Wheeler
Ember could take care of herself, that much I could tell. She was a little spitfire.
That being said, I did my best the next few days to keep her out of trouble. I expected lip from her—but I think the eyeful she got the morning I introduced her to Elise and Bones—the meeting with Leech I hadn’t planned—had opened her eyes and made her more agreeable to staying close to me and out of sight from the others.
Not like I was complaining. She was a bombshell, a fucking treat. If I had been planning on keeping her around, I might have fucked her again … it was tempting. I wanted to. That seemed like it would cause more problems than I wanted, however.
Still. Guy could fantasize in the shower and damn, if I didn’t do a lot of that.
The lull in activity didn’t last long though. It wasn’t even a week before we were called into a meeting with Satan. I’d I thought that he was going to say that her welcome was up, or maybe that her welcome now came with stipulations. No—it was something that I had known would be coming but had hoped would not be so soon.
“It’s been three days since the tragedy at the Freefall Music Festival. While there are no reported casualties as of now, there are still two people missing, and more than one million dollars reported in property damages. The suspects in this horrific event include unnamed members of the Satan’s Sons motorcycle club, and fire dancer Ember Amor. I have a local officer here with a statement.”
A middle-aged officer appeared on the television. He might have been older, but there was a fire in his eyes that told me that he was here, and he meant business.
“My name is Officer Bradbury,” he said. “Following the events that took place at the Freefall Music Festival, the discovery of the drug paraphernalia, and heavy push from public desire, I have made the decision to bring in outside forces to help disassemble this violent ring of debauchery and disregard for human life. We will send the message that these action and violent behaviors will not be tolerated. We will not be bullied.” He continued on. “In the case of Ms. Ember Amor, we ask that she submit herself to questioning of her own free will. We will make full efforts to have her brought in. However, we would prefer that she come in of her own volition.”
The television was cut off.
All of the sons were downstairs, meeting with Satan. He had made his way down just for this—to discuss the utter shit storm that was this situation with the boys in blue, the music festival, and inevitably, Ember. She stood with us, too, looking incredibly small and out of place with all the bikers in the room. It was odd to see her uncomfortable, but I supposed I could understand it a little. We were all looking at her. Some of the stares weren’t too friendly or benign.
I didn’t have time to coddle her, though. She stayed close to my side and that was what mattered. No one would touch her right now since it’d been made clear from the get-go who she was with.
“Well, that was interesting,” Bones spoke up, getting the attention turned to him. “They’re gonna bring the heat on us, and they’re trying to pin the drugs too. We didn’t bring in the drugs that were there; that was those rich boys.”
“Pft. The drugs won’t stick, and we’ve handled the heat before,” Leech brushed off. He still had his little tick. “It’s nothing we can’t handle.”
“That’s easy to say now, but it’s a real issue,” I said, shooting him an annoyed look. “We can’t take this lightly.”
“Says the one holding little Miss Fugitive in his room.” Leech leaned over in Ember’s space, and she leaned right back. “Maybe we just give the cops the girl in exchange for overlooking everything else—”
“That’s some low shit, Leech—”
“Like any of us need to go down over some pussy—”
“Fuck off. This is mostly your fault to begin with you—”
“Boys.” Satan spoke up, and Leech and I got quiet. I drew in a deep breath and turned my eyes to Satan instead of his dumb ass son.
“Sorry, Boss.”
Satan waved me off. Unlike the day before, he seemed troubled.
“Listen, Pops,” Leech said. “I—”
“Ember.” Satan turned his attention to her instead of Leech. Ember tensed beside me and I put my arm over her shoulder, squeezing to assure her that things were fine. She relaxed a little.
“Yes, sir?”
He laughed.
“You don’t need to call me sir. Did you do those things they said you did at the festival?”
“No. I didn’t. I was trying to put the fires out.” She glanced around to the other Sons. “While they were being made.”
