by Addison Jane
I could already see the faces in the room begin to light up at the sinister sound of my dad’s voice, one that told every motherfucker within a hundred mile radius to grab hold of their balls because there was a high chance they’d be chopped off if they didn’t.
What this asshole had done wasn’t simply a step over the line, or enough to piss the club off—no, this was disrespectful. And disrespect of the club came with strong repercussions. But first, we needed to find out who the asshole was, and even though my father stood tall at the front of the table, I knew he never would have called this church meeting to let the club know what was going on if he thought this was going to be easily dealt with. No, he was expecting something more.
“I’ll come with,” Drake announced, leaning back in his chair and nodding thoughtfully. “I finally heard back from the owner of that building I was looking at. It’ll be a good chance for us all to see whether it’s a go ahead.”
The Brothers by Blood MC and our MC co-owned the biggest nightclub in Phoenix. It worked out well for the both of us, as the last guy who was running it for us was dealing shit out the back door on the side. The club made money, we didn’t have to worry about constantly traveling down there to keep our thumb on it. And since it was continuing to grow and bring in vast amounts of cash, we decided it would be an excellent time to open a second club in another part of town.
“Sounds good,” Dad agreed with a sharp nod. “You boys be ready to head out at sunrise. Round up some of the girls, we’ll make a weekend of it. Just make sure you bastards are ready to leave when I am, ‘cause I ain’t waiting around.”
DAKOTA
I was trying to avoid looking over at him at any cost. He was occupying the corner booth of the VIP area, which tonight was full of both Brothers by Blood and Exiled Eight club members. He wasn’t alone though, while his other brothers mingled around a pretty young brunette sat at his side, talking a million miles an hour as she fought to keep his attention.
His eyes wandered, though.
He wasn’t listening, and I almost felt sorry for the girl.
Rip was an asshole at the best of times, but she looked like a sweet girl who had hearts in her eyes.
“Who’s the chick sitting with Rip?” I asked, saddling up beside Meyah as she mixed a drink for Drake. I watched her add two shots too many of our most expensive bourbon and couldn’t help but look up at Meyah’s older brother and smirk. “You think you can just waltz in here and drink all the good booze for free, huh?”
Everyone knew that club members didn’t pay for shit. They didn’t need to. Empire was basically an iconic piece of Phoenix. We were open every single night and pulled in more than enough money to support their alcohol intake.
Drake grabbed the drink from Meyah and took a sip—not even fucking flinching, even though I knew how damn strong that shit was. He flashed me a brilliant grin instead. “I was gonna leave a tip.” God, he was fucking handsome as hell. Tonight, he was wearing a T-shirt and his cut, the brightly colored full tattooed sleeves that covered both arms were on proud display. They made him look every part the badass, take-no-shit biker that he was, but honestly, this man could pull off a full-piece suit and tie just as well and look just as damn sexy.
When he was at work, he was all business, all Armani and Prada. When he was with the Exiled, he was all leathers and denim. He owned both looks to a fucking tee.
“One of you needs to go and save Rip,” Drake ordered before turning away.
I frowned. “What are you talking about?”
He grinned over his shoulder, and his eyes lit up. “That was my tip!”
Meyah laughed as she cleaned up her workspace, shaking her head. “The chick is Lauren. She’s a club member’s daughter. Her and Ripley grew up together, they’re about the same age. From what Drake has hinted at, she has a bit of a crush, and there has been talk from her dad about her being Ripley’s Old Lady.”
I raised my eyebrow. “And why the fuck would any sane person want to bestow that horrific nightmare onto their child?” She scrunched her brow in confusion. “I’m talking about being Ripley’s Old Lady. Since when don’t you get my jokes?”
