by Addison Jane
“Germs?”
“Memories.”
Interesting.
“You came this far,” I challenged, pushing my hair back from my face.
“There’s a lot of things I’d do for a pretty girl.”
My grin was instant. This big, buff, hulking fucking biker that looked like he could not only crush a can with his forehead but maybe the entire six-pack, whipping out the sweet nothings. And honestly, that defiance in his eyes and the matching smirk—I knew it was corny, but I could still feel my cheeks overheating. “Wow, that was really something.”
Hype’s deep, rolling laughter tugged harder at the corner of my mouth, the sound reminding me of building thunder. A storm rolling in. Maybe that was a warning I should have taken.
“Knew I should have probably gone with something a little more manly.” He shrugged, tossing his smoke onto the grass and pressing it hard with the heel of his heavy boots. “Maybe I’ll see you around. Your WiFi is working, right?”
My brow knotted between my eyes as I dug around in my pocket for my cell phone.
He slowly backed away, a grin on his face when I looked back up at him in confusion. “Yeah, it’s working.”
That smirk.
It fucking kickstarted my heart like an electric shock.
“Good, I was sure I felt a connection, but I just wanted to make sure.” He spun on his heel, holding his hand in the air as he strutted across the parking lot to the beautiful, monstrous sparkling Harley sitting proudly gleaming in the sun. Leaving me sitting there, my mouth open but turned up in a smile while shaking my head.
His leathers fit snug across his broad shoulders. They were well worn, aged by the sun and a little tattered and rubbed around the edges. I didn’t imagine Hype was the kind of man who wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty, so I knew every mark, every little rub or worn thread had a story. And I couldn’t help but want to know each and every damn one.
That, alone, made them more intimidating to see just how much he valued this one piece of clothing.
Like it was more than that.
Like it was a piece of who he was.
It was more than a little intimidating, the way the menacing skull that decorated his back almost seemed to wink at me. Royal Bastards MC displayed proudly across the top. Miami, FL curved around the bottom. Intimidating wasn’t even the right word to use.
Men like him were dangerous. Not just because of the way they ignored the laws or the way they lived, but because they didn’t give a damn. I watched him, unable to pull my gaze away as he started his Harley and walked it slowly out of the small parking space. He looked back, his eyes connecting with mine for a second, his mouth twitching as he dipped his head like some kind of southern gentleman. Everything about him, including the smooth fucking way he spoke, screamed at me just to watch him walk away and forget he ever existed.
I knew I wouldn’t, though.
Because I liked unpredictable.
I liked spontaneous.
And something was telling me, he was both.
HYPE
“Sage Calder,” Warden announced, slapping the file onto the table. “Father is the new chief of police downtown. Mother was murdered when Sage was thirteen. Dad has shifted around a lot, taking jobs in different cities, moving up the food chain.”
Hatch had called church to discuss the latest plan to get things moving again.
Here in Miami, we had multiple businesses. Our fingers were in almost fucking anything—strip clubs, bars, towing, debt collection.
Some brought in more wealth than others, but for the most part, they were more just fronts, places for us to put funds, especially the kind coming from our heroine imports. It was my baby, not just the reason for my road name, but a project I’d been working on perfecting for fucking years and thought I had found the fucking sweet spot. It was our most lucrative by fucking far, bringing in anywhere between fifty to two hundred and fifty thousand a month.
My contacts in Cuba had agreed to ship me twice our usual order to make up for what we lost but let me know they weren’t happy with the interception. They trusted me to make sure things moved smoothly. It wasn’t just the club’s ass on the line, their asses were burning, hanging just above a raging fire that would eat them whole if either of us slipped up.
Reaching out, I snatched the folder, flipping it open and coming face to face with a copy of her hospital ID photo. It did nothing for her. You didn’t get to see the curve of her body, the way her waist pulled in tight, and how her ass was so fucking round.
So fucking perfect.
Bitch was sexy as hell.
And that smart mouth—something else.
I didn’t often get a woman who would talk back to me, question me, keep me on my damn toes. Bitches around here, they saw a patch and were begging to ride your dick, hoping you’d stick her on the back of your bike, fighting to get that fucking notoriety.
All Sage wanted was to know my damn name.
She played innocent well, but there was something else. Something I couldn’t help but find intriguing.
“Calder did move a lot,” I noted as I flicked through his work history with a frown. “Not often do you see police move from city to city every couple of years.”
I spotted the name of a city I recognized and looked over at Hatch, who was watching silently.
“Says here… he worked in Baltimore.”
Hatch’s brows raised, and he rocked back in his chair. “You want me to give Gamble a call, see if she’s heard of our friend?” he inquired, reading my thoughts.
“Couldn’t hurt.”
“Let’s talk plan first,” he announced, my brothers all sitting a little straighter as Hatch demanded the attention of the room.
I sat upright, strumming my fingers on the large table in front of me. Church was a sacred place for us, everything in this room was dedicated to members of the club who had come before us. Club cuts decorating the walls. Members who had left us still remembered with pride.
They made this club.
We owed them our knowledge, our standing, and our fucking respect.
