by Hazel Parker
Fitz didn’t laugh. He just shrugged.
“I hope I know you still in thirty years,” he said in his typically understated way. “I like you. You’ve got a nice fire to you. That’s not someone that I want just to let go.”
I tried to laugh off his comment, but it became harder to when his gaze settled upon mine, the calm yet serious demeanor locking me onto his hypnotic, glasses-covered eyes. This was…
This was the moment on every date. This was—
Too early.
“Well, good news for you is that we still work together,” I said, breaking free to take a sip. “Besides—”
My phone buzzed again. Again, it was Ben.
“It’s OK,” Fitz said, seemingly unbothered by my refusal to get closer. “Go ahead; I still have my drink to finish.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled as I stepped outside. “Yeah?”
“Amelia, did you even proofread this before you sent this over?”
Jesus Christ, seriously?
“If you’re looking to become ED at Rothenberg, I can’t have you making simple, stupid mistakes like this.”
“I understand—”
“No, I don’t want to hear it, Amelia. We’re not having a conversation right now. We’re having a student-teacher moment.”
Christ, what is it, Ben? You want me to step away and avoid burnout, or do you want me to give my soul to the company? Seems to me like you want me to have it all without really having it all.
“You come to me and ask for a promotion, and yet I’m looking at the numbers here, and it looks like something a middle schooler who doesn’t know the difference between what a corporate and municipal bond would produce. I know I told you to detach from work some, but when you’re here, I don’t expect you to make an utter ass of yourself with your work!”
I bit my lip, giving him the middle finger with my free hand.
“I want an updated version of this document in my inbox or on my desk by eight tomorrow morning. I do not care how or when you do it, but if that isn’t at my desk at that hour, shit is going to fly, and you can kiss the ED promotion goodbye for at least the next calendar year. Do you understand?”
I took a deep breath, mostly because pausing was the only way to ensure that I didn’t cuss him out right there.
“Yes, Ben,” I said.
“Good, goodbye.”
Without a further word or notice, Ben hung up. My hand squeezed my phone. I wanted to break that goddamn thing.
Just a week ago, I’d wanted to do whatever I could to get that promotion—whatever ethical I could do, that was. Now, though? Now that I’d gotten a taste of what I secretly wanted but just hadn’t admitted to?
“Fuck!” I shouted.
I headed back inside and found Fitz with his drink nearly three-quarters finished. There was no way I could sit there and have the time to do the work and sleep.
“I’m sorry, Fitz,” I said. “I can’t stay any longer. Ben’s making me redo the project. Here.”
I threw two twenty-dollar bills on the counter to pay for the drinks.
“Amelia—”
“No, it’s fine,” I said. “I like you and would love to do this with you again, Fitz. But you have to know that I can’t escape Rothenberg. I don’t know how you manage to stay detached, but this company has weaved itself into me like a virus. It’s up to you if you want us to go out again, but I understand if you don’t.”
I gave a weak smile as I went over and hugged him. It occurred to me as I fell into his embrace that it was the first genuine, desired hug I’d had since…
I didn’t want to think about it. It had been way too long.
“Bye, Fitz; thanks for the evening, short as it was.”
I shook my head at myself as I walked out the door. So long as I was at Rothenberg, I was never going to have a normal dating life. Even when I was with the man who would most understand what it was like being there, it sure seemed like I couldn’t have normal. “Normal” was a term that bankers didn’t have.
I guess only time would tell if Fitz and I could actually work something out, but it wasn’t wrong to say that I had no hope that we would. Unless I suddenly found a way to quit, nothing would change.
And even then, Fitz would remain at the company, and the stranglehold Rothenberg Banking would have on us would remain unchanged. It wasn’t like he was going to quit and ride his bike forever.
Chapter 7: Fitz
What I’d give for both of us to just quit our jobs and ride motorcycles forever.
I laughed at the thought as Amelia hurried out of Winchester’s. That, of course, would never come true. I had a better chance of moving to India and changing my name than of Amelia quitting the company to ride a bike with me. And even if that were possible, was it any guarantee that it would be something I wanted? After all, I barely knew her.
But from what I had seen of her, it was clear that the fiery banker at Rothenberg had a sweet side to her, and a side that she hadn’t had fulfilled in some time.
Unfortunately, she didn’t seem willing to create the space for that side of her to be fulfilled.
* * *
“Fitz! You’re actually on time!”
I chuckled as I walked into the Thursday meeting at the Savage Saints club. Despite Gerald’s protests, I had pointed out that I had stayed very late on Tuesday and Wednesday night. I added that I had doctors’ orders to see him on Thursday evening and that I had forced the doctor’s hand to give me an evening appointment.
It was bullshit, of course. But going to the club was a sort of medicine that beat anything a doctor could have prescribed to me.
“It is possible, Marcel,” I said as I sat down before everyone else.
“And you lost the tie,” Uncle noted. “You’re paying attention to my advice.”
“Eh, most of it.”
Uncle raised his eyebrow in curiosity at me, but I ignored it.
“So, what’s going on?”
“Well, we were going to wait for the clock to strike,” Marcel said. “But at this point, I think we can just get right to it.”
