Evil's Price: Devil's Outlaws MC (Book One) (Dark MC Romance)

by Raven Dark

  15

  Tense

  If the shifts I had when I worked here before were slow, they don’t hold a candle to today. The evening drags at a snail’s pace. I’m sure that if the clock on the wall above the bar went any slower, it would be going backwards.

  Unfortunately, it has little to do with my actual job. The night’s boring status has nothing to do with serving creepy, drunken men, leering stares, the high heels that pinch my feet, or the icy shoulder Monica gives me every time I go to the bar to get someone’s order or drop off my tips.

  At every second, I keep my eyes open for an opportunity to implement my plan of escape, but that’s the thing. I lay awake all last night trying to think up a way to disappear from this place, and I didn’t come up with squat.

  Okay, that’s not true. Not having money makes things more difficult. I can’t jump in one of the cabs that stop in front of this place or hop a bus. But I might be able to get around that.

  My previous job before The Devil’s Den had been as a live-in nanny, watching over a wealthy couple’s two young boys. The parents were strict and hardly let them watch TV, but I remember catching one of the few movies they did watch. In it, a girl ran away from home and ended up at a truck stop. To escape cops who were looking for her, she spun a tale about someone being after her and gained a trucker’s sympathy. She got him to give her a ride before the cops caught her. Maybe I could convince one of the customers to give me a ride from here. Or I could jump in a cab and try to convince the driver I’ll pay him when I get where I’m going.

  Either plan poses a risk. A cabbie might refuse, and any customer who agrees to take me away from here might turn out to be a creep or worse. It might be my only option. The biggest problem isn’t money or a ride. It’s getting out the blasted door in the first place. By the time my dinner break rolls around, that’s the part I still haven’t figured out.

  Last night, I’d given up trying to plan that part and decided to…as Sarah would put it…wing it. But it’s turning out to be a lot harder than I thought.

  Tony’s on the door again, and I saw him talking to Spider before Spider left. There’s a chance he told Tony not to let me leave. There are a dozen other doors to this place, but there are always armed security guards or bikers near them, outlaw patches and cuts clear as day.

  The night I stole those tips, the back door that leads to the storage shed was unguarded, but no one lets me near the security cards to the door, and no one’s about to ask me to take empties out again when they know I could bolt.

  There’s no way of knowing if security is aware I’m being held here. At least some of them must know, because all of those whom I come across seem to be watching me closer than usual, and I don’t think it’s entirely because of the skimpy uniform I’m wearing.

  Whether they know the situation or not, it looks like I’m not getting out of here tonight.

  Sighing, I serve up drinks and party platters to a table of customers and head back toward the bar to drop off the tips and get the next order.

  A loud crash startles me and I jump, spinning around.

  One of the other serving girls has dropped a tray full of drinks. Glass shards lie at her feet, liquor splattering the floor. She bends to pick up the glass, and I rush over to her.

  “Wait, don’t touch that. Let me get a broom.”

  “Oh my God, I’m so, so sorry.” She shakes her head, looking nervous. “I…I lost hold of the tray. I’m so clumsy.”

  I give her a smile and help her step over the glass, ignoring the men at the table who stare at my boobs and try to get a look up her skirt. “It happens. Let’s get it cleaned up.”

  “I’m sorry. This is my first day. As soon as I put these damned heels on, I knew that was going to happen. Dee said they’d take anything I break out of my pay.”

  “Unfortunately, that’s how it works. Be right back.” I go and get a broom, a pail and a rag, and sweep up the glass while she talks.

  “I’m Sam,” she says holding out her hand. “Thanks for helping me out.”

  “Sure.” I dump the glass into the pail and quickly wipe up the liquor.

  “I’m supposed to go on break. Here, let me dump that.” She takes the pail and goes back to the bar with me.

  “Me too.”

  After putting the pail and broom away, she waves for me to join her in the lunchroom. “Sit with me?”

  I nod. “I’d like that.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Stephanie.”

