Chapter Fifteen
Roxanna
It’s a different Nash standing next to me in the parking lot outside this squat building in the literal middle of nowhere. This man looks like Nash, he sounds like Nash, he moves like Nash, but this man is just an hour removed from dumping two bloody bodies in the ocean without blinking an eye. A man as dark as the chill night air around us.
I can’t fit this image of him together with the man who lights up a the thought of his daughter, the man that wants to be a good father for his little girl. I can’t see this man as the same one I slept with.
Who is he?
How can someone who wants a family — a daughter — so badly be so callous about ending the life of a member of someone else’s family?
Somewhere, at some point in the future, the only thing Jamal’s family will have to remember him are whatever bloated, fish-pecked remains wash up on the beach.
I blink those thoughts away and look around.
The parking lot is half paved, half gravel, and, while the building might’ve been painted at one time, the clubhouse I see in front of me is weathered and beaten enough in places that the tattered meat of the pine and oak shows in the near-dead light of the streetlamp. The sign above the door — Broken Crown Saloon — looks so weathered it might be the name of whatever the hell this clubhouse was before the Wayward Kings took over.
“Come on in,” he says, gruffly.
The door opens, muted music turns into a raucous celebration. Laughter spills out, shouting, the sounds of glasses smashing together and conversations practically shouted.
Inside, it’s warm. Alive.
Wood shines, polished from years of use, run-down in an inviting way. Bottles, filled mostly with brown liquor, line shelves behind the bar. Men in jeans and leather drink and chat with women in jeans and leather — some a lot younger than I’d expect and some a lot older. A man in a maid’s outfit, short frilly skirt and all, carries a tray of drinks through the room, taking empty glasses and giving full ones to anyone who asks.
“Bear,” a man with a buzzed head, barrel chest, and a thick goatee, bellows from across the room. “You son of a bitch. How are you?”
Whatever malice I felt in Nash — I still can’t bring myself to call him Bear — sloughs off the second the man yells his name.
“Free, Gunney. That’s how the fuck I am,” Nash answers, barely getting his words out before the older man envelopes him in a mammoth hug. Just watching it makes my back crack.
“I knew you were free, goddamnit. Hell, we had your release date written down and everyone was ready to celebrate. Your party was three days ago, by the way. It was a fucking grand time. But, what gives — you get out, you don’t call, you don’t write. We were starting to think you’d gotten yourself into some shit.”
“I had some things to take care of, brother.”
“Things?” he answers, eying me. “You put pussy over your family?”
Nash chuckles. “Never. This is more than that. Meet Roxanna. Roxanna Pierce.”
Gunney frowns as he shakes my hand. “Pierce, as in…” he says, his voice trailing off.
“The same,” I answer.
“Nice to meet you, Roxanna,” he says, before turning to Nash, wary, and I feel like I’m suddenly a background decoration. The two men nearly huddle together, Gunney’s voice dropping low. “Fucking hell. Did you lose your mind in prison? We’ve got enough heat as it is without you fucking with a judge’s family.”
“I’m settling a score, Gunney. I’ve got a daughter. A fucking daughter. Her name is Abigail. The bitch from Lakewood I fucked a few times, Melissa, she gave birth while I was in the joint.”
A pang of jealousy stabs me at the mention of the dead woman’s name, at thinking of the connection she has to the good side of Nash that I’ll never have.
“What’d this judge do to you?”
“Nothing,” I interrupt. “My father didn’t do anything.”
Gunney’s eyes flicker towards me, a silent rebuke, but that’s the only acknowledgment I get before he focuses his attention back on Nash.
“Abigail’s custody case is in his jurisdiction. Just before I got out, some son of a bitch came to see me, told me Melissa was dead and if I didn’t come up with a hundred grand within two weeks of walking free, the judge — her father — would make sure my little girl stays lost in the system.”
“Fuck.”
“Right. I’ve got to go down this road, wherever the hell it takes me. I can’t lose her.”
Furrowing his brow, Gunney nods. “We’ll back you, brother, but shit’s stretched real thin right now. People’ve died since you’ve been away, the Devils are pushing us every chance they get, and you’re not the only one who’s been in prison.”
Off in one corner of the clubhouse, the man in the maid’s outfit is singing karaoke — a breathy and spirited version of Careless Whisper — while a girthy barrel-round man cheers him on.
I’m starting to realize I have no idea what in the hell life in a biker gang is like. Maybe I’m still asleep in that truck, on the highway in Montana, and this is all some twisted hangover dream caused by tainted food from Dirty Hank’s.
“Get me up to speed, Gunney.”
