“Leave the cut,” he says.
Adrian straightens slowly, looking him in the eye. “Are you serious? You don’t want to be doing this, my friend. Trust me, you don’t mess with another man’s colors.”
That’s all he said. But it’s not what he said—it’s how he said it that had chills running down my spine. There was an underlying tone of anger in his voice, and in the hard glint in his eyes. I can’t be sure, but I get the distinct impression that Adrian is a lot more dangerous than Flynn—maybe even more dangerous than Jake. Steve must have caught it too, and out of the corner of my eye I see him tighten his grip on the gun.
“I think you should go…for now.” The soft note in Dahlia’s voice as she spoke to Adrian worries me. Just how far gone with this guy is she already?
I bite my lip to stop myself from telling her that for now had really better be for good, but it’s her diner after all, and I don’t have any say over who stays and who goes. Still, that doesn’t mean I should just stand quietly by and watch her make such an enormous mistake. I wouldn’t be a very good friend if I did.
Realizing his position, Adrian finally relents. He nods, then turns around and presses a quick kiss on Dahlia’s lips. She blushes crimson, but it isn’t her reaction I’m watching. It’s nothing short of a miracle that Steve didn’t blow Adrian’s head off right then and there. He’s gripping the gun so tight that his knuckles have turned white.
That kiss was obviously Adrian’s way of having the last word. That, and the glare at Steve when he lets himself out of the room. No one dares to move until we see the back door close, and as soon as we do, Steve and I round on Dahlia. We both try to gather our thoughts, but Dahlia interrupts our brief silence with words that make me see red.
“Was that really necessary?” she asks, giving us her best ‘I’m-your-boss-and-I’m-unhappy-with-you’ look.
It doesn’t work, though. I stare at her in disbelief, and Steve makes a sound at the back of his throat that has me do a double-take. It sounds like a growl. Some primal, deep-rooted rage that he must usually keep on a tight leash, and it was freaking me out.
Not Dahlia, however. She stares at Steve with those big green eyes of hers. “Will you please put that away?” she says, glancing at his weapon in open disgust. “You know I hate guns.”
“And yet you have no problem having sex with a guy who carries one,” I say. It was a cheap shot and I knew it, but I couldn’t help myself. I need her to see just how dangerous Adrian is. How dangerous they all are, including Flynn. Especially Flynn.
Anger flashes across Dahlia’s face, and I know then that she’s already in too deep. “Adrian isn’t the one who killed a man in my diner,” she snaps.
I take offence to that, which both shocks me and tells me that I’m also in deeper than I’d realized. But there’s something about Flynn—a softness I’d glimpsed when he’d ordered breakfast on that morning. A softness that’s at odds with the world he lives in.
I force myself to snap out of it. I can’t afford to get sucked in. For my sake, I have to assume that the real Flynn is the one who killed a man like it was no big deal.
“No,” I say, holding Dahlia’s gaze. “But he belongs to the same world. A world you’re better off staying out of.”
“Jo’s right,” Steve interrupts as Dahlia opens her mouth to protest. “Trust me, you want no part of that.”
“What if I did?” Dahlia’s voice has lost some of its bravado. It’s a lot easier for her to defy me than it is to defy Steve. The man is her dad’s best friend and he’s been like a second father to her pretty much since she was born.
“If you did, I’d have to intervene,” he says.
Even though I wholeheartedly agree with his point, I look at Steve. He sounds halfway between a concerned father and a bodyguard. It makes for a somewhat disconcerting mix.
Then, just like that, the fire returns to Dahlia’s belly, and I can almost feel her scorching glare.
“I’m not a child anymore, Steve.”
“Then don’t act like one,” he snaps back. “Those guys are dangerous. You have no idea how much.”
Dahlia opens her mouth as if to speak, then closes it again just as quickly. Now, I’m wary. Dahlia can be the sweetest person I know, but she’s not very good at reining in her anger once you get her going. For her to clamp her mouth shut now means whatever she was about to say would’ve been truly bad.
“Let’s get to work,” Dahlia says. “We’ll talk about this later.”
