Something seems different, though. Something around one of his eyes that I didn’t notice before.
“You get a cell yet?” he asks, breaking the silence just before the doors slide open.
“Oh, um, not yet. I was going to go after work today and pick one up. I meant to do it yesterday, but lost track of time.”
“Just send an e-mail to Armis in IT and we can set you up with a company one.”
“No, thanks,” I say a little bit too quickly. He looks at me, but I don’t say anything else. He knows I dropped my other one in the drink at Axle’s, but he has no idea why. I don’t think Sebastian is the stalker type, and I have no plans on having a relationship with him anyway, but I’m not taking any more chances. My next cell phone will be mine alone. “I mean, if it’s okay, I’d rather just get my own.”
He shrugs. “Suit yourself. You can expense it, at least, unless you have a problem with that, too.”
“No, that would be great. Thank you.”
The café is more like a cafeteria, and it’s pretty packed with Piston staff. Sebastian nods to a few people and introduces me to a couple of others, but in general, it seems like not a lot of people recognize him. He told me he flew under the radar, but now I believe him.
He guides me to a table near one of the walls and sits across from me with his roast beef on a bagel and Pepsi. As he’s looking down at it, I notice what I had started to see in the elevator.
“Your eye…” I start to say, but he looks up sharply at me, so I stop myself.
“It’s nothing,” he says. “I thought I’d covered that up.”
“You did. I mean, I didn’t notice it until I was looking at you in the elevator… I mean, because we were so close, and I just noticed it. And then just now, only because I had seen it before but… what happened?” It looked like he used makeup to hide a cut of some kind.
“Nothing, things just got rowdy at Axle’s last night. Don’t worry about it.”
“Things got rowdy? You mean you got in a fight?”
“It happens, Evelyn. It’s part of being in the MC. Fights are pretty normal.”
“I thought you were trying to get them turned around?”
“I didn’t say I was going to turn them into boy scouts. I’m just trying to keep them out of prison. Out of doing hard time and throwing their lives away. But I can’t change who they are. Or who I am, for that matter.”
“So, you’re fine with that part of the lifestyle? Getting beaten up?”
“I didn’t get beaten up. You should see the other guy.”
“Oh, so that’s better? Beating people up?”
Sebastian is glaring at me now, but I don’t care. We’re talking in hushed tones, and the cafeteria is loud enough that no one can hear us.
“I don’t need to explain myself to you,” he says, his jaw tight.
“So much for wanting someone to share both sides of your life with,” I spit back. “Or was that just a line to get me to fuck you again?”
The darkness of his eyes seem to extend for miles, at first masked by a thinly draped veil of fury, but then that is pulled away almost as quickly as it fell.
“You’re right,” he says with an exhale. “But I’m not ready to share that side just yet. It’s too dangerous, still, to let anyone near it.”
“What about you? Is it dangerous for you?” I’m looking at his eye, now. Was that really just from a rowdy night, or something more?
Sebastian shrugs. “Maybe it is.” His voice is barely above a whisper, and he seems to be looking past me again. Was he answering me, or himself?
He’s quiet for a time, and then he looks back at me. “I was serious about feeling relief at not having to hide those sides of me. But it’s this side that I need your help with. The other side is something I have to take care of on my own. For now, just having you know that side exists is enough. But I need you to stay out of it.”
I can tell that he’s serious, so I just nod.
“I mean it, Evelyn. I’ll talk about it when I’m ready, but don’t push me. And don’t go back to that bar, either. Stay away from Axle’s.”
Even before Bash walked into my life that night, I had no intention of setting foot in that bar again. That was more Jackie’s scene that mine. The whole thing had been her idea and as far as I knew, she was still screwing the bartender she met there that night.
But it’s an easy promise to make. “I will.”
That seems to satisfy him, but he’s gone again, gazing past me—perhaps through me. His armor is back up. And I’m left wondering one more time what I’ve gotten myself into.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
BASH
“What the fuck is that?” I know exactly what it is, but I’m really hoping I’m wrong.
“What? The new exhaust? Pretty sweet, ain’t it? Snake hooked me up. He was leaving with the parts from that heist, but as I needed a new muffler anyway, he let me take this one to install. I’ve never seen another one like it. It’s pretty sick.”
Yes, that’s exactly how I would describe the way I feel about it, too. Sick.
I take a deep breath, internally counting to ten so that I don’t lose my shit on Sparkie. He’s a good kid, and this isn’t his fault. I’m just here to check on the bike shop and make sure it’s all running smoothly, but putting Sparkie in charge means this trip is likely just a formality. The kid has a good head on his shoulders, and he’s a talented mechanic. He’s pretty new to the club, though, and I don’t think he’s really picked sides yet. This could be an attempt to try and put him on my bad side while at the same time endearing him to the other factions that are vying for power around here.
