by Addison Jane
It was good to be able to spend time at the club again, to rebuild those relationships that I’d managed to severe and have people actually understand who I really was. The girls hadn’t been shy about asking questions, their curiosity and how they wanted to understand me made my heart full. Not to mention the fact that Wrench and I didn’t have to hide any longer.
I knew Op still felt strangely about us, but he was warming to the idea, and that’s all I could have asked.
“What?” I whispered, my eyebrows raised.
He started the engine and pulled out of the lot, heading in the opposite direction than we’d been going. “One of the girls from X-Rated was found dead at her home, and Deacon said the detectives who we’ve managed to avoid so far are making a beeline for the club, with a fucking search warrant.”
This wasn’t good.
We made the few blocks to the strip club in record time, the tires skidding as Wrench threw the car into park. “I’m gonna check it out and then I’ll be back. You may need to take Harlyn home, and I’ll get a ride, but I’ll let you know.”
I nodded. “It’s fine. Go,” I said ushering him out.
He jogged for the door, stopped for a second to talk to Ham who was waiting outside with a couple of the bouncers, and then ducked inside. Ham made his way over to the SUV, and I climbed out, rounding to the driver’s side to talk to him.
“This is gonna be messy, isn’t it?” I asked as I leaned back against Wrench’s car, my stomach turning nervously as I imagined the stress that was going on inside there at that moment. The strip club, as far as I knew, was completely aboveboard. But if these people had a vendetta against the club, which it seemed like they did, they were going to tear it to shreds until they found something.
Ham nodded. “Second girl we’ve lost this year… first Haley and now this. Ruby was a sweet kid, too. Young, pretty—”
“Did you say, Ruby?” I asked, my brows knitted.
He nodded. “Yeah, Ruby was the girl they found. Didn’t sound like it was pretty either.”
“What’d she look like?”
His eyes looked upward as though he was searching for a picture of her inside his brain. “Short, slim, long blonde hair…”
“Tattoos?” I couldn’t get the question out without my voice shaking.
His nose crinkled. “Yeah, a few… back, stomach, one on each shoulder, and she had something written on her hand.” His hand moved to touch each of the places on his own body as he ticked them off.
My feet suddenly moved of their own accord, carrying me toward the building. “Watch Harlyn,” I called over my shoulder to a confused looking Ham.
Ruby. She was the same girl that had shown up at Peter’s house looking for drugs. It was obvious that they were close, that she knew him, and that she’d been there before. It was also obvious that she was an addict, and as I rushed inside my brain started piecing together the puzzle. Someone had tipped off these detectives that the club had something to do with the pills they’re calling ‘Manic.’
Peter was obviously supplying that young girl, and she was working here.
Coincidence?
Hell no.
If they find drugs on the premises, the club was fucked.
They’ll shut this shit down and go to hell trying to prove that the club is dealing or whatever crazy shit they could pin on them in order to pull them to the ground. They’ll get search warrants for the clubhouse, they’ll pull whatever shit they have on the boys to do with probation requirements and sentences, and try and put them away.
All because of Peter.
As if he hadn’t hurt me enough, now he was taking the people I cared for down with him too. Just as I reached the doors to the club, flashing lights behind me caught my eye, red and blues.
“Crap,” I hissed, ducking inside and searching wildly for Wrench. When I couldn’t find him, I headed for the hallway off to the side that led to the offices and dressing rooms.
As I stepped around the corner, I ran into something hard. Two hands caught me, holding my shoulders firm so I couldn’t fall back. Wrench twisted us with the movement, so he was facing back down the hall.
Optimus rushed over from the bar, standing behind him. “What the hell are you doing?”
“The girl, Ruby…” I struggled to get the words out, my breathing heavy, an ode to how unfit I was. “She was at Peter’s house. She was looking for drugs.”
“All right, everybody freeze. Nobody move,” a loud voice boomed, and seconds later the music was cut. Wrench let me go and turned his body toward the voice. Heavy footsteps echoed around the room, no doubt it was being filled with officers.
When dealing with an MC, they tended to bring them in force.
My heart jumped.
I needed to do something.
“We have a search warrant that covers everything within this place. Including personal belongings of employees,” the deep voice said loudly, the sound resonating off the walls.
The girls’ lockers.
I knew no one could see me but Wrench and Op. The hallway was disguised by a long wall and was only accessible from directly beside the bar, mainly to hide it from patrons who decided to go looking for the girls who had given them a boner. I took a quiet step back, noting that my shoes didn’t squeak or tap.
Wrench couldn’t look at me without drawing attention to me, but I could see he knew I was about to do something with the way his jaw clenched tightly and his hands fisted at his side.
I didn’t waste any more time, moving like a ninja down the hall, past the office and ducking into the girls’ locker room.
Kat looked up from where she was pulling on a T-shirt over a pretty lacy bra that she’d bought from me last week. “The cops here?”
“Which locker in Ruby’s?” I rushed to get out as I scanned the row, hoping something might give me at least a clue.
“Um… this one,” she answered, tapping on the one beside hers. “Why?”
