“Yeah. Club trouble,” he grumbled.
Oh. I knew that meant that he wouldn’t tell me what it was. “Club trouble, does that happen a lot?” He gave me a glance. “Club trouble?”
He shook his head. “Only lately.”
I could tell that was all he was going to say. When we reached the house he helped me inside, and then with a quick, hard kiss turned to leave.
“Be careful, Vince,” I said, not quite sure what I was telling him to be careful of.
He paused long enough to look back over his shoulder. “Always, darlin’.”
Chapter 9
VD
I fucking hated cutting my time short with Iris. I liked being around her, her softness and her quick-witted responses. It didn’t hurt that she was a real looker. Those brown eyes of hers held a warm innocence that turned into dark enticing waters when she wanted to be wicked, and she was good at being wicked. Her smoking hot body, how she responded to me, fuck, I was getting hard just thinking about it. I didn’t usually give women like her the time of day, I found them to be needy, high maintenance, fake bitches. They were usually years younger than her, too.
She was a welcome change from the women at the club. A bark of laughter escaped me. Maybe I was growing up, realizing that I needed something more than a quick fuck in a dark back room with some faceless woman. Life in the club was complicated, I’d told Iris, because it was, all that and more. The words dangerous, unpredictable, dirty, came to mind, though shit had calmed down in the last few years, brothers had grown older and wanted to settle down to some kind of normalcy before they met their maker. Only the younger ones felt the need for constant violence and trouble.
I couldn’t blame them. I’d been there once. Young and full of anger, eager to assert the club’s dominance and back it up with war. Hell, I was still that man in a lot of ways, I was just more experienced and knowledgeable with the dos and don’ts that worked. I had the presence of mind to stand back and assess the situation before acting on it, something that had to be learned through years of trial and error.
I wished I was driving to the club now to handle shit, and not my place of business where my ex was stirring up trouble. Trish had moved on after our divorce, but whenever she needed something, mainly money, she showed back up like a bad penny. For a long time I’d just given it to her to get rid of her, but the last couple of times she’d wanted more than I’d been willing to part with. I’d given her a few hundred and told her that was the end.
The bar was within sight, and Trish’s old car came into view. At least she’d parked that piece of shit at the back where the bar waitresses and bartender parked. It looked like everyone was there, getting ready for the night. I pulled in next to Rory’s new jeep and cut the engine. The back door was open and I tapped down my anger. I’d warned them about leaving the door open before, even when we weren’t open. Gravel crunched beneath my boots as I made my way to the door and removed the chair that was propping it open and slammed it as hard as I could behind me.
I stopped at the end of the hallway and glared at Rory, who was wiping down the bar. He shrugged. “Wasn’t me, boss,” was all that he said.
Ruby, Beth, and Lori all stopped what they were doing and looked at me expectantly. I held up my hands. “I don’t give a fuck who did it. Don’t do it again. I mean it. Next time someone loses their job.” It was dangerous as hell in this part of town, and an open door was an open invitation for trouble. As the three waitresses slowly went back to what they were doing I narrowed my gaze on Trish. “What the fuck do you want?”
She looked like hell warmed over, nothing like the knockout that used to hang out at the club in the early days. Back then she’d been curvy, healthy, and confident in what and who she wanted. Years of living poor, choosing the wrong men, and drinking had taken a toll. Her once curvy body was thinner now, and the roots to her bottle-blond hair were black and covered the top half of her head, leaving stringy blond strands hanging to her shoulders. She dressed like a slut that was giving it away for free.
“Money−”
“No.” No fucking way. I turned to walk to my office, knowing that she would follow. “You came here for nothing. I told you the last time−”
“Just listen to me, VD,” she rushed out, sticking close to me as if she were afraid I’d close and lock the door, leaving her in the hallway.
“I don’t care what you have to say, and after today I don’t want to see your ass back here.” Christ, I was tired of this shit with her. I was heading for my chair when Trish grabbed my arm, halting me.
