Текст книги "Sinner's Steel"
Автор книги: Sarah Castille
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Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 22 страниц)
FIVE
Before you start, get comfortable with your tools. You never know what you will need, and when.
—SINNER’S TRIBE MOTORCYCLE REPAIR MANUAL
Zane knew Jagger would find him.
No way would his best friend let this one slide. But he was grateful Jagger had, at least, given him a few days to get himself together after seeing Evie. Too bad he’d used that time to fall apart instead.
“I heard this has become your new home.” Jagger pulled out a chair at Zane’s table and waved his hand vaguely at the room in front of him, encompassing the full expanse of Rider’s Bar. The Sinners owned several legitimate businesses in Conundrum, including bars, strip clubs, nightclubs, trucking companies, and shops, all convenient for laundering money, hiding shipments of stolen goods, and turning over a profit for the club. Some members worked on the legitimate side. Others, like Zane, Jagger, and most of the Sinner executive board, handled the sale and supply of illegal arms.
“What of it?” He raised his voice over Foghat’s “Slow Ride.” One thing about Rider’s Bar, they always played good tunes. Too bad they couldn’t do something about the smell. Usually, Zane didn’t notice the thick yeasty scent of beer overlying the more pungent aroma of cigarette smoke, but tonight his belly roiled with every whiff.
“How many have you had, brother?” Jagger settled himself in the chair and pushed aside the collection of bottles Zane had asked Sherry to leave behind. Once a house mama at the Sinner’s Tribe clubhouse, Sherry had been thrown out of the MC after Axle used their relationship to steal guns from the club. At the urging of the executive board, and because Sherry had been physically coerced, Jagger had partially forgiven her betrayal and agreed to let her work at Rider’s Bar. Sherry had accepted her dismissal with good grace, but everyone knew she was just putting in time, hoping Jagger would let her back into the club.
“Sherry’s counting. Not me.” He stared at the sea of bottles, unable to meet Jagger’s gaze. This was not a conversation he wanted to have, and especially when he couldn’t think straight. Jagger had a way of cutting through the bullshit and right now the bullshit was the only thing keeping his heart from spilling out of his chest.
“She says you’re not fit to ride.”
“Sherry doesn’t know dick all about me.”
“Apparently, neither do I.” Jagger leaned back in his chair, folded his arms behind his head. “All these years, you’ve been going on about the woman who betrayed you and ripped out your heart, and you never told me it was Evie.”
“She tell you that?”
“Nope. But you just did.” Any other man would have smirked, but Jagger wasn’t the smirking type. He just laid it on the line.
“Didn’t matter.” Zane drained his bottle and shoved it across the table as the bitter taste of beer lingered on his tongue. Usually he went for the harder stuff, whiskey or rye, bourbon if Cade, the club treasurer was pouring, but when Sherry had come to take his order, he’d asked for beer—Corona—the kind he’d dropped on the kitchen floor of Jagger’s house after he saw Evie in his best friend’s arms.
“I’d say from the bottle count on the table it matters a hell of a lot.”
“Fuck off, Jag. I’m not in the mood.” Zane lifted a new bottle and Jagger grabbed his wrist.
“Fair warning. We had an executive board meeting scheduled for this afternoon. When you didn’t show up, I postponed the meeting and sent Shooter to hunt you down. The meeting is being reconvened right here at your table. You got ten minutes to sober the fuck up and do your job, so you might want to reach for the water I told Sherry to bring you instead of that bottle.”
They locked gazes, and tension hung in the air between them. “Get your fucking hand off me.”
Jagger released his wrist, and Zane tipped the bottle into his mouth. The vile taste of warm beer spread across his tongue. But damned if he would let Jagger tell him what to do.
“Wrong choice, brother.”
Zane snorted. “My life has just been one wrong choice after another. At least I’m consistent.”
“What happened between you and Evie that night of the party when you two ran off and left me playing vids on my own?” Jagger cut to the chase; he wasn’t a man who had time to waste. As president of the MC, he had over one hundred men depending on him, a multitude of businesses to run, and politics to handle. Although the executive board helped spread the load, in the end, he was the man in charge. And he loved it. Zane had never been interested in leadership, but he did enjoy his position as vice president and Jagger’s right-hand man. Power from the shadows. That was him.
“You mean the part before her dad tried to kill me and I became a wanted man? Nothin’.” He took another swig from the bottle and thudded it on the table. If Jagger kept this up, he’d be forced to leave and he didn’t know if he’d be able to stand, much less walk a straight line through the bar.