I leaped forward and tugged at the small handle, but it was locked. “Pills… she was on something.”
Kat instantly jumped up and started to tug a hair clip from her hair, bending it with her teeth as she kept her eyes on the door. Then she shoved me out of the way and began to wiggle it in the little gap, the clip tinging against the metal door.
I could hear orders being thrown around down the hallway. People being told to get out of the way. Threats being made for them to move.
“Holy crap,” Kat said in awe, and I cringed, knowing she’d found something.
“You two… search down the hall,” a low voice ordered, and my eyes sprung open wide. The lock behind me clicked closed and two hands pulled at the bottom of my shirt.
I gasped as it was tugged up and over my head and tossed across the room. “I’ll apologize for this later,” Kat said urgently, as two men rushed into the room. My instinct was to cover myself, even though I was still wearing a bra and a pair of incredibly tight jeans.
They stopped in their tracks and Kat and I both froze.
She gasped while I just stood there, like a deer in headlights. “What are you doing back here?” one of the two men asked sternly, his eyes floating to my breasts before quickly flicking away. They were both officers, their badges on proud display and guns in their hands, poised as though ready to take someone down.
My heart began to race, and my mouth went dry.
“My girl here was having first night jitters, I was just giving her a quick pep talk,” Kat threw out, jolting my body as her palm smacked my ass with a loud thwack.
I jumped, but she didn’t take her hand away right away, her fingers finding the waistband of my jeans, tucking something inside. It was a plastic packet, bumpy and ridged, I already knew what she was trying to hide. There was no other option, if they caught her with it in her hand, she was screwed.
“You girls need to join the others,” one of the officers order gruffly, his eyes avoiding looking at either of us. At least he had a little res
pect.
Kat pushed me in front of her, her hands on my shoulders, directing me toward the door. “No problem, sir,” she said politely, and I tried to force a smile as I passed by them. The second we were gone I heard their search begin, keys jingling against lockers doors.
We rushed down the hall, stumbling at the end when we saw all the boys lined up along the edge of the stage, a group of officers patting them down while others upended tables and chairs, and pulled out bottle after bottle of spirits from behind the bar.
“Ladies, join the line. One of our female officers will be with you in a moment,” a man with a mustache and a badge hanging around his neck said, pushing my shoulder in the direction of the stage.
My eyes searched for Wrench, but he still had his shit lying across the stage, stripped down shirtless as an older man ran his hands over him, his face screwed up in agitation. Optimus was done, putting his things back on and tugging his club cut over his arms with a look of defiance in his eyes.
Kat and I flanked him on either side.
“Grab her ass,” Kat said under her breath.
“Excuse me?” Optimus growled, looking at her like she’d sprouted an extra head.
Kat huffed. “Put your hand down Sugar’s pants and grab her ass,” she hissed.
He looked at me out of the corner of his eye, and I gave him a short, sharp nod. He took a deep breath. “Why aren’t you wearing a…” his words trailed off and his body froze when I felt his fingertips tuck into the back of my pants and feel the plastic bag. “Goddamn it.” He plucked it out, moving just close enough for my body to cover his hand as he tucked it into his jeans pocket, and quickly moved away from us as the lady officer came over and started to search Kat. She played along with a polite smile as she was patted over thoroughly.
“You lot done with my fucking boys now?” he asked loudly, pointing his attention at who I assumed to be the man in charge. “My daughter is in the car outside, and I need one of them to drive her home.”
The officer charged toward him and I felt a lump form in my throat. “I don’t have to let any of you go until I’m fucking done. Grab one of your girls to take her.”
“I’ll do it,” Kat offered quickly just as her search was done and the woman stepped toward me.
The officer screwed up his face but nodded. “Fine, you’re clear.”
She walked toward Op, throwing her arms around his waist, the both of them strategically turning their bodies away from the cops. I tried not to stare, relief filling me as Kat pulled back and headed quickly for the door. My eyes met with Optimus, and he lifted his chin just slightly, so I knew she’d gotten the bag out okay.
“The rest of you better get comfortable, because it could be a long fucking night.”
And that’s exactly what it was.
“We have to do something about this asshole, and we have to do it now,” Op said as we sat in church the next morning. We’d been at X-Rated until fucking three a.m. dealing with those assholes and then had to spend a few hours trying to bring back some order to the mess they’d made of the place so we could open again today.
Thank God for Sugar and Kat and their quick thinking. We’d managed to get the baggy of pills out of the club without it being noticed, and with that gone the fucking cops had nothing.
I looked at the small bag of around twenty pills sitting in the middle of the table. All this fucking shit because of these little things. They are what Peter had used to torment Sugar. They’re what traffickers are using now to move women, and they’re the center of an investigation into the club—one that someone is trying to make damn well sure that we go down for.
“It’s not a coincidence that Ruby started working with us just over a month ago,” I started, leaning back in my chair. “It’s also not a coincidence that X-Rated and the club is on these assholes shit list. They want us to go down in a fiery blaze.”
