by Atlas, Lilly
“Mick!” he screamed as his body slammed into the unforgiving ground, shattering in pain.
“Mick!” LJ screamed as his eyes popped open. His back spasmed, catching him in a grip of pain that nearly stole his breath. It was then reality set in. “Jesus, fuck,” he mumbled as he ran a hand down his face, wiping sweat out of his eyes. The drops hit his vinyl floor with a splat. He was dripping wet, as usual.
Been a hot minute since he had a nightmare so violent, it tossed his ass out of the bed. The nightmares themselves were a weekly occurrence, sometimes even more frequently, but most of the time they consisted of waking in a cold sweat with a hammering heart, pounding head, and sick feeling in his gut. Not to mention a slew of traumatic memories running through his mind.
The anger and emotional charge of the evening had to be to blame. Hopefully, Holly hadn’t heard him lose his shit through the paper-thin wall separating his place from hers. Last thing he needed was her pity. Or worse, to have her run over to make sure he hadn’t hurt himself. Six-feet-six inches of near three-hundred-pound man had to shake a floor on impact.
A glance at the clock revealed it was shortly after five-thirty in the morning. Looked like he’d forgotten to set his alarm in the mess of the previous night. Maybe the nightmare was a good thing. Kept his ass from getting chewed out by his boss for oversleeping.
As he rested back against his nightstand to give himself a few minutes to calm, his phone buzzed above his head. Without looking, LJ reached up and snagged the thing off his nightstand. Rocket was calling. LJ frowned. Couldn’t be good. His brother and boss only called this early if there was a complication at a job site or an even more daunting alternative, trouble with the club.
“Hey, brother, you good?” LJ answered slightly breathless from the nightmare.
“No. I’m not fucking good. I’m fucking fucked,” Rocket shot back, his tone full of disgust.
Despite what was turning out to be a serious phone call, LJ couldn’t help but chuckle. Wasn’t often Rocket lost his shit. He was a master at keeping his emotions locked down tight. Came from years working both sanctioned and unsanctioned black ops missions.
“What’s going on?” LJ asked.
“Your girl’s fucking father, that’s what’s going on.”
LJ grunted. Bad news traveled fast. “She’s not my girl.” He recalled the look on her face when he’d called her a child who couldn’t say no to her daddy. “Not even close.”
“What-the-fuck-ever. Sheriff assface has all our jobs on hold right now. You know that casino over in Cherokee, North Carolina? The one that was knocked off two nights ago?”
LJ grunted again. How could he not know? Every news station in Tennessee and North Carolina had run the story every hour on the hour since the robbery went down. Some lucky assholes made off with over two million dollars after a high stakes poker game ended. “Yeah, what about it?”
“Well, our good sheriff got an anonymous tip saying the money was buried at one of our fucking job sites.”
LJ couldn’t help it. He laughed long and hard. “This some kinda prank, boss?”
“Ain’t fucking funny, asshole,” Rocket snapped then his voice grew muffled as though he was holding his hand over the phone. “Sorry, baby, go back to sleep. I’ll get off in a minute.”
Chloe must have made some sort of raunchy comment about getting Rocket off because the low chuckle that floated through the phone was full of heat and need.
“Hey, brother, feel free to do what you gotta do. I don’t mind listening for a bit while you take care of that gorgeous woman of yours. Just make sure the phone is near her, so I don’t have to hear your animal grunts while you’re fucking.”
“You’re a real hoot now that you’re patched in and think we can’t do shit to make your life hell anymore. Don’t get too comfortable, brother.”
LJ laughed. Of all the men he considered brothers, Rocket was the closest. “So this is really happening then? We got a new sheriff with a hard-on for our club, and he’s willing to pull some dirty stunts to break us.”
Rocket grunted. “Looks like it.”
They both knew the tip was complete and utter bullshit. There was no buried money, hell that money was long gone, never to be found again. And the Handlers didn’t deal in that kinda shit. Knocking off casinos and banks was way too risky a game. Getting busted with a few million in stolen cash meant long, hard time behind bars. But how the hell could the club prove they weren’t involved?
