Blow Out (Steel Veins Book 1)

by Jackson Kane

  “Get off my goddamn bike,” I demanded

  I thought about the speed, the truck that almost hit us, and riding in the pack with the other guys. Most of the time I’d forgotten she was on my bike at all. Maybe I overdid it with that ride? Then I remembered the piece of shit that killed Bren.

  My baby brother, Bren, was the last decent thing about the Steel Veins, and now he was dead.

  No, I hadn’t gone far enough. A bullet to the head was too merciful. I should’ve dragged that fucker behind my bike while he was still alive.

  She slid off the seat and pulled at the edges of her skirt as if she could somehow make it longer. “My name is—”

  “I don’t care what your fucking name is.” I rubbed two fingers across the leather seat where she was sitting; it was slightly damp. Looking to see if she would flinch, I brought them to my nose and breathed it in.

  Breathed her in.

  She lowered her head.

  Brushing aside her hair, I found her chin and forced it back up at me. I expected to see resignation and despair like the slags we typically fucked here, but no. This girl glared at me, her hate-filled eyes sparked with defiant intensity that was surprisingly invigorating.

  Good.

  “Hold on to that hate. That’s the only friend you have here,” I said, walking past her. The guys were helping Crutch hobble inside. The fun was over for now. There was work to do. “Let’s go.”

  Despite how much she hated me, the girl was my goddamn shadow as we all piled in through the bikers’ entrance. I absently pointed to a table in the corner. She dutifully went off and sat down. I then joined the rest of the guys by the pool tables.

  Crutch was tossed a bottle of whiskey then was taken into the back room to get cleaned and sewn up. He’d sleep like death tonight, but he’d survive.

  I had Tee grab the shovels and take a few guys out to the back meadow to start the hole. We’d get a stone for Bren in a day or two, but we’d put him in the ground tonight.

  The staff had the bar cleared when Top walked into the room, cradling the boy. Bren’s face looked so pale, like he’d been replaced with a mannequin. It hit hard because he was so young—everyone’s kid brother. He was our club’s unofficial mascot. Top took it the worst for obvious reasons.

  Our club’s membership path, like most, went acquaintance, hang around, prospect, then finally full patch. Bren had skipped acquaintance status, but was stuck as Top’s personal hang around for, hell, ever since he was big enough to reach the handlebars. The only age requirement in the charter to be a Steel Veins member was a valid motorcycle license.

  Bren had his license for three years.

  We’d vote Bren in every year, and every year Top would black ball him. In a brotherhood like ours, new patches had to be unanimous. This summer, Top finally caved and let him join but only as a prospect—that was until I bitched him out for it. Top finally agreed to just make Bren a full patch and be done with it. We both knew Bren deserved it. Top was just overprotective.

  As a full patch member, Bren was as much of a Steel Vein as anyone else in the club.

  He would’ve been nineteen in a few months.

  I pulled up a stool next to the big man at the bar. Bren was laid out to the right of both of us while his hole was dug. Now it was just the three of us—me, Top, and Bren—at the bar. The rest of the guys knew to give us some space.

  The first drink was for blood only.

  We sat in silence for a few minutes, looking over our fallen new member. Top had our shots of root beer ready. Any other toast would’ve been whiskey, but Bren never developed a taste for alcohol. He was the last decent thing about this club, and now he was dead.

  Top took out his nine millimeter, dropped the clip, and thumbed out two rounds. They clattered across the polished wooden bar and rolled in small circles until finally coming to rest. “I shoulda never let him in,” the big man mumbled, wiping the tears from his bushy beard. Some of our crew had been killed in the past, and it has always been rough, but never hit this close to home.

  “Nope,” I agreed without hesitation, picking up one of the bullets up. I snorted at how much I had in common with the bullet as I rolled it through my fingers.

  Cold, hard, and useless without a gun.

  What could I say? Top was right. Our younger brother was just that—too young. Bren didn’t even have a gun when he was killed.

  “It shoulda been me or you.” Top cleared the broken gravel from his throat. He started to continue but couldn’t.

