“Last one, I promise,” I said to myself.
Then, I pushed through the front doors of the bar.
“Excuse me, I’m so sorry to bother you. But do you know this girl?”
“I’m sorry, I’ll only be a second. I just want to know if you guys know who this is? Or recognize her at all?”
“Yes, she’s my half-sister. I’m trying to find her.”
“You don’t? Not at all?”
“I’m not sure of her name. That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”
“She does look a bit like me, doesn’t she?”
As I made my way to the bar, everyone kept turning me down. Though, they had a lot to say about how similar we both looked. That made me smile, but their insistence on not knowing who she was made my heart frown. I slid onto a bar stool at the bar and tucked the picture into my purse, feeling more frustrated and more downtrodden than when I’d first began my journey to find answers.
“What can I get you?” the bartender asked.
“I see you’ve got your Long Island Teas on special tonight. Could I get one?” I asked.
“I.D., please.”
I pulled out my driver’s license and slid it to the man behind the counter. I always looked younger than my age. I mean, I was only twenty-two, but still. Most people didn’t take me for much over eighteen. He looked at me before he looked back down at the license, then held it up to the light.
Trying to make sure it wasn’t a fake.
I was used to it. The bows I wore to pull my hair away from my face probably didn’t help matters, either. But I tried not to let it bother me. He finally handed my license back and began making me a drink, and I decided to go ahead and ask him.
I mean, if there was anyone in a bar who’d know who this girl was, it would be a bartender.
“Do you know this woman, by any chance?” I asked.
I pulled out the picture and showed him, but he shook his head.
“I’m sorry, I don’t. Something wrong?” he asked.
“She’s my half-sister, apparently. I’m trying to find her,” I said.
“I take it this is a new revelation?”
“Yes. Very much so. I mean, I always felt like I wasn’t really alone as an only child. But I would have never thought something like this.”
“Well, good luck in trying to find her. I’d try widening your search. A lot of locals don’t actually come into downtown if they want to have a good time. If she’s a local? She’s probably not in this area at all.”
Great. Just fabulous.
“Can I see that picture?”
I whipped my head over and I watched a man come up to me. Tall. Dark. Muscular. A kind smile. I handed him the picture and he took it from my hand, his brow furrowing deep.
“I think I’ve seen her around here before,” the man said.
“Wait, really?” I asked.
I ignored the drink the bartender passed to me, letting it sit as the ice melted in the glass.
“Yeah. I mean, her hair’s a lot redder in person than in this picture. But I’m pretty sure I know who this is,” he said.
“What’s her name?” I asked.
“I’m not sure. She’s only come into this bar a couple times. Like the man said, she wouldn't come around here too much. I’ve seen her a few times though, if I’m thinking of the right girl, on the other side of town. Like, if you’re heading north.”
“Did you see her in a bar? A restaurant? A coffee shop?”
He chuckled. “Slow down. It’s okay. There’s a bar called Chopper’s. My favorite joint. Best quesadillas in town, if you ask me. I’ve seen that red hair there a few times. If you let me share a drink with you, I’ll take you there. You can follow me, and maybe your search will pan out in that direction.”
“Thank you so much. Seriously. You’ve been a lifesaver. And I’m Freya, by the way,” I said.
He nodded, his smiling comforting me. “Rhett. You have a beautiful name. It suits you.”
I blushed as the man ordered himself a beer. The two of us talked, falling into a comfortable rhythm that resulted in another drink for each of us. He was kind. Considerate. Made me feel like I was home, even though I was three hours away from it. I finished my second drink and he downed his beer, then he offered me his hand to help me off the stool.
He even settled my tab with the bartender and tipped way more than he should have.
“Thank you so much for the drink,” I said.
“It’s not a problem. Not an expensive drink, considering it was on sale tonight. Consider it a welcome to San Diego. You ready to head to Chopper’s?”
“Lead the way. Who knows? Maybe she’ll turn up tonight. My gosh, I’ve got so many questions to ask her.”
“I bet you do. You guys have the same hair, you know. I mean, yours is a little darker, but your faces are very much alike.”
I smiled at his compliment before he offered me his arm. I turned around and thanked the bartender, then the two of us headed out to the parking lot. I couldn't believe it. My first night in San Diego, and I had a breakthrough that could change the course of my two-week stay in the area.
I couldn't wait to find my other half.
5
Bronx
I wiped down the bar after I finished slinging a few drinks around. The place was busier than normal, despite the fact that we didn’t open to the public. Well, we were open to the public, but we didn’t advertise our services or anything. Word of mouth got around in the biker community, and they alone kept us afloat. San Diego was a hot spot for bike weeks and trips and shit like that, so we always got a massive influx of rebel rousers and tough-looking men. Which was enough to drive the rest of the public away.
But we did great business throughout the year. The guys never complained about it and I never brought up the need to advertise the bar around the community.
