Savage - Clemente's Last Run: A Biker Romance

by Marie St. Clair

  The thought that ran through my head? In this high stakes life or death situation? I was relieved that I had the fortitude and foresight to see that my life was no place for Callie. I was gone on that chick.

  “Clement, we meet again…” The leader of the Spaniards said with the self-important tone of one who has the upper hand. He would lose that upper hand, and the spirit of the L’Enfers Vengeance would rain down upon him.

  Of that I was sure.

  The goon I knocked the gun away from had regained his stance and he pushed me forward into the bar. My spirit faltered for a moment, but only a moment as I saw Henri and a few others in our crew tied to chairs. Marie wasn’t tied up, but the Spanish goon standing behind her held a gun to her head.

  Not tying up Marie, their revere or maybe underestimation of her would be their downfall. Her stilettos were tapping and her eyes were on fire. L’Enfer’s Vengeance would be hers.

  “The bag, Clement?” The Spanish leader demanded.

  “I give it to you and you go away?” I asked.

  I didn’t actually know what Marie had done with my satchel.

  “You give it to me and I’ll spare your crew the torture of a long death. One clean bullet to the head. My men, we like Paris. Your bar, we’ll take it.” He smiled as if we were discussing a real estate deal.

  Marie turned to the man holding the gun to her head and spit in his face. He jerked backwards, and quickly raised the gun as if to hit her in the head. She stared up at him as if daring him to do it.

  “Emile, stop— The Spanish leader barked at his lackey.

  I didn’t know if it was Marie, or the sternness of the order but he looked ready to piss his pants. It was hard not to laugh. I managed because I needed to keep my eyes open for a slipup, a moment I could jump in and take over. Destroy the Spanish goons.

  “The bag’s gone,” I shrugged with my best French arrogance and looked away as if the whole scene were an inconvenience.

  “Comme ci, Comme ca, as you French bastards like to say. The bar and the bikes will make up for the loss.”

  “Yeah, that’s not going to happen,” I looked straight into Marie’s fiery eyes, and hoped she read my signal to move. She seemed distracted. I assumed her mind was spinning a plan of her own. I would wait for her signal.

  Her plan was weaker than our position. She swung her leg up, the heel of her boot grazed the throat of Emile. I hit my head with the palm of my hand. All she could have possibly done with her ballerina kick was to enrage our captors and put her in deeper danger, if deeper danger were possible.

  I was wrong.

  Everything was in slow motion from this point. Emile held his hand to his neck and with a gush, blood squirted through his fingers. He held tighter and tried to speak, to breathe. The breath wouldn’t come.

  It was distraction. The leader of the Spanish Goons lowered his gun, just a bit, just enough to let me know his guard was down. I made the most of the moment.

  I elbowed his throat. It wasn’t as dramatic as Marie’s kick, but the leader stumbled and I grabbed his gun. Marie jumped to Henri’s side and loosened the ropes around him.

  The problem was that there were four other Spanish goons, all with guns. Dumb as they were, they did come to their senses. The door opened. A gun went off. A very loud scream.

  Chapter Sixteen – Callie

  I ran through Les Halles like a madwoman. I had been there before with my group to visit the Pompidou Center. Les Halles had seemed small, but if you don’t know where you’re going, it’s kind of big. The tall buildings and grey skies weren’t helping.

  My first mistake was asking the tourists in front of the Pompidou if they knew where the biker bar was located. Of course they didn’t know. It took me a good twenty minutes to figure out that I would be better off asking the actual residents of Les Halles.

  I ran around the corner to a residential looking area. I was a maniac, grabbing stranger’s arms, trying to remember the French word for motorcycle and bar. I was eventually forced to mimic revving a motorcycle.

  The word I was looking for was motard, said the bilingual Frenchman with a laugh. He gave me complicated directions. He also gave me a warning that it wasn’t the place for an American girl.

  I ran and was quickly lost again. The streets really weren’t so different than the spiraling layout of Boston. I had no idea why I was having such a hard time gathering my bearings.

