4. Zane
ZANE
O ne week later…
“You have got to be fucking kidding me!” The bill for the bike was in my hand as I stared at Ryan Mccaferty. He was one of the best bike mechanics in Lower Ninth Ward. It was the only reason why I was even entertaining the price.
Ryan whipped his hands with a rag and then looked between me and my wrecked bike. “Insurance is going to pay for all of it.”
“Oh yeah,” I sighed. “I just have to get in touch with that jackass who ran it over.”
Ryan winced. “Heard you beat the fella up pretty bad.”
“He hit my bike on purpose,” I shrugged.
Ryan nodded. “Well, I’ll get on working on this. You handle that insurance situation.”
Whipping out my cellphone as I approached the brand-new Shelby Mustang, I saw I had two missed calls from Cory. She’d left one voicemail stating that a few bartenders had called off for the night.
“Fuck!”
Snatching the door to the sleek black car open, I jumped inside. I didn’t feel like trying to rustle up people out of nowhere tonight. The Conjure was my pride and joy. I’d figured out everything I needed to get that night club off the ground and make it a success.
Whatever I needed to do to make my club run more smoothly, I’d do it.
Tonight, that meant playing bartender.
I was three hours into making drinks when she appeared in the bar.
Emerald Landry.
Leaning back against the bar, I watched as she looked around, noting the clientele. This wasn’t her type of scene and we both knew it.
She was dressed much like she had been in the courtroom nearly a week ago, only this time she wore a light blue fitted power suit and high heels that made her appear taller, leaner than she was. However, when she turned to the side there was no hiding the fact that the woman had an ass on her.
An alligator in the swamps would’ve loved to take a bite out of her apple.
Her hair this time was pinned up into a tight bun and the second she spotted me behind the bar, I saw her eyebrow raise.
“Take over for me,” I told one of the guys who had bothered to show up for his job.
“Sure, thing boss,” he nodded.
Drying my hands on a towel, I tossed it in a bin and came from behind the bar just as Crystal, one of my best dancers, popped out onto the stage. Just as I was approaching someone grabbed at Emerald, who looked shocked.
“I’m not a dancer!” She hollered at the man who had the nerve to look embarrassed as she shook him off of her.
“Ms. Landry, here for me?”
She noticed I’d arrived then looked at me and the man. “Yes. Is there somewhere we can talk…in private.”
“Yes, follow me.”
The two of us began to move through The Conjure that had to be filled to capacity. Walking in front of her we cut near the stage where Crystal had begun her strip tease, she was effortlessly seductive. Before I knew it, her bra went flying and landed in front of my lawyer’s feet. I glanced back in time to catch the disgust crossing Emerald’s face.
We climbed the stairs that led out onto the rooftop area and I heard her breathe a sigh of relief. I was having the finishing touches put on the rooftop in the next few days. There was a pool in the middle, already illuminated and filled with fresh chlorinated water.
“I’m not sure why I even came here,” she whirled around and faced me.
Shoving my hands in my pockets, I took her in. “Probably something to do with my case.”
Slowly, her hand drifted to her throat. “Right! Sorry it was probably the topless dancer that just flung her bra at me.”
I chuckled loudly at her and watched as she gave me a pointed look, her skin glowing under the moonlit sky.
“I wanted to talk to you about your case.”
My lips twitched into a smile. I still couldn’t get over it, stinky Emerald Landry had grown up into a hot fucking lawyer.
Your hot fucking lawyer, I thought, and it shocked me.
“You mean our case?”
She rolled her eyes. “Sure, Mr. Bishop. If we must call it that.”
I took a deep breath and inhaled her. I wasn’t sure why I’d been an asshole in high school and called her Stankabutt so much. She was no longer that girl, but a woman. A woman who smelled like heaven who bathed in vanilla and cocoa butter.
“What are you doing?” She asked, staring at me.
Looking around I realized that I’d been leaning in and sniffing the hell out of her. Scratching at the back of my neck, I stepped back.
“Sorry, you smell really good.”
“As opposed to….?”
Fuck, I thought.
“You know I was an utter asshole in high school.”
She took a breath. “I’m not here to rehash our history. Just to do my job.”
A sigh left my lips and then I sobered. “Right.”
Her perfect brow raised. “Right, so I spoke with the D.A. earlier this week. Things are still up in the air if they’re pressing charges. So, I have a plan.”
