2. Kali
2
KALI
T he bikers left the store within minutes, but they didn’t leave the parking lot right away. I steered clear of the front, content to finish up the inventory list we needed done by the end of the weekend, but I knew the Red Demons were outside because of their bikes. Trust me. You can’t not hear a Harley, let alone twenty of them.
This group sounded like fifty. Once they left, everything settled down in the store. It was almost boring.
Wait. No. It wasn’t almost boring. It was boring, but I was not complaining.
Noah begged off an hour early.
I sent Ben right after.
It was Sunday night. We usually had the church rush, but after that people were home for the evening, hoping to catch up on their sleep before work or school in the morning. That’s why I loved working on Sundays. A slow shift was peaceful to me. I said boring before because that’s the deflated feeling I got from those still in the store. Two Red Demons fighting had given everyone a rush, and now we were on the other side of that high.
“Kali.” Macy Rodding, the last checkout worker, came up from the back, her purse and keys in hand. In a way, she wasn’t so unlike me. In her forties, going through a divorce herself, but she had two little ones at home to feed, and I knew it was all on her shoulders. Her husband was the town’s lawyer. It wasn’t going to be a fair settlement. Everyone knew what Phil Rodding was like. If he’d been in the soup aisle earlier, I would’ve figured some way to accidentally deck him with a can. I had a feeling Viola and Mrs. Johnson would’ve backed me up.
She came the rest of the way down the aisle to where I was working the only register still open.
She frowned. “I bet you could close early. No one’s going to be coming in. Or I could stay, if you want? I don’t mind. Gets lonely in here when you’re the only one working.”
I was shaking my head before she finished. “I know Natalie and Oliver are waiting for you, and you know it too. No way they went to bed at their bedtime.”
She grinned, softening. “I know. They’re so damn cute. Little buggers, but cute.”
“Go home. I won’t be long behind you.”
She perked up. “You’re going to close early?”
I gave a nod. “I’m thinking Otis won’t get mad—not after today.”
She gave a hearty laugh, and her cheeks flushed. “You can say that again. I knew those bikers were in town, but they’d not come in before. You handled them well.” She cocked her head. “Any other time and Otis would’ve been having a fit at the loss of product. What’d you say to him? You know those bikers?”
I shrugged, deciding then and there to close up, as she’d suggested. “I gave him a little lesson about the Red Demons, and told him if he didn’t say a word about the damage, they wouldn’t burn down the store.”
She gasped, her eyes getting big. “They’d do that?”
I gave another shrug. “Who knows? Maybe. Probably not. We’ll never know now.”
She chuckled and nodded toward my register drawer. “I can stay a few minutes. Walk out with you?”
“Nah.” I locked my door. “Go. Seriously. I got this.”
“Okay. See you tomorrow?”
“See you tomorrow,” I called, heading to put my drawer away.
The door pinged. That would be Macy leaving.
I was coming back with my drawer locked up tight when I heard the door ping again.
I frowned, my feet faltering. “Mace?” I rounded the last aisle, turning to see the front. “You forget…”
It wasn’t Macy.
It was a biker, and I had to stop because holy hell . It was the biker of all bikers.
Tall. Well over six feet. Maybe six three?
Lean.
Muscled.
Seriously tan. Holy.
And he wasn’t wearing a shirt under his Red Demons cut. The guy had tattoos all over his body.
My gut flared. My body grew hot because even though it’d been twenty years since I last saw him, I knew who was waiting for me.
I wondered why they hadn’t singled me out yet.
When the Red Demons came to town, they found my mom. They found my sister. But not me. I hadn’t heard if they’d found Gloves’ (my brother’s real name was Connor) and Claudia’s father, Patrick Hinton. He was a good man, and he’d tried to father me as he could, but I had a dad. I spent time between my dad and my mom, but was with my mom during the school year.
But back to Shane King, because that was who was standing and staring right at me.
Good Lord, his eyes.
He had an almost heart-shaped face, with pretty, long eyelashes over dark eyes, but it was the square jawline with some serious, dark five o’clock shadow that I’m sure caused ovaries to explode. He looked pretty, almost too pretty to be a Red Demon, but then his eyes flashed. There was the hardness.
He’d had that in high school too.
We’d been in the same grade, but he’d befriended Connor, who wasn’t called Gloves back then. They’d been table partners in shop class, and since Connor had already been on the path toward criminology, I guess now, thinking back, it made sense. Shane never had a tolerance for any bullshit from teachers, principals, or classmates. He’d been fostered by our neighbor, another connection that cemented his friendship with Connor, but Shane hadn’t lasted long in Friendly.
He got into too many fights, was arrested too many times, and was sent to juvie. That was the last I heard about him, except I knew he kept in contact with Connor, and I’d gotten a call from my brother seven months ago saying he’d done a favor for some Red Demons in prison, and one day, they’d come to pay him back.
I’d had no idea what he was talking about then, and since the Red Demons showed up, I’d been hoping I still wouldn’t find out.
But that seemed to be over.
I stopped at the candy section. “You know me?”
“I know now.”
Right . Shane had known me back in high school, but as he gave me a once-over, and I struggled not to let it affect me, I knew twenty years was a long time.
