“Guilty as charged.”
“Fine,” I said as I stood. “So you want me to go over there and apologize for sending the big, scary black man over?”
“Well, maybe not so bluntly, but if Axle comes back with bad news, just, you know, see what you can do,” Lane said. “You know I’m not wrong when I say that you’re the friendliest and most approachable of the club.”
“Which is why you made me Treasurer, huh?” I said with a laugh. “Because you want the guy who interacts with the outside world and other club members the least to be the one who has the most personal skills.”
“Oh, hush, it was literally the job you angled for since you joined us,” Lane teased.
“Maybe I’m angling for a different job.”
“You prove that one of them is the spy, you get first dibs on it.”
Lane had meant the comment as a joke, and he even laughed to himself as he stood up.
But for me, it was just a terrible reminder that I was probably about to experience a whole lot of déjà vu.
Kaitlyn
Istared at LeCharles for a few seconds, arms crossed, letting him get his hopes up that I would actually say yes.
But then I remembered my shift was starting back up in a few minutes, and I dropped the facade of consideration.
“You’re out of your mind if you think I’m going to take any amount of money from you and your gang,” I said.
“We’re not a gang, we’re a club,” LeCharles said. “We don’t promote violence—”
“Which is why you come in here every month with bullet wounds, right?”
LeCharles looked pissed. It was pretty much the reaction that I was hoping he would have.
“Of all the professions you thought you could bribe, did you really think the one underlined by an actual oath was one that could be bought?” I said, arching an eyebrow. “Do you really think I’d sacrifice decades of income to earn a few extra hundred bucks in the interim?”
I knew my friends would have told me to just go back inside and leave this LeCharles or Axle guy alone, but I kind of relished showing him up a bit. I enjoyed seeing a biker gangster—no matter what he said, that’s what I saw him as—squirm and not get what he wanted, especially from a woman who wasn’t afraid to stand up for what she believed in. It must have been such a sad contrast to the women that he usually encountered.
“We will pay you more than you are being paid here,” LeCharles said, only digging himself further into his own grave. “We will give you whatever you want in terms of money.”
“Whatever I want, huh?” I said with a smirk. “Tell you what, then. Pay me ten million dollars upfront. I’ll quit the job here within two weeks, and I’ll provide whatever medical needs you want after. But I’ll only show up for such matters, and you’ll have to stop putting yourself in danger. Otherwise, I take the ten million, and then I walk away. Do I make myself clear? Or do I need to dumb it down further?”
LeCharles glared at me, but I was more amused than anything else. I just arched an eyebrow at him, chuckled, and walked past his bike.
“Don’t bother asking any of the other nurses either,” I said over my shoulder. “I’m just going to tell them what you just tried to pull. Oh, and definitely don’t try any of the doctors. You might be able to intimidate a nurse or two before we convince her otherwise, but the doctors are smart and won’t even speak to you.”
LeCharles’s eyes widened with anger, but I didn’t worry in the slightest. The gang knew that if it killed a nurse, it would get run out of town in a second. Frankly, I was too stubborn to back down as well.
It was probably something that was going to get me in a lot of trouble at some point, but for right now, I just enjoyed seeing guys who weren’t used to feeling uncomfortable start feeling really uncomfortable.
Still, it’s not like I just got to ride the high of frustrating an asshole for the rest of the day. I felt frustrated myself, in large part, because there must have been something to lead LeCharles to believe he could have bribed me. Maybe there was already another nurse on staff who did this kind of thing, and they needed more help.
Or maybe they’re just assholes, period.
In any case, though, I left LeCharles without another word, with only the sound of a motorcycle roaring to life as I entered the hotel reaching my ears. As soon as I saw Devon, I pulled her aside.
“You won’t believe what just went down,” I said in a soft, low voice.
“I saw you with that guy,” she said, a smile forming. “Did he ask you out? Are you going—”
“What? No, Devon! Listen to me. Listen. Those assholes are going to try and bribe you to work under the table for them.”
