CHAPTER FOUR
BY THE TIME the sun goes down, the entire hangar is vibrating with energy. Billy is jumpy and wired. He loves a party. Loves gathering his subjects around him to worship the king.
I can only hope that there won’t be another show tonight with me at the center. But Billy is impossible to predict.
I try to tell myself it’s just what my life is now. And that it doesn’t matter anyway. That I’m not in my body anymore. I left my soul back at Ryder’s house with him and it’s sinking into the gravel with his blood. Gone.
Billy hands my outfit to me—the bundle so small that at first I don’t understand what he’s passing me: a black g-string and nipple pasties with tassels. He points to the shoes lined up by the bed: black and red stilettos with a two-inch platform. Stripper heels.
It’s indecent, but I’m indifferent. I adhere the pasties to my bare breasts and strap on the shoes without protesting. My body doesn’t feel like my own anymore, and if it’s not my body, what do I care if it’s exposed? It’s just another night to endure.
Then Billy makes us wait. We watch from his bedroom window while the hangar fills slowly, people flowing in like ants starting to swarm.
One body at a time. Then fifty. A hundred. More.
The music ramps up, beats pounding over drunken laughter and shouted greetings. Outside, bikes continue to roar in, one after another. The smell of smoke and booze and exhaust is thick enough to choke on. The night’s just starting, and I already want it to be over.
When the floor is packed, shoulder to shoulder, Billy finally texts Silas to cue the spotlight and picks up my leash.
We walk out onto the platform outside his room and light floods my vision, making me squint.
I have to lift an arm to block my face. Below us, the music cuts out and people start to cheer for Billy.
He lifts a beat-up microphone to his mouth, one that’s connected to a wire wrapped around the platform’s handrail like a garland. When he speaks, his voice crackles through the sound system, booming through the hangar.
“We’re celebrating tonight! Raise a glass to the riders who just brought it home for the O.D.—our fearless, loyal, fucking legendary riders!”
The crowd erupts.
“These boys just pulled off something most clubs wouldn’t touch, and they did it flawlessly. No cops. No heat. No fuckups.”
He thumps his chest for emphasis and hollers now, his voice projecting so loudly he doesn’t need the microphone. It whistles and screeches in protest.
“Pure fucking nerve. That’s how we ride. That’s just who we fucking are. And that’s why no one ever fucks with the O.D.!”
The crowd explodes, hollering and cheering. He looks down across the sea of faces, basking in it.
He points to the screaming skull banner overhead. “When the skull screams, we scream back!”
The crowd loses it. Fists pump the air, boots stomp. A chant rises from the floor: “O.D.! O.D.! O.D.!”
Billy drinks it in. Eyes lit. Chest out. This is what he lives for.
He tugs on the leash, pulling me toward him, and then slips an arm around my hip.
“Look at that, Max.” His breath is hot against my ear.
“You feel the power in this room tonight? This is peak fucking O.D. And you’re going to have a helluva night, dressed like this.
” His hand rides up my side and covers my breast, squeezing it possessively.
“You look so fucking sexy. Every last man down there is going to want to fuck you.”
He drops his hand, slips it into the front of my underwear, and then slides two fingers between my legs, making me stiffen before he pulls back with a smirk.
“And maybe they will.”
I stare dead ahead, across the hangar to the other side. Over the pit below us of sweaty bodies and pounding fists. Over the haze of smoke and lights. I am a mannequin. An object. An empty shell.
“Aw, loosen up,” he grumbles, disappointed in my lack of reaction. “You’re killing the mood.”
Then he tugs me down the rickety stairs to the main floor, like a trophy on a chain.
Downstairs, we pace endlessly through the crowd. Billy glad-hands with the men, flirts with the women, and seems to be handed a drink at every step. He’s keyed up. Charged. His eyes flick everywhere—scanning, clocking, soaking it all in.
People part for him. They light up at his presence. He’s the man everyone wants to see, to know, to be. The king of the castle. Every laugh is louder when he’s nearby. Every woman looks just a little more eager. Every man stands straighter, his voice deeper.
As the night stretches on, the energy shifts—hotter, hungrier, more unhinged.
It’s not just thugs and criminals pounding drinks anymore.
It’s every kind of indulgence laid bare.
The smell of weed is thick in the air, and there are more girls tonight than usual.