  “At least we deserve it,” I finished the sentiment for him. “We deserved it a hundred times over for all the shit we’ve done, but Bren was the one to catch a bullet? Nah. In what universe did that make any fucking sense?

  Neither of us could accept it.

  I bit down on the bullet until my teeth ached then rolled it to the back of my tongue.

  “Amen,” Top said, dropping his bullet into his shot glass. We clinked them together and downed our root beer.

  Now all three of the Daniels brothers had a bullet in them.

  Top immediately chased the soda with several large gulps of the shittiest, bottom-shelf well whiskey they had, growled against the burn, and stood up. Top only drank the worst alcohol when something bad happened.

  We all took our penance differently.

  He slapped me on the back and started the eulogy. Most of the members took turns recounting everything about Bren that they could remember—from Bren’s first ride at twelve years old to the first time they’d got him laid. The bar boomed with choked-up sentiments, uproarious laughter, and clinking glass. The staff struggled to keep the club’s cups full.

  I slunk to the back of the room and sat quietly. I was no good at these things at the best of times, let alone now. Bren had been on my mind the whole ride here. The last thing I wanted was to hear more stories about him.

  I glanced back at my latest mistake to make sure she hadn’t run off.

  The girl sat right where I left her, looking small as ever. Her head in her crossed arms hunched over the table, no doubt hoping to go unnoticed. She looked like the frightened puppy Top brought home for Bren after Mom left.

  I guess this time I’d brought home the puppy.

  Her eyes and nose poked up over her elbows as she surveyed the room. I saw a bit of fire in her earlier, and beneath her demureness, I hoped to see it again. I wondered how crafty she was.

  Would she try to escape?

  What did I care if she did?

  Muse’s Place was so far from everywhere that it wouldn’t matter if she tried. Someone would catch her eventually. If it weren’t for me, she’d already be dead. I couldn’t help her anymore. I absently rotated the mug of beer in my hand. I still didn’t know if keeping her alive was a kindness or a cruelty. Why did I even want to help her?

  Her boyfriend killed my brother.

  People die all the fucking time. That’s all you can rely on someone to do. She was on her own.

  Fuck her.

  “Remy!” Skank waved me over. “We’re doing it, man. Come on.”

  Tee must’ve finished the hole. I downed the rest of my beer and stood up. Despite myself, I glanced back at the girl. One of the bar staff was asking her to move to a different table so she could clean that one. We hadn’t given them any advanced notice, so the understaffed employees bustled around like crazy to clean the place up.

  “No,” Top rigidly declared. He had Bren over one hulking shoulder. His eyes drilled daggers into the startled girl. “The bitch stays right there.”

  It was a tone that said, “I haven’t forgotten about you.”

  Chapter Five

  Remy

  Most of the ceremony was done at the bar, so when we put Bren in the ground, that was more or less the end of it. Muse said a few words that made us all feel like shit while also lifting our spirits. She could’ve been one hell of a politician.

  “Fuck…,” I choked out the word and glanced away, my face flushed with a swe
ll of hot, angry grief as the first shovel of dirt was thrown on him.

  I’m going to miss you, little brother.

  When it was done, Muse led the dour parade back inside and kicked on some music. She was determined to lift the mood of the place by announcing that the booze was on the house tonight. The resounding cheer threatened to blast out the bar’s windows. Things went even wilder when she had some of the trashy waitresses get onto the bar and dance.

  It took about an hour, but the rest of her employees started to filter in too—mostly junkies ranging from their late teens to their late forties. The girls all wore maid outfits. They were officially hired on as hotel cleaning staff.

  Muse was a businesswoman at heart and a cunning one at that. That’s why she treated us so damn well. We were good for business. We sold her the drugs that she, in turn, sold to the motel guests and to her girls, of course. Above all, we had a safe place to crash, and she knew that her property was never going to be fucked with by outsiders.

  It was an incredibly lucrative relationship for the club and for Muse, one that came dangerously close to actual friendship.