  I stopped for a second and took a deep breath. It was love that was spinning my mind, not the antiquated layout of the city. I let the emotion fill me, let it be my guide. Finding the bar was easy after that.

  Dozens of motorcycles were parked in front of the bar. The bikes partially blocked the narrow road. I didn’t think I would ever understand the rules of parking in Paris. Sometimes cars were parked in the center of the streets. I didn’t have time to ponder it.

  I ran to the door, and opened it while calling Clemente’s name.

  OH MY GOD.

  Blood, so much blood. A man was laying on the floor clutching his neck, blood spilling out all around him. His eyes met mine, and then gently closed. My heart nearly stopped.

  I screamed.

  Everything after that moved in hyper slow motion. All the details were quick, but the movement of the people in the bar were like a dance, a slow ballet. If it weren’t so brutal, it would have been beautiful.

  A tiny woman wearing sky-high boots kneeled on the floor beside a man tied to a chair. She looked up at me with a slow smile as she unbound him. I stepped backwards and scanned the room for Clemente.

  He was towards the back of the bar, using his elbows to attack a swarthy and dangerous looking older man. Clemente’s movements were quick, and a surprise kick to the back of the older man knees sent him to the floor. A gun went off as Clemente kicked the fallen man’s head.

  He was so brutal, a crazy glint in his eyes, his mouth moving in French profanities. I thought for a moment he was going to stomp the man’s head, flatten him into the floor. I found it strangely exciting.

  Suddenly Clemente was on the floor, clutching himself, blood pouring out. I couldn’t make sense of what was going. I didn’t know whether to duck and hide or run to him. I did both, falling to the ground, crawling to him.

  I felt tears running down my face as I reached him, “Clemente, Clemente…” I cried to him as I wrapped my arms around him and buried my face in his chest.

  “Callie…” He moaned lightly, “Why…”

  Another gun went off and the older man who Clemente had been pummeling jerked upwards, and then lay still. I closed my eyes tightly. The room filled with the sound of people fighting, hard punches, but thankfully no more gun blasts.

  “Clement…” The tiny woman with the sky-high heels whispered to him. I felt her arm around me, lifting me off him. I resisted, but then a thicker, stronger arm pulled me off of him.

  French was spoken quickly as I saw the man who lifted me off Clemente was the man the tiny woman had been untying. A strange mixture of terror and protectiveness filled me as I stood watching them argue while Clemente lay on the floor staring up at me, his eyes a glaze.

  His shoulder was bleeding heavily. He made a halfhearted effort to put his hand over it, “My jacket Callie.” He smiled through his haze.

  “Clemente,” I threw myself beside him again and placed my hands securely over the wound, pressing with all my strength. “Can’t you help him?” I screamed to the man and woman.

  “Oui, oui,” The man shook his head and looked at me with the bemused expression the French are famous for. He reached down and effortlessly picked me up again. I felt like a rag doll in his strong arms.

  “Henri, Marie… this is Callie… The one who branded me…” Clemente laughed under his breath and closed his eyes.

  “Jean-Marc,” Henri turned and called out, “Run for the doctor.”

  I followed Henri’s line vision and saw the ones who had been tied to chairs tying up their previous captors. They were boundi
ng them roughly, a lot slaps to their heads with the butt of their guns. I was surprised to see them glare angrily. I would have been terrified.

  Clemente was right, his life was a world away from mine. It was terrifying. I didn’t care as long as I was with Clemente. The realization shocked me.

  Henri picked up Clemente and held him in his arms as if he were his son, “I’ll take him upstairs. Marie take Callie to the backroom. She shouldn’t see…” His voice trailed off as he glanced back into the barroom.

  “No,” I protested, “I need to be with Clemente.” I reached out to touch him. Henri turned him away.

  “He’ll be fine. I’ll send for you when he’s bandaged up.”

  I looked to Clemente. He whispered in French words I could not understand. Marie took my arm and led me away.

