Wild: Tiger's Blood MC (19 page)

I was painting the inside of the bar and Tiger’s Blood clubhouse when Nero and Tony walked in.

“Hey, guys.” I craned my neck and looked to the side. Nero was carrying a case full of beer and he set it down with a grin.

“Need some help?”

I rolled my eyes. I’d called the others hours ago and told them that we needed to do some serious renovating. We’d had this clubhouse for a few years, and while I didn’t think it was the greatest place on earth, it did have the potential to look much better. After spending time with Persephone and seeing where the Amazons hung out, I felt pretty goddamned ashamed of our sorry-looking shack.

“Assholes,” I muttered under my breath. Nero set the crate down and ripped off the top, handing me a bottle of beer. As I leaned down, the ladder shifted precariously and I grabbed onto the top with both hands, howling.

Nero and Tony threw their heads back in laughter. “You’re fucking ridiculous,” Tony said with a smirk on his face. “And you say you need help?”

I rolled my eyes again, climbing down and wiping my sweaty forehead off with my arm. I hadn’t been sleeping well since Persephone had admitted her real identity to me. Sure, I was an idiot for not recognizing my old girlfriend. But I didn’t think that blame lay entirely with me. After all, she was the one who’d lied about who she was for years. And all this time, she’d been right under my nose.

Tony grabbed a bucket of paint, a brush, and climbed up the ladder. Within seconds, his masterful brush strokes covered the wall and ceiling in a big swath of white. I had to admire him; he was much better with his hands than I was, and a damn good mechanic, too.

“Nice job,” I called out, reaching out and smacking the ladder with my hand. Tony’s face fell and he grabbed onto the top, looking as stiff and out-of-place as I had only a few minutes ago. “I’m fucking with you,” I said loudly. “Relax!”

Tony grinned and shook his head. “You fucker,” he said with an affectionate grin. “What happened with that biker chick, Penelope?”

I laughed. “Persephone,” I corrected darkly as Tony set the brush down in a tray of paint. “Her name’s Persephone.” I swallowed hard. Just thinking about her again was setting my cock twitching and my heart thumping in my chest. I hated her, but if I hated her so fucking much, why couldn’t I stop thinking about her? Just the sound of her name in my mouth was enough to make me close my eyes and dream about how her soft, hot lips had felt all over my body. But she was a dangerous dream to have, and I couldn’t keep dwelling on someone who had hurt me so badly.

“And?” Tony raised his eyebrows and thrust his hips forward, winking at me. I felt a hot flash cross over my body. “Did you fuck her?”

I laughed out loud. “She tried to fuck me,” I said with a wink, glancing quickly downward so no one would know that I was lying. “But we couldn’t have any of that now, could we?”

Tony laughed again. “You need to get laid,” he said as he leaned down and punched me hard in the arm. It hurt—I found my eyes tearing up with the force of his punch. “It’ll cure whatever’s bothering you.”

Nero and I started washing the floor clean with the power-washer. Soon, the sound of water hitting the floor at an incredibly fast pace drowned out any hope of conversation. As I watched years of alcohol and grime melt away from the concrete, part of me felt like the clubhouse was being washed clean.
This can be a fresh start
, I thought.
Just get back to what we were all about in the first place. Get some new guys in, get some new dealers. Really figure out how to take my own goddamn life back
.

“Hey,” Nero said loudly. He turned off the power-washer and a spray of water fell to the floor. My hair was soaked from the condensation but it felt good, refreshing. Outside was already scorching hot and I knew that by afternoon, it would be fucking roasting out there. “When are we meeting the Russians?”

I checked my phone for the time. “We have to leave in an hour,” I said gruffly. “Where’s the rest of the cash?”

Tony pointed towards the ceiling. “Upstairs,” he said in a dark voice. “In one of the store rooms. You know where it is, man,” he added in a low tone. “Remember? We hid it up there last week.”

I nodded, feeling dazed. So much shit had happened over the past couple of weeks that I could barely remember anything anymore, but I was always glad for the guys to have my back.

“We gotta get ready soon,” I said as I tucked the ladder off to the side of the room. “We can finish cleaning this shit up tomorrow. I think bar should stay closed tonight.”

“Oh yeah?” Nero raised his eyebrows. “What were you thinking?”

“Well, we’re getting Calvin back from the Russians,” I said with a smirk. “I’m pretty sure he’s gonna wanna party.”

Tony nodded and clapped. “Hell yeah,” he said with a whistle. “You want me to call some girls in?”

I shook my head tersely. “No,” I said as I reached down and began to pick at the scabs forming on my cuticles. “No, don’t bother doing that. We don’t know what time we’re getting back, after all,” I said, trying to smile. But the anxiety was starting to come back and now I had no idea what the fuck I was actually going to do when we showed up to meet the Russians. I had a nasty feeling that Dima was going to show up demanding a little something extra for the trouble of keeping Calvin.

Part of being an outlaw meant that we couldn’t rely on the law to take care of us. That was the one thing that a lot of guys tended to gloss over when they first joined up. They assumed that yeah, of course we were allowed to break the laws. But then no one stopped to ask what would happen if someone did the same to us. Shaking my head, I washed my hands in a sink at the back of the bar and wiped them on my jeans. It was only an hour left to go, and I had to get ready.

Twenty minutes later, Tony, Nero, and I hopped in a van and made the hour-long drive to the desert. LA was as hot as anything that day, and I was sweating before we’d even closed the doors to the van. The air conditioning was rickety and on the fritz, and I made my hand into a fist and slammed it against the vent as we drove through the bumpy, dusty roads.