We don’t say anything else. After all, what is there to say? I want to stop her, to talk some sense into her, but I know there’s no way she’ll listen now. I watch silently as she walks out of the room, and when we’re alone, Steve finally puts away his gun and paces up and down like a caged tiger. Frustrated, I run my hand through my hair. The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced there’s no way we’d ever get through to Dahlia on this.
I pause, biting down on my lip like I always do when I’m thinking, an idea forming in my mind. I’m not too crazy about it, but it’s the only one I have.
“You know that guy is going to kill you if he doesn’t get his cut back. I’ll take it—”
“Definitely not!” he interrupts.
“Just hear me out,” I say, holding up a hand. “I’ll take the cut back to the club. I’ll speak to Jake and tell him to keep Adrian away from Dahlia.”
Steve gives me a small smile, but I can’t figure out what he means from his facial expression.
“See, that’s your first mistake,” he says. His blue eyes twinkle with a faraway look. “You can’t go there demanding anything from these people. Especially from someone like Jake Atwood.”
I frown. How does he know his last name? I didn’t even know it, and I’ve had one up-close-and-personal experience with Jake.
“You know something about Jake?” I ask.
His smile disappears. “Oh, I know all about Jake. He’s somewhat of a legend.”
“How do you know?” I feel my eyes widen as realization hits me. “A legend in the biker world?”
He cringes. He looks like he’s searching for the right words, but his voice seems to have disappeared.
“Steve,” I say, my voice sounding sharp and shrill, even to my own ears. Then my gaze zeroes-in on the tattoo on his left forearm and I approach him to look closer. It depicts a saber on a decorative background of swirls. Above the sword’s hilt are the letters, “LAP,” and under the sword’s tip, “MC.”
“Is that…?” I take a deep breath. I can hardly contemplate the possibility, but at the same time I feel like it’s staring me right in the face. “Is that a club tattoo?”
His right hand quickly covers the design, but he can’t cover the sheepishness that appears to flash across his face, and he hangs his head.
“Well?” I demand, my heart beating fast and hard in my chest. He swallows hard and can’t bring himself to look at me. I don’t ever remember seeing him so nervous before.
“L.A. Pirates Motorcycle Club,” he says quietly. “It was a long time ago.”
I stare at him in shock. Suspecting he might have been in one is one thing but hearing him say it out loud is quite another. My head is in a spin.
“Are you kidding me?” I finally say. “No way!”
He runs his hand across his face as he heaves a deep sigh. “Look, it was a lifetime ago, all right. I was young, fearless…and stupid.”
I stare at him. “And yet you know about these guys in the Bad Breed MC?”
“I’m out of that life now, Jo. I’ve been out for over ten years, but, I still keep my ear to the ground.” He hesitates. “It can be useful to keep yourself in the loop.”
I frown at him. “And why is that?”
He shrugs. “You might get to know if anyone’s coming for you, for one.”
I want to ask him a million questions, but at the same time I’m also afraid of the answers. “Does Dahlia know?”
He flops down on one of the
high stools around the metal table in the storage room. “Yes, and no,” he says. “She knows I was once part of an MC, but she doesn’t know the details. Only her parents do, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t bring it up with her.”
“I won’t,” I say, immediately. I don’t even have to think about it. No matter how surprised I am, I trust Steve. This revelation doesn’t change who he is in my eyes, and I believe him when he says he’s out. “But I still think Jake’s the one who can make sure Adrian stays away from Dahlia.”
Of that, I was certain. For one, his guys would obey him, and secondly, he’d made it clear that he was just as eager to stay away from the Full Moon Diner as we were for him to give us a wide berth.
“I agree,” he says. “That’s why I’ll handle it.”
I look at him, weighing the options carefully. “I don’t like it. They could kill you for making him leave his colors here.”
“Me neither,” he replies. “But I like the idea of you reaching out to those people even less.”
I chew my lip nervously between my teeth, so savagely I almost draw blood. “What if they make you join them?”
He laughs. “That’s not how it works, sweetheart.”
