She’d been cowed speechless by him, then had almost bolted when Kansas had shown up next to Wolf and said that he’d be joining them in the interview, because if Wolf was scary-hot, then Kansas was terrifying-hot. Almost as tall and muscled as Wolf, Kansas was unnervingly intense with his shaved head, hard dark stare and neck tattoo. He looked like he’d just been released from prison that morning and for all she knew, he had been.
Jo had sucked up every ounce of her flailing courage and followed the men down to Wolf’s office. Once the door had closed, she’d had a wild and panicked thought that this was the stupidest move she’d ever made, allowing herself to be shut inside a room with these two guys. But then Kansas had held out her chair for her and Wolf had poured coffee from a pot on his desk and added milk and sugar, and somewhere in between reaching out for the mug and being asked how she’d found the drive, Jo had relaxed. She hadn’t forgotten that these guys were ex-criminals… but she did know that they meant her no harm.
But just because they weren’t going to chop her up into tiny pieces didn’t mean that they were gentle or perceptive men – except it turned out that they were. Wolf’s offer to make her feel safe and protected if she worked for them was the nicest thing that anyone had done for her in… well. In years. In forever.
That was when Jo let her interest in this job get fierce and fiery: she wanted to work for Wolf Connor in a way that she hadn’t wanted anything really specific for a while. She had been delighted by the job description as Wolf had laid it out, knew that the duties were well within her skills and experience, and even though every new account was a learning curve, she didn’t think the three businesses would be overly taxing for her. She liked Wolf. She liked Kansas.
She wanted this.
But now she had a question to answer about Brian, and she had to decide how much to share. She was pretty sure that these men would be able to sniff out a lie at fifty paces: they both had a keen, sharp intelligence in their eyes, and even though Jo would bet that their book-smarts were minimal, their people- and street-smarts were off the charts.
Lying to Wolf and Kansas was a bad, bad idea. But telling them the whole truth was just as inconceivable.
So… some truth then.
“It was a bad breakup,” Jo told them as she set down her coffee cup. “It was a bad relationship, it was a bad marriage. It was – it was just bad for me. Very much so. The kind of bad that gets people hurt.”
They both tensed at her words, looked furious as they picked up on her hints. Jo twisted her hands together and carried on:
“I walked away from Brian just over a month ago, and he was – well. I’d lay money that he was beyond enraged. I left in a hurry while he was at a law conference, just rented a car and took my laptop and one backpack and one suitcase, left whatever I couldn’t fit in them. I – I ran. Escaped. If I’d tried to talk to him or give him any warning…” She shook her head and reading between the lines, they knew that this woman would have been punished, punished right into a hospital bed. “Anyway, I left my phone, shut down my e-mail, so I don’t talk to him and he doesn’t know where I am. Everything goes through my lawyer and she’s under strict instructions not to tell Brian anything.”
“So no way he can come lookin’ for you?” Wolf said, his voice an odd mixture of gentle and angry. “Can’t call you and make your life hell?”
“No. Not unless my lawyer tells him how to reach me.”
“You sure she won’t do that?” Kansas asked. “You said your ex is a lawyer too, right? No chance that those two could – I don’t know – reach some kind of professional understanding? Maybe even personal, if he decides to seduce her or some such shit?”
“Not a chance,” Jo said. “I chose Millicent to represent me for a reason: Brian hates her and she hates him back just as bad. They’ve had plenty of run-ins over the years and he came home apoplectic at her every single time they met up in meetings or in court. She’s smarter, she’s faster on her feet – and she goes for the jugular with zero apology. She’d spit on Brian before she’d offer him a coffee, believe me.”
“Sounds like my kind of gal,” Kansas said. “You got her number handy, doll?”
Jo laughed for the first time, and once again both men admired her beauty that just bubbled up and over that bland, boring surface that she presented. Her smile was like sunshine breaking through mist and it was truly, deeply gorgeous.
“She’s happily and deliriously married and about five minutes away from having her first baby,” Jo told him. “She’s way taken. Sorry.”
“Aw.” Kansas looked genuinely heartbroken. “And the search for the ultimate ass-kicking woman continues.”
“Yes, she’s amazing,” Jo said. “She’s pulled me through some pretty bad times lately.”
“Well,” Wolf said, those hard gray eyes seeing far, far more than Jo was giving away. “Sounds to me like you’re lookin’ to start again, huh?”
“Yes. Very much so.” She shrugged a bit, laid a few more cards on the table. “I could use a break, no denying that.”
The men exchanged loaded glances, and suddenly Jo wondered if she’d been wrong to say anything about the abuse and just how recently she’d left the situation. Maybe the guys were going to worry about her mental state, her ability to focus on the tasks and financial details, her current life level of drama. Maybe they’d think she wasn’t emotionally ready for a job that was going to be pretty full-on. She felt a bit sick at her stupidity, but she also knew that these two would have picked up on any evasion or reticence. It was better to have bitten the bullet and come clean, even if it may have just cost her a shot at working here.
