Chapter Five
Gage
“Oh, so you are alive.” The female voice carries over the buzzing of tattoo guns as I walk through the door. Fuchsia flashes out of the corner of my eye as I turn to see Stevie standing by the reception desk, her hand on her full hip.
“You’ve moved on to pink, huh?” I ask, taking in her bright pink hair. Stevie reaches up a tattooed arm to touch the ends of her freshly dyed shoulder-length hair.
“The white was a moment, but I was ready for a change. You know how much I love to play with color.” She’s wearing all black to match the uniform of my shop, but her body is covered in brightly colored tattoos. As young as she might look, Stevie is a master at saturation and color blending. That’s why I hired her, and it’s because of her tattoo abilities that I keep her around, despite her insistence on splashing her eccentric style in my otherwise all-black shop.
“It suits you,” I comment.
“Connie’s been calling,” Stevie adds, making me pause. “She said to tell you ‘if you don’t get your ass over to the clubhouse to spend time with your family, she’s gonna come bang down your front door.’” I look up at the ceiling and huff out a deep breath. My mom has always had a flair for the dramatics, but it seems to be getting worse as she gets older.
“This is exactly why I didn’t join the Chained Saints. If she calls again, tell her I have businesses to run. I can’t be hanging around an MC clubhouse all the time,” I say, walking past the front desk towards my office. My eyes catch on a pink vase full of bright yellow flowers. “And get that shit off my reception desk.”
“Oh, come on, boss,” she protests behind me. “They look nice.”
“No yellow,” I call over my shoulder before walking back through the shop towards my office.
The interior of my studio is designed to be simple and classic, with black-on-black walls, fixtures, and furniture. The only colors on the walls are featured in the framed tattoo design options and client photos. Each artist is allowed to personalize their workstation, but the theme remains throughout the space.
This building used to be a Catholic church, and I paid a pretty penny to restore the tall, arched, stained glass windows and hardwood floors that are original to the building. I’m not a religious man, but people come from all over the world to worship me as their tattoo god.
I have five tattoo artists working for me, each with their own chair in the main bullpen that we call The Chapel. Three additional chairs sit along the back wall in separate booths—The Confessionals—with heavy black curtains for clients wanting more privacy.
I pass three empty chairs—one of them being Stevie’s colorful workstation. It’s still pretty early, and I usually only require one tattoo artist per shift to be in the shop available for walk-ins. The rest come in to handle their appointments. Today will be fully booked.
Once in my office, a decent-sized room featuring the biggest and most ornate stained glass window in the building, I walk past my tattoo station to my desk. With a few clicks, the surveillance feed appears on my computer screen with a grid view of several cameras. Placing my palms on the desk, my eyes scan each feed until my focus lands heavily on what I’m looking for.
Her.
Just the sight of her—even black and white and pixelated—hits my bloodstream like a drug.
The door to my office swings open without warning, and two massive figures enter unannounced.
“I told you he’d be creeping on her when we got here. Pay up,” Messer says. He holds his hand out to Anders, who smacks it away as he trails in behind him.
“I was the one who said that, dumbass. I’m not giving you shit.” Anders turns his attention to me and pulls his shirt over his head. “Take a break from being a peeping tom to get this tattoo finished.” Lowering his bulky frame onto my tattoo chair, he makes himself comfortable, looking at me expectantly. Taking one last glance at Jill on the screen, I push off the desk to walk over to my tattoo station.
Anders’ deep brown skin has healed fully from our last session, and he’s ready for the final ink to finish off the angel wings across his chest.
“Have you let her see you yet?” Messer asks, strolling over to my desk to look at the security feeds. He’s known about Jill from the moment I laid eyes on her since he was with me that night. Unlike Anders, Messer doesn’t share the same dark possessive qualities as me—at least, they don’t present the same way. He might obsess over one woman, but he doesn’t mind sharing her. In fact, he gets off on it.
“Yeah, I have.”
“Understatement of the year,” Anders laughs.
