Page 12 of Lucian

“Now’s not the time, Jord.”

Screw that.

“No, now is exactly the time, Ron. You promised me.”

She was only twenty-one, but she’d been working in this goddamned club since she was sixteen. In fact, she was serving alcohol to men thirty years her senior before she was ever legal to do so. Jordyn cleaned up after the girls whether asked or not. Kept their space good, took care of them if something went wrong with the men, and on more than one occasion, had been the one to make the anonymous phone call to nine-one-one when she found a girl out back, overdosed.

Jordyn did her part.

They had a deal.

“Like I said, now’s not the time,” Ron repeated quieter.

“Is it Will?” she asked, a wariness and hesitance starting to seep in. “Is that it?”

Will Vetta was the President of the Brooklyn chapter of The Sons of Hell, and as far as Jordyn understood it, pulled a high rank in the club in its entirety. Jordyn wasn’t entirely sure why, although she suspected it had something to do with her mother, but the man hated her guts. It seemed like he would even go out of his way to make a day particularly difficult on her if he could.

Jordyn didn’t mind standing up to any member of The Sons of Hell. They didn’t scare her—she was so much better than any of them. But, Will? Will Vetta scared the living shit out of her.

That kind of thing could happen to a girl when a man holds a gun to a thirteen-year-old who just found her mother dead not hours before and says, “You say nothing. You’re ours, now. Do you understand me, kid?”

Oh, Jordyn understood.

“Is this about him?” she asked again.

Ron frowned, some of the anger disappearing from his gaze. Turning over his shoulder, he muttered something inside the room before opening the door wider. Raine, Ron’s old lady and one of two bartenders for Legs, slipped out without a word or glance in Jordyn’s direction.

“Inside, now,” he ordered Jordyn.

With the door closed, Jordyn finally felt like she could breathe a little better. “You can’t make me get on one of those stages and dance, Ron. I won’t do it.”

“Would you rather be working the streets like one of his regular fucking whores, then?”

Dread slipped through Jordyn’s veins, swift and destructive. “What?”

“That’s about what it’s come to, you know. Will’s a bastard. I know like any other Son does. It just happens to be he’s an even worse one when it comes to you, kiddo. Sure would have helped you a great deal if that mother of yours had just given him what he wanted all those years ago.”

“I still don’t know what that is,” she admitted.

Ron nodded. “Yeah, we know.”

And they wouldn’t tell her, Jordyn knew. It didn’t matter how many times she asked.

“But I’m Gabe’s—”

“Gabe’s dead, Jord.”

There was a painful quality in Ron’s voice as he said those seemingly simple words. Jordyn knew they were anything but easy for him to say. His son Gabe had been the same age as Jordyn. He was the first person to take notice of the oddly cruel treatment Will gave to her.

They were just young, only teens, but it had been damn easy for them. It certainly wasn’t love, but it worked. Gabe got a steady girl he felt like he was taking care of, and in a way he was, all the while he could do as he pleased with all the other females who hung around the club’s joints and houses without her complaining. For her side of it, Jordyn had her protection, considering he was the VP of the club’s son. Because of Will’s inability to keep a woman long enough to have a kid, Gabe was looking good to be the next President, eventually.

“He’s been dead for over a year,” Ron continued, not noticing her wandering stare. “Being an old lady doesn’t help when the one guy in the club who protects you is gone and the highest one up is gunnin’ on you something awful. I can’t even tell you to run, because it sure won’t do you any good, but you can do this.”

God, she knew running wouldn’t get her anywhere but six feet under in a makeshift grave. That one thing had been made perfectly clear the entire time she spent inside the impenetrable walls of The Sons of Hell.

“This. You mean strip,” she whispered. “Take my clothes off for them—those pigs. Him, too.”

Ron shrugged as if it didn’t make a difference. “Call it dancing if it makes you feel better.”