by Violet Blaze
“Stop trying to change the subject.” I rest an arm across my bent knee and lean back, studying Lyric's small, curvy frame, the pretty picture she makes against the white and black bedspread behind her. The tank top she's wearing strains across her full breasts, and those tight black leggings leave nothing to the imagination. “What did they do to you? You can at least tell me that, can't you?”
She sighs again and makes a frustrated noise in the back of her throat.
“I don't know how this whole … outlaw motorcycle thing works … and after today, I'm not sure I want to.” That last part comes out in a whisper, and my chest gets tight. No. No. Absolutely not. I will not lose the first woman I've ever really been interested in. Fuck that.
“Did they rape you?”
“No!” she exclaims, looking back at me with wide eyes and a gaping mouth. “If that'd happened, do you think I'd be sitting here so calmly? Jesus fuck. No, no, no. Of course not.” Another sigh, a loose gesture at her body. “This is it, three slices and a haircut … plus that ruined bra.” Lyric bites her lower lip and turns her gaze absently towards a pile on the floor near the bathroom. Before she can stop me, I lean over and grab a pale purple dress shirt spattered with blood. Underneath that, there's a pink lacy bra with a hole in the left cup.
I squeeze the lingerie in a tight fist and close my eyes.
“How the hell did Mug manage such a cock-up?”
“To be fair, he had a pretty girl in his face,” Lyric says and then cringes, like she's already said too much. I narrow my eyes as I remember Mug mentioning a groupie by name … Suddenly, the colors of the painting start to swirl together into a picture. A hideous, ugly fucking picture. “Look, I … I get the whole not snitching thing, and I think … well, I thought it was my job to carry this and deal with it or something, like an initiation into the women's world of the club, but … screw that.”
I raise my eyebrows at her.
“Fuck that,” Lyric yells, tossing her wine back and shaking the uneven strands of her hair out. “Ugh. This quiet, needless suffering, I've tried it for all of five seconds and I hate it. Hate it.” She locks gazes with me, that wild fire in her eyes turning my cock to stone. I want to stand up, lift her shirt over her head and slowly unwind that bandage from her midsection, kiss her wounds away, slide my cock into her moist heat until the sudden burst of fear I felt earlier goes away. “Look, if I tell you who did it, will you promise not to take action?”
I snort.
“Fuck that,” I start, but Lyric's looking at me with this resolute gaze that I know I could never break. Shit. “I can't do that, Pint-Size. I just … I can't.” She sighs and drops her eyes to the floor, running her hands back over her newly cut hair with a grimace.
“How does it look?” she asks with a sad smile as I study her face, the matching cuts on either cheek.
Hmm.
Groupie. Ruined bra. Cut hair. Perfect, surgical slices on the face. On the belly.
I don't mean to sound sexist or anything because I bloody know that I'm not, but when I start to connect the dots, an idea comes to mind. A man trying to rough Lyric up—either for my benefit or his—would probably beat her senseless, tear her clothes, maybe … I can't go there. But he wouldn't cut her fucking hair off like that, mar that gorgeous face with even, matching cuts.
A woman did this.
“Mia,” I say and Lyric startles like she's been slapped.
“What?”
I stand up, taking the ruined bra with me as Lyric follows down the hall behind me. I don't need her to confirm; her face says everything.
“Royal, wait.”
I pause as Lyric's warm hands touch the tight muscles of my back, a sharp breath rushing into my lungs that I didn't know I needed. I turn suddenly, dropping the pink lace to the floor as I take her elbows in my hands and pull her against my chest.
“Don't,” she grinds out between clenched teeth. “Look, I might not be an expert on MC life, but what I am an expert on is politics. This was a strategic move on Mia's part. If I run to you, demanding punishment, then I show the entire club that you're more on my side than theirs.”
I stare back at Lyric, trying to puzzle through the swarm of thoughts in my addled brain.
“Mia isn't part of the club,” I respond, as calmly as I can. “She's a daft fucking cow that just made the biggest mistake of her life.”