“So, here’s the thing about the job,” Wolf said in his ‘so-rough-it’s-hot’ voice, and she almost sagged with relief that employment still seemed to be in the realm of possibility. “You need to know a few things about us before you give a definite answer if you want to go ahead and be considered.”
“OK,” she said, very alert all at once. His wording and expression made her wonder if maybe the MC had returned to its previous more unsavory and less legal activities. “I’m listening.”
“First, I didn’t lie when I told you that everythin’ we do now is legit. Me and my boys are out of that life and we don’t go lookin’ for trouble… but the thing is, Jo, that kind of life ain’t somethin’ that stops cold just because you want it to.”
“Ohhh-kaaay,” Jo said slowly. “So some things have kind of – continued?”
Wolf and Kansas looked at each other again, thinking about Dawson Kinney’s defection from the club and the unforgivable sin of starting his own, The Blood Crew MC. Sure, two years ago Wolf had walked away from all the criminal contracts and contacts… and Dawson and his crew had just turned right around and picked them up. And it’s not like Dawson was ancient history, because less than two weeks before, The Road Devils had lost yet another brother to The Blood Crew. Beams, the Devils’ former Treasurer, had fucked off to join Dawson because he wanted the brutal violence and the waterfall of money of his former life. Wolf wasn’t offering any of that anymore, but Dawson sure as hell was.
“Some things have,” Wolf told Jo now. “When I took the club straight and sober, a few guys were unhappy and they left. Started their own club and walked out the door.”
“Wait,” Jo said blinking. “I thought – I thought that when a guy patches in, it’s for life.”
“It is,” Kansas said heavily. “What those guys did has never been done before, as far as I know.”
“And… so there’s trouble between you and this Dawson guy?” Jo asked Wolf. “He – what? He pops in and out like an evil cartoon villain who refuses to die no matter how many times he gets hit by the train? Starts trouble?”
“Nah, honey,” Wolf said, and Jo blinked again at the casual endearment. Between Wolf’s ‘honey’ and Kansas’ ‘doll’ earlier, she already knew that she�
�d have to make a few adjustments in her expectations. At pretty much any other place she could think of, this would all be a sexual harassment lawsuit waiting to happen, but clearly these guys hadn’t received any memo from HR. “We have a truce and pretty much steer clear of each other. But that don’t mean that he ain’t hangin’ around a bit off-stage sometimes and when he does, it makes things tense with my boys. Some hard feelin’s, you know.”
“I can imagine.”
“So that’s one thing that you’d need to know, that if Dawson and his band of assholes wander around the edges, The Devils get irritated. Don’t take it personally and don’t worry about it because The Crew don’t mean any harm, but when the boys are irritated, they ain’t friendly.”
“OK, got it.”
“Next, you’d need to work very closely with a few people. Zoe and Scars for sure, and Silver the most. I actually wanted Silver here this mornin’ for the interview, but he owns a rental house and a pipe burst last night and he’s over there fixin’ it.”
“Alright… are those three the managers?”
“Yep. Zoe Parish runs the Blue Dragon tattoo parlor, Scars Innis is the MC Vice and he’s manager here at Satan’s bar, and Silver Bennett is in charge of The Garage. You’d actually work with him a lot because the accounting office is above the garage floor, and also because Silver is the club Treasurer. He’s new to the position but he’s smart and he learns fast, and he’s been doin’ the books for the garage for years.”
“And what would Zoe and Scars do with me?”
“Mostly be around to answer questions if any come up. But I’d really want Silver to be the one to get all the paperwork from Zee and Scars every month for you, bring it to you. Keep it simple and streamlined and – what’s the word? Oh yeah – centralized. Wouldn’t want three floods of paper comin’ at you when you could have just one.”
“That would be a great way to work.”
“Yeah. Then if somethin’ didn’t look right or you were missin’ any information, you could ask Silver to get it for you or just talk to Zee and Scars yourself, your choice.”
“Excellent. I’m big on efficiency. Saves time and cuts down on mistakes.”
“Thing is… Zee and Scars and Silver ain’t… uh. Well, they ain’t educated people and not always big on being polite. They hate small-talk and wastin’ time.”
Jo waited. She knew that she was being given a warning of sorts, but if it was that Zoe, Scars and Silver were kind of assholes, then she was cool. She’d yet to work anyplace without a choice handful of pricks determined to make her life difficult: The Road Devils didn’t have a monopoly on jerks, after all.
“They’re just rough around the edges, you know?” Wolf ran his hand through his dark hair, making it even more impossibly and sexily tousled. “Especially Silver.”
“That’s the truth,” Kansas chimed in. “The man is a diamond, but you gotta look pretty hard to see the sparkle, doll.”
“So he’d be OK working with an outsider? A – umm. A citizen?”
“Hell, yeah. He knows the score.” Kansas grinned at her, liking her using MC terms like ‘patch in’ and ‘citizen’. “He can’t handle the complicated money stuff like taxes and shit and anyway, we’ve always worked with people from outside the club on accounts. If we had a qualified accountant in the club it’d be different, but we don’t. We have an ex-doctor, an ex-lawyer, even an ex-pro football player. But no money guy.”
