Shocked, I stare at him.
In all the time I’ve been here, the club has never had any problems with anyone—civilian or rivals. Why now? “What’s going on? Why are they here?” I ask, trying to make sense of this.
Mack shakes his head slightly. “I can’t give you all of the details, but they think we caused problems for their business. It’s not true, but until we can prove to them we have nothing to do with it, we are going to take precautions.”
Even though I want to ask for more, I know he won’t tell me, so I’ll take what I can get. “All right, I’ll be prepared.” I glance over at Zane and see him staring at me with a look of worry.
“Prez, we can do better than having one man on her and making sure she’s carryin’, can’t we? If the Rebels have done any recon on the club, they will know that she is important to us. We can’t risk her.”
I get what he’s saying, but I don’t want to pull any more brothers away from something they could be doing to help the club. “Zane, I’ll be fine. I’m a good shot and know how to protect myself. I’ll be fine, promise.”
He doesn’t look convinced or happy about it, but he nods. “Fine, but I’m going to be with you as much as I can. I don’t know what I would do if anything happened to you.”
I see confusion on Mack’s face, but he covers it quickly. I guess I should tell him soon about Zane and me, but today isn’t the day. I’m sure he knows something is going on, just not the specifics.
“Dani, why don’t you go on to the shop? But stop by here when you’re done tonight. Zane, church in a half hour.” Mack gets up and leaves the office, closing the door behind him.
Zane looks at me, deadly serious. “If you see anything out of the ordinary, you let me know. Don’t take any risks and make sure you have your gun on you and within reach. Not in your purse or where ever else you keep it.”
I roll my eyes at him and stand up. “Zane, I’ll be fine.” I’m irritated that he’s treating me like I’m glass, like I will break with the slightest touch.
“I know you will, Baby Girl, but I can’t stand the thought of someone coming after you. I can't lose you again.” He stands up and comes up to me, kissing me lightly on the lips. “I’ll see you later tonight, okay? Call me if you need anything.”
I nod and then head out of the office. I wave to Mack and walk outside to my truck.
On the way to the shop, I try and come up with a reason why a rival club would be hours away from home and scoping us out. Mack said they think we fucked with their business, but why would they think it’s the Sinners? Did they have beef with us years ago and are blaming us now because it is easy? Whatever the reason is, I hope this shit blows over soon, because I don’t know how long I’ll be able to tolerate all the brothers being on high alert. Shit’s going to get nasty fast, and I don’t want to deal with a bunch of overprotective bikers.
Chapter 21
It’s been almost a month since the meeting with Mack at the clubhouse. I’ve been cautious, always looking at my surroundings and anyone who comes into my shop. But there has been nothing and nobody out of the ordinary. A part of me agrees with Zane when he said that if they did any amount of research on the Sinners, they would know I’m connected to them. But that would also mean that they put a tail on me, and if they did that, they would know I’m one bitch they don’t want to fuck with.
Not only would I make sure to give whoever is trying to use me to send as a message an ass-kicking they wouldn’t forget, but they would also have a bunch of angry bikers on their hands. It’s one thing to go after an MC and maybe fuck with their brothers and business, but it’s a whole other deal to fuck with a woman who is protected by them. And I don’t mean to be arrogant or anything, but I’m pretty damn special to that club—not only to Mack, but to all of them. They took me in and now I’m like a sister to most of them. So if you fuck with me, well, let’s just say you’ll wish you were never born.
All the brothers have been busy keeping an eye out for the rival club, making sure they aren’t venturing into town and causing problems. I’ve had a prospect following me around whenever I leave the shop, go home, or even work at the shop. It’s really grating on my nerves, but I don’t fuss because I know tensions are high right now. If this is what will give them a little peace of mind, I'll deal with it.
Zane and I have barely had any time to talk, let alone see each other, since the meeting with Mack. I’ve only seen him in passing when I’ve stopped by the club to check in. I really want to call him up and tell him to come to my house, but I can’t pull him away from club business right now; it wouldn’t be right. He has a job to do and I won’t stand in the way. I’ve learned over the years that whether you are an old lady or family member, you don’t come between the brothers and what they have to do.
Tonight, I'll go to the clubhouse and sit down with Mack and Toby. I’ve been on guard, but haven’t seen anything that would cause worry—no encounters with the Rebels or anything suspicious around the shop or clubhouse. I think it would be all right to at least get rid of my bodyguard. I’ll still carry my gun, but there is no need to be followed around.
On my way to Sinners Ink, I decide to give Mack a call to let him know I want to talk to him tonight. I don’t want to run the risk of him being out and not getting this taken care of.
As I’m pulling up to the shop and getting ready to dial, my phone rings. It’s Mack.
“Where are you?” he yells in my ear, but I barely hear it because I can see the prospect outside, looking at the broken front window. What the fuck happened and who the hell did this?
Mack pulls me out of my thoughts by yelling into the phone again, which causes me to flinch and pull it away from my face. “Dani!”
Bring it back to my ear again, I yell back at him, “What the fuck happened to my shop?”
