Knight (49 page)

It was bad luck to end a fight without bleeding. The cut under my eye would serve as sufficient sacrifice to whatever fucked-up god demanded the tribute. Better a gash on my cheek than a bullet in my head.

I eased off the exit and made a right, skirting the airport lanes and heading into town. Priest and his prospect didn’t follow...or couldn’t follow with two police cruisers dipping their donuts in the bikes’ exhaust. Didn’t envy them. The good ol’ boy Cherrywood Valley police chief had a hard-on for me anyway. A reckless driving charge would blow his load quicker than head from his teeny-bopper mistress dorming at the community college.

I kept to the back roads and texted my crew at a red light to warn them against riding single tonight. Exorcist wasn’t stupid enough to fail twice, but vengeance poisoned all rationality. I rode through the shadows of our uncontested territory, but the twisting unease never left. Not anymore.

Constantly looking over my shoulder did worse than hurting my neck. It exhausted me.

We’d either lose our edge or our necks would snap. Neither option was appealing.

Keep’s bar and Brew’s warehouse composed half a block of Anathema safe-houses. Their old man had the common sense to set his boys up with some real estate, though the crazy bastard didn’t hide his bloody handprint as well as his financial assets. The bikes stayed in back, away from any wayward civilian dumb enough to wander inside the bar. Keep reserved the rear entrance for the MC, and I shut and locked the door before my fingers stopped itching for my gun.

“Hey.” Keep sprawled on a wooden bench. He ignored his cigarette in the ashtray and the laptop copying trucking schedules into Excel. He rubbed his bare head. “Lyn’s here. She wants you.”

“Fuck me.”

Keep smirked. “She’s too pissed for that. Been there, got slapped, my friend.”

“What’s she want?”

“Wouldn’t say. She looks ready to torch the place.”

“Great. Where is she?”

“Where do you think?”

Displaced from his own damn office. Just like Lyn. Good thing Keep didn’t have his old man’s temper or his older brother’s wrath.

Fortunately for the MC, Keep did have a natural aptitude for business. The bar stayed clean, financially and literally. Every bill, every receipt, every W-fucking-4 for the last decade filed away in his office. He kept the bar stocked, the tables clear, and every indigo pulsing light-bulb humming with pure, unsullied profit.

Unfortunately, that meant the bar was the only place Jocelyn “Lyn” Hart would grace her sweet ass when she traded favors. She might have started out dancing on one of the pool tables, but Lyn’s principles prevented her from entering the chapel locked inside the warehouse. Claimed she could stay out of prison and enjoy a shot on the house that way.

She was probably right.

And a hell of a lot smarter than me.

“You look like shit.” Lyn greeted me with an insult as soon as I shut the door. “Should I ask why you’re bleeding?”

“Take a guess.”

Lyn tilted Keep’s executive chair, settling within the thick leather like a court concubine inheriting her rightful place as queen. The blonde ruled with a bump of her hips or a strike of her fangs, and each carried enough poison to cripple a man if he wasn’t careful.

Lyn thrived best when underestimated. Learned that lesson a long time ago.

“Not a lover’s scratch,” Lyn winked.

“I prefer a tender touch.”

She crossed her legs over the desk. The black leather pants might have seemed like an invitation to less informed men. Jocelyn displayed the goods—might have let the corset dip low to expose the swell of her tits—but looking was free. Besides, she didn’t deal in money. Lyn came at a far more expensive price. Also learned that lesson long ago.

“Sit,” she said. “You’re a hard man to pin down, Thorne.”

“Maybe I have the common sense to avoid you.”

“Avoiding me isn’t fun.” She stretched her arms over her head. Her chest arched up. “You haven’t been to the club in a while.”

Flirting was free. I took a seat across from her. “You miss me?”

“Parts of you.”

“Which part?”

She didn’t break my gaze. “The muscle.”

“So this isn’t a friendly visit.”

