The Devil's Silver (The Road Devils MC Book 2)

by Marysol James

  “Really good. He struggled hard there for a while, but he isn’t a man who has the first clue how to quit. He’s a stubborn cuss and he hates when a life challenge even thinks about beating him. It pisses him off something fierce.”

  “Ain’t that the truth,” the huge guy said. “He’s one of life’s warriors.”

  “And you know that because you are too, right?” Zoe teased him, and Jo blinked as the man’s hard, rugged face broke into a beaming smile. He was, actually, staggeringly handsome – all alpha grace and foreboding fire – and Jo relaxed around him now. After all, Wolf Connor was one of the most intimidating people she’d ever spoken to, and he’d shown himself time and again to be trustworthy, kind, generous. Her few days with The Road Devils had already made Jo re-evaluate assumptions made based on appearance.

  “You know it, sugar,” he growled and then turned his attention to Jo. “Hi. I’m King.”

  You sure as hell are. Oh my and dear Lord above.

  “Hi,” Jo squeaked as those intense gray eyes saw her whole; it was like the man had x-rays in his face and Jo knew that exactly zero got past him. As she took his hand, she felt something cool and hard and she glanced down to see that King had numerous thick, heavy silver rings. Idly and briefly, she wondered if they doubled as knuckle-dusters, decided that she didn’t really want to know. “I’m Jo.”

  Hands were shaken all around, but Aidan looked like he was ready to burst with excitement. After introductions had been properly made, he blurted out, “Zee’s engaged!”

  “Shut the hell up,” Mac said, clearly delighted. “Joining the world of the married, huh?”

  “What can I say?” Zoe rejoined. “You guys can all hack it just fine, so I figure it’s doable.”

  “Aw, well,” Mac said. “We got lucky and it’s all down to the ladies, you know. Being married to Mirrie is the easiest damn thing that I’ve ever done in my life. No chore and no hassle, and some days I still wake up amazed that she said yes.”

  “And actually went through with it,” Jax said wryly. “Showed up in the dress and everything.”

  “Said ‘I do’ like she meant it,” Aidan chimed in. “I don’t think she had a gun pointed at her head…”

  “Stuck around for the party after,” King added. “Went on the Caribbean honeymoon, too, and not alone or with the pool boy.”

  “Hah!” Mac huffed in mock irritation. “Like you guys aren’t stunned at your women marrying all of you, too. Sarah and Naomi and Gabi are better than all of us and we know it, so don’t raze me. Idiots.”

  “Nothing but truth coming out of your big, smart mouth,” Jax said. “Well, Zee, my place doesn’t run to champagne but because of Sarah’s love of Cosmopolitans, we now stock up on cranberry and lime juice and other such shit. You and Jo feel like a pink fruity drink to celebrate your engagement? On the house and congrats, sweetheart.”

  “What do you think?” Zoe asked Jo. “I know you’re a Margarita girl…”

  “Oh, no,” Jo said quickly. “I love Cosmopolitans. Haven’t had one in ages, and I think it’s high time to rectify that sad situation.”

  “Yep, all the beautiful women love ‘em,” Aidan said with a wink and bang on cue, Jo blushed at this golden sunset of a man complimenting her looks. “I’m a bartender, so I know what the hell I’m talking about. Years and years of hands-on market research does not lie.”

  Zoe rolled her eyes. “The charm offensive is in overdrive, huh?”

  “It don’t go at any other speed, darlin’,” Aidan drawled and Jo laughed again, totally charmed by the charmer and unwound from worry now. “Now, sit your cute little butts down and lemme work my magic.”

  “Dazzle us,” Zoe said as she slid into a booth. “I think you can handle that, handsome?”

  “In my sleep,” Aidan called over his broad shoulder, then he caught Jax’s glare. “I’m going back to work, boss, I’m going. See? Watch me go.”

  “Never stops talking,” King commented dryly. “Never ever.”

  “Talking of talking, I should actually make a few phone calls,” Jax said, looking at his watch. “If you’ll excuse me, ladies.”

  “And me,” King said. “I promised to pick up some sushi for Naomi for dinner, so I’d better head out. She flies to New York tomorrow, so it’s going to be an early night for her and I want to spend some quality time with my jet-setting wife.”

