Black and Blue
Black and Blue
Paige Notaro
Copyright
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or copied without the express written consent of the author. This book is licensed for personal use only.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
©2015
Paige Notaro
Cover Design:
©2015
SilverLight
Also by Paige Notaro
Storm’s Soldiers MC:
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Grey
Clear
Other:
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Dedication
This book is dedicated to my loving family who suffer through my manic writing sprees.
It is dedicated to my friends and fellow authors who have helped so much through this journey.
Most of all it is dedicated to my fans. Thank you for reading!
CHAPTER ONE
Gabrielle
I didn’t much like drunk guys, but I loved serving them at work.
There’s that magic level of inebriation where they’ve had just enough to think they own the world. A few compliments can earn you an oversized tip or, better yet, add another two hundred dollar bottle of wine to their bill. Best of all, there’s no risk of them going overboard - not in a Michelin one star restaurant .
Giuseppe’s
dinner shift was coming down off its peak. The white tablecloths mostly held emptied glasses of wine or desert plates and tiny cappuccino mugs. The conversations roared like warm winter fireplaces at the bigger tables. At the smaller tables, it tinkled soft and sharp like the lights scattered from the delicate crystal fixtures overhead.
“Any white whales out there?” Jada asked as she bussed a couple empty plates past the bar. Fat white guys always tipped the best.
“I’ve got a few I’m chasing.”
“Good hunting then.” She beamed at me and sifted through the kitchen doors.
Behind the counter, Matt was filling a half dozen tiny aperitif glasses for one of my tables. This particular party had gone through three bottles of our second best red already. A bit more and their generosity might extend to me. The money would be nice, but winning felt much better. They didn’t hand out grades at restaurants so tip totals would have to do.
There was also that little part of me that took good tips as a sign that I could be running a place like this of my own someday. Childish nonsense, of course. As if bad service was the reason for that ninety percent restaurant failure rate.
Jada took a breather by me. “You see that chubby guy?” She ticked her head at a table.
“Yeah, I see him. Why?”
“Tried to get me to sit on his lap.”
“No!”
I glared at Jada, waiting for her face to erupt into one of those ‘gotcha’ smiles. I’d spent twenty years chipping away at the exaggerations that came out of her. She remained scowling at her customer though.
“Did you talk to Terry?” I asked. “You shouldn’t stand for stuff like that.”
“I don’t want to make a fuss,” she said. “Do you go report it when it happens to you?”
“What? That’s never happened to me!”
“Can the indignation, girl.” Jada gave me a once-over that ended with an eye roll. “You damn well know you’d deserve it more than me.”
Heat erupted in my cheeks. Jada had no problem speaking her mind, so I’d have to be embarrassed enough for both of us.
Ok, sure on the surface, I could admit, she was curvy and that I was thinner, but that was it. I looked like any other girl from our part of Detroit: skin like milk chocolate, middle of the pack in height, somewhere between a toothpick and an hourglass in shape. Jada might say I looked like royalty, but that was mostly so she could feel good hanging with me.
“You’re just gonna let that pervert go then?” I asked.
“Oh, he’s gonna pay for my lap time, but I’ll take that in hard cash. I’m not gonna beat you tonight, but I actually need the money, you know.”
“I could use the money, too,” I said, feeling another flush of heat.
Her annoyed looked swung from the man to me. Yeah, I’d use that money alright - on iTunes and clothes, not tuition like her.
I grabbed the tray of drinks and bustled off. Jada and I might share a room at Ann Arbor during the school year, but being in Detroit reminded me of the vast difference in the places we’d come from. My parents knew her mom, but we’d been living in Grosse Pointe forever. She’d grown up in Highland Park: miles away, but worlds apart. That was this city in a nutshell.
Jada was back working the table by the time I returned to the bar. I watched her smile and laugh with the fat old man who had grabbed her earlier. Part of me envied her for being able to do that, but most of me just wanted to shake my head at the way she flirted with danger. Dad always said that people should spend more time thinking about what they had to lose instead of what they stood to make. The world would be a less dangerous place.
I supposed there wasn’t much danger to be had here.I just couldn’t imagine smiling at a man who had touched me without my permission. He had already shown his colors, and those colors were disgusting - inside and out, in this case. His belly nearly billowed out of his seat.
A couple of my tables left the restaurant, gracing me with outsized tips. I beamed as I brought the slips back to the register.
“I hear you’re killing it tonight,” Alice said, when I visited her at the hostess booth. “You selling drugs under the table or what?”
“Oh definitely. I’m Ms. Danger over here. It can’t be that I’m just likable.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Alice threw me her most matronly look, which didn’t really work with her round baby face and fiery red hair. “It must be all that humility.”
