Page 106 of Monster

Dominic turned to me. It must have been a trick of the light, because I was sure I didn’t just see a soft look in his eyes.

“You heard the lady,” Dominic said, not looking away from me. “No onion on one.”

“Got it,” the bartender rasped. I didn’t even notice her walking away.

I shifted in my seat.

“Have you been here before?” I asked, trying to get him to stop looking at me like…that.

“Once or twice before. I have no reason to come to this place.”

“Because you have your own bar, right?” I asked.

He nodded, smiling slightly. “Right. How much do you know about the King’s Men MC?”

“Very little,” I admitted. I wished I had learned more than just snippets of gossip here and there. But I didn’t think I would need to. I didn’t know I would catch the attention of their king.

“Would you like to learn more?”

I turned to him. “Would you tell me?”

He seemed amused. “I won’t go into details, but yeah, I’ll tell you mostly whatever you want to know.”

His eyes seemed sincere, but I didn’t know if I could trust that or not.

“The chapter started in Las Vegas?” I asked, thinking back to what Lucy had told me. He nodded. “Why did you move here to California?”

“Because after the old president died in a tragic and gruesomeaccidentand I took the throne, I thought it would be a good idea to start somewhere new. California seemed ideal. It’s not too far from Las Vegas. It’s not as corrupt, and there isn’t much competition. The Irish mob ruled the casino scene in Vegas, in case you didn’t know. And here, we’re closer to the ocean.”

I nodded, ignoring the emphasis on the old president’s death being an accident. I wasn’t naïve about the kind of man Dominic was. It shouldn’t be surprising that his rise to power had started with violence.

“I heard about the casinos,” I said. “I grew up in Nevada, close to Las Vegas.”

He nodded as if he already knew. He probably did. I was sure that for a man with his reach, there was very little he didn’t know.

“Why the ocean?” I asked.

He didn’t answer me right away. The bartender came back with two beers and placed them in front of us. Dominic took a small sip.

“Business reasons. Overseas distribution is where a lot of the money’s at.”

I opened my mouth—to say what, I didn’t know—before I closed it and nodded. He didn’t say what kind of distribution, but I was sure I could guess. And that was probably all I would get from him regarding that.

“Do you regret the move?”

“To California?” he asked.

I nodded.

“No. This was a good choice for the club.”

“What about the men who didn’t want to move?”

“There are men who are loyal to the old club and the old ways. I gave them a way out of the club, which was a mercy, because once you’re in the club, there’s no getting out. They stayed behind in Las Vegas, and I’m sure some of them joined the Sons of War, the new chapter that started a few years back.”

I nodded but didn’t know how to respond. It was a lot of information, but I was beginning to see the way Dominic ran things.

There was very little he didn’t know, and he seemed to like it that way.

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