Man of the House(140)

She nodded. I assumed she knew all about the Snake Spit and the war; probably hard not to know about it if you spent any time in the clubhouse.

“Heard about it,” she said. “They’ve been pressing down from Dallas, trying to snatch turf.”

“Yeah,” I said. “And your daddy wants to push back.”

“You men,” she said, smiling, “always doing the hard thing.”

“What else is there to do?” I asked, grinning. “The easy thing ain’t no fun.”

She laughed and stood up. “You’re right, you know.” She turned and walked off, and I couldn’t help but stare at her ass.

As she left, I realized that I hadn’t spoken to her in at least a month. She’d been around, but we just hadn’t been talking much. I’d been busy with the war, worried about the Mezcals, the Mexican MC gang in Texas, joining up with the Snakes. Then there was all that shit with Ford and Caralee and the Rebels MC going down. For a while there, shit was crazy, all blood and excitement.

And as the Demons MC enforcer, I had plenty of that blood on my hands.

But ever since I’d gotten back from Dallas, things had been quieter. The Snakes and the Mezcals were planning something, we were sure of that, but the Demons had their own plans.

I glanced at Janine as she walked across the bar. I wondered briefly what her life was like, what she’d been doing during all this madness.

But I quickly let that thought go.

Better not to think about her; better not to get involved.

My only priority was the damn club.





3





Janine





Larkin thought I didn’t know what was going down with the club, but I wasn’t blind.

I’d spent my whole life around the club. My daddy was a founding member, and my adopted dad was the president. I lived and breathed the Demons MC.

So when they were at war, it was pretty easy to notice. The boys were all amped up and there was a level of anxiety happening in the clubhouse. Then all that shit with Ford and Caralee happened, and that was a nice distraction for a bit. It was nice to see two people who clearly loved each other finally come together.

You didn’t see it that much, not in a violent place like the Demons MC clubhouse.

I glanced across the room and caught Clutch looking at me. He quickly looked away, and I smiled to myself. I had talked to him earlier that night for the first time in a while, and he’d seemed like he couldn’t wait for me to get away from him.

I did not understand that man. One second he was smiling and laughing, letting me sit in his lap, and the next he was acting like he barely knew me.

Which suited me just fine. We’d been like that for ten years, one second talking up a storm and the next pretending like we were practically strangers. Ten years and I felt like I both knew him and didn’t know him at all.

“You hear about the shipment?” Sara asked me.

I shook my head. “What shipment?”

“Apparently some shipment of something from down south got stolen,” she said. “Larkin thinks it was the Mezcals.”

“That would make sense,” I said, nodding. “But it’s not really our business, is it?”

Sara shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s all the boys are talking about.”

Sara was new to the club, just another drifter girl looking to make sense of her life. The Demons MC attracted that kind of girl, a girl that needed strength and danger to feel alive.

“Maybe, but if they hear you talking about it, they’ll be pretty quick to toss you out.”

“How come you can talk about whatever you want?” she asked me.

She didn’t know who my father was, of course. She’d only been around for a few weeks. As far as I could tell, she had an eye for Noble, one of the regular boys.

“I’m just special,” I said, grinning at her.

I looked up as something big and heavy leaned up against the bar next to us. “You ladies need a drink?” Dow asked, smiling at us.

“I’m okay,” I said.

“Me too,” Sara answered.

“Aw, come on,” Dow said, looking at Sara. He was clearly into her big, round eyes and bigger, rounder tits. “You sure you don’t need another? This is on me.”

“She said no, Dow,” I said. “How about you fuck off?”

He looked at me for a second and seemed like he was about to say something, but he thought better of it. “All right then, Janine,” he said, and walked off.

Sometimes, I hated having Larkin as a dad. I wanted the guys to treat me normal, like everyone else. No other girl could get away with saying something like that to Dow or any of the guys, but I really was special.

Because they were all afraid of my father. It was so frustrating.