by A. E. Fisher
“You’re Lizard?” The words blurted out of my mouth.
“Don’t sound so surprised.” He gave a weak laugh. The shrug of a smile he granted didn’t reach his eyes.
My surprise, however, was warranted as I looked at his face. He was a kid, barely older than eighteen or nineteen. His face still had zits on it! And here he was, dealing me shady information on a powerful opponent.
“You sounded older on the phone,” I said, looking down at the cell phone in my hands, wondering how I misjudged him so much. His voice was so crackly and worn, like an aged smoker, that I didn’t even consider he could be this young.
“Yeah, well, life’s a bitch, ain’t it.” Lizard shrugged, his voice filled with the devil-may-care attitude. “Now, quit with the small talk. It’s dangerous enough for me to be out here. Where’s the cash?”
I reached into my purse, pulling out the brown envelope filled with five thousand—a small price to pay for some big information in my books. I wasn’t even sure if he really understood how valuable this information was.
Lizard carefully counted the money, making sure the whole five thousand was there. I saw him pause and frown as he counted, struggling with the math.
When he finished counting, satisfied with the amount, he pocketed the cash in his back pocket and came closer. I hid my disgust at his smell and focused on his words.
“I told you on the phone about his investments,” he said, looking at me for confirmation.
“Yeah, some empty lots and real estates,” I answered, and he nodded.
“Well, shit’s actually way worse than that,” Lizard continued, reaching into his other pocket and pulling out a crudely rolled cigarette and what looked like an already used filter. He patted himself before looking to me. “You got a light?”
I pulled out the lighter I always kept on hand just in case I wanted to ever follow through with burning Wolf’s hair off and handed it over. He lit his cigarette and pocketed my lighter, but I didn’t say anything; I just waited for him to continue.
“He’s been taking over businesses; even some other MC clubs have been receiving offers from him, but from what I heard, they’re too cautious about the Grim Reaper’s stakes in the area to take them, though a few smaller clubs have come under his wings. He’s also been buying up all the empty factories and warehouses over in the industrial district. You know that one a few miles from here?”
I nodded; I knew the place. I knew Wolf also had a few businesses there, just small-time producers, one of the few legitimate investments belonging to the club.
“And?” I pushed.
“And he’s even got politicians in his pocket. Got word that he’s looking for something, and the Black Angels are key to getting it, whatever the fuck that means. But if I were you, I’d watch your back. Bastard seems to have bottomless pockets, and money can get you a great deal in this world.”
I didn’t like how many of Lizard’s claims came from word of mouth, but with how sneaky our enemy was being, it was difficult to think that there’d be a way to find any more solid information on him. “But what’s this thing he’s looking for?” I said.
Lizard was about to open his mouth when the sound of screeching tires filled our ears. The light coming in from the street was cut off and the door was opened with people jumping out the side of the van before I could even think to move.
Everything happened so fast, it was like a blur as guns were raised and the suppressed sound of gunfire echoed in the cramped alleyway. I looked to Lizard and watched as several red patches bled through the thick hoodie and his body crumbled to the ground.
I didn’t think twice about him as I whirled behind the trash containers for cover. A rain of bullets flew in my direction; the sound of them chewing through the metal to the other side of the bin drilled into my ears. I fumbled for my boot, my fingers finding the hole that acted as a handle before pulling out the blade. The handle was formed by four holes that worked as a secondary knuckle duster, but the end was a blade, and I fed my fingers into the holes just as someone stepped out in front of me.
Cold metal pressed against my forehead, and I looked up to see a man standing above me. His face was covered in a balaclava; only his dark eyes peered through. I recognized the stance and the all-black clothing choice and weapons as mercenary wear and knew immediately who these guys belonged to.
Just as I saw his eyes crinkle with smugness, thinking he’d caught me, I pressed the knife a little harder into the material. His eyes widened and dropped down as he looked to where my hand was pressing the blade hard against his crotch. The material was thinner in this area, and I read the regretful mistake in his eyes.
