by Anna Mara
“Good idea. Joe’s lived his whole life in Las Vegas. He knows a lot of people here. Somebody has to know something.”
Suddenly, a motorcycle rumbled loudly into the parking lot. Instinctively turning towards the noise, Tori gazed through the large glass window and immediately recognized Savage, the brutal biker from Delilah’s, riding in on his Harley-Davidson.
A surge of annoyance lit through her. “I can’t believe it! Talk about bad luck, twice in one day,” she gritted, as he shut off the motor. He got off the bike and removed his black, half-shell helmet, which covered the top part of his head. He was dressed in jeans, and black t-shirt, with a red bandana around his forehead, and his Sons of Perdition leather vest, just as he had been that morning. His heavily tattooed arms glistened in the sunlight, as he slipped off his sunglasses.
Twisting her head around, Tori scanned the restaurant and spotted a rear exit door. She went to get up. “Come on, Nana. We can go out the back and not have to see that Neanderthal.”
Her grandmother placed a hand on her arm and stopped her. “Sit down, Tori. Now!”
That last word had been uttered like a command coming from a military general to his troops. Tori’s internal warning bells clanged. “What have you done?” she hissed, as she obeyed, suddenly realizing that that vicious thug showing up here was no accident.
Nana waved to the biker as he entered the restaurant. “Yoo-hoo, Mr. Savage, over here.” She beamed even more as he approached.
“Ladies,” he nodded, flashing them a good-humored smile. He turned Tori’s way. “Scooch over, Snow White.” He lowered his tall frame into the booth beside her, giving her no time to protest.
Tori moved further away to avoid having him land in her lap. His long leg brushed hers underneath the table and she scooted even closer to the window. She glared at him as he grinned boyishly at her, knowing how boxed in his large body was making her feel.
“Why is this person here?” Tori glowered at her grandmother.
“Thank you for comin’, sir,” Nana addressed him and ignored her granddaughter.
“I’m always interested in a business proposition, ma’am.”
“What’s he talking about?” Tori ground out.
Suddenly, Savage reached across Tori to the far end of the table to grab a menu, brushing his arm roughly against her breasts while he did so. She backed away, frowning at his atrocious lack of table manners but he just kept on smiling, clearly knowing exactly what he was doing and what she was thinking of him.
A sudden squeal pierced the restaurant’s interior and a high pitched female voice shouted, “Savage!”
Their waitress, Lynnette rushed forward and threw herself into the biker’s arms. She planted a long kiss square on his lips. He seemed to return the hard peck as his hand instinctively lowered to her bottom, caressing it lovingly.
He pulled back and threw her a saucy smile. “It’s been a while, Lynnette.”
“Ages. Where’ve you been? You missed a great party at Ed’s last weekend.”
“Outta town on business.”
“Maybe you can catch the next one?”
“Count on it.” Savage threw her a crooked smile.
“I’ll bring you all your coffees in a sec,” the waitress addressed the other ladies before winking at the biker and disappearing into the kitchen again.
Tori’s lips curled in disgust at the blatant public display of affection that seemed to have attracted all eyes in the place towards their table. “Friend of yours?” she enquired, as she sat there stiff and prim.
Savage sensed her annoyance and his lips twitched in amusement. “Yeah, I guess you can say that. Maybe you can even say I’m her Prince Charming,” he teased.
Tori’s eyes flitted up and down his heavily tattooed arms before coming back to his amused brown orbs. “Prince Charming? You?” she mocked, her voice suggesting he was the farthest thing from a Prince Charming she’d ever seen.
“Well, I saved your sweet ass from Satan this morning, didn’t I?”
“It was just business, you said so yourself,” she parried, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge what he’d done for her earlier.
Savage’s face leaned into hers, invading her personal space. “Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn’t,” he laughed softly. Tori got the sense that he was playing with her like a cat plays with a tiny mouse before sinking its teeth into its neck and killing it dead.
He pulled away then and turned to Nana sitting across from him. “I was surprised to get your phone call this afternoon, Miss Estelle.” It was obvious he was back to being all business again.
