Red Eyes MC: Books 1 - 3

by Grey, Blair

  “I know,” Lina groaned. “Seems like every time I happen to have a weekend off, either you have something else that you’re doing, or the weather is terrible.”

  “Not today, though,” I said cheerfully, putting my hand out the window for a minute as I drove along, feeling the warm sunshine on my skin. It was a perfect day to go to the beach. I was excited.

  What was even better was that when we got to our favorite locals-only beach, there was practically no one on it. We had the whole place to ourselves. “Come on, let’s set up our blankets over here,” I suggested, leading the way to a spot that was close enough to the water for swimming but not so close that we were in danger of getting wet while we sunned ourselves.

  I immediately stripped down to my bikini and flopped onto my blanket, peering up at Lina. “Seriously?” I asked, looking at her conservative one-piece and cover-up. “How are you going to get any sun dressed like that?”

  Lina gave me a look. “I don’t feel comfortable wearing bikinis anymore,” she said.

  I rolled my eyes. “Come on; you’re curvy.”

  “I’m fat,” Lina corrected. “It’s okay, I admit it. I just don’t feel like showing off that much skin.”

  “How are you ever going to find a man?” I teased.

  Lina cracked a smile. “Well, I hope that when I do find a man, he won’t just be interested in my skin,” she said.

  I lounged back on my elbows, watching the waves and the couple of people on the beach. “This is just what I needed,” I said, feeling relaxation flood through my body.

  “Long week at work?” Lina asked sympathetically.

  “Yeah, we were pretty busy,” I said. “And I worked with Donald for, like, half of it since Jenny has been on vacation. It’ll be good to have her back.”

  “Yeah I bet,” Lina said.

  “I feel bad complaining about being busy at work, though,” I said, then laughed. “Because I know that whatever my busy days look like, they’re nothing compared to yours. At least all of my customers can articulate what they want.”

  Lina laughed as well. “Working with kids definitely has its challenges,” she said. “But I can’t imagine working anywhere other than the daycare."

  “I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t think I could ever do something like that. Let alone have kids of my own.”

  “One day you’ll change your mind, I’m sure,” Lina said, smiling over at me. “Besides, it’s different when they’re your own kids. Especially in this day and age. It’s just so hard to discipline kids when they’re not your own. You don’t always know what the parents would take exception to. Like, one of my colleagues had this parent come in and try to tell her that putting his kid in time-out was isolating, and that if his son grew up to be a serial killer, that would be the reason. Can you believe it?”

  “Jeez, I don’t know whether to laugh or to be horrified,” I said. “Again, I could never do it. If I do have kids, and I’m not saying I will, it’ll be a long time from now. I can’t even imagine becoming a parent right now.”

  “There’s plenty of good things that come along with working with kids, though,” Lina reminded me like she always did. “Some of them are just downright adorable. And the things that they say sometimes.”

  “You always tell me that,” I said, “but I’m still not sure I’m convinced.”

  “I guess it’s a conversation that you’re just going to have to have with your future husband.”

  “If I ever meet someone who fits that description,” I said, rolling my eyes.

  “I started an online dating profile,” Lina said suddenly. “For myself, not for you.”

  “Thank God,” I said, laughing at the fact that she would even feel the need to clarify that. “Meet anyone good?”

  “I don’t know, they all kind of seem weird,” Lina said, shaking her head. “Like, the number of guys who have written to me and told me that they have some sort of weird fetish for heavier chicks, it’s just bizarre. I mean, I’m all for getting laid, but I can’t imagine propositioning someone that you haven’t even met yet.”

  “Yeah, all of that stuff has always seemed kind of weird to me,” I said, shrugging. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but it almost seems like you’re trying too hard. Or at least, that’s how it’s always seemed to me. If there’s a right person for you, I think things will just work out.”

  “Not if you don’t ever try to find them in some way,” Lina argued. “With looks like yours, I swear the only reason you’re still single is that you never meet anyone.”