They couldn’t, which meant the sheriff was going to spend days combing through and tearing up each of Rocket’s job sites until he was happy with the amount of fuckery he’d placed on him.
And all this happened the morning after the sheriff found out his little princess was living next to and being touched by a biker? No fucking coincidence there.
“Shit,” LJ said, rising to his feet. He then wandered toward his kitchen where the coffee should be waiting in the pot, hot and fresh. “This is on me, brother. I’ll see if there’s a way I can fix it.”
“Nah,” Rocket responded. “This guy wants us, Jack. Starting to think he’s willing to stoop damn low to get us. This ain’t on you. Wasn’t this, it’d be something else with this asshole. Don’t you dare go down to the station to plead our case. Ain’t giving him the satisfaction of knowing he got to us. We ride this shit out and come up with our own plan. Asshole has no idea who he’s up against.”
LJ hummed his agreement as Holly’s face flashed before his eyes. He may be pissed at her, but she didn’t deserve to be caught in a war between the cops and an outlaw MC. And that’s what it would be. A war. Not the type they’d have if another club went after them, but a war just the same.
LJ hit the speaker button and placed the phone down next to him as he prepared his coffee and grabbed the last energy bar from the box. His heart rate had finally returned to normal. The distraction of club business helped. “Why do I have the feeling this is going to get ugly?”
“You and me both, brother,” Rocket said. “You and me both. All right, listen, I called you before Cop, so I better go fill him in. He’ll probably call church for later today even though it’s Saturday.”
Construction was frequently a six to seven day a week business that didn’t seem to care if the rest of the world was off each weekend. “Okay, brother. Thanks for filling me in. I’ll take care of calling the crews to cancel for today.”
“Thanks, LJ. Put them on standby for the next few days too. No idea how long this shit is going to take to play out.”
“You got it.” He took a sip of his coffee and sighed when the warm liquid seemed to wake up sleeping nerve endings after just one hit of caffeine.
Just as he was about to hang up, Rocket spoke again. “Hey, you okay? Sounded off when you answered the phone.”
“Eh, shitty night,” LJ said with a shrug as though dreaming about his best friend’s horrific death was no big deal.
Rocket knew otherwise. He was the only one who did. Copper was aware that LJ had PTSD on paper, but even their president didn’t know the extent of it. They were coming up on the three-year anniversary of Mick’s death. Wasn’t uncommon for the nightmares to increase in frequency and intensity at this time of year. The freak-outs during the day too. And weren’t those always a blast of fun wrapped up in panic and humiliation?
“Need to talk about it?” Rocket asked.
“Nope.” Same standard offer and refusal of an ear they’d used on and off over the years.
With a snort, Rocket said, “You need to get yourself a steady woman, J. Best way to stave off a shitty dream is to roll over and fuck your woman.”
Yeah, no chance in hell of that happening. All it took was one incident in which LJ lashed out and nearly strangled a girlfriend in his sleep to keep him from so much as dozing in a woman’s presence. Poor girl had to wear a scarf for weeks due to bruising on her neck. She’d refused every attempt at an apology and basically told LJ to rot in hell.
Nope, no
w he got in, got down to business, and got the hell out before the condom hit the trash can. He wasn’t willing to risk hurting someone or be treated as an abuser again.
“I’m good, thanks, Rocket. Don’t need a steady woman to get what I want.”
“I ain’t just talking about fucking, Jack. But I think you know that. And I know exactly where you’ve been.”
LJ slammed his coffee mug on the counter. Hot liquid sloshed over the sides, scalding his hand. “Shit!” he barked as he yanked his hand back and shook it out. “Then you know exactly why I ain’t willing to risk falling asleep next to a woman.”
“There are things that can help, brother.”
“Fucking tried it all.” He could practically see one of Rocket’s eyebrows lift as though to say, “Who you trying to fool?”
“Okay, I’ll quit with the psychobabble. Just know that I get it and I got two good ears should you need one.”
