Property of Whiskey (Kings of Anarchy MC: Kentucky #5)

Chapter One

Twila

The woman currently trying to choke me with her thighs calls herself Kentucky Fried Carnage, which feels like false advertising considering I’ve spent the last four minutes beating her ass across the ring.

She’s neither from Kentucky nor particularly anything like carnage breaded in eleven herbs and spices.

Her real name’s Sheila, she works the cosmetics counter over in Official, which is what anybody born around here calls Paradise, and she once cried for twenty minutes because somebody left a shopping cart too close to her Buick.

Tonight, however, she’s painted black streaks beneath both eyes, teased her blond hair until it looks electrocuted, and squeezed herself into a red vinyl bodysuit that squeaks every time she moves.

The crowd loves her.

But they love me more.

“Break her arm, Twister!” somebody screams from beside the bar.

I hook Sheila’s ankle beneath my arm, roll my weight across her back, and drag her toward the middle of the ring before she can grab the bottom rope.

Yeah, my wrestling name is Twister Dix.

I didn’t choose it. The bikers at Heck’s Kitchen did, and by the time I realized the announcer had been encouraged to say it fast, loudly, and repeatedly, the name had already appeared on a hundred T-shirts and a poster featuring my ass in denim cutoffs.

My daddy bought every poster he could find and burned them in an oil drum behind the sheriff’s department.

That only made the damn thing collectible.

“Tap,” I tell Sheila, sinking deeper into the hold.

“Go to hell, daddy’s girl.”

“We’re already in Hell, bitch.”

The crowd roars loud enough to rattle the glasses behind the bar.

Heck’s Kitchen squats at the edge of town in what used to be a courthouse, back before Hell became less of a place and more of a collection of bad shit held together with scrap metal and unpaid county fines.

The roof leaks when it rains, the floors are permanently sticky, and half the walls are covered in old license plates, rusted road signs, and framed mugshots belonging to people who still drink here.

The wrestling ring sits where court benches probably used to be, surrounded by crooked rows of folding chairs beneath a grid of mismatched lights.

Heat pours off them hard enough to bake the sweat onto my skin.

A battered bar runs along one wall, beer taps gleaming between old stickers and gouges in the wood, though most people have abandoned their stools now and crowded around the ring, stomping boots and yelling for blood like Sheila and I are gladiators instead of two women making cash on a Wednesday night.

She tries to crawl.

I shift my hips and sit deeper into the hold.

She slaps the mat three times.

The bell clangs, loud, and I release her immediately. Sheila rolls onto her back, sucking air while the referee catches my wrist and drags it upward. Wildcat, one of the Kings, is wearing referee stripes instead of his cut tonight, which somehow makes him look more dangerous instead of less.

“Your winner,” Holler bellows from the announcer’s table, stretching the suspense as if anybody in the building missed what just happened, “the law in Daisy Dukes, Paradise County’s own Twister Dix!”

The place erupts.

At damn near six feet tall, I don’t need much help towering over most women, but I climb the turnbuckle anyway and raise both hands. My long blonde ponytail sticks to the back of my neck, sweat slides between my shoulder blades, and my lungs burn pleasantly with the aftermath of a good match.

Somebody near the front throws a pair of boxer briefs into the ring.

Somebody else throws what appears to be a fried chicken leg.

I duck the chicken.

The boxers land across my boot.

“Classy,” I mutter.

Then I look toward the back of the building and find my father standing beside the entrance with his arms crossed.

Sheriff Amos Dix doesn’t look proud.

He looks like he’s mentally drafting arrest warrants for all eighty people in the room, beginning with the man wearing a shirt that says I GOT TWISTED BY DIX and ending with the bartender currently accepting bets on whether Daddy’s left eye is going to start twitching.

It already is.

His uniform is still neat despite the late hour, tan shirt buttoned high, badge polished, gun belt riding low across his hips. Gray shows heavier through his dark hair than it did last year, though he’d blame me for every strand if asked.

He catches me looking and points toward the locker room. That’s Sheriff Dix for get dressed.

I smile and blow him a kiss. That’s Deputy Dix for absolutely not.

His jaw sets. The crowd laughs because everybody in three towns knows my father has been trying to stop me from wrestling since I first stepped into the ring two years ago.

Not because it’s dangerous. He watched me tackle a meth head through a screen door during my first month on patrol and told me I had good form.

He hates the shorts.

