Bouncer by Kim Jones Page 0,41
out a laugh, his eyes again dropping to my cut. “Sure. Michael is working tonight. Who’s asking?”
He needs to wipe that snarky look off his face before I come over the bar and do it for him. I make sure my expression conveys that. Something about the way he puts emphasis on the name has me curious, even as his question grates on my nerves. “I am,” I reply sarcastically.
His eyes narrow, but he turns to do my bidding like a good little peon, pausing beside the hot chick washing the glasses to murmur something in her ear. I’m too far away to hear it, but I see him gesture toward me.
Her eyes search me out and a stricken look passes over her face. I should be used to that reaction. I get it from a lot of people on the street when they see the cut and the patch. They become immediately struck with fear or disgust. See it time and time again.
But for some odd reason, it really irks me that I see it on cutie-pie’s face.
She wipes her hands and approaches me.
What the fuck? Is dickhead passing the job off to her? Maybe he doesn’t want to deal with me. That’s fine. I’d rather talk to this beauty any day.
“Can I help you?” she asks, her chin lifting even as her gaze drops to my cut and then beyond me. I twist to see what she’s looking at. There’s no one behind me. The pool tables are now empty, but I spot my bike through the plate glass window, its red paint gleaming under the streetlight. I turn back to her. Yeah, babe, that beauty is mine. I don’t have to tell her, though.
“I asked if I could I help you?”
“Sure, doll. Lookin’ for Michael Mooney. He in tonight?”
“That’s me. And it’s pronounced Mi-kay-la.”
“You?” I ask, sounding like a dumbstruck fool. I wasn’t ready for that, and it catches me by surprise. Now I understand dickhead’s smirk.
“Yes, me. What can I help you with?” She says it sweetly enough, but I get the feeling Miss Michaela Mooney doesn’t want to help me with anything. In fact, I don’t think she wants me in her bar at all.”
“You in charge now?”
“Yep.” Her answer is short and choppy and let’s me know she wants me gone. Sorry, babe. Not happening.
“You Cullen’s daughter?” I ask, thinking back to the child that was with him the night I pulled him from that fire ten years ago. Back then Vic ran the club, and people had a right to be terrified of us.
“Yes, one of them.”
“Let’s talk in the office,” I say, not so much as a suggestion, but a command that not many people would brook.
“Let’s not,” she snaps back, and I pause halfway off my stool. She’s a sassy little thing, and I can’t say I don’t like it. It almost makes me want to smile, but that would be the wrong foot to get off on with her. I need to set the tone of how this arrangement’s going to go between us, right from the start.
“You know why I’m here?”
“To throw your weight around, like your club does everywhere else in town?”
She’s one step from crossing the line with me, and I’d rather we’re not in a roomful of people when she does it. I lean across the bar.
“I knew your father. I respected him. Only reason I’m giving you that smartass comment and letting it slide. But you and me are going to talk. And we’re going to talk in your office. Now we can do that one of two ways: you walk back with me like an adult, or I haul you back there over my shoulder with your ass in the air. How you want to play this, angel?”
Michaela’s fuming, her face flushing red, her lips thinning. She raises her chin and snaps out, “Fine.”
She turns and heads toward the back and I follow, keeping pace with her down the bar until we get to the hallway. I pause and let her go ahead of me.
Once we reach the office and I close the door, Michaela immediately puts the desk between us, and I try to hold back the smile. I’ll give her that space—for now.
I move to a seat in front of it and sit. She lowers herself into the big red leather chair, looking small and so out of place. I’m used to seeing Cullen in it, so this is strange for me