by Max Henry
“I’m headin’ to the men’s.” The others nod at my statement, and Twig makes room for me to get out from my seat against the wall.
Posters on posters line the right-hand wall down to the bathrooms. Concerts, rallies, car shows, and the odd tattoo convention thrown in for variety. I duck left through the door that looks as though it’s had a boot through it on one of the more eventful nights, and do what I came in for before catching my hazy reflection on the way out. Hesitating, I back up a step and turn to face that jaded looking son-of-a-bitch.
My father’s eyes stare back at me in a face hardened by years of working out in the fields with him as a kid after school. I’ve still got a fair run to go before I have the leather look he does, though. My mother’s full lips are set in a grim line amidst my unkempt beard. I probably should have given it a trim yesterday, but yesterday I thought I’d be at the clubhouse today. The run was spontaneous, at least for me. I knew it was coming, not when. My eyes track the light blue ‘prospect’ tag that adorns the right panel of my cut. A mirroring rocker fills the lower back of my vest stating Lincoln as our location—the Aces’ mother chapter. But the center patch and top rocker will come when the officers decide, not before. As will the right to be made aware of runs in advance, and of the intentions behind them.
I don’t know exactly how bad the club financials are, but it has to be near on critical if Prez is accepting unchecked runs. The guy we picked up from? Unknown to us. The people we dropped off to? Strangers. And the guy we’re doing it for? I wish he was.
I splash water over my face in an effort to snap out of the daze I’ve been in since leaving that woman screaming in her doorway. What is she doing now? Did she call the cops? Did the neighbors?
The water from the tap smells stale, coppery, and tastes much the same. Spitting out the drops that get caught in my mouth, I wipe a sleeve over my face, run a hand through my Mohawk to catch the stragglers, and head back out to the table to chase the shitty taste of council wine with a beer. I’ve gotta get what went down out of my head.
Twig talks firmly to Apex, his shoulders hunched and one finger angrily tapping the screen of his phone as I approach. “He fuckin’ laughed when I told him their reaction. What the fuck is this guy’s deal? What the hell kind of background has he got?”
“Ex-cop,” Apex fills us in as I take my seat. “He worked for the detective’s office in Kansas City for a while before retiring on medical grounds.”
“Clinically insane?” Twig asks, one eyebrow raised.
“Gunshot to the leg. Apparently blew out his knee and left him too fuckin’ slow for the fitness test.”
Twig spins his coaster between his fingers, the beer idle on the tabletop. “How much did he pay us for this shit?”
“Enough,” Apex barks. “He comin’ here?”
Twig nods. “Said he’d be ten at the most, but he’ll be here.”
“Good. I want to measure up the guy with my own two eyes, not on Judas’s advice.”
Carlos is coming here. Jesus. My head goes crazy trying to work out the possibility of him bringing Elena. Is she still at her dad’s? Will he bring her to something like this if she’s not? Fuck me . . .
“I ain’t never seen anything like it,” Twig muses, snapping me out of my daydream.
“Hope we’re never going to carry anythin’ like it again,” I say.
Apex leans to the side and pulls his billfold out. Tossing me a couple of notes, he tips his head toward the bar. “Go order us some wings or something, yeah?”
Dismissal at its finest. I snatch up the cash and rise from my seat again. The crown-shaped buckles on my boots clink as I walk across the floor space, and I’m definitely not oblivious to the patrons watching me as I go. Two old-timers give me their backs as I approach the bar. No skin off my nose. I’d rather be ignored than assaulted, be it verbally or physically—I’ve had both.
“What can I get you?” The barmaid glares at me from black-rimmed eyes, her fingers gripping the serving side of the counter with more than a little tenacity. Either she’s just had one hell of a customer, or this woman walks through life with a fuckin’ huge chip on her shoulder. She wears angry like it’s a comfortable sweater.
“You have a menu?”
She reaches under the lip of the counter and produces a laminated sheet that’s seen better days. “We’re out of shrimp.” She has to be pushing sixty, and if her figure is anything to go by, I get the feeling she was a knockout in her day.
