“Why?” I blurt. Sebastian finally looks at me. He seems confused by the question. “Why go to all of that trouble? Why not just quit the club and do this full-time?”
“If I’m going to quit anything, it would be this.”
He’s hinted at as much before now, but I still don’t get it, and he can tell. He elaborates: “This? This is just money. It’s how I pay my bills. The club is my life. It’s my family. If I had to choose between my job or my family, I would choose my family. Wouldn’t you?”
“Yes, of course, but…”
“Never mind,” he says again. “I don’t expect you to understand, and I don’t care to explain. The only reason I’m telling you this is because you happened to meet me there. At the club. As Bash. And now you’re here. As I said, I’ve spent considerable time and resources keeping these two lives separate. In this life, I’m known as Sebastian Redding. In the club, I’m only known as Bash. Most guys don’t really use their last names, anyway. A few who did know it back in the day have all long since moved on or died. But I don’t need to explain shit to you any further than I already have. It’s already more than anyone else knows. Which is why I expect you to keep your mouth shut about all of it.”
I just nod, unwilling to trust what might come out of my mouth if I speak.
“Fine. So around here, only Hans and the board know the true nature of my relationship with the company. No one else needs to, except my EA, of course. That was the purpose of the NDA: to fill you in about who you’d really be working for without worry that it would leak. But consider the rest of it even more top secret. The club stuff. No one here knows that. Not the board, not Hans, no one.”
“I would never divulge any of your secrets,” I say, doing my best to keep my voice even as my eyes flit over to the door. There’s a good chance I’m sitting in this office talking to a crazy person. Dual personalities, secret CEOs, holding companies—none of it sounds real. And even if it is, that doesn’t make him sane. Who goes to such lengths just to keep being a criminal? Why bother, unless you really love that lifestyle, which makes Bash even scarier. He dismissed Catherine pretty fast. Am I even safe here? Was that just him getting rid of a potential witness?
What was I thinking, screwing a complete stranger? Oh, right. Look at him. Can you be that hot and still crazy?
A knock at the door makes me jump.
“Come,” he barks.
A young man sticks his head in. “Oh, excuse me, Mr. Redding. Mr. Peterson asked me to inform you that there’s a strategy meeting in ten minutes up in Bearing.”
“About what?”
The man’s eyes shift to me, and then back to Sebastian. “Uh…”
“It’s fine, Evelyn here is good with secrets.”
“The parts, the missing shipment,” the man says. As soon as he does, Sebastian scowls.
“Of course. That’s all anyone wants to fucking talk about today, isn’t it? I thought we were just going to get a replacement. Didn’t Hans call Germany?”
“That’s just it, sir. They can’t get them to us for at least a couple of weeks, and—”
“That’s bullshit. We need them in days.” Sebastian’s voice is raised now, and his fists are clenched again. Much harder this time, the knuckles already turning white.
“That’s what the meeting is about. They said they can’t deliver that quickly and Mr. Peterson would like your help coming up with a plan.”
“Fucking hell. Fine. Tell him I’ll be there as soon as I finish up here.”
The man left and Sebastian’s lips tightened around his teeth before he exhaled loudly and looked up at me with his dark and focused gaze. “So, look, Catherine thinks you’re a good candidate. Your résumé seems fine to me, and like I said, the very fact that Edward doesn’t want you here is just an added bonus. The fact that you know about my… other life… is a pain in the fucking ass, but the more I think about it, the more it can work to our advantage. So, do you want the job, or not?”
Sebastian is staring at me again, waiting for me to respond. He’s not as much of a jerk today as he was on Saturday, but what does that even mean? Even if everything he says is true, how does that make a damn thing any better? Not to mention I slept with him.
In my book, that just makes the situation worse.
Can I remove that from the equation? What if I hadn’t got to Axle’s that night? If I had never met Bash. Never let his weird sense of chivalry lull me into ignoring his attitude and fucking him in the back room. What if I ignore all of that? Would I take this job? Of course I would. I need the money, and my résumé needs something on it that I can use as an actual reference. There’s no doubt that if I hadn’t met Bash, I’d take this job in an instant.
But I did meet him. And I did fuck him. And I know what kind of a person he is. How different is his cocky attitude from Edward’s? Maybe it’s true that money isn’t that important to him, but he still runs a company worth a billion dollars. It has to carry some weight. He might be more like Edward than he thinks. And can I ever look at that chiseled face and the sharp contours of his body through his jacket and not think about the bliss we’d shared? Even now, despite everything, I can’t help but feel physically attracted to him.
How would I work side by side with a man that makes my panties wet just by being in the same room with me, yet infuriates me almost every time he opens his mouth? And that’s not even considering the fact that he’s a biker. I don’t even want to know what sort of illegal shit that must mean he’s into on the side. Will I end up dead if I accidentally misfile something?
“Well?” He’s growing impatient, but who the hell offers a candidate a job right at the end of an interview and expects an immediate answer? I need a job badly, and I would be crazy to turn this down, but everything about this just feels wrong.