  “You off too, Mac?” Zoe asked. “Or will you join us for a pink drink?”

  “I’ve got to get going in about ten minutes but I’ll join you two babes in a heartbeat, babe. I have to say though, that if you give me a pink drink, you’ll see nothing but my dust.”

  “So that’s how to get rid of you,” Zoe observed. “Who knew it was so easy?”

  “Hush up there, missy,” Mac said as he drank some beer. “Or I’ll call my wife and have her come down and tell you two off.”

  “You know that Mirrie will just have a pink drink and join in tormenting you,” Zoe said. “Your wife can hand you your ass in a millisecond, MacIntyre.”

  “Are you serious?” Mac said incredulous. “She can do it faster than that.”

  “Truer words have never been spoken,” King said grinning. “The woman is a legend.”

  “Hey, guys, is Jax the owner?” Jo asked, watching Jax walk across the room greeting customers and talking to staff. “This is his bar?”

  “Yep,” King said, shrugging on a leather jacket that by some miracle fit over his shoulders. “Curves is all his. He bought it free and clear, and he’s sole proprietor.”

  “Wow.” Jo looked around, mentally doing some math. “He’s quite the businessman.”

  “Oh, honey,” Mac said. “You have no idea. The man is a genius, no matter what the hell he looks or sounds like.”

  “She probably has a better idea than any of us,” Zoe interjected. “She’s the new accountant for the MC and according to Wolf, she’s the best they’ve ever had.”

  Mac and King both fixed their eyes on her and at their scrutiny, Jo blushed again. God, she had to get used to being around good-looking men, and having them look at her. Shy violet was an OK look for a while, but it wasn’t something that worked long-term and anyway, it wasn’t really her. Besides, she longed to be comfortable under a man’s gaze, to welcome and bask in the heat of a man’s appreciation like a cat stretching in the sun.

  “Is that right?” King said. “An accountant?”

  “Yes,” Jo said. “I’ve only been with the MC for three full days, but I’m learning fast. I mean, I hope I am.”

  “We’re dumping tons of financial info on the poor woman,” Zoe told Mac and King. “She spent four hours with Scars this morning and another five with me this afternoon. The least I felt I could do was bring her here to meet all you fine folk.”

  The men laughed and King shook Jo’s hand again.

  “Good to meet you,” he said gruffly. “I’m sure you’re going to manage just fine with Wolf and his boys. Their bark is worse than their bite.” He paused, deliberated as he recalled a few joint operations with Wolf, Scars and the club, all of which ended up with blood on the walls – literally. “Well… mostly.”

  “I’m learning fast,” Jo repeated quietly. “That includes about who I work for – their past and their present.”

  “Smart girl,” King said. “Stick with Wolf and Scars, and you won’t go wrong. They take care of their own, and that’s all you really need to believe.”

  Jo nodded. King gave a few waves across the room to people, then headed out the door, a mountain somehow in motion. Jo wondered what his story was, wondered if Zoe and Mac would tell her if she asked.

  “Two Cosmos!” Aidan said as he swooped back down on the table. “Drink up ladies ‘cause you got another three rounds coming, all on the house.”

  “We do?” Zoe asked. “Three more?”

 
“You do,” Mac said. “You get this one from Jax, then one from me, one from King and one from Aidan.”

  “Holy shit,” Zoe said. “We gotta work tomorrow, guys.”

  “Bah,” Aidan said with a dismissive shrug. “Work, shmerk. Enjoy tonight, be sorry tomorrow.”

  “Is that your life philosophy?” Zoe asked him, sipping her drink. “Party now, regrets later?”

  “Damn right, darlin’. Take what comes when it comes, live it fully, worry about later when later is now. And why not, right? Carpe diem and all that.”

  “Well, I’ll drink to that,” Jo said boldly, surprising herself at speaking up among this group of people who were clearly good friends. “To the now.”

  “To the now,” Zoe and Mac echoed, raising their drinks. Aidan gave Jo another one of those heart-stopping, glowing grins and she smiled back, starting to unfurl under his hot gaze. Yeah, he was taken and married and clearly happy to be so – but what the hell. This was the ‘now’, her ‘now’, and why not enjoy it? It wouldn’t be her ‘now’ tomorrow; maybe it wouldn’t be her ‘now’ ever again.

