Sneak Peak at Bender
Loud bass thundered through my bones. I squinted my eyes as the lights around me flashed. Hundreds of women in scantily clad clothing swiveled their hips while men groped their asses. I stifled a chuckle at how all of them hoped to get a piece of ass later on that evening.
I made my way through the crowd, avoiding several women who grabbed for me, and took my usual spot overlooking the dance floor. This club, Heist, was one of the best decisions our motorcycle club ever made.
I turned my head towards the wall behind the DJ booth. A large image of a skull mixed with a scorpion stood there proudly as if it was overlooking the debauchery below. There was no question who owned this club; The Steel Scorpions MC.
I smiled at the crowd and mentally calculated about how much money the club would be raking in tonight. Not only from club goers drinking and dancing on this level. But from our more private experiences that took place in the upper rooms of the building.
Heist wasn’t your typical nightclub and I fucking loved that.
The Steel Scorpions owned several nightclubs around the Twin Bays area, practically dominating the space.
The money we raked in from our high-end clubs—and high-end clientele—was enough to pull us out of the arms’ trading business.
It was great for me—I hated trading those fucking guns and constantly having to evade the damn Feds every time we wanted a big-ass payday.
To an outsider, it looked as though our club had gone one hundred precent straight. Which was helpful for us to accomplish what we wanted to in Twin Bays.
“Hey, Bender!”
I heard Fangs, our President, calling me. “What!?”
He crooked his finger, and I knew something had gone down.
There was a particularly drunk woman next to him, clinging to him as if her life depended on it.
I rolled my eyes and pushed off the wall.
I filled the dark corners of the club with my eyes and ears, waiting to make sure no bullshit went down in our clubs.
I bounced from club to club every night with Goose, our Road Captain, just to make sure we didn’t need to whoop someone’s ass.
And as I strode toward Fangs, I knew something had popped up.
“Can you get her laid down somewhere? Her drink’s been spiked.”
I scooped the slurring, stumbling woman into my arms. “Got it. Need any help?”
Fangs shook his head. “I got Viper sniffing out who it is. We’ll get ‘em.”
Viper was our Enforcer. A mountain of a man with muscles the size of Mount Everest. I thanked my stars every god damn time I looked at him that he was on our side and not part of one of our enemies’ clubs.
And after confirming my understanding with Fangs via a head nod, I took the drooling woman into a back room that we reserved specifically for women who needed to sleep some shit off.
Which clearly, she needed.
“There we go,” I grunted as I eased her down onto the cot. “This should keep you warm for the evening.”
“I hah-uh-pur-se.”
I nodded. “I’ll go look for your purse; just rest here.”
A tear leaked down her cheek. “Why-ee?”
I sighed. “Men are shit, that’s why. It has nothing to do with you.”
She closed her eyes. “See-ee.”
I nodded. “Get some sleep. Don’t worry, you’re safe.”
I tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, then I made sure to lock the door behind me before I closed it shut.
We didn’t have to use that room very often, but we had five different beds set up just in case.
Most women that stayed back there were simply too drunk to get themselves home, so we made up a space for them to sleep it off.
Every once in a while, one of our high-end clientele got too embarrassingly drunk to step out into public, so we gave them the option of sleeping it off as well so the paparazzi didn’t snap pictures of them in their fragile states.
But the idea of a man in our club drugging up some helpless woman so he could get laid?
That was a dick I wanted to shove down the garbage disposal.
“Any luck?” I asked as I slipped back out into the club.
Viper nodded, but all he did was point. And when my eyes followed his direction, I saw that Angel, our Sergeant at Arms, already had his claws sunken into the bullshit excuse for a man.
I waved my hand in the air. “I’ll let him handle it this time. The woman’s back there already asleep. Make sure you check on her before we shut the club down.”
When Viper nodded at me again, I went off in search of another dark corner to perch in.
While my job was to hunt down any nefarious characters that might stumble through our front doors, I also had a nose for picking out journalists.
Paparazzi that were undercover and trying to snap pictures of people who paid us a great deal of money to keep them on the down-low for an evening.
I hated journalists. I hated the fucking media.
They were nothing but a bunch of attention-hungry whoremongers that got their rocks off by making other people miserable for fifteen minutes each night.