She stopped what she was doing and turned to lean back on the bar, hitting me with her ‘I love you but please play nice with my arrogant bastard brother’ look. I refused to make any promises. “So back in the day, high-up members of the MC… Presidents and Vice Presidents and sometimes other officers… were expected to marry within the club. So basically, another member’s daughter. Things to do with bloodlines and bullshit. I don’t really know all the details.” She screwed up her nose, her hands screwing up the small cloth in her hands. I could tell there was something she didn’t really like about the situation either.
Who knew bikers had shit like arranged marriages?
I eyed Rip and Lauren curiously. Rip’s jaw was clenched, I could tell he didn’t want her there, but it was when he forced a smile and a nod, making her smile back, that I started to get suspicious. “Why doesn’t Rip just tell her to back off? Let’s face it, you can’t force Rip to do anything.”
I’ve tried.
“Respect mostly,” Meyah explained, her body slumping slightly. “These so-called unwritten rules were one of the reasons that Huntsman and the boys’ mom, Josie, never worked. She was forced into this relationship she never wanted because of her dad. My dad doesn’t enforce that shit anymore, not after what it did to his wife. But there still has to be a level of respect between younger members and older members, and between club kids. If he tells her to fuck off, he may as well be slapping her dad across the face.”
Their world was their own.
The MC lived by their own rules, and while they could be outright scary as hell and a bit rough around the edges, I don’t think you’d find any people more loyal or respectful when it came to their family.
“I better go—”
“Hey Meyah,” Scarlett, one of the other senior bar staff slipped around the bar with a friendly smile. “Shake wanted to see you for a minute downstairs in his office. I’ll cover you.”
Meyah looked back over to Ripley, I could see she was reluctant. What I didn’t expect was for her eyes to shift to me and her lip to drop like a pouting fucking puppy.
“Uh uh, no way.” I shook my head furiously but her lip just dropped even further.
“Please, Dakota.”
She knew Rip and I hadn’t gotten off to a good start. Actually, that was probably the understatement of the century. Whenever we were in Vegas, there was this storm that surrounded the two of us, and we both liked to egg it on like one day it wasn’t going to spontaneously combust and destroy us both.
Turned out, neither of us cared.
The pull was too fucking strong.
I groaned loudly, so she knew how fucking painful this was going to be. “You go,” I told her begrudgingly as I hurried to grab a bunch of bottles of different alcohol and a few mixes. I loaded them on a tray and propped it up on the palm of my hand. “I’ll take the rescue mission.”
“Are you sure?”
It was too late, I was already slipping out the other end of the bar and walking toward the quiet booth hidden away at the back of the VIP section in a corner with dim lighting. It was often where couples would hide out and hook up, or where Huntsman would conduct any kind of business he had while he was in the city. I knew for a fact there were no cameras pointed directly at it. And it was semi-hidden or protected, you could say.
Ripley didn’t see me coming, but I could see the moment in Lauren’s eyes where she realized their little bit of time alone together was about to be disturbed. And it definitely wasn’t the look of a perfect little princess that I’d seen her acting for the past hour.
She was about to be fucking pissed off.
And you know what, she might have been the daughter of a club member, but I wasn’t part of the club, so I actually didn’t give a fuck.
Ripley and I weren’t exactly besties.
We had a love-hate relationship.
He hated that the first time we met, I walked in on him jerking off in the shower.
And I loved to remind him of it.
Either way, though, he was Meyah’s brother, and he was important to her. So I guess that made him important to me by default.
At least, that’s what I would tell myself to try and justify what I was about to do.
“Hey, handsome! I’m so glad you’re here!” I dumped the tray of drinks onto the table and cocked my hip. Ripley turned and looked up at me, the corner of his mouth twitching while Lauren continued to study me like she couldn’t figure out if I were a threat or just some rude waitress.
Maybe I was both.
“We need to talk about these top-secret cocktail recipes you want me to make. I have some things I’d really like for you to try, but…” I let my words hang in the air, my eyes flicking to the brunette and back dramatically, “… I’d rather not in front of someone else. These are very dear to my heart.”
