by Blair Grey
Not Acceptable
Red Eyes MC Series Book #3
Blair Grey
Copyright © 2018 by Blair Grey
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
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1. Landon
2. Anne
3. Landon
4. Anne
5. Landon
6. Anne
7. Landon
8. Anne
9. Landon
10. Anne
11. Landon
12. Anne
13. Landon
14. Anne
15. Landon
16. Anne
17. Landon
18. Anne
19. Landon
20. Anne
21. Landon
22. Anne
23. Landon
24. Anne
25. Landon
26. Anne
27. Landon
28. Anne
29. Landon
30. Anne
31. Landon
32. Anne
33. Landon
34. Anne
35. Landon
36. Anne
37. Landon
38. Anne
39. Landon
Epilogue
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NOT ACCEPTABLE
By Blair Grey
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2018 Blair Grey
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1
Landon
I pounded on Braxton’s door, totally pissed that he wouldn’t open it. “Jesus, man, you’re going to make us late for the club meeting,” I grumbled.
Just then, the door opened, expelling first a sexy blonde bombshell and then my rumpled mess of a brother. “All right, all right, let’s go,” Braxton said, as though there was nothing wrong.
And I supposed there really wasn’t. How many times had we almost been late to these meetings now all because of my twin and his unquenchable desires? I rolled my eyes and shook my head like I always did. “Let’s go,” I said, leading the way to my car.
We didn’t always go together to Red Eyes meetings, but the weather was shit today, and no one wanted to bike over, not unless they had to. I’d offered to give Braxton a ride, but he was making me regret that moment of kindness.
I didn’t say anything, though. He wouldn’t listen to me. He never did.
The truth was, he just didn’t see any of this as a big deal. He wasn’t worried about what Ray or any of the others thought about him. And besides, it wasn’t like Ray was going to yell at us. Red Eyes had been doing really well of late. Everyone was doing their jobs. There was nothing to be upset about.
Sure enough, that was the focus of Monday’s club meeting. Everyone was in good spirits, as though there had never been any question of whether Red Eyes would prevail when the Unknowns were after our territory. In reality, it hadn’t been so long since Marcus had planted the drugs around their hideout and got the sheriff to raid their place, and they had all been carted off to jail.
It hadn’t been so long, yet everyone else seemed to have forgotten that they had ever existed in the first place. Personally, I kept waiting for the second shoe to drop. For something else to happen. But all was quiet around Las Cruces, and we were raking in just as good a profit as ever. It seemed the sheriff was willing to work with us now, and everything was as it should be.
I was just being paranoid. You had to be paranoid when you had a twin like mine, always stirring up trouble. I had been brought up to be this way.
But I tried to relax here, at our Monday meeting, surrounded by all of our friends. Nothing was going to happen, and there was no reason not to celebrate good news.
“Can we all say a special thanks to Cameron for everything he’s done?” Ray asked, nodding at the other man. “He’s been acting as both vice president and treasurer, at the moment, and he’s doing a fantastic job.”
There was a smattering of applause around the room. “I’ll drink to that,” Braxton said, holding up his beer. I rolled my eyes. It was the middle of the afternoon on a Monday. Not that I had anything wrong with drinking, but we could at least make it through the meeting before we started cracking open brews. The last thing we needed was Ray thinking either one of us was unstable.
“Hey, aren’t you just glad Ray didn’t try to make you vice president?” Braxton asked in a low voice. “Stand-in or otherwise?”
I gave him a look to shut him up. The last thing I needed was Ray overhearing that and either taking it as a threat or as a good suggestion. It would mean punishment either way.
To be honest, I had thought about it. I had thought about getting Braxton to suggest me as the next vice president. I had a feeling I would make a good one. Keep the guys in line, make sure the dirty work got done, and all of that. But I didn’t want that level of responsibility. That was what I had decided in the end, so to have Ray just dump it all on me would be less than desirable, to say the least.
Especially since I was still waiting for that second shoe to drop, even though it seemed like no one else was.
Besides, not only would that give me extra responsibilities when it came to the other members of Red Eyes, but it would mean that I’d have to work even harder to keep Braxton in line. I definitely wasn’t interested in that. I already had to do enough to save his skin.
We might be twins, but we were fundamentally different in so many ways. We always had been. Braxton acted without always thinking through the consequences of his actions. He took whatever he wanted. He was loud, and sometimes the things that he was saying, meant as jokes, didn’t go over so well.
Me, I always thought through what I said to other people. I took my time and figured out what the outcomes of my actions could be. And then worked to minimize the negative outcomes. That was what made sense to me.