Hatch’s dad’s cut hung right behind him, right over the top of the president’s chair. Key’s had been president for nearly thirty fucking years. We lost him a few years back.
They said lung cancer, but after losing his ol’ lady in a drive-by some little fucking punks pulled, Hatch and I were almost one hundred fucking percent sure it was his heart that finally gave out. That was the power of an ol’ lady who you didn’t fucking let go of.
Keys had told us over and over again, when you knew, you fucking knew.
I was relying on that fact.
I never used the club girls here, always found my own pussy outside of the club. No attachments, no expectations from women who weren’t part of the life. I just went through one after another, the odd one returning twice.
I figured one day I’d fucking just know when one came along who wasn’t like the others. And I was trying to ignore the feeling in my gut that told me that day had fucking come because I was about to fuck with this girl like nothing else.
I was going to make her fucking hate me.
Not exactly a great basis for a fucking relationship.
“I’ll get hold of the girl first,” I started, explaining the plan I’d worked through with Hatch before church. “Saw her yesterday. Won’t have a fucking problem taking her home. Then when I’ve got her secured, we take a visit to see her daddy, talk through things politely with the asshole. He agrees, I let the girl go.”
“And if he doesn’t?” Deep questioned, leaning forward and listening intently.
“If he doesn’t, I’m going to use her to gently persuade him,” I explained, not to fucking subtly. “Like Warden said, the two are close. Her mom was killed when she was younger, Calder has never taken another partner, and her school reports mention how he was at every school play, coached her sports teams, did fucking everything for her.”
If there was anything that would force his hand, it was going to be her. I was so fucking sure of it.
“Where are you going to put her if Calder decides to be a fuckwit?” Hatch questioned, his eyes directly at me while the rest of my brothers sat back and waited patiently.
“Nycto has a couple of places up there we could use,” Brew offered, speaking for the first time. “We’ve used them before, not too close to home, not too far that you can’t make the trip in a few hours if something happened.” He was the eldest member in the club and when Keys died, ever single member had voted for him to lead. He’d been Keys’ vice the entire time, he knew how the club should be run, and he had the ability to do it. But instead, he put Hatch’s name forward.
Offering to have his back until his time was done, just like he’d done for his dad.
That was brotherhood.
That was fucking family.
Loyalty.
“I’ll ring Nycto after this,” I nodded. “See what he can do on short notice.”
Nycto was the president of the Tampa Chapter of the Royal Bastards MC.
We’d known each other for fucking years, prospected around the same time, so when the clubs got together, him, Hatch, and I were always the ones standing out in the fucking parking lot outside bars and shit, watching the bikes, cleaning the bikes, doing the bitch duty.
That was the way of life.
“So, what happens if we can’t railroad this guy?” Manic asked, leaning forward so I could see him down the table. With sixteen men now in total, not including the couple of prospects we had, church was full and fucking tight.
For the most part, brothers sat, listened, had their opinion if they were asked for it, then left. But Hatch had never been the type of president not to allow brothers to express concerns.
“This fucker doesn’t play nice, we find someone who fucking will,” I explained, deciding to make shit clear.
“All we need is to get this next shipment in,” Hatch continued, my brothers turning their attention to him. “We get this shit through, deal with Calder, then we have time to work on other options and take a good hard look at whether there is an easier way to bring this shit in without having to gamble with those dirty fuckers in the police force.”
“So, the focus is this next shipment,” Loose confirmed, his eyes moving between us.
“We know what happened to Sketch wasn’t an accident. Police found a bullet hole in his tire,” Hatch announced, forcing a wave of anger to roll through the room. He let it hang in the air. We all knew that it wasn’t a fucking accident. It was a warning, and if I found out who the fuck did it, I was going to return the fucking favor.
While they were awake.
With a fucking cheese grater and some salt.
“When we find our feet, we will let whoever those fuckers were know what we think of them,” I announced loudly over the hum of my brothers’ anger. They quietened, hands curling into fists, men ready to destroy fucking anyone who thought they could come at us. “But first, we need to get things rolling again.”
“That’s the truth,” Warden warned from the end of the table. “We all know we aren’t hurting for money, but it won’t take long for these assholes to start going to other places. And it won’t take long for our contacts down in Cuba to start offering it to other bastards who can move it faster.”
This kind of crap had a roll-on effect.
And it wasn’t just on us.
We can’t get our shit together, and the club’s reputation, as a whole, starts to be impacted.
“Calder is unpredictable,” Hatch sighed, shaking his head. “But right now, we know what he’ll do for his kid, and that is the quickest path to getting what the fuck we want.”
“Everybody on board say aye,” Hatch called, his eyes following the length of the table as a resounding call of ayes filled the room. “Opposed say nay.”
Silence.
Hatch nodded sharply, picking up his heavy wooden gavel and slamming it fucking hard onto the thick wooden table.
“Call Nycto,” he ordered, the two of us staying seated while the room cleared out. “Set it up.”
“On it,” I answered with a nod. I already knew that asshole would be on board, so right now, my mission was something else. “I gotta pick Sage up ASAP, get this shit moving, sooner better than later.”