Intently, under the full moon, on the rooftop of The Conjure, I fell under the spell of Emerald Landry. I hung onto her every word determined to do everything she told me just to keep her in my sight.
I listened to her talk for nearly fifteen minutes straight and the surge of admiration that went through my body left me reeling. A woman had never ever captured my attention the way she had.
I mean unless she’d been taking her clothes off…
Eventually she noticed that I’d been quiet the entire time. “Mr. Bishop, are you listening to me?”
“Zane,” I leaned in slowly, and licked at my lips. “I want you to call me Zane.”
The spell was broken in that moment and Emerald blushed under the moonlight, her cheeks turning rosy.
“I really don’t think that’s appropriate,” she mumbled. “I’m trying to do my job.”
“Scared?” I asked in a teasing manner.
I watched as a small smile touched her lips. “I should get going.”
“Why?”
She paused, thoughtful for a moment. The night sounds of the Quarter beginning to creep in. “I need to get home. I have a lot of prep to do. Other cases than yours have landed on my desk this week.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but Emerald was already sashaying away, her stiletto heels clicking with all the confidence in the world. My eyes tracked her movements in the pale moonlight and I shook my head admiring her curves and the slight bounce of her ass. I wondered if she knew those fucking power suits made me hard as fuck and I wanted to peel them from her body and screw her fucking senseless.
Before I could think any more about it my cellphone began to ring. My hands darted all over my body and found it in my back pocket.
I didn’t even get off so much as a hello when Loki, the President of my club gruffly said, “We’re having church in forty five minutes.”
“I’ll be there,” I hung up, and sighed.
Loki had definitely killed my damn hard on as the other man’s voice had caused me to go flaccid. Any delicious thoughts of my lawyer had vanished.
I headed back into the club, passing patrons on the way. Ricky, one of the late-night managers, had arrived. After telling him I was leaving, I drove to my apartment that I kept in the city.
I had a main house out in the bayou near my grandparents but I mostly stayed in the city. Selling pussy on a brass pole had allowed me to live comfortably the last few years.
Pulling the Mustang into the private garage underneath the apartment complex, I parked and grabbed my Sin City cut from the trunk. Slipping it onto my shoulders, I began to fumble for the keys to my other bike.
She was a brand-new beauty and I hadn’t had the chance to ride her much. The Indian Scout Rogue Sixty roared to life and I sped out of the garage and into traffic. It was kind of late for Loki to be calling church but I figured it must have been some sort of emergency if he was.
By the time I arrived, I saw nearly every single member of the Sinners was in attendance. There was nothing but chrome shining as far as the eye could see.
By the time I walked in and took a seat, I could tell something was wrong.
“What’s going on?” I finally asked Wires, who was like our tech god.
He had a solemn look on our face. “Some shits going down with the Koreans.”
My face turned stony. The Korean mafia had come into Nola about eight months ago and they’d been causing a lot of fucking trouble.
“They kidnapped Avery Stone,” Wires sighed.
“Wait, Pastor Stone’s son?”
The other man nodded. “He called Loki about an hour ago.”
Slowly, I shook my head in disbelief. Avery Stone had been going down the wrong track in life for a while but if Loki wanted us to make a move on the Koreans we were going to do it.
Loki walked in and all the talking stopped as he stood at the head of the table. Our leader began to lay everything out in front of us letting us know that the Koreans had demanded money for Avery’s release, or they were going to chop his body up.
“We’re not gonna let that fucking happen,” Wraith, who was our Sargent at Arms murmured. He was standing next to Loki looking stern.
Every single club member agreed, including myself. Pastor Stone was a genuine good guy, he’d counseled many of us a few times here and there including myself.
“We don’t need to put this to a vote,” I spoke up looking around the room. “Pastor Stone has always been good in my book and helped out most of the people in this room at one time or another.”
When everyone had agreed, Loki split us up into different groups. Then we waited for Wires to give more details.
“The Koreans have set up a few illegal casinos,” Wires stood up with a tablet in his hand. “There’s at least eight. You should be getting coordinates now on your phones. These motherfuckers don’t mind shooting to kill. From everything I could find, there's a woman named Britney Lee who's running this whole show. She’s deadly. Heard she killed her ex-lover and mailed the head to his mama.”
The second he said that my phone pinged and a chill ran down my spine.
The mission was clear and simple.
Find Avery Stone and get him home by any fucking means necessary.