Chapter 11
JOKER
Who decided it was a good idea to drive a jackhammer through my head?
“Joker, please wake up.” Daisy’s soft voice surrounds me. I struggle to open my eyes, feeling like they’re glued shut from the inside.
I concentrate, and with every ounce of strength, I pry them open.
“He opened his eyes.” Daisy’s face hovers over me. “Baby, can you hear me?”
I want to tell her I can hear her. I want to see if she’s all right, but my throat is dry, and when I open my mouth, nothing comes out.
“Just take it easy. The doctor will be here soon.”
My eyes flutter, then close again.
“Joker, wake up,” a firm male voice orders, and again I struggle to open my eyes.
This time, I’m staring into the serious face of Doc Henderson.
“Can you tell me what year it is?” Henderson asks.
“2025. ”
“And the month?”
“October.” Then I add, “Halloween.”
“Very good.” The whole time he’s shining a light in my eyes, he examines my head. “No cuts or bleeding, but you’re going to have a good-size bump on the back of your head. He holds up two fingers. “How many fingers do you see?”
“Two.”
“Your pupils aren’t dilated, but there’s still a chance you might have a slight concussion.” He braces his arm behind my back. “Can you sit up?”
With his help, I get into a sitting position. The room spins for a second, then settles. I rub the back of my head, and sure enough, I’m growing a golf-ball-sized lump.
My brothers are gathered around the basement, and their serious faces scare me more than the fall.
“When you’re ready,” Henderson advises, “try to stand up.”
I suck in a deep breath, and with his help on one side and Python on the other, I stand. Again, the room pitches, but I keep it together.
A vision of Daisy bleeding out on the floor hits me like a sledgehammer, and I reach out to her. “Are you all right?” I look her over from head to toe.
“I’m fine. It’s you who fell.”
“Yeah, but you got stabbed. You were bleeding out all over the—” I stop when I see the confused faces staring back at me. I suck in a breath. “You sure you’re all right?” I caress the baby still snug in her belly.
“Yes.” Daisy covers my hand with hers. “We’re both fine.”
“Take it easy for the next forty-eight hours. Stay awake for a least another few hours just to be safe, then no drinking, smoking or drugs of any kind.”
“Shit, Doc, you sure do know how to ruin a guy’s good time.” Python attempts to lighten the mood with a joke, but no one laughs .
“Any nausea, dizziness or severe headache, call me.” Henderson heads for the stairs.
Cobra steps up. “Shit, brother, you had us fuckin’ scared.”
I survey the basement. Broken bottles and puddles of beer where I dropped the cases. “What the hell happened?”
Python nods toward the stairs. “We were taking up those cases of booze, and you lost your footing. You fell backwards down the stairs.”
Cobra shakes his head. “Fuck, man, falling down all those stairs, you’re lucky to be standing.”
Python grabs my shoulder. “He’s too hard-headed to get hurt.”
“He’s been hit harder than that in the cage,” Mamba says around a laugh, then shoulder-butts me. “Glad you’re all right.”
My heart jacks up at the exact same words they said before.
I grab Mamba’s arm. “It’s 2025, right?”
“Yeah, brother, you just told Doc the right date.”
I point to Python. “And you’re dressed like Jesse James.” Then to Rattler. “And you’re dressed like Dillinger.” I motion between us. “These are costumes, right?”
“Yeah, I told you Serafina got my costume from the wardrobe department at the studio.”
Then my eyes rest on Mamba and Cobra. “And we’re all dressed like gangsters in the ‘30s and ‘40s.”
Cobra slings his arm over my shoulder. “Yeah, and you’re supposed to be the infamous Bugsy Siegel.”
“Only instead of getting shot in the eye, you got slammed in the head on a concrete floor.” Rattler flanks my other side as we all head for the stairs. “I don’t care what Doc Henderson said, I think you need a fuckin’ drink.”
“Or four,” I add.
When we get to the top of the stairs I do a quick look around. Granite bar-top, leather barstools, computer-style register and modern barware.
We sit down at the bar, and I huff out a sigh of relief. “Glad to see the TVs are back.”
“Whaddya mean?” Cobra shoots his whiskey.
“Before, they were gone, and you had all that old-time stuff behind the bar.”
Cobra motions to the shot Rattler slid in front of me. “I think you need that more than me.”
“Hey, I’m just happy you’re back to serving Jack again. That gin wasn’t too bad, but there’s nothing like a shot of Jack.”
“You sure you’re feeling all right?” Python asks.
Another memory slides into my brain. “I just got one question. We all ride Harleys, right?”
Python cocks his head. “Last time I checked, brother.”
“Hey, you good?” Samson flanks my other side. “Heard you were unconscious for like twenty minutes.”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
Cobra and Samson exchange glances.
“What the fuck is that look for?” I shift my gaze between the two of them. I’m the goddamn VP of the Serpents MC, and they’re all acting like I’m some nut-job.
“You just seem a little confused, that’s all.” Python tries to smooth shit over, but I’m not having it.
“I’m fine now, but when I woke up the first time, everything was all switched around.”
“The first time?” Samson asks.
“Switched around how?” Cobra asks.
“It was like I was back in the ‘30s.” I point behind the bar. “The cash register was one of those old-time ones, and that picture hanging up was actually in a real newspaper.”
Rattler takes the framed picture off the bar. “Yeah, it is from the newspaper back in?—”
“1939. ”
“Yeah, the date is actually on Halloween too. October 31, 1939.”
“Spooky.” Python makes eerie noises as he waves his hands around.
“Shut the fuck up, I’m telling you this really happened.”
