"It's Saturday," I said as we stopped at a crosswalk, waiting for the light with the rest of the crowd. "Roan, Reeve, and Edison are on guard tonight. We can hit Chaz's. It's not doing the club any good for us to be in shitty ass moods because we haven't gotten any pussy in too long," I said, ignoring the side-eye I got from some middle-aged broad on her cellphone. Seeing as we just passed some homeless crazy fuck on a soapbox screaming about how the only way to salvation was through anal sex, I figure she could take a flying leap if she was offended by my pussy comment.
"Sounds like a plan. Wanna catch a cab?" he asked, looking over at me. "Not feeling like slumming it with the mole people today. And Tish said she always sees him around five. We're cutting it close."
We caught a cab, letting it drop us off at the end of the block in case he saw us climbing out of the car and didn't want to see us, and would skip out the back.
The tattoo shop was a no go, but when we opened the door to the sleazy dive bar - a place like you would normally have found us three or four nights a week back in our old club - smelling of cheap vodka, smoke even though you couldn't fucking smoke here, and a hint of desperation coming from the cougars in the back, our eyes landed on the lone male figure at the center of the bar.
Heavy D was Heavy D because, well, the dude was big. Not overly fat, though he held some extra weight around the middle, but tall, solid, wide. His blonde hair was a bit coiffed for a biker, cut and styled, and he had a full beard that would make the fuck Instagram-famous if he was the selfie-taking sort. He wasn't looking our way, but I knew from all the years we'd known each other that his eyes were the lightest of blues, see-through almost. He had always managed to get chicks, no one seeming to mind his extra chub, maybe even preferring it at times to bodies like mine and Virgin's.
"Heavy fuckin' D," I greeted as Virgin and I moved in on either side of him.
His entire body tensed as his stool scooted as he tried to stand.
"Nope," Virgin said, slamming a hand down on his shoulders and pushing him back into his seat. "We're gonna have a little talk."
"Hey, we don't want any trouble here," the bartender said, eyeing us in the wary way people who had been in the job too long in a seedy bar often would.
"Then I suggest you walk the fuck away and let us catch up with our old friend here," Virgin said with a look that would make a lesser man piss himself. Ninety-percent of the time, Virgin was as chill as you could get. But that ten-percent when he was riled, yeah, you didn't want to fuck with him.
"Fucking knew I saw Tish the other day," D said, shaking his head as he reached to raise his glass, tipping back the whiskey with a sigh. "What do you want?" he asked, looking at Virgin who sat beside him, then at me where I was leaning back against the bar, watching him.
"We want to talk about dead men coming back to life," I said, watching as his face went tense, a dead fucking giveaway. Dunno how I knew, but I knew it hadn't been a goddamn prank.
"Any particular dead man we talking about?"
"Cut the shit," Virgin snapped, snatching the glass out of his hand as he went to raise it again, slamming it down so hard on the bar that you could see the small fractures inside the walls of glass. "What the fuck went down in Jersey City?" he asked.
See, we hadn't been there. When most of the guys were on a job. When they all got shot, stabbed, or pinched. Virgin, me, and a few of the other guys had been left behind to deal with some bullshit small job, all of us resentful for being left out of the fun. Until word got back to us what happened.
Bunch of our men arrested.
The rest dead.
Including our president.
Our current dead-man-talking.
Or, texting, as it were.
Heavy D had been with the rest of the men when shit went south, had taken seven stab wounds to the gut, chest, and left arm. By the time word got to us, and we hauled ass down to Jersey City to check on our hurt men, and see if we could bail out the ones who got locked up, and to bring our dead back to bury, Heavy D was long gone. Signed himself out against doctor's orders. We hadn't heard from him again until we put feelers out and Tish, one of Virgin's old fuck buddies, had seen him.
"You know what went down. The mob got out of control," he said, meaning at a biker rally they had been hired to do security at. But two rival gangs had started shit. In the end, five of our men had died, ten had been locked up, more had been hurt. And that didn't even count the others who had been hurt and killed, including one of the other presidents' old ladies.
