Chapter 4 Melissa
Melissa
I’d been in plenty of shit motel rooms and back-of-the-bar offices, but nothing prepared me for Augustine’s sanctum at the Bloody Scythes clubhouse.
It was the kind of space a person made when they didn’t expect to live long enough to clean it.
Pinned on the walls: chrome sprockets, rusting exhaust pipes, a full rack of machetes like a butcher’s set for serial killers.
Scattered everywhere else: stacks of old gun magazines, a dented skull-shaped ashtray packed with blackened butts, a stack of VHS porn.
The battered leather couch I sat on could’ve told its own horror stories, and probably still held DNA from three different decades.
My knees were hugged up tight to my chest, torn stockings doing their best to hide blood and mud.
I’d stolen Augustine’s cut for warmth, but even with that and a fleece blanket thrown over me, the chill wouldn’t quit.
My body didn’t know if it wanted to shake, puke, or pass out.
I sipped water and focused on the poster above the couch—a topless girl straddling a Harley, staring me down like she’d survived every one of my bad decisions and dared me to try hers.
Augustine reappeared in the doorway, shirtless, holding a first-aid kit and a bottle of water.
He had the kind of arms that were all corded muscle and utility, the kind you couldn’t fake with a gym membership or a sleeve tattoo.
His movements were surgical, like he’d spent his whole life taping up bullet holes and busted lips.
He sat next to me, close but not touching, and started lining up supplies on the coffee table.
He opened the kit, yanked out a wad of gauze, and looked at me. “How’s your head?”
“Still attached, I think.”
He grunted—a small, approving sound—and started picking at the glass in my elbow. His hands were so gentle that it made my throat tighten. The weirdest part was how safe I felt in a place where the air smelled like gasoline and blood, and the couch springs could’ve doubled as a weapon.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” I said, “but you don’t really fit your nickname.”
His mouth quirked up. “If I was going to torture you, I’d start with country music and work my way down.”
I actually laughed, then winced. “If you ever want to get me talking, put on Kenny Chesney. I’ll confess to anything.”
“Noted.”
He swabbed iodine over my scrapes, his fingers methodical and precise.
The wound stung, but I bit down on the inside of my cheek and watched him instead.
I’d never seen someone with so many tattoos that you had to work to find actual skin.
Every inch of Augustine was inked—names, dates, crosses, a map of the state of New Mexico that spanned from shoulder to wrist. Most guys used their bodies as a brag sheet.
His was more like a diary you’d have to kill to read.
He wrapped my arm, then pressed a bandage into the crook of my neck where one of the cemetery fuckers had tried to choke me out. The Band-Aid had smiley faces on it. I almost lost it.
“Nice touch,” I said.
“Classy’s my specialty.” He offered me the water. “Drink. You look like you’re about to tip.”
I took a sip, and my hands wouldn’t stop shaking. He noticed but didn’t call me on it. We sat in silence for a minute, and the quiet was almost peaceful until the door exploded open.
Damron St. James filled the doorway like a natural disaster. He wore a plain white tee, black jeans, and a scowl that belonged on a fucking courthouse wall. His eyes flicked to me, then back to Augustine, and all the heat in the room dropped ten degrees.
“Augustine. Outside. Now.” Damron’s voice was all sandpaper and command, no room for questions.
Augustine closed the first-aid kit, gave my shoulder a quick, firm squeeze, and stood. “Sit tight. Don’t touch anything sharp.” He shot me a look that was almost a smile, then followed Damron into the hall.
The walls at the Bloody Scythes were about as soundproof as wet Kleenex, so even with the door closed, their voices leaked in like static.
“That’s Melissa fucking D’Agossa,” Damron hissed. “You know who her father is?”
“Yeah,” Augustine shot back, low and flat. “Cutler D’Agossa. President of the Leatherbacks. I passed civics.”
“Don’t be cute. Are you out of your goddamn mind bringing Leatherback royalty into our house?”
“Would you rather I left her to get raped in a cemetery by a bunch of tweakers?” Augustine’s voice didn’t rise, but the silence that followed was loud enough to make my ears ring.
Damron again, this time controlled fury. “She’s not just another junkie. She’s a walking fucking blood feud.”
“I don’t see her making phone calls.”
“She won’t have to.” A pause. “You remember what happened to Pop James, right? You want a repeat of that?”
“Pop James got careless. I’m not.”
