Ozzy (Wayward Kings MC Book 2)

by Zahra Girard

  “Thanks for keeping me safe,” she says, that kind-of-smile still on her face.

  “You’re welcome,” I say. “So what kind of gun did you have in mind?”

  She shrugs. “Something small, something I can easily carry around with me. All I care about is that it’s enough to stop whatever asshole I need it to.”

  I think for a minute, remembering everything I’ve learned about guns in my career with the club.

  “Well, a lot of these are going to have some decent stopping power. That’s sort of the point, ain’t it?” I say, walking with her through the store. I lead her to the racks of handguns and I stop and take her hand and look at it — checking the size, the length of her fingers, sizing her up. “But it’s about more than just stopping power.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “The size of your hand is pretty important. You want to pick a gun that you can easily handle. For example, my hands are on the bigger side, which means if I pick a gun with a smaller grip, I’m going to have a pretty bad time. Just like you wouldn’t want to pick a gun that’s too big for you, because you might hurt yourself.”

  She nods, slowly. “Fair enough.”

  I hold onto her hand more than is strictly necessary — it feels good to touch her — and then I pick out a few guns from the shelf. Glocks, mostly, since they tend to be pretty reliable. “Check these ones out. Hold them, see how they feel in your hand. You want your grip to be comfortable.”

  We go through them one by one, and I show her how to hold them. It only takes a couple before she finds one she likes: a compact Glock 9mm pistol.

  “How’d you learn so much about guns?” she says, checking over the Glock in her hands.

  For someone new to firearms, she’s confident in holding them and, what makes me even more pleased to see, she’s holding it carefully. She doesn’t look down the barrel, she doesn’t carelessly point it around. Like she is with so many things, she’s measured and smart.

  What a woman.

  “I grew up around them,” I say. “My great grandad was an ANZAC — fought in Gallipoli and earned all sorts of commendations — and the men in my family have always had a bit of a fighting edge to us. Hunting, the military, or just plain brawling, it’s in our blood.”

  “You ever kill anyone?” she says, looking into my eyes.

  I don’t blink. “I’ve done my fair share of what it takes to support the club. And keep my family safe.”

  She looks down at the gun in her hands. “They point, you shoot?”

  “It’s not that simple. You know that. As much as I love the simple things in life — family, riding, fucking — stuff like that is complicated. You just do the best you can to keep the important people in your life safe,” I say. I pause a second, looking at her. She hasn’t taken her eyes off that gun and she’s got this strange look on her face. “You really think you could use that thing if it came down to it?”

  She looks to me, eyes set, stubborn. “If I have to, yeah. But I hope I don’t have to find out.”

  It’s easy as to buy the thing and some ammo. All it takes is taking it to the counter, Eddie checks her ID and asks her a few questions to make sure she’s not intoxicated, and that’s it. All-in-all, the whole shopping experience takes about twenty minutes. Twenty minutes to get the woman I care about armed and deadly. It almost seems criminal.

  “Now, you want to go learn how to shoot that thing?”

  “Lead the way,” she says, taking my hand.

  * * * * *

  I take her to a place a bit out of town, stopping first at a gas station to buy a twelve pack of beer. We find some deserted road next to some empty ranchland. There isn’t a person for miles, and there’s still enough sun in the sky to do some actual shooting.

  It’s time to get down to business.

  But first, we drink the beer.

  And we chat. Mostly about empty things, like how her life is going in Chicago, TV shows she’s watching and books she’s reading. It’s a moment of normalcy and peace in the crazy swell around us. I don’t much care about what we actually talk about, I don’t guide it with any agenda, I just want to get her to relax and give her a bit of time in her day where she’s not thinking about all the shit that’s going on.

  After a little bit, she opens up.

  I poke, I prod, I joke until the cares start to slough off her shoulders.

  Soon, she’s smiling, laughing, and she’s the confident, beautiful woman I remember.