“All right, calm down.” Cobra lays his hand on my forearm. “You took a pretty good fall, so maybe you should go home and rest.”
I shake him off. “I’m not fuckin’ crazy, I’m telling you?—”
“Hey, I thought Doc Henderson said no drinking.” Daisy wedges herself between me and the bar.
“Yeah, maybe she’s right.” Cobra and Rattler exchange a look.
“This shit really happened. It was fuckin’ weird, and you were talking about having a meet-up with Warrior, only he was young, and that fuckin’ Nomad we offed was alive.”
“Look, why don’t you go home, rest up, and we can talk about all this tomorrow?”
“I’m telling you, if this didn’t really happen, then maybe it’s some kinda sign it will happen.”
“Just go home and rest.” Cobra digs his hand in his pocket, pulls out the keys to the Escalade and hands them to Daisy.
“You probably shouldn’t be riding your bike. I’ll have one of the prospects drop it off later.”
“Great. Now you’re fuckin’ treating me like a five-year-old.” I push off the bar stool and glare at Cobra. “Fuck you all. I’m out.”
JOKER
I was silent the entire way home, and as usual, Daisy read my mood and didn’t push me. When we enter the condo, Derek and Deana are on the couch watching Finding Nemo , one of Deana’s favorites.
“You’re home early,” Derek observes.
“Your father had a little accident.”
“Accident? What happened?”
“He fell down the basement stairs of The Gold Mine.”
“Shit, those stairs are concrete. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, and I didn’t fall. I was pushed.”
Derek raises his eyebrows. “Who would’ve pushed?—”
“Forget about it.” I cut him off and head for the bedroom because I don’t feel like explaining myself or seeing the looks Derek and Daisy are exchanging.
“C’mon, Deana, it’s way past your bedtime.” Daisy leads our little girl into her room.
Ten minutes later, I’ve downed four Advils and taken off the jacket vest and shirt of that damn three-piece suit. Hard to believe people wore so many damn fuckin’ clothes. I dig in my pocket and come up with the black stone wrapped in the umbilical cord, but I don’t have the silver feather.
I stick my hand in the other pocket, then in the back pockets. No silver feather.
“Deana’s in bed, and Derek’s in his room,” Daisy informs me as she slips out of her beaded dress.
I quickly stuff the black stone into my nightstand drawer, then sit on the edge of the bed trying to put it all together. Then I remember . . . the Nomad took the silver feather then warned me. I concentrated but couldn’t come up with his actual words.
“And don’t get too comfortable in bed, because you heard what Doc Henderson said about falling asleep.”
“I’m fine,” I tell Daisy even though my heart is beating double time as my logical brain tries to come up with the Nomad’s exact words or a logical reason for all this bullshit.
“You keep saying that, but I don’t think you are. You have a weird look on your face, and you seemed jumpy even before you fell.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Python said you were talking about seeing some old clipping from 1939.”
“Yeah, well, Python should mind his own damn business.”
Daisy changes into her maternity sleep shirt, then joins me on the side of the bed. “Then why don’t you tell me what happened?”
“You’ll think I’m crazy too.”
She stares at me with a look that calls bullshit. A look that isn’t going to let me off the hook.
I debate showing her the pictures, but we promised each other long ago we wouldn’t keep secrets from each other.
“Right before I went down the basement with Python, I got this message.” I swipe up my phone and hit my messages, then show her the pictures.
One of her coming out of our motorcycle shop, one of Derek coming out of his karate class, and the last, a newspaper clipping of Bugsy Siegel’s murder. The same shot’s been shown over the years of him laid out on his couch with a bullet in his eye, then the words, we have eyes on you .
“Shit.” She rubs her hand over her belly. “Who would send you something like that?”
“I don’t know, but I got this right before I went in the basement with Python.”
“So, you probably had this on your mind when you were coming back up the stairs. You were distracted, and that’s how you fell.”
I shook my head, then regretted the movement. “No, it wasn’t like that.” I heave in a breath. “It was like I was pushed.”
“Pushed? By who?”
“Right before I fell, I heard this high-pitched noise, like a vibration or a loud humming.” I massage the back of my neck. “Then everything swirled together, and the next thing I know, I’m waking up on the floor of the basement.”
“Python said it was a bad fall. You practically fell down the entire flight. You were out for almost twenty minutes, and even after Doc Henderson came, you were still so groggy.” She grabs my hand in hers. “I was so worried. We all were, then you finally woke up.”
“But here’s the thing, I woke up before then in the ‘30s.”
Daisy’s brows draw together. “You were probably having a dream while you were unconscious.”
“Or it was some kind of vortex, like time-travel.”
“You got hit really hard on the head so?—”
“Don’t do that.” I push off the bed and glare down at her. “I’m not fuckin’ crazy. I’m telling you it was real. I think it was a warning. And now I’ve lost the talisman that was supposed to keep you safe.”
“A warning? What kind of talisman?”
“You know I can’t get into club business, but we’ve had some problems with a club up north, and I think those pics on my phone and what happened tonight are part of it.”
“We can’t do anything about this tonight, and since you shouldn’t sleep for a while, I can think of another way you can relax.”
“Babe, I appreciate the offer, but my head is still throbbing. I don’t think?—”
My beautiful pregnant wife slides to the floor in front of me. “Who said anything about you doing something? I was thinking I could run this show.” Her nimble fingers easily undo the button and zipper of my pants, and when her warm hand circles my cock, my eyes slide shut.
She pulls the loose material wider, working me from root to tip, then, without warning, she devours me. Taking me into her warm, wet mouth and, swear to fuck, she was right, my entire body relaxed for the first time tonight.