Tempt My Trouble (Knights of Mayhem Book 1)

by K. A. Ware

  The drive down to the Cali border was uneventful, as was the exchange with the brothers from Sacramento early Friday afternoon. I was beginning to think my extra precautions had been unnecessary as we crossed over the bridge to Washington headed for Olympia where the Spokane boys were waiting for us.

  I should’ve known better.

  Pulling off the highway, we made our way down a narrow gravel access road that led to the old paper mill where the exchange would happen. I immediately spotted Hash as we rounded the last corner and the road opened up. At well over three hundred pounds, the Spokane chapter president was hard to miss.

  The boys brought their bikes to a stop behind me, and we all climbed off. Surrounded by forest, the place had long since been abandoned. The concrete buildings that made up the mill were covered in graffiti, and some had even collapsed in on themselves. Trash littered the ground. I even spotted a few needles glinting in the moonlight. It was a dump, but it was secluded and offered us the cover we needed to make the exchange beyond curious eyes.

  “It’s been too long, brother,” I said, pulling the older man in for a back-slapping hug.

  “No shit, we gotta make the trip down to Portland soon. The old lady’s been naggin’ me about being overdue for a visit.”

  “You guys are welcome anytime, man.” I signaled for Jester to start handing over the product. Leaning in closer to Hash, I lowered my voice. “I wanted to thank you for gettin’ on board with this. I know it couldn’t have been an easy sell with your boys.”

  “It wasn’t, but the cash incentive went a long way to soothing their concern,” Hash laughed.

  “I bet it did,” I said, giving him a shove.

  Lighting a cigarette, I leaned against the concrete wall settling in to shoot the shit with Hash for a while. It was just after ten, and we’d been riding most of the day, I was more than willing to take advantage of the opportunity to stretch my legs. We still had another two-hour ride home. Another two hours before I got to Rabbit. As tired as I was, I was looking forward to burying myself in her tight heat and riding her until we both passed out from exhaustion.

  I had waited an entire month to be inside her again and I wasn’t going to wait another day. I tried to do things her way, taking it slow and letting her learn to trust me, but that was over. Sick of waiting and fed up with her games, we were playing by my rules now.

  The sound of bikes in the distance pulled me from my moment of peace. Glancing up toward the road, I could see headlights headed for us through the trees. “You expecting company?” I asked, tossing my cigarette to the ground and turning to Hash.

  He shook his head, worry creasing his features.

  “Incoming!” I yelled, running for my sled. I’d just kicked it to life when the sound of roaring engines became an echo. Craning my neck, I watched in horror as six men on motorcycles flew out of the collapsed building behind us.

  Sinners.

  “They’re gonna box us in!” I screamed, pulling the piece from beneath my cut.

  Jester was the first to open fire, clipping one of the riders in the shoulder and causing him to lay down his bike. It must’ve spooked the others because they broke formation and scattered. In a cloud of dust and debris, me and my four guys, the four nomads, and the six brothers from Spokane took off after them.

  The guys who had been lying in wait were clearly inexperienced, no match for men who’d been riding for most of their lives. We made quick work of herding them all in one direction, and soon we were at their backs, chasing them toward the access road. Six more bikes turned the final corner coming down the hill straight for us. As soon as they saw us, they turned around, but the bottleneck they created bought us some much-needed time to catch up to the pack.

  Riding while getting shot at was difficult, but riding while returning fire was damn near impossible. I was all over the narrow gravel road. Swerving to avoid a pothole, I careened to the left and then overcorrected, sending my bike veering to the right. Barely missing a ditch, I steadied myself and twisted the throttle, closing the distance between myself and the back of the Sinner’s pack. A few of them were still blindly shooting behind their backs, but most were focused on dodging our bullets.

  A glance to my right confirmed Jester was beside me. If we let them get to the highway they were as good as gone, we couldn’t risk drawing attention carrying fifteen kilos of heroin. Just as we were coming up on the slowest rider, a stray bullet blew his front tire and sent him skidding out.

