check my phone. No missed calls. No messages. Nothing. What did you expect? I toss my phone onto a pile of paperwork and sigh.
My absence at the garage hasn’t gone unnoticed. Though I haven’t come out and said what’s goin’ on, the wary looks aimed my way when my brothers think I’m not looking, tells me they already know. Priest’s life may be busier than ever now with two kids and a wife, but my Prez has the uncanny ability to tune into each of us. It’s only a matter of time before he gets me alone and I’ll be forced to come clean about what happened between me and Jax. It’s something I’m not—and may never be—ready for.
A knock breaks the silence surrounding me and I drop my feet to the floor before I turn to the monitor that shows the camera feed from inside Corrupt. My eyes scan the small squares to find the one situated outside the office. I ignore the twinge of disappointment when it’s not the man I want to see.
“Come in.”
The door swings open to Rhys, one of my part time bartenders.
At the ripe age of twenty-one, he’s the youngest bartender I’ve ever had working for me, but he’s also one of the best. If he plans on staying here for the long term, there’s no doubt in my mind he’ll be the perfect candidate for a management position in the future.
He takes a step forward, hesitating until I urge him forward.
“What’s going on, Rhys?”
Unless there’s a major issue, Rhys doesn’t come to the office. He’s a good employee and knows how to handle trivial issues. But today he’s looking a little green around the gills, and I’m instantly on alert.
The last time he came to me looking like this was because he’d seen a customer slip something into a drink and headed toward one of my dancers. Rhys left his station and ran straight to my office so I could handle it. Luckily, the dancer in question had gotten a bad vibe from the guy and refused his drink.
Acting for all the world as if the guy was a VIP and I lived to serve him, he laughed it off as an expected ‘perk’ of being a stripper. As though these women are here to serve his depraved needs. I gave him a dose of his own medicine. Literally. Though it wasn’t until he woke up handcuffed to a chair and surrounded by the Heaven’s Guardians MC that he realized what a huge mistake he’d made.
He’s one of only a few that has lived to tell the tale after a confession with our priest. Fortunately for us, after Demon removed his dick with what was the most innovative use of a bear trap I’ve ever seen, the fear we instilled in him secured his silence.
“Rhys?” I stand and walk around from behind my desk. “What’s going on?
“I um, I’m sorry to bother you. I know you’re busy and you’ve only been back—”
I raise a hand and cut him off, hoping to ease his anxiety, and to stop the reminders of why I’m here and why I now have a gaping hole in my chest. “You know you can talk to me anytime.” Rhys nods and shifts on his feet. He opens his mouth, then closes it again, his fingers twisting together.
His panicked demeanor causes my hackles to rise. “Is someone in trouble? One of the girls?”
“No.” He shakes his head. “No. It’s nothing like that,” he starts and stops again. “I wanted to talk to you about Malcolm.”
My brows shoot up. Well, that’s not what I was expecting. “Alright, anything in particular you wanted to bring up?”
Malcolm has been riding a fine line here for some time. He’s been my full time bartender and manager for the past five years. When he started working for me, he was an upstanding employee, but through the years he’s changed. The complaints pertaining to him are damn near constant and the longer I keep him on, the longer I prolong the inevitable.
Rhys nods. “He’s been skimming,” he admits. His gaze lifts to mine. “Any time he thinks he can get away with it, he skims the customer’s change. Sometimes it’s not much, but if they’re really drunk, it can add up to a pretty penny.”
My shoulders tense. I’d like to say I’m surprised, but given Malcolm’s change in behavior lately, there’s not much he could say about the man that would stun me. “And is this