The twitch in the corner of his mouth grew bigger and bigger the more I rattled on. His body was becoming less tense, and he leaned back into the leather seat, folding his arms across his chest. This was the part where he either played the game or where he let me embarrass myself before he amusingly told me to fuck off, so he could spend time with this woman, and Drake, Meyah, and I had just gotten everything very wrong.
“Sorry, Lauren,” he finally said, not even bothering to take his eyes off me and move them to her as he spoke, “I did promise Dakota here that I would approve some of her drinks to be added to the menu.”
I tried to keep my face blank and not act relieved or smug, but this girl knew something else was going on. And as Ripley casually dismissed her, I could actually see a little flash of hurt in her eyes before her gaze turned dark and focused in on me.
“That’s fine, you have work to do. I’ll go down and see if any of the other girls want to dance.” Her tone was begrudging, but if she was trying to get some kind of response out of Ripley, she was barking up the wrong fucking tree. She slipped out of the booth, adjusting her skin-tight red dress that I desperately wanted to ask where she’d bought it, before sliding up beside me. Her impressively sized boobs rubbed against my arm, making me feel a little awkward and strangely turned on. There she paused for a second and lowered her voice to a whisper, “I could have your ass fired from here in a second.”
Ripley’s brow furrowed as he watched on.
“I’d like to see you try, princess,” I whispered back, continuing to grin as I stepped around her and took her seat inside the booth. Lauren obviously had no idea who she was talking to.
She didn’t even bother to turn and look over her shoulder, simply huffing out an annoyed breath before she walked away.
“What’d she say?” Rip demanded, leaning forward and bracing his elbows on the table.
I shook my head and gathered the tray of alcohol, beginning to twist the tops of each of them and readying the cocktail mixer. Might as well make this look genuine. “Nothing. It’s fine. You seemed to be in trouble, so I was sent to rescue you.”
He scoffed and leaned back in his seat again, obviously losing some of the tension in his body. “I’m surprised you didn’t bring your gun this time and threaten to put holes in her fake boobs.”
I gasped dramatically and leaned forward. “They were fake?”
“You couldn’t tell from the way she rubbed them all up against you?”
I rolled my eyes and grabbed a bottle of alcohol, tossing a generous amount casually in the mixer before reaching for another. “So, you heard about last night, huh?”
“It’s the reason we’re here.”
Well, that was new information. I thought Ham had said that Huntsman was already meant to be riding in today, but he must have been bluffing and called him in after the incident.
“Heard you handled yourself well,” he added.
It wasn’t much. Just a few words. But the comment sounded honest and almost complimentary. I stopped what I was doing for a moment, looking up to see him staring at me. His face completely serious and his caramel-colored eyes slightly dipped and seemingly full of sincerity and instantly causing my body to flush.
I pressed my lips together quickly before I smiled across at him, trying to hide the way my nipples instantly hardened, and my pussy clenched tightly. “Thanks. I’m sorry I dragged you guys down here, though.” That was honest too. I had a lot of respect for Huntsman, and I guess when it came down to it, Ripley too. I’d seen the lengths they were willing to go for the people that they loved, and honestly, you couldn’t tell me that everyone was willing to do the same.
“You know for a fact that no one can drag my dad’s stubborn ass anywhere,” Ripley snorted. “He’ll sort out this shit.”
I screwed up my nose. “It was a really weird situation. One moment he was drunk and acting like a fool, the next moment he was completely sober and looking at me like if I didn’t have a gun in my hands, he would have… well, I don’t know.”
Ripley sat a little straighter, pulling his shoulders back. “Sounds like he was here for a reason. You’re lucky Shake went through all the gun safety and precautions with you girls. It paid off, and you kept yourself safe.”
I tried not to let the compliment swell within me too much, but maybe I should have. Because every time he looked at me, I was suddenly very aware of how stunning his eyes appeared and how sharp his features were. Not to mention, it seemed like the width of his shoulders had expanded dramatically since the last time I saw him a few months ago. Ripley was becoming more like a man every single day, and I was finding it really hard not to notice.
