Risk It All

CHAPTER TWO-1

CHAPTER TWO

“Want me to lock up?”

“No,” Blaser said, straightening a Risqué emblazoned glass on the shelf behind the bar. “You get home to that gorgeous wife of yours.”

“She’s pissed about some s**t,” Dax said, resting a fist on the other side of the bar. “She’ll have waited up just to give me earache when I get home.”

“Way I hear it, the fight is sorta foreplay for you two.”

Dax’s usually clear expression became smug. “That’s definitely the truth. She’s a minx, everything is foreplay to her. I’m never sure if she’s going to jump me or kill me.”

“Sounds perfect.”

“As close as you’ll get,” Dax said, opening his hand to push away from the bar. “See you tomorrow.”

Blaser listened to his newest security man exit through the front of the building then went through his usual checks. Everything was where it was supposed to be. Lights were off. Check. Check.

Two weeks ago, Dax showed up shouting the odds, making sure every guy knew Ivy was off-limits. His new desk girl at Warner Autos, Ivy, was hot, maybe under other circumstances he would’ve made a play. But that kind of casual encounter held no interest for him.

Womanizing wasn’t his way, never had been. He’d spent most of his life with one woman. The woman he set free when he went to prison. That was the final straw. Breaking up with her, breaking her heart, was the most difficult thing he’d ever done in his life. He didn’t doubt being crazy in love with her, even as he said the words that severed her from his life. Selfishly, he’d wanted to keep her, but the truth was, he’d made her cry too many times. Back then, at twenty-eight, he was supposed to be getting his act together, not losing his s**t. So he’d called her into visiting and ended it. Six and a half years later, and he still thought about her every day.

Shaking off his fleeting thoughts of Brianna, he swept up his leather jacket, stuck his arms in the sleeves and went around all the exits to ensure they were locked.

Risqué was a strip club. A place he’d dreamed of owning since he was a kid. When they were an item, Brianna went along with his dream. Together, they’d fantasize about what building their own business would be like. They even went so far as to name it and talk décor.

She liked the idea of having a high-class place where men could enjoy beautiful women. Her own experience with strip clubs was those of the lowest sort, so they’d always promised to stick to the rules when they owned their own place. It was that decision that prompted his rule of not hiring anyone under the age of twenty-five.

Risqué was legit. The dancers could hold their own, no one was taken advantage of or exploited. The patrons were happy with the display of flesh; at the end of the day that was all that mattered to them.

At one time, Brianna had dreams of Julliard and greatness, but he hadn’t been able to deliver those dreams for her. After her parents took off and she started stripping, Blaser had sought out Gary, Bri’s brother, blaming him for Bri needing to go out there and sell her body to support herself. Turned out Gary had been in the dark too. They ended up talking and making a plan to look after her. It wasn’t long after that he stole his first car, then it became habit.

He knew it was illegal and knew that his parents would be disappointed if they found out about the chop shop he ran with Gary. Back then, he hadn’t cared. It was about keeping Bri safe and making sure she never had to sell any part of herself to anyone just to get by.

Prison put a stop to his criminal ways. He had broken up with Bri before coming to the conclusion he could do better. Once he did, he cut all ties with his previous associates and decided to go straight. On leaving prison, he bought Risqué with the financial help of his brothers, who backed him on the proviso he kept his nose clean. It had taken a lot of hard work to get himself to where he was, and he had no intention of putting all that to waste by sliding back into what so many considered an easier life.

Buying Warner Autos happened at the same time he left prison. He got it at a discount from his cousin because he promised to manage Mattie’s apartment block right next door. So with two businesses of his own, and shared responsibility of managing Mattie’s apartment block, Blaser was a busy guy. Gus, Mattie’s brother and another Warner cousin, managed the lion’s share of the work at the apartment complex. Blaser just picked up the slack.

Risqué had become his life. He hired men to take care of things at Warner Autos and with Ivy answering phones, ordering parts, and doing paperwork, he had less to do with the garage, meaning he could devote his time to Risqué.

Content the club was secure, he exited through the rear employee door and locked it up too. He zipped his leather jacket, dug his hands into his pockets and began to mentally prepare the following day’s to-do list as he trudged down the alley. Two paces beyond the dumpster, he heard a sharp inhale that made him pause.

“Quiet, you f*****g ‘ho,” a low male voice grumbled.

Blaser glimpsed the movement of a shadow further down the alley to his left. Peering closer, all he could make out was the shape of a large guy, dressed in dark clothes. The shadowy guy raised his arm, there was a slap and then a female exclamation of pain before a body collapsed to the ground between the shadowy guy and the club wall.

“Rafe wants you taught about disrespect,” the shadow snarled and dropped down out of view behind another dumpster.

Striding over to see what was going on, the scuffling sounds got louder the nearer he got and were soon joined by muffled female objections. More definition grew in the shadow man who was sprawled on top of someone, all he could make out were n***d female arms and legs beneath.

“Hey!” Blaser said, storming over to haul the shadow up from the ground by the back of his neck.

