Page 37 of Dozer

This would be so much easier to explain if she knew about shifters and vampires.

“Long story short and way oversimplified, the women are all friends, and I think probably keep the men from killing each other as much as you see happening in other cities.”

I took a breath and plunged into the hard part of the story. “One of my brothers is gay, and he started dating this man I didn’t like from the first time I laid eyes on him. It pissed me off that Matty was an ol’lady. I’m over it now, and I’ve come to terms with it, but all the women of power in the city have this big Girls’ Night Out thing, where they rent limos and bar-hop, and at the time, my MC was solely responsible for security. I watched Matty walk out with three women, without the brother assigned to them because he’d got caught up with the property’s security, who thought he was stalking them. Protocol says I should’ve notified my brothers I had to step away from my charges tofollow the other group outside, and someone nearby would’ve watched my assigned people along with theirs, but I watched them walk out and didn’t say a word.”

She didn’t say anything, so I tried to explain. “In my head, Matty’s a man, and he’d take care of them, but I knew it was bullshit. Still, I was pissed at the whole circumstance, so I justified it in my head.” I sighed, remembering just how badly I’d fucked up. “Matty’s this scrawny little thing, so when three large men jumped them, it took him and the women, fighting together, to take them down. Matty needed stitches on his face, and one of the women had a few bruises, andallof their men were beyond pissed. To make matters worse, the women he was with weren’t our ol’ladies, but women from other organizations, and they belonged to or were under the protection of some heavy power-hitters.” And that was an understatement.

“Because we’d failed to protect those women, the men of the other organizations stopped allowing their women to come to the clubhouse, which meant our women went elsewhere to see their friends, and the clubhouse was no longer this big social event.” And that hadn’t even been the worst of it, but it was all I could get away with explaining.

“So they thought if you went away for a while, things would calm down, Sir?”

“Yes, and they did, to an extent, but then everything went to shit again when I returned. My brothers forgave me, but their ol’ladies didn’t, and that’s a story for another time. I eventually made things right, and I’m even okay with Matty these days.”

If she hung around with the ol’ladies, she’d eventually hear the story of what I had to do to make things right, but I figured I could push that out at least a year.

And once I considered it, I figured Matty might be the ol’lady she had the most in common with. “Matty has a slave contract with Razor,” I told her. “Not quite like yours, because he wasdoing better-than-okay financially when they met, but he was looking for a Daddy to take care of him, and the two kind of jumped right into that. He calls Razor eitherDaddyorSir, most of the time, and he has a smart mouth on him that’s gotten him in trouble more times than even I can count, and I doubt I’m privy to most of it. He’s likely to accept you right from the start, even if it takes some of the other ol’ladies a little longer to understand our relationship.”

Because Gen was going to blow a gasket. My guess is Duke would lead her to believe it was a Master/submissive relationship, and would leave out the sex-slave part of it, but still, I was betting Gen would take a while to warm up to my little Daisy.

“You’re going to take me to your clubhouse, Master?”

“Not right away. If I think you’re ready, I’ll take you on a road trip in a few weeks. You’ll be on the back of my bike while we travel, and either by my side or in our tent when we’re not on the bikes, but eventually, yeah, you’ll be able to come to the clubhouse. Special occasions, at first, and we’ll see how things go.”

“And if I’m not ready in a few weeks, Sir?”

“I’ll stay home and look after the club’s properties. Those capable of managing everything on their own take turns doing so, with the exception of the top leadership, since they need to be present on the road trips. I volunteered to do it for several months, when I first came back, until Duke insisted I get my ass on my bike and come with them.”

“You told me I can’t ask questions about your club.”

“That’s right. If I start assuring you we don’t take part in something specific, eventually you’ll ask about something we do, so it’s best if you don’t ask. I’ve assured you we don’t deal in the drug trade, or in illegal guns, and that’s all I’m going to say. We do have a gun store, and the only way to keep it is to staycompletely aboveboard with gun sales.” And to make sure Horse stays clean legally, since the FFL is in his name.

Okay, so the truth is, some of us have some fully automatic weapons, but as individuals, not as a club. We’re super careful about where we have them, though, so it isn’t likely law enforcement is ever going to find any of them.

“And you work mostly at the restaurant, Sir?”

I shook my head. “I usually work the restaurant on the weekends, and on other nights we expect to be busy. Basically, I go where we might need muscle. During the week, there are other places I’m better utilized.”

Like our whorehouse, because the johns aren’t as likely to rough our girls up if they see me posted as security. Also, I float around at all our businesses since I’m one of the few people capable of managing every one of them.Hmmm, I could tell her that part.

“I’m capable of running any of our businesses, should the person or people who usually do so need some time off. I frequently work at all of them, so I stay up on what’s happening everywhere.”

“The truth is, I’ve never had a job. I’ve interned a few places, which is kind of like having a job, but it feels like I should work somewhere that isn’t a tattoo parlor to get some experience before I start doing that.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” I told her. “It’s certainly something we’ll need to discuss when the time nears. We’ll also need you to be absolutely certain of whether you want to take on a new identity or pick up with your original one. It’ll cost between thirty and eighty grand for me to buy you a new identity, maybe more because you’re such an outlier, and I’m absolutely fine with doing that, but only once you’re certain you want to be someone else, because once you get started as a tattoo artist, you’ll have to stick to what you start with. You’ll take on thepapers of someone dead or dying, and it’s illegal as fuck. They’ll have to find someone your height with a similar look, and then a plastic surgeon will make some hopefully minor adjustments so you look more like them. It works much better with someone of average height. The weight isn’t so important because people lose weight, and that helps with the picture, too.”

“But they have to ask the person’s family, right Sir? So there would be people who’d know it isn’t really me?”

“It’s my understanding the IDs are often from street people, homeless people, but it’s also possible for someone with terminal cancer to auction their identity before they die. A doctor proclaims them cancer free, they go on vacation and check items off their bucket list items with the windfall, and then I pay a hospice nurse to handle end-of-life care when it’s time. They’re cremated, ashes scattered, and you continue on with their name. Mostly, the people in the identity trade look for common names, rather than super-unique ones, but you’ll be told not to use the birthdate associated with the name on social media, just in case family notices the name and goes looking.”

“Can I have a laptop, Master? You don’t have to give me access to Wi-Fi, but I think better when I can type my thoughts out.”

“That’s something we can put on the list of things you’d like to earn, certainly. Meanwhile, I’m going to put a blindfold on you and show you something.”

Chapter 31

Daisy

It wasn’t just a blindfold. It was made of leather, and it covered my entire head. There were nose holes so I could breathe, and he showed me that there were zippers at my eyes and mouth, but he kept them closed.

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