Chapter Nine Thea
Anna, Serena and I were sitting at a small diner in Haven Hills called Around The Corner. We had spent the past three hours wandering the small town. We shopped at the few boutiques open, went to the park and now we were getting something to eat.
Around The Corner reminded me of a typical diner you’d see in a movie. There really weren't places like this back in California. The waitress, whose name tag read Beth, had just taken our orders and left us with our drinks. Like most of our trip today, I stayed quiet and let Anna and Serena talk.
My phone rang beside me on the table and both girls looked down at the screen.
Serena gave me a frown and asked, “Is that your ex?”
“Yeah,” I said casually, hoping they would get the message that I didn’t want to talk about it.
I knew my time was running up with Marcus.
For the past two years, we never spent much time apart.
When we had broken up, he would do everything in his power to get me back.
It wasn’t like I was missing him. I was actually surprised at how little I cared that he wasn’t there, which could be because of the six-foot-sexy biker who couldn’t keep his eyes off me.
“Can you just tell us already?” Anna squealed.
“Tell you what?”
“What it’s like fucking Bane!” Serena quickly shushed her friend beside her, and I felt like my cheeks were going to burn with embarrassment. Playfully slapping Anna in the arm, Serena said, “You can’t just ask that, Anna!”
I couldn’t help but laugh at both of them. “It was,” I sighed trying to come up with the right word. “Complicated.”
“Complicated?” They both said at the same time.
“Yeah, well the first time it was intense, I didn’t even know sex could be that good,” I said thinking back to the night we met at the bar.
“The first time?” They both questioned, once again, in sync.
I turned my nose up at them. “Can you both stop doing that?”
Serena laughed. “So when was the second time?”
I contemplated whether or not I should tell them, but I was also low on female friends. Actually, my friend list began and ended with Chase. “It’ll stay between us?”
They both nodded looking at me like I was going to reveal what was inside of Area 51.
“This morning,” I said as I took a sip of my drink. They both squealed, and I squinted my eyes at them, “Can you not?”
“Sorry, it’s just,” Anna trailed off. “Bane is such a good guy. Even though he acts like a macho prick and womanizer, it’s mostly all an act. He has a good heart and I haven’t ever seen him look at a girl like he looked at you the other day.”
“Really?” I questioned.
“Yes, I can tell there is a sweet girl under all of that feisty. Maybe a girl like you is what he needs. Someone who would treat him right and help him grow as a person.”
A girl like you. The words almost made me laugh. I didn’t know the last time anyone ever considered me the prize in the relationship. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t a damsel in distress, but I sure as fuck wasn’t one of those girls who got the fairytale wedding in the paper.
***
MAVERICK
The first time I got on a motorcycle I was 13 years old.
My Ma didn’t like the idea of me getting on one so young, but she didn’t get what my father and I got.
The wind, the freedom, the adrenaline. Nothing else compares to riding on a Harley.
It’s been almost 20 years, and I still never get tired of that feeling.
Crash, Ares and I were headed to South End, a town on the opposite side of Haven Hills.
It’s been a while since we paid Hector Longo a visit.
Hector was a bottom feeder for the Santoro family and port worker.
He didn’t have much pull, but enough to get us some information.
Hector also had a gambling problem and owed the club more than $50,000 in debts.
We may or may not have been purposely getting him to make bad deals so he’d be in our debt, but the jury was out on that one.
The Santoros were our allies and were our sole supplier for pushing guns across the U.S.
Because we had a lot of clubs, we had a lot of power and were able to get things shipped almost anywhere in the country, but getting them here, that was on the Santoros.
The Santoros was the second-largest crime family in Italy and was run by Vincenzo Santoro and his two sons Luca, who handled all of their American affairs and Matteo, who was over Italy.
It’s not like we didn’t trust the Santoros, but we had no leads and greed will make you do foolish things like dabbling in bad drugs to make a profit. That’s why we were paying Hector a visit, to cross them off of our list.
Pulling up to Hector’s house, we got off our Harleys. We walked towards Hector’s house and I knocked a few times.
“Shit,” I heard a voice say from behind the door. I gave my boys beside me a look and was about to knock again when the door swung open.
“My boys! What the fuck are y’all doing here?” A grimy-looking Hector said. He looked like he was dressed in the same worn down T-shirt and sweatpants all weekend and smelled like stale chips and beer.
Gross. “Need to talk to you about something,” I said, offering him a friendly nod.
“Sure come in,” he said as he stepped aside and ushered us through the door.
His house smelt worse than he did and that was saying something.
This wasn’t like Hector, yeah he was a gambler, but he always dresses like a white collar business man with flashy jewelry and a shaved face.
The man in front of me looked like a fucking slob.
“What can I help you boys with?” Hector called out.
“You heard anything about some new coke hitting the streets?”
Hector nervously took a look at Crash, Ares and then me and said, “Nah, man. New coke? I don’t even know about the old coke. You know we deal with guns.”
“Yeah, we know,” I said, crossing my arms. “But what about any of your guys down by the port; they haven’t said anything about some drug shipments coming in?”
