Slider's Property (The Kings of Darkness MC #5)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

(Skyler, AKA Slider)

Nothing like hanging out in enemy territory to get an intel drop. I scrub a hand over my face, shifting inside my leather jacket. Not my cut. The goal tonight was to look like any other guy at the strip club.

Ace scans the lot. Nothing moving but his eyes.

He’s the kind of guy you want in any gunfight. Never rattled. Not me. I need motion.

When my patience snaps, I turn toward the door. “Let’s go in and get a drink.”

“Fucking crazy,” he grumbles.

“You know it.”

I’m opening the door to the Pussy Palace by the time he catches up.

A wave of perfume and thumping music hits me square in the face.

The club is busy and a few eyes flick our way, including a female bartender who shifts uncomfortably behind her long wooden domain.

But I can only see one thing.

The dancer.

The dryness in my throat makes it hard to swallow as she spins around the pole, her black hair lying down her back like a sinful waterfall.

I know that girl. Or know of her.

Gigi Harlow, daughter of the Dagger’s MC Prez.

And she’s dancing in this shit hole.

What the literal fuck?

The song ends and she lowers her eyes. Hustling off the dance floor, ignoring the whistles, leaving half the money on the stage.

Jesus.

My blood is working double-time. Heating up vessels in bad places. I give myself a mental shake even though it feels like I just took a round in my crotch.

I force myself to do what I came in here for. To get a drink.

“Gentlemen,” the bartender murmurs, avoiding looking me in the eyes. “What’s your order?”

“Something cold from the tap.”

My voice is thick and rough because the woman on the stage has unleashed a shot of testosterone in my blood.

“Same,” Ace rumbles, staring at me. His glare is hot on the side of my face.

“What?” I demand without bothering to look at him.

“You know what,” he puts his back to the bar, hooking his thumbs in his jeans.

The bartender’s hands move fast, nervously, as she gets two glasses and fills them from the closest beer tap. She knows we’re not in the Daggers proven by the way she asks, “Where you guys from?”

“Bout twenty miles outside Boyles,” I reply. It’s not a lie, that’s where I grew up and it’s not associated with any MC.

She gives me a skeptical frown. “Long way from home.”

Ace’s stone-face is frozen in its usual unreadable state. She doesn’t bother speaking to him.

“Nice night for a ride,” I counter and glance at the stage again like I give a shit about the ass shaking going on up there. “You know a man will go a long way for the right kind of service.”

Fact. And if a man is hard up, he knows the Pussy Palace is the place he can buy cheap tail.

If you’re into that shit.

Picking up the cash I’ve laid out, she leans across the counter, but not before glancing around. “You do know the Prez and his guys are here?”

“Thanks, but I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Well I wouldn’t be hanging around here. Drink your drink and leave,” she drops her voice to a whisper as a bouncer starts to move our direction. “If you’re here to get laid, I wouldn’t get on with it. But don’t draw any attention to yourself. Your life isn’t worth a piece of ass.”

She pulls away, flicking her blonde ponytail over her shoulder.

It’s a public venue. Technically owned by a corporate that’s tied to the Daggers MC. The odds of them knowing who I am is slim. I’m hours from Broken Wheel, where my chapter of the Kings of Darkness is.

Still.

It’s risky to be here. Doesn’t stop me from leaning against the bar with the question swimming in the back of my head—have we been made or does she warn everyone who comes in here?

As Ace turns up his beer, he growls, “Incoming.”

Great. I keep my hand where it is… not on the gun under my jacket.

The bouncer steps in my line of sight, crossing two arms with basketballs for biceps.

“You hassling the help?” he demands, snarling his lip.

I give him a casual shrug because I’m not here for a fight. I’m here for information. “You mean talking to the bartender? I ordered a drink.”

“What were you whispering to her.”

“I ain’t whispered since I was in kindergarten, but she was telling me who gives the best head.”

She overhears and remarks “That would be SugarBell. Right, Wrecker?”

He gives her a narrowed eye look and she chuckles. “Right, like I said, SugarBell. She’s over there with the red teddy on.”

“Thanks.” I take my beer, step around Meat Head and aim that way with Ace not far behind, muttering how he’s going to personally beat my ass for this stunt.

With beer clenched in his fist, Ace takes the table nearest the hallway that leads into a darkened back part of the building. I leave my beer with him as I head for the men’s room.

Not toward SugarBell.

Conveniently, I actually need to take a leak.

The music fades as I follow the hallway away from the stage. A neon pink sign flickers at the end, flashing the word, Restroom.

Men’s on the right. Women’s on the left. Two other doors. One the exit, the other… maybe where those blowjobs happen.

I shouldn’t be surprised when one opens. But am rocked back when a warm body wrapped in a satin robe slams “Oh god!”

The woman shrieks from beneath the hood of her robe as she shoves past me, smashing the exit bar on the metal door.

Her heels clatter on the tile as she almost goes down.

What the fuck?

Instinct drives me to follow.

The door exits on the side rear of the building in the darkest part of the parking lot. By the time I can locate her she’s inside a car, the rattle-trap engine is starting.

Behind me, the door to the bar slams open and two men in cuts—Daggers MC cuts—storm out. Neck muscles building, squinted eyes searching the dark.

I step deeper into the shadow cast by a truck.

“Fucking hell. Where is she?” one curses as he punches furiously on his phone.

A Colt-45 barely reflects the low light as the other man checks around the empty cars parked along the far edge of the lot. “She’s not here.”

The guy with the phone suddenly focuses on a black Charger. “Her car’s here. She can’t be far.”

By some miracle they didn’t see the woman rolling out of the lot in someone’s dark gray Dodge.

Is that weird sensation I’m getting pride?

She was smart. No lights, kept the engine as quiet as she could. Running in someone else’s car.

“Prez’s is gonna lose his shit.” The Colt goes back in his holster as he stalks back to his friend.

“No shit. We need to find her fast. That was five-hundred K on the table in there. He’s not going to be happy about losing it.”

I don’t know what went down behind that door that sent the woman running. But the Daggers are into all kinds of dirty business.

They hustle back toward the building, neither of them even realize I’m in the shadows. They have one thing in mind.

Well, so do I. And she’s running.

The two of them disappear into the club and I throw my leg over my bike. She’s got a five minute head start. That’s nothing.