When I peered back over to Rage he was smirking. “Feeling a little judgy sweetheart?” He asked snidely as if he’d been reading my mind.
“Nope, everybody has their own limits. I know what mine are, but I honestly could care less where others’ reside. I am curious though,” I started.
“About what?” Iceman asked as he narrowed his eyes on me.
“If you have these girls here for sex, then why was Macy – er Sweetie Pie – canned for doing basically the same thing at Ruby’s?”
Iceman laughed. “I’m gonna let you take that one on, Rage.” He tapped Rage on the shoulder twice and then sauntered off while throwing a “good luck with that,” over his shoulder.
Rage sighed heavily. “The girls here provide a service in exchange for room, board, and protection. It’s one they readily agree to. They also undergo testing and must comply with using a birth control method we can verify. We make sure the girls are kept safe that way as well as the brothers. The girls who work at Ruby’s are hired to be dancers. Whoring there is illegal, and we run that business clean. We also can’t guarantee the safety of the women, brothers, or club guests when it comes to STDs or pregnancy, because we aren’t able to have the same sort of employment contract there considering it’s a public establishment and has to stay legally above board.” Everything he stated was done so in an almost clinical manner. I was half amused and still very curious.
“So, do you ever pull from the dancers to bring in more BRATs?” I tossed my hands in the air at his quirked brow. “I’m not judging; it’s an honest question. I grew up in Nevada for Christ sake. Whore houses are legal near where I used to live with my dad. A couple girls I went to high school with went to work for them as soon as they were legal so I know how it works for them. It’s not a stretch for me to be curious about the differences in a place like this.” By now a few other brothers had saddled up to the bar, and were waiting to be served as Rabbit had been entertaining himself with our conversation too.
“How about concerning yourself with YOUR job instead of how everyone else’s works?” Rage glanced over to the members currently waiting on their drinks.
“Nah, it’s okay. I’m highly entertained by listening to you describe our world to a newbie,” one of them chuckled.
Rage ignored the comment as Rabbit started dropping beers on the bar in front of the guys. I assumed he knew their usual orders. Rage, once again rapped his knuckles across the wood of the bar before he spoke. “You have a cell on you?”
I shook my head. “Nope. My savior assassin took my original phone, and told me not to bother replacing it, because honestly, I had no one I could contact who wouldn’t go running back to Josh anyway.”
He nodded his head as if he completely agreed. “I’ll be right back,” and with that he was off in the direction I’d seen Iceman heading when he’d departed the main area too. Sadly, me watching him go put a whole other bit of drama in my view. There was a woman bent over one of the pool tables, and she was taking it hard from one of the brothers right there in front of everyone. I was not a prude, but some things could not be unseen. Gross.
“So where are you from?” Rabbit asked me after all the guys were served. There were a few still seated within hearing range though. I looked at them and back at Rabbit a couple times before he caught on to why I wasn’t saying anything. “Something you’ll learn about us real quick, Charlie, is that every man wearing that patch is loyal. They’ve been made aware you’re under our protection, and they won’t go blabbing their mouths to anyone outside of our club.”
I gave him a hesitant nod, but still answered him as quietly as possible. “A small town near Vegas, although, I was living in Vegas before I had to run.” The guys seated at the bar seemed amused that I had spoken quietly enough that they couldn’t hear me over the thrashing guitar sounds coming through the speaker system. It was one thing to talk about growing up in Nevada. It was another to be linked as the adult Charlie Cooper from Vegas that disappeared almost a year ago.
“Did you bartend in Vegas?” He asked, also quietly.
“No, I was one of the dancers in a few shows there. The last one I did was Dirty Dancing before I had to go.”
“No fucking way! You were a showgirl?” He damn near shouted.
I groaned audibly. “Seriously, Rabbit?”
He cringed. “Sorry,” he stated quickly. “But for real? You were a showgirl?”
“Yeah, I was, but in the way you’re thinking, only briefly. I’ve trained to dance my whole life. I’ve been in a few music videos, a few plays, and a couple shows in Vegas.” I shrugged. “It’s not really a big deal. Judging from the others’ reactions it really was though. I just hoped like hell they really were able to keep their mouths shut. Not that the damage wasn’t already done with the background check, but at least that would lead anyone looking for me to Renegade Ruby’s. By the time they got that far it would appear as if I didn’t get the job or protection from the club and moved on.
My hackles raised a bit as I noticed one of the older gentlemen staring at me as if he knew me. I made eye contact and didn’t back down until he started speaking. “Said your name was Charlie?” He looked thoughtful as I nodded my head. “Your dad Marcus Kinkaid by any chance?”
My jaw dropped. I stood there with what had to be a spectacular impression of a deer in the headlights. Yeah, I grew up near Vegas, but I never had a poker face to speak of. “How?” Was all I could get out as I tried to process the fact that this man, in this far away place, had associated with me with my father in less time than it took a grown-ass biker to down a beer.
He smiled warmly at me, as if he knew how uncomfortable he had truly just made me. “Kinkaid and I served together. He was a good man.” He tipped his beer up, almost lost in thought for a moment.