But I didn’t expect that move to come from Snake. Do I really need to worry about my own VP? I would have expected this kind of shit from Ripper, but not Snake. I’m losing fucking control over this club faster than I thought.
“Yeah, it’s really great, kid.” I walk past him and into the shop before he sees me lose my shit. It isn’t even about the muffler. Very few people at Piston would recognize that part by sight as coming from the German batch, and the chance of them ever seeing it on this kid’s bike are slim and none. But Snake knows that when I said to get rid of this shit, I didn’t mean by handing pieces out to brothers. How many other pieces am I going to see popping up around the clubhouse parking lot? Do I need to go and take care of that now, too? So much for me getting back to the office this afternoon.
At least Evelyn is there. She seemed to have no problem when I suggested she come in this weekend. I guess working for a guy like Edward made her accustomed to working off hours, but if it wasn’t for this whole Germany shit-storm, I wouldn’t have asked. Not after she just started two days ago, at least.
She’s been a huge help already. I haven’t been able to work out a solution to the missing parts issue yet, but at least I’ve had the time to actually get involved now that she’s streamlining everything else. I think the only thing that’s going to help is going down there and talking to them directly. It’s not time I can afford to be away for myself, though. Not with this stupid power struggle going on here at the club. So I have Evelyn calling a few other overseas suppliers as a last ditch effort to find alternatives. I don’t have a lot of hope for it, though. The timeline is too tight and the designs are too custom for anyone else to be able to tackle it. But the German supplier already did it once. I’m sure they can do it again. They just need the right motivation.
Inside, the shop is pretty full. There are a couple cars and a handful of bikes all being worked on, or waiting to be worked on, by various members of the MC, and all of them look to actually be working. I handpicked this crew myself, filling the shop with the guys I knew to be the hardest workers. I want this to be our flagship, legit business that I can point to as an example of how we can all make a lot of money doing real work instead of ripping people off, or trading guns and drugs with the cartels of the city. But some of the guys in the club would rather do that anyway, even
if I hand them legit money on a silver fucking platter.
The question is: how many of each group make up the Soldiers? When I started to move us legit, I would have guessed there were more Soldiers looking to build a stable life. Now I’m starting to wonder. Either I have a much bigger faction of troublemakers on my hands, or it’s a small group making a lot of noise, trying to seem bigger by stirring up shit in as many places as they can all at once. I’ve just been too busy lately to really sit down and figure it out. Maybe I need a goddamn EA for my club life, too.
“I’m gonna take a look at the books,” I say. Sparkie has been following behind me since outside, probably sensing I was pissed off, but too afraid to ask why. Checking the books is mainly a formality; I know I won’t find anything wrong. That’s why I put him in charge. If I had slotted Ripper to run this joint, I’d have to be in here every day to clean up his mess. And nights, too. I fully expect if I put him in charge of any of the businesses, he’d have a full blown after-hours casino or whore house running inside of a week.
Although, Snake runs one of the businesses. I gave him a little printing shop to run, and I’ve mostly left him alone with it over the last few weeks. But if he’s in bed with the other side, maybe I need to get over there and check it out soon. For all I know, he’s got the copiers running all night printing out hundred dollar bills, or something.
I sigh heavily, dropping into the hard, wooden seat behind the desk. I was careful not to slam the door when I came in—I don’t want everyone knowing how annoyed I am—but I did make a point of closing it. I’m not interested in a conversation right now. I’m just going to check the books and leave. Maybe I’ll skip stopping back at the clubhouse, after all. I’d rather just get back to Piston. Evelyn is there.
That shouldn’t be why I want to get there so quickly, but there’s no point in denying it. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her since she started. I hired her to help ease my distractions, but she’s quickly becoming a replacement for all of the ones she’s removing.
Evelyn is exactly the reason why I avoid relationships. My life is busy and complicated enough. I have so many secrets, so many points of failure, that introducing another one into my life would be a huge mistake. How could a girlfriend work for a guy like me? How can I ever trust someone enough to let them into every aspect of my life, without restriction? It’s out of the question. I made my choice to live this way a long time ago, and I knew what I’d be giving up in the process. I have women like Jez to take the edge off when needed. It doesn’t have to go any deeper than that. I don’t need it to.
But fuck, if it doesn’t feel good to not have to lie to her about the MC side of my life. I’m just not sure it’s worth the distraction of my dick getting hard every time she bends over at the office. Sleeping with her again was probably a mistake. I had almost gotten her out of my head, out of both of them, but then I had to go and invite her back in. It’s been so long since I’ve let someone get as close to me as she already has in such a short time. As good as it feels, it’s a mistake. And it’s a mistake because it feels so good. Feeling good will only lead me to relaxing, and relaxing will lead to slipups. That’s why I need to keep my distance, if she’s going to stick around. When she starts getting too close or asking too many questions, I need to piss her off, get her to back down. Keep her from wanting anything to do with me, other than professionally. It’s the only way to handle this.