“Want to see whose reflexes are faster?” I growled, my eyes daring his trigger finger to even flinch. I had too much will to back down and refused to lose to a cowardly, shameful bastard like this. I pressed the blade harder and caused a tear in the material. “I don’t hesitate.”
“Come on!” a voice at the other end of the alley yelled. “Leave her! Let’s go!”
I watched the battle in his eyes, reading his bloodthirsty want to kill me. The voice, a female one, I realized this time, yelled again, and the battle ended. He pocketed his weapon and stepped back, keeping his eyes trained carefully on me until he was just out of my reaching distance before he turned and ran back to the van.
He jumped in the back; then the van door closed and it screeched away.
I allowed myself a soft breath of relief, but an overlapping gasp from ahead of me had my heart racing hard. I slid my knife back into the edge of my boot, concealing it back in its place in the leather, and scrambled out of my hiding place.
My run stuttered as my eyes washed over the pool of blood bleeding into the gaps of the concrete and the upturned face of Lizard as he struggled to gasp for air. His voice gargled and blood spluttered up from his mouth. I ran to him, dropping my knees into the blood and fighting the shiver at the warmth of it absorbing into my jeans as I lifted his head and placed it on my lap.
“Shit!” I hissed, my hand pressing against one of the open bullet wounds, trying to stop it. But there were too many. He was riddled with holes that poured blood. I couldn’t understand how he hadn’t died already. When I heard a wheezed breath, I looked down to his face.
He had a few scars here and there, and despite his eyes looking aged beyond his years, I could see the child still in him. I saw his panic as he struggled to breathe. I saw the confusion as he wondered why there was liquid filling up his throat. I saw the moment of comprehension when he knew he would die.
Images too close to the surface threw themselves before me, but I shoved them down before they could catch me, choosing to focus on this boy here and now growing lifeless in my arms. I refused to look away from his eyes, whispering things over and over again to reassure him. I wouldn’t be able to remember what I said. I seemed to drown in the numbness anchoring me inside my own head, where no thoughts could comprehend what was happening. There was just this raw, painful emotion that made me feel heavy and filled to the brink of bursting.
But I didn’t think about it. I just watched as the surreal image of this boy dissolved into nothing. His shaking limbs lost their strength and settled beside him. His chest, shivering and desperately reaching for breath, slowed to stillness. His quivering mouth relaxed. And unlike in the movies, his eyes were open as his life left them. He was looking up at me, and that’s where they remained. In them, I saw a reflection of my face, where not even a single tear had dropped.
If the eyes captured their last look on life, his would contain an image of a woman who didn’t even cry while a kid died in her arms. And knowing that look in the world he grew up in, he’d realized that he wasn’t the first person I’d watched die.
Chapter Five
Wolf
The tread on my wheels were nearly gone by the time I tore up turf outside the dilapidated diner. Its sign was hanging on by only one or two screws, looking like it was about to fall off at
any moment. I pulled up under it anyway, seeing the other bikes already parked up outside the building, and hauled my ass around the side of the diner where I saw my men gathered.
Blue and red lights painted them with stern faces as they talked to some of the officers. I moved over to where Lamb stood, more than likely having finished gathering the information. He leaned up against one of the walls where you’d usually see a man smoking a cigarette. Lamb didn’t smoke, however, and instead, his eyes were going over everything and anything.
I looked down to the black body bag on the ground and the red bloodstains dried on the concrete. Lamb frowned, and when he saw me coming up to him, his frown only deepened.
Before I said anything, though, Lamb just pointed his gaze over to an ambulance in the midst of the cop cars. It had its back doors open and police and a paramedic surrounded the girl sitting on the steps. She had a blanket wrapped around her, keeping it draped loosely over her shoulders. Her head perked up in my direction, and when her eyes met mine, they only held them for a second before looking down and away.
“Fuck this shit,” I growled, looking back to Lamb. “Is everything covered?”