“Don't say sexist things,” Lyric tells me, trying to smile. Doesn't work. She's upset about all this, for so many reasons. I knew trying to make things work with her was going to be devilishly hard, maybe even impossible, but I don't need this crap coming right out of the gate. “Mia might not wear a patch or sit on a motorcycle—although maybe she should because she's one tough bitch—but she is a part of the life. She's friends with that Glinda woman,” a frown fills Lyric's pretty face, “and she's somebody your friends know. Me, I'm just the mayor's daughter that you met last week, that's seen too much, that's sleeping with their president.”
“Pint-Size,” I start, but she's shaking her head at me again, looking up through those fourteen inches between our heights with a strong, steady gaze.
“This is politics, Royal. Mia wins either way. One way, the club starts to resent me … maybe even questions your judgment. The second way, she gets a free pass at beating me up. At least that way, I know I can work this to my advantage.” There's a long pause as I slide my fingers down her forearms. “Look, we have enough to worry about without having to deal with this, too. Let it go, okay?”
I grit my teeth, rage filling me when I think of Mia wielding a knife on Lyric. God. That incenses the hell out of me, but … Lyric is looking me straight in the face and asking me to trust her. I have to do that, especially when she says we, because that's what's most important to me right now, having a we, an us. Having Lyric.
“I'm still going to beat the shit out of Mug, that arsemonger.”
“He is a terrible guard, I'll give you that,” she admits, our gazes locked, our breathing evening into one, single beat. “Just … sit with me for a while first?”
I nod, letting Lyric pull me down the hall and into her bedroom.
Neither of us leaves that room until the sun comes up the next morning.
Mug rubs at his eye with the heel of his hand, sending a look my way that's part fear, part shame. Good. That motherfucker's just lucky I had all night with Lyric to calm myself down. If I'd gotten a hold of him the night before, well let's just say a black eye would be only the start of his troubles.
“Lyric's okay?” Glacier asks from his seat to my left and one spot over. Smoky sits in the space between us while Dober sits with his spine stiff on my right, tapping his fingertips against the tabletop. His eyes search my face as he waits for an explanation. I won't betray Lyric's wishes and dish out the punishment that Mia deserves, but I have to tell my brothers the truth about what happened.
“Mia and the girls,” I start, lighting up a cigarette and taking a long, deep drag. My lungs fill with silver smoke that I hold tight for several seconds before releasing it. “As far as I can tell,” I continue, casting a narrow eyed glance in Mug's direction, “it was Ruby, Lexa, and Marnie following Mia while Terra provided a distraction for Mug.” I gesture with my chin in the road captain's direction. For one of my officers to drop the ball so badly … Jesus fuck, that man is lucky we're at war right now. “They cut Lyric up real good.” I draw a line across my cheek and then take my fag between my fingers and extract it from my lips. “Across the face, the belly, chopped off her hair.”
Dober raises his bushy brows while Glacier sucks in a sharp inhale of breath.
“Jesus. They ganged your girlfriend in broad daylight?”
“Right outside the mayor's office,” I say through gritted teeth, flicking my ashes into the silver tray and staring right into Mug's green eyes as the others turn and glance in his direction. “In view of the security cameras, too, I'm told. If there was anything that could put us in hot water with the city,
it'd be Pretty and Pint-Size getting her ass kicked in the parking lot. I hate to repeat myself, but we need the city on our side right now. With the FBI in town and Mile Wide on our asses, after our shipments, the last thing we need is bad publicity.”
I park my smoke back between my lips and survey my officers—Jack, Mick, Glacier, Smoky, Mug, and Dober. I've called them all into the chapel for a little chat before church, sitting down in the high backed chair left for me by the previous president. It's a bloody gorgeous chair, but ostentatious as hell. I glance down the massive table at the six men, three on either side, dressed in their cuts and patches, smoke curling from ashtrays, the scents of coffee and tobacco mixing together in a pleasant, familiar warmth.
“What do you wanna do about it?” Glacier asks, getting this big scary, shark smile that freaks me the hell out. The man scares the shit out of me sometimes, like some demented boy band lead dipped in tattoos and piercings, injected with a healthy dose of crazy and bloodlust. “That's our core group of leather lovers right there. If we kick 'em all out, this'll be one sad empty clubhouse.”