  They drank, then Aidan headed off back to the bar. Jo looked around again, more carefully, and saw that Zoe hadn’t been kidding when she’d said that Dangerous Curves was Bad Boy Central: it was positively teeming with dangerous biker types, though nobody was in a cut. She turned to Mac again, examined his long hair and laser-beam eyes, his tattoos and jeans and tight t-shirt.

  “Are you – are you in an MC too? You and King?” she asked, remembering how Silver hadn’t been wearing his club colors that night in Omaha. “Is that how you guys know Wolf and The Road Devils? And Zoe?”

  “Nah, babe.” Mac shook his head, settled back in the booth and Jo barely registered the endearment. Maybe inner progress was being made. “None of us are in a club. Never have been.”

  “No?” Jo found that hard to believe, with their ink and hard faces and general auras of ‘don’t fuck with me’. “Not even King?”

  “Nope.”

  “Ah.” Jo sipped her Cosmopolitan and thought that it might be her new favorite drink. “So how do you guys all know each other? Maybe from the tattoo parlor?”

  “That’s one connection, yeah,” Mac said. “Me and Jax have been for some ink since Zee has taken over, but we knew the club members before.”

  Zoe nodded.

  “The Road Devils drink in here a lot, have done for years,” Mac explained. “When they want a change of scene from Satan’s, they drop by. Wolf and Scars and the guys are regulars and so we all know ‘em from here that way. And King has… worked with them a bit occasionally.”

  “Worked?”

  “King runs a security group,” Zoe said. “Sometimes he’s needed a bit of extra muscle and he and Wolf go back a long time, so King’s asked the MC for help with some… tricky situations. They trust each other implicitly and they have each other’s backs without question and when shit is hitting the fan, that’s what you need to be able to count on.”

  It totally didn’t surprise Jo at all that King worked in some kind of security – he definitely had a black-ops or bodyguard vibe – or that in his job, he needed back-up muscle whilst shit went sideways. She didn’t doubt even slightly that King was involved in some rough, maybe shady, operations, and she decided to not pursue this line of questioning any further. Sometimes, it was better to simply not know.

  “And what do you do?” Jo asked Mac cautiously, hoping and praying that he didn’t say ‘muscle-on-speed-dial-when-needed’ or ‘professional gun-toting bad-ass’. “I mean – if I’m not being too nosy.”

  “Not being nosy at all,” he said cheerfully. “You’re making conversation and hell, I know what you do.”

  “True.”

  “I’m a doctor,” he said. “Private practice now.”

  Jo stared at this man who wouldn’t look out of place on a magazine cover or catwalk, tried to imagine him strolling around in a white coat and with a stethoscope dangling around his neck. She utterly failed. “A doctor?”

  “Yep.”

  “Mac is actually one of the top neurologists in the country,” Zoe said. “In crazy demand too, so he travels all over doing consultations on the hardest cases, the ones that hospitals can’t handle.”

  “A – a neurologist?”

  “Yep,” Mac said, finishing his beer. “Some days I can’t believe it, Jo. Life is weird, huh?”

  “It is,” she agreed fervently. “You never know what or who it’s going to throw at you, and in what capacity or for how long.”

  “Ain’t that the truth,” he said. “And just speaking of people who show up and stay: I need to get home to my wife. She’s up early to open her café every day, so her bedtime is in less than two hours.”

  The women nodded, watched as Mac got to his feet with a gorgeous combination of ferocious strength and gentle grace. It was that powerful and intoxicating mixture that Jo had noticed over and over again lately, in the men who surrounded her in her day-to-day life.

  It was becoming less of a surprise to witness it with each passing hour, and upon meeting each man, but Jo hoped that she never stopped noticing it, admiring it, appreciating it. She’d always assumed that alpha male types were brash, boorish and borderline abusive with their demands and commands, their expectations that every female on the planet was put there for their pleasure. It had genuinely never occurred to Jo that alpha men could be protective and loyal and proud – fiercely so, but still. She’d never considered anything positive about the personality, not until she’d set eyes on Wolf and Kansas that day of her interview.

