“But boys, make no mistake,” continued Ryker. “Shit has been a long time coming with the Reapers, and this has only hastened it. Blood has been spilled. The Sons don’t start wars, but we sure as hell end them. Watch your backs. Watch each other’s backs. And prepare yourselves for what may come.”
Chapter 9: Axl
When Ryker finished his speech and jumped down from the bar, a hot, agitated energy filled the room. Guys milled around, chatting in low tones. Instead of beers, the bartender was pouring hard liquor.
As club VP, I’d seen it all before. This was how guys acted at the prospect of war.
I turned to face Holly and she looked at me nervously. I knew she felt responsible for what Ryker had just said. “Axl,” she said, “You have to believe me that I—“
I shrugged my shoulders, cutting her off, my expression blank. “Would’ve happened anyway,” I said. “Shit’s been heating up for months. Spark could’ve come at any time.”
She looked distraught. “What does this mean for me?”
I studied her face hard. Her shiny black hair was pulled back into a ponytail, her bangs spilling down over her forehead. Her supple, young tits rose and fell under her shirt, the outline of her taut figure visible under the thin cotton fabric. I couldn’t stop fucking thinking about earlier. How her body had felt against mine. How hard she’d made me when I grabbed her ass. How hard she’d made me come when she sucked me off. God, I’d never felt that before and I wanted more. I wanted to know what made her the way she was. But it couldn’t happen. The guys already thought I was going soft over a gash. I had to put the club first and get her outta here.
My jaw clenched and my eye twitched. “It means you need to get the hell outta here.”
“I know,” she said, looking down at her feet. “So that’s it?”
Hot acid burned in my stomach. Was she asking to see me again? She couldn’t be fucking serious. Not like it mattered anyway. She’d never be welcome—or safe—around here. “You’re going home, darlin’,” I said, forcing myself to grin. “Come on. Let’s go.”
We headed outside, and guys got out of our way as we walked. They hadn’t fucking forgotten who was in charge around here.
It was getting close to midnight, and outside a chill had come over the desert. Holly shivered as we walked to the bikes, which were parked in a line outside the garage. I felt a little fucking sorry for her, I guess.
“It’s freezing,” she said “You could offer me your jacket, you know.”
I stopped in my tracks, swiveling to look her in the eyes. “You suck my cock once and you think you can wear a Sons patch? Fucking unbelievable.”
“You know,” she said, “you’re a real dick.”
I realized she didn’t know what she’d asked for. She was just a civilian, not even a hanger-on. Gruffly, I added, “There’s a sweatshirt in my saddlebag. Come on.”
We walked the rest of the way to the bikes in silence, and I grabbed the sweatshirt for her. She put it on, before grabbing the passenger helmet off the back of my bike herself. She put it on and tightened it without my help and mounted the bike.
I swung onto the bike and started it. “Take me to my parents’ house in Coppertail. Sabino and McClellan,” she said.
We hit the road, leaving the club’s hometown of Redstone. As soon as the bike’s tires hit pavement, I twisted the throttle back and we thundered through the night.
When we pulled up to the intersection of Sabino and McClellan, she nudged me from behind to direct me to her house. During the ride, she’d buried her hands beneath my jacket, hanging on to my body underneath the leather. Just the feeling of those hands on my torso made my cock rock hard. Fucking pity we were on our way to her parents’ place.
She guided me down a series of crappy-looking side streets until we finally pulled up in front of a small two-story house. Even at night, I could see that the property was well-maintained. A landscaped yard, a freshly painted house. Not like most houses in Coppertail.
I dismounted the bike first to let her off. She dismounted, then started to pull the sweatshirt over her head before pausing to ask, “Do you want this back?”
“Keep it,” I said, wondering why she’d want that old piece of shit. I sighed. “You should put this all behind you as soon as possible.”
She frowned, but there was a hint of... something on her face. Was it disappointment?
“At least be a gentleman and walk me to the door.”