  We buy cokes and I pick up a bag of pretzels. I put my food and drink on Spider’s tab like he told me to do.

  “Aren’t you going to eat anything?” I ask her.

  “At the prices this place charges? Uh-uh. I need to save all the money I can to get the apartment I want next month.”

  “I hear you there.”

  We find a table near the back of the break room and Sam takes out her phone, checking her messages.

  A thought strikes me, and I watch her finish with her phone, thinking hard.

  Since Spider first took me from here, I’d been trying to find a way to contact Sarah, but Spider hasn’t allowed me near a phone a computer. If Sam is a new girl, she likely doesn’t know I’m not supposed to call anyone. I hope.

  I lick my lips. “Sam, can I borrow your phone?”

  “Sure.” She hands me the cell.

  Resisting the urge to look around for any sign of Spider or any of the Outlaws, I take the phone and call the only people I know who have had prior contact with Sarah. It’s a number I had to call often enough when I worked there that I know it by heart.

  A woman picks up the call. “Las Vegas Nanny Agency, how may I help you?”

  Relief washes over me. It’s a twenty-four hour service, just like most of the places in Vegas. I half expected it wouldn’t be. How many people call in the middle of the night looking for a babysitter?

  “Yeah, hi. Is there a Heather Vaughn working there?” I give the fake name Sarah told me she’d used when she’d put me onto me about the place.

  “Not anymore. She quit over six months ago.”

  That much I knew. When I’d escaped the Colony, I’d come to Vegas because she’d put me onto a job at that agency. I’d showed up expecting to see my best friend, only to discover she’d quit. She’d disappeared, and all attempts to search for her failed.

  I’d have stayed at the agency, but I wasn’t willing to risk ending up with another family like the one I’d worked for. Not after the horrible way things had ended there. I’d called the agency a few times to see if Sarah had gone back looking for a job. The snippy receptionist who answered each time only told me she wasn’t there and hung up.

  Maybe the woman was fired for being so rude.

  “Yeah, I know,” I say. “She’s a friend of mine. I was hoping she might have come back.”

  “We haven’t heard from her in a while, but she called about a month ago asking if we’d take her back. We didn’t have a spot open, so she left a phone number so that we could call her if anything opened up. It’s a rooming house in Coyote Springs. We’ve called to offer her a job. She wasn’t there the last time I called, but maybe they know where she is.”

  I write down the number for the rooming house, thank the woman and hang up. Asking Sam if I can make another call, I dial the number the service agent gave me.

  “Rosie’s Room and Board,” a sweet elderly voice that I assume belongs to Rosie says.

  When I ask the woman if Sarah lives there, she tells me she moved out a few weeks ago and left no forwarding address or number.

  Rats.

  I thank Rosie and end the call, worry creeping in. Jacob came here looking for me. I hope to heavens someone from the Colony hasn’t found her. She’s seen a lot more dangerous things in that place than I did, and she wasn’t shielded by a higher member of the church like I was by my father. She was treated a lot worse than me. They wouldn’t just let her run off and forget about her any more than the
y did with me. Not when they know she might report what’s going on there and spill secrets.

  “Here you go,” I say, handing Sam back her phone. “Thanks for letting me use it.”

  “No problem. I hope you find your friend.”

  “Me too,” I mutter, leaning my head against the wall behind me.

  Over the four remaining hours of my shift, no opportunity to leave the strip club presents itself. Helplessness sets in as I quickly change out of my uniform.

  Spider’s left me barely enough time to get ready to leave, forcing me to scramble out of the skimpy halter and skirt and change my shoes, but I’m not riding on that bike in that slip of a skirt with my butt cheeks hanging out again.

  I park myself on a chair sitting by the backdoor entrance where I met Spider that day I stole the tips. Tony watches me from the door like a raptor, arms crossed and scowling.

  Yeah, Spider’s definitely put him on watch. No chance of running now.

