I didn't pause in my path toward the door, the confines of my apartment calling me, only turning my head back over my shoulder to roll my eyes at Chip. "I've worked here for years, Chip. You know I only work with premium equipment, not that marked down shit you've got."
With that, I slammed my hand into the door, moving out onto the sidewalk, getting a face full of muggy air, making my skin immediately feel damp with sweat.
And I had to walk home.
I had a car, but gas prices were up, and it was a clunker to begin with, with more rust than paint, mostly bald tires, a muffler that grumbled loudly enough to wake all the neighbors, and had nonexistent heat and air conditioning, both just spitting out lukewarm air that smelled dusty. If dusty was a scent. So, as often as possible, I hoofed it, saving the car for longer distances.
It was only a fifteen-minute walk from the shop to my apartment building. And sitting on my ass all day at work meant the exercise was likely good for me.
And, an added perk, it cleared my head.
Having a couple days that were short on work, and high on douchebag chit-chat all around me, as well as the constant worrying about my sister, yeah, you could say my mind was a cluttered, disorganized, unpleasant place.
By the time I made it up to my floor, sweat was trickling down between my breasts, a universally wonderful feeling. There would be no break from the heat in my apartment since, well, air conditioning was for people who weren't worrying about their phones getting cut off. But, I found, even the most oppressive of heats could be tolerated by a ceiling fan on high and a cheap box fan sitting on the nightstand or coffee table next to you.
That was my plan for later.
Right now, though, all I had time for was a quick body-rinse, change, granola bar, then back out I had to go.
Being a bit of a homebody, normally the idea of leaving the house after work would make me grumble.
Not tonight, though.
Because tonight, I was allowed to see my sister.
Yes, allowed.
Because she didn't have enough freedom to allow her to have visitors as often as she wanted.
I got one night a week.
And tonight was my night.
I let out a sigh as I pushed the apartment door open, remembering the nights when I would find Joey there poring over her school books or standing in the kitchen throwing something together for us for dinner. We'd talk about my day. She'd suggest that if I was nicer to the guys at work, maybe they would be less on my case. We'd watch movies or binge-watch shows on Netflix.
The apartment was painfully empty without her.
Though she was all around too.
I wasn't one for interior design.
I had no idea of what makes a house a home.
Not that anyone would be surprised when I grew up on mattress on the floor and the only decoration to the walls being fist holes.
But Joey had always been better with the softer things.
She was the one who had found the plush, secondhand, emerald green tufted sofa in the living room to the right of the door, the mismatched cherry wood end and coffee tables, claiming the scuffs and scratches was what made it feel homey. She'd bought me the chair-and-a-half in a cream and leaf pattern from money she'd socked away from her extremely part-time coffeehouse job. The canvases on the wall were done by me, but had been stored away in my closet, along with my hopes and dreams to be the kind of artist that had her paintings hanging in a gallery. Joey had been the one to pull them out, attach them to the wall with that nifty tape that doesn't leave marks, arranging them so that our apartment looked much classier than it had when we moved in.
Her absence was all around, though, too.
Her shoes weren't on the mat behind the door. Her sweater wasn't thrown over the back of the stool pushed up against the counter in the kitchen. The blanket on the couch wasn't pulled down and mussed because she was always cold, no matter how hot it was out. The plants in a stand next to the only window with good light that she so painstakingly tended were brown because I could never seem to figure out how much or how little to water them. There were no fresh flowers on the counter that she would get for cheap at the grocery store, insisting when I would say it was a waste of money to get something that was only going to die in a few days that sometimes you had to indulge in things that brought joy into your life.
Joy.
I couldn't see fresh flowers now without feeling a pang in my stomach.
The ones in the vase on the counter were dead, but I couldn't make myself throw them away, still remembering the way she rushed into the apartment with them, beaming, words tumbling out over themselves, impatiently swiping her long auburn hair out of her face, her green eyes - the one trait we shared, thanks to our mother, we assumed - bright, excited about life in general.
They never looked like that anymore.
There were no more beaming smiles, no tumbling words.
She barely looked at me.
She hardly spoke.
I shook my head, trying to dislodge the thoughts, not wanting to get into a down mood, knowing she would pick up on it, that it would only make her mood worse.
I had to go in there as a version of myself that hardly existed. Happy, peppy, upbeat, encouraging; the kind of person who found the good in every day.
I only got one day a week for a set number of hours. I had to try to make it as good of a visit as possible.
Then I could drive myself home, grab a bottle, fall into bed, drown in the misery of the situation.
Moving past the kitchen, I went past the bathroom full of dated, yellowish tile, shower-tub combo, and a storage closet where half the slots on the door had fallen off, I made my way to Joey's room, going inside, taking a deep breath. It used to smell like her vanilla lotion and perfume, but now it just smelled a little closed-in, airless.
