CHAPTER 19
MAYA
Five days ago, I was reminded how human I really am. Axle brought up memories I’d rather not think of. Ever again.
Then he fucked me until I suppressed them again, which was definitely appreciated.
Four days ago, we spent most of the day in bed, still forgetting the past, both of us using the other to do that with.
Three days ago, there was a rowdy party. Axle went down for about an hour. I peeked out, but when I saw him chatting with Drex, Dash, and Jude, I decided to stay in the room. It didn’t take long for him to join me for the rest of the night.
Which was a surprise, but then it involved a lot of being naked, so I shouldn’t have been too surprised.
Two days ago, Axle found me a whole new set of expendable goons to do my bidding. Well, he found me numerous candidates, and I spent the day sorting through the files to find the ones that would work. And I set up the new deal, paying them via wire transfer, and only giving them a burner number to text. They only know my stage name—Tyler Loyd—and what to do.
Pictures are required, and then my actual guy—one of my Family’s loyalists—takes over once the girls reach the dock. He’s the only Blackbird member they deal with in person, and no one knows who he is. Blackbird is not tied to this operation. At least, not officially.
One day ago, Axle left for most of the day, and I spent the bulk of the day on the phone making private calls to the other heads of the Families, filling them in on everything, then talking down Carlisle when he wanted to fly down and just blow the place to hell.
Fortunately, he’s only a co-head, and not a full head. His sister—Kendra—sided with the rest of us mostly sane ones, reminding him that it’s not the middle east and we can’t just go to war like we own the country.
Today, Axle is wrapped around me, his body tangled with mine. Since he’s not a cuddler, I’m betting on him freaking out and jerking away when he wakes up. We sort of fell asleep after the shower we took two hours ago…because I’ve awoken the beast.
Axle is a lot of pent-up sexual frustration, and he’s unleashing it on me. I love it, even if my vagina is begging for a break.
He never holds me after sex. Never does any of the sweet shit I didn’t think I wanted.
But I sort of want at least a little sweet shit, damn it.
This is the sweetest thing that’s happened, and it happened by accident while we were asleep.
As predicted, the second he wakes up, he stiffens, probably realizing just how entangled we are.
“Spooning won’t give you cancer, you know,” I quip when he starts to move. “I’m almost positive it won’t cause heart disease, either.”
He grunts, and I expect him to pull away, but instead, he slides his arms around my waist a little tighter, resting his face in the crook of my neck from behind me.
A slow smile spreads over my lips, and I test the waters, sliding my fingers over his. He doesn’t move away, and I think I sigh. Pretty sure it’s a dreamy sigh, too.
“We’re supposed to be getting ready for the strip club,” he mumbles against my neck.
“Yeah. I’d hate to miss seeing a girl with all the same body parts I have as she gets naked in front of you. Sounds like a prize of a night. Sharp objects should probably be left behind for the safety of others.”
I almost pinch myself when he laughs. Axle laughs. He knows how!
It’s a quiet, barely-there rumble, but it totally counts as a laugh.
He doesn’t say anything, so I take it upon myself to fill the silence. “Does Eve not get pissed at Drex for letting another naked girl rub all over him? And does she not get pissed that he pays her to do it?”
Another small rumble of laughter has me squirming. It’s a really sexy sound. I’m not sure why my body is acting as sex-starved as his.
“No one dances on Drex anymore. He usually fucks Eve somewhere in the club. It’s just where we do our business, and we need to put in an appearance from time to time. It’s also one of our businesses where we clean our money. Speaking of which, thought you wanted us to do a job.”
I yawn, nestling into him a little farther. “I do want you to do a job. But can I make a suggestion?”
I feel him shrug.
“You lost all your money from five accounts very recently. So…don’t clean the money. I’ll pay in cash, as you should ask all your clients to do for a while, and then you should put all the money in different safes between all of you. You can run your business with dirty cash on the down-low.”
He shifts, and I fall onto my back as his face hovers over mine, taking me in with a curious expression.
“Why?”
Reaching up, I let my finger trace the scar on his lip. He doesn’t flinch away. Instead, he leans in to the touch like he can’t get enough. I really like a loosened up Axle. It’s my favorite new thing to enjoy.
“Someone could easily figure out what happens to the money if they know the legit businesses you use to launder it. And someone inside the club might have told Herrin when it was laundered. You put the money in separate safes without telling anyone outside your circle—not even Eve—where it is, and no one will touch it. Then, you’ll wait on someone to start asking questions. This is the long game—the waiting game. The person who knows you’re bringing in money but can’t figure out where you’re cleaning it will start asking questions. Discreetly at first. Then they’ll start nosing a little harder.”
He shakes his head. “Herrin had our accounts hacked,” he tells me like he’s arguing.
