Dash (Silver Saints MC)

When I’d walked in here, I hadn’t really cared if my boss was a nice guy or a complete jerk. But I took heart in knowing that he'd earned Mrs. Acker’s stamp of approval. As nice as she was, she also struck me as a tough person to trick.

“If you give me the chance to surprise you too, you won’t regret it,” I promised.

“The only shift I have available at the moment is nights.” A wrinkled popped up in the middle of her brow as she scanned my face. “I’m not sure how long it’ll be before something opens up during the day, and I’m not sure it’s a good fit. I know you recently turned nineteen, but you look young enough to still have a curfew.”

“Nights are fine by me.” Leaning forward, I let her see how desperate I was. “I’ve been staying with my sister since I moved to town after graduating from high school, but she’s pregnant and needs the room I’m using for a nursery.”

She tilted her head to the side, her eyes narrowing. “Is that the only reason you’re so fired up to get hired?”

The pregnancy was the excuse my sister was using to push me out the door, but it wasn’t why I was in such a rush. “Her boyfriend wasn’t exactly thrilled by the idea of me staying with them in the first place, and he’s made it crystal clear he wants me out as fast as possible. If I had the money to move, I would already be gone.”

“Hmm,” she murmured. “Sounds like you really do need this job.”

“More than you could possibly know.” I wasn’t above begging. “Please give me a chance.”

“I suppose it’s silly for me to worry anyway.” She sighed as she opened a drawer to pull out a stack of papers. “Nobody is going to give you a hard time when you work for Dirt Dashers. That’s just asking for the kind of trouble people like to avoid.”

Although I had no clue what she meant by that, I didn’t ask her for more details—like what kind of trouble she meant since it sounded bad. I probably should have, but desperate times called for desperate measures. The interview seemed to be going my way, and I didn’t want to jinx anything. But it turned out that I didn’t need to worry because she volunteered more information.

“The owner considers his employees to be under his protection, and he takes that responsibility very seriously.” She strummed her fingers against the top of her desk. “In fact, he could probably do something about your sister’s boyfriend if things get too bad at home before you’ve saved up enough to move out.”

Hope began to blossom in my chest, but the feeling had nothing to do with the supposed protection the company’s owner could provide. The odds of me complaining to him about the petty stuff my sister’s boyfriend liked to pull were basically zero. Not when I didn’t know the guy and depended on him for a paycheck…assuming I got the job in the first place. “Does that mean you’re hiring me?”

She nodded. “If you really want it, the job is yours.”

“I do.” I practically bounced in my seat with anticipation.

“When can you start?” she asked as she handed the stack of papers to me.

I glanced down and nearly groaned at all the forms I would need to fill out. But only my excitement at being hired could be heard in my tone when I offered, “Whenever you need me.”

“How about today?” She tapped on her keyboard and nodded. “One of the guys on the night shift called in sick again, and it’s a job we can’t put off. The building needs to be cleaned tonight.”

“Just tell me where and when, and I’ll be there,” I promised.

2

Dash

“You just had to use the Glock,” I muttered when I walked into the room.

Bear, one of my brothers in the Silver Saints MC, was leaning a shoulder against the wall on the opposite side of the room while talking with Doc, another brother.

They both turned to look at me, and Bear shrugged. “All I had on me. Besides, I thought you’d enjoy the challenge.”

I looked over at the dead body crumpled on the floor with a .45-inch hole in his head. The hollow point bullet was embedded in the wall behind him, which was splattered with blood, bone, and brains. It was all over the carpet behind him as well.

“This isn’t a challenge. It’s a fucking pain in the ass.”

Blood had a way of seeping into everything, even the concrete below the carpet. Cleaning it early helped, but we would have to take the time to draw it out of the pores in the floor to make sure no evidence of the murder remained.

Not that this sick fuck hadn’t deserved what he got. Word had reached us about some incidents with girls going missing and ties back to a couple of chat rooms. One of our enforcers owned a security company and was a world-class hacker. When he heard about this, he’d gone digging. Bear tracked him down after discovering this man’s involvement in a human smuggling ring. He lured the asshole to this mostly abandoned office building, and we’d intended to leave him with an anonymous tip to the authorities.