“Does it have something to do with Mark?”
“Jag.” He barked the name, cutting Jagger off. He couldn’t talk about Evie and the thought of her married to that no-good piece of slime made his stomach twist. Anyone who spent their study breaks getting drunk under the bleachers wasn’t good enough for Evie. In his eyes, no one had been good enough for her, and he’d made sure every guy in Stanton High School knew the score.
Lucky for Jag, the executive board made a timely arrival. Sparky and Gunner pulled up some extra tables. T-Rex and Tank, the junior patch members-at-large, brought chairs. Dax followed them in with Cade and Shaggy on his heels.
After Sherry served their drinks, Jagger gave the floor to Cade for the treasurer’s report. Tall, blond, and nicknamed “Thor” by the sweet butts for his resemblance to an actor who played the character in the movies, Cade had enjoyed the fringe benefits of being a biker—a new woman in his bed every night—until he met Arianne’s best friend, Dawn. Now the club’s notorious manwhore had an old lady, two adopted daughters, and a baby on the way. Zane had taken up the mantle of “Brother Least Likely Ever to Get Hitched” that Cade had passed down to him, and he expected to keep it until the day he died.
Cade reported that the war with the Jacks had drained their finances, and although the Sinners had some robust long-term holdings, they needed short-term gains to pay salaries and keep their businesses afloat—gains that were usually financed through the arms deals that the Jacks now sought to take over.
Dax, the club torturer, and father of five boys, offered to hire out his services to other MCs to bring in some extra cash. Lean and dark, relished his victim’s screams. Not many of the brothers could stomach Dax’s “work,” but Zane didn’t have a problem watching Dax use his psychology background to inveigle information from those who had been deemed a danger to the club. And when the psychology failed, and the tools came out, well, Zane had screamed louder the night after he got his mother’s name tattooed on his arm, and his dad cut it off with a rusty blade.
The whiskey went down smooth, with only the slightest burn, and for the first time since he’d seen Evie in Big Bill’s shop, Zane felt a flicker of warmth in his chest. He slumped back in his chair and prayed the meeting would be over soon so he could go back to the clubhouse and crash.
After turning down Dax’s offer, and similar suggestions from board members, Jagger turned the focus of the meeting back to the Black Jacks and their ambition to become the dominant outlaw MC, not just in the state, but nationwide. Instead of a full-on assault, the Jacks had infiltrated Sinner support clubs, turning members into puppet Jacks, willing to do their dirty work in exchange for the promise of being allowed to set up their own chapters. The Jacks had undercut some of the Sinners’ more lucrative arms contracts by using locals to run guns and evade detection.
Fed up with being on the defensive, Jagger and the national Sinner’s Tribe president had come up with a plan to plant an informant inside the Black Jack clubhouse who could feed them information, allowing them to gain the upper hand. National would be fielding candidates, but did the board have anyone in mind?
“I’ll do it.” T-Rex, now sporting a massive bruise on his forehead from Axle’s blow, jumped up when Jagger threw the question to the table. Easygoing and good-natured, T-Rex was well-liked and respected by the club members, but he didn’t have the edge that their rat would need to stand up to Viper, president of the Jacks.
“Needs to be someone connected to the club,” Jagger said. “But not in an obvious way. We have to assume they know who we are, so we’re looking for people who owe the club a favor. They gotta be smart and savvy otherwise Viper will sniff them out. We all know what happens to rats.”
“Same thing that shoulda happened to Axle, but the bastard got away,” Zane mumbled.
“Hard to believe he got away from you,” Gunner said. “You’re the fourth best shot in the club.”
“Fourth?” Tank, a dark-haired, slightly stockier version of T-Rex, scratched his head.
Gunner glanced over at Jagger and smirked. “Me, then Arianne, then Jagger, then Zane, then Cade.”
Cade bristled. “Girls don’t count.”
“And even if they did,” Jagger’s lips quirked at the corners. “Arianne can’t outshoot me.”
“That’s not what she says.” Gunner turned his attention back to Zane. “So now you’re bumped up to third. Makes it even harder to understand how Axle got away.”
“I had him trapped behind Big Bill’s shop and I ran out of ammo.” Zane didn’t see any need to mention Evie, or the fact he’d let Axle go to ensure she got away safely. Nor did he feel a need to mention the fact that Evie and Axle knew each other in what seemed to be more than a business-related way. Not until he understood what the fuck was going on.
