9. Hayden
9
HAYDEN
I worked twice as hard as I normally did at the diner that night. It was busy, the cheap restaurant in the middle of Saint View bustling with customers I caught a glimpse of every so often as I pushed plates of burgers and fries through the serving window.
With each order I hit the little silver service bell that signaled Carli, our waitress, to come pick up the food and take it out to the customers. Carli and Simon were run off their feet, but I couldn’t help them. I was too busy running things backstage. The other cook had called in sick, so I was making do with our busboy as a second set of hands. It was working but only barely.
“Fries on the side of that, please.” I passed Toro a plate. “Salad on the second.”
“Yes, Chef,” he said obediently, doing as I’d asked.
I hid a smile. The kid was trying so fucking hard to impress. And he was doing a great job, despite how far behind on orders we were. He was clearly angling for a cooking position, and I couldn’t blame him. Washing dishes fucking sucked.
Creating something beautiful and tasty out of food was infinitely better.
Burgers and fries were beautiful to someone. But I was already thinking about the new dish I wanted to try later that night after we shut up shop and I had the kitchen to myself. It was the only thing that got me here tonight after the auction disaster earlier in the day. My face burned with embarrassment at the very thought of how desperate I’d been.
And at how deeply disappointed I still was that, despite my best efforts, owning my own place was just not in the cards for me.
Unless I wanted to work for Luca fucking Guerra.
I paused in the middle of adding cheese to a burger patty. What was the point of staying late anymore? It was stupid to be practicing dishes I’d never get to serve to anyone other than myself. And it was a waste of ingredients and time. Simon would notice I was using his kitchen without permission eventually, and then I wouldn’t get to cook at all. My apartment didn’t even have a kitchen. Not a proper one anyway. The single hot plate and microwave didn’t count. Simon’s diner might have been a shithole, but he’d kept the kitchen fairly well updated. He’d handed it over to me with grease around the burners and a refrigerator that hadn’t been cleaned out in I didn’t know how long, but it was nothing I hadn’t gotten cleaned to sparkling on my first shift.
I’d kept it like that ever since. It might not have been mine, but I treated it like it was .
“Wipe that spill, Toro,” I admonished the younger man gently. “Keep your workspace clean.”
“Yes, Chef,” he barked out like he was some sort of army recruit, and I was his drill sergeant.
“Not a chef,” I said for the second time in twenty-four hours. “Just a cook.”
Toro didn’t argue, just cleaned up his mess and kept on with the tasks he’d been delegated. We worked in silence for the most part, him only opening his mouth to ask a question if he didn’t understand my instructions.
The bell over the door tinkled, and a new rush of noise filtered back to the kitchen.
Toro groaned as he leaned around me and peered out through the serving window. “It’s the hockey crowd. Game must have just finished.”
I cringed but didn’t look up. “How drunk are they tonight?”
Toro paused for a second, watching them. “Pretty bad. Simon is trying to herd them to seats in the back.”
I shook my head and kept on with chopping a carrot. “Good luck to him. If their team lost, which I assume it did, considering they didn’t enter with cheers and shouts like they normally would, they’ll all be in shitty, argumentative moods. And will forget to tip.”
Toro went back to his workstation. “There’s a couple of guys from the Slayers Motorcycle Club out there too. Maybe they’ll keep them in line.”
I gripped my knife harder and bit back a scoff at the mention of the motorcycle club the Sinners considered their biggest rivals. “Fuck the Slayers,” I muttered. “They’re more likely to start a fight than prevent one.” I might have been out of the game, but it didn’t mean I’d suddenly switched teams.
Toro glanced over at me questioningly. “Really? They’ve always seemed like good guys to me. Scary as fuck, but I’ve never seen them start any trouble.”
I didn’t say anything. What was there to say? I wasn’t about to tell this eighteen-year-old kid the Slayers were up to their fucking eyeballs in illegal activities.
Or how I knew about it.
They could eat where they liked, but I didn’t have to notice. “Stop talking and do your work,” I said to Toro, not wanting to think about it anymore.
“Yes, Chef.”
“Not a fucking chef,” I mumbled again, but it was with no heart.
A crash came from the main dining area, and a roar of drunken laughter came up after it, along with a few cries of dismay. I didn’t have to look up to know that the plates Toro and I had just sent out were probably now all over the floor. I sighed and just started replating the orders.
Carli’s pissed-off voice shouted over the top of it. “Did you just fucking knock my tray so I would drop them all?”
