Tin Queen

by Devney Perry

  “We’ve got a Nova coming into the garage in a couple of weeks. Made me think of you.”

  She hummed. “What’s your favorite part about working at the garage?”

  “The people. Working with my brothers.”

  “From the club?”

  “A couple of them, yeah. Everyone at the garage used to be part of the club, but after we disbanded, we hired others.” Most of the brothers had scattered to the wind after we shut down the Tin Gypsies. First Presley had come along to act at the receptionist. Then Isaiah had been the first mechanic who hadn’t been a member.

  “Why did you disband?”

  I blew out a deep breath, propping a knee up. The answer to her question was long and complicated. It was full of secrets that only a few people in Clifton Forge even knew.

  Secrets I wouldn’t—couldn’t—tell her.

  Maybe if we were going someplace, maybe if she was a lifelong companion and not leaving tomorrow, we’d get to a point where I’d share those secrets. But that wasn’t our thing.

  “I’m prying. Sorry,” she said. “You don’t have to tell me.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “It’s okay. I haven’t talked much about it.”

  Maybe I should. Maybe I could air it out here, with her, without spilling the details I’d take with me to the grave.

  “In a nutshell . . . the brothers decided to go their different ways. Some of the older guys retired, a couple settling here in town.”

  Big Louie still lived in town. He’d bought the bowling alley after leaving the Gypsies and we’d see him at The Betsy every now and then. Every time I saw him he wanted to talk about Dad—it wasn’t always easy to bump into Big Louie.

  “Others moved south for the weather.” They’d wanted easier winters and the ability to ride their bikes year-round. “Some brothers moved to chase a woman. When they left, we didn’t replace them with younger prospects.”

  Jet had moved to Vegas, following a girl. He had his own garage there now, and every couple of years, he’d call Dash out of the blue to bullshit. He’d texted me after Draven had died, asking if there was anything he could do.

  Gunner had been my age. We’d prospected together. Like some of the older men, he’d gotten sick of the Montana winters and not being able to ride for months at a time, so he’d moved to Washington and bought a houseboat with the money he’d made from the club.

  That was an explanation, but only a sliver of the whole story.

  Most of those members would have stayed in Clifton Forge had the club not made the decision to pull out of all illegal activities—activities that meant the cash flow was going to recede.

  There’d been members who hadn’t wanted to give up the life, the money, the power. Most of them had left to join other clubs. Some had even joined the Warriors. It had been a slap in the face after those fuckers had killed Dad.

  Those assholes had been hauled in with the FBI raid on the Warriors. I couldn’t find it in me to feel bad that they’d been arrested. They’d made their choice when they’d put on the Arrowhead Warrior patch.

  They’d made their choice when the Tin Gypsies had called for a vote. It just hadn’t gone in their favor.

  The decision had been the right one. The writing had been on the wall. If we had continued, there would have been prison sentences and early deaths.

  Most members Dad’s age had retired by means of the cemetery. When you put on the cut, you knew you were likely signing up for a shorter-than-average life expectancy. That hadn’t mattered in the beginning. But after a while, after Dad’s death . . .

  “We all voted it was time to change,” I said.

  “Change from what?”

  “Change from the men we’d been.” Not the kind of men who’d have a woman like Nova in their arms.

  “Oh,” she muttered.

  Yeah. Oh.

  We’d fought easily and often. We’d used intimidation to get whatever the fuck we’d wanted. We’d lied, cheated and stolen. We’d killed when necessary. It had all been in the name of the brotherhood. And for most of my life, I’d bought that line.

  Now, looking back, I saw it had really been for money.

  The garage hauled in a damn good income stream now, but back then, we hadn’t been known for our custom remodels and builds. The reason Draven had pushed so hard to expand the garage was to replace the money flowing in from the club. No way Draven would have been able to pay me then what Dash was paying me now. Except to get to this point, it had taken time and a lot of fucking work. Now that dream was realized.

