Hunter (The Devil's Dragons Motorcycle Club)

by Nikki Wild

  “Wait, isn’t that good?”

  “It’s bad for business,” I curtly smiled. “We did our job too damn well and there’s no bad guys left to protect people from. Criminals aren’t stupid. When word got out that the Devil’s Dragons were shining the light on the filth, the roaches scattered and got the hell out of our kitchen. Must have made one hell of an impression, because even here, our reputation precedes us.”

  “You mean how Mark recognized your club?” she asked

  “Like I said, we haven’t done business this far out before. It makes me wonder if it will be easier to find leads in New Orleans… or harder.”

  “What exactly did you guys do?” Kate demanded, forcing my gaze to meet hers with the insistence in her voice. “Why does he know who you are, and why are you so surprised?”

  I chewed on my words.

  “That biker gang he’s joined,” I started to ask. “Who were they again, the Bayou Boys?”

  She nodded agreement.

  “Never heard of them. Far as I’m aware, we haven’t come across their club during our little adventures… But it’s not impossible that the things we’ve been up to have made their way out here. Particularly if they have anything to do with the arms dealer we took down…”

  “Arms dealer?” She lifted an eyebrow.

  She thought she was being coy, but I had been watching her carefully. Kate’s face had been growing flush during the conversation, and I could pick up on all those little signs…

  Kate was an open book when we were teenagers. I knew all of her tells, and exactly when she was turned on.

  Listening to me, trying to not stare at me… I knew that she was turned on.

  So was I.

  It was true. I still carried a torch for her, after all this time. I’d lost a lot of sleep at night, thinking of the days long past… and just being near her fucking did something to me all over again.

  If only I can get her into my arms again…

  “Arms dealer?” She repeated, lifting an eyebrow as she started to realize that this sexual frustration between us was a two-way street.

  I opened my mouth to answer, but the waiter brought the check by. Glancing around, he quietly lowered himself down.

  “Kate, right?”

  “Yeah,” she replied cautiously.

  “I used to wash dishes at Waffle Shack…” he said, but his face made it clear this wasn’t just some kid catching up with a long lost co-worker. I looked to Kate and saw a small spark of recognition.

  “There’s someone looking around for you,” he told her. “You didn’t hear it from me… but they were in here first thing asking if you’d put in a job application. They said you might be with someone… Dangerous…”

  He glanced up at me, trying to square his shoulders and look tougher than he was.

  “Do you need my help?”

  It was at this point I noticed the steak knife he was holding with a white knuckle death grip. I’d already had enough fucking knife fights in this shithole town, and I wasn’t about to take down a goddamned kid. Even so, my hand instinctively gripped the edge of the heavy table, ready to toss the thing into his face if he made a wrong move.

  “He’s with me, and he’s not dangerous,” Kate said calmly. “But thank you…”

  I slapped a few bills against the check and pushed it to the center of the table. “We appreciate the warning. Keep the change.”

  The waiter nodded and quickly left us, having successfully completely fucked up the atmosphere. I put Kate on the back of her bike before mounting and heading off.

  We headed straight for her home.

  While I hung back as a lookout, she quickly unlocked the door. I followed her inside, walking into complete and utter chaos.

  Furniture lay upended.

  Books were torn and scattered.

  Broken dishes lay across the floor.

  It looked like we’d just missed the human typhoon that ran though this place. The same typhoon that was in town looking for us now…

  “Mark,” Kate muttered in defeat. “Mark did this. Him and those meatheads he brings along wherever he goes.”

  “Yes,” I agreed, lifting a broken plate to mindlessly examine it.

  I wasn’t sure what to do.

  What can I say to make this better?

  “Were they waiting for us to leave?” Kate asked, turning to me suddenly. “Were they watching us last night?”

  I placed the dish back down, running my fingers along the scattered pages. They seemed to have been ripped out in handfuls and tossed in the air, spread all over.