“Huh.” I grinned, trying to play off the way my body was reacting and seem somewhat normal. “Well, what do you know, we can have a normal conversation.”
Ripley scratched at his jaw, the five o’clock shadow he had covering it making him look older than he was, and slightly more dangerous. “Yeah, as casual as I can while you’re sitting over there rubbing your legs together and trying to pretend like your whole body isn’t on fire.”
A shiver went up my spine, and I struggled to control it—hoping he wouldn’t notice—but I was seriously fooling myself if I thought I was playing it cool before, and he’d caught every fucking movement.
I cleared my throat. “And there you are again, the asshole returns.”
My face was burning up, I could feel it. I wasn’t usually like this, it took some skill for any guy to make me blush. I was a little outspoken and kind of crazy. I didn’t get embarrassed easily.
Turned on? Yes.
Embarrassed? No.
And there Ripley was doing all of the above and basically setting off fireworks inside me just by staring at me across the table. And yet, I still couldn’t drag my eyes away from him.
“Dakota…” he growled under his breath, continuing to stare straight through me, his eyes becoming darker and more dangerous by the moment. I swallowed the lump in my throat and grabbed the cocktail mixer. I had no idea what I’d put in it, but I started to shake it anyway. “Don’t fucking look at me like that!”
I blinked and shook my head, forcing a smile. “Like wha—”
“Like if I reached over and touched you right now, you’d come all over these leather seats.”
My gut hit the floor and suddenly my entire body felt like it had been doused in kerosene and lit. He probably wouldn’t even need to touch me, just his words had me stumbling on the edge.
“Go to hell, Rip,” I managed to rasp, refusing to let him get the better of me.
Screw him.
He wasn’t allowed to do this.
This is the kind of shit we were meant to avoid.
I quickly poured the toxic mixture in my cocktail shaker into a glass and slid it across the table to him. He caught it before it slipped off the edge. “I’ve got shit to do. You’re saved. You’re welcome. Let’s do this again sometime.” I gathered everything quickly.
“Dakota—”
“Or not.” I slid out of the bar before he could say anything else, but his eyes followed me. Coincidently, just as Meyah walked up the staircase making a beeline for us. I smiled but made my escape before she got to the table, getting halfway back to the bar before I heard my name.
“Dakota!”
I froze, a piece of me wanting to just get the hell out of there, another piece liking how my name sounded coming from his lips, and then another altogether like mentally throat punching myself for being so fucking stupid.
I looked over my shoulder as Meyah slipped in beside him.
“Tastes good.” He held up the drink in his hand as if to say cheers.
I laughed loudly before calling back over my shoulder, “Poison always does!”
RIPLEY
I sat on one of the old tattered stools at the bar. At least, what used to be classed as somewhat of a bar. It was a little dank and dusty, and from what I could tell, they probably only served wine—maybe a beer, but I bet it was a fancy fucking one.
Drake and his architect were talking technical shit and pointing around at the different parts of the place, nodding his head at some things, shaking it at others.
The lobby to this old theater was fucking grand, and from what I could tell from the brief discussion I’d had with my brother, Shake, and his men about it before we drove over here, he wanted to keep a lot of it exactly the way it was and just run with the theme of the place.
The place had closed permanently around three years ago. It was huge and centered in a major part of town where the nightlife was alive and kicking, which made it the perfect opportunity for someone to come in and transform it into something amazing.
And there had been plenty of people wanting to do exactly that, and they’d all come to the same problem—the building was protected by the Phoenix Historical Preservation Office. Which meant none of those assholes were allowed to tear it down and put in the multistory skyscraper they had plans for.
The only way anyone was getting their hands on this baby was if they were going to restore it. And that was where shit got serious. But it was also where we had an advantage. It was something we’d done before, something we had the skills to do and something that we were fucking good at.