CHAPTER ONE
Byron
I knew when we approached the Gray Bones Motorcycle Club this was going to be a delicate operation.
The guys weren’t what I had been expecting.
From the way Jelly and Nadine had talked about Shitty Wilkins, I’d kind of assumed all of these guys would be old, paunchy, and white.
Instead, they were of all ages, ripped, and there were several Black dudes as well as Hispanic guys.
They were tatted, looked dangerous, and even the older guys were cut.
And they all looked like they could handle themselves in a fight.
I scrubbed my hand over my face, thinking.
I needed to re-evaluate the very basic plan I’d cooked up to get Nadine’s sister, Jessica Fletcher, the hell out of this mess.
It wasn’t going to be as simple as having Nadine and Jelly cause a distraction while Reynolds and I grabbed Jessica Fletcher from the VIP room.
At first, I had no idea how I was supposed to get Nadine’s little sister out of there without having a few dozen angry biker dudes chasing us down. But I knew I needed to think quickly.
“Paolo,” I said to Jelly’s fiancé, who was a surgeon. Even though he was tall and muscular, he was a nerd at heart. I knew it, he knew it, everyone knew it. He was not who I wanted beside me in a fight. “You’re the driver.”
He nodded and looked relieved. “Jelly can stay with me.”
I shook my head. “No. We need her and Nadine to act like they might be interested in working here.”
Both Reynolds and Paolo glared at me.
“Working here?” Reynolds asked. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You said they were just going to look pretty and cause a distraction.”
I shrugged. “Their distraction might turn into… a little more involvement than what we’d originally planned.
” I turned to Jelly and Nadine. “I’m going to need the two of you to talk to them about how much you want to work there.
Ask them all kinds of questions, and, if it comes to it, y’all might have to demonstrate how you can wait tables or strip, okay? ”
“Fuck that,” Paolo said, grabbing Jelly’s hand. “First off, there’s no way she’s going to strip. No one should see her naked but me. Secondly, she is clumsy as fuck. She’ll fall off that stage, and I don’t want her getting a broken leg or arm.”
“Hey,” Jelly protested. “I mean, it’s true, but still.”
I nodded. “Okay, well Nadine, then.”
Reynolds’ face looked like a storm cloud. “Hell, no. They’ll kidnap her after they see her…”
Nadine clapped her hands. “I’ll do it! I’ll ask them to play some fun music and put on a sexy outfit just like I did at Sugar.”
Reynolds couldn’t hide his grin. “I mean… I wouldn’t mind seeing that, honey.”
She beamed at him. “Let’s do this.”
She got out and started hurrying towards the door.
“Wait,” I whisper yelled after her, but it was too late. “Shit! I had a whole plan…”
“Hey, y’all!” Nadine yelled out to the bouncers at the door. We saw their jaws drop as they took a good look at her.
“Fuck this,” Reynolds tried to bolt after her, but I grabbed his arm.
“We need to think this through,” I protested. I gave up as Jelly took off after her. We were hidden from view, but we could see them talking to the bouncer at the door. It took about thirty seconds for them to charm their way inside.
“I don’t like this,” Paolo said, wiping his hands on his pants.
“It’ll be okay,” I assured him, even though I was feeling pretty nervous about our odds. “We’ll be back. Just get in the driver’s seat and be ready to go when we come out.”
“Gotcha.” He sighed but seemed to realize that was where he best fit into our operation.
I started walking towards the bouncer while I talked with Reynolds. We couldn’t let Nadine and Jelly stay in there very long without us. “Here’s the drill—we’re going to tell them we’re prospective members, and we want to see what it’s like before we decide to join.”
Reynolds looked at me like I was crazy. “We’re both a little too clean cut for that, don’t you think?”
“Just follow my lead.”
We reached the bouncer, an extremely unfriendly looking white guy with a grizzled gray beard and huge muscles.
He was bigger than I was, which was saying something.
I was six foot five, two hundred and fifty pounds, and had less than five percent body fat.
I also had a black belt in both Jujitsu and Krav Maga.
As a professional security agent, AKA bodyguard, I knew what to do.
Also, my gun was concealed well enough that this man was not going to find it.
“What can I help you with?” the guy’s voice sounded like he smoked five packs a day.
“Thinking about joining.” I pointed inside the metal structure. It was nothing like Sugar. It was basically a warehouse with chairs, stages, and bars.
He looked us up and down. “The MC or just the, er, titty bar?”
Jesus. Titty bar? They weren’t even trying for a decent clientele.