“And she likes it,” I say. The memory of Jill soaking up my attention last night has me itching with need. The need to see her, feel her.
Fill her.
I force myself to focus on the task at hand while I prep my station to finish Anders’ tattoo. Sitting on the stool, I roll closer and pull on my disposable gloves.
“That’s unexpected,” Messer says thoughtfully, gazing at the screen, probably at my Jill. “Out of all the outcomes you’ve been planning, that wasn’t even on the list.”
He’s right, at least not one I said out loud. After watching Jill for so long and fantasizing about the day she’d finally see me, I’d braced myself for every possible outcome—screaming in fear, violent anger, calling the cops. I was ready for anything, I still am. Everything except arousal. Jill being turned on by my unrelenting presence proves that we’re made for each other. And I intend to take full advantage.
“I didn’t hate watching her either, especially with her hot blonde friend shaking her ass like that.” Anders grins at the memory. “Lana Love. She was bangin’. I’d put my lovin’ on Lana, believe that.” Despite his easygoing tone, there’s a sharpness in Anders’ eyes that tells me his interest in the blonde is more than casual. I won’t be surprised if I hear her name out of his mouth a lot more in the future.
“Shut up and stop fantasizing about her. I’m not touching you if you get a boner in my chair.” I pull my tray over and turn on my tattoo gun. Anders shuts his mouth and lets me get to work while Messer updates me on Jill’s movements.
Messer tries to get me to elaborate on Jill, but it’s none of his business. They don’t need to know Jill the way I do.
No one ever will.
I zone in, diving into my work as I weave artistry on my canvas. With Anders’ deep skin tone, it’s essential that all of my blacks are saturated and precise without being muddy. While I work, Messer tells us about the restoration project he’ll be working on—an estate from the Gilded Age on the East Coast.
“How long are you gonna be gone for this one?” Anders asks. Messer is an architect and a fucking talented one at that. When I bought this building, it was just a crumbling church full of dusty pews. He transformed it into the tattoo shop I’d always pictured.
“Right now, the plan is six weeks. But knowing these types of projects, it’ll probably end up being at least twelve. I leave in four days,” Messer explains, leaning back in his chair. He travels a lot for his work, so spending a few months across the country doesn’t faze him. I’m not stoked that he’s going to be gone again, our friend group isn’t the same without him. But he’s pursuing his own art, and I would never fault him for that.
“We’re gonna have to video chat for twelve whole weeks like a couple in a long-distance relationship? Damn,” Anders jokes, even though he’s half serious. The three of us are in constant contact with each other.
“You know I’ll always make time for you,” Messer says, blowing Anders a kiss. We might all be laughing, but we’re dead serious.
We’re not just friends, we’re brothers. Family.
Back when we first met, I’d hated both of them. I was an angry teenager who had been taken from my parents and forced into the foster care system. My mom and dad were in and out of prison for everything from petty crimes to grand larceny. For most of my adolescence I had no contact with my parents or my younger brother. I’m on good terms with them now, but those relationships didn’t happen until a few years ago.
Back then, my lack of family ties made me volatile and reckless. The boys group home didn’t know how to handle my temper, so I was thrown into the room for the more ‘troubled’ kids. Those troubled little assholes were Anders and Messer.
We fought at first—verbally, psychologically, and physically. Anders was always the biggest, so I knew better than to get in the way of his fists. I’d play mind games instead. Messer didn’t give a shit about anything, so the only way to get to him was when things came to blows. Eventually, us versus each other shifted to us against the world. We were stuck in a shitty situation together, but we all wanted the same thing.
To be someone. To build something.
We got out together, doing whatever it took to make names for ourselves and build the lives we wanted. I was going to be an ink master, and become the best tattoo artist in the world. Anders built his elite private security company, Obsidian Security Solutions, from the ground up and became one of the best in the business. And Messer is now one of the top architects in the country, specializing in historic restoration and modernization.
Now, the three of us are unstoppable and unbreakable.