"You'd probably make s.h.i.t money there. You're not nice enough to work the bar or any of the tables. The only thing you could do is cook, and we already know you don't do that," Loki returned.

I looked at Loki and winked at him. "Cleo's a nice man. You just have to appeal to his sense of interest."

Trance, who'd been quiet up until now, snorted. "I'm not sure that's the way most people work. I, of course, am a people person. Day in and day out I make an effort to at least appear like I care. That's the problem with Cleo-Patrick. If he's not interested, he's not going to try. Cleo-Patrick doesn't care enough about other people to waste his effort."

I turned to Cleo. "Why do they call you Cleo-Patrick?"

He rolled his eyes down to mine. "That's just a nickname I got when I first entered the club. They said I resembled an Egyptian pharaoh or some s.h.i.t, and started calling me Cleo-Patrick as opposed to Cleopatra. Name stuck, but I wasn't answering to Cleo-Patrick, so they shortened it to Cleo. Cleo I can handle."

I giggled. "That's cute."

He squeezed my waist. "I'm not cute."

"Of course you're not," I lied.

Cleo "Silas didn't sound like he was going to let you quit work, though, from what he told me." Tunnel said. "What he made it sound like was that he had plans in motion, and that you were supposed to go to your a.s.signed shift like normal."

"I'm not going back to that f.u.c.ked up place," Cleo said darkly.

"No, listen. If you do go back, you pretend everything is normal." Tunnel said waving his hand in the air. "Just think about you being on the inside; you'll be right there, privy to all that goes on. Alonzo will slip, I'm sure of it. You'll be there to catch it. There won't be a better opportunity to get some ears in there, either."

Loki concurred, "Yeah, that'd work really well. I have some new toys we can throw in his office. Just got them from Jack and Max."

Jack and Max were two of the founding members of Free.

Free was a custom bike repair/motorcycle design shop in Kilgore, Texas.

Sam was the owner of the shop and the president of that chapter of the Dixie Wardens..

He was the brother of Sebastian and son of Silas from our motorcycle club.

Apparently, the two brothers hadn't even known about each other until just a few years ago.

I'd been in the Air Force at the time, so I wasn't as in the know to some s.h.i.t, such as how they were all lovey dovey all of a sudden, as the others were.

However, I did know that Jack and Max's s.h.i.t was quality, and that whatever they'd have, would work perfectly.

"Well, I guess we'll be going then. I'll run by there on the way home, and then go from there. You ready?" I asked Rue.

She looked at me and nodded. "Yep, just let me go say bye to Audrey."

I nodded and Rue got up to leave.

We all watched her go before we moved on to another hard topic.

The rape of a member's sister.

"You okay?" I asked once the door closed.

Tunnel, the one I'd been speaking to, looked up, and I could see the barely contained fury that lit his eyes. "No."

I understood that. Or at least tried to.

Nothing beyond a few broken hearts had happened to any of my sisters.

I don't even know what I'd do if I found out that one of them had been violated in such a way as Tunnel's had been.

"The DNA, what little of it there was, was sent through the police database early this morning. There weren't any matches," Loki informed us.

I had a feeling that Tunnel already knew that; which happened to only add to his bad mood.

And who could blame him?

"I know, just f.u.c.k. She had no physical description of the man. She was in the dark, and didn't see a G.o.dd.a.m.ned thing. That f.u.c.king hospital is about to hear it, too. I'm so f.u.c.king mad that they make their 'valued' employees walk that far away in the G.o.dd.a.m.ned dark," he growled, throwing his hands up in frustration. "Then she told me what she did today, and, just f.u.c.k!"

His yell reverberated through the night.

I silently agreed.

The night I found Rue in the parking lot, I could've just as easily been someone else.

I could've had her before she even realized something was wrong.

Then my stomach started to knot.

"That could've been her," I said aloud, but not meaning to.

"That's something else I wanted to talk to you about," Loki said quietly. "That's why I invited myself over. Audrey said something to me today. Something you're not going to like."

I closed my eyes and waited, knowing down deep that it was going to be bad.

"Audrey said today while she confirmed her statement that the man said something," Loki said quietly as he watched the door where Rue had disappeared earlier. "Audrey and Rue were seen together the day it'd happened. Audrey was a message...to Rue."

The men surrounding me stayed silent as I processed what was said.

"She got punished for being friends with Rue," I stated softly.

