FOURTEEN
The Velvet Lounge
Seven
For the first time in a long time, the house was quiet. Lucky and the rest of Glory MC had gone to Ward Three on some dangerous trip that would put them face to face with the Phantoms.
Glory. Guns. Fighting.
I pushed the thoughts out of my head. I wasn’t naïve to think that Glory MC hadn’t found themselves involved in dangerous situations before. However, this part of the MC lifestyle scared the shit out of me. Some people I considered friends were having bullets fired at them.
Despite the fact that I was still angry at Lucky, I would rather be the one he was fighting. With my poor aim, at least he’d have a chance.
Once the alliance with Ward Three was made, it didn’t take long for word to spread. While it explained Lucky’s inquiry about the food shortage, I had to admit, I was still surprised.
Seeing two clubs come together wasn’t something you saw often, especially when they were former enemies. But it seemed like Glory MC was willing to take some risks in order to shut the Phantoms down. I only hoped that whatever they did now while in Ward Three didn’t backfire on them. The club wouldn’t be able to recuperate from such heavy losses like the last time.
The workday had gone on relatively smoothly. G’s anger had settled for the most part. However, it seemed that no matter what adjustments we made to the factory, the truth of the matter was, business was declining. People were going without textiles to use their credits on food. You couldn’t blame them though. People had to eat.
But I could understand G’s growing frustration. The company was experiencing a major setback. The hard work he’d put into this wasn’t enough to keep it afloat on its own. What did that mean for my position if the business sunk?
Today at work, a strange sense came over me. I felt anxiety like I’ve never before. In the beginning, I wrote it off as fatigue and lack of sleep. Yet the feeling didn’t abate as the hours drew on and the workers left one by one to go home. In fact, as more and more people left, the unease built.
This feeling of distress followed me home. Without the comfort of knowing that someone else was in the house, every little creak or bump made me jumpy. It was made even worse when the day closed to an end, the night submerging the world into darkness. That was when my paranoia crept up a notch.
To distract myself, I baked. Using the last of the dark chocolate that Trey had given me, I made chocolate brownies. For the time it took me to make them, my mind eased. But as the brownies cooled, the sense of uncertainly crept back into my body like a cancerous disease. Fear chilled me.
The anxiety only seemed to get worse as the nights wore on. Nightmares plagued me, vivid in their intensity.
I was being held down. The man moving inside of me groaned as he flexed his hips, snapping us back together. I cried out as his hands moved to my breasts, kneading them while he bent to spread kisses down my neck. “Dirty, little slut,” he said in a half moan, half growl. “You like that cock?”
His mouth came down on mine, swallowing my cry. And then his thrusts became punishing, driving deeper, nearly splitting me in two. I took it all, not fighting even when I wanted to. After all, that was what you had to do if you wanted to be paid after.
Recalling the dream caused sweat to break out on my skin. A feeling of sickness nearly had me rushing to the toilet to throw up, but I managed to hold it back, reminding myself that it was just a dream. A distant memory that I had survived.
Yet my gut still told me something was wrong. I felt it in the street market that day. And also the other night with all those weird phones calls. That strange sense that something was already happening, and I still didn’t know what it was.
I wrapped myself in a wool blanket, feeling a shiver make a path through my body despite the humidity outside.
Sometimes, even when you thought you had grown out of your fears, it was hard to determine if you had really ripped out the weeds of your past from the root or if they were still lingering beneath, just waiting to ruin the new life you cultivated for yourself.
Lucky
Lack of sleep and the heat was turning me into one cranky motherfucker. Even Beck seemed friendlier than I was at the moment.
“Wakey, wakey,” Hastie sang. “Got another place to blow up.”
Cracking an eye open, I gave him a droll look. “Where is this piece of news coming from now? Because your previous source didn’t seem very reliable the last time,” I said, referring to yesterday’s events.
After realizing that the vehicle wasn’t going to make it, Zeb and I had to help bring it back. We couldn’t just leave it out there for anyone to pick up. By the time we returned to Ward Three’s clubhouse, we were drenched in sweat and covered in sand, our muscles aching and shaky from the exertion. My phone revealed that I had missed a call. It was Lennon. She had left a message on my voicemail saying that she would be in Ward Four by the end of the week. I could only hope that the search for the Phantoms would be over by then.
“Shut up and suit up,” the prez of Glory barked.
Groaning, I rose like a ninety-year-old grandma with a hip problem and got geared up. Zeb turned the corner just as I walked through the door and shot me a grin. “Hey, partner!”
“I’m not ready for another ride with you.” Especially not after yesterday.
He laughed, clapping a hand on my shoulder. “Relax, we’re riding our Harleys today.”
