by Jackson Kane
I shrank a little at Remy’s raised tone.
After a moment, the anger dissipated and sadness crept into his voice as he spoke. “I don’t want you to see the kind of man I truly am. I… care about you, Star, and these hands”—Remy let me go and held up his strong, calloused palms—“have taken everything from people. Most of them deserved it, but some of them…. All those people! That’s all on me,” Remy growled softly to himself, struggling to get the words out. “I’m afraid, Star. Too fucking terrified that maybe they’ll take everything from you too.”
“You don’t get to make that decision,” I returned resolutely. “I’ve seen you and what you’re capable of. What you did to Rio....” Remy grimaced and pulled away, but I caught his hands and pressed them to my chest. “I want you, Remy. Scars, dirt, blood, tattoos, brooding stares—all of it.”
“Star....” He looked back at me with softened features.
“You’re the reason I’m alive. I owe you everything. You saved me.”
“Star, I had my guys search the back of the garage when I saw that fuck with you. I didn’t save shit. I dragged you into all this.”
“When I said you saved me... I didn’t mean from the bikers, but from my old life. You saved me from becoming a person I didn’t like.”
The confusion in him was apparent, so I continued. “I was sent out to live with my aunt and uncle, not just because of college, but also to get me away from New Hampshire. There was a professor at my old school. Professor Jonathan Baker. He was handsome, smart, and kind. I would stay after class to talk with him. Eventually, he invited me to a bar, and we kissed. We started secretly seeing each other. He was adamant about keeping it quiet because he was my teacher and could get in trouble. One night I texted him, and he said he was feeling under the weather and wanted to cancel on a movie we’d made plans to check out. I picked up some soup and went by his place just to make sure he was okay. Before I walked in, I heard noises and peeked through his door window. Jonathan was fucking a classmate of mine on his couch. That’s when it all started clicking. The excessive secrecy, even at his house, the occasional evasiveness, his weirdly random after-school tutoring sessions.”
This happened a while ago, but my face got hot and my stomach turned like it did that night. It felt like I was tearing fresh stitches open. It was so difficult to say this out loud, to face it so nakedly. “I was so blinded by rage that I hurt him the only way I could think of.”
“You killed him?” Remy’s eyes opened a little wider in suspicion.
“No! Jesus, Remy... I didn’t fucking kill him!” I reflexively glanced at him in disbelief.
Nothing in his expression showed any embarrassment at such an extreme assumption.
“Seriously?”
Remy shrugged then patiently waited for me to resume the story.
I swallowed hard and continued as my throat felt like sandpaper. “He had this beautiful, cherry-red Mustang. He loved that car. I would come over just to help him wash and wax it sometimes. I was just going to key the side of it, but then I started thinking about all the other girls he probably fucked on those black leather seats. I pried open his gas tank and lit one of my socks on fire. Jonathan rushed to the window when the real love of his life exploded. He saw me there in the street looking back at him with the rest of his neighbors watching the blaze. He immediately knew it was me who did it. There was a trial. He told everyone that I was a crazy stalker and that I was mentally ill. Being that I had no history of any of that shit and there were no witnesses who actually saw me do it or any other evidence, the charges were eventually dropped.
That was also when I learned that Jonathan was married. She traveled a lot for business, which was why she was never around. Maybe she wasn’t ready to face the truth about her marriage, but she came after me and my family with a vengeance. Our mail was stolen, our trash was riffled through, and private detectives followed us around everywhere we went. She stopped at nothing to dig up any dirt she could. When she didn’t find anything, she went after my father’s boss. He apparently wasn’t as clean as Dad was. I don’t know what she had on him, but my father was laid off indefinitely. It was crazy!” I shook my head, still living through the disbelief at how rabidly angry she was at me and not her own husband.
“What happened to Jonathan?” Remy narrowed his eyes. “The school fire his ass for sleeping with his students?”