He also hates that bikers watch me wear them. Which means he especially hates the man leaning against the bar twenty feet away from him.

Whiskey doesn’t cheer, clap, whistle, or shout anything filthy like the rest of the Kings scattered through the crowd. He just watches. He lifts his glass to his mouth without taking his eyes off me, slow enough to make the gesture feel deliberate.

That’s worse.

One boot is crossed casually over the other, and his thick forearms rest against the edge of the bar behind him.

His black leather cut hangs open over a faded charcoal shirt stretched across his chest. The patch over his heart reads WHISKEY, and beneath it sits KING OF ANARCHY MC.

The TREASURER rocker on the other side is smaller, but it explains why he always turns up whenever club property or money is involved.

His dark hair is pushed back from his face, though one piece has fallen forward near his temple.

His beard is shorter than most of the Kings wear theirs, trimmed close enough to show the hard line of his mouth.

Dark ink covers both arms, disappearing beneath his sleeves and curling over the backs of his hands.

One piece catches my eye every damn time anyway. A woman’s face worked into the black-and-gray ink along the inside of his left forearm. Dark hair. High cheekbones. Her face turned partly away like whoever tattooed her caught her in the middle of looking back.

I’ve never asked who she is.

Never cared enough to ask, I tell myself.

I’ve seen most of those tattoos before. Not because I’ve seen him naked.

I haven’t.

Not for lack of several regrettable dreams.

Whiskey handles the money for the Kings of Anarchy motorcycle club, which means he turns up anywhere property, taxes, or club business might cost somebody cash.

County meetings when taxes are disputed.

Auctions when land changes hands. Fundraisers when the Kings want everybody to remember they occasionally perform acts of public service between felonies.

He’s smart.

Too smart for a man who spends his free time wearing a patch and pretending laws are casual suggestions.

At the moment, he’s also looking directly at my sweaty thighs.

I hop down from the turnbuckle and bend to pick up the boxers, making damn sure he gets a better view.

His gaze doesn’t move. A slow smile pulls at one side of his mouth.

Damn him.

I toss the underwear back into the crowd, duck between the ropes, and drop to the floor. People reach for me as I pass, slapping my shoulders and offering drinks I can’t accept because I’m still technically on call.

Paradise County doesn’t have enough deputies for me to turn off my radio just because I’m wearing white-fringed boots and shorts my father refers to as probable cause.

I reach the bar and spot the bottle of water waiting for me.

Whiskey gets there first. He picks it up, twists the cap loose, and holds it out.

I look at the bottle, then at him. “You roofie this?”

“Thought about it.”

“Could arrest you for that.”

“For thinking?”

“For a start.”

He keeps holding out the water. “Drink, Twister.”

“My name is Deputy Dix.”

“Not in those shorts.”

I snatch the bottle from his hand. “You discuss my shorts again, and I’ll make sure your next drink comes through a straw.” I take a long swallow anyway. The cold water hits the raw place inside my lower lip and cools the back of my throat. “Keep your eyes off the shorts.”

Whiskey’s gaze drops again, taking its time now that I’ve specifically warned him not to.

“They look dangerous.”

“They are.”

“To you or everybody else?”

“To any man stupid enough to believe they’re an invitation.”

His eyes come back to mine. They’re a strange shade, somewhere between brown and green, warmer beneath the dirty gold bar lights than they ever look outdoors.

“I ain’t stupid,” he says.

“No, you’re a career criminal. Different category.”

“Never been convicted of most of it.”

“Not the defense you think it is.”

One corner of his mouth hooks higher, and something low in my stomach answers before I can threaten it back into submission.

Whiskey has always irritated me.

He irritated me the first time he leaned against my Interceptor during a traffic stop and asked whether the county issued handcuffs in my size.

He irritated me when he paid a parking ticket with pennies.

He irritated me when he walked into the sheriff’s department carrying barbecue and somehow convinced every cop in the building to eat with him while I was still trying to question him about a stolen trailer.

Mostly, he irritates me because every conversation with him feels like a fight I haven’t figured out how to win.

His attention shifts from my eyes to my mouth.

“You got blood on you.”

I swipe beneath my nose.

Nothing.

He reaches out.

My hand closes around his wrist before his thumb gets anywhere near my face.

The movement is instinctive.

So is his response.

He turns his hand inside my grip and wraps his fingers around mine, holding our joined hands between us. He could break my hold. So could I.

Neither of us does.