“I’ll grab the wings and a basket of nachos.”
She holds her hand out for the menu.
“Actually, make that two nachos.” They’re one of the few things in life Twig removes the toothpick in his mouth that gave him his name for.
“Table?” She tugs the menu from my grasp.
I gesture with my thumb to where the others are. If a single look alone could bring down the wrath of hell, she would have incinerated those assholes where they sat.
“You got a problem with us?” I ask, as I slap the notes on the counter. I don’t take to disrespect lightly.
“I got a problem with everyone.” She snatches the bills from between us. Her bleached hair whips around in an arc as she turns heel and stalks over to the small window that connects the bar area to the kitchen and passes over the order.
Looks like she’s taken her tip then.
I coast my gaze over the walls while I wait. I could return to the table, but what for? Apex clearly doesn’t want my input, and to be honest, it’s fucking depressing, rehashing what we just saw. Nothing’s going to change the fact that there’s a woman out there who’s life just got shredded with one fucking box delivered by our hands.
“King!”
I turn away from the bar and lift my chin at Twig.
“You ordered?” he asks.
I nod.
“Got any change for a round?” It’s a rhetorical question. He doesn’t really care if I do or not. It’s his subtle way of letting me know I shouldn’t return to the table dry.
Pulling my wallet out of the breast pocket of my work shirt, I slap it down on the counter loud enough for our lovely barmaid to hear. She casts a sideways glance my way, and then shifts between her feet, fussing with a row of sauce bottles. Damn woman.
I clear my throat, noticing the two old-timers have shifted slightly so they can watch the interaction. Bets are this woman does this to ’most everyone, and I’m now playing the leading role in some nightly spectacular.
“Bit of service?” I state loudly.
“I’ll have your damn order in a minute,” she barks.
“Woman,” I say, frustrated by more shit on what seems to be shaping up for a day of it. “You trying to bankrupt this place?”
The look she lances me with sends my balls scrambling back inside for refuge. Fuck me. I take a step back, fully intent on rounding to her side and giving her a lesson in customer service when a thick hand slams down on my shoulder.
“You fuckin’ deaf, bitch?” Apex’s booming voice shakes me where I stand; I didn’t hear the asshole approach. “My boy here wants to get us another fuckin’ drink. You got a problem with serving our club?”
That gets her attention. With an arch of her back, she straightens up and stalks towards us. Great. Nothing makes a man feel more inadequate than A, being ignored by a woman, and B, having his boss come through to sort things out for him.
“Thanks, but I got this,” I say, holding a hand up before Apex.
The barmaid reaches the spot opposite us.
“Don’t look like you do, King.” Apex places both palms on the bar and leans across so his face is mere inches from hers. “This round’s on you.”
She laughs. Fucking full-on snorts in his face. She’s dead . . .
“I ain’t kiddin’ around, woman.”
I take a step back as Apex pushes off and lunges across the counter to take a hold of her by the front of her ridiculously tight tank top. Mutton dressed as lamb, much? Her eyes
go as wide as saucers for a mere fraction of a second before that jaded, angry glower returns. The two old-timers to my left casually raise their drinks for another swig.
“Take your fucking hands off me.” She grips Apex about the wrist and digs her nails in.
“Come on, Prez,” I urge. “She’s no use if she can’t even get the drinks.”
He spits in her face and then lets go, stalking back to the table with an angry finger pointed her way. “It’s on you, bitch. This round is free.”
“Hey, I’m sorry about that.” I hold out a napkin off the counter for her to wipe her face with. “We’ve had a rough day.” To say the least.
She rips the napkin so violently from my grasp that I’m left holding the corner. “Don’t.”
“What? Apologize?”
“Patronize me,” she snarls. “You’re young enough to be my fucking grandson.”
“Hey.” I hold my hands up in surrender. “I’m genuine. Don’t believe in violence towards women.”