“And now you’re babysitting the daughter of our worst enemy. That’s not careful, August. That’s fucking suicidal.”
Another stretch of dead air, the kind that meant someone was thinking about violence. I heard Augustine shift his weight.
“Look,” he said, softer, “she’s running from something. I don’t think it’s us she’s scared of.”
Damron’s answer was a quiet, guttural noise. “She’d better be. If the rest of the club finds out, you’re on your own.”
“Fine by me,” Augustine said. “I was born on my own.”
Footsteps. A door slammed somewhere else in the building.
I let out the breath I’d been holding for the last two minutes. The smiley-face Band-Aid on my neck felt radioactive. I looked down at my ruined blouse, blood and mud and cemetery grass ground into the silk, and had to fight back a wave of stupid tears.
Instead, I stood and wandered the room. The couch was about the only thing soft in the place.
On the table was a half-assembled Glock, a cigarette lighter shaped like a grenade, and a busted-out Polaroid of Augustine and two other guys at some kind of desert bonfire, all shirtless and flexing like idiots.
I guessed that was the closest thing to family these people had.
I heard the door open behind me and spun, ready for a fight or an eviction.
It was just Augustine, but his face was tighter now, like he’d had to swallow something that didn’t want to go down. He closed the door behind him and leaned back against it.
“You okay?” he asked, like he actually meant it.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Nobody’s tried to kill me for five whole minutes, so that’s an upgrade.”
He gave a low, rasping chuckle. “You got jokes. That’ll keep you alive.”
I stared at him, then at the space between us. “Am I a prisoner here?”
“No,” he said, too quickly. Then, slower: “But you might want to keep your head down until I figure out what to do with you.”
“Do I get a say in that?”
He considered. “Probably not.”
I should’ve been furious. Instead, I just felt tired. “So what happens if your president decides I’m more trouble than I’m worth?”
He shrugged. “You’ll know. I’m not planning on letting it get that far.”
I slumped back onto the couch, hugging my knees again. “You’re not like the others.”
He looked at me, then at the ground. “You ever ride a motorcycle before today?”
“Of course.”
He sat across from me, elbows on his knees, hands locked together. “You ever kill someone, Melissa?”
The way he said my name made my scalp tingle. “Not on purpose.”
He grinned, but there wasn’t any joy in it. “That’s how it starts.”
“Why’re you helping me?”
He studied my face, then nodded once, like I’d passed some kind of test. “I protect what’s fragile, not make it more fragile.”
He stood up, crossed the room, and started reassembling the Glock with the casual, precise motions of a guy who could do it blindfolded. I watched him, trying to put the pieces of this place and this man together, and failing.
“What if I wanted to leave?” I asked.
He clicked the slide into place, checked the chamber, and set the gun back on the table. “Then you leave. But the Leatherbacks have a long reach, and I doubt you made it this far without help.”
I was about to argue, to say I didn’t need anyone, but I caught his expression and realized he was the first person in a long time who actually gave a shit whether I lived or died. That scared me more than anything.
He tossed me a granola bar from a drawer. “Eat. You’ll need the energy.”
I opened it with shaking hands. “How long do I have before your club figures out what to do with me?”
He looked at his phone. “Couple hours, maybe less. The cleaner you look, the less questions they ask.”
I laughed. “So, clean up, blend in, and try not to die?”
“Pretty much,” he said.
He watched me eat, and for a while neither of us said anything. In the silence, I heard the hum of motorcycles outside, the clatter of bottles and voices in the next room. I wondered if Damron St. James was still pissed, or if he’d decided it was easier to bury the problem than argue about it.
I finished the bar and wiped my mouth. “You trust me?” I asked.
He didn’t answer right away. “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “I trust myself.”
***
They say you can always tell when people have been fighting, even if they walk in with smiles. The air gets charged, hair-on-skin electric, like the moment before the power comes back after a blackout. That’s what I felt the second Damron and Augustine strode into the room.
I was perched at the farthest end of the leather couch, body coiled to spring even though I had nowhere to go.
I must have looked like a stray cat someone lured in with food and then slammed the door shut behind.
Augustine walked in first, easy on the outside, but his eyes gave it away—he was already playing out four versions of how this was going to go.
Damron trailed, a few steps behind, hands jammed in his back pockets, jaw set so hard it looked like his teeth were about to cut through his cheek.