He cleared his throat, took a sip of water, and leaned forward on the table.
“I mentioned last time that a couple of the Savage Saints from across the country had sent us an email warning us that we would never be the real Savage Saints, a sort of opening salvo if you will,” he said. “However, given that there has been no follow-up, I suspect that it was nothing more than a ploy to try to get money out of us.”
“Extortion at its finest,” Uncle cracked. “If he wanted to stir up trouble, he should have learned from the pros. Right, Fitz?”
I smiled uneasily, knowing that while people could have argued about the merits of my profession, they could never say I acted unethically. Uncle, though, seemed to have other ideas.
“So, with that said, until I have further proof of them causing trouble, this is just something that I’m not going to worry about. Let’s instead turn our attention to the issue of recruitment. We need—”
The door to the repair shop opened. Marcel rolled his eyes.
“Shop’s closed; we open at nine! If you need to leave your car, there’s a key drop outside!”
The door shut. Footsteps, however, followed. Niner rose from his seat, his hand by his hip to draw at a moment’s notice. I also stood, but I had no gun on me. The footsteps that came from outside were deliberate, slow, and casual. They sounded like the walk of a man who wore...dress shoes?
A couple of seconds later, a taller man with a thick black beard, slick black hair, a black cut, and a lit cigar in his mouth walked in. Niner tried to round the table, but Marcel held him back.
“Hey, did you hear what I said?” Marcel said, standing up. “Shop’s closed. We’ll take care of your shit in the morning, but not right now.”
“I heard what you said,” the man said, taking a puff of his cigar and blowing it in our general direction. “But it seems from your attitude and words that you have
not heard what we had to say.”
Marcel scrunched his eyebrows at him. The black-bearded man chuckled and leaned against the entrance to our meeting room.
“You’re really this dense, Marcel?” the man said. “You literally just spoke about me. And now you’re going to pretend you don’t know who I am?”
Marcel kept his arms folded and his mouth shut. Niner again stepped forward, but the man rolled his eyes.
“Tell your sergeant to stand down,” he said. “You shoot me, and all of you will be dead before the end of Friday night. And lest you think I’m full of shit, look closer at my cut.”
As if to hammer home the point, the man turned, showing us the Savage Saints logo on his back, and then turned around and pointed to a patch on the right side of his collarbone that read “President.”
“I’m Richard Peters, something that I apparently have to hammer home into your thick New York skulls.”
“Yeah? I’m Marcel Stone. And what can we do for an airheaded California boy?”
Richard chuckled, taking another puff of his cigar. I had a very bad feeling for how this was going to end, especially considering Richard probably had a whole host of men with him just out of our view.
“If you had done any research after our initial warning to you, Marcel, you would know that I don’t run the Savage Saints in California. I run the chapter in Las Vegas. But I can see that you need everything handed to you, don’t you?”
“Fuck off,” Marcel said.
“I would be happy to, if you just do what I tell you to do.”
Marcel snorted. Niner’s hand kept clenching in and out, just looking for an excuse to open fire.
“What do you want?”
“Ah, now you’re learning,” Richard said. “You took our name. You took our brand. We should drive your sorry asses into the ground. We have the means to do so, especially considering how new you are. But when I talked to my friend in Green Hills, I realized, you know what, there are better ways to do this. After all, we had never even considered expanding out east. And yet, you’ve given us an opportunity.”
“Opportunity for what?” Uncle yapped.
Richard looked at him.
“Who’s he?” he asked. “The club mouse?”
“I’ll show you what this fucking mouse can do, you little shithead!” Uncle roared as he stood up.
Richard rolled his eyes before he raised a gun. Niner raised his gun in kind. No one fired, but a single wrong move could have resulted in multiple dead bodies—to say nothing of who was outside.
“Fucking shoot me,” Uncle said. “I dare you. You think I’m fucking scared of your sorry hippy ass?”
“I don’t, which just makes you all the dumber,” Richard said. “A man without fear of a gun is a man who is bound to die by one.”
“Spare your fucking nonsense,” Uncle said. “If you have any balls, you’ll shoot me right now.”
“If I wanted you all dead, you wouldn’t even know you were in the grave,” Richard warned. “Have your sergeant lower his gun. All of you, sit down. I’ll give my speech, and then you can take it or fight it.”
“Fuck you!”
“Uncle!”
I pounded the table as I shouted. Uncle, Marcel, and even Richard stared at me in surprise.
“We’re not going to get anywhere with threats,” I said. “And even if we could kill him right now, he’s the president of the club. We kill him, and we’ll have a whole horde of them on us. We’ll be massacred.”
Richard raised his arm out, palm facing the ceiling, toward me.
“One of you assholes has some common sense here,” he said. “I suggest you listen to him.”
“Let’s just all sit down. Richard, you too. And then we can hear what we need to.”
Uncle and Marcel exchanged a look. Richard looked utterly relaxed as if he knew no one would have the balls to shoot him. I didn’t doubt that Niner would, but I also didn’t doubt it wouldn’t be an even trade. The president’s death meant all of ours.
