Beast thought it ironic that Sinatra was singing as he went to sleep, and was still singing as he woke, and he wondered how many times the playlist had cycled through last night. He didn’t care as the upbeat swinging melodies fit his mood perfectly.
Shanya was still comatose, a knee curled to prop her up slightly. He thought about waking her so they could finally have some good old-fashioned morning sex, but changed his mind. He eased out of bed, put on some boxers, then tiptoed to the kitchen, silently shutting the door behind him. He was going to whip up some breakfast, they were going to eat it in bed, then he was going to eat her alive.
He pulled out the omelet fixings, shredded cheese, ham, onion and green pepper, and efficiently diced them. He then cracked the last of his eggs, three each into two quart-size freezer bags, sealed them, and gave them a good shake to blend the eggs. He opened the bags, scraped half of the filling contents into each bag before giving them a couple of turns to mix, then pressed all the air out and dropped them into boiling water.
While the eggs cooked, he tidied up outside and put Shayna’s glasses in the bedroom so she could find them. The eggs were almost done, and he was waiting on the toast to pop, lip syncing into a butter knife with Tony Bennett, when his phone rang.
“Good morning, Lisa!”
“I’m glad you’re in a good mood this morning.”
“Ah, shit,” Beast said, picking up on Lisa’s tone. “What’s happened?”
“The clubhouse was broken into last night. I came in to clean up the guest suite and I can see where someone broke out a window.”
“Are you inside?” he asked, his blood running cold.
“No.”
“Don’t go inside! Forget the suite and go home, okay? You can do it tomorrow, but let us check it out first.”
“Okay. I didn’t know what to do, so I called you.”
“You did good, Lisa. Don’t worry about it. Just go home, now, in case they’re still there,” he said before he hung up the phone. “Fuck!” he snarled, pulling the eggs from the boiling water and buttering the toast. He slid an omelet onto a plate, added the toast, and a glass of orange juice, put it all on a lap tray with a fork, and carried it into the bedroom, setting the tray on the floor while he woke Shayna with kisses.
“That’s nice,” she mumbled, rolling over for a proper kiss. “Come back to bed,” she breathed as he broke the kiss.
“Can’t. Have to go.” He bent and retrieved the tray and set it on the bed. “But I made breakfast.”
She groaned as she stretched. “I’d rather have you for breakfast. Why can’t you stay?”
He grimaced and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Someone broke into the clubhouse last night. I need to go check it out. But I won’t be gone long.”
She huffed. “One of these days we’re going to fuck in the morning.”
“That was the plan for today, right after breakfast. But this shit is almost behind us, and when it is, we’ll get our morning workout, I promise.” He kissed her slowly then rose. “Stay in the house. If you need anything, call me. Eat before it gets cold,” he added, pointing at the tray.
She picked up the tray and set it in her lap. “Thank you. But I’d still rather have you.”
As Shayna ate he quickly dressed, kissed her goodbye, then wolfed down the remaining omelet, burning his mouth in the process, washing it down by drinking directly from the orange juice jug. Finished, he called Hightower and filled him in, then mounted up and roared off into the quiet of a Sunday morning.
***
Beast was the first to arrive and immediately saw the broken glass. The burglars were probably long gone even before Lisa arrived, but he pulled his pistol, just in case. He unlocked the door and eased inside, flipping the lights on.
The main room appeared untouched except for the glass in the floor and he moved slowly through the clubhouse, his weapon at high ready. He heard the angry bellow of a Harley at full chat, waiting until Hightower joined him, his weapon also at the ready.
“They’re probably gone,” Beast said as Hightower stepped up beside him.
“Probably.”
“Nothing looks touched here. Let’s check the chapel.”
They moved cautiously to the chapel, the room where the club conducted business, Hightower pushing the door open from the side as Beast stepped into the door, ready to kill the first person he saw, but the room was empty. He stepped in and flipped on the light.
