Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Follow Along
N ova sat in the empty parking lot with her windows down. Her leg felt irritated and itched a little. She still couldn’t wrap her mind around the fact that she had been tattooed by Linc.
LS
Ink jammed into her skin. There forever. There as a colored scar. All for… what? What she’d seen so quickly in the life of a motorcycle club made her soul shiver. And to be honest, what she’d seen wasn’t even all that bad yet.
Linc beating up a junkie. Linc getting arrested and released. Bikers playing pool and drinking like fish. Women in the clubhouse half naked or completely naked. Touching each other. Wanting to fuck bikers. Bikers demanding to be fucked or sucked or whatever wild fantasies went through their heads. Women’s clothes all over Linc’s room. The neon-green thong— thanks, Maggie —with Linc’s dried cum on them.
Nova took a deep breath, needing her heart to remain as calm as possible here. The screen of her phone lit up with her mother’s name. That’s not going to help, she thought. She grabbed her phone off the magnetic holder and answered the call.
“Did you find him?”
“Mom. Hello.”
“Novaleigh!”
“I’m working on it,” Nova said.
“It’s another day gone by! Another night! Do you know what it feels like to be this alone? I go to sleep and he’s not here? I have to cry myself to sleep, scared to death that my baby boy is out there… hurt… or worse. Nova… what if he’s… dead…?”
Nova’s throat clenched at that possibility, even though it had been her first thought the night her mother called, freaking out.
“Nova!”
“Mom,” Nova snapped back.
“Don’t get mean with me, young lady!”
“I’m not getting mean,” Nova said. “Do you really want to know what I’ve been going through trying to find Nick?”
Nova glanced down at her leg. Her bottom lip quivered.
“You have to tell me something,” her mother said. “Please. Nova. I’m begging you. I’m sitting here drinking coffee and all I want to do is pour a bottle of booze into the coffee.”
“Mom, no,” Nova pleaded. “Please… I…” She swallowed hard. “I hired someone to find him. Okay?”
“You hired someone? Really?”
“Yes, Mom. Really.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that earlier, Nova?”
“I didn’t want to get your hopes up,” Nova lied. “Okay? I can’t promise anything. But I told you, I’m doing everything I can.”
“Okay. That’s good. You hired someone! I assume, what, like a private investigator? Right? Someone who isn’t the law… but…”
“Yes,” Nova said.
That part was at least semi true. SOFRAW knew the laws. They just lived by a different set of them.
“I have to go, Mom,” Nova said. “I’m balancing this whole thing. Working. Looking for Nick. Dealing with the people I hired.”
She looked at her leg again and shook her head.
The tattoo burned.
“Okay. Thank you, Nova. I love you, baby girl.”
“Love you too, Mom,” Nova said.
Amazing the lengths it took for Nova’s mother to tell her daughter she loved her. Now wasn’t the time for Nova to go down that road. She placed her phone on the magnetic holder and opened all the delivery apps on her phone. She set herself to available and waited.
It took three seconds until an order pop up, dinging at her for acceptance. She agreed to deliver the order. She put her SUV into drive and started to move. Almost instantly, she noticed movement behind her.
Checking in the mirror, there were two motorcycles following her. SOFRAW bikers.
“What the hell?” Nova whispered.
Her tattoo itched and stung again. She told herself this was normal. Perks of being inked up by the VP of the club.
In some weird way, Nova felt kind of like an outlaw queen…
When Nova pulled into the driveway of the nice-looking house, the two motorcycles stopped at the end of the driveway.
Nova sighed and reached for the three bags of hot food.
She carried them to the door and rang the doorbell.
A man with glasses and wrinkled nose answered the door.
“Everything there?”
“Yes,” Nova said.
“Did you check? Did you touch my food? Huh?”
“No, sir. I just pick it up. You can see that the bag is sealed.”
“Then how did you check?”
“I just take what they give me.”
“This is why I never leave a tip. Get off my porch.”
Nova stepped back and felt her throat tighten. For some reason this stranger was the guy that got to her. Her eyes filled with tears as she tried to casually walk to her SUV. She made the error of looking at the two bikers. The second they saw the tears, that was it. They were off their motorcycles and walking toward Nova.
The two guys were part of the enforcers group for SOFRAW. It was Dolph and Virus. These guys thrived off violence. Off confrontation. They didn’t sit in prayer and talk things out. No need. They were muscle. Literally muscle. Built like professional wrestlers except if they used a steel chair to someone’s head, it was a real chair and a real hit with real injuries.
“What happened with that guy?” Virus asked.
“Nothing,” Nova said.
“We’re here to protect you,” Dolph said.
The enforcers introduced themselves.
“I’m used to it,” Nova said. “Sometimes they don’t tip. You do all that driving. Then they’re mean and they just…”
Virus was already on the move.
“Just stay in your SUV,” Dolph said.
“I don’t have to take orders from you,” Nova said.
She wasn’t sure if Dolph heard her or not. She climbed into her SUV. She looked at her phone. Another order offer had come in. Nova accepted it.
Stuck in the driveway because of the motorcycles blocking, all Nova could do was sit and wait. Virus kicked open the front door to the man’s house. When the man appeared a few seconds later, face boiling red with anger, Virus pulled the man out onto the porch. He then slammed the man against the house.
Dolph punched the house, just inches from the man’s face. Virus wasn’t as kind. He punched the man in the stomach. The man crumbled to the porch and that’s when Virus and Dolph dug through the man’s pockets.
Vera watched as the two enforcers counted cash. They both said something to the man. Dolph spit on him. Then they walked off the porch and toward Vera’s SUV. She rolled the window down.
“Here you go,” Virus said, handing her well over sixty dollars in cash. “He wanted us to tell you how grateful he is for you doing this job.”
“Do you have another order now?” Dolph asked.
Vera nodded.
She gently placed the money next to her on the passenger seat. She looked at the front porch and saw the man climbing to his feet. There was no way this wasn’t going to come back and haunt her. Bad reviews. Complaints. Nova knew this side job would not last much longer.
But in a way, it was kind of cool to have bikers beating the shit out of cheapskates and taking their money to give to her.
By the time Vera decided to call it a day, she made over three hundred dollars in cash and Virus and Dolph gave out several black eyes, three chipped teeth, two broken noses, and one possible broken kneecap.
All in all, it was a damn good day for deliveries.