HAMMER: Wolves MC (Riding With Wolves Book 1)

by Faith Winslow

  As soon as I recovered from the blow, I went on to interrogate the pipsqueak, and, slowly but surely, he told me everything I wanted to know. He said his name was Pigpen, and that he’d come after Rachel for the money the Wolves gave her. When I asked him how he knew about the money, he said something that caught me off guard and hit me even harder than the punch he’d managed to get in a minute or so earlier—he said he heard about the money from “my guys,” meaning the Wolves.

  Of course, I demanded that he explain. And, when my words didn’t work, I decided to use my hands.

  Throughout our scuff, I’d felt metal through the fabric of Pigpen’s shirt, and had surmised that he had a body piercing of some sort. So, I tore his filthy garment open, right down the middle, and reached down.

  I pulled the barbell attached to Pigpen’s nipple, and gave him one hell of a titty-twister. The dirty little junkie proceeded to writhe in pain, and then he sang like a canary. He told me that he overheard two Wolves talking to a two-bit piece-of-shit drug dealer and pimp named Tony Ink the night before, and that they’d told Tony about the money the Wolves had raised and the drop that Crete had organized.

  Pigpen sounded weak and pathetic as he spoke, like a little girl who’d just lost her favorite dolly. No. Strike that. He sounded even weaker and more pathetic than a little girl who’d just lost her favorite dolly—and, I was sickened by the sound of his voice. When he got to the part in his “confession” about waiting around at the funeral home for Rachel, I’d heard enough, and I knew that I’d gotten all I could out of him.

  Nonetheless, however, I decided to keep Pigpen pinned down and use him to teach Rachel some valuable lessons. If she was gonna try to be tough and play with the bad boys, there were some things she needed to know and some things she needed to look out for.

  Given where we were and the looks of the lowlife below me, I had my suspicions that Pigpen was somehow affiliated with the Seraphs, so I searched his body for the telltale sign—the Seraph stamp.

  I found it, on his left shoulder, inches above the titty I’d just been twisting. Of course, the wings were pointed to the left. I should’ve figured.

  I explained to Rachel what the stamp was and then gave Pigpen a hard time about the direction his wings pointed. That was lesson number one.

  Lesson number two came a few seconds later, when I showed Rachel Pigpen’s track marks—and naturally, I gave Pigpen a hard time about those, too.

  I guess it was too much for Pigpen when I added insult to injury, because the dirty little junkie started crying. He sounded weaker and more pathetic than a little girl who’d just lost her favorite dolly again. And as I looked down at him, I realized something… He wasn’t a little girl, but he was just a boy. He couldn’t have been more than nineteen or twenty years old.

  Granted, he deserved a beat-down for what he’d done, and tried to do, to Rachel. But, I’d just delivered that beat-down—and if he was gonna learn anything from this encounter, I had to let up on him, let him go, and give him the second chance that every kid deserves when they’re nineteen or twenty. So that’s what I did. I gave him that second chance. I let up on him and let him go—and I did so with a very clear warning. I told him to stay away from Rachel and the Wolves, and assured him that, if he, or any of his brethren, disobeyed me, I’d even the score.

  After my caveat, I stood up and started to move away from Pigpen, but before I let him go, I wanted to make sure he fully understood that I meant business, and I wanted to teach Rachel one more lesson.

  “Do you know who I am?” I asked Pigpen.

  “No,” he said as he rose to his feet.

  “They call me ‘The Hammer,’” I said with bravado.

  “Shit!” Pigpen yelped. “You’re Sam Hammond?”

  “The one and only,” I answered. “Now get the fuck out of here.”

  Lesson number three—Pigpen hightailed it out of the alley like a bitch Chihuahua in heat running away from a well-hung Great Dane.

  I nearly laughed at the way the dirty little junkie pipsqueak scampered away, but I didn’t want to spend even a second longer in that alley than I had to. I’d given Pigpen a second chance, but I didn’t know what he was gonna do with it. For all I knew, he was already rallying his buddies together to come back and tag-team me, or use Rachel to teach me a lesson.