  I nestled into a stool at the end of the bar and impatiently waited for a mug of whatever they were pouring. I wasn’t picky as long as it was going to fuck me up. The sooner this day was over, the better.

  “You can have mine while you wait.” A tattooed blonde took the stool next to me and slid me her beer. Her blue eyes weren’t dull like some of the other girls, but they had definitely lost their shine. Despite the faint lines on her face, you couldn’t mistake her for being any older than her early twenties. The few recent track marks on her arms told me she hadn’t been house property for long.

  Must be a new girl.

  I glanced at Muse who was laughing and joking with a small group of bikers and maids. Like the master of ceremonies she was, she felt me looking at her and winked back. Muse was all about customer satisfaction.

  “Hey, sugar, I’m Debs. Muse told me to take extra-special care of you tonight,” the blonde cooed in my ear.

  I checked her over and accepted the beer but wasn’t in a talkative mood. That didn’t faze her as she pressed on anyway. She told me about how much of a dick her boyfriend was and how he wasn’t fucking her enough. That routine must work wonders with the other bikers. Usually, I was better at tolerating the small talk bullshit, but there was just too much on my mind right then.

  “Shut the fuck up,” I grumbled, more exasperated than hostile.

  Blessedly, the blonde complied. “I’m sorry. I thought....” She let the useless words drift as she started to stand up.

  “I didn’t say leave.” I grabbed her inner thigh and planted her back down onto the stool. “Just… don’t say anything.” I was angry and torn up inside. I wanted to be left alone, but I didn’t want to be alone. I hated this grief and guilt, and I hated how none of my emotions did what I wanted them to. It felt like nothing I did made any fucking sense, and that just made me more anxious and confused.

  I wanted to scream, but I also didn’t want to ever utter another worthless word. What was the point? I hadn’t felt this shitty since Maria died.

  The blonde sat next to me in extremely uneasy silence until Top arrived some time later. He leaned against the bar next to me. I didn’t have to turn around to know he was scouting the girl from the gas station. I’d been stealing glances at her all night in the mirror behind the bar.

  “What are you doing, Rem?” he asked, lowering his eyebrows.

  “Having a good time till you showed up.” I knew where this was going.

  Damn it.

  “I thought you put all that behind you.” Top cocked his head toward the girl I’d brought from the gas station.

  I kept quiet, deliberately not looking at her.

  “Maria’s dead,” Top stated sympathetically. “Let her stay dead, Remy. All you’re doing is torturing yourself.”

  “No idea what you’re talking about,” I lied.

  “No?” Top scoffed. “You develop a type all of a sudden?”

  “She looks nothing like Maria.

  “Brown hair. Slight build. Glasses for fuck’s sake? Could’ve fooled me.”

  “Maria was Mexican, you racist prick,” I snapped, glaring at him, but quickly diffused. Top had no problem with Maria’s heritage. He was just trying to get a rise out of me. He was already half in the bag and was only bound to get worse. “Gas station girl doesn’t mean a goddamn thing to me.”

  “Well, all right then. Glad we cleared that up.” Top pounded a fist into the bar and waved over another round of beers. He whistled the gas station girl over.

  She hesitated and looked to me.

  Unfortunately for her, Top picked up on that. “Don’t look at him. You get the fuck. Over. Here. Now.” Top didn’t tolerate disrespect, and I thought she could sense that because she scampered over immediately. When the girl was within arm’s reach, Top grabbed her and pulled her closer. His tone shifted to saccharine as he asked her sweetly, “What’s your name, girl?”

  “Star,” she replied quickly but without timidity. Surprisingly, she wasn’t as cowed as I figured she’d be. Top was intimidating even to other bikers. The girl wasn’t spineless.

  I liked that.

  “You like to dance, Star?” Top shifted his shoulders in what he thought was dancing. When Star didn’t answer, Top’s sternness returned. “I asked you a fucking question!”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Looks like it’s your lucky day, bitch.” Top picked her up with ease and sat her on the bar. She gasped as he tore the front of her linen shirt open to her navel. Top then gently reached behind her, and with surprising gentleness, unclasped her bra. “And I’d better like what I see, ya hear?” He pulled the bra back to gawk at Star’s perky tits, then elbowed for me to check them out.

