by Blair Grey
I wasn’t making any promises. If something she’d done had her hiding, she might need protection. “Just because you thought you were locked out of your house, doesn’t explain the fact that you were hiding in the bushes at my house. And where’s your car anyway?”
“Hidden in the back alley. It would be great if I could hide it in your garage. You’d have to park your truck in the driveway, but you’d do that for me, right?” She grinned bashfully at me. “Or should I just go home now that I know how to get into my house?” She shook her head and got up, taking what was left of the sandwich with her. “I’m being dumb. I’ll get out of your way. I bet you’re tired and here I am keeping you up. I’ll go now. Thanks for the food and the milk. It hit the spot.”
Like I’m going to let her leave. “You’re not going anywhere. I’ll go move your car into my garage.” I held out my hand for her keys. “Car keys.”
Frozen in place, she looked at me like she wasn’t sure if she was going to do what I’d said or take off running. “I’ll just go, Axel.”
Getting up, I knew I had to be ready to grab her ass. “Sarah, you’ve yet to tell me why you were hiding. You are going to tell me why and from who.”
Backing up, she put the last bit of food into her mouth, chewing quickly. “I can’t stay.”
“You can. And you can tell me what you’ve gotten yourself into. It can’t be that bad. You don’t do anything wrong.” I thought maybe she’d made a mistake, like accidentally taking something from a store that she’d forgotten to pay for and had some fantasy that the cops were looking for her. “Did you do something on accident?”
“I kind of did it on purpose. Not like I thought about it. Instinct kicked in and I just did it. I do regret it now, though. Especially because the girl I thought I was helping, ran off. I think she was the one who informed the others who came out after me.” She looked up at the ceiling as if trying to think. “And I know I lost them. I could’ve gone home, not to the club, but home. And I should’ve been smart enough to know I could get back in on my own. Coming here was the stupidest mistake I’ve made so far. And boy, have I made some mistakes tonight. But I don’t want to talk about them.”
Like I’m giving her a choice. “Sarah, plant your ass and start talking. You’ve said enough for me to know that someone was chasing you. That is not okay. No one can think that you can be messed with. You are untouchable. Most people know that.” I could only think of one party who would dare to put Sarah, the daughter of the Iron Cobras’ president, in harm’s way by chasing her.
“These people don’t know my name. At least, they didn’t know it. Do you know if anyone came into the club tonight, asking what the name of the woman who runs the place is named?” She looked a little afraid. “They found out where I worked last night. The man who hit on me, he’s with them. He knew who I was, but not my name.”
“And you didn’t think telling that jackass what your name was would’ve shut him down before he made those types of comments to you?” I had to wonder if Sarah had a clue about how powerful her father was in our town. “Sarah, just saying your name will bring you protection in most cases. Toss the name of your father in, and you’re golden. You could eat for free at most of the restaurants in Baltimore if you told the waitress who you are and who your daddy is.”
Finally, she sat down, her shoulders drooped as she whispered, “Not these people. Who I’m related to wouldn’t matter to them.”
Coming up behind her, I rubbed her shoulders, knowing that she had to be talking about the Irish Reapers. The guy who had hit on her and that we’d thrown out was a member of that MC. He was also the man whose name was on the ownership papers of Horney’s Babes. “So, you’ve been going to the place I’ve told you not to. You’ve been enticing women to leave that place to come work at ours. And you’ve sworn them to secrecy, haven’t you?” I didn’t need her to answer – I knew what she’d done. “You don’t have to say a thing. I would rather you not lie to me. Not any more than you already have.”
She reached back to take my hand as her head hung low. “I’m sorry.”
I had thought I knew the woman. I had thought being raised by the man who’d raised her would have her knowing the dark side of life. She should’ve known better than to fuck with our primary rivals. But she didn’t. Or she didn’t think they could hurt her or any of us in the Iron Cobras. “Why’d you do it, Sarah?”
“I wasn’t afraid of them. I was worried about the girls who worked for them. I felt like the risk was worth the danger.” She turned to look at me as tears rolled down her red cheeks. “Axel, you see them. Those women are smiling all the time now. They’re proud, hold their heads high, and know that they’re worth something. I took them out of a hell hole, a place they didn’t think they’d ever get out of. And I gave them the opportunity to do better - live better.”
“So, you’re into being a hero, huh?” I had respect for people who went into harm’s way to help others. But I didn’t have respect for people who went about it in such a dangerous way that it put others in harm’s way too. “Do you realize what the men in that MC are capable of?” I shook my head. She still hadn’t told me why she was hiding. “Just tell me why they were chasing you tonight.”
Letting my hand go, she wrung her hands in her lap. “I wasn’t going there - I swear that I wasn’t. I’ve gotten out all the girls who aren’t on drugs who worked there. I’m not trying to deal with women who have those types of problems. So, I couldn’t think of what I wanted to eat. I drove around town, looking at the various places before deciding that I wanted Chinese. The way there took me by that place. In the parking lot, a man was tossing a woman around and I didn’t think twice, just pulled in, honking like crazy.”
“Great.” I rubbed my forehead as I pictured that crazy scene. “Let me guess. You got out of your car and yelled at the guy.”