“We're not going to do a damn thing,” I say, feeling the heat of Smoky's stare on the side of my head. For once though, Dober agrees with me.
“If we punish the Omegas,” he says, using the nickname for the club groupies that I've never liked, “then it'll just piss everyone off—especially the other women. It's best to let them work this shit out on their own. As long as Lyric isn't hurt and no charges are pressed, we should act like it never happened.” He casts a long, lingering look in my direction, the harsh expression on his face framed by the wood paneling on the wall behind him, the red wallpaper above it. “Can your …” He pauses and I know exactly what he's doing, trying to decide what to call Lyric. “Girlfriend handle herself?”
I grit my teeth against the lack of respect, determined to take care of that at the barbecue this weekend. I'm going to make sure everybody knows how serious I am about having Lyric as my old lady.
“Sure thing, mate,” I say as I stub my cig out in the ashtray and light a new one from the pack by my elbow. “She'll have the other girls eating out of her hand by the end of the week.” Big grin flashed in Dober's direction. He doesn't like Lyric, but so what? He'll get used to her. I'll make sure he gets used to her. “Now, next order of business.” I lift my chin at Glacier, looking like he usually does, like a walking, talking dichotomy with his black T-shirt, his cut with the word Enforcer over the front pocket, and his gleaming head of angelic blond hair. “Did you ask our friend about his patches?”
“I did,” Glacier says, a pleased note in his voice, an edge of untamed violence that he must not have been able to work off last night. Our guy must've broke pretty easily. My enforcer taps his black painted fingernails on the table, a testament to his reputation in this club. Where any other man would've been teased mercilessly for the nail polish, nobody spoke a damn word about it to Saint. “And he sang like a canary. He got paid to join the club.”
I raise my brows at that one. Joining an MC isn't a job; it's a privilege.
“He got paid?” I ask, and feel my stomach tighten with nerves. If these guys, these thugs that Clayton Moore doesn't give a shite about are being paid, that means he's got money, and if he's got money … “How the fuck can Mile Wide afford to pay an army?” I ask, thinking of the men we killed the day Lyric was kidnapped. There had to be at least ten of them, not to mention the two we just took down at Kailey's house.
“Dude didn't know,” Glacier says, lifting his icy blue eyes up to the soaring rafters in the ceiling. This place used to be some kind of family oriented cookhouse in the fifties before the club bought it to start the California chapter of the Alpha Wolves. It was the sort of place where people crowded around long tables like the one we're sitting at now and shared heaping bowls of salad, mashed potatoes, platters of sliced roast. “And, considering his eagerness to chat, I believe him.” Glacier drops his gaze with a tight smile. “Said he was getting five hundred bucks a week plus a bike. Not exactly Wall Street wages, but pretty fucking impressive for some brainless idiot with a felony record. The guy told me he served time for raping some teenage girls. Nice to know Clayton's keeping good company, yeah?”
That knot in my stomach becomes an angry pulse as nausea overtakes me. Rapists for hire. Bloody brilliant.
“Fuck,” I curse as I scrub my fingers through my hair and take a drag on my smoke. Shoulda grabbed a cuppa on my way in here. I stand up. Can't very well tell the boys that I'm hankering for a cup of strong Earl Grey tea, now can I? “I need to think for a minute. I'm gonna get some coffee,” I say, scooting my chair out and moving down the aisle, my booted footfalls loud against the hardwood floors.
Hired goons equals money. Twelve guys, five hundred bucks a week, that's six grand for seven days of work. And the bikes? I try to think of what the guys were riding, but my mind's drawing a blank.
“Morning Royal,” Fauna says as I appear in the kitchen and pause next to the coffeemaker, glancing over at Jack's old lady with raised brows. She sounds … intrigued, like she's waiting to gauge my reaction. If Fauna was in on that attack on Lyric, I start, but then I can't reconcile that in my mind. Fauna's warm and maternal, the caretaker of this compound, the life of the party behind the bar. I decide her raised brows and tightly pursed red lips must be about something else. “No Lyric this morning?”
