Thirty-Six
THIRTY-SIX
CHAOS
Arm slung over my eyes, I lie on the concrete in front of the garages, reveling in the sun's feel on my skin and clothes. The morning rays heat the leather across my chest, warming the denim stretched over my thighs to the point that it burns dull against my flesh.
It’s only the second night I’ve spent at the clubhouse in weeks, and it fucking sucked.
I should be happy. Early indications are that the Fallen Aces can provide us with a contract for our weed, which means the club financials stay in the black for another year. But it’s not final yet. I’ve got a ride that’ll take me six hours to Lincoln, Nebraska, to nut out the details, and that is the fucking thing that has me strung out thinking about how far from Vanessa that is.
She kept the camera recording.
She fucking let me stay in her life, but more than that, she goddamn set it up in her bedroom.
I damn near died and floated my obsessed ass right up to Heaven when I opened the feed to see that shit.
If only she’d played me harder. She changed in the goddamn bathroom. No peep show this time around. The microphone picked up the shower sounds, and then she reappeared in her sleepwear.
My T-shirt.
Yeah, I may have beaten one out to that image, but it was as fucking dissatisfying as having to leave her house last week with her taste still on my tongue.
I need more. So much more.
“You ready?”
I drag my arm aside and squint against the bright sky. “Sure.”
Selena continues past my shoulder, tugging her helmet on as she walks. She won’t tell me why she doesn’t want to walk the few miles to school anymore. And probably for good reason.
The girl cares too much about her classmates—assholes and all—to let me loose on them if they’ve mistreated her.
“You didn’t go out last night.”
I push to a seated position and twist to glance at her over my shoulder. “So?”
“Didn’t work out?”
Not that I owe a sixteen-year-old an explanation, but “Something like that.”
“Sorry to hear.”
I rise to my feet and dust off my ass as best I can. “Are you though?”
She mirrors my smirk with a smile of her own, partially hidden behind the helmet's chin guard.
Loki’s right: I haven’t slept anywhere but the club my whole life. And for good reason. When your first introduction to what happens outside the world that you play in is a club brother lifted onto the pool table, gunshot wounds to the abdomen and legs, you form ideas about what’s safe early on in life.
My five-year-old ass sat behind the sofa, watching his blood drip through the netting of the pocket as he died.
Nobody ever sat me down to explain what happened or why. Nobody ever asked if I was okay.
And so, my tiny brain concocted stories about the demons and dragons that walked the world at night, cutting down anyone who wore a skull on their back.
Fast-forward ten years, and sure, at fifteen, I knew those things didn’t exist. But when a school friend invited me out for a night in the woods with a bunch of peers, I turned him down.
Because my lizard brain still equated darkness outside our gates as danger.
And so, I became the loner. The brother who never went to rallies. Who always had his hand up first to hold the fort.
The guy who now straddles his bike to drop his baby sister to school because that’s the kind of shit he’s always done while his friends are out socializing. Starting relationships. Getting married. If it wasn’t inside the club, I didn’t want it.
I didn’t trust it.
Until Vanessa came along.
I took one look at that woman and knew she hid from the same demons and dragons I did. And the little boy inside of me begged to spend an hour in her pillow fort with her to know he’s not alone.
That I’m not some fucking freak of nature.
“When’s your field trip again?” I wait for Selena to get on the back and answer before I start the bike.
“Friday. Why?”
I punch the starter and nod. “I’ll have Crow go with you.”
She loops her arm beneath mine, stopping me from reaching the throttle. “I don’t need a minder.”
“You need something if you won’t walk to school anymore.” I kill the engine and twist to see her. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing.”
“Can’t bullshit a bullshit artist, Se-se.”
She turns her head away, the helmet shielding her face from me. “Then you tell me first.”
“Why?” I grab the chin guard and turn her head back to me. “Do you not trust me either?”
Her gaze drops. “I trust you.” She lifts her eyes, softness in the hood of her gaze. “Unlike those ignorant idiots, I figured it was about a girl long ago.”
“They know it’s about a girl?”
She stares at me deadpan. “You asked Circus to put cameras on her.”
“Because she was a potential liability.” I face forward, glaring at the brothers who move around the clubhouse's exterior. “Is that so weird?”
“For you. Yes.” Selena knocks a small fist between my shoulders.
I sigh, starting the bike again. Guess I wasn’t as indifferent as I thought when I spoke about Vanessa.
“It’s okay,” Selena shouts over the rumble. “At least they’ll stop trying to work out if you’re gay instead.”
“What the fuck would be wrong with that?” I jerk my helmet on.
Fuck these narrow-minded assholes.
“Nothing.” She chuckles, the sound almost lost beneath the Harley. “It’s gonna break Graves’s heart, though.”
“That nomad for the Reapers?” I turn my head, even though I can’t see her, thanks to the helmet.
“Yeah.” She pats my shoulder to indicate she’s ready for me to pull away. “Your boys tell me he has a crush on you.”
Fuck’s sake. I don’t deal with the guy too often, but I feel like a right asshole now. Did I do anything to give him the wrong impression? It’s hard enough being out in a predominantly male, predominantly bigoted lifestyle. Don’t want to think I did anything to make that any more problematic for him.
