I nodded. In theory, that plan seemed easy enough. I wouldn’t twitch once if I had to kill Gunther myself. I’d witnessed first-hand the kind of stuff he was capable of doing. Samantha had given us enough information about his ‘habits’ herself. But I was also aware that it wasn’t going to be too easy to locate him alone.
“I’m meeting Ash now, for a drink. He’s been working on intel on Gunther and his crew. Hopefully he’ll have some information for me,” I said, emptying the remaining beer down my throat and then standing up.
I slapped Patch’s back as I walked out of our clubhouse to meet my informant at a different bar. Neutral territory.
Around me, my brothers were still celebrating the victory over the Sons of Satan and the war ending. I could only hope that it stayed that way. The last thing we needed right now was another war. Gunther gaining any power, or any real strength could only mean bad news for us.
* * *
Ash was waiting for me at the bar I usually met him at. Since he worked independently and tried not to associate himself directly with any groups, he preferred to stay away from the Clubhouses. But he had his finger in every pie. That much was obvious.
“So, what exactly are you trying to tell me here?” I asked him, as I knocked back my third whisky of the night. I’d been using Ash for information for several years now. Even though we weren’t exactly friends; we had managed to achieve a level of trust here over time.
“I’m saying that the fucker likes to keep an iron guard around himself at all times these days. I’d guess there are two motherfuckers watching him and the door while he takes a piss too,” Ash replied, shaking his head. Usually, he didn’t offer an opinion on the information he passed on, but tonight it seemed like he definitely had an opinion on Gunther.
“He scared or something?” I asked and it made Ash smirk.
“Clearly he’s watching out for something, and word on the street is that he’s watching out for you.”
I wasn’t sure whether to take that as a compliment or not. Gunther was afraid of me. He wanted to avoid another opportunity for me to humiliate him again.
“So, you’re saying there’s no way for me to get anywhere close to him without alerting his guards?” I asked and Ash shrugged.
“He’s paying these guys. They’re not exactly working off loyalty or the good nature of their souls, ya know?” He was grinning now as he spoke.
“So basically, what you’re saying is that he’s hired a bunch of bodyguards and now he’s playing pretend, telling himself he’s the President of his own club?” I couldn’t help but grin too. It was laughable.
Ash sighed.
“I’m not sure where he’s going with this. There are some guys from the Sons of Satan who went with him. I guess he’s not paying them. They think Gunther actually has potential to turn this into a real deal. Or maybe they’re just afraid of him and don't want him going off his rocker. But the armed guys he has watching him like a hawk are all hired hands. They’re going nowhere. They do as they’re told.”
I ran a hand through my hair in frustration. This just went to prove what I’d long suspected of Gunther. He had no balls to fight like a man.
If he had twenty-four-hour security watching over him, it would make the whole situation that much more difficult for me to maneuver. I wanted nothing more right now than to eliminate him from the picture and put this shit to rest. As laughable as the whole situation was, I didn’t want to get ahead of myself and take Gunther too lightly.
“What does he want to do? Does anyone know what his ultimate plan is?” I asked Ash, who looked like he was just as clueless as I was.
“Who knows,” he said, rolling his eyes. “He’s a mad bastard. Wants to take over all of LA, wants to turn his shit into some big kingdom or something. He truly believes he’s capable of it, even though his own pals don’t trust him. Don’t know what to do with him. But I’ll tell you this much, he definitely wants to start with you guys.”
I knew that already. Gunther wasn’t our biggest fan. Whatever plan he had with the rest of the city and for the future of his own club, he was going to try and bring us down first.
“With you guys it’s personal,” he added, and I nodded. And that meant specifically me.
A few moments of silence passed between Ash and me. He had nothing more to tell me.
And that was when I looked past him, and my gaze fell on the woman at the end of the counter who was staring right at me. How long had she been looking? I’d been so caught up with Gunther that I hadn’t even noticed her before this.
She looked like nobody else in this bar, there was something different about her, about the way that she stared at me. Not flinching, not blushing, not looking away. She definitely had more guts than Gunther did; even though there was something delicate and dainty about her at the same time.
She had bright blond hair, it looked like it was fuckin’ shining. It was cut short, at a sharp angle near her ears. A thick fringe fell over her forehead, over her eyes, at another sharp angle, and I could see flecks of bright red hair dye at the edges.
Through those bangs, I could just about make out her big blue eyes. Bright and alluring. She hadn’t looked away from me yet and now the corners of her mouth were curling in a sort of smile.
She was sexy as fuck.
In that dark-red leather jacket she was wearing. Chunky silvery earrings hung from her ears and when she lifted the glass of what looked like vodka; up to her lips, I saw the thick set of silver bangles on her wrists.
Her lips were nearly the same color as the jacket, she had dark makeup around her eyes. The lipstick left a light mark on the glass she’d just taken a sip from.
“Maybe I should leave the two of you alone. I can feel you pushing me off this chair.” Ash’s voice broke through my thoughts right then. I blinked rapidly when I looked at him.
I’d forgotten he was here. I’d forgotten anyone else was here, other than this blond sexy pixie creature who was still staring at me from across the bar counter.
