Black Jack

by A Parker

  “A gin and tonic, please,” she said.

  Saying no hardly seemed like an option even though I wanted to scream it at the top of my lungs. Now I had two reasons why I should have forced Jackson to sleep off his stupor in my apartment.

  Gritting my teeth against my desire to resist, I set to making her drink. I topped it with a lime wedge and placed it on the bar for her. As soon as she pursed her red lips around the straw, I stepped back, needing as much space from Walter Bates’s daughter as possible.

  She was as wicked as he was merciless, and the pair of them had been eyeing my bar for years. A personal after-hours call like this was new, however.

  Caroline stirred the ice around in her glass with her straw. “Would you like to sit?”

  “No thank you.”

  “We have business to discuss.”

  “No thank you,” I repeated.

  She shrugged a slender shoulder. “Suit yourself. Let’s cut right to the chase, shall we? You’ve had your claws sunk into this shithole for far too long. And, for far too long, my father was content to leave it to you until you realized that you were clinging to a dead horse. Daddy didn’t want to force your hand. He has a soft spot for you. But he’s reached the end of his graciousness. It’s time to let it go, Samantha.”

  So smug. So arrogant. So damn certain that everything would go her way and the rubble of my life would fall at her feet.

  No. I would not make it that easy.

  “If he wants it so badly, he can climb out of his dark little hole and ask for it himself,” I managed.

  Caroline laughed softly before sipping her drink. Silence stretched between us that she seemed entirely too comfortable with. While I squirmed, she drank. While she leaned back in her stool and studied me, I tried not to shrink in on myself. I squared my shoulders and lifted my chin, drawing defiance around me like a winter coat.

  “You’re adorable, Samantha. You know that? I think this cute little tough-girl routine you’ve got going on is what really enamors my father. I’ve tried to tell him he’d tire of you within days, but he won’t listen. You know how men are.” Her smile showed all of her perfect white teeth. “He thinks this whole barmaid shtick is appealing. Beats the hell out of me why he’s so intrigued by you. You’re nothing but talk. You and I both know if push came to shove, you’d roll over like a dog at her master’s feet.”

  “The only dog in this conversation is your bastard father,” I said. “He’s a plague. And you? You’re… you’re…”

  “I’m what?”

  “Nauseating.”

  Caroline giggled. The bubbly sound didn’t suit her, and it sounded as dishonest as her smile looked as she shook her head at me. “I know I’m not everyone’s cup of tea. But I have business to see to, Samantha. I do more than make mediocre drinks and bat my eyelashes at locals in a desperate attempt to get tips. You can hate me. I don’t mind.” She slid off her stool, drained the rest of her drink, and dropped the glass, letting it shatter at her feet. “But I will own you and this place one day. It’s my fucking legacy. So either you sign the bar over to my father when he comes to see you, or he takes it by force. That’s up to you. Either way, you and everything you hold dear are mine.”

  Caroline’s narrowed expression softened. She stepped over the broken glass and moved toward the door while I stood shaking in her wake.

  “Thanks for the drink, darling,” she called over her shoulder before pushing out the front doors and walking out of my night.

  I exhaled, slumped back against the bar, and waited to hear her car running before I made a mad dash for the door to lock it and keep the monsters out.

  Chapter 6

  Jackson

  The headlight on William’s Harley didn’t work thanks to the bullet hole. Driving in the dark was perilous on its own, but coupled with how much alcohol was raging through my body, I found it damn hard to keep the tires between the lines. The vibration on the seat, foot pegs, and handlebars had made all my limbs nearly as numb as my brain, so by the time I rolled up in front of the last place I suspected I might find Walter Bates in this town, I had to step off the bike gingerly, one leg at a time, and wait for blood flow to return to avoid pitching forward right on my face.

  I’d driven up and down Reno’s streets for well over two hours looking for Bates and whatever hole he’d climbed into for the night. I knew a couple local places that might suit a man like him—cigar lounges, underground clubs that catered to folks who wanted to control who laid eyes on them, and generic bars with late hours and staff that would easily bend to the will of someone like Bates.

