Chapter Five
Let the Shit Show Begin
Anthony
Every. Fucking. Time.
Why did these assholes have to ruin every little decent time I found? My dick was hard, and half my mind was still back in the dimly lit room with Crystal, when I shoved the door of the Pink Cabaret open with everything I had.
The hostess who was clutching a phone and gawking out the nearby window yelped and jumped back like I’d taken a shot at her, but I didn’t stop to apologize.
If I had to spend my night miserable, I wouldn’t be the only one.
C.C. was drilling some redneck that his brother, Montana, had pinned in a chokehold. Mark was trading punches with someone and bouncing off the side of an SUV. Which, of course, meant the whole parking lot was being serenaded by obnoxious beeping and blinking lights.
I hated alarms. Even if I wasn’t home the night my parents burnt to death, I was tortured by fire-alarm-riddled nightmares. My mind seemed to revel in the land of what ifs, rather than peaceful dreams.
I focused on Mak, who was rolling around the pebbled parking lot, trying to get the better of a sizable man in a long-sleeved shirt, and jeans that were just a little bit too tight.
I didn’t need to wait and watch; the bastard was more than double his size.
When he mounted Mak and drew back, I used the momentum of his first swing to my advantage, clutching the back of his head, I flung the both of us forward.
I helped him kiss the gravel beside Mak.
It must have been a full-on open-mouthed kiss, because his teeth scattered everywhere.
The bastard was out cold, but Makaveli was moaning and stirring.
“Get the fuck up,” I scoffed, shooting off my knees when I saw the blue-and-red in the distance. “Come on, there’s lights.”
“We’re out!” Mark yelled over the chaos.
The parking lot exploded in a chorus of thunder as we started toward the busy avenue. We weren’t brand new to the shit; those cars would part like a biblical sea for lit up squad cars.
They always did.
It was only a matter of seconds.
C.C. gave the gesture for us to split up, and we hit the road with as much chaos as possible. Half of the men turned out like we should have, but Big Vick hooked a right, so me and Mak followed. The three of us braved our luck toward the oncoming police.
One squad car hooked a U turn.
“Fuck,” I saw Mak mouth in his mirror when he looked back.
At the next block, we ignored the light and darted out into traffic. Horns honked, and tires screeched from two different directions, but we ignored it and split once more.
Vick took the left, and so did the squad car.
I didn’t know where the hell we were going, I just kept pace with Mak once we got on the interstate. He didn’t slow until we hit the ramp to Raymond.
“There ain’t nothing here.” I called over the engines, just before he hooked onto the lonely highway.
His eye was black, but his scowl had softened a bit. We’d been best friends since we were kids. He always had been a hard head with the ability to hold a grudge better than anyone I’d ever met.
Thankfully, he turned into a gas station up the road a bit and waited for me to refuel.
“Did you reach the others?” I asked when I saw him messing with his phone.
“Naw. Fuck them. They’re on their own tonight. Me and you can get into some other shit.”
Mak getting into other shit, usually only meant one of two things. He meant to shove his nose across a mirror, or up an ass.
“Where to tonight?”
Swanwick was small, so he couldn’t get into anything without word getting back to his wife. Sasha didn’t like it when Mak got coked out, and who could blame her? It enhanced that temper of his and turned him into a damn bull most nights.
And, it kind of went without saying, that she wasn’t all that fond of him coming home smelling like other women.
“Nokomis.” He shrugged.
“Let’s go back.”
“What?” The cigarette he’d been about to light, nearly fell from his lips.
“I was digging that little blonde.” I mumbled.
He scoffed, and squinted like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“That little ratchet-ass thing that was on the pole? How many poles you think she’s been on since she left yours?”
My entire expression fell.
If he wasn’t already sporting bruises, I’d have probably slugged him, and he knew it, too. He snorted and shook his head.
“Come on. There are other fish in the sea. Who knows, you might even find one half the club hasn’t seen naked… Like that little blonde back there.”
He fired up his bike, and for a minute, I thought about letting him ride.
If we weren’t so far from home I would have, but he was Mark’s son if nothing else. If I left him alone and something happened to him, I’d never hear the end of it. He’d already gotten out of sorts in Springfield, and the night was still young.
I pulled onto the highway and cursed the fact that being his best-friend had once again earned me the role of being his babysitter. The corner pub in Nokomis was packed. There were bikes as far as the eye could see in a neat little row along the tracks.
