by A Parker
“See?” Samantha ran her hand along my cheek to guide my lips back to hers for more kisses. “You’re more than just a fighter. You’re a leader. Plain and simple. You’re the kind of man people want to follow. The kind of man people look to when they don’t know where to turn or what to do.”
She was romanticizing me, but I let her keep talking because her smile was so damn cute.
She nudged me in the ribs. “You lead the Devil’s Luck just like you led your men in Syria. You can make tough choices under pressure. You can hold your own and stand your ground even in the face of a worthy adversary.”
“Like Bates?”
“Like Bates,” she agreed. “Or me.”
I threw my head back and laughed, and she jabbed her fingers harder into my ribs.
“It’s not that funny. I’ve been told I can be pretty menacing when I’m mad, and you didn’t even bat an eye when I told you to pound sand.”
“That was supposed to scare me?”
“Shut up,” she said as humor danced in her eyes. “What I’m trying to say is that you don’t give yourself enough credit. Your men trust you and so do I, even if my fear makes it look like I doubt you. I want you to know that I don’t. Doubt you, I mean.”
I stared down at her as she stared evenly up at me.
“I mean it,” she said. “Leading is in your blood.”
The words tumbled out of me before I realized I’d even spoken. “Sometimes I wish it wasn’t.”
Sam reached up to run her fingers through my half inch of hair that had grown in since my last buzz cut. “I know,” she whispered.
Sometimes I wished I didn’t have to be this guy. A life of turning a blind eye to the bullshit would have been so much easier, and maybe more rewarding. I could have gotten a blue-collar job or sat behind a desk in a cubicle, and I could have made decent money to support a family. William could have had kids of his own, and we could have been the sort of family that got together on Sundays for barbeques in our backyards. Our wives could sip margaritas while the kids ran through a sprinkler in the yard, and William and I could have sat back in chairs, sipping beers, and talked about how much we wished we could buy a motorcycle.
Yeah, sometimes I wished I could be that guy. Samantha would have made a beautiful wife. I could see her in a yellow sundress sipping a red blended drink while a blonde toddler in a pull-up ran circles around her legs.
“Jackson?” Samantha traced her finger along my jaw.
I cleared my throat. “Sorry, I was lost in thought.”
“About?”
“What could have been,” I said.
Chapter 27
Samantha
Morgan poked her head into the kitchen and frowned when she saw me and all the other staff for the day gathered near the prep table. Amber was there too, wearing more makeup than usual and a new black skirt that showed off a few more inches of thigh than the old one.
It was funny watching my staff grow older and mature—or rather, attempt to mature. Amber was becoming a woman before my very eyes and it seemed so incredibly strange that a mere four years ago she was barely fifteen. She still had her braces on, but that was the only trace of adolescence left on her. In six more months, once she had them off, she would be one of the showstoppers in this town.
I had to hope for her sake that men like Walter Bates would be long gone by then.
“What’s everyone doing back here?” Morgan joined us around the prep table and pressed her palms to the aluminum surface before looking around at us. “Did someone get caught bringing their own garbage and throwing it in the dumpsters again?”
Amber rolled her eyes. “No, Morgan. Samantha called a staff meeting. Didn’t you notice that the restaurant isn’t even open?”
“Of course, I did,” Morgan snapped.
I sighed. “Ladies, let’s not get off track before the meeting even begins. We’re waiting on one more person and then we have to talk.”
My head chef folded his arms over his chest and watched me from beneath bushy gray eyebrows. “Did you sell the Well?”
Murmurs went around the table.
“No,” I said firmly.
More murmuring followed, and my chef shook his head. “You need to consider your options, Miss Lye,” he said. He’d called me Miss Lye for as long as he’d worked for me, and had only ever called me by my first name when my father was still alive. “Walter Bates isn’t going to up and change his mind because you said no one extra time. He wants this place.”
“That’s what we’re here to discuss,” I said.
My chef nodded with what seemed like approval.
How many times had they all talked just out of my earshot about Walter Bates, and what might happen to them and their careers if he obtained the Well out from under me? Did they wonder about their livelihoods? Did some of them think they might be able to keep their jobs here? Would they even want to?
Were they foolish enough to believe Bates wouldn’t turn this place into his own seedy stomping ground? Before long I had to imagine it would be just as foul as the Den, if not worse. The Well had a hell of a lot more space. Bates would be able to pack this place full of men loyal to his cause.
I could picture Caroline sitting near the stone fireplace with her black high heels kicked up on a table while she surveyed her future kingdom.
The last employee finally arrived for their afternoon shift and joined us in the kitchen. Everyone stared evenly at me while I decided how I wanted to have this conversation with them. It had been weighing heavily on my mind ever since Jim and Hitch shoved me into the back of their SUV and drove off with me.
What would have happened if Morgan was out there with me? Or Amber?
Would those foul men take them as collateral, too? Something told me they would. The lives or well-being of the young women would mean nothing to dogs like Bates and his men. I meant nothing to them. They only wanted what I had or what I could give them.
Correction: they wanted what they could take from me.
I sighed as I looked around at the room. Bates had men loyal to him, and I had staff loyal to me.