  They were nice. She didn’t look anything like Maria, but she was very pretty.

  “You’re off to a good start.” He reached out, tickling her tiny, pink nipples.

  Star recoiled in horror, one hand covering her breasts, which drew a hearty laugh from my giant of a brother. She stumbled to her feet on the bar and quickly found everyone in the room watching her. Hunched forward, clutching herself defensively, dread poured out of Star’s features. She’d either have to play along or… deal with the consequences.

  The music switched over from rock to something faster with a better beat for dancing. Star was one of three girls on the bar and was the slowest to start moving. I had to give her a little credit. She hadn’t broken down into tears yet. Most girls in her situation probably would’ve been catatonic. Star was holding her shit together for the most part.

  Hollers of “Take it off!” and “Fuck yeah, baby!” rang throughout the place as everyone realized Star wasn’t one of Muse’s employees. She was different in a lot of ways, but most notably, she wasn’t corrupted by the MC lifestyle like everyone else was.

  The other girls loved the attention. Their halter tops and bras were flung at cheering men and a few women. As the bass lines and beat grew louder, Muse’s girls reveled in it, lewdly thrusting their hips all over the place. They shook their tits and were grinding on each other with reckless abandon that could only be considered sexy if you were already drunk.

  It was all too sloppy and overzealous to get me hard.

  Star took a deep breath, coming to terms with some new resolve, and slowly started to dance. Her eyes glossed over, and she fell into a trance, gyrating shoulders and hips fluidly in opposite directions. Her hands peeled off her chest in a strip tease then chased her curves, rubbing them down her sides. She lowered herself into a squat then onto her knees completely. Her dark hair cascaded in a plume over her shoulder before whipping over her arching back.

  She crawled up the bar. Guys pulled their drinks away so as not to impede her in anyway. Her tempo started to pick up, raising my pulse rate with it. The girl could move when she wanted to. I wondered if she even knew she had this skill before t
onight.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I only realized I was at half-mast when my dick pushed into the front of my jeans. It was uncomfortable enough for me to reach in and adjust. The way this girl was dancing, my cock was going to be snaked down my thigh soon.

  As soon as I pulled my hand out of my pants, I felt another hand go in. The blonde next to me had taken it as a cue. I felt her fingers wrap around my cock one by one. At first, she kept it still and just squeezed. A good start. The blonde stared at me, rubbing her pussy through her jeans, and bit at her lip a little too exaggeratedly. She was trying to steal my attention from Star.

  I barely even noticed her. For me, the show was on the bar.

  Star’s hips pulsed on her way back up into a standing position. Her modest tits heaved forward as her body twisted. She ran her hands over them, pushing them together or sliding past altogether on her way to and through her hair. Her distant, worlds-away gaze flitted across the room just above everyone’s head. Finally, her eyes crashed into my own hyper-focused stare.

  And we were locked together.

  The blonde next to me worked my cock with long, jealous strokes inside my pants. She edged closer to kiss me, but I leaned away, refusing to take my eyes off Star.

  Star was dancing just for me.

  When the blonde started squeezing me again, I imagined it was Star doing it. My cock flexed and throbbed at the thought of Star’s hand sliding over the tip of my cock, her hand working me back and forth.

  The suddenly cooler bar air took me by surprise. I looked down and found the blonde had opened my pants and pulled my cock out. She licked her hand and went back to it.

  I got a clap on the back by one of the other guys who walked by. Most of the members liked to sleep alone, so it wasn’t uncommon for them to bend a girl over the pool table for a half hour, then crash out by themselves. Hose and Copperhead were going to town, double teaming a particularly worn-out employee on the floor by the booths.

  The other three girls who had been dancing had already hopped off the bar and were working the crowd. For the many faults of our twisted little brotherhood, nobody gave a fuck about who fucked who or where.