“Bollocks,” Hightower said as he stepped into the large room with the enormous wooden conference table.
At almost three feet tall and two feet square, and weighing over a thousand pounds, the safe squatting in the corner of the room was far too heavy to move without special equipment, but someone had obviously had a go at it. The safe was a late 1800s piece Bear had picked up for the club. Ten years ago Animal had it restored and it was thing of beauty in its high-gloss black paint with the Desert Reapers emblem and pin-striping painted in gold. It had done its job, but it was a little worse for wear. The dial had been broken off, there were scratches where the thieves had tried to pry the door, and a deep gouge from what appeared to be a drill bit.
Beast gave the safe a pat in a silent compliment for a job well done. “I’ll give you one guess who’s responsible for this, but let’s check the cameras.”
Hightower shook his head in disbelief. “Do they really think we keep that kind of money in there?”
Beast shrugged as they walk to the DR Security offices. “Probably not, but even a few hundred thousand probably looks pretty good to them right now.”
The DRS offices had the latest state of the art electronic security that would contact the police, but the clubhouse only had cameras. They were clean now, but nobody wanted cops showing up at the clubhouse unannounced, even for a burglary.
They entered the server room and Beast called up the cameras for the clubhouse, dragging the slider backwards until he found what he’s looking for. He entered the time code for the other eight cameras, splitting the displays across two monitors, and started them running in sync.
They didn’t recognize either of the two men in the video as they scaled the fence, approached the front of the clubhouse, and smashed out the window with a hammer. The men obviously knew exactly what they wanted because they went directly to the chapel. Beast and Hightower chuckled as the two men struggled with the safe, obviously becoming more and more frustrated as the safe resisted all their attempts to open or move it. They spent an hour drilling until their drill stopped working, then resorted to prying and beating. Finally, in fit of frustration, one of the men beat on the top of the safe with the pry bar before they gathered their tools and left.
“Whew, I’m exhausted,” Beast sniggered as the two men climbed the fence to exit the compound. The men had worked on the safe for almost two hours between the hours of two and four this morning.
“Stupid bastards,” Hightower chuckled. “All that work and they would have gotten, what, twenty-five or thirty grand, even if they’d gotten the safe open. What are we going to do? We have no proof it was The Scarred.”
“I think,” Beast said after a moment’s thought, “we should do nothing. Why get our hands dirty? Let’s let the Ruskies handle it. Let’s get Nails out here to board up the window, and then tomorrow we can have the window replaced and find someone to open the safe so we can ship it off for repairs. The old girl deserves it, don’t you think?”
Hightower leaned back in his chair and put his hands on his head. “I do. You know, I’m not going to miss The Scarred when they’re gone.”
Beast chuckled. “Me neither, brother, me neither.”
***
“Well, shit. You’re dressed,” Beast said as he stepped into the kitchen.
“Yeah. Ted called. He asked if I could cover for Cindy today. Her mother had a stroke last night and is in the hospital.”
“And you told him yes?”
“Yeah. I was his third try and he was getting desperate. If he can’t find someone, somebody was probably going to have to work a double.”
“Shayna, you don’t have to work there anymore. Don’t you want to take a few days off before you start your new job?”
She shrugged. “It’s the right thing to do. Ted has been very good to me, working around my school and all that, and I told him I would work a two-week notice. It’s the twelve to eight shift so we can still do dinner after that if you want.”
He could understand the desire to do the right thing. He glanced at his phone for the time. They still had an hour, but that wasn’t enough for any slap and tickle. “I’ll drop you and then pick up your dress and my suit.”
“Let’s pick it up first. I’ll change into it at work and we can go to dinner straight from there.”
He drummed his fingers a moment. “Okay. I’ll assign Tony to keep an eye on you while you’re there, Just in case.”
“Are you expecting trouble?”
“No. I just feel better having one of my guys assigned to you. Tops has to worry about everyone’s security. Tony only has to worry about yours.”