“I wish. I mean, yeah, they did, but his wife threatened to sue the college, and they immediately reinstated him.” I snorted, scratching my head. It wasn’t itchy. I just felt so dumb that I let Jonathan hurt me so badly that I had to look away and do something else. “He had all these girls swooning over him. I think he got off on the power, you know?”
“The small-minded always do.” Remy snarled at a memory of someone he must’ve known personally.
“I heard he even approached some of the girls who were failing his class and offered to bring their grades up for sexual favors.”
“Sounds like a real stand-up guy.” Remy had been listening keenly to my story, his dark gaze hinting of compassion. Then he smiled like a hungry wolf. “Hope I get a chance to meet him someday.”
Remy did bad things because he needed to or because he felt they were necessary. I was manipulated like a fool and just lashed out blindly. In truth, I got lucky. I could’ve easily been caught. I was still glad I burned his car. He deserved so much more than that, but I wish my parents didn’t have to pay the price for it.
“If only.” I’d give my left tit to see Remy knock on Jonathan’s door. My knuckles twitched with anger at Jonathan even all these years late. “I guess what I’m trying to say is I have my own demons, too.”
“Arson, huh? You probably would’ve been on my team.” Remy cracked a thin smile.
“You fucking asshole. That’s not funny!” I smiled despite myself as I wiped my eyes and nose.
He lifted my chin to see me better. “Think long and hard about this. We’re talking about the rest of your life. Once you get a rap sheet, legitimate jobs will be hard to come by.”
“I feel like all I’ve been doing in my life is thinking and waiting. We’re sitting in a cop’s car I stole. I’m in this all the way.”
“I don’t know….” Remy leaned back, clearly thinking it through. He ran a hand over his face and hair then reached in his back pocket for his pack of cigarettes.
Part of me was still scared that he would make me leave, but another small, yet growing part reassured me that I could take care of myself even if he did. I didn’t want to play the side piece of ass or the ignored maiden and definitely not the damsel in distress.
Whatever happened, I didn’t feel as afraid anymore.
“Remy, why are we even in Santa Fe?”
“I need to go to a strip club.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Star
“What?” A laugh escaped me at how absurd that notion was. We were on the run from a violent gang of bikers, and he wanted to go watch topless women bounce around? “You’re joking.”
Remy gave me a stern look then shook his head. “I need a bargaining chip. If I can convince the Lobos that the Veins are gearing up for war and that I’m being hunted by them, they’ll have reason to believe I need their protection. Then I’ll just have to convince them of my value.” He then cracked his neck. “Lorenzo’s team is out looking for me. I’ll have to have a few people tip off a few other people with my location, but it shouldn’t be too tough to bait Lorenzo and his team into thinking they are going to get the drop on me at Mama Loca.”
“But why here?” It didn’t make any sense.
“It’s the only meeting place I know of that has a metal detector.” Remy let out a long exhale before continuing. “Lorenzo will show up with what’s left of his crew, but at least none of them will be armed. It’s about as even a playing field as I’m going to get.”
“I take it Lorenzo has the chip you need?” I asked.
“No. Lorenzo is the
chip. The Lobos hate the Veins, but Bones, the current Lobos president, especially hates Lorenzo. If I can deliver Lorenzo to Bones, I’ll have proved that I’m trustworthy enough to protect.”
Mama Loca... I rolled all the pieces together in my head. A Latin strip club in a Mexican MC’s turf. “The Lobos were at the motel before the cops,” I concluded. Everything was slowly falling into place. “We’re still in their territory, aren’t we? The strip club is owned by them too, isn’t it? Just like the convenience store.”
“Indirectly, but yes.” Remy looked surprised and a little impressed. “How did you figure out the convenience store?”
“I heard the cops in Vegas talking about it and pieced the rest together.” I shrugged, pleased with myself. “So let me get this straight. You’re going into a rival MC’s strip club unarmed and hilariously outnumbered to hopefully subdue and kidnap the leader of your former corrupt gang’s kill team who’s hunting you.”