  As the sun’s starting to sink toward the horizon, we finish the beers and line the empties up on the fenceposts.

  “So let’s go over a few of the basics, ok? First thing: always, always, always, treat the gun like it’s loaded. That means when we’re doing this stuff out here and when you’re carrying it around, you don’t point it at anything you don’t intend to shoot. Got it?”

  She holds the gun in her hand, looks at it, considering, and nods. “Alright. Seems simple enough. What’s next?”

  “The other thing is what Gunney and Bear call ‘trigger discipline’, but what everyone else just calls ‘not being a fucking idiot’. It’s where you don’t put your finger on the trigger until you’re ready to shoot.”

  “What’s next?” she says.

  “Holding it. It’s pretty simple, really,” I say, showing her how to grip it and hold it high with her dominant hand and use her other hand to support it. Then I show her how to stand and how to aim.

  It’s such a strange thing seeing a gun in her hands.

  I’m used to her being tough – it’s one of the qualities about her I respect the most — and if the circumstances were different, I’d be excited as hell teaching her how to use a gun. But these circumstances aren’t exactly ideal. I’m teaching her because we both know there’s a chance she might need this thing to kill someone.

  There might come a time where I can’t protect her.

  “Shooting’s next, I assume?” she says.

  Without waiting for me, she takes aim and pulls the trigger. There’s a crack and an explosion rocks the wooden fence post. It’s an ok shot for a beginner, but at least a foot off the target.

  After a breath, she fires again, and then once more, until the can finally goes flying.

  Maria stops, looking down at the gun. “That wasn’t too hard.”

  “It’s a good start, but you still need some work,” I say. Carefully, I get behind her. I wrap my arms around her and help fine-tune her grip and stance. There’s a moment where she leans back into me and, with her body against mine, I don’t feel so conflicted about this whole mess.

  “Now?” she says, looking back at me over her shoulder.

  I nod. “Now.”

  It only takes her two shots to hit the next can and even her miss is much closer.

  She smiles in satisfaction. “Much better.”

  “You know, there’s an even better way you could protect yourself in all this,” I say, once she’s knocked her fourth can and she’s used up all the rounds in the clip. “You could go back to Chicago.”

  She doesn’t hesitate. “No.”

  “It would make things a lot simpler. For both of us. You go back to your job, Preacher and I do what we came here to do, and it keeps you out of danger. It’s heaps better than you needing to carry a gun because you’re worried some cornbread-eating cunt is going to kill you.”

  “First, don’t use that word. And second, I don’t think you’re getting how important my job is to me.”

  “More important than your life?”

  She sets the pistol down on a fence post and takes my hand. “Ozzy, if someone asked you to betray the club, would you do it?”

  I shift a little, put off a bit by the question — helping her is already closer to that line than I’m comfortable with. “No. Of course not. The club is part of who I am.”

  “Right. Same for me. I love what I do. I actually love it. I didn’t have a judge for a dad like Roxy; I didn’t have those connections. My dad was
great, supportive, and so was my mom, but my dad did factory-line QA work for some supplier for Boeing and even that wasn’t always steady work. I fucking fought to get here. Day after day. For scholarships to pay for college, for respect among my peers, for my bosses to take me seriously. It is satisfying like you wouldn’t believe to be doing work that makes me, and my family, proud. If I leave, I could very well lose my job. I’d be betraying my family, my co-workers, and my self,” she says, reloading the gun and firing a shot that takes out another can. “No fucking way.”

  I take a step towards her, my blood running hot. “Do you understand where I’m coming from? Do you understand that the guy you’re working for is a danger to you, to the club, and to so many people you care about? This is going to get a lot more bloody before it’s over.”

  “Ozzy, for the last time: no.”

  “He needs to die, Maria,” I say. “Are you really going risk everything for piece of dirt like him? You’re better than that.”

  “You think less of me because I actually give a shit about making something out of myself?” she says.

  I don’t answer.

