Sweet Revenge (The Nighthawks MC Book 2) Read online

  “Swipe this now in one of the registers to log in. Your code is 0031,” she handed over the card, “get something to eat, eat it at the bar or the break room, I don’t care.”

  “No problem.”

  She pulled out a tip apron, “Get change from Ace. Show me you can move your ass, and I’ll keep you past tonight.”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” said Lily beaming a smile.

  “Your locker says, Brenda. She’s gone. The combo is the same as the number of the card I gave you, right-left-right-left.”

  “0031,” said Lily, “got it!”

  She left, tying on the apron as she went. She popped in the locker room and locked up her purse.

  Yancy introduced herself as a dancer, “We dance on these risers just off the dance floor. We make good money. We got these giant glasses for tips. Don’t touch them. We’ll get mad.”

  “I won’t,” said Lily.

  “This here is Starr, and Miri.”

  Ivy felt a little intimidated. They were both gorgeous. They wore halter tops and short-shorts and hose and dancing boots and mesh tops.

  “Hey,” said Starr. Miri just nodded at her.

  “Excuse me,” said Lily, “I’ve gotta get me something to eat.” The other girls ignored her.

  Ace taught her how to scan her card and order food with her code. He gave her two hundred in change for her apron. She hurried to order some poppers and some cheese sticks and have a soda. She’d needed it for energy. She wolfed them down at the bar while she memorized the menu and the beers on tap and in bottles.

  She had just enough time to wipe down their tables before the night started. Miri, an Asian female with a killer body and night-blue eyes, took the left. Starr went to the right, a brown-haired girl with green eyes and a painted-on smile. Lily took the bar area, and the tables surrounding the dance floor. Neither one of them said more to Lily than “hello” because they didn’t want to split tips by splitting up the floor and therefore only tolerated Lily.

  She was run off her feet. She would get an order, log it in with her card in the slot, and pick up other orders. If Ace was caught at the other end of the bar, Lily grabbed the beer herself, filling up her tray as fast as he could. Then, she was gone. She picked up the food as fast as it came out. She whirled around dancing patrons, even with a full tray. She held the tray over her head, and got to the table unmolested, more than once. She laughed with patrons, and made tips right and left and center.

  By ten, she was ready to die. Ivy covered her tables while she wolfed down nachos in the office.

  At one-thirty, Lily began her sidewalk, her last patrons dancing or lingering over beer and baskets of food. She put in the last food orders and rushed around at the last call getting the last drinks out, including sodas for the designated drivers. She finished her sidewalk except for wiping down the tables with patrons still sitting there. The band played the last song, and Ivy made sure her last patrons were in taxis or with designated drivers. Lily put her apron with its two-hundred in change, straight into her locker, grabbed her purse, hit the bathroom, then stumbled out the door towards her car, shocked at the coolness of the night.

  Ace walked Lily out to her car, “Good night?” he said.

  “The tips rocked. I have to be at work in… five and a half hours,” she said, checking her phone, “thank God it’s Friday!” They both laughed.

  Lily somehow got her key in the lock. She got in, put the key in the ignition and turned it, and there was nothing. She tried again. The gas was half full, so that wasn’t it.

  “Come on,” said Ace, “we won’t get that solved tonight. I’ll have Juan look at it tomorrow.”

  Lily groaned, “There goes my tip money. All of it,” she got out and relocked it.

  They walked to his bike. He took out his own helmet, then handed his extra to Lily. She took it, smiling.

  Ace leaned forward, conspiratorially keeping his voice low, “I know where I can get you a low rider. Got a sister of a sister, needs some cash for a new one. I can front you, Trina can buy a new bike, and you can pay me back. Everybody wins.”

  “Shit,” said Lily, “when the hell am I going to find time to practice and get my license?”

  Ace laughed, “The Nighthawks will help. We can always use another sister.”

  She remembered to lean on the curves, holding him tight, fingers crunching into those delicious abs. She directed him to her tiny apartment, not far from the club on a side street. She handed back his helmet.

  “Thanks for the ride,” she said, as he stowed it. She climbed to the top of the stairs and waved down at him. He waited until he saw her door open and close.