“The Iron Devils are trying to muscle into town. They’ve been running heroin and ecstasy down from Canada, bringing that shit in by boat and Stony Shores sits right on their trafficking route. We’ve been making life hard for them, but we’re mostly legal, now, and we don’t have the income like we used to—” Gunney says, pausing for a moment to share a look with one of the women at the bar. The woman leaves her place, snatching a highball glass of brown liquor in each hand, and hands one to me.
“Come on, honey,” she says. “I’m Samantha. Let’s go take a load off while the boys catch up. What’s your name?”
“Roxanna,” I answer.
“Those boys are going to be a while, so let’s get you comfortable.”
I let her lead me to the bar. The drink isn’t bad — bourbon, and not as bottom-shelf as it looks. It might even be mid-bottom shelf.
Samantha and I sit down at the bar next to a large, muscular man with long, dark hair that’s in some kind of loose bun, olive skin, and tattoos winding up his arms in some kind of whirling tribal design. He’s in his late twenties, and he’s got a dazzlingly bright smile. Next to him, there’s a young blonde woman, she’s rail-thin and tanned, with a stunningly-detailed tattoo of a horse decorating her forearm.
“Ozzy, Beth, this is Roxanna,” Samantha says.
“Nice to meet you, Roxanna,” Ozzy says, his voice a lazy-accented drawl. He holds his drink out and I tap mine to his. “Welcome to the family.”
“Nice to meet you, too,” I say. It’s a bit disorienting hearing an accent like his — Australian, it sounds like, maybe, and it has to be considering his name — coming from a guy in a biker’s clubhouse in a small town in Washington.
My confusion must be painted all over my face like a billboard, or maybe it’s the fact that I’m openly staring at him that gives it away.
“There’s heaps of bikers where I’m from, too, Roxanna,” he says. “It isn’t just an American thing.”
“In Australia?”
“No, New Zealand,” Ozzy says. “But I understand your confusion. Word of advice, though: don’t lump a Kiwi in with an Aussie. We don’t always get on. Aussies live up to their reputation as a bunch of big-headed cunts and they can’t play rugby for shit.”
“So, your name — Ozzy?” I blurt out.
“The boys call him Ozzy because he’s a Kiwi. I don’t know how it got started,” Samantha says.
“Me neither,” Ozzy says. “Though I’d wager it’s just to piss me off.”
“I’m pretty sure it is, dear,” Samantha says.
“Does it work?”
“Yeah, nah,” he says.
“Huh?” I say.
“Yeah. Nah.”
Holy crap, I don’t know what’s up or down anymore.
I blink and move on. “So, how did you end up here?”
“I moved here. I live in town.”
Does logic work differently down there?
“I know you’re part of the club. But how did you join the club?”
“My cuz and I rode in New Zealand. We were a couple of Westie boys, practically bogans. But we steered clear of MC’s like the Head Hunters and the Mongrel Mob, the main clubs down there. Too much drugs. Too involved in P. So we came here to the States. Met a few of the guys here at a bar down in Tacoma, got properly munted, ended up prospecting.”
I think I kind of get it. Enough to nod authentically, at least. Though I still don’t know why the letter ‘P’ would be so dangerous. “Great.”
“How do you and Bear know each other? You must have something on him, because he’s never brought a woman to the clubhouse before. Unless, well, he was fucking a club girl,” Samantha says.
“I find that hard to believe,” I say.
“It’s true. It’s been club girls or ladies he’s met on the ride for Bear,” Ozzy says. “Heaps of girls, but, still, nothing serious.”
Heaps?
“It’s complicated,” I say.
“It’s always complicated,” says Beth. “If you try to make it more than it is. So, stop beating around the bush. What’s up with you and big Bear over there?”
I pause. Drink some bourbon. “I’m just helping him with some personal stuff.”
Samantha rolls her eyes. “Right.”
“I am,” I insist.
“Bear was the club’s enforcer before he went away — now Ozzy here’s filling that role,” Beth says, patting Ozzy on the chest, resting her fingers on the ‘Enforcer’ patch. “Bear’s not really the type to ask others for help. People either ask him for help or they’re begging him for mercy.”
“It’s big shoes to fill,” Ozzy adds. “I’m not a military guy like BEar. I’m just a bloke with a bike. Still getting the hang of the enforcer thing, if I’m being honest with you.”
“You’ll get there someday, hun. And with Bear back, you two can share the work, help each other out. Though there ain’t much to it, nowadays,” Samantha says.
“How so?” I say.
Ozzy shrugs. “Club switched business plans a few years ago, when a lot of the guys went away.”
