Braxton (The Black Roses MC #8)

Prologue

Vanessa

“Happy fucking birthday to me,” I mumble before throwing back the shot of tequila and slamming the glass on the bar.

It was a shit night for tips at the club I work at. Whoever said strippers are rolling in cash obviously has never danced for six hours on a Tuesday night. But it’s not like I had anything better to do for my birthday, and rent’s due in a couple days.

“I didn’t know it was your birthday, girl. Happy birthday.” The bartender, Clyde, gives me a wide, toothy grin and sets another shot on the bar. “On the house.”

I hold the glass up in cheers. “Have I ever told you you’re my favorite bartender, Clyde?”

“That’s because I’m the only one who took your fake ID. Don’t act like I didn’t know you’ve been coming here before you were legal, Vanessa.” He quirks a brow, and if I had any shame, I’d be embarrassed. But I’m me, and well…I don’t. “How old are you today, anyways?”

I let out an overly exaggerated gasp and pretend to clutch my nonexistent pearls. “Clyde, don’t you know it’s rude to ask a lady her age? And of course I wasn’t using a fake ID. I would never.”

I’ve been coming to this bar, aptly named Hole in the Wall, since I was seventeen.

Thankfully, I could pass for a few years older, especially coming from work when I still had a face full of makeup and acted like I had every right to pull up a stool.

Of course, I didn’t, but fake it till you make it and all that.

Or in this case, fake it until you’re of age—and as of today, I am.

“If you must know, I’m turning twenty-five today.” I give Clyde one of my megawatt smiles that usually has men throwing money on the stage.

Clyde’s eyes widen as he tilts his head to the side. “What a coincidence. I’m about to turn twenty-five next month.” Clyde isn’t a day under fifty, and that’s being generous.

“You look great for your age, Clyde. You must share your skin-care routine with me.” I shoot him a wink and take the shot, biting into the bitter lime after I swallow the spicy tequila.

Clyde rolls his eyes and walks away to help the few other customers at the other end of his bar.

I found this place on my way home from Siren’s Call, the strip club I dance at. It had been my second shift, and I needed a long walk to work off the anxiety from having to take my clothes off for money.

While the few friends I had were going into their senior year of high school, my worthless stepfather died, and before his grave had been dug, his son claimed the house we all lived in as his own and decided that we needed to move.

Out of the goodness of my stepbrother Russ’s heart, he offered me an apartment in the building his dad, Lev, had owned before his passing.

We still had to pay rent—of course. Russ wasn’t running a charity, after all.

But we did get a five percent family discount.

And since my mom was in no shape to argue or even figure out a way to support the three of us without Lev, we moved into the two-bedroom apartment.

Russ is a spiteful asshole who wanted the house to himself, but out of respect for the memory of his father, he couldn’t kick us out onto the street. What a fucking crock of shit.

When I walked into Hole in the Wall that first time, I had an ID that said I was freshly twenty-one and a little cash in my pocket.

Clyde was behind the bar, like he’s been nearly every night.

He looked at me, then at my ID, and back to me again.

I didn’t think he necessarily believed it was real, but it was—and still is—a damn good fake.

When your stepbrother is part of the New York arm of the Russian Bratva, you get premium papers and documents for anything you might need.

He needed to make damn sure if we ever got raided for any reason, his staff could claim there was no way for them to know I was actually underage.

He needed a dancer, and rent was due the first of every month.

He decided that as long as I worked in the organization’s many clubs, we’d have a rent-controlled apartment in New York.

And four years later, we still have a home and I still work for Russ.

But I also have Clyde, and on the bad nights, I take a small amount of comfort in that, not that I would ever tell him that.

The poor man doesn’t strike me as the type to handle emotion from a woman well at all.

And I’m also not the type to show it. What would be the point?

Even if I cried to him about my problems, there would be nothing he or anyone else could do to fix them.

It’s always been up to me, and I don’t live under the illusion that’s ever going to change.

I’ve always liked Hole in the Wall because it’s far enough away from the strip club that none of those guys wander in here after watching me take my clothes off.

A little after-work anonymity does wonders for my mood before I have to go home and crawl into bed, dreaming of somehow getting enough money together to get the hell out of New York. Plus, the tequila doesn’t hurt.