  She stumbled in, locking the door behind her, taking off the shoes. Her dumbass brother was still dead to the world. She had the presence of mind to give most of her tips back to Ace as a first installment on the low rider. She kept some because Dumbass would eat all her food and never replace it. She’d have to stock up on his most-hated foods so she had something to eat. Come to think of it, he hated Lean Cuisines.

  The next day, she went down early to catch a cab. She was stunned to find her car in the lot, keys hidden under the wheel well.

  There was a note on the dash, “It will hold up until you pass the motorcycle test. Juan.”

  There was a skull stamped on the card with various card symbols hidden within. The Nighthawk’s Las Vegas emblem, she guessed. She was even more surprised to find the gas tank full.

  The day at the insurance office was hell. She was on autopilot. She ran to the coffee shop and bought a huge, green tea latte. She drank tea and typed, and left just after Mark and Jason ducked out early to start their drinking and failed flirting. She told the temp to put the phones onto message and turn off her computer and sign her timecard as working a full day.

  Jazmin was grateful, “I got two kids, you know? This way I can pick them up from school.”

  Lily smiled, “Let’s do this every week, then,” she said, and locked up behind Jazmin.

  She made it home without crashing the car and barely got her clothes off without falling over from lack of sleep. Devlin was ‘out,’ and most of the coins in the change jar were gone. She figured he was getting drunk somewhere. Thankfully, not in front of her. She choked down an apple before catching a few hours’ sleep before her shift at Dirty Rock. She barely had time to get her side work done before a group of tourists looking to rock, showed up. She smiled at them, exhaustion forgotten, as they looked like heavy tippers. She was right.

  After an even busier night, she handed over most of her tips to Ace.

  Ivy noticed and nodded, “Hear you’re getting Trina’s old bike. She’s been lusting after a new one. Good call, Ace,” she said.

  “Anything to get another sister in the Nighthawks,” said Ace, drying the last of the glasses with a wide smile.

  “With the wind at the back, the open road beckons.”

  4

  The New Normal

  First Nights

  “Business calls and wins, every time.”

  One thing Ivy could say about herself was that she knew her people. Ivy new damn well they had enough servers —on paper. She also knew at least one wouldn’t show up, or that one couldn’t keep up. They all looked and sounded fine, but she knew females.

  She’d worked in, then eventually owned, a brothel in the desert. She took online business classes and eventually paid her way all the way through an MBA. She saved every dime, and, because of her love of AC/DC, Aerosmith, the Stones, Poison, and most 80s ‘hair bands,’ she decided she wanted a rock club. Not the genteel version of her huge, guitared competitor, and not the spilled-beer ambiance of Whiskey a Go Go, in Los Angeles. Something in between, without the claustrophobic low ceilings. So, she scouted locations, finding a romantic club about to go out of business. Romance was dead, and the owners had no idea how to make a dollar and then make it turn into lots more dollars. So, she bought it right before it was going under, timing it carefully.

 
; She got both her liquor license and her food license while re-creating the club. No more pit in the middle —that was asking for a drunk to fall in and break something, and she could be sued. Blue, silver, neon, magenta neon. Pulse-pounding rock. A dance floor —a real one, with room to bang your head or pass people overhead, with two waist-high stands for professional dancers to sway; getting the crowd in the mood. Good booze, with some bottles of the good stuff ready for hard partiers. And really good basic bar food. She hired cooks who could make really good food fast and didn’t stint on the quality. And appetizers that didn’t cost that much to make, anyway. Why cut corners?

  Ivy wore her platinum hair… real platinum, with vampire-ivory skin that bronzed in the desert sun to match —in twists with the occasional braid thrown in, shot through with silver pins. She wore band T-shirts, everything from Aerosmith to the Goo Goo Dolls. She wore black, spray-on jeans and the same steel-toed biker boots as her bartender and partner, Ace. She was a Nighthawk too, and she ran the female side with a deft hand.

