Page 47 of In It for the Long Ride

“I ain’t your sweetie, women my age don’t like ma’am, and if you ever call me Miss Daisy again, I’ll kick the dick right off of you.”

“Yes M–,” Demon’s face contorted as he stammered, “Hon–Ah, yeah. Got it.”

“Good. Now get the fuck off my porch.” I shifted my finger and flipped the air to encourage his riddance.

“No, Ma– Ah… Uh, No. I can’t,” he stammered as I stepped closer, and he danced further.

It was a poor decision on his part, the man’s boot caught on the edge of the step, and he went tumbling down. Luckily for Demon, there were only three steps. He was left sprawled out on his ass in the dirt beside my sidewalk, and I carefully descended after him.

“I’m to stay put, keep an eye on you,” he grunted.

“You can do whatever you like. It’s a free country.”

“I can’t let you leave.”

“You can’t control me,” I corrected him with a thin laugh.

I tried to step around him, and Demon lunged for my ankle. The lightning reflexes I’d been afflicted with over the past few days snapped to life. I drew the leg he didn’t get a hold of back and kicked Demon as hard as I could. My boot landed solid to his inner thigh, just missing the target. I didn’t wait to find out how he’d react to such an attempt, I grabbed my car keys where they were dangling off my purse and pepper sprayed his ass without a second thought.

He flopped back in the dirt and started hollering and holding his face.

“Don’t you ever put your hands on me. My nephew will kick your ass!” I kicked in the back of the leg for good measure and trotted toward my car.

He wasn’t no pussy, that boy was already on his feet by the time I started the engine. I whipped the car onto the street, slammed the brake and rolled my window down.

“If you call or alert them in any way, I’ll call the law.” I scrambled in my purse, blindly searching for my cell phone because I was unwilling to take my eyes off him. “I mean it. He ordered you to stay put. Stay. Dog. Demon. Whatever the fuck they call you. I don’t dance with bikers. And I don’t like you.”

I connected with the obvious frame of the phone and jerked it up. Demon shot off without a word and I realized, as I snappeda picture of his fleeing, kutte, that he probably thought I was drawing a pistol.

I couldn’t help but laugh.

Good. Let him think I’m as crazy as some of these other Steel Disciple broads, that suited me just fine. I mean, I wasn’t above slapping the taste out of a man’s mouth, but for the love of God– I wasn’t going to shoot anyone!

As I shifted the car into gear, I realized I’d just thought of myself as a club strumpet and my stomach soured.

“Jesus,” I mumbled as I sped toward the Steel Disciple club house.

When I pulled into the parking lot, I couldn’t help but notice that there were no cars outside. It wasn’t odd that there would be none, it was a biker organization, after all. Even so, I expected to see at least one or two. I’d never seen mobsters ride motorcycles in the movies!

There weren’t any bikes, though. It was empty. The adjoining parking lot for the Steel Cages strip club had a few early evening guests parked outside, but only two of those were bikes. I slowly rolled over to join the row of cars and shut off the engine.

My mind ran wild.

Had Demetri changed the location on them or had something else happened? My stomach rolled and I began to fidget with a stray thread on the thigh seam of my jeans. After about thirty minutes, a big, black truck pulled into the lot. It had a moving trailer behind it and crawled across the gravel drive like it was afraid the dust would dirty the vehicle.

“Guess they wanted to stretch their legs and get a lap dance.” I snorted.

Who did that? Who stopped at a random strip club while traveling and packing a whole damn trailer?

Rather than park near me, the truck positioned itself longways behind the Steel Disciple clubhouse. The Two menjumped out of the backseat of the black truck and scrambled to unhook the trailer.

I watched on as they climbed back inside the cab and the vehicle left as quietly as it came.

“What the fuck?” I whispered, while staring intently at the moving trailer they’d left behind.

I went from playing with the thread to picking at the skin along my nails. An uneasy feeling was brewing in my gut to the point I couldn’t even glance in the direction of the moving trailer. I clutched my phone and contemplated calling Carl.

Internally, I was screaming for answers even as my mind was trying to block what I was about to discover.

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