The warm summer breeze rip-roaring around me set off the serotonin in my brain. I relaxed with each sharp turn and every yellow light I soared through at lightning speed. I hated walking out on Josie like that, and even my own reaction frustrated me. But every time someone even remotely hinted at my past, it triggered a flight response.
I never wanted to relive those days as long as I lived.
The one thing I learned about the life I had chosen for myself was this: if anyone figured out someone’s real, bonafide fears, they could be exploited for all sorts of purposes. I had watched it happen a couple of times with Hyde back when the man was still alive. Other crews would roll up knowing all sorts of shit about him and come knocking on our doors thinking they could hold it over our heads and get what they wanted.
Which simply led to more bloodshed just to keep those threats at bay.
I didn’t want to be like that. I didn’t want anyone to know my deepest, darkest secrets. And I sure as hell wouldn’t indulge my fears in some ordinary conversation. It came with too great of a risk and impacted more than just myself.
I didn’t want to be responsible for the deaths of more of our members.
I still owed Josie an apology, though. She needed full-time, around-the-clock care, and I had walked out on her for purely selfish reasons. However, I also couldn’t just take time off. There was no “vacation time” in the life of a crew member. There was no “getting away from it all” whenever we needed to hang up our jackets for a little bit.
Once we took that pledge, we understood that we’d be on-call twenty-four-seven for the rest of our lives.
Once we took that pledge, we understood that we’d be at our president’s beckoning call until further notice.
And once we took that pledge, our lives were sold to whatever Devil people believed in.
We turned into the things our parents feared.
Still, after taking a few sharp corners and working out some aggression on the empty back roads of inland Santa Cruz, I made a U-turn in the middle of the road and headed straight for the clubhouse. I knew myself and the guys had a lot to talk about, and even more to coordinate in the coming months. There was a storm brewing, and not the thundering kind seen off the coast.
A blood storm was coming.
And it would result in heartache for all if we didn’t step properly.
I eased into the gravel parking lot of the clubhouse and noticed that bikes were still there. I figured everyone would have dispersed until some of the heat died down from finding Josie, but it seemed everyone had the same idea as myself. I parked my bike next to Brooks’ and made my way inside, only to find him, Cole, Porter, Tanner, and Finn staring at the front door.
“We were wondering when you’d come back,” Brooks said.
Cole tossed me a beer. “How’s Josie?”
I caught it on my hand and cracked it open. “About as well as can be expected. I’m sure she’s asleep by now. She took her pain pill and had some food before I left.”
Finn, our newest prospect, nodded. “Sounds like it’s for the best, for now.”
Porter cleared his throat. “So, we just gonna sit on our asses and act like The Black Flags haven’t done what we know they’ve done?”
Brooks snickered. “Fuck no. I was just waiting for this half-wit to get back.”
I blinked. “Thanks.”
Brooks winked playfully. “Anytime, suga.”
I barked with laughter before I took a massive pull from my drink, then we all sat around a wooden dining room table that desperately needed to be re-sanded and refinished. I leaned back in my chair and kept sipping on my drink, teetering the damn thing on its back two legs. An impromptu meeting would certainly take my mind of shit. But it wouldn’t stop Josie’s barrage of questions over the coming days.
Especially now that she knew there was something beneath the surface to poke at.
Why do women always do that shit?
“So,” Brooks said, “Finn did a bit more digging into some stuff while you were gone, and it turns out that this isn’t the only attempt to buy up a strip club The Black Fucknuggets have tried.”
My eyebrows rose. “Really now? What else did they try to buy?”
Finn pulled some rolled-up papers out of his leather jacket and tossed them onto the table. “According to what I could do via internet and a few phone calls, there are at least four different strip clubs that recall these men walking in with a bag of money at their side wanting to buy their property.”
Cole clicked his tongue. “Did they purchase any of them?”
Finn polished off his drink. “Two told them to get fucked, one is still considering their offer, and the last strip club is currently in the process of selling off their place to these guys.”
“Fuuuuuuck,” I groaned.
Tanner sighed. “Is anyone else thinking what I’m thinking?”
Brooks eyed him hotly. “That The Black Homewreckers are trying to use these strip clubs for more than simple stripping?”
Cole paused. “Uh, since when were we under the insinuation that these assholes were just doing strip club shit? You know damn good and well that they’ve got ulterior motives that haven’t bubbled to the surface yet.”
I finished my own drink. “And my biggest concern is that, before we can blink our eyes, Santa Crus is going to be another massive hub for the sex trade and human trafficking syndicates that have been fighting their way into this part of the state for years.”
Brooks pointed at me. “Exactly. They’ve been battling us over our turf now for damn near a decade. And all of a sudden, they pivot to buying up strip clubs? I mean, where the fuck is their money coming from in the first place? They’ve already undercut our prices and made it difficult enough for us at the mechanic-slash-chop-shop.”
But as we all gazed around the table at each other, none of us had answers to any of his questions.
“We got a lot of work ahead of us,” I murmured.
Cole held up his finger. “You know, it takes a lot of fucking balls to simply walk into a club, demand to see the owners, and then tossing money down on the table like it’s nothing.”
Tanner furrowed his brow. “I was sitting over here thinking exactly the same thing. Business sure as hell doesn’t work like that.”
Finn drew in a breath through his nose. “What if they have someone on the inside?”
Brooks blinked. “The inside of what?”