I shrugged. Pleasantness and modesty had never seemed close cousins to me. People at fancy restaurants didn’t want a waitress to chit chat with. They wanted someone who could listen and serve well, like people in other parts of their life. I could understand their world enough to know my place in it.
“There’s no one new, huh?” I asked, eying the empty waiting room.
“Na, looks like it’ll be about it for the night.”
“Well I’m down to one table. Get me first if someone comes in.”
“I’ll try.”
Just as I started back into the restaurant, the door whooshed open. A warm summer gust blew in, and I smiled and turned. Guess this was my lucky night.
The smile cracked on my lips when I saw our newest guests.
Five rough looking white men had tumbled in, all red and grim faced. One of the guys wore a cheap brown suit and had his hair slicked back, but the rest were all in jeans and streetwear. A couple of them had on oversized band t-shirts and looked around with listless red eyes. Another’s shirt didn’t even have any sleeves.
The last…the last was at least better dressed. He rose a good couple inches above his buddies and wore a thin leather jacket that dangled open down his center. He had a hard, sculpted face, though parts of it held red blotches and blue bruises. One of his cheekbones was covered with a thin bandage. Despite the damage, he wore a smile like a crocodile: wide and ferocious and barely masking his hunger.
This guy marched up to Alice, who looked to have just barely finished gulping.
“Good evening…gentlemen,” she said. “Do you have a reservation?”
“Can’t say we do,” the man boomed, still with that mischievous smile. “We’re out for a celebration, and I noticed you have room.”
“We, uh, may,” Alice said, peeking back more to identify that there were tables empty in this guy’s line of sight. “But, uh, there is a dress code, and I’m afraid your party is not quite meeting it.”
The guy found the sleeveless target of Alice’s gaze. “Oh, Rudy, man. Where’s you jacket?”
“I ain’t wearing no fucking jacket in fucking June.”
I thought I might have heard some forks screech on porcelain behind me.
“Just put mine on so we can eat,” the big guy said.
“Um…” Alice said.
“Fine,” the sleeveless bro said. “Give it over.”
The tall guy yanked off his jacket and slung it back to his friend. He had on just a simple black t-shirt underneath, but I found myself mesmerized by the way he filled it out. I’d seen guys from the U Mich football team in classes, but this guy was something else. His chest thrust out, but his stomach lay flat and rippled. His shoulder and arms threatened to burst the seams of those dark sleeves.
He
’
s dangerous
, I thought to myself. This was a guy built for action.
“So,” he was saying to Alice. “We’re all set. Is our table ready?”
“Alright,” Alice said. “Let me just find you a server.”
“What about her?”
I’d been standing a few feet away like a deer who’d heard a branch cracking. My heart stalled when those emerald eyes lifted onto me. His powerful jaw seemed to tighten a little bit more as he took me in.
“Uh, one sec,” Alice said.
She came up to me. “Hey, I’ll get you the first one tomorrow,” she said. “You don’t have to take on these guys. I’ll find one of the men to get their table. Or maybe I can talk to Terry and get them to leave. Who knows if they can even pay?”
The guy’s eyes had not left me, and now they had sharpened to slits that seemed to bore into my mind. Alice was wrong. This guy might be some sort of thug, but he wasn’t dumb. He wouldn’t walk in here expecting to dine and dash. If I saw him on the streets I would cross the other way, but he couldn’t do anything too bad here. His friends looked like idiots, but I could tell he had a handle on them.
And I could handle him.
“No,” I whispered to Alice. “Don’t worry, I got this.”
She gave me a terse nod. I took a deep breath, stepped right up to leader of my new guests and beamed.
“Welcome to Giuseppe’s, gentlemen,” I said. “I’d be happy to take you to your table.”
“I’m happy to let you,” the guy said.
Even as I turned and walked them through the room, my spine ran with a chill.
I liked to plan things out and understand dangers before they cropped up, but there was something happening here that I couldn’t quite grasp. Despite the bright lighting of the restaurant, and despite all the people here, I couldn’t shake the feeling that things could spin out of control very fast.
I’d have to keep my guard up tonight.
CHAPTER TWO
Sean
They put us off in a corner like we were trash. Of course, we were, but tonight this trash had cash, courtesy of my right hook here.
I kissed each knuckle as my boys drank in my winnings around me. All the tables around us were clear like some quarantine zone, but our voices and laughter still carried over it. A few of the rich assholes further off shot Silvio looks as he set the table off again with an impression of the chump I’d knocked out. Once they found my face grinning back, they snapped around so quick you’d think I’d hit ‘em with a roundhouse.