The noise level in the bar was extremely loud. It was crowded and fairly dark. Liquor flowed and music blared. Dozens of conversations took place from every direction. A few couples even attempted to sway to the music. In one corner, a woman stood on a table, her tits out as she danced drunkenly. No one paid attention to the men sitting in the corner, and no one could hear if Fred called out.
Two more people blocked the view and he looked up and groaned. He’d run into the blade of the knife and it had cut through his denim jacket as well as his shirt to score a long, painful laceration across his stomach.
Standing in front of him was a woman with a wealth of blond hair and the same blue eyes as Ice and Storm. She wore a Torpedo Ink vest over her tight tank. Beside her was a man with flat, cold eyes, and Fred recognized him immediately as an enforcer for the Diamondbacks, and no one messed with them.
“Thought we’d join the party,” Alena informed her brother. “Saw you come in.”
It didn’t surprise Ice in the least that he hadn’t seen his sister. They all tended to fade into the background, a trick they’d learned as children that had often saved their lives. The bar was packed and dark inside. The strip outside was being used for bike tricks. Across the way, in the main common area of the campsites, wet T-shirt contests and mud wrestling along with a massive party were taking place. Inside the bar, the noise level was loud in order to hear above the motorcycles used in the street tricks as well as the music blaring from multiple speakers outside. That would all be helpful if Fred got noisy.
Ice waved Alena and Pierce to the chairs at the front of the table. Pierce would not want his back to the room. That was a sweet kind of triumph, to have the enforcer of the Diamondbacks seated facing them. He didn’t take the chair. He glanced at Absinthe and Ice, realizing neither was going to give up their seat, and he stepped to one side, standing rather than sitting. Ice didn’t like him there when Absinthe was questioning Fred, but he needed to get on with it, and Pierce’s appearance would ensure no one would come near them. In any case, Pierce wouldn’t have a clue what Absinthe was doing.
“Answer Absinthe with the truth, Fred, or you’re going to be hurting,” Ice cautioned. He really didn’t give a flying fuck if Fred hurt himself, but he didn’t like leaving Soleil alone for too long. Lana’s presence might serve to bring more men around. She was beautiful, and any man could easily see that.
Fred dribbled down the front of himself, still coughing up his last drink. “What do you want?” He tried blustering, but it came out scared.
“You contacted someone to tell them Soleil Brodeur had been in the bar and that she was with a member of Torpedo Ink, didn’t you?” Absinthe asked. His voice was pitched low, but it resonated through the brain, almost as if that tone could actually shake the brain.
Fred shook his head, but then clutched it, moaning. “My head hurts. It hurts.”
“It will keep hurting until you tell the truth,” Ice said, sounding bored. He was bored. They’d repeated this exact same scenario a million times. He’d much rather be with his woman, her mouth on him, his hand smacking her ass, sucking on her gorgeous tits. He could slice Fred’s belly open just for forcing him to be away from her.
“Yes. Yes. I called a friend of mine.”
“Who did you call, Fred?” Absinthe asked.
Pierce leaned closer, and Ice clenched his teeth and gave his sister a look of pure reprimand. Alena put a restraining hand on Pierce’s arm, forcing him back.
“Yeger. I called Yeger Kushnir. He knows everybody and he lives in San Francisco. Some people were offering a huge reward just to know where she was.”
“Why didn’t you just call them yourself?” Absinthe asked.
More sweat broke out on Fred’s face and trickled down. Ice could smell the fear. He glanced at Storm with a raised eyebrow.
“I—I didn’t care about the money, but I knew Yeger would.”
Ice expected him to grab his head again, but evidently, he was telling the truth.
Absinthe sighed. “What did you care about, Fred?”
Fred covered his face with his hand, shaking his head, refusing to answer. Immediately he was holding his head, rocking and moaning. Tears began to trickle down his face.
“What could Yeger get for you that Winston, who was offering a huge reward, couldn’t?” Ice said. “You know it’s going to keep hurting and get worse if you don’t answer.”
