by A. C. Bextor
“You’re here because you need to be?” Toby repeats, clearly confused. “People are worried, Mia. Father Marx, Mrs. Henley, Judy, and David. Everyone.”
“Swear to Christ, if you don’t turn your ass around and find your way outta my club—” Elevent fumes.
“He’s touching you,” Toby finally observes, casually pointing to Elevent’s hand, and stupidly ignoring the impending threat.
“Toby—”
“You’re letting him touch you,” he says next, his tone hurtful and accusing.
“Smart one here,” Leglas snidely puts in.
Taking two steps again in my direction, Toby snaps, “Get his hands off you!”
“Stand down,” comes from Leglas.
“This isn’t your business,” Toby bites out.
“Stand down or I’ll take you down,” Leglas threatens.
Toby pays no mind. He takes another step toward me saying, “Seriously, honey. What are you—”
Leglas acts quickly. In two brutal, quick moves, Toby is taken down.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Toby screams. “Get off me!”
Advay, ready to intercede, stands, walks his way to Toby’s side, and then sneers. His long black hair falls around his face as he bends to a knee and holds Toby’s face to the ground.
Shit.
Toby’s left cheek is to the floor, and Leglas holds his wrists together at his back. “You Mexican piece of shit,” Toby screams. “Don’t you touch me!”
Leglas snarls and using the collar of Advay’s cut, he pulls him out of the way. Calves to ass, Leglas leans in close to Toby’s face and grabs a fistful of his hair. “He’s Indian, motherfucker.”
“Kiss my ass,” Toby spits.
Leglas pushes his face further to the floor and Toby whimpers in pain. “I should let him scalp you, but your pansy-ass blood wouldn’t be worth its mess.”
Fearing what Leglas will say or will do next; I jump to start my way toward Toby.
Elevent’s hands continue to encircle my waist in a tight vice. Holding me to him he hisses, “This’ll get uglier if you step in. Stop fightin’, Angel.”
His tone brooks no argument, so I still.
In a quiet chorus of voices and movement, other members enter the room. Some wearing cuts, some not. Some expressions are sullen, some surprised. Some entertained.
As soon as Sty, Vante, and Pyke filter in, Toby scowls, using only his eyes to search the room. He’s circled by bikers. God only knows what these could do to their enemies. I don’t imagine they’d sit and have a chat, as the Toby I once knew would likely propose.
Pyke looks my way. I use my best—dear God help me please—expression to get his attention. Luckily he answers my call.
Pyke puts his hand on Leglas’ back and instructs, “Get him up. His pride’s on the floor, but he don’t gotta be.”
Leglas moves, spitting on the floor only inches from Toby’s head.
Pyke offers Toby a hand, but Toby shoves the offer away much harder than needed.
This pisses me off. Toby doesn’t know Pyke, or how kind his heart can be when dealing with a small boy. He has no idea how adoringly Sty touches and stares at his woman.
Face to the floor or not, he’s judging without having a clue how these people live.
I don’t recognize him as this. I don’t remember him being this much of a fool when we were together. He once prided himself on being nice, level-headed, responsible, and fair.
“Mia,” Toby calls, dusting off the floor from his pressed shirt and slacks. “What’s happening here?”
“You need to go,” I tell him.
“I can’t go without you,” he returns. “You aren’t staying with these animals.”
“Fuck, she isn’t,” Sty growls. “It’s you who doesn’t belong in the wild.”
Toby scans the area, then brings his gaze back to mine and promises, “I’ll talk to Myra again. I’ll figure this out, Mia. I swear. I’ll come back.”
“You cross this club again, I’ll christen your pale skin with a bullet,” Elevent threatens, his tone raw, lethal, and scarily in control. “And it won’t be a shot to wound.”
Oh, my God.
“He’s not lyin’,” Sty tells the room, casually standing at Toby’s side, so close an outsider would think the two are friends. “Elevent’s a good aim. Especially when someone’s standin’ in the way of somethin’ he wants.”
My body tenses, as does Elevent’s.
“Sty,” Elevent calls, his tone a warning. In my peripheral, Elevent gives off a slow but deliberate shake of his head.
