Ruthless

by Tory Richards

  “Thought you wanted the bitch for yourself.” I decided that it was time to add to the conversation. “So you’re just gonna use her to get to Stone?”

  “Fuck, no!” Wildman snarled, drawing a cry from the girl on his lap when he squeezed her tit too hard. “That girl is fucking mine, but if he’s claimed her he’ll do everything within his power to get her back. That means the fucker will make mistakes. He won’t be thinking clearly when he’s got pussy on his mind.”

  If he thought that Stone was that weak then he was a fucking fool.

  “All we can do now is wait, but I want all you brothers ready. Fuck all the pussy you want, but watch the drugs and booze for the next few days. If we go to war I don’t want a bunch of fucked-up pussies behind me. Once we take out Dark Menace, we’ll go after Wild Marauders.”

  Wildman was delusional, proof that the drugs and the alcohol had done some damage to his brain after years of overuse. There was no way Red Devils was savvy enough to destroy my club, but that didn’t mean that they weren’t dangerous. And Wildman was a lucky bastard. He always managed to get away when shit went south. I’d have to keep my ears and eyes open to make sure that I didn’t miss any vital information that I could pass on. That would mean I would have to spend more time in the bar with one of the whores on my lap.

  The sound of Wildman’s cell phone vibrating in his back pocket alerted us that he was receiving a phone call. He dumped the girl off his lap and reached for the phone, and a big sneer spread across his face when he looked down and saw who the call was from.

  He looked up at all of us without answering it. “It’s done!” he said with vehemence. “I don’t think I’ll wait for Stone to get in touch with me.” He scrolled through his contact list, hit a number, and it was answered on the other end almost instantly. “You get my fucking message?”

  He didn’t speak as Stone answered him.

  Wildman’s laugh was grating and humorless. “I want my girl back.” There was a short pause. “You know who the fuck I’m talking about,” he said with force. “That cute little piece you’re holding as collateral.”

  His expression revealed that he didn’t like the response that he got from Stone.

  “I want my fuckin’ property back!” Wildman snarled like a rabid animal, all but foaming at the mouth. “Been looking for that bitch and her mother for years. I—”

  He stopped as Stone cut him off.

  Wildman growled, “Yeah, we got her fuckin’ skinny-ass sister.” That was news to me. Where were they keeping her? “Gotta tell ya, chick doesn’t have the stamina to survive my bunch. They’ll tear her to pieces when I give her up.” He paused for a moment to let his words sank in. “Here’s how shit’s gonna go,” he began, sounding over-confident. “You give me back my girl, her sister gets to live. You don’t give her back to me, and her sister joins her man in hell. Then I come after your club and take back what’s mine anyway. Your choice.”

  He’d made a big mistake threatening Stone. I could just imagine the seething anger that was running through my president in response to Wildman’s confident smugness.

  Wildman reached down to the girl who was now on the floor and twisted her nipple until she screamed. “You hear that? And that was just a nipple twist.” He laughed cruelly. The prick was passing off the whore as Rachel’s sister. A second later he dropped his phone down on the table, taking a deep breath of satisfaction.

  Fucker.

  All of a sudden the door opened and a prospect stepped into the room. A scream could be heard from the room beyond. My gut told me that it was Rachel’s sister.

  “We got her, Prez!”

  “Good. Lock the bitch up until we need her.” He reached down for the dazed girl at his feet and hauled her up onto his lap again, sitting her spread eagle over him. “Now you fuckers get out! My dick needs draining!” He began to nuzzle her tits roughly.

  As soon as church was over I returned to my room, determined to get Ginger out of here.

  Chapter 10

  Ginger

  Present

  I was behind the bar helping Stevie out, so freaking thankful that it was the last day of Bike Week. Even though it would take a few days before the visiting bikers were all gone from town, the rush, hassle, and constant running would slow down considerably once the festivities were over. On a normal day we were busy, but it was nothing like the intensity and the crazy atmosphere that we had survived in the last five days. Della had remained home, as ordered. Vinny hadn’t liked it, but he’d just have to get over it. Sometimes the man could be so insensitive!