  “Ladies,” Mac said now, tipping an imaginary hat. “You enjoy your evening – and Zee, I want a wedding invitation. Mirrie and I will be there with bells on, and that’s a damn promise.”

  Zoe laughed and again, Jo wistfully longed for her blonde-and-emerald beauty and sparkle. Zoe was beautiful simply because she was so unaware of her beauty – she was natural and casual and Jo wished that she could just be that unselfconscious. Just be.

  “It’s a deal, handsome,” Zoe said. “No date set yet, but you and the Curves men are on the list.”

  “Good. Jo, it’s been a real pleasure, hon. See you again?”

  “Oh, um,” Jo said, a bit flustered. “I guess… I mean, I can’t see myself ever coming here on my own, so if some of the MC guys show up for a drink, I’ll join them. If they invite me.”

  “Well, between Aidan and Jax, one of them is here pretty much every night, so you drop on by whenever you feel like it, even on your own. You’ll be very welcome.”

  Jo gazed down at her ugly beige blouse, absolutely resolved to get some goddamn plain t-shirts ASAP. Nobody at Curves had really sent any strange looks her way despite her being the only person in fussy office attire, that was true, but she was feeling more and more self-conscious and like a fish out of water. Zoe’s painted-on jeans and tummy-baring sky-blue shirt were perfect for work at the tattoo studio and a pink drink at a biker bar – and Jo’s frumpy wardrobe was perfect for exactly nothing except to be tossed into a fireplace.

  “Thanks, Mac,” she said softly. “I’ll remember that.”

  “Atta girl.” He put on his heavy black coat, nodded over at Aidan and made a circle in the air over the table to indicate another round. “Take care getting home. You came in a car?”

  “Taxi,” Zoe said, slurping up the last of her drink. “We aren’t fools. We knew how this was all going to end.”

  Jo giggled. “Yep.”

  “That’s what I like to hear. Home safe, now.”

  And then Jo and Zoe were alone in a bad-boy bar, with another three rounds of vodka-based pink drinks on their way.

  It was sure to be an interesting night.

  **

  Two hours later, Jo was squinting at Zoe as she returned from the bathroom, wondering how the other woman still looked a
mazing even all blurry. She tilted her head the other way, shut one eye (which she was convinced helped her see better) and was simultaneously impressed and depressed that Zoe carried right on looking amazing.

  Zoe sat with a thunk. “Goddamn. I’m gonna feel this when Keira is sitting on my head at five a.m.”

  Jo giggled, twirled her plastic straw in her mostly-empty fourth drink. “Keira is gorgeous. You’re so lucky to have her.”

  “Oh, I know.” Zoe absently drained her glass, looked a bit surprised that it was gone. “I mean, how she came to me was bad, of course, but I try not to think about it.”

  “How she came to you?” Jo repeated dimly. “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, right. You don’t know that Keira’s not mine.”

  “She’s not?”

  “Well, she is now, obviously,” Zoe amended her words. “She’s my baby girl as sure as if I’d given birth to her. But I didn’t.”

  “So… you adopted her?”

  “Ladies!” Out of nowhere, Aidan appeared with two more drinks. “This round’s on Curtis.”

  Both women looked up at him, trying hard to focus.

  “Curtis?” Zoe said, blinking rapidly. “He’s here? I didn’t see him.”

  “Hard to believe, seeing as the man is then size of a goddamn building,” Aidan said. “But yeah, he’s been here the whole time. Mostly in the back, keeping an eye on the bachelor party.”

  “Oh, yes,” Jo said. “I saw them when I went to the bathroom.” She paused, scrambled to recall the shouted conversation that she’d had an hour before. “I think they invited me to join them.”

  “They would,” Aidan said. “They’re asking every woman who wanders past, so Jax sent Curtis over to keep ‘em in line.”

  “That’d do it,” Zoe muttered. “He’s mega-scary.”

  “Scarier than King?” Jo asked, slurping the last of her Cosmo. “‘Cause I can’t imagine anyone scarier than King.”

  Zoe considered her question seriously. “Hmmmmm. OK, no. Not scarier than King, ‘cause King is his own brand of terrifying. Curtis is terrifying-esque. Terrifying lite. But still a damn beast.”