Blade

by Hope Stone

  “Do you want to come to lunch with us, Blade?” Eve asked, pulling me out of my thoughts and back to the present. I shook my head to clear it. “We’re going to Tiny’s.”

  “Thanks for the invitation, but I’ve got to finish this oil change.”

  She nodded with understanding.

  “I’ll see you at the meeting later,” Trainer said as he polished off his beer and tossed the empty bottle into the trash.

  I went back to changing my oil, finishing the job quickly. I was alone in the garage now, but I knew that someone was probably back in the office. As one of Outlaw Souls properties, it was a potential target for our rival motorcycle club, Las Balas, so it was never left unattended.

  Las Balas were trouble. They dabbled in all sorts of shady shit, and Outlaw Souls had made it their mission to stop some of the more nefarious activities. Before I became a prospect with Outlaw Souls, they had busted up a sex trafficking ring run by Las Balas. They were kidnapping young women from La Playa and the surrounding areas to force into sex work or even sell as sex slaves. It was some nasty business involving several of the higher-up members of Las Balas. Since then, there had been a few incidents involving drug dealing and car theft.

  Outlaw Souls weren’t saints, and they didn’t pretend to be. But as far as outlaw motorcycle clubs went, they were among the good ones. They worked to clean up La Playa, which was why I was eager to join the club. It was the reason I had gone out of my way to figure out what Luca was up to.

  Ryder came out of the back office as I was disposing of the old oil I’d drained out of my bike. The bike was running, to make sure there was no leak around the drain plug as the fresh oil worked through the system.

  “Hey, you got a minute?” Ryder asked.

  “Sure,” I said, wiping my hands off on a rag. “You want to talk about Luca?”

  “We’ll cover that later, at the meeting.”

  “I’m attending the meeting?” I asked with mild surprise. Prospects didn’t have voting rights, so they didn’t attend the meetings. You had to be a Patch for that.

  “Yes. We all need to hear what you have to say.”

  “Then, what’s up?”

  “I hear you’re working at Ink Envy.”

  “Yeah, you been there?”

  He shook his head. “No, but I’m looking to get some work done. You up for it?”

  “Sure. What did you have in mind?”

  “On my forearm,” he held it out, showing me the unmarked skin. “I want a skull with the stem of a red rose between its teeth.”

  “Sounds badass.”

  “I saw a similar picture a few days ago and have been thinking about it ever since. Can you do it?”

  “Definitely. Tuesday afternoon?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  I left the garage after that. I had a few hours to kill before the club meeting, so I decided to go for a solo ride. Laying on the throttle on the straight-aways so that I felt like I was flying down the road and weaving through the curves on the backroads that got so intense my knees damn near touched the ground, it was a perfect afternoon. The best thing about riding was the thrill of it, and I liked to push it sometimes.

  You only live once, and I wasn’t going to waste it.

  Thirteen

  Kat

  The Pit was packed. The band they’d booked was good, playing hard rock covers at a nearly deafening volume. I had been there an hour and was already regretting my choice of a V-neck top since I had to keep leaning over the bar to hear the drink orders. Since there were twice as many men as women in the bar, I found that most of the customer’s eyes trailed down to my cleavage when I did this.

  “When’s your break, gorgeous?” A guy with a teardrop tattoo under his eye asked. He was the third one to try this.

  “Sorry, buddy,” I said, handing over a beer and shot of whiskey. “No rest for the wicked.”

  He looked annoyed as he took the drinks and stepped away from the bar, but I paid him no mind, just moved on to the next guy waiting to place his order.

  Every Las Balas member that I’d ever met was in the bar tonight, but that was no surprise. I could smell pot in the air, but couldn’t spot the source in this crowd.

  “Good thing Las Balas has paid off the fire marshall,” Winger said from beside me. He was a Prospect for Las Balas alongside my brother and seemed like a cool guy. At least he didn’t hit on me.

  “Yeah, I’m pretty sure we’ve exceeded max capacity here,” I agreed.

