Chapter 32 Kitty
THIRTY-TWO
KITTY
The MC compound looked nothing like those I’d seen on TV.
It wasn’t clean and tidy, despite being relatively well put together.
Okay, that was mean. A couple dozen men lived here, so the fact we didn’t walk straight into a pig sty said a lot.
More asscheeks hung out of short-shorts than could be sanitary, and I managed to catch the tail-end of a blow job as a door to one of the bedrooms closed.
The whole thing reminded me of that night out when Neev had accidentally doped me with a tab of LSD.
In fact, that trip had psyched me out less than being led into an overly large office where four men and a woman in skintight, head-to-toe denim waited for us—armed like the IRA and we were the British.
Lucifer was older than me by at least a decade and a half, but I seriously hoped I could pull off a catsuit like that when I hit her age.
She fascinated me more than her men. And they were sexy silver foxes. Each and every one of them.
Especially the guy with the bright, gray-speckled red hair and cheeks so full of freckles you couldn’t drop a needle where one didn’t take up any room on his face.
To contain four guys like this—four brothers. To have them drooling over her in a place with sex on tap from the women who considered anything below the ass cheeks demure?
Now that was impressive.
The head honcho behind the desk, slouched and twirling a knife on its point into the blotter, barely lifted his head as we strolled into his study.
“We don’t often have guests,” the woman, Lucifer, cooed as she ambled over to us. That was when I saw her hooker heels and had to stop myself from drooling.
“Where did you get those bad boys from?”
“Oh?” She paused that boss-ass stride to frown. “I grew up with them.”
“She meant your shoes,” Stan commented.
He gave me a look that said for my sake, he hoped that was what I’d meant.
Preening, Lucifer chuckled as she displayed her shoes to my fascinated gaze, angling them this way and that. “These old things?”
Sexy Freckles snorted. “They’re to torture us into compliance. She’s more comfortable in shitkickers.”
“Not around guests,” Lucifer hissed.
Stan flicked Freckles a look. “Flame.”
With a mane of hair like that, I understood how he’d earned the nickname. Throw in the incessant flicking of a Zippo lighter and I got the memo real fast.
“Stan.” He hovered the flame uncomfortably close to his beard. “How’s the fam?”
“We’re doing all right.”
“Heard you were in the hospital.”
“Axe, don’t be rude,” Lucifer purred at one of the other men who leaned against a window.
“How is he being rude?”
Lucifer popped her hip and sassed the guy behind the desk. “Wolfe, it’s rude. And dumb. Now he knows we got eyes on him.”
Stan released a huff of laughter. “I figured as much already.”
When Flame carried on waving the lighter around, I cleared my throat. “Excuse me, Mr. Flame, but beards are flammable, you know?”
Lucifer chuckled. “He likes fire.”
I shared a wide-eyed look with Raisin, who gulped.
Reassuring.
“You sure there’s a problem with that private jet of yours?” grumbled Wolfe, the President—at least, I assumed from the ‘Prez’ patch on his leather vest.
How handy that these guys came with name tags!
“Trust me, I want to be here as much as you want me hanging around. You seen these three women? They’re not jailbait anymore, but I can guaran-fucking-tee that your brothers will be sniffing around them like they got out of jail after a forty-year stint—”
“Is that supposed to be a compliment?” Raisin protested.
“—and the last thing I need is a problem with the Irish.”
“Why the Irish? Your brother’s married to one, ain’t he?” A pointed look flicked between the pair of us. “And you’re in the same tricolor boat, no?”
“Dagger,” Lucifer fussed. “We do not interrogate guests.”
It seemed to me that Lucifer’s men didn’t consider us guests.
Stan, in apparent agreement with Lucifer’s men, reflected, “If I don’t return these women to their brothers in one piece, then I figure we’ll be starting another turf war between the Irish, the Sicilians, and you.
Seeing as they’re one of your biggest buyers, that might present a problem for your MC. ”
Gah.
Checkmate.
So hot.
Even hotter when four men glared at him and without a care in the world, he sauntered over to the visitor’s seat, sank into it, and then planted his folded hands on his abs. “You didn’t have to put us up. I’m sure there’s a motel somewhere.”
“We wouldn’t hear of it.” Lucifer’s tone sharpened. “Would we?”
Stan’s threat had clearly made its mark.
Flame, still waggling that damn lighter, smirked. “Not if we want your pussy gloving our cocks some time this century, Lucie.”
That earned him an approving glance as well as her sashaying over to him and perching on his lap. Flame proceeded to finally close the lighter, slide his arms around her waist, and tuck her tightly into him.
Honestly, it was sweet. Even if a bit crass.
Made me think of Belle and Cade.
