Chapter 7 #2
“Fine,” she said. “Cooler heads, all that. You send your Vice President up. He and I will sit down like adults and you can explain this shitstorm to me. Until then, I keep your boy here, under our watch. He doesn’t leave without my say so.
If anyone comes looking for him or that bag, we find out what colors they bleed. Agreed?”
Blackjack’s voice rose a little on the last word. I couldn’t make it out, but the tone said he didn’t like his warlord being anyone’s houseguest.
She cut him off. “You need my help,” she reminded.
“I heard it in your voice earlier, even if you didn’t say it.
So, swallow whatever pride you have left and let me do what I’m good at.
Locking shit down. When 8-Ball gets here, we talk.
You owe me a full picture. Until then, I’ll keep your piece on the board standing. That’s the best deal you’re getting.”
Whatever he said in response finally satisfied her. She exhaled slowly.
“Yeah,” she said more quietly. “You too.”
She hung up.
For a moment she just stood there, staring at the dead screen like she might throw the phone at someone’s head. Then she slid it into her back pocket and walked back toward me.
Up close, I could see the old scars scattered under the ink on her arms. Fine white lines. Some straight. Some jagged. None slowing her down.
“Until I say otherwise,” she said, “consider yourself leverage.”
I lifted my hands slightly, palms out. “You feed me, I have no complaints. You cage me, we might have a disagreement.”
Her mouth curved. It wasn’t a friendly smile.
“You don’t get to disagree right now,” she said. “You stepped into my nest. You either let me wrap coils around you until I know you’re not going to explode, or I put you in the ground and see if digging through your bag is easier without you still attached to it.”
The Vipers around her chuckled. Not nicely.
Behind her, Valkyrie watched me with that same sharp focus, like she was trying to decide whether I was salvageable or should be recycled for parts.
“Ladies,” Liberty said without turning, “get him inside. He’s a guest. Treat him like one. But a guest we’ll shoot if he does something stupid.”
“Best kind of guest,” someone muttered.
Two Vipers stepped forward. One was tall, with a wolf tattoo wrapped around her neck. The other had shoulder-length black hair, piercings in both brows, and a nose ring.
“Come on, Devil,” the taller one said. “Bar’s this way.”
I followed. I had no choice. The backpack sat against my spine like a hand on my neck.
The inside of the clubhouse was a kind of organized chaos.
The front room opened into a wide space with high ceilings and industrial beams. Someone had welded old bike frames into overhead fixtures and hung lights through them.
A long bar stretched along one wall. Behind it, shelves of liquor glowed in colored light.
Music throbbed from speakers tucked into the corners just loud enough to fill the air.
There were couches and tables scattered around, all of them showing signs of hard use.
A pool table with carved snake heads for the legs.
A corner with a couple of punching bags.
Along the back wall, bookshelves stood crammed full.
Real books. Spines worn, some stacked sideways because there was no more room.
Painted across the far wall in big letters: TAKE WHAT HURT YOU, HANG IT.
Photographs hung beneath it. Women on bikes. Women in bars. Women on stages, middle fingers up. Women with bruises fading around their eyes, smiling tight, a Viper cut over their shoulders.
Conversations hushed as I moved through the room. Eyes followed. A stranger. A man. A different patch.
“Sit him,” someone said.
The wolf tattoo woman gestured at a stool near the middle of the bar. I sat. No point in making this into a pissing contest.
Behind the bar stood a young woman with black hair with red tips. A prospect patch on her cut. CALIFORNIA on another. She eyed me like she was deciding whether to serve me booze or poison.
“What’s your poison, Devil?” she asked.
“Whiskey,” I said. “If Liberty allows it.”
“Liberty said treat you like a guest,” California replied. “Guests drink. You start acting like a prisoner though, that list changes.”
She poured. Neat. Good brand. I took it and let the burn settle my nerves.
On my right, a woman with long brown hair and soft features leaned her elbows on the bar, chin in hand. The patch on her chest read RAVEN. She wore a flower tucked behind one ear.
“You guys really look like this?” she asked, studying my jaw. “I thought comic books made you up.”
“Sorry to disappoint,” I said.
“Oh, I’m not disappointed,” she replied. “I just thought the universe was exaggerating when hunky bikers showed up. Guess not.”
“Cute,” another voice chimed in. “Smooth face though. He’d be even hotter with a beard.”
That came from Diamondback, the mechanic. She had grease under her fingernails, hair in a messy bun, and the kind of grin that suggested she had been in more fistfights than dates. She had a wrench sticking out of her back pocket which gave her role away.