“What am I, a high school kid dropping you off before midnight?” My eyes rolled involuntarily. “Fine,” I said, and dismounted the bike again.
We walked up the sidewalk to the door. I pulled her phone out of my pocket and held it out to her. “Oh yeah, don’t forget this,” I said. “The code’s 1234.”
She rolled her eyes at me.
“What?” I said.
She pulled a key out of the pocket of her jeans and began to insert it into the lock when suddenly the door swung open. In front of us was a middle-aged guy who looked like he did a lot of overtime at the office.
“Holly!” he said. “What are you doing here at this time of night—“ He paused in mid-sentence and looked at me, his eyes scanning me and finally fixating on the Sons patch on my jacket’s lapel. The look of disapproval on his face hardened. “Who the hell is this treasure?”
His words didn’t bother me. I’d been called far worse. But I knew the best way to deal with these situations—by showing class. I spoke up before she had a chance to.
“Sir,” I said, “Just an acquaintance of your daughter. Gave her a ride since her car broke down.”
“Your car broke down?” he said, looking hard at Holly. “When were you planning to tell us about that?”
She sighed. “Dad, I’ll tell you about it later.”
“I better be on my way,” I said.
Her father shifted his attention back to me. “I think that’s a good idea.”
I nodded solemnly, first at him, and then at Holly. “See you around,” I said to her. She held my gaze until I pried my eyes away, turned around, and walked back to my bike.
When I got back to the clubhouse, I needed something. What exactly, I didn’t know. I had the bartender pour me a double whiskey, but it left me unsatisfied. To fight or fuck. That’s what I needed.
I hung out at the bar for fifteen or twenty minutes, drinking and wishing that some dumbass would come and cross me, but it didn’t happen. With that off the table, there was only one option. So I chatted up a broad, a new hanger-on that I’d seen around the club lately. I hadn’t hooked up with her yet, but she hadn’t exactly been shy about checking me out.
Twenty minutes later, we were in my bed. She had her shirt off and I was sucking her huge tits, but I was barely paying attention. I couldn’t take my mind off of Holly. Fuck. I needed to get my shit straight, and fast. But before I could get my dick wet, there was an urgent pounding at the door. A voice spoke up.
“VP! We’ve got a visitor.”
“Tell them to fucking wait,” I shot back. “I’m busy.”
“It’s important.”
My teeth clenched and my hands balled up into fists. This was getting fucking ridiculous. But on the plus side, my dream of flattening someone’s face tonight was about to come true.
“I’ll be back,” I said to the bimbo in my bed. “Stay here.”
I pulled on my shirt, opened the door, and stormed out of the room.
It was almost three in the morning now, but downstairs was still buzzing. It looked like a fight was about to break out by the front door. It only took me a second to figure out why. Our little visitor was a fucking Reaper.
I stormed across the room, my footsteps echoing loudly. “Move!” I barked. I shoved guys aside, until I was face-to-face with the Reaper. I looked right into his eyes.
“Talk,” I said with clenched teeth. I wanted to paint the walls with the blood in his brain, but I held myself back. Killing a messenger was a quick path to an all-out wa
r.
“Message for your president,” he said.
“In the middle of the night. You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”
“Not my choice.”
“We’re not fucking bothering Ryker right now. Give it to me.”
He looked around at the guys around me. I could see the nervousness under the surface.
“The girl,” he said. “We’re taking her out. Courtesy notice.”
My blood boiled. I should’ve played it cool but my instincts were taking over. “She had nothing to do with this,” I growled. “I know that. You fucking know that.”
He shrugged, his body language betraying nervousness. “Not my choice,” he said again. “She saw shit.”
I growled again. “She’s not what you want. You want the tape.”
The Reaper looked me up and down. “She your old lady or something?”
I knew that the guys around me were asking themselves the same question.
“She ain’t my old lady. She’s an innocent. The tape,” I repeated. “Leave her the hell out of this and we’ll talk about the tape.”
“Vargas also wants the tape. We’ll come for that too. But the girl dies. It’s about sending a message.”
