Page 4 of Mischief Mayhem

“Lots of Roses today. I’ll be fine for a while,” I told Wheels.

He nodded. “Cool. I’ll wait here.”

He could have gone out to do anything else, but he seemed content to fiddle with his phone while I did my thing. Like Hollywood, Wheels was gorgeous and got around like a one-dollar bill. He had deep umber skin and a bright shimmering smile that made others grin just by looking at it, and women loved him. Covered in tattoos, he matched every biker stereotype ever—beautiful and bloody and bad. But he took his role as my bodyguard seriously, and he respected his position in the club. He’d never cross a line with me, and I appreciated that the most about him.

I walked inside, admiring how the space had been transformed since Alba and KC first bought it. Instead of a concrete wasteland, an inviting foyer greeted visitors, complete with a furry pink wall and a neon sign with the company’s name and logo. KC hated it, but it was one of my favorite things about the place.

“Hey, V,” Alba called when I walked into the breakroom. She sat at one of the tables with her husband, drinking coffee while they went over reports laid out in front of them.

“Hey, how’s it going?” I leaned in to say hi and waved.

“Ru was looking for you earlier,” KC said, flashing his classic friendly grin. “She and Saint are filming down the hall, but you should check in with her before you leave.”

“Thanks.” I nodded and turned before Alba stopped me.

“Hey, how’s Pollux?” she called.

“Good.” I updated them on my visit, just as I did every day. They said they would swing by to see him on their way home, and I assured them he would love to talk about the hot nurse he planned to marry once he broke free.

“Are you coming to the Valentine’s Day party tonight?” Alba grinned expectantly, her wild blond hair curling around her head like a halo. KC called her Sunshine as a nickname, and with the way the light hit her through the window behind her, making her golden skin glow, I understood why. “We’re auctioning off a date with the single brothers. All the benefits go to Pollux’s medical bills.”

I remembered Ru saying something about that, and thankfully, I’d been kept out of the planning. The whole thing sounded ridiculous and objectifying, even if it was for a good cause.

“Yeah, I’ll be there,” I said, taking a step back so I could go to work, “but not for the auction.” I had no need for a man in my life. Even if I’d always considered myself a mostly (read: regrettably) hetero-leaning pansexual, I wasn’t interested in dating women, either. It sucked to be alone on Valentine’s Day, especially when everyone else in the club was such a horny little hedonist, but I’d just gotten my first real taste of standing on my own. I didn’t want to jump into anything serious.

After I went to my room, I set up for my first client and changed into the black corset I planned to wear. I put my leather mask over the top part of my face and logged on to the Crimson platform to take live calls for the next few hours.

Sure, most people associated kink and domination with sex. In the best cases, it could be. But with most of my clients, it rarely went that way. They liked the degradation that came with hearing a beautiful woman tearing them down. One in particular liked me to insult him until he cried, saying it was the only way for him to have an emotional release.

I never asked why they sought me out, only tried to deliver on what they needed.

After that disaster with Curtis last June, I came home to the protection of my father, my brothers, and my badass biker family. No one from the dungeon knew my real name, no one except my roommate. I’d never given them any real facts about me, but occasionally, when I drove to work by myself or when I got a new anonymous client in my camming channel on Crimson, a shiver went down my spine the way it used to when he looked at me. There was something in an abuser’s stare when they directed it at their victim—something slithery and territorial and toxic, something I could never forget.

Curtis’s abuse caused a relapse in my depression. Sure, I put on the brave face when I first arrived home. I smiled and sneered and heckled the way I always had, but inside, I was crumbling. I started to believe I deserved what he had done to me. I remembered the horrible things I’d once thought about myself: I was worthless, no one cared about me, the world would be better off without me in it. Depression lied. It always did. But knowing that did not stop those thoughts from spinning. It was one thing to see my family and hear them tell me they loved me. It was another to believe it myself. Up until the day Hollywood took a bullet for me, I genuinely thought I’d be better off dead.

Whenever those thoughts reared up again, I clutched the glass jar hanging around my neck, reminding myself of Hollywood’s sacrifice. Whenever I let those dark thoughts creep in, whenever they fought for dominance in my mind, I remembered that night. I remembered how close to death I’d actually come and how hard I fought to stay alive, how hard Hollywood had fought to keep me alive.

The bullet reminded me there was at least one person in this world who would die for me, and I would never waste his blood again.

2

HOLLYWOOD

“You ever been waxed from ass crack to nut sack, forced in a suit, and shoved up on stage to be auctioned off for charity?” I asked, wiping my hands on an oil rag as I approached Bear and Thor, both working on a Chevy pickup that had been brought in yesterday. Bear’s boots hung out from underneath the front while Thor leaned over the hood, clenching his hands around a wrench.

“No,” Bear grumbled. “And if you’ve got nothing to do but talk about your nut sack, you could hand me that Phillips-head by your left foot.”

I bent down to get the screwdriver, placing it in Bear’s outstretched palm before continuing. “I don’t know if the fact it’s for Pollux makes me more or less of a whore for a good cause.”

“You don’t have to sleep with the winner, Hollywood,” Thor said, tightening the nut farther into place while Bear held the bolt firm. “In fact, I think Alba will insist that you don’t.”

I clapped Thor on the back and grinned. “Don’t worry about that, my brother. I assure you, the days of a free-dicking Hollywood are gone.”

“God,” Thor said, straightening, before wiping his dirty hands on his shirt. “Go find something better to do before I do it for you.”

“You see,” I continued, ignoring his protests for the sake of the punch line, “despite the outcry of millions of broken hearts, I’ve taken a vow of chastity.”

Bear snorted a laugh and scooted out from under the truck.

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