“He could get me a woman.” Fred choked, and then nearly screamed. A thin trickle of blood slipped from his right ear. His face turned red. “A girl. A little girl,” he corrected. “He’s got connections, and he could get me what I wanted. One I didn’t have to worry about.”
Ice was sick to death of meeting men like Fred. “One he didn’t have to worry about” meant no one was looking for the kid and Fred could do whatever he wanted with her when he was finished with her. He took a deep breath and concentrated on not slitting the man’s belly open. The roar in his ears prevented him from hearing Absinthe’s next soft question. Screams, so many surrounded him until he couldn’t drown them out. Blood. So much. A lake of it on the floor.
“Ice,” Alena whispered his name. “Honey, look at me.”
Her voice, that sweet, sweet voice, meant she was still alive. He hadn’t failed her. He had done things, made decisions based on keeping her alive, and there she was. He lifted his gaze to hers and took a breath. When he did, he took in Fred’s disgusting odor. He’d smelled so many men and women like Fred. Corrupt. Vile. Base. It was all he could do to keep the knife from going in. The temperature in the room had lowered by several degrees. He took a deep breath and let it out, forcing himself under control.
“Yeger gets you the kid in exchange for you giving him the information so he can get the money from Winston?” Absinthe persisted.
Fred started to nod and then stopped abruptly, clearly afraid of lying. “Turns out Yeger knows this Winston. He’s involved with a lot of heavy hitters in San Francisco. One in particular, Yeger wanted an introduction to. He wanted to trade the information. A few days later, he called me and told me they were looking for a couple of shooters to help make sure the woman doesn’t surface. They wanted it permanent.” He looked at Ice. “I said no.”
That had to be true. “Who does Yeger associate with?” Absinthe asked.
Fred shrugged. He was beginning to breathe again, thinking himself safe as long as he answered their questions. Ice could have told him he wasn’t safe in the least. That he wouldn’t live to see the morning sunrise, not after his admission that he was looking for a little girl.
“He’s got a lot of friends. He knows people. Avery Charles. He’s got this job with the cops. Right there every single day. He can tell Yeger if places are going to be raided. Or if evidence is being moved. He’s a good man to know, and Yeger keeps him very happy. Then there’s a couple of cops in Occidental. See, the key, Yeger says, is find out what a man or woman likes and supply it to them. They’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
“Like you do for him?” Absinthe asked.
Fred nodded. “He does that for a lot of people.”
“But not Winston or his friends.”
Fred shook his head. “Winston got introduced into some circle of men who had something big going. They’d covered everything they needed from the judge, attorney, cops, and even someone at a mortuary.” There was a little bit of a sneer when he said the last. “Yeger wanted that kind of coverage, I guess.”
That explained a lot. Yeger was into human trafficking. He didn’t care if they were old or young, male or female, but he did want to be secure—to know even if he was busted, he would get off. Yeger saw an opportunity to use Winston to get to the others in the con ring.
“Do you know the names of Winston’s friends? The ones Yeger wanted to meet?” Absinthe persisted.
Fred shook his head. “He never said.�
��
“Did you get paid for the information with a girl?”
“Not yet. He said after they took out the woman, he’d bring one to me.” Fred avoided their eyes.
“You mean, after they killed my old lady, they’d bring you a little girl to rape. Isn’t that what you mean?” Ice demanded.
Fred remained silent, staring down at the table until he had to grip his head with both hands, gritting his teeth. His eyes bulged. Tears ran down his face. He opened his mouth to scream but no sound emerged.
Ice signaled for Alena to take Pierce and leave. Alena stood up and reached for Pierce’s hand. He threaded his fingers through hers, but he stayed stubbornly watching. She wrapped herself around him as only Alena could. When he still didn’t respond, she shrugged, turned, and left the table, moving through the bar with complete confidence, her hips swaying. She didn’t look back once.
