TRIGGER: A Motorcycle Club Romance Novel (15 page)

“You boys act nice,” I said
in a stuttering voice. “Shake hands and play nice.”

As I spoke I backed up until
my heels hit the stoop of the trailer. I backed my way up, only turning when I
hit the door and fled to the relative safety of the trailer.

And the whole way, I felt
Trigger looking at me, looking at me like he wasn’t done keeping his promise.

“
Are
we sure this kid’s
gonna
know what he’s doing?” said the man in the olive-green suit. He and his two
partners sat at a table in the corner of the casino they owned. A scantily clad
woman walked by carrying a tray of cocktails. The man in the dark purple suit
snapped his fingers and she turned on her heel, leaning down, offering them the
tray, a smile, and a generous view of her cleavage. The man in the dark blue
suit took three drinks wordlessly, passing them out. She disappeared a moment
later.

“The boy in charge gives his word,” the man in the blue suit said. “They
have a decent reputation.”

“And the ringer?” the purple suited man asked, taking a long sip of his
drink. He sneered slightly. “Are we really serving this shit here?”

“If you wanted the good stuff, Jim, you should have gone straight to the
bar,” said the man in the green suit.

“He’s a moron. Thinks he’s going to ride this fight to the pro’s. He’ll
give it a good show.”

The three men were Jim, Frank, and Harry
Cavatele
.
If there was a fight to fix, a horse race to rig, or a poker game to play, they
were involved. Outside of their casino, a scummy place with a bad reputation in
the heart of Reno, their side job was cheating at everything that could be
cheated at. Combined, they net somewhere in the realm of ten million dollars a
year, on a bad year. And they mostly had good years.

No one messed with the
Cavatele
brothers. If
anyone did, they were likely to wind up pushing daisies – or, if you can
imagine it, worse.

One of their heavies appeared and leaned down to whisper in Frank’s ear.
The green suited man listened thoughtfully, a dour expression taking over his
face. He thanked the heavy and called for his brothers to join them.

Together, they crossed the loud, smoky floor of the casino, passing the
slot machines (rigged), the black jack tables (rigged), and the roulette tables
(rigged). Until they came to a
Pai
Gow
Poker table, where one tipsy man was regaling his
fellow players with his secrets to good luck.

A rabbit’s foot, inside-out socks, and a kiss from a pretty woman. It
appeared he had the first two taken care of, and was begging the young lady on
his right to make the third a reality. But, judging from the sizeable stack of
chips in front of him, he was in no more need of luck than a lonely
millionaire’s favorite housecat.

Frank laid his hands heavy on the man’s shoulders. The man, still with a
wide, inebriated smile on his face, looked up agreeably. Frank mimicked the
smile, though the man’s friendliness soon faded into fear. The
Cavatele
brothers had that effect on people.

“I see you’re doing quite well tonight, friend,” Jim said, coming around
to the man’s side, standing between him and the young lady he’d been trying to
charm.

“
Ayup
,” the man said with a gulp. “Just…just my
lucky night is all.”

“Isn’t that pleasant for you,” Harry said, coming in to the man’s other
side, boxing him in completely. “Isn’t that pleasant for him, Frank?”

Frank squeezed the man’s shoulders.

“I’d say so, Harry. Wouldn’t you say so, Jim?”

“I’d say so, Frank.” Jim reached over and picked up one of the man’s
stacks of chips, letting them fall neatly back into a pile. He looked at the
dealer pointedly, who hurriedly explained to the rest of the players that the
table was going to close for a moment, and wouldn’t they like to refresh their
drinks, or perhaps take a break for some blackjack? The crowd dispersed
quickly, leaving the inebriated man and the three
Cavatele
brothers alone. Harry and Jim took seats on either side of him.

“Let’s see if we can’t test that luck tonight, friend,” Frank said.

“How about a little game? House rules? For every second that you don’t
leave, we take back one of these chips?”

“But…wait a minute…”

“One,” Jim said, removing a hundred-dollar chip from the stack. Frank
squeezed his shoulders.

