by Brook Wilder
“A new era for Satan’s Knights? Do you hear yourself? You’re going to need some major rebranding if you want to make anything close to legitimate out of all of this,” she said. “I assume you’re here telling me this because you have some kind of plan.”
“I’m going to take you to my mom’s house,” he said. “There’s a line of respect there. No one goes near my mother. You’ll be safe there. I’ll clean up this mess.”
“Why are you helping me?” she asked, quietly.
In truth he had no real obligation to. They were strangers. They were constantly cruel to each other, spitting venom every chance they got. Helping her was probably more difficult for getting his money back than anything else, she’d also nearly jeopardized whatever he was doing on the trip a few weeks back. And, above it all, he was a gang president. He had absolutely no reason to show compassion to anyone. Yet here he was.
“I don’t want anyone to get hurt,” he said. “Am I pissed that your brother owes me money? Yes. Do I plan on getting it from him? Yes. Do I want someone innocent getting wrapped up in this? No.”
She sighed. She turned to look at the clock. It was ten minutes past midnight. She was free to leave the diner but it was suddenly the only place she felt safe, knowing what she knew. She wondered if she could just hide out in Terry’s office for the next week. She didn’t exactly distrust Chance but there was still the lingering feeling that he was a gang member all the Hannahe. Despite what he said, he was like a domesticated animal, a broken horse; he was docile and helpful but there was still that waiting instinct to do harm.
“Okay,” she said. “I guess stopping to get things from my house is out of the question.”
“I’ll make sure I have everything you need. Come with me.”
They walked out together to where his bike was waiting. Just as before, he passed her his helmet, his messy hair about to become even more swept in the warm wind of the spring night. She straddled the seat and he moved, sitting in front of her. Her arms came over his shoulders with much more grace than before, like it was where they wanted to go, a magnet between her skin and his shoulders. If he felt it, he didn’t say a thing as he kicked the bike on and sped off quickly, without a word.
She could really get used to being on the back of a bike. The rumble between her legs felt powerful, to be in control of a machine like this must have felt amazing. Maybe when all this was over she’d take up learning to drive a motorcycle, she could use a way to let out all her built up tension. She could probably be pretty good at it. Her mother would say she just managed to get herself a death wish and Chance would probably say the Hannahe. Him and her mother would get along famously with their matching needs to tell her how irresponsible and stupid she acted most of the time.
She bit down a smile at that. There was nothing about Chance that she wanted to smile about. And if she got lucky she’d never had to see him again after all this, let alone introduce him to her family.
They rode to a suburban neighborhood in a nicer part of town. It looked like the kind of place that you filmed your family Halloween movies of kids trick ‘r treating in wholesome costumes and no one toilet papered anyone else’s house. It was hard to believe the mother of a gang leader lived here. They disturbed the calm of the well-trimmed lawns and matching mailboxes across the sidewalks as the motorcycle chugged up to the house and parked in the drive way. Chance killed the engine and got off, running his hand through his messy hair.
She stepped off and handed him the helmet. A light was on in the house. He must have called ahead. That probably meant he wasn’t planning on taking no for an answer when it came to asking her to hide out at his mother’s house. The woman was already waiting to greet them at the door with a man standing next to her, his arm around her.
“My mom, Kat Cooper,” he said, gesturing to her. “This is Hannah.”
“How are you?” the woman asked formally, extending her hand. Hannah got the feeling she wasn’t overly welcome here but took the hand shake anyway.
“This is her husband, Link Cooper,” he said, gesturing to the man standing next to her. He removed the arm he had around his wife and extended it to Hannah, offering her a shake as well.
“Come on in then. No sense in waking up the neighbors. You know how unhappy they get when your bike comes rolling down the street at all hours of the night.”
They stepped in and Link shut the door behind them all. They were led into the kitchen where Kat had set up tea and coffee with some crackers and cookies. Chance dug in without preamble. He shoved three cookies into his mouth and then went for the fridge where he pulled out a bottle of Budweiser and cracked it open, throwing it back and drinking like it was Gatorade after a basketball game.
“I’ve got some stuff I have to do,” he said, wiping his mouth and grabbing another cookie.
“So glad you just chugged a whole bottle of beer then right before getting back on the bike,” Link said.
“We both know this piss water is barely alcohol. I’ll be fine,” he said.
“At least take a breather,” Kat said. “It’s the middle of the night. Whatever’s going on can wait.”
“You know I don’t keep normal business hours.”
But Chance obeyed his request. No matter how tough or angry he seemed, even he was subject to requests from his mother. It was actually a little endearing, seeing that soft underbelly waiting underneath all that muscle and bike grease. He was a mama’s boy. She’d be making fun of that later. For now she focused on the way she was being eyed with suspicion from his family.
