by A. J. Downey
The place stank of a rich so high I was immediately uncomfortable, that is, until I saw the help, then I almost felt like I was back in AZ for a minute. Mostly Mexicans, these were dudes that knew their way around horses and hard work. I could respect that. I’d worked a couple of dude ranches back in Arizona, so I knew the life. Maybe that was one of the reasons I was here. I still didn’t know, Dray hadn’t had a chance to tell me and I was okay with that. I wished I’d known they’d had horse farms and the like out here, I probably would have applied. Working the garage wasn’t my favorite thing to do for work.
We backed the bikes in front of the ranch house, to one side of the porch steps. The driveway was crushed gray gravel that gave up puffs of fine dirt with just about every movement. I grimaced inwardly at the mess it was going to make of the bikes. It was a tossup when it came to what I hated worse, taking time away from my woodshop, or having a dirty bike. The wheels won by virtue of the respect they deserved for giving me such fucking freedom when it came to living such a shitty life.
Before the club, I had no place, no purpose other than making sure my twin and I made it to our eighteenth birthdays. Once we hit that milestone, once we aged out of the system, we were both cut loose and cast adrift. It was Grind and Arch back to the rescue giving Nox and me a life again by introducing us to club life.
Even so, living the club life in Arizona was trouble enough, not that I minded. We were sticking it to the man running guns south across the border. My foster brothers and me, we stayed the fuck out of the coke trade but guns we had no problem with. In fact, I had one of my best friends tucked into the back of my waistband beneath my jacket and cut in a snug little inner pants holster. I never left home without it, fuck the fact that I could be up on charges for having a felony assault on my record and carrying.
Dray cut the engine to his bike and I followed suit, immediately going for the chinstrap on my helmet even as his aunt ascended the ranch house’s steps beside us. I exchanged a look with my VP and he scowled. Not at me, but the situation. I could tell he wanted to tell me more about what was up, but I could also tell now wasn’t the time. He was still figuring shit out too, although he was still leaps and bounds ahead of my ass which was square in the dark. This seemed to be the kind of thing that required that perfect trust between brothers. It was something we didn’t always have back in Arizona, Dom liked to play it fast and loose and it was one of the things that had encouraged the rest of us to consider following Grind. His dying just sealed the fuckin’ deal.
We, and by ‘we’ I meant Archer and me, had been getting tired of living dangerously. It wears on a man after a time, and it wore on us that we weren’t really fighting for anything worthwhile. There were other ways of making money. Not the fuckin’ loads of it we were swimmin’ in by running guns, mind you… You pretty much had to work twice or even three times as hard when it was honest, but the cuts from the gun running were getting slimmer and slimmer while Dom’s wallet had been getting fatter. When you’re taking on more of the risk for less of the reward… yeah.
I should have done what my twin did from the beginning, kept at an honest living and kept out of the game, but fuck, honest livings were hard as fuck to come by with a felony record. Gun runnin’ had been, for the most part, easy. Stressful with lookin’ over your shoulder every two seconds, but easy.
Dray and I got up after divesting of what gear we could to beat the heat, leaving our jackets laying across the saddles of our machines, our helmets hanging off the handlebars with our sweat soaked bandanas in the overturned bowls of them. I propped my sunglasses on the top of my head and looked to Dray to see if he might have any more explanation for me. He gave his a shake of his head and I nodded, content to ride it out for now and seeing why he was reluctant to start talking when his aunt stepped back out of the front of the house alone, but holding a tray with a full pitcher and glasses on it.
“Come up here, Draven. You and your… friend. Sit for a moment, while I have Renaldo find your cousin.” The way she said ‘friend’ dripped with a familiar disdain that the upper class had for us perceived losers and denigrates.
Dray nodded but didn’t look happy about it and I didn’t blame him one bit. I already didn’t like the bitch and the look on my brother’s face spurred me into a bit of action, I bit out “Just what exactly are we doin’ here, lady?”