It was a bad day for bikers as a whole.
And the end of our club.
Or so we had thought.
"The mob went out of control. People got stabbed and shot. One of those people was our old president," Virgin specified. "Who was dead on the scene, or so we were told. So imagine our surprise when Sugar here got a text from him last night. Unless they're reanimating corpses, I suspect your fucking ass has a lot to tell us."
"Why do you think I know dick?" he asked, looking straight ahead, cagey as all fuck.
"Why else would you up and disappear out of your hospital bed?" I asked, silently noting that he hadn't even flinched at the idea of our old prez being alive. What the fuck was going on?
"I don't like being stuck in a bed full of tubes," D said, looking over at me. And, for once, there was sincerity there. I even believed him. Because, as far back as I could remember, not a fucking one of us followed a doctor's orders to stay in bed, to keep our stitches dry, to leave a cast on for six weeks, to go to physical therapy, or not get hit in the head again because we had already gotten one too many concussions. That was the life. So I could buy him signing himself out because he hated being stuck in a bed. "Maybe if there was some hot nurse to give me a sponge bath, I'd have stayed," he added, lips quirking up slightly. "But I wasn't hanging around to have a four-hundred-pound, pockmarked Nurse Ratched cluck her tongue at me and tell the doctor she thinks I'm on too much morphine 'cause I'm being surly. Fucking surly. I'm a biker. What the fuck was I supposed to be?"
"And now that we got your whole fucking life story," Virgin went on, "tell us what the fuck we are here to talk about."
"Look, I don't know what to tell you. Shit was chaotic as fuck that day. Bikers everywhere. Everyone wearing the same shit, just different patches. It was impossible to tell anyone apart in all of that. Especially once I was down. I didn't know who made it and who didn't until I saw the news the next day."
"And yet you didn't come back to the compound. Where the fuck did you go?" I asked, not one bit of this making any bit of sense.
"Went home."
"What home? The compound was your home," I said, shaking my head. It was all of our homes. Even though we didn't have as big of a compound as The Henchmen had, so most of us lived in a nearby apartment building. But no one had lives that took them away from the club. No real home to go to.
"I got a Ma same as you, Sug. Might not see her much, but she's there. She was there when I couldn't get up to make myself food or run my own errands. Not for nothing. You were my brothers. But you ain't never been fucking caretakers. You'd tell me to pour vodka on my wounds and quit bitching."
Well, he wasn't wrong there.
"'Sides, I figured the prez was dead. The road captain was dead. The vice was locked up, and so was the sergeant. What the fuck was left? Figured it was about to collapse. Why bother coming back? From the looks of it," he said, eyes slipping down the front of my chest to my new cut, my new badges, my new loyalty, "you jumped ship too. So what the fuck you on my case about it for?"
"Yet when we walked in here talking about the dead prez sending texts from the afterlife, you didn't look the least bit shocked," Virgin cut in, clearly wanting to cut through the bullshit.
"'Cause maybe I heard some shit."
"What kind of shit?" Virgin snapped.
"Forgot how fucking cranky your ass gets," D said, looking over at him, his smile genuine, and just for a moment, I remembered the brotherho
od we used to have, all the nights out drinking and fucking and raising hell. We had a lot of years together for it to come to a standoff like this in a seedy bar. "What? Can't find any willing pussy down there in Jersey?"
"How'd you know we were in Jersey?" I asked, watching as he sighed.
"You ain't the only one who keeps tabs on things. Like how Leftie is getting out on good behavior next week. Don't have dick to come back to since his old lady shacked up with some two-bit pot dealer up in Pennsatucky. But he's getting out. And the Yeti is working for the Polish down in Brooklyn."
"And the prez ain't dead."
"The prez ain't dead," he agreed, nodding as he tapped the rim of his glass, needing more to get through this.
"Then why the fuck did he disappear?"
"Look, you're asking the wrong man."
"How did you know he's not dead?"
"You really don't keep up on the old crew at all, huh?" he asked, looking at Virgin, then at me.
"Got a new crew. No reason," I said, shrugging.
