“You know what we have here in the mountains of rural Georgia, and just across the state line in North Carolina?” They all looked at me wide-eyed. “Private air strips. All these rich people and their fancy homes on the lake and mountain only come in seasonally or for a weekend getaway now and then. They don’t like to be stuck in cars for hours at a time coming from major airports. They fly into the private strips. I bet if we check into things one of the chapters of Aces High, or an off the book associate, has recently acquired a helicopter or a plane of some sort.” I laughed then. “You know what? They might have added someone, but they’ve always had Hopper. I bet he’d be willing to train new blood. I don’t think they’d rely on him solely since he’s needed for other things.”
“Checking, I’ll let you know if I find anything.” Keys shot up out of the room to head to her computer.
“If we find evidence that they have the ability to fly product in, I think it’s safe to assume they plan on using the warehouse as a supply depot.”
“Yeah, but what are we going to do about that?” JoJo, our resident mechanic finally asked. “I mean, this isn’t like Winter’s Renegades. Your dad runs Aces High. They’re your family too, just as much as we are.” I sighed because she was right.
“I don’t know. I need to think about it. What I do know is we can’t let their dirty business affect us. We all worked too damn hard to build what we have here.” I ran a hand through my hair, tugging slightly in frustration. “I’ll figure something out. Until then, make sure the girls all keep their mouths sealed shut around strange guys, but especially around ones wearing kuttes. Also keep your ears to the ground and report back often.”
We left the office in time to see Keys standing among a group of women holding her laptop and looking slightly pissed off. “… Do remember, if you suddenly feel your loyalties shift in favor of a sexy man who happens to make you promises, you know where the door is and you won’t be welcomed back. Also, if you give up any information that could hurt us, I promise your outlook won’t be so great for the next fifty years, nor will the man you threw it all away for.” With that she flipped her red hair behind her shoulders and sauntered off toward the bar with a sway of her hips. I heard a few groans from the women who watched her go. Keys definitely demanded attention when she moved, even from the straightest of women.
“Did you notice that Sweet never even bothered to say anything to you this time?” Tash leaned in to whisper discreetly in my ear.
“Mmm, that just makes me think he’s up to something,” I admitted.
“Or maybe he’s finally got it in his head that you don’t want him,” she countered. I’m not sure why that thought disturbed me. Hell, I’d run from being promised to the man seven years ago, and honestly nothing had changed. One night of seeing his interactions with the women in my club reiterated that fact for me. “Are you disappointed by that?” Tash asked as we both stood and moved to the bar near Keys.
There was no point in lying to her. “I had the biggest crush on him when I was 16. My father wasn’t lying about that.” I chuckled softly. “He’s always been out of reach for one reason or another though. Back then it was my age keeping him at a distance. After my father passed on his decree promising me to the asshole, it was more his behavior than rebellion against what my father wanted that sent me running.”
“Yeah, I remember you talking about what he did that night, or more to the point, who he did.”
I nodded. “From the looks of things, he hasn’t changed. I won’t do that to myself. You saw what I did to my cheating prick of an ex. Do I look like I’m cut out to be paired with someone who I know would put me through that?” Both Tash and Keys laughed.
“Unfortunately, he still makes for a pretty package that’s hard to ignore, huh?” Keys added in her two cents.
“Life is so not fair,” I agreed as I took a sip of the Jack and Coke Keys slid my way. “Let’s go upstairs, shall we?” Looking around the main floor of the clubhouse I could see various eyes watching us. I was certain they were all curious about me, more so than usual, now that they had learned my dad was the President of the infamous Aces High MC and that I was supposedly betrothed to one of its hottest members. The only thing I had on my side right now to take me out from under the microscope was that some of our members’ significant others were starting to filter in for a night of partying.
As some of the couples, and even a few of the single girls, got up and started dancing Tash, Keys, and I made our way upstairs, followed shortly after by Legs and JoJo. Legs, whose name spoke for itself, stared me down with her larger than life, baby blue eyes. I wasn’t giving in, and just waited her out until she asked what she’d wanted to know.