Tori’s eyes widened in surprise at his words and turned to her grandmother. “You called that disgusting bar?”
Nana nodded. “How else was I going to reach Mr. Savage? I need to talk business with him, so you hush up!” She turned back to the biker. “I’ll get to the point, sir, because I don’t want to waste any of your valuable time. I want to hire you as a bodyguard for my granddaughter here.”
Tori’s heart skipped a beat at the pronouncement and her jaw dropped open. “Are you crazy? What’s gotten into you?”
“Shut up, Tori! This is between me and this gentleman here.” Nana turned to Savage. “My fiancé, Joe Sorelli has disappeared. We have three days to find him. If he doesn’t show up for his parole appointment on Monday, an arrest warrant will be issued. Now, I can’t go gallivantin’ around Las Vegas looking for him. It’s just too much for me at my age, and I refuse to send my precious Tori out there all by herself. So, I want you to go with her, to protect her and to help her, just like you did this morning. I saw what you can do with your fists. You’re a man to be reckoned with and I like that. Interested?”
Savage’s eyes narrowed on the older woman’s expectant face. “With all due respect, ma’am, I’m not a fucking babysitter.”
Tori’s jaw dropped in outrage. “Don’t speak to her like that, you big bully,” she shouted.
But Nana put a restraining hand on her arm. “It’s all right, darlin’. Mr. Savage and I speak the same language.” She turned back to the biker. “I can make it worth your while, sir.”
Sudden interest flared in the biker’s eyes. “How much?”
“A thousand dollars for the three days work.”
“Nana!” Tori couldn’t believe what was coming out of her grandmother’s mouth.
Savage ignored the younger woman’s outburst, but swiveled his head to study her from head to toe. “She looks like a lot of trouble to me. Three thousand and not a penny less.”
Nana nodded as she too studied her granddaughter. “Yes, I see what you’re saying. Okay, two thousand.”
Tori was indignant. “I’m not cattle to be haggled over, people,” she hissed, irritated by the way they were discussing her, as if she wasn’t even there.
The biker seemed to consider the proposition. “Three days of my time is going to cost me some other—business opportunities—you might say, so it’s gotta be worth my while. Let’s split the difference at $2500 and you’ve got a deal.”
Nana studied the younger man for a few seconds before extending her hand out for a handshake. “You drive a hard bargain, Mr. Savage, but we’ve got a deal!”
Nodding, Savage put his hand in hers and shook it. “I want $1500 upfront, now, on the table, cash money, and the balance at the end of the job, whether we find Joe Sorelli or not.”
“Of course,” Nana nodded, as she reached into her purse and pulled out a huge wad of cash that was wrapped with an elastic band. She began counting out the money and Savage’s eyes were glued to the bills.
Tori gawked at the money. “Nana, put that away!” She snatched the bills out of the elder’s hands. “May I speak to you privately in the washroom, please?” she ground out, before turning to the biker. “Excuse me?” She waited impatiently for him to get up so that she could get out of the booth.
He tipped her a lazy smile, before he unfurled his long body out and up. As Tori slid out of the seat and sto
od up, he grabbed her wrist and leaned into her with a wicked grin. “Just remember, honey, we shook on it and I’ll be out here waiting for my money. Don’t slip out the back and make me come looking for you.”
The smile on his lips didn’t reach his brown eyes and her heart skipped a beat. His veiled warning had been received, loud and clear but she refused to be scared or intimidated. She straightened her spine and looked down at his fingers clasped around her wrist. Surprisingly, they felt soft and gentle, not rough and brutish as she expected.
Her defiant eyes came back up to his and with one hard yank, she pulled out of his grasp. “Don’t ever touch me again.” She used the same threatening tone he had used on her mere seconds ago.
The air crackled with tension. Tori could feel the sultry male heat his body was giving off, like a solar flare burning everything in its path. She watched as his laser-sharp eyes bore into her—hard, before lowering to her sassy mouth and then flickering back up again to her eyes. Suddenly, like a dog who’d been jockeying for position and then had to accept defeat, he stepped away to let her pass. But in the split second before he did, Tori caught a glint of respect for her shining in his gaze, and she knew that she had somehow passed a test of some kind in his eyes.