This right here was the part of the MC someone like Holly, and especially someone like her father, would never understand. They were blinded by fears of criminal activity, violence, and rumors of wild parties full of illicit sex. But they had no idea what resided at the core of a club like the Handlers. Family. A brotherhood with bonds stronger than blood. Blood didn’t mean shit in many cases. Just ask most of his brothers.
But it meant something to Holly, apparently. Because she was willing to let hers color her opinion of LJ before she’d even had a chance to form one for herself.
Well fuck her. And fuck her father too. That asshole had no idea what would come for him if he crossed the line with the club.
“Thanks, brother. I’ll check in with you later.” He disconnected the call and bit through half his protein bar in one bite.
As he chewed, he contemplated what the next few days would bring. Copper was the patriarch of their family. He had an ol’ lady who was a damn good woman, and he was raising her kid as his own. Copper was levelheaded and fair, but come at his family?
Well, then the man would take on the devil himself.
Bring it, Sheriff Lane. Fucking bring it.
CHAPTER EIGHT
WHY ON EARTH had Holly suggested meeting with the owner of the town’s only diner at six-thirty on a Saturday morning? Because she was out of her mind, that’s why. Of course, she hadn’t anticipated a sleepless night of drama before her big interview.
She’d tried to sound sophisticated during her initial phone call to the diner’s owner, Toni, making it seem like she had a well thought out business plan and boatloads of experience. Some of that was even true, the business plan portion anyway. The experience? Well, she was working on that. She’d been baking since she could measure and had been to pastry school, so she had that kind of experience. Just none working in professional kitchens or bakeries.
Sounding classy and put together had flown out the window the moment Toni told her the diner opened at seven-thirty in the morning but she usually arrived at six-thirty and most of the staff at seven. For some reason, Holly had blurted out the ridiculous idea of meeting with her early in the morning, which only made her sound… “Desperate. You sounded desperate,” Holly whispered to herself.
Though, truth be told, she was a little desperate to find a kitchen and get her online business off the ground. So at least she sounded the way she felt…right?
“Okay,” she said aloud. “Get it together, girl.” She opened the trunk of the ten-year-old Jetta she’d inherited from her parents and carefully picked up the box of pastry samples she’d prepared. “You’re smart, you’re not half bad with people, and you’re a damn good baker. So what if you need to lose ten pounds. No one will care about that in this interview. You shouldn’t have changed your outfit ten times. That first one was fine. Now you look like an overripe strawberry.” She said looking down at the casual, short-sleeved red dress she’d worn. “Just go in, be charming, don’t stutter, and don’t fucking puke.”
Oh, my God. She was rambling. Aloud and to herself.
“And now you’ve gone from seeming desperate to craz—”
“Excuse me?”
Holly yelped and spun around, bobbling the box. Thank God, she caught it before it landed on the ground. As it was, she probably upset some of the frosting. Damnit. Off to a good start.
“Uh, yes, hi.” She turned as she spoke, coming to face a thin woman with short, jet black hair in a spiky style that would have looked ridiculous on Holly, but made this woman look like some combination of badass meets model.
“Are you Holly?”
And she was the diner’s owner. Great. Off to a truly disastrous start. Getting caught by the owner talking to herself while rifling in her trunk couldn’t be a positive way to start the meeting. She cleared her throat and stuck out a hand while balancing the bakery box on the other. “Yes, I am. And you must be Toni?”
“Actually, I’m Jazmine, Jazz.”
Which it clearly stated on the woman’s silver nametag. “Oh, right, sorry.”
Jazz smiled a warm smile. “No worries. It was supposed to be Toni here this morning, but I think she may have overdone it last night and was having some trouble getting up.” Jazz chuckled. “I volunteered to step in. Don’t worry, I’ve done plenty of interviews for her before. Oh, I guess I should mention I’m the manager here.”
“Ah, okay, then. How about we just pretend you didn’t find me talking to myself like some kind of crazy person because I’m not. I’m only half crazy.”
