Protect & Serve(160)

This wasn’t my first rodeo in sneaking out of the house. I’d already picked the right clothes, favoring black jeans, a dark shirt, and an all-black pair of Converse sneakers.

Quietly, I slipped into the clothes in the darkness of my bedroom. I didn’t need anything but my little wallet, my phone, and my keys – and the keys were dangling downstairs anyway.

Thinking ahead, I’d already packed the wallet in the jeans. The phone had helped keep my boredom down while I’d waited for Daddy’s fatigue to set in. He’d had a busy evening on shift, and I knew he’d be sleeping hard tonight.

Which made tonight perfect for this.

With nimble reflexes, I slipped down the hallway, avoiding the creaky floorboards right outside the bathroom door. Further down, I slipped past the end table and the vase on top, unwilling to let a brief bump of the hip, or shattering clay, announce my little rendezvous beneath the stars.

My footsteps took me down the staircase, hooking around towards the front door. There were a few tricky floorboards here too, and the acoustics were painfully good in the open floor plan of the downstairs.

As silently as possible, I snagged my keyring from the hook by the door, listening for any evidence of Daddy near the top of the stairs.

Nothing. The coast was clear.

I carefully turned the lock, slipping outside and locking the door behind me. I hesitated near the door, listening against the panel for any movement from inside.

When nothing happened, I exhaled a thick breath of relief.

Turning and strolling down the driveway, I found myself wondering what Mom would have thought if she’d still been around to see me now.

I had been really young when she passed, too young to particularly remember her. Outside of her smiling face, gazing down upon me from portraits in the house, I had very little in the way of memories when it came to Mom.

Naturally, that made Daddy cling to me harder, since I was now all that he had left. He was a stern but strong father, but very, very strict.

Of course, as I glanced over at the weather-beaten Crown Victoria car in the front driveway, I knew that this wasn’t the only reason why he was so careful about keeping me on a tight leash.

My father was the local sheriff, working his way up through the force for the last twenty years.

And there was no way he was going to be okay with his little girl sneaking out in the middle of the night… Especially if he knew where I was going.

You might say that I have a problem… and his name is Hunter.

My particular problem comes roughly six feet tall and built with powerful muscles. He had the short and thick wavy hair I loved, a seductive little chuckle, and handsome blue eyes.

The kind that could never lie to you…

Slipping into my little beaten-up Hyundai coupe, I pressed my keys into the ignition and turned. The engine cranked to life, and I quickly pulled back through the driveway and onto the streets of our neat, suburban subdivision.

I always loved how our community looked at night. Passing under the streetlights, I glanced over clay-colored landscaping with its bits of desert shrubbery.

This place was pretty nice, all things considered. We lived in a good part of Phoenix, although it certainly helped to keep the local neighborhood safe when you had the local precinct’s Sheriff living across the street.

I wasn’t sticking to the nice parts of town. Not tonight… My little moonlight excursion was taking me about thirty minutes away. I was heading towards the seedy center of the city, the kind of place no self respecting good girl would find herself so late at night.

My phone remained quiet the entire time I drove, which was a pretty good sign to me.

The last thing I needed was Daddy waking up in the middle of the night and realizing I’d gone…

I saw the sign for the strip club perched a couple of blocks over. Despite all the work the city had done to improve its downtown image, the club had survived, neon pink sign and all. The parking lot was usually full of motorcycles which intimidated the locals and kept them out… People were probably waiting for the day the whole building would be knocked flat and replaced with yet another Starbucks.

But I knew that was never going to happen.

For public appearances, an investor who spent most of his time out of town owned and technically operated the strip club. He kept a couple of managers on the premises, and the girls were well taken care of for their efforts. He was keeping the whole thing afloat with an old inheritance.

The truth was a little different.

There was no investor. No mysterious and wealthy benefactor. Look beyond the parking lot and the big pink sign and you’d see the huge roll-up garage that butted up to the back of the building.

The strip club nothing more than a front for the local biker gang, a dangerous group of criminals known as the Devil’s Dragons MC. They were the guys who ruled the local roost, and most of the city’s illegal activities gave a quick nod to them.