Retribution: A Motorcycle Club Romance (5 page)

Eva said nothing. She couldn’t find
any words to spit at this man. Tears stung the back of her eyes and she focused
all her energy on keeping them hidden.

He removed his hand from Eva’s face
and abruptly turned away from her. He sauntered back out around the bar and
toward the door. “Until we meet again,
señorita.
Don’t forget the
message. And for your own good, I wouldn’t tell anyone else we were here.” The
silent man held open the door for Ramirez and they both disappeared out into
the dusty morning sunlight.

The door shut hard and Eva felt her
body’s tension collapse. Her legs began to shake. She shuffled until she felt
the stool underneath her and sat down. Tears began to pop out of her eyes even
though she wasn’t crying. Through the blurry tears, she could see the barflies
looking up from where they had hunkered down, staring at her with wondering,
cowardly looks.

Just a few minutes later, Charlie
came in from his work in the yard and went straight for the fridge in the bar’s
back room, talking obliviously about the roughness of the job and the stubborn
oak branches. When he wandered into the bar room and saw Eva, he paused
mid-drink of Gatorade and came over to her.

“Hey, you look sick. Are you all
right? What’s wrong?”

Eva felt like her blood was taking
its sweet time pumping again, getting her brain working. Seeing Charlie broke
the last of the spell the fear of the moment had cast on her. “I’m okay. But
some… some men just came in here…”

Charlie looked around, confused, at
the same barflies that had been there since ten a.m. “What men? Did they hurt
you?”

“Two men—they wanted to speak with
the owner. I told them it was me and they refused to believe me. They…” Eva
thought of the fingers on her arm and face and shook her head. “I don’t know
what they wanted, but something’s not right. They said they were going to come
back tonight to speak with the owner, that it was very important.”

“Uncle Owen didn’t say anything about
expecting business,” said Charlie.

She looked toward the closed door of
the bar. “I don’t think Uncle Owen was expecting them, either.”

~
FOUR ~

From the blackness of absolute unconsciousness, Will
heard the distant blaring of a high-pitched alarm. He tried to ignore it, tried
to push it away into the swirling dark and return to silence, but the insistent
rhythm continued without pause. His brain latched onto it and drew him out of
sleep like a moth to a flame, and he groaned out loud as his body was pulled
back into consciousness. Several parts radiated with throbbing pain, including
his head and his fists, with his stomach growling with unabated hunger. Most
urgently, he had to pee like a fucking race horse.

With his eyes half-open in the late
morning sun, Will stumbled to the bathroom and relieved himself before he
dropped back onto his messy sheets. He tried hard to fall back into sleep, but
it was no use. His brain was awake.

He lay there in bed, his forearm over
his eyes to shield them from the light. His thoughts drifted in and out of a
haze that still felt a little drunk. Nonetheless, memories from the night
before rattled around his skull like trapped rats, scratching at him, refusing
to be ignored. Blurry eyes examined cut marks on his knuckles as he stretched
his sore hands. They were still smeared with dried blood from the bar fight. The
scars would soon be new additions to a growing patchwork of injuries he’d
earned in the last couple years.

Will took a deep breath. From the
half-open window above his bed came a cool, dewy breeze that made his skin feel
relieved. He could smell someone’s Sunday morning baking in the air and the
scent triggered an immediate sadness in him that almost overrode his shame.

After a few minutes he forced himself
to roll over and take a swig of water from the bottle he kept perpetually
filled on his nightstand. He drank half of it, and then pawed around for his
phone, which he had again failed to plug into the charger before he fell
asleep. He found it in the pocket of his jeans, crumpled up on the floor, ignored
since he split from his MC brothers the night before.

Twelve unread texts and two missed
calls; all of the texts were from Jase, as was one of the calls. The other
missed call was from his president, Henry. Chief Black Dog.

The dull ache of shame spread through
Will’s chest. He thumbed his screen to quickly scan Jase’s texts, messages that
started only half an hour after he left Will and the bar fight, and grew
increasingly angry and worried as the night had progressed.

You’re gonna drive right
off the edge if you don’t get your shit together.