“I might be interested in both,” I lied easily.
The guy gave me what would pass for a smile. “You ride?”
“Of course.”
He nodded. “What about him?” he pointed at Reynolds, a confused look on his face.
“What about him?” I added a little extra aggression to my tone.
“Just don’t look much like a biker, that’s all.”
I leaned forward. “Shut the fuck up, man. He’s sensitive. He knows he looks… not tough. Besides, he’s just here for the girls.”
The guy held his hands up. “I apologize. Hold on. Let me get Zeke. He’s our VP. Skeeter’s our prez, but he ain’t here right now.” He put a walkie talkie to his mouth. “Zeke, I got some decent prospects out here.”
“Be there in a minute,” a deep voice responded. “Getting sucked off.”
Charming.
The bouncer grinned. “Name’s Larry. We got some girls in the VIP room that give the best head you’ll ever get. They fuck good, too.”
It took everything in me not to look at Reynolds. I didn’t want to think about Nadine’s little sister fucking tons of bikers for the past five years. What a shitty life. “Name’s Stone. This here’s Killer.” I pointed to Reynolds, who turned and gave me wide eyes.
Larry snorted. “Killer, huh?”
I laughed. “Means lady killer. This guy has never met a pair of legs he couldn’t get between if you know what I mean.”
“Yeah? Well, now that I could see about him,” he grinned. “You know, we’ve got a peach of a girl onstage right now. Big tits, nice ass. She’s trying out to see if she could strip here. Maybe you could join the guys when they try out her pussy, too.”
Reynolds’ face turned beet red with rage. “Sounds good,” he said, his face grim.
Larry backed off. He seemed to suddenly think Reynolds might be a decent fighter after all. “Go on in and look around. I’ll tell Zeke to be on the lookout for y’all when he’s finished getting his cock sucked.”
My God, this was night and day from Sugar.
Nico would have a heart attack and die if he could see the way they ran this place.
He met all potential members in a bespoke suit and gave them a detailed tour of his and Carmen’s luxurious group of gentleman’s clubs.
I could see why the girls called this town Shitty Wilkins after all.
I shuddered to think that both of them could have ended up working here if Carmen hadn’t recruited Nadine to come to West Bay.
That had started a chain of events that ended with her best friend, Jelly, moving there, too, and the rest was history, as they say.
I nodded and motioned for Reynolds to follow me.
We walked in, and I immediately clocked that most of the guys had guns, several were doing hard drugs, and a lot of the girls looked strung out, too.
Nadine was onstage dancing to “Nine to Five” by Dolly Parton and wearing some sort of skimpy office worker get up.
It was fucking hot, but I looked away. I wasn’t going to stare at my best friend’s wife’s body.
Reynolds had zero reason to look away, and he quickly parked himself in the front row to watch her dance.
I looked around to make sure Jelly was safe. She was serving drinks wearing her all-black spy gear Nadine had insisted on. It wasn’t flashy or revealing, but the other women were wearing such skanky looking clothes, the guys seemed to like it for a change; something different.
I was busy casing the joint, looking for the best exit strategy, when a tall, bald Black guy came out of a room and approached me.
“What’s going on?” he asked me, arms crossed across his muscular chest. He looked a bit like DMX. “I’m Zeke. You looking to join Gray Bones?”
I nodded. “Maybe. My friend and I definitely want to join the strip club.” I jerked a thumb towards Reynolds. “I might be interested in the MC.”
He studied me. “We could use someone like you. You look tougher than most of our guys. And they’re tough. You from here?”
“Nah. DC. But I heard about this place. Thought I’d check it out.”
He rubbed his chin. “You like any of the girls?”
I turned around and did a cursory inspection. None of the women looked like Jessica Fletcher. “They’re alright.”
“Alright, huh?” he smiled at me showing off a gold tooth with a pirate face on it. Weird choice, but whatever.
I shrugged. “Heard you were getting sucked off.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, I was in the VIP room. We got some angels in there, man.” He studied me a little more. “You ain’t real dark. You got a white daddy or mama?”
I gave him a look to get the point across that I didn’t like him asking me that question. But I answered him. “Parents are both Black. One grandparent was white.”
“We could use a few more Black guys,” he whispered to me. “The club’s diverse, but it could be more so. About half the guys are white, maybe fifteen percent Hispanic, and then the rest of us are Black.”
“No racists?”
He grinned without mirth. “You know how that fucking goes. I’d say no, but you never can tell.”
“That’s the truth.”
He cocked his head. “What are you most interested in besides club business and making money?”