HUNGRY EYES

 

The Covenant

 

Gwendolyn Casey

 

Copyright © 2017

 

 

 

Chapter One

 

Xander

I looked down at the man at my feet and wondered how he got a name like Stud. I assumed it was a nickname since it was tattooed onto his neck in big black letters. But he was dirty, skinny, and his face was nothing special. He was also an addict who was so far gone the inside of his arms looked like crisscrossing train tracks.

Maybe he had charisma that attracted the ladies. Or maybe the tattoo was wishful thinking on his part. 

But it didn’t matter anymore. Stud was dead. He was lying on his kitchen floor with three stab wounds in the stomach and a chef’s knife jutting out of his chest.

“Give me a hand, Xander,” Ajax said from behind me. I turned and helped him unfold a plastic tarp and lay it on the floor. Ajax walked over to the other side of the body and gave me a chin lift. “You wrap him up and I’ll get the floor.” 

I nodded, not at all surprised. Ajax was a six-foot, hard-ass biker with the look of a mountain man, complete with a thick brown beard, hulking frame, and mean-looking face. But dead bodies gave him the creeps. 

I didn’t mind the bodies so much. When you were a member of a one-percenter motorcycle club, gruesome jobs were expected.

While the Wraiths had been known to take a few lives, this wasn’t our doing. We were just hired to clean up the mess. From the looks of it, this was a drug deal that dissolved into a death fight and the winner called us.

Our club brother, Dexter, did the research before we arrived and found out that Stud had no family and a criminal record that pointed to a dozen different people who had an excuse to kill him, none of which was our client.

I pulled on my gloves and made sure my jumpsuit was zipped to the top before I carried Stud to the plastic. The knife came out easily and I made quick work of undressing him and bagging his blood-stained garments. I had everything ready by the time Ajax was done cleaning the floor. After that, we both started collecting Stud’s clothes and personal items. We wanted to make it look like he left in a hurry. 

Once the apartment was ready, we loaded the body into our van and drove toward the suburbs. There was a new development on the west side of town where new houses were being built every day. Luckily, we found a lot where the excavators had dug the hole but the foundation had not been poured yet. 

Forty-five minutes later, Stud was buried and we were climbing back in the van. I’d check back tomorrow to make sure the foundation was poured, sealing Stud into the ground for a long time.

“After we clean up, want to grab a slice?” Ajax asked after he started the engine.

“Yeah,” I said and then remained quiet for the drive to the clubhouse.

The Wraiths’ clubhouse was a large house on the south side of Lockwood. It sat at the back of a large junkyard that the club owned.

After we parked in the garage, we showered and changed our clothes, bagging our jumpsuits and boots. We grabbed the rest of Stud’s stuff and threw it into the incinerator along with our bags to finish the job.

We climbed on our bikes and headed into town. Lockwood was a small city in southwest Wyoming. Our chapter of the Wraiths had been around since the seventies and was an institution in this town. We owned the junkyard, a strip joint, and a bike shop with a tattoo parlor. Those were the legal side of things. The Wraiths also specialized in transportation and distribution of certain products as well as our clean-up services. Gambling and illegal fights were good payers, too.

Ajax and I pulled up to Romero’s a few minutes later. Everyone glanced at us as we entered the restaurant, but quickly looked away. That was how it was around here. The Wraiths had a reputation to be feared. 

Ajax chose a booth near the door and called out to Suzy. “Two beers and a supreme.”

“Yeah,” the middle-aged waitress said back, used to the Wraiths’ making rude demands.

Ajax rubbed his face, looking exhausted. “When we’re done here, I want to get laid,” he said.

I just nodded. I’d follow his lead, but I wasn’t in the mood for random pussy tonight. In fact, I hadn’t been in the mood for a while. I’d been feeling restless lately. Every night felt like watching a re-run—the same girls, the same fights, the same grumbles.

Jackson, our president, had mentioned opening a chapter in California and hinted that I could be the new sergeant at arms. I had been excited for the move. California would be a new challenge, but it’s been a year and Jackson hasn’t mentioned it lately. Maybe the plan fell through or was on hold. Either way, I was fucking depressed about it.

I heard the door chime behind me and then I saw Ajax’s eyes light up as he spotted something over my shoulder.

“What do you think of them?” he said with a chin lift.

I turned to watch two young women walk to a booth on the opposite wall. I felt my heart speed up suddenly. Both women were beautiful, but only one was my kind of beauty. She had the body of a pinup girl with a small waist and great curves. Fair skin, high cheekbones, and large blue eyes that gave her the face of an angel. While her friend had dressed up in a modest skirt and tank top, this girl had no makeup, wore only a t-shirt and jeans, and her blonde hair was in a French braid that fell over her shoulder. The entire look said innocent and shy.

Both girls looked around nervously, as if they were looking for someone to give them permission to sit. “I think they’re from Grady,” I told Ajax.

“Makes sense. I’ve never seen them before and they definitely look sheltered.”

Grady was a small town to the north of Lockwood that was very religious. From what I heard, it was a form of Mormonism, but I was never sure. I never cared. I only stepped foot into Grady once and it was for a clean-up job, a rather gruesome one, to be honest. I still felt a little sick whenever I thought about it.

But now I was curious.  I wanted to know everything about this girl. I wanted to know where she comes from and how she thinks. I wanted to know her secrets, her dreams. I wanted to know how she felt under my hands and what my name sounded like when she moaned it in pleasure.

As I continued to stare, my beauty turned her head and our eyes met. It was like a flash of light in the darkness. So much splendor and innocence in one glance. I wanted more of it.

Her gaze shifted away quickly, but not before I noticed a look of hunger blaze for just a moment.

I felt my muscles tense like they were ready to move. That one look was just begging me to go over there and claim her, and not gently. It would be fast and rough. 

“Want to give them a try?” Ajax said when he saw I was still staring. 

Yes, I thought immediately, but wondered if it was right to pursue a girl who was so obviously innocent.

Just then, she glanced my way again and blushed.

Fuck the right thing.

I looked at Ajax. “Let’s do it.”