That eased me. My shoulders, and especially my injured leg from the accident, were still aching from it. “Where the hell are we heading to?”
There was a special glint in Zeb’s eye as he answered, “The Velvet Lounge.”
“The Velvet Lounge?” Why did that name sound familiar?
“Come on.” He gave me a hard push. “You’ll love it.”
An hour later, I was crammed behind a steel dumpster in an alley parallel to a heavily lit building, staring up at the neon flashing sign out front. I turned to Zeb. “A titty bar?” I whispered angrily. “Why the fuck would the Phantoms hide here, right in plain sight?”
The Velvet Lounge was one of the few establishments on the street that was still in business in this seedy neighborhood. Despite the deserted strip, there was a crowd loitering outside. I knew some of them had to be pimps or dealers.
Zeb cackled at my expression, which caused several of the other men to laugh as well. “Hey, we’re just following a lead here.” He stepped in beside me, grinning like a Cheshire cat. “But after a long-ass fucking day like yesterday, makes you want to invade that little hole, doesn’t it?” He peered into one of the windows of the building, getting an eyeful of what booty lay inside.
I shook my head at the double meaning to his words. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” I lifted my pistol and brought the bandana up to cover my face. A raid was one thing, but a raid with innocent people around would make it that much harder. “Fine, let’s do this.”
Knuckle was at the front, armed to the teeth and holding up a hand. A finger lifted as he counted to three. One . . . two . . . three!
We approached on light feet. By the cuts on our backs, it was easy to identify us even if our faces were covered with bandanas. One man with dark greased-back hair caught sight of us, dropped his cigarette and darted inside. The others around him scattered like rodents into the night.
While the crowd buzzed with confusion, we stormed in. “Get down!” Kitt roared. The working women, clad in nothing but G-strings and pasties, screamed in terror as they hit the ground.
We split up as their security came at us. Our aim was to get in, find the Phantoms, and get out, with minimal casualties if we could help it. We weren’t here to make a mess of Ward Three by shooting down everyone that stood in our way. But it seemed that sometimes force was necessary.
The rest of us stormed the private rooms upstairs. If the Phantoms were here, they’d likely want to keep out of people’s way.
Bronson began kicking down the doors, searching each room quickly before moving onto the next one. Squeaks of surprise sounded, followed by curses. None of them were the Phantoms we were looking for though.
Men and women, both in various states of undress, ran out screaming from the rooms as we continued our search. Farther down the hall, Hastie kicked in the door to the last private room. “Hands up, motherfucker!”
The sounds of women screaming had me rushing to him, Bronson following quickly behind me. What I saw would have made me laugh if adrenaline wasn’t already coursing through my body.
A man stood in the center of the room with his pants down at his ankles while three women pressed themselves against the furthest wall. “That’s gotta suck,” Bronson muttered from behind me. His blowjob had gotten cut short.
“What the fuck?” the man cursed. A flash of a firearm appeared right before he shot at us. I ducked, swerving to hide behind the door. Hastie’s cry of pain had me ducking back in to find him fighting the man as he tried to disarm him. On his side, blood seeped out from under his cut.
Down at the other end of the hall, the man with the greased-back hair we saw earlier froze when he spotted us. “That’s one of them,” Bronson growled. He must’ve come to warn his friend about us, but he was too late.
“Get him,” I barked and Bronson took off as the guy zipped out of there.
Shit. I sure as hell hoped that Angel and the rest of the prospects were outside, surrounding the place so that anyone who tried to leave could be stopped.
A loud cry brought me back to myself. I swung back into the private room, pistol aimed high to find Hastie still brawling with the other Phantom member.
His pistol had been knocked out of his hand, but he still had a hold on Hastie and was now smashing his face into a wall. The three women screamed as blood splattered upon impact.
Normally, I wouldn’t intervene in another man’s fight, but I jumped into action when a gleam of a knife appeared in the motherfucker’s hand. I shot him once in the leg and grabbed the fucker from behind, throwing him onto the couch where the ladies were.
They scrambled away from him, no longer wanting to touch him now that he was covered in blood and wielding a knife. After righting himself, the man charged me again, this time getting a good hit in my ribs. Damn, how did he manage to move so fast even after being shot?
The next hit threw me off balance and I crashed into the pole that stood in the middle of the room. “You’re still a fucking kid,” he snarled as he pinned me down, taking a hold of my shirt and punching me again in the face. “Knuckle can’t find men to do his dirty work anymore?”
Despite the blood seeping from my eye, I managed to overtake him, pinning him down now, just as he’d done with me. “I do my own dirty work,” I said as I decked him hard.
The scuffle seemed to go on forever, neither of us willing to give up as we traded blows. All this time, Hastie was slow to get up. Christ, did the bullet hurt him severely?