  A murderer.

  How the whole damn town knew he was guilty and he still hadn’t been arrested beat the shit out of me.

  I cracked my fingers and rolled my wrists, encouraging the numbness to go away as I studied the single-story strip joint in front of me.

  It wasn’t an impressive place by any means. A burnt-out neon sign in the silhouette of a naked woman had been mounted to the roof. She lay on her back, propped up on an elbow while she held a cowboy hat high over her head in the other hand, with one leg kicked up, showing off a shapely calf.

  Burnt out, it looked desolate. Lit, it would probably look tacky.

  The windows were blacked out and caged in with rebar. No security guards stood at the front door, illuminated by a single pale light, but I’d be a fool to think nobody was paying attention to the entrance. The building wasn’t very big, and before I’d left for the military, it had still been a strip club, but it hadn’t looked so decrepit or lonesome.

  Hell, the damn place almost looked apocalyptic.

  I took off my helmet and hung it on the handlebars. Three motorcycles were parked in the lot. Each and every one of them was a black Harley with the face of what might have been a wolf painted on the gas tanks, jaws open wide, saliva dripping from bloodstained fangs. I walked through them and found keys in all the ignitions.

  One thing was certain, these guys didn’t have a single worry that someone might have the balls to steal their bikes.

  I pulled all three keys from the ignition and put them in the deep, zippered pocket of my pants. My military uniform might give them pause for a moment when I walked through the doors. If I was lucky, they might think I was a drunken vet looking for a place to get another drink. All I needed was a small advantage to get my foot in the door. After that, all bets were off.

  With their keys in my pocket, I approached the front door and didn’t bother trying to control where I put my feet. The asphalt shifted beneath every step I took as if taunting me, and when I made it to the front door, I paused to brace myself against the brick wall and get my bearings.

  Get it together, Jackson. If the bastard who killed my brother was on the other side of this door, I might not get another shot to end him. All I needed was a minute alone with him. Or thirty seconds.

  I’d take what I could get.

  The door swung open and a six-foot-something overweight beast of a man filled the doorway. He had a graying beard down to the middle of his chest that ended in a point, a black leather vest over his Harley Davidson T-shirt, and a chain hanging off his belt.

  “Get the fuck out of here,” he said with a raspy smoker’s voice. “God damn mess. You heard me. Fuck off, kid.”

  I pushed off the wall, swayed on the spot, and tried to smile at him. “I just need a drink, brother.”

  When I took a jolting step forward, he reached out to stop me with a hand on my chest. He pushed me, sending me stumbling back a few paces. I threw myself into it, having to force the drunkenness a little bit. Yes, I was still hammered, but having a target and someone to punish for my brother’s death had brought clarity. This big bastard was going down one way or another—he just didn’t know it yet.

  A voice hollered from inside the strip joint. “The fuck are you doing out there, Jim? Fuck him up and put him out on his ass. We don’t have all night!”

  Jim cracked thick fingers and rolled his neck. �
�Suits me.”

  I held up a hand. “Hold on, I don’t want any trouble.”

  “Well then you should’ve knocked on a different door.” Jim grinned. He stepped out of the doorway and I stretched to peer past him, getting a quick glimpse of a dark interior and a naked woman dancing under a disco ball on a small stage.

  I’d have preferred she wasn’t here to see this, but her presence wouldn’t deter me from my task.

  Jim rolled his shoulders. His steps were heavy as he approached. He shifted from side to side as he walked, his gut drooping over his jeans, rings flashing on his thick fingers. I knew I couldn’t risk letting him land a punch. He was a big man, far bigger than me, and a hit from him might put me down in one shot. I’d have to beat him to it. I doubted speed would be on his side, and it might not be on mine either because of all the booze, but it was the only shot I had.