“All my visits are friendly.” Lyn frowned, though even a scowl looked good on her lips. “You’re about the one friend I still trust.”

The club joked Lyn’s eyes got greener the more cash she made. Wrong. They brightened when she needed something. When she
knew
something.

“Likewise,” I said.

“You’re still bleeding.” Lyn stood, snapping the chair upright. She rooted through a drawer until she found a first-aid kit.

I touched the cut on my cheek. “I’ve been through worse.”

“Yeah. I remember. But something tells me you aren’t keeping out of trouble.”

I clenched my jaw as she came at me with a cotton ball dipped in alcohol. She scoured my face like she meant to clean the scratch with steel wool. I knocked her hand away.

“Christ, Lyn. I didn’t get shot. Leave me the fuck alone.”

“Yet. You didn’t get shot
yet
.”

“Your optimism is appreciated.”

“The girls at the club have an over/under on you. Odds are three to one you’ll get a bullet in the head within a month.”

“Great.”

“I gave you six months.” She slapped a piece of gauze over my cheek. “How’s that for optimism?”

“We better be getting part of that Vig.”

“What happened?”

“Found out what our buddy Priest has been up to since shacking up with Exorcist.”

Lyn raised her eyebrow, as much a threat as cocking a gun. “You mean he does something besides molest my dancers?”

“Well, he was up my ass today. Maybe he’s not into your girls anymore.”

“I’m not that lucky.” She crossed her arms. “Was he making a move?”

“Gotta talk to my guys about it. He won’t shed any tears if I dump my bike on the 9.”

“This can’t keep happening. More people are going to get killed.”

“Oh, a stripper and a prophet now?”

Lyn hopped onto the desk. She crossed her legs and nearly took out my chin with a high heel. Probably her intent. At least it’d be a good view before I got knocked unconscious.

“Fine. I’ll take my five grand and find someone else to stick their elderly, decrepit brothers at our door.” Lyn snorted. “The last bouncer couldn’t even get it up with a girl straddling his face. Did nothing for her self-esteem.”

“What’s your point?”

“I want my money back if you won’t hold up your end of the bargain.”

“You wanted a presence there. I gave you a presence.”

“Viper?  He’s one chili dog from a quadruple bypass. I need someone else.”

I held my arms out. “Who?  I’m stretched fucking thin as it is.”

“Find someone.”

“There is no one else, and you don’t need another guard. No one will cause any trouble with your girls. They know you’re in my territory.”

“Am I?” She asked.

“Are you what?”

“In
your
territory?”

I exhaled. “Your mouth is more useful when it isn’t being smart.”

“And if you ever want to put it to use again, you’ll listen.”

Lyn tapped her nails on the desk. The rat-a-tat-tat drumming wasn’t a stall. She tensed. Nervous. Ready to snap. I didn’t need her wrath going nuclear in my MC. She was hard enough to keep alive as it was. Lyn had a tendency to forget she only had a dick when she jerked someone off. I didn’t need her pissing off the wrong guys. Again.

“What the hell is going on?” I said. “No bullshit.”

“What’s going on?  Exorcist. The Coup. Anathema.
Everything
is going on.”

“Think I don’t know that?”

“No,” she said. “But I don’t think you realize where the battle lines will be drawn. The Coup won’t hunker down for long.”

No shit. I didn’t need a high speed chase through a goddamned farmer’s market to figure that out. I shrugged.

“My club is in the center of the split territories,” Lyn said. “Dead-fucking-center. And when this war breaks open, someone there will get hurt.”

“Your club is neutral ground.”

“For how much longer? Exorcist came by two days ago. Wanted to talk to me.” Lyn’s smile bared her teeth. “Wanted more than that actually. I told him it wasn’t going to happen.”

I leaned forward. “What’d he say?”

“He said the lines changed.
He
wants five grand a month too. Same as you.”

“For what?”

“Fire insurance.”

“Christ.”

“He wants a partnership,” she said. “Part of my profits or part of me. And you know the only thing tighter than my pussy is my wallet. That prick isn’t getting anything.”

