Page 14 of Mace

I don’t trust him, and not just because he’s a squirrellyfucker. He’s in deep with Crank, and that’s reason enough not to trust him. Our President is a coward.

“I’ll scream.” The girl with the bubble gum pink hair makes the threat, even though her voice wobbles.

Blade advances, and although I don’t know what he’s planning, I say his name.

His eyes lift from above the bandanna covering his face. I can see why they might think they’ve crossed paths with the devil—there isn’t an inch of light behind his eyes. As he stares at me, I can feel his frustration that I’m in his way. “Go to Nic.”

He doesn’t like the order. I can tell when his eyes narrow and his face twitches above the material.

Well, fuck him. I have no objection to putting him on his arse if he wants to fight me.

He leans in to say something to them that I don’t catch before he huffs a breath and walks away.

One of these days, he’s going to stick a knife in my back. The club is so fractured, and although I’d like to blame it on the shitstorm we went through with the Pioneers, it was already broken before that.

Weak heads can’t turn necks, and Crank is the weakest of all. I’ve put up and shut up for months, but only because Nic told me to trust him, and I would follow Nic through the gates of hell if he asked. It doesn’t make it any less difficult to face these pricks without wanting to slit their throats.

I slide my gaze to the two women, intending to tell them to join the other girls in the back rooms, but my words die on my tongue.

Both women are gorgeous, but it’s the one with the hair like candy floss that takes the breath out of my lungs. She’stiny, and despite the skyscraper high heels she’s wearing, the other girl is at least a head taller. Unsurprisingly, she’s barely dressed, but I don’t think she’s a dancer. Her perky tits heave against the tight tank top she’s wearing, and those tiny little shorts cover more than they would if she was a stripper.

She looks too fucking sweet to work somewhere like this.

I push that thought aside immediately. Looks can be deceiving, and although she exudes innocence, I know better than to think she truly is. No one works in a place like this unless they’re shattered by their circumstances.

I study her closer, both intrigued and cautious about this strange piece in the jigsaw puzzle.

She does have pain in her eyes—I see that beneath the surface—but it’s not the crippling agony that drives a person into the bottom of a bottle or to shoot up substances to wash away the pain.

There are no demons dancing around her, trying to drag her into their murky depths. She is a beacon in a dark, turbulent ocean, and I don’t like how my breath lodges behind my ribs because of her.

Her gaze remains magnetised to mine, as if she can’t bear to drag her eyes from me. There’s no disgust or horror in her expression, and that dislodges something inside me. She’s afraid of me, but she’s not looking at me as if I’m the devil.

I can’t remember the last time someone looked at me without hate burning through them. I didn’t realise how much I missed being treated like I’m not a monster.

But you are a monster, Mace.

“Are you both okay?”

My little doe pulls her friend behind her farther,shielding her with her body, despite the fact she’s smaller. “Please don’t kill us.”

My brow arches. “Why the hell would I kill you?” I understand why she might think that, and I don’t know how many dealings they had with their former owner, but we ain’t a thing like Desmond Richardson’s fucking crew.

“I don’t know. Your friends came in here kind of aggressively.” She winces as she says the last word. “I mean… I’m not saying you’re aggressive, though I’m sure you could do damage if you wanted to, but?—”

“Stop,” the other girl hisses in her ear, and she closes her mouth.

“You’re about to have a change of management. This is a Sons business now.”

As I say this, yells reach my ears. I glance over my shoulder to see Diesel and King dragging a guy wearing a white button-down shirt with dark trousers, his neck and wrists dripping in gold. He fights them like he’s possessed, his whimpers and cries of fear unnecessary considering we ain’t even started his punishment yet.

Nothing worse than a fucking screamer.

I roam my gaze over the man who has forced this show of power from my club, and my lip curls up in disdain.

Sam thinks he’s a don, but he’s a tacky fucker with no power and zero friends. He pleads endlessly on a loop for his life but not the lives of the innocent girls he employs. That tells me exactly what kind of prick he is.

“What are you going to do to him?”

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