  There was something about the pattern of destruction that painted a very clear picture to me.

  “No, I don’t think so,” I noted.

  “Then what?” She threw her hands up in frustration. “We weren’t even gone for more than a couple of hours!”

  My fingers fell upon a broken frame. I lifted it carefully, not wanting to slice my fingers against the shattered glass.

  I didn’t recognize the people.

  Probably her family.

  “Grizz?” She repeated.

  “Your ex-boyfriend is emotional,” I concluded, rising up from my knees. “Possibly drunk.”

  “Yeah? No shit, Sherlock.”

  I ignored the need to glare at her.

  “What I mean is that he wasn’t trying to send a message. This is a child throwing a tantrum.” I crossed my arms over my chest.

  “I don’t know what the hell he thought he was accomplishing by screwing up my apartment.”

  “Think about it, Kate,” I pushed her. “Your car was sitting outside. He probably thought that you were home.”

  Concerned, she bit her bottom lip.

  “What do you think I should do?”

  I sighed, glancing around the wreckage. “You’re not safe here. He’s going to come back…”

  Kate groaned, her hand to her forehead. “I’m already struggling to pay the bills as it is… I can’t afford another apartment here! Christ, I’ve only had this place a few months…”

  I let her vent for a minute, stepping around the countertop and into the kitchen. The floor crunched with broken glass and ceramic beneath my boots. Half the cabinets were emptied, and some of the doors dangled on their broken hinges.

  He’d done a number on this place.

  Did nobody else hear this? Why didn’t anyone call the cops?

  “There is a solution,” I told her as I surveyed the damage. “You’re not going to like it, but it’s the only one that I have.”

  “I know,” Kate answered bitterly.

  As I turned back to face her, she looked up from the destruction that surrounded us. An entire conversation happened in that three seconds of eye contact, and I watched the defeat paint itself across her face.

  “How long?” I asked her.

  Her answer came with a sigh.

  “Ten minutes. Maybe less.”

  I nodded, excusing myself outside to play lookout while she scrambled across the apartment for anything that she needed.

  Not much later, Kate stepped outside with a backpack slung over her shoulder. Locking the door behind herself, she stepped over to my motorcycle, gracefully mounting it behind me.

  “The sooner we leave…”

  “I know,” she stopped me. “Just take me to my landlord. She’s probably not home, but I can leave her a note and the keys. I owe her an explanation for ditching town with a trashed apartment. She knows what kind of guy Mark is. She’ll understand…”

  Kate gave me the directions on the way. I kept my eyes peeled for any signs that we were being followed, but nobody seemed to take more than a fleeting interest in us.

  As she’d predicted, the driveway was deserted. Kate pulled a notebook and pen from her backpack and hastily jotted down a note that explained the situation, ended with an apology, and taped the key to the paper. After folding and dropping it in the mail slot, she was back on my bike in less than three minutes.

 
Neither of us tried to exchange a single word as I took the bike back down to the interstate. We didn’t have to. All that mattered were the miles as we hit I-10 going eastward, and keeping Lafayette in the rearview mirrors.

  I felt her settle in the seat behind me, her arms tightening aground my chest.

  My heart was heavy for her.

  Simply coming back into her life, even by pure accident, had already caused her so much grief.

  But this time…

  This time, things would be different. No matter what, I refused to make the same mistakes again. I would keep her safe. I would protect Kate with my life.

  It’s so easy to make those promises.

  But all the conviction in the world can’t do a damned thing when you’re up against enemies you can’t see coming.

  And danger still surrounded us…

  Nine

  Kate

  Grizz took me to Metairie, a small but sprawled suburb. Short on trees and built on the usual flat Louisianan ground, it was met on three sides by the endless wetlands, the massive Lake Ponchartrain, and the magical New Orleans itself.

  He decided to pause and top off his tank at a gas station. I hovered near the bike, thinking about the sharp turns my life had taken in the last twenty-four hours.

