“The Mallick gym?” I asked, tensing. “Shane Mallick’s gym?” I added.
Jase’s dad.
You know… the guy I’d left to get with Valen.
He was allowed in that place?
The Jase I’d once known was the kind of guy to hold a grudge. He was perfectly suited to follow in the footsteps of his father and join the family business.
It was that cocky, fearless attitude that had him asking me out in the first place. He was the only guy in town brave enough to show up at my father’s doorstep.
“Yeah, that’s the one. Voss is there on the regular. Valen tags along sometimes. Me too,” he added, patting his stomach. “Zaddy is gonna get me a six-pack.”
“Zaddy?” I asked, brows pinching. “Is that somebody’s road name?”
“No. But it should be. Older guy. Silver fox. You saw him here last night. That’s Zaddy. Cary. Don’t go drooling all over him. Seems like he’s about to be taken.”
“Noted. Though I don’t plan on fucking anyone here,” I informed him.
“Christ,” another voice joined us, and I turned to see Fallon coming into the common room, still pulling a shirt on. “It’s too early to walk in on a conversation about you fucking anyone here, Lu.”
“I was saying I don’t plan on doing it, if that makes it any better,” I told him.
“It’s true, boss man,” Dezi confirmed. “I offered her all of this,” he said, waving a hand down at his body. “And she turned me down.”
“Imagine that,” Fallon said, smirking. “How are you settling in?” he asked, looking at me.
“Did you ask Valen and Voss that?” I shot back, making it clear I didn’t want special treatment.
“He probably did,” a female voice said, coming out behind him, wearing nothing but what looked like one of Fallon’s shirts. “He’s a decent guy like that,” she added, shooting him a disgusted look that he rewarded by slapping her ass so hard she jumped forward a step.
“This is Danny. She’s my pain in the ass.”
“I know, I’m a lucky lucky woman. I get to keep all this charm for myself,” Danny drawled, getting a chuckle out of Fallon. “You don’t need to worry about him giving you special treatment though,” she added, giving me a look that she said she understood why I’d been worried about it.
A woman who’d clearly found herself in some sort of male-dominated world at some point, and had to fight to prove herself.
“Danny here was the president of a rival MC to ours,” Dezi informed me. “Had Daddy Reign kidnapped once,” he added.
“So I get it,” Danny said, nodding at me. “You’ll get fair treatment here. No more or less than the guys. If for no other reason than that Brooks is a fucking stickler for shit being fair,” she said, shrugging her shoulders.
“I got that vibe from him,” I agreed, recalling his thoughts on legacies not pulling their weight. “Any idea where I can find him? I’m going to need an assignment,” I reminded them.
“You’re asking for work?” Fallon asked, snorting at me. “Rookie move, Lu. Rookie move.”
With that, he and his woman moved off into the kitchen to, presumably, grab some coffee.
“Do you cook?” Dezi asked when we were once again alone.
“I mean… it probably wouldn’t be the best thing you’ve ever eaten, but yeah, I know some cooking basics.” Even though I hadn’t had much experience using those skills in years.
“And you said you were looking for something to do?” he went on, a light in his eyes.
“Aren’t your donut holes enough?”
“You’d think… but no,” he said, smirking at me.
“Fine. But you don’t get to choose what you’re getting,” I told him, getting up off the couch and going into the kitchen as Fallon and Danny made their way out.
The next several hours involved cooking breakfast not only for Dezi, but the rest of the club—sans Valen and Voss who had yet to reappear—and then cleaning up after cooking. As well as giving the whole kitchen a hard scrubbing for good measure.
“Nice,” Brooks said when he came in to find me wiping off the outsides of the cabinets. “I appreciate some initiative.”
“I don’t like doing nothing,” I admitted. “I’m used to being busy. I get antsy if I sit still for too long.”
“Has your outlet always been cleaning?” he asked, making his way toward the coffee machine.
“Ah, no. Not really. I spent a good chunk of it backpacking through a couple countries recently. And picking up odd jobs.”
“What kind of jobs?” he asked.
“Well, some were just general day jobs to make some cash. Others were… the kind of jobs I can’t really talk about,” I told him.
“The kind of jobs your father might have helped you get?” he asked.
“Well… some of his acquaintances anyway,” I admitted, not surprised that he knew about my dad.
Everyone knew about my father and his little… hobbies. The ones that ended with bodies melting in a bathtub.
I’d been protected from the truth for about, oh, nine years of my life.
Until, of course, I just so happened to sneak out when my mom wasn’t looking and follow my father because I’d always been curious about what sort of “work” he did that I wasn’t allowed to know about, that my parents never even talked about.
“Christ!” my father had hissed when he turned around to find me standing in the doorway, his body moving to try to block mine.
But it had been too late; I’d seen it all.
I should have been horrified.
I guess I hadn’t fallen far from my father’s tree, though, because I’d been somewhat indifferent to it all.
Especially after he’d explained his mission. Taking scumbags out of the world who had somehow slipped through the cracks of the prison-industrial complex.
“Most of the bad men, baby girl, the really bad men… they never get caught. Because they have too much money or too many protections. And they shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it.”
He made sure they didn’t.
By the time I was seventeen, I’d even been assisting him. My mom wasn’t exactly thrilled with the idea of her little girl yanking teeth out of the jaws of corpses, but, hey, at least she knew I would never be squeamish if I ever had to go to drastic measures to protect myself.
I hadn’t actually taken a life until after I’d left Navesink Bank. And it hadn’t exactly been intentional, either.
But let’s just say… every single country in the world had men in it who thought that consent was optional, who didn’t think twice about trying to overpower you because, in their mind, there was nothing you could do.
Except, of course, there were some of us who could defend ourselves.
The problem was, he was big and he was strong and I was fading fast against him.
And there was a bit of glass on the ground.
So, you know, I did what I had to do.
By the time I crawled out from under him, I was saturated in his blood.
I’d taken the glass with me to wash up in a nearby river, wiping it clean then shattering it under my foot, and then I’d gotten the hell out of that country as fast as I could.