Knight (87 page)

A woman sat on my bike.

It was the most dangerous place in the world for her.

Had a man trespassed, he’d be laid out on the concrete cradling a broken nose and counting the teeth scattered on the pavement.

But the blonde leaning against the handlebars gave me a fucking smirk. The kind of look that gripped a man by his jeans and twisted until he handed over his wallet or fell in love. She mugged with a smile, charmed with a twirl of her hair, and saved her perfect ass from my temper with an arching eyebrow.

She was the type of pretty worth a night of regret, but I knew better. Pretty was about as good for my bike as a ride on dry gravel. I jerked a thumb over my shoulder.

She spoke first.

“Hi.”

Disarmed, and she didn’t even throw a punch. The leather jacket tailor-fit her frame, snug against a thin waist and swelling hips that promised endless trouble. Her boots had heels, probably to pin down the men who fell for her siren song. Her jacket wasn’t zipped, but a pink, silk scarf tied over her neck and obscured the cleavage from her plunging neckline.

She was the most beautiful woman I’d seen in three thousand miles and thirty-eight years.

And she sat on my bike.

“Get off.”

I counted the seconds her silver eyes dared to meet mine. She glanced down, batting her thick lashes as she studied the ground with a bite to her lip and another squeeze on my jeans.

How fucking old was she? College probably, though I doubted many people in the coal mining town saved their pennies for higher education.

“I can’t get up.” Her lips puffed into a perfect pout.

She didn’t want to play this game with me.

“It’s real easy, Darling. Stand up. Get the hell off my bike.”

“I told you. I can’t.”

Those silver eyes pierced my patience, daring me to haul her over my shoulder. I considered it. She thought she could tease without consequence, thought she’d handle how I punished little flirty girls for playing a game they’d never win. She crossed her ankles and settled in. Defiant.

I hardened.

And I hated myself for it.

“Get off the damn bike.”

“They’re waiting for you inside the garage.” The woman teased me with a glance over my leather. “I won’t let anyone touch your ride.”

A scratch to the paint would be nothing compared to the bruise on her ass.

The bag weighed heavy. I didn’t ask what a busted-up garage with more weeds in the parking lot than customers wanted with a laptop. Half of their windows cracked and shattered, and yellowed paper curled beneath the broken frames. The rusted body of an old Chevy blocked access to a broken bay door. More than fuel and oil sullied the air.

No wonder the girl sat on my bike. It was the cleanest place to rest that tempting ass.

“Entry’s around the side,” she said. “I’ll wait here.”

At least she had sense enough to keep out of the MC’s business even if she thought her bones were made of concrete. My jaw tensed.

This wasn’t what I was expecting.

Then again, I didn’t have a right to expect anything after leaving Anathema. The road dulled only so much pain, and every bump in the asphalt ached in my healing shoulder. When the bullet struck me, it was courteous enough to divert away from any major arteries. It didn’t kill me, and more importantly, it hadn’t hit her. Anathema’s last gift to me was ripping the slug out of my arm, but the wound it left behind required more than a handful of antibiotics and a tumbler of whiskey to manage.

Death had to be cleaner than this life—easier than running packages cross-country and dealing with disorganized and desperate MC’s with half the discipline of Anathema and all the aggression of the remaining leadership.

Most men lived for the job.

This wasn’t living.

The money I made and the men I contacted and the miles I rode existed only to pass the time. But it wasn’t on my side, and the days my father served protected him behind unbreakable walls and bribed wardens. We both had debts to our name, but mine would last long after he repaid his to society.

The garage was a bad front, but in this area, even the cops struggled to survive. Bad money traded between both sides of the law, the same greasy dollars trapped in a cycle between drugs and women, cash for beer and a kid’s braces. The bikes loaded into the bays were missing parts and covered with dust. Waiting for the money to replace broken starters, or probably stripped to pay for something else.

The further I ran from home, the more familiar everything seemed. My family fought the same poverty. I got out of jail at twenty-one and learned quick how a heavy a burden real-life was. My father did what he did best to get money, and my brother injected courage into his veins to do what my father asked.

And Rose?