“Can’t you do it?”
“I could, but I need to go shopping. I haven’t been here much for the last couple of weeks and I’m about out of everything. I want you to have dinner with me again, but if I don’t go shopping it might be ramen noodles. You want me to do it?”
She thought about it. While it would be fun to have Conor with her all day, he’d be a distraction and she wanted to cook dinner with him again, too. “No, that’s okay.”
***
Beast pulled his truck into the employee parking lot using Shayna’s badge and escorted her into the casino and all the way to the employee lounge.
“I’ll meet you out front at eight,” he said as he handed her the dress.
“Make it about eight-thirty. I’ll need to shower and change.”
“Okay, eight-thirty. Tony will be here in about ten minutes. I’ll wait until he arrives.”
“Okay. See you at eight-thirty.” She kissed him before hurrying into the women’s changing room. She had about fifteen minutes to get dressed and get on station.
***
“You ready for your day to be over?” Shayna asked Tony as she sauntered up.
“This is gravy duty. Free drinks, courtesy of the lovely Shanya Shephard, a comfortable place to sit, and plenty of eye candy to watch. I should be so lucky to have Beast assign me duty like this again.”
She giggled, nodding her head and leading him out of the pit. “Come on. Let me get changed, then you can turn me over to Conor and go do something fun. Deb gets off at ten.”
Tony smiled. “I know. We’re going to go have a drink.”
She grinned, having noticed that Deb was paying a lot of attention to Tony. “You’ll like her.”
She swiped her badge to open the door to employee only area, and lead him down the short hall to the lounge. “You can wait here. I’ll be quick as I can,” she added as she continued to the women’s showers and dressing room.
Tony was flipping through a magazine, but looked up as the stunning woman sauntered into the lounge. “Hey, Beast wants to talk to you.”
“Beast?” he asked as he rose.
“Yeah.”
“Did he say why?”
“No. He just asked me to see if you were in here, and if so, to send you out.”
As he stepped out of the lounge, the man pressed against the wall slapped him with a blackjack, the leather covered bludgeon striking him just behind his ear. Tony never had a chance and went to the floor like a sack of potatoes. The man tucked the small weapon back into his pocket before he bent and dragged Tony down the hall to stuff him in a utility closet.
Mayla waited until Tony was out of sight, then stepped around the corner and into the dressing room. This was her chance to prove herself. She’d been drifting since being kicked out of the Death Valley Motorcycle Club, trading her body for a bed and a meal. She was used to it, and had been doing it her entire adult life, but she wanted to belong to a club again so she’d know where her next meal was coming from and that she wouldn’t be sleeping on the street if she couldn’t find a mark.
She’d worked her way into The Scarred about five months ago. They were a much bigger club than the DVMC would ever become, but more people meant more competition. She wanted to handle the assignment herself, to prove her worth, but after discovering Shayna had a bodyguard, she was glad she had Ringo along to help. Being a club girl in the DVMC had taught her how to fight, but she didn’t want to tangle with a man, especially not one that looked as capable as Shayna’s protector did.
The Scarred had been watching Tops, waiting for Shayna to show again. They’d lost track of her and this was their only chance to pick up her trail. When the call had come in that Shayna was at work, Mayla dressed in a close approximation to the Tops hostess uniform and ridden to the casino with Ringo. She’d prowled the casino until she’d found an employee badge attached to a housekeeping cart, then spent the rest of the evening watching Shayna, waiting for her to go on break or off shift so she lure her out for Ringo to bag.
This was her chance. With the bodyguard out of the way, she’d send Shayna right into Ringo’s waiting arms if she could, or failing that, she’d take her down in the showers and they would figure another way to get her out.
“You Shayna?” Mayla called from the entrance to the showers.
“Yeah.”
“Beast is here. He sent that other guy to check on something and asked me to tell you to meet him at the front entrance.”
“Okay, thanks.”
Mayla smiled. Stupid bitch. “You’re welcome.”
