ROUGHNECK: A DARK MOTORCYCLE CLUB ROMANCE (4 page)

As I struggled to my feet, I saw Gopher come barreling toward us in the van. He must have crept up to see what was happening when he didn’t get the text message on time.

All of the buyers, except for the guy I had just smashed in the nose were back in the pickup.

Gopher slammed on the brakes, bringing the van to a skidding halt not five feet from where Dirty and I parked the bikes. He leapt out, wielding a wrench.
Where the hell did he get a wrench?

The pickup shot forward, demolishing Dirty’s bike in the process. The big wheels rolled over the handlebars and mirrors, rendering it a piece of junk as the driver maneuvered the truck between us and their fallen friend.

“Kill him, kid!” screamed Dirty.

I looked down at the pistol still in my hand. I was frozen. Just as Gopher ran around the back of the truck to take a swing at the downed man, he was able to pull himself to his feet and flop into the bed of the truck.

Their tires spun and kicked rocks back at us. I shielded my face. They finally gained traction and put some distance between us.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” yelled Dirty.

“I’m not gonna shoot someone in the back!” I shouted back, my whole body frozen up as the truck rocketed away.

Dirty charged at me and ripped the gun from my hand. He leveled the barrel at their back window and fired. The first shot missed high. The second hit the tailgate, punching a hole through the metal.

Dirty stumbled a few steps forward to take a final shot at the rapidly disappearing truck as it made its way back to the road. He steadied himself and let it go. This one went wide to the left, but it didn’t miss everything.

The windshield of an oncoming sedan exploded in the pattern of a giant spider web. The car jerked violently to the left and then back to the right. I heard a lady in the diner behind me scream.

“Shit,” yelled Dirty. “Let’s go after ‘em.”

He jumped into the passenger side of the van and yelled at Gopher to drive.

“Ace, follow us. We can’t let them get away.”

The back end of the van slid wildly on the loose rocks when Gopher stomped on the gas pedal. They careened into the roadway in pursuit of the blue pickup.

There was a line of people forming outside the diner, watching the show.

I numbly found my way back to my bike. I couldn’t take my eyes off of the tan colored sedan that had rolled into the ditch on the far side of the road. The horn blasted. It was piercing and nonstop.

I waited for movement to come from the car. I prayed for it. It never came.

I didn’t want to admit to myself what the hole in the windshield meant. It was centered right where the driver’s head would have been.

Survival mode kicked in. My body went on auto-pilot as I felt the Harley roar to life beneath me. It was a small miracle that the driver of the truck chose to go left instead of right, otherwise it would have been
my bike
smashed to pieces, and not Dirty’s.

I whipped around in a tight circle to bring myself perpendicular to the highway. I gave the car in the ditch one last look. I couldn’t figure out what to do next.

A stiff breeze came up from the west. It blew dirt and dust all around me. I felt something hit my foot. Looking down, I saw the envelope full of cash resting against my boot.

It got lost in the bedlam. Each group must’ve thought the other had it.

I picked it up, stuffed it in my shirt pocket, and drove in the opposite direction.

S
uch a long night
. I hadn’t been able to sleep for more than an hour or two at a time since this whole mess started. At this point I didn’t know what was worse… The nightmares, or the sex dreams…

The ones where Roughneck held me down against my bed, his hands wrapped around my arms just the way he’d done at the club. I would stare up into that biker’s wanting eyes as he drove his cock deep into my willing and desperate body…

I wanted to give up. I didn’t have time for fantasizing… With four days left before the eviction papers found their way to my front door, it almost felt like the thing to do was sit back and enjoy the shelter while it lasted.

What was the point, anyway? Why work so damn much if it wasn’t going to be enough in the end? I might as well get as much rest as I can now, because I damn sure wouldn’t be getting it on the street and I didn’t have any friends or family to turn to.

My legs and arms ached from the long shift last night. The first bit of grey light started to peak into my bedroom from between the two heavy curtains.

The clock said six fourteen. Less than four hours ago I was counting out my till at the bar. It didn’t seem fair.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Three loud knocks rattled the picture frames on my walls.

What the hell? Who would be here just after six in the morning?

I pulled the pillow over my face and cursed into it. If it was the property management people again, they were going to need some heavy artillery to get me out of here. I had four more days left and I was determined to be here for every last one of them.

I waited for a follow up knock but it never came. The blankets were begging me to pull them up over my head and ignore the rest of the world. That’s exactly what I would have done if the curiosity hadn’t been clawing at me.

