Chapter 9

I’m not a violent person unless you wake me up early. Even a minute early. Ever do that again, and I’ll cut you.

-Text from Tasha to Annie

Mig

I was fairly positive that women didn’t have nine lives like cats did.

In fact, their one wasn’t even worth all that much.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me?” I growled, pinching the bridge of my nose with two fingers. “Can you get her out?”

“No. I’ve tried about ten times now. Every time I tell her it’s time to go, she takes another shot,” our newest prospect, Apple Drew, explained.

“Fuck,” I growled, getting up from my computer chair. “I’ll be there as soon as I can. Ten minutes or less.”

“Got it. But Mig,” Apple hesitated. “Hurry.”

I didn’t bother to change.

I knew the moment I went into that bar that shit would start to fly…and I had a feeling that Annie knew it, too.

There were about two areas in a fifty-mile radius of Uncertain and the surrounding towns that The Uncertain Saints weren’t welcome, and The Hail House was one of them.

It was located in Jefferson, Texas.

The bar and grill was opened about twenty years ago and was established well before the Uncertain Saints were formed.

That’s why we never made a huge deal about the crew that ran out of The Hail House, a team of auto recovery agents who were mostly motorcycle riders.

Although they weren’t technically a MC, they were territorial.

They didn’t like to start fights, but they would finish them.

And I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Annie had heard about them somewhere.

Knew that I wouldn’t let her stay.

Not because they were dangerous to her physical body, but because they—other than the owner of Hail Auto Recovery—would be dangerous to her heart.

I was secure enough in myself to admit that they were all good looking.

And Annie seemed to be drawn to the bad boy type.

Although she probably didn’t know exactly what she was getting into, she had to know that I’d come for her.

Knowing it was about to get ugly, I called up the boys.

I started with Ridley, since I knew he would be closest seeing as he was a sheriff’s deputy out of Jefferson.

“Yeah?” Ridley answered with a slight hint of annoyance.

“Annie’s at Hail House,” I told him.

“Goddammit, this is not what I need right now. I’ll be by there as soon as I can, but I’ve got my hands full at the mall right now…motherfucking son of a bitch!”

A scuffle ensued, and I knew Ridley was really in a predicament if he couldn’t even speak.

Ridley was a big guy, over six foot two and two hundred fifty pounds; he could easily fit the description of a giant.

Ridley’s grunt of pain had me running to my bike.

Although I wanted to go to Annie, I knew she would be safe.

Ridley, however, wouldn’t be if the sounds coming from over the line were anything to go by.

Before I got onto my bike, I called one last person who I knew would round up the rest of the boys.

Our president, Peek.

“Yeah?” He growled.

I could hear the whir of the tattoo gun going on in the background, so I knew he wasn’t too busy.

He wouldn’t have answered if there was a client in his chair

His wife would have.

“Ridley’s getting his ass kicked at the mall, and Annie’s at Hail House without me,” I divulged.

“Motherfucker. I’ll get everyone rounded up.”

I hung up, shoving the phone into my pocket as I straddled my bike.

The bike started up with a thunderous roar, and I was accelerating out of the parking lot within moments of the call.

It was five minutes into my drive when Wolf’s bike pulled in behind mine.

I had no clue where he’d come from, but I was happy for his assistance.

I hadn’t seen much of Wolf in the past couple of weeks.

His son was having facial surgery that was supposed to correct something to do with his jaw.

When Wolf’s son, Nathan, had been a young child, he’d been shot in the head by a serial killer who’d been preying on cop’s pregnant wives and family.

Nathan’s real father had died, as had Wolf’s child and wife.

Wolf had taken Nathan in since his father and Wolf had been best friends, and they’d been together ever since.

Nathan took up a lot more time of Wolf’s lately, though, due to his surgery…and I felt like a real shit for not putting in more of an effort with him.

I’d been too busy dealing with my own shit to notice that Wolf looked tired.

I raised an arm at him as a hello, and rode side by side with him until we reached the mall’s entrance, pulling in just in time to see Ridley take a punch to the face by a bruiser that had about a hundred pounds on him.

Although it didn’t seem possible that anyone could be bigger than Ridley.

Another man was behind Ridley on the ground, and yet another was about ten feet behind him peeling himself up off the fucked up gravel parking lot.

Wolf pulled to a stop only feet away from the downed man trying to get up, and I stopped a couple feet shy of the man trying to beat Ridley to a pulp.

Anyone could beat one trained man with enough people, and it looked like the man still standing hadn’t been playing fair.

I picked up the lead pipe that I was fairly sure was responsible for the gash across Ridley’s forearm, and took a swing.

It hit the behemoth in the back, across both kidneys, taking him down to his knees instantly.

I wasn’t against using whatever I could to gain the advantage.

He’d be pissing blood for weeks.

Yes, I could’ve easily taken him down without hurting him, but the son of a bitch needed to realize that he couldn’t fuck with a cop and get away with it. Especially a man belonging to The Uncertain Saints.

“Fuck,” Ridley gasped, putting both of his hands on his knees.

I laughed. “Getting lazy, old man?”

Ridley flipped me off.

“Fuck you. Thanks for comin’,” he growled.

