Chapter 6
JOKER
After Cobra and I store the money in the safe hidden in the floorboards of The Gold Mine, I head to the garage.
He wanted to toast our victory, but the thought of putting alcohol into my tender stomach made the constant ache worse.
Hopefully, losing myself in work would wash away the uneasiness living within me.
Three hours later, I didn’t feel much better. If anything, I felt worse. The overwhelming paranoia and dread forced me to head home, check on my family, and convince myself what’s spinning through my brain is the result of not enough sleep.
When I enter our condo, an unusual silence surrounds me. Normally, Derek is blasting music while Deana watches the latest Disney movie at an earsplitting volume. The living room is empty, along with the kitchen, so I head toward the bedrooms. I check Derek and Deana’s rooms, and both are empty too.
My bedroom door is closed, and the ache in my gut intensifies along with a cold chill inching down my spine. I draw in a deep breath, slide my hand to my shoulder holster then slowly ease through the door—and freeze.
In three large steps, I’m standing over Daisy’s body sprawled out on top of the bed.
“Daisy?” I grasp her shoulders and shake her.
She bolts upright, eyes wide. “What the hell?”
I huff out a breath. “What are you doing?”
“I was taking a nap until you screamed. You scared me to death.” She pushes herself to a sitting position. “What’s wrong?”
“Sorry.” I ease onto the side of the bed, exhaustion overwhelming me. “Rough day.”
“So, you thought you’d come home and scare the shit out of me for fun?”
“No, no. It’s just . . .” How the hell did he tell his wife he was freaked out by an old Shoshone chief who basically told him his life was in danger?
She cups my face with her hand. “Usually it’s me freaking out, so tell me what’s bothering you.”
“Where’s Derek and Deana?”
“Derek took her to see Hocus Pocus after school.” She grins. “I bribed him by promising to make fettuccine Alfredo tonight for dinner.”
“Oh . . . nice.” I force myself to settle.
“Now, tell me why you’re white as a ghost, and your eyes are darting around the room.”
I rake my hand through my hair, willing my heart to stop ricocheting against my chest. “Nah, it’s stupid. I was just worried about you.”
Daisy’s cool palm strokes my cheek. “I’m fine; we’re all fine. There’s nothing to worry about.”
“Right.”
Daisy throws her legs over the edge of the bed and stands. Pretty fast for a woman seven months pregnant.
She motions to the box in the corner of the bedroom. “I found all kinds of good stuff in those boxes. You’re going to make an amazing Bugsy Siegel.”
The name hits me like a bucket of cold water, and I feel the blood drain out of my face. As if on cue, my stomach rolls, the room spins, and I bolt for the bathroom to empty my stomach for the second time today.
“Are you all right?” Daisy calls through the door.
“Yeah.” My weak, whispering voice surprises me. After another few minutes, I struggle to my feet using the sink for support, then I gaze into the mirror.
The image staring back at me is fuckin’ scary. My normally tawny complexion is the color of ash, accentuating the scar along my jawline. My eyes are sunken and hooded like the bad old days when I’d been on a coke bender.
All in all, I look like shit.
I splash ice cold water on my face, suck in some deep breaths and try to look normal so I don’t scare my pregnant wife.
“Holy shit, you look like death.”
So much for fooling my wife.
“You must have that stomach bug going around.” She takes my arm, leading me to the bed, and I don’t resist. “Deana’s whole class had it last week.”
“Yeah, Cobra said that too.”
“You were sick earlier?” She removes the mountain of decorative pillows, pulls down the comforter, then sits me on the edge of the bed. “Take these clothes off and get into bed.”
“I have a feeling you don’t mean those words exactly as they sound.” I try to pull off a sexy grin, but it feels more like a grimace.
“Just do as I say and stop being a wiseass.” She goes into the closet and returns with my worn Harley t-shirt and a pair of soft gym shorts. “Change and get under the covers.”
