Page 53 of Dozer

I already knew the basic information about all the ol’ladies because Master had made me learn them, which meant therewere going to be people who weren’t his brothers or their ol’ladies at whatever event I was attending tonight.

It felt wrong to say Master’s name, but that was the rule for this kind of conversation, so I said, “Dozer won’t tell me anything about what we’re doing tonight. He said you and Gen will tell me all I need to know.”

“The very first Girls’ Night Out was before Duke and Gen got together. Long story we can tell you later, but in a nutshell, Gen, Bethany, Viv, Sam, Cassie, and Cam made a tour of bars with a limo taking them from place to place, and their last stop was the MC’s restaurant. Gen was trashed, but an asshole got rough with her on the dance floor and she had him on the ground when Duke showed up out of nowhere and dragged her to the office. No one knows what happened, but he slept at her house that night, and they’ve been together ever since. When I started attending them, they’d turned into kind of a political thing, and I’m positive our Girls’ Night Out events have kept the peace multiple times when violence would’ve broken out. Dozer doesn’t want us to confuse you with the various factions in the city, but it’s a given there’s more than one group fighting for territory, right?”

I remembered how the Sons of Anarchy had fought other biker groups as well as a few gangs, but that was about who could sell drugs, right? Still, I nodded agreement.

Angelica sighed. “No, you don’t get it. I’ve grown up in the life, and I forget civilians need more explanation, sometimes. The back of the cuts, the patches on their jackets? It says the city at the bottom. Chattanooga, Atlanta, whatever. The point is, if a few rich guys up on the mountain buy motorcycles and want to pretend they’re bikers, and they have fancy vests made up to show it? They can’t put Chattanooga on the vestsanywhere. They can’t even put Lookout Mountain on them because that implies they own that territory, and they do not. Riding clubs areallowed to exist so long as they don’t get too terribly organized, but they cannot under any circumstances list their location. Out and out motorcycle clubs will be wiped out as soon as our guys find them. No exceptions. Even if they’re just making shit up and trying to pretend they’re cool.”

“Okay, but if there can only be one motorcycle club, what are the other factions? And how is the club in competition with them? My only sources of knowledge are theSons of Anarchyand the other biker documentaries I could find on thetwostreaming services Dozer has, and most of that seemed to be around the drug trade, but Dozer assures me the MC doesn’t deal in drugs.”

“He’s right about that, and I’m sorry that’s a question I can’t answer at the present time. One of the other factions is a security company, and as an example, Gen’s best friend Bethany is in a relationship with two men who work for Drake Security, and her third partner is Aaron Drake’s wife’s bodyguard, which makes you assume he works for Drake, but he’s been with Sophia since she was a child, and she pays him — not her husband. Basically, this means Aaron Drake views Bethany as his extended family, and since Duke does as well… you can see how this ties us together with Drake, right?”

“It’s how Washington DC works,” I told her. “Everyone’s related, or so closely connected they may as well be. If the general populace understood, there’d be an uprising.”

She glanced at me and back to the road. “Going forward, it’s probably best you don’t offer that kind of information, lest someone start looking into how you know so much about how DC works.”

My heart skipped a beat and terror flowed through my veins, but Angelica put her hand on my leg and said, “Breathe, Flower. I’m safe. I don’t know who you were, but I have the gist of whyyou need to be in hiding. Even if I find out your name, your secret will be safe with me.”

Master had let them hear him call me Daisy, once I’d figured out I want to keep my name, but everyone was still calling me Flower, which was fine. I loved that only Master and his friends called me that.

But I’d fucked up, telling her about DC, and I blew out a breath, trying to calm down and center. “I’ll have to tell Dozer I nearly fucked up. I don’t know why I said that. I’m usually so careful.”

“I won’t tell him, so whether you do is entirely up to you.”

I shook my head. “Our agreement is that I tell him everything, and especially the stuff I might not want him to know.” Plus, he’d ask me what he needed to know, and then he’d ask if I was leaving anything out, and healwaysknew when I wasn’t telling the absolute truth. I’d given up on even fudging the truth a tiny bit.

“Then you’re right. You have to tell him. Trust is important.” She swung into a parking lot, and then a parking space, and said, “We’ll take the top down on the way back, and I’ll drive you around town and show you where we’ll be going tonight. Just so you know, I’m your security today, so if I tell you we’re leaving, or you need to stay put, you do as I say. Safety first, so follow orders immediately, and I’ll explain why they were necessary later.”

Master had told me if Angelica looked serious and gave me an order, I needed to follow it, and it was nice to finally understand what he’d been talking about.

I nodded and we went inside, where Gen was already seated at a table with a drink I figured was a rum and Coke, based on Master’s info about her.

“Our waiter will bring Angelica’s favorite beer as soon as he sees ya’ll, but I didn’t know what to order for you,” Gen told me.

“An espresso martini would be awesome. I assume they have Belvedere vodka, but Chopin or Grey Goose will work if they don’t.”

Gen put her drink down and looked at me long and hard before she smiled. “I like you. I didn’t want to, at first, but you’ve grown on me, and that sentence right there makes me want to kiss you. Welcome to the club. Seriously.”

Because I was picky about vodka? Well, okay then. Whatever floated her boat.

Angelica accepted the beer from the gorgeous waiter with a nod, and I told him, “Espresso martini with Belvedere, if you have it. One now and one after our meal is delivered, the first a normal mix, the second with double vodka and less of the other stuff.”

Would Master punish me when I told him what I’d done? Only one way to find out. On the one hand, I was only having two drinks, but on the other, I was well aware he’d intended to limit my alcohol content, and I was finding my way around his intentions for me.

But something inside me needed to know.

Over the course of our meal, I found out we’d be going somewhere to play pool first, and then going to a small bar near the college district with a live band playing who kicked ass, and then we’d end up at a bar called The Diamond Club, which is apparently a place that started out as a gay bar back in the seventies and had never had a sign outside to say what it is. The parking lot is off the main road, so thenormalsnever notice there’s this happening bar a few blocks from downtown Chattanooga.

“You’ll see men wearing chaps and a g-string with a tiny little banana hammock, their ass on display, but it’s technically legal, right?” Angelica said. “Also, lots of tiny crop tops, because shirts are required where liquor is sold.”

“And people wearing collars with a leash attached, being held by another person,” Gen said, and I nearly touched my own collar, but I didn’t.

“It’s crazy,” Gen continued, “but it’s also a fun place to hang out and dance. There’s a drag show at midnight, and it’s kind of become the norm for Bethany and Gabby to end up on stage at the end of the show, dancing with the barely-dressed hot men who come out for the final number.”

“So, this isn’t just giving lip-service to partying?”

“You’re nineteen,” Gen said. “What do you know of partying at this level?”

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