The guy swore and lashed out to free himself, then he spun around to take a swing. Blocking the sloppy move was easy, as was landing a punch of his own. The shadow staggered back, giving him his first real chance of getting a physical description. Blond hair, angry eyes, and a scar intersecting the perpetrator’s brow. b****y scratches on his neck and face joined the blood now seeping from his lip. Obviously, the punch did its job.

Widening his stance, ready to brawl, if necessary, the blond male shadow spun around and bolted off. Giving chase briefly entered his mind as an option, but in that area, there was no guarantees who might be connected to who. Drugs were rife, p**********n and gangs too, it was a shady part of town. Even if he caught up with the guy, he wouldn’t call the cops, that just wasn’t how things went down and he wouldn’t risk trouble visiting the club.

When the attacker vanished out the end of the alley, he turned his attention to the woman on the ground and immediately wished he’d done more than just split the perp’s lip. At five-five, with streaks of blonde in mousy brown hair, Blaser knew the woman sitting on the cold asphalt outside his club. She kept her face down, giving him a view of the jagged parting in her hair. Her reluctance to lift her attention only betrayed she recognized him too.

“What I should do is ask if you’re okay and take you to hospital,” he said, putting his hands on his hips, still fixated on the woman sprawled on the asphalt. “What I’m actually going to do is ask if you’re f*****g insane.”

She twisted her legs to look at a scrape on her calf then lifted her rear from the ground to wriggle her skirt down. Her hand rose, indicating she wanted help up, so he took it and pulled her to her feet.

“Thanks,” she said, smoothing the skirt that barely covered her a*s.

After enjoying the flash of her midriff, his focus carried on up to her breasts, covered by a red halter top. Man, she was always hot. Every damn minute.

“What are you doing here, Bri?” he asked while reminding himself she was no longer his to scoop up off the ground and into his arms.

“I need your help,” she said.

Tossing her hair back, she revealed the bruising on her cheek, the blood on her chin and the fullest, softest lips he’d ever known. She still didn’t look at him, she twisted her body to examine a cut on the back of her upper arm: doing everything she could to put off meeting his eyes.

“You don’t need my help,” he said. Being near her again was surreal. He still hadn’t figured out how to act around her now their relationship wasn’t s****l, as it always had been before. “You never need my help. Does Gary know you’re here?”

That question changed her mood, and she chose that moment to blink her long-lashed eyes at him. “Blaser,” she said. “You know my brother is in jail, exactly where you put him.”

“I didn’t put anyone in jail,” Blaser said. “Your brother mouthed off to an undercover cop, that’s how he got himself in the slammer this time. Let’s not kid ourselves that Gary is an upstanding member of society. He had this coming.”

“You don’t know everything, Love. You don’t know what’s going on or why I’m here.”

“Don’t call me that,” he said, backing away, taking his hand out of hers. If she opened those floodgates and got him thinking this was just like the old days, he didn’t trust himself to act like an ex without full privileges should. “And don’t do that…” He lifted his hand toward her face then thought better of touching her again. “Thing.”

Her step in his direction only made him take another backwards. “What thing?”

He ignored the question because she knew the answer; she knew exactly what she could do to him with a flutter of those lashes.

“What are you doing behind my club at three in the morning?” he asked. “Who was that fucker? What did he want?”

Bri took in a short breath and panted it out. “It’s a long story, I was waiting. I didn’t want to come in because… I didn’t know if Colt would be there. I thought I would catch you out here, and we could talk.”

“What do you want to talk about at three in the morning?”

“I need a job.”

“You need a job?”

“I need money,” she said. “So yeah, I need a job.”

“What kind of job do you think I’ve got for you?” he asked, sorry his first thought took his eyes to her legs.

“I don’t screw people for money,” she said, folding her arms under those pert little t**s that he remembered too well. “That’s your department.”

And the spite in her tone was enough to cool his desire. “Oh, ho,” he said, exhaling his own frustration and turning on his heels to begin walking away. “I’m not having this fight with you, Dollface. It’s late and I’ve had a long day.”

“You’ve always had a long day,” she said, snatching something from the ground then scurrying along at his side. “You’ve always been a workaholic, even since before you actually had a legit job.”

Brianna and he had a history that was Shakespeare meets Tarantino. As many tragic episodes as there were comedic ones, they’d seen bloodshed together, been at d**g crazed parties, had wild s*x in crazy locations, and been arrested together.

The criminal underworld was his stomping ground when he hung with his own team. At the head of that team, at Blase’s side, was Brianna’s older brother Gary, his once upon a time best friend. All that changed when Blaser went to prison.

“That’s a different fight,” Blaser said, striding out of the alley to head towards home. “Can you pick one fight and stick with it? I’m not in the mood to flip back and forth between them. I’m not sure I’d be able to keep up.”

“You saw what that guy did to me, Blase, what he was going to do to me. You stopped to help me because you didn’t want him to hurt me.”

“I didn’t know it was you.”

“Are you saying if you had, you wouldn’t have helped me?”