Samantha nods. “The Kings are mostly a legitimate business, nowadays. Some of the boys have kids and families of their own, and keeping everyone together is the most important thing right now. Most of the ‘enforcing’ is just keeping out the pieces of trash that want to ruin our town.”
It’s reassuring, a bit, hearing that from her. I’m still not over seeing Nash kill those two men — I’m not sure if I ever will be — but, between the bourbon and the genuine feeling that I get from everyone around me about the value they place on family, the less I feel that I’m surrounded by a gang of bloodthirsty killers.
Maybe I misjudged Nash.
“So, Roxanna, are you going to dish about you and Bear, or what?” Beth.
For someone getting so close to Ozzy, she sure seems interested in the man I came in with. And I’m definitely not a fan of the way she keeps looking over at Nash.
“It’s exactly like I said,” I reply. “That’s it. And a relationship isn’t really on his mind, right now.”
“Come on, you don’t need to hide or be ashamed of anything. You’re here, you’re with Bear, you’re family. I certainly don’t hide nothin about how Gunney and I met, even though it makes our president over there look like a damn fool,” Samantha chimes in.
I shift a little, sip my drink, and smile at her, glad to have an opening where I’m not the subject of conversation. “Oh? How did you two meet?”
“A long time ago,” Samantha starts. “I was a diver. Scuba. Commercial. I was good at it, too. And pretty good at hyperbaric welding — underwater welding — and found myself working in San Diego. I’d do welding and repair jobs out at Point Loma, Coronado, all over. The Navy kept me busy and practically living in my gear. They also put me up in an apartment right across from the Marine Corps recruiting depot, where my Gunney was stationed.”
“So you two bumped into each other on the way to work?”
Ozzy and the blonde both chuckle and Samantha shakes her head. “Yes and no. He saw me one morning and asked me out. I told him to fuck off because I don’t date military men since they tend to be immature assholes. But, every morning for two weeks, he asked me out. He’d bring me coffee, breakfast things like pastries, all that, and every time I’d tell him to fuck off.”
“How did he convince you, then?”
She takes a moment to refill her glass of bourbon. “One morning, after weeks of this shit, he’s not there. I go into work, and that morning I’m down deep doing some welding. Next thing I know, this man, wearing nothing but a pair of briefs and a snorkel, is fifteen meters down with me. Once I get over my shock — and appreciating his package, because, let me tell you, white briefs don’t hide nothing when they’re wet — I realized it’s Gunney. He waves at me, I flip him off, but then he motions like he can’t breathe. He’s out of air and in serious trouble.”
“If a man kept after me like that, I would’ve let him drown,” the blonde says. “Creep.”
“That’s fucking cruel, Beth,” Ozzy says. “I hope you’re taking the piss saying that.”
“I’m not anywhere near a bathroom, Ozzy,” she says.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” he says.
“Samantha,” I say, much louder than I have to, butting in to interrupt Beth. “What happened next?”
“There was no way I was letting him drown after I saw how well he was endowed,” Samantha replies. “So we buddy breathe until we get back to the surface. As soon as we’re up, he says to me that he’ll accept nothing less than taking me out to dinner that night as a thank you for saving his life. I agreed, since it’d been a while since I’d been laid, and, well, here we are.”
“I appreciate you being open like that, but, honestly, Nash and I aren’t dating,” I say. And I try to sound as sincere as possible saying it. I appreciate all three of them being much more open and friendly than I expected. Everyone here, from the guy in the maid outfit singing George Michael songs to Ozzy, Samantha, and Beth — even though they might seem dysfunctional — are more of a family unit than I would have guessed. “I’m just helping him.”
Warm, gentle, a hand settles on my shoulder and squeezes me slightly. I loosen up, lean back into it instinctively. It’s Nash. He leans down and puts his lips by my ear. “Roxanna, it’s time to go. Come on, I’ll show you my cabin.”
The heat in his voice lifts the edges of my lips. He sounds so different than when we first arrived. It must be being around his family that’s smoothed out his hard edges; it’s certainly lifted my mood. That, and the bourbon.
“Your cabin?” I say.
I look back at him. He’s smiling. That half-smirk that makes me feel warm all over. “Yeah. My home.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I think I see Samantha wink at me. “Have a good night, hun.”
On wobbly legs, I stand up, holding on to his hand as I get down off of the bar stool and steadying myself against him.
I have to admit, it feels nice being close to a man like him while surrounded by people who actually care for one another. A family.
“Ok, let’s go home.”
He smiles, and his hand squeezes mine – tighter, inviting, promising. I squeeze back.