  Chapter Seventeen – Clemente

  Henri lowered me onto the cot in the attic above the bar. Gentle as he was, my chest throbbed. Every sense in my body heightened, tender with darts of pain extending to the tips of my being.

  He ran his hand across my forehead as he took the phone from his pocket and spoke quickly in Algerian. I knew he was calling Dr. Kateb. Dr. Kateb had been a respected heart surgeon in Algeria over a decade before. His degree didn’t transfer, and he never went about getting the proper certification to practice in France. He found himself making an even better living as a doctor for patients who couldn’t officially seek help.

  He was a legend in the underground world of Paris, greatly respected.

  “Henri,” I whispered.

  “Clemente, Clemente…” he ran his hand across my forehead again and looked onto me as if I were a little boy, his little boy. I wouldn’t say Marie and Henri were like parents to me, more like protective slightly delinquent older siblings. Still, they meant the world to me. “Be quiet… Kateeb will be here soon.”

  He sat down on the hard stool next to the bed, and lit one of his filter-less cigarettes.

  I didn’t cough or make a face of displeasure even though the smoke was making my labored breathing more difficult, “Callie… Send her away.”

  “Your girl, the American?” He laughed lightly and looked at his cigarette. He must have realized that smoking around someone with a gaping open wound isn’t the best thing to do. He put it out on the floor, the tip of his boot grinding it as if he were angry. “I don’t think she would leave.” He laughed again.

  “This isn’t the life for her.” I said through the haze that was falling over my eyes.

  “Did she want to be a member? Have her own jacket?” He patted my hand, “Let her stay Clemente… She can be part of your world, not our world. It’s safe for the women. Or maybe Marie will take her on?” He pulled out his cigarette pack and quickly put it back in his pocket.

  “Have her go— Take her back to her University—

  The door opened. I knew it was Dr. Kateeb even though my eyes were too heavy to open. A prick in my arm, and the world faded away.

  Chapter Eighteen – Callie

  Marie led me upstairs to a room that was a world away from the Parisian shabbiness of the bar. It was as if I were suddenly transported to the Sun King’s bedroom at the Louvre. The walls and wainscoting were gold, the ceiling embossed with aged cupids.

  And her bed, I had never seen a bed like hers before. The platform was four feet off the ground, and her duvets and pillows were stuffed higher than a stack of phone books. Such a tough looking woman living in such feminine decadence.

  I looked closely at her, suddenly intrigued. The action in the bar had left with me with the impression that she was a thug. A good thug because she had saved Clemente, but still a violent woman.

  She was so tiny and covered in leather, but as I looked closely, I saw the black scarf around her neck was covered in tiny grey hearts. The stockings that peeped out between the top of her boots and skirt were textured, almost fishnets. I felt so childish standing next to her in my jeans and sweatshirt.

  “Clemente,” I said with an embarrassment to my thoughts. I was a budding feminist. It was wrong of me to judge a woman by her style of dress, and I should never have felt embarrassed about mine, “Will he be okay? Can I see him?”

  “The doctor should be here now. It’s just a shoulder wound. Bloody… and his range of movement could be impaired but he’ll be fine. I’ve seen much worse rebound…” She said as she opened the door to her closet and took out an azure silken slip.

  “Shouldn’t he be in the hospital?”

  “No… Too many questions. He understands our way of life and I promise the doctor seeing him is well qualified. The very best.” She handed me the slip. I stared at it unsure of what I was supposed to do with it.

  “I can see from your eyes that you’re tired. Time to rest. I’ll wake you up when you’re able to see Clemente.” She led me to the bed.

  “No, no, can’t sleep. I need to see Clemente… Tell him—

  “Tell him how you feel? In the middle of his surgery?” She laughed delicately, another surprise. Such a different kind of woman. I wanted to ask her a million questions about herself, starting with, how did a woman rise to the top of a biker gang.

  I didn’t know much about biker gangs beyond what I had seen on television, but they always seemed to be a bastion of misogyny. Maybe it was different in France?