He must already know what is going on because the prospect would have called him, which is probably why he called me in the first place. This couldn’t have been the rival club; they don’t do petty shit like this. Someone else did this, and mark my words, when I find out who it was, they are going to wish I'd called the cops on their ass. But I won’t—no, I’m going to take pleasure in teaching them not to fuck with me or my shop.
“I’m on my way right now. We’ll figure it out when I get there. Do not go inside, do you hear me?”
Like I’m going to stand outside waiting for him to come and “clear the scene.” Does he even know who he’s talking to? “Yeah, sure,” I reply, then hang up before he can say anything else.
Walking up to the prospect, I see he’s on his phone, so I decide to go inside without him. I want to make sure nothing was stolen and see how much damage I’m looking at. I really hope it’s only the window. If it’s more than that, I’m going to have to close down for who knows how long to get everything fixed and replace whatever is missing. Fuck, I can’t believe this happened!
Drawing my gun, I cautiously walk inside, aware of everything around me in case someone is still inside. After briefly checking out the busted window, I walk slowly toward the front desk. I take the money out of the till every night before I leave, so I don’t have to worry about that being stolen, but I want to check on the computer.
Stepping around the desk, I see it’s a little on the messy side, but the computer sits untouched. Then I make my way toward the back where our stations are set up. I check Louie’s station first, but there’s nothing out of place, so I move on to mine. I instantly regret walking back here because all of my supplies are thrown around the room, my tattoo gun lies broken on the floor and on the wall where I have a huge canvas with my name written in graffiti, someone took red spray paint and wrote ‘WHORE’ over it. This wasn’t random, this shit is personal. I’ve been targeted.
I’m still standing in front of the wall looking at the red spray paint when I hear motorcycles pulling up to the front of the shop. Seconds later, I hear shouted curses. Not even bothering to try and figure out what is going on
outside, I walk toward the canvas and reach up to take it down. But before I even touch it, Zane is yelling my name from the front.
My hands pause in the air and in less time than you would think it would take someone to get from the front of my shop back here, Zane is pulling me away from the wall and into his arms.
“You okay, Baby Girl?”
I scoff and step out of his embrace. “Does it fucking look like I’m okay? Look at my fucking shop, Zane!” I turn around angrily, rip the canvas off of the wall, and throw it toward him. I know I should stop right now and not take this out on him, but I’m too fucking angry to be thinking rationally.
“No! I’m not okay! Some motherfucker broke into my shop and destroyed my work station. And not only do I have to deal with the busted window and broken tools, they wrote that over my fucking name!” I yell, pointing at the picture I threw at him. “So no, I’m not okay! I’m fucking pissed!”
He doesn’t say anything, he only stares at me, in shock and maybe a little angry himself.
I turn my back to him and look around the room. It's going to set me back a couple grand to replace all of this and fix that window. It’s not like I’m hurting for money, but it’s money I shouldn’t have to fucking spend. When I find the person who did this, I’m going to string him up from the ceiling and tattoo the words “Needle Dick” across his forehead. Then I’m going to have a little fun by making long, narrow slices with my buck knife across his chest and stomach. I might even see how much I can cut him before he passes out from either blood loss or pain.
I walk into the back room and grab the broom, dust pan, and a couple of boxes and start picking up the mess. Zane is still standing there, silently watching me. I don’t even acknowledge him. I want to get this shit cleaned up, call someone to come in and fix my window today and then go home and order new equipment. Since it’s a Monday, it shouldn’t be too much of a problem to close down for a couple of days. I’ll make sure to rush my new supplies so I have them in by Wednesday, then I can spend Thursday cleaning up and making sure everything is back in place.
After a couple of minutes pass of Zane not moving or saying anything and me flying around the room, throwing everything into the boxes to get rid of, he goes back out to the front of the shop. I don’t waste time checking to make sure if anything is salvageable, it’s all trashed. I also don't even bother to watch him walk away, nor do I take a moment to feel like shit for using him as my metaphorical punching bag.
When I finish picking everything up off the floor, I sweep to make sure I got all the tiny bits and pieces, then head out back with the boxes to throw them in the dumpster. At least my tattoo gun wasn’t new; I was wanting to buy new equipment anyway, I just wasn’t banking on doing it this soon. I could have gotten at least another year out of it.
As I walk back into the shop, I hear Zane and Mack arguing with each other. Since I don’t feel like breaking up their hissy fit, I bypass them and head out to my truck.
I don’t make it far before Mack is running to catch up. He steps in front of me. “Where the fuck are you going?”
Trying to calm myself by taking a couple of deep breaths, I cross my arms over my chest and glare up at him. “Well, I’m going home to put on some sweats and then I’m going to order new equipment. Then I’m going to come back down here and make sure someone comes in to fix my window.” I move around him and continue on toward my truck.
After I jump in and close the door, I notice Mack glaring at me through the windshield and Zane approaching behind him.
Not giving either of them time to stop me, I pull out of my parking space and drive to my house. I want to get everything ordered so I have one less thing to worry about. I also need to get a sign to put on the door to let people know we will be closed for repairs, so I decide to stop at a store to pick up supplies to make one.
In the store parking lot, I give Louie a call to let him know what happened.