“Then how does it work?” I press.
“Trust me,” he says. “You don’t want to know.”
As much as I won’t admit it, I actually do want to know. I want to know more about the way Flynn has chosen to live, and at the same time, I don’t like myself for still being drawn to him. What was I doing? The guy gunned down a man in the very place where I work. I can’t possibly want anything to do with him after that…can I? I decide right then and there that Steve’s probably right—I have to stay away from those guys, and for more than one reason.
“Fine,” I say. “But come straight back to me after you’ve returned it. I have to know you’re all right, k?”
“Deal,” he says, giving me that fatherly smile of his, then he gets off the stool and picks up his gun.
“Where’d you get that, by the way?” I ask, nodding my head toward the weapon. Like Dahlia, I don’t like guns.
He gives me a grin, and I roll my eyes. “Let me guess. I probably don’t want to know that, either.”
His smile widens. “Probably not.”
Chapter Five
Flynn
I’ve tried not to think about it, I really have. About the utter disdain in Jo’s eyes when she told us—and I mean me—to get out of the diner, and out of her life—forever. I’ve tried not to let it get to me, but I’d be fooling myself if I said the look in her eyes doesn’t still haunt me, and I’m not in the habit of fooling myself. I can’t afford to in my line of work.
I’m more upset about losing her respect—even if I ever had it—than I am about killing someone. That should freak me out. Causing someone’s death, even a scumbag who’d attack a woman, is never good, but still, I don’t give a shit about him.
Right now, I care more about Adrian striding into the back yard of the house we’re renting, looking for all the world like he wanted to kill something—or someone. He makes a beeline for Mighty’s Harley Superlow and starts meticulously dismantling the fuel injection system.
Like me, Adrian finds fixing bikes and engines calming. After our hasty retreat from Hardale, Mighty’s bike and a couple of others have been running rough and, so at least Adrian and I have an outlet for our frustrations. And Adrian seems very frustrated, right now.
I look up from where I’m polishing the springs on Jake’s Fat Bob. “Mighty’s gonna skin you alive if you fuck up his bike.”
“This thing’s fucked up enough already,” Adrian mumbles. “Doesn’t need my help.”
I walk over to Adrian. Something’s definitely wrong with him. He looks pissed off, and I can’t remember ever seeing our Sergeant at Arms without his club vest.
“Where’s your cut?”
His eyes flash furiously, and for one crazy moment, I could’ve sworn they turned red. “That asshole made me leave it behind.”
“What asshole? What happened?” Except for our club president, I’ve never seen anyone make Adrian do anything he didn’t want to do.
He lets the wrench he’s holding fall to the grass and looks at me, uncertain. “You promise you won’t tell Jake?”
I groan whenever I hear that. ‘Promise you won’t tell Jake’ is my number one most-hated question. “That depends,” I say. “You know I’ll have to tell him if it affects the club.”
“It doesn’t,” Adrian assures me. “Honest, it’s my own personal business, but Jake might not see it that way if he knows.” I’m liking this even less by the second, and he must’ve noticed by the look on my face. He grimaces and says, “Come on, Mr. Vice-President. It’s all good, I swear.”
I roll my eyes. “Fine, then tell me.”
He hesitates, which makes me worry even more. Adrian rarely hesitates. I heave a sigh and walk to the cooler we keep in the back yard. I take out two Sierra Nevadas and hand one to him, then we sit on the grass and I take a long gulp. The IPA feels cool and soothing as I pour it down my throat, but I can’t shake the feeling that I’m not going to like what Adrian has to say.
“Promise me you won’t say anything to the others—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake! Just tell me,” I snap. I’m in no mood for games. Between being back in L.A., the incident at the diner, and the disconcerting realization that Jo has gotten under my skin, I’m on edge. The others have noticed it, too, which is probably why Adrian’s so nervous about telling me something that might annoy me even more.
“I went to see Dahlia today,” he says.
I look him in the eyes. “Dahlia? From the diner?”
He nods, sheepishly.