Blizzard tapped his finger on the table. “That doesn’t mean they’re working with him, though. I want this shit off the streets just as much as they do. Unfortunately, someone’s pointed the finger at us, and now we are their sole focus.”
“Not just someone,” Optimus corrected, his brow creased. “Peter fucking Davenport.”
“What’s his end game? Does he really think that by taking us down that he’s gonna somehow get the entire state addicted to this ‘Manic’ shit?” Leo asked. “It seems stupid to waste so much time and effort on something so small.”
“Not exactly,” I said speaking up. “He’s ill, mixed with a little crazy. I managed to dig up the most recent file I could find from a hospital visit a few years back, and the doctor noted Narcissistic Personality Disorder.”
Camo snorted. “So he’s an asshole?”
I shook my head. “This shit goes well beyond being an asshole. It’s about being the best. His brain can’t compute the fact that someone might be better than him at something. He’s so focused on being superior and believes that he’s actually entitled to that. He thinks that people shouldn’t oppose him because he’s so freaking hot damn amazing.”
“So basically this whole thing is about him being pissed that we’re here and stopping his little side business from going ahead,” Blizzard concluded. “He hates that we’re more powerful right now than he is.”
I nodded. “There is no second, and he will do whatever it takes… no exaggeration… to get to where he needs to be.”
“What about this obsession he has with Sugar?” Op asked, folding his arms across his chest.
I lifted my hat off my head and placed it on the table so I could run my fingers through my hair. “From what I can tell, these people also feel as though they need to find that perfect person for them to love. With Sugar’s upbringing and her family’s social status, mixed with the fact that she also has a psychiatric disorder which affects the way her brain thinks, all he sees is the perfect couple. She can get him places, and she also understands his crazy.”
The room was silent, and I could tell that some of my brothers felt a little awkward. After explaining to Optimus the situation with Sugar, we’d decided it was best that the club was also involved in the process of understanding exactly what was going on.
I was proud of her, as that same day she stood in front of these men and for the second time, explained who she was inside. I think it gave her strength to finally be able to stand up and say, ‘This is a part of me. It’s not something that will go away. But it’s also not something that I won’t let destroy me.’
And after all that, have each of these men look at her differently, but not in a negative way. It was like they were seeing the entire her, instead of the her she’d always put forward for the world to see. She had put her flaws out on the table and owned them, and they couldn’t help but respect her for that. Even now, though, I could still see they were unsure exactly how to treat her, or maybe wondering whether they should be different around her.
I’d done a lot of research on Bipolar Affective Disorder, and after spending time with Sugar and seeing her when she was at her worst, I felt like I had a pretty good understanding.
I sighed. “Here’s the answers to your questions. No… you don’t need to watch what you say around her. Yes… if you feel like you want to know, just ask her. She will tell you as long as she feels like you aren’t going to judge her. That’s her main fear. The thing that haunts her the most is that when it developed as a teenager, her family and friends and even the doctors… they made her feel like she was some kind of freak.” I shook my head, unable to believe that in today’s day and age, where it was more common for people to struggle with things like depression, anxiety and other things like it, that she was still made out to be this weirdo who was broken and not good enough.
Kev raised his hand, and I nodded to him. “She said something about triggers and panic attacks. What happens if she has one?”
“For the most part, her medication does a pretty good job of controlling them. She will have her moments when s
tress or triggers push her over the edge, if she freaks out, don’t touch her or tell her that it will be okay. Just let her know that you’re there for her,” I explained.
I saw Eagle and Leo both nodding in agreement.
Eagle cleared his throat. “I suffered a lot from PTSD when I got out of the army. Your brain plays tricks on you sometimes, and it can be hard to determine what is reality and what’s fake.”
I nodded, appreciating the fact that he could understand where I was coming from and what Sugar was feeling.
“Wrench!” The church doors slammed open, and I jolted upward, throwing my chair back as Chelsea came rushing in. “You gotta come out here… now.”
I ran round the table, Optimus hot on my ass and my brothers following closely behind. Stepping into the main room, the first thing I saw was Sugar standing at the bottom of the staircase, her phone held to her ear but a blank look on her face.
“Hey,” I said softly as I rushed forward. “Pass me the phone.”
She did exactly that before dropping down onto the bottom step. She seemed to be gazing away into space, not really aware of what was going on.
“Hello?” I asked sharply as I held the phone to my ear, looking over at Op who was watching Sugar with concern.
“She freaked out, didn’t she,” Eric said regretfully, and I growled low in my throat.
“You want to tell me why the hell that is?”
I heard rustling in the background and a door closing. “Because I felt like she should know before it was plastered all over the damn television,” he replied with just as much impatience. “Peter was killed last night, they found him dead in his house this morning when the cleaner showed up.”
I almost dropped the phone as he explained how his parents had been notified by police and that they had rung him to go around and identify the body because they would not be able to get on a flight until tonight. They wanted to know whether it was him, hoping I guess that they’d just made a mistake.
“How?” I asked, trying to get my brain to keep up. Sugar looked up at me, her mouth set in a hard line and her skin slightly pale.