by Jessie Cooke
“Detective Meeks?”
“No, fucking Father Meeks.”
“I’m not sure what you’re so defensive about, sir. But, if you do mean Detective Meeks, he’s head of the Gang Task Force...” Wolf raised an eyebrow at the nervous-looking detective. Obviously flustered, the cop said, “This is an attempted murder investigation and I caught this case, so I’m who you’ll have to talk to if you want to figure out who the dead man is and maybe who he was working for and why he shot you, so if there was anyone else involved they can be brought to justice. My partner is interviewing your friend...”
The sound of Wolf’s booming laughter bounced off the walls at the same time Jacob “The Lion” Wright walked into the room. Jacob looked from the detective, who looked like he’d rather be any place else, to the big, hairy man in the bed. When Wolf’s laughter calmed down Jacob said, “I was worried about you, but it sounds like you’re having a blast.”
“The detective here was entertaining me,” Wolf said. “Where the fuck are your bodyguards?”
“One of them is laid up in a hospital bed. If you wanted a vacation, man, all you had to do was ask.”
“Excuse me,” the cop said. “Are you...?” Jacob waited, and the cop finally stuttered out, “Are you the champ?”
Wolf laughed again. Jacob kept his composure and held out his hand. “Jacob Wright.”
The detective’s nervous, uncomfortable expression turned into one of absolute adoration. He smiled brightly as he shook Jacob’s big hand and said, “This is an incredible honor. I’m Detective Davidson. I saw one of your first fights in Vegas when I was just a kid.” Jacob cocked an eyebrow and he hurriedly said, “Not that I’m saying you’ve been around a long time...or you’re old...by kid, I meant teenager, late teens. I’m not that old. It wasn’t that long ago.”
Jacob finally let out the laugh that he looked like he’d been holding in. “It’s cool,” he said. “So, you have any leads on who shot my number one bodyguard?”
The detective looked surprised and then, moving his eyes from Wolf back to Jacob, he said, “The shooter is dead, but I was trying to get more information when you came in, Mr. Wright, and yet Mr. Lee is reluctant to speak freely with me.”
Wolf chuckled and told Jacob, “I should bare my soul to a pre-adolescent in a cheap, polyester suit.”
Jacob shook his head at Wolf and then looked at the detective and said, “Can I talk to him alone for a few minutes?” The detective looked like he was going to say no, but that hero-worship look was still in his eyes as he stared up at Jacob and finally he said:
“Sure, but I only have a few minutes. I’ll be right outside.”
“Better hurry, Jake, he’s gotta go find Jimmy Hoffa when he leaves here.” Wolf laughed at his own joke as the detective left the room. Once he was gone Jacob closed the door and again shook his head.
“Why are you being so obstinate? The guy is just here to help you.”
“Shit, cops don’t want to help us. Me especially. There’s only two of them bastards I trust and that’s Dax Marshall’s brother-in-law David and Detective Meeks...and trust or not, Meeks would fry my ass the second he got the chance. These assholes are just looking for a way into my clubhouse.”
“So you’re just gonna let this go? The shooter is dead and that’s that?”
“Fuck no! I’m not saying that.”
Jacob crossed his beefy arms and his dark eyebrow went up again. “You wouldn’t be saying that you’re going to investigate this yourself, are you?”
“Why the fuck not? The son of a bitch not only shot me, but he shot me while I was with my old lady. The little bitch is lucky to be dead, and if someone hired him to take a shot at me, I want to know who that is. And speaking of my old lady, I was told she was okay but why isn’t she here? Is someone lying to me?” Wolf had been in and out of it most of the morning. He might have already asked that question, but he couldn’t remember what the answer was.
Jake laughed. “Calm down. She is okay. I saw her before I came here.”
“Why isn’t she here? I had surgery, for fuck’s sake!”
“She’s as pissed about not being here as you. Your sergeant-at-arms wouldn’t let her leave the clubhouse. He’s got it on lockdown, no one coming or going. He’s got his hands full with your little Colombian spitfire, that’s for sure.”
