by Vivian Gray
At the club, when he parked the car, Bree got out before he did. She tossed her backpack over her shoulder and went into the club. The day was wearing on, and the main room was getting prepped for opening. He expected her to head up the stairs to the apartment, but instead, she detoured over to the kitchen. Caroline was there, prepping, and Jet heard Bree talking to her. Caroline laughed, and Bree did too. That was his girl. She got along with everyone, easy and fun and fine.
Except for that girl, Cat. He’d seen her hanging around every now and then, even after she and Bree had – whatever that was. A falling out seemed way too mild, but there hadn’t been any real exchange of hostilities after that first encounter. But Cat had been hanging around with some of the more fringe guys who came around the club, the ones who weren’t affiliated with the Choppers. They were too rough or too dirty or just not the right sorts of guys for a club that more or less tried to be halfway decent in the world.
More than once, he’d heard about her making moves to get close to either Red Runners, or specifically to Kane. He didn’t like that at all; if she’d been close to Bree, God knew what kind of information she could share. But it wasn’t like he had much of a choice, or could reasonably tell her to stay away, or for Kane to stay away from her.
There wasn’t anything he could do but wait. Much like there was nothing he could do to talk to Bree except wait for her to be done with the conversation she was having. Sure, he could go storming in there and thump her over the head before dragging her upstairs. But that wasn’t a long-term way to solve problems, no matter how tempting it might be.
When Bree came out of the kitchen, she seemed surprised that he was still standing there. She didn’t exactly roll her eyes, but he’d never seen such a snappy look on her face before. She hitched her backpack up a little higher and walked past him towards the stairs, her chin high. He followed her; the anger and tension in him weren’t lightening up at all.
“Bree,” he said quietly, but she shrugged him off and kept going. Well, that was a choice.
She walked up the stairs to the apartment, and he found himself with a visceral memory of the first time they’d walked up those stairs, and he’d been able to see almost all the way up her skirt. He’d had no idea what he was in for then. He still didn’t really have a clue.
She had to stop when she got to the apartment door. He’d gotten her a key, but she usually kept her keys in her backpack when she went to school. Apparently, she wasn’t pissed enough to start awkwardly rooting through her pack in front of him. He unlocked the door, keeping his gaze firmly on her. She didn’t meet his at all.
When the door was open, she moved past him again, keeping herself from touching him anywhere, and dropped her pack on the floor near the couch. She stood very still then, and he saw a small shake starting in her shoulders.
He knew what he was seeing; the stress of the afternoon finally settling into her system. She felt safe now, and her body could let go. He’d felt it himself on the rare occasions he’d needed to take a life; he’d seen it in plenty of his men. The part of him that was a boyfriend wanted to go and wrap her up in his arms until she felt better, but the part of him that was a leader knew better. Everyone reacted to this differently; she might crave the physical comfort, or it might make things worse for her.
He moved around her slowly, making sure he made just a little bit of noise, until he was in her visual range.
“Bree,” he said again, keeping his voice soft. He spread his hands out at his sides like he was trying to approach a frightened animal.
She looked at him then, finally, and tears were shimmering in her eyes. “Why did you do that?”
That was not the question he’d expected. “What?”
“That house. That – that life. Why did you show me that?”
“That life?”
She made an angry, scoffing sound. “The life where two normal people live, and have a little vegetable garden, and have normal jobs with normal kids and just – that. Why would you do that?”
“I thought—” Jet was painfully off guard, and he didn’t like that at all. He forced himself back into the anger and out of the fear. “This place is too small for a baby. I thought a house like that would be good for—” He tried to say it, and couldn’t. “You and a baby would be happy there. And if you wanted me there – I could come by.” Fucking coward.
She knew it, and she made that angry sound again. “So that’s what this is about. Just another attempt to get rid of me.”
“No!” She flinched away from him, and Jet forced himself to reel in his anger in just a little bit. Balance. He had to get balanced again. “I don’t want to get rid of you, Bree. But you don’t want this life. I know you don’t. You want to go to school and get your degree and have a regular life. I want you to have that. I’m going to be there for the baby, and for you whenever you want me, but I don’t want you to be beholden to me.”
She shook her head, her hand covering her mouth. At first, he thought she was trying not to cry, but when her fingers shifted, he could see that she was wearing the kind of laugh that only comes from being really and truly furious.
“Are we still doing this? What do I have to do to convince you that I want this? You, the baby, all of this?”
“It’s not enough,” he shouted back. He put up his hand when she tried to respond, and she subsided. “I’m not talking about me, okay? But just wanting me, wanting the baby, wanting to be with me? There has to be more than that.”
“Well, why didn’t you ever ask me?” She put her hands on her hips, and the way her angry arms framed her swollen belly just about undid him. She looked like every stereotype of an angry pregnant woman he’d ever seen. “Why did you just assume that you knew better than I did?”
