Page 6

(Creature)

“Hey, what the hell? Is the place running a flash sale on donuts?” Creature asked, motor purring beneath him as he addressed the nearest officer.

“Mind your business and move on.”

“Was minding my business; I need to put gas in this hog.”

“Then you’ll have to do it somewhere else,” the officer snapped. “In case you missed the flashing lights and that poor bastard over there being taken out in a body bag, it’s currently closed.”

He had missed the body bag, eyes drawn to it now as something nagged at the back of his memory.

Didn’t that kid work here? Ace or something or another.

He’d come to the aid of one of Creature’s club brothers a few weeks back, but damned if he could remember the circumstances.

He’d been on door duty and only caught bits and pieces of what had gone on inside.

Shit, he hadn’t gotten himself killed, had he?

Someone back at the clubhouse was likely to be pissed if he had.

He’d better let them know something had gone down.

“Move, unless you’d like a ride to the station,” the cop said, growing impatient with him.

“Naa, I’ll pass; I prefer to earn those the hard way,” Creature remarked, lifting his boot up off the curb and revving the engine.

As he turned to drive past the other side, he spotted the kid standing with Mr. and Mrs. Martinez, along with the young man who’d splayed himself out on the bar for Kong the other night.

Scout hadn’t made himself available to anyone else after that, a fact that had frustrated him to no end when the man had turned him down flat, despite there still being no property of tag on him.

Kong clearly hadn’t claimed him, not yet anyway.

Was the kid holding out hope, or had Kong hurt him when they’d gotten up to whatever it was they’d done?

Kong did have a reputation for accidentally injuring people in the bedroom.

Still, Creature hadn’t noticed him limping or even moving gingerly as he flitted between tending bar and cleaning up around the clubhouse, a silent, stunningly beautiful presence that never quite seemed to fit, despite the ink he bore.

An enigma, really, but if Kong had broken him, then it was unlikely he’d be willing to take another chance on a man their size, and Kong was every bit the match for him in that department.

Was just a shame they’d never hooked up over the years they’d ridden side by side.

Came close, though, a few times. Been interrupted before and gotten too wrapped up wrestling one another to do more than get in a few kisses and the rough chafing of beards on skin.

Left a few tooth marks on one another too, and a fuckton of scratches.

A few bruises too. But in the end they’d gotten off with other people and tormented each other to distraction with heated looks until Kong had gone off to work upstate for the past few months in the Outer Banks.

Kill Devil Hills was too long a ride for a night of pleasure, though Creature had considered it from time to time, especially on the nights he was bored and the hang-arounds held no interest for him.

The thing was, he’d reached a point in his life when he wasn’t interested in fucking around and forgetting whatever partner he’d spent time with.

He was eager and itching to put his tag on one, maybe even more than one.

If Kong didn’t step up to the plate with Scout soon, Creature was going to do a little pressing up on him, see just how interested the kid was in hooking up with a club brother for more than a night.

For right now, it was just a good feeling to know the kid and that other one were safe, along with the Martinez family, who’d owned that business since not long after they’d first gotten married.

He’d watched them build it up from a two-pump place that could barely keep milk and cigarettes stocked to a staple in the community.

There were three pumps now and selections ranging from fresh fruit and vegetables to diapers and infant cereal.

When something went wrong in their community they pulled together a care package for the family and started up a coffee can collection to deliver along with it.

Him and the boys were known for dropping in a roll of cash after they’d taken up a collection of their own, the only way some members of the community would accept help from them.

Those black kuttes and leering joker faces tended to scare people, even those who’d known them all their lives.

He couldn’t say the reputation wasn’t warranted either.

In their hellraising days, they’d done as much terrorizing as any other club.

These last ten years, though, things had shifted, as founding members stopped being able to ride and started stepping down.

When Mark’s oldest son had gone to prison, putting in work for the club, he’d seen it as a waste of all the kid’s potential and started taking steps to move them in a more legitimate direction.

It had been good for everyone.

Those in desperate need of work they couldn’t find because of felonies and lack of education had seen their classes funded from club coffers, an investment that allowed them to now legitimately earn to feed their families.

They didn’t have to worry about minimum wage and shitty hours either.

Club-owned and club-run, their business ventures and newly established enterprises had filled gaps within the community, providing services that otherwise would have been sought thirty miles away, in a much bigger city.

As a direct result, their town was thriving again, and they’d slowly begun to erase some of the bad reputation they’d earned through violence and desperation.

Still didn’t mean everyone fully trusted them.

Didn’t mean there weren’t still those operating off the books, either.

They just made sure neither Mark nor the authorities caught wind of it.

Had always been a loudly established rule that you never led cops back to the clubhouse doors, and that didn’t just mean in the middle of a high-speed chase, either.

The fact that a dumbass had made that rule necessary still made him scratch his head, but at least he didn’t have to ride beside the fucker anymore.

He was in the middle of a mandatory twenty-five years before he’d ever have the chance of walking free again, while that patch he’d been wearing the night he’d torn through the gates with three cop cars on his ass had been pulled before they’d handed him over to them.

The only ones who won the kind of shootout the man had been proposing were the FBI, when they got to roll in with more firepower than the club had stocked up, with warrants to tear apart their files and the homes of every club member who got in the way. No one was going down like that.

Talk about another turning point.

Rolling into the compound, Creature paused to enter the security code and waited for the gate to roll back to allow him through.

This time of day, he doubted many were lingering in the clubhouse, but Mark would be there in his office, conducting business and seeing to payroll, since it was Wednesday.

“Yo, figured you’d be at the shop all day,” Pope said by way of greeting.

The man was seated at the bar with a platter of wings and a beer by his left hand and a stack of papers by his right.

Probably reading through the notes for his latest book on biker lore and history.

The man had a gift for words that Creature sometimes envied, not that he had cause to do more writing than it took to fill in his purchase orders for someone else to enter into the computer when they had the chance.

He hated the damn things.

“Needed to touch base with Mark about a few custom jobs we’ve got coming up,” Creature explained. “Didn’t want to start those builds until he could assure me we’d have the parts.”

“You’ll get them,” Mark said, his large, shadowy form filling the office door as he stepped out. “That Scout kid has more than proven that his source, whoever it is, is a reliable one.”

“But he still won’t tell you where he’s getting them?” Creature asked.

“Nope, but those salvage certificates and receipts are legitimate, so I see no sense in pressing him,” Mark said.

“I know Danger could easily track down the address of the LLC to get us a location, but I’m holding off on that, trusting that the kid will reveal it once he realizes that he’s already earned his place with us. ”

“He still worried that Teddy’s fucked up his chances?” Pope asked.

“And with good reason, since I’ve still got him keeping eyes on Teddy and reporting back to me, the same as I’ve got Maureen sending me progress reports on how he’s doing working at the diner for her.”

“Yeah, and how is the little ass handling his demotion?” Pope asked.

“Sullen, like the brat he was when I found him, instead of the man I came to love,” Mark said.

“Which is why he’ll keep cooling his heels there and living in the cabin.

I can’t have him back by my side until he gets his shit together and can admit that he was wrong.

He owes Sinn an apology I know he won’t give easily, so as long as that friction still exists, he’ll remain on the fringes until I decide to cut him loose or try to reel him back in. ”

“Or he fucks up so spectacularly that you’ll have no choice but to kick him down the road for good,” Pope added.

“Hope it doesn’t come to that.”

“Can’t say there’s a lot of folks left who feel the same way.”