Page 7 of Ignite (Iron City Knights MC #1)

The pressure in Wolf’s head pounded in tandem with the music.

Harper ground away onstage, working the pole while Portia worked the crowd.

Both women had bills stuffed under their sparkly thongs.

Whistles, catcalls, and loud whoops added to the cacophony.

Most nights the noise didn’t bother him, but he’d woken up this afternoon with gritty eyes and a nasty migraine.

Spring had dumped her annual load of tree pollen with dusty yellow clouds that coated everything.

It was mainly the greenways at the river, as there weren’t a lot of wooded areas in the city, but yesterday’s trip had affected him the most.

He’d ridden his bike right through the thick haze in the budding mountains to Moundsville, West Virginia.

At least once a month, he visited the prison there to see Cesar Beltran, otherwise known as Go-Kart to the club.

He was one of the few members who didn’t work with the steel mills directly; rather, he rebuilt engines and did car mods and other custom work in the machine shop.

Instead of blaming the parents who brought their kids to a midnight street race, the cops rounded up as many drivers as they could find and charged them all with child endangerment. Cesar, being who he was and wearing club colors, ended up in prison, where he’d been for the past year.

Since Wolf didn’t get his usual daytime rest yesterday, that threw off his pattern.

He was working on roughly four hours of sleep in the last twenty-four.

At one time in his life, he could go for days on very little sack time, but he was closer to forty than thirty, and the effects of aging had started to creep up on him.

“What’s up, baby?” Candie walked up to him, her enhanced breasts bouncing with every step of her stilettos. The bra she wore barely contained the masses, and her nipples poked through, leaving nothing to the imagination.

“Same old, same old. Aren’t you supposed to robe up before coming out to greet your fans?”

“I don’t have anything to hide from my fans.” She tittered and ran a sharp clawlike talon down his arm. “Besides, there’s only one fan I want to greet. You doin’ anything after?”

Wolf’s dick twitched in automatic response to the invitation, but he shook his head. “No, thanks.”

They had been off-and-on lovers over the years, but he never considered her seriously, nor she him.

Candie had many men in her life and changed boyfriends frequently.

Wolf had been fine with being the in-between for a while, but at this point in his life, he was tired of playing musical beds.

If all he wanted was to get laid, he only had to crook his finger at one of the dancers and he’d be set.

Candie’s offer might have scratched an itch, but he had no desire for another empty encounter.

No, the only female he found intriguing at this time was a part-time barista with blue hair.

The Iron City Knights didn’t have a stable of prostitutes or maintain a club group of sweetbutts.

None of the dancers were forced to sleep with the members to keep their jobs either, but many of them did by choice.

If someone wanted a hookup, that was fine, but there was no requirement.

Solicitation was forbidden at the strip club itself.

However, some of the more entrepreneurial dancers offered services for hire from time to time.

They took their clients to the cheap pay-by-the-hour motel a few streets over.

Wolf believed that to be their own business, and as long as they kept that shit separate from the club, he turned a blind eye.

Occasionally, one of them got in trouble and called the club.

More than once, he’d gone over to rescue a dancer from a bad situation.

Despite the hands-off policy, the club took care of its people.

Candie puffed out her bright red lips as she turned to leave. “You sure? If you change your mind, come find me.”

“I will. Thanks.”

His neck cramped, and the pain intensified with the music’s volume. He pressed his fingers against his temples to try to find some relief. Candie started her show with a big dip, thighs spread wide as she humped the pole. The crowd’s roar of approval sent spikes through his brain.

“Fuck,” he muttered as he pressed the heel of one hand against his twitching right eye. “Yo, Camshaft. You got any painkillers?”

“Want a blunt? Melter’s probably got some.”

“Fuck no. That shit doesn’t help.”

“Bet he’s got some blues or whites on him too.”

Wolf rolled his uncovered eye toward the younger man, anger flashing in the single green orb. “Where the fuck is he getting fentanyl and oxycodone? Does Scrap know about this?”

Camshaft shook his head. “Nah, you got it wrong. He ain’t dealin’. They’re left over from his surgery last month when they did that fusion thing to his back.” He shrugged. “Scrap wouldn’t care anyway. He’s not paying attention to much these days.”