I sure as hell hope you
went home. I’m not bailing your ass out of County in the morning.

Are you fucking kidding
me? Can’t even text me back? What the fuck is wrong with you??

You better not be a
goddamn minute late tomorrow.

Will toggled through them absently
before tossing his phone onto the floor. Right now, the MC was gathered up to
host an end-of-summer community breakfast, one of the many positive PR moves
that Henry implemented on a regular basis to make sure LeBeau’s citizens
remained happy and loyal to the club. Douglas brought out his enormous
barbeques and overlaid them with griddles to cook up pancakes, bacon, and
sausage for anyone who wanted to stop by. They laid out picnic tables and
blankets, hired magicians and jugglers. Henry took a rare audience with members
of the general public. Tommy Castillo, one of the younger members, had gone out
of his way to learn how to make balloon animals for these occasions, and the
kids adored him for it. Even Ghost found a way to adapt his decidedly
unfriendly life skills by leading the older kids in water gun battles. It made
the MC look softer than they were, and gave them a chance to make sure the
town’s loyalty to them was strong, so they would forgive the next inevitable
gunfight or explosion.

Will imagined that Jase was probably
standing next to Douglas at the grills right now, wearing some apron with a
stupid joke over his cut, trying to pay attention to flipping hotcakes and
checking his phone at the same time, waiting for Will to call. Or maybe Jase
wasn’t waiting anymore. Will was hours late. Jase had to be a fool to think he
was still coming.

Will knew he would draw some deep ire
for missing the event today, and not just from Jase. But he didn’t care. That
tiny ache of shame in his gut was wholly drowned by the tide of anger that
washed in when he thought about Henry and the MC. For the last two years, he
had tried with every fiber in his being to overcome and forgive what had
happened. But it was like Will had no control anymore—not over himself, and not
over the events that happened to him.

The scent of baking in the air got
stronger, and Will felt tears on his face. He wiped them away with anger. Like
a cruel joke, the inferno that consumed his grandmother and her shop had
smelled of cinnamon and sugar, smelled of her baking, and now he couldn’t stand
the scent. It made him think of fire and pain.

As intrusive thoughts of the blaze
tried to surface in his mind, Will pushed back, clamping them down hard with
another memory: the look on the faces of the men who had set the fire as he
pumped a bullet into their brains. Three of them. He could still remember them,
kneeling on the gray concrete floor of the abandoned factory, mouths gagged,
eyes full of hate and fear. His MC brothers and the hierarchy of the cartel had
watched him take his vengeance. In the name of alliance and mutual benefits, a
deal had been struck after the bakery fire, giving the cartel transit through
the mountain pass with the MC’s blessing and protection, so long as they never
set up shop in LeBeau or Howlett directly. Amended to that, Henry had demanded
they turned over the arsonists for the innocent blood they shed.

Will could still feel the weight of
the gun in his hand, heavier somehow in that moment than it ever felt before or
since. He could remember the burn of righteous rage that tore through his
veins. He could still remember thinking the world would feel better once this
was finished. But after the rapport died and the gun smoke cleared, he had
stared down at three cold and bloody bodies and felt nothing. Not relief, not
justice, not catharsis. It was like he had stepped directly into a dark forest
with no map or compass as soon as he fired the gun.

Anxiety raced down Will’s body as he
lay in bed, his brain overloading with rotten memories and toxic feelings. He
just wanted to go back to sleep. He rustled around a few moments, trying to
find some space in the bed where he could feel comfortable, but it was useless.
Angrily, he lifted himself onto his feet.

His agitation grew as he paced his
room, as if he was caught in a labyrinth of thought he couldn’t escape. Finally
the building pressure popped, and Will growled as he punched a hole in the
drywall next to his bookshelf. The shelf rattled against the wall and spilled a
few titles carelessly to the floor. His already-injured hand lit up in a
fireworks show of pain, and while it hurt like a bitch, it also took Will’s
focus off his mental anguish for a few precious moments. He felt blood running
down his dry skin, knuckle wounds torn open just as endorphins rushed through
his system to treat the pain, making his vision sharp and the ache in his
muscles just a little number.