“So, I know you mentioned that when you were 17 your dad made an announcement promising you to the guy, and he took off moments later with two other girls, but I don’t get it…” She shrugged her shoulders as she continued to watch me. “Wouldn’t that have pissed your dad off?”
“If it pissed dear old dad off, he never let me see it. Besides,” I tossed my shoulders up and down in the air just as indifferently as she had moments ago. “Obviously, it didn’t hurt Sweet in any way. He still made VP.”
“Okay, but you didn’t leave until you were 18. I get that you were pissed that your dad was basically trying to trap you in an arranged marriage, but why wait a year to go?”
“It wasn’t quite a year. It was about 7 months from the time of the announcement until I turned 18. My grandparents, my mom’s folks, left me a trust fund. I still don’t know if my dad actually knew about it or not. I was pulled into a secret meeting with their lawyer after their funeral. I was actually shocked my dad allowed me to attend to be honest. After my mom died, they tried to petition the courts to have me taken away from my dad and put in their custody. My Aunt Kiki actually stood up for him, saying he’d always been a good dad, and it would be detrimental to me if I were to lose both parents simply because my grandparents had never liked him. My aunt didn’t know about the whores he was dragging through the house at the time though, or she might have helped her parents instead of him.
“Anyway, the trust opened up to me on my birthday giving me access to plenty of money to get away unnoticed. Once I was far enough away, I had the money moved around to different accounts. I thought it would make it harder to track me. I don’t know that he ever tried though. Like I said, I wasn’t sure he was aware it ever existed.”
Legs was still studying me. “Okay, that explains the wait, but I saw the way you watched Sweet. Don’t worry, you were discreet, but I was curious and being watchful. In all that time, before you left, you never thought about staying and being with him?”
“That’s a longer answer,” I told her. I’m not sure if I managed to tamp down the sadness that overwhelmed me, but I made sure my indifferent mask slipped back over my face in no time. “After the incident with the whores the night of the announcement I never saw him with another woman. That’s not to say he wasn’t with any, because I’m sure the guys would have openly given him more hell about having to wait for me if he wasn’t. He didn’t do it in front of me though. I think maybe you were right, and my dad reamed his ass for it the first time. It’s all speculation on my part though.” I bit into my bottom lip not sure if I wanted to share the rest of my hurt with my friends or not.
“What happened?” Tash asked, picking up on my anxiety.
I blew out a sigh and looked to each of them. “Ah hell,” I finally muttered. “During that seven months before I took off, he and I were kind of thrown into close proximity a lot. Club parties, dinners at my house that my dad brought him to, and I don’t know... I guess it was all being engineered to wear me down, but we actually talked, joked, and got along most of the time. The crush I had on him was back, for sure, and hell, I even found myself ready to just be with him. I’d decided to enroll in WVU, and stay close to home and try.” I stopped and shook the thought off. “Two weeks before I turned 18 my best friend, M
arisol, called me. She was practically panting on the phone with excitement. She wanted to come over to the house to hang out, because she had some big news to share. Like me, she had still been a virgin at that point so I figured she was going to tell me all about her latest crush finally deflowering her. She hadn’t really dated seriously, because she had plans to go away to college, and didn’t want to have to deal with feelings and long distance stuff.” I waved the idea off like it was a pesky fly in need of swatting. “When she got to the house she came bouncing in with this huge grin plastered to her face.”
“You’re never going to guess who I ran into last night at The Hawk’s Nest,” Marisol had chirped out immediately while grabbing hold of my hand and dragging me back to my room. She’d been looking around nervously on our way, I guess trying to see if my dad or any of his whores were around to overhear her.
“Once we were in my room I shut and locked the door then turned and asked her to spill her guts. I kind of wish I had never done that.
“‘Well first, I have to tell you, I had on that tight little black mini skirt. You know the one?’
“The belt?” I asked sarcastically, knowing exactly which skirt she was referring to. She nodded emphatically.