“You ran out of ammo?” Gunner’s incredulous look would have been almost comical if not for the fact he sounded really pissed off, and pissing off the MC’s sergeant-at-arms was never a good idea. At six feet five inches tall, and heavy with muscle, his bald head tatted and his fists like clubs, Gunner could beat any man in a fight without breaking a sweat. Although Zane was vice president, Gunner was in charge of order in the club, and Zane was pretty sure letting a Black Jack go was a serious breach of the rules.
“I ran out of ammo. You got a problem with that?” Obviously Gunner did have a problem because he was now out of his chair and eating up the distance between them with easy strides of his long legs.
“What were you carrying?”
“Full-size Springfield XD.” Too late Zane realized his mistake—a mistake he would never have made if he’d been sober. Gunner came by his road name because he knew everything about weapons, and he would know exactly how much ammo Zane’s weapon held.
“The magazine holds thirteen. You missed thirteen shots?”
“Maybe I emptied it out earlier when I used your bike for target practice.” Zane pushed his chair away from the table. If Gunner wanted a fight, he’d get a fight. Something to liven up an otherwise dull meeting, and take Zane’s mind off the woman who had dominated his thoughts all week.
“Stand down.” Jagger shoved Zane back in his chair. “Gunner, take a seat. I’m not paying to have this bar redone again. The Jacks did enough damage the night they came here after Arianne.”
“Fucking Jacks,” Zane mumbled. And they were. Fucking. Jacks. They’d shot up Rider’s Bar in retribution for the Sinners blowing up their ice house, and only Arianne’s timely intervention and skill with a weapon had saved the bar from being totally destroyed.
“Fucking Axle,” Gunner said as he settled back in his chair.
“He’s like a cockroach.” Cade drained his glass. “No matter what we do, he keeps coming back. We can’t catch him. We can’t kill him—”
Gunner cut him off with a snort. “He’s been at Big Bill’s shop twice in the last few days. There’s something there he wants which means he’s gonna be back. This time, I’ll be there waiting for him. I don’t mind keeping watch, especially if that cute little detailer is around. Man, she’s got the sweetest little ass, and those jugs…”
Zane pushed himself up so fast his chair fell backwards. He didn’t want any of the Sinners around Evie. Although she was married, he knew his brothers, and some of them weren’t deterred by things like wedding rings or kids.
“Christ. Not again. Get a fucking grip.” Jagger held out an arm, blocking Zane’s path to a stunned Gunner.
“She’s an old friend.” Jagger raised his voice over Ted Nugent’s “Cat Scratch Fever,” now blasting through the speakers. “Zane and I both knew her growing up. So no disrespect.”
Gunner held up his hands in a placating gesture. “No disrespect intended, brothers.”
Still primed and ready for a fight, Zane turned and pounded his fist into the wall, leaving a dent beside the many other dents from the many other bikers who came to the bar to drown their sorrows and vent their rage during a war that had seen far too many causalities.
“I agree with Gun.” Jagger folded his hands on the table as if Zane wasn’t about to explode beside him. “We need someone posted inside Big Bill’s shop during work hours and someone outside when it’s closed over the next few days. It’s our best shot at catching Axle. Evie said he was there for personal reasons. I’ll give her a call to see if she’ll give me any more information, but she’s reluctant to talk because both the Jacks and the Sinners are potential clients for her.”
Zane opened his mouth to ask Jagger to handle the surveillance personally, and closed it again when he remembered the kiss that had started it all, and the night he’d discovered that there was pain worse than the abuse he had suffered at the hands of his father. Although nine years had passed, and Jagger had found the other half of his soul with Arianne, Zane didn’t think his heart could go through that kind of pain again.
“I’ll do it.” Zane settled back in his chair. “Shooter can stay outside and I’ll take the inside watch.”
“You sure? I need someone to check out the local support clubs for puppet Jacks.” Jagger lifted an eyebrow, giving Zane an out if he wanted it.
“Yeah. Although maybe not first thing in the morning, ’cause I don’t think I’m gonna be able to get out of bed.”
Jagger clapped him on the back. “Shooter will take you back to the clubhouse. He’s waiting outside with the bikes. I couldn’t let him come in because last time he almost shot the place up when he saw some dude at the bar wearing a TV show cut.”
