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Diamond

If it looked like a duck. And walked like a duck. It was probably a viper snake.

The guy who owned the mansion was a man of many masks, definitely leaning toward being a viper, that was for damn sure, and Diamond wouldn’t trust him as far as he could piss.

“How the other half live, huh, Prez?” he muttered, raising his head to take in the three-story mansion. It had to be worth over twenty million, if not more. The pair had ridden fifteen miles outside of their hometown of Laketon to Babington, Utah, where all the posh knobs and dickheads lived in their pretentious and high-brow estates with electronic gates and housemaids.

They’d been given instructions to use the back entrance. Of fucking course. The prick Judge wouldn’t allow bikers through the main door. He looked down on the Diablos like they were trash, even though he begged for this meeting.

Diamond was already in a pissy mood without being summoned by the jackass and his ego.

The level of corruption in that guy was unmatched.

But that wasn’t why Diamond didn’t like him.

Some of his closest buddies would be called criminals. It didn’t make them bad guys.

But he couldn’t stand people thinking they were better than anyone else just because they drank with their pinkies in the air and rubbed shoulders with dignitaries.

The last time he checked, everyone still took a shit in the same way.

Diamond rarely saw Snow, but when he did, the old fart acted superior. Though, every time, he’d needed the Diablos .

Cranking his neck from side to side, Diamond switched off the engine and climbed off his Harley Davidson Breakout.

His favorite baby girl.

She never gave him any trouble, was never a brat, and didn’t fuck other guys while he was out working to keep her in the princess lifestyle she thought she deserved.

No, his baby girl was loyal as fuck and treated him well. He patted her brushed gold and matte black bodywork as he hooked the helmet around the handlebars and straightened his spine.

Axel, the president of his MC, was climbing down from his bike. Diamond had a seat on Axel’s council as head of security. But when he went to unknown places like today, Diamond was his bodyguard. Not that Diamond expected trouble. Judge Snow wouldn’t do shit on his home turf, and from the number of catering vans that were parked outside, the guy was putting on a party tonight.

“What do you think he wants?” Diamond asked.

“I doubt it’s about a Christmas bonus.” Smirked Axel. “But it’s something big. He’s hit up my phone more than once while I was out of town with Scarlett.”

“Bet he didn’t like being kept waiting.”

“Who the fuck cares? I don’t jump when he clicks his fingers.”

Throughout his long tenure on the bench, the community highly regarded Judge Snow as a pillar of justice, removing criminals from society. Undoubtedly, he was surrounded by sycophants, too afraid to disagree. But the Diablos weren’t involved in that crap.

On their first face-to-face, he rolled up to the club’s HQ in a fancy Mercedes, with a chauffeur behind the wheel.

He’d desperately needed a problem taken care of unlawfully . An old case was about to blow up. If the guy serving a twenty-year sentence had shown that Judge Snow took a bribe to convict him, it would have messed up all his other cases. He got the Diablos on board because they could do things that traditional methods couldn’t. He’d asked for their help more than once since then.

Unbeknownst to him, he was now at their beck and call to make things vanish. The Judge had no other option since he willingly climbed into bed with them.

“Who has butlers these days?” The guy in his sixties wearing a pinstripe suit showed them into an office.

Diamond was blue-collar and proud of it. So were his parents and two brothers. His father and brothers owned a large car dealership. He’d come from working stock, learning you got nothing from life that you didn’t put into it first.

He wasn’t hurting for money, far from it. The Diablos filled his pockets nicely, but this rich shit he’d walked into, like fucking Narnia, was making his skin itch.

“You don’t want staff to run around after you, D?”

“Fuck no, we have the probies for that,” he answered, and Axel chuckled. The door opened, and the elitist snob came strolling in. He shook Axel’s hand and only offered Diamond a nod.

“Thanks for coming, Tucker. I’ll get right to the point. My wife is hosting a party soon, and I must be there.”

No offer of a coffee and finger sandwiches, then? Charming manners. Diamond kept his face neutral as he parked himself on a dainty as fuck couch on the back wall. He weighed two-seventy, all muscle, and was six-foot-five. It probably wasn’t made with someone his size in mind, and the little couch creaked as he settled. No doubt it was one of those swooning couches posh knobs had back in the day for all the fainting they did because they were oh-so-delicate.

Axel took the chair in front of Snow’s desk.

“I have a rather diplomatic situation. I’m paying for your silence.”

“You ain’t paying for anything until I know why you wanted to meet,” Said Axel. The Diablos weren’t hurting for money, far from it. They were so far in the black nowadays that no one had to worry. That meant they wouldn’t take any job thrown their way.

The club was more than a business.

It was a found family.

It was acceptance and loyalty.

Diamond was hoping Axel wouldn’t agree to whatever this was. Snow rubbed him the wrong way, and being inside his gold-encrusted house made him antsy. He needed to be around the smell of motor oil and the stank of sweat inside a gym. Honest smells, not the scent of old money in his nostrils.

“There’s a situation.”

“So you said. You wanna spit it out, Snow? We don’t have all night.”

He looked pissed at being rushed, and Diamond smiled to himself. It must stick in his craw to ask the Diablos for help so much. A man of power had to come crawling to the local bikers with his begging hat on.

