by Tia Lewis
“What? Nobody fucking gets in my face, and nobody talks to me like that,” I growled. “You have until the count of three to get the fuck out of my face. One…two…” She held her hands up, stepping back before I reached to three.
“He’s telling the truth,” she said. Her arms were folded, this time, pushing her tits together. I wondered if she knew I could see almost everything she had going on, the slut. “I was just at the store to get myself something to eat and cool the hell off. Richie almost knocked me down, and he apologized. Like a gentleman. He’s not lying. Do I need to explain the concept better for you?”
“Ouch. We got a firecracker in here!” I didn’t know who said it since I couldn’t take my eyes off her face. One of the guys, probably Creed, the club’s sergeant-at-arms.
“I don’t need you to explain shit, but maybe I need to explain to you that we’re at war with another club. Or maybe you already know about that, and this idiot lets you right in so you could steal secrets and use them against us. That’s why you’re here isn’t it?”
“Wait. What? That you like oregano on your hoagie? Dangerous stuff.” The corners of her mouth twisted up into an almost-smile.
I should have been pissed as hell. I should have thrown her out and Richie with her. Instead, I laughed a little. The tension in the room, so thick I could have cut it with the knife in my back pocket, eased. A few of the others laughed along with me.
“Okay... But I don’t think you should hang around here, either way.” I looked at Richie. “Bringing new people in here isn’t a good idea, even if they’re not our enemy. The last thing we need is for the Cobras to find out there’s fresh blood around. Think!”
“Who are the Cobras?” My back was already turned, but I heard her mutter it to Richie.
“The less you know, the better,” I said, reclaiming my stool. She still stood where I’d left her, all dark hair and curves. She was so damned tall, almost as tall as me in those boots of hers. I wasn’t used to facing off with a woman almost my height. She could have been a model, easy. What the hell was she doing slumming around Jamaica, Queens? She would have fit better in Manhattan.
“Hey, come on, Drake. She just came in to eat lunch with us. You're paranoid. It’s not like she’s gonna be here forever.” Richie was really that desperate. She was probably the first woman to ever pay him attention, and it was probably all for the free sandwich. She was thin and didn’t look like she had a lot of money. Probably hungry, more than anything.
I looked her up and down, deciding. “What’s your name?” I asked. “You never did tell me.”
“Bree.” She said it without a smile, without any friendliness at all. Just stating a fact. For some reason, I liked her for it. She didn’t play around. She didn’t pretend to be all coy and cute. She wasn’t afraid to let me know she didn’t like me very much, and she didn’t care if I liked her or not.
I did like her. More than that, I wanted her for myself.
4
Nicole
My knees shook so badly; I almost couldn’t stand. I was grateful for Richie for leading me back to the black leather couch to finish my sandwich—not that I could eat. Who could, after almost having their ass handed to them?
I’d more than held my own, however, and I knew it. I sensed this Drake guy wasn’t used to a woman telling him off. I saw it in his big, baby blue eyes. They’d widened when I’d faced off with him. He didn’t expect me to give him a taste of his own medicine. He probably expected me to fall at his feet.
I knew all about him. I knew he was Blood Rider’s vice president before he told me, thanks to my father’s recaps of his days at work. Drake was around twenty-seven, twenty-eight years old. He’d spent two years in a juvenile detention facility for nearly beating his stepfather to death. “For the record,” my father had said, “I don’t think the guy was any bargain. He was an abusive piece of shit. Drake snapped—hard. The kid almost took his life.”
I thought about that story as I watched Drake from the corner of my eye. He had a way about him. Cocky, for sure. I noticed that right away. It came from him in waves. He oozed it. The thought of pushing poor Richie around, just because he was kind enough to invite me to eat with them, was deplorable. What a fucking bully.
I noticed the way the girls on the pool table looked at him. They might as well have batted their long eyelashes and swooned. Or leaned back and spread their legs, one or the other. It was embarrassing. I was embarrassed for them.
So he thought I was a plant, huh? He had no idea. At least I’d managed to pass myself off as the kind of girl who would hang out with a club. The Cobras. Had my father talked about them at all? I went through my memory as I ate my Italian hoagie.
“So, Bree?” One of the guys sitting across from me got my attention. He was short, heavy-set, with a thinning hairline. His goatee and mustache were a fiery red. Eyes bright like emeralds. He sported a scar that went down the side of his face. I wondered where it came from.
“Who’s asking?” I grinned when I said it, though. I had to keep up my tough façade, for sure. I didn’t want them knowing I was new to the inside of their world. Remember: Terrible home life, Mom’s a slut, Dad ran off, Stepdad is an asshole. You hate men, in general, authority figures more than anything.
“My name is Creed.” He pointed to a patch on his black leather biker vest, underneath which was another patch. Sergeant-at-arms. So he was a higher member of the organization.
“What’s up, Creed?” I chewed slowly, taking him in. I didn’t remember hearing anything about him from my father. Maybe he was a behind-the-scenes type of guy.
“Where are you from?”
“Right here in the city. My mom raised me in a nicer part of Queens, but when her money ran out, she moved us here. She shacked up with some guy, I don’t know.” I shrugged.