  I snorted. “So what you’re saying is that I should take a leaf out of Donald’s book and start hitting on every single dude who walks into the pharmacy?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Lina said. “But maybe we should start going out to bars more or something. Isn’t that how people usually meet potential partners?”

  “Uh, for sex maybe,” I said, then shrugged. “And besides, I’m not really looking to meet a potential partner.”

  “Yeah, I guess not.” Lina sighed.

  She sounded so sad about that, I felt like I needed to make it up to her. “We were talking about joining a gym,” I reminded her. “And I’m still not saying that I’d be doing it to meet the cute guys. But if it happened, maybe I’d be open to it.”

  Lina shook her head. “I don’t think any gym guy is going to want to go home with someone like me,” she said.

  “But come on,” I said, propping myself up on one elbow. “I bet if we started going to the gym, it would help out with this worry that you have about your body size. And if we keep at it, one of those guys is bound to want to take you home. Plus, it’ll give you an excuse to buy some cute athletic clothes.”

  Lina slowly smiled over at me. “You’re sure you want to do this?” she asked.

  “Just don’t be too obvious in trying to matchmake me,” I said, rolling my eyes.

  Lina grinned. “Deal,” she said. “But does that mean I can subtly try to matchmake you?”

  “I’m beginning to regret agreeing to this,” I said.

  Lina giggled. “It’s going to be fun,” she promised me. “We’ll do some classes. Maybe spin classes. I hear those are really great for weight loss.”

  I was definitely starting to regret agreeing. I knew I was in terrible cardio shape, and I could only imagine what a spin class would do to me. Lina didn’t seem to be worried about that, though. And if this made Lina feel better about herself, then I was all for it.

  As long as I didn’t have to field too many awkward wannabe dates. We’d see how things went.

  People started to arrive at the beach as the day went on, and finally, Lina got up. I groaned. “You want to go home already?” I asked. “The sun’s just starting to heat up.”

  “Come on,” Lina said. “I don’t want to be here with all these, these models.”

  I sighed and got to my feet. I knew that she wasn’t comfortable even in her one-piece suit and cover-up, not when everyone else was stripping down to their itty-bitty bikinis. Sometimes, I wished that Lina would just grow out of her insecurities. I knew that she had been teased a lot back in school because she was so thin, but I really didn’t see what the big deal was.

  She was cute, funny, and smart, and she was great with kids. She was such a catch. But of course, guys would never see that. They took one look at her and wrote her off. So I could kind of see where she was coming from. It was just one more thing on my long list of things I hated about dudes.

  But I didn’t argue about it. I knew there was no changing Lina’s mind when she got like this. We would start going to the gym, and hopefully, she would start to feel better about being places like the beach or bars. For now, we’d stop off for ice cream on the way home and finish up another great day together.

  Who needed a boyfriend when you had a friendship like ours? Sure, there were some lonely nights in there, but overall, I loved my life and wouldn’t trade it for the world. I just wished Lina c
ould feel the same way.

  5

  Landon

  I had expected that we would meet with Ray’s friend and get started immediately, as soon as we got to Sarasota. But instead, Neil, the head of the local Red Eyes chapter, called us on Saturday and told us just to come by the clubhouse on Monday after the weekly club meeting. It seemed odd, and I wondered if he really wanted us there or if Ray had really pushed for us to come.

  When we got to the MC clubhouse on Monday, though, I could tell that Neil wanted us there. “It’s so great of you guys to come all the way out here,” he said, gesturing us toward seats in his office. “Drinks?”

  “Yes please,” Braxton said because he was never one to turn down a drink.

  Neil poured out a couple fingers of whiskey into three glasses and handed one to each of us. “I hope you guys got the chance to rest up over the weekend. I know it’s a pretty long drive from New Mexico to here. Hope you didn’t have any trouble along the way?”