As if she knows I’m thinking about her, my phone rings and it’s her office line.
“Yeah?”
“Sebastian? It’s Evelyn. I—”
“I know. Where are we on the replacement hunt?”
A pause. “I’ve called all of the companies you’ve given me, although some of them can’t be reached today, likely because it’s the weekend. But I’ve left messages. I’ve tried a few others, as well, that I found through some research. No luck so far, I’m afraid. But that’s not—”
“That’s what I figured. Those ones that you can’t reach aren’t going to have any better news for us, anyway. Someone has to go down to Germany and straighten this out, and I can’t do it right now. I already told Hans to do it, they were his supplier, after all, but he’s been dragging his feet. Go talk to Beverly, she’s Hans’ assistant. Get her to book him on the next flight out. I’ll call him and let him know he’s going. The only way we’re going to get this done is if we apply pressure on them face to face. It’s the only chance we have to get this resolved.”
“Okay, but—”
“I know it’s Saturday, but Beverly should be there. It’s all hands on deck right now.”
“Can you let me finish please?” Evelyn sounds pissed for some reason.
“Okay, what?”
“I have to… where are you? I thought you were coming in today?”
“I am, I just got held up.”
“At the clubhouse?”
“No, somewhere else.” I’m not used to having to answer as to my whereabouts to anyone, and getting into the inner workings of the changes I’m trying to make at the MC aren’t her concern. She may be my assistant, which affords her more access to my life than most people, but that doesn’t mean I’m an open book. “I’m heading to the office soon, though. Why?”
“Nothing, I mean, it’s just that I have to go. So I… I just wanted to make sure you were coming in… in case any of these suppliers call us back.”
“Where are you going? It’s only two.”
“It’s Saturday, Sebastian.” Her voice sounds snippy now, probably because of the tone I’ve been taking with her. “Something came up that I have to take care of. But I’ll talk to Beverly before I leave.”
“Fine.” I hang up without waiting for her to say anything else. I have no right to be pissed that she has a life and has to leave at two on a Saturday, but I am anyway. Although I try not to acknowledge the fact that part of the reason why I’m annoyed was because I was looking forward to seeing her today.
Still, if she isn’t going to be there, and she’s planning on getting Beverly to book Hans on a flight before she leaves, then there’s no rush in me going back to the office now after all. None of those suppliers are going to have any good news, that was always a long shot. I’ll call Hans and let him know about his trip. He’ll be pissed, but that’s too fucking bad.
Then I might as well head over to the club and find out if any more of the parts got distributed to members. All I need is half the club to be driving around town with custom, stolen Piston parts. It’s one thing to have one muffler on a single bike. That won’t get noticed. But it better not have gone much further than that. Otherwise, I’ll need to crack some fucking heads. Maybe find out once and for all who’s on what side of all of this.
It feels like both my worlds are crumbling down around me, brick by brick, only for the first time in my life, I genuinely can’t figure out which one is worth saving.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
EVELYN
Why the hell does Jackie want me to meet her at the one place I’m not supposed to go?
Hey, can you meet me at that bar we were at Saturday? It’s really important. I’m heading out now but I lost my phone so I can’t call or text you. Please meet me ASAP.
Jackie
Talk about cryptic. The problem with Jackie is that she can be a bit melodramatic sometimes, and I have no idea if this is one of those times. For all I know, she had a fight with the bartender from Axle’s, who I know she’s been seeing, and just wants me there to back her up as she confronts him. But what if this time, it’s something actually important? The fact that I can’t call or text her back is frustrating. I can’t just leave her hanging, though. If the situation were reversed, she’d be there in a heartbeat.
I did promise Sebastian that I wouldn’t go back to his club hangout, but he’s not there now, and he’s coming back here to the office next. I can get there, meet Jackie, and quickly get her out of there—or at least, get myself out of there—long before Sebastian ever
gets done for the day here. He’ll likely head back to the bar tonight, but by then, I’ll be long gone.
I don’t like having to do what he told me explicitly not to do, but what choice do I have? Jackie’s the closest friend I have in this city, and she may really need me. If he wasn’t so secretive about everything, I would have already told Jackie about him and she would know that I couldn’t be seen at Axle’s. As it is, I’ve had to dance around everything with her and start to keep secrets of my own. Far fewer than Sebastian has to keep, but already I don’t know how he does it. I hate lying to people.
Silver and Chrome: A Bad Boy MC Romance Page 11