He forced himself to breathe. “I’m trying to do the right thing here.”
“Great. You didn’t. Why did you do that?”
“Look,” he said, trying to keep his voice quiet and losing the battle, “I don’t know what you want. Beyond what you said.”
She looked to the side, and all the steel vanished out of her. “I don’t know, okay? I have no idea what I want, or what would be right for us. I had this plan, and this wasn’t part of it, and now I don’t have a damn idea what to do.”
He bit back the angry curse yet again. “So is it so bad that I tried to show you an option?”
“Not if you’d told me that’s what you were doing!” She was back to yelling again, and he was about out of patience with the whole conversation. No one yelled at him like this, absolutely no one. At least, no one he wasn’t about to either punch or throw out of his club. “I thought you were – shoving me off, or trying to show me what you wanted, or anything else. You needed to tell me what you wanted. Or what was happening.”
“If I had told you what was happening, then you wouldn’t have come along.”
“And that would have been my choice!”
His temper snapped. He managed to keep the anger internal, but he shook his head hard. “Bree. I’m going downstairs. I have a thief to find, a business to run, and a life to figure out. I’ll be back later, and we’ll talk, but I am done with this conversation right now. You stay up here tonight. Do your homework or whatever you have on your plate. I’m—” She looked like she’d been smacked across the face, and he hated that, but he didn’t have the space to care about it from an emotional place. “I need some space tonight.”
He moved past her without looking at her again. If he looked at her, either the anger or the fear would take over, and he didn’t really have leeway for either one right now.
He wasn’t running away. He wouldn’t run away from a woman. That was absurd. He’d faced down endless men with guns, people who wanted his life. A woman who wanted him to care wasn’t a threat.
Except for when she was.
Downstairs, everything was flowing smoothly. Really, there was no need for him to be here. He’d worked hard to make sure that the club was moving
pieces that just needed his overall presence. But he needed to not be up there.
This sort of conversation was half of why he’d never bothered to try and make relationships work. There was all this back and forth, this... He couldn’t even put it into words why this was so hard. He could talk anyone into anything, but explaining himself to a woman – he cared about – was more than he could handle.
He went around, checking on the various things happening, trying not to be that boss who shows up and makes everything harder to do. He pitched in where he was needed – flipping down chairs, polishing glasses, bringing out bottles and supplies to replenish the bar. He tried to grin and be friendly, but it was really clear that no one was buying it. There was no way he and Bree had been shouting loud enough to be heard down here... was there?
When the DJ had made sure the sound system was right for her needs, the waitstaff was ready to do their thing, Caroline had the kitchen primed and ready, and the night bartender was stocked and ready, the doors opened. By then, Jet had found his way to his booth, trying to relax as he studied the crowd assembling in his club for the night.
He recognized so many people, but he would have struggled to put names to faces. They were just the regulars. The people who came here to forget, or to dance, or to drink, or to do several at once. The club was a place for hookups and a place to buy company for the night, but it was more than that. It was a sense of loyalty and a belief that the night was for indulgence.
He’d worked hard to build the War Choppers as a powerful organization within the community, but this was more than that. He’d worked harder to make the club what it was. There were so many bars in the area that weren’t safe. Not for men, and certainly not for women. Jet had wanted this place to be somewhere women could dance without worrying that they would be hurt.
He’d spent years building that, and then the girl he cared about was assaulted at her goddamn school.
He could recognize that this was a huge part of the boiling rage inside his head today. It wasn’t just about Bree not being excited about the house. He’d been more interested in it than he’d let on, but he couldn’t really expect her to just know that. But Kane had touched her. Kane had hurt her.
He wanted to feel Kane’s face breaking on his fist.
Going hunting for Kane just to beat the guy to a pulp wasn’t a great plan. A good one, sure, but not a great one. For one thing, Jet was still too angry. He’d find the man and go charging into the situation fist first. That wasn’t a strategy that led to long-term survival. He had no idea where Kane was likely to be, where Kane was likely to be alone, or if there were Choppers who would be willing to back him on a play like this.
Two leaders of two rival clubs – no matter how low-key the public rivalry – having a knock-down drag-out brawl would be the start of a turf war. He was still sure that Kane was playing some sort of long game, but to take that apart properly, he had to know what it was. Bree said the money was impossible to trace, so they’d put a few men out to watch Kane and other high profile Runners; so far, nothing in particular had been uncovered. He believed his men would do their jobs in the end, but that didn’t mean that it would happen soon.
Trisha kept the whiskey flowing, but her eyes were tight tonight. He asked if she was okay, and she just shook her head. Likely she’d overheard the fight then, somehow. She was hard on Bree’s side, and she had been since the day Bree found out she was pregnant. There was some part of him that was still just a little upset that Trish had known before he did, but he could understand it. A girl needed her girls in a situation like that.