God only knew what monstrous deeds my brother had done in his time on this planet, but whatever it was, it hadn’t diminished his capacity to love. Or to show his wife that adoration either.
Wolfe stopped spinning his knife on the desk and skewered Stan with a look instead. I would’ve prescribed a course of anger management classes. Stat. “You have an ETA on your departure?”
“If there’s an issue with the jet, we’ll hire a car and get out of your hair tomorrow.”
“The jet’ll still be up in my business though, won’t it?”
Stan drummed his fingers against the armrest. “You got a problem with me, Wolfe? Last thing I knew, we dropped two million on some of your merchandise, and you didn’t seem to have an issue then.”
Two goddamn million?
The Prez ignored that pointed comment. “You bringing trouble with you from Mexico? Heard rumblings on the border about Martinez cleaning up shop.”
“That has nothing to do with me.”
“No? Heard about the blasts too.”
“You heard a lot of fucking things, haven’t you, Wolfe?”
“Pays to keep your ear to the goddamn ground in this world. While we’re on the topic of listening to the fucking bullshit that happens on the regular, I also heard that Dead To Me’s dead.”
Stan’s shock manifested in stillness. “You know her?”
Lucifer hummed. “I’ll miss her if she’s truly gone. Love her or loathe her, she’s a bad penny, that one. Always turns up when you’re short.”
“She a customer?” Stan bit off.
“Duh.”
My lips twitched at her sass, even as I wondered what the hell they sold that could cost two million bucks.
Guns didn’t cost that much or… did they?
“Take more than deepthroating some C4 to kill Dead To Me,” Flame rumbled, giving his woman a squeeze.
Lucifer cupped her elbows, but it was Dagger who remarked, “Maybe. Good luck can’t last forever.”
That announcement cast a somber pall over the room’s inhabitants—Stan included.
Neev and Raisin shot me more wide-eyed looks, but I shook my head at them. Staying out of this was the wisest course of action. Unfortunately for us, these weren’t bears. The adage, “If it's black, fight back; if it's brown, lie down,” would get us nowhere here.
And we were definitely the plump and juicy prey in a den of apex predators.
After what appeared to be a collective moment of silence on Dead To Me’s behalf, Stan released a breath. “Show us where you want to dump us and we’ll be out of your hair by tomorrow morning.”
Dagger sniffed. “That a promise?”
“That’s a promise.”
Wolfe dipped his chin, and that triggered the mostly quiet MC brother, Axe, into opening the door and waiting for us to shuffle out.
With him as our guide, we garnered more attention than before. I could feel the men’s interest settling around us like smoke. Surging and falling in waves as it licked at our heels.
The urge to pull Neev and Raisin into my sides reigned supreme. Some of the MC brothers might be as sexy as the ones on TV and in books, but that didn’t stop me from shitting myself.
Led toward a bunkhouse for ‘brothers on a run,’ i.e., their guest quarters, I only sagged in relief once Axe had left us to it.
Stan immediately dragged his phone out and began making calls. Most of them in something that sounded like Italian but not, so I couldn’t eavesdrop. Damn sexy though, whatever it was.
Even petrified for my sisters, and their ability to keep their panties on, I had to appreciate the very fine man sharing the bunkhouse with us.
Once Raisin, Neev, and I gathered in the kitchen, Neev admonished, “It’s rude to gawk, Kitty.”
Ignoring her, I kept a weather eye on Stan over the breakfast bar that separated the two small rooms.
While Raisin bustled around, brewing coffee from the pack in the fridge, Neev asked, “Who’s Dead To Me?”
“I don’t know for sure. What I do know is she was the target in last night’s blast.”
My sisters gawked at me.
Neev choked. “You didn’t think to share that with the class?”
“When was I supposed to? You made kissy face with Miguel for most of the morning—”
“Fuck off. That tequila was potent and my hangover was epic.”
“—and Raisin wanted to jump into a sinkhole and hide.”
“I asked for a short break, not to dive into an episode of The Sopranos.”
I ignored her. “Still hungover, Neev?”
“We don’t all have Alka-Seltzer running through our veins.”
I leaned against the counter. “Star Sullivan apparently sent Dead To Me to watch over Stan.”
Raisin nearly dropped the French press she was rinsing. “What?!”
“Star Sullivan?” Neev gasped. “The Star Sullivan? Conor O’Donnelly’s Star? Our O’Donnelly’s Star?!”
“That one—”
“You girls doing okay?”
In sync, we jumped until I glanced at the door and found Stan standing there.
Apparently, surveillance wasn’t in my skill set.
As I glanced his way, what blew my mind was the intensity of his focus.
Not on my sisters. Just on me.
To be at the epicenter of his attention…
This man was terrifying.
What he could do, what he’d done…
How he’d managed these terrifying people like it was easy…