by Jayne Blue
E.Z. looked us up and down and then issued an order.
“Charlene, make yourself scarce.” He had a thick Southern accent. He wasn’t as tall as Benz, but the shotgun made up for that. He looked like he could easily able snap my neck. All The Saints did really, even Benz.
There was a mean quality to the way he had ordered Charlene out of the way. He’d spit it out and she was used to it. That’s what stuck with me. She just walked down the hall and back into the house.
Though I supposed he was trying to keep her safe. That made me think I could be looking at Benz and me in twenty years. It wasn’t a good thought. I brushed it off. I had enough to worry about right now.
E.Z. raised the barrel of the shotgun and backed us out onto the front porch, as though he didn’t want to have to clean up in the house if this got messy. I kept my hand on the handle of Benz’s gun.
“She doesn’t look too dead to me.” E.Z. glanced at me and then back at Benz. I was an incidental problem to him. Not a person.
“This is Jen. I’m not killing her.”
E.Z. put the barrel of his shotgun to Benz’s chest.
Benz stood there and stared the Veep of his club right in the face.
The two men didn’t exactly seem like brothers to me. I’d seen his bonds with Kade and Zig. But this was different. There was something else here.
Benz was a wall between E.Z., that shotgun, and me. I was scared as hell, but Benz was stone cold and ready to handle whatever happened next. Even with a shotgun to his heart.
I knew in that moment, if E.Z. shot Benz, then I’d kill E.Z.
Part of me wanted to circumvent the entire thing and kill E.Z. right now. How dare he threaten Benz?
But Benz stayed still and E.Z. narrowed his eyes. It was the closest he’d get to flinching. He lowered the barrel and I took a breath.
“You’re Bear’s boy. You always take his side at the table.”
“Yeah? Well, Bear’s wrong this time and he didn’t bring it to the table.”
“Why should I?”
“It’s going to a vote at Church. No question, Bear’s order to kill her will bring hellfire down on the club.”
“Just because you’re thinking with your cock doesn’t mean Bear’s wrong.”
“She’s a cop, she’s the daughter of a cop. Does killing her seem like a good idea for the club?”
“Only if they find the body.” E.Z. looked at me again, making sure I’d heard that.
“You support me at Church and I owe you one,” Benz stated.
“Is that worth it to you?” E.Z. looked at me again when he said “that”– I hated this guy more with every passing second.
“She is. But that’s not why I’m going to keep her alive. You know I’m right. Bear is out of control.”
“That he may be. I’ll call for a vote. Church is tomorrow. I’d get the fuck out of here and out of sight till then.”
“See you at Church,” Benz said and he turned around, keeping me in front of him. He pointed to the dirt driveway again. Neither of us said a word as we made it back to his bike.
“You owe him? What will that mean?”
“It won’t be good, but we got what we want. Bear will have to bring this to the table. We will vote on it and we’ll be off the hook on this shit,” Benz said, handing me the helmet.
“I thought he might shoot you… I saw myself killing him,” I confessed to Benz.
“Yeah, doll? I’d have been okay with that. He is right about something though, and that’s getting you out of sight.”
“You still think others want to kill me, besides you and the club?” I was so unclear on the ways I’d stepped in shit with this town and this club.
“A lot of people want to get in good with The Dark Saints. Word’s out that you’re supposed to be dead. So, they’d do it just to get in good with us.”
“This is the most fucked up town I’ve ever been in.”
“That’s the truth.” He gunned the engine and I held on again.
This time I focused on Benz and Benz only. He had stared down his Veep, defied his Prez, and he had one more argument to make.
All for me.
We drove a few miles and there it was, Port Az. We crossed the bridge into town and we were back.
Benz kept going until we got to the hotel I’d been calling home. He parked his bike around back and walked into the room first.
“I just want to be sure,” he said, as he looked the room up and down.
“If someone is hiding in here, they’re really tiny,” I said and plopped down on the bed.
