by Jessie Cooke
Jace moved his hands from her breasts to her butt cheeks and squeezed them tightly as he lifted his own hips up off the ground. She heard his long, loud moan and she knew he was climbing his peak. She slid down his erection and when he hit bottom that time she rotated her hips and ground her pelvis into his. “Oh fuck! Beck...!” She felt him explode, but the sexiest thing of all was the look on his face, and the way he said her name...and she realized at that very second that tiny little, annoying part of her brain had been right all along. She was falling in love with this man. God help her.
24
The sounds of violin music wafted out of the corner apartment. Granite had always loved the finer things, and Wolf had always just assumed his family money paid for them, but suddenly he had to wonder. He and Manson walked up to the door. Normally, when he was handling something like this, something that could become heated, he had one of his SAs with him. But he needed to be sure that there was at least some validity to what he and Manson were thinking, before anyone else started looking at Granite as some kind of traitor. Granite had been with the club for a long time, since Wolf was only about ten years old. He was barely nineteen when he walked into the shop and told Coyote he wanted to prospect. Coyote told Wolf that the guys had laughed at him. He was dressed in designer jeans and a shirt that looked like it was made out of silk. His sunglasses were even designer. But Coyote saw something in the man’s cold, gray eyes and decided to give him a chance. Wolf remembered being a little wary of him when he was a kid. The man never seemed to smile or laugh. The other guys around the club could be moody sometimes, but there was always a lot of laughter. Granite rarely cracked a smile and it made a young Wolf, who hardly ever felt anxiety, feel slightly anxious around him.
But over the years Wolf came to see how important the man was to Coyote and as he got older and began to realize Granite had given up a spot in his father’s national accounting firm to be part of an MC, he began to respect him for following his heart. Wolf didn’t know much more about Granite’s family than that, and what Coyote told him. When Wolf was fifteen Granite was gone for a few weeks and Coyote told him that the treasurer’s father had passed away and Granite had gone to attend the funeral. The word around the club afterward was that Granite had inherited a ton of money, and it was apparent if you saw where and how he lived and paid attention to how he dressed. That was as much as Wolf really knew about him. Even when he was in the hospital on the brink of death and Wolf spent hours with him, Granite shared very little with him about his personal life. Wolf wasn’t bothered by that. They talked about other things like Granite’s love of music and what was going on at the club. Granite liked Blair a lot too and he was the first one to tell Wolf that she was a keeper. Now as Wolf raised his hand to knock on the apartment door he wished he was a praying man. If he were, he’d say a prayer that he was dead wrong about Granite and that the respect he had for his friend and brother would remain intact.
Wolf had to knock twice, much louder the second time, and the music inside came to a stop. “Yeah?”
“Granite, it’s Wolf and Manson.”
“One second, Boss.” When Wolf was voted in as president after Coyote died, it had been hard for him to get used to the older brothers like Manson and Granite calling him “Boss.” But it grew on him, and eventually it was one of the things that gave him the most confidence as the president of the Westside Skulls. Men that were a decade, or two or even three, older than him looked to him for his insights and leadership. That meant a lot.
The door opened and Granite was framed in it, wearing the cannula in his nose that blew oxygen in from the little tank he had strapped over his shoulder...and a satin robe and slippers. Wolf had to force himself to keep a straight face when he saw the look on Manson’s. “We interrupt your pedicure or some shit?” Manson asked him.
Granite smiled, as much as he ever smiled. The edges of his lips curled up slightly and his eyes brightened. “Nah, today’s Tuesday, pedicures are on Monday, manicures on Wednesday...”
“Yeah, yeah,” Manson said, waving his hand like he couldn’t stand to hear any more. “Can we come in?”