The first time I met her she was four years old and playing under the bar with a one-armed doll while Mom served more than drinks in the back room. She smiled because she didn’t understand, and her giggle was a sweet sound after those years in prison.

I didn’t know what to do after she hugged me, so I stole a TV and pawned it to buy the kid her first real stuffed animal—something fluffy and pink that smelled like baby powder. It didn’t matter where it came from. I owed her that much, something to hold onto at night when Dad beat the shit out of Mom for spending all their cash on more drugs.

The officers of the Sacrilege MC waited in an oil-stained break room. The fridge hummed, but the fluorescent lights zapped in the bulb’s death throes. Four men sat in silence.

I met the president—Sam “Harbinger” Ferrero—a few days before the meet. The former mill worker was laid-off when the industry failed. He was too old to return to the forge and too proud for social security. He laughed when he should have thrown a punch, but I had my fill of violent presidents who fought first and snuck in a second shot before the dust cleared.

The other three were strangers. A blonde kid sat on the counter, pants covered in grease. He couldn’t have been over twenty-five, and his only patch labeled him as
Red
. He didn’t focus on me, not when his attention was reserved for the behemoth threatening the room. I didn’t blame him.

The hulking beast was more freak show than genuine bulk. He glared with all the subtlety of a charging bull and the intelligence of a rutting cow. Some fool gave him a vice-president patch—probably because he wasn’t trusted with anything beyond what his knuckles scraped.

Christ. I escaped from one bloody asylum only to land somewhere between a meth lab and a double homicide. I set the bag on the table for Sam and his treasurer, a man who served in Vietnam and twitched enough to signify most of him was still in the damn jungle.

Sam took the laptop and nodded as he pushed the power button.

“It’s working. Pay him.”

The veteran offered me an envelope. Inside was more than they made in a week. Not worth a hand-me-down laptop but a steal for what was on it. Bank account numbers, blackmail, rival club info. All the same to me as long as I got paid. The money was enough to feed me and collect for Rose. She wasn’t a kid anymore and didn’t need dolls, but she could use it for books and tuition, guitar strings and amps. Maybe a plane ticket when she realized trading one fucked up family for a fling with Anathema’s president wouldn’t help her any.

“Good to see you again, Noir.” Sam gestured for me to sit. “You’ve been trustworthy. Dependable. That’s rare around here.”

I didn’t want to stay, but the couple grand in my pocket was reason to be polite.

“That’s just good business,” I said.

“Think you can do us one more job?”

My shoulder ached. Rest would help—time in a hot shower with enough pain-killers to ease the aching pinch. Two worked to stop a headache, but a handful of Tylenol PM helped to black out the guilt.

“Where do I go, and when do you want me there?” I asked.

Sam grinned, but he was the only one. While Frankenstein lumbered in the corner, Red stared through Sam’s head like he was aiming a gun. He reloaded his gaze at the behemoth. The Vet said nothing, tapping quick, anxious fingers against the table.

Dissention. Insubordination. The resentment staining Sacrilege MC would crumble the decrepit garage into rubble. I saw what happened when clubs tore apart and brother fought brother.

No one would win and no one could help, even when they thought they had a solution.

Especially when they thought they had a fucking solution.

“This delivery will be a little different,” Sam said.

I didn’t like different. The laptop made me nervous enough. Men like Sam and his rag-tag club didn’t do
different
. They did meth and weed, stolen TVs and cigarettes.

“I don’t need the details,” I said. “If it fits on my bike, it goes.”

“Good. She’s already on your bike.”

A dozen profanities shot through my head. “Forget it.”

Behemoth snorted. Red finally gave me an appraising look.

“You haven’t heard the proposition yet,” Sam said.

“I’ve heard enough. We’re done here.”

“She’s part of this deal, Noir. Listen to me.”

He wouldn’t say anything worth hearing. The envelope bled through my vest. I tossed the money on the table.

“I’m not interested.”

Behemoth spoke. His words grunted through pure testosterone and nothing else.

“You said he wouldn’t ask questions.”

“I’m not asking questions. I’m telling you. I want nothing to do with that girl.”

The thought soured my brain. I carried drugs and murder weapons across state lines, stolen credit cards for pimps and pharmaceuticals for sick kids. There was a time my conscience never slowed me.