“I care about you all very much,” I started and was surprised by the way my throat immediately tightened as I looked around at their concerned faces. “You know this place is my home, and that it means a lot to me because of my family’s legacy here. But considering recent events, I think it’s time we close the doors and keep them locked for a little while.”
My chef nodded with satisfaction.
Amber cried out. “Wait! What? You want to close the Well? For how long? I thought you said you would never let Bates win! I thought you said he would have to claw this place out of your cold dead hands!”
Several heads nodded at the sentiment.
“I was talking out of my ass,” I told her. And of course, I had been. Back when it was all threats and bullshit with Bates, it was easy to put blinders on and pretend he couldn’t touch me. I was all bravery and guts then. Now? Not so much. I was willing to put my own neck on the line but not the necks of my family. “Things between Bates and I have escalated and it would be completely inappropriate for me to allow any of you to set foot in this business while things are so… tumultuous.”
Tumultuous seemed like a better, somewhat softer word for dangerous.
“I haven’t been taking this lightly.” I looked around the room and held the gazes of the people who I owed so much to. Without them, this business never would have survived. And without them I never would have survived, either. “It has taken a lot of thought for me to come to this conclusion but now that my mind has been made up, it can’t be changed. I can’t keep going ahead waiting for something bad to happen. If any of you get caught up in this mess, I’ll never be able to forgive myself.”
Morgan chewed the inside of her cheek. “I understand.”
Several people around the table nodded—line cooks, servers, bus boys, bartenders. In total there were eighteen of us that kept this place up an
d running.
Amber massaged her temples. “So none of us have jobs as of right now?”
It wasn’t easy to look her in the eyes, but I did. “Yes. None of you have jobs right now. But I’m going to lay you all off so you can collect unemployment benefits which will hopefully hold you over until we can reopen. I need you all to hear me when I say this, I have no intention of making this shutdown permanent. It is a temporary precaution until Walter Bates is under control.”
“Or dead,” someone muttered.
I almost smiled. “That too.”
One of my line cooks chimed in. “Can we help? What can we do to protect the Well?”
I sought out the kind-hearted twenty-year-old named Collin, who’d worked for me for about a year and a half. After graduating high school his parents had kicked him out of their house and told him to figure his shit out. He’d come to my bar and sat eating all he could afford, which was a small basket of fries, lamenting about his problems.
So I’d offered him a job and he’d never let me down.
“I appreciate your kindness,” I said, “but the best thing you can all do to help me is to stay away from me.”
Collin sighed and looked at his feet. “You deserve better than this, Sam. This is your home. It’s our home, too.”
More murmurs of agreement went around the kitchen, and I had a hard time looking at them now as my eyes burned and my throat ached.
“Thank you all,” I whispered. “You have always made me feel so safe here. When I lost my dad… well, you all know the toll it took on me. But you all helped me stay on my feet and we need to do that for each other again. We know how to move through hard things. That’s all this is. A new challenge. When it’s all said and done, we’ll come back together stronger, and maybe I’ll finally be able to put in those renovations I’ve been talking about.”
Morgan broke away from the group and gave me a hug. “We love you, boss.”
I hugged her fiercely back. “I love you guys, too.”
More of my staff crowded around until we were all huddled together like a rugby scrum, arms draped over backs, heads bowed together, foreheads touching, eyes closed.
I smiled as gratitude filled me up. Where would I be without these people? Who would I be?
Lost, I thought as Collin patted my back and Amber grinned around at the faces in the circle. Yes, I would be completely and utterly lost. This is the right decision. They have earned my love, so they deserve my protection, even if it is the hardest choice to make.
When our little huddle broke apart, our chef moved to the fridge and announced that he would prepare us a meal of champions while I signed layoff papers. Morgan hurried off behind the bar to whip up cocktails while Amber and Collin pulled chairs down from the largest table in the bar for all of us to sit around.
One last hurrah wouldn’t hurt anybody.
While we sat around sipping drinks and telling funny stories, I thought about my father and wondered what he would think about all this. In my gut I knew he would believe I made the right call. In fact, he probably would have done the very same thing, but he might have done it months or even years before I did. He’d tell me to stick to my guns, keep my chin up, and trust that things would work out.
And maybe they still could.
Jackson had a good shot to bring Walter to his knees and put an end to him. With me not working, maybe there would be a way I could help out. Sure, the Devil’s Luck made me a little uneasy, and I definitely felt like I didn’t belong with them or his sister, Susan, who seemed to hate my guts, but I had to do something with all this spare time that had fallen into my lap.
Didn’t I?
Chapter 28
Jackson
Hogey was at least sixty pounds heavier than he’d been when I burned his tattoo off, so watching him try to get his leg over the seat of his motorcycle was a sight to behold. The bike pulled toward him as he gripped the handlebars, and the outside of the tire bit into the gravel. Everything creaked and groaned as he hauled himself up and over and got his balance, the bike trapped between his thick legs, his belly pouring out from under his shirt to rest on the gas tank.
He straightened himself up a bit and flashed me a plaque-filled grin. “Feels good to be back in the saddle. Better than a bitch on her back and your cock inside her. I’ll tell ya that much.”