Jo stared at him. “Really? Lawyer and doctor?”
“And pro football player,” Kansas said. “Yep, yep and yep.”
“Huh.” She contemplated that for a few seconds, then smiled again. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised because I know that MC members come from all walks of life and backgrounds, but I have to admit that I am a bit with that information. I’m not really sure why. Stereotypes, I suppose, and that’s not really fair.”
“Oh, we have a few run-of-the-mill ex-thugs too, the kind that you’d probably expect to be skulking around the place,” Kansas said cheerfully. “An ex-bouncer, a few ex-military black ops guys, an ex-drug dealer… we’re a mixed bag of stereotypes and not-so-much, sweetheart, but not one of us would ever hurt anyone we invited in. That’s not how things are done around here.”
She nodded, believing him. If Wolf offered her the job, it was as good as an order for the others to accept his decision, and even if they weren’t interested in being chatty or super-friendly with her, they’d do what they were told. Wolf was President, and his word went. What was it that Zeke had said about that?
The club Prez is King and Emperor and God all rolled up in one and what he says goes, no questions asked by the riff raff.
Damn, damn, damn. Mistake to remember that husky voice, big mistake to remember those astonishing eyes, gargantuan mistake to remember that devastating smile. Jo banished Zeke The Jerk to a nailed-shut box, pushed it off a cliff into a raging river below, refocused on this moment. This was important; Zeke wasn’t.
“So…” Wolf was saying now. “What do you think, darlin’?”
“Uhhh.” Jo felt like she’d missed a vital conversational cue somewhere, and her concentration wasn’t much helped by Wolf calling her ‘darling’ in his own dark and dangerous way. “Sorry. What do I think about what?”
“About comin’ to work with us,” he said as if it were the most simple and obvious thing in the world. “Joinin’ the club, kinda. What do you think?”
And there it was, a formal and official job offer. Jo could be the Denver-based accountant to The Road Devils motorcycle club, something that she’d never thought would ever go on her CV, not in a million years.
What did she think about that, now that the chance was here and it was real?
Well… in order to fully answer that question, she needed to think about Zeke, this time quite deliberately. She’d spent the past three days pushing back hard against his mere earthly existence, pushing back harder against that crunching hurt and bewilderment that she’d felt upon waking up and finding him gone.
But in those few seconds of dawning realization in the morning dawn – that she’d been callously used and dumped alone without a word, that a man had so easily turned on the charm just to seduce her and then snuck out after he’d gotten what he’d wanted – Jo had learned something. That something was bitter and sweet, and it was something to absolutely hold onto now, in this moment. In any moment, actually.
She’d learned that it was important to be brave and open to new experiences, even if they ended up being hurtful or disappointing. In this time in her life, things had to be about the journey and process, not the destination or end result… because she actually had no clue where she was going or what she really wanted.
It wounded her deeply to admit it, even in the quietest recesses of her own mind, but Zeke had given her the most beautiful, earth-shattering, empowering, liberating night of her life. The fact that he was a lying scumbag who’d muttered all those sweet nothings just to fuck her didn’t change that. The fact that she’d so badly mistaken his character didn’t change it, either. Nothing changed the fact that Zeke had shown her what her body was capable of at long last and in doing so, he’d unlocked her embracing her body’s desire for pleasure, for touch, for release.
Zeke was an absolute asshole of a garbage person – but he’d shown her that by being open to going to bed with him, Jo had learned something important about herself. Something that she’d never have known if she hadn’t taken the chance, hadn’t invited him back to her cabin.
Jo had learned that sometimes experiences are incredible enough to be worth it, despite the horrible way that they end.
And Wolf was offering her an experience.
It might all go wrong, of course. It might be a tragic mistake, a stupid move, a massive disappointment. She might get hurt or upset, she might hate the guys, they might hate her, she might want to quit a
fter two days.
But it was an experience that she’d never had before… and that made it an opportunity for something maybe-great that she’d never have thought of before, or expected, or seen coming.
That made it worth the risk.
Briefly and with barely a pang this time, Jo remembered how she’d held her chin up high the morning after as she’d chatted to Nell over coffee and then handed over her cabin key, how she’d calmly met Nell’s knowing look as she’d swept out of The Roaring Red without a backward glance at Zeke’s friend. Jo had had to dig deep for those twenty minutes, she’d fought hard to not look guilty or cheap or embarrassed…but she’d done it. She’d unearthed a reservoir of dignity and grace that she’d rarely dipped into before.
And Zeke had taught her that too, albeit very inadvertently: he’d taught her to refuse to feel shame for wanting what she wanted, and doing what she wanted, and being what she wanted. She’d learned to not apologize for wanting experiences and new things – for wanting something for herself.
No more shame. No more second-guessing. No more apologies.
Never fucking again.
She looked at Wolf and Kansas still waiting to hear what she thought, then she said the first thing that came to mind… and that made it exactly the right thing:
“I think I’ll start tomorrow.”
The Devil's Silver (The Road Devils MC Book 2) Page 11