“Bad news?” he asked.
“She doesn't wanna go home on account of him being there.” That was Richie. He has turned into quite the authority figure on me. He had a crush, the poor kid. I felt sorry for him. He wanted so much to fit in and be accepted. I could have punched that Drake Collins in the face for putting his hands on him.
“Why don’t you just get a place of your own?” Creed asked, taking a huge bite from his corned beef and chewing loudly, to the point where he made me feel a little nauseated.
“I don’t have the money. I wanna get out of Queens, you know? Maybe move to Brooklyn. I’m trying to save up.”
Creed grimaced. “Good luck with saving up for that,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t envy you.”
“Why? Where do you live?”
“Not far from here,” he admitted. “Born and raised here, myself. I was just wondering why I never saw you around before.”
I shrugged. “I spend time with my aunt, big chunks of time. You know, when I can’t stand being at home anymore. But my cousin just got out on good behavior, and now there’s no more room in her house. So I had to come back.”
“Ah, I see. That sucks.”
“Yeah, well. Shit happens.”
“I can tell life wasn’t easy for you. You look like shit.”
“What?” My eyes widened, realizing I probably still had smeared makeup all over my face from sweating earlier. “Oh, my face?”
Creed grinned as he shook his head in sympathy. I had made up that whole story about my life on the fly. I hadn’t thought about why the guys wouldn’t know me if they were so well-known throughout the area. There I was, thinking I’d planned everything out so carefully. There was a lot I had to be wary of.
Like, Drake. Damn him. He would watch me carefully, and after that little altercation, I would need to get on his good side if I wanted to stick around. How could I have guessed he would be such an ass? Ugh, I should have known better. Dad, what should I do? No sense in asking him what I should do, because he would tell me to get my ass home and never even think about trolling around with the Blood Riders again.
They all looked like a bun
ch of convicts, every one of them inked, hairy, with the slovenliest eating habits I’d ever seen. I wondered if some of them were saving bits for later, as their beards and goatees were peppered with bits of meat and cheese. It was enough to turn my stomach. Even Richie ate like he’d never tasted a sandwich before. Did they ever feed him?
I looked around in between bites. For all it looked like a rundown shack from the outside, that was just the outward appearance. I understood once I saw the inside why they kept it looking so ramshackle—nobody would ever guess how nice it was. It might have kept hoodlums away from the inside. Then again, if anybody in the neighborhood had any idea of the men behind the walls of the place, well that might have been enough to keep them away on its own. It would keep me away, for sure.
I didn’t know what it was about them. Even if I didn’t know who the Blood Riders were or what they’d done, I would have been uneasy around them. It wasn’t the leather, the scars, the copious amounts of unkempt facial hair. It was an attitude. A toughness that bordered on viciousness. Even when Creed asked otherwise innocent questions, I got an almost ominous feeling from him. It might have been my guilt and nearly all-consuming fear. Whatever it was, I didn’t enjoy it one bit.
This was your idea. You don’t have to be here. You can walk away, and pretend you never met any of them. Don’t make a mistake you can’t correct. I knew that was the right thing to do, the safe thing. But did my father ever take the safe way out?
No, and look what happened to him. I wanted to punch my inner voice in the face if it had one. My father did what he had to do because it was the right thing. It was his job, and he loved it. I loved him. I wanted his killer to suffer—or, at the very least, to pay for what they did. The men in the room with me were relaxed, joking, enjoying their lunch. My father couldn’t do that anymore.
I took another watchful bite of my sandwich, my stomach in knots at that point. I didn’t know where to go, what to do to get myself into the club’s good graces. I had Richie in my pocket—he kept shooting looks at me, and I grinned—but he obviously didn’t have much of a say in anything club-related. I’d picked him because he seemed like an easy and weak target, but he wasn’t respected by Drake. Drake the Almighty, the man whose word meant everything.
Not everything. I wondered where the club’s leader was. Big Jack. Any man who needed to put the word “Big” in front of his name didn’t deserve it, in my opinion. I wondered what he was compensating for.
I looked around the room again, admiring the vintage video games along the walls, the pinball machines, the massive flat-screen TV with a gaming console beneath it. Dart boards, because what bar-type room was complete without one. And yes, there was a bar stretching along one side of the room. It had all dark polished wood with a brass rail. I followed it with my eyes and wound up staring at Drake—which was unfortunate because he was staring at me.
I didn’t like the way his eyes traveled over my body. Like I didn’t have clothes on at all. I fought the urge to cover myself with my hands. Don’t let him see how he gets to you. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get the image of him shattering a man’s jaw out of my head. I noticed his big hands and wondered at the damage they could do when curled into fists.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked. His voice was just loud enough for me to hear it, but low enough that many of the others didn’t.
“Nothing,” I cleared my throat.
“I see you looking around.”
“So? I’ve never been here before, have I?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. It seems like you’re taking notes with your eyes. Something like that.”
“I’m not.”
“You sure about that?”
“Don’t you have something better do to than to bother me? I didn’t come here for Twenty Questions.” I stood, walking toward the bar—but to the other end of it. A girl was standing there, pouring drinks and uncapping cold beers for the guys. At lunch time. Classy.
