by Hazel Parker
“Yes.”
I stared at him in shock.
“It’s not just the club for me, Dom. It’s family. Trace’s wife is my niece. I’ve been so far removed from her, it would be nice.”
“So pay them as a thank you, hell, give them profits from the last three months. I know that amount of money would make their jaws drop to the floor.”
Richard inhaled deeply, closed his eyes, and let out a quick breath.
“I’ll think about it,” he said. “We have two weeks to decide. But Dom, don’t get your hopes up. The argument is compelling, and we really do owe them our lives.”
“Fine,” I said.
The meeting went on as normal from there. I got a text halfway through from Hal Russel saying he was about ten minutes out. His arrival and the end of the meeting aligned almost perfectly—something that didn’t happen that often—and I went and got him.
“Richard,” I said before I opened the door to let him in. “Don’t forget. I will raise hell if I have to. This is not a fair deal for us.”
Richard didn’t say a word. I let our guest in for the evening.
Chapter 2: Jenna
Chief of Police Mario Gutierrez was set to leave in just about fifteen minutes, which meant that, as usual, it was time for “unofficial business” to take place.
The politicians had gone home. The oversight committee had begun packing their bags. Anyone who might have objected to anything Mario had going on under the table was either now gone or not paying attention, giving us the chance to have our conversation in private.
I walked up to his open door, knocked, and waited until he looked up from his computer.
“Ah, Saunders,” he said, smiling. “Come on in.”
I walked in, shut the door, and sat in front of his desk. It was a much nicer meeting than the last time I’d met with him privately, when I was dressed like a Las Vegas whore trying to draw eyes in a casino. Now, I was in the light brown uniform with the star on my upper left chest. I was a cop, not a lady half-undercover, half-guest of the party.
“Good day today?”
“Well, I haven’t had to dress up yet, so yes,” I said with a smile. “Good day for you?”
“Well, I haven’t had to answer to anyone complaining about motorcycles in a few months, so yeah, it’s not just a good day: it’s been a good few months,” he said. “Which, naturally, has me terrified that something is going to happen that I’ve missed entirely.”
He took a second to close out a few things on his computer and put his phone in his drawer. He always believed that someone was spying on him or watching him, and I didn’t blame him. We already knew that the Saints had informants and contacts in the department they’d either bribed or just given all the girls to in return for information. The problem was, we did the same, and we relied on them to clean up the element before we had to. It was sort of a bargain with the devil that we accepted.
“What did you find out on Tuesday?” Mario said after he’d finished cleaning his desk.
“Nothing, really,” I said. “Right now, they’re lying low. It’s nothing you don’t know. The defeat of the Sinners means that they haven’t done anything more than the occasional public disturbance, and even that is because of individual members, not because of group action.”
“Model citizens,” Mario said with a chuckle. “If we were talking about a group of blackjack dealers, this would probably be the point where I’d say store it in the back of your mind and leave it be. Unfortunately, we’re dealing with bikers, which means that there are people higher up the chain who don’t feel the same way.”
“Sir?”
I tried my best to stay out of politics. I found it all so… lazily dramatic. I often felt that politicians liked to stir drama just for the hell of it, without realizing what actual drama looked like. I, all too well, knew what that looked like, and I had no patience for committees holding dramatic hearings that often did nothing but waste time and act as grandstanding moments for members.
“All of the violence that came from the Sinners and the Saints is still on the minds of the people,” Mario said. “Or at the very least, it’s on the minds of the local politicians and journalists. We get almost daily inquiries asking us when we’re going to drive out the Saints from Las Vegas. Everyone from the goddamn Las Vegas Sun wants to know if we’ll kill the Saints like, supposedly, we killed the Sinners.”
“But it’s not a secret that the Saints killed the—”
“No, it’s not, but that’s not the narrative that the media and the politicians want,” Mario said. “They want to believe that the politicians and the police took out the Sinners, and that soon, they’ll take out the Saints. That way, everyone in a suit is a hero, and all of us get to be the dutiful soldiers on the ground.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Believe me, Saunders, I feel the same way as you do, but my job isn’t to tell the mayor or the legislature how to do it; it’s my job to enforce the rules. As I see fit, sometimes.”
He smiled at that. I gave a slight smile back, but it still didn’t erase the fact that this had the potential to cause a lot of problems.
“How, exactly, do they plan on doing that?” I said. “The Sinners disappeared because the Saints killed them all. That’s not exactly something the government can do yet.”
“No, but they can cut them off economically or through their bikes. They’re thinking about limiting the use of motorcycles after certain hours, or in enacting excessive restrictions for clubs off the Strip.”
“Seriously?”
“Welcome to politics in Las Vegas,” Mario said.
Well, this is going to be the least fun thing we’ve ever done.