  “Nah, easy drive,” Braxton said, not mentioning his terrible nosebleeds even though he’d totally ruined a pillow last night as he was sleeping. We really needed to get over to the pharmacy once this meeting was over. I just hoped Braxton still had the prescription in his wallet, because I doubted he was going to consent to going back to that doctor, if the doctor would even agree to see him again.

  “It was good to have the weekend to relax, though,” I told Neil. “We did a little bit of exploring around the town too.” Braxton had dragged me along to the beach the previous day. I’d spent the afternoon swimming and then lying in the sun, taking a power nap, while he chatted up some girls and played volleyball. I had to admit, for all that I knew we were here on work, I was starting to relax a little, treating this partly as a vacation, at least.

  But I knew when it was time to get serious.

  Neil showed us a map of the town. “The red buildings are the ones that continue to pay Red Eyes,” he explained, pointed to the places. “The black places are ones that used to pay Red Eyes, but which have stopped paying their dues recently.”

  I raised an eyebrow at him. “Well, having businesses quit paying their dues is a pretty normal problem to have,” I said. “Especially if they’re all in it together. Why not just send your enforcers around and have them fix the situation?”

  “I think it’s a little deeper than that; that’s the problem,” Neil said, frowning and tugging at his mustache.

  “Another gang moving in on your territory?” Braxton suggested. He glanced over at me, and I suddenly wondered if the remainder of the Unknowns had found their way from Las Cruces to Sarasota. Maybe they even knew about the friendship between Ray and Neil.

  But no, with all of their leaders, and a good portion of the rest of their guys, still locked up in jail, they would have needed more time than that to regroup. They wouldn’t be back at things so soon.

  “We thought about that,” Neil said. “And it definitely could be another gang. But no one’s said anything about another gang.” He paused. “The other reason we haven’t just sent enforcers out to beat up on the guys is that the current sheriff is, shall we say, only tentatively on our side. We pay him pretty well to turn a blind eye to what we’re up to here, but he definitely would love to have an excuse to throw us all out.”

  “Fair enough, we had a similar problem in Las Cruces for a while,” I mused, looking over the map. “What can you tell me about these places that have quit paying? Why do you think there’s something more to it than just a bunch of guys who have decided that they don’t want to pay up?”

  “I think there’s something going on within the MC. A mutiny of sorts, I guess you might call it. The thing is, all of the businesses that have quit paying their dues suddenly are ones who have been with us for years now. They’re some of what I would consider to be our most loyal businesses. I’ve gone and talked to a few of the owners, just trying to figure out what’s going on, and they all seem to think that they’re paid up on their dues. Another reason I don’t want to send in the enforcers just yet.”

  “So you think there’s a problem with the books,” I said, remembering what Ray had said. “Someone’s fudging the numbers, to make it seem like these places aren’t paying up, when really they are. Then those dues can be pocketed by someone else.”

  “But that’s easy then,” Braxton said, looking confused. “Wouldn’t it have to be whoever’s collecting the dues for them?”

  Neil shrugged slowly. “Or it could be anyone who has access to the dues and the books,” he pointed out. “It hasn’t been the same person collecting the dues from each of these places. We split up that kind of work into areas of the city. But as you can see, the black businesses are scattered all over.” He paused. “That’s why I just haven’t been sure what to do. If I start paying closer attention, everyone’s going to start to realize that something’s up. That’s a question to my leadership, you understand.”

  “Yeah, makes sense,” I said.

  “So you brought us in to do the dirty work,” Braxton said, nodding. “What happens if we figure out who it is, and it is someone in the MC?”

  “You have free rein to deal with the situation,” Neil said immediately. “I’m sure I can count on the two of you to be discreet, though. Ray recommended the two of you highly.”

  Braxton preened a little. I nodded. “We’ll sort this out,” I promised, even though I was wondering where to even begin. We’d need to get a good read on the other members of the MC. That would be the start.