  She booked hard-driving bands, drank with the customers, danced the night away, and raked in the money. When Ace showed up with Lily, she knew damn well that her dancing girls were rock-solid. Ace was rock-solid and so was his bar back Bella, and the bouncer Adam (his real name was Arama) and he was like a terrifying obsidian wall if things got ugly. Adam was actually, a soft-spoken guy, but he didn’t like seeing anyone mistreat anyone else. Ace didn’t either, for that matter. Ivy had a stun gun on her hip and a baseball bat behind the bar. She also had her Nighthawks family to call on, but she doubted she would need them.

  Ivy printed a total, and grabbed a handful of credit card receipts and emptied the bottom drawers of the cash registers about halfway through the night. She went to the back and counted against the printout. She locked up the money, leaving the receipts with their attached totals for Ace to total out his drawer. She turned to go. The phone rang. She usually didn’t answer the phone, but the place was jumping.

  “Dirty Vegas,” she said, with a swagger in her voice, “this is Ivy. What can I do for you?”

  “This is Di.”

  “You have thirty seconds,” said Ivy.

  “I know you have your heart set on that bar thing, but when it closes, we’re ready for you to come back.”

  Ivy could picture Di’s puffed-up brown hair, the gorgeous green eyes, the snide little laugh.

  “I have my own business. I suggest you run yours,” she said and hung up.

  She realized Di had been calling from her cell phone and blocked the number. She wondered why she was angry. She knew Di was smart in a cunning way, but she’d just made a serious error; she ensured that Ivy would kill herself to make the bar work, rather than go back to the Palomino Roadhouse. Di had to hire two people to fill Ivy’s place, then ended up hiring two more to make ends meet.

  Ivy put the receiver down gently. She walked out, walked straight up to the bar, and ordered a whiskey. Ace poured the whiskey but slipped her an apple juice on the rocks.

  “Let’s party!” she said.

  The bands were hot, Busted Gut and Flight Train taking turns, each putting out pounding beats. The dance floor was full.

  Lily moved like a shot, getting orders in and food out as soon as physically possible, getting or pouring her own drinks when Ace and Bella were busy. She moved deftly and didn’t forget a thing. Even if she was surprised to see Ivy trading shots with a well-known drummer, or handing a Gibson hung on the back wall to a hot guitarist so he could join the band, she didn’t say a thing.

  Ivy went out to Yancy’s plinth and climbed up the stairs in the back. She danced, sipping her apple juice and screaming the lyrics to the Def Leppard song, Pour Some Sugar on Me. Tired of dancing, she walked back down. She danced with patrons and saw that the new Lily girl was really moving. The bar was starting to get slammed again. She danced her way there; smiling, slapping shoulders and shaking hands with the people she knew. She took over on the opposite side to Ace, pulling out beers and popping the tops off one-handed while taking money with the other. She filled up the girls’ trays, getting them filled as fast as she could pour. She laughed, poured another whiskey, sold it, and poured another one, switching it out for apple juice while filling it with ice. She clinked glasses and drank with her patrons.

  Bella slipped by Ivy at the bar, brushing her shoulder. Ivy helped her fill up the ice, then filled more beer orders. They were getting two deep at the bar. She emptied a case of beer into the cooler with one hand, while selling the cold ones with the other. Bella brushed past her, touching her back to move her around. Ivy moved like it was a dance, bouncing her twisted hair to the music.

  Djinn came in from the Desert Vipers, and they shared a fist bump. She got him some bottles, and he settled up. She twirled, got two lovebird-tourists to stop kissing each other long enough to find out what they wanted to drink. Lily came out with trays of food, keeping the patrons at the bar filled with all the fries and sliders they could eat. Ivy held her tips for her in a whiskey glass and passed them over when she came to pick up the empties.

  She took out stacks of hundred-dollar bills and credit card receipts twice more, before they overflowed the drawer. She caught a counterfeit bill. She took back the beers and demanded real money. They pretended to be shocked that the twenty was a fake. She kept it to turn into the feds. They squawked until Adam made nasty eyes at them. They paid for their beers meekly and left the bar soon after.