  “I assure you that he knows,” She laughed again, “And I assure you he feels the same way.”

  “But he doesn’t think—

  “This life is for you? He’s right about that. My mother was that same as you… She lives quietly and happily with my father outside of Paris. My father, retired now, treated his life here as a day job.”

  “That makes sense… That’s how you’re the leader. Nepotism.” I shook my head as if I had stumbled onto a great truth.

  “I assure you that is not the truth. I had to fight my way in… I’ll tell you about it one day. But for now, go to sleep. Be rested for Clemente, okay?” She took my chin in her hand and kissed me lightly on the lips.

  “Okay,” I felt myself blushing. Boston life was so much more reserved than Paris.

  She smiled and I couldn’t believe this tiny, sweet woman had been the face of vengeance no more than a half hour before.

  She left. I put on her silky slip and did as told, took a nap.

  Chapter Nineteen – Clemente

  I awoke in a morphine blur, my shoulder tingling, with a vague sense of numbness. My eyes were heavy. I struggled to open them. I expected to see Callie’s face. Wrong. Henri’s eyes greeted mine.

  “Clemente, you’re awake,” He smiled as if morning had broken on a bright and beautiful day. The remains of the drug haze had left me feeling much the same way.

  “Callie—

  “She’s asleep in Marie’s room,” He held me back. I hadn’t realized I was trying to get up.

  “I must see her— I purposely sat up this time, ignoring the iron arm holding me back.

  “She’s a deep sleeper, much like you…” He laughed, “Don’t you want to hear about your shoulder? How the surgery went?”

  I rotated my shoulder. I sensed soreness, but the drugs weren’t allowing the feeling to connect with the pain. “I’m fine,” I muttered as I struggled to my feet.

  “You will be fine,” He picked me up off my feet and attempted to lay me back down on the bed.

  That wasn’t happening.

  He gave up as if I were too strong for him, but I knew even in my haze that he was only letting me retain my dignity. We French, we respect each other’s right to make fools of ourselves.

  I stood teetering back and forth. My arm was bound tightly to my chest with thick gauze. I assumed this was affecting my sense of balance. “Where is she?” I demanded.

  “In Marie’s room,” He stood up, a sly, playful smile danced across his roughhewn face, and he extended his arm as if to point out the direction.

  “Thanks,” I grunted and took a very unsteady step towards the door.

  “May I hel
p you, Clemente?” He laughed under his breath.

  I wanted to scream “no”, but I knew I was helpless to walk down the hallway on my own.

  “If that’s what you need to do,” I scowled and said in the tone of a man doing the greatest favor. Henri played along, because our club was a brotherhood, and we were brothers.

  He put his arm around me as if in a hug, but truthfully he nearly carried me down the hall to Marie’s room.

  “It’s good you’ve come to your senses Clemente… Your girl… I don’t think you would be able to shake her away. Americans, especially this one, can be… persistent.” He said as he put his hand on Marie’s door to open it for me. “Persistent? That’s the correct word?’

  His English was fluent, but he would still question stray words occasionally.

  “Persistent? Yes, also garish, headstrong and foolish. They rush in where angels fear to tread.” I briefly wondered what the hell I was talking about. The drugs were strong. I could see why such a high price was paid for them.

  And no, I did not become addicted to them. Callie would be my addiction, nothing and nobody else but Callie.

  Henri laughed again as the door swung open to my Callie asleep in Marie’s bed.

  “Go Henri,” I ordered as if I were a man in control of myself.

  I was not.

  I had rushed to her to be with her. I had forgotten about my intent to send her away. The drugs were strong inside of me. The core of me exposed. My strong mind, my sense of right and wrong, non-existent.

  The right thing to do would have been to wake her and pack her up, send her home to America. The safe life she deserved.

  I would have to build a safe life for her in Paris.

  What else could I have done as I gazed down onto Callie adorned in a sea blue slip of a dress. Her shoulder pale with slumber, her legs unfurled out endlessly upon Marie’s bed. A bed fit for a royal honeymoon.