After leaving the bar on Saturday night, I realized that I’m not ready to start taking more risks, but I don’t even know which decision is more risky anyway. Not having a job at all, or working for this man. But it’s decision time, and I have to make one.
“No,” I finally say, pushing up from my chair. “This… this isn’t for me.” Before he can say anything more, I turn and yank open the door, trying to get away fast enough before I change my mind.
9
Bash
“Okay, so what the fuck do you want us to do with it, then?” Ripper, Snake and I are standing in the large back room of Axle’s that we use as our common room whenever the bar is open to the public, staring at the crates of parts that are still lined up along the back wall. A handful of other members are here as well, the rest of them out in the main bar. This room is far enough back from there that we can barely hear the music from the Tuesday night live band coming through the walls.
Ripper is glaring at me, and not punching him in the face is one of the hardest things I’ve had to do in a long time. He’s mad because I told him we aren’t using the parts from the Piston heist to stock our bike shop. And I’m mad because I told him this on Sunday after Snake dragged his ass into the club. And yet here we are, going over it again.
“Maybe you should have thought of that before you jacked that truck in the first fucking place?” The anger in my voice can’t be contained as easily as my fists. Some of the younger recruits look over from the game of pool they’re shooting, but I don’t care at this point. I’m getting fed up with Ripper’s shit. He’s turning into an insubordinate ass. A quick look over at Snake just makes me angrier when my VP just shrugs his shoulders. He should have been on Ripper’s ass about this as well, but I know that despite their differences, he doesn’t agree with the new rules either. He’s just not as obvious about it.
“What the fuck is happening to this club, man? Are we a fucking MC, or are we a goddamn knitting circle?”
“Don’t give me that shit. We’ve been over this already. We have a plan.”
“Your plan. Doesn’t mean we agree with it.”
“Who’s we?” I watch him closely now,
waiting to see if he gives anyone up. I’ve been trying to root out the dissension in the ranks for the last month but I feel like I’m no closer today than I’ve ever been. Ripper for sure, but even with him I don’t know how far his dissatisfaction goes. Is he going to make a move against me, or is he just blowing off steam? He can be like a four-year-old that throws a tantrum when you discipline him for kicking the cat.
He licks his lips as his chest moves up and down, faster than normal. But a deep breath calms him down and he gives nothing away besides muttering, “Lots of us.” That’s about as much as I ever get out of him, but is it true? Are there a lot of brothers that don’t like the new direction I’ve laid out? The club isn’t big. We only have about twenty full-time members and a few recruits. How many are lots? Or is he saying lots as a smokescreen, trying to seem like his opinion means more because it’s being repeated by mouths that don’t actually exist?
I take another look at Snake, but he’s all of a sudden decided to study the floor very carefully. I know he doesn’t love the plan, but does he hate it enough to make a move against me?
Or am I just being paranoid?
I’ve spent so long looking over my shoulder, it’s hard not to imagine that there might actually be someone there.
“It’s not going in the fucking store, and that’s that. Find some other way to get rid of it. Quietly. Ask Knox for help.” I don’t even wait around for an argument. I need some time away from this before I tear Ripper’s head off, and heading to my office for some down time seems like the right idea. I’d love to just take the stuff back to Piston, but there’s no way I can do that without a ton of questions, and questions lead to interest and investigations and the last thing I want is bringing heat down on us right now. Especially about anything connected to Piston. If that happens, my cover’s blown for sure.
Knox will figure out how to get rid of it. He’s our hook-up artist. If there’s a contact out there that’ll be able to move high end engine parts quietly out of the city, he’ll find it. I already told Ripper I don’t care what price we get for them. None of these guys have any idea how much that shit is worth, anyway.
To Piston, it’s worth far more than the parts themselves. We have a major deal with Velocity Motors about to fall about because we don’t have those parts. A deal worth millions now, and millions more in future business. Not being able to deliver might mean losing that deal completely. And now that we’re a public company, that will look bad. Maybe bad enough that people will start asking questions. Questions that might uncover secret deals or figurehead CEOs. Another headache I don’t fucking need.
For about the hundredth time since going public, I wonder if it was the right idea. Hans pushed it through, not me. Hans is a more traditional CEO type. He’s helped run businesses before and made them successful, which was why I hired him in the first place. Going public has been his baby since he started, and I know the board wants it. I shouldn’t have let them convince me. I have far less personal control over a public company. Regardless of the secret deals I have internally, the company still has to ultimately answer to shareholders now. But Hans was adamant that we needed to go public to grow, and I’ve taken to deferring to him in most business related issues.
It’s not until I get to my office that I realize I’m being followed. Snake is right behind me. I sigh, pushing open my door and motioning dramatically for him to enter. So much for some down time.
“What?” I say, as soon as the door closes. It’s obvious he has something on his mind; his fingernails are digging hard into his braided beard, threatening to unravel it. What the hell would Snake look like with an unbraided beard? I don’t want to find out. He’s ugly enough as it is.
