Strength & Courage (The Night Horde SoCal Book 1)

by Fanetti, Susan

  But he still creeped her out.

  “What can I do ya for?”

  “I’m working on Tucker Van Buren’s file, and I can’t find paperwork on Bibi and Jerome Elliott—they’re applying to foster him. I was planning a site visit this afternoon.” Muse had told her that Bibi had applied, but she could find no record of it. Maybe Muse was wrong, but she wanted to double check.

  Harry surprised her by getting up from his ergonomic desk chair, walking around his desk, and closing his door. Then he came and sat on his desk, right in front of her.

  “Sid. Tucker’s in a good placement. His father has no custody, and his mother will lose custody as soon as the case is heard. The Alberts are an exemplary family. Why upset the apple cart? Your time is better spent on more critical cases. You solved Tucker’s crisis.”

  She didn’t understand. “Well, a family placement is always best when it’s possible, right?”

  “The Elliotts aren’t family, though—which is why they have to register as foster parents.”

  “For all intents and purposes, they’re family. In the context of the club. From what I can tell, that’s a stronger bond than blood.”

  “‘The club’—you mean their biker gang. Sid, think about this—you’re talking about trying to place Tucker with a bunch of bikers. What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking that Tucker’s file indicates that his father has only been calm and loving with him, that he had earned some unsupervised visitation, and that we gave his mother a ridiculous number of chances and his father none. I’m thinking that the bikers in question are prominent members of the community and don’t seem to be a problem. I’m thinking that there is a stable, well-regarded couple already in Tucker’s life who are willing to take responsibility for him. I’m thinking that if we can place him in a safe environment among people he knows, then that could free up the Alberts to take a child who doesn’t have any support system at all.”

  Harry shook his head throughout her entire speech, but he didn’t stop her. When she was done, he gave her a smile that was positively drenched with condescension. “Sid. You’re so sweet and naïve. This is new to you, I get that. But you need to call a win a win and move on. Changing Tucker’s placement is going to turn a win into a loss.”

  He put his hand on her knee, his little and ring fingers sliding under the hem of her skirt. Then he squeezed. “And a biker gang is a biker gang. There’s no such thing as a good biker gang.

  “Club. And I disagree.” She moved her leg out of his grasp, her heart pounding both because she was fighting her boss and because he’d just crossed past creepy and into inappropriate. Harassment probably wasn’t far behind.

  His look was now decidedly less friendly than any she’d ever seen from him. He stood and went back to his chair. “Which is why we have an org. chart. Tucker stays where he is. Schedule the Alberts for monthly phone checks and quarterly site visits. If you must be a crusader for bikers’ rights, arrange to continue the weekly visits with his father—with a neutral exchange point. And focus on your other cases. Go where you’re needed.”

  “And the Elliotts?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “You seem awfully personally invested here, Sidonie. Is there something you need to tell me?”

  Nerves fluttered in her throat, and she wanted to swallow them down, but she didn’t let herself—she’d look guilty, and whatever was happening with Muse was irrelevant to the point, whether it looked that way or not. “No. I just see in the file that we haven’t done all we could to keep Tucker with a parent, and I’m trying to do the best job I can. I think the Elliotts could be a good placement. If they haven’t applied yet—”

  “I have their application. I’m rejecting it.”

  “What? Why? You can’t just reject it out of hand!”

  “Then I’m spiking it. Tucker stays where he is. End of discussion.” He waved toward his door. “Close the door when you leave.”

  ~oOo~

  Sid told herself she was being ridiculous—and hypocritical—to be nervous, but that didn’t settle her stomach any. She’d worked late, trying to catch up with her caseload after spending an incommensurate amount of time on Tucker Van Buren’s file, so it was full dark when she walked up to the door of the Night Horde MC clubhouse.

  She shouldn’t be nervous. If she was nervous, then that undercut the recommendation she was trying to build that Tucker should be placed with the Elliotts, if not directly with his father.

  And why was she trying to build that recommendation? Tucker’s father had threatened her. Stalked her. Yet she honestly felt he’d been given a raw deal, and she was making allowances for his behavior, casting him as a distraught father. Was her fascination with Muse coloring her perception in a way she was willfully discounting? Was Harry right? Was Tucker where he belonged now? Was she foolishly, actively trying to put him in harm’s way out of some fantasy of a father who didn’t exist?

  Well, that was why she’d come to the clubhouse, wasn’t it? To see for herself what there was to fear.

  And she was afraid.

  The Night Horde owned a whole block on Mariposa Avenue—Virtuoso Cycles and their clubhouse, all housed in what appeared to be one huge building, running nearly the length of the block, but for fenced parking lots on either end. The bike shop was sleek, the showroom walls fully glass, the interior brightly lit and gleaming. The clubhouse end of the building was a nearly solid span of grey stucco, the series of windows only narrow slits, each less that a foot wide, like the arrow loops in medieval castles.