I was thrown on my back again, receiving another series of blows to my face and torso. Breath whooshed out of my lungs with that last hit to my chest. If I didn’t end this soon, both of us would resemble tenderized meat.
The glint of his knife on the floor caught my attention. Reaching for it, my fingers curled around the blade before I struck deep, feeling the sickening wetness coat my fingers. Surprise widened his eyes before he gasped out in pain. I rammed the knife in deeper, pushing him off me as he flopped to the ground.
A second later, I was by Hastie’s side. “You all right, man?”
“Fucker shot me,” he groaned as he removed his hand from the wound on his side. Shiny liquid coated it. This wasn’t good. “But at least it only grazed me. The hit to the head is what’s killing me.”
“You might have a concussion.”
When Knuckle and Beck appeared, rushing to Hastie, I focused my attention on the women. “How many of the Phantoms were here tonight?”
Confusion marred all their heavily made-up faces, but it was the blonde who answered now. “The Phantoms?”
I canted my head at the body, the pool of blood around it increasing. “Men like him.”
“O-only two tonight,” she said. “Him and another one. Dark hair, always slicked back.”
“What about other nights?”
The brunette shook her head. “They come to fuck, that’s it. They don’t linger for long after.”
I nodded and looked away, sniffling as I felt a trickle of blood run down my face to my lip. I wiped it away with a hand. “Apart from getting off, do they talk to anyone else around here?”
The girl covered her chest with her arms, folding into herself. “No. No one.”
“All right.” That was enough. Until we could get them to calm down, they wouldn’t be able to provide us with anything. “Go on. Get out of here.” They all remained rooted in place, eyes shiny with tears. Fuck, this was exactly what I didn’t want to happen. I had no doubt they would relive tonight in their dreams. “Go home.” They leaped into action, running past me as I dabbed gently at my bloody nose. The front of my vest was covered in blood, but I paid no mind as Bronson appeared at the door.
“We lost him,” he said, his breath catching.
“Fuck.” I turned to Hastie who was being helped up by his father and Beck. I had just killed the only possible lead we had.
Seven
“Thanks for a great night. I had a lot of fun.”
Earlier that evening, Trey had called, asking me if I had any plans tonight. Since I had spent the last twenty minutes trying not to freak myself out, I decided that a night out was the perfect distraction to my anxiety. Being alone was much too terrifying and within a few minutes, Trey was outside my door, looking entirely too delicious in his black jeans and gray T-shirt.
We spent the night at a club, drinking and dancing my anxiety away. It felt good to just let loose, allowing myself to enjoy a moment of absolute freedom. The alcohol was effective in getting me to forget all about my unease.
“Oh no you don’t,” Trey said, the corner of his lips tipping up as he stopped me from opening the door of his pickup. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily this time.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that I’m not going home without kissing you tonight.”
“Oh.” Well, I supposed that was all right, considering this was our second “date.”
Trey groaned.“You are killing me tonight, you know that?” He dropped his head, winding his arms around my waist as he pushed me up against his pickup truck.
I laughed. “How?”
“You just are. How many men offered to buy you a drink tonight? It had to be at least twenty. At least. Drives me crazy that they look at you like that.” His hand explored my waist, a thumb slipping beneath the edge of my blouse to graze across my skin. “Makes me love everything about you. The way you look. The way you feel. What do you taste like?”
“A lot like tequila,” I said on a laugh, thinking of all the shots I had earlier.
“Sounds delicious,” he murmured before capturing my mouth.
Trey liked to nibble and bite. Lucky’s kisses, however, made you feel marked. Trey groaned as he popped the buttons of my top open, revealing the fact that I hadn’t worn a bra underneath. “Can you feel what you’re doing to me?” Grabbing my hand, he brought it to meet his hardening erection through his jeans. He was hot to the touch, already blazing from just one kiss. “Let me take you home, angel.”
Two dates into my first attempt at something steady and already Trey was pushing for sex. I don’t know why this bothered me. I’d slept with men after meeting them for five minutes before. But since Lucky’s last words to me, it got me thinking: Did men only see sex when they looked at me?
I wasn’t naïve to think that the men who tried to pick me up tonight were looking for something more than a distraction for a night. But didn’t it seem odd that they were trying to snag someone who clearly was with someone already?
“Come on. Get in,” Trey said as he pulled away from me and opened the door to his pickup. After sliding in and starting the engine, he looked over to me. “You okay with this?”
Trey was hardly the worst person to go home with. He was proving to be better than all of the men I’d been with in the past. He was always kind and caring. Not anything like the men inside who would try to put their moves on anything set in their path.
But even as Trey drove me to his apartment, pushed me back on the bed, and stripped the clothes from my body, I still found myself wondering if I was okay with this.