I snorted, pulling the cuffs from my back pocket and putting them onto the goliath before lifting him up to his feet.

“Start walking,” I snapped when he continued to stay hunched forward.

I knew from experience that getting hit in the kidneys hurt like hell, but that was the least of my worries right then.

Wolf was leading his man, cuffed, to the cruiser as well.

It would be a tight fit, but all three men fit like a couple of sardines in a can.

“Alright,” I said, walking back to my bike. “Let’s go get Annie.”

Ridley got into his car and followed me as I hauled ass out of the parking lot to Hail House.

Hail House was a bar and grill owned by Hail Auto Recovery.

It was something they picked up in exchange for a job they’d done for the bank.

They’d done really good for themselves, and as usual, business was booming.

I pulled into the back of the lot, backed my bike into a spot, and started for the front door.

I knew the moment Atticus saw me.

He was working the front door, lazily leaning against the wood beam of the porch.

When he saw me, though, he put the cigarette he was smoking out on the bottom of his shoe and straightened.

“What are you doing here?” He asked casually.

It was anything but casual, though.

It was calculating.

“My girl’s here,” I told him.

His eyebrows rose.

“You didn’t tell her she wasn’t supposed to come here?” He shot back.

My hands gripped into tight fists.

There wasn’t bad blood between the ‘Hail Raisers’, as they referred to themselves, and us.

There was, however, a certain rivalry.

A rivalry that sometimes got taken too far.

This time, however, I wouldn’t be leaving without Annie.

And Atticus knew it.

Which was why, reluctantly, he let me in.

“She’s in the back with your boy,” Atticus said.

I raised a brow at him.

“How’d you know he was one of ours?” I asked.

I truly wanted to know.

There are only two places in all of the area that we would ask our members to take their cuts off out of respect.

At the Hail House and at the police stations.

Not because we were ashamed or anything, but because we were respectful.

You didn’t bring attitude into someone else’s house; which was, essentially, what we were doing.

Although Apple hadn’t worn his. I knew it even without Atticus’ affirmation.

“Boy has a Saint written all over him,” Atticus drawled as I passed.

I nodded at him and went in search of my girl and Drew.

I had high hopes for Apple.

He had a good head on his shoulder, and at the age of thirty-five and some change, I knew he’d seen more than most men his age should have to.

He’d been in the military since he was seventeen and had only gotten out two and a half years ago when an IED took off a good chunk of his right upper arm and a portion of his shoulder muscle.

Although, as I walked towards Apple’s broad back, I couldn’t find a single thing that indicated that he was handicapped in any way.

I knew he trained his body hard to make up for what he saw as his shortcomings.

He was a good man, but he didn’t seem to have a grasp on how to deal with women.

Something I realized moments after walking across the entire damn bar to get to them.

Annie had a cup of something clear in her hand that resembled Vodka.

“What kind of name is Apple?” Annie asked as I walked up to where they were sitting.

Drew’s back went up.

“It’s the kind of name that my momma gave me, and I never questioned it,” Drew semi-snapped. “She taught me that it was what was at the core of a man that counted. Not a name.”

That’d been somewhat of a sore subject with our newest prospect. The boys teased him relentlessly about his name, and coming from men, it wasn’t anywhere near the same as it was coming from a woman.

A drunk woman, at that.

I hid a smile as I looked down, studying what Annie was wearing.

She had on low riding black jeans that barely covered her curvaceous ass.

A white and black striped shirt

“They should call you Core when you become a member. That sounds a lot more masculine,” Annie continued, unaware of the pot she was stirring.

I came up behind her, and I knew the moment she realized someone was behind her because goose bumps started to pop up all over her arms and exposed back.

“Who’s behind me, Core?” Annie asked with deceptive calm.

The newly christened ‘Core’ turned his head slightly, nodding at me in acknowledgement, then he disappeared without another word.

“You shouldn’t tease a man about his name. It’s not nice,” I told her, caging her in with both of my hands against the table at her side.

She stiffened impossibly more.

“Why are you here getting drunk? Who told you about this place?” I asked, leaning down so my mouth ran along the back of her shoulder.

She shivered.

“I h-heard about it from Lenore,” she whispered.

I smiled against her skin.

“What else did she tell you about this place?” I asked carefully.

I opened my mouth against her skin, and whatever words she was about to assault my ears with, drifted off the tip of her tongue as if they’d never been.

“Mig,” she breathed.

“I’ve missed you,” I told her.

She wouldn’t remember that admission in the morning, so that’s why I felt free to say what I did next.

“And you need to be careful. I have enemies. I make new enemies every day. But as much as I love you, I’ll never expose you to the ugliness of my world. It doesn’t matter how much you beg me. There’ll never be any time that I’ll ever be right for you. It breaks my heart to say this, but you deserve everything. The moon and the fuckin’ stars combined. I wish with everything that I am that I could give that to you, but I can’t. I’m a street fighter who started to use his fists from ten years of age, and I only got worse from there. Your beauty doesn’t belong in my dark world,” I whispered into her ear. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t protect you with my life…and take you out of situations that I know you aren’t safe in.”

She sniffled, and my heart ached even more to know that I caused her to cry.

However, she got up on her own volition, grabbed her keys, and started to walk out the door.