It was sad, this little hotel room. I’d given it zero thought. I’d lived here for a few weeks, and it was just the place I crashed after my feverish machinations for getting in with The Saints.
I had gotten farther in than I wanted. I had learned more than I knew what to do with.
Benz seemed satisfied that the room was safe and closed the door.
“Baby, come here.” I did exactly that.
He had a couple of hours until Church. We were both exhausted and wired at the same time, but when we were alone, when he told me to come here, I felt my insides melt.
All the moments I’d spend in his arms, since the first moment when I crashed into him, were more vivid than anything else in my life.
My father’s light had faded from me when I was young, and my grandmother's stories were burnt and bitter.
This time with Benz was mine. It wasn’t the history of Port Azrael or the Texas Rangers or the things that I thought I wanted to know about. It was new and exciting and everything.
He enveloped me. I reached up on my tip toes and kissed him. He put his hands on my face and then pulled back a little to look at me.
“What?” I was still getting used to what it felt like to have someone just soak you in. It was like he wanted to memorize my face, just like I had wanted to memorize the cabin.
“Just thinking how lucky I am.” He leaned down and kissed me again. Benz lay me down on the bed and the silly camp clothes he’d got for me were quickly discarded.
I ran my hands up under his t-shirt and felt his chest. He had me naked again, underneath him. This time the wildness was replaced with tenderness. Every time I looked, I found his eyes open as he touched my skin. He traced along the side of my breast and then leaned over to put them in his mouth.
The slow torture drove me almost crazier than the frenzy I’d felt up against the cabin wall.
“I need you inside me,” I said, and it was so.
We moved together slowly. The intensity built along with the heat. Delicious tension rose between us to a point where I could no longer wait.
“Right there, baby.” Benz was still.
He was inside me, he filled me, but he stilled his hips and mine. I wanted more than anything to move. I wanted to make him move.
We stayed suspended in time like that for several seconds. It seemed like forever. But I couldn’t wait any longer.
“Please. Benz, please.” I needed release.
“Like this?” he said and it wasn’t really a question.
He slid in and nearly out and what he’d set on fire was unleashed. I came apart with him and this time did wonder if the other hotel tenants would be calling the front desk, concerned.
It was the best time, maybe the last time, the sweetest time with Benz.
“How is it that each time is totally new?” I asked him.
“I just love watching you and knowing I made you feel that way.” He squeezed me tight.
We laid in each other’s arms for a while. I knew it was getting close to the time he’d have to go.
“Look, this is all going to be over soon.”
“I know. Just be careful. Tell them what you have to tell them to come back here to me.”
“I will.” We kissed again.
“Stay right here, just like this. It will be much less work for me to undress you when I get back.”
“Right.” I laughed, b
ut I was worried.
“One more thing. Don’t leave here until then. I told you. It’s not safe until the word gets out again from The Saints that you’re not to be touched.”
“Got it.” He kissed me again and I watched as he got dressed. Jeans, t-shirt, leather, and boots.
He looked more like a cowboy from the Old West sometimes than a biker from an MC.
Part of me wanted to go with him. But he told me only members of the MC were allowed in Church. He said even Mama Bear wasn’t allowed – and she went everywhere.
“I love you, Jen,” he said as he kissed me goodbye.
“I love you, Benz.” He smiled. The man didn’t smile much, but when he did it was fucking spectacular. I wondered what else made him smile. I wondered if I’d ever know.
He left my room and I waited. I heard him fire up his bike. As the sound faded into the distance, I stayed in bed for a while. His smell was on the pillow now. I inhaled.
I hoped we’d have time to figure all of that out when he got back. I didn’t know what it meant, being with him. But I did know I wanted to try and find out.
I didn’t have to turn into Charlene, that tough old broad who’d greeted us at the house, to be an old lady to Benz. Did I?