Mason, the only Devil’s Luck member I’d brought with me to ride back to Grant’s with Hogey in tow, grimaced. “What woman would ever let you fuck her?”
Hogey ground himself against the leather of his seat while he smirked. “Lucky ones.”
Mason shot me a side-eyed look. “I’m going to kill him.”
“Not until we’re done with him,” I said.
Hogey waddled his bike up between mine and Mason’s. He rode a small Harley that didn’t have much speed but sat low to the ground, a necessity for someone of his stature. The bike had no customization—everything was stock. It hadn’t been taken care of either. He’d left it outside too long and the burgundy paint had long since begun to fade. It probably ran rough and needed a decent tune up, too.
“Have you told your boys I’m coming back?” Hogey fished a flat tin can out of the front pocket of his leather vest. He wore it over a ripped-up old red T-shirt that smelled as bad as the rest of him. He unscrewed the lid. “Or are they all going to try to rip my head off when they see me?”
“You have my word, nobody will harm you,” I said.
That didn’t mean none of my boys would try. They hated Hogey for how he’d betrayed us and blew the twenty thousand dollars in casinos and on strippers and blow.
Mason leaned forward in his seat with a sneer. “Daddy can’t protect you the whole time,” he muttered. “Better watch your back when we get there, Hogey. I’m not the only one itching to bust up that ugly mug of yours.”
Hogey dragged his thumb through the tin, pulling up a decent amount of chewing tobacco. He pressed it inside his lower lip against his bottom teeth and smiled at Mason through it. “Daddy needs me. Doesn’t he?”
I rolled my eyes at the pair of them. “If either of you refers to me as daddy again, I’ll crack your skulls together and put you both out of your misery. Deal?”
Hogey worked away on his chew while Mason’s bike roared to life. He was the first to leave and lead the way to Grant’s. Hogey rode between us and I brought up the rear to keep an eye on him. He swerved all over the road with his ass crack hanging out the whole time, and I cursed my lack of foresight.
I should have made Mason bring up the rear and deal with the view.
The ride was longer than it should have been because Hogey was useless on his bike. He took corners too damn slow and nearly tipped over. He never accelerated hard enough and he braked too early. By the time we pulled up in front of Grant’s, a whole forty-five minutes had passed since we left the storage facility.
Hogey got off his bike massaging his ass and complaining about aches and pains. “I need a bump,” he grumbled before searching his jean pockets for something to put up his nose.
Mason grabbed him by the back of his shirt and shoved him toward the gate on the side of the house. “For once in your miserable life, stay sober. You can get high when we’re finished.”
“I think better when I’ve got the good shit in my veins,” Hogey complained.
“So you think.”
I unlatched the gate and we moved into the backyard. Our boots crunched over the gravel in front of the shop and alerted the boys on the back deck that we’d returned. I’d told them Mason and I had an errand to run and that there would be business to discuss when we got back, but I hadn’t told them that we’d gone to collect Hogey, or as some of the men referred to him, Rat.
Tex spotted Hogey first. He moved to the edge of the railing and shielded his eyes from the sun. “What the fuck is that shit-stain doing here, boss?”
Hogey’s steps slowed, so I put a hand in his back and shoved him forward.
“Keep walki
ng,” I growled.
More of the men gathered at the railing with Tex and muttering broke out. Mason kept his head down in shame. He’d wanted no part of this shit.
But our hands were tied.
Hogey, damn him and his wretchedness, waved like a gleeful child and smiled through his chew. “Hey, fellas! Long time no see! Looking good, Snake. You too, Tex. Y’all clean up real good. Hold the fuck up.” He stopped walking and I nearly walked right into his back. Hogey rubbed his hands together. “Black Jack, you never told me Suzie was all grown up now.”
And that was as far as he got onto the property before Mason broke his nose.
I didn’t see it coming. One minute, my sister’s name is on Hogey’s lips, and the next, Mason had reeled back around, fist raised, and driven his knuckles right into Hogey’s face. Hogey shrieked and staggered back, cupping his hands to his bleeding nose, and wheezed my name.
“Black Jack, you gave me your word nobody would harm me!”
I took a fistful of the back of his shirt and began dragging him to the porch. “You shouldn’t have looked at my baby sister, then.”
Mason shook his hand out and followed. “Don’t even fucking look at her, Rat,” he spat. “Say one more thing about her and I’ll break more than your fucking nose.”
Hogey stumbled up the steps and the men gave him a wide berth, either because they didn’t trust him or they could smell him.
Chips spoke for the group as everyone stared. “What the hell is he doing here, Jackson? He’s a traitor.”
“He’s scum,” Tex added venomously.
“Dogshit on the sole of your boot,” Snake added.
Susan, hovering behind the others, snorted. “Please tell me he’s not part of your plan, Jackson.”
All heads turned to her and back to me.
Hogey gave them all a shit-eating grin. “Lady and gents, I’ll have you know, I’m not as useless as you all seem to think I am. You know who gave Black Jack the intel on Caroline Bates? That’s right, it was me. And I gave good intel. So maybe you should all show me a little respect, huh?”