My toes sunk into the plush bedroom carpet. Leaving the warmth of the bed was more difficult than I’d anticipated. I grabbed a hoodie off the floor and wrapped it around my waist. It wasn’t ideal, but it worked well enough to keep my legs warm. I’d worry about finding pants if someone were still at the door.

A cool breeze from through the cracked kitchen window chilled my bare shoulders.

I crept up next to the street-side window. I figured out shortly after moving in that it was easy to see whoever was at the door from the side. If you knew just the right angle, you could see through without having to move anything. It was a helpful little trick when Jared’s crazy ex-girlfriend decided she wanted to come by at all hours of the day and night.

There was no one standing at the door. Could it have been a salesman? Not likely this early in the morning. Maybe it was an early rising Jehovah’s Witness. But that didn’t seem right either.

Cautiously making my way toward the door, I wondered if it was even worth a second look. What if someone was out there? Maybe walking back to their car… if they saw the door open, I’d have to stay and talk to them.

There was nothing to gain. I don’t know why, but I opened the door anyway. I peeked around the corner to see… nobody. What was I expecting?

Just as I was about to let the door swing shut, something caught the corner of my eye. A brown paper bag, sitting square in the middle of the generic door mat that Jared bought for me when we moved in.

I poked my head further outside and cast a suspicious glance in either direction. Not a soul was around.

The paper bag was rolled tightly shut. On closer inspection, there appeared to be some kind of note taped to the outside.

I’m not sure what was scaring me. It’s not like someone would leave a bomb outside my front door. And if so, this certainly wasn’t the type of delivery system you would expect.

In one swift motion, I snatched it off the ground and pulled it inside. When the door pushed shut I snapped the deadbolt into place.

It was lighter than I expected it to be. The note was on a small folded over piece of paper. It looked like it had been torn from a flyer, like one you might find stuck under your car’s windshield wiper.

“Use this for whatever you need. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.”

It wasn’t signed, but it didn’t need to be. The note was scrawled in Jared’s unmistakable sloppy handwriting.

My heart was beating in my throat.

The bag tore down the middle under the tug of my fingers. A wad of rolled up cash tumbled out, falling at my feet.

Whoa.

I picked it up and bounced it in my open palm while I re-read the note.

…Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.

What did he mean by that? Was he in trouble?

I wasn’t naïve enough to believe it didn’t have something to do with this money. I unrolled the stack and fanned it out in front of me. All one hundred dollar bills.

I felt a little dirty counting it while still not knowing if my brother was safe. But I had to see how much was there.

Nine thousand seven hundred dollars.
Oh shit.

The money brought with it a mixed bag of emotions. I’m not ashamed to admit that at first, it was a wave of relief. All of my problems were gone thanks to the tightly rolled bundle of bills. But that immediately gave way to concern… concern about where, and more importantly
how,
he got it. That concern quickly morphed into dread when I considered the note.

One thing was for certain. Somebody down at that bar would know what was going on with my brother. If had to take a guess, it would be the one with the blue eyes. The one who’d been fucking me every night in my dreams… Damn him for getting Jared into this and damn me for letting it happen.

I
waited
until late in the afternoon to make my way down there. I had a funny feeling I wouldn’t find him at bar before five.

In the meantime, I swung by the bank and got a safe deposit box. I wasn’t about to keep all that cash at my house, and there was no way I was going to be dumb enough to spend it yet. It was the best place to keep it safe that I could come up with.

Also, I decided to officially go on vacation. When I went into the bar to tell Todd I wouldn’t be in for at least a few days, he didn’t bat an eye. I just hoped this whole situation would blow over in a few days so I could go back to my normal life…

“Good,” he’d said. “Get out of here before you work yourself to death. I’ll take care of covering your shifts.”

I made up some excuse about a family emergency but it didn’t matter. Todd had been begging me to take some vacation anyway. He was one of the good ones.

This time, as I sat in the parking lot, waiting for him to arrive, I didn’t feel afraid at all. I was pissed. This was probably his fault… whatever was going on. If he wasn’t directly involved with whatever Jared had gotten himself into, he was still a guilty party. I was determined to get any information from him that I could.

There was only one motorcycle in the parking lot so far. I knew it didn’t belong to him because I saw an older biker sitting on it as I drove in. He probably got there just before I did.

He wore an impressive beard that had some grey streaks in it. The tattoos on his arms had long since faded by the sun. For an older guy, he clearly stayed fit. Regardless, he’d gotten off the bike and unlocked the front door with a key he had hanging from his neck. There was no one else inside yet.

Over the next hour, several more motorcycles rolled in. Each guy had the familiar patch on the back, but none of them were the one I was looking for. My nerves were wrecked. I hated waiting for things. Especially when it had to do with information about my brother.