“Dahlia, whose hide I saved from that douchebag, and almost got myself shot in the process?” I continue. “The same Dahlia who threw us out on our asses? Dahlia, whose diner Jake has specifically ordered us to stay away from? That Dahlia?”
Adrian takes a convenient gulp from his beer. “To be fair, she didn’t throw us out. That other woman did. She just went along with it.”
I arch an eyebrow at him. “Really? You’re splitting hairs with me over that? What happened?” I growl.
He shrugs. “We were just having sex in the back room when two of her employees caught us going at it. I tell ya, man, she was as smooth as silk,” he says, shaking his head with a wide grin on his face.
I really don’t want a blow-by-blow commentary of his sexual exploits, and I freeze with the bottle halfway to my lips. “Who were they?” Please, not Jo. Not Jo.
“That other woman and some big blond guy with a ponytail.”
Shit. “Are you fucking kidding me, brother?” I’m on the verge of exploding. This was bad. Jo hates me enough already without one of my guys screwing her friend after she told us all to stay away.
“The big guy had a gun, too,” Adrian adds.
“Oh, God.” I groan, and take a long, much-needed swig of beer. “What did you do?”
“Nothin’. I got dressed and got out of there,” he says. “But the guy made me leave my cut behind.”
“Why?”
“To humiliate me, I guess. But he’ll be sorry he ever laid eyes on me. He’s a dead man walking.”
There’s a flash across Adrian’s eyes, and I know right away that whoever this man is, he’s made the biggest mistake of his life. Our club patch means everything to us.
“I think he knows how it works,” he says. “The life, I mean. The code. He’s got a club tattoo on his arm.”
“Fuck,” I say quietly. Can this get any worse? “Anyone we know?”
“L.A. Pirates, I think,” he replies.
I’ve heard of them, but we’ve never crossed paths. I know they operate in the central part of the city and on the docks, both locations not too far away from the area we’re in now.
“What’s a Pirate doing at the diner?” I ask.
Adrian shrugs and takes another drink. “Damned if I
know. I don’t think he’s still in business, you know? He’s gotta be in his fifties, and he’s working as a cook at a diner. He probably got out at some point.”
I try to ignore the pang of envy that hits me. It’s been a long time since I’ve thought about getting out. Now Adrian has met someone who, apparently, has and I realize that longing has never left me. I shake my head and take a few long sips from my bottle to wash it all down. I can’t let myself even go there. This is my life.
“I’d better go check it out,” I say. “We can’t be stepping on another club’s toes.” I stand, stretch, then finish the beer and toss the empty bottle into a trashcan. “And, by the way, Adrian…this is club business.”
Adrian gulps his beer down then scrambles to his feet. “Jake will kill me if he finds out I lost my cut. You won’t—”
“I won’t tell Jake,” I cut him off, sharply. “Unless it turns out this guy is still active, then we might have a problem. Okay?”
He sighs in relief. “Yeah, okay. Thanks.”
“I’ll get your colors. You just stay away from that fucking diner, all right?”
“Yeah, sure thing, Flynn.” He hesitates. “Does that mean I can see her again once all this has been dealt with?”
I glare at him, amazed he’d even have the balls to ask that question. I want to tell him no. I want to tell him there’s no way in hell I’ll ever let him anywhere near Dahlia again since we can’t risk the club’s safety for a woman—but I don’t.
“We’ll talk about it when I get back,” I say.
Adrian seems as surprised by my answer as I am. But who am I to talk? I’m the one who’d jeopardized the club in the first place when I shot that guy dead—and I’m the one who’s spending most of my time with a certain woman on my mind.
* * *
The diner is packed when I arrive. I’d like to think I’d march straight in with all the self-confidence in the world, but that would be a lie. Instead, I pause outside, walking up and down the sidewalk, taking deep breaths, then I go inside.
The large crowd provides good cover for me and, thankfully, Jo doesn’t see me come in. I notice her right away. Hard not to. Having seen her beautiful curves the other night, I find her even more sexy and mesmerizing now.
Bad Breed (MC Romance) Page 4