A lot more. Dressed scantily and largely intoxicated.
Most of them aren’t associated with the club at all. You can tell by the way they move—the confidence. They’re here to earn, brought in for the night. Billy spends a lot of money on these parties.
Billy stops to talk to a big, older man with a long grey beard that spills over a fat belly, stretching his black t-shirt beneath a leather vest. A woman in a neon mesh dress is straddling him, hips grinding to the music while he palms her ass—yet he and Billy talk like she isn’t even there.
Across from us, another girl is on her knees in front of two guys near the pool table, taking turns sucking them both off. Nobody bothers to look away. A small group watches, enjoying the entertainment.
Then we’re walking again, and one of the Iron Order boys passes in front of us with a girl tucked under each arm, both of them topless, glistening with body oil and clearly high.
On the staircase, a couple is fucking with their clothes on—his pants unzipped, her dress hiked up, like they couldn’t wait for privacy and don’t care who sees.
We stop so Billy can admire a woman in latex being led on all fours by a leash, and her handler and Billy exchange pleasantries about their respective pets like they’re out at the local dog park.
“Beautiful tits,” the man comments, eyes drifting over me without bothering to look at my face. “Nice tight pussy, I bet.”
“Exquisite,” Billy says proudly, and then we’re off again, weaving through the crowd of Billy’s admirers, the pain in my feet the only thing that’s keeping me grounded in reality.
Finally, Billy leads us to a group of men gathered on a half-collapsed leather couch and several folding chairs and crates. They clear the couch for us without a word, and I sink into it, relief flooding my calves and heels. My feet are screaming. My spine aches.
The men—some I’ve known for years, others strangers—light up around Billy. They lean in, jostle for space, offer him smokes and stories, like he’s been off fighting a war and just returned. One of them cranes his neck and barks toward the bar, “Cash! What the fuck you waiting for?”
Cash appears a second later. “What’ll it be?” he asks.
Billy barely glances at him. “Tequila. Bring the bottle.” Then he stretches out, legs wide, hand resting heavy on my bare thigh, just to keep me in place. To let me know he’s there.
“You hear about the cartel job?” one of them asks. “Fucking legendary.”
Billy gives a dry smile and lights a cigarette.
“Legendary don’t mean shit if the feds are on your tail. A job’s only clean when the money is.”
That earns a round of knowing chuckles.
Billy launches into a story I’ve already heard three times this week about a deal that almost went sideways in El Paso.
I tune most of it out, letting the sound of voices wash over me.
My eyes scan the crowd. Damaged people playing at being invincible.
Broken souls clinging to each other. Showmanship and meaninglessness.
And then I see her. Just a few feet away at the bar, perched on a tall barstool, is the redhead I noticed earlier today.
She’s wearing black denim shorts now, and a triangle bra.
Ink covers one arm, silver rings stacked on her fingers.
Her combat boots hook onto the rungs of the stool, coppery hair falling loose over one shoulder.
She’s sipping from a glass and talking to another girl—petite, punky, with pink hair and a nose ring. They’re close. Really close.
Then the pink-haired girl leans in and kisses her.
It’s not a peck.
It’s slow. Lingering. Sensual.
I blink, jolted by an unexpected reaction. Surprise or envy, I’m not sure. I don’t know why it hits me the way it does. The freedom of it, maybe. Or the sensuality.
The kiss ends, and the pink-haired girl sits back upright and sips her drink. The redhead’s eyes flick across the room, scanning lazily over the crowd, and for half a second, I swear she looks at me.
Billy shifts beside me, noticing the direction of my gaze.
“Oh,” he says with a sly grin. “You’re into her.”
I look away. Too late.
He laughs under his breath and lifts a hand, waving her over. “Rox! Get over here! Bring your friend!”
The two women look over, and the redhead grins, says something to the pink-haired girl, then takes her hand. They slide off the barstools and start making their way toward us.
“Hey, Billy,” says the redhead, her eyes sliding over me just long enough to make me shift in my seat, before cutting back to him.
She’s striking up close—honey-colored skin, that riot of copper hair, an easy, crooked smile. Her friend is wide-eyed and fluttery, with a delicate constellation of tattoos scattered across her collarbone. She’s short and curvy and looks like trouble wrapped in candy floss.
Billy stretches one arm across the back of the couch and motions lazily, first to one side, then the other. “Sit.”