I wondered about that Mama Bear who he had talked about. Was she someone who could show me what it was like to be in love with a Dark Saint?
The idea that I’d even consider this would tear my Grandmother apart. But she was dead and gone.
As far as she knew, I hated The Saints. She went to her grave believing that. And in some ways, I still did. But I knew them better now… some of them anyway.
The other part, my Daddy. Maybe he wasn’t killed by The Dark Saints after all.
Benz’s Daddy was still the man who did it though. I didn’t know how to reconcile what I knew from the past with what I had discovered with Benz. Was I betraying Daddy and the Texas Rangers by wanting to be with him?
I had a lot to sort out.
One of those things was at the Port Azrael Police station.
I knew Benz wanted me to stay in the bed where he left me. I knew he wanted me to hide.
But I was done hiding. Plus, where I wanted to go was safe as it could get.
I showered and got dressed. It was time to talk to Detective Art Jennings and find out if everything I’d learned about The Dark Saints and their role in Port Az was true.
It was time to find out if I’d helped stop a drug deal and what role the police had played in it.
It was time to get the real story from Art Jennings. He might want to kill me too, but he wasn’t going to do it in the middle of the Port Az Police station.
20
Benz
Church. I’d been to these votes too many times to count. It was how we kept The Dark Saints running.
We all had tempers. We all had opinions. We all had blood, sweat, and tears in this MC. And we all wanted it to go on.
We all put the club before ourselves.
So this was going to be an uphill battle for me. They were going to think that I was thinking with my cock. E.Z. had said as much. They were going to believe that a narc had head fucked me.
I knew it. But Jen Guffy’s connection with the cops was hopefully what would save her.
I walked into the club and there were the family faces. Axle, Zig, Shep; they were my crew. I headed toward the board room and they followed me. I was one-hundred percent certain that The Saints I came up with would be in my camp. Kade had let me know who stood where and I was feeling okay about that. But it was Bear and E.Z. They could fuck up a man’s life with the pound of a gavel.
I had a seat at the table as the Sergeant at Arms. Kade was already in there. His lower lip was cut from where I’d hit him. He nodded to me, but didn’t greet me with the chest bump of brothers. Kade had helped me get Jen out, and if I could help it, no one would know that.
If they thought I was a traitor that was one thing. I didn’t want to bring anyone else down with me.
Finally Bear walked in. He was named right. The word burley was invented to describe him. He was never a warm fuzzy type, but he protected me. He took me in when my fuck up father tried to destroy the club. He never held it against me that Kenny Bass had acted in the name of The Saints even though he never had the patch.
“Alright. We all here?” he said. And we were all present and accounted for, enough for a vote anyway. We were crowded in, but we fit.
“All but Bo I see, and we know why. I had E.Z. get him up to speed. He has Bo’s proxy. Here’s where we are. A woman by the name of Jen Guffy fucked up our plans two nights ago. We were allowing a shipment of New Jack Swing to be delivered into Port Az. We were hoping this was a pipeline to whoever’s trying to pollute Port Az. You want to tell ‘em what your jobs were?” He looked at me.
“Kade and I were lookouts. Just to be sure we had Bo’s back with whoever was making the buy.”
“Kade. Why don’t you describe what happened after that?” Bear said and Kade recounted the mess that followed.
“And who had tipped off the cops?”
Kade hesitated. He didn’t want to burn me any more than I would want to burn him, but what happened wasn’t in dispute.
“It was Benz’s new old lady. She had called the Port Az Police, teamed up with a rookie there. She’s some kind of librarian doing history and then all of a sudden she’s snitched to the cops. The wrong cops.”
Bear nodded. “I have ordered Benz to get rid of this singing little librarian, and as you all know, instead, he punched Kade and took off with her. That was my order and he fucking did what he wanted. That shit hurts us all.”
“I called for a vote and so did Kade. An order like that needs a vote.” E.Z. chimed in. It was a strange position to be in, aligned with E.Z.