“What do you think Medusa?” California asked.
“Yeah,” Medusa added from a nearby table, boots up, chair tipped back. “Give him a beard, some road dirt, and he could pass for halfway feral. That would sell.”
I took another sip, letting them talk. This was how MCs worked. New blood got picked at. Tested. I could handle it.
From across the room, where Liberty and Valkyrie were talking near the bookshelves, I heard a quieter voice cut in.
“No,” Valkyrie said. “He wouldn’t.”
The room’s attention shifted. You could feel it, a subtle tilt.
She didn’t look at me when she said it. Just crossed her arms, eyes still on Liberty, who was speaking low and serious.
“Clean shaven is better. Less mess,” I thought I heard her add.
Raven’s brows shot up. She glanced at me, then at Valkyrie, then hid a smile behind her glass.
Diamondback leaned closer to Raven. “Well, well.”
California smirked outright. “Somebody has opinions.”
I set my glass down. “Didn’t think you looked that close,” I called toward the back.
Valkyrie’s head turned. Slowly. She walked toward the bar, each step deliberate, like she was measuring the distance and the effect.
Up close, with the daylight through the high windows catching her, she was even worse for my self-control.
Her hair was pulled back tight, a few strands loose around her face. Neck inked solid in black and gray, a tangle of wings and blades that disappeared under her shirt. Eyes a pale, impossible blue. Husky-dog eyes. Her jaw was strong enough to take a punch and give one back twice as hard.
She stopped just on the other side of my glass.
“I didn’t,” she said. “You’re just loud to look at. Hard to avoid.”
Laughter snorted out of Medusa. California thumped the bar once in appreciation. Raven straightened, pretending she wasn’t eavesdropping.
“Loud,” I repeated. “That’s a new one.”
“You’re wearing twenty pounds of ink and a patch that screams I start trouble,” she said. “You walk into my hospital with that, it’s loud. You walk into my clubhouse with that and a bag you won’t let go of, it’s louder. Clean shaven is the least of it.”
“Could grow one if it helps,” I said. “I aim to please.”
She tilted her head, looking me over like she was checking a bike she was thinking about buying and probably stripping for parts.
“You couldn’t grow a good beard,” she said. “You’d get three weeks in and look like a depressed barista. Do yourself a favor and keep it clean.”
Raven choked on her drink. Diamondback laughed outright.
I couldn’t help it. I grinned. “You’re very sure for someone who’s only known me for half a gunfight.”
She leaned her elbows on the bar, closing the distance to an inch that felt like a mile.
“We’ve had men like you drift through our peripheral for years,” she said. “We know the type. Pretty. Dangerous. Think the world owes you something for the scars you’ve collected. News flash. It doesn’t.”
“I never said it did,” I replied. “I just want it to stop throwing stray bullets at my head while I visit my best friend.”
Her gaze flicked to the backpack strap on my shoulder. “And carry someone else’s apocalypse for them,” she said. “Don’t forget that part.”
“You sound like you have a problem with me doing that,” I said.
“I have a problem with anyone dragging that kind of heat, whatever it even is, over our line,” she said. “But I’m not blind either. I know you didn’t choose it.”
Her voice cooled a notch.
“You don’t have to like being here,” she added. “You just have to accept it. For now, you’ve got a roof, a drink, and a promise from Liberty that we won’t let someone put a bullet in your head while you sleep. It’s more than what most people get.”
“A hostage with benefits,” I said.
She smiled then, small and sharp.
“You’re not that special,” she said. “Our bunnies get better perks.”
“He’d make a cute bunny though,” someone said.
“Bunnies?” I asked. “You have those here too?”
The woman on my other side, Raven, piped up. “What, you think just because we’re an all-female MC we don’t get to have groupies?” she asked. “We like pretty distractions just as much as the next club.”
“You’re not my type,” Medusa called from the table. “Too symmetrical. I like ’em fucked up.”
“Give it time,” I said.
That got a ripple of low laughter.
Valkyrie’s mouth twitched, but she reeled it in fast.
Behind her, the other Shore Vipers drifted closer. I started putting names to faces from what Valkyrie had mentioned on the ride here.
The tall one with the shotgun outside was Indigo. Big gauges in her ears, black mohawk, quiet stare that took in everything and judged nothing until it had details.
The woman who had offered to “sit” me earlier was Rosé, Vice President. Her eyes were sharp under soft features, the kind that looked kind until you realized empathy didn’t stop her from breaking bones.