Tunnel's face was set in stone, and Loki's was just as hard as he nodded his head in confirmation. "Yeah."

I took a long, deep breath. "Don't let Rue find out. That'd gut her."

f.u.c.k.

Rue came out of the house moments after my epiphany and I knew, right then and there, that whatever I had to do, I'd keep her safe.

It wouldn't happen to her.

Oh, she'd be watched like a hawk, and she'd feel smothered, but that wouldn't be happening. Not now. Not f.u.c.king ever.

Chapter 16.

Treat your woman like a princess, and f.u.c.k her like a wh.o.r.e.

-Biker rule number fifty seven Cleo "You're buying the company?" Rue asked in surprised.

Silas, who'd just informed us that he'd already set plans in motion to buy Life Flight, said it'd be finalized within the next couple of months.

In the meantime, he had complete control of who did and didn't work there. So I now had my job back, as well as a new supervisor position to boot.

"I'm not really supervisor material," I said worriedly.

Rue snorted. "He's really not."

I winked at her.

"To be honest, I don't really care if you are or not. You're doing this, because I want you to do this. There's no other reason," Silas informed me.

I sighed.

I knew chain of command.

I also knew our MC.

If my president wanted me to do it, I'd do it. But I wouldn't necessarily like it.

"I don't have to have his office, do I?" I clarified.

He shook his head. "No, for now, Alfonzo is staying in place. He's still got his t.i.tle, just not any pull, or rank. He can no longer make those decisions, either. The man I bought it from, Ulysses, was a buddy of mine from Desert Storm. He's got prostate and rectal cancer, and isn't doing so well any more. His kids are all dead, and he's unaware of what's been going on. The partner who'd helped found the Life Flight here in Shreveport died a couple of years ago, but left it all to Ulysses. Kid was pretty bitter about it, so Ulysses gave him the job as 'director' about a year ago. Then he got sick, and the kid had to pick up quite a bit of the slack."

I grimaced. "I knew the p.r.i.c.k. His name's Forrester. Brenton Forrester."

Silas nodded, flicking his eyes once to Rue before moving them back to me. "Yeah, it is. He's the one you've been showing off for. The new bird you got a couple of weeks ago is his doing. He's also pulled the money out of somewhere, but none of it has anything to do with the business. That's what has Ulysses in a t.i.ther. He thinks the kid is into some bad s.h.i.t, and after seeing some of the s.h.i.t he's bought in the last couple months, with no money trail in sight, I'm wanting to agree with him."

"That doesn't make any sense. Why the heck would he want to buy stuff for the company? And aren't helicopters like...a million dollars? What was wrong with the old one? I seem to remember hearing the ER talking about that a couple of months ago. They'd just gotten a new one around four years ago, right?" Rue asked me.

I shook my head. "I don't know. I started working within a week after getting the new bird."

"Where do they house the old one, or is it still used?" Silas asked.

I shook my head. "Not anywhere that I know of. We use just the one."

Silas sat back in his chair, looking out the window thoughtfully.

Silas lived almost directly across the same lake that Kettle and Sebastian lived on; Silas' house was much smaller, though. It was a nice place, but there wasn't much to it.

Which I guess suited Silas. And also explained why he was able to afford buying a company like it was no skin off his nose.

I wasn't doing badly, but I wasn't a millionaire, either.

I made an honest living, but I lived paycheck to paycheck just like the rest of the world.

No one would think by the way Silas lived that he had the kind of money to throw around like that, either.

"I'll do some looking into it. In the meantime, just go about doing your job. Keep an ear out, though. You never know what you'll hear," Silas said before standing, which was our cue to leave.

Rue stood along with me, and we all started walking towards Silas' front door.

I opened it, interrupting a woman's attempted knock.

"Oh!" The woman exclaimed. "You scared me. Is Silas- Oh! Hey, Silas! I wanted to see if I could trouble you for a cup of beer."

I blinked.

Well that line was original.

I'd heard of asking the neighbor for sugar...but beer was definitely unique.

"Oh, sure thing Reba, darlin'," Silas said as he disappeared into the kitchen.

We all stared at each other.

Rue and Reba looked at each other quizzically for long moments before they both came to a realization at the same time.

"Reba!"

"Rue!"

They both yelled each other's names and then started laughing.

"I take it you two know each other?" I asked dryly.