by Hazel Parker
Richard went very quiet. I heard some shuffling in the background as if he had just stepped outside. The tension was very real, and I knew what I had just said crossed a ton of lines, even if it never followed through. It was something said not just in the heat of the moment, but the fires of the moment. Jenna was pushing on me, and the California Saints were pushing on Richard.
But none of that came to mind as I waited for him to speak. I just felt unbridled rage.
“Let me make one thing very clear to you, Dom,” he said. “What you are threatening is the kind of thing that most clubs would kill people for if the vote fails. I’ve prided the Savage Saints on being above some of that petty nonsense. It’s why Mama is a member and not just a bunny of the club, and she’s a fucking damn good member. But if you go through with this vote, there will be consequences. And I don’t mean the kind of consequences where Pork voluntarily leaves and we bring him back after discussion.”
I bit my lip. Maybe I was going too far. Maybe I was making a very dangerous claim.
Or maybe, just maybe, I actually did have the club’s best interests in mind, and what I was saying and doing with Richard was necessary.
“Think very hard about what you’re doing.”
Before I could get another word in, Richard had hung up.
“Motherfucker,” I growled as I started to toss my phone.
But then, slowly getting control of myself, I just weakly tossed it to the other end of the couch, slumping down and putting my hands on my face.
How the fuck was it that the person who had been the most forthright with me in the past couple of days was the girl responsible for the death of my fiancée? How was it that Richard could be pulling the same shit he’d pulled with Pork that led to that whole drama? I knew my emotions were preventing me from thinking clearly, but I didn’t need perfect clarity to realize that what was going on was some bullshit.
I had no idea who I could trust right now. It was a fucked-up world when Jenna Saunders was a more reliable source than Richard Peters.
Chapter 6: Jenna
I didn’t know what else I could say to Dom or anyone else in the club.
Mama didn’t trust me. Dom hated me and would actively push me away at any moment. No one else in the club seemed high enough up or, well, available enough to talk to. If Chief Gutierrez couldn’t meet up with Richard any longer, then our link to the club was pretty much shot.
I supposed a better cop than I would have just brushed it off, said something about how no deal with the devil is a good deal, and moved on to their other cases and duties for the day. At the very least, a cop with a clearer head could have done that.
I sat at my desk, my hands on my temples, rubbing desperately, trying to inspire some confidence. It was eight in the evening. Chief Gutierrez had already gone home for the night, this time without a private meeting. Almost everyone else in the building had also gone home. As a single woman in her late twenties without a significant other, it wasn’t hard to see how I’d been given the bad time shifts. Other officers joked about how it was Vegas, there was no such thing as an “off” shift, but I didn’t believe that for one single second.
At least my shift was coming to an end soon.
Or maybe “even worse” was more appropriate, seeing as how I wouldn’t have anything to distract me from thoughts of the craziness of the day.
Either way, when my shift finally did come to a close, I stood with a sigh, locking my computer before heading to the locker room to change. I wore the same clothes that I’d put on when I’d gone to Panorama Towers earlier in the day—a red tank top, white pants, and flats. I liked the look, but I didn’t like what the look reminded me of.
A man who was unreachable, a man who didn’t understand everything that had happened, and a man who refused to understand everything that had happened.
I grabbed my Glock, tucked it into my pants, and headed out the door for what should have been a normal night at home, watching Netflix until I passed out around midnight.
Instead, someone was waiting for me.
They remained in the shadows. By their figure…
“Dom?”
But if it was Dom, he didn’t answer. I kept my hand near my pistol, not yet drawing it, but ready to pull on a moment’s instant in self-defense. The man—Dom, almost certainly—barely moved. He had his arms crossed, his right foot crossed over his left, and barely moved otherwise.
“Move your hand from your gun.”
Dom.
“Get on the bike.”
“I’m sorry?” I said.
I had actually moved my hand from my gun, but it hovered right back. If this was some sort of demand, then Dom was making a hell of a move by doing it in front of the cameras.
“I said, get on the bike.”
“For what?”
“To talk. It’s what you wanted, right?”
He knew I understood what he meant. He wasn’t talking about Richard, although that was probably part of it.
“I’ll follow you in a private car and meet you somewhere public,” I said.
“You want to talk to me?” he said slowly. “Then get on the bike.”
Goddamnit. He knows I have to talk to him, and he knows he can pull this shit.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Somewhere safe,” he said. “Last chance. Get on the bike.”
Goddamnit. This is so fucking stupid. Don’t you dare lose that gun.
I walked over, looked at Dom square in the eye, felt some sort of fire burning in my stomach I didn’t want to acknowledge as possibly being butterflies, and lifted my left leg over.
“Swear to God, if I fall—”
But Dom didn’t let me finish the sentence. He started the engine, and I had to hurry to wrap my arms around his torso. Fuck, he felt good. But fuck, how dare he pull that shit, barely giving me the chance to make myself stable on his bike.