“I have another problem, which is why I’m bringing this all up to you,” he said. “I usually speak directly to Richard in person so that our communication can’t be eavesdropped on, but he’s traveling a lot to California right now. For what, I don’t know, and it’s not my business to know unless it brings more of the bad element back here. What I do know is that… look, you’re not stupid. We need to warn these guys about what’s going on, but not lose our ability to watch them. If these rules become law, well, let’s just say bikers don’t exactly earn the name ‘outlaw’ because they are happy to listen to new rules.”
It wasn’t hard to imagine them causing such problems. I saw how they behaved at the parties I had attended; somehow, I didn’t think they would exactly inhibit themselves when it came to being out in public. Or, worse, when it came to confronting politicians.
“I need you to relay the information to Dominick Browning, their Vice President. If I can’t reach Richard, he can. Is that something you can do?”
And there it is. The thing I feared the most.
I didn’t have any choice, though. I’d become a cop in part because of what had happened before with Dom. I had to be professional, and I had to make up for what happened all those years ago.
Well, not that this was professional, doing things that were questionable ethically, but it wouldn’t hurt to make the chief happy.
“It is,” I said. “I promise.”
“Good,” he said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get to my wife; she’s making some chicken parmesan tonight that I cannot ignore.”
“Oh my,” I said.
I opened the door to walk with Mario to the locker room, where he could change back into civilian clothes before heading home for the evening. This gave us the chance to have small talk that would never reveal anything in question. It wasn’t so much that we were hiding anything illegal, but it was always a good idea to keep eyes off of us.
I wished him well as I departed and headed for the squad car. The ramifications of everything that Mario had just told me were dancing in my head, not the least of which being that Dom and the Saints would see me as a spy of some sorts, a rat, even, if these laws came to pass. I had to make it clear as soon as possible that I was on their side, or at least not on the politician
s’ side.
I had to head straight for The Red Door.
It was five minutes after eight. The club’s show would have just gotten started. I didn’t think it was too uncommon for shows to start a little late or for guests to show up late, though obviously, I was not on the guestlist for the night. Still, I’d heard stories of Mario getting in without any problem many times before, and I didn’t think that I would run into any issues.
How silly and naive I turned out to be.
I got to The Red Door within five minutes. I parked my car across the street, the better to not attract attention to the Saints’ guests. I knew the rules of engagement, but I also knew the unspoken rules of the truce that we had with them. I crossed the street—jaywalked, actually—and went to the front door, nodding toward Walker, the doorman.
“How are you this evening, officer?”
“I’m good, Walker, and you?”
“Doing just fine. How can I help you?”
He doesn’t recognize me.
Then again, I’m not in a cocktail dress that makes my boobs look a letter bigger than they really are. Small wonder he doesn’t recognize me. Dom’s probably the only one.
“I need to speak to Dom; is he around?”
“Do you have a warrant?”
Ah, shit.
“This isn’t official police business. I just need—”
“I’m sorry, officer, not to be difficult, but you need a warrant or a ticket to get through this door, and I’ve got the full guest list for the evening right here. There is no officer on this list.”
We both knew that he was full of shit. We both knew how easily Mario had gotten in, always for free, whenever he showed up. But unfortunately, there was no chance I was going to get Walker to admit as much. Hell, Mario showed up alone much of the time for good reason—no one else, ideally, could know about his arrangement.
Unfortunately, there was nothing I could really do.
“Can you go and get him and ask if he will come and speak to me?”
“I’m sorry, officer, but I cannot do that either. I have to remain at my post. There are financial ways in, but without a warrant, I cannot let you in otherwise.”
Bribe Walker with several thousand dollars, and you can have a one-sided conversation with Dom in which he’ll tell you to fuck off. Maybe it’ll get through to him, but that is most certainly not the way to go about it.
“I understand,” I said. “If you see Dom, please let him know that I requested to speak to him.”
“Of course, and your name?”
Well, this is the best way to ensure that he will never engage me. But he’s going to hate me even more if I lie about my name. Not that I think he could hate me any less than he does now.
“Jenna Saunders,” I said.
“Alright, Officer Saunders, thank you very much.”
He really has no idea who I am. I guess Dom doesn’t talk about me much. Then again, why would he?
I nodded and headed back to the squad car, debating what I wanted my next move to be. My shift officially ended at ten, but the club’s activities wouldn’t end until four in the morning. At that point, sure, maybe I could catch Dom leaving the club, but that would feel like an ambush. Maybe if I wasn’t wearing my officer’s uniform, but in that case…
You can’t just leave him. After what you did to him. You… you need to make it right.
And besides, if anything else, being out of uniform would be to my advantage. After all, I doubted Chief Gutierrez wore official officer clothing when speaking to Richard.
I got back to my car, sat inside, and knew I couldn’t just let the night go by. Politics might move as slow as molasses, but the impending legislation to go after the Saints had to have started several months ago. If it was moving very slow, it was about to cross the finish line, relatively speaking.
So I decided to go about the rest of my shift as normal, but as soon as it ended, I waited until three before parking my personal car across the street, waiting for Dom to exit.