“That boy’s got a serious gun problem,” Zane said. “He carries more weapons on him than Cade had notches on his belt before hooking up with Dawn. Sometimes I wonder how he stands upright.”
“Well then it’s a good thing he’ll be your second.” Gunner raised a challenging eyebrow. “No risk that boy’s gonna run out of ammo.”
“Fuck you.” Zane steadied himself with the back of the chair. Holy Hell. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this drunk. Usually he stopped at one drink, sometimes two, because he didn’t want to impair his ability to ride. Well, he’d kicked that record under the table tonight.
“Easy, brother.” Jagger steadied him with a firm hand. “You need a good night’s sleep.”
“Haven’t had a good night’s sleep in nine fucking years,” he mumbled, half to himself. “I doubt I’m gonna start tonight.”
* * *
“We’ve got a big problem.” Connie sipped her coffee, leaving a bright pink lipstick stain on her chipped white mug. The small kitchen in Evie’s rental bungalow was barely big enough to hold a table and two chairs, but with with a wall of white lacquer cabinets, green accents and a black-and-white tiled floor, it was cozy and eclectic. And it was hers. Sort of.
Small droplets of water slid down Connie’s hair and splashed on the shiny green table. Two days of rain and no sign of a break in the clouds. Evie had sent Ty down the road to have a playdate with a friend to get him off the gaming console, although she suspected that was exactly what he would be doing when he got there.
“I guessed that from your unexpected visit in a downpour on our Sunday off.” Evie poured herself a second cup of coffee then lifted the aerosol container of whipped cream beside her and squirted it over the top. She had been awake all night trying to figure out how to introduce Zane and Ty without taking the risk Zane might not want to be involved. She didn’t want Ty to get hurt, and if Zane wasn’t interested in being a parent, it would be better to feel him out first before making the introductions so she could prepare Ty in advance, or even not tell him at all.
“That looks good in a bad sort of way.” Connie shook her head when Evie offered her the container. “But whipped cream on black coffee? Why don’t you just add cream and sugar like normal people? It’s not hot chocolate. It’s not dessert. It’s not a latte. Hell, it’s not even a man’s—”
“Don’t go there.” Evie added a last dollop of whipped cream and then licked it off the top.
“Do you let Ty see you do that? What kind of mother are you?” Connie stirred her coffee, her attempt at righteous indignation totally lost in her accompanying snort of laughter.
“The kind who’s addicted to whipped cream, and when no one is looking, sprays it into her son’s mouth to his utter delight.” She licked her lips and grinned. “Plus, this is more efficient. Why add cream and sugar when they come already mixed together? And this is real cream. No chemicals. I only buy the best. I’ve turned Bill to the dark side, too. There’s a can of whipped cream in his office fridge.”
Connie’s smile faded. “Bill is gone. That’s what I wanted to tell you.”
“I guessed that when he didn’t show up at work all week.”
“No. I mean gone as in disappeared. I haven’t seen him since the night Axle came in one door and Bill slipped out the other. I went by his place, and when I looked in the window, I saw food spoiling on the counter. I think the Black Jacks got him.”
Evie’s hand tightened on her mug and her mouth went dry. “Maybe he just ran after seeing Axle at the shop. He might have figured Axle had a message for him that he didn’t want to hear.”
“You think they found out about the skim?” Connie dabbed at the water drop on the table. “I never understood why he would take the risk of stealing from the Jacks, especially after introducing you to Viper. Is the store doing that bad?”
“We’ve been in the black for the last year, although we’re not making a huge profit,” Evie said.
Bill had sold half his interest in the business to Evie after he got involved with the Jacks. His gun running took him out of the state for weeks at a time and he needed someone reliable to look after the shop and the employees. Evie had to do a lot of soul searching before she parted with her cash, but after her accountant gave the deal a thumbs up, the opportunity to double her earnings as a part-owner of the business and to secure a better future for Ty had been impossible to turn down.
“Maybe he just panicked,” she suggested.
“That’s what I’m feeling now.” Connie’s face paled. “What if they got him? What if the Jacks tortured him to find out where the guns are?” Her voice wavered. “What if your Black Jack boyfriend shows up for your date and tells you he just made a fresh kill? Or worse … what if Bill’s pulled a runner and they come after us looking for the guns?”
“Then we’ll tell them where the guns are.” She had no doubt the Black Jacks were involved in illegal activities, but Viper rarely mentioned his club around her, never brought her to the clubhouse, never talked business, and except for Axle, had never introduced her to his biker brothers. He had a wide variety of interests, however, and when they were together, they talked about everything from politics to entertainment and from sports to art.