  Draven’s dream.

  Dad would have loved it too. As much as he had loved being a Tin Gypsy.

  Since I was a kid, that was the life I’d known. The life I’d wanted. I’d never cared about the money. Living Dad’s legacy had been more important.

  Would Dad have voted to disband? I often wondered what side he would have taken. Though if not for his death, we probably wouldn’t have called for a vote in the first place.

  “There’s more to the story,” I said, not sure why I was even talking about this. Maybe because I needed to say it. Or I needed her to know what kind of man I was. To see a glimpse of the demons in my past. Maybe they’d scare her away and next weekend wouldn’t happen.

  “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” she said.

  I held her tighter. “The reason we put it to vote in the first place was because one of our rivals came after family. Shit got fucked up.”

  Nova listened, unmoving, waiting for me to continue.

  “The president of the club, Draven, had two sons. Nick, who was never part of the club, and Dash. Dash runs the garage where I work. When I was VP of the club, he was president. We’ve been friends our whole lives. Grew up in the club together. We knew what we were getting into. When you signed up to be a member, you knew the risks. Families too.”

  “Risks like . . . death?”

  I nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Oh.”

  “Nick wasn’t in the club. He never joined. He left Clifton Forge and didn’t look back. Got married and was living in Prescott. No connection other than his DNA. A rival club went after Nick’s wife. She had nothing to do with the club. She was innocent.”

  “Is she . . . okay?”

  “The Warriors tried to kidnap her. She got lucky. Local police stopped it. But it never should have happened in the first place.” The Warriors who’d tried to kidnap her had allegedly been acting against Tucker Talbot’s orders. At the time, the only reason we’d believed it hadn’t been his idea was that he’d handed over those two members to the Tin Gypsies.

  Their bodies were buried in the mountains, in a remote location where no one would ever find their bones.

  But maybe Tucker had just been trying to get rid of two rogue members and he’d ordered the kidnapping himself. I wouldn’t put it past the man to stab his own fucking brothers in the back.

  “Then after that, the same rivals murdered my father. That was the catalyst. It was time to just . . . be done.”

  Timing had been on Draven’s side when he’d asked for the vote. Dad had been beloved by all members and his death had rattled us to the core.

  “Emmett, I’m . . .” Nova blew out a long breath. “I don’t know what to say.”

  I held her tighter, taking the comfort of her in my arms while I could.

  “Sounds like disbanding was for the best,” she said.

  “Yeah, it was.”

  The club’s income had mostly come from drug protection routes. It was rare that we’d smuggle the goods ourselves. Draven preferred our members not touch the meth, cocaine, heroin and whatever else had been on the move.

  Instead, we’d made sure the mules didn’t have trouble along the way to their destination, either from rival cartels or from cops. I’d earned more than one reckless driving ticket for speeding past a cop who’d been too close to a drug shipment.

  For the most part, we’d stayed to the routes where the police w
ouldn’t be looking. The border between Canada and Montana was big and for many, many years, there hadn’t been enough patrol officers to watch it all. Slipping through the mountains and onto the quieter highways had been an easy day’s work.

  Draven and Dad had both forged many of those routes.

  Ambition had been Draven’s greatest strength and his greatest weakness. The man’s mind had been cunning and sharp. The Gypsies had been small in number compared to the infamous clubs in California, but Draven hadn’t needed a massive membership to be effective. Though he’d always spoken about expanding across the Northwest.

  Had my father not died, had Nick’s family not been threatened, I think he would have done it. Instead, he’d pushed like hell in the other direction and shut it all down.

  The drug routes. The local security jobs in town. The underground fights. Anything illegal.

  It hadn’t been worth putting our families in danger. Not anymore.

  I’d voted with Draven and Dash simply because I’d been terrified that one day, an enemy would come after my mother like they had Dash’s. I couldn’t bury both parents, and quitting the club had seemed like the best alternative. To death and to prison.