“Please, VD. This is the last time, I swear it!”
I steeled myself against the teary plea in her blue eyes. There was a time when I could lose myself in those baby blues, but now they were dull and lifeless. I just shook my head. “Who the fuck do you owe now?” I shouldn’t have asked because I really didn’t give a fuck.
“Remy Mack.”
My brows arched and she glanced down, afraid--if she knew what was good for her. “Remy Mack?” I exploded. “So you’re doing drugs now, Trish?” She winced, and had the smarts to drop her hand from my arm and step away. I was pissed. Remy Mack was a dangerous man when crossed. “What the fuck?” I scowled down at her.
“Not me!” she quickly said.
Her admission made me see red. “Your old man?” She nodded reluctantly. “You’re fucking crazy if you think I’m going to help your old man out, or you, for that matter. Get the hell out of my office and don’t come back.”
“VD, please, I’m begging you. If we don’t pay him back by this weekend he’ll kill us.”
“You think I give a fuck?” I snarled, walking around to my chair.
“You used to,” she reminded me.
“Don’t even go there, bitch. This is my last warning, Trish. Next time you show your face around here, I’ll kill you myself.”
She paled, fear filling her eyes. She knew I’d do it, too. Even after that threat I could see that she was still reluctant to leave. She was really desperate.
“I, I could make it worth your while, baby,” she said a little too desperately, walking slowly around my desk toward me. I just glared at her in warning. “Make you feel good, like I used to.”
I knew exactly what she was talking about. “Maybe giving me a blowjob would have worked ten years ago, but not now, not ever again. You don’t have anything I want. You’ve spread your legs for too many men and you’re all used up.” If that hadn’t been the truth it would have been cruel, but she knew it was a fact. Fuck, everyone in town knew that she was a whore.
Her face turned red and her eyes narrowed with anger at my rejection. “I’m pregnant!” she snapped, losing control. Hell, that was the last thing I’d been expecting her to say. “I haven’t had a drink since I found out, okay? I want to leave Ansel, but I can’t until we pay his dealer off.”
She was right, there. Even if she hadn’t used the drugs she would still be responsible for paying Remy back because she was with Ansel. If she was telling me the truth she was in some deep shit. But I wouldn’t put it past Trish to be making the whole thing up. She was good at manipulation.
“Ansel the father?”
She shrugged. “Does it matter?”
I snorted. That meant that she didn’t know. “You could get rid of−”
“No!” she said sharply, guessing what I’d been about to say. Her adamant reaction confirmed to me that she was telling the truth, about the baby anyway. There’d been too much urgency and passion behind her response. “I want this baby, VD.”
For a minute I saw the old Trish looking back at me, reminding me of how much she’d wanted our baby. Things had turned to shit for both of us after that car accident, but she’d been truly destroyed over the loss of our child. While I’d turned to club shit to get through it, she’d turned to drinking and sleeping around.
Fuck. I felt myself wavering, for the baby, not her. And perhaps for the memory of a child that hadn’t had a chance
to live. Things hadn’t been good between us for a long time, but I couldn’t ignore the fact that I’d cared for her once. Not loved. I’d never loved anyone.
“You’re in no shape to have a fucking kid,” I felt compelled to say. “Look at you, Trish. You’re not healthy, you don’t have a job, and you’re broke.”
“I know all that,” she said quietly. “But I’m almost forty. This might be my last chance to have a child.” She took a deep breath. “My sister wants me to come home. She’s offered to let me stay with her. She’s gonna help me get back on my feet.”
“So your intention is to go back to Kansas?” She nodded. I ran my hand over the bottom half of my face, releasing a breath of resignation. That, at least, was good news. I leaned forward and stared hard into her eyes until I knew that she knew that I wasn’t fucking around. “How much?”
Her expression relaxed and some of her color returned. “You’re going to help us?” she asked hopefully.