“And he’d need to know what accounts to hack,” I volley. “You have leaks. This is a solid way to flush this particular one out.”
His gaze sweeps over my face, like he’s taking me in, and it finally settles on my lips. I know what that means, and I’m smiling like it’s the first time again.
“I’ll tell Drex,” he answers.
“Right now?” I ask, worrying he’s about to leave without one more round.
His lips tilt up in that devastatingly perfect grin he never shows for long, but as always, it’s gone before I can truly appreciate it.
“Right now, I have to go to a strip club. You really won’t go with me?”
It sounds like he actually wants me to go, and that’s seriously tempting. But I’m crazy. I might go crazy jealous if any girl gets too close to him right now. I totally can’t be trusted to keep my composure. And they don’t need that drama.
Not to mention, it’s not wise for me to risk the exposure. Halo is crawling with Lathan’s goons. And while Phillip isn’t stupid enough to expose our identities, he’d likely have some of his close inner circle with him who know who we are.
“I’m sure,” I say with a one-shoulder shrug.
He drags his lips across my shoulder before he pushes up and climbs off the bed. I take every opportunity to admire his body, so I watch with shameless abandon as he gets dressed.
As soon as he’s finished—which is like five minutes later—he picks up his phone and texts someone.
“Eve isn’t going tonight,” he tells me as though I’ve asked. “She’s working at the shop. Wants to know if you want to hang with her and Drake.”
I don’t respond right away, but finally nod after I think about it. I guess it’d be good to get out for a while and avoid cabin fever.
I dress quickly while he continues to text. I half wonder if he’s texting Eve, and ignore the unimportant twinge of jealousy. See? I’m not completely sane.
Axle walks out first, and I lock the door behind me as I follow him. Lots of bikers are down below, but none of them check me out anymore. Pretty sure that has something to do with Axle knocking that one guy out.
Or the fact Axle normally doesn’t have a girl around, which makes me different than the usual fling they suppose the others have.
I like that.
If they knew who I was, it’s unlikely any of them would be suicidal enough to touch me.
As soon as we’re down the stairs, Axle’s arm drops around my shoulders and he steers me out of the warehouse. I’m not sure when he started touching me like this so easily, but I like it.
It’s a taste of normal. I’ve never had a guy brave enough to touch me in public. My father was always…a tad overprotective. Smitty has taken over that role nowadays.
Just as he starts to guide me into the tattoo parlor, a loud motor revs, drawing my attention.
It all seems to happen in slow motion.
I see the guy on the motorcycle seconds before I notice the gun in his hand, or hear the loud boom that echoes off the walls of the alley. My heartbeat drums in my ears as I feel myself falling, realizing belatedly that Axle has just shoved me down.
He comes down on top of me as an unbidden cry leaves my lips, forced out of me from the pain shooting through my hands and knees. His heavy weight pins me down as loud gunfire deafens me, sounding too close to my ears.
The guy on the motorcycle jerks, his gun falling as more gunfire registers. It takes me a second to piece together the fact he’s being shot.
He falls off the bike, obviously dead by now, but they don’t stop shooting. I don’t even know who they are, other than Axle, who is shooting his damn gun right above me, his body still pinning mine down.
All at once, the gunfire stops, or at least I think it does. My ears are ringing from being too close to the action in such a closed off area, so I could just be momentarily deaf.
It feels like a mountain lifts off my back when Axle pushes up to his feet. Air rushes into me as I take a big, much needed breath, and roll onto my back, wincing when I feel a sharp pain in my side.
Axle bends, his face hard and his jaw tight, as he grabs me under the arms and lifts me to my feet. As soon as I’m standing, his eyes rake over me in quiet appraisal, as the flurry of footsteps racing around dimly register to my temporarily impaired hearing.
I hiss out a breath of pain when his hand touches a tender spot on my face. Sheesh. I’m going to need to take inventory, but at least there aren’t any bullet holes in me.
That has me patting down my body and looking at my side that hurts. I breathe out in relief to see my shirt is just torn and the abrasions are left behind from the pavement and not a bullet.
“Just superficial stuff,” I tell Axle as he bends, getting a closer look at my side.
My eyes dart to his arm, and a sick knot tightens in my belly when I see the ripped material there and the blood trickling from his shoulder.
“You were shot!”
He bats my hands away when I try to take a look, but I’m persistent. Blowing out a breath of frustration, he lets me look closer at it.
“Just a graze,” he finally says.
I look at him like he’s an idiot. Technically, it is considered a graze. But it’s a big freaking graze from a damn bullet!
“You need stitches. And some hardcore germ-killing stuff. And antibiotics—”
“You two hit?” Drex’s voice has me snapping my head to the right as he walks up, his eyes hard and lethal.