  Border patrol had gotten heavy during our last five years as a club. A handful of brothers had been busted and were serving time or had recently finished a stint.

  We all might have been where the Warriors were sitting now, in ugly orange jumpsuits.

  It had taken time to disband the club.

  After the vote, we’d called a truce with the Warriors. They’d agreed to leave us alone in trade for our drug routes. That negotiation had taken time, getting the dealers on board. Then there’d been the task of shutting down the rest of the illegal activities. We’d pulled the fights. Stopped working protection rackets with businesses in town. Through that time, brothers had slowly moved away as they’d found other jobs.

  In the end, it took nearly six years.

  Then it was done. One day, I’d ridden around town with my Tin Gypsy cut on my back. The next, it had stayed home in a drawer.

  We had peace.

  We should have had peace for the rest of our lives.

  Maybe we would have if Marcus Wagner hadn’t framed Draven for murder and, in doing so, brought the Warriors back into our lives.

  We’d been lucky that none of us had been hurt since Tucker Talbot had set his sights on Clifton Forge. Damn lucky.

  It would tear our crew apart if something happened to any one of us. The idea alone made me tense.

  “Hey.” Nova nudged my leg. “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” I blinked myself out of the past and into the present. Shoved the worries away. If all I had was tonight, maybe next weekend, I didn’t need to be dwelling on ancient history while Nova was here. “Sorry. It’s not easy for me to talk about the club. There’s a lot of history there. Not all of it good.”

  “What was a good thing?”

  “The brothers.” Easy answer. “We were brothers, not by blood, but by what counted. Two of my best friends were Gypsies with me. They work at the garage. They’re my family. I love their wives like they were my sisters. I’d do anything for their kids.”

  “Uncle Emmett?”

  I grinned. “Uncle Emmett.”

  Nova shifted so that the light from inside caught her face. It highlighted her cheekbones and the soft swell above her top lip. It caressed the soft pout of her mouth and made her dark eyes dance. She raised a hand to my collarbone, tracing a two-inch scar across my skin. “Where’d you get this?”

  “A fight.”

  “Let me guess, you got into it at The Betsy with someone over a game of pool.”

  I chuckled. “No, I used to box a lot. The club organized a circuit of fights every year around the state. Not exactly legal, considering we gambled on the fights.”

  “My lips are sealed.” She dragged a finger across her mouth.

  “It was a way for us younger guys in the club to burn off some arrogant energy and make some extra cash. We’d fight. Get drunk afterward. There were always pretty women around.”

  “Let’s skip that part.”

  I kissed her hair. “None were as pretty as you.”

  “Better. Continue.”

  “This one night, I was on a streak. Won all four of my fights and a good payout too. We were all standing around, drinking a beer afterward, bullshitting and icing black eyes. One of the guys I beat was a punk. He got drunk and pissed. Broke a beer bottle and threw it at me when I wasn’t paying attention. Didn’t hit my face but slashed me across the collarbone.”

  Nova winced. “Ouch.”

  “Meh.” I shrugged. “It wasn’t so bad that I couldn’t give him his second beatdown of the night.”

  Maybe I was speaking too plainly, but Nova was tough. She deserved to know what kind of man she was sleeping with. Violence had been part of our lives. There were some things I’d regret for the rest of my life. Others, like kicking that punk’s ass, I wouldn’t feel sorry about.

  “Do you miss it?”

  “The fights? Sometimes.” It was the one thing Dash and I had tried to convince Draven to continue even after the club shut down. “It’s an adrenaline rush.”

  “And what about the club? Do you miss it?”

  The answer should be yes. I should miss the club. I should miss it every single day. “No.”

  Maybe I’d missed it at first. Even with six years to come to terms with the end, there’d been a hole where the brotherhood had been. For a while, Dash, Leo and I had filled it with booze and women. Then Dash had met Bryce. Leo had found Cass.