Toro and I both stopped and peered out through the serving window. Carli was a tough nut, she was used to guys like these, but it was rare for her to lose her patience and yell at them the way she just had.
Simon kept this place pretty family-friendly, and there were kids around. Carli might have grown up in the trailer park, but I’d never heard her cuss like that at a customer. Her tone and the volume of it told me she knew very well that her tray of food and glasses, that was now spread out all over the floor, was no accident .
“Oops!” one of the hockey guys slurred. “Seems like you need an extra set of hands, sweetheart. Let me help you.” He staggered out of the booth and made a show of bending to pick up a broken plate from the floor and placing it back on her now empty tray.
He made sure his hand brushed over her boob while he was at it.
“Aw, fuck no.” Toro dropped a set of tongs from his fingers right as I dropped the knife.
Fuck no, indeed.
Carli was tough and could handle her shit, but she was one woman against a group of drunken men.
Drunken men who would be leaving and never coming back. ’Cause fuck if some guy was going to indecently grope a teenager in front of me.
I strode through the kitchen, my long strides eating up the small space quickly, Toro right behind me. I pushed out through the kitchen doors right as Carli swung a punch at the groper’s face.
He blinked.
And then punched her back.
All fucking hell broke loose.
I let out a shout and doubled my pace, full speed running at the man and crash tackling him to the floor, my fingers already curled into a fist.
I sent it flying into his meaty face so hard my knuckles cracked.
I didn’t care. How dare he. How dare he lay a single fucking finger on a woman like that. How dare he even fucking think about it.
I just kept punching, frustration from my run-in with Luca and the loss of the auction mixing with my anger. I was fast, and the punches were well-aimed.
The guy’s feeble attempts at fighting me off were laughable. But his friends shouted from their booth, and I knew it would only be seconds before I was surrounded, so I got in as many good punches as I could.
It was all I could do to find Toro in the crowd, going head-to-head with a guy about my age, and Carli huddled in a corner with her nose bleeding, a phone pressed to her ear.
I had no idea if she was calling the cops or for backup of a different kind. Like in the form of her muscle-head boyfriend and his buddies.
When one of the hockey bros yanked me off his friend and sent his fist straight into my mouth, I considered the fact I probably could have used the backup in either form. Toro was trying his best, but we were well outnumbered.
Two guys got a hold of me, a third sending a quick round of punches into my face and stomach as I fought against my restraints. Pain erupted in each place the man’s fist connected, but I was too wired with adrenaline to worry about it.
It was hardly the first time I’d been attacked.
From the other side of the room, the Slayers emerged from their table. I barely got a look at them from the corner of my swelling eye. They were a sea of black leather and denim, swarming across the restaurant while families and teenagers fled out into the parking lot to avoid the brawl.
I groaned when a heavy boot connected with my midsection, the big guy in the hockey jersey who had started this whole thing now back on his feet and out for my blood. His boot came again, and I coughed painfully.
The Slayers joined the fight like the lethal weapon I knew them to be. My head hung, pain slowly breaking through the adrenaline and coursing through my body. My ears rang, the diner around me turning into one painful squeal of noise, and I wondered if my eardrum had ruptured.
That pissed me off.
“You fucking pansies, holding a guy down while you beat the shit out of him,” an older guy with a Slayers’ vest fitted across his broad chest muttered.
The man was huge, and I thought I vaguely recognized him, but it was hard to tell with my eyes full of sweat. Or was that blood?
My eyesight was fuzzy around the edges, and I doubted I was going to be conscious for much longer.
Simon had disappeared, and aside from Toro who I’d also lost track of, it was me against a pack. I hated the Slayers but I needed someone on my fucking side here.
“Don’t you fucking know who we are?” a deep, male voice roared above the din.
Suddenly, the two guys holding me down let go of me. Footsteps crunched over the smashed plates and what was left of the food Toro and I had so painstakingly prepared.
I rolled over onto my stomach, coughing, and pressed up on my hands, ignoring the sting of pain as broken glass speared through my palms.
Fuck this day.
I wiped at my eyes and tried to focus on what needed to be done, but the Slayers joining the fight had evened the score, and the drunken idiots had clearly decided it was no longer worth their while. They took one look at the patches on their jackets and the emblems on their backs and took off running into the night.
Smart.
But I refused to do the same.
Someone slapped me on the back. “Hey, you all right? You need a hand?”
With effort, I glanced up at the man offering his help.
Ah, fuck.
Familiar green eyes stared back at me.