“You can’t do
that,
this is…”

“Two,” Harry said, removing another hundred-dollar chip. Frank squeezed
his shoulders.

“I’m going to report you! I won this fair and…”

“Three,” Jim said, removing another hundred-dollar chip. Frank squeezed
his shoulders.

“Alright, all right,” the man said, finally, trying to raise himself from
his seat. “I’m going, alright? Just...”

“Four, five, six,” Frank said, leaning forward and removing three more
hundred-dollar chips. The pile left over was still a fair sum, but nothing the
Cavatele
brothers minded parting with. Frank stepped back
and the man got to his feet, wheezing and wild-eyed.

“You’re…
you’re
crooks! I’m going to tell
everyone that you’re…”

“We’re letting you walk out of here with a thousand dollars of our money
and your kneecaps intact,” Jim said, rising to meet the man face-to-face.
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you?”

“The house always wins,” Harry said, rising as well. Red-faced and
sweating, the man gathered his remaining chips and pushed his way through the
brothers. They watched as he approached the cashier’s cage, stealing fearful
looks over his shoulder.

And then they returned to their table in the corner, gave themselves a
toast, and continued drinking and talking well into the night.

Trigger

Well, if I was an even
dumber man than I already am, I would have fought the guy right then and there.

Or maybe that would have
been the smart move.

Who’s to say, when you’re
talking about hindsight and all the world’s biggest could-have-
been’s
?

“You been
messin
’ with my piece?” Brock said. He was big, huge, with
yellow teeth and a nasty scar that kind of looked like a crucifix. His knuckles
were about as battered as my own, but he had the words
love
and
hate
tattooed
across them.
What a fuckin’ cliché,
I
thought with a decent amount of spite.

“What are you talking
about?” I spat back, knowing full well what he was talking about. But man, I’d
heard the way he’d been talking to Cass (or, rather, yelling), and him calling
her his “piece” was just making me madder.
Goddammit
woman,
I thought,
you know you
deserve better…

“I’m
talkin
’
about the way you had your eyes glued to my girl,” he said, moving a pace
forward. It was all I could do not to match him. He was so big, you could tell
he looked at me like a tarantula looks at an ant: easy target, almost too easy
to bother with. That pissed me off, too. Guys like that were too confident for
their own damn good most of the time, and just loved running their mouths,
begging for a fight.

“I was just talking to her,”
I responded with a shrug, hoping to stoke the flame with a good dose of
nonchalance. My hopes came true.

“You know her? You know her
enough to be
talkin
’ to her with them eyes all up and
down her body?” the big man asked, his muscles flexing slightly.

“Not a bit,” I said, knowing
that Cass would get into trouble if I told him the truth, but still not willing
to back down from this asshole’s little pissing party. “All I know is, you got
a big damn mouth, and I don’t like ugly sons of bitches with big damn mouths.”

His nostrils flared. He stepped
forward again, fists raising slightly. I stood my ground, but for a moment I
worried I’d gone a bit too far; we had plenty of time in the ring to flesh this
out between us.

Except…

Fuck.

If you didn’t believe me
saying I was stupid before, you have to now. In my shock over seeing Cass
again, and my anger over hearing Brock yelling at her, I’d totally forgotten
that this wasn’t some normal fight. I wasn’t
supposed
to come out of this on the up-and-up. I had to let this
stupid bastard clobber me.
Fuck.

“Listen here, you squirrely
little prick,” he said, getting up so close I could feel his hot, stinking
breath in my face. The thought of that mouth on
Cass’
was enough to churn up all the vinegar in my blood. “That’s my woman, and I’m
gonna
talk to her however the fuck I want. You treat your
girly boyfriend however
you
want and
let me treat my woman how
I
want. I
don’t take lip from half-pint fags
or
stupid
cunts.”

“Whatever, big boy,” I said
through gritted teeth. “But for the record, I never met a
real man
who felt the need to talk to a girl that way.”