Toby twists his angered glare back to me. All signs of his worry gone. He’s pissed.
“You’re not staying here, Mia. You don’t belong in a place like this.”
“Jesus Christ,” Leglas touts. “Fuck, but you’re an idiot.”
“Just go,” I push. “I’m fine.”
Toby hesitates. He’s thinking, but says nothing more. As soon as he turns on his heel to go, the crowd parts, giving him room. Sty, Leglas, and Pyke follow him out. Leglas probably ready to shred him for any reason. Sty probably just to ensure he leaves. Pyke to watch over them all.
I don’t get a chance to process what I’ve witnessed. Elevent’s amused voice rumbles in my ear, “Was that your man?”
Shaking my head, risking a tear to fall, I tell him, “He was.”
The hold around my waist tightens again, garnering my attention. But I don’t move. I can’t.
Toby was humiliated. He was here for me, a woman he once said he loved. He’d gone to Myra. She explained where to find me, probably thinking he’d never try. And of course, she knew he’d never hurt me.
My God, but the nerve it must have taken for him to walk up to the gates of a place like this, not having any idea of what could be waiting for him inside. He could’ve been hurt. Or worse. Who knows?
And why, for the life of me, don’t I care as much as I should?
Elevent’s nose glides along the back of my neck and all thoughts of Toby disappear.
He breathes in, and then states, “If he’s any kind of man, he’ll be back.”
“Maybe,” I return, staring at the space where Toby had been stretched out on the floor.
“Then again, if he was any kind of man, Zalesky would trust your life to him, not me.”
“Maybe,” I utter again, still staring at the space Toby was removed from.
“You good?” Elevent questions in my ear.
“I have no idea.”
“You’re good,” he tells me.
Elevent releases me and steps back. He whistles to the crowd. They soon break up and move away. I pull from my shock and resolve myself to start moving.
As I’m left to finish the dishes, I contemplate just how ironic, and how annoying, it is that Elevent is again so sure he’s right.
Damn it.
“She’s a strong woman,” Pyke rightly observes.
“You just met her, Pyke,” I casually return.
“It don’t take a genius to see what’s in front of you. But you ain’t never been that, so can’t blame ya for bein’ blind.”
I don’t have to look at the old man to know he’s grinning. He’s been enjoying every fucking minute of my life in frustration since Mia Zanders found her way into it. He’s as taken with her as the rest of the brothers, which makes everything worse. I figured if I had a shot at one brother on my side, it’d be him.
To further my annoyance, it’s been Leglas, the resident asshole, who’s been caught staring at Angel’s ass. Other than the first woman he ever loved, and let slip away, he likes his women as dirty as they come. And Mia isn’t that.
The girls are hovering around Mia on the other side of the yard. They’re sitting on another table with Mia stretched on top. Sunny and Cricket sitting on the bench at her bare feet. Ziah stands in front of them, grinning wide as he tosses a football in the air. They’re all smiling and laughing. None of either she’s ever done in
front of me.
A week ago I couldn’t have cared less. As the time passes, her dismissal of my presence has started to piss me off.
Pyke and I are sitting on the picnic table in the back of the club, each watching over the growing crowd. Five minutes has passed in silence before he speaks. I knew this was coming. Pyke’s been holding back since I stepped outside.
“Any other night Ziah wanted a fire pit, there’d be five, six of the brothers at most out here.”
“Yeah,” I agree.
The lazy bastards would rather sit on their asses, playing video games inside, than come hang together for a favor to a kid as young as Ziah.
“Prospects mainly. Only ‘cause they’d be required to supervise.”
“Yeah,” I agree again, bringing the bottle of cold beer to my lips.
I grabbed one on the way out, in hopes it would assuage my thirst for something sweeter. As I look out at Mia smiling, as she runs her fingers through her long dark hair, I have no such luck. The beer tastes bland.
“And I’ll be damned, they all aren’t out here for the same woman,” Pyke notes next, carelessly pointing across the way. “Seems like these fools forgot they’re grown-ass men. They’re chasing after her like she’s the new kid in school and prom is next week.”