“Then why are you setting yourself up to be a part of a group who do?” She nods toward my ‘prospect’ badge.
“Because there’s more to who they are than what people like you choose to see.”
“People like me?” She shakes her head as she bins the napkin. “And who exactly are people like me?” The glass clangs loudly as she rips fresh bottles from the fridge.
“People who have a ‘problem with everyone.’”
She pushes the bottles towards me and then places both hands on the counter, hanging her head between her arms. A sigh causes her body to heave. “It’s been a long week, okay?” Her words are spoken to the floor between her feet, muffled by the bar’s hum that’s slowly returned since the altercation.
“You gotta treat each day as a fresh start.” I bundle the drinks up ready to go when she lifts her face up to meet my gaze. “Makes the day’s problems easier to deal with when you’re not still worrying about yesterday’s.”
“Is that what you do?”
“Try to.” And after what I’ve seen tonight, I’ll be trying a hell of a lot more.
I leave her with a smile and return to the table, placing the drinks down before the brothers.
The next five or so minutes go quickly, as do our drinks. Carlos better not keep us waiting too long. The three of us keep this pace up, we’ll be asking the barmaid if she knows of a motel in walking distance. Twig makes a remark about one of the brothers in the Cali chapter that has Apex chuckling. The alcohol must be doing its job, considering the mood we came in here with.
“Am I missing out on all the fun?”
The laughter stops on a dime, the atmosphere falling flat as we all turn our heads towards our newcomer.
“Carlos, I take it?” Apex asks, narrowing his gaze on the man.
The guy’s an easy six foot, and gray as Santa himself, but the tautness of his skin and light in his eyes shows his true age. A silver fox, the girls call men like him—young but gray before their time. So this is who she chose?
“None other.” Carlos pulls a free seat out at the large table, smoothing his ice-white suit before he carefully perches himself on the wooden chair as though he’s running the risk of catching something by even being here.
He sits to my direct left, close enough that I can smell what I imagine is expensive cologne, given how perfectly trimmed and groomed the asshole is. I can’t say what I expected, but it sure as fuck wasn’t Miami Vice.
“I got one question for you,” Apex says, leaning forward with both elbows on the table. He sits directly opposite Carlos, and they stare each other down across the four feet of timber between them. “Why did you pick us for your dirty work?”
I look over Carlos’s shoulder to scan the bar. She wouldn’t be here, surely. Even if she had returned to his place, my guess is he wouldn’t bring Elena with him on ‘business.’ Doesn’t make sense to. Still, a man can hope.
“I’m led to believe I have information that you’d like—names, places, that kind of thing,” Carlos answers Apex. “And since I’m not in the business of giving anything away for free, I’m going to use you every way I can in exchange.”
Twig narrows his gaze on the guy. “Why was this never brought up before? Hooch told us our only sweetener was the ridiculous amount you’d put on the table.”
“That would be because that was all I told Judas.”
Judas. The president of our southern chapter and Hooch’s old man.
“What’s your game?” Apex asks. “What you playin’ at?”
“Answer me honestly—if I told you I had information before you did the run, you would have tried to blackmail it out of me instead, right?” Carlos pulls a bullet—of all fucking things—from his pocket and places it on the table before him. “I hope you’re not planning on giving me bad news, Apex? I don’t take lightly to a change of mind.” He spins the bullet between his fingers, staring at it with a cocky half-smile on his face.
I’m itching to say something, to tell him he’s fucking with the wrong people, but I have no voice—not until I wear the same privilege on my back as two of the men at this table. It can’t be as simple as him offering a favor. He has to have an ulterior motive.
Twig voices my thoughts for me. “You realize who you’re talkin’ to, cunt?”
“Do you?” Carlos retorts. “Tell me, how good does it feel to know you’ll be freehold on your house next year?”
A pin drop would be deafening in that moment. I take a second to look around the bar and realize half the patrons have left, and the others have moved to a safer distance from our position. Seems it’s not just us who feel the tension in the air. An enormous beefcake of a guy stands at the bar, one elbow on the counter while he watches us in his all-black suit. Bodyguard, I take it.