  All the seats were taken, leaving only standing room. There was a space in front of the stage for a dance floor, and as I watched, a large group of women crowded the front, forming a mosh pit in front of the band while others danced. That seemed like a bad idea to me, but I had no doubt that the Las Balas enforcer could handle a brawl between a bunch of women if it came to that.

  It was the burly men that concerned me.

  But for now, everything seemed mostly calm. My eyes strayed to a table in the corner where my dad was sitting. I hadn’t seen him in a couple of weeks, and he’d looked mildly surprised when I showed up tonight but didn’t go out of his way to greet me. He just gave me a smile and a wave before joining the president of the club and a handful of other members in draining the three pitchers of beer that we were told to keep supplied at the table at all times.

  I watched as he took a big swig from his glass, wiping the foam out of his mustache with the sleeve of his shirt. He’d always sported a full beard and mustache, and I didn’t think I’d even recognize him without it.

  I had mixed emotions every time I saw my dad here, among his fellow club members. This was where he spent all his time when I was growing up and my mom was trying to raise two kids on her own. I’d barely known him back then, and now it felt more like we were acquaintances more than anything else.

  So, why did I want his acknowledgment? Why did it bother me that he didn’t at least come over and say hi?

  I chalked it up to a biological need for affection from a parent. I didn’t like it, but I suspected that a part of me would always wish that I had a better relationship with him. I thought that might be the reason that Jason was trying to join Las Balas in the first place, and it made me sad for him.

  As the band took a break, I turned my attention back to the line of people pressed up against the bar, trying to get my attention. A group of women that were young—maybe too young to be in here, but this wasn’t the kind of place that carded—crowded around one end of the bar together and ordered five mixed drinks. I took that one since Winger was more suited to slinging beers and pouring shots. While shaking up a cocktail, I caught snippets of a conversation between two club members sitting at the bar.

  “We need to figure out something big before we start losing members and assets.”

  “It’s not easy. We’ve lost too much damn money in the last two years.”

  “It’s the damn Outlaw Souls. They’re always up in our business, and it hurts our bottom line.”

  I shook my head at the mention of the other motorcycle club. I wasn’t sure what these two men were talking about, but it couldn’t be anything good. I’d heard stories about the Outlaw Souls and how seriously they took the rivalry between the clubs. Apparently, they didn’t think La Playa was big enough for more than one motorcycle club. There were even rumors that the Outlaw Souls were responsible for the last bar owned by Las Balas burning down in the middle of the night. Nothing had been confirmed, but I knew my dad believed it. Others said it was an insurance scheme pulled off by the president of the club.

  I didn’t know what was true as far as that went, but I knew that every member of Las Balas saw the Outlaw Souls as the enemy. They were vindictive and out to hurt Las Balas at every turn.

  “Here you go, ladies,” I said, handing over the drinks I made. I took their money, pocketing my tip. Jason was right about that. I was making a good amount in tips.

  I turned around just as Winger shoved a tray with two pitchers of beer into
my hands. I looked at him questioningly as I struggled to balance the heavy drinks.

  “It’s your turn,” he explained, nodding to the table where my dad sat. I sighed. This was probably the rowdiest bunch of people in the bar, and I had to navigate through the room to get there.

  Holding the tray high, I weaved around groups of people dancing and tables where customers were talking loudly to each other, even though the band wasn’t currently playing. I had almost reached the table when a large hand reached out and grabbed my ass. I jolted, almost sending the tray flying, but I was able to steady myself just in time. Looking over my shoulder, I glared at the man with his hand on me.

  “If you don’t take your damn hand off of me, you’re gonna get a pitcher of beer over your head.”

  He pulled his hand away while I glared, but didn’t look apologetic at all. Asshole.

  When I turned back around, I saw that the men at my dad’s table had seen the whole thing and were laughing their asses off. I scowled. Why couldn’t my dad care enough to be pissed when a man put his hands on me?

