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CHAPTER ONE

Coast

“What, is there a gator out there or something?” York asked as he came down the stairs, still pulling on his shirt, to find Kylo standing at the front window with the curtain pulled back.

Giving up on getting some more sleep, I sat up on the couch, reaching to pull a fuchsia bra out from under me. The owner of it must have left without it. It would have to go in the club’s lost & found with all the other discarded articles of clothing. One girl had left a whole jean skirt once. And, randomly, an actual vibrator. We were still stumped at the idea of someone being attached enough to it to actually bring it around in her bag with her.

“You didn’t hear all the equipment?” Kylo asked, pulling the curtain wide.

Sure enough, there were excavators, backhoes, Bobcats, cranes, forklifts, and about two dozen men wandering around what had previously been an empty lot.

“I thought that was protected land,” York said, moving to stand next to Kylo.

“Nothing is safe anymore,” Kylo said with a sigh. “I didn’t even hear about any plans to build.”

“Probably involved a bunch of palm-greasing,” York said. “See any signage for what is coming?”

“Either way, Huck isn’t going to like it,” Kylo said.

I might have been a new member of the club, but I was up on the lore. And it seemed like the reason they didn’t rebuild the clubhouse that blew up back in Miami was that they wanted more space and privacy.

We’d been able to do just about anything we wanted, thanks to the only neighbors being actual club members and their families.

But whether these would be houses or something industrial, it would mean a lot more eyes around, seeing shit they maybe shouldn’t. And that wasn’t even to mention the cameras.

It was a hard time to be a criminal. Every business, personal home, and fucking doorbell has a camera these days. So unless you live in Bumfuck, Nowhere, the chances of your crimes being caught on film were pretty high.

Seemed like a bunch of challenges would be coming to the club in the near future. Whether any of us liked it or not.

“Oh, ah, morning,” Candy, one of the regular club girls, said as she came down the stairs in nothing but one of Velle’s band shirts. “You guys are never up this early.”

“What time is it?” I asked, reaching for a warm can of beer and taking a swig.

“Eight,” Candy said with a smirk. “But since no one went to bed until five…” She paused, shifting her feet. “Any chance Eddie is here yet?”

“He’s pulling in now,” Kylo said, nodding at the sleek sports car making its way into the drive after a short pause to gawk at the construction.

“I’ll make some coffee,” York offered.

“Absolutely not, Big Guy,” Candy said, pressing a hand to his chest. “The last time you made coffee, I had heart palpitations all day. I’ll make the coffee.”

“What makes you the expert?” he asked.

“I literally do it for a living,” she said, rolling her eyes at his lack of knowledge about her life outside of club girl good times.

“Do we need to clean the couch?” York asked, looking at me sitting there in nothing but my bathing suit trunks, some random girl’s bra draped over my thigh.

I scrubbed a hand down my face. “Nah, we fucked outside. We just crashed here.”

“She was cute. What was her name again? Mandie? Molly?” Kylo asked.

“Mindy.”

“Think she’ll be back?”

“Nah. She’s just here on summer break. Gonna be a pussy doctor up in Connecticut,” I said, finishing my warm beer and climbing up off the couch.

“Bird,” I greeted Mackie, the club’s blue & gold macaw as I passed by, narrowly avoiding his beak as he lunged toward my shoulder.