There’s nothing flashy about the place. A single pool table in the back and a few tables with red leather chairs you can sink into.

The barstools with backs are my personal favorite.

I can sit by myself and lean into my seat, letting the shift melt away.

That’s what Hole in the Wall is for me. I have tequila, Clyde, and an old-school jukebox.

“Hey, you look familiar,” a man to the right of me says. My head turns, and I give him my full attention. If his blown-out pupils tell me anything, it’s that he’s been partying all night with more than just alcohol.

“I get that a lot,” I tell him, refocusing my attention on the television that’s playing some baseball game replay that I couldn’t give two shits about.

“Wait, I know where I know you from. You dance at Siren’s Call,” he persists.

I don’t look at him when I say, “Never heard of it.”

The man practically collapses into the seat next to me, and my back becomes ramrod straight. Clyde isn’t behind the bar at the moment. He’s probably changing a keg in the back. That’s the only time he ever steps away.

“Oh, don’t be like that. Let me buy you a drink.” He rests his elbow on the bar and leans into it, his mouth in a wide smile. “You know, I know a great way for girls like you to make some extra cash.” He arches a brow with excited eyes as though he’s just offered me a fucking gold bar.

“A girl like me, huh? And what kind of girl do you think I am exactly?” My hand slides to the pocket of my jeans—the one on the opposite side of this asshole.

I slip a knife out and open the three-inch blade, hiding it from view.

Clyde will be pissed if I spill blood in his bar, but if this man doesn’t take the fucking hint, I’m not above stabbing any wandering hands that make unwanted contact with my body.

“Oh, come on. Girls who take their clothes off for money are more than willing to do other things for money. And I have it. Plenty of it, in fact. I could pay you for a whole night if you want to get—”

“Hey, pal, it sounds like you’re about to proposition my woman. I highly suggest you suck those words back into your filthy mouth, pay your tab, and get the fuck out of here,” a deep, rumbling voice says from the other side of me.

The man who the voice belongs to places his hand over the knife I have resting against my leg. He doesn’t try to grab the blade or my arm; he simply rests his hand on top of mine as if to tell me I’ve got this.

When I turn my head in his direction, my eyes connect to a broad chest before my gaze travels upward, finally landing on a square jaw with dark stubble surrounding a set of lips pressed together in a firm line.

I look into deep blue eyes that aren’t focused on me but on the shithead on the other side of me.

I don’t know about him, but if this brick house of a man were directing a look like that at me, I’d be about ready to piss my pants.

“Sorry, I didn’t know she was taken,” the guy says to my apparent knight in shining armor, if said armor were a red flannel and a pair of dark blue jeans that hug his tree-trunk thighs.

“She is, and you’re not moving fast enough. I won’t repeat myself,” the stranger says with an unspoken threat lacing his words.

“Hey, no harm, no foul. Let me buy you a drink.”

“If you don’t get up in the next three seconds and walk the fuck out of this bar, I can guaran-fucking-tee you’re going to regret every choice you’ve ever made in life that brought you here tonight,” I tell the sleazeball. “Like my man said, he’s not going to repeat himself.”

The stranger rubs his thumb against my thigh, and though I’m only sitting here threatening the shit-for-brains next to me because he tried to touch what wasn’t his, the gesture soothes something deep inside me that no one has ever cared enough to comfort.

He’s relaying the message that he has my back. It’s fucking weird.

“Alright, alright.” Finally, the douchebag gets up from his seat and slinks out the door.

My savior relaxes a fraction and removes his hand from my leg. I feel the coldness left behind immediately.

“Mind if I sit down?” he asks.

“Please.” I close the knife in my hand and slide it back into my pocket as he arranges his legs under the bar. “Do you often go into dive bars and rescue women from unwanted advances?”

Quiet laughter shakes his shoulders. “I have a feeling you would have been perfectly fine on your own. Just figured I’d save you the paperwork at the police station. Plus, this is a nice place. I’d hate to see it stained with that asshole’s blood.”

I look to my left, to my right, then behind me. “This place is a shithole.”

His laughter continues as Clyde makes his way back behind the bar, having missed the entire ordeal while he was doing fuck knows what. He tosses a coaster in front of the stranger. “What are you having?”

“Bottle of beer and two shots of whatever the lady is drinking.”