There was no point in arguing with this fuck. He was just a peon. And the Reapers were testing us, pushing our buttons. It was a provocation.
“Get out of my fucking club,” I said coldly, without breaking eye contact.
The Reaper turned around and slipped through the door without a word. Outside, there was the sound of a bike starting up and pulling away.
“Fucking Reaper trash,” said a voice behind me. “The fucking girl deserves it,” said another voice angrily. A commotion of insults and arguments erupted, but it all faded into a blur in my head.
I could only think about one thing. I had to get to her before they did. But before I could react, Ryker’s voice boomed out over the room.
“What in the ever-loving fuck is going on?”
Chapter 10: Holly
I was disoriented when I woke up on Saturday morning. I looked around, expecting to see the wood paneling and motorcycle memorabilia that hung on Axl’s wall. But instead of wood paneling, there was only the baby blue wallpaper of my room at my parents’ house. And instead of the Sons of Chaos club insignia, there was my favorite Georgia O’Keeffe painting, a reproduction that my parents had gotten me as my high school graduation gift almost four years ago.
Four years. I couldn’t believe it had been that long. Four years and here I was, almost ready to graduate and jump into the real world. I thought for a moment, realizing how lucky I really was to be back home in my own bed. Things could’ve gone worse at the clubhouse. Much worse.
Light streamed in through my bedroom window, and it must have been noon already. I was still exhausted from the ordeal of the last two days, but for some reason I couldn’t fall asleep again. Annoyed with my racing mind, I got out of bed and stretched. I needed to catch up on all the schoolwork I’d missed. And I needed to get my car back, and then there was the matter of my documentary. Now I had no footage and no camera. That was a real setback—an expensive one, too—but I’d figure it out.
Trying to push my concerns out of my mind, I swung my door open and headed downstairs to the kitchen. I realized I’d barely eaten anything at the clubhouse, and I was starving.
But when I walked into the kitchen, I stopped short. Both of my parents were sitting at the kitchen table, and it looked as if they’d hardly been speaking. I’d expected my dad to be in the garage, working on his project car like a usual Saturday, and my mom to be reading on the porch. But I could tell by their expressions that we were going to have a “talk.”
My dad looked up from the coffee mug he was clasping between his hands on the table. “Afternoon, Holly,” he said, his voice serious.
“Hi Dad,” I said.
My mom spoke up. “Honey, we’re worried about you. We talked to your roommates and they said you were gone for two days.”
“And then you came back with that lowlife on a motorcycle. And your car is nowhere to be found,” added my dad.
I sighed heavily. “I can explain the car,” I said. “But I’m not a kid anymore. This is none of your business.”
“Sit down,” my father said sternly.
My mother nodded, the thinnest of veiled expressions covering the disappointment on her face.
I sighed again, pulled out a chair, and sat.
“Honey,” my mom said, “We give you a lot of freedom. We want you to succeed. We really do. But we worry when you come home on the back of a motorcycle without your car. You should have come to us if you had a breakdown.”
“I would’ve called you,” I said. “I was down at the Coppertail junkyard filming for my capstone project. It wouldn’t start, but Axl and a couple of his friends happened to come by and gave me a lift. It was fine.”
My dad’s eyebrow rose and he eyed me suspiciously. “So that’s what you’ve been doing for the last two days? Hanging out with that lowlife and skipping class?” He drew quotation marks in the air with his fingers when he said “hanging out.”
“It’s not like that,” I said. I felt a guilty pang in my stomach, but there was no way in hell I could tell my parents the truth, that I’d ignited a gang war, nearly got shot, and then hooked up with a criminal. That was so far away from their dream of me meeting a Jewish doctor that I might as well slap them both in the face.
“They just gave me a lift and took me to Brooke’s place. I’ve been working nonstop with her on the documentary,” I lied. “But last night I realized I forgot my keys at Axl’s place. He brought them to me and then took me home. That’s it,” I said. “He looks rough but he’s not a bad guy.”