“The best,” I added.
“I don’t think you remember, because you were a little thing when your momma was lost, but Marcus was a member of Aces High MC when he was younger. We patched in together in Cedar Falls, West Virginia when we both left the Army.” I couldn’t be more stunned if someone just told me that my father was the real Santa Claus. The man just nodded. “He went nomad, and mostly inactive after your mom’s accident. Took off for his hometown in Nevada, and I only saw him a few times after that on runs. He never brought you around anymore though. Said he promised Luanne he would keep you clear of the life, or something like that.” The man laughed then. “Looks like maybe an angel sent you our way, girlie.”
Cue the tears. I knew it probably wasn’t smart to show weakness in front of a room full of burly tough as nails bikers, but this man sitting before me just insinuated that my dead father was the angel on my shoulder looking out for me. Considering it was his friend who caught the murder contract, and his biker club that took me in, maybe he wasn’t far off from the truth.
“What the fuck did you do to her, Shameless?” Rage’s deep baritone reverberated through the place causing goose bumps to stir across my skin. The man who was just talking about my father held his hands up in surrender.
“Charlie and I should probably head back to Iceman’s office with you right about now. If you didn’t feel obligated to help her out before, you will once you hear what I have to say.”
“Yeah? Why’s that?” Rage asked, clearly skeptical, his eyes darting almost comically back and forth between the older man and myself.
“She’s an Aces princess, son.” Rage’s head snapped around toward me then, anger flashing in the deep dark pools that now seemed to bleed black instead of the warmer brown I’d noticed earlier. “Calm down, she had no clue.” Sensing a longer story, Rage tipped his head toward the office as a slack-jawed Rabbit lifted the partition in the bar for me to get by.
“You’re just full of surprises tonight, Showgirl!” Rabbit called out.
“Stop it with the showgirl stuff,” I demanded.
Rabbit grinned. “Nah, I think you just earned yourself a nickname since you’re a club princess and
entitled to one and all.”
“I have no clue what you’re talking about,” I stated stiffly and followed behind the two men leading the way to the club president’s office.
Chapter 4
Iceman glanced up the minute we entered his office, frown firmly in place as he took in everyone’s anxious demeanor. “I knew we were anticipating trouble, but this quick? Do we need to have a lesson in how to behave around the brothers prior to her working like I suggested?”
Now, I was pissed and narrowing my eyes at Iceman like he was the enemy I was about to pounce on. Rage’s knowing smirk also caught my attention and he quickly made his way up to the top of my shit list with his boss, president, or whatever the hell Iceman was to him. “I was doing just fine out there, thank you,” I huffed.
The man Rage had called Shameless stepped forward then, drawing everyone’s attention. “I wanted to bring it to your attention that I know Miss Charlotte Kinkaid, personally.”
“You told us your name was Cooper.” Iceman stared at me waiting to answer his statement like it was a question.
“I was born Charlotte Kinkaid, and then,” I let out a dramatic gasp, “I got married and changed my last name.”
He rolled his eyes at my dramatics; Shameless gave me a cheeky grin. “Not surprised she’s sassy, her daddy was a smartass, for sure.” That proclamation had ears all around the room perking up and taking note.
“Explain.” Iceman commanded.
“I served with Marcus Kinkaid, and then we prospected together in Cedar Falls, were inducted together, and stuck by one another until he went nomad, and mostly inactive after his wife was killed.”
“Kinkaid,” Iceman tested the name on his tongue to see if it triggered a memory of the man.
“You probably know him as Brazen.” Both Iceman and Rage snapped to attention then. I did too, but only because that name triggered a memory for me.
“I thought that was just the name he gave his bike…” I murmured out loud while fishing backwards in time through my memories.
Eyes flipped back toward me. “This is THE Charlie?” Iceman asked, and I was once again taken aback by his seeming familiarity with my name.
“That she is. I figured you needed to know before you ended up making any more decisions concerning her.”
“Why in the hell didn’t this information come up in our own systems when we ran a background?”
“Well, I’m assuming because she gave you her married name, and Marcus probably wasn’t around to update it after her wedding.”
“He passed on two years before I got married,” I confirmed.
“Son of a bitch,” Rage muttered.
“Well, sweetheart, here’s the good news. We were going to do the bare minimum to keep you safe here while we investigated your claims, and figured out if you were too much trouble or not.” He waited for my reaction, but got none from me, because honestly, I hadn’t even expected that much. I simply needed a job to earn cash to get somewhere else if it didn’t work out here. He nodded his head at my lack of response and continued on. “This information changes things though. You are family, and we take care of what’s ours.”
That’s about the time my knees buckled and Shameless helped guide me to the couch that was up against the wall opposite Iceman’s desk. “I’m sorry, I just… this is a lot to take in. You say you know my dad, and that I’m family, but before I married Josh I didn’t think I had anyone else in this world. Apparently, I didn’t even know my dad as well as I thought. When Josh tried to have me killed, I thought I had the rug pulled from underneath me, but this…” I sighed. “This is like having my own history re-written before my eyes.”
