Page 19 of Two Tricks

Void looked at him with disgust. “For you they just have to be breathing and have a pussy for you to stick your dick in. You’re actually interested because she isn’t.”

“Can you blame me? It’s oddly refreshing to end up on my knees for a change,” Cognac said, getting a dreamy look in his eyes.

“Anyway,” I interjected, trying to direct this conversation into something purposeful. “Sprocket makes a good point. Let’s say we try this and it goes nowhere. What then?”

We all turned to Eagle, waiting for his answer. “Then we go to the original plan. If she won’t help us willingly, then we will force her to tell us the good old-fashioned way.”

“No, absolutely not!” I yelled, then pointed a finger at the desk. “And before you even try to put me in my place, pick up that sheet of rules and tell me what number ten says.”

Eagle growled at me, but he had no leg to stand on, and he knew it. If he was going to use the “original rules” ploy, so could I. Seeing that he wasn’t willing to admit his disregard for rules that made it harder for him, I turned to the others. “Anyone else remember what rule ten is?”

“We don’t harm women or children, they are off limits,” Sprocket said softly. “Because everyone has family that can be used.”

Eagle gripped the arms of his chair until it started to creak under the strain. “Well then, little brother, how are you okay with us having kidnapped her and keeping her here?”

The bastard wasn’t willing to fight fair on this, was he?

“None of us are hurting her. If she steps out of line and gets herself shocked, that’s on her. When we decided this, we always planned to let her go—torture and strong-arming her was never on the table,” I explained through clenched teeth.

“Picasso’s right,” Cognac said. “If we break this rule, then we might as well have no rules. We created this club to protect people like us that didn’t have anywhere to go, people who needed a family. Phantom Saints are different, and that’s what makes us stronger. That’s what’s earned us respect when other MCs get looked down on.”

As we talked, Eagle softened, showing me that he was listening. We wouldn’t let him bully us into making a choice that would affect this club negatively. It was the whole reason we were all in this together—no one man can do it right.

“Fine. Then I say we try my plan, and if it doesn’t work, then we decide on plan B. We will get to know her and the situation better, get more information to go on,” Eagle said, coming to a compromise.

“I’m in like Flynn, don’t have to ask me twice,” Cognac said, grinning excitedly.

I sighed, knowing I couldn’t deny my brother the chance to see if this woman was what he hoped. Yes, we always said that the club came first, but for me, Eagle was top priority. And before I blew up at her, I’d felt like we had a real connection. The time we spent together today made me feel like this might not be such a crazy idea. If we ended up not being lovers, I could see us being friends. “Alright, we’ll try your idea.”

“Fuck me, I’m in. That little demon might be the only woman who isn’t too afraid of me to love me,” Void said, rubbing the shaved side of his head. “But believe me when I say that little demon is going to be more work to handle than you guys think.”

That left Sprocket. This would only happen if we all agreed. If he said no, then we wouldn’t address it again.

Then a smirk crossed his face, and I knew his answer. Finally something interesting was going to happen around here.

Knowing Picasso was watching me, I entered the house without another word. These idiots. Like I was upset about being left alone, unsupervised, in their house. Puh-lease. I looked around the living room, trying to decide where to start gettin’ my super snoop skills on. Then I decided it was smarter to work top to bottom—the lower level was easier to have access to, even if they were all around.

First I stopped by the kitchen to grab a drink out of the fridge. Yanking it open, I found that it was fully stocked with real food—it almost looked like Weston had just gone shopping at our house. Spotting a row of beers, I snagged one and popped the top.

“Fuck it, not like I’m going anywhere that I’d need to be sober,” I muttered to myself as I noted the time—noon—and wandered up the stairs.

At the top of the stairs was the first bedroom. Tossing the door open to see which asshole put himself in line to be killed first, I felt slightly let down with how sparse it was. Did someone actually sleep in here?

The room was painted a dark gray, and the queen size bed was like a sea of black fabric. Whoever slept in here clearly didn’t make their bed in the morning.

Who was I to judge? I didn’t ever make my bed either. Stepping further into the room, I saw hanging on one wall was a huge poster advertising for a UFC fight. Standing dead center, fists up and piercing icy-blue eyes staring me down, was Void. Only on the poster was his given name—Lachlan Kinsley. It was dated twelve years ago for a championship in New York. Apparently, Lachlan had been a big deal in the fighting world before he became part of the Phantom Saints.

It seemed that in the years that passed, Void liked to travel on the light side. Opening his closet, I found it half full of random boxes containing more fighting memorabilia. Nothing was hung but a single leather jacket that was well-loved. Leaving the closet, I rifled through his dresser, and other than the fact he wore fitted-style boxers, I didn’t discover anything interesting. The only thing left in the room besides a punching bag hanging from the ceiling was a side table. Pulling open the one drawer, I found condoms, a gun, a box of bullets, and a picture of a rich couple with a young boy. Looking closer at the boy, I saw the telltale eyes that gave him away. They matched his mother’s perfectly, but in every other aspect he was just like his father. When I flipped the picture over, written on the back was Summer holiday in Cotswolds.

“I was right, it is a British accent!” I grinned. Typically I sucked at guessing accents, and his wasn’t very strong to my ear.

Putting the picture back, I closed the drawer. At least I knew where to get a gun if I needed it now. Looking around, I made sure everything looked like it had when I walked in, but there hadn’t been much to fuck with to begin with.

Off to the next room, which I was pleased to find was way more interesting.

I knew right away it was Cognac’s room from the burgundy silk sheets alone. The king size bed was the focal point of the room, but what caught me off guard was that one of my paintings hung above it. I had an art gallery that sold them for me, and because it was a hobby, I never listed my name on them. In the art world, I was known as “The Pink Lady.” This one had in one of the first batches I had sold, so Cognac had been a patron of mine for a while. The image was of a woman in a red slip nightgown sprawled across a white bed, her black hair swirling around her. What made this painting truly pop was the fact it seemed like the woman was staring right into your soul, asking for you to fuck her raw. It was little wonder why he had picked this one to have over his bed.

I wandered over to the desk, which was covered in paperwork around a laptop. I popped open the laptop, but of course it was locked, and I didn’t have Wes on speed dial to help me unlock it. Moving on, I skimmed over the papers, discovering they were just a bunch of financial reports on stocks. This was so not my wheelhouse—it seemed like another language to me. What did catch my eye was a handwritten list of names in a notebook. Names that I was very familiar with because they were my people. Each of them I had groomed to help me on my enforcement team.