“It’s already sorted. They didn’t find a weapon on Anna and there are other witnesses placing the van and the gunfire on the street during the time of the attack. They’re ruling it a mugging. Anna has no guilt to bear in this.”
“At least we don’t have blues on our tail. What I’m more concerned about is whose fucking territory this is,” I growled, running a hand through my hair.
“I think we’re about to see to that,” Lamb said just as I heard the roar of bike engines race up the street. I stood with my shoulders squared and watched carefully as the Hell’s Runners’ bikes pulled up outside the diner. The blues looked up from what they were doing, but upon seeing the Runner’s cuts, they quickly went back to their business.
I felt the presence of my brothers sweep up behind me. Jax wasn’t among them, but I had an idea where he went as the rest of us faced the arriving club.
I recognized Chains as he pulled up in the front. He pulled off his helmet and glasses, and it still stunned me to this day how much he looked like Noble. He was the spitting image of my old sergeant at arms. The same blond hair and broad build. His hair was cut short, however, almost right to the skin compared to the long mutt that Noble had grown.
I felt Hunter stiffen beside me, a tense air beginning to rise as he looked at his half brother. Noble and Hunter had been full brothers by blood, and in the aftermath of Noble’s death, Chains had been revealed as his half brother. Hunter still couldn’t stand Chains, but I, on the other hand, had once worked with him in order to help him cut loose a few troublesome brothers from his club. Despite that, he had chosen to go to the Grim Reapers instead and was now under their thumb.
“Wolf,” Chains greeted, his voice a deep baritone as he walked up to me. By the sound of it, he had been smoking more. Fucking over your club would do that to you.
“Chains,” I returned. “You look like shit.”
“I’m not here for small talk, Wolf,” he responded, his two sidekicks coming up at his rear. Neither of them wore the V.P. badge, which was all I needed to confirm that he still hadn’t chosen one. The boy was leaving himself open without one. “What’s your club lawyer doing causing shit on our territory?”
“She wasn’t causing shit,” I responded. “Shit just happened. It was a mugging.”
“Don’t try to bullshit me, Wolf,” Chains growled, obviously not liking my ignorant attitude. He’d best be careful where he put his boots because I was on a fine line with what just happened, and with every passing second, it was getting slimmer and slimmer.
Chains looked past me to where the body was lying in the middle of the alley. “A mugging where your lawyer happened to be standing next to Lizard? One of the Grim’s informants? Seems highly unlikely, if you ask me.”
“It’s unlikely to be hit by lightning. That shit still happens.” I was fed up with this tedious argument before Chains and his goons showed up and couldn’t be bothered to parry with a baby-face president-in-name-only like Chains. “If you’re here because your big boss’s informant got killed, then go deal with that shit yourselves, since it wasn’t our girl who did it. Now, I’m fucking fed up with this shit, and I don’t have any more time to deal with you. We done here?”
“I ain’t going to start a turf war with this bastard lurking around the west coast. I know Charon keeps approaching you, but this area isn’t run by the Grim Reaper’s, Wolf. It’s run by me. I get the final say on shit,” Chains said, his hands unconsciously pulling on the jacket that held his presidential patch. “I worked too hard for this club to have it destroyed by a turf war. That’s the reason I’m letting you go. Got it?”
I looked him up and down and heard the will in his voice. I’d figured it would have died out after being unmanned by the Grim’s takeover, but it seemed to have survived. Whatever plans Chain’s had, they didn’t end with ridding his club of troublesome members, nor taking the pseudo president’s seat. I had a feeling the Grims were going to have their hands full with him.
With one last glance at the man, I turned without answering and walked away, the action a symbol in itself.
My men fell in line behind me, Hunter being the fastest to turn away without looking back, and we made our way back over to the bikes.
The Runner’s watched as our boys saddled up and Jax walked back over with Anna. She stood quietly beside him, tucked under his arm. Her face was looking up, but it was cold and distant as she looked at the boys. They all made soft gestures toward her, but that was all.