“Sure, of course.” Granite stepped away from the door and Wolf and Manson stepped inside. When Mouse attacked him and nearly killed him three years earlier, Granite’s living room had taken a beating. Wolf hadn’t seen it since then, but realized now that it looked like it was completely restored to “pre-Mouse” days. There was a new glass coffee table, a white sofa and carpet with no bloodstains, and a few fancy vases and candles and things that Wolf didn’t even know the name of. Granite’s polished violin sat propped against the white chair and a cup of something steaming sat on the table next to it. “Can I get you guys some coffee or something?”
“No, thanks.”
“Well, have a seat.” Wolf and Manson took the couch and Granite sat in his chair. Wolf was trying to read his mood but with Granite that was next to impossible. “Did you have more questions for me about the deposits and the guns?”
Wolf nodded. “Actually, yes.” He took a paper out of his vest pocket. He’d calculated and recalculated everything and then he’d written the numbers down. He held the paper tightly in his hand as he said, “Did Manson or I ever tell you that the day Mouse grabbed you, he and I had been getting ready for that IRS audit?”
“Um...maybe. That time is all a little fuzzy.” Granite’s lungs had both been damaged and his cheek, jaw, and orbital bones were all broken. Mouse had even managed to leave a fine crack in the back of his skull that had to be closed with a metal plate. One of his lungs was repaired, but the other one was too far gone and had to be removed. He had to be on continuous oxygen now because of it.
“We were going over the payroll accounts back then,” Manson said. “I was trying to get a hold of you because it wasn’t making sense to me. I guess that was pretty lucky, or we might have found you too late.”
“And I’m damned grateful you didn’t,” he said.
“So are we,” Manson said. “But...I had to do some really fancy editing on the books to make things match up and keep the IRS from walking out with a few of us in handcuffs. The thing is, Granite, there was a hell of a lot more money going out to the payroll accounts than what we were taking in at that time. We couldn’t figure out where that money was coming from...and we knew that there was no way that was happening without you knowing about it.”
Granite’s expression still didn’t change even as he said, “I was planning on fixing that before the IRS got a look. None of the rest of you usually paid attention to it, not the way Coyote did.”
Manson and Wolf exchanged a look, and then Manson waited and let Wolf take the lead. “Where did the money come from, Granite?”
“The sale of Morrison’s guns.”
“Fuck. Do you have any idea what a fucking mess you’ve gotten me and this club into? The DA wants whoever put those guns on the streets and if they don’t get him...fuck.” Wolf ran his hands through his beard and Manson took over.
“If they don’t get him, they’re going to turn the whole thing over to the US Attorney’s office. Wolf will be brought up on RICO charges if he doesn’t plead to selling the guns. Besides the fact that they’ll put Wolf in jail, the club won’t make it through that.”
Granite was nodding. “Give them me.” He said it so calmly. He picked up his tea and took a sip without so much as rattling the saucer against the cup. Wolf was filled with anxiety and it almost pissed him off that Granite wasn’t.
“I want to know why. I want to know the whole story, the truth,” Wolf said.
Granite finished sipping his tea, wiped his mouth on the edge of a napkin, and said, “Did Coyote ever tell you that I have a son?”
In all honesty, Wolf had occasionally entertained the thought that Granite was gay. He’d never seen him with a woman and Granite didn’t talk about them the way the other guys did. “No” was all he said...for now.
“He’s twenty-four now, but back then he wasn�
�t out of high school yet. He was in a private school in Ireland. His mother was your run-of-the-mill gold-digger and when my kid was five years old, my father paid her to go away and stay away. My parents didn’t feel like I was capable of raising my own child...and sadly, they were probably right. Anyway, they sent him to Ireland where my sister lived and they owned a home. He went to private boarding schools his entire life...and I only saw him twice between the ages of five and eighteen. One of those times was at my father’s funeral. I didn’t make it to my mother’s. The boy had a lot of resentment toward me and not much else. I didn’t blame him. I had it coming.