Dray’s aunt looked up from where she poured tall glasses of iced tea, a little bit startled. She was careful not to over pour and handing Dray a glass said, “No, I suppose you can’t talk much with how loud those vulgar machines are, can you?”
“Trudy…” Dray grated out, “You better check your fuckin’ prejudice at the door or do I seriously have to already remind you already that you came to us for help?”
Trudy blinked in surprise and was clearly taken aback, yet still all she had to say for her bigoted ass was “Language, Draven!”
“It’s Dray, and the only reason I’m sittin’ here through your blatant disrespect is because you happen to be my dead momma’s sister. Don’t you ever forget that I fuckin’ hate you for what you did when she died! I hate you so deep, I wouldn’t piss on you to put you out if you were on fucking fire. Only reason I’m here is for Bales, now answer the man’s question. Why the fuck are we here?”
She sank into her seat, after handing me a glass of tea and I inclined my head with a polite “Thank you, ma’am.” I watched the guilt flicker through her deep brown eyes like I knew it would. It always chapped their fuckin’ asses when the likes of one of us showed more decorum than they did. Usually it put them into a more cooperative frame before we had to do something nasty… sometimes but not always.
She licked her lips and said, “As I told my nephew and his father, my Richard died around three or four months ago. He left this place to the three of us, myself, my son, and my daughter.” I took a sip of my tea, watching my VP smolder across the table from me.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said automatically and she smiled a bit ruefully, bowing her head to regain her composure. So her rich husband’s death had actually cut pretty deep. I couldn’t decide if she started out with money or if she’d been a gold digger who’d eventually fallen in love but the end result was etched into every line of her face, she had loved him and hardcore.
Interesting…
“Yes, well, I sold my portion of this place to my daughter, Bailey. It took everything she had to purchase it from me, but I can’t be bothered, not with how vast my husband’s holdings were and Bailey has loved this place ever since she was a child and out of all of us, could make the most of it.”
“So what’s the problem, then?”
“Philip, my son, has gotten heavily into real estate and development. A developer has purchased several of the neighboring farms and Philip is furious that Bailey, as two-third’s owner of Blue Hills Farm, won’t sell.”
She looked out over the green pastures and sighed heavily, pursing her lips, “He’s just like his father,” she said flatly. “I loved Richard, in the beginning, precisely for that part of himself, but Philip? Unlike his father, he just doesn’t know when to let go. He’d be willing to tear what is left of this family apart over this, and I just don’t understand it.”
Dray snorted and stared his aunt down, “Just like his mom,” he said coldly and I cringed inwardly. Our VP had a knack for saying shit that cut deeper than deep with as few words as possible and I could tell he scored a hit, his aunt’s brown eyes going wider than wide as she tried to stammer out a defense.
Dray just stared her down and wasn’t buying any of it, and Trudy, apparently, had learned somewhere along the way where to quit, because she didn’t say anything more, just resolutely shut her mouth.
“What else did Uncle Ritchie-rich do?” Dray demanded and Trudy’s nostril’s flared, her eyes glassing over with unshed tears.
I didn’t say anything, even though that look on a woman just about always hit me right in the feels. Mostly I kept my mouth sh
ut because I didn’t fully know or understand their family dynamic. I could tell whatever was there that the wounds ran deep and they didn’t need me picking at the scabs, so I just waited them both out. The tension at the little porch table was thick enough Reaver would have a field day carving it up, but finally, Trudy cut to the chase.
“I’m afraid for my daughter, afraid enough that I went to José for help… I realize I haven’t been good family to you, Draven; but please, don’t hold that against your cousin.”
“It’s Dray, that’s Rush and you need to use our fuckin’ names correctly and stop being so damn snooty.”
“Of course, I apologize,” she murmured and the way she said it, automatically lowering her gaze and turning her head to the side breaking eye contact… shit, it echoed Sunshine and Dani who had a major histories with abuse: domestic, physical, mental, emotional, shit you name it. Dray and I exchanged a look and he raised an eyebrow.