Familiar because five years ago this fucking prick had met with a bullet from my gun.
Hawk realized at the same second I did, and in the one that followed, I was staring down the muzzle of his gun.
Gone was any sympathy his eyes might have held before he’d recognized me. And in them, anger and hate burned hotter than any fire I’d ever seen.
I let out a slow, bitter laugh, wishing again that I hadn’t gotten out of bed today. “Too late to change your mind and let that guy kill me. You already helped me.”
Hawk’s upper lip curled, taking him from stupidly handsome to fucking mean in an instant. “Bullshit.” He cocked his head to one side and pushed the muzzle against my forehead. “I can change my mind any fucking time I want.” His finger hovered over the trigger.
He’d do it, too. I had no doubt in my mind.
That’s how much Hawk Robinson hated me.
But I raised a cocky eyebrow. “Really? Here? We’re on the main fucking road in town, and you know Carli over there already called the cops. You in the habit of killing people in cold blood in front of a couple of scared teenagers?”
I jerked my head toward the young woman, shaking in the corner, her trembling fingers clutched around her arms like she was trying to hold herself together. She truly was terrified, her cheeks streaked with tears as an older lady who’d stayed behind helped her hold napkins to her probably broken nose.
Toro stood with two of the other Slayers who had stepped in and helped. I recognized Aloha now. He’d been a member of the Slayers since I was a kid. The younger guy went by Ice, but I didn’t know much about him, other than he’d been a prospect back when I’d been held in their basement after they’d picked me up from the side of the road, too injured to fight back.
Hawk didn’t falter. Didn’t stop to glance over at Toro or Carli. “I wouldn’t normally, but I can make an exception for you.” He shook his head slowly. “Sinners piece of shit,” he taunted. “I should have fucking killed you years ago.”
I laughed slowly, and found it felt good, so I did it some more. And then more, until I was laughing nearly fucking hysterically in Hawk’s face. Honestly. Just fuck this day. And fuck Hawk. He had a nice pair of rose-colored glasses on. “Five years ago you were too busy lying on the floor crying because I shot you in the leg to do anything. You remember that?”
Hawk’s face went red, and he shifted his weight from his right leg to his left, like he was remembering that one had once had a bullet hole with my name on it. Was it his right? Or the left? I couldn’t remember.
Only that I didn’t regret doing it .
I might have been a Sinners piece of shit once upon a time, but he was the one still in the club life. I might have been the leader of a gang that rivalled his. At least I’d grown up and gotten out.
He clearly couldn’t say the same.
Red and blue lights flashed around the diner through the grubby windows, and we both looked over at the cop cars screeching in.
“Shit,” Aloha swore under his breath. “That’s our sign to get going.”
“Our bikes are out there,” Hawk bit out. “Can’t go anywhere now unless you plan on leaving your bike to get impounded and running away on foot.”
Ice shoved his hands in his pockets. “I’m not in the mood to go to jail tonight, Hawk. Can you at least put the fucking gun away before the cops get in here? Jesus.”
Hawk rolled his eyes, and with a grimace, withdrew the gun and tucked it into the back of his jeans. “Fine.”
The cops stormed through the front door right as Simon appeared from somewhere behind the counter. “Officers! Thank God you’re here,” he called, like he hadn’t just been hiding, sacrificing the rest of us.
The officer took his hat off and surveyed the mess. His gaze came to land on Hawk, Aloha, and Ice, and he mumbled something into the communication device on his shoulder before addressing Simon. “We had reports of a fight? Why doesn’t it surprise me to get here and find a handful of the Slayers are involved?”
The officer was an older guy. One I remembered well from my days in the Sinners gang. He clearly knew who Hawk and the other guys were, but I was kind of hoping I might have flown under the radar .
The officer’s gaze narrowed with recognition.
Damn.
“You’re Chaos Whitling, aren’t you?” he asked.
I sighed heavily. No point lying. “I was. Just go by Hayden now.”
Two more officers entered the diner, and a third cop car stopped in the parking lot, blocking off the doors.
They were quietly surrounding us. Like we might be getting ideas about running.
The officer stroked his short beard and watched me with squinty eyes. “Leader of the Sinners, right?”
This was getting so fucking old. How many years did I have to wait until my past would stop following me? Ten? Twenty? Would I be eighty and still get stopped by police who remembered the dumb shit I’d done in my twenties? “Again. I was. Haven’t been for a long time.”