“Awful bossy for a pregnant woman.”
She rolls her eyes. “Between taking care of you, Derek, Deana and this baby pressing up against my bladder all day, I have no other option but bossy.”
“I’m calling Derek and telling him to bring home ginger ale and Gatorade. You need to replace your fluids.”
When she turns to retrieve her phone, I stuff the box and talisman from Warrior in the drawer of my end table. I wasn’t up to getting into all of it, especially since it was all bullshit anyway. Right?
Daisy ends her call with Derek, then points to my clothes. “Get changed.”
I do as she says, then she props the pillows behind my head, and I have to admit it’s the first time I’ve relaxed all day.
“Don’t move, and try to relax.”
Yup, my woman is amazing. She grew up in poverty-stricken West Virginia with nothing.
When I met her, she was running cons in South Beach.
We basically saved each other, and then became a family.
She treats Derek like her own, and after being kidnapped by an obsessed lunatic, she gave me our beautiful Deana.
Plus, she runs my custom motorcycle shop and keeps a hard-ass like me in line. Not easy.
“We gotta get you feeling better. We don’t want to miss the club Halloween party tomorrow night, right?”
I swallow hard as another wave of nausea hits, then draw in some deep breaths, and thankfully the feeling passes, but not the deep ache in my gut.
Halloween Morning
Joker
The next morning, I wake from a fitful sleep, but I’m able to force down some much-needed coffee without hurling. Good times.
Daisy loved pampering me even though it should be the other way around, but I still couldn’t shake off whatever the fuck is wrong with me.If anything the nagging pain in my gut is worse. Must be a bug like Cobra and Daisy suggested, along with the stress of the Nomads and all their mumbo-jumbo.
On Saturday, Derek comes to the shop with me after his morning karate class and spends the day rebuilding, restoring and tricking out the constant flow of orders. The kid rides as well as me and genuinely likes working here.
Aside from my family and my brothers, owning my own business is the accomplishment I’m most proud of. I love having Derek by my side as he learns the business and him enjoying it is an added bonus.
I treasure our father-son bond at the shop, but I never let it come before his studies at school.
The kid is crazy smart, especially with numbers, and there is no way I would let him waste his talent.
I’d promised his mother before she was taken from me I would always keep him safe and put him first, and so far I’ve succeeded.
With the help of the Serpents sending me business, and the suits from the casinos, whose mid-life crises compels them to buy Harleys they know nothing about, the shop is always buzzing with activity. We recently expanded to car maintenance, which ensures we’re busy non-stop.
Derek and I park our bikes at the side of the garage, lower our kickstands, and he falls in step with me. “You know, I was thinking since I’m too old for the kid’s Halloween party, I could go later on to the adult party.”
I shoot him a look. “We already discussed this last week, and the answer is still no.”
“Yeah, but it’s not fair. Everybody’s got something to do but me. It’s like I’m lost in the middle.”
“I said you could meet up with your friends tonight.”
“The shit they wanna do is so lame. A big night to them is papering some houses and staying out after midnight. ”
“And that’s not enough for you?”
Might as well test the kid and see what he says.
“C’mon, Dad, it’s not like I don’t know what goes on at The Gold Mine.”
Although I’ve done my best to keep Derek separate from my club life, he was born into it and has definitely seen and heard things. Just like any teen, he’s curious.
“When you’re twenty-one is soon enough.”
“You always say that, but now is the time I should be coming to club parties.” He presses further. “It’s not fair.”
“You came to the Fourth of July party.”
“Right, in the afternoon, and then you made me take Deana home before the real fun started.” He stops walking, and we face each other. “You told me yourself you prospected at seventeen and patched in at nineteen. That’s how old I am now.”
That’s what I get for telling the kid too much about my early life. It always comes back to bite me.
“And that’s how I know it’s better to wait until you’re twenty-one. Keep bugging me, and I’ll make you wait till you’re outta college.”