Ash was grinning again. He’d caught us staring at each other. I didn’t reply to him and he stood up and disappeared in the crowd. Moments later, the woman was standing up. She picked up her glass and made her way towards me.
Now I could see she was wearing a short tight black skirt that accentuated her hips as she walked. Her legs were bare and endless, in black ankle boots.
I felt like time stood still until she came around to me, standing right in front of me now, tipping her head to one side as we stared at each other up close. I would have said something, but I felt fuckin’ choked up. It was like she’d put some kind of messed up spell on me.
“I’m Thea,” she said, her voice husky and sizzling. I hadn’t even heard a voice like that before.
“Bones,” I managed to say. At least I was able to say something. She licked her lips like she liked the taste of my name and then she sat down on the stool Ash had been occupying till a while ago.
“Nice to meet you Bones, I figured I’d take a better look at you,” she said. Wow. This woman just said whatever was on her mind.
2
Thea
It wasn’t easy getting much information on the Black Cobras. Word on the street though was that they had a personal vendetta against Gunther and the club he used to be a part of; The Sons of Satan.
Ever since I returned to LA about a year ago, I’d been tracking them, keeping my eye on them from a distance. For the past ten years; Gunther had consistently been on my radar. I never lost sight of him, despite being in Hawaii for all these years and building a life there. I needed to get away from this place, from the city I lost everything too. Hawaii was the furthest I believed I could go. To get away from all this, and yet stay close enough so I could keep my tabs on Gunther. To know when to strike.
Over time I’d built my own intel system which kept me connected to this neighborhood. In all these years, Gunther hadn’t gone anywhere, the fucker. He stuck it out here, buildin
g a reputation for himself as a mad bastard who everyone stayed away from because he was so unpredictable and crazy.
I wired money over from Hawaii to my sources whenever I needed to, and they fed me the information I needed. Just enough so I knew where he was at all times, what he was doing.
While with the Sons of Satan, I knew I wouldn’t be able to get close to him. Ten years later and I couldn’t let go of my obsession—my need for vengeance for my brother’s arbitrary death.
In the days following Drake’s stabbing, I uncovered more about Gunther. The events of the night my brother died.
It was nothing more than a drunken bar fight. Drake had laughed at him or made fun of Gunther or something to that effect; definitely hadn’t provoked him to the extent that deserved what Gunther did to him. The witnesses who saw it, said Gunther came at him with a chopping knife. He had it under his jacket, which he pushed straight into Drake’s abdomen and then turned, making sure he had no chance in hell to make it out of that night alive. No matter the fleet of ambulances that were called in for him.
Then Gunther had walked away with a cigarette dangling between his lips and humming a tune, seemingly unaware of the chaos he was leaving behind.
A man like him deserved to die. He was a danger to everyone and everything. I was surprised nobody had managed to kill him off in the past ten years already.
But that suited me just fine. It meant I would have the opportunity to do it myself. I was preparing myself for exactly this for the past ten years. Mentally and physically, I was ready to take him down in whatever way I needed to. This time, Gunther was not making it out alive and it was my face he was going to see when he lay there on the floor, dying in his own pool of blood. Just like Drake had.
However, no matter how well I planned the event, I wasn’t that naive to assume I’d be able to operate on my own. I wasn’t the seventeen year old teenager with the Dream Board anymore. I knew my own limitations now and I certainly did not live in a fantasy world.
Back in LA now, I gained information on the Black Cobras, the club that was going head to head with the Sons of Satan and Gunther. I figured associating myself with them would be the best idea. But were they really going to just welcome me into their group with open arms?
How was I going to prove myself to them?
How would I make them see that we all wanted the same thing? To eliminate Gunther?
The latest information I got from my sources was that some members of the Black Cobras sometimes hung out here, in this bar, when they weren’t at their own clubhouse.
So, for the past sixteen nights straight; this was where I’d stationed myself every night, knocking back vodka after vodka in the hopes that someone from their club would finally make an appearance and I’d be able to do something!
And tonight, I struck gold.
I recognized his patch immediately, as soon as he walked in and headed straight for the bar counter. Clearly, he was here to meet someone. An informant.
I sat at the other end, watching him, waiting for him to notice me. I didn’t exactly have a plan for what I was going to say. I thought I was well prepared, but I clearly was not. Especially with this guy, because my first reaction to seeing him was a feeling of intense physical attraction. I wanted him.
He was a big muscular man with smooth olive skin and dark slick hair that matched a dark unkempt stubble. A chiseled handsome face, almost too handsome—like it belonged on a movie screen instead of here in this dive bar in that old faded jacket.
His leather cut scrumptiously stretched over his torso. I could guess exactly the kind of muscles he was hiding underneath. Tattoos covered the back of his hand.
How was I supposed to formulate a plan of using him, using his club to meet my own gains when I had to press my thighs together while I sat there on the stool staring at him? I could feel my stomach tightening, a wetness spreading between my legs as I imagined him, with his big strong arms pushing me up against the wall with his tongue halfway down my throat.
The last thing I needed while on this project was distraction.