“Well now you met me,
there’s a first time for
everythin
’,” he said,
backing up slightly, confident that he’d won. “I’ll see you in the ring,
cocksucker. You better bring your
losin
’ shoes. I
coulda
gone easy on you but…”

At that, he smiled at me,
his rancid teeth an eyesore if there ever was one. My stomach clenched around
itself.
Just my fucking luck,
I
thought as he finally turned and disappeared into the trailer.
My first time throwing a fight and…

Before I could finish the
thought, I saw her one last time, just her eyes, peeking at me from around the
curtains. Just like a damn spear through my heart, it all rushed back. All
those tender moments, even before we ever slept together, when she was my best
friend in the world, my
only
friend,
so sweet and kind. And again, the idea that anyone could treat her as less than
a damn princess, could look at her face and say anything but how beautiful it
was, baffled me and enraged me all at the same time.

And then she was gone. And I
was there alone in the middle of that shitty trailer park, with five hours to
go before I’d have to face that filthy motherfucker again, and let him take me
down even though I
knew
I could beat
him given the chance.

As I slammed my way back
into my own trailer, which I was sharing with Reign, he looked up at me with
alarm.

“Oh shit,” he said over his
sandwich. “I take it that didn’t go so well?”

It had been his idea for me
to go make nice with my opponent in the first place. He figured that it’d be
harder for someone to go all-out in a fight like this if they shook hands with
the guy first.

“That’s putting it lightly,”
I growled, ready to beat a quick retreat to my room. I didn’t want to have to
go other the nasty details with Reign. I wanted to fall asleep until the last
possible minute, so as to be alone with my thoughts for as little time
possible.

“What the fuck? We had this
all set up, what the fuck happened? Was he some kind of fuck-ass? Is he going
to fuck you up?”

Reign’s questions demanded
answers, but when he saw the look I shot him he made the wise decision to leave
it be. Shrugging over his sandwich, he kept his eyes on me as I made my way to
my side of the trailer.

“Just…we can deal with it,
you know, if you have a bad feeling about this,” he said. “I can talk to some
people…”

“Don’t worry about it,” I
grunted, pushing open the flimsy door. “I’ve got it covered.”

Laying in the dark,
poorly-lit room, I tried to sleep but couldn’t. I kept seeing
Cass’
eyes through the curtains, hearing the bastard
scream, thinking of how our bodies had once fit together in a seeming perfect
circle.

Eventually, sleep did come.
But with it, came dreams. Dreams that turned my sheets into a sweaty mess. I
dreamt of that morning, ten years prior, when a man had led Cass into a bar on
a rope. Except the man wasn’t her father this time, it was that nasty son of a
bitch she was hooked up with.

And as he yanked her around
for the last time, it wasn’t Steel who got the bullet, it was Brock. But even
as he looked down and saw the blood pooling on his shirt, he stayed standing.
He moved towards me. He smiled, yellow teeth all sharpened to points, his eyes
becoming strange and reptilian.

He grabbed me up and though
I pushed with all my strength at his chest, it was as though my blood had been
replaced with liquid lead, my limbs too heavy to move, paralyzed as he fell on
top of me, thrashing and punching as I called out her name, struggling to
overcome him, knowing I could if only – if only – if only –

When I woke up, my fists
were already clenched. And my mind was made up. And it was time to head down to
the ring.

Reign kept his mouth shut as
I stalked through the trailer, grabbing my helmet wordlessly. As the boys
gathered around, eagerly discussing the after party, I wasted no time pushing
through them to my bike. Taking my silence as, perhaps, being “in the zone”,
they followed behind jovially.

Reign slipped a few pills
into my hand before we took off – “for the pain,” he said. I nodded, glad that
my face guard hid my eyes from him. My leather vest felt heavy, too heavy, the
weight of my cut like a symbol for everything I was about to do, everyone I was
about to let down.

But I could live without the
club – or, rather, I could die at their hands for the havoc that would soon be
wrought. I couldn’t live knowing that I had a chance to show that sick
motherfucker what happened to men like him, exactly what he deserved.

