His (Hers #5) (12 page)

“Levi, you speak as if you are unaffected by this, but it seems as though you are deeply impacted by his abandonment.” Brooke says. And she is right.

“I’ve had abandonment issues since my parents died. They left me. Then Arden left me. Everyone who mattered to me left. Layna left and if I am being open and honest, I am just waiting for Seven to leave me too.” I surprise myself with the words, but they feel good coming out.

“How do you feel about that, Seven?” Brooke asks.

“I have no idea what to even say. I am still shocked learning about the brother thing. We’ve been through a lot since we got together. But the only person who has ever run is Levi. I’ve been here for the long haul. If I was going to leave, I would have signed those divorce papers he served me with and been done with it all. I’m like herpes. He’s never getting rid of me.” Seven laughs as she speaks. The fact that she is still smiling after all this is coming out is reassuring that we will be okay.

“How does that make you feel Levi?” Brooke asks again.

“Knowing that definitely makes me feel more stable in our marriage. I don’t think I could deal with losing Seven or my kids.”

“Can we talk about the fact that we are being blackmailed by some guy we had a threesome with?” Seven blurts out, and Brooke nearly falls off her chair. I smile because my wife has such a way with words.

After therapy I have two more missed calls from Chrome and a text message.

Chrome: Call me ASAP

Chrome isn’t the kind of dude to blow up someone’s phone. He is patient and most of the time, he keeps his feelings to himself unless he is dealing with Star. It would be bad for his badass biker persona to get ruined by shit like talking about feelings.

“Whose that?” Seven asks, nodding toward the phone.

“Chrome. He’s called three times. Something must be up. Have you heard from Star?” She shakes her head in response.

“I’m gonna call him back. Get in the car and we will take a drive over to their house.”

I dial his number and he answers on the first ring.

“Where are you?”

“Leaving therapy with Seven. What the hell is going on?” I ask him.

“That fuckin’ snake Vince. Come to the house.” Chrome’s tone is harsh and clipped as he hangs the phone up in my ear. Vince just picked a fight with the wrong fuckin’ person.

“What’s going on?” Seven asks while I speed off in the direction of their farmhouse.

“Vince got to Star.”

Seven

Present

The house is eerily quiet when we pull up the driveway. The usual biker parking lot is empty. Only Star’s car, Chrome’s truck and a single motorcycle sit in the parking area. No Paisley, no Journey, nobody is to be found. The typical hustle and bustle is mute when we enter the house.

“Hello?” I yell through the house, hoping to grab someone’s attention. Nothing. We take a couple more steps through the house and plop Marley down on the floor. She makes a bee-line straight for Rainbow’s toy corner without a second thought. It is the one place of the house where the kids completely rule shit.

A few more steps into the kitchen and I hear a loud scream from Star’s bedroom. My heart hammers against my chest and I bolt in the direction of the yell and push the door open, completely not expecting what I find on the other side of the door. I thought someone was hurting my best friend. Instead Star is bent over her bed while Chrome pounds her from behind.

“What the…” my voice trails off when I realize no one is actually hurting Star.

“Um… my bad. I thought…” I laugh and smile as I turn around and walk out of the room. Levi stands in the hallway behind me with a blank stare on his face. Not like he hasn’t seen Star naked before, but not in a position like that. I laugh to myself thinking about the fact that he will have a hard time looking Chrome in the eye for a while.

“We’ll be out in a few minutes.” Star says breathlessly, and we patiently wait for them in the kitchen. I laugh and try not to listen to the noises that continue to come from their bedroom, but I can’t help but hear one choice phrase Chrome grunts out repeatedly.

“You belong to me.”

“Sorry about that,” Chrome says to Levi with a smile while I nurse a cup of water at the breakfast bar and try to ignore the two of them.

“You were in such a hurry, we thought something was wrong. We show up here to this…” Levi laughs.

“There is a problem. A big fuckin’ problem.” Chrome says with a nasty look of disgust on his face. “And it involves Seven.” I turn when I hear my name mentioned. I put my hands up in defense.

“I didn’t do it this time!” I swear I didn’t. I have no fuckin’ idea what it might be, but I can say without a shadow of a doubt this time around, I know I didn’t do anything fucked up.

“It started a long time ago, Seven. Have you heard from that slimy ass scumbag Vince?” Chrome asks. The sound of his name from Chrome’s lips make me freeze in place.

“Why?” Levi asks.

“This asshole is trying to extort money from Star. Something about a video with her and Seven from years ago. Wants money or he is going to release it. I can’t have that shit happening right now. Fuck! Not ever.” He rubs his hands along his bald head before he puts a backwards baseball cap on his head. Looks like Star finally told him about it. Or he found out about it all on his own. Shit.