“I haven’t heard anything. You know the Santoros oversee all shipments to and from the port. They own it, nothing is getting through without them approving it.”
I nodded my head listening.
“Shit, is this about those kids?”
“Yeah,” I responded with my annoyance surfacing. He obviously knew what the fuck I was talking about.
“At my card game last week at Prey, there was a man there who had a fuck ton of coke with him,” he said. “What caught my eye about it was he was giving it away to all the bitches in there. Not charging them a cent or a blow job either!”
My brothers and I all looked at each other. Hector was annoying as fuck and just about useless, but he ran in almost every gambler circle in the area, which was another reason we let him stay alive. Him owing us so much money came with its perks.
“When was this? Do you remember what he looked like?” Crash said from next to me.
“A big dude. White, brown hair. He wore a suit but it didn’t look right.”
“What the fuck do you mean it didn’t look right?” I asked, trying to refrain from putting my hands on him.
“A man who wears expensive suits knows when another man doesn’t know how to wear them,” he said, shrugging.
Fucking Plato. Who did this asshat think he was?
Back at the clubhouse, things were getting pretty rowdy.
We had ridden out to Prey to speak to the owner, a dude named DJ, and hit another fucking blank wall.
Apparently, the guy Hector was talking about was some bigwig out-of-towner from New York who was trying to score some pussy. He just preferred scoring in private.
I was sitting at the bar drinking a beer, and Pearls walked up to me. We don’t typically give nicknames to club girls, but you can imagine what she did to earn hers.
“Bane, baby,” Pearls said as she put her tits up into my face.
She smelt like cheap cotton candy perfume, vodka and hairspray, and she wore a red laced bra and denim cut-off jeans with a red thong wrapped around her waist. Pearls wasn’t ugly, but she was only hot in a porn star way.
If you didn’t look hard enough and ignored the bad acting, you could still get off.
I couldn’t stand fucking the club girls, but we all do it every once in a while to blow off steam.
“Hey, Pearls,” I said as I took a sip of my beer trying to come off as uninterested.
“It’s been so long since we’ve spent some together, baby.
You want to go upstairs?” She purred into my ear and I had to keep from rolling my eyes.
I have never once stuck my dick into her, but she’s fucked so many brothers, she wouldn’t be able to tell you who she hadn’t fucked.
“Not tonight, sweetheart,” I said and gave her a cheeky smirk with the hopes that she would walk away and leave me the fuck alone.
I had one girl on my mind, and it was driving me crazy.
I hadn’t seen Thea since this morning, and I felt like I was going to lose my mind.
The way we left things on the porch wasn’t ideal, but everything about Thea tells me that she is a runner, and I don’t know if I can give her what she needs to stick around.
“If you change your mind, you know where to find me,” Pearls said as she turned around and walked away.
Thank fuck.
***
THEA
The girls and I walked into the clubhouse and classic rock music was blasting through the speakers. It didn’t look like the same private bar I walked into yesterday. Tonight, the lights were dim, there were drunk bikers stumbling everywhere, and women wearing practically nothing walking around.
“Shit, no one told you,” Anna asked as she looked at the shocked look on my face. “Babe, you came here on family day. We live with bikers, shit gets wicked around here,” she said as she walked up to the bar to get a drink.
“You don’t have to stick around if it makes you uncomfortable,” Serena said. “We usually just stay for a few drinks and head off to bed.”
I gave her a nice smile and continued looking around.
I spotted Bane by the bar. He was drinking a beer and talking to a woman who looked like she forgot to put her clothes on.
I wasn’t hating on her, but she literally was only wearing a bra.
I didn’t like the way she was batting her fucking eyelashes at him, though.
She clearly wanted to fuck him, but I wasn’t going to get in the way of that.
I also wasn’t going to hide. I decided to walk up next to Anna and order a drink.
“What can I get for you?” Bullet asked me from behind the bar.
“Uh, rum and coke,” I said. He gave me a nod and turned away to make my drink.
I turned my back against the bar trying to pretend like I couldn’t feel Bane’s eyes burning a hole into the side of my head.
“I don’t want to stay down here for long,” Anna said as she stirred her vodka cranberry with her straw. “You want to head up soon and watch a movie or something? Serena’s pregnant ass always goes to sleep.”
I looked up at Bane and we made eye contact. I turned my eyes back to Anna and said, “Sure. I’m not watching some girly shit though. Letting you know that right now.”
Anna cackled at me. “I wouldn’t expect anything less from you.
” Bullet handed me my drink and we started to move away from the bar when Bane stopped me by grabbing my arm.
Once again, we made eye contact and it felt like the whole room just flipped on its axis.
The way his blue eyes looked in mine made me feel like I was the only person in the room that he wanted to look at.
“If anyone gives you trouble, you let me know,” he said. I bit my lip as I nodded my head at him. I didn’t know it was possible for a few little words to light me on fire, but there I was standing in the flames.
As Anna and I made it to a booth in the back, she looked at me dumbfounded.
“Damn, is it always that hot between you two?”
We both busted out laughing as I nodded my head yes. It was definitely always hot between us and I didn’t know how much more of it I could take.