She laughed, trying to put Connie at ease. “I’ll make sure Viper knows that torturing my friends is a deal breaker, and he’ll have to find another civilian to date. And if it makes you feel safer, you can stay here. I have my own personal Sinner’s Tribe biker guards so you can be sure the Jacks won’t be coming around.”
“I noticed them standing on the street on my way in.” Connie licked her lips and grinned. “Cute, but in a menacing kind of way.”
They left the kitchen to check out the bikers, now huddled together under a tree as the rain streamed around them. Evie recognized the blond from the night Axle had paid his first visit to Bill’s shop, but not his dark-haired partner.
“I texted Jagger,” she said. “Apparently Axle escaped from Zane so now Jagger has his boys watching my house and the shop in case Axle shows up again. I told him none of the Jacks know where I live, and Axle won’t be coming around again, but he insisted. They really want the poor guy bad. I’m afraid to think what they might do to him.”
“You know exactly what they’re going to do. Zane was trying to kill him.” Connie’s lips quivered at the corners and she shot Evie a sideways glance. “They’re looking kind of wet. And cold. The hot, dark one shivered when I walked by earlier. It would be terrible if they died of pneumonia right there on the street. And they look so young … early to mid-twenties … same as us. I don’t know if I could live with myself, knowing I was the cause of their deaths.”
Evie tipped her head back and groaned. “You’re as bad as Ty when he’s trying to guilt me into buying him something he doesn’t need.”
“Please, Evie.” Connie gave her a soulful look. “Can’t they come inside?”
“Okay.” Evie sighed. “They can sit on the porch, but you’re responsible for them.”
“I’ll just give them food and water and clean up their mess. And I won’t ask to keep them.” Connie pulled open the door. “You can have the blond, but leave the dark-haired one for me.”
Evie leaned out and waved the bikers over to the house. Yeah, the blond guy was cute, but she wasn’t looking for a man. She hadn’t had a serious relationship since Mark, and Viper was just … an interesting distraction. Especially now that she’d seen Zane. She brought her fingers to her cheek, remembering the heat of his breath, and how she had almost let him kiss her.
Zane.
The intense connection and chemistry that had first drawn them together hadn’t changed. But she had. She was finally in control of her life. No longer at the mercy of her mother’s emotional abuse, or longing for a father who was rarely home, she had embraced normal to the extent she knew what normal was. She made her own choices, cleaned up her own messes, and occasionally let her wild side out to play. And that most definitely wasn’t going to be with the man who had left her alone and pregnant, wishing on a promise he didn’t keep.
She let Connie fuss over the bikers while she called to check up on Ty and chatted with him about his game. By the time she made it outside, Connie had everything ready: coffee, sandwiches, and cookies. She introduced Evie to the bikers, dark-haired Tank and his companion, T-Rex.
“Much obliged for the snack.” Tank stood to make room as Evie joined them on the porch.
“Thank Connie, not me. She’s the one who felt sorry for you standing out in the rain.”
Tank leaned back and stretched out his long legs, the patio chair creaking beneath his weight as they chatted about the town and the club. He was a bear of a man, but all muscle and no flab, with a cheeky smile and a dry sense of humor. She could see why Connie was practically drooling over him. T-Rex had a similar build to Tank, but without the bulk. He was fun and easygoing and she was surprised to hear he didn’t have a girlfriend. Connie gave her a nudge when T-Rex made the big reveal, but he was too nice, even though he was an outlaw, and Evie had never been attracted to the “nice” guys.
Still, she’d never thought outlaw bikers could be such fun, and when Connie switched their coffee for beer, and the conversation turned flirtatious, she felt the stress of the last two days sliding away. Between the jokes and the laughter, they all turned a blind eye to the fact the rain had stopped and the sun had come out. And when T-Rex put a hand on Evie’s knee as he leaned over to get another beer, she wondered if she’d been too hasty dismissing the nice guys. Maybe that’s what she needed in her life. Someone relaxed and even-tempered, without a hint of Zane’s dark, brooding, passionate depths, or Viper’s feral power.
And just as Zane’s face flickered through her mind, there he was. How he had managed to drive down her street and climb the steps without any of them noticing was beyond her, save as a testament to just how much fun they’d been having.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he snapped by way of greeting. “What the hell is going on?”
