by Ali Parker
Derek hooked his thumb over his shoulder. “You know, I should probably get going. Thanks for opening the door, Evelyn. I appreciate it.”
As he turned to leave, I called him back. “Since you asked me questions and I was honest, do I get to ask a question?”
His smile was sheepish and curious. He shrugged. “Knock yourself out.”
I felt a smile of my own tugging at my lips. I hated that he was making me feel this way. Like a young flirty high school girl who had the attention of a jock who was way out of her league. “Who are you? Like, who are you really?”
Derek arched an eyebrow.
“You’re not just some normal guy,” I clarified. “Right?”
“I think I’m pretty normal.”
“Come on. Tell me.”
He scratched the back of his neck. “All right. My name is Derek Baxter, and I’m the treasurer of the Lost Breed Motorcycle Club.”
I blinked. I hadn’t really expected him to come clean that easy. I thought he’d put up a bit of a fight or maybe even tell me a lie. This story very well could be a lie, but I believed him for some reason I couldn’t explain. “I’ve heard of Lost Breed. You guys were in the paper and the news a couple weeks ago, right? You were involved in the arrest of the gangster Ruby Johnson?”
“We were.”
“Then, the man in the alley,” I said slowly, putting two and two together.
“Was one of the men there that day when we took her down. Yeah. And he didn’t get any time for murder. None. We thought at first that he’d get at least a few years. Then, it went down to months. Then weeks. The bastard was out in weeks.” He ran his fingers through his hair.
I could see the frustration in him. It sat on his shoulders like the weight of the world, and I felt his pain. “I’m sorry,” I said.
His expression was unreadable as his warm brown eyes flicked back and forth between mine. “Why?”
“For the friend you lost. The one he took from you. I’m sorry.”
Derek rubbed his chest absently. “Thanks.”
I shrugged and gave him a smile. “For the record, I’m not afraid of you. I know I should be, as Penny keeps telling me, but I’m not. So … don’t be a stranger. All right?”
The look he gave me was bewilderment. And curiosity. And something else. Joy, perhaps. He nodded but didn’t say anything as he turned and went to the elevators. When the doors slid open with a chime, he gave me a long up and down. “Nice pajamas by the way. Mermaids. Sexy.”
I blushed fiercely as he stepped onto the elevators and disappeared from view. Then, I hurried to close and lock the front door.
How mortifying.
I rested my back against it and looked into the living room where Penny was scowling at me from the sofa. She shook her head at me and grabbed the ice cream carton. After spooning a massive bite into her mouth, she said, “You’re not getting any more of this ice cream. You know why? Because I need it to deal with the amount of stress you’re putting me through. When I told you to loosen up, I didn’t mean develop a crush on a biker and suddenly turn into a fearless rebel.”
I laughed. “I am so not a fearless rebel.”
“Oh? What would you call all this then? It’s fearless rebel or reckless idiot. You choose.”
I rolled my eyes and joined her on the couch again. “I love you, Penny. You know that?”
“Yes,” she grumbled.
“I’m sorry for stressing you out, but you don’t need to worry so much about me. I can take care of myself. Besides, Derek isn’t what you think he is.”
“You don’t know him,” she reminded me.
It was true. I didn’t know him. Not really. But I felt like I knew who he was. What he was. It didn’t scare me off. It drew me in.
Maybe reckless idiot was more appropriate in this situation.
Chapter 11
Derek
Gemma was a twenty-one-year-old psychology student at the university up the road, and she was the one who worked the late shifts at my gym on Wednesday nights. She was shutting everything down as I finished up my workout, and I watched her try to move some of the heavier dumbbells from the floor back to their racks.
I put mine down and stepped in to help her. “Let me get these for you, Gem. Some guys are assholes just leaving them lying around like this.”
“Thanks,” Gemma said as she straightened and tightened her ponytail. She was a cute girl who got a lot of attention from the guys who frequented this place, and she always shot them down.