“Don’t stress,” she calls as we wait for the gate to open. “I heard he’s making moves on one of his own. A Reaper.”
“What else do you hear about in the fuckin’ clubhouse when I’m not around?” Brothers are worse than a hen-picking knitting circle.
“Nothing I think you need to know yet.” I hear Selena’s smile in her words and decide to let it fly.
Whatever makes her happy.
I’ve barely got her off the back of the bike at the school before two blips of a siren draw unnecessary attention to where Marty pulls his cruiser in behind me.
I kill the engine and remove my helmet, hanging it on the bars as he exits his vehicle. Selena holds up her fist, eyeballing the cop, and knocks knuckles with me before darting across the laneway.
Necks break at lightning speeds, the locals doing their best to absorb as much of the drama as possible to repeat later to their narrow-minded little friends.
“Morning.” Tall and built like a linebacker, Marty’s been Temperance’s favorite cop for years. Ever since he graduated and followed in his daddy’s shoes.
In another life, we would have been friends.
“What did I do now?” I lean back in the saddle and fold my arms.
Yeah, I don’t miss the thirsty housewives checking out my biceps. They can look all they like. They’re not the attention I want to have this early in the morning.
My phone burns in my pocket, and the urge to check the feeds twitch in my fingers.
“I heard you’re moving out to the boondocks.” Fucker hooks his thumbs over the top edge of his utility belt.
It pisses me off that he refuses to remove his sunglasses. “Wasn’t a secret.” It wasn’t something I felt inclined to announce to every fucker in this town, personally, either.
“Never said it was.” He does that lean back from the waist thing cops are notorious for and checks out the bike. “Had your tread depth checked lately?”
“How about you put your tiny dick in it and see if it touches the bottom of the groove?”
His jaw hardens, nostrils flaring. “A school drop-off ain’t the place to fuck around and find out, Chaos.”
“Speaking of…” I nod to the traffic doing automotive ballet, trying to get around us. “You’re holding up the queue.”
“The investigators are going over the site again today,” he cedes. “You should get your yard back in a few days.”
“Keep it.” I shrug. “Haven’t missed it while it’s been gone.”
He wets his lips, slow and predatory.
“Anything else urgent you need to talk to me about?” I lift an eyebrow.
Goading the local law enforcement isn’t the smartest thing to do, sure, but I’m fucking over the pointless harassment. I’ve got shit to do, places to be. If he wants to accuse me of something, the arrogant fuck can just up and out with it—no matter where we are.
“Getting your yard back doesn’t mean you’re off the hook.”
“Never thought that was the case.” I reach for the helmet, indicating I’d like this shit over with. “But as far as I’m aware, you’ve got no idea how long those bodies have been there. You’ve got no reason to rule out the possibility they were there before we took ownership.” He also has no idea that I’ve got the goddamn evidence locked in a safe that’ll prove the deaths weren’t ours.
Marty opens his mouth to answer, yet a roar from across the road steals our attention.
A group of students bustle in a circle, two bodies moving in the middle.
I hitch the helmet on the bars again, swinging my leg over the bike to get off as Marty turns heel and raises his hand to halt traffic so he can cross the road.
The mob pushes and shoves, the students fighting in the middle, snapping left and right with each hit and thrust. The kids part as Marty crosses the curb, briefly but long enough for me to recognize the girl flicking her hair out of her face with one arm.
The fuck?
I narrowly avoid the fender of a car into my hip as I dash across to the carnage, hell-bent on removing that fucking asshole’s hands off my sister’s neck.
“Nope,” Marty hollers, shoving a hand to the center of my chest. “Let me sort this.”
“Like you sort everything else for us?” I shove him aside and shoulder my way through the kids, grabbing the boy by the back of his shirt and jerking him clean off Selena. “Get the fuck out of my sight before you lose yours.”
He recoils at my growled words, absorbed into the crowd by his amped-up friends, and ushered toward the school building.
I turn back to Selena to find her lips snarled, murder in her eyes. “Why did you fucking interfere?”
“Are you shitting me?” I cuff the back of her neck and steer her toward the bike.
“Trust this won’t happen again?” Marty calls, fucking too small-dicked to miss an opportunity to assert his authority.
“Fuck off.”
“Where are we going?” Selena jerks in my hold.
I grip tighter into her trap muscles and shove her toward the road. “Home to discuss what the fuck that was.”
“It was me sorting my issues, Chaos.” She weaves and pulls free of my hold. “Next time, just leave me to it.”
I stand in the middle of the laneway, frustrated mom in a minivan gesturing at me from behind the steering wheel as I watch my baby sister stride her ass back into the school, the vice pulling her aside the moment her feet hit the front steps.
When the hell did she turn into such a hellion? And what the fuck was that fight all about?
The minivan honks, the woman behind the wheel shrinking when I turn toward her and slam both hands down on the hood. Not today, bitch. I back up, taking my time before turning for the bike.
Marty leans against the fender of his cruiser, arms folded and a shit-eating grin on his face. “You make it far too easy for me, you know?”
“Jealousy will get you nowhere, asshole.”
Chaos follows you wherever you go.