The locals liked to bar hop from The Last Stand pub, to the tavern on the opposite corner, which was fine. It was when they crossed the tracks to hit the other two bars that things occasionally got interesting. It wasn’t often, but every once in a while, someone got hit.
I glanced across the tracks at the thick crowd weaving back and forth between The Oasis and Jerry’s bar and grill.
That side was equally as populated, but the people over there were a bit different.
Their smiles came easier, and they typically had eyes that were kinder, softer, and more hopeful than anything you’d find in The Last Stand.
“Jesus, you really are in the mood for something different, eh?” Mak teased, when he caught me gawking that way.
I snorted and shook my head.
“I don’t have time for nothing like that.” I reminded him, when he kept on staring at me.
“Right.” Mak stressed the word, a hint of a smile on his lips. “You know, it’s okay to tell them to stay in their lane, right? You don’t have to choose between having an ol’ lady and having the club?”
I nodded, having seen for myself how well that worked out for Mak and Sasha. Anyone who missed it, need only look at the dark circles under her eyes, when they weren’t bruised.
“Ya got a looker,” Mak sang, his attention leveled on something across the tracks.
“What?” I pinched my face up and turned to see what he was on about.
A small gathering of girls was paused between the pubs staring at us. Their guilty smiles were unmistakable.
“I don’t have–”
“You had time in Springfield.” He pointed out.
I sucked my teeth and raised a brow as my attention wandered back to The Last Stand.
Springfield was different. Nokomis wasn’t local, but it was familiar enough. There were only two kinds of women we were going to find here tonight. The kind that were born to ride, and the ones who couldn’t wait to be ruined.
It was something you could bank on.
But I wasn’t in the mood for banking. It was like being shown a Maserati only to be told you had to leave the lot with a busted-ass Buick.
I didn’t want something I could figure out at a glance.
I wanted to pluck secrets from the depths of Crystal’s soul.
I had a visceral need to know who had put that kind of fear in her pretty blue eyes.
And more than anything, I wanted to be the reason she never flinched, lowered her gaze, or shrank herself in front of anyone ever again.
“Not interested,” I grunted.
“Tell ‘em that yourself.” Mak responded, stepping around me in a wide arc.
The bastard licked his lips, lubricating the bullshit before it trickled out in that reckless way of his, “Careful, ladies. Careful. You come prancing those fine asses over here, you may not go home the same way you pranced on over.”
“Fuck me,” I scoffed, under my breath, not that he heard it over the chorus of giggles.
“Well, at least now we know which one does the big talkin’.” A curvy girl with long, dark curls laughed as she moved past Mak and came to stand before me.
She folded her arms and stared at me like I owed her money.
“You fuckin’ lost?” I asked, when she bugged her eyes.
“You do speak,” she cooed.
I licked the back of my teeth, swallowed a curse and locked eyes with Mak.
“I’m goin’ to get a drink. When you tire of the overprivileged pussy, you’ll know where to find me.”
Curls dropped her arms and her jaw, while crowing out on a laugh, “Overprivileged. I live in a fucking trailer in Witt, douchebag.”
I stared at her like she’d proven my point and those catty eyes narrowed on me.
“Fuck you,” she hissed.
“Debi,” her narrow-waisted friend called, before stepping toward her.
Mak grabbed her by the arm and whirled her back to face him.
“Fuck Debi, she talks too much,” Mak clipped, He slid a hand along her face before softening his words. “It’s okay, Anthony will put that nasty mouth of hers to better use. He’ll get her a good dose of act right. Tell you what, why don’t you worry about me and let Debi worry about him, hmm, Doll?”
Debi cackled like it was the funniest thing she’d ever heard.
“Yeah, it’ll take more than– That- to shut me up,” Debi carried on, as she followed me across the road. “Listen, I’m not used to being the one doing the chasing. I understand you Swanwick boys think you’re highfalutin’ or whatever...”
She carried on yapping at me like a goddamn ankle biter all the way to the door.
“What the fuck did you just say?” I paused, one hand on the door as I glanced over my shoulder at her with as much annoyance as I could muster.
She squinted, her smirk freezing on her face.
“What?” she grunted.
“That word… you were throwing out words you couldn’t possibly spell, I was just wondering if you even knew what it meant?”
For a minute, I thought she was going to swing. The silence brewed, and those too-long nails curled into a fist as her jaw set.