“Exorcist has no claim over your club. Even when he was part of the MC, Sorceress was my deal.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“I’ll take care of Exorcist.”

Lyn sighed. “Pull your guys out. Just for now. Let me get my own security.”

“Absolutely not.”

“I need to protect my girls.”

“Did I say we wouldn’t protect them?”

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re doing!” Lyn shrugged. “Or what you will do. Or what Exorcist wants to do. But I have women at that club, and, more often than not, I have their kids too. I can’t risk something happening, and Exorcist is going to make something happen. Nothing would piss you off more. He knows that. You know that.” She paused. “I’m asking as a friend, Thorne.”

I didn’t answer. Lyn swore. She reached into her corset and pulled out a small baggie, twisted tight against the reddish crystals tucked in the center. The drugs slapped against the desk.

“Got that from one of my girls,” Lyn said. “Tracie.”

I didn’t need to touch it to see. “Meth.”

“Not just any meth.”

“Temple MC’s meth.” I gritted my teeth. “Where’d she get it?”

“Your turn to guess.”

“They’re selling in the city?”

Lyn laughed. I didn’t share her sense of humor.

“Of course not. Temple’s dealers don’t get close to the limits.” She leaned onto her elbows. Suggestive. A copperhead waiting to strike. “But Tracie is Bounty’s girl. And Bounty and Exorcist always wanted to expand.”

“You think Exorcist and The Coup made a deal with Temple MC?”

Lyn pushed the baggie toward me. “Looks like it. Or they’re closer to a deal than we thought.”

“Fuck.”

“Not yet. But you better start lubing up.”

I rubbed my face, grunting over the sting from the wound. “What do you want for the info?”

“Another guard at my door.”

“Done.”

“What do you want for the trouble?” She asked.

I glanced down. Lyn rolled her eyes.

“You keep calling in favors for your cock, and you’ll never get anywhere.”

“What would I do with favors if I only have a month to live?”

Lyn hopped off the desk. She leaned over my chair, knowing full well how good a view I had down her corset.

“You start listening to me, you might have more than a month,” she said.

Her hand tickled over my chest. She brushed aside my vest and tugged at the black shirt underneath.

“There’s a rat in Anathema.”

Her fingers stilled. Those green eyes went radioactive.

“Are you
serious
?” She hissed.

“Serious enough to tell you.”

“Who?”

“I have my suspicions. But I don’t know yet.”

Lyn pulled away. I resisted the urge to grab her hair and push her back between my legs. But she was classier than that, even if a run-in with Priest and the chase on the highway ached me in places that hadn’t needed to wait for relief in years.

“God damn it.” Lyn paced the room.

“Your girls say anything?”

“Tracie and Shannon are involved with some of Exorcist’s men. But they know not to say anything. And Molly’s been strung out with Keep lately.” She pointed at me. “You better get Keep’s shit together.”

“Might not have to.”

The implication struck like a back-hand. Lyn stepped away.

“Not Keep. The rat isn’t
Keep
.”

“I don’t know.”

“I fucking do.” Her voice hardened. “I thought I did. Holy shit, Thorne. This city can’t take another war. Not unless you all want to be hauled off for murder.”

“I’m trying to avoid that.”

“How?”

“I’ll find the rat.”

“
How
?”

I hadn’t figured that out yet. Didn’t matter. I curled my finger and beckoned Lyn closer.

“I’ll start by calling in that favor.”

Lyn shook her head but knelt before me. Her eyes darkened. “And then what?”

“I’ll set my traps.”

I swore I bombed the audition before I made it off the stage, but a few frayed nerves never stopped me before. Not when plenty of scarier things existed in the world—like what would happen if I couldn’t find a gig.

At first, I sang sharp. My fingers tangled in the key change, and the vibrato in my voice wasn’t intentional. I turned Adele into Bob Dylan, and God I hoped they hadn’t recorded it.