“I’m… still trying to work out the details, but yeah.” Remy frowned at hearing the craziness out loud.
We sat in silence for a little while as Remy ruminated on how the hell he was going to actually pull this off.
“That last gun magazine remark you made earlier, was that a quote from someone?” I wondered. It had been eating at me for a little while.
“Erwin Rommel,” he replied. “German commander in the Second World War.”
“German? So he was a Nazi. Why were you quoting a bad guy?”
“Bad guy.” Remy chuckled at the term’s relativity then looked at me with his smoldering brown eyes, all the sleep brushed from them. “History is written by the winners. Anyone on the losing end of a war is a bad guy. The Nazis were scum, but not all Germans were Nazis. Rommel was an honorable man, well respected by his American adversaries for his tactics and the way he carried himself in battle. He was so distraught at what was being done to his country by its leadership that he even tried to assassinate Hitler himself.”
“But he failed.” I said solemnly.
Remy nodded.
“You need me!” I suddenly realized.
Remy raised an eyebrow at me. He opened his mouth to question what I was talking about but closed it again and eyed me with confusion instead.
“Do they search the strippers too?” I smirked at a plan forming in my head. The odds were hopelessly stacked against Remy. He didn’t need a level playing field. He needed an advantage.
I was that advantage.
“I don’t think they do.” His eyes narrowed, slowly figuring out what I was getting at. He shook his head. “No way. You’re not posing as a stripper.”
“I can smuggle a gun in for you!” My chest filled with excitement. “I can be your eyes and ears! I’ll let you know how many guys Lorenzo has with him and where they are. And when you confront Lorenzo, I can distract them, so it’s just you two.”
Remy frowned but couldn’t shoot the plan down. We both knew that it was his only real chance at pulling this off.
After some time brooding, in which he couldn’t come up with anything better, he agreed. Okay.” He sighed with resignation. “But you do what I say when I say. Hesitation of any kind could get you killed. You hear me?”
“Yes! Yes! I hear you.” Something inside me glowed. No one but me could do this for him. We were a team now. I really loved feeling like I was a partner in something. I threw myself at him awkwardly for a hug. My pants snagged on the E-brake, and I hit my ribs on the center console.
He caught me in those great big arms at a safe distance so I didn’t crush his injured ribs then lowered me against him in his fully reclined seat. “Careful,” he groaned. There wasn’t much room in the front seats of this car.
“Sorry.” I wrinkled my nose, remembering how hurt he already was. “The next car I steal will have bench seating. Promise.” I curled myself onto him as comfortably as possible. Warm and safe in his embrace, I wondered if I’d made a mistake by choosing this life with him. I then thought about all the meaningless things I’d left behind, and my resolve solidified. This is where I needed to be, not on a shelf somewhere as a porcelain doll, waiting to be discarded or forgotten. In a weird way, I felt like I had a future now. Granted, it was probably going to be a short and bloody future, but fuck it.
It was my future.
The one thing about this borderline-suicidal plan that bothered me was why he was doing it at all.
“You’ve already got the Steel Veins after you. Why are you stirring up another MC’s hornet’s nest? Why don’t we just run away, like maybe go to Canada?” I asked.
Remy took a moment to really think about that. “Maybe Rommel was a decent guy surrounded by the corruption of a country he loved,” he replied distantly in a mournful tone. He held me in his arms but was also so far away. “A lone candle in a dark, dark night.”
Was that what Remy was too?
“The Steel Veins used to be a brotherhood I loved more than anything else in this world. They were my family. We protected the community and each other. All the violence was justified. We had a purpose. A code.”
“So why fight them?” The concept of that kind of family was hard to wrap my head around. “Let’s just leave!”
“Any beloved relative of yours ever get cancer?” Remy asked.
“Yeah.” I started at the radical shift in conversation. “My Grandpa Bob.”
“You brought him to the hospital and got him all the treatment you could, right?”
I blinked. “Yes, of course!”