“Well, yeah. Of course. I mean, wouldn’t you have done the same thing?” She got up, looking at me with accusation in her pretty blue eyes. “At least, I hope you would’ve helped a poor girl out. Anyway, he recognized me as the woman who’d been taking their strippers and let her go. I thought she’d run to get into my car, the way I’d told her to. But she took off back inside, I guess. The next thing I knew three men were coming out the door - coming at me. I managed to get back into my car, then took off. I lost them pretty easily.”
“So, you didn’t even think about wearing a disguise when you went to talk to those women?” I thought she was smart. Now, I was beginning to have my doubts.
“I went like this.” She ran her hand around her face. “No makeup. I’m barely recognizable as myself without it.”
She had no idea how outstanding her eyes were. “Baby, you’ve got the most amazing eyes. You could do almost anything with your face, but if you didn’t cover those gorgeous blue eyes of yours, with the thick, dark lashes that surround them, then any man would know it’s you – makeup or not.”
“You think?” a frown pulled her mouth into a horseshoe. “I really think I look totally plain without makeup on.
I had to laugh. “You? Plain? Never.” Reaching out, I pulled her into my arms, hugging her as I swayed back and forth. “I know you didn’t mean to cause any harm to anyone, baby. But you’ve put yourself in a bad spot with some really bad men.”
“Yeah, I know that now. Well, I kind of knew it last night when that man spotted me. He wants his girls back and said I needed to fire them. And if I didn’t want to do that, then he wants me in exchange for them.”
My heart stopped. I couldn’t believe she hadn’t told me this from the start. Holding her out, I looked at her with disbelief. “Why wouldn’t you have told me that while I still had that mother fucker in our possession?”
“I don’t know.” She dropped her head. “Well, I do know. I would’ve had to confess to you what I’d done. I didn’t want to. So, I kept what he’d said to myself. I thought I could deal with him. I thought I was smart enough and tough enough to handl
e him on my own.”
It was getting harder and harder for me to believe that she’d been raised by the Carl Davis. “You do know that any member of an MC never stands alone, right? You do know that all the members have not only each other’s backs, but they will also do whatever another brother asks of them. That includes kidnapping your ass to pay for what they see as stealing what was theirs. That means turning you into a sex-slave, Sarah. Do you get it now?”
I sure as fuck hope she does!
Chapter Fourteen
Sarah
I couldn’t believe what I’d gotten myself into and sitting in the bar my father’s club owned, made my actions hit home. The council sat at their round table, all eyes on me as I sat in a chair next to my father. Axel stood behind me with his arms crossed over his massive chest. “Go on, Sarah, tell them all of it.”
Looking over my shoulder at him, I clenched my jaw. “That is all of it, Axel. There’s nothing more to tell.” He’d called my father the first thing in the morning, telling him he should call a meeting, that I had important information their MC needed to know about.
I’d told them about my enticing. I’d told them about what the owner of Horney’s had said to me. I’d told them everything. I didn’t know what else Axel wanted me to say. Unless it was about us having sex and feelings for each other. But I was in enough hot water already. I wasn’t about to toss that tidbit of info to my father.
Axel’s grim expression made chills run through me. “I meant about the fact that you and I had spoken about you doing anything like that and I had already told you that you were to stay away from that place.”
“Oh, yeah, that.” I looked at my father. “He did tell me to stay away from there.” Glad I didn’t spill those beans.
The enforcer, Lyle Franklin took my attention. “Boss, you and I will talk to the Irish Reaper’s president. I’m sure we can work out a deal to return their girls.”
“I think so too,” my father’s words made my heart stop.
“What? No!” Turning to look at Axle, I knew he would understand that we couldn’t give them back. “Tell them, Axel! Tell them how much better the girls are doing by working for us. Tell them how horrible the conditions are at Horney’s. Tell them that we can’t send them back there. No matter what. We can’t do that to them.” I stood up, not wanting any of them to think they could run over me. “No, I won’t do that to them. Not even one of them. I won’t do it. I won’t allow this to happen.”
My father rose out of the chair that resembled a throne of sorts. Iron cobras coiled around both sides of the high-backed, wooden chair. Carvings of all sorts of dark things covered the chair that had a plush red velvet seat that the president alone sat upon. It almost made me laugh that these men thought themselves so high and mighty.
But then my father’s eyes took my full attention. Disappointment filled his icy-blue eyes. “Sarah, you can’t speak that way here. The Executive Viper doesn’t belong to you or Axel – even if it is his name on the paperwork. You are well-aware of that. You are a hired employee. We make the final decisions. There’s nothing to argue about, and you know that. You made mistakes, sweetie. We can fix them. And we will.”
“Daddy, you can’t make those women go back to that place. It’s a hell hole. They take the girls’ money, Dad. They take half, then make them split what’s left with the other dancers. Some of them are so old and strung out that they don’t make five bucks a dance, yet these girls have to share their earnings with them. It’s not fair, Dad. None of this is fair.”
“As you get older, you will find that most things in life aren’t fair, sweetie.” His eyes moved to Axel. “Take her home. She’s made her statement. And thank you for letting us know about this before any real damage has been done.”
