Chapter Six
Gunner
“Hey, Indie?”
“Yea, boss?” She looked up at me, completely unaware of what I was about to confront her with.
“Miss Walker reschedule her appointment?”
“Nope, she decided to hold off for a while.”
“You charge the cancellation fee?”
“Um, no.” Indie looked down at the computer in front of her.
“Why not? We have those policies for a reason, so clients won’t waste our time and screw us over.”
“She had something out of her control come up. It’s my fee and my discretion to waive it. Or did I understand the contract wrong?”
She still hadn’t looked back up at me. She didn’t know I had been watching Haizley’s house and saw her take her gear with her when she showed up there the other night.
“No, it is your choice. Just don’t want you wasting your time on clients that fuck off after making an appointment.”
“It’s my time to waste. As long as you get what the shop collects, you don’t need to worry about what I’m collecting.” She stood up from the desk and grabbed her coat. “I’m going to lunch.”
“Where are you going?”
She stopped at the door and turned back to glare at me.
“Why? You’ve never asked me where I was going before.”
She was right. If I wasn’t careful, I’d give myself away.
“Thought maybe you could grab something for me and bring it back.”
“I’m going home. But if you want me to stop—”
“No, go ahead. I’ll have a prospect drop something off.” I waved her out the door and watched her walk up the street. I stood just out of sight as she turned to look back at the shop and then walked in the opposite direction to where she was staying.
She was hiding something.
Indigo Cambridge had been working here for six weeks. She was popular among the women who wanted to get piercings and tattoos, and there were more than a few men who booked with her too.
Older men.
Men who tried to hit on her the first time they came in. They didn’t try again after that. I made sure of it.
She reminded me of my baby sister, Mellie. So, I protected her. Like I did with my sister. Only with my sister, I had pushed her away, with Indie I hovered.
The questions surrounding Indie would have to wait, when I heard the bell over the door jingle and in walked Freeway.
He was older, in his late fifties. He had been in the Silver Shadows for nearly forty years. He wasn’t as tall as I was, though few people were, but he was big. Being in prison for the last twelve years meant his options for recreation were limited. He spent most of his time working out.
His head was shaved bald, and he had tattoos covering most of it, as well as down the side of his face and neck, leading under the shirt he wore. I knew he was mostly covered in tattoos and figured I was close to the top of his list when he got here, seeing as I was the one who had done a lot of the art on his body.
“Hey, man, how’s it goin’?”
“Good. Good. Great to be out. Though, not sure what the hell Steele was thinkin’ startin’ up a chapter in the middle a fuckin’ nowhere. And worse, sending my ass here.”
“Wasn’t Steele’s choice.”
“True.” He looked around my shop while scratching the stubble on his chin. Freeway never cared for the maintenance of a beard, but always thought he didn’t look scary enough with a clean face.
“So, you got time for some ink?”
“You got money?” I grinned at him, but I wasn’t doing shit without payment. Even the brothers paid, albeit with a hefty discount he didn’t need to know about.
“Yea, Steele set me up. A fuckin’ severance package, I guess. Got outta the fuckin’ joint, and he sent me to the fuckin’ prairie. After everythin’ I did for that asshole.”
“Maybe you should a been smarter and not got caught dealin’ at a fuckin’ elementary school.”
“That asshole cop had it in for me. He planted that shit.” Freeway pulled his shirt off and flexed, like he was trying to impress me.
I rolled my eyes and pulled the ink I would need.
“That asshole cop is the sheriff up here, and Steele knows he won’t hesitate to throw your ass back in a box, so you better behave.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
He sat in the chair, exposing his back to me.
I had been working on a piece when he got picked up. I assumed he wanted to finish it now that he was here.
Freeway was quiet while I worked, and I found myself hoping he’d fallen asleep like he usually did. The fucker always relaxed when he was in pain. That’s what made him dangerous.
The bell jingled, but I didn’t look up.
I knew it was Indie coming back from lunch. She walked over to my station and dropped a bag at my feet.
“What the hell is that?”
“Your lunch, asshole.”
Setting my gun down, I grabbed the bag.
Looking inside, I turned to her with a grin. “Aww, you do love me.”
“Fuck you.”
“Woah, you gonna let that bitch talk to you like that?”
At the sound of his voice, Indie stiffened.
“Watch your fuckin’ mouth when you’re talkin’ to a Shadow. Or maybe you need something to fill it up.”
Freeway sat up and leered at Indie. “How old are you darlin’? I like ‘em young and tight.”
I smacked him on the back of the head, hard.
“What the fuck, man?”
“Keep your goddamn mouth shut, or I’ll give you something to fill it with. Maybe you’ll like that.”