Wolf smiled at the thought of Amara giving them hell, but he did feel better knowing that Bruf had locked things down. The only one he’d spoken to from the club was his VP Manson, and all Manson had told him was that Amara was okay, and the police were there all night interviewing everyone, especially Bruf. “Good. I hope this shit didn’t scare off the Southies.”
Dax Marshall hated when Wolf called the Southside Skulls “Southies.” That was a term usually reserved for someone native of the Southside of Boston, but Dax didn’t think of his club as “ordinary” citizens. Wolf liked Dax, but he also found him slightly arrogant and he didn’t mind knocking him down a peg or two when he could, and that’s why he called them “Southies.” It was just to piss him off. Their alliance was new, and the Westside Skulls had a large stake in cementing it further, but a little “sibling” rivalry never hurt anyone as far as Wolf was concerned. Not that he didn’t take it seriously. They were thousands of miles apart but could make this alliance well worth all of their while if it was done right. When Wolf’s dad was president of the Westside, he had no interest in allying with their Southern brothers. But Wolf was savvier than his dad and he could see that he wasn’t going to be able to take his own club any higher if he wasn’t willing to open his mind, and his borders. Wolf was footing the bill for the handful of Skulls from Boston to stay in California while this was all going on, and that put in him a bad mood too, but he was trying hard to stay positive.
“I doubt it,” Jake said. “They don’t seem like the types that scare easily. Gunner is supposed to meet me at the gym around noon, so I’ll let him know how you’re doing.” Jacob Wright was in California from Las Vegas to train Gunner, Dax Marshall’s half-brother. Gunner was a semi-pro fighter, but he had entered into a tournament in Vegas that would take place in a few months and pit him against some of the best UFC fighters in the business. The grand prize was an antique Harley Davidson that had once belonged to one of the Skulls...a guy named Ryder, who had sold it to pay off debt owed by his old lady’s mother to a loan shark.
Jacob was a three-time heavyweight champion who had retired from fighting but continued to train other fighters. Jake didn’t look like a guy who needed a bodyguard, and in a one on one fight, or even one on two or three, he probably never would. But thanks to his fame, and maybe partially thanks to the fact that even before he became wealthy in his own right, his father was a wealthy man, he not only had to contend with paparazzi and hordes of loyal fans everywhere he went...but he also got hundreds of letters and emails a day from people that crossed the line between fan and stalker, and forced him to take armed guards with him wherever he went. Jake had left his bodyguard company in Vegas behind to watch over his wife, Cassie, and their two children, and Wolf had met him at the airport in Fresno...and had been with him ever since. That was until he got shot.
“Manson put someone else on you, right?” As president of the club, Wolf would normally assign someone to do a job like this one. But Jacob Wright was in California because Wolf had contacted a friend of his out of Vegas, when Dax Marshall came to him inquiring about trainers for his brother. It was then that Wolf realized the two clubs needed each other. But even while that was his main interest in all of this right now, he owed it to his friend, and Jacob, to make sure the business of keeping him safe was done right.
“Yep, quiet guy named Smoke.”
Wolf chuckled. Besides his sergeant-at-arms, Bruf, Smoke was probably the brother he trusted most in the club to watch his own back, so he felt confident with him watching Jacob’s. “Anybody tell you why they call him Smoke?”
Jacob grinned. “I wasn’t sure I wanted
to know.”
Wolf smiled. Jake was probably better off not knowing. There was no danger that Smoke would tell him. The guy spoke about five words a day and rarely were they about himself. If you got ten words in a row out of him, he was in a hell of a good mood. Smoke earned his name before he joined up with the Westside Skulls. He was a weapons specialist in Army Special Ops and none of them might ever have known how he got his name if one of the Southside Skulls, Garrett, hadn’t known him personally while they were both in. Garrett said that Smoke was the guy they’d send in to take out entire enemy platoons...the ones that hid deep inside caves and high up on top of mountains. They never saw him coming or going...and like a magician, all that was ever left in his wake was a cloud of smoke.
“Well, you’re in good hands.”