  I tried to get out of the way, but there wasn’t anywhere to go. His back wheel clipped my front tire as he fishtailed and I went flying. Gravel ripped into my exposed flesh as I skidded across the road, finally coming to a stop in a cloud of dust.

  “Shit! Baz!” someone yelled.

  I coughed, trying to regain my breath. “I’m fine,” I called out, rolling to my knees.

  “You good?” Jester asked, leaning down into my line of sight.

  “Yeah, we whole?” I asked, letting him help me to my feet.

  “Yeah, everyone’s in one piece.”

  I probably had some nasty road rash, and I was going to be sore as hell in the morning, but nothing felt broken. Spotting my gun a few feet away, I snatched it up while I tried to wrap my head around what had just happened.

  The crash had blocked the road and given the rest of the Sinners a chance to get away. They were probably already flying down the highway.

  “Fuck! Where is he?” I shouted, looking around for the guy who had caused the accident.

  Z popped his head up from the steep embankment on one side of the road. “He’s dead. Looks like a broken neck.”

  “Damn it!” Remembering the guy Jester had clipped, I stalked over to my bike and hoisted it upright. It was scratched to hell, but the damage looked mostly superficial.

  Climbing on, I kicked the engine to life.

  “What are you doing?” Jester asked, hurrying back to his own ride.

  “Getting some fucking answers,” I said, pointing my bike back down the road to where we’d left the fallen Sinner. The rest of my brothers weren’t far behind.

  The fucker was still writhing around in the dirt, holding his bleeding shoulder when we rolled up on him. Fifteen angry Knights surrounded the pathetic excuse for a biker.

  A calm fury enveloped me as I stood above the little piss ant. “Who sent you?”

  He raised his hand in an effort to ward me off. “Hang on just a second. I’ll tell you everything. It was Vinny. He set the whole thing up, I swear.”

  My anger ratcheted up a notch, and I was positively seething. “How did he know where we’d be?”

  “I-I don’t know, man. They didn’t tell us.”

  Twisting my wrist, I fired a round into the ground beside his head. “What did they tell you?” I screamed, hauling back and kicking him in the ribs for good measure. I didn’t have time for games. The Sinners had just directly attacked us. I needed answers.

  “Nothing, man. They just said you guys stole our business and we were gonna get it back and cash in. Told us to come down here and wait in one of the buildings. We were supposed to surround you guys.”

  I growled at his admission, and he flinched away. Lifting my eyes, I shared a look with Hash.

  “Your call, brother,” he said.

  But we both knew there was only one call to make. This fucker had to go to ground. There was no way around it. No one fucked with the Knights and lived to tell about it.

  Raising my hand, I fired two shots, ending the bastard with a double tap to the head. Wiping down my piece with my T-shirt, I nodded to Z. “You still carry that collapsible shovel in your saddle bag?”

  His manic grin was enough to have the most deranged serial killers running for the hills. “I got two.”

  “You enjoy this shit way too much,” I said. It was true, Z got a weird sort of joy from murder and mayhem. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was some kind of Viking warrior reincarnated. The guy was a trip and a half and his
bloodlust rivaled anyone I’d ever met.

  “If you love what you do…” Z said, trailing off with a shrug.

  “Whatever works, brother. You and Jester bury the bodies and toss this in the river on your way back,” I said, handing him the gun.

  Hash turned to me once Z was out of earshot. “He like that all the time?”

  I scoffed and clapped him on the shoulder. “Just be thankful he’s on our side.”

  Jester was still scanning the shadows as he approached. “This shit the Sinners tried to pull was half-cocked at best. They were completely disorganized and unprepared. I doubt they’ll try to ambush us again tonight, but we should keep our heads on a swivel just in case. Yeah?”

  “Agreed. Bones, you and your guys good to ride up north with Hash?” I asked, turning to the short bald man that had joined our huddle.

  “No problem,” he said with a nod. Technically the nomads were independent of any charter, but Bones was well respected and acted as the de facto leader of our nomads north of the Cali border.