  I couldn’t have any of that. Sticking around any longer was too much of a gamble. So I went over to where Pigpen had dumped out Rachel’s purse, stooped down, and started collecting her shit. She was still in shock from everything that had just happened and didn’t even say a word or bother to help me. I was a little pissed about the latter—but, eh, it’s not the first time I’ve had to clean up someone else’s mess.

  Chapter 15

  ~ Sam ~

  “Really?” Rachel asked, suddenly enlivened. “I just got attacked and just watched you beat the shit out of someone, and now you’re gonna insult me?”

  Apparently, Rachel didn’t like having insult added to injury either—and apparently, I was getting quite good at it.

  “I’m not trying to insult you,” I replied, still scooping Rachel’s shit into her purse. “I’m trying to help you, and get you to help me… Get over here and help me pick up your stuff. We need to get the hell out of here as fast as we can—out of this alley and out of this neighborhood.”

  Rachel went from looking offended to looking worried, and she rushed over to join me on the ground. She bent down, at the knees, and went straight to collecting several scattered pieces of paper, which must’ve fallen out of her splayed-open day planner.

  Normally, pieces of paper aren’t really that important, but seeing as how some of those pieces of paper appeared to be bills or financial statements, they were important—and even more important, it was crucial that she not leave them in Seraph Country. After all, they contained her full name, address, and various other tidbits of personal information.

  “This is the Seraphs’ territory,” I went on, justifying my urgency. “Pigpen doesn’t have to go very far to find his friends. And if he decides to squeal on us, they might come back here to get even. They could already be on their way—which means we need to be on ours… pronto.”

  Rachel collected the last of her papers, and I picked up the only thing that remained on the ground—a tramped-on pair of eyeglasses.

  “Leave them,” Rachel said, standing up. “They’re broken.” Now she was the one barking commands.

  “I didn’t know you wore glasses,” I replied, as I got up off of the ground.

  “How would you know?” she asked, grabbing her purse from my hand. “I don’t wear them on my tits.”

  Touché, Rachel, I thought to myself. Touché and kudos. I had to admit it; it was a pretty good comeback on her part. Maybe she did have what it took to be tough and play with the bad boys.

  I motioned my head toward the end of the alley, then stepped out in front of Rachel. I gestured for her to follow me and guided her down to the corner. Before when Rachel first met with Pigpen, it would have been to her advantage to stay in the open, publicly visible part of the alley, but now, after what I’d done, hanging back was definitely more advantageous.

  Not only had I beaten the shit out of one of the Seraphs’ lackeys, but I’d also sent them a violent, aggressive, egomaniacal message from within their own turf. And on top of that, I’d attached my name to it.

  But even though I’d willingly given my name to a Seraph, I wasn’t going to give him, or his gang my body—or Rachel’s—so easily. As soon as we made it around the corner, I slowed down to a more leisurely, less conspicuous pace and held my arm out to steady Rachel so that she could follow suit.

  Luckily, we made it to her Chevy safely and without any unwanted attention or interaction.

  Well, the hooker from earlier did shout something at us about the cost of a threesome. I’m sure her price was reasonable, but I didn’t have any need or desire to hear it. I was more concerned with getting in Rachel’s car and g
etting out of Seraph territory.

  “What are you doing?” Rachel asked, as I stepped down from the curb and walked toward the driver-side door of her sedan.

  “Driving us outta here,” I said, holding Rachel’s keys up in the air and pressing the “unlock” button on her keychain. When I was picking her shit up off of the ground in the alley, I hung onto her keys in anticipation of this very moment. I knew the territory. I knew the fastest ways in and out of it, where to hide, and what places to avoid. And I wasn’t afraid to break the law. Having me behind the wheel was our best bet, and pocketing the keys when Rachel wasn’t looking was a lot easier than asking her for them, and it saved me the trouble of asking her for a ride, or explaining why I needed one.