  Spider said we’d start with one day a week. Unless I can convince him to give me a second shift, now I’ll have to wait a week for another chance.

  Spider pulls into the alley with Cap behind him a few minutes later, obnoxious engine roaring. Five AM on the dot, according to the watch he gave me.

  The jerk even made me sync my watch with his.

  Spider cuts his engine and swings off as I stand up and rub my palms on the jeans belonging to his last girl toy. Cap gives me his usual nod and smile. I wave.

  Spider strides over to me, all swagger and sexiness. “Did she behave herself, Tony?” he asks the bouncer, capturing the back of my neck in his palm.

  “She didn’t get near a door.”

  “Good,” he says, meshing his lips with mine and speaking against my mouth. “Beat it.”

  The door thuds shut.

  Spider lifts his head. “How’d the night go? Did you make bank?”

  “It sucked, but it’s better than getting the cold shoulder from every girl at the clubhouse.”

  “You’re expecting to be treated like you’re their best pal, thief?”

  I sigh. “Please stop calling me that.”

  “No.” His eyes dance as he curls his fingers around my hair. “How’d you do in tips?”

  “I did all right. I made about four hundred.”

  He steps back and holds out his hand.

  For the money.

  The role of the resigned captive drops under the outrage that flares in me. “Seriously?”

  I have a sudden memory of something the pastors said sometimes happens to girls outside the Colony. Sometimes girls who run into the wrong guy end up tricked into working for someone who takes all their pay and refuses to let them leave. It’s usually a pimp who passes himself off as a gentleman helping them get off the street, only to end up forcing them to sell themselves.

  While it’s true that I made the mistake of offering to work for free, I wasn’t expecting him to take the money from me like this. Not in front of Cap, and not in such a way as to leave me feeling like a captive. It feels way too much like what the pastors warned about, especially considering the nature of what Spider does to me behind closed doors.

  The urge to refuse, or at least hold back a few bills wells up, but remembering what happened to me the night of Diesel’s party is enough to quell the notion. Besides, if he forces me to quit, I’ll ever get out.

  I grind my teeth and slap the wad of bills into his palm.

  “Smart choice.” He takes my bag and opens it, rifting through it. “Empty your pockets.”

  I cock my head.

  “Now,” he says in a low dangerous voice.

  Lord, this is humiliating.

  Instinctively, I glance over to Cap, who’s watching with such a removed expression I can’t tell what he thinks.

  I force down a rush of anger and turn my pockets out. Spider nods and counts the money quickly. He then makes it disappear inside his cut and leads the way to his bike. “Not terrible. You’d make more if you weren’t so tightly wound, though.”

  Is he seriously complaining that I didn’t make him enough money?

  My acceptance act crashes like a bomb. “Sorry to disappoint,” I say, pushing the helmet away when he moves to put it on my head. “I guess you’ll have to wait until next week to work me for more.”

  Cap surprises me with a loud snort.

  “Wow,” Spider drawls, and suddenly his face looks dangerous. “Is that what you think? You think I’m stealing from you? Do I have to remind you what got you into this situation?”

  I heave a breath. I walked into that one.

  “No,” I say tightly. “You don’t.”

  “This money isn’t for me, sweetheart,” he adds, taking it out and showing it to me. “It’s for the club.”

  Somehow, that doesn’t make me feel any less robbed.

  “If you think you’re being treated unfairly, I can pull you off this job now.”

  That snaps me back. Flipping out on him had been a stupid mistake, an impulse born of anger. I can’t let it happen again.

  Forcing my eyes to remain on his, I shake my head. “It’s fine. The money is yours. I won’t argue about it again.”

  He puts the bills back in his pocket and grabs my nape. “No, it’s not mine. It’s the club’s. Get it right. I’m not a fucking pimp, and I’m not a thief. And you’re damn right you won’t argue if you want to have a job that doesn’t involve being on your knees.”

  I wonder if he hears the irony in what he said, or how much he just sounded like a pimp.