“I’ll grab my stuff and get out of your hair.”
Gemma nodded and left me in the weight room while she went and did her rounds of the rest of the gym. I collected my stuff from my locker and slung my bag over my shoulder as I made my way out. Gemma came back to the front desk when I was leaving and locked up behind me with a wave and a smile.
Her smile reminded me of Evelyn’s.
Damn, she’d looked cute as hell when she opened the door in her pajamas. She’d been barefoot and her toes were painted a vibrant shade of red. Her dark hair was a curly mess piled on top of her head, and loose strands had framed her pretty, makeup-free face. The way her cheeks had gone all rosy was adorable, and so was her coy attitude.
Had Penny not been there, I wondered if things would have gone differently.
Probably not. Evelyn was a smart girl from what I could tell and she would know I was bad news for her in all possible scenarios, especially now that she knew I was a Lost Breed member. She’d been relatively knowledgeable about who we were. It wouldn’t surprise me to know she kept tabs on the news and our movements as an informed New York City citizen. She’d probably pay even closer attention now to the stories that were breaking, especially the ones written by Sabian’s girl, Angela. She had a way with words and an open hatred for The Hand. She’d be running stories about his dealings as we worked to snuff him out.
I got to my truck and opened the back door to toss my gym bag inside. My water bottle fell out of the open zipper and rolled under my front seat. I groaned and reached underneath to grab it and then dropped it back in the bag and zipped it back up.
I closed the door and nearly jumped out of my skin when I realized someone was standing behind it not three feet from me.
Someone familiar.
He was skinny and young. The features of his face were drawn and screwed up with anxiety. I turned to face him and blinked as he lifted his right hand up between us, leveling it out with his shoulder. His knuckles whitened as he tightened his fingers around the pistol he was holding.
Jason.
“What the fuck?” The words came out of me in an angry snarl. Fuck being confused. Fuck trying to play it cool. I was pissed.
Jason’s hand trembled, and his bottom lip quivered. “Don’t move,” he said. His voice was thin and crackly, and I noticed for the first time how pale he was. He looked sickly.
“What’s your deal, Jason? The Hand send you to off me? It’s like that?”
Jason jerked his head. I couldn’t tell if it was a nervous twitch or an intentional shake.
“Johnny will have your—”
“Shut up!” Jason shouted.
I clenched my jaw shut and glared at him from beneath my brows. So I’d hit a nerve, apparently. He still cared what Ryder thought. Which was bad news for the kid, because if Ryder caught wind of this, Jason would have hell to pay when Ryder got his hands on his nephew. Hopefully when that happened, I wouldn’t be a corpse in the ground.
“Put the gun down, kid. Let’s be rational about this. If you’re in over your head, we can get you out. He hasn’t given up on you. He’s been looking for months. Since the day you disappeared. So has Dani.”
Jason shook his head and whimpered. He actually whimpered. He was scared shitless, and he was the one who didn’t have the gun pointed at his chest by an unstable little shit. “They have to stop looking,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because!” he roared.
“Jason. If you kill me, there’s no going back from this. But you’re gonna do what you’ve gotta do. So let’s stop fucking around. Do something. Or fuck off. I’m fucking bored of this.” I wasn’t bowing down to the little prick. No way in hell. If this is how shit was going down, then so be it. You couldn’t fight fate, and you couldn’t fight a kid who was pointing a gun at your throat. Chances were that if he didn’t kill me, The Hand would kill him. And that might scare him more than Ryder did. If that was the case, I was doomed, and there was no sense fighting it.
I just hoped he got it done with one bullet.
I wasn’t keen on bleeding out after he put a few rounds in me in the parking lot to be found by poor Gemma.
Damn it to hell.
Jason was almost crying. His gun hand was wavering around all over the place. His finger flexed on the trigger.
For some reason, I found myself thinking about fucking mermaids.
The gun went off. I waited to feel weak, to fall to my knees, to clutch at a bloody wound, but I didn’t. I stayed on my feet feeling exactly the same as I had before the gun went off.