“Listen, Bash… I’m the last one to defend Ripper, but what the hell is going on? The parts are already stolen. We have the shop that can always use parts. If we slip those pieces into bikes that come through our doors, no one will ever fucking find them. And we still charge full price for the job, it’s 100% profit. Where’s the downside here?”
The shop he’s referring to is an auto body shop that I hooked the club up with in an effort to move them into more legitimate enterprises. It specializes in bikes, but we do cars as well. But what these guys don’t realize is that the shit they stole don’t go into your typical Harley or Honda.
“Have you even looked at those parts? That shit is custom. The shipping labels say they came from Germany and it was destined for Piston. These aren’t OEM parts, man. This isn’t even your typical aftermarket upgrade. Even if someone walked into our shop with a bike that could use those things, what do you think would happen when we put a fucking five thousand dollar set of specialized shocks into a bike that’s not worth half that much?”
The blank look on Snake’s face means it would be a waste of time waiting for him to take a guess, so I try to make it more obvious.
“What happens the next time he takes that bike somewhere for service other than us?”
“They’ll be impressed, I guess?” He shrugs. He’s got his beard wrapped around his index finger and he’s tugging on it.
“They’ll ask him where he got those parts. They’ll ask him what he paid for them. They’ll ask him any number of things that we don’t want him to fucking answer, because those parts are fucking stolen and so fucking unique that there will be no question where they came from. And then that’s it. Busted.”
“Well, shit, why didn’t you just say that then? The guys know you know more about parts around here than anyone. They probably just had no idea what they were dealing with.”
“Why didn’t I tell them? How about why the fuck do I need to tell them? Why isn’t because your president said so a big enough downside anymore? Where’s my fucking respect around here, Snake?” It’s an honest question, and I really would like my Vice President to answer it.
The big man screws his face up and for a minute, I think he’s going to spit onto the floor of my office. Finally, he just shrugs, but he’s carefully avoiding my gaze. “I don’t know what to say, boss. It’s an MC. Some guys just don’t respect any authority.”
That’s true, but it’s not really an answer. That’s always been the case, but in this club, the president gets respect, otherwise he stops being president. Does Snake really not know, or does he just not want to tell me? Is he part of this, too? I’m starting to feel extra paranoid again.
My phone beeps and I slip it out of my pocket, giving Snake a nod toward the door. “Just fucking make sure that Ripper talks to Knox and they get rid of that shit quietly, all right?”
I wait for him to close the door behind him before I look at my phone. I already know it’s from work. The texts and e-mails haven’t stopped coming as everyone is running around trying to save the Velocity deal. I’ve considered hiring someone to buy the parts back from the MC through Knox, but I haven’t a clue how to get them back to Piston without raising suspicions. Every move I make seems to have too many risks lately. This whole thing feels like a juggling act where I’ve kept the balls in the air just a little bit too long. They’re all liable to come crashing down onto my head at once, if I’m not careful.
The e-mail is from Hans, telling me that he still can’t get a straight answer from Germany on when we’re going to be able to get new parts. Considering the supplier there was his contact to begin with, that frustrates me to no end.
Than get yur ass on a plane and talk too them in person, I reply, angrily typing so fast that I make three typos that I don’t bother to correct. I’ll probably need to call his assistant directly to tell her to make travel arrangements for him, otherwise I know he’ll make up some excuse. This is what I need my own goddamn assistant for in the first place. I don’t have time for this shit.
I’ve already got Catherine bringing in some other candidates, but I’m still annoyed that Evelyn turned the job down. Why the hell did she do that? I got the feeling she was pretty desperate to work, and I know Edward isn’t making it easy on her in the mark
et. I’ve heard from a number of colleagues that he’s been talking her down everywhere. Is it because we fucked? Was it because I was teasing her? I had the feeling she was tough enough not to take that shit personally, but maybe I had her pegged wrong.
If my attitude turned her off, then she wouldn’t have been a good fit anyway, but how can that be it? She worked for Edward Stonewall, for fuck’s sake. I might come off a bit rough around the edges, but that guy is a true asshole. But the fact is, if he hired her, presumably before they started fucking, she’s probably pretty good as an EA, which was the main reason I had Catherine call her in for an interview.
Once she walked through my door, though, my reasons changed. She instantly became a threat in that she’s the only one I know that can link me to both the MC and Piston. And I don’t like threats.
The best way to contain that particular threat would be to keep her close, and hiring her on the spot seemed like the best way to do that. Now that she’s turned me down, I feel like I have to watch my back even more. If word got out that a motorcycle club president was secretly running a billion-dollar public company, there’d be a serious problem. I may be the majority shareholder, but I don’t own even close to 50%, which means I’ll always have to be careful. My ideas were the ones that got that company off the ground, and next to the MC, it’s the thing I’m most proud of. Hell, some days I think I’m even more proud of Piston, because I didn’t start the MC myself—I just took it over.
But the MC is family more than Piston will ever be. So I need both, and there’s no way I’m going to let some blond corporate type take that away by flapping her lips or trying to use that knowledge to trade herself into a better job. I don’t care how hot she is.
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