  I was wiping down the bar while Stevie was preparing an order for me, trying, but failing, to ignore Rebel where he sat in the corner. The man was too sexy for his own good, and I’d watched him shoot down several attempts from women who’d offered to keep him company. He was in a dark corner booth, almost invisible in the shadows, nursing a glass of whiskey in his strong, capable hands. I knew that he was watching me. I could feel his burning stare follow me wherever I went, and it was unnerving. I knew why he was hanging around—he was worried about his money, but we needed to have a talk to figure out some kind of payment plan. Surely he knew that it was going to take me some time to come up with the full amount.

  I couldn’t help but feel that there was more to Rebel’s sudden reappearance in my life than he was letting on, but I pushed aside the suspicious thought that this went deeper than any debt that I owed him. I’d never forgotten him. How could I, when he’d taken my virginity? It was more than that, though. He hadn’t just plowed through it and fucked me as if I’d been a whore, leaving me traumatized and torn up, which he could have done. No, he’d been patient and almost caring, and that coupled with the way he had helped me escape, he had turned a hopeless, frightening situation into a memory that I could live with.

  I’d fallen half in love with him during those brief days.

  “Here, honey.”

  I smiled, taking the full tray that Stevie held out to me. The bar had only been open for a couple of hours and was already bustling. Stevie hadn’t stopped pouring drinks and Vinny was helping George in the kitchen, making up sandwiches and wings. Vinny may have liked to complain about having to help, but he couldn’t complain about how good business had been all week. We’d all benefited in a big way. I’d be able to pay Rebel back another thousand, bringing what I truly owed him down to a grand.

  I went to the table to drop off my order. Two tables had been pushed together, and I saw the cuts of two different biker clubs on the men who were sitting together. They were rowdy but friendly, and their women appeared to be a little classier than some of the others that I’d seen. I thought to myself that they must be old ladies and not the club groupies who usually clung to the bikers like blood-sucking leeches. There was a big difference in how these women dressed and acted compared to the typical women who accompanied the bikers, and the men at the table treated them with a respect and tolerance that made it apparent that they loved their women.

  “Thanks, darlin’, can you check on our food order?”

  I smiled at the handsome, bearded biker as I was setting my last drink down. “Sure. I’ll be right back.” They’d put in a huge order of wings and sandwiches.

  The front door of the restaurant opened as I was on my way by, and another biker walked in. He was big, like Rebel, though a little older with a touch of gray in his dark hair. He had the look of a man who’d seen and done it all, yet his expression was light-hearted, almost friendly. The fact that he wasn’t wearing colors told me that he was either a nomad, or he was doing what just about every other biker in town was doing who didn’t want to flaunt his colors or draw unwanted attention to himself.

  His sharp, blue eyes scanned the room before they landed on me, and I could tell that he wanted to ask me a question. Keeping the smile on my face, I paused and waited for him to say something. He grinned, revealing deep laugh lines at the corners of his eyes as he gave me a quick onceover.

  �
�I’m lookin’ for someone,” he said, his eyes looking everywhere but in mine. “His name’s Rebel.” Finally, he focused on me. “He’s a friend.”

  Of course they were friends. They had the same bad ass vibe and sexiness going on that just about every other hard-core biker did. “Come with me, please.” I started to turn to lead him to where Rebel was sitting, but the thought that this could be a trap stopped me in my tracks. What if they weren’t friends? What if this man was here to start trouble? I glanced back at him with concern. He stared into my eyes for a minute before breaking out into another grin.

  “Relax, honey, I’m not here to cause trouble.” He crossed his heart. “Promise.”

  “How do I know you’re really friends?”

  His laughter was sharp enough to cause several heads to turn our way. “Since when has Rebel needed a woman to protect him?”