Then, the burning in my shoulder started. He’d shot me all right. But he’d missed on purpose. I was sure of it. The bullet had grazed the meat of my shoulder. Blood was spilling out and racing down my arm in snaking vines of red.
I clamped a hand over it as Jason took several unsteady steps back. He lowered the gun and stared at the blood leaking through my fingers with horrified eyes. “I-I—” he stammered.
“You chose,” I said.
Jason shook his head. “Don’t tell Ryder.”
“You bet your skinny ass I’m gonna tell Ryder, you little punk. Or you could get in my truck and come with me and tell him yourself. You can still fix this, kid. Trust me. He’ll take you back, and we’ll keep you safe.”
Jason met my stare for the first time since he’d shown up behind my door. His eyes were hollow. There was nothing in his gaze that was the same as I remembered. The youthful pothead who just wanted to have fun and hang out in the yard with us was long gone. He was a scared child. “I can’t,” he whispered.
“Yes, you can.”
“He’ll kill me.”
“He can try. But we’ll protect you. Just get in the fucking truck!”
Jason blinked and then looked around in a panic. His chest was rising and falling rapidly, and he had the look of a prey animal that had just caught the scent of its predator. He shook his head again and started backing farther away. “No. No. Just don’t tell Ryder. Please? Don’t tell him.”
He took off running. For a sickly looking guy, he was pretty quick. He darted out around my truck and raced across the parking lot to the lane on the other side, which he turned right down and disappeared into the darkness.
“Little fucker,” I growled as I glanced at my bleeding shoulder.
The door to the gym opened.
Gemma came out in a hurry. She was looking off in the direction that Jason had run, and when she concluded he was gone, she broke into a full run and only slowed when she reached me. She looked at my shoulder and unzipped her purse. “I brought some bandages from behind the counter. I didn’t know … I didn’t think … I don’t know. Here.” She handed me a rolled up piece of white bandaging.
“Thanks.” I pressed it to the wound.
“Do you want me to call the cops? I saw the whole thing. I can give my statement.”
“No,” I said, a little too sharply. She flinched, and I felt guilty instantly. “Sorry, Gem. I can handle this one on my own. It’s MC business. You know how it is.”
Gemma was aware of the Lost Breed MC. Caleb and I and some of the others came to this gym all the time, and I’d stepped in on more than one occasion when a guy was giving her or any of the other girls a hard time.
I held up the bandage she gave me. “Thanks for this. I have to get out of here. Get in your car and drive away. I’m not leaving until you’re out of here.”
Gemma nodded but hesitated to leave. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Yes. Just a flesh wound. He only grazed me.”
“Okay,” she said nervously. Then, she walked over to the little silver coupe a few stalls away and got in. I kept my word and stayed where I was until she pulled out of the parking lot and drove away.
Then, I got in my truck, cursing like a madman, and headed for Ryder’s place.
He was going to be pissed. No, he’d be more than pissed. This changed everything. Not only was Jason helping The Hand push Zandra, but he was working as a hitman for him, too, apparently. The Hand was scaring him into going after his own uncle’s crew. We’d been right. The man had no honor code whatsoever. He was sadistic. Cruel. He was clearly getting off on twisting Jason’s tiny little brain in his hands.
My blood leaked out onto my leather interior. I grumbled to myself as I took a sharp turn onto Ryder’s street. “Little bastard. Thinks he can come at me and put a gun in my face. Thinks he can shoot me dead, just like that. He’s got another thing coming.”
I was glad it had been me Jason was sent after. Had it been one of the others, maybe someone he hadn’t known as long, he might not have hesitated. He might have actually gone through with it. His fate would have been sealed. He’d never get back in with Ryder, and he’d have proved to The Hand that he was capable of murder. He would become more useful to the big bald bastard, and that only spelled one thing: chaos.