  He ties my bag to his bike and slaps the helmet onto my head, buckling the strap roughly.

  We mount up in silence and head back toward the clubhouse. The muscles in Spider’s back feel hard as a wall. I’m sure he’s tearing up the road with a speed that’s unusual for him, as if he’s working his frustration out on his bike. Without a word between us, tension seems to hang thick in the air, following us through the desert like an oppressive cloud.

  Lord, I hate when this man is angry. He reminds me of a wild animal, beautiful to look at, but dangerous and deadly if you rile him, and always on the verge of losing control no matter how calm he looks on the surface.

  In the last couple of days, I’d begun to hate him less, even thinking I might begin to like him given time. Now, hatred for him settles in my belly like a stone, caustic and fueling my need to escape. It scours away the last of the guilt I felt for lying to him.

  Cap stays a few feet behind us even though there’s more than enough room to ride at Spider’s side. Usually, his calm, grandfatherly presence provides a bit of comfort when Spider’s presence threatens to unbalance me, but it doesn’t this morning.

  Dawn is hours away, darkness reducing the barren desert to a black void. Only the sallow rays from the headlights on Spider’s and Cap’s bikes cut through the shadows, narrow beams of light that illuminate the road.

  Shortly after we pass through Coyote Springs, we reach a stretch of land dotted with large cave formations that almost hug the road. The wind has picked up, bringing a slight chill and howling through the deep passes between the rocks. It’s a hollow, lonely sound.

  I lean against Spider’s back, holding his waist, but I’ve never felt so empty.

  In the distance, I think I hear the sound of other motorcycles, but I can’t be sure with the wind and the roar of Spider’s engine in my ears.

  I look behind us, but the road is empty and dark.

  Cap follows my gaze before returning his eyes to the road in front of him.

  I lean against Spider’s back and rest my cheek against the cool, smooth leather of his cut.

  The engines roar out of nowhere. I snap my head up, glancing in the direction of the sound.

  Two motorcycles bear down on us, headed out from between two large rock formations.

  Alarm bells ring in my head, and I feel Spider tense in my arms, feel his chest rumble as if he’d spoken words I can’t hear.

  Two ear-splitting pops ri
ng out like firecrackers in the dark. Behind me, I hear Cap shout, then a crash, and skid of heavy steel.

  In an instant, Spider halts his bike, swings off and yanks me with him.

  “What’s happening?” I shout, panicked.

  “We’ve got company,” he growls.

  He picks me up in his arms, and over his shoulder, I catch sight of Cap, lying on the pavement, unmoving beside his mangled bike.

  My heart gives a horrible lurch.

  “Spider… Cap’s hurt….”

  The sound of bike engines roars closer.

  Without a word, Spider presses me hard into his chest and sprints across the open desert as two more shots ring out.

  16

  What An Old Man Knows

  Gunshots.

  I realize that’s what those sounds are as Spider darts toward a maze of rock formations not far from the road.

  I’d heard gunfire only once, when I’d visited Seth one of the few times he invited my parents and me to his house. Several of the guards had been practicing on a shooting range he had set up in his huge backyard. I’d been shocked at how loud it was. The shots went off like the firecrackers David Gild sets off in the grounds square every year on New Year’s Eve.

  Those shots I heard just now sound exactly the same, only this time, they were being aimed at us.

  No, at Spider and Cap. If the Colony had found me again, they wouldn’t shoot at us like cowboys out of the stories of the old west the pastors talked about. And whoever was firing the shots had been riding motorcycles.

  The question is, why were they trying to kill Spider and Cap?

  Considering the lives they lead, it could have been anything.

  “Spider, don’t shoot me for criticizing your escape methods, but wouldn’t it have been faster to get away on your bike?”

  “Faster, yes,” he rumbles, “but not safer.” He runs into an opening in the rock and carries me to the back of the darkened hollow. Silvery moonlight only reaches a few feet inside. “I can’t protect you on a bike if someone’s shooting at your back.”