It looked like Uncle Ritchie-rich may have been ruthless more places than just the boardroom. I arched a brow at Dray, silently asking if this meant he would go easy, and he gave me a flat, unimpressed look back. I knew this lady probably put on a pretty good show, but the way Dray was portraying her, he made her look like Satan or some shit and I just wasn’t getting that from her. Of course, with rich people, appearance was fuckin’ everything. I knew that.
“Okay, what did you want me to do?” I asked them both.
“I wish to have Bailey hire you. José said that you have experience working with and around horses. We don’t know what happened, but recently, a good majority of our staff here quit with no notice.”
“What, just handed in their two weeks?” I asked.
“No, they simply stopped showing up for work.”
“Do you mind if I inquire as to their legal status?” I asked, looking back over the railing and out over the few people who were in sight working away.
An echoing silence came from Trudy’s corner of the porch and I exchanged another look with Dray.
“Yeah, that one didn’t exactly take a rocket scientist. I bet a few choice dropped words about INS in the right corners had them running scared. It’s a pretty solid and impactful intimidation tactic. Your daughter won’t sell, time to make it so she has to kind of a thing.”
“I see,” she said and I realized that she hadn’t even thought of the immigration angle, that she hadn’t even considered that some of her workers were undocumented. She didn’t look happy about that. I wasn’t exactly surprised. There wasn’t much more in the world that a rich person loved than fucking money, and they would tend to do just about anything to keep said fucking money right where they wanted it the most – in their pocket.
That typically meant screaming bloody murder about illegals soaking up resources like a sponge across the land, while simultaneously seeking them out to employ them at bargain basement prices to the point that it ensures they have to get on assistance just to make it. It was a vicious circle these people were trapped in and forced to walk… and the path they had to follow was typically painted in red.
“So let me see if I’ve got this straight,” I said, and I was just plain showing off that I was not as dumb as she likely believed. “You’re low on staff, Bailey’s being stubborn and her brother Philip is the type to get real nasty over this; so you want to kill two birds with one stone. You want to hire a big bad biker who isn’t afraid of the pussy real estate developer and so you went to Dragon to see if he had any guys available. Come to find out, you lucked out and one of them, that’d be me, actually has experience working a dude ranch on his resume. Even better, am I right?”
She blinked and nodded slowly, I smiled and it wasn’t friendly, “Well it’s going to cost you, because I don’t work for peanuts and I damn sure don’t put my ass on the line for the kind of money these guys are working for around here.” I gestured to a few of the dudes visibly sweating their ass off in the sun.
“I see,” she said plainly.
“Got plenty of guys willin’ to work at the shop; I’m pretty sure Blue and Cell would do anything to get off that road crew,” Dray supplied.
“Name your price,” his aunt said without any hesitation. I thought about it a minute and figured that even if Dray hated the woman, now wasn’t a time to get greedy. We were out here because Dragon had sent us out and I knew Dragon. She may be a major pain in the ass, but she was his wife’s sister and when it came down to that… pain in the ass or not, she was still familia and you didn’t dick over family, even if they maybe did deserve it.
I named a figure that was a pretty substantial raise from what I was making at the garage, but wasn’t so big as to make someone choke on it. In fact, with the relief that washed over Trudy’s face, I probably could have stood to go a little higher, but that was okay. The number seemed to please Dray, he knew what I made at the shop being my boss and all. He gave a curt nod in my direction and Trudy said, “Just let me find Bailey and we can finalize things.”
I was curious, so I asked, “Dragon and Dray did tell you what I did to lose my job at that ranch, didn’t they?” I asked.
Trudy’s dark eyes met mine and some of the ruthlessness peeked out, the calculation clear in her eyes, “Yes, and I’m afraid before all is said and done, that that is precisely the kind of man I will need on my daughter’s farm.”
