Chaser eyed her narrowly then. Because that didn't sound like a crusader, or not like the ones he'd known, hopped up on their version of Jesus and happy to bludgeon you with it if your take was different. That sounded like someone who had a problem with the club specifically.
"You don't need to love the club," he said quietly. "You don't even need to like it. But you need to respect it. If you know all the shit you just spouted, then you know the club takes care of its own. And you should also know that there are consequences for the kind of disrespect you're throwing around tonight. And, babe, hear me." He shook his head. "I'm usually the consequence. Believe me when I tell you that you don't want that."
"But most of the girls in town don't end up as old ladies, do they?" Lara asked as if she hadn't heard him. Her blue eyes were burning and her mouth was a hard line, and Chaser figured they both knew the answer was no, most girls in town were not old ladies. "They end up dancing in that strip club or on their knees in your clubhouse. Tell me, what happens the night you look over from all that pussy you're so proud of and see your own daughter down on her-"
"Shut your mouth." Chaser didn't yell. He didn't have to. There was enough force and fury in those three single syllables to take out the wall of the school behind her. He was surprised it still stood. "Are you insane?"
"I'm a realist who's seen girls like your daughter before and what happens to them," she replied. Still without batting an eye. Like he was some toothless old fart, incapable of handling himself and about as threatening as a bedpan. No matter how wild her pulse beat in her throat. "Kaylee is a bright girl. She's smart and quick. There's absolutely no reason she should be condemned to spend her life on her knees servicing your biker buddies unless that's what she wants."
"I guess that answers the question. You're out of your fucking mind."
"Do you love your daughter, Mr. Frey?"
His temper was a pulse in his throat, his temples, his cock. He saw red and had to gulp it back down before it took him over. He didn't know how he did it.
"My name is Chaser," he gritted out, blinding rage somehow mixing with all that fury and dropping straight into his cock like a hit of the good shit. He wanted to rip her apart and do it balls deep inside her, until this conversation was nothing but a pale little memory obliterated by all the many ways he could make her come apart. "And if you keep asking me dumbass questions, you better not be surprised if I answer them in ways you're not gonna like."
"I don't respond well to threats, Mr. Frey," she snapped back at him, and then she astonished him by angling her tight little body closer to him, rather than away. Like she was straight-up daring him to do something about it. His hands actually twitched, happy to take that challenge. But she was still talking. "Do you want to help Kaylee achieve her potential? Do you want to make sure she has a little more to work with in life than your protection?"
"My protection is no small thing." He considered her, his gaze focused and hot like he was considering sinking his teeth into her neck before he taught her exactly what her place was. Hell. He was more than considering it. He was considering how best to do it. "And what you should be worried about is the fact that you don't have it."
Chapter 2
Lara Ashburn knew perfectly well that it was not smart to taunt a man like this one. Not smart. Not wise. More than that, it was not in the least bit helpful to his poor daughter.
And she certainly knew better. Knowing better was burned into her blood and her memory through the questionable gift of her Ashburn genes and her own hard, bitter experiences growing up in her shitty family. The fact that she was getting in the face of a DKMC enforcer as if she wasn't at all afraid of him was very likely going to keep her up at night for the foreseeable future, assuming she survived this little encounter. She suspected many did not.
And if she'd put together a composite drawing of precisely the sort of man she needed to stay the hell away from forever now that she'd escaped her own grim fate, the one lounging there at the end of her desk like he owned it and her and the whole goddamned school-menace and warning and something darker and more disruptive packed hard into a dangerously attractive package-would have been what she'd come up with. Every inch of him was a serious freaking problem.
Ryan Frey-whatever the hell name he called himself-was exactly the kind of depraved criminal she'd left California to avoid.