HARD: MC Romance (FF MC Romance Book 1) (2 page)

And your finger’s not bad, either.

TWO

Nick

Pee Bee was the club’s Sergeant-At-Arms. The enforcer. The position didn’t require him to be organized, and maybe that was a good thing, because it seemed he often fell short in that respect. Based on his lack of planning alone, I often wondered why both of us weren’t doing time in prison.

Serious
time.

“What do you mean, you
hope
he’s not home?”

It was midnight, and being dressed in black helped conceal us from the view of potential late night onlookers, but at six foot eight and 260 pounds, hiding Pee Bee entirely was like trying to cover up a circus elephant with a fucking cocktail napkin.

He turned to face me and shot me a confused stare. “It means I hope he’s not home, Crip.”

Positioned fifty feet behind the home we were planning on breaking into, I glared back at him. “After we crawled through a dozen back yards, waded through a fuckin’ river in the storm sewer, then hiked three fuckin’ miles you’re not
sure
if this prick’s gone?”

He pulled his backpack over his shoulders, removed a wire coat hanger, and shrugged. “Supposed to be at a wedding.”

“Supposed to be?”

He nodded an unconvincing nod. “That’s what I was told.”

My service as a Navy SEAL made our late night theft of two motorcycles simplistic in comparison to some of the missions I had been involved with. It did very little, however, to assure me that we weren’t going to be caught. “I hope your source was good.”

He straightened the wire into a four-foot-long hook. After a quick inspection of his break-in tool, he shoved a wooden wedge into his pocket and then shouldered the backpack. “Yeah, me too.”

Still positioned deep in the back yard, I watched the home for several long seconds. All of the windows were dark, and there were no flickering lights, which led me to believe no one was home watching television.

With slight reluctance, I decided to proceed. “Ready?”

He nodded. “Yep.”

I pointed toward the corner of the house. “We’ll go around the left side of the house, and I’ll stay beside the garage until you’re inside. After the door’s up, I’ll hop in there with ya. As soon as I do, pull the fucker closed until we get ‘em unlocked.”

He straightened the wire a little more, then held it at arm’s length for an inspection. “Got it.”

Breaking into a garage was easy. It took a coat hanger, someone with a steady hand, and less than ten seconds. The two motorcycles we were taking would be just as simple, requiring nothing more than a Bic pen to steal them.

After having a brother’s bike stolen from a bar one Saturday night, stealing the president of Satan’s Savages bikes in retribution was a risk I was willing to take. The president of most motorcycle clubs would demand that a prospect commit the theft as an initiation to the club.

But I wasn’t a typical president.

I’d never ask my brothers to do anything I wasn’t willing to do myself.

After cautiously walking around the front of the house, I stood watch while Pee Bee worked his magic. Five seconds later, and he quietly opened the garage door. After I ducked inside, he pulled the door down behind me.

The garage was empty short of the two motorcycles that were parked inside. “The Super Glide’s unlocked,” he said after reaching for the key switch.

I turned the key switch of the Softail. I wasn’t as lucky. “This one’s locked.”

I reached in my pocket, pulled out a Bic pen, and pushed the barrel of the pen into the round key opening. After a few seconds, the lock turned freely. “Good to go,” I said. “Open the door. We’ll take Oceanside back toward the freeway and meet at the shop.”

He grabbed the handle of the garage door. “Sounds good.”

I raised my leg over the seat, sat down, and started rolling the motorcycle toward the closed garage door. The sight of the door leading into the house swinging open made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

Someone shouted from just inside the house. “What in the fuck!?”

It wasn’t the Savage’s president, Whip, but the guy could have easily passed for his brother. I kept my eyes locked on him while trying to get off the bike, and soon decided it must have been Whip’s brother.

“Motherfuckers,” he grunted as he turned and ran inside the house.

Pee Bee’s eyes met mine and instantly went wide. There was now a risk if we attempted to leave – the man inside the house may return with a gun before we got away. I realized the risks associated with breaking into the home, but I had zero desire to get shot in the back. With little time to think, and even less to react, I swept the kickstand down and steadied the bike.

Pee Bee shot past me and ran into the house after the retreating man.

It seemed like a fool’s move, but it was probably our best bet. Without as much as a second’s thought, I followed right behind him. As I rounded the corner to the living area, I heard the unmistakable sound of fists hitting flesh.

“What were you gonna do with that?” I heard Pee Bee shout. “You a fuckin’ baseball player?”

With his legs in the living room, and his upper body concealed by the doorframe of what I suspected was the bedroom, Whip’s look-alike was on his back. A baseball bat lay beside him on the floor, and Pee Bee sat on his chest, pounding him without mercy, one fist at a time.

As no one was coming to the beating victim’s rescue, I immediately assumed the small home was empty – short of the guy getting pummeled by Pee Bee. My experience in the military, however, taught me that assumptions could get a man killed. 

I quickly searched the home, found it empty, and walked back to the living room. When I returned, the man on the floor appeared to be unconscious, and Pee Bee still straddled him while digging through his backpack.

“Come on, let’s beat feet,” I said.

“Hold up,” he responded.

He pulled a roll of duct tape from the bag. “This ought to work.”

I chuckled. “For what?”

“Taping him up.”

“What the fuck for?”

He stood up glared at me as if I were an idiot. “So the dumb fucker doesn’t call the cops or whatever.”

I nodded and stepped toward him. “Let’s make it quick.”

While I held the man’s legs above the floor, he taped his ankles together with about a dozen wraps of tape. After tearing the tape in two, he then taped the man’s arms to his torso with an equal amount of tape.

He swung the toe of his boot into the side of the man’s head. “Pick up his head.”