Jake looked at the time and said, “Is there anything you need before I head out?”
“I need the fuck out of here. I need my old lady. I need my bike...”
Jake smiled. “I was thinking more along the lines of Jello, chicken broth...”
“Fuck that,” Wolf said. “I’m having steak for dinner tonight and falling asleep with my woman’s arms and legs wrapped around me.”
“Good luck with that,” Jake told him with a grin.
“You go get that little blue-eyed Puerto Rican Gunner ready to kick some ass, and let me handle these doctors.” Wolf held up his closed fist and Jake bumped it with his own. “Hand me that phone there before you go.” Jake gave him the phone and once he was gone Wolf dialed a number. As soon as it was answered he said, “Bruf, the cops give you any shit?” Bruf was his sergeant-at-arms, and the one who had taken out the man that tried to kill him.
“You know cops,” he said. At that moment the adolescent detective decided to step back into the room. Wolf rolled his eyes and said:
“Yeah, unfortunately I do. You good?”
“I’m good. They didn’t take me in, just took my statement here. Took my gun. Kinda pisses me off, but I’ll live.”
“I will too, because of you and that gun. Thanks, brother.”
“Just doing my job.”
“Any idea who the dead fuck was?”
“Had nothing on him so we’ll have to wait for the cops to ID him. I’m sorry, Boss, I’ve been wracking my brains all night, talking to all the guys. Nobody’s got any beef with us that we know of, and everybody likes you, even the cops.” Wolf chuckled at that. He did have the uncanny ability to make friends with just about everyone, even the unlikely ones. He looked at the detective at his bedside and told Bruf:
“Not all of them, but this one’s balls haven’t dropped yet so I think we can take him off the list.” The little detective narrowed his eyes at Wolf. The big biker chuckled. He was sure if he yelled “boo” too loudly, the little guy might piss his pants. “Amara’s okay?” he asked, resuming his conversation with Bruf.
“She’s healthy but pissed that I won’t let her come and see you. That girl of yours has definitely got the Colombian temper. But sorry, boss, I gotta make sure she’s safe.”
“No need to apologize to me. Good luck with her, though. You’re right, she’s a polecat when she don’t get her way.”
Bruf laughed. “Yes, sir,” was all he said. Wolf knew his woman could be a pain in the ass and it only made him appreciate his brothers even more that they put up with her. Her fire was part of what turned him on. He’d never met anyone like her, and every time he thought about how easily he could have lost her the day before, his heart rate sped up and he had to talk himself down.
“I’ll be out of here soon, tell her that, will you?” Wolf planned on being home by nightfall with or without the doctor’s okay. He needed Amara, a smoke, and a shot of whiskey.
“You got it.” He thanked Bruf again before ending the call and then looked at the detective and said:
“You got a smoke?”
3
“Maybe...” Manson, the VP, stopped there. The governing board of the Westside Skulls had been in a meeting for over an hour and it was going nowhere. No one had any ideas who would want to kill Wolf or why. Frustrated and still in a hell of a lot of pain, he was about to call it.
“Maybe what, Manson?”
Manson was short, compact, and sported a long, gray beard. He was the kind of guy that could go completely unnoticed in a crowd...if not for his eyes. His irises were green, encircled by gold, and his pupils were almost nonexistent. They were the weirdest thing that Wolf had ever seen, and they made him look crazy...kind of like Charles Manson...and thus the name.
“Nah, boss, it was stupid.”
“We’re here to throw out ideas,” Wolf said. “Toss it out there.”
“Well, we’re all having trouble coming up with a reason why anyone would want to kill you. The club is doing great, the few enemies we have aren’t the kind to hire a gun to do their work...”
“What makes you think this guy was a hired gun?”
“Did you see him?” Manson asked.
“I was too busy bleeding to get a good look,” Wolf said.
Manson cocked an eyebrow and cleared his throat before going on. “Sorry. The thing is, this guy was dressed in some pretty expensive-looking duds. He looked like the kind of guy that got regular manicures and facials...you know?”
Wolf laughed. “No, Manson, I’m afraid I don’t know...tell us about it.”