  “All right, kid,” Jim mused, the twinkle in his eye suggesting he was itching for a fight, “I’ll take it easy on you, all right? You didn’t know whose door you knocked on and I can’t blame you for that. But we can’t have a guy like you showing up at this hour disrupting our business. You hear me?”

  I shook out my wrists and brought my fists up in front of my face.

  Jim chuckled. “Aww, now that’s cute as shit.”

  He wasn’t the only one itching for a fight. I flashed him a smile.

  His eagerness seemed to falter. Jim looked past me and his eyes widened with surprise. “Where’d you get that bike?”

  I didn’t have to look over my shoulder to know he’d just spotted William’s red Harley parked behind me. “I found it.”

  “Where?”

  “What’s it to you?” I asked.

  “My boss wants it.”

  Why? To cover his own ass? To repair the damage and hide the bullet holes in case the cops tried to use it against him in court?

  To keep it as a trophy in memory of his kill?

  My temper flared. “It’s not his to take.”

  Jim chuckled deeply. “Everything is his to take, kid. And that bike? I’ll be taking it off your hands when we’re done here. I could use a win tonight and that hunk of metal will buy me some favor.”

  “Your confidence is as big as your gut,” I taunted.

  Jim ceased his endless joint cracking and shoulder rolling. “The fuck did you say to me, you little prick?”

  “Stop talking and do something. You want the bike? Try to take it.”

  For a moment, Jim paused to assess the situation he’d walked into. His confidence seemed to waver, and he looked at my uniform as if seeing it for the first time and realizing that I might have more skill than he initially assumed. I was military, after all, and by default, trained.

  “Getting cold feet, big guy?” I asked.

  Jim growled, turned to the door, and stepped toward it.

  A laugh escaped me and I rushed him. He didn’t get to act the part of the tough guy and then turn around to call for help when his tiny brain caught up to the situation. He had to face the music.

  I hit him hard with two punches to his lower back, right on all the squishy stuff. He staggered, and I ducked under his arm when he turned to take a swing at me with teeth bared. His knuckles flew over my head and I came up in front of him, reaching out to grab the chain around his waist as I did. The chain strained but didn’t snap.

  Fuck.

  Jim regained his balance and seized the front of my jacket. He dragged me forward and wound back with his other hand. If I didn’t get out of this, the fight would be over before it even began.

  I ducked my head and lifted my arms out. In one fluid motion, I shrugged out of the jacket. Jim swung just as I dropped to a crouch, and all his fist connected with was empty fabric. He let out a furious roar of sound as I snapped open the clasp of the chain. I yanked hard, and the chain came free of the belt loops on his jeans.

  Jim took another swat at me. I didn’t get out of the way in time, and his fist collided with my left ear.

  Hissing in pain, I used the momentum of his swing and moved in behind him. Jim tried to turn, but his size slowed him down, and I gained the upper hand when I swung the chain around in front of him and caught it in my other hand. I pulled it in tight, bringing it closed around his throat and driving my knee into the small of his back.

  I brought him down to his knees. He gasped for breath and clawed at the chain tightening around his throat. Spittle formed in the corners of his mouth, white and foaming, and I gritted my teeth against the strain of fighting his strength as he tried to pull the chain away from his airway.

  The front door burst open. Men poured out and rushed me.

  Jim hacked and sputtered as I gave a hard yank and then released him. He pitched forward on the pavement, unconscious.

  The first man took me down around the waist. We landed hard. His head clipped the ground and I swung a leg around his hip to pull myself up on top of him. With the chain still in my hand, I coiled it around my knuckles, wound back, and drove my fist into his face three times in rapid succession.

  Blood sprayed, and he stilled.

  “Get him!” someone roared.

  They didn’t give me time to get to my feet. I took a boot to the back, right between my shoulders, and fell forward. Still, I held fast to the chain around my fist as I rolled, tucking my head in and coming up on one knee. Three men rushed me at once, so I didn’t have time to stand. I flung one end of the chain out like a whip, catching one of them close to his eye. He shrieked and clutched at his face just as the next man slammed into me.