The edges of his anger had been softened with whiskey before he let himself think of the house.
Before he’d gone to pick up Bree, he’d thought about stopping by some department store and getting the kind of clothes he hadn’t worn in years. Slacks, a button-down shirt. What would it have been like to walk into that house like a regular married couple looking for a new house before their baby was born?
He hadn’t done it, but he’d thought about it for a long time. The realtor had very politely not seemed to notice the patches on his jacket, but she must have. A realtor had to notice all those little details to make sure that she was recommending the right things to the right clients.
He’d considered putting a deposit down on the place and then taking Bree there to tell her to start picking out decorating things. At least he hadn’t done that. Goddamn, what a mess.
Why hadn’t she liked the house? She’d talked a little bit about how she’d grown up, her parents fighting all the time, not having enough money. He’d thought that she’d feel good, knowing that her baby would grow up in a nice house, safe and secure. The listing had even said that the local schools were really good.
But then, what had he really said about the house? He’d just brought her there. She was right; he’d never considered how that would feel. Especially after the encounter with Kane; it could have felt like he was just trying to stuff her in a box.
For the first time, he felt bad about what he’d done.
Before Jet had the time to descend too far into that guilt, however, he heard a commotion by the door. He looked up to see what was happening; there were too many people in the way. He glanced over at the bar. East had a better view, and East caught his eye and nodded. Jet hit his feet without another thought.
The crowd parted for him as if people had been waiting for him to get on the move. As he got closer to the door, he felt that same rage rising through him; it was Kane at the door, flanked with half a dozen Runners. They were all wearing their patched leather, which was a rude start; wearing your kutte in another territory was an invitation to a fight. But more importantly, after what had happened earlier in the day, Jet couldn’t think of a way to interpret Kane’s presence other than as a direct threat.
He didn’t bother to start with politeness. “What the hell do you think you’re doing here?”
Kane’s ugly face was split into a wide grin. He had a bruise from earlier, but nothing like the mess he deserved. “Last I knew, you accepted all paying customers. My money’s good here. Isn’t it?”
The sneer was all the confirmation Jet would ever need that Kane was behind the theft. It wasn’t proof that would hold up in a court of law, but he wasn’t a lawyer. Didn’t intend to be, not ever in his life. It was enough for him.
“You’re not welcome here, you son of a bitch. Not you, not any of these bastards.” It took a moment to decide what to do; what had happened today was Bree’s story, not his, and he didn’t have a right to take that away from her. But he also didn’t want Kane confused for a second about why Jet was going to defend his space. “Not after what you did today.”
He didn’t expect Kane to respond well, but the big belly laugh he released was unexpected. “What, did she expect me to pay her like you do?”
Jet could have pretended that he didn’t know he was going to hit Kane until his fist struck flesh, but that was just ridiculous. He felt his hand close up, felt his arm draw back, felt his body step in just close enough to have maximum force when he connected. Kane saw it coming and tried to block, but he was nothing like fast enough.
As his fist connected, Jet felt the crunch of Kane’s nose breaking; with the follow through, Kane stumbled back. He fell into several of the Runners who were circled around him; one stumbled back farther, another managed to catch him and keep him on his feet. Blood spilled from his nose. There was one long moment where Kane seemed to take in that he’d been hit, and then he launched himself at Jet with a roar.
Jet tried to dodge the blow, but this time he was too slow. He managed to get out of the way of the haymaker, so he didn’t land on his ass, but in trying to duck out of the way, he missed the jab coming in to slap into his ribs. He did his best to go with the blow and minimize the impact, but he was too far off balance to do it effectively.
He pulled Kane in close and landed two heavy hits to the other man’s ribs, but Kane clearly wasn’t in
a mood to fight clean. He caught Jet’s shirt and shoved him back, then yanked down, trying to take Jet’s face into his knee. Jet managed to pull back from that and then yank Kane’s foot out from under him, dropping him flat on his back. Before Kane could move, Jet dropped a boot onto Kane’s chest, pinning him down. Kane tried to buck his legs, but he didn’t have enough leverage to get up.
Jet heard the sound of hammers clicking back, but he didn’t look up. The club was full of his men, and they would handle whatever the Runners were trying to throw down. His focus was entirely on Kane. On the savagery the man was trying to spread.
“I’m tired of repeating myself, Kane,” Jet said. “We’ve had conversations like this before. You hurt people. You hurt women and kids, and you’ve been warned off. We’re done now. There are no more warnings. You touched what’s mine. You hurt my girl. You’re lucky my boot isn’t on your throat, do you understand me?” He pressed his boot harder into Kane’s sternum; the other man made a low sound that Jet interpreted as a signal of agreement. He didn’t have any proof that this was true, but he tried to take it under faith.