Will grabbed a dirty shirt from the
floor and wiped the blood off his hands as he stared down at the pile of books.
Even though they only joined a growing mess of clutter and chaos, he couldn’t
bring himself to leave them there. Not his books. Making sure he didn’t have
blood on his hands, Will picked them up with care and put them back on the
shelf one at a time. Fingering the spines, he couldn’t help but long for the time
when reading made him feel better. He was so anxious lately that he could
barely concentrate on a magazine.

Will sighed to himself. Everywhere he
turned, more pain seemed to await him. He wished he could just sleep through it
all, that he didn’t have to go through the hassle of social exposure and
protocol to lose himself in the warmth of a woman. He wished he could be drunk
forever. All of his days felt dark, but some days—like today—got darker than
dark.

There was only one place to go on
days like this. At first he had fought it as a poor idea; now, he didn’t care. The
land where his grandmother’s bakery once stood had been bought shortly after
the fire, and on its ashes, a bar was built. It felt like fate to Will. He had
found himself there more and more in recent months. Some days, it was like he
ached for it.

Some nights, he wondered if he would
die there, too.

As he shuffled for the shower, Will
heard his phone buzzing and ignored it again. He didn’t want to talk to anyone
today. Today, he just wanted to sit and drink.

After his shower, he found some
moderately clean jeans and a white shirt to pull on, ignoring his cut that
dangled from the living room recliner. He didn’t want to think about the MC
today, either. He even left his phone lying on the floor of his bedroom as he
left, and he didn’t even bother to lock his front door.

He simply climbed on his bike and
headed out in the late morning sunlight toward Howlett, anxious at the idea of
drinking away the darkness.

~
FIVE ~

After the confrontation with the two strangers, Eva
asked Charlie to take over serving so she could catch a nap. She assured her
overprotective brother that she wasn’t harmed and maybe she had just overreacted,
but she couldn’t admit to him how frightened she had been. She also didn’t want
to admit to herself how the adrenaline charging through her veins made her feel
more alive than she ever had. Instead, she took a slow walk through the forest
and back to the house, made herself some tea, and promptly fell asleep,
surrounded by her aunt’s creepy porcelain doll collection. Even the lumpy bed
didn’t stop her.

It did a fine job recharging her.
When she woke, Eva didn’t feel the fear anymore. She told herself she had
misinterpreted the exchange with the men. Maybe it was all some joke she and
Charlie weren’t in on. Maybe Laura was right—she was seeing things like she was
in a story, dramatic and larger than life. Those men probably wouldn’t even
come back. She took a shower and grabbed a book before she headed back to the
bar, snacking on an apple as she walked.

Someone had started up the jukebox in
the corner, which held a fine selection of old outlaw country, and a few
classic rock songs. Two men that Eva suspected were farmers talked lowly at one
of the tables, sharing a pitcher of cheap beer. One of the regular bar flies
claimed his seat at the end of the long oak bar, just next to the video poker
machine that went ignored most of the time.

Charlie stood behind the bar, leaning
over a book he had spread open on the glossy surface.

She looked down at the small, uniform
text arranged around complex-looking diagrams. “Christ, what are you trying to
fix now?”

“There’s an emergency generator out
back,” said Charlie, thumbing over his shoulder like she didn’t know where “out
back” was. “Owen didn’t say anything about it, but it looks like something’s
wrong with it. It hasn’t been used in a while.”

 “Yeah, probably because
something’s
wrong with it
,” said Eva in a mocking tone. She nudged him out of the way
to grab herself a pint glass and filled it carefully from the draught. “You
don’t have to repair every little thing broken around here, you know. You can
just relax… read a
real
book.” She shook her own at him.

“This
is
how I relax,” said
Charlie without looking up.

Eva gave him a face that he ignored.
She felt a little sting of pain that she recognized as loneliness. She wished
her brother could find even some pleasure in the company of others, and not
just his constant problem-solving.

She took her beer and her book and
settled into the small two-person table just next to the bar, closest to the
back room, where she would be least likely to be disturbed should they get some
sudden rush of customers. The thought made her smirk as she looked over the
perpetually empty room.

