Biker B*tch

by ANDIE J. CHRISTOPHER

  “I need to be with someone who cares about what I want.”

  “C’mon, Ging, we both got what we wanted.”

  She sniffed again and got up and walked into her kitchenette. She lived above the tattoo parlor she owned, so it didn’t take long. She poured herself a cup of coffee and held up the carafe to him.

  “Sure.” He sat down at the bar and took the cup of coffee. He kind of needed the caffeine before he left. “Where’s my bike?”

  “Outside. I made Chevy bring it out before you woke up.”

  “Thank you. I’m really sorry.”

  She took a sip and smiled at him over the edge of her cup. “Yes, you are. Am I a bad person because I sort of love this? You getting a taste of your own medicine.”

  Now that he knew what it felt like to really connect, he felt like a shit for how callus he’d been with her. “Nah. I was a shit for stringing you along for two years.”

  “Don’t worry about it. It’s over.”

  “Yeah.”

  They sat in silence for about a half cup until she spoke again. “You’re going to try to get her back, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah.”

  She shook her head. “She doesn’t want you. Not really.”

  She might as well have punched him. “I should come back to you?”

  “No. I’m done playing second fiddle. And that’s what I was playing all along. To her. Which kills me because she’s a stuck-up bitch who wouldn’t even know what to do with the badassness in your pinky finger.”

  He was sure she put a little extra wiggle in her step as she moved to put her cup in the dishwasher. And he wasn’t moved. Ginger was wrong. Skyler knew what to do with all of him, but whether she wanted anything to do with him ever again remained to be seen. “I don’t know if she’ll take me back.”

  “Probably not if you go at her with the full-court press. You’re both stubborn as fuck. You push and she’ll push back. If you hang back, let her come to you, she’ll come around sniffing at what’s wrong.”

  “You’re probably right.” He wondered if the wound would ever heal.

  “I know I’m right. Get out of my fucking house.”

  23

  Four days after the Sinners’ party, Michael showed up at the trailer. She opened the door but stared at him and the greasy bag of pastry he held out to her, befuddled that he thought croissants could fix this.

  Not dumb enough to turn down apology pastry, even if it wasn’t enough, she grabbed the bag so fast that a corner of the white paper stayed in Michael’s hand. She opened it, stuck most of one pain au chocolat in her mouth, and chewed. She gestured for him to enter, and then she flopped back down on her bed.

  He sat at the table. “I’m a shit. I know.”

  Once she swallowed, she said, “You know you aren’t. You did a shitty thing. Have you ever thought about why you do shitty things to people you care about?”

  “The only person I care about is you.”

  “That’s a lie. You cared about Kevin. And then you fucked around on him. You couldn’t fuck around on me, so you decided to nail my ex?”

  “I didn’t decide anything. But you’d been spending so much time with Trav—”

  “Don’t make excuses.” This wasn’t the first time Michael had tried to get her attention through shitty behavior.

  He dropped his head on the small table and sighed; his breath made condensation on the metal surface. She grabbed another pastry from the bag and waited for him to talk again.

  “I don’t know why I do the messed-up shit I do. I don’t know.”

  “Maybe you need to talk to someone and deal with it.”

  “You know I don’t do therapists.”

  “I’m not talking about someone terrible like that pastor who thought he could make you straight. I’m talking like a guy who wears sweaters with patches on the elbows and smokes a pipe. Or better yet, a woman.”

  “You mean someone I won’t try to seduce?”

  Skyler touched her finger to her nose and chewed thoughtfully. She forgave him. Why wouldn’t she? She didn’t care about Ian anymore. She only wanted Travis now. Thinking about him made her heart hurt; the pain spread through her whole body just like it had every time she’d thought of him over the last four days.

  “So, Ian deserved it, huh?”

  “He’s a scumbag. In his defense, he was higher than I was.” The fact that Ian had been high on coke would have offended Travis, given what he and the Sinners did.

  She shot her friend a meaningful look. “If what he put me through didn’t already make him a scumbag in your book, then I have nothing for you.”

  “I’m going to have to grovel so much, aren’t I?”

  “You don’t even know. I’m going to put you to work since I’ve been in bed for almost a week.”

  “I thought you wanted to build something new, tear this thing down.” Michael looked at the old barn. “We can pay to get rid of it.”

  “As much as I don’t like to look at this building, I have to face it.”

  She opened the door, expecting to smell must. What she saw was much worse than old rags and dusty bottles—or even the tools and bike frames that would remind her of Travis.

  The old barn was filled with beakers, tubes, and chemicals she immediately recognized as the components of methamphetamine. Organic chemistry had really stuck.

  “Motherfucker.”

  “I take it this isn’t your winemaking stuff?”

  “Um, no. This is a whole lot of biker shit.”

  “We should call Travis. Or maybe the cops. How about them?”

  “No. Not an option. I’m not even sure if Travis is answering my calls. And the cops would probably think I set this up myself.”

  “Okay, fine. No cops. But if you don’t call Travis, I w—”

  “No, you won’t.” She wanted him back, and showing him the meth lab on her property wasn’t going to get him to want her again. It would just be more drama. “I’m not saddling Travis with this. This is not your area of expertise, Michael.”