Inside, you found her pretty antique metal bed that she'd had me paint in a sweet light pink color for her, the bed draped in countless blankets, the nightstand cluttered with her nail polish, hair bands, an obnoxious collection of pens, and the pile of books she had been reading.
Romance, mostly.
Don't ask me how, because I had refused to let her watch Disney damsels and handsome heroes movies when she was young, but she somehow managed to turn out a hopeless romantic.
She'd made me sit through countless rom-coms, knew every love song known to mankind, and, well, bought out every shelf in the romance department of our local secondhand bookstore.
Me, well, I was a realist.
And the reality was, from my experience, that men were into getting inside then getting gone, not happily ever afters.
Every week, I brought her something of hers, something to remind her of who she really was, what her life used to look like, a part of me worrying that time and space and her new environment was making her attachment to her past - to me - disappear.
I would be okay with it if I thought her new life was healthy.
Well, okay, maybe I was too selfish to be Okay with it, but I would learn to accept it.
But this life?
No.
There was no accepting this, no moving on, no letting her do her own thing.
Because it was toxic.
Wrong.
Everything about it was just so... wrong.
So I brought her things, watched as the recognition hit, as her smile went a little soft, a little sweet.
But I wouldn't bring her those books. It felt cruel at best, reminding her of what she didn't have. But at worst, it might reinforce the toxic idea that genuinely bad guys could be amazing romantic leads.
So this week, I went into her closet, finding this giant, ancient men's cardigan in a soft oatmeal color, spraying it with some of her perfume, and putting it next to my keys before heading into the bathroom to rinse off.
I stood in front of the mirror for a long time after, reaching up to pull my long brown hair from the messy knot at the top of my head, watching it f
all in straight sheets down my shoulders, lacking the pretty, subtle wave that Joey's hair had. Where her skin was milky, nearly translucent, mine had a little more color. Where her face was softer, mine was more angular. Where her green eyes seemed sleepy and dreamy, mine were a little cold, a little harsh. Much like me, I guess.
Reaching up, I mussed my hair, looking at the small blank spot in my tattoos at the back of my arm. It bugged me, not being able to claim I had two full sleeves. But since Joey went away, I had been stunted creatively, unable to think of what to put there to complete the piece.
I tried to give myself a little hope, even if I wasn't prone to that, that she would come back eventually, that things would change, that I could think straight again, instead of looping in endless circles.
Rolling a crick out of my neck, I tossed the towel on the floor, reaching for the stack of clothes on the counter - a white tee, jean cutoff shorts, socks, and a pair of Chucks.
No one would ever accuse me of having much personal style either. In my mind, what I lacked in clothes, I made up for in body art.
Grabbing my aforementioned granola bar, Joey's secondhand sweater, and my keys, I made my way down to my car, parked in a dark lot where one of my neighbors sold pills out of his trunk.
One could say it was an area full of shady characters, but I had been raised around them; there weren't many people who scared me.
Except, of course, the man my sister had chosen to move in with.
Him?
He scared me.
For more reasons than I wanted to think about. Because if I thought about it, about him too much, then I had to think about what was happening with my sister by being with him.
And, well, I couldn't take that.
She wasn't supposed to date the douchebags.
Douchebags were my thing.
And fuckboys.
And just about any other kind of loser who, for reasons unknown to me, were as drawn to me as I was to them.
But Joey?
Joey was supposed to date one of those rare unicorns known as a good man.
That was the only person who could deserve her. The kind of man who brought flowers because he knew they'd make her smile, who covered her with blankets when she was reading, who spooned her at night. And, well, whatever other romantic shit her heart desired.
Not him.
The dirty, crass, violent, drug-using, womanizing, black-hearted monster who had her in his grips.
Doug.
Fucking Doug.
I'd never met a Doug who wasn't a complete and utter douchebag.
But this one?
He took the cake.
He took the entire dessert cart.
He ripped my sister away from me, twisted her, crushed her, forced her into a different shape to suit his desires.
And then he told me he thought I was a bad influence on her, that I could only see her once a week for a few hours.
Like she was property, not a person.
But, I guess, what could you expect from the leader of an outlaw MC?
Or, well, I thought he was the leader at the time.
I would learn.
THREE
Thayer
I wasn't used to being disobeyed.
Or, worse yet, having to try to motivate anyone.
One of the major perks of being the boss meant everyone just sort of fell in line, did what they were told, only questioned something if maybe they had something to add that I hadn't thought of.
I never needed to hold anyone's hand, reassure them, convince them I knew what I was doing.
Which was why I was so shit at it.
And why Calloway was shooting daggers at me after he came home from work - since he refused to quit - and I informed him we were going to start staking out the clubhouse and the strip club.
Note to self: Quit your bitching and get on your fucking bike is not a motivational speech.
Les Brown, I was not.
But while he shot daggers at me, he still got on his bike, he still followed me down the street, hid his bike alongside mine and Hatcher's, and walked the rest of the way toward Peaches where we would likely find everyone at this time of night. Doing business. Keeping an eye on the girls.