“I need security for my family for the next few months.”

“Did your bodyguard service quit?” asked Axel, crossing a leg over his knee. “I’m betting they’d be cheaper.”

“I don’t want cheap.” Snow snapped and then composed himself. His hair was as white as his namesake. “I want someone who can do the job right and protect my family.”

“From who?”

“A situation has gotten out of hand.”

“Snow,” Axel stated, “you can call it a situation as many times as you like, but we’re still gonna need to know what we’re working with here.”

The older guy’s jaw worked with an annoyed tick.

Diamond didn’t have to chime in. He operated a stable of security professionals. Some of them weren’t patched brothers, and during training, he emphasized the job required more than physical prowess and fighting skills. It involved staying silent and paying close attention to every detail. Body language spoke a lot louder than a gun ever would. People always gave their intentions away long before reaching for a weapon. It was the twitch of an eyebrow, a prolonged inhale.

Diamond noticed everything.

And it had saved his life countless times.

Snow was so annoyed. But he was also scared of something. Or someone.

“Let me help you out. Is a lunatic out of jail and gunning for you?” Axel said. “Are you being blackmailed by a hooker after you snorted coke off her tits?”

Bingo. Diamond saw the reaction going through Snow’s eyes.

“I love my family very much.”

“You’re preaching to the wrong choir, Snow.”

“A woman I was meeting with casually, unbeknownst to me, has connections to the Irish mob, and she’s threatening to tell the media. That I can deal with, but now she has warned the Irish will take my family out one by one.”

“Why not pay her off?”

“Do you think I haven’t? Several fucking times.” He snapped.

Axel flipped his eyes toward Diamond. Silently asking him what he wanted to do. The security for hire was Diamond’s brainchild, and he’d grown it into the strong stable it was today. Snow might have invited Axel to the meeting, but it was Diamond’s decision.

He might not like the guy and what he represented, but he enjoyed having fuck-stains like him in their favor. He gave Axel a subtle nod.

“Right then. To protect your family around the clock will cost you, Snow.”

“I don’t care what it costs. Just keep my family safe until I deal with this. And I reiterate, no one will hear about it, Tucker.” He meant it as an or else threat, like he thought he held power in the room.

Snow spent the next few minutes giving them details of his family. There was his wife, who would agree to anything hubby dearest told her to. He had a nineteen-year-old son, who, from the sounds of it, was an entitled twat who would give Diamond and his team some trouble by not complying with orders.

Then there was his only daughter. A twenty-eight-year-old Prima donna. “Joelle will be difficult.”

Great, Diamond mentally rolled his eyes into the back of his skull. He got to spend however many days and weeks babysitting a spoiled diva princess who wouldn’t listen, either.

Then the door opened, and a woman with the bluest hair he’d ever seen walked in. It was wavy and long and went down the middle of her back, swishing with her ample hips.

This must be the spoiled princess as she smiled saccharinely at Snow, apologizing for interrupting when Diamond got the impression the princess had meant to interrupt.

If Joelle Snow turned out to be a privileged, silver-spoon-in-her-mouth diva, she sure was a beauty. That wouldn’t be a problem, even if Diamond were in the market for rolling around in his sheets with a soft, mouth-watering body.

He wasn’t.

But his point was he didn’t fuck clients. Most of his clients were men, anyway. And he didn’t swing that way.

But yeah, Joelle was a looker with her soft, round hips and belly encased in a tight dress, that had been dipped in the whole color palette.

When she turned to leave, she locked eyes with him, maybe testing to see if he’d say anything since he ignored her fake greeting. Diamond only stared, and as she went to close the door, she addressed her father. “Of course, Father, this is me not being difficult.”

Diamond’s hunch was correct. The brat had been listening with her ear at the door. Naughty.

Thank fuck brats weren’t his flavor either, or miss skittles and her ample curves might have interested him. And that would have fucked up the entire job. Diamond couldn’t think of anything worse than being around someone daily, wanting them, and keeping his professional hands off them.

Since his ex-girlfriend had screwed him over, he’d sworn off women until he could tolerate one that wouldn’t make him want to put his head through a wall of insanity. She hadn’t broken his heart, but a wounded pride was hard to live with.

“Right,” Axel said, replying to Snow. Diamond looked away from the door, realizing he’d been staring at where the blue-haired rainbow had left moments ago. “I’ll let Diamond take over. He’s your point of contact, Snow.” Axel stood. “I’m gonna wait outside.” He’d already pocketed the cash payment.

Snow looked harassed when he was left alone with Diamond. He rose from the too-small couch and stood in front of the desk.

He knew his stature intimidated people. It proved to be a useful tool.

“Let’s get this over with,” sighed Snow in a bored manner. “I don’t have all day.”

“Neither do I,” Diamond told him. “So, I’ll tell you in words you’ll understand, Snow. You’ve paid Axel, that means you’ve paid my club. You’ve paid me . I’m in charge from this point on. You don’t question my methods, you don’t micromanage, and you sure as hell don’t give me orders. Are we clear on that?” he pasted on a tight smile. “Good. Let me tell you what’ll happen from here.”