Another roar crashed into Wolf’s ears, nearly sending him to his knees. Candie probably just shed her top, and the fucking jagoffs acted like they’d never seen a pair of tits before.

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

“Hey, you don’t look too good.”

“I’m not,” Wolf bit out.

“It’s a pretty standard night. Why don’t you go home? We got this.”

It wasn’t in Wolf’s nature to give in, but the pain in his head made him rethink that position. “Yeah, I’m outta here. Call me if something happens.”

He opted to text Scrap instead of heading to the back exit to tell the club president he was leaving and that he’d update the club on Go-Kart at the next church meeting.

Whenever that happened. Scrap seldom called membership meetings.

At this point, Wolf wasn’t sure if the charter even got renewed and registered to make them a club instead of a riding group.

They had bylaws, but no one really followed them.

Hell, the last time the whole group went on a long ride or to a rally was three summers ago. Nothing significant since.

His bike sat parked in the narrow back lot of the building. He’d have to go around the block to get to it, but he didn’t want to wade through the crowd and take a chance on some fucker whooping in his face. He’d likely take him out with a roundhouse punch.

The cooler air, dark streets, and less noise seemed to help. Melter’s free pill giveaway concerned him, but he’d deal with it another time. Right now, he just wanted to get home, take a handful of industrial-strength painkillers, and crawl into his bed.

The full helmet muffled the bike’s rumble as he crossed the bridge and entered his neighborhood.

He passed the greenway buffer to the river and was nearly at the bakery before he realized the route he’d followed on autopilot.

He pulled over to the curb and checked his phone.

Just after midnight. It would be hours before Madge opened the place for business.

Too bad, as he was craving a Danish and a coffee.

One with a creative leaf pattern on top.

His thoughts naturally drifted to the cute employee.

He thought Jazz was probably a nickname or shortened version of something else.

It surprised him that Delia had named her as the person who saved her from that phone scammer thing.

He got a kick out of teasing the blue-haired girl, but there was more to the woman than he thought.

She’d never made a big impression on him until now.

Part hippie chick, part computer whiz, part internet Robin Hood, part bakery helper.

He wondered what he would find if he peeled back more layers of her personality.

He had to pass Bill and Madge’s place on the way to his own, and alarm flared in his gut to see the house lights blazing bright. It stood out along the dark row of other homes. Something wasn’t right.

He pulled up to the front and cut the engine. The silence made his ears ring as he pulled off the helmet. He unlocked his phone to send a text to Madge when it buzzed in his hand.

Must be providence, he thought. Either that or the universe is fucking with me. “Madge, what’s wrong?”

She sounded breathless. “It’s Bill. He fell, and I can’t lift him. I can’t call Jazzy, and she can’t lift him anyway. He’s in a lot of pain and still won’t let me get an ambulance. I don’t know who else can come out but you.”

She seemed frantic and on the edge of losing it.

“Insurance doesn’t cover that shit!” Bill yelled faintly in the background.

“You’re in luck. I’m right outside your house.”

Wolf leaned the bike on its stand and opened the squeaky gate to the cracked sidewalk.

A dozen steps later, he stepped up onto the porch under the yellow bug light and knocked on their front door.

Madge met him in a zipped-up housecoat and slippers, her hair sticking out in all directions and gray circles under her eyes.

Exhaustion was written all over her face, and it wasn’t hard to tell that she’d reached the end of her rope.

“Stupid, stubborn mule would rather stay on the floor all night than let me get help,” she snapped.

Bill’s gargling yell came from somewhere in the house. “Dammit, Madge! I told you to leave him alone!”

Madge fired right back. “It needs done, ya jagoff!” She turned to Wolf. “Can you get him up and in the bed for me?”

“Yeah.”

He brushed past her to find Bill sprawled on the floor of the hallway. Nothing was around for him to grasp or take his weight, which meant he’d have to deadlift the big man.

“Where’s his wheelchair?” Wolf asked.

Madge hurried into the back to get it.

Bill grumbled and made noises of protest during the entire operation. “Damn nuisance. Pain in the ass. Useless.”