by April Lust
“We don’t know that for sure,” I argued. “Skull would never do anything like that to me.” I tried to sound convinced. After all, Skull had been the one telling me to get out of Mason’s HQ. He had called me. It wasn’t like I had called him after being locked up to try to get him to meet me somewhere, even though that was exactly what I was planning on doing when he called.
“Sure he wouldn’t,” Mason said, letting me go and getting up from the couch. He turned his back because he was getting ready to leave, but it really felt like he was turning his back on me.
“Why do you feel like you have to defend me, though?” I asked him. “I’m not asking you to do anything like this. I don’t expect it. You haven’t been to the clubhouse in almost a week. You’ve barely spoken to anyone in the MC. I’ve completely dropped off the face of the earth since those guys in the park. Let’s cut our losses and move on, Mason.”
“Cut our losses?” He turned around and looked at me like I’d gone crazy.
“Yes, let’s call it quits. Let’s pack up what we need and hit the road. We can retire. We can both afford it,” I explained. I glanced around his nice apartment overlooking downtown as a prime example of our financial stability.
He paused a moment and looked like he was considering what I had proposed. Then he shook his head and frowned. The way I saw it, if he could have put Storm’s Angels mostly aside for a week, there was no real reason he couldn’t just grab his money and go.
“I can’t call it quits, Clara. The MC is all I’ve ever known. I have a responsibility to my men. When I took over a few years ago, we were a small-time organization with a lot of chapters spread out and doing their own thing. Storm’s Angels focused mostly on petty crimes. We made a pretty penny doing that, but it wasn’t sustainable. Some of our members still had real, legitimate jobs. I didn’t agree with that, so I took over and turned things around. Now, we have a reputation for being ruthless and deadly to our rivals, but we are dependable to our partners,” he explained.
I stood and listened, staring down at the floor. I felt like a child being scolded by her father. I didn’t like that feeling. I’d spent my adult life not answering to anyone but Skull, and barely even to him. The whole point of my life was not to have to answer to anybody, and I wasn’t about to start answering to someone just because I slept with him.
“Now, I can’t run out on the empire I’ve built,” he continued. “If you want out of it all, that’s great. I’ll be happy to take care of you and protect you should your old boss come looking for you—and believe me, he will—but I can’t walk away from Storm’s Angels.” His voice was tender and patient as he explained himself to me.
“I know. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked you to walk away from it. I didn’t really expect you to take me seriously anyway. It’s just a fantasy I toy with every once in a while,” I said, walking around the couch and sitting down. If I were ever going to get out of this life, Mason was going to be my ticket out. Of course, if I couldn’t get him to leave the MC behind, I knew it would only be a matter of time before I got back into things through him.
“Why are you defending him?” Mason asked. “Why are you trying to keep me from going after Skull?”
“You wouldn’t understand,” I said, looking up at him. I couldn’t explain to him how I felt about my boss. Skull had taken me in and had taken care of me in much the same way Mason was talking about doing, except Skull had done it when I was very young. He could have taken advantage of me. He could have used me for so many things besides teaching me how to steal from other bosses.
Skull always had beautiful young girls around him, his private girls who took care of his needs. He had prostitutes and call girls, but he didn’t treat them like the little punk ass pimps on the street. Skull’s women did well for themselves. Skull merely offered contacts and protection. He could have thrown me into either of those positions, but he saw something in me.
“You’re special,” he would tell me. “You’re the daughter I never had.”
“Try me,” Mason said, bringing me back to his living room, back to sitting naked on his couch while he stood in front of me fully clothed.
“Look, he’s just done a lot for me, okay?” I said. “I don’t know that I’m ready to tell you the whole story right now. Just understand that there’s a lot there. He means a lot to me, despite the fact that a lot of people would describe him as being more of a snake than a man.”
“So, you two have a pretty thick history, then.” He rephrased my words.
“Yeah, you could say that.” I nodded.
He nodded, too, and stroked his chin. His eyes were deep in thought. He looked like he was searching for some sort of compromise.
“All right, fine, we’ll just shut down his drug business and take back what’s ours. How does that sound?” Mason asked me. He sounded like he really expected me to buy it, but I didn’t. I knew that no matter what happened when they confronted him, there would be a story about how something had gone sideways. Skull would end up getting shot either way. I couldn’t let Mason send his men after him.
“Fine, but that’s all you do,” I told him.
“It’s settled, then,” he said, nodding and turning away to finish getting ready to leave, except I wasn’t finished yet.
I stood up, feeling foolish for trying to confront him as naked as I was, but I didn’t have any other choice. “No, it’s not settled,” I told him. “If anything happens to him, it’s on you, Mason. Understand?”
