“My men have told me you got a new red-headed woman you’ve been spending time with, son.”

I try to refrain from clenching my fists, a regular occurrence when dealing with my father. Often I have to ask myself why I ever came back to be closer to him. To most people he’s the president of an MC, but to me he’s just my father. A man who has never accepted my choice of not being patched into the club. In his eyes, I am not true family until I’m at his side and involved in club business.

I’ve grown attached to a few of the men, some I’d call brothers, but my own flesh and blood views me as a lesser man than all of them. He’ll never accept that I’ve done alright for myself without his help. The only leg up he’s ever offered, besides a patch and a seat at the table, is to manage his damn bar. A fucking club bar.

“So what if I have, old man? What business is it of yours?” I shoot back at him, my annoyance evident in my voice. I’m standing in his bedroom at the clubhouse on the outskirts of town. He sent Razor and Fracture to summon me out here to be fucking questioned about a girl.

My gut clenches at the look Callie gave me when she asked about their visit earlier and who my father was to them. I couldn’t put my finger on why she was so skittish but it definitely had to do with a man. I know it didn’t comfort her knowing I was somewhat attached to a club. She’d tried hard to cover the flutter of fear in her eyes when I explained he was the president but seemed to accept that I was not involved in club business and never would be.

“I’m your father, it’s my right to ask questions.” The old bastard glares at me when I scoff at his comment.

“So now you want to be a father figure and act like you give a fuck about what I’m doing with my life? All because of some girl I met only yesterday?” Anger brews in my veins and my jaw ticks aggressively.

“She’s an out of towner and you met her only yesterday, son. What does that tell you?”

Now, he’s fucked me off. I turn away from his judgmental stance and the finger he has pointed at my face in an effort to threaten me.

When is he going to learn that I don’t fear him like his men do?

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” I spit through gritted teeth while my hands run rampant through my hair. This man is everything I detest sometimes.

“You tell me,” he answers cunningly.

I spin around to face him, he is closer than I expected. With my palm I push him back a few paces. “I’ll tell you what it means. A hot chick moves into town and ends up at the bar I manage. I went out of my way to make her feel welcome. She’s an innocent, nothing to do with the club. I offered to help her get settled. That’s the start and finish of it.”

The old man chuckles and I strain to keep my gaze held on his. It wasn’t the finish of it at all. Somewhere in the last twenty-four hours that woman has turned me inside out. It isn’t my style and I’m sure it’s going to be my undoing, but there’s something about her that intrigues me. I can’t tell my father that. He’ll have the club on her arse before I know it.

“Whatever you say, son, now be on your way. Just watch your back, I’d hate for the club to have to pay for this new piece of pussy you can’t deny yourself.”

I stare him down for a few seconds then turn my back and walk out. He isn’t worth the wrath of what is brewing in my soul right now.

His time will come. He’ll soon realise Callie isn’t an enemy. Either that or I’ll become the enemy.

*****

THE BAR IS SO BUSY I didn’t even have the chance to serve Callie and Missy their meal. I’m agitated and my heart is humming a new beat on my shirt as my father’s men eye both of them as they eat. Dear old Dad, always knows more than he lets on. It’s a fucking game we play because he won’t tell me everything as I’m not in the club and not worthy.

I glance over at Callie and she appears withdrawn, maybe a little agitated, but she smiles at me and my heart calms instantly. Never has a woman done that to me before.

“Jude!” I yell.

“Yeah?” asks my fellow bartender tonight.

“I’m taking a five minute break.”

“What? Man, we are five fucking deep here!”

“I said five minutes.” The crowd in front of me groans as I walk out from behind the bar.

When I get out to the front of house I find one of the waitresses who can pour a beer and not much else.

“Tilly, need you behind the bar for a minute.”

“Yes, boss.” Thankfully, she’s too new to give me shit and she’s pretty so the gathering crowd will most likely hit on her and be more forgiving about her lack of beer pouring skills.

As I make my way to Callie, Razor, my father's enforcer, appears in front of me, palm on my chest. With irritation, I looked down at his hand then eyeball him.

“Be calm, brother. That one's going to bring trouble to your door. It’d be in your best interest to back away now.”

“What do you know?”

I feel Callie’s wary eyes on me. A quick glance over Razor’s shoulder tells me more than I want to know. Callie appears frightened, her fingers are tapping away nervously on her thigh while her foot jigs furiously on the stool. Missy tries to divert her attention, but her gaze leaves us to look over her shoulder, her body visibly trying to shrink from view as if she’s hiding.

“You know your old man, he’d bust my balls if I said anything. If you just joined the fucking MC, you’d know.”

Razor removes his hand. “Thanks for the warning, and you know how I feel about my father. I like you and the guys but answering to him? Fuck no.”

“Brother, he’s the Prez, but he’s getting old, it won’t always be that way.” Razor shifts to the side a little and stares at Callie as he continues to talk, “She’s pretty, but she’s also not telling you everything.”

