Two Tricks (Hidden Empire Book 1)

by Elizabeth Knight

  “Eagle, that pact was never meant to be taken seriously,” I said, totally blindsided by the turn of this conversation.

  Grunting at me, he scooted back from his desk and walked over to the wall safe. He sorted through a few things, then pulled out a folder that was warped and stained from age. Flipping it open on the desk, he pulled out the original handwritten rules we made for our club ten years ago and read the section aloud.

  “The club’s needs come first and foremost. As leadership, we are brothers united, letting no one get between us. We all agree not to take an old lady unless we all share the same woman. If we do not find someone who can do that, we will only deal with hang-abouts and other flings. If one of us takes a woman, we are all given the right to show our interest, but if they reject one of the leadership, then that brother breaks off all attachment. If they fail to do this, it gives the leadership grounds to remove this brother from his position.”

  “God, we were idiots when we wrote that shit,” Void said, hanging his head. “So what you’re really telling us is that you have a major hard-on for this woman and need a reason to keep her around long-term.”

  “I’m pretty sure if she had let him, Cognac would have fucked her this morning over the kitchen counter. I’m not the only one with a hard-on for her, and you know it,” Eagle retorted, sitting back down in his chair. “Look, if this all works out, it’s a win-win. We fuck Tricks over and get the girl.”

  Sprocket’s fidgeting drew our attention. Typically he was the stoic one of all of us, so this whole thing must’ve really gotten under his skin. “You’re not factoring in the possibility that she might not want all of us. What happens if we try this and she tells us all to fuck off?”

  “This can’t seriously be happening,” Void grumbled, turning to Sprocket. “I haven’t seen you show any interest in a woman for so long, I thought you might actually be gay. What about her has you all wound up?”

  “I might have a clue,” Cognac said, grinning as he slouched in his chair.

  Void looked at him with disgust. “For you they just have to be breathing and have a pussy for you to stick your dick in. You’re actually interested because she isn’t.”

  “Can you blame me? It’s oddly refreshing to end up on my knees for a change,” Cognac said, getting a dreamy look in his eyes.

  “Anyway,” I interjected, trying to direct this conversation into something purposeful. “Sprocket makes a good point. Let’s say we try this and it goes nowhere. What then?”

  We all turned to Eagle, waiting for his answer. “Then we go to the original plan. If she won’t help us willingly, then we will force her to tell us the good old-fashioned way.”

  “No, absolutely not!” I yelled, then pointed a finger at the desk. “And before you even try to put me in my place, pick up that sheet of rules and tell me what number ten says.”

  Eagle growled at me, but he had no leg to stand on, and he knew it. If he was going to use the “original rules” ploy, so could I. Seeing that he wasn’t willing to admit his disregard for rules that made it harder for him, I turned to the others. “Anyone else remember what rule ten is?”

  “We don’t harm women or children, they are off limits,” Sprocket said softly. “Because everyone has family that can be used.”

  Eagle gripped the arms of his chair until it started to creak under the strain. “Well then, little brother, how are you okay with us having kidnapped her and keeping her here?”

  The bastard wasn’t willing to fight fair on this, was he?

  “None of us are hurting her. If she steps out of line and gets herself shocked, that’s on her. When we decided this, we always planned to let her go—torture and strong-arming her was never on the table,” I explained through clenched teeth.

  “Picasso’s right,” Cognac said. “If we break this rule, then we might as well have no rules. We created this club to protect people like us that didn’t have anywhere to go, people who needed a family. Phantom Saints are different, and that’s what makes us stronger. That’s what’s earned us respect when other MCs get looked down on.”

  As we talked, Eagle softened, showing me that he was listening. We wouldn’t let him bully us into making a choice that would affect this club negatively. It was the whole reason we were all in this together—no one man can do it right.

  “Fine. Then I say we try my plan, and if it doesn’t work, then we decide on plan B. We will get to know her and the situation better, get more information to go on,” Eagle said, coming to a compromise.