“She had to work,” I say, studying my brother's wife as she fiddles with a glass pan covered in foil. “Why? Miss her already?” Fauna sighs and shakes her head, her blond hair lifted up in a high pony, her makeup flawless and sharp, her leather pants, boots and halter promising that it's not really ten in the morning.
I turn back to the coffeemaker, pour myself a cup in one of the black Alpha Wolves mugs that Janae had made for the clubhouse.
“She's still working at the mayor's office then?” she asks, all casual like. I add two of the fancy sugar cubes that Fauna keeps stocked back here and turn to look at her over my shoulder. She's peeling back the foil on the pan and reaching for the door of the oven, face pinched and tight. “Does she plan on staying there long term?”
I see.
That's what this is about.
“Mia and the girls jumped Lyric yesterday,” I say casually, waiting for a reaction. Luckily, I get it. Fauna lets the oven door slam and turns to look at me with her lips slightly parted. “They cut her up, sliced off her hair. You know anything about that?”
There's a brief moment where she looks confused and then something clicks into place.
“Musta been Glinda,” she murmurs, but then realizes I'm still standing there and stiffens up, eyes wide as she tries to figure out what I'm aiming for. “What are you gonna do?” she asks me, and I shrug.
“I'm gonna let my old lady take care of her own business,” I say, and then turn and leave the room before she can get a word in edgewise.
For the first time in forever, I skip out on Thursday brunch with the Rentzes. This week, it's to go containers at the hospital with Sully. As exciting as that sounds, I can't see my family or go into the office with my hair jagged and uneven. Instead, I hit the salon first thing, pretending I don't notice the hairdresser's questioning facial expression as she shapes my brunette waves into an asymmetrical bob and then flat irons it. By the time she's done, I've got a gleaming chocolate power bitch cut that I love, and that I know the women at the Alpha Wolves Compound are going to hate.
Oh well, I think as I stare at my pale face in the mirror. This'll just force me to stop plastering my hair back into those stupid tidy buns.
This haircut that I'm wearing, it means business.
My next stop, Sephora, where I persuade the beauty consultant to cover up the cuts on my face by buying a hundred bucks in cosmetics and watching the magic happen. It's doubtful I'll be able to replicate the quick and confident brushstrokes of the model-esque girl at the store, but at least I have some tips to take home with me.
I park in my usual s
pot at the office, Royal's guy tailing me there and parking outside the lot against the curb where Mug was yesterday. This new guy is a … prospect, I guess. Some dude who wants to be a part of the club but hasn't earned the right yet; that's how it was described to me. Personally, I hope this one's not as easily distracted by cleavage and a pretty face as Mug was.
A quick check of my cheeks in the rearview, and I sigh. They're not invisible, no, but they're faded enough that most people probably won't notice. Most people meaning everyone but Kailey. I'll just have to try and avoid her, I think as I climb from the car … and notice an unfamiliar navy blue Impala two spots over.
A shiver travels down my spine.
I know everybody that works in this office—and the cars they drive. While it's possible one of the employees ponied up for a new vehicle yesterday, it's doubtful. And we don't get a lot of unexpected visitors down at the mayor's office.
Is the FBI here already? I wonder as I stand up and brush my hands down the sharp creases of my black slacks. I'm paranoid; I'm being paranoid. But somehow, it doesn't feel like that. This feels … urgent. Last night, I was so distracted by the fight—and Royal—to remember to call Sully. When I checked my messages this morning, he'd left several telling me to call him, along with a couple of texts. But when I called his cell back, he didn't answer. If that really is the FBI in there, I need to talk to my brother first.
I sigh and reach up to pat at the freshly cut ends of my A-line bob, sucking in a deep breath that smells like the floral perfume the woman at Sephora spritzed me with. I can do this, I think as I dial up my brother again and finally get an answer.
“Lyric,” he says, sounding groggy and pissed, like I've woken him from a nap or something. I should be mad at Royal for putting my brother in the hospital, but … it's his own damn fault. What kind of dumbass shakes down an outlaw motorcycle club? I mean, seriously? “You finally decided to get back to me.”