“‘It finally did the job too. Got me noticed, and quick-like, too. You’ll never guess who!’ She was damn near shouting with her excitement. I couldn’t remember her ever talking to me about a guy with that much fervor before, so I had no clue who she was referring to.
“‘Who? Spit it out already, Mare.’
“Sweet was there shooting pool, and when he saw me, his eyes raked all up and down my body. This slow grin spread across his face, and the next thing I knew he was sauntering over to me and wrapping his arms around my waist.” She slipped her hands up under her chin almost in prayer style and hopped a little on the balls of her feet. Meanwhile, I had this sinking feeling hitting me in the pit of my stomach. I tried to keep a smile plastered on my face, and I’m sure if she could have seen through her own rose-colored bubble of glee it would have looked just as fake as it felt, but it didn’t register with her. She just carried on telling me all about her night, in vivid Technicolor detail. “He didn’t waste any time, he just planted his lips to mine, and started kissing me like I was the last damn woman on the planet and he’d gone without for far too long, you know?” She asked the question, but didn’t wait for an answer before moving right along with her story.
“I had only been in the bar for all of ten minutes at most, at least half of that was spent with his tongue in my mouth, and he was pulling me outside. He put me on the back of his bike, took me back to his place, and proceeded to show me all the ways he could make a woman feel good.”
“I felt sick when she told me that,” I admitted. “She was giddy and giggling like a schoolgirl on free ice cream day and I was dying inside.”
“Shit,” Tash choked out. “No wonder I had to convince you to be my friend when we first met.” I only nodded at her. I had just been burned again by my supposed betrothed, and by one of my lifelong best friends.
“Aw man, what the hell kind of bitch does that? Didn’t she know how you felt about him?” Keys asked.
“She knew. I had just been discussing it with her the week before. I was sure I didn’t want to go away to college with her like we’d once planned. I told her I had already enrolled in WVU since it was close to Cedar Falls, because the idea of staying with Sweet had grown on me over time.”
“Ah, I think I see where this is going,” Legs uttered quickly.
“Looking back, I should have seen what she was about too, but at the time, I was too hurt.” I took a swig of my drink before going on. “She went on about how he’d gone down on her, fingered her, how sweetly he’d taken his time with making sure not to hurt her too bad when he took her cherry.”
“So, she told you all about her night of being deflowered by the guy she knew you were in love with?” JoJo’s face was screwed up in disgust.
“Did I mention she was horribly descriptive? But what clenched it for me was her description of his apartment. She’d never been there, that I knew of, and she even described his bedroom and guest room. That was where they apparently did the deed so that they wouldn’t stain anything in his room with her blood.” I laughed then. “The really sad thing was, I was kind of naïve about sex then. I mean, I was still a virgin, but I didn’t know a whole hell of lot about the mechanics involved either. My best girl friend was a virgin too, up until then, and my only other real friend was Quickshot who never spoke to me about sex. Not ever. I brought it up with him once, he turned beat red, and made me promise to never, ever again speak to him about such things.” The girls all laughed at that. So, yeah, even though I’d accidentally seen a club whore or two with a cock in their mouth, I honestly had no clue men would return the favor, or that it would feel incredible when they did.” I felt my own face flush then, and laughed at my residual embarrassment for my 17-year-old self.
“I think that’s really cool though, considering the environment you grew up in.”
“My mom kept me pretty sheltered from club stuff until she died. I was 14 when she was in the accident. So, up until then I never even went to the clubhouse. Not beyond the parking lot anyway. Mom had told my dad that as long as they had club whores running around there, her little girl wasn’t stepping foot inside to learn how to debase herself.”
“Smart cookie, your mom.” Keys smiled at me.
“Yeah, she was. Man, if she could have come back to life and seen the way my dad paraded whores through her house after she died, I honestly think she would have killed him on the spot herself. Love of her life or not she would have shot his ass for exposing me and our home to that shit.” I shook my head at the memories. “I don’t think I can ever forgive him for doing that. I really don’t. He let those bitches into our home. Let them take up space in places that belonged to my mother, who hated them. He let them defile everything in our home that held her memory. First, it was the pictures. I managed to save one photo album, and hid it at Marisol’s house.” A tear escaped me then. “I lost that too when…” A hiccupping sob escaped me then. I just couldn’t pretend away the hurt. Strong arms wrapped around my shoulder, and Tash’s distinctive perfume wafted up around me offering just as much comfort as her arm did.