She saw some kind of writing on the wall when it came to her kid and it wasn’t pretty. I filed that away for later and perked up when she looked past me saying, “Here comes Bailey now.”
I turned and swear to whatever fucking god there was, my stomach hit the insides of the soles of my boots. Long dark hair was braided in pigtails on either side of a pretty and familiar face. It made her look innocent, but I knew that she was far from it. Innocent girls didn’t like to fuck in the back of a bar where anyone could catch ‘em.
At least she’d traded out that short denim skirt for jeans and scuffed cowboy boots made for kicking shit around the farm… still, would have been nice to know she was the president’s niece before I’d stuck my cock in her.
Fuck. My. Life.
What had I just agreed to?
Chapter 2
Bailey
“Mother, why are there motorcycles in my driveway and bikers on my porch?” I asked coolly, or at least I hoped it was coolly. My heart was pounding and I was seriously hoping my face wasn’t giving me away, blushing with color. The one biker I didn’t know, but we’d gotten awfully familiar anyways. The way he was looking me up and down, gaze burning, face otherwise shut down and neutral, told me he knew exactly who I was.
Crap, crap, crap!
So much for an anonymous one time hook up. I thought to myself. The other biker was a familiar face and one that I couldn’t help but crack a smile.
“Holy shit… is that my little cousin Dray-dray?”
“Bailey Lynn Berling! Language!” my mother cried but Dray and I both just ignored her.
“You’re only four years older than me, Bales,” Dray said, as if my mother hadn’t just admonished my grown ass over the use of a four letter word.
“Yeah,” I said looking him up and down, “but I can see it might as well be forty. When are you going to grow out of this?” I asked waving my hand over him and his friend. . My mother’s color drained and she looked like she was about to have a stroke. Dray smirked knowing exactly what I was up to, but it was a nasty little smile. Still, what came out of his mouth was, “Never,” and he said it with such a fierce conviction I was taken aback.
Go, go, Bailey, with your no filters! You probably could have done without that last one.
“Alright,” I said drawing out the word in a sing song tone. “Not trying to start family world war three. I just worry about you, that’s all.” Which was totally true, I’d missed Dray, but his father’s lifestyle, and apparently his lifestyle now too, had been what’d gotten my aunt killed. I missed her, but I missed Dray, too, and I had no idea what he would be doing here. After my mom had com
pletely lost her shit at my aunt’s funeral, I’d pretty much never expected to see my cousin again.
My mother tugged on her jacket and it reminded me of a bird adjusting her ruffled feathers. I never did get her, she was the one forever going on about my aunt Tilly’s poor choices and how José Trujillo would be the death of her and then it’d finally happened. So why would she be sitting on my front porch sipping tea with my cousin and one of his biker buddies? It was completely mind-blowing.
“I never thought I’d see this day, that’s for sure,” I said and Dray snorted, turning to look out over my farm. I mounted the steps and let him admire the view. I’d been doing great with Blue Hills since my dad had died. All despite the road blocks my asshole brother kept throwing up and the fact that Caleb, my father’s best friend and the farm’s trustee, listened to Philip more often than not rather than the little women. Never mind that I was the one that was actually here and running the farm.
I’d loved my dad, but he was a good ol’ boy and had good ol’ boy friends and had raised my brother to be a good ol’ boy too. I don’t think Caleb nor Philip had counted on my mom selling me her portion of the farm, nor, do I think that they thought I would have the money to buy her out at fair market value like my father’s will stipulated.
Unlike my asshole brother, I’d socked my money away for years. Didn’t spend extravagantly, and knew the meaning of hard work. My daddy may have paid for everything when I was in college, but I’d still held a job and had saved everything. I’d had enough and then some to buy out my mom, but I had had to buy her out and it’d nearly wiped me out to do it.
That ‘and then some’ was dwindling fast, too. Every time I went to buy a much needed piece of equipment for the place, or hire on more staff, I was pretty much caught in a web of resistance between Philip and Caleb.
