Vince

 

This was what I got for not being able to mind my fucking business.

 

I was only out for a ride, trying to clear my head. Anything was better than the tension at the clubhouse.

 

It had been a tough week after three of my guys were killed. The clubhouse was like a morgue. I knew everybody was trying to keep their spirits up and be brave for each other, but it wasn’t easy. The strain was heavy, always there.

 

And all of them were looking at me, wondering what to do.

 

I didn’t know what to do, besides killing every one of the men who killed my guys. I wanted revenge. So did everybody else. But running blindly into revenge was the last thing we needed. One of us had to be cooler than the rest. If we went straight into it, angry, wanting to make them pay, we would be sloppy. Against the Vicious Wolves, we had to be smart. They’d have a plan in place. We needed one, too.

 

So I rode to get my head on straight for a little while. Riding always helped me focus. As I rode, I remembered the stories my dad used to tell about the neighborhood. It used to be working-class, clean and respectable. Families moved there because they thought it was desirable, and it was back when Dad was a kid. Factories supported the community, and nearly everyone living there had a job at one of them. Kids played on the streets. Mothers scrubbed their front steps on Saturday afternoons. Nobody locked their doors. Sure, times could be tough—when the factories started laying off employees in stages, everyone had hope that things would pick up.

 

They never did. The factories shut down, and the neighborhood turned into a slum. It was still that way, ugly in the daytime and a war zone at night.

 

Somehow, I felt comfortable there. More comfortable than anywhere else. Maybe because my dad grew up on those streets. When I looked around, I saw what used to be. Happy Christmases and kids playing stickball and going door to door on Halloween. Families growing and living together. The families living there in the present, few though they were, tried hard to make it a good place. But too many other people were working against them. Many abandoned buildings were used as drug dens, or as places for homeless people to sleep.

 

I got to the main strip, pulled up at the pizza place to get myself something to eat. They knew me there and had my normal two slices ready in just a minute. I folded them both over and ate standing by my bike.

 

A few people said hi, and I nodded when my mouth was too full to respond. Most were too afraid to look at me, much less say hello. They knew my club, and they knew our rep. We weren’t people to fuck with. They would rather ignore me. I was all right with that. I didn’t want to have anything to do with them.

 

I’d been away long enough. I didn’t want the rest of the club to start wondering if I was avoiding them. They needed to have their leader in front of them so they knew I was taking care of things.

 

Only I didn’t feel like I was. Three guys—three—had died. I felt like I was losing my grip, and the tighter I held on the more out of control I felt. It seemed like all I could think about was Rick…Lance…Jake. All of them dead. My friends, my brothers. I couldn’t afford to lose any more of my men. I couldn’t even afford to lose them.

 

It was a dangerous time. I couldn’t make a wrong move. Onyx was my right-hand man, my second. I relied on him. He kept me centered, and he felt the same as I did about laying low while we put a plan together.

 

I got on my bike, wanting to be back at the clubhouse before the card game started. It was what we always did on Friday nights, and Onyx agreed with me that things needed to stay as normal as possible.

 

I was only a block or two away when I looked further ahead and saw a familiar patch on the back of a kutte. My blood boiled. The Vicious Wolves. I knew they were behind the murder of my men, but hadn’t been able to prove it yet. What the fuck was one of their guys doing in our territory?

 

Part of me wanted to mind my own business. No sense starting a fight—I didn’t see one of my guys on the ground, so it wasn’t up to me to step in. Besides, we didn’t need any more trouble with that club. Things were bad enough.

 

Then I saw that it was a woman on the ground, and she was cowering in fear. If there was one thing that pissed me off, it was a man hurting a woman. My good sense still told me to keep riding, but there was no way. I was already dying to hurt one of their members, and this was just another reason to go for it.

 

The bike was barely parked before I jumped off and ran to them. He was just about to bend down to the girl, and she had her eyes closed with an arm over her face. I got there just in time.

 

I shoved him away. He spun toward me with surprise on his face. I only gave him a split second before I lunged at him.