“So much…” I whispered out through the emotion that thickened my throat. “The three of them took so much from me.”
“I’m so sorry I brought it up, Angel Girl. I just knew there had to be more to your running away than one simple decree to marry a sexy biker. It’s clear you liked the man at some point.”
“Yeah, but I lost my best friend, my family, and the last memories I had of my mother because of him.”
“Did he know? I mean, about Marisol being your best friend?” JoJo asked.
I offered her a tight smile. “I’d been friends with Mare since kindergarten. After my mom died, I would drag her along with me to all the supposed family events the club hosted. I hated going to those things alone, because I usually just sat back in the corner and was forgotten about until one of the dumbasses did something stupid in front of me, finally noticed, and then begged me not to tell my dad. Not that my dad cared anymore. He stopped caring about anything, me included, after my mom died.”
A throat cleared behind us, Tasha’s arm tightened on me, and dread filled my belly as I heard Jesamine whimper out, “I’m so sorry, I didn’t think…” I turned to see her standing there with my dad, Sweet, and Quickshot. Quick was the only one I bothered to look at and the sympathy tugging at his features spoke volumes about what they’d all just overheard.
“I forgot to give this to you earlier, since we were made to leave the bikes outside the gate. Marisol’s mother brought it to me a few years ago when she cleaned out Mare’s room after she moved out.” My father held up a very familiar book to me. It was the same one I had just told the girls about. It was the album that contained the last of my mother’s pictures
. Keys moved to take the book from him as he spoke again. “Jamie…” his voice came out as some sort of plea. I couldn’t deal with any of them right now. Instead, I stood and walked away headed to the rooms in the back of the loft reserved for Tash, Leanne – when she stayed with us - and myself. The last thing I heard before I closed and locked the door behind myself was my dad’s harshly muttered, “FUCK!” Then there was Tash telling him it was best if they all left.
I trusted that Keys and Legs would see to the girls that had just allowed such an amazing fuck-up to happen. The guys never should have been allowed back in the compound without our knowledge, let alone been walked right upstairs to the loft unannounced. Hell, we didn’t even allow the regular, non-stake holding members up here.
Tash knocked. I was going to ignore her until she said, “I have your photo album.” I opened up for her, and grabbed the book out of her hand before sitting on my bed. “JoJo is questioning Jesa now to see how much they overheard.” She sighed. “Security is dealing with the idiots, Jesa included, who allowed them in the compound, and up in the loft without permission, as well.”
“I figured.” I glanced up and offered the briefest of smiles. “Thanks.”
Tash wasn’t having my easy dismissal though. “If it means anything, those boys – meaning your dad and Sweet – looked completely gutted by what they heard, and your friend Quickshot…” she let out a low whistle. “He was pissed. As they were heading down the stairs he was seething through clenched teeth at Sweet and Ghost.” She did her best impression of the man, “I missed out on seven years with a girl who might as well have been my damn twin sister, and all for what? Because neither of you could keep your fucking dick in your pants, or because you pretended not to!”
“Oh God! He’s going to be in trouble for that,” I moaned. Then I smiled. “At least someone in my old family still has my back, huh?”
Tash laughed. “Yeah, well his reaction endeared him to Keys. She told him he was welcome back anytime. Just him though.” I laughed too. “You gonna be okay, Angel Girl?” She finally asked as I opened the album and began flipping through the pages. There were a couple pictures missing, a few of them were damaged, but for the most part they were intact. Tears slipped free as I traced my mom’s face in one of the last pictures we’d taken together. Devil horns had been drawn on my head in the picture, which seriously ripped at a piece of my heart, but my mom’s face had been left alone.
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