I needed to keep reminding myself why I was here. This was all about Drake. I needed to keep my eyes on the prize—which was Gunther. I was going to have my revenge, either with the help of the Black Cobras or without.
Then he was looking at me.
Deep narrowed green eyes. He’d caught me staring and now he was staring right at me too. He was intrigued. So was I.
Fuck it. I was going to go up and talk to him if he wasn’t going to do it himself. I needed to get this ball rolling before it was too late.
* * *
His name was Bones and it seemed like he’d introduced himself to me grudgingly, like he was suspicious of me already. We were sitting beside each other at the bar counter now, in the dim lights of the dive bar. There was too much noise around us, too many people drunkenly falling over each other everywhere.
It didn’t matter though, there was a strong animal attraction between us that I knew both of us could feel. I wasn’t just imagining it, I could see Bones watching me closely, every inch of me. He was thinking what I was thinking.
“Haven’t seen you in these parts before,” he said, tasting his whisky slowly. Who was he kidding? I’d already watched him knock back the others prior to this while he was sitting here talking to the other guy, like he was trying to win some kind of race.
“Maybe you don’t notice everything,” I replied, moving my finger over the rim of the glass of vodka. I wasn’t sure of what I was trying to do. Was this going to turn into a seduction or just a chat? I didn’t know anything about this guy. What position did he hold at the club? Was he even going to be able to help me?
He looked me up and down. From my face, down to my breasts, till his gaze lingered on my legs which were facing his direction; they were crossed but it seemed like he wanted me to open them.
“Maybe I don’t, but I doubt it. Where are you from?” He sounded confident in his powers of observation, and I wasn’t going to fight him on this. The last thing I needed was to make him suspicious of me.
“Hawaii.”
He raised his brows, like there was a part of him that didn’t believe what I’d just said.
“Unusual.”
“How come?” I asked.
“That you come out here all the way from Hawaii and land up in this bar. On a night like this.”
“On a night like what?”
“When there’s nothing special going on. Not that there’s ever anything special going on around here.”
Bones finished the whisky in his glass, and I was hoping he’d order another one, but he didn’t make a move to do so. Was this conversation over now? I needed to keep him engaged. I wanted to keep talking to him.
There was something about the way his eyes roamed over my body that made me restless and excited at the same time.
“There’s nothing special about me either. I’m just a single girl hanging out at a bar for no particular reason,” I said shrugging and finally a small smile appeared on Bones’ face.
“And what is it that you’re looking for exactly?” he asked, leaning towards me a little now.
“Take a wild guess, why don’t you,” I breathed the words huskily and he was smiling. And then he stood up.
When he started to walk away, in the direction of the back of the bar, I knew exactly what he wanted me to do. He wanted me to follow him.
I followed him to the back, where the toilets were. I had to fend off one drunk man who had managed to fall over me, nearly making me trip. It didn’t seem like Bones was going to stop or turn to see if I was actually following him. By now I wasn’t even sure if he wanted to be followed.
My heart was thudding in my chest. Had I misinterpreted what he wanted me to do? Was I making a fool of myself now?
I saw him push open the door of the men’s toilets and step in. I waited a beat before I did the same. As I entered, I saw him pull a guy out of one of the stalls. I didn
’t know what he was in the middle of doing but Bones had him by his collars and then threw him out of the toilets and locked the door.
Finally, he turned to me.
I was going to say something but then I watched him pull out a cigarette and light it. Smoke filled the badly lit toilet; the low lights hid the squalor of the place thankfully.
“Do you want me to leave?” I asked him. I wasn’t just going to stand here, in the men’s toilets, and watch him smoke.
But did I have anything better to do?
“You ask a lot of questions,” he said, taking in another deep drag of his cigarette and then releasing it.
“You’re the one who’s convinced there’s something suspicious about me being in this bar,” I said, rolling my eyes.
Bones puffed at his cigarette again before he finally dropped it to the floor and crushed it with his shoe. My heart was still thudding, I wasn’t sure what he was going to do next, but I knew what I wanted.
He took a few quick steps towards me and I stepped backwards instinctually. Then my back was against the wall. I could feel the cold tile against my jacket. He placed a hand by my face, his arm guarding me, caging me.
“You better walk away now if that’s what you want to do,” he said, with his face right up to mine, close enough that his hot breath fell on my nose and chin and cheeks, making my bangs flutter.
Didn’t he know by now that wasn’t what I was here to do? No way was I walking away from this.
“You know why I’m here,” I said, staring right into his deep green eyes. I wanted him to take me. Right there against the wall. In fact, that was all I could fantasize about since I first saw him sitting at the bar. And now it was going to happen.
Bones clenched his jaw tightly; I saw the way his face changed…darkened. Then his hands were on my hips and he yanked me to himself. Our bodies collided but he didn’t miss a single beat.
Almost instantly, his hands were on my skirt. He was unbuttoning it, pulling it down swiftly. I felt it slide down my legs and get tangled up around my ankles. I gasped, breathing heavily as he dove head-first right at me.
Bones: The Black Cobra MC #4 Page 2