This time I don’t agree. This time I clench my jaw. The boys are exactly as Pyke describes. Helping her at the bar. Continuing to tip her for opening and serving them a fucking beer. Pitching in to help her clean when her shifts are over.
The men have never pitched in with such enthusiasm before.
“Even the girls have gravitated to her. Like they see somethin’ in her they wanna be,” Pyke adds.
“You get I’m not talkin’ about this, right?” I question.
“I see you should ‘cause you need to.”
“Then, old man, you got something to say, I suggest you say it,” I tersely order, tiring of Pyke’s back-and-forth mindfuck. “’Cause if not, keep your mouth shut on the subject for good.”
“Mia is a subject now?” he gleams. His crooked teeth behind his chapped lips mock me.
“Again, Pyke. Cut the shit.”
“Yeah, you never were one for heart-to-hearts,” he smugly returns. “But maybe this time you’ll hear what I have to say.”
“If whatever you’re feelin’ to say’ll make you stop talkin’,” I flip back. “Hit me.”
“She’s a good girl,” he whispers as a vow.
Figuring where this heading, I look straight ahead. “Never mind, Pyke.”
He ignores my rebut and adds, “Don’t ask me how I know, I just do.”
Turning to my oldest friend, I cock my brow and study his expression. His skin is paler than it used to be. He’s also lost weight. He’s aging, and I hate it. Both for him, because he’s destined to die an early death, and for me, because the thought of losing him is shit.
When he says no more, I prod, “You serious with this shit right now?”
“Don’t you play this off, James,” he clips, using my given name to direct his point. “She doesn’t know what’s what out here. She walks around with her head in a scramble. But look…” He points to where more of the girls are taking off to where she sits. Even Lane, who hasn’t spoken to me in days, is smiling in Mia’s direction.
“You’re putting a lotta weight on a woman who’s only gonna be around a few weeks, if that,” I assert.
Vlad got word through his second-in-command, Abram, to Sty. He’s back from wherever he took his family and asked that though the immediate threat has been lifted, he needs me to keep Mia here for the time being. How long this will last, no one knows. But until then, he’s stated we’re still to look after her.
For a million dollars, not one brother argued. Hell, they seemed to welcome her extended stay.
In an angry and disgruntled tone, Pyke surprises with, “I’m not putting the weight of anythin’ on her. I’m putting the weight of common fuckin’ sense on you.”
What the fuck?
“She looks at you,” he scolds. “We all see it. She watches. She absorbs. She’s smart enough to know you’re not good for her, but she probably doesn’t care. Or she’s too young to realize what a man like you could do to her.”
Really. What the fuck?
Tapping the side of my head with more force than needed, he asks, “Any of this sinkin’ in?”
Of course it is.
Pyke, in his old mastery way, is telling me to back off from what I haven’t so much made a move toward. At least not out loud anyway. I’m still a man and Mia Zanders is clearly a woman. A sweet one at that. One I’d no doubt sink myself into and after getting a feel of her would never let go.
“It’s sinkin’ in,” I pledge.
“Make your play or tell her how it is.”
I don’t appreciate being cornered. But Pyke being Pyke, he doesn’t fucking care. He’ll make his voice heard, no matter if I’m listening or not.
It’s not as though what he says is wrong, not entirely. Mia Zanders has piqued my curiosity and not because she’s beautiful and clean. But because she’s determined; and doesn’t have a bone in her that is willing to lay down to any person—man or woman.
“Only one play to make, but you ain’t made it,” he tells me. “So, be the man I know you are. Tell Mia how you’re feelin’.”
“You’re a pain in the ass, old man. Anyone ever tell you that?”
“Yep,” he answers on a crooked smirk. “But which ex of mine are we talkin’ about?”
Fuck.
Pyke has a point. Even if he’s never been married, the old man has had four old ladies in the course of ten years. That’s in one decade. Leave it be how many he’s had over his lifetime.
“Anyway, jackass,” he touts, making a move to stand and doin’ it slowly. “Take my advice or don’t.”
“Well, thank you,” I grind out, my voice startled with warning.