“What’s your name?” Kat asked without preamble and without any sort of kindness or calm in her voice.
“Hannah,” she said like she was defending it.
“What do you do?” she asked.
“I’m a student,” she said, cringing at the thought of the state of her studies. “And a waitress.”
Kat clicked her tongue and pretended no one could hear her. Hannah tried not to scowl too obviously. This woman was welcoming her into her home. Granted she didn’t think that meant she had to put up with being insulted right to her face, but she wasn’t going to risk being thrown out on the street.
On the other end of the spectrum was Link.
“What do you study?’ he asked, pouring her a cup of coffee. “Don’t worry, it’s decaf.”
“Law,” she said.
“What sort of law were you looking into?’
“Defense,” she said, taking a sip and relishing the bitter taste, it was familiar and calming. “I want to work as a public defender. So many court appointed attorneys are the bottom of the barrel, the scraps that just happened to pass the bar. I want to be an option for people who cannot afford a lawyer, one that will actually work hard for them.”
“That’s a tall order to fill,” he said.
“I’m dedicated. Things are a little haywire right now but I want to do it. I’ve wanted it forever and finally got myself back into school. I don’t want to blow that shot.”
She felt more and more sure of herself as she spoke. This was the one thing in life she had true passion for, the one thing she could speak about without stuttering or cringing. She knew this was destiny and she was willing to defend that to anyone and everyone she had to. She felt calmer with the coffee, with the talk of school and Link’s warm smile against the apprehension of his wife and Chance’s frowning face.
***
Chance watched the whole ordeal silently from his spot at the corner of the table, tasting the stale beer in his mouth still. It clung to the sides and flesh of his mouth and it would for a while. He always regretting drinking cheap beer but also couldn’t stop himself. It was a force of habit he couldn’t really break. He tried to wash it down with cookies and the dark taste of decaf coffee.
His mother was not happy when he called asking for asylum. It wasn’t the first time he asked her to harbor someone for him. She’d played safe house for Moose several times and a few of the other guys. She di
dn’t enjoy it all that much and he couldn’t blame her. They were men who demolished her kitchen stock, drank all her beer, and made a mess no matter how many times they called her ma’am and told her thank you. She also had a thing against gang men.
Chance was the exception because he was her son. But her time with his father had made her wary of everything, wary of all the motives a man in a gang might have. Being his father’s old woman had taken its toll on her, no matter how many times she said she was fine with it happening because it brought her Chance. But he regretted his own existence sometimes, when he saw how haunted her eyes could get.
He turned his attention, then, to Hannah. Once Link started talking to her she wouldn’t shut up. He had that way with people. He was welcoming, he was personable, everything Chance hoped he could become one day if he tried hard enough. And he watched his face light up and Hannah’s light up as a result. She talked like a rapid fire gun, an electrical circuit constantly throwing sparks in the form of words. He’d heard her speak once or twice about school, how proud she was of herself to say she was in law school. But this was a new level.
She lacked street smarts. She lacked finesse to deal with the finer points of criminals she might come across on a corner. But she wasn’t stupid, and she certainly was nothing like him. His life had been a dead end with one path, she was carving her own, he realized. He admired that. He found himself smiling at her from across the room while she talked, her hands moving animatedly as she did so. He only dropped the smile when Kat caught with a furrowed brow.
Chapter 5
Chance did not end up going out that night. His mother and Link convinced him that even he needed to take a break once in a while. Hannah got the guest room and he crashed on the couch. Well, he came as close to crashing as possible since he found it incredibly hard to sleep. But now the prostitution ring would know something was wrong, their goods hadn’t been delivered. They’d be looking for her, they might take their required payment out on Gabe and there would go any chance of Chance ever getting the money back. Not to mention he seemed to care, just a little bit, that it might hurt Hannah to find Gabe dead or hurt while she hid out.
So he tossed and turned and checked his phone for updates to see if anyone had sent any breaking news, but the sun came up with no talk of bloodshed or war. He crawled out of the couch and made coffee while his mother worked on the pancakes. That was always her go to when people were over, blueberry pancakes. Chance rarely ate a real breakfast but when he was home it wasn’t an option. You ate.
“Has this taught you anything?” Kat asked, flipping a pancake.
“Taught me what?”
“The Knights were never meant to be loan sharks, you’re encroaching in territory and it’s not paying off,” she said.
“It’s going fine. This is part of the business.”
“Is it really? Is it part of loan sharking to have to deal with a third party prostitution ring now? Part of leading is knowing when to be smart and when to not take deals,” she said. “That girl’s brother is a moron and you never should have loaned him the money.”
“I didn’t,” he said through gritted teeth. “It was Ben who did the whole transaction.”
“Then you give him too much power.”