“Hol,” my dad said. “We thought you were on the right track. Well, as much as you could be.” I knew he was talking about my dream of becoming a filmmaker. It wasn’t good enough for them, not as reliable as becoming a housewife or getting some kind of desk job where I’d have a constant stick up my ass like them.
“Dad,” I said, frustrated, “I am on the right track.”
What had happened at the junkyard was a complete accident, and as hot as Axl was, I was putting him out of my mind. But my parents, of course, were so worried that their prize daughter was going to shack up with a leather-clad stranger and compromise their vicarious dreams.
And honestly, the more they bitched to me, the more appealing that sounded.
“Dad,” I repeated. “Axl’s a nice guy who helped me out. I’ll pay for the car to be towed back from the junkyard and that’ll be the end of it. You won’t see him again. I won’t see him. I swear.”
My dad looked at me, and the expression on his face betrayed his doubt. I ignored it, scooting my chair away from the table. I gave my dad and my mom each a kiss on the cheek. The talk had diminished my appetite again, so I only got an apple before heading back upstairs to my room.
I sat at my desk, opened my laptop, and pulled up my school email. Behind me, draped over the back of the chair, I felt Axl’s sweatshirt. I grabbed it and chucked it in the trashcan. Fuck him, and fuck whatever he did or didn’t think about me. It didn’t affect me at all.
It was time to get back to work, to catch up with what I’d missed over the last two days. And it was time to completely forget about Axl Archer.
Chapter 11: Axl
I woke up the next morning in a cold puddle of sweat. My head pounded with an agonizing hangover, and it felt like a thousand screws were twisting into my skull. In other words, a usual morning.
After the Reaper visit last night, I’d hit the bar and downed half a bottle of Jack. Ryker sat next to me at the bar, sipping a whiskey and water, eying me with concern as I put away shot after shot. I was fucking pissed off, and hammered out of my mind when I’d decided it was time to leap on my hog to get Holly. But Ryker stopped me. “We figure this out tomorrow,” he’d said, “Reapers ain’t gonna find her at her parents’ place tonight
. Can’t risk a rumble in town. And never fucking ride wasted.”
The idea of her out there, alone and exposed fuckin’ enraged me. But he was right. Holly was safer where she was. I hated that I felt so damn protective of her. It was dangerous.
I’d stumbled back upstairs to my room, glass in hand. There was no sign of the slut I’d bedded earlier, but I didn’t give a fuck. I passed out cold.
And now I was paying for it. But thank fuck I hadn’t spilled the drink, ‘cause I needed it now. I reached over to the dresser, grabbed the glass of now-warm whiskey, and put it down the hatch.
Hair of the dog. That was a bad damn habit to get into, but I had to function today.
The fog in my brain began to lift. I forced myself out of bed and forced myself to endure a cold shower until I’d regained full control of my senses. Then I got dressed and thundered downstairs, beelining for Ryker’s office, pounding my fist on the door.
“Yeah?” Ryker barked from behind the door. I swung the door open and entered, the adrenaline of last night flooding back into my body. Ryker sat in his leather chair behind his desk, and Dash and Lynch sat in guest chairs opposite to him.
Dash hanging around Lynch? What the fuck? I didn’t like that.
I stormed into the room, shutting the door hard behind me.
“Nice of you to join, VP,” said Ryker coolly. “How’s the head treating you?”
I ignored his jab and cut to the chase.
“We can’t let an innocent die,” I said. “It ain’t the Sons way. We protect the girl.”
Ryker spoke calmly, but his words infuriated me. “VP. Been talkin’ about this, and I need you to understand me now. We did what we could for this girl. We did her right, the way Sons do. But she ain’t our problem now. We gotta pull in tight right now, keep brothers close and keep outsiders out. Reapers are testing us, provoking us. We can’t overextend. Our cash flow’s runnin’ out, and shit’s heating up, son. Reapers even got away with most of our guns back at the junkyard. We’ve gotta be pragmatic.”
Axl (Sons of Chaos MC #1) Page 4