It was 8:20 and Shayna was applying the last of her makeup, eye shadow in a pale green to pick up the color of the dress. Finished she looked in the mirror then put her glasses back on. Glasses had been part of her look since she was a teenager, but it was at times like these that she wished she could wear contacts.
Satisfied, she tugged the dress smooth then stepped out into the hall and paused at the door to the public area, taking a deep breath to steel herself. She knew she was pretty but she wasn’t one to show off. This dress, however, screamed look at me! She squared her shoulders and stepped out.
She tried to emulate Conor and move with the same confidence. She swayed across the huge main lobby, holding her head high and not looking around to see if anyone was watching. I feel like Jessica Rabbit. I’m not bad, I’m just dressed that way. The thought brought a smile to lips. As she strode toward the entrance, she caught sight of Jack, one of the security staff, nodding and smiling at his slack jawed expression. I’m going to have to do this more often!
“This way, Shayna,” the man said, stepping up and taking her by the arm.
She tried to pull away, but his grip was firm. “Let go of my arm,” she said, pulling away harder.
“I’m with Beast. He told me to make sure you got out safe.”
“Oh. Where’s Tony?” she asked, relaxing.
“He got called away.”
She allowed the man to move her along, but something didn’t seem right. He was nervous but without the calm and watchful urgency that Conor, Tony and Rip displayed when they were anxious. “And Roger? Where’s he?”
“He’s with Beast.”
They were almost to the door and she began to drag her feet, trying to slow him down. “Let go of my arm!”
“Get out there, you bitch,” Ringo snarled, shoving her along.
“I’m not going with you! Let me go! Help!” she cried, jerking at her arm furiously, trying to prevent him from shoving her out the door, but her damned heels were preventing her from digging in.
A man stepped forward to intervene, but Ringo drove an elbow into the man’s face, his nose exploding in blood as he staggered back. A car lurched to a stop as the rear door flew open and a man jumped out. She fought like a wildcat, screaming for help, knowing if she was forced into the car she’d be in real trouble, but the two men quickly overpowered her and stuffed her into the back of the car.
Jack arrived on the run as Ringo piled into the car and slamming the door. He jumped in front of the car just as the driver floored it, the Chevy lunging forward, colliding with the security man and causing him to roll over the hood and onto the ground as the car roared away.
***
Beast eased to a stop under the brightly lit portico, watching the crowd part as a man struggled to his feet and limp quickly into the casino as he spoke to his lapel. He grinned. Being a bouncer had to be the most thankless job in the world and he wondered what the ruckus was this time. He waited a moment before putting the truck in park but left it running. It was too damned hot in his coat and tie to not have the air-conditioning pumping.
He waited until eight-forty before calling Tony, then Shayna, to find out where they were. When there was no answer by either he felt a weight form in this stomach. He shut his truck off and hurried into the casino, finding the first security man he could.
“Can you get on the radio and see if you can locate Shayna Shephard? I’m here to pick her up and she’s late,” Beast said, trying to stay calm.
“Who are you?” the man asked.
“A friend. I was supposed to pick her up ten minutes ago.”
The bouncer looked at him suspiciously. “Someone shoved her into a car about twenty minutes ago. You know anything about that?”
“Fuck!” Beast turned to run back to his truck but then spun back to the bouncer. “There’s a man, Tony Palmetto, injured or dead somewhere in the casino! You need to find him!”
“Where?”
“How the hell should I know?” Beast snarled. “He was my man and he was here to protect Shayna! Find him!”
The bouncer was speaking into his lapel mic as Beast ran for his truck.
***
“Get out,” Ringo ordered as he slid out of the car.
“Who are you? What are you going to do to me?” Shayna demanded. She was scared shitless but was trying her best to hide it. By now Conor had to know something happened and she was worried about what had happened to Tony. It was clear she’d been set up, but she also knew Tony wouldn’t have let her be taken if he could prevent it. That meant he was either incapacitated or dead.