“But when my sister called me in 2010 and told me he’d joined up with a gang in Dublin and was using a lot of drugs and getting into some trouble, I felt like I had to try to do something. She was concerned for his safety because he had come to her for money, telling her he was in deep with some dealers over there. He was using heavily at the time and he’d stolen quite a bit of what he was supposed to be selling. My sister gave him what she could, but the kid was making some really bad decisions. Instead of paying his debts, he bought more drugs thinking he’d sell them himself and end up with a profit. When the guys he owed money to caught up with him again, they were going to kill him. He told them his family was rich, thinking they’d just go get more money from my sister. But they saw opportunity...and held him for ransom.”
“Coyote knew all this?” Wolf asked. It seemed like every day he learned something else about his father. It made him wonder just how many secrets one man could keep.
Granite nodded. “I eventually had to tell him. Every time I sent money, they’d send me another video of them torturing him, and demand more. I was going to just go back over there and get him myself, but when I told Coyote the story, he talked me out of that. He made me see that I would probably just get myself and the kid killed. He contacted a guy he knew from the old days. This was a guy that had served in Vietnam with Doc and had been a part of the Southside Skulls way back when Doc first took it over. He was the president of an MC over there in Ireland then, and they...well, long story short, they saved my boy’s life.”
“That’s great,” Wolf said, with more enthusiasm than he was feeling. He was glad for Granite and his son, and glad to know his father would go to those lengths to help a brother. But none of what Granite was going on about explained the money or the guns.
“I know, Boss,” Granite said, without Wolf’s expressing his frustration, “I’m getting there. See...Coyote didn’t stop by enlisting the Irish club’s help. Once they had my kid, and I got a chance to talk to him face to face, I found out that those guys weren’t the only ones he had screwed over. He’d made quite a few enemies. Maybe I should have left him to deal with it at that point. He was an adult. But I had so much guilt from never being a part of his life...and I know this might sound doubtful, but he’s really a good kid at heart. He was just messed up from growing up away from his family and being sent a check every month instead of being given any kind of affection. Then the drugs messed him up even more. Once he was sober, he wanted to do right...but he was in over his head. He was drowning and if I left him there he would have been dead before his next birthday. So...Coyote helped me find someone that would get him out of Ireland and back here...under the radar. As far as anyone knows, the kid is still in Europe. Still out on the streets somewhere, strung out on heroin.”
“As far as anyone knows?” Manson said, sounding like he was thinking out loud. “So where is he, actually?”
“Here.” The sound of the voice, thick with an Irish accent, from behind them drew Wolf’s and Manson’s attention, and their guns. They were both on their feet and the kid in the hallway had his hands up.
“It’s okay, guys, he’s not armed. This is my son, Ian.” Wolf lowered his gun, but Manson kept his where it was. “Ian has been in the States for six years.”
“Doing?” Wolf asked. The kid was dressed like a biker. He had long hair that came down to his shoulders and a beard and mustache that covered most of his face. He was wearing a leather vest, white t-shirt, and jeans.
“Selling Coyote’s guns, mostly,” Ian said. “And Pops, you’re not going to prison for something you didn’t have shit to do with.”
“Somebody better finish telling me about those guns and that money before I get frustrated enough to just kill you both and be done with it,” Wolf growled. “Manson, put that away.” Manson reluctantly tucked his gun into his pants and Wolf looked at Ian and said, “Sit down and start talking, now.”
25
Beck woke up against Jace’s big chest. She sighed and cuddled deeper into his side. Mornings were her favorite part of the day since she’d met him. She had never realized how much better it was to wake up next to someone than to wake up and face every day alone before. She’d spent so many years convincing herself that if she didn’t do shit on her own, no one would respect her...and to her, respect was everything. But without Jace, she wasn’t sure she would have made it through the bullshit the club was putting her through to prove she was worthy of a patch. Not that she couldn’t have done it physically, because she’d always been sure that she could. It was the emotional support he’d given her that had kept her calm when she wanted to take her pistol and go postal on one of the arrogant assholes downstairs, support that she couldn’t have made it without. The closer it got to her finishing their stupid “test,” the more obnoxious a lot of the Skulls had become. They seemed to find new ways to taunt her daily and there were a few of them she might just kill and bury out on the back forty before all of this was over yet.
