RIDING DIRTY (Steel Titans MC Book 4) by Franca Storm (ebook voice reader .txt) 📕

He spun around at the rough slam that reverberated through the room. The look on his face was all I needed to calm down a notch or two. He was pissed that I’d scuffed the door with the heel of my motorcycle boot. Everything had to be perfect and pristine with him.

Just like the inside of his office.

It was as overdone and as needlessly luxurious as I remembered it being the last time I’d set foot inside. Flashy artwork hung on the walls in gold frames. Big-ass, hand-crafted mahogany furniture filled the space. A desk took up at least a third of the massive space. A portable bar over in the seating area boasted the most expensive liquor I’d ever laid eyes on. So, he served his customers shit, but enjoyed the best there was to offer for himself? It was the opposite of what he was going for. Class. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t just buy that. You either had it or you didn’t.

The other thing he’d never had that pissed me off more than anything?

Honor.

“Neanderthal,” he muttered under his breath. He gave me a sour look, then turned and strolled behind his desk. “Have a seat and we’ll discuss this like civilized men.”

I walked over one careful step at a time, sensing something was off. I’d felt it the moment he’d invited me to join him in his office. The history between us didn’t fit with that. I knew he usually handled that sort of thing out back in the piss-soaked alley.

He flicked his suit jacket open, then shrugged it off and hung it over the back of his chair. Then he started uncuffing his shirt sleeves and slowly and deliberately rolling them up to his elbows.

That was when I knew.

There was no civilized discussion in our near future.

He was preparing for a fight.

Hell, he’d brought me in here to kill me.

As he moved behind his desk, I watched his hand brush against the smooth wood.

Did he really think that would get past me?

There was a silent alarm under there.

He was bringing his security team in to do his dirty work.

Or, so he thought.

I took a seat in one of the high-backed chairs in front of his desk, lounging back casually.

His eyes strayed to the clock over the door. Anxiety spiked in them.

“Waiting on something?”

His gaze snapped to mine. “What have you done?”

I just shrugged. If he didn’t have the smarts to figure it out, he really didn’t deserve to know.

“Slade!” he roared, bolting to his feet and kicking back his chair. “Enough of these games!”

I rose calmly, telling him, “You should know by now, in our world, everything’s a deadly fucked-up game. The only way to survive is to be one step ahead.” I pulled a blade from the inside pocket of my leather jacket and spun it around rapidly. “The way to do that? Know the rules better than anybody.”

“Where the hell did you get that? There are metal detectors at the entrance.”

“Why else would I order the piss water passing for scotch in this place? To distract the bartender and lift this. I might favor a gun, but I’m pretty ace with a blade.” I gestured at the scar across his cheek. “You should know.”

He touched the scar. “When you did this, you crossed a line, but I gave you a pass, because I didn’t want a blood feud on my hands. Those things spiral out of control too quickly and there’s no winner.”

The way the guy spun things was out of this world. He ended up so far from the truth by the time he was done. “I gave you a pass. It was a warning.”

“I let it go after you interfered in something that had nothing to do with you. If I’d reacted and gone after you, it would’ve compromised my business and that wasn’t a price I was willing to pay.”

“You made it my business by letting me see that sickening shit.”

Years ago, when I’d first taken over as Prez, I’d considered expanding the club’s business dealings into a chain of strip clubs. Adrian had owned one that’d been on the market right around that time. I’d headed down to meet with him and take a tour and all that. But what I’d seen that day had put the kibosh on going that route with Titans.

Instead of hiring dancers for his club, he'd staffed them with unwilling workers, women who were down on their luck, in majorly bad situations. They’d been blackmailed or colluded into working at his clubs. Some of them had been shy of legal age by a couple of years. As if that weren’t fucked-up enough, he’d had their duties extended from just working a pole, to working a dick. Any of them that’d resisted had been punished, which was what I’d walked in on when I’d shown up early to meet with him.

I’d put him down and etched a long-ass scar into his cheek, so he’d never forget why he had it, what a sick bastard he’d been. I’d hoped it would’ve changed him and woken him. But some people were stubborn. Some people crossed all kinds of lines for the almighty dollar.

He’d laid low for a couple of months and I’d been watching him. So, I’d known the second he’d started that bull back up. Me and the club had cut off a transport of the girls he’d been bringing in to re-staff his clubs. Nolan had shown up right when me and the boys had been setting the girls free. He’d made a move against my brothers, so, I’d kneecapped him. That had stopped him for good. He’d spent months recovering from that and it’d calmed him the hell down.

Getting him to back off on that had come with a price for me, though.

This.

Having a death threat hanging over my head for far too long. Having something out there blocking me from living free all the way.

Adrian Nolan was a public figure, so