Iceman looked at Rage. “Put in a call to Ghost. He’s probably going to want to come up here for this. He and Brazen were tight before what happened to Luanne.” Then he switched his focus back to me. “I allowed you to keep your assassin’s name private before, because I didn’t think it would be important, but now I’m going to have to ask that you tell us.”
“Jake Bishop is what he told me, and my dad had talked about Bishop before, and had pictures too. It was definitely him, only older.”
“Son of a…” Rage stopped as he was headed out with a cell phone to his head. “Yeah, it’s Rage. I need you to get Ghost on the phone immediately.” With that, he left the room and my focus turned back to the other two men in the room. Iceman had a ghost of a smile on his face and Shameless looked as if he were wiping a tear away.
“I take it you know him too?”
“Bishop served with your dad and me. He came on with the club a couple years after we did since he signed up for another tour after us. We haven’t heard from him in a couple years. You just gave us hope that he’s still out there.”
“But I just told your other guys that I thought he was dead. He took me to a safe house, left to go throw Josh off my scent, and never returned.”
“You met Sweetie Pie in a strip joint in St. Louis, right?” Iceman asked.
“Yeah,” I answered quickly wondering what she had to do with anything at this point. “I’m assuming if she worked there it wasn’t a very high class establishment,” he continued on. I winced knowing what they must think of me.
“I did not do what the other girls did there. I ONLY danced,” I emphasized.
“I have no doubt about that, but why do you think sleaze-ball strip joint owners would be willing to let you work under a different set of rules?”
“Because I’m an amazing dancer, and also Harry referred me there when I was first outted in Phoenix.” I answered.
Both men laughed.
“Seriously? I’m fucking awesome! I trained most of my life…”
Iceman cut off my tirade. “I’m sure you’re the best dancer ever sweetheart, and that means jack-all to club owners. You had an angel over your shoulder looking out for you. Seems Bishop has been one step ahead, as usual.”
“He let me work at those places, knowing who I was?” The pitchiness in my voice made it evident that I disapproved of the way the man had apparently been looking out for me.
“He kept you safe and undercover. He played it smart, and I’m assuming he had a long game he was playing in doing so. He didn’t get to keep his last name as his road name for no reason. It fit, being as it’s a chess piece and all.”
“Bishop was a hell of a tactician in the Army, and he’s used his skills for the club more than once,” Shameless confirmed.
“Why did my dad take me away from the club if you guys are all so great and ready to protect me?”
Shameless huffed out a long breath and a sadness settled in like a weight on his shoulders. “Your mom, she was in an accident that resulted in her death. I don’t know if he ever told you or not, but she was also about 6 months pregnant at the time.” I felt sick to my stomach. I had never known I was going to be a sister. “She lived, for a while, and they tried to save the baby too, but she threw a clot and the baby was just too early. Neither of them made it.
“Luanne swore the truck that hit her had a man wearing a patch belonging to an enemy club of ours at the time. She made your dad promise that if anything happened to her he would get you away from the club. He kept that damn promise.” Shameless’ chagrinned visage took me by surprise. “I always thought she meant for him to keep you from The Tribe, the other club, but he took it to mean any of them for some reason.”
I felt the warm wetness as tears tracked down my face. My head shook back and forth without my permission, trying to dispel the truths that were flying free from these men tonight. Everything I thought I knew about my family was adding up to a pack of lies and I didn’t know how to feel about it. I loved my dad with all my heart, but right now I felt so betrayed by him. He took memories from me. He took knowledge that I should have had. He took experiences, and an entire family of people from me all because my mom thought she saw something when she was in a car accident. I just couldn’t wrap my head around it all. “I, um…” I just stared down
at my fingers as they clasped together harshly in my lap. “Um, could someone show me to my room? I just… I, um, I need a minute to process all this. I’d rather do that privately, if it’s all the same to you guys.” I glanced up with pleading eyes focused on Iceman and he simply nodded his head.
“We’ll get you taken care of, Charlie, I promise.” I just nodded my head as he picked up his phone and called someone to meet him in his office. He glanced up at me. “You comfortable with Rabbit getting you settled?” I nodded my agreement again. “Figured a friendly face would help.” Another two minutes and Rabbit was there, helping me to my feet, and then rubbing his hand up and down my lower back, all the way across the clubhouse, up a set of stairs, and down a long hall, two doors from the end.
“This is your room, Showgirl. If you need anything, you scream your fucking lungs out till I show up.” He pointed next door. “I’m right in there, okay?”
I nodded again.
“You have an en-suite bathroom so you don’t have to share. It should be stocked with the basics, but you can let me know tomorrow if you need anything special.”
“Thanks, Rabbit.” He tapped the frame around the door and backed away so I could shut the door.
“Hey, Showgirl, make sure you engage that lock.” He pointed to the slide lock at the top of the door. “Most of the guys here are good ones, but I can’t vouch for someone who may get drunk and try to wander into what they thought was a vacant room, you know?”
Dancing With Danger Page 3