His eyes went a little dark at that, likely thinking like I had been a minute before about all the times we had shared over the years, maybe a bit put off at how we had replaced all that.
He gave me a nod, reached to drain his new glass, hissed, and told us. "Didn't hear then that the vice and sergeant both got shivved in the clink?"
"Shivved?" I asked, feeling a small gut punch at the information. It was one thing to know your old crew was locked up. Most of us had done some time here or there. That came with the territory. It wasn't a big deal. But knowing they got killed on the inside, these men who had been brothers to us? That still had impact, no matter what crew we ran with now.
"And the word is it was a paid job."
"You're saying the prez had them taken out," Virgin concluded, brows drawing together as he looked at me.
"Look, I only know what the whispers have been. Can't confirm shit myself."
"And what are the whispers saying?"
"That the prez was into some shit that the vice and serg were onto him. Planning to take him out and take over. Some whispers even say that crush at the meet was staged. That people like me, like Chuck-" our road captain - "were collateral damage. That there was some huge stash of money that none of us knew dick about."
"Then why the fuck is he texting me? If he's on the run, why is he contacting us now?"
"Can't fucking say for sure, Sug. All I know is that you got a text. And I 'spect so did Rip since he up and left his apartment. His girl called me shrieking about it."
"You think there's trouble?" I asked, wondering how much of what he was saying was true, and how much was simply speculation.
D took a deep breath, turned his head, and looked me right in the eye. "You think I'd be here fucking day drinking if I thought everything was par for the fucking course? If I was smart, I'd run like Rip did. But I got a Ma here. And some sisters. If shit hits the fan, and he is coming for us for abandoning ship... you know him. He'll go after our people, Sug. I can't leave 'em. You got a Ma and a half-brother. You know what I mean."
Didn't exactly have the closest relationship with them, but I sure as shit didn't want them dead either. Virgin, well, all he had was me. Life was easier - and harder - that way.
"What about Rip's girl?" I asked, sharing a look with Virgin.
"She's new," he said, shrugging. "New new like... the past two months new. Unless the prez is hiding behind dumpsters, don't figure she's in any kind of danger."
"The fuck are we supposed to do with this information?" I wondered aloud, shaking my head, wanting a drink. Or fifty. But needing a clear head right now.
"Protect your family. Watch your backs. The fuck else can you do?"
I sighed out a breath, reaching for a napkin left on the bar, and snagging a pen out of a holder by the register. Which was stupidly within reach. "This is me. Don't program me. Don't put my name on this sheet of paper. But if you hear anything worth knowing, let me know too. Give me yours, and I can do the same." At his raised brow look, clearly not trusting me, I shrugged. "We might not be club brothers anymore, D, but we're brothers still. We look out for one another when we can. Least we can do is make sure none of us get dead because we're being butthurt about not sharing booze and clubwhores every weekend anymore."
At that, D nodded, ripping off the top of the napkin to scribble his number on before passing it to me.
"It was nice seeing you guys," he said, voice sincere as Virgin and I moved to stand to leave. "Glad you found your feet. Never met two men more born to be bikers than you. It's good you found another brotherhood."
"Take care of that family of yours," I told him, clamping a hand on his shoulder before heading out with Virgin.
We weren't two feet onto the sidewalk before he let out a strange, choked laugh.
"What?"
"Fucking left the brotherhood because he wanted someone to make him chicken noodle soup and tuck him in at night. The fuck kind of biker is that?"
Virgin, well, he'd never known the touch of soft in his hard life. He never had a mother. His grandmother was off her rocker. The only women in the club were there to spread legs or suck cocks. No one had ever tucked him in or made him soup or given a shit if he was sick or hurt.
He couldn't fathom the appeal.
And while my experiences with maternal figures weren't much better, I knew a bit more soft. I could see why D chose that over us telling him to stop being such a pussy.
"Different strokes," I said, shrugging it off, knowing it would do no good to try to explain it to him. He simply wouldn't understand.
"You gotta call your Ma and Dante. Give them a heads up."
