Chapter 5
Thorn
It had been two days since Church was last held, and none of the guys had come up with an idea we could use to make the club “go legit.” Neither had I, so I couldn’t just blame them alone. All our heads were wrecked.
I’d spent the past two days thinking over every possible way out, but my mind kept coming back to the same. We needed to get Enzo and the others out of prison as quickly as we could. We needed to sort this shit out.
But first, before we could do that; I needed a break, from Pomona; where we were based. I needed to get away from the club and my brothers because everybody was in a bad mood. I needed to clear my head, so I could start thinking straight again. Enzo was right, we had to focus on keeping the club on track, but I just couldn’t find a way to do that.
It was a Saturday, and all the members of the club were drinking at our bar. Feeling frustrated, I jumped on my bike and rode till I hit downtown LA with all its traffic. Within fifteen minutes of being stuck on the 110, I was already cursing myself and my decision to ride out here. When I saw a discreet bar in the corner, I swerved my bike, parked it at the door and stormed in with helmet in hand.
This was definitely not one of my usual haunts. It seemed to be a swanky uptown place that was full of LA hipsters and people who went out with friends so that they could have their pictures taken together. At the point, I didn’t care though. I needed a drink.
I walked past a group of women who were gathered together so they could take a selfie. I shook my head as I walked towards the bar. More curses followed. I shouldn’t have left Pomona in the first place. I should have stuck with what I knew and where I felt comfortable. This was not the sort of place for me.
I sat down at the bar and ordered a neat whiskey. I glared at the bartender so he would hurry up, and also because I knew I was already getting a lot of looks from people because I was dressed differently from them.
The guy handed me my glass, and I gulped it down in one swig. I slammed the glass down on the bar and looked up at the bartender with bleary eyes.
“Hit me again,” I hissed at him like it was a threat. The guy went scurrying away to pour me another one, when from the corner of my eye; I sensed someone looking at me.
I looked over to my side, to see a beautiful woman, perched on one of the bar stools. She was sitting several feet away from me, out of my earshot. I had caught her looking, and at that moment, the tops of her cheeks had gone red, and she quickly looked away from me.
There was no denying that she was blazing hot. My eyes traveled from her face, down her body, to her neatly crossed long legs as she sat. She was wearing fashionable black leather boots which she casually swung. I could see that she was trying hard to pretend like she didn’t know I was looking at her.
She had perfectly sized luscious breasts, stretching the thin fabric of her flimsy blouse. Her arms were long and slender and bare. At her wrists were copper colored bangles, and they tinkled together as she moved her hand to pick up her martini glass.
I followed her every movement. The way her dark lips smacked against the edge of the glass, how some strands of her spun-gold hair fell over her forehead as she took a sip. She was a fucking Goddess and I was the last man she would ever go for.
I looked away from her, and just in time because my second drink had arrived. The bartender hung around in front of me like he was hoping I would give him the nod of approval. I took a sip of my whiskey slowly this time, and I gave one nod to the guy. It was his queue to walk away, which he did and I was left alone again.
I hadn’t looked back at the woman yet. She was hot stuff, and on any other night, I would have walked over to her and hoped that she’d follow me to the bathroom stalls in the back. Tonight, however, I had too much on my mind. I had the club to worry about, and Enzo and my brothers in prison.
The fact that four of my brothers were dead now was a thought that I had pushed way back in my head. I couldn’t mourn their deaths just yet, not properly anyway. This shit we were in right now, had to be sorted out first.
Running my hand furiously through my hair, I tried to concentrate on the drink in my hand and ideas for our club to get away from the ATF heat.
I must have gotten myself pretty lost in my own thoughts because I hadn’t noticed when a guy had walked up to the woman I’d been drooling over minutes ago. It was only when I heard his loud voice some distance away from me that I looked over and saw him.
He seemed like a native in these surroundings, and perhaps the perfect match for this glamorous woman. He was flirting with her, and the more I looked, the more I couldn’t decide if she was flirting back. Either way, I had spent a good few minutes staring at them talking, and it was then that I realized that I was actually jealous.
I hadn’t even spoken to her. I had barely even looked at her, and yet somehow, as she spoke to this other guy, I could feel rage and jealousy pumping through my veins.