  The band was smoking hot, and Ivy was pissed she didn’t have time to dance. She diluted her apple juice, lest she floats away. When they got one deep, she had Bella serve while she went back with cardboard for recycling. She filled up Bella’s bar cart and shoved it out to her, then ordered poppers for herself and washed them down with a Coke. She ate them with Djinn, who was sitting at one of the high-tops ringing the dance floor.

  “Great bar,” he yelled into her ear.

  “Fuckin A,” said his friend, Rope, a thin guy with a shock of black hair and a wide nose who liked to take his Harley out in the desert and climb rock freehand, without a rope.

  “Thanks!” said Bella.

  The crowd clumped at the end opposite Ace. Bella finished her poppers and her Dr. Pepper, and she went back to dole out beers.

  One guy started to lean off his barstool. Ivy gave him a Dr. Pepper on the house and ordered cheese sticks for him, “Whan beer,” he said, blowing boozy breath in her face.

  “Drink your Dr. Pepper, and I ordered some food for you,” said Ivy with a smile.

  “Whan beer,” he said again, a little louder. Lily zipped by with the cheese sticks, “eat this, pardner,” said Ivy, “you finish both the Dr. Pepper and the cheese sticks, you get a beer.”

  “Cool,” said the drunk.

  “That’ll be ten fifty,” said Ivy, “I’m charging you for the beer you’re having after this, too.” He took out his wallet and even tipped her when he worked on his cheese sticks. She prepared to return him the money for the beer she hadn’t served him yet when his friend picked him up to take him home.

  “Whan beer,” he said, “you promised.”

  “You the designated driver?” asked Ivy.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  Ivy handed over a bottled beer to the drunk and a can of Dr. Pepper to the designated driver, “Happy trails!” she said.

  The drunk downed his beer in six swallows, and his friend pocketed the Dr. Pepper in his leather jacket, “Come on, Pops,” he said. “your taxi awaits.”

  By two in the morning, the last customer was poured into a taxi. Ivy totaled out the drawer while Ace and Bella moved to repair the damage four minutes after the last call. She got the printouts and receipts from her girls and had them count out two-hundred in change and take the rest. They all locked up their aprons and filled up salt and pepper shakers while counting out their tips. Adam took the dancers home after they changed; both had classes at the community college the next day. One was trying to be a respiratory tech and the
other an ultrasound tech. She forgot which one was which.

  Lily impressed her. She knew rock, she knew serving, she knew how to get along with the dancers. Yancy had warmed up immediately and Darla had followed suit; a good sign. They got the side work done by working together, and Adam drove the dancers home. The other cocktail servers hitched rides with Manuel and Rico. And the cooks and Ivy stayed in back, counting receipts.

  “I’ll hang out with Ivy,” Bella said. Ace’s eyes widened. He hadn’t seen that one coming.

  Ace had just gone out the back when Bella approached Ivy in her office, “Hey, boss,” she said, poking her head in.

  Ivy was counting money super-fast, a deposit slip ready to go, the deposit bag ready to lock.

  “Hmm,” said Ivy, “Ace taking you home?”

  “No,” said Bella, “I thought we could… talk.”

  “What about?” asked Ivy, finishing the count and locking the case.

  She made sure the safe was locked and pushed the framed rock poster of Slash playing his Gibson back over the safe.

  “I wanted to know if… maybe we could hit up Sonic, or Taco Bell, or something, or maybe we could go to one of those all-night diners,” said Bella.

  Ivy snorted, “I’m dead on my feet. I’m heading to the bank.”

  “It’s been awhile since… Arsenal. Claw bit the dust. Can’t we just… have some fun?”

  Ivy turned and put her laser stare on Bella, “I’m going to ignore the fact you asked that. Call yourself a taxi. I’m locking up.”

  Bella didn’t quail. She pushed her luck, “I can be just fun, you know. Just night. A laugh.”

  Ivy’s eyes turned ice cold, “The love of my life is dead on the ground. I get up, do this, act like life is a big party, because that’s what Dirty Rock is all about. The hurrah before death takes you. I’ve got years of dance left in me, and I’ll do it. Arsenal would have wanted it. He wanted this for me. Do you think that because I used to sleep with people for money that I use it cheaply?”