“Hey, whoa, easy now.” He put his hands gently on my arms. “Look, I mean it, we’re just shutting down his drug business. He’s got a lot of stuff going on we don’t want any part of, but we’re taking back what’s ours, from the product to the clients. You want me to have him call you when we leave?” he asked in a vaguely condescending tone.
I took a deep breath. I didn’t want to fight with him. There was no point in it. He was probably lying to me anyway. I knew I never should have let it slip that Skull had been my boss, but he probably would have found out soon enough as Skull encroached on his territory more and more with the drugs I’d stolen from him.
“You do what you want,” I finally told him, raising my hands in submission. “I’m out of it. As long as you can provide me with a way out of this life, you do whatever you feel like you need to do.” I walked into the bedroom and started grabbing clothes he’d had delivered for me over the last few days.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“Nowhere. I just feel foolish standing around trying to talk to you naked,” I told him, holding back any sign of anger that might have been in my voice.
“Well, at least you know you have my attention,” he joked.
“Are you saying you only take me seriously when I’m naked?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Hey, now, I didn’t say that.” He walked to the bedroom door. “Listen. That was Mick who called earlier. We think we’ve found Skull. I’m going to take a few guys with me in case things get hairy, but I’m going to try to talk him down from this new business of his, okay?”
“Take me with you,” I blurted out, not thinking about my words before they escaped from my mouth.
“I’m sorry?”
“Take me with you.” On second thought, it did sound like a good idea. “You can use me as collateral. Or I can talk to Skull for you. You know, I know him. I know what makes him tick.”
Mason thought about it for a moment. He stroked his stubble-covered chin from where he hadn’t shaved in a few days and narrowed his eyes as he considered my offer. Eventually, he shook his head. “Too risky,” he said. “He’s already threatened you once, whether you want to admit it was him or not. I can’t risk him trying something else. No, as strategic as it sounds, I don’t think it’s a good idea to have you there. You’ll be safer staying here.”
His phone rang, and he pulled it out of his pocket.
“It’s Mick. I’ve got to go,” he told me. “I’ll be back.�
� He turned away and answered his phone, grabbing his keys off the bar at the kitchen. He walked out the door, telling Mick he was on the way and that I wasn’t coming along.
I looked around the apartment. It had felt so comfortable with Mason there, but sitting alone in silence, his beautiful apartment quickly began to feel like a foreign place to me. And as a new place, I had the opportunity to explore it since Mason wasn’t around.
A moment’s feeling of guilt struck me as I sat there on his bed considering going through his things. This was his space, and we were working on building trust in the midst of a lifestyle that promoted distrust and suspicion.
I decided against it.
Instead, I pulled out my phone to check my messages and get caught up on what was going on in my professional life in my absence.
Chapter 13
Mason
By catching me on the phone with Mick, Clara knew I had been searching for Skull the whole time. I felt pretty shitty about going behind her back. I felt even worse lying to her about what we intended to do once we tracked Skull down. We were not planning on just talking to him and trying to convince him politely to give up his side of the drug trade.
For those first few days we had spent just lounging around my apartment, I thought I had done a pretty good job of keeping my work conversations from her. Most of what I discussed with Mick was handled over text messages so I didn’t have to actually talk about anything in front of her. On the odd occasion that anyone called, I made sure to take it outside on the balcony so I could keep it from her, and her from it.
There was a lot going on. My budding relationship with Clara was causing a lot of turmoil, it seemed. In the first few days of our new status, I had been forced to handle Liam’s new position at his new chapter after punching him out in front of everyone at our main HQ. There had been more lost business due to Skull’s encroachment. And, of course, there was the search for Skull. Now that everyone knew we were officially looking for him, it was hard to settle for managing things from home, but I wanted to prove to Clara that I could put her before business.
Unfortunately, I hadn’t been doing that at all, and she knew it as soon as she caught me. I hung up on Mick and finished getting dressed. I wasn’t in a position to lie to her about what I was doing. There was no use in it. She knew already. She had to have known there was only one matter of MC business that would have pulled me out of bed with her at that point.
If so much hadn’t been on the line, I would have walked away from all of it to be with her, but everything was on the line with this Skull business. It wasn’t just the drugs. It was our reputation that was at risk. He’d been making fools of us for long enough, and we had to show everyone that we weren’t going to let him get away with it.
“Hey, man, you having trouble shaking the old lady, or what?” Mick asked, calling me while I was trying to get out.
“I’m on my way now, bro,” I told him, turning away from the bedroom door. I grabbed my keys and headed for the door.
“She coming with you?” he asked.
“No, she’s hanging back on this one. I told her she’d be safer that way.”