“Go then,” he told me with a raised eyebrow like he was questioning why I was explaining that shit.
Hatch trusted my judgment—for the most part.
“I need an excuse to go to the ER,” I told him with a smirk, reaching for the sleeve of my shirt and rolling it up so my bicep was exposed. “How sharp’s your knife?”
SAGE
“Little help here?”
I sucked in a sharp breath, the sound of his voice moving through me and forcing me to my feet.
I leaped up from the desk I was sitting at, my eyes narrowing on Hype in confusion until I spotted the way he was holding his arm, and the drops of blood that seeped through the spaces in his fingers.
“What the hell!” I cursed, stumbling as I rushed around the edge of the desk, slamming my hand against the button that opened the doors to the ER. I pressed my hands to his muscular back, ushering him down the short hall into the nearest triage room.
“Aren’t I meant to wait out there?” He chuckled, looking over his shoulder at me with an amused smirk.
“You’re bleeding,” I snapped, giving him a little extra shove toward the empty bed. He paused for a second, his eyes never leaving me. I felt frozen on the spot, his intense chocolate-colored eyes holding me captive. They were rich, smooth, with tiny speckles of green around the center that gave them this earthy feel. It was unexpectedly warm.
“You need to sit,” I ordered, trying to keep my voice stern and determined.
It took a moment, but soon he moved his hulking body, turning and taking a seat at the edge of the tiny bed.
“Oh, she’s bossy,” the guy who had followed him in laughed as he stepped into the small curtained-off space. “I like my women a little on the feisty side.”
Hype fought a smile, continuing to watch me like he was waiting to hear my response.
He didn’t have to wait long.
“So, in other words, you like your lady to have her foot just slightly on your balls,” I answered, not even bothering to look over my shoulder at him as I moved over to the paper towels, pulling pieces out in handfuls from the dispenser. “Just so there’s a little danger she’ll squash them, but you kinda like that.”
“Hit the nail on the fucking head with that one.” Hype chuckled, cringing just slightly when his body moved too much with laughter.
“Let me see.”
He scoffed. “Um… no.”
“No?”
“Sorry, last time I checked, you were a receptionist, not a fucking doctor,” he answered, shaking his head. “I came in with two arms. I’d like to keep both if possible.”
I rolled my eyes. “Maybe you should have avoided the situation when someone tried to cut one off then, huh?”
“All right, I’m here,” Dante announced happily, reaching for the cardboard box stuck to the wall and tugging out a couple of gloves. Dante was one of our resident doctors in the ER. He was a little nerdy, tended to keep to himself, but had a killer sense of humor. That, and he was also one of the only doctors who I put up with, who hadn’t tried to hit on me, flex their damn money, or talk to me like I wasn’t worthy of their attention.
It was a thin line when it came to medical professionals.
Men mostly.
Too many of them viewed themselves as similar to God.
I liked my men with a god’s body, not a complex.
“Let me see what we have going on here,” a nurse popped into the tiny cubical to assist Dante making the room just that much smaller.
I cleared my throat. “I’ll get out of the way.” I moved one step, thinking I was going to duck out. I didn’t get far, Hype’s hand sh
ooting out and hooking his finger through the belt loop of my jeans, holding me captive. I held my breath, my hands in the air like I’d been caught stealing.
“You stay, Deep will go.”
Everyone stopped.
All except his club brother who just silently slipped out of the tiny space and disappeared.
I knew Dante and the nurse were both watching, but they didn’t say a single word. Not even as Hype tugged me back toward him and ordered me to sit. Dante simply waited silently for me to heft myself onto the bed next to the rugged, bleeding, one-percenter patched biker with a smirk growing wider on his face. Obviously not a single bit concerned for my safety.
“Let’s have a look,” Dante urged.
Hype’s entire body tensing as he pulled his hand away.
“Okay, looks like the bleeding has stopped, which is good. It needs cleaning, and will probably need six or seven stitc—”
“Fuck!” Hype hissed, making me jump. “God fucking damn, doc.”
“Sorry,” Dante apologized—but not actually sounding the least bit sorry—leaning in a little closer. “This is clean, a little deep, though. How’d you say this happened?”
I looked up at Hype, his lips pressed tightly together, and his eyes darkening on Dante who quickly got the message and surprisingly, didn’t seem all that fazed. “Walked past a low hanging piece of roofing tin, you say? Wow, how inconvenient. I’ll be back soon with something to clean that with, and we’ll get it stitched up.”
I jumped down off the bed, pulling the curtain around us to block the sight from the other cubicles or anyone walking past.
Hype watched me. I could feel his eyes on me. It was a strange feeling, one that didn’t exactly make me feel uncomfortable, but more, just aware. “So, what happened?” I asked, unable to keep the question to myself.
“Long hanging piece of ro—”
“I’m not stupid.”
The air was still around us. This was all a part of that storm Hype carried around with him, though. The eye, that was where we were, right in the middle of it. This was where you felt the calm, where people often mistook it for being over. It was where you decided to wait it out and hold on for your damn life, waiting for the next part. The part that could tear you to shreds.