Finn shrugged. “The strip clubs, my dude. What if there’s someone on the inside filtering information to them, or maybe doing small things here and there to sabotage the strip club so it makes the owners more willing to sell the place off?”
I nodded slowly. “Then, they swoop in with a ‘holier than thou’ offer to take the entire place off their hands—along with the problems—and they look like the heroes.”
Brooks folded his hands together on top of the table. “All right. Suppose that’s what’s happening—which we don’t actually know, but we’ll go with it. What’s in it for the people who are syphoning them information?”
I shrugged. “If I were a stripper and I had just watched them make the kind of example out of Josie that just happened? The simple idea of not ending up like her would do it for me.”
We all looked around at one another and I could tell that the theory registered well with the guys. And while I don’t always want to toot our own conglomerate horn, we were usually right about this kind of stuff. We were able to think like them because only a few actions and morals we had set up in our crew separated us from those animals.
And when no one objected, Brooks proceeded. “Okay, so. We have a working theory that seems more than plausible. How do we tackle this issue head-on, then?”
Tanner chewed on the inside of his cheek. “Surveillance?”
Brooks shook his head. “Too out in the open. You know they’ll be looking over their shoulder, especially since they probably know it was one of our own that took Josie to the hospital.”
Porter nodded. “Someone was watching us from an alley across the street. They even knew what room we were in. Which floor to look up to.”
“Jesus,” Finn murmured.
I shrugged. “What if we send someone in to tap their phones or something? Surely, those strip clubs have off hours where no one’s around.”
Brooks pointed at me. “That could work.”
Porter clapped his hands. “I got it.”
All eyes were on him as he stood to his feet. “We plant someone inside at the club—maybe this club they’re about to purchase or something—and they can syphon us information.”
Brooks grinned. “Play their own game. It’s ballsy, and I like it.”
Cole crossed his arms. “It might be the kind of play they aren’t expecting since they always seem to underestimate us.”
I set my chair back down on all fours. “That’s true. But who the hell are we going to find that’s willing to go undercover?”
And when they all paused before looking at me, I shook my head. “No.”
Brooks sighed. “Archer.”
I pointed at him. “No. It’s not happening, you got that?”
Cole shrugged. “It’s not like we’d be asking you to go in there.”
I gnashed my teeth together. “I’d be the one going in there before her. Josie’s off limits.”
Finn chuckled. “Says who?”
I glared at him. “Says the man who’s taken her well-being into my custody. She’s healing from a massive beatdown. You really want to take a woman like that, who needs fucking bedrest, and throw her back into a situation like this? One that could get her killed if someone found out what she was doing?”
Brooks slowly stood. “As much as I hate it, she’s our best bet.”
I shot him a look. “Then, why don’t we throw Astrid out onto the table and see how you like it?”
He growled at me. “Don’t you dare do that.”
I scoffed. “Why? Because she’s your sister? Or because you don’t like the idea of dangling someone you care for as bait while you’re more than willing to throw someone you don’t care about under the bus?”
“Enough!” Porter roared.
My nostrils flared with anger as I slowly sank into my seat. I felt Brooks’ eyes on me as he sat down himself, but Porter stayed standing as his eyes volleyed between the two of us.
“You two good?” he asked.
I snickered. “I’ll be better when we find someone who can actually stand on their own two feet without pain medication to do this job.”
Brooks chuckled. “I didn’t say we’d throw her in there tomorrow. We have to wait until the heat dies down a bit. At least, until she’s healed enough to cover up healing bruises with makeup.”
I shook my head. “Fuck you all for even insinuating this shit.”
Cole snorted. “It’s not like any of us can go undercover and strip. And even if Astrid was available—”
“Which she’s not,” Porter and Brooks said in unison.”
Cole continued. “—she doesn’t know the first thing about stripping. They’d see right through her. As much as it sucks to admit, Josie’s our best shot at this. And we all know she wants to get back to work sooner rather than later. It was practically written all over her face.”
I shook my head. “Not gonna happen.”
Brooks drew in a sobering breath. “Well, it isn’t your decision to make.”
I slowly looked over at him. “What ever happened to protecting women and respecting them? Huh?”
He scowled at me. “We aren’t forcing her to do shit. We’re going to present it to her in an orderly fashion, and if she wants to take the risk, she can agree.”
Porter nodded. “And she can turn it down just as easily and we won’t get her any grief about it.”
I slid my hands into my jacket pockets to keep from strangling them both. “If we’re going to do that, then we find another woman to ask as well. We let Josie know that she isn’t the only one we’re asking, because I know that if we make her feel like she’s our only resort, she’ll do it whether she wants to or not.”
Brooks sighed. “She kind of is our last resort.”
I growled at him. “Well, make it look like she’s not, big shot.”
I stood so violently that my chair shot out from beneath me. I slammed my fists against the table and let out a bombastic roar before I tore my way for the front door. However, once I ripped the front door open to storm out to my bike, I was met with two very familiar individuals that stood with their backs straight and their shoulders rolled back.
“Hey, Porter?” I asked.
I heard him stand to his feet. “Yeah?”
I eyed Astrid and Josie hotly. “I think we got company. You’re gonna wanna see who’s here.”
Then, as if I hadn’t already made myself clear enough, Josie slipped past me without a second thought. Marching into a room full of men that had just been arguing about her.
And it made me wonder how much she had overheard.