“You. Not him.” I wanted to be clear. “But I promise you, Trish, nothing will save you if this whole thing turns out to be a lie. I’ll hunt you both down.”
“I promise this isn’t a lie, VD.” I wanted to believe her. “Five thousand.”
Five thousand. That was pretty much chump change to a drug dealer, I’d been expecting her to ask for five times that amount. Remy Mack had a reputation for extending credit for a reason. He liked his clients to be so far in debt to him that it was near impossible to pay up when the time came. That usually meant death or a lifetime of doing him favors. My cynical expression must have alerted Trish to the fact that I was questioning why the low amount.
“It was a lot more, but we’ve been working it off. Then out of the blue Remy asked for the balance and gave us until this weekend.”
I had two safes in my office, but didn’t need to go to either one. I opened a drawer and removed the bundled stack of money from it. I’d just received my monthly share of the club profits. I tossed the money to Trish, who caught it clumsily in her lap. “There’s ten grand there. Use the other five to help get back on your feet in Kansas.”
Tears began to fall down her cheeks as she clutched the money against her. “VD−”
I shook my head to silence her, unmoved by her quivering mouth and tears. “I don’t ever want to see you again.”
Nodding, she wiped her hand across her cheek and got to her feet. “Thank you,” she whispered, turning to leave.
I leaned back in my chair, watching her leave and hoping that she got her shit together. I also prayed that she wasn’t playing me for a fool, because I would end her without a second thought. No one fucked with me and lived to talk about it, regardless of the past. I hoped Trish had learned something over her years in the club.
“Hey, brother.” My VP, Whip, walked into the room. “Just ran into Trish, she don’t look so hot.”
“What’s up?” I asked, ignoring his question as he dropped down in a chair opposite my desk.
“Nothing. Wanted to see if you want to ride over to the Gold Whip with me tonight. Got a couple of new girls I want to check out.”
The Gold Whip was the strip club he owned in town. “Did you forget? I’m going on that protection run with Billy tonight.”
Whip shook his head with disgust. “Don’t know why you feel you gotta be the one to break in a new prospect.”
“Maybe because I’m the one who mentored him, bro. You know the rules.” I’d been mentoring Billy for almost two years now, had even done so while I was in prison, and tonight would either get him patched in or kicked out.
“Yeah, but you’re the president now. Should delegate that shit off.”
“What kind of president would I be if I didn’t finish what I started?”
He gave me a look that said that he didn’t like it. “You so eager to go back to prison?”
“I’m not expecting trouble.” I narrowed my eyes on Whip, trying to read his blank expression. “You know something I don’t?”
“No. But these protection runs bring out all kinds of fuckers who want to get their hands on the merchandise.”
“Christ, you think I don’t realize that, Whip? I’m the fucking president. I’ve been on protection runs before.”
“Just sayin’, man.” He gave me a smirk. “Would hate for you to have to give up fucking again so soon.”
I’d hate it, too, now that I’ve had a taste of Iris. “Don’t worry, brother, I don’t plan on it.”
I should have expected his next question, considering we’d shared information about our conquests in the past. Hell, we’d even shared women.
“So, she got a nice pussy?” His eyebrows did a little dance.
“I’m not discussing Iris like this, bro. She’s different.”
“Whoa!” He sat back in his chair with a shocked expression. “Didn’t see that coming. You must really like her.”
I hadn’t seen it coming either, but I wasn’t going to make a big deal out of it. “She’s not a club girl.” Yeah, I really liked her. Again, I wasn’t going to make a big deal out of it. Whatever it was between me and Iris had happened fast and was intense and was way the fuck too soon to talk about on any level. Thanks to Dickie, he’d kept his family in the dark about the club, and I wasn’t sure her ignorance was going to mesh well with my world. “Look, I got shit to do. How about we check out your new girls’ tomorrow night?”
That put a big smile on Whip’s face. “Okay. I hear they’re hot and have moves that might set the place on fire.”
“You hear?” I frowned. “You didn’t hire them?”