I was an agent of karma, at
that point.

The venue was exactly as I
expected; a low-level shithouse saloon with a secret side entrance to a dingy
basement. This was a no-formality sort of fight, no dressing room to pump
myself up in. No tape on the knuckles. No robe that would be dramatically
thrown from my shoulders as I rose to the fight. No, this crowd only wanted
blood, and they wanted as much of it as possible. Showboating was for the
pussies on pay-per-view. This was grit and dirt and cardboard boxes flattened
down, still stained with last night’s sweat and violence.

The crowd itself was full of
men who looked like they could have been in the ring. Even our rowdy group
quieted as they entered the smoke-filled room. The talk of strippers, shots,
and white lightning could wait for after business was done. Here, there was
money to be made. I made my way through the crowd, Reign close at my side,
shrugging off my vest and pulling off my shirt as I went. The ring itself was
just some dirty ropes tied to weighted poles, with a stool in opposite corners.

He was already there when I
slung myself over the rope.

And behind him, Cass, barely
visible in the dim light. Her eyes were wide as she looked at me; I saw them
drift down to my chest, where her hands had once traced the skulls there. Now,
between the skulls, a rose bloomed, faded with age and the poor ink available
in prison.

I spit to the side, the
sight of Brock filling me with rage. I remembered that dream, how helpless I’d
felt, and tested my fists, raising my arms a few times, feeling the strength in
them, needing to dispel that powerlessness forever. The murmurs in the room
grew louder. Reign whispered to me, and I felt my heart wincing.

I was lying to him. I hated
lying to him. But I didn’t have a choice. I followed his eyes, saw the three
men he was staring at. They didn’t look so dangerous, in their stupid
old-fashioned suits, but something told me they were harder than they looked.
Maybe it was the ring of stone-faced men who surrounded them, looking ready to
fuck shit up if things went south.

They must be the fellows expecting to make it big on this fight,
I thought,
a shard of doubt slicing through me. I had twenty men behind me, twenty men
who’d die for me in an instant, twenty men who relied on me to not screw this
up.

I’m so sorry,
I thought, eyes closed as Reign whispered to me some
more. But when I opened them again, fixing his stare in mine, I saw that all my
lies had already failed.

“Trig,” Reign said, leaning
in closer now. His eyes were steady on the three men in the stupid suits. “If
you’re
thinkin
’ of something stupid, you best just
tell me now. I mean it, man.”

I opened my mouth, but the
words never made it out. I saw, in a flash,
Cass’
smiling, freckled face, all brightly lit in sunshine on a nice day we should
have had a million of, but never did. I’d fucked up before. I’d fucked up
everything. I was fucking everything up again. And then the bell rang. And it
was too late.

I rose and made my way to
the center of the ring. The crowd around us began to holler a bit, thirsty for
blood.

Shit, wait, no, man, this is wrong,
I suddenly thought.
I can find this guy and fuck him up after, I
know where his trailer is, I don’t have to screw everything up for us…

He was inches away from me
now, our heads bowing close together. He smelled like sweat, his yellow teeth
displayed in a sick smile.

“Bet you wish you hadn’t
fucked with that cunt now, do
ya
, punk? She’s
gonna
be
spreadin
’ her legs for
me tonight, bitch. One man’s property…”

Oh, fucking hell,
I thought, and before I could stop myself my hand was
buried in his midsection, his eyes popping open in surprise. The crowd roared
as he reached out, grabbing my shoulders. I could feel his weight on me, but it
was like nothing compared to the rage that blinded my eyes and fueled my blood.

Grabbing him around the
waist, I rushed him into the ropes, screaming at the top of my lungs. In the
slight bounce of his bulk against the ropes, we separated, but only for an
instant; my fists flew to his face, his hands coming up to shield himself, but
not fast enough. I felt one eyebrow crunch under my knuckles, his chin clacking
as I hit him with an undercut.