Levi sat at the bar in the Skulls clubhouse, drinking a beer and waiting for Dax to get out of a meeting and show him around. So far he’d been hit on by a forty-something-year-old club girl and one that looked barely legal. He’d turned them both down. He already had two women driving him crazy. One he’d never be able to see or touch again, and the other…he just wasn’t sure what to think about his sudden borderline obsession with that one.

“Hey. Who’s winning?”

Levi glanced over at the man that had just taken the stool next to him. He was wearing a kutte like the rest of the guys in the club, but otherwise he looked like he was trying to be Crocodile Dundee. He had on jeans and boots, but his boots weren’t black riding boots like the rest of them wore, his were brown-and-white cowboy boots with bumps all over them…Ostrich skin, maybe? His jeans were Wranglers, not Levi’s, and he wore a black “Croc” hat, like the one worn by the actor in the Crocodile Dundee movies. It even had an alligator skin band…Or maybe it’s snake? He had dark, curly hair sticking out from under the hat and what looked like two or three days’ worth of dark stubble on his face. His eyes were the darkest green color that Levi had ever seen and even though he was smiling, the smile on his face didn’t seem to reach them.

“Hey,” Levi said, looking back up at the soccer game on the TV above the bar. “I’m not sure. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

“S’all right. I hate soccer anyways. Name’s Hunter.”

“Levi.” The guy stuck out a big, tanned hand, so Levi shook it and tried to focus on the television again. He still wasn’t interested in the soccer game, but it was preferable to small talk in his opinion.

“You’re not a Skull,” the guy said, stating the obvious. Levi was wearing his Defenders kutte.

“Nope.”

“Strange, seeing a guy with a different patch sitting up at the bar here.”

“I guess. Kind of strange to meet Crocodile Dundee here too.”

Hunter threw his head back and laughed. “I been called a lot of things in my life, but that’s a new one. So, what’s a kid from...” Hunter made a production out of looking back at Levi’s patch, “Tennessee doing so far east?”

“Waiting for Dax,” Levi said.

“Oh yeah? I’m here to see Dax myself. I’m early. Our appointment isn’t for an hour or so.” Hunter picked up the beer and the shot the prospect had sat in front of him. Levi didn’t hear him order it, but the prospect must have already known what he wanted. Hunter threw back the shot and chased it with a big gulp of the beer before saying. “Thought I might spend some time with one of the ladies while I waited.”

Levi glanced over at the group of club girls in the back of the room, shooting pool. He wasn’t sure if the Crocodile guy was looking for validation, or what. “Okay,” was all he said.

Hunter laughed again. “You’re a big talker, aren’t you, Levi from Tennessee?”

“Sorry, not much for small talk.”

“I feel you,” Hunter said. “Me neither, goes along with my job though. I spend hours, sometimes days, just watching and waiting in silence.”

It was Levi’s turn to chuckle. He’d met the guy all of two minutes before and he hadn’t shut up yet. “Yeah, what’s your job?” he asked.

“I’m a bounty hunter.”

Levi raised an eyebrow and looked at the front of the guy’s kutte. One side had his name stitched on it and the other had a patch that said “Nomad.” He thought it was strange that an MC would have a bounty hunter on the payroll. “You here looking for a bounty?”

“Nah. Dax and the guys are my friends and business partners. They help me, I help them. It’s a win/win situation.” Hunter tapped the bar and the prospect brought him another shot, and the bounty hunter kept talking, practically non-stop about nothing. He talked about soccer, football, motorcycles, and women. Levi had a headache from listening to him, but since he figured the guy wasn’t going to shut up anyways, he decided to satisfy some of his curiosity by asking:

“So, how does a bounty hunter hook up with an MC?”

Hunter’s jovial mood suddenly darkened and for a few minutes as he sipped his beer, Levi thought he wasn’t going to answer the question. Finally, he picked up the bottle and drained it and then he said, “A few years back, I was tracking a murderer. This was one of those dangerous guys that should have never made bail in the first place. My guess is the judge was paid off by the club he worked for. He was a nomad for an MC out of New York and in between jobs for his club, he liked to kill pretty prostitutes, and anyone else that got in his way. They only had enough evidence to arrest him for two, but they think he’d killed as many as thirteen by that time. My boss, who loves his money and wants the fugitives brought in alive so that he can collect it, told my partner and me to shoot this guy on sight. He was just pure evil. So, after almost a year of looking for this dude, my partner Brett and I tracked him to a rundown motel in Connecticut, found out which room he was in, and got a key from the desk clerk. As we snuck up to the room, we heard the phone ring inside. My partner thought that it would be the perfect opportunity to catch him distracted. I had a bad feeling about the whole thing, though. I wanted to call it off and wait in the parking lot in our SUV until he came out. His bike was parked out front. I figured he’d have to come out that way eventually. My partner was the senior man on the job, though; we did things his way most of the time, and he wanted to go in. We stood on either side of the door and Brett slid the key in the lock. As soon as it beeped, he pushed the door open with his gun ready, but the guy inside was already unloading his weapon. I got off a few shots before realizing that Brett was lying in the doorway with blood coming from his chest.”

“Damn,” Levi said. “Did he make it?”