It didn’t take long for her to settle
in and surround herself in her typical comfort zone. The music of the jukebox
floated just soft enough to provide background fodder for her busy brain while
it devoured page after page, stopping only for occasional sips of beer. She was
five chapters deep when the door to the bar swung open.

For a second, Eva’s heart jumped. Was
it the strangers returning? She held her breath until the new arrival walked
across the floor and straight for the bar. When Eva saw him, her heart jumped a
second time, but it wasn’t from fright. The man was deeply handsome, an
unblemished face full of boyish charm juxtaposed with a jawline square and cut
like marble. Rust-colored scruff grew in a short beard and moustache, and
matched the loose curls on top of his head that looked like they hadn’t seen
scissors in a while. His white t-shirt fit snugly over his chest and arms,
revealing lean muscle lines. Despite that leanness, he nonetheless exuded a
strength that reminded Eva of the strangers from before. Something predatory.

A surprising heat rushed through her
chest and into more intimate places. It only worsened when he licked his full
lips and absently pushed his hair back from his face as he sat down in front of
Charlie at the bar.
Christ, he’s so hot it hurts.

As if he could hear her thoughts, the
man lifted his gaze and trailed it across the bar until it landed on her. It
was then that Eva realized she had stopped to stare at him mid-drink, with her
mouth half-open and her pint of beer hanging in the air. She cleared her throat
and dropped the beer back on the table as she averted her eyes back to her book,
trying desperately to at least look like she was again lost in the text.

When she dared glance back up again,
he was still looking at her. Staring, even. His brown eyes were so deep, they
looked endless from where she sat, and held a sadness that Eva couldn’t help
but feel. His face had gone much softer, and when he looked at the book in her
hands, she saw the ghost of an endearing half-smile.

Charlie suddenly looked up from his manual
on the counter. “Oh, ‘scuse me, I didn’t see you there. What can I get you?”

The man held her gaze just a second
longer before he turned to Charlie. “Two shots of whiskey and a stein.”

Eva’s stomach fluttered at the sound
of his voice, a deep timbre spoken softly, deliberately. She couldn’t believe
herself, getting all worked up over some… well, what was he? He certainly looked
dangerous, but she couldn’t place exactly why. Plenty of guys kept in shape and
carried knives. Plenty of guys had scars on their arms, and their neck. It was
something else in the way he carried himself. Whatever it was, it didn’t
frighten her like it had with the strangers. Instead, Eva felt honest-to-god
arousal in a way she hadn’t felt in months—maybe even years.

An unwelcome, paranoid thought
protruded into her mind—that maybe this dark, handsome stranger
was
related to the earlier ones. Was he here to continue the work they had started?
He didn’t look particularly agitated. She did hope he wasn’t with them. It
would certainly tarnish his handsomeness.

Charlie served him and Eva heard the
man ask, “You new here?”

“Yeah, there’s been a bit of an
ownership shake-up. Temporary,” said Charlie, holding his hands up as he said
the last word. He stretched one of them out to the man. “I’m Charlie Murdock.
Owen had some family business to attend to. My sister and I will be running
things in the meantime. Hopefully, you shouldn’t feel too much of a
difference.”

The man looked at Charlie’s hand a
moment before he shook it. “Will.” He took a pause. “You and your sister?” he
added, trailing his gaze back over to Eva before Charlie could answer.

“Eva, over there,” said Charlie as he
nodded toward her. Both men looked at her and Eva squirmed a bit in her chair. She
raised a hand in an awkward wave, and then pretended to dive back into her
book. She could feel Will’s eyes on her still, but she didn’t dare look up and
confirm it.
Laura’s gonna love this
, she thought.

She didn’t hear Will say anything
else, but she did hear the sound of both the shot glasses being put back on the
counter, one after the other. Her gaze flicked up and over the book for another
quick peek. The man was just sitting on his stool now, staring at some empty
point behind the bar, lost in thought. And not a happy thought, if she had to
judge. She didn’t envy whoever he must have been thinking about. There was an
air about him that reminded her of a half-sleeping wolf.