She turned to her grandmother, who seemed to have been watching the little episode with a sly smile on her lips. “Come on, Nana.” Tori put a comforting arm around the elder’s shoulders, and led her towards the washrooms.
“Y’all come back now, ya hear?” Savage jeered, mocking their Texas twang while at the same time reminding them yet again that he wanted his promised money and he’d be waiting.
Tori threw him a dark scowl over her shoulder before disappearing into the washroom.
* * *
Savage watched the pair leave and with a proud grin, sat back down in the booth, remembering the fearless strength he’d seen in the girl’s eyes when she’d stood up to him. Many a man three times her size and ten times her muscle had quaked when he’d used that same tone of voice on them; and truth-be-told, his reputation around town was now so vicious that he didn’t have to use his fists all that much anymore. He just had to show up on his many collection runs, with a baseball bat, of course, and politely ask for his money. But that girl—Tori—she wasn’t afraid of him. She should have been, if she’d had any God-given sense—but she wasn’t.
He didn’t know whether he liked that—or not.
Chapter 9
Tori checked each of the bathroom stalls to make sure they were alone before rounding on her grandmother. “Are you insane? Hiring that animal out there?” she yelled, her body humming with fury.
Nana checked her mile-high, blonde hair in the mirror before proceeding to pouf it out even higher. “I think I’ll go to the hotel salon and get a comb out. What do ya think?” Taking a small hairspray bottle out of her purse, she spritzed the mist all around her head.
“I think we have a lot more problems to worry about than the size of your hair! And by the way, where did you get that wad of money you’re carrying around in your purse?”
“I went to a bank this afternoon and had some funds transferred from Gideon. I knew Mr. Savage was a man-of-business and would conduct himself accordingly. So, I came prepared.”
“Man-of-business? He’s a killer, Nana—a gangster! He’s a member of the Sons of Perdition biker club. My God, I can’t believe that you’re willing to send me off with him.”
“Why, nothing’s gonna happen to you, sweetpea. He’ll protect you from everything.”
“Who’s going to protect me from him, huh? Because you know what he’s going to do to me? He’s going to rape me, then slit my throat and throw my body into a hole he’s already dug in the desert, that’s what!” Tori balled her fists by her sides to prevent her from shaking some sense into her grandmother.
Nana just laughed at her scenario. “Oh honey, he ain’t gonna do that,” she chuckled.
“Really? What makes you so sure?”
Nana spun away from the mirror to face her granddaughter, her eyes twinkling mischievously. “Because I got the tingle this morning when I saw Mr. Savage beat the snot hell out of that Wizard fella, that’s why.” She nodded to add emphasis to her announcement, and her bouffant bobbed up and down.
Tori gasped in shock and she took a step back. “You got the tingle?”
Nana’s bouffant nodded again. “Yup, when I watched him beat the shit outta that slimeball, not only did I get a tingle but I got a clanging like a firehouse bell. I knew right then and there that Mr. Savage was a good man, trustworthy and dependable with a heart of gold, just the kind of man I needed to protect you.”
Tori paused. Could her Nana really have gotten her famous tingle over that monster out there because if she had, that was saying a lot about his character. After all, everybody in Gideon put stock in Nana’s tingle. But wait… hadn’t she also said she’d gotten the tingle about Joe Sorelli? And look what had happened there! He’d disappeared with her money, proving himself to be a first class crook.
Tori crossed her arms in front of her chest, her gaze narrowing suspiciously on her grandmother’s face. “I think your tingle has been on the fritz lately, probably due to all that hairspray you use a hundred times a day.”
But Nana laughed again, dismissing her doubt. “Tori, honey, you listen to me. I know what I’m talking about. If you want to find my Joe, like you’re insisting on doing, then you’re going with Mr. Savage and you will do what he says. That man will protect you. I know it for a fact. But if you refuse, then we go home to Texas right now. There is no negotiation about this, missy. So, what’s it gonna be?”