  Wordlessly, Maria picks up the pistol, re-loads it, and takes a few more shots, missing the next can by a wide mile.

  “Fuck,” she screams, taking aim and firing another few errant angry shots that also completely miss the can.

  “You’re doing it wrong,” I say, coming in slow and careful to stand behind her.

  “It’s still ‘point and shoot’, right? Unless shit changed in the thirty seconds you tried to convince me to abandon my job and my principles.”

  “You need to bloody well calm down. Especially if you’re new at this, shooting while you’re all worked up means you’re going to have bad aim. Take a breath, yeah?” I say, unable to keep the irritation out of my voice.

  Inhaling and exhaling, she tries again.

  Perfect shot.

  There’s a moment of silence between us. It’s weighty, loaded with conflict — I’m trapped in a fight between the woman who holds my heart and the club that holds my soul.

  “Thank you,” she says.

  “I still care about you, Maria. Even if you think I’m being an ass, I’m doing it because I give a damn.”

  We work shot after shot that evening, until the light fails us and our stomachs go from grumbling to roaring like famished tigers. There’s an urgency about her. The cans get shot to pieces, and those pieces get shot to atoms. I almost feel sorry for the rancher: more than a couple of his fenceposts get blasted to pieces in the process.

  When the light’s dead, I call a stop.

  “You can only get so good in a day. Let’s call it a night,” I say, hoping tonight’s work has been enough to cool the fire inside her.

  She gives gives me a look, and it’s only reluctantly that she puts the gun down. I love her tenacity. I love her fire. If only I weren’t teaching her how to hang around in a situation she definitely should not be in. If only she weren’t the obstacle between me and the man who threatens my club.

  Sighing, she looks over what little bit of her handiwork is visible in the dim light. “Come on, let’s go back to our hotel,” she says, with a subtle note of heat in her voice.

  Our hotel.

  She slips her hand in mind, tightens her grip, and leads me towards her rental car. Thoughts about conflict and loyalty fade. I smile.

  Our hotel.

  I like the sound of that.

  Chapter Eleven

  Maria

  My stomach growls audibly as we step into the spacious lobby of the Hilton and the smells of grilling meats wafts from the hotel restaurant. Ozzy grins at me and I give him a look.

  It’s still strange seeing him in regular clothes. Granted, they’re riding clothes — he’s still wearing a leather jacket, he’s still carrying a motorcycle helmet in his left hand — but he wears the outfit well.

  His shirt fits just right, clinging to his body enough that it’s obvious he’s sporting a six-pack underneath. His jeans aren’t baggy, they’re cut perfectly tight to show off his nice butt and it is firm and grabbable. I love the sight of him in his cut — he always looks great in it — but now I know he looks just as good out of it. The man continues to surprise me. Beyond his looks, I know I wouldn’t be holding up as well as I am without his support. Much less even be alive.

  Maybe, when this is all over, this’ll be more than a fling in some small Montana town. Assuming it ends well. Which is hard to picture at the moment.

  “We probably should grab a bite, shouldn’t we?” Ozzy says, looking towards the lobby restaurant and bar.

  “Or a drink, at least. I fucking need something to take the edge off.”

  “Let me treat you, then,” he says.

  I check my cell for the time, then shake my head.

  We’ve still got an hour.

  “No need. Follow me.”

  He raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t say anything. I lead him through the lobby to the elevators, swipe my key card, and hit the button for the top floor.

  “Executive club?” he says, looking at the button I just hit. “What the hell is that? I’m not an executive.”

  “Just trust me,” I say.

  The elevator opens and I take him down the hallway.

  At the end of the hall, there’s a set of doors with a sign over them saying ‘Executive Club’. I take him inside, give my room number to the well-dressed woman seated at the desk right by the entrance, and then lead Ozzy into the club.

  “Holy shit, are we allowed to be here?” he says, voice hushed.

  “Come on,” I laugh and lead him forward by the hand.