I had Derek young, and for the first thirteen years of his life, he was around the Raiders, my old club in New York.
A bunch of degenerates who would slit their mother’s throat for a dollar.
I worked hard to get him away from that life, hooked up with Daisy, moved to Vegas, joined the Serpents and never looked back.
Derek throws his arms up in the air. “That’s two years from now.”
Typical impatient teenage reaction.
“Keep bitchin’ and I’ll make it longer.”
I promised his mother, Desiree, I would keep him away from club life until he was old enough. I hadn’t been able to save her, but I damn well would keep my son safe for as long as possible .
“You think I’m not old enough, but I am.”
“Oh yeah?” I laugh around my words.
“I’ve had sex before, and most of the high school parties have weed and sometimes other shit.”
This was the hard part. Telling my son not to do shit I was already doing at his age. Shit, by twelve I could hot-wire a car and lift a wallet. At thirteen, I got laid for the first time, thanks to one of my father’s girlfriends.
“It’s not like I don’t know what’s going on, but you still treat me like a fuckin’ baby.”
He turns to walk away, but I clamp my hand on his shoulder, spinning him around. He might be a few inches taller than me, but I’m way bulkier and stronger.
“Watch your mouth.” I narrow my eyes and glare. Unfortunately, the kid has a strong dose of hard-ass from me.
He lowers his gaze to the pavement.
“Don’t be in such a hurry to grow up. It’s not as great as you think it is, understand?”
He nods, and I know that’s all I’m gonna get, so I jerk my head to the door. “Let’s get some work done.”
He silently follows me into the office, but my brain stalls on my son having sex.
Of course, it isn’t a surprise at his age, with his tall, lean build, and my dark hair and eyes, but where my features are blunt and scarred, his are chiseled like his mother’s.
He truly got the best of both of us, and that’s what worries me.
He makes a beeline for the garage, and I smile. He loves working on the bikes as much as I do, but I’m determined to at least try to shield him from the shitty part of life for as long as possible. Something happens to a person when they lose their innocence too young—believe me, I know.
The minute I enter the garage, Gus, my head mechanic and surrogate father, hits me with a barrage of problems concerning the jobs in progress. I follow him into the garage, where he’s working on a transmission .
The smell of oil and gasoline usually calms me, but today it twists my gut into knots. I press my lips together and, of course, Gus notices.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah.” I was getting damn tired of people asking me—first Cobra, then Daisy, now Gus.
We stop at one of the bays where a Mazda MX-5 is up on the lift.
“The kid just had the car in here six months ago for brakes,” Gus grumbles. “Now, he stripped the transmission. Must drive like a fuckin’ maniac.”
“C’mon, you were young once, right?” I dip my head and take a few steps under the car to inspect the job.
“You smell that?” Gus grabs my arm, jerking me back two seconds before the lift crashes to the floor along with the car.
Silence envelops the noisy garage ,and I realize how close I came to getting crushed by the Mazda.
“You all right?” Derek flanks me on the other side.
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Shit!” Gus yells. “I just checked those lifts last week, and everything was good.” Then he points to fluid seeping out from under the car. “Hydraulic fluid. Thank fuck, I smelt it.”
The near miss weakens me in a way I didn’t expect.
Most of my life I’ve been dodging bullets, figuratively and literally, but this was a little too close.
And a little too fuckin’ weird. I’d left the silver feather in the nightstand drawer, refusing to believe in the old man’s words, but maybe . . .
“Dad, you don’t look so good. Why don’t you go in the office and sit down?”
I shake it off. “I’m fine.”
But that was a damn fuckin’ lie. A prickly sweat popped up on my arms, yet my insides were cold as ice.
My hands shake, and again I fight off the urge to puke.
Now not only are Gus and Derek staring at me, but every mechanic in the place has eyes on me too.
I have no idea what the fuck is going on, but it sure as hell isn’t normal.