“Good. I’m not trying to step on your toes, bro, but we need to keep her as far away from all of this as possible. Want me to send someone to keep an eye on her?”
“No, she’s fine. You’re starting to sound like Liam,” I said, laughing.
“Fuck you,” Mick joked back. “I hate to admit it, but he’d probably be right about her. Are you sure he cornered her like she said?”
I couldn’t believe it. Was I the only one who didn’t question her? But, for some reason, hearing it from Mick, it made sense. I paused as I left the building for the parking garage. I looked up to my floor, almost expecting to see Clara standing outside watching me leave.
“She was working for Skull when she came to us, Mason. She might have been trying to sneak away to call him or something, and that’s when Liam found her. I know no one likes that asshole, but he’s seen damn near everything, and he calls it like he sees it,” Mick continued.
“You know, you might be right,” I told him absently, “but I think I got through to her.”
“No,” he laughed, “she got through to you. Whatever. If anything comes up, we’ll fix it, just like we always do.”
“I guess so. On the way.” I hung up and climbed on the back of my bike, firing the engine up and listening to the roar fill the garage, letting everyone know the king of this concrete jungle was awake and on the prowl.
On the way to HQ, I managed to convince myself that if I’d brought Clara with me, I would have at least given myself the chance to see her true colors. When confronted with Skull’s fate, she would have shown us exactly where her loyalty was. Deep down inside, I already knew. I knew that no matter what she said to me, she was always going to be on Skull’s side.
We were just going to have to fix that by taking him out. She couldn’t be loyal to him if I killed his ass. And if she tried, well, I didn’t want to think about that possibility yet.
I pulled up to HQ to find the delivery bay doors open and several of our members getting strapped. As my bike roared into the building, Mick approached me with a smile as wide as his arms.
“Good to have you back, bro,” he said, patting me on the back as I climbed off the bike.
“I was only gone a few days,” I joked.
“Yeah, but we’re dealing with a lot of shit right now,” he said. “The guys were wondering where the hell you were.” He laughed, but I could hear the seriousness behind his words.
“You mean to tell me you couldn’t handle it on your own?” I asked. “I mean, who do you think is going to take my place when I step aside one day or if anything happens to me?”
“I never said I didn’t have it under control, boss. I was just letting you know,” he joked. “Um, Liam is back,” he added cautiously.
“Good,” I said. “I owe him an apology, and we need a hard ass like him with us today.”
“I’ll get him,” Mick said, walking towards the crowd gathering in the door.
“Hey, get all the senior members. We need to have a meeting before we go. We need a plan of action,” I called to him.
While Mick went to grab the guys for a quick meeting, I grabbed some ammo for my handgun and one of our assault rifles. I really preferred handguns, but we were addressing a pretty tall order on this mission. I needed something with a little more power. Plus, looks went a long way. If it looked more dangerous, it usually elicited a different reaction. Rivals were less likely to act up when they saw an assault rifle than when they saw a little handgun, regardless of the caliber. There were pistols out there that made our assault rifles look like toys, but the thing was they didn’t look like toys.
“Upstairs?” Mick asked, grabbing my shoulder.
“No, right here is fine,” I told him, turning to address the guys as they surrounded me at the table where Mick had spread out our guns and ammo.
Liam stood front and center. That was no accident, surely. His position was significant. He wanted me to see him.
“First off,” I started with a harsh tone, commanding everyone’s attention, “I want to start with an apology. Liam, brother, I should have paid better attention. You were right, man. We need to talk about your chapter placement when all of this is finished.”
“Accepted, brother,” he said with a nod. Neither one of us really expected a reaction from anyone else. Even Liam knew that no one really liked him. It was kind of his thing.
“As for the rest of you, today we’re going after Skull, as you all know. And I hope everyone can appreciate how serious this is. We’re not going in with guns blazing. I want you all to form a perimeter around his hideout. Liam, Mick, and I will go in to talk to him. Unless you hear gunshots, the rest of you stay back. I don’t care if his men can see you or if you decide to sit far enough back that they won’t be able to spot you.”
“They’ll be able to see us,” Liam
interrupted.
He was right.
Skull had started off as a small-time hustler and glorified pimp. He built his business on illegal gambling rings and prostitution. He expanded to call girls at some point, and as his reputation in that department grew, so did his business. It was rumored that through his escort service he made some pretty important connections that went way above anyone on the street.
The story was that he’d landed a politician for a client, and he blackmailed him into giving him access to military grade weapons. Skull took our weapons business because he could provide clients with things that couldn’t be purchased legally, and it was all clean. Nothing was traceable back to anyone so long as nobody was caught red-handed. That also meant Skull and his goons had access to some pretty heavy duty toys for themselves, and they were not afraid to use them.