  I worried my bottom lip with my teeth, my gaze taking in the muscles that he was sporting. He and Rebel were evenly matched in that department, but this man had age on him and probably more experience, and chances were that he was armed. As I stood indecisively contemplating whether or not I should believe him, the biker’s grin never wavered. He obviously found my uncertainty amusing.

  “Can we get a waitress over here, please?”

  I flinched at the sharp sound of impatience in the loud tone, and checked to see if it was one of my tables. It was Lola’s. I looked toward the bar and made eye contact with Stevie to see if she’d heard the man. She had, and she threw up her arms in a gesture that said that she had no idea where Lola was. I saw that Carrie was hustling her tables, so it was left to me to take up the slack. I gave my attention back to the stranger.

  “He’s over in the corner table toward the back.” I had to get back to work, and if they weren’t friends I’d know soon enough.

  I rushed over to the table of customers who’d called for a waitress. “I’m sorry about that. What can I get you folks?”

  “About fucking time,” a blonde man who was dressed like one of the many college kids who came in regularly grumbled. “We’ve been waiting for thirty minutes. Where’s the waitress who was serving us before?”

  “She must be on break,” I explained, knowing for a fact that she wasn’t. Most likely she was in the bathroom. I waited expectantly.

  He shook his head with disgust. “Service here sucks.” If he’d meant to mumble it beneath his breath so that no one could hear him he’d failed epically. I schooled my expression not to reveal my irritation, smiling brightly, my gaze taking in his friends. There were four men and three women, and it appeared that he was the odd man out. Maybe that was why he was so irritable. “We’re waiting on an order of wings.” His comment reminded me that I had a table of my own waiting on a similar order that I needed to check on. “And we want a couple more pitchers of beer.”

  “I’ll get right on it.” I swung around and left before he could say anything else. “Do you have an order of wings ready for Lola’s table?” I asked at the ordering window. George was working furiously at pulling several baskets of wings from the deep fryer. Vinny was at the side, making sandwiches. He didn’t even look up to acknowledge me.

  “Be ready in a minute, honey!” George hollered from his spot.

  “I need an order for one of my tables, too,” I told him before I left the window and went to the bar. “Two pitchers of beer, Stevie.” She got right to it, and I glanced over at Rebel’s booth while I was waiting, surprised to see that along with the handsome stranger, another man had joined him. His back was to me so that I couldn’t see what he looked like, but he was a beast of a man. His hair was clipped military style, allowing me to see the thickness of his neck where it met his shoulders. All three men seemed to have the same hotness factor going for them.

  “Here ya go hun.” Stevie set the two pitchers down and spun around to fill another order.

  “Orders up!” George yelled out.

  I grabbed a large tray, set the two pitchers down on it, and moved to the window for my wings and sandwiches. My first stop was the asshole and his preppy friends. “Here you go,” I said with a frozen smile on my face. As I set the basket of wings down I looked up to see Lola talking to Rebel and his friends across the room. What the hell? She was leaning against the table close to him, half-in, half-out of the booth.

  It wasn’t clear to me which man she had her sights on. All three were getting the benefit of her low cut blouse and too-short skirt. The flirty smile on her pretty face and the way that she flipped her long, blond hair were obvious attempts to get and keep their attention. Even from where I stood across the room from them I could see that Rebel’s eyes were checking out her cleavage. I clenched my teeth. I’d understood her disappearing act when I’d thought that she’d gone to the bathroom, but now I was a little pissed that she was neglecting her tables to hit on a table of sexy bikers.

  Well, it wasn’t my business who she flirted with, and it was her job at stake. Vinny didn’t have any problem with us coming on to the customers because he knew it meant bigger tips for us. He also didn’t care what we did after hours on our own time, but he didn’t like it when we ignored one table over another, especially when we were busy and short-handed. Lola was clearly crossing the line. Rebel’s table wasn’t even hers.

  Carrie came up to where I was leaning against the bar, facing the customers. “Can you believe her? She must be horny.” I chuckled along with her. “Do you think she wants to take on all three?” I shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind hopping on to that train myself.”

  I snorted with surprise. “You’re into threesomes?” Or would it be foursomes?