“Come on,” I threatened the air conditioning. “Don’t quit on me now, you fucker!”

“Relax,” Tony said. He reached out and slapped me hard on the back. “We got this. You know we got this, don’t you?”

I looked at him. “Didn’t you think about what they might’ve done to Calvin by now?” I asked loudly, straining my voice to be heard over the rumbling engine. “They might have sliced his fingers off or taken out an eye. They always want us to know that they’re in charge, don’t forget it.”

Tony looked visibly shaken by the time he pulled his hand away. I rolled my eyes. I was sick of this shit. I was sick of dealing with men who couldn’t face the consequences for whatever bloody actions they saw fit to participate in most of the time. Nero was the same fuckin’ way—happy as anything to break into the Amazons clubhouse, but when it came time to thinking about the safety of his own brothers, I knew that he was a goner.

Clouds of dust engulfed the van and I hunched over the steering wheel, looking hard at the dirty ground. It hadn’t rained in weeks and the soil—if you could call it that—was cracked and dry. I imagined the cracks and crevices going all the way to the bottom of the earth, until the molten core at the center melted the hard ground into a liquid soup of dust. It wasn’t exactly a comforting image; it was hellish. But that was okay, I figured. My life was pretty hellish at this point, too. No use thinking otherwise when danger was so close to my face.

“Come on,” Tony urged. He tapped on my thigh. “Look, we’re already ten minutes late.” He wiped the dust and grime off the digital clock that glowed a pale green. “We gotta hurry.”

I bit my lip. “They’ll wait,” I said, trying to sound confident. The metal cases of money rattled around in the back of the van. Instead of soothing my nerves, they only made me feel more aggrieved. I couldn’t wait for this shit to be over, but oddly enough, right now didn’t even feel like the worst part.

“They’d better,” Nero mumbled. “And then tonight, we’ll party.” He closed his eyes and folded his hands against his slight beer belly, relaxing in the hot, faded leather seat. “Tonight we party with everything in us.”

If we make it back alive
, I thought darkly. I couldn’t help but think of Persephone and everything she’d told me. If her girl gang was trying to tear us under, cops could be at the meeting point, watching for us. A chill of fear came over my body as I glanced around, almost positive that I’d see cherry red and blue raspberry lights flickering over the dusty ground.

I blinked. There were no cops out here. Trying to relax, I took a deep breath and pushed my foot on the gas pedal until the van shot forward on the dirt road. We bounced hard over a couple of rocks and my head banged against the ceiling. I winced, but didn’t slow down. In a few seconds, I could feel hot blood trickling down the sides of my face and soaking into my shirt collar. It mixed with the drops of sweat clinging to the back of my neck and made me feel altogether wholly unpleasant, like I hadn’t showered in days.

Despite the insane heat, I was still chilled with fear as we pulled into the clearing. There were a couple of cars parked but I couldn’t see anyone standing around. Taking a deep breath, I looked at both my guys.

“We’re here,” I said slowly. “We’re here now, and we need to handle this as best as we possibly can. You guys think that we can do this?”

Nero and Tony nodded, looking less confident by the second. “We got it, boss,” Nero said. His voice sounded hollow and empty in the vastness of the desert. “Just let me at ’em,” he said, making a fist with his hand and swinging it through the air. “Let me at ’em!”

I shook my head. “We gotta be calm, first,” I said in a warning tone. “We can’t act like we’re fucking god’s gift to the world. Not until the guns are in hand and Calvin’s safe, you got that?”

Nero nodded. For a moment, I could tell he was thinking about Calvin’s situation, and how easily it could have been him instead. He gestured to Tony and then swung open the rusty metal door.

“Come on,” I said darkly as I climbed out of the driver’s seat and patted the gun tucked into my waistband. “Let’s go get our boy and our guns.”

Outside of the van almost felt cool for a second—there was a strong breeze that ruffled the ends of my hair and felt relaxing. But then I felt the intense heat of the sun on my bear arms and a different kind of sweat broke out all over my body. I knew I was just biding time until this was over and we could go home, back to the safety of LA.

“Hey,” I said loudly. “Dima? We’re here,” I added in a loud voice, gazing around in a circle. Aside from the cars, the landscape and terrain looked almost untouched. Above my head, birds squawked loudly and flew around my head in a lopsided circle.
Fucking buzzards can’t even wait until I’m dead
, I thought, resisting the urge to reach for my gun and shoot them all done.
Fucking assholes think they can take me alive
.

“Ah, Mr. Elliot,” Dima’s familiar Russian accent drawled. He climbed out from the passenger seat of one of the cars, dressed immaculately in a grey suit with a navy blue shirt underneath. “You are late.” He grinned at me with his mouth but not his eyes, and I felt another trace of nervousness through my body. “Now we do business, yes?”

I stepped forward. “Nero, Tony,” I barked loudly, clapping my hands in front of me. “Get the cash.”

Nero and Tony scuttled back to the van and pulled the suitcases out of the back. They gleamed in the sunlight, the reflection on the silver metal almost blinding. Dima grinned when he saw Nero and Tony struggling with the weight of the cash.

“Good,” Dima said. He rubbed his hands together and smiled widely at me. A glint of something metal from his mouth—a gold tooth—winked at me in the sun and I shivered. Somehow, in all of our meetings with the Russians, I’d never noticed it before.

“So you have Calvin?” I stepped forward and crossed my arms over my chest. Nero and Tony hung behind me, clutching the suitcases in their hands. “Where is he?”