“His father was a founding member too. I couldn’t just pretend that’s not true. He deserves to have some freedoms.”
“He’ll deserve freedoms like that when he earns them. As of right now he’s gotten the Knights into a mess that need not have happened at all.”
Chance sighed and walked out of the kitchen with his coffee, scowling. His mother had a point. Ben was a loose cannon and a little too reckless for his own good—or anyone’s own good. But Chance risked a lot by pissing him off or marginalizing him. He had his own faction within the gang. It wasn’t many men, but it was enough to create a serious problem if Ben decided to act on his influence. Not to mention he had a valid claim, he was the child of a founding member as well. Chance becoming chapter president was a spot of luck. He could easily find himself dethroned.
Link came into the kitchen with Hannah in tow. Her face was brighter than it had been the night before. She slept a lot better than him, clearly. He wasn’t sure how that was possible considering it was her body and life on the line, her brother in the line of fire. Yet somehow she managed to wake looking rested and almost even pretty. Chance shoved that thought out from his head.
“So, we’ve got a conundrum,” Link said. “As your treasurer I can assure you that Gabe has not paid us back the debt, despite whatever he sold his sister for. That’s a problem. But more presently, there’s going to be people out looking for her.”
“What do you suggest?” Chance sat down at the kitchen table, folding his fingers together and looking at Link from across plane.
“We kill several birds with one stone,” Link said. “We get that money out of Gabe. We use it to buy your friend here back from this ring, everyone walks away happy—except for the perverted fucks who were waiting to rent her from the pimps.”
Chance’s eyes flitted over to Hannah to see her face turn beet red and stare hard into her coffee cup. He couldn’t blame her. He turned his head back to Link.
“Sounds fair enough, we’ll have to offer a low price though,” he said. “We go too high and they’ll know something’s up.”
“My thoughts exactly. She technically belongs to the Knights. If they find out that she was never Gabe’s to sell, then this whole thing will completely blow up in our faces.”
“I’m not anybody’s to sell,” Hannah practically spat from the end of the table.
“We know,” Link said, kinder than Chance would have, “But these are the politics of it. These people won’t care about your free will or what you want. We need to think like them. Don’t think I don’t know that you could probably put me right on my ass if I stepped too far.”
He had such kind warm eyes and a soft laugh. He was a natural born father, something Chance wished he could be one day, though he doubted he could possibly be that good at it, that natural. He hoped to be a natural leader as well but he couldn’t even keep Ben under control long enough to prevent this whole thing from completely blowing up.
“So steps: we find Gabe, we get our money, we get this girl her freedom back,” Link said. “Deal?”
“Sounds good to me.”
It was all easier said than done.
Chapter 6
No one could find Gabe. That was problem number one. It seemed like the little weasel had skipped town with his pretty boy face to go swindle someone else. They first tried knocking on the door, opting to go in broad daylight when The Black Death guys were likely to be gone. There was no answer. Chance tried several times until Moose got impatient and worked at picking the lock. When the door opened, they were met with an empty apartment. An empty apartment and no sign of their money anywhere.
“I can make some calls,” Moose said. “We can try and track him.”
“We make our hunt for him too obvious and it might give us away,” Chance said.
“So what do we do then? The little punk owes us a couple thousand. That’s not pocket change,” Moose said.
Chance wasn’t even sure what he was suggesting himself. They needed to get the money back from Gabe to make sure their reputation didn’t suffer. Loan sharks who couldn’t get their money back had very little future in the business. The additional problem was having no money to bargain with The Black Death with.
“We need to regroup. Send some guys out to look for this fucker but otherwise keep it on the down low,” he said.
Moose nodded and headed off to fulfill the orders while Chance went to meet with Link at the clubhouse. This was such a fucked up situation and one he wanted to avoid the second he became the chapter president. He didn’t want to get caught up in prostitution and drugs and now he was ready to break a guy’s knees to get money so he could buy back a girl sold into a prostitution ring. He told himself he was using his pow
ers for good. He was doing this to get her freedom back, not to turn her into some pass-around girl for his gang. But he still had to get mixed up in it all. The Knights would forever be tied to The Black Death through this deal. He hadn’t saved anything for the gang. He’d only managed to get them dragged deeper into a world they were trying to escape.
He hit the accelerator on his bike and sped through traffic, dodging stopped cars and running some questionable yellow lights as cars honked at him. He pulled into Ruby’s diner where he saw Link’s bike was already parked. He pulled into next to him and took a moment to let out a sigh and relax himself before getting off the bike, removing his helmet, and walking into the diner.
“He’s in the back corner,” Jess said when he walked in, blowing a bubble with her gum, popping it with a loud crack, and not looking up from her phone.
He moved back to the usual table and saw Link sitting there with a beer bottle, half finished, sitting in front of him.