“You fucking punk, Fitz,” Uncle said. “You’re the first to die if this backfires on us.”
“No one is going to die if you just sit down,” Richard said. “At least not today.”
I did my best to ignore his last few words and sat down. Uncle spat on the ground just a couple of inches from Richard’s feet before taking a seat. Marcel and Niner, though, remained standing.
“What will it be, Marcel?” Richard said. “You want to make this a bigger problem than it is now? Or are you going to exercise some self-restraint here and take a seat?”
Marcel muttered something I couldn’t hear under his breath, motioned for Niner to take his seat, and then did so himself. Richard chuckled, put out the remains of his cigar on the ground, stomped it, and then pulled up a chair to the table.
“See? I negotiate fairly. Fitz asked us all to sit, and I am happy to do that so that no one leaves here with anything more than a bruised ego. You ought to listen to him more, you know. He seems like he knows a thing or two.”
“The fucking scrawny banker?” Marcel said with a chuckle.
Richard looked at me in surprise.
“Banker?”
I cleared my throat.
“I work on Wall Street.”
Richard looked at me, looked at the rest of the club, and started laughing hysterically. It was certainly theatrical, but I didn’t doubt that the appearance of a banker with a bunch of car repairmen was also genuinely funny.
“I don’t know what weird shit your club is, but it doesn’t much matter. Anyways, let’s get down to it. From a legal perspective, we could sue your asses into oblivion and you would never be out of bankruptcy and debt ever again. You stole our image, you stole our name, you stole pretty much everything associated with us.”
All true, I thought as Marcel showed no visible reaction.
“However, we’re bikers, right? We’re not a bunch of lawyers and vampires. We believe in solving issues of justice ourselves. Surely, that’s something you all have come to realize. At least, I hope you’ve realized it. If not, you all have some serious fucking issues.”
He chuckled.
“Anyways, like I said, plan was to come here, threaten you with death, maybe shoot one of you, you know, standard operating procedure for a rival club. But like Fitz over here, I’m a businessman. The Las Vegas chapter is the money maker of the Savage Saints name, while the Green Hills chapter is the enforcement. That’s why I’m here, not Trace. So, that is all to say that we’ll let your little club operate as is. You can do whatever the hell you want with the name. We’ll even help you if you need it—eventually.
“But in order to do all that, you’re going to have to give us a percentage of your profits.”
“How much?”
“Fifty.”
Marcel cracked his neck while laughing. Uncle muttered something about how it was bullshit. I was just fixated on the fact that he said “profits” and not “revenue.” That was a hell of a lot more generous offer than revenue—fifty percent of our revenue would have been death by a “fair deal.” Fifty percent of profits hurt, but it wouldn’t destroy us.
“Fifty percent,” Marcel says. “You want us to give you fifty percent of our profits?”
“First of all, you numbfuck, we ain’t making a profit yet,” Uncle said. “Second of all, the fuck you going to enforce this? You going to fly cross-country every month and make sure our books are good?”
“Yeah,” Richard said as if being asked if he’d like a drink.
“No way. You may be the money-making branch, but you ain’t a fucking billionaire.”
“Don’t have to be.”
“Goddamnit,” Uncle said, realizing Richard was being completely serious. “You’re a fucking pain in the ass.”
“I could say the same about a certain chapter that opens up in New York City, steals everything we worked hard to establish, and then doesn’t pay a goddamn cent.”
Uncle rose from h
is seat. Just before he turned the corner, I stood up and stopped him.
“Let’s talk.”
“Talk,” Uncle said, repeating the word. “Talk. Talk when this guy just walks in here and demands half our profits. And you want to talk?”
“What is fighting going to do?”
“It’s going to tell him he can’t just walk in here and demand half of our money!”
“You really think you can beat him up and not have consequences?”
“He’s right, you know.”
We both turned to see Richard unbuttoning his shirt, showing us a wire.
“Don’t worry. It’s not to law enforcement. But it is to a few of my club members who are right outside the building. The moment I start yelling for back up, all of you will be shot through the skull. We’ll give anyone who has their car here a few hundred bucks to move it to a competitor, and you all will just be SOL.”
“This is bullshit,” Uncle said.
Richard shrugged.
“I could go on talking, but I really don’t see a need to,” he said, rising and stretching his arms out. “Today’s Thursday, right? Just like at our club. See, you even stole our meeting time.”
He chuckled to himself. No one else was laughing, that much was evident.
“I’ll give you all two weeks to decide what you’re going to do. If this sounds like an extraordinarily generous offer, that’s because it is. You shouldn’t need that much time but consider it an olive branch of sorts from Trace and me. A way of saying that we don’t want this to be extortion; we want it to be a partnership.”
He went to the door, paused, and turned around.
“And by the way,” he said. “You do recognize that it’s a two-way street, right? You won’t just pay us and then never talk to us again. You’ll have access to our brain trust. Our manpower. Our knowledge. Our locations. Only Wall Street over there looks like he’s ever seen a good party, but rest assured, Las Vegas knows how to throw a party—and we know how to throw the best kind in Vegas. Think about it.”