“I was stupid and forgot to get something to drink. May I have a glass of ice water?”
The girl smiled. She looked a little rough, like a heavy smoker. Her skin was wrinkled and dry, there were yellow stains on her teeth. But it was a friendly smile, just the same. “Sure thing. I’ll give you a bottle. How about that?” She reached into the cooler and pulled out a semi-frozen icy cold water bottle for me. I thanked her, uncapping it to take a sip right away.
“Who are you, really?” I glanced over to find Drake staring at me just as he had been before. So I was going to be his project. He wanted to know all about me. Damn, he was dangerous.
“My name is Bree. I told you that already. And I grew up in Queens, just not around here. Richie ran into me at the deli, literally.”
“Yeah, ‘literally.' Nobody around here uses words like that. So, where are you really from?”
I shot him a look that I hoped conveyed how stupid I thought our conversation was. “Oh, really? Wow. Thanks for the grammar lesson.”
“You don’t talk like anybody around here, and stop pretending you do. What’s wrong with me wondering why you talk differently than we do, huh?” He moved closer to me, sliding from the stool with cat-like grace, stalking me. I steeled myself for what was coming. He wanted to drive me away, to scare and intimidate me. I wouldn’t let him do it. I had come too far already.
“What’s wrong with me talking the way I talk, Drake? Does it make you feel stupid? Do you hate it that a woman’s smarter than you?” I leaned in, lowering my voice. “Do you keep dumb girls around here to make yourself feel smart?”
“Watch it,” he muttered. “Don’t let any of these bitches hear you talking like that. They’ll tear your eyes out.”
“Don’t let them hear you calling them bitches, or I get the feeling they’d be happy to tear your eyes out.” I looked him up and down, daring him to come at me again. He only shrugged.
“You’re probably right, now that you mention it.” He sat back down, but in the stool closest to me. I wished he would go away. “So, I heard you tell Creed you have it shitty at home, huh? Is that why you wanted to come here because it’s better here?”
“Anything’s better than there,” I said. “But you’re extremely rude, so I think I’m gonna go.” Oh, it was a gamble—a huge risk. I didn’t know if he would welcome the chance to throw me out or ask me to stay. I had to take the risk. I couldn’t make myself seem too desperate.
“You know who we are, though. Right? I mean, being from the neighborhood.”
“Yeah, I know. So what?”
“Prove it. What’s the sort of thing a girl from the neighborhood would know about us?” The room started to go quieter as everyone in it noticed Drake squaring off with me again. My blood ran cold.
“I don’t understand.” I felt myself starting to sweat, despite the chilled air pouring down on me from a vent over my head. All eyes were on me. I wished he would stop challenging me. It wasn’t worth it. What would I do even if he accepted me into the club as one of the girls?
“So, tell me about us. What do you know?” He smirked.
“Let me ask you something.” I sat down on the stool beside his, facing him. “If I were a spy or some mole, wouldn’t I have already gotten the rundown on you guys?” I heard a few chuckles behind me, but I kept my eyes on him. I wouldn’t let him intimidate me. I wouldn’t let him scare me away. He wasn’t all that much.
He grinned, acknowledging my point. “But the Cobras are from the Bronx. Totally different area. So anything that happened, say, here in the neighborhood, they might not know about. But you would since you’re from here.”
“Gotcha.” Damn it, think. What did Dad tell you? A million things. Think of something you would only know if you lived here. “What about the time Big Jack got himself stuck climbing out of the back of that pawn shop you boys were stealing from because you felt like the owner stiffed one of your guys? Where was that? Ninety-Fifth Avenue?”
“Oh, shit.” I heard laught
er breaking up all around me.
“And he got his jeans stuck on the broken glass window, and he had to leave his jeans hanging there after you helped him out of them. Only one man in the neighborhood wears jeans that big, right? I mean, he’s a pretty hefty guy.”
“She got you,” Creed laughed, and the men sitting around him laughed, too. Drake’s eyes darkened at being shown up. I only grinned.
“Does that tell you anything?” I asked, drinking my water.
He shrugged, getting up as if to go into another room. “You’re not going anywhere,” he whispered. “So don’t think about it.”
His nearness was enough to get my heart racing, and I didn’t want it to race that way. It wasn’t fear that made it happen. It was the way his blue eyes made my skin burn wherever they touched.
Yes. Drake was dangerous, all right.
5
Drake
“Smart ass bitch!” I slammed the door to Jack’s office so hard it shook the pictures on the walls. She thought she could make a fool out of me in front of my own crew, huh? I would show her what happened to people who believed they could do that. It didn’t often end well for them.
I usually went to the office when I needed a little peace and quiet. I had always liked the room. It reminded me of the kind of office a powerful man would have. Somebody who made big decisions. I knew Jack had remodeled it with that in mind when he took control of the Club back in the nineties. I hadn’t even known it existed back then. The wood throughout the clubhouse, the polished look of everything and the smell of leather and whiskey gave me calm. It made me breathe a little easier.
It usually did, that was. Unless a smart ass, little bitch made my guys laugh at me. Then, it didn’t do much for my mood.