Still Standing (Wild West MC 1)

I suspected, however, that my car was safer outside the Aces High Motorcycle Club’s hangout than it was anywhere.

Repo men undoubtedly had a variety of ways and means, but I didn’t figure one of their ways was to repossess a car right outside a possibly dangerous motorcycle club’s clubhouse. I figured members of the club might frown on that simply for territorial reasons alone.

I slammed the door to my car and walked to the hangout still sucking in deep breaths.

My message was short.

They were going to be angry, but that was Esposito’s problem. Not mine.

I was just the messenger.

Simply the messenger.

That was it.

The front door to their lair was off to one side, close to the end, away from the street.

I pulled it open and stepped through into the dark, my eyes taking a moment to adjust as it was a shock after being out in the bright Phoenix sunshine.

This was unfortunate because I immediately heard the low, angry growl of a man.

“You’ve gotta be fuckin’ shittin’ me.”

I turned my head toward the sound and my eyes adjusted.

It looked like a bar. A comfortable one like you’d have in your house if you owned a very big house, you’d lived in it a long time, you had a great number of friends, and you partied frequently.

Two pool tables. Some couches and armchairs. Some tables and chairs (most of these poker tables). A massive wide-screen TV hanging on the side wall close to the door. A long bar at the wall across the wide room opposite the TV. A bar with shelves behind it, liquor on the shelves, some glasses, stools in front, but no cash register. Things on the wall: pictures, plaques, flags, stickers, carvings.

Yes.

Carvings in the wood paneling on the walls.

Jagged ones.

Although I was surprised at this choice of decoration, and what it said about the easy and prolific access to knives the people who used that space had, I was on a mission, and thus, didn’t pay much attention.

I took in what I could of the environment just to understand where I was, because I felt it prudent to focus on the humans and not the décor.

This was due to the fact that the room was also filled with about ten big, rough-looking, angry-looking men.

I focused on the one I was guessing spoke and said, “I’m here to see a Mr. West Hardy.”

“Fuck you,” the man replied, and I squared my shoulders automatically as a thrill of fear raced down my spine.

I wasn’t one of those people who liked fear, who fed off it.

I didn’t like fear.

In fact, I hated it.

And in all this time, the eighteen months since Rogan was arrested, feeling it nearly every day, I still wasn’t used to it.

But I was desperate. I had no choice.

“Get your ass outta here,” another man ordered, and I looked at him.

“Are you Mr. Hardy?” I asked.

“Get your ass outta here,” he replied.

I ignored him because I had a job to do and I needed to do it. Desperation, obviously, made you do desperate things.

And, like I said, I was desperate.

My eyes scanned through the men.

I had to take this. If I didn’t take this and say what I had to say, I didn’t get paid and Tia got into trouble.

And I needed to get paid, and I needed that badly.

But more, I couldn’t get Tia into trouble.

All the men were standing, save one.

One was sitting at a stool at the bar, slightly twisted to the side, but his head was bowed to it, looking at a bottle of beer in his hands.

I only saw his profile and not much of it since he had a very full beard.

He had a lot of tattoos on his arms which were exposed by a short-sleeved T-shirt. He had very muscular arms. And from what I could see from the tight T-shirt he was wearing that stretched along his broad back, a very muscular everything.

He had dark hair that was too long. Not long, long, as in, he could put it in a ponytail like some of the men had, but it curled around his neck and swept back from his face and looked kind of greasy-wet, but in a cool way, and I wondered inanely if he used product.

Then again, you couldn’t blame him if he did. I suspected even bikers used product. Since it was so long in the front, if he didn’t do something to keep it back, it would fall over his forehead into his eyes and that would be annoying.

If he wasn’t so rough-looking, I could tell, even in profile, he’d be immensely attractive.

He just wasn’t my type.

Not that anyone was.

Not anymore.

I also knew he was West Hardy, president of the Aces High Motorcycle Club.

I knew this only because, though he was sitting, staring at his beer, he had something about him—a charisma, a magnetism. He exuded the gravitas of a chief.