  Maybe that wasn’t fair. I could handle myself, after all, and the guy hadn’t pushed it further. Surely, my dad would have done something if he had. I hoped.

  I closed the distance to the table and set the tray down, unloading it and gathering the empties to take away and be cleaned.

  “Thanks, Kitty-Kat.” The man speaking to me was Snake, a man my father’s age who I had known most of my life. He was eyeing me like I was a piece of meat, and I felt my skin crawl. I knew damn well that he had a wife at home.

  “You’re welcome,” I said through tight lips.

  “Don’t be a downer, Katherine,” my dad chimed in, and I could see that the alcohol was starting to affect him. His words were slightly slurring, and the whites around his eyes were red.

  “Yeah, Kitty-Kat,” Snake said, and I couldn’t help comparing his creepy nickname to the way that Blade called me Kitten. No comparison. “Give us a smile.”

  I wouldn’t. Maybe it would encourage them to tip me, but his demand annoyed me too much to comply.

  “Winger will be back with more beer when you need it,” I said to the table at large, refusing to address Snake directly.

  As I turned and started to walk away, my tray now loaded up with their empty pitchers. I had only walked one step when I heard Snake speak again. This time he was addressing my father.

  “That daughter of yours is a real stuck up bitch.”

  I froze, anger coursing through me as I waited to hear how my dad would respond. Instead of the righteous indignation I expected, he simply chuckled.

  Stupid, irritating tears threatened to make an appearance, but I blinked a few times, willing them away. Going back into the tiny kitchen behind the bar, I put the pitchers into a rack with a bunch of glasses that needed to be cleaned and ran it all through the dishwasher. I grabbed a stick of gum from my purse before walking back out and resuming my position behind the bar.

  “I’m not going back over there,” I told Winger firmly. He frowned, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t trying to join the club—not that they accepted women as members—so it didn’t matter if I made a good impression, anyway.

  Winger had just finished making two drinks, a draft of beer, and a screwdriver, and handed them over to the customer that was waiting. As the guy picked up the drink, I saw that he dropped a small white tablet into the screwdriver, which dissolved almost immediately.

  “No fucking way,” I snapped, turning away from Winger to grab the screwdriver out of the man’s hand. He resisted, and the fruity drink ended up spilling all over the bar between us, also splashing my shirt and his.

  “You stupid bitch,” he snarled, but I wasn’t going to back down. The guy wasn’t a member of Las Balas, so I didn’t have to worry about going up against the whole club. Besides, I hoped that the club would never allow a member to do such a thing, not that I’d ever seen the rule book. It was strictly off-limits to non-members.

  “Out,” I said, pointing to the door. I could feel the eyes of the people around me, staring at us. “You won’t be served here. So, leave now.”

  The man scoffed. “Who the hell are you to kick me out? Just some whore bartender.”

  “That’s enough,” said a voice from behind the jerk that was staring daggers at me. He turned, and I saw the president of Las Balas, Mad Dog Diaz, standing there. I didn’t know if the man recognized him as the president of the club or if he simply picked up on the heavy aggression emanating from Mad Dog, but either way, he shrank back. Mad Dog made eye contact with two Las Balas patches nearby, jerking his head toward the door. They surged forward, taking hold of the man by the arms and pulling him out the door, ignoring his protests about having opened a tab. A woman shot out of her seat near the door.

  “Luke!” she cried out, pushing her way through the crowd to follow.

  “No, don’t go after him,” I called out, starting to make my way to the edge of the bar to stop her. Mad Dog blocked my path. “He tried to roofie her,” I told him angrily.

  “Not our problem. You stopped him, and I kicked him out. If she wants to follow a guy like that around, she’s a pathetic lost cause, anyway.”

  “It’s not her fault that he’s a dick,” I argued, but the woman was already out the door.

  “And it’s not our business. Las Balas worry about ourselves instead of interfering with others.”

  “I’m not La Balas.”

  He shrugged, looking over at my dad, who was in the middle of hitting on some woman in a tube top. “Maybe not, but you’re family. Consider yourself lucky in that.”