“Deadeye’s gone soft over the years and allowed low men like Lorenzo and even his shitty kid, Rio, into the club. These men are the cancer that’s killing the greatness of the Steel Veins.” Cold, hard steel filled Remy’s tone. “I’m going to be the scalpel and radiation. I’m going to use the Lobos’ resources to cut off the dead limbs in the Veins and then destroy the Lobos from the inside.”
“Will the Veins accept you back if you pull this off? You did kill the national president’s son.”
“Honestly, I don’t know.” He paused as the thoughtfulness of his words gave them weight. “I never thought about what happens to the scalpel after the cancer is removed. Rommel was eventually linked to the conspiracy against Hitler. He allowed himself to be executed for high treason so that his family and staff might live.”
“What about me?” I asked weakly. That glorious moment when he defied his whole club to save me felt tarnished now.
Had he said nay because he chose me over them, or had he done it because he chose the old Steel Veins over the new? The way Remy described his MC made it sound like a better, more honorable organization than anything I’d personally seen. If he really was a part of something like that, I could understand a yearning to get back to it, but a part of me still felt betrayed.
I selfishly wanted that defiant moment all to myself.
He saw the budding sadness on my features and raised my chin.
Then he kissed me.
His lips were full to bursting with passion, born not of lust but of something infinitely deeper. The way his mouth worked and his hands held me…. In his embrace, I truly understood how much he cared for me. It didn’t have to be me or the Veins. It could be both.
I had a new moment. One that truly was all mine.
“You gave me the strength to be the scalpel. To make a change,” he finally said, pulling away. “As long as I have you, I have a reason to fight for them.”
His words warmed me to the core. As beautiful as both metaphors were, I couldn’t find the strength to tell him... my grandfather’s cancer went into remission, but eventually, it came back and killed him.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Star
Pulling into the Santa Fe Truck Plaza, we ate and shopped almost like normal people. Given everything we’d just been through and whatever was going to happen tonight, the time-out to do regular stuff felt a little surreal.
We both bought underclothes and a new outfit. He wore a black pair of jeans,
gray shirt with a black button-up, as was customary fashion for him. He told me to buy a purse, makeup, and to keep the clothes light. So I did, and I also picked up a pair of denim shorts, a printed T-shirt, and a summer jacket as well.
I browsed a nearby Party City for my stripper outfit while Remy waited outside reading his stolen paperback of Greek mythology. He thought the store was too ridiculous. I thought the floppy novelty penis hats in the bachelorette party section were too much for him.
I found a green, plaid schoolgirl skirt and matching tie with a short-sleeve top that tied above the midriff as well as a white cotton eyelet bra and thong that were supercute. I had found a pair of black heels at one of the mini-stores at the truck plaza that would work. Altogether, the entire “little schoolgirl” ensemble was sexy.
I wished I had the chance to wear it just for Remy.
I slipped away while Remy did his food and sundry shopping. After some intel-gathering in the car on our way to Santa Fe, I discovered that Remy liked carrot cake, so I snuck into the bakery section and surprised him with a slice.
The smile in his typically no-nonsense eyes was something I’d always cherish. It turned out that while carrot cake was his favorite kind of dessert, he hadn’t actually had it since he was a kid. He grinned like an unabashed goofball as he savored each forkful. I laughed and tried to get away when he offered me a bite, telling him I hated carrots, but he wasn’t having it. We playfully wrestled for a few minutes then I submitted and let him feed the last bite to me.
“It’s really good, isn’t it?” He came as close to proudly beaming as I thought he was capable of.
“Yes...,” I pouted, reluctantly enjoying it enough to go back and get myself a slice.
God, I loved that.
For this tiny, little moment in this crowded truck stop, we were just two normies sharing an afternoon in each other’s company like any other regular couple on the road.
After we satisfied our sweets cravings, Remy picked up a pack of cigarettes, some shower and shaving supplies for both of us, and a bag to put them in. Then he brought back keys to the showers so we could clean up.