  “That okay with you, Hash?”

  “Fine by me.” Hash’s mustache twitched with a smile. Reaching out, he clasped my hand and pulled me in for a half hug. “Handled yourself well, gonna make a good president.”

  I pulled away and gave him a questioning look. As far as I knew, that shit was still locked down tight.

  Hash flashed a somber smile. “Chains filled me in. You’ve got Spokane’s full support.”

  “Appreciate it, brother.”

  We said our goodbyes and Bones and his nomads rode off behind Hash and the Spokane boys. “Rooster and Ox, you’re with me. Let’s roll.”

  I had a date with a redhead.

  Sixteen

  FINLEY

  “Need me to call you a cab?” Billy asked, coming to stand beside me.

  I blew out a puff of smoke and looked out at the empty parking lot then down at my phone again. Last call was over a half hour ago and still no Baz. He hadn’t even sent me a text to let me know he was running late.

  “I’ll give him a few more minutes, then I’ll order an Uber.” Stubbing out my cigarette, I pulled out another and lit it. I’d quit a year ago, but with the anxiety of finals and Baz’s general bad influence, I’d started back up.

  Billy nudged me with an elbow. “Isn’t the saying waiting on a woman?”

  “More like waiting on a biker, story of my damn life,” I grumbled.

  Looking up, I caught the disapproving frown that pulled at the corners of Billy’s mouth. He’d always had a soft spot for me, but since Baz had been coming around, Billy had distanced himself. I wanted to clear the air, but my mind was too full of Baz to have that conversation at the moment.

  Part of me was pissed that Baz was fucking me around, but if I was being honest with myself, another much bigger part of me was worried about his safety. Growing up, I’d watched my father and his brothers ride out for a run—they didn’t always all come back.

  Besides the garage, Baz hadn’t mentioned the other ways the club earned, but I seriously doubted it was all on the up and up, which meant the run he was going on could be for anything. To my surprise, knowing that Baz probably didn’t always walk on the right side of the law didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would. It was just another part of him, one that I even benefitted from.

  I didn’t know what had changed, but lately, I found myself turning to Baz—the one person who represented everything I’d been running from for years—for help and even comfort. When he jumped in to handle the situation with Emerald, I hadn’t questioned his motives and he’d given me no reason to. Just like my car, it wasn’t a game of tit for tat with Baz, he stepped up when someone he cared about needed it. It was what my father would’ve done.

  The roar of a Harley in the distance saved me from having to dig into my plethora of daddy issues.

  “Thanks for waiting with me,” I said, turning to Billy and opening my arms for a hug. I might not have the mental capacity to talk it out, but I could extend some sort of peace offering.

  Billy’s big arms encircled me, and he dipped his mouth to my ear. “If shit ever goes sideways with this guy, you can call me, okay?”

  Pulling away, I was both offended by his assumption of what kind of guy Baz was and appreciative that he had my back. “Thanks, but Baz isn’t like that. It’s all good.”

  It was the first time I’d ever admitted that Baz didn’t fit the biker stereotype I had been trying to shove him into.

  “Nothin’s ever all good, baby girl,” Billy said, taking a step back and lifting his chin to gesture at something behind me.

  Turning, I saw Baz had parked his bike and was coming toward us. The shitty lights in the parking lot cast an ominous shadow on his face, his gait was off and he was favoring his left leg. My eyes darted to his bike that was parked beneath the one pole light in the front lot, even at a distance I could see the deep scratches in the tank and the bent mirror on the handlebars.

  “Jesus Christ, are you okay?” I asked, rushing down the concrete steps to him.

  “Who’s that?” Baz asked, his eyes never leaving where Billy still stood by the front entrance to the club.

  “Don’t even. Billy’s a friend. He made sure I was okay while I waited for your sorry ass to get here.”

  “I bet, that hug seemed pretty damn friendly,” he snarled.