Or, at least, I hoped they would be keeping an eye on the girls. The idea that they wouldn't simply hadn't occurred to me until that moment. We'd always taken care of them. All the way through Pops' day. Did some of the guys occasionally fuck around with them? Sure. It happened. But usually rarely. With the passing-through girls, not the steady ones. The steady ones had always been like little sisters. That was how I had always seen it, how I had figured everyone else viewed them as well.
The appeal to girls who danced - to customers - was the fantasy. Just mostly-naked bodies writhing around for you.
We saw the real life. The girls crying in the back because their grandma got sick or because their baby daddy was being a prick. We saw them with their clothes on and makeup off, laughing about some shitty date they'd been on the night before.
They were just people. Normal people. No fantasy. And we respected and cared about them.
Or we had.
Who the fuck knew what was going on now?
I had been gone.
My brothers had been working to make ends meet.
And none of us actually knew the men we thought we had, ones we had entrusted our lives to, ones we thought we could count on.
The girls could have very well been in trouble.
If any of the usual girls even stuck around.
Though the idea of them taking advantage of new girls didn't exactly sit right with me either.
"Don't recognize any of them," I rumbled an hour later as the cars pulled into the lot, parking at the back row where the usually steady overhead lights were flickering or blown out entirely. Back in my day, a group of us always walked their girls to their cars at the end of their shifts. If Doug wasn't even willing to make sure the lights were working to look for possible threats, I doubt he gave a shit about making sure they got to their vehicles safely.
"The redhead and the chick with purple hair," Hatcher piped in, "they both started here about three months ago."
"What are they popping?" I asked as the redhead held out something to the purple-haired one, and both of them put it in their mouths before going inside.
"Dunno," Hatcher told me, shrugging. "Maybe Doug is letting them have what they want."
Meaning our product.
We didn't deal in the 'fuck your life up' shit.
Pops had for a while before using became a new epidemic. When competitors suddenly showed up everywhere - new and hungry and vicious. It was easier simply to transition to a new venue than to fight it out with some idiots in the street.
We catered to party kids.
Molly. LSD. 'Shrooms.
Even some pot here and there. Though, with legalization spreading, we knew it was only a matter of time before those sales might dwindle due to a surge of new competition.
Raves would never go anywhere. People wanting to trip their balls off weren't going anywhere either. And, hell, some of our biggest buyers of 'shrooms weren't kids at all but middle-aged people who used them to help treat their migraines.
Doing good in the world and shit.
Who'd have thought it?
Me, of all people.
"It's percs or oxy," Calloway told us, making both Hatcher and me jolt, look over at him.
"Say what again?" I asked.
"Doug is diversifying," he went on. "Pills when he can find 'em. Heroin too."
My air rushed out of my nose, my head shaking.
Heroin was good business in and of itself, but I had a feeling Doug wasn't after straight heroin users.
No.
All of a sudden, a conversation we had years back came to me. He thought sales were shit, was bitching about his cut. His cut was more than fair, more than enough to live on without having to worry about cutting coupons or keepi
ng the lights on. But he was greedy. He always wanted more. He eyed my watch or my bike with envy. Despite not doing the extra work to earn them like I had to do.
He'd brought up the idea of catering to the growing trend of designer drugs.
H-bombs - heroin and ecstasy.
3M - mescaline, mushrooms, and Molly.
Belushi - heroin and cocaine.
The latter was named after the drugs in the system that killed the actor.
Sure, from a marketing standpoint, if your shit was strong enough to kill someone, it was worth everyone checking out.
That said, I wasn't exactly down with my legacy being that of cutting down a bunch of kids in their prime.
He hadn't been happy when that had been my response to his idea.
Mad enough to mutiny, apparently.
"Thought you said you stopped watching," Hatcher accused, staring at Cal's profile. "Months ago."
"Yeah, well," Cal said, turning away. "Someone's gotta look out for our baby sister."
"We all care about Bea, Cal," Hatcher insisted.
"You care about the club, about the money. You think she's a traitor."
"No one knows what Bea is now. Except for in there," I cut in, waving a hand toward the club. The clubhouse was a little bit further in the distance, not lit up bright as it always had been, so now it was harder to see possible threats before they breached the perimeter. That worked in our favor. "So the focus now is figuring out how the fuck we can get back in, get control of it, get in touch with her. Then we can know what she is."
"You already made up your mind," he grumbled, low enough that he likely didn't think I had heard him.
I heard.
What's more, I didn't exactly disagree with him.
I had made up my mind about Bea.
Because she was the only one - outside of Calloway and Hatcher - who had known where I was going to be that day, that I was going to be fighting some jackass who fucked me over on a deal.
I knew Hatcher and Calloway hadn't fucked me over.
They caught bullets as soon as I was locked away for a spell.
But Bea?
Bea was still in there. With our old men. With our contacts. Our money. Our everything.
Revenge - Reckless Renegades 1 Page 3