“Razor, I know that. But there’s something about her, I feel it in my gut, you know?”

Razor’s head snaps back to me. “Fuck!” he hisses.

“What?”

“The player is about to get played.” Razor shakes his head, chuckles and walks away.

Ignoring his warning, I close in on Callie.

“Hey, beautiful.”

“Hey,” Callie replies in a short tone, her face a sweet blush of mauve. Her stale greeting blindsides me. Perhaps I’ve read her all wrong.

“Hello! What am I, chopped liver?” quips Missy.

“Hey, Missy. You two enjoying your meals?”

Callie nods and continues to push the food around on her plate with the fork. Her eyes travel watchfully around the bar before they find mine again. Leaning in slightly, she whispers loudly, “What did your father want?”

What is it that she’s worried he knows? I can’t help but feel frustrated that she won’t confide in me. She has no reason to trust me, or tell me anything but I have this all-consuming need to know; to help her.

“My old man just wanted to bust my balls, as I thought.” What more could I say? It’s basically the truth. Telling her he summoned my presence to warn me off her wouldn’t serve either of us any good.

Callie glances at Missy, unspoken words weighing down the atmosphere at the table. What am I missing here?

She looks up at me questioningly but asks nothing further. I begin to clear glasses from nearby tables without moving far from them. With a tower of dirty glassware, I return my attention to Callie, hoping she’s ready to speak. I don’t like the hostility and awkwardness of this encounter at all.

“S-so everything was o-ok then?” she stutters, squirming uncomfortably in her seat. I frown at the question before she adds, “With your dad, I mean.”

She’s intuitive. I wonder if this is a trait she was born with or one that she needed to acquire to get through whatever shit life has dealt her. What is it she’s worried he knows?

I follow Callie’s gaze to find Razor sitting with Fracture and one of the prospects, all staring back at us. I flick them a warning glance and they relax back into a steady conversation. “He only wanted to talk work with me, Callie, that’s it. It wasn’t as urgent as he made out. It’s just how he operates.”

Internally I cringe at the lie. I want to be honest with her but here is not the place, and I’m struggling to gauge her current mood. “Look, it’s busy tonight and I won’t get much time to chat after this, how about I drop around tomorrow...say eleven am?” We need to talk, I need to find out what she’s hiding and let her know she can trust me. Exactly how I’m going to do that is something I’ll have to work out between now and then.

Missy has been exceptionally quiet which fills me with unease. I stare at Callie, waiting for an answer but her attention is directed at Missy. She looks like she’s pleading with her friend for help. I don’t like this at all.

“So...tomorrow?” I say again, aware that I need to get back behind the bar and pick up the slack.

“Maybe another day, Kai, we have a girls’ day planned for tomorrow.” It’s Missy that answers me but I wait patiently for a response from Callie. All I get is a forlorn look.

“Yeah, another day,” she tells me, taking another quick glance around her as if she’s looking for someone.

“Ahh, okay? I’ll see you around then.” I walk off, my mood dark and my temper edgy. Why the sudden distance between us?

*****

HOURS LATER I’M WIPING down tables and stacking chairs as the last few patrons stumble out into the night. I’m still brooding over my earlier exchange with Callie and Missy when a man comes up to me, holding out a business card.

I take it and ask, “What can I do for you?”

“Saw you talking to a young woman earlier, with red hair?”

My instincts kick in and I look at the card more closely, it’s says, ‘Mitch O’Brien, Private Detective’. Did Callie sense she was being watched earlier? Perhaps that is why she was acting so strangely.

“I talk to a lot of women, it’s part of the job,” I say easily with a grin.

“You always pick those women up and take them out to your home?”

I drop the card, fist his shirt and force him to fall on top of one of the tables, my face mere inches from his.

“Who the fuck are you and who sent you?” I demand.

Mitch raises his hands. “I’m not here to cause her any trouble. I just need you to tell her that if I can find her so easily, so can he. She needs to run.”

“Why are you telling me this?” I snarl.

“He’s a bastard. He doesn’t deserve to know where she is but he’ll find her.”

“Who?”

Mitch shakes his head. “Not going to say. He’s got connections with the coppers, I don’t need that kind of heat.”

“You need some help, son?”

I look up and my father is standing near me, smiling like the fucking cat that swallowed the canary. I release Mitch, who rolls off the table and takes two steps away from us.

“I just wanted to warn her, that’s all,” Mitch pleads, his hands still stretched above his head in surrender.

My father raises a hand and clicks his fingers; three of his men surround the PI in seconds.

“Take him to the clubhouse, be gentle with him. He is after all, our guest,” he spits with disgust.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. My father has me right where he wants me.

“You don’t have to do that,” I state angrily as they drag Mitch out of the bar.

“You are my blood, what affects you, affects me. We’ll find out what he knows,” replies my father smugly.

“At what cost to me?”

Dad turns and takes a few paces away from me, and without looking back at me he spits out the five words I hate hearing the most. “You know what I want.”