  It’s a decent sized lounge. Dimly lit, filled with booths and lined wall-to-wall with windows looking out over the Clark Fork River and the Montana mountains. In front of us are several buffet tables, lined canapes of all kinds — bruschettas and sushi rolls and tiny plates with sliders and finger sandwiches. But food is the last thing on my mind right now. I want to see his face when I show him the best part of a real executive club: the bar.

  I pull him forward to a small area set a bit back in the lounge, where an older man with his dark hair lazily swept back and with a salt-and-pepper goatee, stands behind the small, polished-wood bar.

  “What’ll you have this evening?” he says. He’s got a nice voice. It’s deep, and tinged with a vague East Coast accent. He’s definitely not from around here. Which I like, because ‘around here’ has only provided me with some of the worst experiences of my life.

  “A Manhattan, please,” I say.

  “And you, sir?” he says, looking at Ozzy.

  “I’ll just have a beer, mate,” he says. “Whatever’s cheapest.”

  “Cheapest? You don’t need to worry about that. What kind would you like?”

  “You mean I get choices?” Ozzy says, eyes widening.

  “Of course,” the bartender answers. He reaches into a small fridge under the bar and pulls out seven different bottles. “These three — the porter, the IPA, and the blonde – are from Kettlehouse Brewing, they’re located just down the street. These others — the wit, the stout, the double IPA, and the red ale — are also local. We also have a few other beers on tap.”

  The bartender gestures towards a set of three taps against the back wall.

  “Fuck, that’s a lot of beer,” Ozzy says, awed. “What do you recommend?”

  The bartender hands over the Kettlehouse Porter. “The hotel manager’s a friend of the owner of Kettlehouse, which is why we have so many of their beers. But this one is my favorite. It’s smooth, malty, but with a good hoppy backbone. Try it out.”

  Ozzy pops the top, takes a drink, and looks like he’s just won the lottery. “I reckon I like this place.”

  “Yeah, it’s not so bad,” I say, then I take him by the hand again and start to lead him back towards the food.

  “Don’t we have to pay?”

  “It’s free.”

  “Are you fucking with me? Fre
e drinks? Free food?”

  I shake my head. “I’m not fucking with you. It’s free. Some nicer hotels have these clubs where they do a kind of ‘Happy Hour’ and, if you pay enough or have the right kind of membership with the hotel, for a few hours each night you can drink and eat for free.”

  “In addition to the free breakfast?”

  “In addition to free breakfast. Now, come on, let’s go get a seat.”

  “Fuck, maybe I should’ve been a lawyer.”

  I smile. It’s cute how this is like opening up a whole new world to him. I like that I get to share something like this with Ozzy and expose him to a tiny bit of luxury. It’s the least I can do for him saving my life the other night.

  There’s this gleam in his eye as he looks around the lounge — at the food, the beer in his hand, at the nice decorations and the dim lighting and the view out the windows — like he’s seeing it all for the first time. It’s adorable.

  Under his breath, I swear I hear him say ‘fuck me’ in this awed, hushed voice.

  We settle in, plates of food and our drinks on the table in front of us. We relax in our quiet little booth with a wonderfully scenic view. The stress of the day melts from my shoulders and I sigh. Content, for a moment.

  My arms and shoulders ache from shooting, but it’s a good kind of hurt. It’s satisfying. I feel a bit more prepared for the sheer fuckery that’s waiting for me with this case.

  The first part of our meal passes by quickly and quietly — I’m much more famished than I realized and, after the first bite sets off enough roaring in my stomach to put a pride of lions to shame, both Ozzy and I spend a good ten minutes just eating, drinking, and enjoying each other’s silent company.

  It’s wonderful. I feel at ease around him though there’s so much craziness going on in life. He’s this solid man-mountain of calm and support I can hold on to.

  And then, he goes and ruins it all. Plate clean and second beer in hand, he gives me a serious look and I feel I the pit of my stomach that our evening is about to change.