  “What about your motorcycle?” Rachel asked, opening the passenger-side door.

  “I didn’t ride it here,” I replied, opening mine.

  “Then how the hell did you get here?” she asked, staring at me probingly.

  “Doesn’t matter,” I said, bowing down to enter the Chevy. “Just get in!”

  Rachel got in, and I started the engine. Under any other circumstances, I would’ve cringed at the thought of driving an automatic, but I was actually okay with it in our current predicament. Driving an automatic meant that I didn’t have to worry about shifting gears or stalling if we had to speed up or slow down unexpectedly at some point, and it meant that we’d probably get out of this part of town, and our current predicament, a lot quicker.

  I pulled out of the parking spot, turned Rachel’s car around, and drove back toward normal, decent society, like a normal, decent driver. Bradley’s was only a few miles up the street, but the difference between the area it was in and the area we were escaping was as stark as night and day—kinda like the differences between me and Rachel.

  “How did you get out here anyway?” Rachel asked, as we neared that invisible line that we Wolves seldom crossed.

  “I could ask you the same thing,” I answered, raising an eyebrow. “What the hell were you thinking? Why in the world would you go meet a dirty little junkie, who approached you from out of nowhere, in an alley behind the shittiest dive bar in one of the shittiest parts of L.A.? Even if you were stupid enough to plan a meetup like that, you shouldn’t have gone through with it once you got a look at Kent Town.”

  “I’m not stupid,” Rachel asserted assertively. “That guy—Pigpen—said he could help me get answers about what really happened with Terry.”

  “Okay, maybe you’re not stupid,” I said, sidestepping further discussion on her conspiracy theories about Terry. “But you really need to improve your people skills and work on becoming a better judge of character. That guy—Pigpen—was a joke. I knew him from the moment I saw him, and you should have, too.

  “He’d tell you whatever you wanted to hear if he could get something out of it—and really, all he could ever give you in return was a cheap bag of dope, a dirty needle, and a blood borne disease.”

  “Whatever,” Rachel said. Now, that really was a poor comeback on her part. It lacked creativity, meaning, and gumption. Maybe she really didn’t have what it took to be tough and play with the bad boys after all. And maybe I’d been too hasty to think otherwise, earlier, based on nothing more than her ballsy “tits” statement.

  I didn’t reply to Rachel in any way immediately, and we both endured about ten seconds of silence before I said something again.

  “You may think I’m a total asshole,” I said, speaking from somewhere unexpected inside of me. “But that just shows how much you know about character. You’re not very good at reading people, and it could get you in a lot of trouble. And that trouble could turn very ugly, very fast because even though you’re not very good at reading people, you’re very easy to read, and anyone who wants something won’t hesitate to use that against you.

  “So, yes, maybe, sometimes, I am an asshole. But I’m not a total asshole. A total asshole wouldn’t tell you that. If you wanna be safe and survive in this world, you gotta be able to see, reach, and understand people on their level, as well as your own. You have to pay careful attention to what they say and do—and at the same time, you have to pay attention to your own attitude, appearance, and behavior, and you gotta understand that while you’re trying to get a grasp on them, they’re trying to get a grasp on you.

  “Did you ever hear the saying about how you get more flies with honey than you do with vinegar? I’m not saying you gotta be sweet, but you gotta understand what people want and expect, and if you want something from them, you gotta put the right cards on the table.

  “When you go to work at your office job in the city, you don’t go in there wearing gym shorts and a tank top, do you? If you get laid, you don’t go in and tell your boss about it the next day, do you? When a waitress is handling your food, you know better than to give her the cold shoulder or sneer at her fat ass, don’t you? Apply these same principles to the rest of your life. Don’t show up at a Wolves’ party looking like a lamb with its nose pointed up in the air, and don’t automatically assume that someone isn’t as good as you in some way because they chose to live a different lifestyle.