The men said nothing, just as they’d said nothing the entire trip. She sat in the car, refusing to move, not out of defiance but out of fear.
“Either get out or I will kick your ass out,” the man still in the car with her ordered, his tone brooking no argument.
She slid out of the car and the first man, the one who grabbed her in the casino, took her arm and started her walking toward the slightly seedy motel. She tried to shake him off, but his grip became painfully hard. “You’re hurting me!”
“I’m going to do more than hurt you if you don’t start cooperating,” he said as he dragged her forward.
He stopped at a room and gave it a quick rap. “Ringo,” he said and the door opened.
Ringo shoved her into the room, the three men in the car joining another man inside. “Looks like we spoiled your plans for the evening,” the man rumbled.
With four men, one of them the largest man she’d ever seen, there was no hope of escape so she stood still, all but shaking in fear, and said nothing.
“Cat got your tongue?” the giant asked. “That’s okay. Ringo watch her but don’t hurt her unless she tries to escape.” The man turned his attention back to Shayna. “My advice is to sit down, shut up, and be a good little girl. If Beast plays ball, this can all be over without anyone getting hurt.”
“Conor is going to kill you,” she snarled.
The man laughed. “He’ll try, I’m sure.” The man nodded at the door and the three men stepped outside, leaving her in the room with Ringo.
As they passed she saw the patch on the back of the giant’s vest, a skull with a jagged scar across its face. The Scarred, it has to be! “That was Grizzly?” she guessed as the man locked the door then sat down in a chair and flipped the television on.
“Yeah.”
She licked her lips, thinking furiously. “If you let me go, I’ll tell Conor. I won’t let him kill you.”
The man chuckled, stopping on a movie where a half-naked woman with giant breasts was blazing away with a machine gun. “Right. He might not but Grizzly would. I’d rather take my chances with Beast. Now sit down and shut up before I gag you.”
***
“Goddamn it, I’ll blow your fucking brains out!” Beast roared as he pressed his pistol hard into the temple of the bloodied man tied to the chair.
He had called in the troops and the Reapers were gearing up. If The Scarred wanted war, by God they would get one. By the time Beast had arrived at the clubhouse, still dressed in his coat and tie, the Reapers had picked up a Scarred, capturing him by the simple act of running him down with a Tahoe. Cut up and bleeding, they’d shoved him into the back of the SUV and put a gun to his head to ensure his cooperation, leaving his bike behind.
“I don’t know anything!” the man snarled in defiance. “I don’t know anybody named Shayna and I don’t know anything about a kidnapping, so if you are going to do it, do it!”
Beast backhanded the man across the face with his weapon, blood flying, then pressed the gun into his head again as his face twisted in rage.
Hightower took Beast by the arm, afraid his friend was really going to do it. “He doesn’t know anything,” he said softly.
The man spit, a thick bloody mass with a tooth hitting the floor of the clubhouse. “Fuck you, Beast.”
Hightower threw a hard right, snapping the man’s head back. “I would advise you to keep your fucking mouth shut, arsehole,” he growled, his British accent making the threat that much more chilling.
Beast stood, staring at their captive, trying to decide the next move, when his phone rang. “Beast!” he snarled into the phone.
“Boyd, this is Grizzly. We—”
“Where is she you motherfucker! I will fucking kill you for this!”
“I have another business proposition for you.”
***
Shayna prowled the room, looking for something, anything, she could use as a weapon. There was nothing. She flopped into a chair, opposite the bed from her guard, and watched the television in silence. She wanted to cry, but refused to give the thug the satisfaction. On the television a man and woman were fucking in a motel room until the woman pulled a gun from under her pillow and blew her lovers head off just as she cried out in pleasure. She snorted, wondering if that would work, but decided she’d rather die than have to fuck her guard.
It was a horrible movie, full of sex, violence and drug use, but as she watched the heroine injected herself with something, an idea began to tickle her mind.