Hunter tapped the bar again and his dark green eyes seemed to go even darker as he said, “No. He died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.”

“Sorry, man. I’ve been lucky enough so far not to have to watch a brother die.” Levi thought about Spider…but that was a different situation entirely. Spider had been the target.

“He was my actual brother. Brett and I both worked for my cousin, who runs the bail bonds company. We were the ones that he sent after the badasses, and by the time Brett died, we’d captured a dozen or more of the most wanted men and women on the east coast. We were a hell of a team. I was watching my brother die when I realized the scumbag killer had gone out the bathroom window.”

“Shit.”

He nodded and took a drink of the new beer in front of him. “I got off a couple more shots as he fired up his bike and took off. There was blood all over the bathroom and parking lot, but I found out the day of my brother’s funeral that the fucker wasn’t dead, when another prostitute was murdered.”

“They knew it was him?”

“It was the same M.O.; she was strangled with a piece of yellow rope and her body was posed for the motel staff to find her the next day…but this time was different. He left his DNA in her, something he’d never done before. It was his ‘Fuck you, catch me if you can,’ in my opinion.”

“How did they catch him in the first place?”

Hunter chuckled. “He killed one girl that fought him like a tiger. There happened to be an undercover cop in the room next door, on a completely different assignment, and he heard the commotion. The cop caught him off-guard, which is probably the only reason the cop is still alive. Unfortunately, the girl was already dead. There had been another murder just a few nights before at a motel just up the road, same M.O. They charged him with both murders.”

“So, if the M.O. was the same, why wasn’t he charged with the other…what…dozen?”

“Different states, he was crossing state lines. If he hadn’t jumped bail, the Feds would have stepped in, and charged him with the rest. As it turned out, they stepped in afterwards and now they’re just a pain in my ass.”

“You never caught him?”

He sighed. “Not yet. But Dax’s brother-in-law, who is a good friend of my cousins, introduced me to Dax and over time, this club has made me an honorary member. Riding a bike and being affiliated with a club, especially this club, gets me into places I’d never been able to go before. I’ve been working with the Skulls for a little over a year now. I’ve learned a hell of a lot from these guys too, and I’ve brought in four fugitives with their help. I’ll cross paths with him again someday…” His eyes went dark once more and he added, “Neither God or Satan will be able to help him when I do.”

* * *

The kid with the huge brown eyes was about to ask Hunter another question when the prospect with the broom in his hand interrupted them. “Hey, Levi, Dax is asking for you.” Levi gave Hunter a nod and then slid off the stool and headed for Dax’s office. Hunter let his eyes roam the room, giving a wave or a nod at a few of the guys and finally letting them rest on one of the finest asses he’d ever seen. The ass belonged to one of the club girls named Tracy, and Hunter had been trying to get into those jeans for months. Tracy had the hots for one of the older guys in the club, but from what Hunter knew about the situation, he had an old lady and only tapped Tracy’s fine ass once a month or so. She’d turned Hunter down cold the first time he hit on her. He wasn’t used to being turned down, especially by the club girls. They loved him. Tracy had become a challenge, and he had the feeling he was wearing her down. He finished his beer and walked over where they were shooting pool.

“Hey, Hunter,” one of the girls said, looking him up and down like he was a piece of meat.

“Hey there, Lacey. Hi, Tracy.”

Tracy turned her dark eyes on him and smiled. “Hey, Hunter. You on the prowl tonight?”

“You looking to be prowled?”

She giggled. “Yeah, baby, but not by you. I’m sorry.”

Hunter stepped up close to her. He could smell the jasmine scent of her perfume and it made his cock jerk in his pants. “Come on, give me a chance. I can’t imagine that old dick of…”

“Shh!”

He rolled his eyes. “Everyone knows you’re ‘his’ side-chick.”

“We don’t talk about it, and his dick is not old. Trust me, it does the job.”

“Only ‘doing the job’ ain’t good enough for a fine-looking woman like yourself, Tracy. When are you going to realize that?”

She shook her head at him. “Every man thinks he’s going to do it so much better than the last one. I’m sorry, Hunter, but you’re all kind of the same.”

He chuckled. “That’s where you are Oh. So. Wrong. Give me a chance to prove it.” He saw her look around the great room and he knew he was wearing her down. She was scanning the room for anyone that might tell her old lover Rawhide that she was with him. Hunter wasn’t afraid of the old guy. Even though everyone in the club knew about him and Tracy, he liked to pretend that he was faithful to his old lady. Maybe it was part of some weird agreement they had. Hunter didn’t know and he didn’t care. He just wanted to fuck Tracy. She looked at him again and this time her tongue unconsciously traced her bottom lip. She was picturing it. “Tell you what,” he said in a whisper. “I have to go out to the shop and find a part for my bike while I’m waiting on Dax. How about you take a walk?”

She rolled her eyes, but scanned the room again. Hunter was sure she was about to give in. He winked at her and without another word headed out the front door of the clubhouse. He did need to find a new voltage regulator for his bike and Dax had given him free rein over the parts room. If she didn’t show up, it wouldn’t be a wasted trip out to the shop. If she did…she would need a voltage regulator for that hot body of hers by the time he was finished.