 

He threw a punch, which would have connected with my eye if he wasn’t so slow. I ducked, then hit him with three solid jabs to the ribs. He doubled over and my knee connected with his face.

 

He staggered back, hitting an old fence. When he bounced off it, I caught him by the lapels of his kutte. I steadied him before hitting him with a roundhouse to the face, connecting with his eye. Another one, this time to his nose.

 

He fell on the ground and I had the satisfaction of kicking him. I kicked him for every one of my guys. When he rolled over, I did it again.

 

Finally, he stopped moving. I knew he was alive, but didn’t care either way. I was tired of fighting. He wasn’t going to hurt anyone now.

 

I stood over him and felt victorious. Like an animal standing over my prey. My heart was thudding hard, and I smelled his blood in the air. It smelled good to me.

 

Then I looked down and saw her.

 

The first thing I noticed was her hair. It was long and blonde, and it shone in the light from the street lamps. Then her eyes. Wide, blue, scared. Her lips were parted slightly, and she breathed heavily through them. She was tiny, like a little doll.

 

I wanted her.

 

More than that, I wanted to get her out of there. Not to mention myself.

 

My eyes locked onto hers and I didn’t want to look away, but I had to. I looked down the street, in both directions. Someone was going to come by soon enough.

 

I reached down to her. “Come on.”

 

“What?” Her voice was high, shaky. She looked like I just asked her to eat a bug.

 

“Come on!” I was louder this time. She had to get the idea I was serious. We needed to leave, immediately.

 

She was still cringing away from me like I would burn to touch. Part of me wanted to leave her there if she was going to be that way about it. Screw her. Let her find her out way out of this hell hole. I wouldn’t be there for her the next time she got into trouble.

 

“I just want to go home!”

 

I just bet she did. I kinda wanted her to go home, too. She was already more trouble than she was worth.

 

I looked around again, half expecting to see a motorcycle speeding toward us. We had to get the hell out—odds were slim this asshole was by himself. “Right now, you need to get out of here and go anywhere else. You have to come with me. Now. Before they find you.”

 

“Who?”

 

“I’ll tell you, just come now.” I was starting to get seriously pissed. I wouldn’t ask her again. A few more seconds, I’d be on my bike. I didn’t owe this girl anything. Especially when she looked at me like she thought I was less than nothing.

 

It was fascinating, watching her face as she changed her mind. She wasn’t stupid. I saw her take something from the ground out of the corner of my eye, then she was up and running behind me.

 

“This?” she asked, pulling up short when we reached my bike. I rolled my eyes, climbing on and starting the engine.

 

“It’s this or your ass. So get your ass on it.” She got on behind me, clumsy like she’d never ridden before. I wasn’t surprised. She was a princess.

 

“Around my waist,” I barked, shoving her arms down from where she’d grabbed me around the chest. “Not too tight. Try not to kill me.” Then we took off. I heard her squealing behind me, where she pressed herself against my back. I didn’t hate the feeling.

 

Who the hell was she? What had I gotten myself into when I picked her up off the ground? And why did that asshole want to hurt her? I hoped it was something as simple as him wanting to rob or rape her—not that rape was simple, but it would mean she was a stranger.

 

Otherwise, she was fucked, because the Vicious Wolves didn’t back down once they got their teeth into someone.

 

I wasn’t sure where to go. If they were following us, the clubhouse would be the safest place. It would also be the worst. I didn’t want a war tonight.

 

My eyes went between the road in front of me and my mirrors. I needed to know if there was any chance of being followed. I couldn’t lead anyone to the rest of my club. They knew where our headquarters was located, but leading them there after I beat the shit out one of their guys would be a bad move.

 

After five or six blocks, I could see there was no one, and I dropped the speed a bit. The last thing I needed was to get pulled over with blood on my knuckles.

 

“Where are we going?” She sounded panicked. I didn’t blame her, but she could have at least sounded a little grateful. I didn’t have to help her. I didn’t answer. She’d find out soon.