Freeway turned to growl at me and his eyes dropped to my patch. There was only one good thing about Freeway. He was loyal. He respected the patch on my chest and knew his place.
“Stuck in a goddamn pussy chapter,” he mumbled.
“Get the fuck out.”
“What? What about my tat?”
“When you can remember where the fuck you are, you can come back. You ain’t in the hole anymore. And it ain’t like Little Rock up here.”
He put his shirt and cut back on and grumbled under his breath the whole way out.
“I’m sorry about that. I wish I could say it was because he just got out of prison, but he’s always been an asshole.”
Indie stared at the door Freeway had walked out of.
“Why is he here?”
“Transfer from the Mother Chapter.”
“So, he’s staying?” She turned around, and I saw something in her eyes before the shades closed down over whatever she hadn’t wanted me to see.
“For now.” I didn’t want her to be uncomfortable at work. “I’ll make sure you’re not here next time he comes in.”
“No, it’s fine. He’s a brother. They all come in here.”
“They don’t all act like him.”
“Thank God.”
She walked over to the computer and sat down. Aside from being a tattoo artist and piercer, Indie had taken over the phone and appointments. She was smart and organized. Something that I’d been sorely lacking around here.
“How much was lunch?”
She waved me off.
“I’m not letting you buy me lunch.”
“I didn’t buy it. I made it and brought you the leftovers.”
Looking in the bag again and taking a deep inhale, my stomach groaned and my mouth watered.
“You fuckin’ made this?”
She shrugged like it was no big deal. “It’s just food, Gunner.”
“Thanks, darlin.’” I kissed the top of her head and went in the back to eat.
It wasn’t just food.
It was fuckin’ delicious.
Closing up the shop, I debated driving by Haizley’s house. I knew what I was doing was wrong. Somehow, I had become a fucking stalker. But I couldn’t help myself. And couldn’t bring myself to care, either.
I parked my truck outside a house a few doors down. I tried not to park in the same spot every night. So tonight, I parked with the nose of my vehicle pointed away from her driveway.
I sunk down in my seat as best I could and watched her house from the mirror outside the driver’s door.
She had parked her car in the driveway, so I knew she was home. There were lights on inside the house, and I sat there until every one of them turned off. That was how I knew she was in bed for the night and I could go home.
I didn’t know how to explain my sudden obsession with her, other than she made my cock twitch every time she sassed me. Sure, it had only been three times. But every time I replayed it in my mind, I had the same result.
Like now.
Just thinking about her throwing that drink in my face made me hard. I had to adjust my dick in my jeans, then I started the ignition to go home.
Back at the clubhouse, all I wanted to do was get in the shower and palm my dick while I thought about Haizley. But I had to talk to King first.
He was sitting at the bar; Freeway and Banshee sat a few stools down. Banshee had known Freeway the longest, both of them being in the club longer than the rest of us.
“Hey, Prez, got a minute?”
“Sure, what’s up?”
I glanced at Freeway, then back at King. “In private.”
“Jesus Christ, is this about me? Since when do we cry about hurtin’ a bitch’s feelings? It was a compliment, really. She was fuckin’ gorgeous.”
King turned his cold stare on Freeway. “What the fuck did you do?”
“Nothin’, she was mouthin’ off to a brother. I told her to watch her mouth, or I would give her somethin’ to fill it up.”
King turned back to me. “Who?” he growled.
“Indigo.”
King clenched his fist. We might have come from a 1% club, and a few of us still wore the patch, for no other reason than to remember why we left, but we didn’t treat women like Steele and the older guys did. We didn’t see them as just holes to be filled.
“In my fucking office. Now!”
Freeway and I followed King to his office.
I stood by the door and waited.
“Sit your ass down, Freeway. Things are fucking different here than they were in Little Rock. This isn’t a 1% club.”
“Why the fuck am I here?”
“I wish to God I knew. Steele called and said he was sending you here. I didn’t have much choice in the matter. If I did, you wouldn’t fucking be here. But since you are, you will do as I fucking say.”
Freeway crossed his arms over his chest.
I knew he wanted to argue, but he wouldn’t. Like I said, he knew his place, and it was at the fucking bottom.
We stayed in the office for well over an hour while King instructed Freeway on all the ways we were different from the Mother Chapter. He explained that while King had no choice in letting him come here, Freeway could drop his cut at any time and leave.
We both knew that wouldn’t happen. Freeway was nothing without the club. He barely had a ninth-grade education. And the club was all he knew. Well, that and prison.
By the time King finished, Freeway knew exactly what was expected of him. And watching his expression, I knew exactly what to expect.
Trouble.