And as my eyes flickered toward the bar, I zeroed in on a man in a blazer and faded jeans with his head on a swivel.
He also had his phone panning around the club.
“Gotcha,” I murmured.
I strode across the dance floor, maneuvering around the close bodies. I locked my eyes with the man and he scrambled to put his phone away. He knew he’d been caught, and I sure as hell wasn’t allowing him to go without seeing that phone first.
“So,” I said as I slipped beside him at the bar, “you did read the signs coming in, didn’t you?”
The man grabbed his drink. “Not sure what you’re talking about.”
I nodded toward the phone on his hip. “Not many people clip their phones to their belt any longer. Mind if I take a look?”
He scoffed. “It’s my phone. You don’t get shit.”
“Well, you’re on private property. My guys and I own this building, and the rest of the buildings we operate out of, and we have rules you automatically agree to abide by the second you walk through those doors.
So, you can hand me your phone so I can go through it, or I’ll let my friend Viper handle it from here. ”
He scoffed. “And who is this Viper character you speak of? Maybe he’d like to give me a quote on something I’m researching.”
“Yes?” Viper asked.
The man’s shadow cloaked the spindly journalist, and as his deep, resonating voice shook my ribcage, the journalist slowly raked his eyes up the massive human being. Viper stared down at him with those dark, brooding brown eyes. The man was a force to be reckoned with, I’d tell you that.
That journalist tossed me his phone like it was a damn hot potato he wanted to get rid of. “Fine, fine. Whatever.”
I snatched it up and swiped across the screen. “Passcode?”
The man rolled his eyes. “9-1-1-0.”
I typed it in. “Wow, you’ve got pictures and videos. Anything else I should know about? Because you really don’t want to make me work for it.”
The journalist licked his lips. “No.”
I leaned toward him. “You’re lying. Viper?”
The mountain man snatched the guy’s arm up. “Come with me.”
“Wait, wait, wait!” the journalist exclaimed. “Th-th-th--there’s interview material, too. In the notes application. You can delete it all, just call off your dog!”
Viper growled, but I held up my hand as I deleted things with my other hand. I gave his phone a nice once-over, making sure absolutely everything had been erased from not only his galleries and his notes, but also from the SIM card on his phone.
“Think twice before you try this stunt again, otherwise I’ll have your job,” I glowered.
I tossed the journalist his phone back and I’d never seen someone run out of the club as quickly as he had.
“Good job, Viper,” I said as I held my fist out.
He fist-bumped me, then headed back into his corner to perch.
“Office time,” I said breathlessly.
I slid off the barstool and made my way back down into the hallway.
I unlocked the door to the room with the beds with a key strapped to my hip and peeked in on the snoring female.
She was out like a light, and probably would be until the morning.
Which meant I had a hell of a long night of work ahead of me.
I always stayed the night in the office when women were sleeping shit off in that room.
“All right,” I said as I started down the hallway, “let’s get on with it.”
The second I walked into the office space, Goose and Angel turned around to clap.
I took a mocking little bow before we all busted out laughing, then I flopped down into my chair at the computer.
I toggled the mouse as a sigh left my lips.
I hated nights like this. Nights when, had it not been for us, yet another woman would’ve become yet another statistic.
“Wait, what the hell is this?” I asked breathlessly.
I had an email in my inbox from Reaper, our Tech Officer.
He had been stationed at Clutch tonight since we were having issues with the new security system that had been installed a month ago.
He was in the process of bypassing a few of their own safety protocols to make the application and software work more fluently for what we needed from it, and the title of the email caught my eye.
D.R. Sighted. Chased Off.
“Shit,” I hissed as I opened the email.
Viper’s voice appeared behind me. “Got Reaper on the phone.”
I didn’t bother turning toward him. “Viper, go check on him at Clutch. The Devil’s Rage have paid our club a visit.”
“On it,” Viper said.
“You need someone to go with him?” Goose asked.
I read the email quickly before I swiveled around in the chair. “Why the fuck are these assholes suddenly making moves on our nightclubs? Didn’t they learn their lesson with Heist a month ago?”
Viper strode out of the office. “I’ll take Fangs with me.”
“Good idea!” I called after him.