Axel’s hand on my shoulder had me spinning to face him. Anger boiled inside of me. “Don’t you touch me! I can’t believe you’ve betrayed me like this!”
His green eyes narrowed as he spoke sharply, “I am an Iron Cobra first and foremost.” Then his entire demeanor changed to one much softer and caring as he spoke quietly, “And I care about your safety. I won’t stand by and let anyone even think they can hurt you in any way. One day, you’ll understand that I told them about this for your own good, Sarah.”
“Go with him, Sarah,” my father ordered. “He’s right.”
I would have to find another way to help the girls I’d rescued from that horrible club. But I knew there was no use saying even one more word to the council of the Iron Cobras. In silence, I walked out, with Axel right behind me.
He’d taken me to the meeting in his truck, so I climbed up inside of it as he went to get in the driver’s side. Neither of us said a thing as he went to my place. Pulling into the driveway, he put the truck in park, then turned the engine off.
I had no idea what he thought he was doing. I didn’t want a thing to do with any of the men in his stupid MC. “You’re not coming in.” I hopped out of the truck only to find him already heading to my front door. “Did you hear me?”
He didn’t say a thing as he punched in the code then went inside. I stood on the lawn, mouth gaping and wondering when in the hell I’d lost control of my own life.
When a car from down the street backfired, I found myself hauling ass to get inside, where I quickly closed the door and set the security system once again. Turning around, I found Axel sipping on a beer he’d gotten out of my fridge as he leaned against the doorframe of the dining room. “So, you ready to chill the fuck out yet, baby?”
“I don’t want those girls taken back there, Axel. So, are you gonna help me figure out what we can do about that?” I walked toward him, wanting to make myself a stiff drink even though it was all of ten in the morning.
He moved just as I got near him, blocking me from going past him. “You are going to let us do whatever we have to do to keep our business and you safe. Those girls knew what they were getting into when they went to work at that place. You might not want to accept that fact, but it’s true.”
Before I could say anything, his cell went off and he pulled it out of his pocket, while I walked around him, going to get myself a drink. It became crystal clear that I would have to do this all on my own. If I couldn’t keep the girls at our club, then I would find them somewhere else safe to work. I owed them that. I’d shown them another way to live and I wasn’t going to turn my back on them now.
Axle’s voice stopped me before I pulled a bottle of Jack Daniels out of the cabinet, “A fire? In the kitchen? Yeah, we’ll be right there. Come on, we’ve got to get to the club.”
Hurrying to follow him out, I felt like the walls were beginning to cave in on me. “What happened? Who was that?”
He punched in the code to allow us to get out the door, then punched in the code to secure my house again. “That was the security company. The fire alarm was set off. Something in the kitchen caught on fire. The firemen got there in time to put it out before too much damage was done.” He opened the driver’s door to his truck. “Get in.”
There wasn’t time to worry about anything and I let him pick me up so I could get into the tall truck. I slid all the way over, putting on my seatbelt. “Do you think it was an accident?”
“I don’t know.” He started up the truck, then backed out of the drive. “We’ll see what the fire marshal has to say about that.” As he began driving down the street, he glanced at me. “You know the Reapers are most likely to blame.”
“It’s a kitchen – fires happen in them all the time, Axel.” I didn’t think anyone from that MC could even get inside of our place. “How would anyone get in, anyway?”
“You hired a bunch of chicks that worked for them is what I’m thinking.” His chest rose as he took a deep breath. “I should’ve intervened when they began showing up for interviews. I let this go way too far and now I’m paying the price.”
I didn’t know what to say. Not for a second did I think any of the girls I’d fought to hire who’d come
from Horney’s could do such a thing as to aid in destroying the place that only served to make their lives better. But I could clearly see that Axel wasn’t going to agree with me.
Three fire trucks were in the parking lot when we arrived. Firemen were coming out of the front entrance, heading to their trucks. I jumped out, wanting to see what they’d figured out. “Hi, I’m Sarah Davis, the CEO of The Executive Viper. What happened?”
Axel came up behind me and I felt his imposing figure as he stood close. “I’m the owner, Axel Rush. Were you able to find out if it was accidental or arson?”
Two of the firemen stood in front of us, both shaking their heads as one of them said, “It looks like a dishcloth had been left on the surface of the stove. The pilot light on the burner nearest to it just got hot enough to ignite the cloth. Being that it’s a natural gas stove, the fire ignited the other pilot lights on the other burners and the fire spread. The stove has pretty much had it. And there’s some smoke damage but nothing too bad. We got here about five minutes after the security company reported it. There won’t be an investigation, Mr. Rush.” They walked away and I turned to look at Axel.
I knew our kitchen staff would never leave anything on the stove. But I had to ask, “Did you make a final round after everyone left last night?”
He started walking toward the entrance. “I did and I know there was nothing on that stove. This wasn’t an accident.”
Following close behind him, I had to make a comment, “If we were able to put up security cameras, we would know what happened.”
“You know none of our businesses have them. Something like that would only serve to hurt us.” He opened the door, stepping back to let me go inside first. “We’re not exactly legit, you know.”