She had run an obstacle course and dragged a two-hundred-pound dummy out through a window and down the outside of the club. He was supposed to be an unconscious brother, one that she couldn’t leave behind. Beck had somehow called on every ounce of strength in her body and managed to get the dummy across her shoulders and off the roof of the two-story building without dropping him. She’d banged his head into a few things on the way down and the jerks tried to say she failed because of that. Wolf wasn’t around to mediate, and she’d almost come to blows with a few of them over it before Bruf stepped in. He simply told them that there was nothing in what they’d written up about her giving the guy a concussion or a head injury, so they were screwed and she had passed. They accepted that from Bruf, but they weren’t finished looking for ways to fuck with her.
She had taken a motorcycle engine apart and put it back together in the time allotted, but they tried to say that the engine had to be put back on the bike too...within the time she already used. She did take a swing at one of the guys over that one, but Jace’s presence had stopped the guy from swinging back. She’d been pissed at Jace all day for that and she was planning on holding out on sex because of it too. As soon as he knocked on her door that night, though, she changed her mind. She didn’t see any reason to punish herself.
The next day, she had push-started a bike that they’d taken the ignition switch off, and jumped onto the back of it running. They surprisingly didn’t have anything to say that she’d done wrong on that one. The day after that they had her carrying sacks of concrete and plywood up and down hills at the construction site. She thought that was a load of bullshit, but she did it because it was on the list.
Throughout it all, she had shot down every horny bastard that tried to treat her like a club girl and she’d started to bond...sort of...with the old ladies. Blair liked her and Beck liked Blair. She wasn’t a girly-girl either. Beck even went fishing with her and her dad one day. Then Sabrina had the kid, a boy. They had a big party for her and Bruf and everyone was there. Beck had congratulated her and Bruf both, and she thought she did a good job of pretending like she was happy for them. She wasn’t sure what it was, but she still felt a lot of resentment toward the other woman. She knew it wasn’t that she wanted Bruf because she was perfectly content with Jace. Maybe it was all about the kid. Bruf hadn’t gotten back to her with any information at all from the bounty hunter/
investigator guy in Boston and that was frustrating. He was too wrapped up with his new little family to worry about their kid, or so that’s how she took it. She promised herself that as soon as her “test” was over, she’d get serious again about finding her daughter. She only wanted to be sure she was okay...most of the time. Every so often her maternal instincts would kick in and she’d imagine herself as a mother. The problem was that she imagined herself as the mother of a small child. When she tried to see herself as the mother of one that was almost a teenager, she couldn’t even envision it. So then she’d go back to telling herself that she just needed to know the girl was okay.
For the past two weeks Wolf hadn’t been present for any of her “tests,” and that annoyed her too. She had a strong feeling that no matter how many tests she passed, most of the guys were still going to try and stop her from being patched in. It would come down to Wolf in the end; she’d like for him to be there to at least witness her accomplishments, so he had ammunition when he went to bat for her. Jace told her that no one really knew what he was up to. Manson had been MIA a lot too and even Blair seemed confused and maybe a little bit annoyed that Wolf had been away from the club so much. Beck just hoped he would show up today. It was her last test and it would be the most difficult. It was the only one that she’d honestly worried about the possibility of failing. It was the hand-to-hand combat test. She’d be in an octagon with a man and she’d be expected to go three rounds with him. She’d been training hard with Jake for almost a solid month. His team had stepped up and she’d had a different sparring partner almost every time. She felt like they could probably hit a lot harder than they were, but at least they weren’t babying her too much. When she stepped out of the ring after a sparring session, she was covered in sweat and sometimes she even had a bloody lip or nose to show for her efforts...or lack of keeping her hands up, the way Jake was always telling her to. Either way, her body was in top physical shape and if they put a guy in the octagon with her who was at least in her weight class, she thought...or hoped at least...that she could hold her own.