  “I’m in like Flynn, don’t have to ask me twice,” Cognac said, grinning excitedly.

  I sighed, knowing I couldn’t deny my brother the chance to see if this woman was what he hoped. Yes, we always said that the club came first, but for me, Eagle was top priority. And before I blew up at her, I’d felt like we had a real connection. The time we spent together today made me feel like this might not be such a crazy idea. If we ended up not being lovers, I could see us being friends. “Alright, we’ll try your idea.”

  “Fuck me, I’m in. That little demon might be the only woman who isn’t too afraid of me to love me,” Void said, rubbing the shaved side of his head. “But believe me when I say that little demon is going to be more work to handle than you guys think.”

  That left Sprocket. This would only happen if we all agreed. If he said no, then we wouldn’t address it again.

  Then a smirk crossed his face, and I knew his answer. Finally something interesting was going to happen around here.

  Knowing Picasso was watching me, I entered the house without another word. These idiots. Like I was upset about being left alone, unsupervised, in their house. Puh-lease. I looked around the living room, trying to decide where to start gettin’ my super snoop skills on. Then I decided it was smarter to work top to bottom—the lower level was easier to have access to, even if they were all around.

  First I stopped by the kitchen to grab a drink out of the fridge. Yanking it open, I found that it was fully stocked with real food—it almost looked like Weston had just gone shopping at our house. Spotting a row of beers, I snagged one and popped the top.

  “Fuck it, not like I’m going anywhere that I’d need to be sober,” I muttered to myself as I noted the time—noon—and wandered up the stairs.

  At the top of the stairs was the first bedroom. Tossing the door open to see which asshole put himself in line to be killed first, I felt slightly let down with how sparse it was. Did someone actually sleep in here?

  The room was painted a dark gray, and the queen size bed was like a sea of black fabric. Whoever slept in here clearly didn’t make their bed in the morning.

  Who was I to judge? I didn’t ever make my bed either. Stepping further into the room, I saw hanging on one wall was a huge poster advertising for a UFC fight. Standing dead center, fists up and piercing icy-blue eyes staring me down, was Void. Only on the poster was his given name—Lachlan Kinsley. It was dated twelve years ago for a championship in New York. Apparently, Lachlan had been a big deal in the fighting world before he became part of the Phantom Saints.

  It seemed that in the years that passed, Void liked to travel on the light side. Opening his closet, I found it half full of random boxes containing more fighting memorabilia. Nothing was hung but a single leather jacket that was well-loved. Leaving the closet, I rifled through his dresser, and other than the fact he wore fitted-style boxers, I didn’t discover anything interesting. The only thing left in the room besides a punching bag hanging from the ceiling was a side table. Pulling open the one drawer, I found condoms, a gun, a box of bullets, and a picture of a rich couple with a young boy. Looking closer at the boy, I saw the telltale eyes that gave him away. They matched his mother’s perfectly, but in every other aspect he was just like his father. When I flipped the picture over, written on the back was Summer holiday in Cotswolds.

  “I was right, it is a British accent!” I grinned. Typically I sucked at guessing accents, and his wasn’t very strong
to my ear.

  Putting the picture back, I closed the drawer. At least I knew where to get a gun if I needed it now. Looking around, I made sure everything looked like it had when I walked in, but there hadn’t been much to fuck with to begin with.

  Off to the next room, which I was pleased to find was way more interesting.

  I knew right away it was Cognac’s room from the burgundy silk sheets alone. The king size bed was the focal point of the room, but what caught me off guard was that one of my paintings hung above it. I had an art gallery that sold them for me, and because it was a hobby, I never listed my name on them. In the art world, I was known as “The Pink Lady.” This one had in one of the first batches I had sold, so Cognac had been a patron of mine for a while. The image was of a woman in a red slip nightgown sprawled across a white bed, her black hair swirling around her. What made this painting truly pop was the fact it seemed like the woman was staring right into your soul, asking for you to fuck her raw. It was little wonder why he had picked this one to have over his bed.