I laughed to myself and lifted his head from the floor by his neck. He began to moan; a sign he was obviously regaining consciousness.

Pee Bee kicked him in the side of the head again, hard.

“God damn.” I chuckled.

“Fucker came at me with a ball bat, Crip. Fuck this dude.”

“I’m with ya,” I said. “Just make it quick.”

From his forehead to his chin, he wrapped the man’s head in duct tape, making it one solid ball of grey tape. It wasn’t what I was expecting, but it would definitely be effective in keeping him from talking.

While Pee Bee placed the remaining portion of tape back into the backpack, the man started to thrash around. I realized in the rush that Pee Bee hadn’t taken time to leave any air holes in his handiwork.

I motioned toward our flopping victim. “Fucker’s suffocating.”

Pee bee sighed. “How long’s it take for a guy to, you know, run out of…” he paused and shouldered his backpack again.

“Oxygen?”

“Yeah,” he said with a nod. “Oxygen.”

“Maybe a minute or so?” I shrugged. “Something like that. Give or take.”

The man continued to thrash about, flopping like his life depended on it.

“Maybe we ought to poke some breathing holes in that tape, huh?”

“Unless we’re tryin’ to kill him,” I responded.

“Still got that pen?”

“Where’s yours?”

He shrugged. “I dunno.”

I pressed my hands to my pockets, realized I didn’t have my pen, and then remembered it was still in the key switch of the Softail in the garage. “It’s in the fuckin’ garage. Be right back.”

I sauntered to the garage, retrieved the pen, and returned. Pee Bee was standing over the man with his arms crossed, staring down at him.

He nodded toward the motionless man and shrugged. “He quit.”

“Quit what?”

He pressed the sole of his boot into the man’s hips, pushing him across the floor a few inches. “Moving.”

“How long’s it been?”

He narrowed his eyes and stared back at me. “How long’s what been?”

I knelt down, poked two holes in the tape where I expected his nostrils to be, and waited. “Since he fuckin’ moved.”

He shrugged. “I dunno. Fucker was floppin’ when you went to get the pen, then he just stopped.”

I took his pulse.

Nothing.

I sighed. “Fucker’s dead.”

He returned a stare of disbelief. “Are you kiddin’ me?”

“Nope.” I shook my head and stood up. “Dead as fuck.”

The plan was to steal the two motorcycles as payback for what Satan’s Savages had done. I was a firm believer in an eye for an eye. A theft on their part deserved a theft in return. Murder wasn’t out of the question, but it definitely wasn’t something I had planned on when Stretch dropped us off.

I cleared my throat. “Gonna call Stretch and have him drive around to the block west of here. The way we came in. We’re gonna toss this prick in the back of the truck and haul him to the shop.”

“Why don’t we just leave him here?”

“His dead ass is proof we committed murder. If we take him, it might be a couple of days before Whip calls it in, and even then, it’ll just be a missing person report. See if you can find his cell phone, we’ll take it, too. And we’ll need to wipe this place down, anywhere and anything we touched.”

“Got it.”

“And we’re leaving the bikes,” I said.

“What the fuck for?” he snapped. “We need some get back for what these bastards did.”

“If we take ‘em now, it’ll sure look to Whip like it was the work of the Fuckers. If we take the dead guy and leave the bikes, Whip ain’t gonna suspect shit. And I think killin’ Whip’s brother is enough get back for stealin’ a bike.”

He nodded. “Good call.”

I grabbed a hand towel from the bathroom and wiped down the bikes, door handles, the garage door, and the bathroom. After convincing ourselves the entire place was free of our fingerprints, I pocketed the dead man’s cell phone and grabbed the baseball bat.

“Ain’t no sense in draggin’ his dumb ass. We’ll get caught for sure,” Pee Bee said. “I’ll just carry the fucker.”

We only had to go a hundred yards, but carrying a dead body wasn’t as easy as one might think. My experiences in combat taught me that the dead and wounded were more difficult to carry than someone who was alive and well.

With minimal effort, Pee Bee hoisted the dead body over his shoulders. “Lead the way.”

Using my shirt to keep from leaving fingerprints, I opened the back door. “Through this yard, then through that yard. Stretch is parked in the street. Ready?”

He nodded.

Without incident, we rushed through the two yards, and up to the side of Stretch’s truck. I checked over each shoulder. “Toss him in the back.”

“Open the door,” Pee Bee demanded. “I’m puttin’ him in front with us. It’ll look like he’s drunk.”

“Toss his ass in the fuckin’ back,” I growled.

He shifted the dead body on his shoulders and glared back at me. “We get caught with him in the back, we’re fucked. Open the fuckin’ door.”

“You two fuckers need to get in here, or we’re all gonna get got,” Stretch warned. “Hurry the fuck up.”

“Toss his ass in the back,” I demanded.

“Sure thing,
Boss
.” He sighed, rolled his shoulders forward, and ducked his head. The dead body rolled over the top of him and dropped into the back of the truck with a thud. “We get busted, it’s on you, Crip.”

I pulled the truck door open and motioned toward the inside of the cab. “We ain’t getting’ busted, I’m sick of arguing about it. Get in the fuckin’ truck.”

After a short glare, he got in.

With the dead body in the bed of the truck, we rode to the shop in silence. Strangely, I wasn’t concerned with murder charges, Whip’s dead brother, or disposing of the body. My focus was elsewhere.

The girl from the bar with the tight little pussy and the mile-long attitude was on my mind, and as much as I didn’t want to admit it, I was looking forward to seeing her again.

There probably wasn’t a handful of girls that would show up at the clubhouse of an outlaw motorcycle club – even if they were invited. Considering the events of our first meeting, Peyton, the newspaper reporter, probably
shouldn’t
show up.