty-one when she left me. My sister. My twin. My other half. The yin to my yang. I believed she was taken from me but I heard the whispers.
She ran off with a man. She eloped. She got pregnant. She needed out of our small town.
Lies. All lies.
Violet wouldn’t just leave without giving some sort of explanation. My dad became a different person after that. And so had I.
A light knock sounded on the door pulling me from the thoughts pounding inside my head.
“Yeah.” And then I smelled him. Leather. Man. Pure, hard male. Sex. “Angel,” I breathed.
“Max said you were still in here.” He stepped in front of me, leaning against the window ledge. “Rough meeting?”
I nodded. Under normal circumstances, people weren’t allowed in the meeting room. But I trusted Max. And she trusted that I needed to see Angel. Which I didn’t like to admit even though she was right, and it annoyed me.
“Anything I can do to help?” Angel asked, crossing his thick, tanned arms under his broad chest. His t-shirt stretched over his muscles, the veins in his biceps throbbing. My insides quivered, remembering him holding me like I was his lifeline.
“Tell me something. Anything. Something that has nothing to do with my club, your line of work, or whatever,” I blurted out all in one breath.
Angel thought a moment, scratching the dark scruff on his chiseled jaw. “I have a dog. He’s a Rottweiler.”
“What’s his name?” I asked, thankful for the distraction.
“Buck.” Angel reached into the back pocket of his light-blue jeans and pulled out his wallet. “I found him as a puppy curled up on a pile of leaves under a bush in my backyard,” he explained, handing me a small withered photo.
The picture showed a smiling Angel with his arm wrapped around a large dog. “He’s handsome.” The dog’s eyes shone, happy and photogenic.
“He’s my boy,” Angel stated, his back straightening.
I smiled, handing him back the picture, wishing I had a friend like that. Someone who could take my mind off of everyday life. Someone who I could lay out my stresses on. When I fell apart, they would pick me up and put me back together. They would console me when I got lost inside of myself. Max was always there for me but she had her own shit going on; I couldn’t expect her to drop everything whenever an issue arose.
Angel.
Yeah. Fucking. Right.
Angel pulled up a chair, sitting beside me.
We sat in silence, comfortable with the fact that neither of us spoke for what felt like hours. I was content, curling my legs under me and scrubbed a hand down my tired face. “My dad thinks I shouldn’t have a motorcycle club, but he’s the one who convinced me to start it in the first place.” The words fell from my lips. Knowing for whatever reason they would be safe with the man sitting beside me. “I know his crew convinced him otherwise.”
“But they’re family.”
“Yeah.” I turned to Angel. “I grew up with them. My mom was my dad’s old lady, but she had enough and left.”
“I’m sure being raised by men wasn’t easy,” Angel pointed out, stretching his arms over his head. A crack sounded, causing him to shiver.
“It had its moments,” I said, swallowing hard. My mouth became dry when all I could focus on were the veins protruding from his thick forearms. “Dating was hard,” I added.
“I bet.” Angel chuckled.
“Thank you.” A slight heat crept up my neck at the outburst.
“For what?” He frowned.
When I didn’t answer right away, Angel turned his chair toward me. “Jay.”
“Genevieve,” I corrected. “My name is Genevieve.”
“Genevieve,” he repeated, testing the name on his tongue. “It’s nice to meet you.”
My name leaving his lips forced my heart to skip a beat. “Hi.”
“So why Jay?”
“It sounds rougher.” I shrugged. “What person would be threatened by a Genevieve?” I joked.
“I would be.” Angel laughed. “You’re pretty threatening,” he said, pulling my chair toward him.
“Am I?” I licked my lips, pushing my knees between his.
“Oh yeah. Especially this hot body of yours.” His gaze moved to my lips, his thumb brushing over my mouth.
“Hmm. Does my body threaten you, Sin?” I purred, nipping the pad of his thumb.
With rough hands, he forced my knees apart. “Your body brings me to my knees.”
“Your demands bring me to mine,” I panted, leaning in for more. Grabbing onto the hem of his shirt, I inched my hands beneath the soft fabric. My fingers grazed over his hard abs, the tight muscles twitching under my touch.
“Fuck.” His fingers dug into my thighs, no doubt leaving bruises in their wake.
I smirked, leaning back in my chair and pushed out of his touch. The warmth of his hands left me, and as much as I missed them, I needed to regain control before someone walked in on us. “I’m surprised you never left,” I said, stretching out my legs in front of me and placing my feet in his lap.
Angel cleared his throat. “I was going to, but then I saw your dad’s crew pull up.”
“Aww, were you protecting me, baby?” I may have been joking with my question, but in all honesty, it warmed my heart.
“Yes.”
And there you have it, folks. I think I just died and went to man-candy heaven. “Well, all right then.”
“You may trust them,” Angel continued. “But I don’t.”
“Why not?”
“I know a monster when I see one.”