“No, I let Bunny do that crap. She’s savvy and I trust her. Her decisions have made me a ton of money.” He laughed. “Legal money,” he added unnecessarily.
My brothers were lucky. The businesses the club had set them up in had all become lucrative with time and hard work, and had kept the heat off them and the club. Paying taxes and giving back to society actually felt fucking good, because it was on our terms. Plus, our presence protected our town and its people, and they knew that. It had taken years to turn things around, but we were there, and as president of Mad Dogs I intended to keep us there.
Mad Dogs MC was in a good place, no longer just known as a dangerous outlaw club with a one percent patch on their cuts. Our standing in the community may have been cleaner, but other MCs knew not to fuck with us. Just because we chose not to get involved in as much of the illegal shit as we used to, the kind that sent a brother to prison for a lot of years, didn’t mean that we were weak pussies. Our longevity and reputation demanded respect. It was a foolish club that tried to make their mark in our territory.
After Whip left I took care of some paperwork and put in a few orders for stock. I’d had the bar for about five years, had paid for it in cash, and it brought in a lot of revenue. I’d decided to forego the stripper poles. Instead, the girls wore G-strings and covered their nipples with pasties while serving up drinks and snacks, and if they wanted to earn bigger tips they were allowed to give lap dances.
There was a light tap at the door. “Boss?”
The sultry tone made me glance up to see Beth, and I noticed that she’d changed into her work attire. All of the girls that worked for me were young, beautiful, stacked, and legal. I made damned sure of that. Beth was the youngest at twenty-two, working her way through college to be a nurse.
“Yeah?” My gaze dropped down to the purple tassels hanging off her nipples. A sheer purple G-string barely covered her shaved mound. I didn’t know Beth as well as I did the other girls, she’d been hired while I was in prison. She was pin-up model perfect, and my dick didn’t even acknowledge her.
She walked further into the room, wearing ridiculously high stilettos, her tits shaking with each step. “I was just wondering if Rory had a chance to talk to you yet.”
I’d been expecting this, but still said, “About?”
“About my working at the club?”
She ran her tongue over her cherry red lips. That k
ind of move usually turned me on, what the fuck was wrong with me? Rory might have run it by me, but I hadn’t given it much thought. A lot of girls thought they wanted to work at the club, until they got there and realized what that entailed. Most weren’t expecting it to be so rowdy and hands-on. Oh, they knew what they’d heard and it sounded exciting, and it sounded like something they thought they wanted to be part of.
Until they were.
I released a breath, knowing how this was going to go. I’d need to see if she had the guts that it would take to put out. “The girls at the club aren’t just expected to serve up drinks and give lap dances.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“And you’re cool with that?”
“Would you like a demonstration of my capabilities?” She sounded eager.
I wasn’t expecting that. She walked around the desk, totally confident in her sexual allure. I wondered what she had in mind, wondered if she’d lose her nerve like some girls did. But she didn’t. She sat down on my lap, facing me, her tits practically in my mouth. I leaned back slightly, amused that she had gone this far without guidance. She wasn’t as innocent as I’d first thought she was. Another time, and I would have grabbed her by her long hair and showed her what to expect, but my dick didn’t even twitch with interest.
“That’s it? You just sit on my lap?” So much for her taking the initiative. “The boys at the club are going to expect a hell of a lot more than this, sweetheart.” I was pushing her, still interested to see how far she’d go to prove that she had what it took to be a club girl.
“Is this a job interview?” she asked. She started to rub against me. “I’d really like a chance to work at the club.”
“Why?”
She shrugged slightly, and then admitted a little shyly, “I need the extra money.”
At least she was honest. For most it was either the money or they just liked the idea of being connected to the MC. With her looks she’d do well there, the boys would eat her up, as long as she wasn’t all talk and no action. That shit wouldn’t fly. The girls at the club were tough hard asses who knew what my brothers wanted and gave it to them anytime and anywhere.
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