“He sent us a letter too. Said he had security footage of me and Seven.” Levi leaves out a small detail about that video, but I am not about to give any more details about our sex life than I need to.

“I think he is bluffing. Footage of Seven and Star would be old, really old, and he isn’t going to hold on to security footage that long. I want to call his bluff.” Chrome continues. “But, I don’t trust him. I don’t know much about this guy or what he is capable of doing.”

“I don’t either. Can’t you put some of your guys on it, Chrome?” I ask him.

“Already on it. Vegas, Judge, Cowboy and Ace have surveillance set up. We are working on GPS tracking on his cell. Looks like he isn’t in Manhattan, so now we have to figure out where he is hiding.” Chrome says.

“Who is running the club?” I ask.

“No one. It has been closed for about six months.” Star’s voice comes from the hallway as she emerges from her bedroom.

I am heartbroken that Sinners & Swingers is closed. I could have saved that club so long ago, but Vince was too proud to give me any say or control over it. Instead, he ran it into the ground. My mind churns with ideas of buying the building and starting over. I don’t want to say goodbye to that place, considering it brought me so many amazing opportunities in my life.

“I have an idea.” I am probably not thinking right and I am pretty sure I am not in my right frame of mind after everything I learned in therapy this morning, but there is a time and a place for that later: When Levi and I are alone.

“I don’t like the sound of that.” Levi says. I can tell how unpleased he is by the look on his face. If we are being honest, I haven’t had the best input on situations like this recently.

“We find Vince and make him an offer for the club. Buy the club from him for more than it is actually worth. He gets money and we walk away with the one thing I’ve wanted but could never have all these years. That club.”

Levi gives me a nasty look across the room.

“Why would you want that place?” he asks me.

“It isn’t about the sex, Levi. Get over that hangup. It’s about the one place that helped make me who I am. Without that club, we wouldn’t have each other and everything that we have today.” I start trying to explain, but before I can get too far into my thought process, Chrome interrupts me.

“It’s genius, Levi. He will think he is getting something out of it because obviously he isn’t making any money off the club. Money is his motive.”

I worry that the plan won’t be as simple as we think it would be though.

“Levi, get on the phone with your lawyer. Draft up a sales agreement and offer him $750,000 since he asked each of us for $500,000. It’s a fair offer. Club goes in Seven and Star’s names.”

Levi nods even though I can tell the idea doesn’t have him sold.

“I’m gonna keep having my guys track him. I won’t feel okay with any of this until he is found and I have eyes on him.” Chrome adds. “I have to head down to the club house, but if you guys hear anything from this guy or your lawyer, call me immediately.” Chrome heads for the door and pauses. “And Levi? Thanks man, I can always count on you.”

“Awww, the bromance!” Star laughs and I join her.

“I’d pay to see those two hook up.” I add.

“That would be hot as fuck,” Star admits.

Yeah it would be.

“I can’t deal with you two right now.” Levi walks out of the room while dialing our lawyer.

“Hey, you can’t blame us for trying!” I yell from the kitchen. “I’m so not giving up on that one.” I laugh and Star joins me. We are slightly ridiculous in the most hysterical way ever.

“You think this is going to actually work?” Star asks me, looking less than hopeful. I don’t blame her. In the back of my head the idea is all well and nice and certainly
may
work, but if we are all being honest, it probably won’t, knowing our luck. And knowing the type of guy Vince is, he wouldn’t let me get my claws into Sinners & Swingers all those years ago, I doubt he will hand it over today.

“I’m trying on that whole optimism shit for a change. So, I am not going to answer that question.” I say with a smile. “Shit!” I remember the Skype interviews I have. I’ve been putting them off since last week. There is no way I can get away with re-scheduling them again. “We gotta run. I forgot I had a laundry list of interviews this afternoon and I am sure Journey is at our house already.”

Star cocks her head to the side.

“Journey?” she asks.

“She is going to watch Marley while Levi and I do the interviews together. I don’t think he trusts me to not throw every qualified candidate under the bus.” I shrug. “I’m having my long lost sister over for dinner tonight, if you and Chrome wanna come too.”

“Maybe we will. It will be a nice distraction from all of this.” Rounding the corner into the living room, Levi is still on the phone with the lawyer hashing out the details of the offer we are going to make to Vince. I nod and he picks up Marley and joins me.

“Where is Rainbow?” It strikes me as odd that Star’s daughter is nowhere to be found today, but with everything else going on, I didn’t even notice.

“Paisley and Diesel took her for a couple hours to keep Cash occupied. They are becoming partners in crime these days. I really will start to fear for my life in another couple years.” Star laughs.

“I don’t blame you one bit. See you tonight.”