  I wandered over to the desk, which was covered in paperwork around a laptop. I popped open the laptop, but of course it was locked, and I didn’t have Wes on speed dial to help me unlock it. Moving on, I skimmed over the papers, discovering they were just a bunch of financial reports on stocks. This was so not my wheelhouse—it seemed like another language to me. What did catch my eye was a handwritten list of names in a notebook. Names that I was very familiar with because they were my people. Each of them I had groomed to help me on my enforcement team.

  Was this how they found me?

  Flipping through the notebook, I found more information about me and the leads they had connecting me to Tricks. They were good, I had to give them that, but the one person who started the manhunt for them was Kimber.

  “I’ll kill that fucking bitch,” I growled, feeling my anger grow. Brother’s widow or not, she’d crossed the line.

  Nothing else on the desk or in the drawers gave me much to go on. Still bitter at being betrayed, I stormed down the stairs, tossed the beer bottle into the sink, and scoured the kitchen for something stronger. After the third try, I struck gold. Every shelf in this cabinet was full of every type of liquor I could think of. I grabbed a bottle of brandy and a glass, taking them both with me back upstairs.

  I passed the room I’d woken up in and the bathroom, coming to the last door. It was slightly ajar, so I nudged it open with my elbow and paused before walking in. The whole room looked like an engine threw up everywhere. Parts and tools were scattered all over the floor and rested on any flat surface that could be found. The bed was a small twin mattress on the floor that was shoved in the corner. Car-part company signs were hung on the walls, along with posters of different motorcycles.

  “Yup, not even gonna try,” I muttered, backing out of the room. I might get tetanus from something in there.

  This time I didn’t bother shutting the door. They weren’t hiding anything in that room. Heading back down, I went for Eagle’s room, having saved it for last. Picasso must have a room elsewhere on the compound, not having seen any other rooms in the house.

  Back in Eagle’s room, I sat in the armchair next to his bookshelves and set my brandy on the side table after pouring a glass. Shifting, I looked over the room again now that I had the time to do it at my leisure. It was all very modern but masculine. He had expensive taste and liked the finer things, even if he didn’t let it show openly.

  The bed was something I had never seen before. It was a polished black wood platform, much wider than the mattress. It had two steps up, yet the mattress was sunk into the platform, giving off an interesting illusion. The sheets were a soft grey that matched the color of his walls and were tucked in with military precision.

  Turning, I scanned over the three bookshelves as I sipped my brady. I never would have picked Eagle to be the type to read, but here before me was proof. Many of them were about leadership, business, and a few biographies. What surprised me was the row of the complete Harry Potter series, and from the looks of them, they had been read many times.

  “What do you know, Mr. President likes a little fiction in his rigid life.”

  Getting bored and feeling a buzz kicking in, I wandered back out to the living room and flopped belly-first on the couch. I set my glass and brandy on the coffee table and turned on the TV, flipping through the channels until I landed on a marathon of MTV’s Catfish. It was trash TV, but I was just tipsy enough to enjoy it. Trying to fill my glass again, I spilled more than made it in my glass, so I gave up and took swigs straight from the bottle. Drunk and lost in my TV show, I had no idea how long I’d been left in the house by myself, so when boots appeared in front of my face, I was surprised.

  “Do you know you’re watching TV upside down?” Eagle asked me.

  “This was the only way I could get the TV to stop moving,” I answered, pouting at the frown on his face.

  “After drinking that much brandy, I’m amazed you’re still able to tell you’re watching TV,” he replied with a grin on his lips.

  I liked kissing those lips. Oh! And his dick. I liked kissing that too. Wonder if he would let me play with it again? Wait, was there a reason that I wasn’t going to do that again? Who fucking cares? It was hot and felt amazing, I wanna do it again.