I’d been on a bike many times before. I’d driven one for the LVPD, in fact. All of the sensations I knew from riding a bike—including some pleasurable ones that I’d learned I just had to accept or, worst case, rise to avoid—were present here.
But the one that I had not experienced in some time was the one of having my arms wrapped around someone as fit as Dom. Most of the guys I’d ridden a bike with were out of shape or older, and holding on had merely been a safety measure rather than something that made the heart flutter and beat with excitement. Dom, though…
It’s just the thrill of being on the bike with a Savage Saint. You know as a cop this looks dubious. But it’s that very thrill that makes your heart beat.
It’s nothing more. Don’t get yourself confused. Don’t believe what you think it actually is, Jenna.
Even if… even if that’s probably not the case.
The drive was quite short; we only went one exit down the highway before we got to Sahara Avenue. I had a strong suspicion that was quickly confirmed when Dom took me to The Red Door. He parked his bike at the rear and walked toward the door without waiting for me. I nervously anticipated bumping into Walker again, wondering if he’d recognize me without my officer’s uniform on.
But just before he would have gotten to the front and seen Walker, Dom instead climbed a ladder to the roof. I got to the ladder myself, put one hand on, wondering if I should follow him, before deciding Dom hadn’t pulled this off just to leave me down. I climbed quickly and found him on the far end of the building, legs dangling over the edge, looking at the Las Vegas Strip.
“Tell me everything you know,” he said.
“About what?”
“The club.”
This is what Mario wanted you to do. So do it.
“Well, much of it I got to you at Panorama earlier, but I guess I’ll tell it to you again,” I said. “The politics in Las Vegas are starting to shift against The Red Door and the Savage Saints, likely because of the reputation that’s developing with you and the Degenerate Sinners.”
“The Sinne
rs are dead.”
“I know, but, Dom, that doesn’t matter to them.”
The truth never matters to them. They only care about what makes for a good story or what fulfills their image of themselves.
“The public perception in both the media and in local politics is that motorcycle clubs cause more harm than good, so there’s a push to continue to remove them, much as, supposedly, we’ve already removed the Degenerate Sinners.”
Dom gave a sarcastic chuckle and a shake of his head. He threw his hands up in the air.
“I know, I know,” I said, unsure what I could say to placate him. “Chief Gutierrez, or Mario as you all probably refer to him as, has tried to get in touch with Richard about this. I’m not sure what all we can do to reverse this, but you would figure two people of importance would know at some point. But he’s been in California so much, so—”
“How do you know all of this?” Dom asked. “Mario is the only person we ever bring into the club. He said he’d keep things secret from the rest of his office. Doesn’t seem to be the case now.”
“Well, like I said, Mario’s tried to reach Richard, but that hasn’t worked. Also, the mayor and council are watching Mario a lot more closely than before. They’ve got his schedule down to the second. They know everything he’s doing and when he’s doing it. If he takes lunch at Capriotti’s instead of at In-n-Out, people start wondering what’s going on.”
“This is so stupid,” Dom said.
I didn’t think he meant it to disparage me for once, though, so I let the comment go. Lord knows he was under a lot of stress.
“I can’t believe that you’re the person I’m trusting more than Richard right now. How the fuck did that happen?”
I let the question go before he repeated it to me.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t wish what you’re going through upon you, but—”
“That’s a rich thing to say.”
I couldn’t let that one go.
“Dom, I know why you hate me, but you know that’s not the whole story, right?’
His body language went very still. His eyes cast straight ahead. He made no effort to look at me or turn to me.
“I know my fingerprints were on that gun, but you know that—”
“I know that you were never charged,” Dom said.
We both went silent. I held my breath as I waited for Dom to say more. I couldn’t imagine what was going through Dom’s head—there seemed to be some serious cognitive dissonance where he must have wanted to believe I killed Jenna while also logically acknowledging that I was exonerated of the crime.
“But I also know that no one was ever charged,” he finally said. It was like seeing the weight on his shoulders increase in real time. “Someone has to fucking pay, Jenna. Explain to me how that works. Explain to me how someone could get murdered in the middle of the street in a Las Vegas neighborhood, and no one knows who did it.”
“You know that’s why I got into the police, right?” I said. “That case haunts me, too.”
Dom snickered, but I was serious. The moment when the cops had labeled me a person of interest because my gun—with my fingerprints—was the one used, had left me shook. I was convinced I was going to go to jail for a crime I didn’t commit because the real killer had been smart to use gloves.
Thankfully, when I calmed down, I was able to prove through eyewitness testimony that I was in the house and could not have killed her, but that had been a scary week in which I feared I was going to get dragged in handcuffs to the local prison.
“You know, I could get the files—”
“I have them already,” Dom said.
But you won’t look at them. You would know why they never charged anyone, then. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be taking it out on me.
I hadn’t looked at the case files either, but that was because as soon as they had declared me innocent, I didn’t care at all what else happened. I mean, that wasn’t entirely true; it stung me that a woman was murdered at the very party I’d attended with a gun I owned, and that kind of thing never quite left you. But I didn’t care how the case proceeded, so long as someone was brought to justice.