I knew my mistake as soon as I said it. The Providence cops had a God complex, especially when it came to those of us from Saint View. They took any opportunity to remind us that we were just the scum on the sole of their expensive leather boots.
The cop sneered in my direction. “He says he’s out, and yet here he is, causing a disturbance with the Slayers. I’m getting déjà vu. Pretty sure we’ve all seen this before.”
The cops slowly surrounding the restaurant clearly made the man brave. “And you know what I remember about the Sinners and the Slayers from back in the day when you were Chaos? I remember how much the two gangs hated each other. How much blood was spilled on these streets over drugs and guns and territory.”
I frowned at his memory. He acted like we’d left Saint View littered with bodies. “That’s a bit dramatic. ”
Hawk snorted in amusement but quickly covered it with a scowl.
The officer continued to stare me down. “Is this what we have here, Chaos? A resurgence of violence on these streets that have been real fucking peaceful since you moved away?”
I hadn’t moved anywhere. I was just off their radar. And this was why I kept such a low profile, hanging out in Simon’s diner or staying home. Because the minute I poked my head out, my past came back to slap me in the face.
The cop’s gaze shifted to Hawk. “War know you’re in here fighting with the Sinners?” he asked, referring to the Slayers’ president, War Maynard.
Hawk gave the officer his most charming grin. One I was surprised he could even muster. “Don’t know what you’re talking about, sir. The Sinners and the Slayers are the best of friends.”
“Gag me with a fucking spoon,” I muttered.
Hawk moved in closer to me and whispered back, “I’d really love to, but not in front of the po-po. Now smile like we’re best fucking friends so we can get out of here.” He slung an arm around my shoulder like we were posing for a tourist photo. “Nothing to see here, Officer. Isn’t that right, Chaos ?” Hawk asked, saying my gang name like the slur it was. “There was a bit of fisticuffs with some drunken fools who wandered over after the hockey game and tried to feel up a waitress, but that’s all. We kicked them out, and I was just checking to see if Chaos needed any medical attention.”
I shrugged his arm off my shoulders. “I think I’d rather die in a pool of my own blood if it’s all the same to you.”
“That’s not what you were saying last time I saved your life,” Hawk threw back with a smug smirk. “Pretty sure you begged me to help you.”
I stared at him. “I was fucking unconscious. And then you kept me prisoner in your basement.”
Hawk wandered over to the officer and crossed his arms over his chest, mimicking the cop’s posture. “I do think he protests too much. Don’t you?”
The cop’s gaze bounced between us like he was at a tennis game. “He what? He kept you…” Eventually, he sighed and took out a pair of handcuffs. “You’re both under arrest.”
Hawk dropped the mocking stance immediately. “What the fuck for?”
I cleared my throat and motioned at my black, swelling eye. “Uh, hello? On the floor fucking injured. And I’m under arrest? He’s the one with a gun.”
The cops eyes widened, and suddenly his friend pounced, one of them tackling Hawk to the floor while another patted him down, removing the gun that had been pointed at my head just minutes earlier.
“Concealed weapon.” The cop twisted Hawk’s arm up behind him as he dug a knee into his back. “You don’t think you should have disclosed that when we first arrived, son?”
“I prefer to go by Daddy rather than son,” Hawk bit back, his voice kind of muffled from the officers on top of him. But didn’t resist the arrest. His smart-assed mouth earned him another sharp knee to the back though .
I smiled smugly, enjoying watching Hawk get his perfect face smushed into the dirty linoleum floor.
He groaned. “Can you ease up with that? I never said I wanted you to call me Daddy. Fuck. Unless you’re hiding a sweet set of tits and a pussy that tastes like maple syrup beneath that uniform, you aren’t my type. Try pretty boy over there if you want to get your dick sucked.” He jerked his head in my direction.
Hawk calling me pretty was fucking hilarious when he looked more like the love child of movie stars than the trailer trash, MC kid he actually was.
Ignoring Hawk, the cop moved in behind me and slapped cold metal around one of my wrists. It had been a while since I’d felt the grating bracelets, and I couldn’t say I’d missed them. The cop pulled them tighter, his voice low in my ear. “That true, Chaos? You like to suck dick? You a fucking faggot?”
“Why?” I asked him sweetly. “You want to be my boyfriend?”
It was like I hadn’t been out at all.
I’d stepped straight back into that twenty-something asshole who ran his mouth and got himself in trouble all the fucking time.
When I found myself in the back of a cop car with Hawk on the other side of the bench seat, I didn’t even know why I was surprised.