“He cheats on her?” I sputtered.
Steel turned to shoot me a look. “Are you okay?”
“What? Of course I’m okay.”
Maverick sniffed. “He’s right. Something’s going on with you. Normally you make an iceberg look tropical. Your voice just shot into mezzo-soprano range. I didn’t think you had it in you to squeak.”
I glowered at him. “This is all very…”
“Pink?” Link added again, smirking at me this time.
“Discombobulating.”
Nyx accepted the beer Sin handed him. “Try saying that when you’re shitfaced.”
“No, Rachel, Hawk doesn’t cheat on Amara,” Link finally answered me after I scowled at Nyx who, of course, just rolled his eyes.
“He’d have to be fucking crazy if he did,” Sin muttered as, once he’d finished passing out beers, he began stacking some glasses on the shelves.
“He would,” Steel agreed. “Almost as fucking crazy as Nyx if he cheated on Giulia.”
The club’s VP grinned. “Why would I cheat on my queen bitch?”
Steel hooted, “I’ll pay you to say that in front of Giulia.”
“What? And get her hot in front of you motherfuckers?” Nyx folded his arms across his chest. “I don’t do public shows anymore. You should know that by now.”
“Why does Hawk stink of perfume then?” I butted in.
I was well aware that Amara, a victim of sex trafficking, had shacked up with two MC brothers—Quin, Nyx’s kid brother, and Hawk, Giulia’s older brother.
Yeah, it was confusing.
And borderline incestuous.
But Amara’s past meant she was on edge, and while I was currently in the process of making sure her visa applications were approved by the government, I didn’t need to be defending her on charges of murder one because the headcase took a bottle to some stripper’s throat.
Amara wanted to make the States her home, but I doubted that involved shacking up in a supermax.
Link shrugged. “The girls like him.”
“He’s taken,” I said with a frown, knowing Hawk and Quin wore Amara’s brand as much as she wore theirs.
“Since when did that stop whores from doing what whores do?” Sin asked rhetorically as Kendra, one of the clubwhores, wandered in wearing a white spandex dress that made her look like she was playing dress up as a sexy nurse for Halloween.
Except, it was a week before Christmas, not Halloween.
And Jesus, what had she sprayed herself in? Skunk?
The urge to puke hit me, and it had my tone darkening as I ground out, “Kendra, this is club business. Please leave.”
Her brow puckered as she wandered over to Nyx, her hand sliding around his arm as she tugged on him. “Nyxy, I need—”
“I don’t care what you need,” I sniped. “This is church. Get. Out.”
Steel mock-shivered. “The icy winds are making a reappearance.”
I didn’t bother glowering at him, just kept staring at Kendra. Her cheeks burned with heat as she whipped her ponytail over her shoulder. “You’re not the boss of me.”
“No, but I am.” His upper lip curving in a sneer, Nyx picked up her hand as if it were dog shit and shoved it aside. “What have I told you about touching me?”
Kendra batted her lashes. “I’m sorry, Nyxy. I forgot.”
Link snorted. “You’ve got the memory of an elephant, Kendra.”
“And the gall of one,” I muttered.
“Rachel’s one of us, Kendra. She tells you to do something,” Nyx intoned, the warning stark enough to have her eyes widening with nerves, “then you goddamn do it.”
Gulping, Kendra backed off in those stocky heels of hers that clunked with every step.
I watched her go with a tangled web of emotions.
Relief that she took her stench with her, and a bitterness that surprised me.
Clubwhores served a purpose under this roof. Not just as walking holes either. This was a society within a society, a microcosm, as it were, of outlaws. But they weren’t total asswipes.
If they were, I wouldn’t be here.
Nyx wouldn’t have just told Kendra that my word was as solid as his.
And this goddamn room wouldn’t be bright pink.
“Does Rex know it’s pink?”
“Jesus, are we still talking about the color scheme?” Maverick grated out, rubbing his temples where I had to assume a migraine was plaguing him.
His time overseas had led to his current woes, and because I loved him, was grateful for his service, and knew he meant no harm, I moved over to the bar and placed my briefcase on it.
“You’ll be moving in this week?” I asked no one in particular.
“Yeah. We had an issue with the plumbing or we could have been back here ten days ago,” Nyx rumbled.
I’d already known the answer, but for all that I was looking forward to the brothers finally having complete access to the clubhouse that had been destroyed in a bomb blast months ago, it came with repercussions I wasn’t ready to handle yet.
“The licenses for the microbrewery have come in,” I informed them all, well aware that Maverick was the only one, aside from Rex, for whom this wasn’t news. “As have the new construction licenses for the hotel.”
Nyx scratched his chin. “Good. About damn time.”
“Rex’s bribes are as good as ever,” I sniped. “You bitching about how long it took when he sped up the bureaucratic wheels—”
“Yeah, yeah,” Link grumbled, bored. “Don’t get all high and mighty, Rach.”
“It’s what I do.” I placed some more paperwork on the counter. “I looked into the guy who came around yesterday—”
The tension in the bar increased dramatically.
The paperwork was business, but this was one of two real reasons I was here.
It was also why I’d originally emailed Rex. I’d wanted to tell him about this guy, but when he’d explained why he was hardly ever at the clubhouse now, how was I supposed to dump this on his door?
“—and he is Harlow Dresden.”
A whoosh of breath escaped Nyx. “Fuck.”
I nodded. “I made discreet enquiries. The Chief of Police has written off Samuel Haune’s death as a vigilante killing and, from what I’ve been able to discern, not a lot of effort was put into the case. But the FBI won’t be so lax. They’ll be profiling you, Nyx.
“If Harlow Dresden could figure it out, then as much as I even hate to say it, there is a trail back to the Sinners.”
Maverick ground out, “That isn’t possible. I made everything airtight.”
“Apparently not or a kid wouldn’t have knocked on your door yesterday, Maverick,” I intoned grimly.
“He means no harm though,” Link pointed out. “The kid was grateful, Nyx.”
“He should be. That Haune bastard was too smart to get caught. Jessie Dresden suffered a fate worse than fucking death, and Haune didn’t even get a slap on the wrist for it.” Sin’s bitterness resonated around the bar, triggering a wave of grim nods.
Before Nyx’s Old Lady had gotten pregnant, one of the MC’s many sidelines had been a dash of hunting pedophiles and slaughtering them.