A Leap in the Dark (Assassins of Youth MC Book 2) (6 page)

“Oh, I
am
so glad! And you know what? You’re welcome to come here and visit any time you want. I’ll see if I can keep an open room for you, depending on how many other Lost Boys join me here.”

“Well, I got to be honest, Deloy. I hope not too many other boys join you, because then I’d be out of work, too. And I’m here because I’ve got a wild hare to do some investing down here.”

“Investing? Ooh, do tell. There are all kinds of business possibilities down here. The Assassins of Youth practically run the Chamber of Commerce.”

After that, I sort of stopped listening. Levon Rockwell, apparently the star of my wildest fantasies, was standing not fifteen feet away on the other side of my door.

Son of a motherless goat,
as Mahalia always said.

Then who had busted into my room, leering at me while I came?

Okay. Okay. Okay. Get a grip.
I had to go out there nonchalantly and see if anyone said anything. Then I could laugh it off lightly. But first, I was going to put on a better shirt. Who cared if it was the sweater I had worn to Liberty Temple—

“Oaklyn?” Levon was rapping on my door. “Are you decent?”

Hell
no
I wasn’t decent! I was standing there in my bra, a sweatshirt in one hand, a dirty sweater in the other! “Hang on,” I called, and whipped the sweater over my head. I ran my fingers through my thick brown hair and shook it out as best I could. I grabbed my phone and leaned casually on the window frame, as though lost in the intricacies of a vital text. “Come in!”

Levon wore a black leather jacket. Leather leggings as well, as though he’d just had a long bike ride. In the one second that I glanced away from my phone at him, I couldn’t help but note that the chaps caressed his thighs tightly all the way to the crotch, where they were open to the belt that held them up. His big cock and balls, cradled like this by the black leather, was even more pronounced. Did he fucking do that on purpose? Was he just such a boy toy he dressed like a hooker even when he didn’t need to? He didn’t need to impress
me
.

“Sorry about earlier. Deloy said I could take a room and like an arrogant asshole I just assumed it’d be the master suite.”

Holy fudge bucket. It had been him. What do I say?
“Oh, really? I didn’t notice anything.”
Lord, what an asinine comeback. Now he can say whatever the hell he wants.

And he did. He crooked a seductive grin. “Guess not. You were too lost in your own world.”

My jaw dropped, but only a tiny squeak came out. Levon took advantage of one of the few times I’d ever been at a loss for words.

“Can’t say as I blame you. I’d love to be where those hands’ve been. Again, sorry about busting in. I thought this was my room.”

I had to say
something
. “What are you doing, staying here? Don’t you have an empire of sleaze to run?”

The smile vanished from his face. “I’ve got a score to settle. A matter of municipal politics.”

I frowned. “Municipal? What on earth could you have to settle with the town council of Avalanche?”

Levon snorted cynically. “Let’s just say I was familiar with the motherfucker who’s the mayor from back in my Cornucopia days.”

“Ladell Pratt,” Deloy called from somewhere over Levon’s shoulder. “Of the gigantic Pratt family. I went to school with a couple of Pratts. Until school ended in the sixth grade, that is.”

There was my out. Shouldering my way past Levon at the bedroom door, I spoke to Deloy. “You’re kidding. School ends in the sixth grade in Cornucopia?” My own niece, Mahalia’s fifteen-year-old Vonda, was now living a couple of blocks away after a dramatic escape from the fundamentalist enclave. Mahalia had told me so little about it, I didn’t even know their education ended at the sixth grade.

But Levon answered for him. “Not like it matters. When they’re teaching you shit like Jesus came to America and the world’s only three thousand years old, what difference does it make?”

“Yes,” said Deloy, putting jam on some kind of toast. “Until I hit the streets in Bountiful, I thought that all Native Americans were a Lost Tribe of Israel. Blacks were beasts of the field descended from Cain, and to have sex with them meant death from above.”

“Yeah,” said Levon. “And men never went to the moon. See what we mean? Worthless. Much better to educate yourself with books from the outside world.”