Now that we’d gotten into this tight spot, however, I kept bringing it up with Stone. In private, of course. But if we could tap into the public and get a good foundational community base as well, our profits would skyrocket. With my calculations, if we did even forty percent of the business with locals as we did with bikers and the like, we wouldn't have a need to build another bar until it was absolutely necessary.
Stone didn’t want to take the chance, though. He didn’t want to bring unassuming college kids and shit like that into the bar until we knew it was safe. And while I couldn't blame him for that—and actually admired him for it—the numbers haunted me at night.
We had it within our reach to get out of this illegal shit for good. But it all hinged on us getting out of this shit with the Chinese.
And getting this damn detective to stop breathing down our necks.
“Go home.”
Stone’s voice reverberated behind me before he slapped me on the back. I whipped around, tossing the rag over my shoulder as my brow furrowed together. The man was never behind the bar. He hardly ever worked at the place. He helped manage staff, he hired and fired, but he never slung drinks around.
And there he was, cracking open beers and sliding them down to those waiting for their orders.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Go home, Bronx. I’ll close down,” Stone said.
“No, what are you doing here? What's going on?”
He eyed me hotly, trying to get me to back down with nothing but a glare.
“You spend too much time in this place. The employee meeting went fine. I see you remedied the tip jar situation by bolting down a fucking tip bucket on either side of the bar. Take the night off,” he said.
“But what about—”
“Get the hell out of here, Bronx. Before I change my mind.”
I nodded curtly and tossed the wet rag over to him. I took two more orders and mixed up some drinks, then started for the back door. I knew why Stone was here; I just wondered if he was able to admit it. Stone had only worked behind the bar four other times that I knew about,
and all four of those times were when he couldn't gather his thoughts. Stone operated best while under pressure. He came up with his best plans when he felt things breathing down his neck. And when he came up empty-handed, he came to work at the bar to see if he could conjure up some of that pressure for himself.
Stone was coming up empty-handed on what to do with this shit show of a situation.
It worried me, but I wasn’t going to question a night off. Even though Stone working the damn bar didn’t mean good things for our future plans, I tried to look for the silver lining. I didn’t work a damn bit tomorrow, which meant a nice, long weekend for me.
Which gave me plenty of time to think about the club falling apart at the seams.
I slipped onto my bike and cranked it up. I nodded to a few of the local bikers from another smaller group that rode just for fun. Bunch of dads who needed to get away from their nagging wives and spoiled kids. I waved at them before I sped off, needing to clear my head. I worked my way over to Highway One and cruised the coast line, wrapping around to ride up and down the road.
My little beach shack wasn’t too far from much. Twenty minutes from downtown. Fifteen from the lodge. Twenty from the bar. I’d bought it last year when the owners wanted to off-load it. The property itself was hard to maintain. It sat on a deserted part of Highway One that overlooked a staunch cliffside. It had a gorgeous view of the ocean, but it didn’t have a yard. Out back was the steep drop off with a jagged walkway right onto the private beach. And right off the front porch was a patch of sandy, pathetic excuse for grass as the highway took a turn away from the house. No more than half an acre of purchased land, the shack was the only house for miles.
And hardly anyone traveled that far up Highway One.
With the bypass that opened up a few months ago, this side of the highway had practically rotted away. No one came up this far, especially if they wanted to get up the coast. They took the bypass because of its faster times, smoother asphalt, and the promise of better beaches than the one my back porch overlooked. Which meant, despite the road only forty feet from my porch, not many people came back here.
I liked it. The beauty. The privacy. The control I had over my environment.
But tonight, I wasn’t ready to go back home.
Every time I came to that last bend in the road, I turned around and rode back up the highway. I was restless. Confused. Itching to do something, but without a clue as to what. There were plenty of renovations that still needed to happen to my house. Over the past seven months, I’d gutted the place. Pulled up the carpet and replaced it with sealed marble. Redid all the insulation behind the walls. Painted over the walls with bright colors that caught the light of the sun perfectly as it dipped behind the ocean at night.
I was in the process of putting the finishing touches on the second bedroom before starting in on my master bathroom.
But tonight? Those renovations didn’t call to me. That hard work, back pain, and sweat didn’t call to me like it usually did.
I came to a stop at the only stoplight on the highway. It was halfway between my place and the lodge. The road that dead-ended into the highway was the only road that intersected this way, hence the light. I sat there, the only person at the light coming from any angle and tapped my hand against my thigh. I had all this restless energy and no passion to throw it into anything productive.
Until something caught the corner of my eye.
As the light turned green, I continued to sit there. I saw shadows struggling in an alleyway beside a bar I recognized. Chopper’s. A run-down bar that was two ticks away from closing. I squinted my eyes as a man fell to his ass in the shadows, then a young woman appeared. I couldn't see much of her in the darkness. But when she came out of the alleyway, I most certainly heard her cries for help.
“Get off me! What the hell? Stop it!”