Pierce glanced after her and then back to the table, clearly fascinated by Fred’s odd suffering. There was no way to connect him grabbing his head to anything the Torpedo Ink members were doing. Storm sat passively. Absinthe was looking at the Venomous club member, but as far as Pierce could tell, he wasn’t doing anything to him. Ice sat closer than any of the others, but he wasn’t touching the man that Pierce could see. He swore, once more looking after Alena.
Ice wanted to smile, knowing his dilemma. His sister would be lost in the sea of bikers. So many clubs. So many parties. So many men. She was beautiful and mysterious and elusive. In the end, Pierce turned and went after her.
Ice removed the threat of the knife and put it back inside his jacket, out of sight. Blood was dripping from Fred’s ears and trickling from both eyes. His head went down on the table and his body began to seize. Storm stood up and walked casually to the bar as his twin and Absinthe worked their way toward the door.
“Just wanted you to know, that man over there looks like he’s having some kind of seizure. I’m not a medic, but it doesn’t look good.” Storm patted the bar once and turned his back, threading his way through the crowd to the door where the others waited.
The bartender glanced over at Fred, who was slumped over the table. He could barely make him out. Several voices rang out demanding drinks, and he shrugged and went back to work.
* * *
“Are you happy with Ice?” Lana asked.
Soleil glanced up from the long rows of chicken on the grill and met Lana’s eyes. “Very happy, Lana. Thanks to you, I’m still alive and happier than I’d ever thought possible. I never had a home or a family. Torpedo Ink has been amazing, the way they’ve taken me in.”
She turned back to eye the chicken. She’d never actually grilled anything before. She waved the long tongs toward the chicken. “Have you ever done this?”
Lana stepped back, throwing both her hands into the air. “No way. Alena can do this with no problem. She’d make it all perfection. Me, I’m the queen of burning things.”
“You ladies need help?”
Both spun around. Soleil recognized the stranger, the man who had watched her earlier in the evening having sex. She struggled to keep the color from rising under her skin. She refused to be embarrassed, but her skin crawled. She’d liked him watching when she’d felt safe with Ice with her, but now she felt a little dirty, and not in a good way. He had participated by watching, by getting off on it. His gaze seemed to burn into her, making her feel more uncomfortable than ever.
“We’re fine,” Lana said, flashing him a smile. “Just making some food for our club.” She shifted slightly, gliding to put her body between Soleil and the newcomer as if she sensed he had come for more than helping them.
“Name’s Stallion,” he said, grinning, gripping the front of his jeans suggestively. “Bet you can’t imagine why.”
“Bet I can,” Lana said, glanced at Soleil and rolled her eyes.
Soleil hid her smile by staring down at the chicken. So far nothing looked as if it was burning. She just hoped Alena would come, or one of the men.
“You haven’t told me your names,” Stallion pushed.
“I think that was on purpose,” Lana said.
The smile faded from his face. “Don’t be a bitch. You don’t want to get your club in trouble. Mine has a certain reputation, and no one’s heard of yours.”
Lana burst out laughing. “Are you honestly threatening the club because I didn’t tell you my name?”
He took a step toward her, his face going red with anger. Soleil held up the tongs threateningly. Lana just remained looking cool, the way she always did, although her eyes had gone cold and watchful.
“I’m going to give you one warning, Stallion. If you lay one hand on me, I’m going to hurt you like you’ve never been hurt. They won’t call you Stallion anymore because you’re never going to be making babies.” She spoke very low, but her voice carried absolute truth.
“Everything all right here, Lana?” Ink asked, as he emerged from the shadows. He was a big man and covered in a multitude of tattoos. He spoke softly, like most of the Torpedo Ink members did.
Preacher, Lana’s older birth brother, came up on the other side of her, both men blocking Stallion’s view of Soleil. “Hey, sis, sorry we’re late. Got caught up in the wet T-shirt contest.”
Lana rolled her eyes. “Of course you did. You can’t tell fake from the real thing.” Her gaze went past him to lock onto Ink. “Neither of you can.”