“I see ... Well, I’m not going to apologize for my boys doing what they did, but you didn’t have to get caught up in it. So that’s a problem, isn’t it? I kick you out, that gets some heat off our backs, but it’ll be putting you in a bad place. I keep you, that’s more issues for us.”
“I don’t want to be here to cause trouble,” she said.
“I can see that. That’s why you’re going to be Wheeler’s problem. Wheeler?”
I straightened up a little.
“Yeah, Boss?”
“She’s your issue. Her room, board, whatever. Keeping her out of trouble. Since you decided to bring her here.”
I nodded.
“That’s fair.”
“In the meantime, I’m going to call some other chapters for backup in case the boys in blue decide they’re going to get serious about what they’re doing.”
“Whoo!” Leech cheered. “So it’s gonna be lit up like Christmas around here!”
The others yelled with him.
“Yeah!”
“Fuck those blues!”
“Can’t touch the Sons!”
I shook my head. This was ridiculous. How could they be celebrating, honestly? Were they all so delusional to think that anything about our situation right now was a good thing?
Dumb question. I knew the answer to that.
Satan didn’t seem to mind, however. He waved us off.
“Go on, you assholes. Go have some fun. Remember what I said, Wheeler.”
I nodded to him.
“No problem, boss.”
I let the others file out before leading Ember out. I groaned.
“God this is such a shit storm.”
“You need to talk about it?”
I laughed incredulously.
“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”
She chuckled.
“You could. I’m about where you are at the moment with all of this.”
“At least we’re on the same page.”
“Joy.”
I snorted at her apathy and put my arm over her again. That was becoming a comfortable position for me, and that in and of itself should have raised red flags, but it didn’t. Impending war was right on the horizon if we weren’t careful. Ember was in my care, though I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do with that responsibility, shy of making sure she didn’t end up in the hands of the police over some shit that wasn’t even her fault.
“Hey.”
I looked down, head tilted.
“Yeah, what?”
“Let’s, like ... I dunno. Do something,” she suggested. “Get out of the house for a little. Get loose. I think we need it and—no offence—but your friends are kind of scary, and that’s saying something even for me.”
I laughed.
“You think they’re scary?”
“To be fair, they did burn down a forest, and they’re very … leery. They leer a lot.”
“All right. That’s fair.”
“Exactly. Come on. Show me a good time?” She looked up at me, smirking. “You honestly don’t expect me to just stay cooped up in here forever, do you?”
There was a part of me that knew that we should probably lie low for now. That was the smart part of me, the one that had no problems telling a woman no.
But … she had a point. And I wanted to unwind. It had been a long time since I had felt able to do so here, with the other Sons.
I wanted to see more of what Ember was made out of.
I gave her a huge, dramatic sigh, as if it were a big deal for me. It really wasn’t—I just really liked fucking with Ember. It was fun.
“Okay, fine. I guess I could do that.”
She grinned.
“Cool.” She tugged on my hand, pulling me toward the front of the clubhouse. I laughed at her enthusiasm.
“You’re really excited about this, aren’t you?”
“Well, in my defense, I’m looking at a lifetime of running from the cops, or something equally crazy, at worst. So I think for now this is good. It’ll get my mind off things—though, actually.” She paused a second. “I can’t believe that I haven’t even thought about this, but my phone. I never got it from the festival. I’ll need to call my mom, Wanda, definitely just to let her know that I’m alive and not a crazy arsonist.”
“You think that’s wise?”
“My mother lives a few counties over and she doesn’t trust cops. Wanda—Wanda’s like a sister to me; she wouldn’t turn me over to the cops over something that I know she would know that I was never involved in.”
“You trust that?”
She nodded.
“Yeah, I do.”
“Well,” I said, giving a shrug. “Just don’t tell them where you are. You never know who’s trying to listen in or trace calls and shit like that. Satan meant what he said: you’re my problem, and it’s my job to keep you from being a club problem, you know?”
“I think I got it.”
“Cool.” I grinned down at her. “Come on. I know a bar I think you might like.”