  “It hasn’t been your area for a long time.”

  “Fucking Roy. I’m going to kill him.”

  “He’s definitely fired.”

  “Yeah.” She didn’t know how she was going to get the Diablos Santos’ meth operation off her property without calling Travis or getting Roy and his son killed. She knew her father’s old club was behind this—they had to be.

  And should wouldn’t put Travis in danger by bringing this to him. He’d run too hard and too far from his brother’s life to get stuck back into this shit. He’d do it, but she refused to make him.

  “Fuck my life.”

  “Do we know for sure this is what it looks like?” Michael offered.

  “I got an ‘A’ in organic chemistry.”

  “You got an ‘A’ in everything.”

  “True, which means that I should be able to figure this shit out. On my own.” Motors fired in the distance. “We should get the hell out of here in case they’re coming to set up their lab.”

  “I still think you should call Travis.” They walked out of the barn into the late morning sun.

  “I know that, but I just can’t put him at risk like that.” Travis had beat the shit out of a prominent real estate developer, albeit her ex, because he’d looked at her wrong. And hurt her best friend. He would burn the whole fucking town to ash if he knew the Diablos Santos had built a meth lab on her land. In their place. Her eyes filled with tears, and she blinked. “Fuck these motherfuckers.”

  “I second that.”

  She was glad to find her case of wine right where she’d put it. Whoever built this meth lab must not have seen it or known what was in there. But, after the morning’s revelations, she wasn’t ready to crack a bottle open and see if she had something special yet.

  They walked back toward the main winery through the vineyards. Michael carried the case of wine. Almost full summer, the vibrant green leaves on the vine moved gently in
the breeze. She needed to be near her grapes. Being with plants would help her think this through. Michael understood without her having to tell him. That was why they were friends.

  “Does your dad still have contacts in the gang?”

  The question startled her. How did her dad’s contacts in the gang have anything to do with getting her out of this mess? The Diablos could very well pin the meth lab on her. Unfortunately, a number of organic chemistry classes and labs meant she certainly knew enough about manufacturing meth to build a lab. And her family connections would make it believable.

  “Would he see you?”

  “The number of times he’s called me in the past month would indicate yes.”

  “He’s been calling you?”

  Her stomach sank. The only person who knew about her father contacting her was Debbie, and she’d wanted to keep it that way. “Yeah.”

  But he had a point. If her dad still had power with his old MC, he might be able to get them to move without anyone being the wiser. But she’d have to be in the same room with him. He might ask her a favor. It might just get her in deeper, but it was so crazy that she had to try.

  To get free from the Diablos Santos, and to be good enough for Travis, she had to ask her father to help. She had to strip off all the pride she’d used to protect herself and sink down low enough to beg a felon to help her.

  “I think you know what you have to do.”

  Skyler rolled her eyes, but she knew her best friend spoke the truth.

  24

  Skyler reconsidered her plan when the first inmate sucked in his breath and hissed it out in her general direction. She didn’t know why she was surprised. Chino wasn’t for guys who’d committed petty crimes.

  I wonder if he’s a murderer or a rapist. She shivered with fear. I hope this doesn’t take long.

  The Department of Corrections website told her not to wear jeans or revealing clothing. Her coveralls were out—too much like a prison jumpsuit. So, she wore a loose-fitting turtleneck and wide-legged pants along with shit-kicking boots.

  “Rioja!” The guy who hissed really wanted her attention. Maybe she should have worn a wig.

  From the moment she passed through the chain link gates and entered the concrete walls of the prison, her entire midsection seized and rolled.

  She was so preoccupied with the thought of seeing him that she almost walked past her father. Even though he was almost sixty, Jacob Clark wasn’t the stooped, old man she’d imagined he’d be…not by a long shot. He wasn’t frail, but he was wiry and grizzled. He had more tattoos. Poorly done.

  He wore the standard prison orange. That shocked her more than any signs of his age. When the state police had picked him up for murder, he’d been dressed for work: pressed khakis, a button-up shirt, and an argyle sweater vest.

  The police had taken his cut and his other “gang paraphernalia.” She’d later learned that all the patches that she used to run her fingers over meant his club was part of the “1%” of motorcycle clubs that didn’t feel bound to follow the laws of society. They made their own laws; ones which allowed them to sell drugs and guns and kill anyone who stood in the way. The things that had ultimately taken her father away.

  He still had the same dead look behind his eyes—the one he’d had ever since her mother died. He stood up as she approached the table.

  “You look the same.” He smiled, and he was almost the father she remembered. She had to hold back on the urge to hug him; she couldn’t remember if that was allowed. And she was surprised that she even wanted to. Instead, she sat at the long, stainless steel table in one of the chairs bolted to the floor.

  “You finally look like a criminal.”

  His eyes narrowed as he assessed her. He’d always looked at her like that when he’d taken the time to notice she’d done something wrong. she wanted to snarl at him, but she knew that wouldn’t get her what she wanted.

  “How’s the winery thing going?”

  “Hasn’t Roy been filling you in?”

