Shutting the door behind me, I drag my bloodied hands down the denim on my legs as I lean back against the cool steel, exhaling deeply. It’s been a long goddamn night. Long and messy.
I’ve been here over twenty-four hours. Longer than I like to stay in any one fucking place.
From the dark hallway, I can hear the party out in the main room. There’s laughter and cheers, and the bass from some overplayed rap song beating off the walls and floor. Most of the partygoers have their heads shoved so far up their own asses, they don’t know what’s happening just feet away from their awesome party. Self-centered motherfuckers. Not that I need a group of overenthusiastic college whores poking around in my work.
The bass from the beat drowns out the cries from the weak—exactly how I like it.
“How’d it go, King?”
Turning my head slowly, I look at the president of the Lone Wolves, his cut proudly displaying his one percent patch and his name—Arrow. He’s a bad motherfucker I guess. A couple of his cut wearing brothers stand behind him, watching, studying me. They’re all a bunch of fucking pussies.
I just cock a shoulder, indifferent. “Got your shit,” I tell him, if that’s what he’s askin’ me. That’s why I’m here, to get what he can’t.
He looks around me at the closed door. “They breathin’?”
My shoulder just keeps rising. “Think so.” One might be out cold or he might be dead. Either way. “Got what you asked for.”
Not my job to keep ’em alive. I get the information by any means.
Running a hand over his bald head, he sighs, then chuckles. “Sometimes you’re too good at your job.”
“You get what you pay for,” I tell him, holding out a piece of paper, the one with the little blue lines and the blood stains. Fifty grand for a piece of paper. Might’ve handed me his firstborn for this shit, but the fifty is more my style.
He hands me a fat envelope in exchange.
“Thanks, man. We really needed this,” he says, the paper shaking in his tattooed hand. He’s scared of me, or at least uneasy. He won’t look me in the eye and he’s keeping his voice light. Fucking pussy. “This’ll help us so fuckin’ much.” This motherfucker is a bitch and not fit to run an MC, that’s for goddamn sure. I only just met the asshole, but his brothers will figure it out soon and they’ll have to decide if they want to follow this idiot into the abyss or buck up and make a change. Either way, not my fucking problem. “We’ve been trying to track down their supplier for years,” he adds, telling me information he should be keeping to himself.
I just grunt in response, walking down the hall toward the exit sign, tucking the envelope into my pocket.
He just keeps talking, telling me shit I could care less about as he follows me. I don’t want your goddamn life story, I don’t even want your fucking name, just tell me my job and then get the fuck out of my way.
But he just keeps following behind me, yapping. I hate talking, and I especially hate chitchat.
“Got another job?” he asks, giving a nervous chuckle. “Gonna go bash in some more skulls?” He looks at his brothers who all grin and laugh back at him. They’re not an MC, they’re a frat. “Smashin’ heads and pussies.” He laughs. “That’s the life, man.”
He thinks he knows me, understands my lifestyle. He’s dead wrong.
Stopping, I turn to look at the dude. Short and stocky, tattooed, and with about fifty holes in his fucking head full of rings and studs, I figure he’s probably a bad dude in his neck of the woods, but to me he’s jack shit. Nothing but a goddamn roach.
“Shut the fuck up,” I tell him, done hearing his voice.
He looks shocked at my words. Maybe it’s because it’s the most he’s heard me speak, or maybe because no one talks to his stupid ass this way around here. But his knee-jerk reaction is to hit me with a comeback or maybe his fist because he jerks back and his hands ball into fists, but he looks up at me and thinks better of it. You hit me and you die.
He says nothing. He does nothing. And it’s because I’m the motherfucking King. No one swings on me and lives to tell about it.
Shoving the exit door open, I walk out into the cold night and toward my bike without another word. The only lights in the lot are coming from the signs hanging above my bike—beer signs and The Swing illuminated in neon. Some bullshit club in some bullshit college town. It’s sorority night according to the reader board under the big sign, for half-priced drinks and a costume contest. I could hang out, have a couple beers, and end my night between the creamy thighs of some naïve as fuck college bitch, but I like my pussy earned, not given. At least make a motherfucker work for it. So, I opt for the open road, not open thighs.
Standing next to my bike, my phone vibrates in my pocket.
Pulling it out, I take a quick look at the screen before answering it, something I don’t usually do. You leave me a message and I may or may not return it. But for the Disciples, I answer. “Danny Boy.”
He chuckles darkly into the phone. “It’s the motherfuckin’ King.”
I don’t smile or laugh often, but his words pull at the corners of my mouth. “What do you want?”
“Got a little situation.”
“Yeah? Give me a few hours.” Danny doesn’t have to ask and he doesn’t have to lure me in with details. For family, I’ll be there. “See you soon, brother.”