You should just tell someone else. You could have told Walker. You could have just told Mario to keep at it with Richard until he cracked. But I really couldn’t. I needed to try to make things good with Dom.
And then, before I knew it, I saw him.
But, of course, he was with a girl, and the two of them were laughing as they left the building. From afar, she looked like one of the girls that Dom had taken to the back of the club on Tuesday night, but really, it didn’t matter who. It wasn’t that the sight of Dom with another woman made me jealous; he was certainly handsome, funny, and alluring, but…
Well, OK, he did have a lot going for him that a lot of men didn’t. But in any case, the overwhelming feeling wasn’t jealousy; it was pity. I didn’t mean the patronizing kind of pity, the “oh, poor you,” kind.
I meant the pity that came because I knew what Dom was doing.
“Do you see her face when you’re with her, too?” I mumbled to myself.
At the moment, the answer was probably not. Dom’s reputation began in the immediate aftermath of our entanglement, and it had only grown in the time that I had joined the LVPD. He’d slept with enough women that he could have pushed her face away.
But…
This is my fault.
Seconds later, the sound of the bike roared, and Dom pulled out with the girl on his bike. From my vantage point, I swore that he saw me—his headlight shined directly on my face, illuminating me against the late Vegas night. He could not have not seen me.
But he didn’t slow down, didn’t stop, didn’t make any dramatic movements toward me that would have made me flinch. If he did see me, he didn’t indicate it in any fashion.
Someone did, however, walk out, see me, and approach.
It was Mama.
“Jenna Saunders?” she said, her belly protruding as she slowly approached.
“Hey, Mama.”
“What’s going on? Is there trouble?”
I chuckled, realizing what it might have looked like.
“No, Mario is just tired, and he had me come by,” I said, which was kind of true. I hoped I could get out of this without telling Mama anything of substance—I only wanted Dom to know what was going on. “How’s everything at the club? All good?”
“All good, dear,” she said. “The Sinners won’t be coming around here any longer. How’s Mario?”
“Mario’s good. Where’s Richard?”
“Oh, he’s in there.”
He is? Then what is this talk of him going to California?
Maybe he’s going when the club isn’t in session. Or maybe he’s just not answering Mario’s calls anymore. That doesn’t make sense; the two of them are super close.
“Good, glad to hear it,” I said. “I just wanted to make sure that you guys weren’t getting hit by anything recent.”
“Nothing that I can see, dear. You take care of yourself, OK?”
“You too,” I said. “Can’t wait to see your kid.”
“Neither can I.”
Neither of us were really engaged. I think we both knew that on some level, we were probing the other for information. We both knew that the other wasn’t saying everything.
But that was the nature of being a cop and dealing with antiheroes like the Saints. Sometimes, they were the people you needed to help; other times, they could stonewall you and be even more annoying than the villains.
I pulled out my phone and quickly sent an email over to Mario.
“Mario, didn’t get to Dom. He was doing Dom things.”
He’ll know what that means.
“Ran into Mama. She was nice, but I think she doesn’t trust me. We need to figure something out.”
I put the phone down, thinking that there was absolutely no way that Mario would respond to me.
Of course, I should have known that the issue was something that wouldn’t keep him up at night. About one minute later, he responded to me.
“I know. But if I become
anything other than good cop on the side, we lose that relationship.”
And then his last line was like a dagger to me.
“You may have to be the annoying cop. You may have to be the one who pushes and pushes, using what she has to command attention. Only way to ensure they get the hint.”
As if everyone couldn’t hate me even more.
Chapter 3: Dom
What the fuck was she doing there?
Jenna fucking Saunders was watching me leave with Cindy.
It was borderline stalkerish. If I had any sense of self-respect, I was going to have Richard call up Mario, tell him to pull Jenna off of us, and let us be in peace. I didn’t need anything to do with that bitch, and I didn’t need her watching me tail off with more women she could take away from me.
Fuck that. Fuck her. And fuck the police department for giving her a job. I loved Mario, and I loved most of the cops, but in this case, they’d fucked up quite badly.
“Hey, baby, what’s the matter?” Cindy said.
I’d just parked and was heading to the elevator. Cindy, for some reason, couldn’t get enough of me, which was strange considering how little attention I’d paid her Tuesday night in our group orgy. I knew who could suck dick best and who had the tightest pussy, and it wasn’t her. But I guess the thrill of group sex was enough to get her excited?
“Nothing you need to worry about, babe,” I said, pulling her in for a kiss. “Come on, less talking, more touching.”
“Oh, yes,” she said as I went to kiss her neck.
I waited for the elevator to come down and take us up, but I didn’t wait to feel her. I grabbed her breasts and squeezed, continuing to bite at her neck. Her hands went to my jeans and grabbed. The doors opened, and I only let her go so we could get inside and I could use my key fob to take us up.
But as soon as that was done, I had her pressed against me, her back into me, the better so that my hands could slide under her shorts and into her pussy. I got two fingers inside, curled, and aggressively fingered her as she let out loud cries.