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“Can I get back to work now?” Liss asked, petulant.
I stepped aside. She slid off the counter, stomping out of the kitchen. I watched her go. She was so goddamn skinny and small, but she made up for it with an attitude the size of Texas to protect herself.
I pulled my phone from the pocket of my cut and dialed Credence’s number. With his history as a bounty hunter, I could use his skills right now. He answered on the first ring.
“Hey, Big G. What’s up?”
“Are you busy?”
Credence paused, punctuated by the clatter of metal.
“Just working on my bike. I haven’t been giving her the attention she deserves lately. A tune-up was long overdue. Why?”
“I need you to do something for me,” I replied. “And don’t make a scene about it.”
“Is this outside of our Prospect’s field of expertise?”
Meaning there better be a good reason why I was saddling Credence with this burden, instead of Crash, who was supposed to prove himself by doing menial shit for us.
“Crash can’t keep his mouth shut to save his life,” I said.
“Sensitive issue, got it. Give me details. I’m all ears.”
I caught a glimpse of Liss through the kitchen doorway, delivering two bottles of beer to Vlad and Blackbeard, locked in a game of chess. She pointed to the queen and gestured at the board, saying something I couldn’t make out. Blackbeard raised his eyebrows with delight and moved his queen.
“Checkmate,” he declared.
Vlad scowled at Liss.
“I’ll get you back for that, little girl.”
She laughed and returned to the bar. My heart squeezed.
Liss fit in well here. She wasn’t shy around the guys, and she seemed perfectly capable of holding her ground. It pissed me off when Spike flirted with her, but she didn’t seem bothered by it.
“Big G?” Credence said, pulling me out of my thoughts. “Are you still there?”
I scrubbed a hand over my mouth. She was going to hate me for this.
“Dig up everything you can on Liss. Her real name is Larissa, but she didn’t give a last name. Keep it strictly between us.”
Investigating the background of potential members was standard practice for the club. The last thing we needed was an undercover cop or a wife-beater infiltrating our ranks. On rare occasions, we went snooping into more private matters—girlfriends, wives, siblings, teenagers. Unless there was a very good reason for doing so, it was generally frowned on to poke our noses into the personal lives of our brothers.
Liss wasn’t joining the Blackjacks though. She wasn’t claimed by anyone—not me, and sure as hell not by Spike. She was simply passing through. There was no reason to snoop into her past.
By asking Credence to do this, it showed I had my doubts about Liss. If the club knew that, they would clam up around her, wary and guarded, until Credence cleared her name. But I couldn’t sit here and twiddle my thumbs, doing nothing. When Liss found out that I went behind her back…there was a good chance she might never forgive me. Could I live with that?
My job was safety, orchestrating a smooth ride. Whether Liss liked it or not, that included her, even if she wasn’t part of the Blackjacks MC. She was still my responsibility, my guest, my little runaway thief. It didn’t matter whether she stayed here permanently, or climbed out of my window in the middle of the night so she didn’t have to say good-bye. I would rather risk her wrath than visit her grave with a useless apology on my tongue.
“What kind of dirt am I looking for?” Credence asked.
I thought about the scrawny kid Liss had been talking to earlier. I thought about how rattled she’d been, shutting me out. Refusing to tell me what the hell was going on. Desperate enough to lie as long as she didn’t have to speak the truth.
“Anything,” I said. “Someone wants to rough her up.”
“Boyfriend?”
I shook my head, leaning back against the kitchen counter. It was hard to put into words that gut feeling, knowing somehow that it wasn’t a boyfriend.