  I rolled myself all the way off the couch since my legs were the only thing still on it, the rest of me already on the floor. Kneeling, I looked up at Eagle, who just gave me a questioning look. I crawled up to him and grabbed his jeans to hold myself upright.

  “Can I give your dick a mouth hug?” I asked as I rested my head against his crotch.

  I heard laughter from behind Eagle, but I couldn’t seem to lift my head to see who it could be. Eagle didn’t answer me; he just bent down and pulled me up by my armpits. When I was upright, he grabbed my ass and lifted me like a child, wrapping my legs around his waist. I let my arms circle around his neck and nuzzled it, liking the smell of him. It was spicy and wild. The next thing I knew, I was being laid down in a bed and the covers were pulled up around me. After that, the world went dark, and I fell blissfully into sleep.

  Looking down at the little hellcat, I couldn’t help but smile. She was nothing like any woman I’d ever met before. One moment she was tough as nails, kicking all our asses, then she was passed out in her bed, curled into a ball like a harmless, adorable kitten.

  I brushed her soft pink hair out of her face, wanting to see her expression better.

  What witchcraft did she use to put me under her spell so fast?

  Nothing I did was impulsive. Control was something I craved, needed. When I didn’t have it, it caused chaos in me, and that never went well for the people around me. Forcing myself to leave when all I wanted to do was wrap myself around her, I turned and headed back downstairs.

  “I’m impressed. If a woman asked me if she could give my dick a mouth hug, I don’t think I could have said no and tucked her into bed,” Cognac said from the couch.

  “That’s why I’m president—I can make the tough calls.”

  He just laughed and turned back to watch his soccer match.

  Entering the kitchen, I started to figure out what I wanted to make for dinner. It was a rule in the house that we always had dinner together if we didn’t have more pressing matters to attend to. Many of the books and things I’d read showed that sharing a meal built stronger bonds.

  “Where did Dax wander off to?” Picasso asked, taking a seat at the counter.

  “After consuming almost a full bottle of brandy, I put her to bed where she passed out,” I answered as I started washing the ingredients.

  I could feel Picasso wanting to say something, but he was holding back. Even though he was my little brother, he never acted like it, always trying to take care of me. Out of the two of us, the club members always went to him with issues first, and he brought it to my attention if he couldn’t deal with it. Every leader needed that right-hand man, and Picasso was it for m
e. We were the perfect team.

  “Just say it already,” I grumbled.

  “Do you really think this can work? You aren’t known for sharing things—how can you share a woman with four other people?”

  Not wanting to see the look I knew was on his face, I just kept chopping up the vegetables. “Look, I can’t explain it, but there is something about her. I can’t accept the idea of her leaving.”

  “Eagle, you haven’t even known her a full day. How can you say shit like that?”

  Slamming down the knife, I turned to him. “We’ve been stalking that woman for months. Every one of us knows more about that woman than we do our own mother at this point. Before I even set eyes on her, I knew I needed to meet her, that she was too perfect to let pass out of my life.”

  “You know this sounds crazy, right? I love you brother, but this is borderline mental.”

  “I KNOW!” I bellowed at him, glad I no longer had the knife in my hand. Not that I would hurt him, but something would feel my wrath for all the chaos inside me.

  Picasso’s face hardened as he leaned over the counter and grabbed my shoulders. “You don’t get to fucking yell at me, Eagle. We are not like that to each other. Just because I’m telling you truths that you don’t want to hear doesn’t give you that right. I’m your vice president, your brother, and I’m always in your fucking corner. Always.”

  I sagged. He was right. “I can’t let her go without trying. If it doesn’t work, we’ll just stick with the original plan, and I promise I will accept it.”

  “Know that I’ll make you keep your word, Eagle,” Picasso said, then let go of me and left the kitchen to head to his space in the garage off the side of the house.

  Mind full of thoughts, I started working on dinner again, knowing it was the best way to calm myself down. We were going to have enough to feed the whole club, but it was better than me killing someone.