The guy scrambled off the ground and reached for her wrist. He stood up, tugging her back along the brick wall while the young woman struggled to get away. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. My hand stopped tapping and my feet pushed off the asphalt of the highway underneath me. As I took a left-hand turned, my energy focused. My eyes stayed trained on them. The man kept pulling her along as she clawed at him to get away, his eyes set on the deserted parking lot on the other side of the bar.
My hands tightened against the handlebars of my bike as the man grabbed the woman and pinned her to the brick wall.
My teeth gnashed together as I revved the engine of my bike. I pulled straight up to the curb, destined to intervene and break this asshole’s nose. I hopped the curb and got off my bike, not even flinching when it hit the ground. I strode for the man and fisted the back of his shirt. The woman shrieked as I pulled him off her. Tears streamed down her cheeks and she shook violently, her fear taking over.
I slammed the man against the brick wall, pinning him there with my knee between his legs.
“What the fuck are you doing!?” the man growled.
“Showing you what it feels like when you pick on someone your own size,” I said, grinning.
Then, without hesitation, I pulled my fist back and slammed it directly into his nose.
6
Freya
The ocean was a beautiful backdrop to the drive over to the bar. I followed the guy in his car as he led me, going slower than the rest of the traffic. He was kind, and I wanted to thank him for his kindness toward me. As we cruised the coastline in search of this bar called Chopper’s, I rolled down my window. The soothing waves that battered the empty private beaches made me smile. The smell of the salted air warmed my soul. The twinkling stars over the ocean on the horizon made me want to stop and look at them. How lucky someone could be to live by all this. By such beauty and reverence. I felt the relaxation in the air. I smelled the pursuit of truth within the salted wafts of air flying from the ocean, propelled by the lapping of the waves.
I made a mental note to come back and sit at one of the lookout points.
This was my night. The night things changed. I felt it, I breathed it in, and it settled my gut. Something good was on that horizon. Something brave, uncontrolling, and wonderful that was about to open up my future. I smiled as we came to a stop at the only stop light we hit on the highway. I saw the car in front of me turn on his right-hand signal, so I did the same. As we turned onto the road, the bar came into view. Right there on the corner with a gorgeous view of the ocean that wasn’t being used.
What a waste.
The street we turned on dead-ended right into the highway. And off to our right was a small, deserted parking lot. He pulled in and I followed suit, parking my car quickly.
Then, I slammed myself out of my vehicle and raced to the sidewalk.
It was right there. Maybe five hundred feet in front of me. The cliff-face drop off into the sandy beach that bled straight into the ocean. The sounds of the waves were louder than ever. The smell of the salted air was so strong that it slapped me across the face. I slowly made my way down the sidewalk, gawking at the beauty and heading for the entrance of Chopper’s.
But the feeling of someone wrapping their arm around my waist pulled me from my trance.
“You know, I’ve never paid much attention to this view. But the sight of its reflection in your eyes makes me take a second look at it,” Rhett said.
I blushed at his words. “Thank you so much for all this. For helping me find my half-sister.”
“If I can be of service to even one person tonight, it’ll make my night worth it.”
“I saw the bar right there on the corner. Right?” I asked.
“Mhm. I’ll escort you inside. It’s one of those ‘members only’ type of deals. You’re my guest for the night so you can get in.”
We continued walking toward the bar, his arm wrapped tightly around my waist. And while he held me a little closer than I would have liked, it didn’t bother me. After all, I was in an unfamiliar place, and he seemed like a strong guy.
If trouble came our way, I had a feeling he’d help me handle it.
“Just past this alleyway is the entrance to the bar,” Rhett said.
I smiled brightly. “I have no idea how I’m ever going to repay you for something like this. I really appreciate it.”
“Well, I have a few ideas in mind.”
His statement caught me off-guard, and I turned my eyes to look up at him. He still had that calm smile on his face, but he led us down the alleyway.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“To Chopper’s. See?” he asked, nodding his head.
I looked forward and saw the side entrance to the bar. I looked back over my shoulder, hoping and praying for the best intentions. His grip on my waist tightened, and I grew nervous. Despite seeing the side entrance to the bar in the alleyway, I didn’t see a knob on the door.
“How are we going to get in?” I asked.
“Got a buddy who lets me in the side whenever I come. All I gotta do is knock on the door,” Rhett said.
But pretty soon, we blew past the side entrance as he tugged me along.
“What are you—Rhett, let me—we passed the entrance!” I exclaimed.
I pulled myself away from him, but he wrapped his hand around my wrist. I struggled to get free as red flags finally waved in my mind. Shit. It had been a mistake to follow this guy. And we were in a dark alley with no one around.
“Help! Help me!” I shrieked.
I wrenched away from him and started running, but his hand wrapped itself within the fabric of my shirt. He tugged me back to him and pinned me against the wall, his hands pressing my wrists into the cold brick. His lips fell to my neck as my ass bucked against him. I grimaced as he grew hard, tears rushing my eyes.
The Lost Boys MC Series: Books 1-4 Page 34