“Ringo, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. What do you want?”
“How long are we going to be here?”
“Until Beast coughs up the cash or Grizzly tells me to kill you.”
She didn’t like the sound of that, but pressed forward. “We have a problem.”
“You have a problem. I’m fine.”
“Okay, I have a problem. I don’t have my insulin.”
“Your what?”
“I’m diabetic. I don’t have my insulin with me.”
“So?”
“So, if I don’t take my insulin shots on schedule I will become hyperglycemic and will develop ketoacidosis. That’s where I will fall into a diabetic coma and die.”
Ringo looked at her with suspicion. “You look fine to me.”
“That’s because I’m not hyperglycemic yet. But I will be in the next two or three hours if I don’t get my insulin.”
He shrugged and turned his attention back to the television. “Nothing I can do about it. I’m not leaving you here alone and I’m not taking you out.”
She nodded as if she understood. “Okay. But will you know what to do if I pass out? How much do you think Conor will pay for a dead body?”
He continued to watch the television for a moment as two almost naked women fought, trying to rip each other to shreds in a junkyard of some kind. Scene over, he turned his attention back to Shayna. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
“When I pass out, you’ll know.”
He glared at her a moment the pulled out his phone.
***
“Same deal as before. Loan us the thirty million and you get twenty-five percent off the top, with interest, and I’ll sweeten the pot by throwing in the girl,” Grizzly said.
“I told you, I don’t have that kind of money! How do I know she’s still alive?”
“She’s alive and unhurt. She’ll stay that way so long as you cooperate. I don’t want to hurt her, Beast. But if we can’t deal, well, she is looking mighty fuckable in that green dress. If I’m going to be killed by the Russian mob, I might as well enjoy my last few days, don’t you think?”
“You fuck! I’ll hunt you down and kill you!”
“Vegas is a big city. Lots of places we can spend out last days together. You can’t search them all.”
Beast stood, quivering in rage, gripping his phone so tight his knuckles were white. This is what happens when you get close to someone! He bottled up the rage and fear and stuffed it down deep.
“You sound like a gambling man,” Beast said calmly. “I have another proposition for you. My twenty-two million for the girl. That’s all I’ve got. You win, you get the money free and clear. I win, I get the girl.”
“What’s the catch?”
“No catch. You play poker? You and me. You bring the Shayna; I bring the cash.”
Grizzly paused. He felt like he was a decent poker player, but Beast had just beaten the best in the nation. “No deal.”
“Fine. Kill her. She means nothing to me,” he said then hung up the phone, playing the biggest bluff of his life.
***
Grizzly stared at his phone. He didn’t expect Beast to just roll over, but he hadn’t expected that either. He was a ladies’ man and perhaps he didn’t care for this chick after all. He was still debating what to do when his phone rang.
“Goddamnit, what?” he growled.
“We have a problem,” Ringo said.
“What kind of problem?”
“This chick said she’s diabetic and doesn’t have her insulin.”
“So?”
“So, she said in two hours she is going to be…what the fuck did you call it?” he asked away from the phone. “Yeah, hyperglycemic, whatever the hell that means. She said when that happens she will die.”
“Goddamnit! What does she expect me to do about it?”
“Get her some insulin.”
“Fuck!” Grizzly railed, trying to think.
“Grizzly, what do you want me to do?” Ringo asked.
“Shut the hell up a minute! I’m thinking.” If Beast was playing this much hard ball now, a dead girl would be useless to him, and Beast was smart enough to want proof of her good health before he forked over that kind of money. “Fine! Text me what she needs and I’ll have someone run it over there.”
“Goddamnit!” he bellowed. They were out of options. They had performed all the sleight of hand they could to hide the loss, but now it was time to pay the piper. He sat, staring into space. He knew Beast and knew he’d never back down. “Fuck it,” he snarled as he selected Beast’s number and pressed dial.