Then, when no one was, I was just selfishly relieved that I lived.
It was only a few years after when I finally wanted to atone for what had happened and got into the academy. But I still had not looked into the case. It was too haunting for me.
“Look, it doesn’t matter,” Dom said, which seemed like a lie, but not one that I wanted to fight. “We beat the Sinners, and that makes this town much safer. But that doesn’t bring back all the people they killed or remove all the trouble they caused. I’d love to see whoever Danica’s real killer is brought in, but it won’t bring her back.”
He dropped his head. He looked so vulnerable and so weak. The maternal side in me wanted to hug him, squeeze him, and hold him until he felt better. But that would have been very inappropriate based on the conversation, to say nothing of me being a cop and him being a biker.
“So, all we can do in the interim is work to make this city better and provide good business to people who want to see our shows. And, in my case, that means overseeing the club while Richard is gone, doing God knows what.”
His words were marred by grief and shame; of that, there could be no doubt. But there was also a real leader who had risen out of the tragedy with Danica, and it was someone that impressed me. He saw what needed to be done, saw what could not be changed, and worked to affect what change he could. Maybe I was overselling him, and maybe the emotions of the moment were blinding me a bit, but he seemed like a real leader.
Sometimes a little too loose of a leader, too much of a playboy and partier, but he could seem like an honest guy.
“And with Richard doing whatever he was doing…”
He laughed.
“What?”
“I talked to him earlier today; I don’t even know why I’m telling you this but fuck it. I talked to him earlier today. Sounds like shit with the outside Savage Saints is getting nasty. Everyone’s playing nice right now, but tensions are building for sure. At some point, it’s going to spill over, and when that happens…”
“You think it’ll get violent?”
“Violence has already been threatened,” he said ominously.
That was the last thing this city needed. There was no easier way to guarantee the city council and the mayor got to pass legislation effectively getting rid of the Savage Saints than to have more violence break out. It was like gifting the win to them.
“You have to make sure this takes place outside of Las Vegas,” I warned. “If you can, outside of Nevada. If you don’t, they’ll get you guys kicked out forever.”
“So we’ll just give them a few free passes to The Red Door,” Dom cracked. “People have a way of doing things our way when they get in The Red Door.”
“Except when they’re up for reelection.”
I could see from Dom’s body reaction he knew I was right.
“No one will be in a position to take whatever you’re offering if they’re not in office,” I said. “And unfortunately, they feel like they need to make statements about being tough on crime and tough on you guys if they’re going to get anywhere.”
“Fuck.”
Dom looked heavily worn down. Between Richard, Danica, and this new thing, he probably had as much weight on him as he’d ever had. And I couldn’t imagine that, on the heels of the Sinners’ defeat, he expected this to turn out as he had.
“Let me take you back,” he said. “We’ve spoken long enough.”
And just like that, the conversation was over. The weight had become too much.
Even guys as affable as Dom, it seemed, had a breaking point.
Chapter 7: Dom
“Just one request.”
God, what else are you going to throw my way, Jenna? What else are you going to give me?
“Drop me off at the Costco next door,” she said. “I don’t
want to be seen getting dropped off by you in front of the police station.”
“Fine,” I grumbled.
I just wanted her gone.
I wanted all of this gone. I wanted Richard’s dalliance with the other Saints gone. I wanted the memories of Danica gone. I wanted the stress gone.
Fuck… I didn’t know what I wanted in its place other than some peace, pussy, and quiet, but it sure wasn’t this.
I hurried down the ladder and got on my bike without waiting for her. I let the bike move forward to her and waited for her to wrap her arms around.
She was so petite, and yet, underneath that red top lay the hint of a body that many a man would fantasize over. I had to admit, without our past, I probably would have tapped that multiple times before I moved on to avoid connection. But I couldn’t help but feel…
Well, something. Her arms around me certainly produced something, but I definitely wouldn’t call it arousal. I just wouldn’t call it disgust as much as I had anticipated.
Stop thinking and start driving.
I revved the bike into full gear, charging ahead toward Sahara Avenue. I avoided the highway this time, preferring to take the back roads of Rancho Drive and Shadow Lane before I eventually reached the Costco in question. I went to the furthest side of the parking and let her get off. I looked over at her in anticipation of her saying something else.
And when I saw her… I didn’t see Danica’s face. But I saw the face of someone who was, well, pretty.
It wasn’t because she physically looked good, although that much was obvious. No, no… it was because she was a woman who actually wanted to help me. Besides Mama, I didn’t have anyone like that.
My relationship with the opposite sex was pretty much just that—sex. Great sex, frequent sex, a variety of sex, but just sex. Cindy wasn’t someone who was going to help me with, say, my taxes; Stephanie wasn’t someone who was going to help me go grocery shopping; and, say, Tara wasn’t someone who was going to sit down and have long conversations with me. Only Mama could do that, and Mama, though she was objectively attractive, was about the furthest thing from arousing to me.