The song on the jukebox changed to
something from Jimi Hendrix and Eva started to try and get back into her book.
She’d only read a few paragraphs before feeling compelled to pause for another
glance up at dark, handsome Will at the bar. After a few minutes, she realized
she wasn’t digesting anything she was reading. All she could think about was
how strong Will’s hands would feel on her.

Eva cleared her throat and blushed to
herself. She saw the stranger look up for just a moment and again, like before,
his face softened just a touch when their eyes met. She took that as a sign
that maybe he liked what he was looking at.

The door to the bar swung open again,
and Eva heard the approach of multiple footsteps at once. Her heart dropped
when she saw the familiar leather coats and dangerous faces of the Latino
strangers who had threatened her before. She froze. The blood drained from her
face.

When her gaze flicked back to Will,
she saw something come over him, like he was reading the thoughts on her face.
His back straightened, and the lines from his face disappeared as his
expression became a blank slate of coldness. Something dark erupted in his
eyes.

Oh, Christ,
thought
Eva. Was this Will’s cue to attack? Was he with them, after all?

From her left, she heard Charlie call
out obliviously, “Afternoon, guys. What can I get you?”

Her eyes stayed fixed on the men as
one of them stalked over to the farmers’ table and suddenly slapped the
half-empty beer pitcher into one of their laps.

“Closing time, gentlemen! If you
would be so kind as to collect your shit and
get the fuck out of our bar
,”
shouted the man with the close-cropped hair, exaggerating every word and
syllable.

The men groused and leapt from their
seats, only to be shoved harshly for the door with cruel hands and threats of
broken bones. The old barfly near the poker machine didn’t wait to be told; he lurched
off his stool and bee-lined out the front door and into the sun. The man with
the bun walked up to the bar.

“What the fuck do you think you’re
doing?!” yelled Charlie, his arms up.

Eva held a white-knuckled grip on her
book as she watched the man in the bun approach Will from behind. She waited
for him to clap a trusting hand on his back, call him by name.

Instead, the man in the bun put one
of his arms on the bar on Will’s left side. He leaned in to give Will the same
threats the others had received.

“Did you hear that, asshole? Get on
your fucking feet,” the man in the bun growled right near Will’s face.

In a flash, Will turned into an
animal. He held the man’s wrist steady with one hand and lifted his thick,
half-full stein glass with the other. The heavy stein came crushing down on the
man’s forearm, filling the room with the sound of snapping bones and painful
screams.

The man in the bun grabbed his broken
arm to his chest and stumbled backwards into the wall and over a table only a
few feet from where Eva sat. She leapt to her feet and scrambled out of the
way, scared he would try and hurt her in revenge, but he only writhed on the
floor, screaming in Spanish.

Breathing hard, Eva looked up. Will
was on his feet, a deadly coldness in his eyes as he turned to face the other
thug. Even though the Latino man had height and weight on him, Will looked like
twice the force, standing there with his back straight as an arrow, his broad
shoulders puffed out. He waited like a patient viper until the thug took a
heavy swing at him. Will ducked quickly beneath the punch and came back up with
his own, straight into the man’s nose. Blood gushed from the wound almost
instantly and the thug howled in pain.

“You picked the wrong fucking bar,”
said Will quietly to the man as he stumbled, bleeding, trying to fumble for the
door. Will turned and grabbed the collar of the man on the floor and yanked him
harshly to his feet. The man howled in pain, spitting at him and calling him
terrible things. He pushed and shoved both of the injured men, one after the
other, until he had them both out the front door and disappeared from sight. Eva
and Charlie could only stand, frozen and staring, completely overwhelmed.

After a few tense moments, Will came
back in, yelling at them with a fury that Eva had never heard from anyone. Even
though it wasn’t directed at her, it terrified her just the same. “You tell
whoever the fuck sent you that they just made the last mistake of their short,
pathetic fucking lives!”

He slammed the door shut, the color
in his face already making him look more alive. Without a word, he turned and
locked it, pulling the chain on the neon
Open
sign. “Lock the back
door,” he said to neither of them in particular.