“Is that where Ice went?” Soleil asked. It took an effort to keep her voice very casual. She was used to pretending everything was okay. She’d been doing that most of her life.
She hadn’t thought of all the parties going on everywhere all around them. She knew there was anything he might want to do right there for him, and he was very, very sexual. Women fawned all over him. She’d been with him only a month, but in that time, she’d noticed that everywhere they went, women looked at him, flirted and tried to entice him. How had she ever thought someone like Ice would be satisfied by a woman like her?
She turned her back on the others, fussing over the chicken. Ink reached around her to take the tongs out of her hand. “Babe. Really?”
He ignored Stallion’s posturing. The man could bluster until the cows came home, but he wasn’t going to fight them. Eventually, with no one paying him any attention, Stallion slunk back to his campsite, stomped over to one of the women, caught her wrist and yanked her with him as he stalked away.
“I don’t know what that means.” Soleil raised an eyebrow toward Lana. “Does ‘Babe. Really,’ actually mean something?”
Lana shook her head. “No, but they pretend every time they say it that it means something defining. It really means they have no vocabulary. Don’t pay any attention to them. The minute you do, you’re encouraging their bad behavior.”
“Talk about bad behavior,” Preacher said. “I saw that little smile you gave good old Stallion. You were egging that poor boy on. You wanted to kick his balls up to his throat.”
Lana shrugged. “That could be true. He was looking at Soleil like he was going to eat her for dinner and then he threatened the club because I wouldn’t tell him my name. Both offenses deserved his balls meeting his throat.”
Soleil wouldn’t say so out loud, but she kind of agreed. The man gave her a creepy feeling. She wasn’t choosing someone to look at next time. If Ice wanted that, he would have to do the selecting himself.
She looked around her. There was a sea of bikers. Hundreds in every direction she gazed. Fires danced in pits. Music vied for the airwaves. The sounds of motorcycle pipes as bikes were revved and tires smoked before taking off for difficult and dangerous tricks. Laughter and delighted screams could be heard. The scent of weed was prevalent. The smell of alcohol. If she wanted to walk off the panic welling up in her, how was she supposed to do that?
Panic was sliding up her throat, choking her. She didn’t look at the other
s. She couldn’t. She needed to be alone to think. She wrapped her arms around her middle and took a step, immediately feeling the vibrator between her cheeks. It had felt playful and sexy and fun when he was close to her. Now it felt dirty and tawdry and foolish. Ice was out there somewhere in that sea of bikers, and she was locked here in this place, afraid of taking a step in any direction. She didn’t have Lana’s or Alena’s confidence to just strut around and feel hot and desired.
She would do anything for Ice. She knew he could make her feel like the only woman in the world. He could make her want to leave a vibrator between her cheeks and take off her top and dance for him in a crowd. But he’d gone off and left her so he could watch other women in wet T-shirt contests.
She looked around again. There were so many fires going it was fairly light in spite of the time of night. It wasn’t like she could just call for a ride. Where could she go? Winston wanted her dead, and he’d even gotten some friends of his to try to kill her.
“Soleil.” Lana said her name sharply. “You’ve gone off someplace in your head that clearly isn’t very pleasant. You look like you’re going to cry.” She indicated the lawn chairs. “Come sit down with me and we’ll talk about it.”
Soleil needed time to think this all through before she made a fool out of herself. She knew her number one problem was self-confidence. She had been trying to work through that, but looking around at all the beautiful women everywhere surrounding them, and knowing Ice’s appetites, it was hard to think he wasn’t somewhere with a couple of women right at that moment. She’d heard the rumors.
She eased into one of the chairs that was set in a semicircle around the firepit and flashed a fake smile at Lana. “Did I look like that? I guess I do that. A leftover childhood thing. Everything is great here, a little scary because it’s different and I don’t know exactly what I’m doing yet, but I’ll catch on.”
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