  And I’d worked my ass off to build a good life here. A legal life. Maybe I’d never have a family of my own, but if there was ever a woman to try it with, Nova would have been the one.

  “Will you miss me?” Her question was so quiet that I barely heard it.

  I held her tighter, burying my nose in her hair.

  Easy answer. “Yes.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Nova

  Putting Clifton Forge in my rearview was harder than I’d expected. Maybe because it had been forced on me when I wasn’t ready.

  Would I ever have been ready?

  With each mile on the highway, I fought a sting in my nose and the threat of tears. The Diet Coke I’d grabbed at the gas station churned in my stomach. The muscles in my body were strung tight like the wires on the barbed fences that bordered the pastures whipping past my window.

  Forcing myself out of Emmett’s bed this morning had taken every ounce of strength. I’d been on the verge of tears through breakfast and when he’d kissed me goodbye, I’d nearly broken. I’d been a second away from opening the seal and letting the truth spill free.

  If I confessed and begged for a second chance, would he let us start again?

  Probably not.

  So I’d hugged him with all my might, then walked out the door, not letting myself look back until I was inside the Nova.

  Emmett had stood in his doorway, much like he had during our first nights together. This time, fully clothed. But he’d stayed there, watching me drive away.

  His handsome face had been limned with sunlight. His hair had been loose, the tips brushing his shoulders. And his beautiful chocolate eyes had held as much longing as mine.

  It had to be this way.

  He would never trust me, not if he knew the truth. And I wasn’t sure I could trust him.

  After leaving his house, I’d driven to the rental and spent the rest of the morning packing my belongings, doing a sweep of the house to ensure I hadn’t left anything behind.

  I’d just finished loading up the Nova when Hacker had pulled in.

  The flash drive he’d handed me was in the car’s ashtray beside TJ’s dice.

  Hacker hadn’t even gotten out of his car, just handed it over. When I’d told him that I’d left the receiver hidden at Emmett’s, he’d simply nodded and disappeared. Then I’d waited for the owner to pop over and collect the
keys. One quick stop at a gas station to fill up the Nova and grab a lunch of potato chips and a Snickers, I’d hit the road.

  I’d left hours ago. The last mileage sign had shown Missoula only twenty-four miles away. Still, I wanted to turn back.

  I wanted another night on the deck, listening to Emmett talk about the club. Sure, he’d glossed over details. No question about that. But he hadn’t tried to camouflage the violence. He hadn’t made it out to seem perfect or that he was infallible.

  There’d been so much honesty in his voice and the entire time, all I could think was that there hadn’t been the same in my father’s as he’d told me about the Warriors.

  I wouldn’t have known the difference if not for having listened to Emmett.

  Was that just my heart talking, wishing for my father’s stories to be untrue? Or was I missing something? The nagging feeling in my stomach said the latter.

  Maybe the flash drive would help me uncover the truth. If I could bring myself to open it. Every time I thought about it, I felt worse and worse for my actions. I was a coward. A liar. A bitch.

  “I suck,” I muttered.

  Missoula had a few exits off the interstate, and I opted for the one that didn’t lead to my house, but to my sister’s. It was time to be honest with someone. If it couldn’t be Emmett, then Shelby was the best bet. Next up, myself.

  Maybe she could help me figure out what to do. Maybe I could give her the flash drive.

  Everything would change when I opened it. I wasn’t sure how I knew that, but I did.

  Navigating through town, it didn’t take me long to get to Shelby’s place. I pulled into the driveway and hurried for the door.

  I rang the doorbell, her footsteps echoed from inside, and then there was my big sister, dragging me into her arms.

  “You’ve been gone forever.”

  I hugged her tight. “I know.”

  “Are you back now?”

  “Yeah.” I was back.

  Because as much as I wished it weren’t true, there was no future for me in Clifton Forge. Not with my betrayal and deception.