Twig leans forward slowly, one arm braced on the table. His other moves to his hip where his revolver is holstered. “You threatenin’ me?” Twig’s clothes still have the odd stained remnant of the asshole back at the house over them—what he couldn’t wash off, I guess. To anybody else, he’d be downright menacing, but not this guy. Not Carlos.
Instead, he picks at something on his bullet, unaffected. “It’s a real nice house, too. Bet it cost a pretty penny. Was all that money legitimate?”
Twig whips his gun above the table, pointing it at Carlos’s head. A click sounds to our left, and fuck me if one of the old-timers doesn’t have a sight trained on Twig as well. Carlos, the sneaky fucker, had eyes on us from the start.
“How about you go check where our food’s at?” Apex waves a hand to gain my attention, and effectively shuns me to the other side of the room like a child from the adults’ table at a dinner party.
I hang about for a second, staring down the sharp-dressed asshole to my left. I might take orders from Prez, but it doesn’t mean Carlos can assume I’m always going to bitch out.
The barmaid watches me with the now familiar frown on her face as I approach. “What the fuck is that all about?” she hisses under her breath as I slide on to a stool.
I eye the bodyguard at the other end. “Those nachos ready, love?”
“Cook just ran his white ass out the back door the minute he saw old Salty Balls’ gun here.” She points to the old-timer who’s re-holstering now Twig’s withdrawn his weapon. “You know him?” She gestures with her chin to Carlos.
“Nup.” Not personally. Not yet. I eye the prick as he casually moves the bullet in ninety-degree increments on the table while he talks.
The bodyguard pushes off from the counter at speed, hustling toward the door. The commotion draws my attention as I swivel around on the stool.
And there she is.
Eyes wide like a fucking deer in the headlights, she stands inside the entrance to the roadhouse and looks around. Her gaze meets mine and fuck it all, it’s just me and her in this shithole. No one else.
Until that fucking strongman wannabe cuts in between, standing in front of her. She exchanges a few terse words with him,
and the movement draws Apex’s eye from the table. Carlos turns in his seat, resting an elbow on the back of it, and scowls at her.
He looks like he wants to kill her.
And with the way that has me itching, I could totally start my body count with him, too.
“I told you to stay in the car,” he hollers.
“I need the bathroom.” She holds her ground and glares back at him. Beautiful.
Carlos sighs, as though her needs put him out. “Fine.” He waves a hand at the bodyguard. “Sort her out, Sully.”
I’m glued to my fucking seat, paralyzed as she walks by with Sully following close behind. Those rich brown eyes find mine, although her head stays facing forward. She’s doing a better job than I am of remaining unaffected. Sully lets her go at the start to the hallway, points out the door she needs, and returns to his previous position.
“Those nachos might be a while,” the barmaid cuts in. I turn to look at her over my shoulder. “Beans are burnt.”
“Just take your time.” Because I’ve got other plans.
Apex. Twig, and Carlos have resumed conversation; the three of them lean in over the table, keeping their heads close and the noise down. I check out the bodyguard and find him staring at some young thing’s ass as she bends over the pool table on the opposite side of the bar from where we are.
Now or never.
Slipping to my left, I walk toward the bathrooms, doing everything I can to relax my tense fucking muscles and come off as casual. The hallway is dim, thanks to two bulbs that need replacing. I position myself between them and find the shadows to wait.
Moments later, she walks through the doorway with her head down and comes to a complete stop. Elena’s chin lifts slowly, her gaze dragging from my boots, all the way up my body to my eyes. “I didn’t know it was you.”
I frown. What the hell is she on about? She can’t have forgotten me that quickly?
“That he was meeting with.” She steps closer.
Her slender hands hover over my chest before she slowly lays them down. Her touch burns in the most amazing way. I trap her wrists in my grasp and check to our left. Nobody in sight. She sighs as I place a kiss to her forehead.