  She walked to the door and stopped. Should she knock? It was a solid wood slab, painted gloss black, with the club seal, or whatever they called it, painted in red and white. A horse head with a flaming mane, the words Night Horde arcing over it, and Southern California arcing under it. The handle was a typical thumb latch in brushed nickel or steel or something. It looked more like the door to a house than a business. And there was a peephole in the horse’s eye.

  She decided she should knock. So, screwing up her courage, she did. After she knocked, she saw the button for a doorbell attached to the side of the doorjamb. Oh. While she was trying to decide whether she should also ring that, the door opened.

  Muse smiled at her. He was holding a beer. “Hey, hon. You were expected—you could have come on in.” He stepped back, and Sid walked into her first biker clubhouse.

  It wasn’t all that impressive. What she saw was a big room that looked a lot like a dive bar. The floor was bare cement, painted with a grey paint that looked like it might have been silvery at one time, but the sparkle was wearing off. The walls were dark red, like drying blood, and, again, high gloss paint, though there were gouges and smudges and places where posters had been ripped down but the tattered corners left. Most of the wall art was neon or metal—beer signs, bike brand signs, gas station signs. And a whole lot of posters and centerfolds and calendar pages of girls in bikinis. If that. One wall looked like it was made out of cork or something and was covered in snapshots, haphazardly pinned all over.

  A simple, solid black bar ran along most of one wall, red vinyl barstools arrayed in front of it. Behind the bar were shelves holding liquor and trophies, without much rhyme or reason to their placement.

  The rest of the furniture was ratty-looking leather or pleather couches and chairs, one big black upholstered chair that had a Harley-Davidson logo imprinted on the backrest, and several small Formica tables with red cafeteria chairs. A pool table, a foosball table, a pinball machine and a couple of arcade video games, and a huge TV mounted on one wall seemed to account for their entertainment.

  Oh—and a stripper pole on a little stage in one corner.

  Sid laughed outright. She’d walked into every mancave cliché she’d ever heard. And suddenly, she wasn’t afraid at all. These guys were just as simple as every other man she’d ever met. They just had more tattoos and facial hair.

  Muse gave her a quizzical look. “Somethin’ funny?”

 
Finding her composure, she smiled up at him. “I was nervous coming up to the door. I’m not nervous anymore.”

  “Good. We’re no threat to you.” He looked past her, back at the door through which she’d come. “Did you park in the lot?”

  “No. I parked a couple of blocks down.”

  “Good. That car of yours—it’s recognizable.”

  “That’s what I was thinking. And I’m not even supposed to be here on business now, so discreet is good.”

  “No? I thought you had to do a site visit?”

  Something held Sid off from telling Muse too much of what had happened during her meeting with Harry—what he’d said or how he’d behaved. “I’ve been told I’m spending too much time on Tucker and that I should leave his placement as it is.”

  “But you still want to talk to Demon?”

  “Yeah. I’m still going to do a report. I’m just doing it on my own time, and I’ll have it if he talks to Finn.”

  “Finn?”

  “Findley Bennett. The lawyer I was telling you about. Is Demon here?” She looked around. There were several men in vests—kuttes—sitting at the bar or elsewhere, watching television or playing pool, or doing other things with several women clad in scanty, rough-looking outfits, showing as much ink as the guys. But she didn’t see Demon.

  Many of the people were noticing her. Or maybe they were noticing Muse with her. Either way, they had some attention. The aspect of that attention seemed…critical, somehow. Like she was being evaluated.

  “He’s finishing a job in the shop. He knows you’re here, though, so he’ll be out soon. If you want, I’ll grab you a beer and give you a tour. I can’t show you everything, but I can show you enough, I think. It’s not like Tucker would spend a lot of time here.”

  “I need to know about his father’s habits, so what you can show me could help.” Or hurt, depending on what he showed her. She considered saying as much, but decided against it. Muse was smart. He’d be careful. And actually warning him about what to show her would cross an ethical line she wanted to preserve.

  Plus—they weren’t outlaws. She’d done her research. They owned a bike shop. They worked on movie sets. They provided security to businesses in Madrone and throughout Southern California. A couple of them were married to famous people. They weren’t running drugs or having shootouts in the streets. That was the other Night Horde, the one in the Midwest.

  “Okay, so tour me.”

  Muse chuckled and put his hand on the small of her back. Just that light touch made her body clench and quiver. He bent down and spoke low at her ear, “You look good. These guys can be intense, so just go with me here.” And then his hand slid from her back around to her hip, and he kissed her—so hard he bent her backward, and she clutched his shoulders more to keep her balance than anything. His mouth took hers, his scruff of beard scratching gently, and his tongue invaded her, and after a moment she forgot where they were, and her hands dug into the leather of his vest—kutte.

  When he pulled back, his blue eyes were so intense she could almost feel heat beaming out from them. Blinking, Sid fought for and regained her balance, inside and out. Still staring at her, Muse smiled, just one side of his mouth climbing wryly up his cheek. And she realized what he’d done.