“I disagree. But here we are in Church. What do you have to say that is going to make anyone in this club think we shouldn’t handle this my way?” Bear looked at me. This was the same man who’d given me a place to live for the last ten years. Who’d given me a future when my own old man had shit all over it. I realized that I’d hurt him when I’d chosen Jen over him. But I wouldn’t change it.
This was it. This was my chance to do everything I could to save Jen.
“She’s a cop, she’s not a librarian. She’s a cop. Well almost. She works for the Department of Public Safety. She wants to be a Ranger.” Several of the men at the table had Rangers for Granddads. That I knew. I might be the product of a bunch of shitty criminals, famous ones even, but they had Ranger blood in their veins. I hoped that meant something to them now.
The air had definitely shifted in the room and I had their complete attention.
I spilled what I knew. I told them everything.
“Jen Guffy’s father, Ranger Gary Guffy, killed my Daddy, who you all know was a slimy wannabe Saint. When Kenny Bass robbed the Port Az Bank and got into the gun fire battle with the Texas Rangers, it was Jen’s Daddy. They shot each other. I didn’t know a damn thing about this when I took up with her. But I’ve since learned all she knows of us is from that. And she’d gone to the law because she thought we were all like my Daddy.”
“He was such a piece of shit,” Tuffy said. Tuffy was of Bear’s era and remembered it all.
“No offense,” he added in my direction. I nodded. I knew Kenny Bass was a piece of shit and I knew he was never a Saint.
“Anyway, if you have me or anyone lay a hand on her, it will be hell fire from the law. They’ll crawl so far up our asses, we’ll be spitting Texas Ranger badges out our throats. If you have us kill her, not only will we lose control of Port Az, we’ll lose this club. You don’t go killing the daughter of a Texas hero because you’re pissed how one stupid night went down.”
Bear readjusted in his seat. He let my information settle in. It really was all there was to it. This club would rightly get the blame if anything happened to Jenny Guffy. The newspapers alone would fry us. Her Daddy was a hero. My Daddy was why.
If I killed or the club did, we’d have state and fed law down on us. It would be a kind of heat we’d never seen.
“Let’s put it to a vote,” E.Z. said. Bear nodded. I hoped they all saw what I saw. I hoped I’d said it all the right way.
“All in favor of disposing of Jenny Guffy say ‘Eye.’” The room was silent. I wondered how many hands would raise. I wondered if I could forgive The Saint that wanted her dead. I suspected I couldn’t. That would eat me alive. I almost didn’t want to see who voted in favor of killing her.
I looked around. Not one Saint moved a muscle.
They didn’t want to kill her any more than I did now. It was fucking unanimous.
Bear was wrong to order it before he had the facts and The Saints were on my side.
“Oh, and Bo is a no, too,” E.Z. said. He had a shitty smile on his face.
He was enjoying Bear being wrong more than he gave a shit about Jen. I didn’t care why though. I only cared that the vote was my way. Totally my way.
I was ready to stop bullets for her. It looked like now I wouldn’t have to. But maybe I’d ruined my trust with Bear forever. I’d have to gnaw on that for a while.
“Fine. The girl lives. But I do not want you seeing her again. She is clearly a rat. She is clearly your blind spot. Cut her off.”
I didn’t say anything. I wanted to tell him to fuck off. I wanted to ask him if ever, in a million years, he would quit on Mama Bear?
I knew he wouldn’t.
But I swallowed all that. I’d work on him through Mama, maybe.
I wanted out of this meeting. I wanted word spread right now that there wasn’t a mark on Jen’s head.
I wanted Saints and Hawks and cops to know how much trouble they’d be in if they touched her. That meant getting out of here and getting it on the street.
“Meeting adjourned.” Bear pounded the gavel. Saints dispersed in several different directions. Some of my tightest crew came up to me.
“It’s for the best, man,” Zig said to me.