I parked the truck in Ryder’s driveway and glanced at the clock in the dash. It was a half hour past midnight. Ryder and Dani were probably in bed. Right now, they had no idea how bad things had gotten. I didn’t want to go in there and tell him what had happened. I didn’t want to be the one to soil his image of his nephew even further.
But it had to be me.
I reached over and yanked my glove box open. I grabbed a wad of napkins and clamped them over my shoulder. The bandage Gemma had given me had soaked all the way through with blood and was only making more of a mess than necessary. I rolled it up and put it in my cup holder to deal with later.
Then, I slid out of the truck, walked up to the front door, and knocked.
The lights inside flicked on, and I could hear Ryder telling Dani to stay where she was. He was on high alert like the rest of us. I knocked again. “Ryder, it’s Derek.”
“Hold the fuck on. I’m not wearing any fucking pants. It’s nearly one in the morning. What the hell are you doing here?” Ryder yanked the front door open. He was only wearing sweats that were riding low on his hips. He was angry until he saw I was bleeding on his front step. Then, he stepped aside, invited me in, and called Dani to come help.
She emerged from the bedroom wrapped up in a gray robe. She went to the kitchen and hurried to grab antiseptic, towels, and the kettle to boil some water. When she looked nervously over her shoulder at me as I sank down into a chair at their kitchen table, I noticed the dark circles under her eyes and the slow way she moved. She looked like she wasn’t feeling well. I knew better than to ask a woman if she was under the weather. Maybe I’d just woke her up from a dead sleep.
Ryder sat too. “Who did this to you?”
“You’re not going to like it,” I said.
Ryder exchanged a look with Dani. Then, he turned back to me. “There’s been a lot of shit going on lately that I haven’t liked. I can handle a bit more.”
So I told him.
And he was just as furious as I’d expected him to be.
Chapter 12
Evelyn
The Stokes was a much nicer place than I imagined it being. It was dimly lit and smelled like cigar smoke twenty-four seven, but that was to be expected from a cigar lounge.
The space had an edgy feel that drew in a younger clientele. The walls were a deep shade of red that was accented nicely with black crown molding and baseboards. Gothic wall sconces boasted modern lamps that washed the space in a warm orange glow. Booths with black leather seats lined the outer walls, and plush leather chairs were sc
attered around mismatching tables on the floor. Each table played host to a single candle and an ashtray as well as a drink specials and appetizer menu.
The kitchen was not outfitted for a full-service restaurant, but the two line cooks and the chef kept up with the orders of wings, crab and artichoke baked dip, mini sirloin sliders, garden salads with goat cheese, and pulled pork flatbreads. It was only my third day on the job, and I’d hit it off with all the kitchen staff, my manager Bruce, and the other servers I worked with.
Tonight was my first night shift, and Wednesdays were apparently busy due to their highball specials. I was a little nervous as I crammed my purse into my storage locker in the back room.
Bruce was sitting at his computer desk working on the upcoming schedules. He was a friendly young guy with a receding hairline and warm smile. He leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. “You look a little worried, Evelyn. Don’t stress. Your last two shifts have gone so smoothly, I can guarantee tonight will be a breeze for you. You’ve taken to this gig better than anyone ever has.”
I smiled under his flattery. “Thanks, Bruce. I’m just worried about messing up people’s orders.”
“With a pretty face like that, they won’t mind.” He winked at me. From someone else, it might have been creepy. But it wasn’t. Bruce was a brotherly sort of presence for all the female staff. He made sure everyone was feeling good through their shifts and ran frequent check-ins. On my first day, he’d told me I didn’t need to wear heels. He also made me stop for water and food breaks frequently. It was not uncommon to have a table in the back room filled with some of our appetizers specifically for the servers on staff to grab bites between tables.
It was a good place to work. And the tips, so far, had been excellent.
I glanced at the clock on the wall above the storage lockers and tucked my hair behind my ears. It was showtime. As I left the back room, Bruce called after me, “Knock ‘em dead, killer.”