Just when I was about to bite the bullet and start asking around with some of the other guys, I heard the rumble of another motorcycle.

Through my rear view mirror, I could see him coming. He rode high on the seat, not bothered by the hot evening air. There was no helmet to keep his dark locks from blowing back in the wind. A dark pair of sunglasses rested on his nose.

I wanted to hate him. The spreading warmth between my legs wanted otherwise.

I craned my neck to watch. He made a smooth turn into the lot. I didn’t think he noticed me but I was wrong. Instead of aiming his bike for the end of the line as I expected, he made a sweeping left that brought him directly to my driver’s side window.

My throat grew tight. The mirrors in my car vibrated from the power of his engine. The prick smiled.

“Turn it off,” I yelled through my cracked window. “It’s too loud.”

He took his time, first loosening the bands around his wrists, then shaking out his hair before turning the key to the “off” position.

“What brings you to this neck of the woods, babe?”

“I’m not your babe, asshole. In fact, if you call me that again, I’ll slap those sunglasses off your face. Believe me, you don’t want to mess with me. Especially after what you did to my brother.”

I was huffing and puffing in anger. I was afraid he was going to laugh when I yelled at him, but I noticed his face change at the mention of Jared.

“The kid? I didn’t do a damn thing to him. What are you talking about?”

“I have a feeling you know exactly what I’m talking about. You’re the one who said he’s family, right? Well where I come from, family looks out for one another.”

“Just calm yourself down, Adeline,” he said, slowly.

“Don’t tell me to calm down,
Hale
. What, you think that because you know my name I should be worried?”

“Not in the least,” he said, smoothly. “I’m only looking to get to the bottom of this thing.”

“Well, you can get to the bottom of it by telling me why the hell I can’t get him on his cellphone. And…”

I took another look around, lowering my voice so that only he could hear.

“...And, why he dropped off almost ten thousand dollars on my front door step this morning.”

Hale slowly lifted himself off his motorcycle seat and made his way around to the passenger side of my car. I started to squirm.

When he got in, I couldn’t help but be struck by how awkward he looked in my car. The big, broad shouldered biker with the lean body and long limbs crammed into an economical foreign car… it was almost too perfect. Despite all of my fears and anger, I let out a little nervous laughter.

“You want to talk about this, or not?”

“Sorry, but I’ve never seen someone clash with a car. You look ridiculous…”

“Guess you could say I’m not big on sitting in a cage… Now tell me about that money.”

“It was there… around six thirty this morning, I guess. There was a knock on the door and then…”

“Did you talk to him?”

“No. I told you it was just a bag of money with a note attached to it saying not to worry about him.”

“Shit.” Hale pushed his feet into the floorboards and arched his back in a tired stretch. My poor car seat creaked under the pressure.

“So you
do
know what’s going on…”

“Yeah,” he said finally. “I hate to tell you this, but your little brother isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed.”

I wanted to defend him but I really didn’t have much ammunition.

“It’s not that he’s dumb,” I offered up. “He just makes a lot of bad decisions. He needs some discipline, that’s all.”

“What he needs is a good kick in the ass.”

I decided not to belabor the point any further.

“Can you please just tell me what is going on?”

“Cool your jets, darlin’, I’ll fill you in. But you need to do a little bit better job of keeping your mouth closed than little brother does. Can you do that for me?”

“Darlin’” was treading dangerously close to “babe” but I decided to let it slide.

“All I care about is finding him. I won’t say anything about your business.”

He seemed satisfied.

“Here’s the situation,” he said. “We’ve been having a little bit of trouble with some of our guys lately. Internal stuff… that part doesn’t concern you or your brother. However, Ace did…”

“Jared,” I corrected.

“Sorry. Jared. It’s probably best to start thinkin’ of him as “Jared” because he doesn’t have much of a future around here anymore.”

That sounded like music to my ears.

“Anyway,” he continued, “Jared went and got himself mixed up with some guys who were doing the wrong shit and-”

“What was he doing?”

“That part doesn’t matter. What does matter is that things went sideways and now there’s a whole lot of bad people looking for him.”

“Was it drugs? Is that drug money he brought to my house?”

Hale didn’t answer but he let the expression on his face tell me that I was right.

“So let me get this straight… Jared was a part of some kind of drug deal, something went wrong, and somehow he ended up with all the money. And he probably stole it.”

“No probably about it. He did steal it.”

I wanted to punch a hole through the top of my car.

“But there’s more to it,” said Hale.

“You might as well tell me,” I said. “There’s not a lot more you could say that would surprise me at this point.”

He was messing with the controls on the door. I turned the key in the ignition to the right a click so he could work the windows.