“We’re fine. Where’s Eve?” Axle asks him, his hand moving to the back of my neck like he needs to make sure I don’t plan to walk off.
“She and Drake are inside.”
They both look down the alleyway as Drex calls out, “Get that cleaned up before the cops roll in. They’ll give us ten minutes before they send a black-and-white.”
The guys at the end walk into the garage, and back out, emerging with bleach, a tarp, and some garden hoses. They begin spraying away the blood before two guys even get the body rolled into the tarp.
Another guy starts splashing around the bleach, and they continue to spray the water, cleaning away the evidence of a dead guy. But there are plenty of bullet casings to prove something happened.
My guess is that the cops don’t really ask too many questions as long as there’s not a body present.
At least that’s how it works at home. Then again, at home, we could have four bodies strung up and there’d still be no questions.
“It was Garren,” Drex tells Axle quietly.
I idly notice the Death Dealer cut they’ve pulled off the guy and tossed to the side.
“Herrin sent him on a suicide mission.” Axle’s response is just as quiet as Drex’s, and I wonder if I’m not supposed to be listening.
Hell, I’m just happy that my hearing seems to be okay again.
“Pop was just sending a message,” Drex says. His jaw clenches so hard the muscle along the jawline actually jumps.
“Yeah, and the message is that he can come at us any time.”
“Or that he’s not afraid to come after you,” I point out, then clap my lips shut when Axle shoots me a look I don’t particularly like.
“Herrin is definitely afraid,” Axle tells me. “He’s just a coward who plays like he’s fearless. It’s easy to sentence someone else to death. If he wasn’t a coward, he’d have already rolled up in here himself and opened fire.”
I say nothing. I have a healthy relationship with fear and self-preservation, but I’m not a coward. I still don’t handle the grunt work on my own. It’s just not the civilized manner of handling things back home. You have guys for that. You have reach for a reason.
But apparently things work differently with them.
“I say we send a message of our own.” The new voice startles me, and I look over my shoulder to see Jude standing there.
Holy crap, that look is scary. He’s too pretty to be so scary.
“I’m in agreement with that,” Drex says, a cold smile on his lips. “We’ll hit the club afterwards.”
He turns and walks over to the tattoo parlor, and I bite back the questions I want to ask and the advice I want to give. It’s a great show of disrespect to any organization for a guest to butt in and start getting nosy or too helpful. It’s also suspicious.
I’m sick of suspicion.
I’ve already overstepped by telling Axle not to launder their money for a while.
“You two get inside the warehouse and lock up. We’re going to go make some noise,” Drex is saying as Eve walks out and into his awaiting arms.
I sort of envy how easily they seem to fit together, and remember not to ever be jealous of her again. Even if she wasn’t obviously in love with Drex, Axle wouldn’t ever do anything to fuck up his friendship with Drex.
I watch as he kisses the top of her head, and find myself leaning back on Axle. “Should I be worried about you watching D?” Axle asks, drawing me out of my thoughts.
The dead guy is gone when I glance over, and I turn to face my favorite brooder as I frown.
“I know you’re not being serious, so I’ll skip over that rhetorical question. What I would like is for you to tell me that making some noise and delivering a message is you two banging on some war drums and not blowing something up or putting yourself at risk for more gunfire.”
His eyebrows go up, and he opens his mouth to speak.
Just to be clear, I add, “Lie to me, Axle. Right now, just lie to me.”
Something in his eyes softens, but as usual, he hides any expression behind a blank veil the second he shows too much. The guy loves his mysterious factor.
“We’ll be banging on drums and completely safe,” he lies.
Taking a shaky breath, I nod in gratitude, and turn to walk back to the warehouse that is safer than the tattoo parlor. Just as I reach the door, he spins me around, and his lips come down on mine, surprising me.
The only time he kisses me in front of the others is when he’s making a point of claiming me or something just as barbaric as that. But this…this is how he kisses me when it’s just the two of us.
It’s real, and it’s almost desperate. It always feels so desperate, as though he’s making sure to soak it all in before it goes away. I do the same.
He pulls back, his eyes intensely on mine as he straightens to his full, very tall height.
“I’ll let you know when we’re finished banging on the drums,” he says in that sex-gravel voice of his.
A full breath of relief comes out. “Thank you.”
He hesitates for a second, his gaze shifting over my face like he’s trying to get inside my head, but then turns around and heads to the open hangar. I walk inside, pretending like I’m not already staring at my phone and waiting for this night to be over.
It’s a hell of a lot harder to be on this side of things. I’m used to being the one calling the shots, or at least weighing in on what shots get called.
Now I’m sidelined because I’m on someone else’s team, and it sucks because I have no control over Axle’s fate.
Maybe he should join my crew and leave all this behind so I can keep him safe.