Tori rolled her eyes heavenward and sighed. Right now there was nothing she wanted more in the world than to ferret out that weasel, Joe Sorelli, get Nana’s money back, and have him thrown in jail. But could she really trust that gorilla out there to help her? Or would he kill her instead?
Yes—she did place some faith in Nana’s sixth-sense tingle but not one hundred percent. After all, look where they were—in Las Vegas looking for Nana’s jailbird boyfriend who she’d also gotten the tingle about. No, she’d have to be on her best guard with that ape, no matter what her grandmother said.
“Okay, Nana. We’ll do it your way. We’ll hire that outlaw to be my bodyguard and together we’ll find your Joe.”
Elated, Nana threw her arms around her granddaughter. “Oh honey, this is the best decision you could have made. You’ll see. Mr. Savage will help us.”
Tori shook her head doubtfully. “If Mommy and Daddy ever find out what we’re up to and that we’re hiring outlaw bikers to help us—oh my God! What if the church ladies of Gideon find out?”
“Fuck ’em all! This’ll be our little secret.”
Tori nodded. “Okay, Nana, but I don’t know how you always talk me into these things.”
The elder patted Tori on the back. “You’re a good girl, sugarplum. Now, let’s go back out. Mr. Savage is waitin’.”
“You go on. I need to use the bathroom first. But don’t pay him one red cent until I come out, okay? I want to be there when you hand over the first installment on this craziness.”
Nana smiled as she walked to the door. “Don’t keep the man waiting too long, Tori honey, because he’s libel ta come into this ladies washroom lookin’ for ya,” she teased.
Tori could hear her laughter all the way out, as the door closed behind her. And no, she didn’t really have to use the bathroom. She just needed a breather before having to face that brute again.
She stared at her pale reflection in the mirror. She was supposed to be having a quiet weekend in her apartment right now. Instead, here she was, associating with biker criminals in Las Vegas. Well, one good thing would come out of all this. Her friends couldn’t accuse her of being dull anymore, that’s for sure. In fact, they all probably thought she was still soaking in that boring bathtub back home. The image brought a quick smile to her lips.
Sighing, Tori walked out. But just
as she was rounding the corner to go back into the main part of the eatery, she passed the area where the wait staff kept the cutlery. And that’s when she spied it—a nice, five-inch blade steak knife with a sturdy, brown wooden handle.
She paused and asked one of the young waiters who was passing by, “Excuse me? How much would you charge me if I wanted to buy that knife over there?”
“Ten bucks,” he replied without missing a beat, as if people bought steak knives from him all the time. But this was Vegas after all, so maybe they did.
Nodding, Tori reached into her purse and pulled out the bill. “I’ll take it.” She gave him the money and slipped the knife into her purse.
This was going to be her little insurance policy in case Mr. Savage Whatever-The-Hell-His-Name-Was tried anything fishy. Nana’s tingle may afford some protection but a steel blade afforded more.
Chapter 10
As Tori approached the booth again, she saw that Lynette had brought the coffees but had once again disappeared. Nana was seated at one end and Savage opposite her; and they seemed to be chatting about nothing in particular.
The biker seemed to have been on the lookout for her because he immediately got up, intending for her to return to her former seat beside him when she’d been boxed in between his large body and the window. In a pig’s eye, Tori thought, and instead, she scooted beside her grandmother. He threw her a husky laugh as he sat back in his place. Did he look a little disappointed? No, Tori thought, just humored.
“I was just trying to be a gentleman, Snow White,” he teased.
“Well, you have a long way to go, sir.”
He burst out laughing at that, a rich masculine sound that rumbled from deep within his chest, coming out of his full and sexy mouth. “But a gentleman isn’t really what you’re buying for the weekend, is it?”
“I guess not, no, but I’m also not buying a thug. I don’t approve of violence, Mr. Savage.”
One second he was laughing at her and the next he was frowning, his intense eyes burning into her. “Let’s get one thing straight. If I’m to be your bodyguard, then I guard—your—body. That’s my top priority and whatever I have to do to accomplish that, is what I’ll do.”
