Chapter Seventeen
Steele
"You trying to make it ring with your mind?" Hen asked me.
I thumped my elbows down on the bar and rubbed my forehead. The phone lay silent in front of me.
"No. I'm just worried about someone," I said.
"She has a name, right?" Hen put down his bar rag and waited.
"Her name's Claire, but it's—"
"Complicated. Yeah, it always is," Hen said.
I pulled myself up and smiled. Hen was right as always. Sure, Claire and I had a few things to iron out, but that was no reason to give up.
I was about to tell Hen the whole story when the roadhouse door swung open. A rowdy group of young guys came in. They found the corner booth and a few slumped in while the others started a game of darts. Only one stood hesitantly between as if just realizing where he had ended up.
Reese's blurry eyes spotted me and he blinked. He opened his mouth to say something then took a quick step back and bumped into the corner booth. The back room door swung open and Hack wandered in, mid-argument with the cook.
"All I'm saying is that no one is going to eat fried veggies. Doesn't matter if you call it tambourine or whatever that fancy phrase is." Hack swung a crate of clean glasses onto a barstool and started to unload them.
"Hey, man, can we give you our order?" One of Reese's friends picked the wrong moment.
Hack glanced up, ready to rip into the young man, and then he saw Reese. "What the hell are you doing here? Are you crazy?" he yelled.
Two glasses smashed on the floor as Hack tossed them aside. He dodged across the room faster than I could stand up. Hen just sighed.
"He's got a right to be here, Hack. Same as you," Hen called.
"He forfeited his right to drink here when he backed out on our bet." Hack looked for somewhere to spit.
"You know this guy, Reese?" The young guys in the booth slipped out and edged toward the door. "We don't want any trouble."
They left Reese cornered by Hack and the whole roadhouse could hear their tires squealing back toward the main road. Claire's little brother just stood there, swaying slightly from what looked like a two-day bender.
Hack slunk closer. "Well, now that you're here, why I don't just send a little message to your sister?"
Hen cleared his throat and I stood up.
Hack glanced at me and shook his head. "No. You stay out of this. I got this," he said.
"What you've got is more trouble than it's worth. Just let the whole thing go, Hack. No one cares if you let him off the hook," I said.
Hack forgot himself and spat on the floor. Behind the bar, Hen reached for his battered baseball bat.
"You leave my sister alone," Reese slurred.
"Sure, sure." Hack slunk a few steps closer. "As long as she pays up."
"Or what?" Reese asked.
Hack caught him in the belly with a hard upper cut. All the air whooped out of Reese's lungs and he staggered back into the booth.
"She knows. We discussed it the last time she came to see me. I think she's starting to like me." Hack grabbed at his jeans and made an obscene gesture.
I moved closer. "Hack, I'm only going to say this one more time. Let it go. Leave the kid alone."
Hack caught Reese's face with a backhand slap. His cheek began to bleed as he struggled to catch his breath.
Hack was in the air before I realized my hands were on his shirt. I hauled him away from Reese, up over my shoulder, and across the dusty roadhouse floor. He grabbed the doorframe as he scrambled to his feet.
"You're not going anywhere," Hen called. He grabbed a mop and tossed it to Hack. "Clean up the mess you made."
Hack hissed under his breath but grabbed the mop and started swiping the floor around where he spit. He watched me with his twitchy eyes, so I grabbed Reese's hand and brought him over to the bar.
"How drunk are you?" I asked Reese.
"Drunk enough to end up here," Reese mumbled. "I didn't know. I swear."
"And where's your sister in all this?" I asked, ramming Reese down on a barstool. "Have you given her any thought?"
Reese shrugged and worked his sore cheek. "I dunno. Probably at work."
My fingers balled into a fist. Reese was so inconsiderate, and I suspected he was the reason Claire had been so upset when we'd last talked.
"Wait. What are you wearing?" Reese asked. He swept his blurry eyes over my jeans and black tee shirt again. Then he leaned down to check out my black leather boots again.
My stomach balled up tighter than my fists. Hen was giving us distance, but he and everyone else in the roadhouse could hear Reese talking.
His eyes went wide when he finally put it together. Lucky for him, his voice had dropped to a whisper. "Are you like, undercover? Do they know how rich you are?" Reese asked.
I grabbed his throat with one hand. "You've caused enough trouble tonight, don't you think?"
Reese's eyes cleared. He didn't look very drunk as he gave me a speculative look. It didn't matter that my hand was squeezing his vocal cords. He thought he had the upper hand.
He smiled. "I'm thinking your buddy over there would be very interested to know you've got millions to spare. Seems like the kind of guy that always needs money."
I yanked Reese's face closer to mine and growled. "Think about what you're going to say next."
Reese nodded around my tight hand. "Me, I only need one little payment and I'll go away for good. You square my debt and I'm gone."
I dumped him back on the barstool and scrubbed my chin. The deal was too good to be true. Not only would I be able to easily cover Reese's debt, but I would help Claire without her having to ask. And I would be able to reveal my secret to the motorcycle club in my own time.
Hack was ignoring us and whispered something into his phone. Hen had turned on the television and was flipping through the sports channels. I could make the deal and it would be done.
Claire would be free and I would have another chance to show her we belonged together.
Reese smoothed back his hair, impressed with his own negotiating skills. I decided I'd give him a tap on the chin before accepting the deal. Make sure he thought twice before coming back to the roadhouse.
Then his phone rang.
"Slow down, Claire. I can't understand you. Wait, who's this?" Reese fumbled his phone and gave me a frightened look.
I leaned in and looked at his phone. It was Claire's number but a man with a raspy voice said, "Claire's got twenty-four hours of feeling fine. After that, we better get our money."
"Our money?" Reese repeated. "You mean the money I owe Hack?"
The man hung up.
I spun around but Hack was already gone. I ran through the swinging doors and saw him speeding away on his lowrider. When I turned around I expected Reese to be at the door but he was nowhere in sight.
I found him on the same bar stool, trying to convince Hen to give him a free beer.
"Come on, man, they took my sister!" Reese said.
I hauled him off the barstool. "Exactly. They took your sister and you're trying to scam him out of a free beer? Isn't there something you should be doing?"
Reese hung limp and shrugged. "Like what? I don't have the money. The police aren't exactly my friends. Hack's gone."
I shook him. "Did they say where to bring the money?"
"Some crossroads about ten miles from here," Reese said.
I tossed him back on the bar stool. "You can't just sit there. She's your sister! Think of all the times she's bailed you out."
"Exactly." Reese slumped. "Claire's always the one that looked out for me. She always had a job, had food in the 'fridge, and had the right idea about what I should do next."
"And you never took her advice." I ran both hands through my hair.
Somewhere out there one of Hack's drugged out buddies had Claire. My pulse fired up as I thought about getting my hands around the man's neck that had grabbed her.
"What would Claire do?" Reese asked. "If it were me. What do you think Claire would do?"
"Same as me," I snapped. "Find Hack. And when I do, he's going to wish he'd followed my advice and let this whole thing go. He's going to learn the value of mercy."
I strode toward the door and then slammed a fist into it. Reese leapt off his barstool but made no move to follow me. So, I marched right back to the bar, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, and dragged him with me.
"You're coming," I growled.
Reese bumped into the door as I dragged him outside. "Where?"
"To save Claire."