  I wasn’t sure what to do, where to go, or why I had silently agreed to accompany him. My place in his world, and his in mine? That was still in a dark, murky spot in my mind.

  What the hell happens next?

  The biker wandered back outside from the convenience store. I watched his confident swagger, the chains dangling from his rugged jeans. I couldn’t deny how sexy he looked with that restrained, powerful stare as he approached.

  I can’t let him have this effect on me.

  Easier said than done.

  “Where are we staying?” I asked, watching his powerful movements. It was a struggle to not lick my lips.

  “Here,” Grizz answered, spinning a finger in the air while he walked.

  “In Metairie?”

  Grizz stopped in front. Smirking, his head crooked slightly, he chuckled out his words. “You got a problem with Metairie?”

  My answer was defiant. “No.”

  “Good,” Grizz nodded, looking around outside the gas station to the sprawling nothingness around. “Because this just might be home for a little while.”

  I put my hands on my hips. “What made you pick here? Why not just New Orleans? Didn’t that club send you with some money?”

  “They did, but funds are running tight as it is. No reason to start draining the account if we’re here longer than a couple of weeks,” Grizz replied. “Somewhere cheap and close is better. Besides, I like having a little more room than we’d get in the city.”

  “Do you even know where we’re staying yet? Picked a place?”

  “Thought I’d wing it. Trust me, the right door will open.”

  That was the Grizz I remembered – handsome, confident… and cocky. I had wondered how long it was going to take him to let out some of that old arrogance… He seemed so dead certain that the universe would provide.

  “So, no plan then?”

  “I’ll find us a place,” Grizz nodded, fiddling with the pump. He plugged it into the gas tank on his bike. “We’ll get a motel for the night. Might try and rent a place after that, just for a little while. Something tells me this little trip has some surprises in store for us.”

  “Don’t talk like that.”

  “Simple shit has turned sideways hard for the Dragons the last year or so. Maybe we’re cursed now. I’d like to be wrong, but… there’s something strange in the air. I don’t like it.”

  Grizz absentmindedly tugged at the cross around his neck before mounting his bike. I climbed on behind him, wrapping my arms around his leather jacket.

  We pulled into a nearby motel. While I watched the bike, he sauntered inside to secure a room.

  Five minutes became ten, then twenty, then half an hour. I was already beyond nervous when he finally came back outside.

  “What the hell was that?”

  Grizz shook his head. “Found us somewhere better.”

  “What? How?”

  “Bulletin board, up for job postings and shit. There was an ad for a house for rent. It’s cheap… bad neighborhood, probably. I called the owner. Arranged a meet.”

  “When?”

  “Now,” he answered, mounting the bike.

  We drove further into Metairie and stopped by an ATM. After he withdrew some money from the club account, we continued down the main highway running through town, Veteran’s Boulevard.

  My eyes scanned the storefronts as we pushed past the commercial areas – fast food joints and cell phone stores quickly becoming apartment complexes and houses.

  Grizz took us down a short side street, stopping in front of a small house where an old rust-bucket of a car was parked.

  He killed the ignition, and I climbed down. Grizz followed suit, turning to face the stranger who stepped out of the car. She was in her upper forties, wearing worker’s clothes with a thick mane of wispy, prematurely graying hair.

  “What was your name again?”

  “Grizz,” he answered calmly.

  “That’s awesome,” the older lady chuckled, walking over to hold out her hand. “I’m Gladys. I own this here property.”

  Grizz shook her hand and introduced me.

  Once the formalities were out of the way, Gladys led us inside and showed off the rental house.

  It wasn’t hard to figure out why it was so cheap. The place needed a lot – a lot – of work. Some of the ceiling fans didn’t run, there was rust in the sinks, the doorknobs needed replacing, and the whole place could have seriously benefitted from a deep clean.

  But it was livable.