  I wasn’t sure what to think about that. I knew that the club was probably involved in things that I didn’t want to know about, and some of its members could be pretty rough around the edges, but Mad Dog was right. I’d always been family because my dad was a member.

  “Now,” Mad Dog turned to Winger. “Was that true about his opening a tab? You have his debit card?”

  “Yeah,” Winger said.

  “Then, the next round’s on him!” Mad Dog shouted, and the bar went wild. We were slammed after that, and I even treated myself to a shot of tequila from the guy. I probably should have felt guilty about that, but I figured anyone that called me a bitch owed me a drink.

  The next few hours were uneventful, and when last call arrived at three, I had a pocket full of bills and was ready to get off my feet. I fired off a text to Jason, letting him know that he owed me big-time, and headed out the door.

  I waited until I was in my car to check my phone, which had been tucked into my back pocket for most of the night. I had two text messages. One from Jason, agreeing that he did owe me a big one for covering for him. The second one was from Blade, and I smiled to myself as I sat there reading it.

  Thinking of you tonight, Kitten. I have plans with friends tomorrow. But see you at work Monday.

  I typed out a quick response, even though it was late and he’d likely be asleep already.

  Thinking of you too. I’ll bring the coffee Monday.

  Tacking on a winky face, I pressed send before starting my car. I had nothing planned for tomorrow, so I would probably sleep in and spend the day in my pajamas. This half-formed plan was pushed out of my tired mind when I was about to exit the parking lot. My eyes landed on my dad, stumbling toward his motorcycle.

  Oh, hell no.

  Changing direction, I pulled up alongside him and rolled down the passenger window.

  “Get in,” I said when he blinked at me.

  “Nah,” he shook his head. “I’m good.”

  “No, you’re really not, and I’m too tired for this shit,” I snapped impatiently. I was already pissed at him, and now he was wasting my time. “Get. In. The. Car.”

  “Fine,” he mumbled. “Don’t get your panties in a bunch.”

  He opened the passenger door and got into the seat. I crinkled my nose.

  “You reek of stale beer,” I complained, turning in the dir
ection of his apartment.

  “And you think you don’t?”

  He chuckled, and I found myself smiling despite myself.

  “Give me a break. I had to deal with assholes all night.”

  “Yeah,” he sighed, scrubbing a hand down his face. “I know Snake’s an asshole, but he’s all talk.”

  “Well, maybe someone should shut him up.”

  I could hear the bitterness in my own voice, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t pretend that he hadn’t hurt my feelings with his indifference.

  “Yeah, maybe someone should,” he replied vaguely, turning to look out the window. I clamped down on my disappointment. Mad Dog could call me a part of the family all he wanted, but that didn’t matter. My dad put the club members first.

  I pulled up in front of the shitty apartment he lived in, feeling uneasy being on this street at this time of night. It was a rough neighborhood, and hanging out in the open was just asking for trouble. I wasn’t worried about my dad, though. He’d lived here for ten years. This definitely wasn’t the first time he’d stumbled home trashed in the middle of the night.

  “Thanks for the ride, Katherine,” he said as he got out of the car.

  He was the only one that called me that. Ever since I was a little girl, he’d used my full name. It was something that always gave me a wave of affection for the man, even when it made me feel stupid.

  “Goodnight, Dad,” I replied just before he shut the door. I drove away the second he was inside the building, ready for some sleep.

  Fourteen

  Blade

  I walked into the back room at the Blue Dog, surprised by how different it looked when it was full of people. Most of the club had already arrived, and I got a few surprised looks as I took a seat next to Ryder, but no one said anything.

  Chels, the only full-time bartender at the Blue Dog, came in with buckets full of ice and bottles of beer. She placed one on each table, and we helped ourselves. The feeling of brotherhood here was evident in the relaxed atmosphere and the small talk that filled the room while we waited. I’d been told that the meetings weren’t always fully attended under the last president, but since Ryder took over a few years ago, nearly everyone showed up.