Jazz threw back her head and laughed. “Considering I was giving myself an out-loud pep talk about a personal matter in the car on the way over here this morning, I have no right to judge.” She raised her arms as if surrendering. “Call it even?” Jazz lowered her hands, extending one toward Holly.
“Yes, ma’am, that sounds good to me.” With a smile and a much more relaxed posture, Holly placed her hand in Jazz’s. The handshake was firm but welcoming.
“Follow me inside. It should be just the two of us for the next half-hour-ish so we can sit in a booth and chat.” She turned and started for the door, walking with confidence.
Oh, how Holly wished they could trade places, and she could be the one comfortable with her position in life instead of being a constant ball of stressed-out nerves hoping to find a rental location and get her business up and running.
As she trailed behind Jazz, Holly couldn’t help but take in the contradicting picture the other woman presented. With a slew of silver studs in each ear, a bar through her eyebrows, spiky hair, and a colorful butterfly tattooed on the back of her neck, Jazz gave off a badass vibe from the neck up. Below the color bone, she could have been a stereotypical kindergarten teacher. Khaki pants appearing a size too big rested on the woman’s slender hips. Her diner T-shirt also seemed to dwarf her small frame and a very conservative navy blue cardigan topped off the outfit. Maybe it was just the diner’s uniform, but still, it made for an odd picture.
“Please tell me you have something in that box there that’ll go well with the coffee I’m about to brew,” Jazz said as she unlocked the first of three outer locks on the entrance door. After all the locks had been released, she pulled the door open and stepped aside for Holly to pass.
“Well, if you’re into dessert at six-thirty in the morning, then yes, I have some fantastic things to go with that coffee.”
“I’m a firm believer in no-limits eating. Bring on the sugar. You don’t scare me, Miss Lane.” She said with a smile.
Holly nearly snorted. She highly doubted Jazz indulged in sweets at any hour, let alone bright and early in the morning. A body like that wasn’t maintained by eating cupcakes and cookies. Unless she was just one of those unnatural, evil women, who could eat whatever and whenever they wanted.
God, Holly hated those skinny bitches.
“Holly?”
Oh shit, she’d totally wandered off to thoughts of calling her potential landlord of sorts a skinny bitch. Not good.
“I’m sorry, I drifted for a second. What did you sa
y?”
“No worries. Grab a booth, and I’ll be back with coffee in a few minutes. I’m excited to see what you brought.” The smile Jazz tossed her way seemed one hundred percent genuine, which had Holly feeling like a shit for thinking mean thoughts about the woman.
Once she’d settled in a booth, her bakery box awaiting its grand reveal, Holly used the quiet few moments to take in her surroundings. The place wasn’t what she’d expected. Shameful as it was, she’d been prepared for a run-down, small-town diner with cracked pleather seats, greasy tables, and a sticky floor. What she got instead was a retro fifties vibe in a clean and well-maintained restaurant.
A black and white checkered floor spanned the entire building. Booths and table chairs were a cheerful teal with chrome legs and trim, while tabletops were a pale pink. A long counter ran the length of the building with at least fifteen stools for customers looking to eat at the breakfast bar. Hell, there was even a jukebox in the corner.
Holly would kill to work out of the kitchen in this adorable diner.
“Cute, isn’t it?” Jazz asked as she emerged from the kitchen with a tray containing two steaming mugs and coffee fixings.
“This place is great.”
Jazz beamed as she set the tray down. “Help yourself. There’s cream, sugar, Splenda, and some cinnamon. Wasn’t sure how you took it.”
“Thanks,” Holly said as she reached for a mug with one hand and four packets of Splenda with the other. Yeah, she liked her coffee tooth-achingly sweet.
“Toni’s parents apparently ran a great place, but she’s spruced it up some since she took over. We got that jukebox just last week. I found it at an estate sale, actually.” Jazz blushed. “It’s kind of a hobby of mine, estate sale shopping. Anyway…” She waved her hand as though moving on from the tangent. “Toni and I were both intrigued by your idea. Why don’t you fill me in on what you’re proposing?”