  “Don’t go to a meeting with a junkie in an alley acting like a prim and proper lady, and when you deal with guys like Pigpen, don’t expect to be treated like one. And when you get yourself in a mess and someone steps up to help you, don’t be a hassle—and don’t be too proud to thank them.”

  Rachel stared at me from the passenger’s seat with a blank, expressionless look on her face, and again, there was another ten seconds or so of silence. This time, the silence was painful to endure, and it seemed to drag on forever before Rachel finally broke it.

  “Where are we going anyway?” she asked, turning to look out the window.

  “To my bike,” I answered. “I parked it a few blocks away from Bradley’s.” I wondered if Rachel had heard a single word I said.

  It took us only slightly more than a minute to reach our destination—and that one minute was one of silence. Rachel and I didn’t say anything else to each other until I pulled up across the street from my bike.

  “Alright,” I said, shifting the automatic gearshift to the park position.

  I opened the car door and threw my leg out, then turned back to Rachel. “Be careful,” I added.

  As I got out of the car, Rachel was unbuckling.

  “Sam,” she called out to me from the Chevy’s cabin.

  I peered back at her.

  “Thank you,” she said softly.

  “You’re welcome,” I replied with a smile.

  I wasn’t sure if Rachel was thanking me for saving her from Pigpen, getting her back to the right side of the tracks safely, giving her advice, or telling her to be careful. But whatever she was thanking me for, at least she was thanking me, and it touched that somewhere unexpected inside of me.

  Those two words were the nicest thing Rachel had ever said to me. And for the first time since I met her, I felt like she’d treated me like a real person rather than a worthless, despicable subhuman.

  Chapter 16

  ~ Rachel ~

  Sam Hammond…

  That son of a bitch…

  He had a lot of nerve…

  And God damn it, he was right… about everything.

  The reason that I got attacked in that alley was because I shouldn’t have been there in the first place—or I should have known that something that might happen and gone there prepared for it in some way.

  The reason that I didn’t really know any of my brother’s friends was because I never really gave them a shot, because I assumed that they weren’t as good as I was. They were beneath me, and I turned my nose up in the air at them, overlooking who they were and their feelings in the process.

  Sam called me out, big time, on the car ride back from our encounter with Pigpen. He ended up driving my car, instead of me, and talked to me about how to “be safe” and “survive.” He told me that I needed to improve my people skills and b
ecome a better judge of character—and at first, I simply didn’t want to hear it.

  But the more he talked—and the more I actually listened—I started to see the sense in what he was saying. And believe you me, I was surprised to see that he was making so much sense… which—I guess—proved many of his points, exactly.

  Maybe I had been too quick to judge Sam when I first met him, and maybe I’d held onto the conclusions I’d drawn about him too firmly and didn’t give him the chance to disprove them. And maybe, if I had given him that chance, I would have realized he was a good dude after all.

  Maybe. Maybe not. The jury was still out on that one—and it was hung.

  On the one side, Sam had just saved me from an awful mess. And on the other side, he’d only been able to save me because he’d, clearly, been following me. But why—and how—had Sam Hammond been following me?

  During the drive back, Sam made reference to an old saying—the one about how you can attract more flies with honey than with vinegar. Well, there was another old saying that came to my mind—the one about keeping your friends close and your enemies closer.

  I didn’t know if Sam was following me as a friend or enemy. Had he saved me one day, just to set me to fall on another? Was this part of his design, a step in his wicked, taunting dance?

  I didn’t know why Sam was following me, but at least I knew he was following me. And he was probably gonna do it again... and that’s why the plan I came up with after his lecture couldn’t have been more perfect.

  Of all the valid (though unwelcome) points Sam made on the ride back from the shithole side of town, he didn’t make one that, for me, was very important. He couldn’t have known all the facts and circumstances to make this particular point, but I knew them and analyzed them in light of what he had said and came to my own point.