  “Don’t play like you’re actually jealous, I know you better than that. Now, stop trying to change the subject. What happened? Are you okay?” Lifting my hands, I reached out to touch him but thought better of it. His grimace told me he was hurting and I didn’t want to add to his pain.

  “I’ll be fine when I get you under me,” he grumbled, finally breaking what I assumed was a stare-down with Billy, to look at me. His hands came up to frame my face and I rolled up on my toes, meeting him halfway in a kiss that had me panting for more. A single kiss from this man could set my soul on fire.

  When I tasted the tang of blood on my tongue, I pulled away. “Your lip’s bleeding, why don’t we worry about getting you cleaned up first? You want to come back to my place?”

  I hadn’t even thought of it before the words came out of my mouth, but I didn’t want to take back the offer. The idea of Baz in my house, taking up space in the place I called home didn’t send me running for the hills like it would have a few weeks ago.

  Catching my hand, Baz turned and started guiding me to his bike. “Nah, let’s head back to the clubhouse. I’ve gotta check in with Chains and the rest of the boys anyway.”

  “You okay to ride?” I asked, eyeing the damaged Harley. I wasn’t sure the bike was safe even if he was capable of riding.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Damages are superficial. Hop on, the sooner I get to the club and debrief the guys, the sooner I can get inside you.”

  Keeping him at a distance only worked for so long, and from the expression on his face, my grace period had just run out. I’d be lying if I said his words hadn’t sent a pulse of excitement right to my core. On paper, I’d been looking for someone who was the exact opposite of Baz, but even though he was late and looked like he’d just rode through hell, he did it for me in a way no one else ever had.

  The ride to the clubhouse was uneventful and we were both quiet as we rode through the darkened streets. By the way Baz’s stomach muscles spasmed at every turn he leaned into, I knew he was in more pain than he’d let on. I just wanted to get him alone so I could inspect the damage, I had a feeling it was a lot worse than I could see in the dark parking lot.

  Walking into Baz’s clubhouse late on a Friday night was like stepping into a time warp. I didn’t recognize any of the men milling around, but it might as well have been Bomber and my father sitting at the table playing poker. It all felt so familiar. A couple of guys stood by the pool table in the middle of the room. Scantily clad women in short skirts and skin-tight Harley tanks practically hung off the men.

  I tagged a woman on her knees in front of a man sitting on
the couch facing us. His arms were spread over the back of the couch and his head tilted up to the ceiling as she sucked him off. I had to fight the urge to roll my eyes.

  Club whores.

  No matter the club, they all had them. Women that clung to the patch, passing themselves around for a chance to become someone’s old lady. There were a few that just got off on being used, but most of them were angling for an in they’d likely never get.

  The man made a noise in the back of his throat and his hand came down to tangle in the girl’s bleach blonde hair. She gagged a little but didn’t try to pull away as he held her in place and bucked up into her mouth. He caught sight of us while he was tucking himself back into his jeans and lifted a chin in our direction. Something about him looked familiar, but I couldn’t place it.

  “I see you picked up that package you were in a hurry to get,” he called out in a gruff southern accent. Standing, he stepped over the girl as she wiped her mouth. She probably still had the taste of his cum on her tongue and he didn’t even spare her a second glance.

  I wanted to be pissed, but the truth was she’d made her bed. Most bikers didn’t mince words or string women along; they didn’t have to. She knew what the deal was before she got on her knees, if she didn’t like it, she didn’t have to keep coming around. If the way Baz and his brothers reacted to Emerald’s situation was any indication, none of the girls there were being held against their will.

  “Shut the fuck up, Rooster,” Baz said, guiding me over to the table where three older men were playing cards.

  “Was wonderin’ when you’d show up,” one of the men said, standing and making his way around the table to us. His dark brown hair was pulled back into a low ponytail, making the gray at his temples stand out. “This must be the redhead your mother was telling me about.”

  “Finley, this is my dad, Rigs. And these two old fuckers are Chains and Gunner,” Baz said pointing out the goateed man who wore the president patch and a much older bearded man.