Braxton thought I was chickenshit. And I thought he was a bit of an idiot at times. But at the end of the day, we were brothers, twins, and that was all that counted. We always had the other person’s back.
“And that’s pretty much it,” Ray finished. But then, his gaze fell on Braxton and me. “If I could see the two of you in my office, though.”
“Ooh, you’re in the shithouse now,” Grant muttered under his breath. “Guess it’s ‘cause the two of you were late again?”
I rolled my eyes and let Braxton handle this one. “He’s probably just got some top-secret mission that he wants us on,” Braxton bragged. “You know, something that he doesn’t want you to hear about. Probably because he thinks it’ll scare you.”
His tone was joking, but the way that his eyes glinted warned Grant not to make any more stupid comments. Grant was twenty-two and the youngest member of the MC, and he was still trying to find his place here. He wasn’t a terrible kid, but he was such a kid sometimes. Most of us cut him a lot of slack, but I knew he drove Braxton up the wall.
It amused the hell out of me since Grant was pretty similar to the cocky little shit that Braxton had been at that age. The only reason my twin was any different now was because he had a bit more experience under
his belt.
Before they could get into it, even in good-natured jesting, I caught Braxton’s arm and led him towards Ray’s office. He gave me a dirty look, but I had long since learned to ignore those looks of his.
“What’s up, Ray?” I asked, dropping into a seat across from him.
“I have a favor for the two of you,” Ray said.
Braxton groaned. “Just what I was afraid of,” he said. “What is it this time? You’ve decided to bump Cameron up to full-time VP while making me the numbers guy?”
Ray snorted. “Braxton, you’re absolutely the last person I would ever ask to run the numbers.”
“Are you calling me an idiot?” Braxton quipped, his eyes glinting with amusement.
“I’m just saying that your talents lie elsewhere,” Ray said smoothly, a hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “Now. Get serious.”
“Is it something to do with the Unknowns again?” I asked.
Ray shook his head. “Closer, but no. They’re gone for good, according to all of our sources. But they’re not the only enemy that Red Eyes has ever had.”
I grimaced. “Someone else encroaching on our territory?” Things were going to get interesting for us here now. Not that Braxton and I hadn’t done our share of enforcement jobs over the years, but neither of us was nearly as big, broad, and beefy as Will and Marcus, our club’s previous enforcers, had been. But Will wanted nothing to do with the MC ever since he had married Ray’s daughter, Belle, and Marcus had run off for the Pacific Northwest with Leila, his own belle.
“Fortunately, our territory here in Las Cruces is holding for now,” Ray said. “But I need the two of you to go to Florida. I have an old friend there, in the Sarasota chapter, who’s losing members and profit. He can’t figure out what’s going on.”
I frowned at him, my mind already working to try to put together the pieces. “Sounds like someone’s fudging the books," I said slowly.
“Yeah, but whoever it is, they’re doing a damned good job of it. No one from the MC can figure out who’s doing it. It isn’t the treasurer or anything as bold as that.” Ray paused. “Personally, I think it must be a rat. Or a spy from a rival gang. Someone with insider access to the MC, but someone who isn’t just in it for the money. But my friend will have all the details for you when you arrive.”
“How long are we going to have to stay there?” I finally asked, still thinking it over. Not that Ray was really asking us to take on this mission. He was telling us that this was what we were going to do, and we’d do it. Ray was the boss after all. I kind of hated the idea of it. What if something happened here while we were gone? But I didn’t have a choice.
And besides, it could be kind of nice, getting out of Las Cruces for a little while.
I could tell Braxton was excited. “Sweet, beaches and babes!” he said. “I’m all about a change of scenery. And California will be great at this time of year.”
“Florida,” I said, giving him an unimpressed look. Had he been listening at all?
“Florida, whatever. That’s even better,” Braxton said, flashing me a huge grin. “California gets pretty rainy sometimes, right? But Florida’s all sun.”
I rolled my eyes and turned back to Ray, who just shrugged at me. “You’ll be there until you figure out the problem,” he said mildly. “I know how the two of you are with reading people and making connections, and I trust that you’re going to be able to point a finger at the culprit. You’ve built a lot of alliances for the club over the years, and I need you to rely on that experience now. Figure it out in a week; you’re there for a week. Figure it out in a month; I guess you’re there for a month. Are you okay with that?”
There was a dangerous note in his voice, like he thought we were going to disagree. But I nodded. “Yeah, sure,” I said. “Just wanted to make sure I knew what the plan was.”
