Chapter 7
CHAPTER 7
MALO
I rub my hand over my face, trying to pull myself together. I know I can’t give away the reality of what’s going through my head right now, or the guys are going to be on to me. The last thing I need them to know is just how bad I have let things get these last few weeks.
I can still feel the buzz of what I snorted at the back of my mind, that ugly, jagged sensation filling my head as I try to come back down to Earth. I finished it after I went back to my place, and spent most of the night drinking, trying to give myself enough of a buzz to put me to sleep. I think I managed all of about an hour before I came into church this morning, and I can tell from the way some of the guys are looking at me that they’ve clocked it.
This can’t last. It’s only a matter of time before this mess that’s going on inside my head spills out into the real world, and I don’t want to deal with the blowback when that happens. Sure, there’s a part of me that just wants to give in—slide back into all the bad habits I had before. They’d been there for a reason, right? Because they had worked. They work to turn my brain off, at least for a little while, and after the way I have been torturing myself recently, maybe that’s what I need more than anything else.
Once church is over, I’m about to head outside for some fresh air, in the hopes of scrubbing the last of this high from my head, but before I can, I feel a hand on my shoulder. Turning, I find Rook standing behind me, his eyes narrowed as he looks me up and down.
“You okay, man?” he asks, and his words are slightly barbed, as though he already knows the answer.
I nod quickly. “I’m fine,” I lie, hoping he can’t see how wide my pupils are. The last thing I need is all of them getting concerned about what’s going on with me. I can handle it, I just need to keep it to myself. This doesn’t need to turn into a problem.
“You got your pick-up?” he asks, lifting his chin. He’s referring to the money from some of the other businesses the MC has their hands in. I reach into my pocket, where I left it last night – but when I go to pull it out, nothing’s there. Hijo de puta !
“I left it back in my room,” I lie again, hoping he can’t see the panic in my eyes. My mind’s racing as I try to figure out where it might have gone, and then, all at once, it hits me: Last night, after I hooked up with that girl. She had put her arms around me, I thought she was just flirting with me, but what if she’d been stealing from me instead?
“All right, well,” Rook replies. “Make sure you have it by tomorrow. You’re going to need it.”
“Right, right,” I mutter. “Thanks for reminding me.”
I manage to make small talk with him long enough to get him off my back, and when I slip away, I shoot back off to the Deadman’s Hand to see if anyone got that bitch’s name. I’m sure she’s the one who took that money from me, as I wasn’t on my game last night. She must have seen that, and spotted a chance to make some quick cash. When I get my hands on her…
I arrive back at the bar and stalk around the outside, making sure that there’s no sign of the cash anywhere. I don’t want to go off on this girl unless I have a good reason to, that would just cause more trouble than it’s worth. The back door is propped open and Paulo, one of the bartenders, is smoking outside.
“Hey, man,” he greets me. “I have something for you.”
“Oh, yeah?” I say, trying to keep the relief out of my voice. I must have dropped the money, and someone picked it up and handed it in, knowing they couldn’t take it without getting in some serious trouble. Might make me look bad, but sure as hell better than not having it at all.
“Yeah, some girl came in earlier, said she had something for you,” he replies, jerking his head inside and indicating for me to follow him. I stalk into the bar, the smell of booze in the air making my stomach lurch. I swallowed down the nausea. There are more important things for me to worry about right now.
Paulo rummages behind the bar, and eventually pulls out a small envelope. He hands it to me, and I weigh it in my hand as I walk away. Doesn’t feel like it’s big enough to contain my money…
Outside, I tear it open, and find nothing but a single scrap of paper in there, with an address scrawled on it. What the fuck? I stare down at it. Is this where she’s keeping my shit? She’s crazy if she thinks I’m going to go along with this for a fucking second. That money is mine, and I’m not about to let some girl send me running all over the city to find it.
I let out a grunt of annoyance and stuff the envelope into my back pocket. I need to turn over my place before I go out there. I’m not going on a wild goose chase to get something that might just have fallen out of my pocket while I was out of it the night before.
A few hours later, and I’ve come to the conclusion that the cash is nowhere to be seen. It’s lost, well and truly lost, and I know there’s only one place it can be: with that crazy bitch who stole it from me. But instead of just taking it and running, like she probably should have, she was… what, luring me with it? For what reason? I don’t have a clue, but the wrath I’ll face from Beast isn’t worth ignoring her invitation.
I look up the place, somewhere outside the city in the suburbs, and climb onto my bike to shoot out of town. If I’m quick, I can be in and out of there in an afternoon, put as much distance between myself and this girl as I can. And when I give her a piece of my mind, I’m sure she’s not going to forget it. If she thinks she can get away with fucking with me, she’s got a whole heap of hell coming.
Something is nagging at the back of my mind as I ride, though. This isn’t normal behavior, not from the club girls. She’s something else. I’m not sure exactly what yet, but I can’t wrap my head around it. Maybe I’m just still bleary from the booze and the drugs, but I have a bad feeling about her.
And yet, there’s a part of me that wants to see her again. Being with her last night, shit, it had been seriously hot. I’ve been with plenty of girls in my time, but there was something about her, about the look in her eyes when she came for me, that had burned itself into my brain. I want her. Badly. But I’m not going to let that get in the way of doing what needs to be done. She needs to be taken in hand if she thinks she can just pull this petty shit on the Kings. She has no idea how much trouble she has just walked herself into.
The sun beats down on my back as I ride, letting the cool air wash off the last of my hangover. I want to have a clear head when I see her again. I know it was my addled mind that got me into this mess, and I’m not about to let myself make the same mistake again. I’ve never been the man who lets a woman get in his head, and I’m not about to start now. Not a chance in hell.
Eventually, I pull up outside the address that was listed in the envelop, and double-check to make sure I’ve got it right. The house is nice, really nice. It’s hard to believe that someone who lives here would have been hanging out at a bar like the Deadman’s Hand. What exactly is this girl’s deal? I need to get to the bottom of this. I need to find out what’s going on with her.
I climb off the bike, putting down the kickstand and peering around to make sure there’s nobody looking to cause trouble—there could be a reason she’s invited me out here, brought me to the middle of the suburbs to launch an attack. But there’s nothing I can see that looks out of place. I roll my shoulders back, telling myself I need to stop with this paranoid shit before it gets the best of me.
I make my way toward the door and lift my hand, rapping against the wood. Ready for anything that might be waiting for me on the other side.
And ready to do anything I need to do to get my money back.