My Ma, well, she would never uproot her life because some threat was coming her way. She wasn't the type. She'd grab her sledgehammer and wait up all night for trouble to come knocking, then whack it over the head, drag it into the kitchen to her meat slicer she'd saved for six months to buy, and make a motherfucking hero out of it, all the while scolding it for making her fuck up her manicure.
Dante was hardly more than a kid still, but smart and quick and known for stirring up shit. Was kicked out of four high schools by his sophomore year.
They would be okay if I gave them a warning.
Not that I thought there was danger there for them.
D had been in the club for most of his youth. We had fewer years in. By the time we landed there, I was too old to need to be shipped off to my Ma's house to be watched. So no one, save for maybe Virgin and D and Chuck, even knew we were in contact.
And no one knew I had a brother except Virgin.
I didn't want questions about when I was gonna bring him in, get him in the lifestyle.
It might have worked out for me, but I wanted something else for Dante. Even if he seemed hellbent on finding his own sort of trouble.
I reached for my phone as we walked down the block, planning to grab a couple slices before we got a cab back to the ferry.
"No, Ma. For crissakes, I know. Yeah, got it. This isn't the first... no, I'm not talkin' back," I said, shaking my head at Virgin who was all white teeth at my phone call that was supposed to last two minutes, but was well over the twenty-minute mark. I had to choke down my pizza in between answers as she lectured me. "Virgin is right here with me, Ma," I said, smiling when his face when mortified at having to be on the receiving end of what I was dealing with. It was almost worth listening to this woman rant at me for close to half an hour. "Yeah, here you go," I said, slamming the cell into his chest when he tried to back away.
He made a low, growling noise at me, but took the phone and raised it to his ear. "Hey Candy," he said, closing his eyes. Even from three feet away, I could hear my mother's voice, her thick accent making mine sound almost nonexistent in comparison. "Yes, ma'am. No, ma'am, I'm not kissing your ass," he said, giving me a pained look that I had no sympathy for since my own ear was still ringing from listening to her. "Yes, ma'am. I will. I always got his back. Take care
of yourself and Dante. I will. Yes, ma'am. No, ma'am. We aren't getting into any trouble," he said, rolling his eyes at me.
That was the wrong thing to say.
Because my mother had been a lot of things in her life. She'd been a shoplifter, a stripper, a check-forger, and a clubwhore before she turned her life around after passing me off. One thing she had never been was naive. She knew that Virgin was telling her what he thought she wanted to hear. And since he never had a mother of his own, he didn't understand that they knew when you were doing that shit, and it pissed them off.
So he was getting his ass handed to him as I ordered another slice of pizza, knowing tonight was going to involve a lot of fucking drinking, and wanting to put a layer of grease, fat, and carbs down to catch it all.
"I understand, Candy. Yes. No, ma'am. Never. I always wear a..." he trailed off, looking at me with a mortified lift to his brows, "raincoat."
She didn't mean raincoat.
She meant a condom.
That was how she signed off every phone call with me. She reminded me to wear a raincoat, so I didn't knock up someone when I wasn't ready to be a dad. Then she told me she loved me and hung up.
"I'll tell him," he said, hanging up, handing me back my phone, and exhaling a breath. "How many shots is it going to take to forget that I just got a safe sex lecture from your mother?"
"I'd say eight or ten," I told him, slapping a hand on his back with a smile as we headed back outside to grab a cab, then the ferry, then drove our asses back to Navesink Bank to try to do a night of 'forget this day happened' drinking.
That was the plan anyway.
And it started off that way.
But as fate would have it, the night went differently than I had been expecting.
It was the night everything changed.
Even though I didn't really know it at the time.
FIVE
Peyton
There weren't a lot of places to go drinking in Navesink Bank. When I'd asked Charlie why - since he was the only person I knew who owned a bar - he'd told me that the town had a set number of liquor licenses, and that all of them were used. Apparently, the ones like Charlie, the Grassis, and the guy who owned that dive bar over on the other side of town had would make millions off of selling theirs. But no one wanted to.
Sugar (The Henchmen MC Book 12) Page 5