That had changed. So many things changed. Now I knew what happened to scared little girls stuffed on the backs of motorcycles. I learned that lesson too late, but I’d be damned if I let it happen again.

“Sit,” Sam said. “Please.”

“I don’t traffic women.”

Behemoth lunged. “You callin’ my girl a whore?”

The knife twirled into my palm quicker than the giant moved. I aimed, and the point of the blade dug into his neck.

The vet hopped from the table too fast. “Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit.”

“Whoa now.” Sam eased between us. “Goliath, Noir ain’t said nothing about Martini. Let me handle this.”

Goliath snorted. He deliberately leaned into the blade. A bead of blood stained his thick neck.

“We’re not asking you to traffic her,” Sam said. He waited until the knife fit in its sheath. “You just gotta take her to Kingdom. She’s a...token of good faith while we move on the next phase of our agreement.”

I ground my teeth. “She’s collateral?”

“Yes.”

“She know about this?”

“Of course.”

It still didn’t sit well with me. A cute girl like that with an ass that promised a better ride than a Harley had no business getting passed club to club.

Sam kept his voice calm. “We just need you to take her to Kingdom. They’ll give you five grand for the ride, and you’ll be on your way.”

“I don’t transport passengers.”

“Even for five thousand dollars?”

“Take her there yourself. It’s only a couple hours north.”

“Can’t do that.” Sam tapped his nose. “We technically don’t have any contact with the Kingdom MC. This is all...covert, for the moment.”

Subtlety was not a pot-bellied president, a meth-head Vet, a blonde playboy, and a walking injection of steroids. It also wasn’t trading a woman for an IOU.

“I don’t carry things liable to talk back. I’m not jeopardizing my business by becoming an accomplice to kidnapping or murder.”

Or rape.

The word pitted my stomach. Just another reminder of what I raced to protect.

“No one’s touching Martini,” Goliath said. “And she ain’t gonna do nothin’ I didn’t tell her to do.”

“It’s above board,” Sam said. “No one’s gonna hurt Martini. She’s one of us. We love her.”

I had heard that before. I was familiar with loyalty, but I understood betrayal better. One was far easier than the other. What was a little insomnia and guilt when there was money to make and pleasure to be stolen?

“All you gotta do is give that girl a ride.” Sam offered me the money again. “One little ride up north and drop her off. She’ll be fine.”

“No.”

“No?”

I stood to leave.

They didn’t like that. I exhaled my unspoken profanity as Goliath stepped in front of the door. It was rare I had to look up to meet someone’s gaze, but Goliath was all size, no finesse, and half the man he thought he was. He pushed me to the table.

“Sit down,” he said. “We ain’t asking again.”

Red secured the laptop and hopped off the counter. He wasn’t looking for a fight, not like the knuckle-cracking mouth-breather who got in my face. Sam sighed and pulled a gun from under his vest. I didn’t bother reaching for mine.

“Here’s the problem,” Sam said. “Martini has to get to Kingdom. You’re the only one who knows we have contact with Kingdom. Why complicate this? We don’t want to bring in anyone else, especially someone who might get disillusioned and start talking. Do you understand, son?”

“You’re not gonna murder me.”

“No one would find out,” Sam said. “Anyone tell you how Red got his name?”

“No.”

“He reds up our messes here.”

I frowned. None of this fucking Pittsburgh MC bullshit made any damn sense.

Sam sighed. “It means— he cleans these types of situations for us. Does a good job too. No one would know you were here, no one would know which river we drowned you in. Times are hard, Noir. We need our alliance with Kingdom MC, and Martini will earn their trust for us. A man like you must realize what’s at stake.”

Yeah. I knew plenty about broken allegiances and covert arrangements.

I also knew Sam’s gun hadn’t been shot in years.

But Goliath? Not many men walked around with a worn ball-peen hammer on their belt. I had enough headaches these days, I didn’t need anyone beating my damned conscience to a pulp.

Bluffs were meant to be called, guns fired, and graves dug. I waited for the day when the hail of bullets freed my guilt from my veins and ended the misery I caused.