  Jacob hit the table, and she jumped. She looked around for a guard. One was only about ten feet away and met her gaze with understanding. “You think I’m not going to look after you from the inside? You took that from me when you ran off, but you’re mine, baby girl. You think I’m not going to use friends on the outside to make you safe?”

  Fear pulled at her, and she almost lost the courage to do what she had come here to do. She wanted to tell him that he’d failed at keeping her safe long before he went to prison, that she had Travis for that now. But, fact was, she didn’t have Travis. She wouldn’t be here if she did.

  “That’s actually why I came here. We need to talk about some of your friends outside.”

  “I don’t know shit about Travis if that’s what you’re going to ask. He’s a damn pussy. Nothing like his brother.”

  Her fear was displaced by something fierce in her throat that wanted to strike out at the man who’d robbed her of a childhood. Only her feelings for Travis made her stop the angry words that wanted out.

  “I’m not here about Travis.”

  “Just want to catch up, huh? I never thought I’d see you again the way you’ve been dodging my calls. You didn’t even send a thank you note when I sent you the wine.”

  “No. Tell me what you know about Deacon. I need any specific details you have about the club’s drug operation.”

  “What the hell do you need that for?” His face softened, like he was actually concerned for her. Knowing him, he was probably just worried about any blowback that might fall on his head. “You need it for the pansy-assed boy you’re seeing?”

  “No. I need it for me.” She wasn’t about to correct him and tell him how not-pansy-assed Travis could be. That wouldn’t get her anywhere. Her father didn’t respect the laws of civil society. He’d gone from first do no harm to an eye for an eye in the moment his wife slipped away from cancer. He would never understand that the reason she respected Travis was that he’d do anything to protect her. That he only used his fists to send a message when it was to protect someone else.

  “I need you to flex whatever muscle you have left in the club to get the Diablos’s meth lab off my land. “

  If her father didn’t give her anything to go on, she wasn’t sure what her Plan B was. She needed to get rid of the meth lab in her barn—without Travis’s help. He had to know she could take care of business, and she wasn’t afraid to be with him. She could protect herself.

  Jacob sat back as far as he could in the flimsy, plastic chair. He put his hands on the tops of his thighs and puffed his chest. He wasn’t her father; he was a man deciding whether he could twist a situation to his advantage. They stared each other down. She was probably imagining it, but the visitors’ room seemed to hush when neither of them gave an inch.

  The chair made a snapping noise when he leaned forward suddenly. “You’re more my daughter than you think.”

  “I know, Daddy. But I’m not going to get anyone killed.”

  25

  “It’s good, isn’t it?” Skyler looked expectantly at her friend. She’d opened up her case from France, and invited Michael over to try it. The weight of everything hanging between them this week wasn’t going anywhere, but he could at least tell her if the wine she’d made in Burgundy was any good. She needed it to be so good she would get a spot in the Barlow over Ian’s objections. It didn’t just have to be good; it had to be perfect.

  She needed it to be perfect so she could accept the fact that Travis hadn’t called in the past couple of weeks. He wasn’t getting over her walking out, and he was well and truly done with her.

  The fact that it was her father who’d somehow had it shipped to her couldn’t get in the way. Her pride had to step back for once. Talking to her father made her realize he might be a bad man, but some of the good in him lived in her, and so did some of the bad. All that sat with her like bad oysters.

  Michael swirled the wine in his glass again—pretentious dickbag.
The wine had opened up; she’d decanted it a couple of hours ago, before he’d arrived. Even though he’d apologized and they’d made up, finding a meth lab on his property had dampened their reunion. Maybe if she could get some people to taste her wine and get the rest of it back from the chateau, she could buy the winery and get him out from under any business with her father’s club.

  She knew he was freaked out by what they’d found in the barn. A meth lab operating on property owned by a subsidiary wasn’t going to do anything good for the IPO his tech company planned to launch in the next couple of months.

  But she’d put things in motion to rid them of that problem by going to visit her father. She shivered thinking of the visit, and Michael looked over at her with a raised eyebrow as he sipped . The skepticism etched in his forehead smoothed out when the flavor hit his palate. She grabbed her glass and took a large sip. As it settled over her tongue and the flavors bloomed, any concern over the quality of what she’d bottled three years ago, before the debacle with the guy from Berrys evaporated.

  This wine wasn’t just her audition for a spot at the Barlow; it was her coming out. Everyone who tasted this was going to know she’d come home for the business, not the family business.

  Unless she was kidding herself. Michael still hadn’t said a word. Maybe her tongue was playing tricks on her. That was an unwelcome change from the tricks Travis’s tongue liked to play. She pushed that thought right the hell out of her mind. She didn’t need to be thinking of him at all. Despite the fact that she wanted him back, he hadn’t called her once. He was probably already dating someone else. Probably Ginger again.

  She took another sip. Still perfect. Michael stared at her, slack-jawed for a moment longer, until his mouth curved into the shit-eating grin she knew and loathed.

  “What is it?” She’d choke him out if he didn’t say something soon.

  “You did it, sweetheart.” He took another swig and swished it around his mouth.