Jax brought her to me, and I slid off my jacket and pulled it around her. Blood was evident on her clothes, but we didn’t talk about it as she slid her arms into the sleeves and waited as I sat down on my bike before she slid on behind me. Her arms came around my waist and held tight as I fired up the engine and turned out of the old diner’s parking lot before hitting the road out of town.
I hit the gas and left Chain’s town behind as we made our way back to Fellpeak.
I felt the wind whip across my face, the humid air cool and moist as my tires raced across the pavement. The only protection was the heat wrapped around my back and the arms tight across my wide chest as they failed to meet around my width.
Anna was silent behind me, and despite our speed and the loud rush of the wind beside us, she’d usually be giving me as much mouth and sass as she had the day I met her. My mind struggled to think too far beyond anything except her silence, too worried to let my emotions take off during a ride back with my brothers behind me and Anna on my back.
Instead, the memory of the day I met Anna resurfaced, and my thoughts were subdued by the sound of girls, brothers, and music from over three years ago.
“Oi, asshole.”
My hands had paused on Soul’s hips, her white hair flipping over her shoulder as she’d turned to the sound of the voice.
I’d almost looked straight at her, the small, only just five-foot woman with the full rack that stood behind me. Baby blue eyes narrowed in a harsh glare, short, spiky blonde hair styled in a way that clashed hard with the two-piece dress suit she was wearing. She looked familiar somehow, but then again, I’d fucked a lot of girls.
“I think you’re in the wrong place, myshka,” I growled, wanting to get back to the skinny, twenty-something girl practically whining to take my dick.
“I don’t think so,” she growled back, undeterred by my cold welcome, her eyebrow rising as she jabbed her finger over her shoulder to where the door was. “You’re the new president, right? I heard you’re looking for a lawyer.”
“Yeah?” I sighed, my once appreciative gaze of her curvy figure now turning into a flat glare. “You here to give a suggestion.”
“Yep,” she popped, her red lips raking over each other. “You’re looking at her.”
I scoffed, my flat mouth turning into a smirk as I looked at the confidence
radiating from her baby blue eyes. She was serious. “Babe,” I chuckled, pushing Soul off my lap as I rose from my seat. My height dwarfed her tiny size, even more so than I’d thought, and as my shadow loomed over her, I only saw her glare harden on me. Her reaction to what I said next made sure her eyes weren’t the only thing to harden. “Ain’t no woman going to be a club lawyer, babe. If you wanna play with the big boys, then try parking that ass on my lap, and we’ll play.”
The girl's hand lunged faster and higher than her reach, wrapping around the collar of my shirt and dragging my tall height down to her level as she shoved her lips against mine. Her red lips forced mine open, her tongue tangling with mine, doing a thing with her tongue that sent shivers down to my dick, making it rise to attention. Heat stirred inside me as I decided it was my turn, but I never got a chance. A sharp sting radiated down my lip as my mouth swelled with the metallic taste of blood.
The blonde pulled back, her tongue running along her lips as, without letting her eyes leave mine, she said, “I play dirty, you fat bastard, and I let no man tell me what to do. So you’re going to hire me as your lawyer, and you're going to take it with a bucket of salt before I unman you in front of all your boys.”
I had no idea what she meant until I felt the thin prick of the tiny blade against the bulge of my jeans. “You’re playing a dangerous game here, girl,” I growled.
“It’s Anna.” She smirked. “Remember it this time.”
With that, she tucked the little blade back into whatever crevice it came from, turned, and began to sashay away, leaving me standing there, curious bastards staring at me from all around, listening to the sound of those red boots clicking to the throb of my dick as I watched her round ass walk toward the door.
“Hey, bitch,” I yelled, a little annoyance rising as my brain caught up, causing her to stop in the doorway. “I haven’t accepted your deal yet.”
She turned so slowly that her saccharine smile and lethal baby blue eyes stayed long on my face when she purred, “You’ll come to me soon enough, big boy.”