“Forget it,” Manson said, narrowing his crazy green eyes. Manson was adopted when he was three years old by a couple that had more money than they knew what to do with. He told Wolf once that he never felt like he fit in there, and the more they tried to mold him into what they expected him to be, the more he rebelled. By the time he was sixteen he was hanging out at the club learning how to work on motorcycles. His adoptive parents tried to keep him away, but he’d finally found a place where he fitted, and the only way Manson was leaving the MC was in a pine box. Once Wolf found out where he came from, however, he liked to give him shit about it from time to time.
He laughed again. “I’m sorry, man. My shoulder and chest hurt like a motherfucker and my woman is waiting for me at the house, and I’m here with you fuckers, so forgive me if I’m in a mood. Now, quit being a big-ass pussy and just say what’s on your mind.” It had taken Wolf hours to get out of the hospital. He had to fight with the nurses and doctors, who then called security, and finally the police. The fact that the cops greeted him by name and were willing to laugh and joke with him about leaving in a hospital gown with his ass hanging out only pissed off the hospital staff. Finally, he was given a pair of jeans that were so tight they squeezed his balls, and a shirt that looked like something a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader might wear, and he found Bruf waiting for him out front in the club van with the motor running.
When he got home it took him over an hour to calm his woman down. She made him take off his bandages so she could see and kiss his wounds, and then she tried to get him to fuck her, promising to do all the work. When he told her he had to meet with the club first, the tears started again, and then the Colombian rage. He was exhausted before he even called the meeting to order. He knew Manson...all of his brothers, as a matter of fact...meant well. They were just jumping up and down on the last raw nerve he had, and he wasn’t going to be able to keep his cool much longer.
“Well, I was thinking...what if it wasn’t you that Pretty Boy was gunning for?”
“Who the fuck else...? No fucking way. There’s not a man on this earth that would want to kill my old lady, and even if he did, he’d have to know he’d be wise to kill himself before he even tried.”
“I knew you wouldn’t like it, boss...but her father, he’s got enemies.”
Wolf didn’t like it, but he couldn’t deny that Manson was right about her father. The old gangster was an asshole and he owed everyone money, from the drug lords in Colombia to the cartels in Mexico. But killing Amara wouldn’t get them their money, and if it was the Colombians or the cartels, they would have hired a gun who got off one shot fro
m a hundred yards away and disappeared without a trace. Whoever the guy was that busted into the bedroom of the president of an MC club, while two hundred yards away the rest of the bikers and an entire other club sat waiting for him, that guy was not a fucking professional hit man. The bottom line was, Wolf didn’t want to believe anyone wanted to hurt Amara. Believing that she could have been hurt by someone gunning for him was almost too much to bear.
“It’s a good theory,” he told Manson, because it was, and his VP deserved credit. “But no, I don’t see it. If this was about her father, the hit would have been deadly, and the assassin would have been a ghost. The old man doesn’t play with amateurs, and high class or not, this bitch was an amateur.” The guys around the table all nodded. Manson gave him a nod of concession too. Wolf might have considered that Amara’s old man was the one that ordered the hit himself, if his daughter hadn’t been in the room when it happened. The old gangster disliked Wolf from day one and the feeling was mutual...but the one thing they did have in common was their deep love for Amara. Neither of them would raise a finger to hurt her, ever. “I think our best bet is going to be waiting to find out who this bozo with the gun was and go from there.” They all nodded again. Wolf finally closed the meeting just as Toby, one of the prospects that Bruf had taken under his wing, rushed in. He practically ran over to Bruf and put his mouth to the other man’s ear. Wolf watched as Bruf’s facial expression went from curious to serious before he jumped up and followed Toby out the door.
“What do you think that was about?” Manson asked him. Wolf growled. His head was beginning to pound and if he didn’t get a pain pill in him soon he thought his chest might explode.
“I wish I didn’t have to fucking find out,” he said as they both stood up. They waited for the room to clear out before leaving, and almost as soon as he stepped out into the hallway Toby was in his face.