Ignoring me, again, he keeps on with, “But hear this. A woman like Mia Zanders doesn’t come and go from a man’s life. She sticks. She digs her claws in deep, as only a woman like her would.”
“Sure, Pyke.”
“Mia isn’t the kind of woman who needs a nice car, name brand clothes, or any other expensive shit either, El,” he keeps going. “She isn’t the kind of woman who’ll ever need a fuckin’ house.”
Jesus Christ.
“She’s the kind of woman who makes her man her home.”
Now I’m done.
Setting my empty beer bottle on the side, I turn to Pyke, now standing, and question, “You been readin’ that toilet paper poetry in the shitter again?”
“Make fun all you want. You don’t wanna hear me, fine. But you gotta follow your gut.”
“Got no time for that,” I smart.
“You know what I’ve said.”
“I do. Now we’re done.”
Nodding off into the distance, Pyke finds Sty and Gypsy coming at us from the general direction of the girls. I hadn’t known they were out there, however, my focus had been temporarily shifted, considering all Pyke felt prudent to share.
“We got company,” Pyke tells me. “And Gypsy looks in a state.”
Gypsy does look in a state, but dealing with Cricket anytime leaves him this way. Goddamn, my brother needs to ball up, make her his, and do it soon.
“Have an issue,” Sty starts, standing in front of me. “Girls are stagin’ a coup.”
“A what?”
“They wanna get out,” he explains.
“What the fuck you mean they wanna get out?”
“Outta here,” he affirms. “They wanna take Mia out of the club.”
“Fuck no,” I clip. “That’s not gonna happen.”
“Would you listen?” Sty demands. “Jesus. Can’t blame the girls for gettin’ cabin fever.”
“The girls can go out anytime they want, Sty,” I point out, lifting my aim toward the clubhouse. “Angel cannot.”
“She says she’s gonna
have a word with Vlad, if you don’t give her this,” Gypsy adds with a smirk. “Guess her sister is already in Vlad’s ear. Myra says we can’t treat her like a prisoner, just to make this easy on us.”
Fuck, no wonder Vlad insists she stay. The bastard’s probably enjoying a break from this shit.
“Where does Angel wanna go?” I query, figuring with these women the plans have already been put into motion.
“Bar. And Sunny wants to take her to get clothes at Biker Haven, sooner than later.”
Biker Haven. Angel in those dresses is enough distraction. Put a woman like her in leather chaps from the local biker store, the reaction could be catastrophic.
“I’ll think about the bar,” I advise. “But if this happens, I want brothers there at all doors, and also two at the table at all times.”
“Not gonna be hardship taking the girls out,” Sty supports. “Sunny loves the bars. She drinks, gets smashed, then I bring her home and get her any way I want.”
“Happy for you, Sty, but Sunny isn’t Angel. Some whack job pissed at Zalesky makes his move on her while you’re not watchin’, then what?”
“She’ll be fine,” Pyke commits. “She’s too quiet to get herself in trouble.”
It’s not that I worry she’ll find trouble. I worry the trouble will find her.
“Just pointing out…” Sty begins. “May not be such a bad idea to have her outta here when some of those Vante invited here start rollin’ in.”
Fuck. Good point.
“Fuck it. Take ‘em out. Give ‘em three hours. All go in packin’. Two drinks only for the brothers. If you get a feel somethin’ isn’t right, you get the girls and go.”
“Got you,” comes from Gypsy.
“Fuck, but this is gonna be good,” comes from Sty.
“Christ in heaven, of all the women I was paid to watch,” comes from me.
“So, go on. And be honest,” Sunny insists, beaming as she rests comfortably in Sty’s lap.
Her legs are hanging over the side of his. His large calloused fingers, adorned with big, shiny, silver rings, rest between her thighs and his other hand holds the nape of her neck. Using his thumb, he mindlessly massages her throat at the side. Every so often, he leans in to kiss her temple, prompted by her sudden sigh or laugh. He watches her when she’s not looking. It doesn’t appear she knows he’s doing it, yet the intimacy to an outsider is envy worthy. She holds his complete attention.