  I liked Neil, though. He was a lot more talkative than Ray was. About the same age, kind of like the fun uncle where Ray was the disapproving patriarch. Not that we weren’t all loyal to Ray. He certainly got the job done. But we all knew that Ray had done the sorts of things that the rest of us could only dream about. He had managed single-handedly to make the Las Cruces chapter of Red Eyes the most powerful MC in New Mexico, and then some. We were one of the most successful chapters in the whole country in fact.

  Neil just seemed a lot more relaxed. Chilled out. Just like Sarasota, really. Like everything just runs on beach time here, and problems get solved when they get solved, I thought wryly. Neil probably could have at least gotten a start on figuring out leads in this problem, but he had waited for us to arrive and then rest up over the course of the weekend. It was definitely a different mentality here, and I would have to remember not to let that get in my own head.

  We needed to get everything figured out. Then we could relax and have a little mini-vacation, maybe, before we headed back to Las Cruces.

  “Damn it,” Braxton suddenly muttered, his hand going up to his nose, which was bleeding again.

  Neil looked concerned as he handed him some tissues. “I don’t know what the two of you get up to in Las Cruces, but we have a pretty strict no-drugs policy, at least around the clubhouse,” he said, looking like he was trying to be tactful.

  Braxton rolled his eyes. “It’s not a drug thing,” he said. “I’ve had this for years now. Something to do with my foster parents being smokers. The drive made it all the worse.”

  “Speaking of which, we need to get to that pharmacy,” I said firmly, standing up. “But we’ll meet the MC tomorrow, Neil.”

  “Perfect,” he said. “Like I said, we’re having just a casual get-together. It’ll give you a good chance to meet the guys outside of the meetings and things like that.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” I said, nodding at him.

  Neil patted me on the shoulder as we headed toward the door. “Thanks again for your help,” he said gruffly.

  “No problem,” I said, trying my best not to grimace. For all that Neil was relaxed and less gloomy than Ray, he was still a sizeable man. That friendly clap on the back felt more like a spanking.

  “This doesn’t make any sense,” Braxton muttered the second we walked out the door.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, even though I was thinking along the same lines.

  “Neil clearly doesn’t
need our help,” Braxton said. “Giving us the weekend to rest? When this has already been going on for weeks from the looks of that map of his? It’s like he doesn’t even realize that he has any sort of problem. And then there’s the fact that he could crush a man’s skull with his bare hands if he wanted to.”

  I was thinking the same thing. I had been thinking the same thing, ever since Ray had sent us here. None of this made sense. There was no reason for Ray to send us here, no gain to him that I could see. And there was no reason for Neil to need us here.

  But I couldn’t figure out, if that was the case, why we were here. And I had a feeling that neither of them would take kindly to my asking.

  I shrugged. “It’s not our place to question it,” I said. “We have a job to do, and we’re going to get it done.”

  “It’s just weird,” Braxton said. He gave me a suspicious look. “You at least agree that it’s weird, right? Ray didn’t tell you anything else about why we’re here?”

  I shook my head. “You know as much as I do,” I promised him. “And yes, I think it’s weird. But Ray gave us the orders.” If there was some side reason that we were here, I was sure it would shake loose in time.

  Braxton frowned. “And that thing about the drugs, Jesus.”

  “He doesn’t know you,” I reminded Braxton. “He wasn’t trying to insult you. He was just trying to make sure that his clubhouse is protected. Remember, he said that the sheriff is looking for reasons to throw them into the slammer. That was the same sort of problem we had in Las Cruces.” I grinned over at him. “In fact, you’ll remember that Marcus got the Unknowns arrested by planting drugs in their clubhouse. I bet Neil was just worried you might accidentally get caught with something on your person. But anyway, we’ll get you your prescription, and this’ll all clear up.”

  “Always does,” Braxton agreed, even though he still didn’t sound happy about having been accused of being a coke addict.

  We finally got to the pharmacy near the doctor’s office. The place was dead inside when we entered, except for a blond, surfer-looking dude hitting on a female customer. I rolled my eyes as he gestured for us to wait just a minute.