My mind was whirling, though. It wasn’t unheard of for us to be sent off to do MC work in other states. Braxton and I had taken a ton of trips over the years to check on alliances and to build connections with MCs in other states. We were the most powerful club in New Mexico, after all, and we wouldn’t have gotten to where we were today if we hadn’t made powerful friends.
But there was something about this assignment that seemed different. Florida was pretty far away. These guys from Sarasota wouldn’t be swooping in to save our backs at a moment’s notice. We’d have a pretty long ride just to get there, and then there was the fact that Ray hadn’t even agreed on how long we’d be there.
He was making it very clear that he would do whatever it took to make sure this whole thing was cleaned up. That this Sarasota chapter was protected. It was one thing to be loyal to your friends, but it was another thing to commit to something like this. He was pulling out all the stops.
I couldn’t help wondering what was in it for Ray. But if there was something special that was in it for him, he gave me no clue. As always, his face remained carefully neutral. Impassive.
Finally, I shrugged. “Guess we’ll go pack,” I said. “Send me the address when you have a moment. I’ll keep you posted.”
“Good,” Ray said, with a nod, walking toward the door. He waited until Braxton was out of the room before catching my shoulder. He stared deep into my eyes with all the seriousness in the world. “This guy is a good friend of mine,” Ray added in an undertone. “I need you to take care of this. Whatever he needs.”
I stared at him for a long moment as well, hoping he could see that I was treating this all as seriously as he was. “All right,” I said. “Consider it done.”
Ray clapped me on the shoulder. “Good,” he said. “I knew I could count on the two of you.”
2
Anne
I normally loved my job as a pharmacist, but I seriously had to question that love every time I worked with Donald. Of course, I couldn’t think of a single job in the world that I would enjoy working with Donald on. Or a single interaction we might have that I would ever enjoy.
Donald was just one of those guys. You know, the ones who hit on anything with legs? At this point, at least he knew that he would never have a shot with me. Not only did I think his personality was disgusting, but I just plain wasn’t interested in dudes at all. They were always letdowns in the end. Then again, Donald wouldn’t exactly be a letdown since I’d never expected much from him from the start, not since he had first walked into Gary’s Pharmacy here in Sarasota, his eyes stroking up and down my body as though he was mentally undressing me before he even knew my name.
Even now, I watched as he hit on one of our patients. She had come in for a prescription, and now, even though the prescription was already filled and in her hand, she lingered, leaning against the counter, giggling as Donald reached out to touch her hand. He was probably telling her that he loved her hair and recommending a specific set of products to make it look even lusher. And then recommending that he come over and shower with her so that he could show her how to use those products.
Something like that. I’d never had Donald hit on me before, so I didn’t know exactly how his moves went, but I did know that there was something sickening about seeing this performance every damned time I worked with him. It always ended with him getting her phone number, though.
“Don’t you think that’s a little unprofessional?” I couldn’t help sniping as the woman flounced out of the shop and Donald pocketed her number.
Donald gave me a lazy smile and shrugged. “Not really,” he said. “It’s not like I started macking on her right here in the shop. And it’s not like we’re busy. You and I are the only ones who know.”
I rolled my eyes. Like that made it any better. “Do you even call these women once you get their numbers, or is it all about the thrill of the chase?” I asked, even though I wasn’t sure that I actually wanted to know.
Donald laughed. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were jealous, sweetheart,” he said. “Are you trying to ask me to take you to dinner so
metime? Is that what this is about?”
“Of course not,” I snapped, folding my arms across my chest. “Forget about it. And don’t call me sweetheart, or I’ll report you for sexual harassment.”
“Whatever you say,” Donald said sweetly, and ugh, I could practically hear the pet name hanging in the air at the end of that statement. I turned back to the shelf that I was restocking, trying to pretend like Donald didn’t exist. Like he was some bug that I had already thrown outside.
“But to answer your question,” he continued. “I don’t ask them all out. But you have a better chance at hitting a ball if you swing at every pitch.”
“You’re disgusting,” I told him, even though there was a part of me that wondered what the hell he was swinging at anyway.
Love? Did he really think that flirting with these women, getting their numbers, taking some of them out for dates, was going to lead him to love? But Donald probably wasn’t looking for love. He was probably just looking for sex, and I was sure he was getting it too.
Ugh, the last thing I wanted to think about was Donald in the context of sex.
By the time I finished restocking those shelves, it was time to clean things up for the day. That was the one good thing about working with Donald now, rather than when I had first started this job. I had a system now. I knew exactly what tasks were guaranteed to take up the most amount of time. I knew how to keep myself busy.