  This time, I didn’t get the upper hand.

  He knocked me flat on my back on the pavement. I held my hands up and used my forearms to protect my face, but he drove his fists into my ribs. The pain was blinding, but so was my rage, and I lashed out with the chain. He caught it, yanked hard, and unraveled it.

  He struck me across the jaw. Little white dots exploded in my vision.

  “Kill him!” Jim gasped, having come to his senses.

  The men closed in around me.

  The one on top of me struck me again. I tried to keep my hands up, but my ears were ringing and my senses were askew. He got off me, drove his knee into my chest, and worked with one of the others to drag me up to my feet and hold me up between them while Jim, still red in the face and not recovered, staggered toward us.

  I spat blood in his face.

  “Who are you, you little fucker?” Jim wheezed.

  “I’m not here for you,” I managed with a swollen tongue. I must have bit it when I was hit. “I’m here for Bates.”

  The men grumbled, displeased by my answer.

  “Wrong answer,” Jim grated before stepping in close, seizing the front of my shirt, winding back, and punching me right across the cheek with force that knocked the sense right out of me.

  My knees buckled. The men holding my arms jerked me back up.

  Jim chuckled and adjusted his rings, now bloody on his fingers. “You made a mistake coming here, kid. You got fight in you. I’ll give you that. But part of being a good fighter is knowing which battles to walk away from. And this one? Well,” he cracked a vicious smile, flashing a gold tooth and plenty of plaque, “you ain’t walking away from this one, you little shit.”

  He struck me again.

  Their voices sounded far away as they laughed and held me up. Jim said something to them that my muddled brain couldn’t comprehend. My eyes closed of their own volition, and they shook me violently awake just as all of us were suddenly painted with bright white light.

  “Who the hell is that?” one of the men asked.

  I lifted my head and peered through blurry vision at a pickup truck as it came to a sliding stop in the parking lot. Four men hopped out of the bed. One got out of the passenger seat and rushed to my brother’s bike. He hopped on and started the ignition.

  Jim began barking out orders.

  Both of the men holding me up let me go. I crumpled to my knees and lifted my
head, trying to get a look at what was happening as my vision continued to darken around the edges and blood dripped from my mouth.

  Jim swore when guns were drawn on him and his men. The night went quiet, and the standoff held as I was helped to my feet and half carried to the truck. They threw me in the bed. The driver, still behind the wheel, looked over his shoulder through the open window.

  I blinked away the blurriness as a familiar face came into view. “Brody?”

  Brody, also known as Chips, was the Road Captain of the Devil’s Luck.

  He grinned like a demon. “Welcome home, Black Jack.”

  The voices of other men filled my senses as the stand off ended and other MC members climbed into the truck bed with me. Mason was there. Grant, too. I didn’t know who was on my brother’s bike but I heard them peel away before the truck pulled out of the lot and followed, leaving Jim and the others most likely rushing to their bikes to chase after us.

  “Step on it, Chips,” Mason hollered. “The fuckers will be right behind us.”

  On the edge of losing consciousness, I pulled the three motorcycle keys out of my pocket and jingled them as the truck rolled over busted-up pavement and jostled those of us in the bed around. “They’re not going to get very far,” I said.

  Behind the wheel, Brody roared with laughter. “Goddamn, I missed you.”

  Chapter 7

  Samantha

  Toes meowed from his perch near the window in my living room. His tail twitched and he watched me with big, amber eyes as I poured boiling water from my kettle into my coffee press.

  “Hold on,” I told him.

  He meowed in reply. I do not have patience, mother.

  I stirred the coffee grounds into the water and placed the top back on the coffee press. I set a five-minute timer and went to the window by Toes’s perch to open the blinds. Sunlight poured in and he turned to face it, twitching tail straight up in the air, eyes half-closed as he basked in the light and warmth of the late morning.