  Hell, with a day of dedicated scrubbing it could be home…

  “Want me to turn it down?” He quietly asked me while Gladys was prattling on and on about the great schools and the easy access to the essentials.

  “Do we have better options?”

  “Motels,” he answered.

  “Take it.”

  He nodded, pulling Gladys aside and handing her a couple of bills. She held up a one hundred dollar note against the overhead light, scrutinizing it for a moment, then stuffed it into a pocket.

  “Hundred-twenty a week, yessiree. I know it’s kind of a fixer-upper, so I ain’t askin’ much more.”

  “Pleasure doing business,” Grizz noted.

  “I’m just a couple of streets over. I’ll write down the address. Pop by late at night during the week, or midday on the weekends. Keep me paid up, and she’s all yours.”

  “Done.”

  Gladys grabbed him on the shoulder affectionately, pressing a key into his hand. “I think I’m gonna like you two.”

  After our new landlord was gone, I put the living room in workable order while Grizz popped out for fast food. This was no high-class Airbnb, but the place had the basics covered.

  A large, soft couch and an easy chair dominated the living room in front of a big, old school television on a table. In the kitchen, a beaten-up old stove and an ancient refrigerator stood guard with some disposable cutlery, plates, and glasses at hand. A full cooking set was in the lower cabinets, although it looked straight out of the seventies.

  The bedroom fared about the same. But the mattress was soft, there were some lamps on end tables, and thick blackout curtains were there to keep the sun away.

  The bathroom was the jewel of the whole house. It was surprisingly spotless. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what kind of disaster had happened in there that made the owner decide to remodel the bathroom, but I was thankful for it.

  Grizz came back with Mexican food, so we chowed down on tacos and enchiladas. We wound up with an uncomfortable silence as we ate, and I couldn’t help but gaze at his firm figure while he sat across from me in just a shredded tee and rugged jeans.

  “If I didn’t know any better, I’d t
hink you were undressing me with those pretty eyes of yours,” he laughed.

  “I’m not going to fuck you,” I blurted out, derailing the whole moment.

  Grizz stared strangely. While I pretended to not be embarrassed, a look of amusement crossed his face.

  “Wasn’t implying that you were.”

  “Good. Just so that’s clear.”

  “Crystal,” Grizz muttered, taking another chomp out of a crunchy taco that was disintegrating with every bite.

  “Unless you tell me everything that happened,” I suddenly added.

  Grizz’s expression changed. His gravely face seemed to be fighting between surprise and disappointment.

  “I…” he replied. “I need more time.”

  “Fine,” I heard myself insist. What’s gotten into me? Who’s this woman making me say this? “But just know, it’s not going to happen until you explain yourself.”

  I rose from my seat, taking my paper plate to the trash and putting the bedroom door between us. I sank onto the side of the bed in confusion.

  What the hell just happened?

  My brain scrambled for clarity, but I’d just yammered without thinking. Did I seriously just offer myself up to him for some goddamned closure? How the hell does that even work?

  There was a knock at the door.

  Great.

  “Come in,” I replied, a little more bitterly than I wanted to.

  The door creaked open. Grizz let himself into the bedroom, taking a seat on the corner of the mattress.

  “I have missed you,” he confessed.

  “I know,” I snapped.

  Grizz turned away. There was a deep longing in his gaze as he focused on the wall, his chest slowly heaving with heavy, saddened thoughts.

  I had to say something or I’d lose him.

  “Look, Grizz… I missed you too,” I finally replied. “It kept me up at night for years.”

  He turned to face me. “Same.”

  That was hard to believe.

  Something in my face tipped him off to that, because he took a deep breath. “Kate, I never thought that I’d ever see you again. Tried my hardest to push it all away, but I never could. Not completely. You never left my mind. It distracted me from my work. I took a bullet in a cartel compound in Mexico and I bled into the dirt thinking of you… willing us to be together again. Praying.”