  He’d claimed her.

  She looked around the room—they had everyone’s complete attention now, but their looks had changed. Muse had made her off limits. No longer did she feel like she was being summed up, judged, ranked. Not by the men, anyway. The women’s regard had narrowed, however. In the way their looks chilled, Sid could tell that Muse spent some time with some of them. Maybe all of them. She wasn’t sure how she felt about anything happening right now.

  “You busy after this?”

  “Hmm? Oh. Um, no. I was just going to go home.”

  He smiled. “Good. I’ll show you the dorm last, then.”

  Before she could respond to that statement, Demon came into the room from the side opposite the front door. He was dressed as he’d been every time she’d seen him—dark jeans, plain black t-shirt, black v—kutte. When he saw her, he stopped. For a second, he simply looked in her direction, not quite staring, because his eyes were jumping back and forth between Muse and Sid. Then he locked on her and tried on a smile. She could tell that he was trying not to look scary.

  He was a scary-looking guy, and the effort of trying to mold a smile was turning the expression into something like a snarl. But still, Sid understood. She smiled back, warmly, and crossed the room to him, her hand out.

  As seeing the simplicity of the clubhouse had eased her fear of the club, seeing Demon make such an effort to look like a nice guy had eased her fear of him. So maybe he’d thrown a water cooler at her. So maybe he’d lurked outside her house in the middle of the night. Right now, he seemed afraid of her.

  She held out her hand. “Hi, Demon.”

  He shook with her. Like Muse, he wore heavy rings on several fingers. “Hey. I guess you should probably call me Michael.”

  Having talked to Muse so much about him, he was now Demon in her mind—that scary moniker had, in fact, become merely a name. But he was right. “Okay, Michael. Muse was going to show me around. Would you like to instead?”

  With a glance behind her at Muse, who apparently gave him the okay, Michael nodded. “Okay. Not much to see.”

  Muse kissed her cheek and walked away. Sid turned and watched him go and saw some of the men converge on him. He’d said they were terrible gossips, and she thought she was catching a glimpse of that now.

  “C’mon.” Michael reached for her arm but dropped his hand before it had more than brushed her skin.

  It wasn’t much of a tour. He explained that the big room they were in was called the Hall. He showed her a weight room, a room with a boxing ring, and a short hallway from which branched off a suite of small offices. He pointed to two black gloss double doors off the Hall and explained that behind them was the Keep, which was where they held their club meetings. It was sacrosanct, apparently, with only members allowed. He gestured vaguely toward a long hallway and called it the dorm, where there were several small bedrooms with attached bathrooms. But again he glanced into the Hall and then didn’t take her into the dorm. Sid got the impression that Muse had somehow put the kibosh on that part of the tour.

  The most involved and animated part was the bike shop. Michael led her down a long corridor lined with those narrow windows, and brought her out into the Virtuoso Cycles showroom. And suddenly, the man who’d been shy and nearly monosyllabic had a lot to say.

  He described the make, model, and customizations of the bikes on the showroom floor. He took her into the mechanics’ bays and described the mechanic assigned to each station, most of whom were ‘brothers.’ Some of them did repair work, some did customizations of stock bikes, and a couple built unique bikes from scratch. He spent probably twenty minutes showing her his own station, which was pin-neat and obsessively organized.

  “Mainly I do customizations on stock bikes. Not just Harleys. I’ll pimp anything that comes in. I’ve been helping Trick out a little, though. He’s won a bunch of awards for his custom builds. They’re like art.”

  “How much do you work here in the shop?”

  “Pretty much full time. I do some security for the club, too, but that’s night work.”

  “If you were able to get custody of Tucker, who’d be with him then?”

  Michael blinked, and Sid knew he hadn’t thought about that. She made a mental note, but she also told herself that he’d never had to think about it. He’d never had to make arrangements for Tucker because no one had ever given him the chance to need to. “Bibi. I’d take him to Bibi.” He turned fully to face her. “Do you think I could get him?”

  There had been a lounge-type area, square arm chairs upholstered in red and black leather around a low, circular, glass and chrome table. “Can we go out in the showroom and talk?”

  “Um, yeah. Sure.” He led her out
of the bays, and they sat.

  “I don’t know what Muse has told you, but I know a lawyer who’d like to talk to you. He’s been working on fathers’ rights cases, and he thinks he might be able to help you.”

  “Muse told me. Said he was a partner in some hoity-toity L.A. office. I can’t afford jack.”

  “If he thinks your case has merit, I don’t think he’d charge you. He’d be looking for publicity, though. And he’s pretty…he has a strong personality. You’d have to do what he says and stay…calm. Out of trouble.”

  “Would he help me?”

  “If anybody can, it’d be him. He’s known for winning. If he takes a case, he knows he can win. If he doesn’t, it’s widely assumed to be unwinnable.”

  “And he’d do it for free? Why?”