“Dani, are you okay? What the hell happened?” I completely forgot that one of the brothers would have called him to let him know about the break-in. Now that I think of it, I’m actually surprised he wasn’t there to check it out for himself.
“I’m fine, Louie, just wanted to let you know I’m going to close down until Friday, so don’t worry about coming in.” I get out of the truck and head into the store.
“Yeah, okay, that’s probably a good idea. That will give us some time to figure out what we are dealing with,” Louie says with irritation evident in his tone.
I blow out a long breath, but the tension in my body isn’t going away. I doubt I’ll be able to calm down until we find out who did this.
“Where are you at?” I ask. “I thought you would have been there, checking everything out.”
Picking up a blank sign, I head to the check out.
“I would have, but I’m out of town till tomorrow.” Wow, I’ve really been out of it lately. I didn’t even know he was gone.
“All right, well, I was going to ask if you could call all of our appointments to reschedule, but I’ll do it when I get back to the shop tonight. I’ll call you Thursday to let you know if you should come in Friday or not.”
Hanging up the phone, I make my way out to my truck and turn toward home. Hopefully the brothers will have something by the time I get back to the shop. It shouldn’t take long for the guys to figure out who did this or at least find someone who might have some information. Once I find out who did it, I can decide what I’m going to do about it. I don’t care what the brothers think, I’m going with them to confront the person. I could have gotten over the broken window and even my trashed equipment, but writing ‘WHORE’ on that canvas is something I can’t let go.
***
By Thursday I’m open for business again. My equipment was delivered last night and the window was fixed right away Monday, so there was no reason to wait till Friday. I had called Louie last night to let him know he didn’t have to come in today, but he should plan on being here tomorrow.
I was able to reschedule most of the appointments we had this week, and thankfully, our clients were all understanding. I was able to work a few in today, but most are due in tomorrow. It’ll be busy, but Mack offered to come in too to help us catch up.
Things with Zane have been a little sketchy since that day at the shop. Even though I feel bad about the way I left him there Monday, I haven’t apologized for it. I called him that night after I got home from making sure the window was fixed, but we never brought it up. I figure if he hasn’t made a big deal out of it, then I’m not going to either.
My first client comes in as my phone starts ringing. It’s Zane. Since I need to get going on this tattoo, I let it go to voicemail. Leaving my phone on the front desk, I lead Marlee back to my station to get started.
“So, what are we doing today?” I ask as I sit down, and wait for her to tell me what she wants. I don’t have anything drawn up for her since I was busy with getting everything fixed here, but she doesn’t seem to mind.
“I want to do a cherry blossom tree, starting on my lower back and working up over my shoulder.”
Sweet, I’ve done a couple of those and it’s something I don’t really need a stencil for. I only make a few marks as guidelines, and I’m good to go.
“All right, cool. Since it’s so big, I suggest we start at the bottom and work our way up. I can probably have it done in two sittings. You okay with that?” Some people don’t want to deal with unfinished tattoos, even if they only have to wait a couple of days, but hopefully she’ll agree with me because there is no way I can fit the whole thing in today.
“Yeah, sounds good,” she says and sits down on the chair.
I have her take her shirt off and start marking where I want the tattoo to be. She won’t be able to see what it will look like since I’m going to freehand most of it, but at least she’ll be able to get an idea of how it will flow, from her back and up around her shoulder.
As I finish and ask her to go look
in the mirror to make sure she likes the placement, my phone rings again. I never answer when I’m with a client so I ignore it and have her sit down so we can get started.
Two and a half hours later, I’m done with most of the back and have a good start working around her shoulder. I clean her up and hear my phone ringing in the front. Ignoring it, I put some Vaseline on her new ink and cover it with a bandage. “All right, you’re good to go. Let’s go up front and get you scheduled for a time to come in and finish this.”
I’m really happy with how the tattoo is turning out and can’t wait to see it finished. I may have to take pictures to post on the website and in my portfolio if she is okay with it. I don’t do that often, but every once in a while I have someone come in and ask for a cool design. I don’t have any cherry blossom trees, so it will make a great addition to show off.
We set her up to come in on Monday, she pays and turns to leave. As she reaches the door, it bursts open, causing her to jump back in alarm.
Zane comes barging in, almost knocking Marlee over in the process.
“Why the fuck aren’t you answering your fucking phone?” Zane yells, rage evident on his face.
I spare a glance behind him to make sure Marlee gets out okay. She stands there in shock for a couple of seconds, then hightails it out. I turn a heated gaze back to Zane and cross my arms. “What the fuck? Who the hell do you think you are, barging in here and nearly knocking my customer over, huh?” I’m so pissed that red tinges the side of my vision. So what if I didn’t answer my phone? He needs to realize that I’m not going to drop everything every time he calls me.
Charging right into my space, he backs me up against the wall beside the desk. With barely an inch between us, he stares down at me with irritation. “Why. The. Fuck. Didn’t. You. Answer. Your. Phone?” He bites out every word separately. I see his nostrils flare and his eyes look black with rage. If he was anyone else, I might have flinched from the venom in his tone, but this is Zane, so I push him back and get into his face.
Rewriting Destiny (Forsaken Sinners MC #1) Page 20