“I’m really going to miss your library,” said Deloy wistfully. “The other men made fun of me, but I really loved some of your poets.”

A sick feeling sank its tentacles into my gut.
Poetry
? Swiping around on my phone frantically, I came to the strange text I’d received a couple days ago. As if to confirm my suspicions, Levon was saying playfully,

“Yeah. Wordsworth is one of the best.

Regrets, vexations, lassitudes interfused

Within my mind should e’er have borne a part
—”

Reading from my phone, I joined my voice with Levon’s, aghast

“‘
And that a needful part, in making up

The calm existence that is mine when I

Am worthy of myself!’
”

Deloy clapped with delight. “How awesome! How do the two of you know the same obscure poem?”

I flashed Levon my worst, most hateful glare. I reserved that glare for Giovanni when he staggered in at sunrise smelling of cigarettes and booze, his nose stuffed up. “Oh, it’s not that frigging obscure, now, is it?”

That ingratiating grin was back on Levon’s insipid face. “I take it you’re not a lover of poetry.”

“I only read
good
poetry,” I seethed, and twirled around to grab my purse from the kitchen island.

“Don’t go away mad,” Levon called out as I stomped down the stairs to the front door.

“Just go away!” giggled Deloy.

I could practically hear the two men high fiving each other as I slammed the front door.

I slammed my car door, too. I was going to pay a visit to the urgent care facility we’d passed on our way into town. I wanted to introduce myself to my fellow health care practitioners. Also, as an RN, I couldn’t prescribe medication, but I was sure I could convince any MD or nurse practitioner to write a scrip for more anti-anxiety meds for me.

I was going to need them if I was going to be living with Levon Rockwell.

LEVON

W
e walked the
length and breadth of the former antique store, our boots sounding hollow in the empty space.

“An antique store is actually a good idea,” said Gideon. “That’s part of my vision for Avalanche, to attract tourists on their way up to Zion National Park.”

“Why not?” I said. “The tourists are there. Right now, they just drive on by, terrified some polygamy is gonna rub off on them. But for now, I’d like something sustainable without any tourists. Something the town can actually use. The martial arts studio fits the bill. I can teach Muay Thai and all the usual Brazilian jujitsu, but my main focus will be Krav Maga.”

“Well, like Dingo said, all the nerds in his computer school will be dying to come, as well as a ton of non-nerds. Speaking of nerds, when I first came to town, a riding club was occupying The High Dive, playing pool and hanging around looking dorky with their patches. ‘Born to Be a Biker.’”

I got into the spirit of things. “‘Ass, Gas, or Grass. Nobody Rides for Free.’”

“You got it. We kicked them out, good-naturedly of course. We found space for them in this rundown Elks Lodge no one was using. The only Elks still left were about six guys in their seventies.”

“That’s a shame. I hate to see shit like that go downhill.”

“Well, listen to this. Since the Lazzat Un Nisa Society took over the Elks Lodge, a bunch more Elks have come out of the woodwork, you know, in the spirit of brotherhood. A bunch of new recruits too. So now the hall’s rocking pretty much all the time. Some younger guys might like what your studio’s offering, too.”

I nodded. The enthusiasm was welling inside me, gaining strength by the minute. There wasn’t one bad aspect to my martial arts studio idea. Well, one. The expected opposition of the mayor, Ladell Pratt. I hadn’t planned on taking Gideon into my confidence. This was my battle to fight. But suddenly I found myself asking, “What do you know about this Ladell Pratt asshole? You mentioned he gave you grief.”

I could tell by Gideon’s energetic lip fart what his feelings were. “All the time, brother. He’s been fighting us every step of the way because we’re not a bunch of fundy Morbots. He wants to keep ‘his’ town pure and free of any filthy, degenerate element, such as bikers. What’s especially gotten up his butt is Mahalia setting up SOBB in his town. So far only a couple of sister-wives have had the balls to escape Cornucopia, but there are rumblings of a lot more.”

