Page 60 of Menace

“Lucky, I swear brother she’ll have brothers on her around the clock.” His prez tried to soften the blow. “We’ve done a background check on her bodyguard and he’s damned good. Brendan O’Connor was a highly decorated officer in the British SAS and retired to take over running their family’s distillery in Ireland after his father became ill. He hadn’t been there long when the daughter of a family friend accused him of rapin’ her. She claimed he was usin’ drugs and drinkin’ heavily. It was never proven but he was still ostracised by his family. His younger brother stepped up and took over. It’s been suggested that the brother planned the entire shit show. Brendan left Ireland and joined Asa Malone’s outfit in South Africa as one of his inner circle. Malone let me know he’s deadly and not to be crossed.”

It didn’t make him feel any better.

“It doesn’t make it any better, Prez. We can’t let the cartel get to her, we just can’t.” He sagged in his chair and glanced at Dive when he patted his shoulder.

His brother’s eyes showed his sympathy but it wasn’t visible on his face.

“The club will keep her safe, Lucky. We’re not goin’ to let anythin’ happen to her or the baby. We’ve got this, those cartel bastards don’t know that we know. It gives us the edge we need while keepin’ an eye on her.” Dive watched him until he nodded in agreement.

He was right.

The cartel fuckers didn’t know they knew their game plan. It gave them the edge, like Dive said.

They’ll just have to make sure they kept the edge.

If they lost it he knew he would lose Harper and her boy.

And that couldn’t happen.

He wasn’t losing her and no one would be taking her baby.

Not now, not ever.

He should have known not to make statements like that.

It blew up in your face when you least expected it.

SEVENTEEN

Harper

I was pissed, no, actually, I was more than pissed. I was ready to erupt like Mount Vesuvius and spew lava and burning ash all over the bitch who had been plastered to Lucky’s side while insulting me. And just saying his name in my head made my temperature skyrocket. How dare he call me a slut when the only slut was the one hanging on him? And saying my boy was gross and I had a fat ass? Fuck him. Who the hell did he think he was?

Nobody, that’s who.

He was nobody, nobody to me and nobody to my boy.

Him calling me a slut hurt, hurt so bad, but I had to shake it off.

Why is it that men can have sex with countless women and no one blinks an eye?

People laugh and call them bad boys, or players or some shit.

But let a woman do it. Instantly she’s a slut and a whore.

Why is that?

Lucky Boudreaux was a dumbass and a hypocrite.

His morals were bent to hell and back with the shit his club was involved in. I wasn’t stupid, I grew up in a criminal household, and knew the signs. I’ve been watching Ink and the club brothers who were in and out of the studio since I started here and it was obvious to me, if not to anyone else, that they weren’t clean. The burner phones, the conversations that stopped the minute you approached, and Ink’s unexplained absences. It all pointed to one thing and one thing only, criminal activities.

Personally, I didn’t care what they were involved in, as long as it didn’t impact the studio. And who was I to judge anyway.

Dom was the acknowledged king of the South African underworld and he was a friend, so was Asa, another crime boss. Even the Iron Dogz weren’t squeaky clean and Rider was my person. And after defending me I had added Ink and through him his club to my crime friends list.

Crime friends list, that actually made me grin. I had a list of friends who were criminals. I never expected it to happen when I ran from my family. I had thought getting away from them would be the end of me being involved with criminals.

But no, not me, I seemed to be drawn to men who were less than law abiding citizens.

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