  She threw back her head and laughed. “Hell, no! I’d do them one after another!” Her heavily made-up eyes were focused on what Lola was doing. “Which one do you think she’ll go after first?”

  I knew which one I would have wanted, and not just because we had a history, though it didn’t hurt that I knew what Rebel’s hands and mouth were capable of making me feel. He was by far the most drop-dead gorgeous outlaw I’d ever seen, and our attraction had been palpable from the start. The years apart hadn’t done anything to diminish that. I’d tried to capture it with other men, I’d wanted to, but I hadn’t been ready to move on. Hadn’t accepted the fact I may never see Rebel again. The steamy kiss that we’d shared that morning had been filled with heated promises and had taken me from zero to a hundred in seconds flat.

  I had to wonder where that kiss would have taken us if his phone hadn’t rung.

  As Lola sank further into the booth and sided up alongside Rebel, it became clear that it was he that she’d set her sights on. I fought the urge to walk over and yank her away, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her and Rebel. He seemed amused by her flirtation, and he didn’t appear to mind when she got touchy-feely with him. I, on the other hand, was fuming inside, jealousy burning a hole in my stomach. I had no claim over Rebel, and God knew how many women he’d been with since we’d parted years ago, but that had all been beyond my knowledge and control.

  Besides, the thought of him fucking someone that I knew made me feel sick inside.

  I steeled myself against my emotions, but I was only fooling myself.

  “There is something insanely sexy about the one she’s sitting next to, but I think I’d go for the dude with the little bit of gray in his hair. I’ve always been attracted to older men, and you have to admit, there’s something about him. Turns me on.”

  I rolled my eyes. Carrie’s comment about being attracted to older men struck my funny bone because the man in question couldn’t be more than forty and fairly close to her age, which was thirty-three. She was the oldest of us who worked at the restaurant, with the exception of Stevie, who was forty. I was in the middle at twenty-five, and Lola, of course, was the youngest and definitely the most immature at twenty. As she petted Rebel’s arm he glanced up and our eyes met. I didn’t like the sudden quirk of his sexy lips. If he was waiting for me to show jealousy, he was in for
a disappointment.

  I smiled and turned away as if anything he did with Lola didn’t bother me in the least.

  “Order up!”

  I jolted, surprised at the extra loud yell coming from Vinny’s mouth. A glance at him revealed that he was looking directly in Lola’s direction, and I realized that the level of his voice had been raised in order to get her attention. Carrie and I exchanged amused looks. Seconds later, Lola scurried over to the window.

  “You don’t get paid for sitting with the customers,” Vinny grumbled irritably. “Work it on your own damned time. You hear me?” he snapped, his eyes flashing angrily. “Consider that your break.”

  When Vinny spoke to someone in that tone, they didn’t argue with him, and he was right to give Lola hell, anyway. She’d been caught red-handed and had no one to blame but herself. She lowered her eyes, cheeks flushing red, and picked up the order that he’d all but thrown her way. What could she say?

  “Sorry, Vinny,” she mumbled, turning away, but the smile was right back on her face once she was no longer facing Vinny. She gave me and Carrie a wink as she moved past.

  Carrie and I locked eyes.

  “She looks like she might have gotten lucky,” Carrie said in reference to the cocky smile on Lola’s face.

  “Good for her,” I responded, sick inside.

  An arm went up, and I made my way to the table.

  Chapter 11

  Rebel

  Past

  I had two agendas on my mind when I left church and headed out to the bar. The first was to get a message to Stone, and the second was to find a way to get Ginger out of there. My gut was telling me that my time with Red Devils was running out, and I didn’t want her anywhere around when that happened. I couldn’t explain why I felt so fucking protective toward the girl, but I guessed that it may have had something to do with my taking her virginity. Believe it or not, she’d been my first virgin, and taking her cherry had been sweet. She’d surprised me with her submission, although it wasn’t as if she’d had a choice. She’d known that there was nothing that she could have done to avoid it.