“And the more businesses we set up,” I said, ever the entrepreneur, “the more jobs for these sister-wives. Or women. We’ll just call them women.”

“‘Women’ it is.” Gideon came toward me tentatively. It was obvious he was about to ask me a question. “Levon. I consider you a brother in arms. You’ve saved dozens of Lost Boys from certain death—”

I scoffed. “Your sister-in-law doesn’t seem to think I’m so noble.”

“—and my old lady loves you for it. Now you’ve given our club a new Prospect—well, if he makes it through the year-long prospectship is another thing entirely—”

“Wait a minute. Is Deloy joining your MC? That part was for real?”

Gideon shrugged. “If he makes it. Certain guys just aren’t cut out for the life. Certain guys
say
they’re willing, for instance”—Gideon looked from side to side, but the realtor had been out front the whole time yammering on her cell—“to shoot a guy. Then when it comes down to it, they can’t. Or they lose their shit completely, go off their nut in the face of danger. We need calm, cool, collected guys for obvious reasons. Down in Bullhead City, we had a Prospect who was about as useful as a one-legged man at an ass-kicking contest. We did a raid on a Mexican trap house—they’d stolen a bunch of our drugs and guns. Instead, we busted in on a weird sexual bondage scene.”

I harrumphed. “Nothing weird about that.”

“No, not normally. But my feeling was that the women tied up were literally there without their consent.”

“No safe words.”

“Not a one. And the guy doing the flogging was wearing a latex corset that was four sizes too small. Well, this Prospect suddenly became a Twilight Zone tour guide. He went all kinds of apeshit, shooting up the entire room with his M-16. Those poor beaners looked like Swiss cheese. You could literally see daylight through them.”

“Not good. You need people who can keep their cool.”

“Yeah. Needless to say, that guy never earned his top rocker. Do you have any indication of how Deloy is under pressure?”

Again I harrumphed. “He works for me. Need I say more?”

Gideon chuckled. “True. I figured that. He’s had to keep his cool under lots of demands, things that might change from minute to minute. But never any…actual violence.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised. I pat down every client who enters for drugs and weapons, and I’m the only one who goes out on house calls. But sometimes guys smuggle things through in their cavities. Deloy got a guy once who had a urethral sounding already shoved up his wang and he wanted Deloy to suck on it. When he did, though, the guy cropped his bare ass so heavily he drew blood, and Deloy wound up choking on the sound that popped out of his urethra. Uncool. Deloy had to stand his ground and tell the guy he was out of there. Guy didn’t want to go.”

“How’d he eventually get rid of him?”

“Well, he pushed the button that called me. I came with my Glock.”

Gideon said, “Right. See what I mean? He still needs to be saved by someone. Prospects need to save themselves, and then some. We’ll see. Time will tell. Dingo didn’t look like anyone who’d succeed in the club, either. He was more suited for
Dr. Who
marathons, helpful if you need to plant a bug or tracker on someone. But he’s proven his mettle in a few situations. He’s a hell of a shot, actually. I’m about ready to give him his top rocker. Let me ask you. If you open this martial arts studio, would you be living down here? It’s too far to commute.”

I folded my arms and sighed heavily. “I’ve thought of it. At least until the studio gets on its feet and I find someone I trust to take over. To be honest, I’m getting burnt out on the escort biz. I’m thirty. That’s the upper limit of old in that biz. Course, I’m not going to put anyone out on the street. My assistant Brody can easily take over. He knows the ropes.”

Gideon folded his arms too, facing me head on. “I’ll be blunt. We need men. We don’t have enough guys to make a quorum. I had to recruit one of the riding club guys, and he’s like sixty-five and ready to retire. I had to rope in a longtime hang-around who’s got a PhD from Stanford. He’s running my mine and he’s the club secretary, and he went to the mat for me when that warped fundy Allred Chiles kidnapped my old lady and went fruit on everyone. But in a serious shoot-out situation? Let’s just say these guys have yet to prove their starch.”

I nodded. “Send ’em all to my studio,” I said, half-serious and half-joking.