“You don’t look like Connor’s sister.”
I frowned, looking down at my dark hair and golden brown skin. “My dad’s Black. He was Black back then too, you know.”
My mom had red hair and dark eyes, and because of her pale skin, she kept inside as much as possible. She was white, and there was a history of skin cancer on her side of the family. But my two younger siblings, from a white father, didn’t care about the cancer—or at least Claudia didn’t. She had straight-from-a-bottle blonde hair, dark eyes, and was hella tan. Connor had dark hair and dark eyes.
My eyes were hazel, and I had no idea where they came from. No one in my dad’s family or my mom’s had hazel eyes.
“I know.” He gave me another once-over, lingering on my legs. “But you didn’t look like this back then.”
“Like what?” I raised my chin.
“All fucking woman.”
Damn.
Damn !
Heat traveled through me. “What do you want?”
His eyes flickered, cooling off. “My club owes Gloves. We came to pay that debt. Part of it is helping his family the way they need to be helped. I didn’t know you were in town. He said you were in New York, married with a husband. A good life.” He took in my sneakers and my employee ID. “Your mom wanted more customers, so we’re setting it up so other charters stop in, and spread the word. We take care of our own, and that’ll spread too. Your sister mentioned opening her own salon. We’ll help set that up, but we’ll have a percentage of the ownership. I know you helped my guys today, kept the cops away and the manager from being a pain in the ass. We’ll pay the damages. In my eyes, that makes us owe you twice. So, I gotta ask, what do you want?”
Jesus . “What kind of favor did my brother do for you guys?”
“He saved a bunch of our brothers’ lives. Them, our club, and their families are grateful. We reached out to Gloves’ dad, but he didn’t want anything. Said just take care of the mama and the girls and he was good with that. I also gotta ask, would Gloves want this offer extended to your father? We don’t want to leave any stone unturned.”
I shook my head. “No. He’s an attorney in Chicago. He’s doing just fine.”
This was a surreal conversation. Out of the blue, Shane King—a guy I’d crushed on for a full year and then every time after when Connor would mention he’d heard from him—was standing in front of me wearing a 1% motorcycle club patch on his cut and offering to “help me out” in some way.
“I know what your club does, what they’re about. Why are you really here?”
His eyes flashed. “I told you. We’re paying off a debt.”
I shook my head, my stomach churning. “This doesn’t feel right to me. Feels like you’re trying to buy off Gloves. What did my brother actually do?”
A wall came down over his features. I could feel him growing distant.
It felt cold between us, and wowza—I didn’t like this feeling.
I gritted my teeth, because fuck this guy . Fuck any guy who had the power to affect me in any way. Not anymore. I didn’t know if ever. One asshole in my life had been enough.
“We’re here for a few more days,” he finally said. “You think of something you want, let us know. As you told my guys, you’re aware of where we hang.”
Right . My mom’s bar. Which I hadn’t stepped into since coming back to town.
I might’ve told those guys I could get them banned, but that wasn’t true. It was so far from the truth that it was sad. I loved Gloves, but a relationship with Ruby or Claudia? Nope. That hadn’t been a thing for the last twelve years, not since my wedding day.
He was still watching me.
“Leave my brother alone.”
Now those eyes narrowed, then chilled even more. “You know enough about us not to issue an order to a Red Demon.”
A shiver sped up my spine, inflaming my neck. I knew, which was why I’d said it anyway.
“I love my brother. He’s one of the only three good men I know. I cannot lose him. Your club messes with him, and I know what’ll happen.” My brother had truly awful luck. A strong argument could be made that he was cursed—had been all his life. Connor had no gut hunches. It was the opposite. If someone yelled that a house was on fire, Connor would run inside, but not to rescue anyone. He would just go in and stand there, confused about why it was on fire.
Shane’s nostrils flared, and he spoke softly. “Watch yourself.”
“You want to do something for me? That’s what it is. Leave Gloves alone.”
His chin rose, and I felt a whole new level of chill in the air. Goosebumps broke out over my skin, and dread took root in my gut. Dammit . This guy, his whole club—they were bad news.
Then, as if coming to a decision, he shifted, and some of the chill in the air faded. “I’ll consider it.”
He turned to leave, and I tried to pretend I didn’t feel a sort of disappointment when his gaze moved away from mine. Right.
My God.
I was a mess.
The door pinged. Shane King walked out.
I hoped to never see him again.
My vagina was calling me a liar.
I hit call on my phone.
“Daughter!”
I smiled. “Hey, Dad.”
“Daughter, daughter, daughter. What are you doing? You getting off work? Heading home? How are the soup cans? Viola and Mrs. Johnson still doing good? They didn’t break a hip craning their necks for more bikers, did they?”
“All’s good. I’m just leaving the grocery store.”
“Can you tell me again the reason you ain’t moved in with your pops? I got a real nice brownstone, you know.”
“I know.” But I didn’t go into detail because this was a normal conversation between James Michaels and me.
“Okay, okay. I know. You’re with your friends. I get it, but you got family here too. Just reminding you.”
“I know, Dad.”
“How was your day before the soup cans and after our last call? Tell your pops all about it.”
So, I did.