Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
When I arrived at the clubhouse, I went straight to the bar for a drink.
For once, I didn’t feel like having a shower to scrub all the sleaze off of me after being at the strip club. I couldn’t wait to see what the guys said when I informed them their honey hole was under new management. I had a couple hours to kill before I had to call Liam.
We both missed something we shouldn’t have.
Maybe our numerous requests had spread him too thin.
“Look who’s finally here,” one of the guys greeted me from the end of the bar.
I nodded my head, then turned to our new bartender. “How’s everything tonight?” I asked him.
Archer was the nephew of Rooster, one of our life members. He just moved back here from college and wasn’t able to find a job. He never grew up in our world, so we needed to evaluate his usefulness and willingness to be a part of what we did here. For now, I suggested he take over my bartending duties whenever I needed to step away. He was eager to help, but hadn’t had the opportunity to prove he had the stomach to handle the life.
Yet.
“So far, so good.”
“Tell me if you have any problems.”
“Sure thing, boss,” he replied. “What can I get you?”
“Great, hand me a bottle of Kokanee,” I replied.
While I waited for the beer, I looked around the room. Hunter, Kujo and Gunner were all sitting at the back of the bar. Noting the usual gaggle of girls didn’t surround them, I chanced a drink with them.
“Where were you tonight, Hellcat?” Hunter asked, as I sat down.
“Heaven’s Lace.”
They all looked at me like I was speaking another language.
“Where?” Kujo asked.
“Oh, that’s right, you probably didn’t hear the news.”
“What news?” Gunner asked.
“Home Wreckers is gone,” I told them.
I took a drink of my beer, sat back in my chair, and waited for the epic fallout. Just as expected, they rewarded me with loud groans and cussing around the table as a response. Knowing I had hit my mark, I couldn’t hold back the grin.
“What are you smiling about?” Hunter asked.
“Nothing.”
“I’m just joking.”
“Not funny,” Gunner responded.
“It has a new name now, boys.”
“Seriously?”
“Yep.”
“Man, I hope they don’t change the girls there.”
“I saw some of the same girls, so I doubt the new owner will make too many changes.”
“Those girls got me so hard I could have split wood with my pecker. One time I had to shove ice from my drink down my pants to ease the blue balls Darling gave me doing her lap dance.”
“She’s still there. She was cozying up to the boss tonight.”
“Fuck yeah,” Gunner responded.
“With all the action you get every night, I’m surprised you even know what blue balls are,” I told him.
“If the girls would just let me slip it out in the middle of their lap dances, maybe I wouldn’t get them.”
“I think you need to go into one of the back rooms for that kind of action.”
“What would you know about that, Hellcat?” Hunter teased me.
“That’s what your ex-girlfriend Sapphire told me.”
I left it hang like that. Was I still jealous of the bitch? Yes.
Did I care she was probably diddling customers while she was dating Hunter? Yes.
Was I going to let it fester in my mind for the rest of my life? No.
* * *
The next afternoon, I drove over to where Liam lived.
Which was, ironically enough, in his mom’s basement.
It wasn’t as bad as it sounded.
He was the one who actually owned the house, even if she had no clue. She had a bad habit of trusting the wrong men. Over the years, they had strolled in and out of there.
So it didn’t surprise me at all when I pulled up just down the street from Liam’s house, and saw some sketch bag slinking out of the front gate.
Maybe that was the reason we got along so well.
When his mom wasn’t dating or moving men into their house, she was a single parent. His bio dad’s parents set him up with a trust fund and were willing to pay for his education. However, that was as far as their pocketbooks would go. His birth was something of a scandal because he was one of the Huntingtons, and just to stick it to them, his mom named him after his father, thus ending a long tradition of naming the first born Victor William Huntington.
Liam enjoyed sticking it to his father’s side of the family whenever he got the chance. They were cold, distant, and the only reason they likely sent him to Hilton Preparatory Academy was to save face. In return, he agreed to attend some non-family, high society type functions.
The only thing I ever wanted was to prove I belonged in my world. Most of the guys accepted my presence, while the others grinned and bear it. After all, I was just a fickle female, and we all change our minds like a flitty faerie. The fact of the matter was that I lived in a man's world. Unless I could prove my cajones were as big as theirs and I didn't care how bloody my hands got, there was no place for me in the organization.
The thing was, I had no desire to get down on my knees or spread my legs to stay here. Not that I had anything against the old ladies of our organization, because I didn't. I just wanted to earn my place another way and prove I didn't need a man to make me feel complete.
My mom never acted broken-hearted over my father not staying. Despite that, I didn't want to flit from man to man in search of my value. I already knew what I was worth, and it was a hell of a lot more than any man would ever think. Just ask all the men who paraded through my mom’s trailer.
I watched and waited for the guy to get in his vehicle and take off before I got off my bike. Once he was gone, I shut off the ignition and walked up the street. The gate squeaked as I pushed it open and walked through. The house was a generic model bungalow that matched every third house down the street. I followed the sidewalk around to the back so I could use the separate entrance for Liam’s suite.
“You should really lock that,” I teased him.
“I knew you were coming,” he replied. The night before I told him I would come hang out. Hopefully he would have something for me on the new owners of Heaven’s Lace.
“I could have been one of your mom’s conquests trying to wrangle a free room.”
“Did you see the one who just left?”
“Hard not to miss the walk of shame as he snuck through the gate and took off.”
“He’s probably too wasted to remember, but that’s the second time his geriatric ass has been here.”
I laughed.
“Come on in.”
I followed him down the stairs to his man cave. On one side of the room he had a large seventy inch television and on the other, too many computer monitors to count. They almost filled the entire wall and most of them had long strings of code running through the screen. There was a door off to the side that led to his bedroom and another to the bathroom. The only thing he didn’t have was a full kitchen, but it didn’t matter cause he still hadn’t grown out of the whole ordering in phase.
“You can just sit anywhere,” he told me.
“There aren’t any old cheezies on the couch are there?”
“Shouldn’t be.”
“Better not be. Last time I left your place and went back to the bar, they accused me of getting Garfield’s spunk all over my jeans.”
He barked out a laugh.
“It wasn’t funny.” I crossed my arms and scowled at him.
“A little funny,” he argued.
“Whatever,” I told him as I dropped into his recliner.
Liam walked over to the fridge, grabbed a couple of beers and returned. He handed one of the beers to me and sat on the couch.
“I looked into the owner of Heaven’s Lace, but I haven’t been able to find anything. His background is almost a little too clean.”
“What about the daughter?”
“Nothing beyond her enrollment in Hilton Prep,” he responded. “They both moved here from Italy, but that’s all I’ve got.
“Keep digging.”
“I will.”
“What about Axel or whatever the hell his name is?”
“Officer Braxton Axel Erickson is his full name.” So that was his real name. “I didn’t find much more than we already knew. He was taken out of the academy and placed undercover with the Chaos Crows. He’s nine years older than you and was undercover for seven years.”
“I knew about the age difference.”
He waggled his brows. “Just means more experience.”
I smiled, thinking of just how much more experience.
“You’re thinking about it right now aren’t you?”
“Maybe,” I told him.
“Don’t cream on my recliner.”
I choked on my beer, almost spitting it out on his coffee table.
“You’re an ass,” I told him as I swatted at his arm.
“You love me,” he replied as he dodged me.
“Sometimes.”
“Have time to watch a movie?”
“Sure, why not.”
After the movie was done, I left for my shift at the bar.