Zach (Hell's Handlers MC 1)

Poor fucker. Bones was his name.

He already looked like he’d been hitched to the back of a truck and dragged for miles. The beating Zach was in the midst of delivering sure wouldn’t do him any favors.

Zach smiled. That’s what happened when you crossed into Handler’s territory.

Still smiling the smile of a man who enjoyed his work, Zach gripped the Gray Dragon’s hair and yanked him to a kneeling position. “I asked you a question, asshole. Do you have any idea what I could be doing right now if I didn’t have to deal with your fugly ass in my town?” As he spoke, he placed his booted heel on the guy’s calf and pressed down.

Hurt like a sonofabitch. Zach knew that from first-hand experience.

Bones mashed his teeth together and screamed through them. “No,” he ground out. That one good eye bulged as though it would pop right out of his head. Wouldn’t that suck for old Bones?

“I’ll tell you,” Zach said easing back on the pressure. “You see, there’s this hot little number I know. And every evening, around this time, she sits out on her porch.” He leaned forward and pushed against the man’s calf again. The hiss of pain was music to his ears. “Now when I say hot, I mean H-O-T. Tits, ass, face, the whole package. And I was planning on getting all up in that tonight. Driving up on my bike—chicks love that shit. Gets ’em going. So, you see, you’re keeping me from getting my dick taken care of.”

“S-sorry,” Bones said. His face was growing redder with each passing second.

The chance of his dick actually getting taken care of by Toni was probably around twenty-five percent. What was more likely to happen was a roll of her pretty eyes. It didn’t make any sense. She was attracted to him. The way her breathing hitched and her gaze lingered on him was all he needed to see to know she wanted him. So why play hard to get? Why not give into a mutually satisfying few weeks? What was the hold up? Zach was determined to discover what lay beyond her walls.

But first…

“Don’t you think I deserve to have my dick tended to, Bones?”

“Y-yes. Oh fuck,” he whispered as Zach tightened his grip until a few of Bones’s short greasy hairs burst free of his scalp.

Now for the fun part. Zach leaned down so he was eye to eye with his new friend. “So why the fuck are you selling heroin in my town and making me miss time with my girl?”

Slight exaggeration. Okay, bold faced lie.

My girl.

Sounded kind of nice.

Too nice.

Nice in a way that Zach was not interested in. Nice in a flowery, matching slippers kind of way.

“I’m j-just following orders,” he said between pants.

“Just a good little gang soldier, huh?” He released both his hold on Bones’s hair and the press of his boot.

Bones’s relief was instantaneous. With a loud gasp, he sagged to the ground on all fours.

“All right,” Zach said, running a hand through his hair as he paced in front of Bones. “You’re the fourth Gray Dragon piece of shit that I’ve chatted with this week. Either you’re all too afraid of Shark to bring our messages back or too stupid. Which is it?”

Jigsaw had called about a half hour ago with the tip. Someone saw Bones dealing behind an abandoned shoe store on the edge of town. Guy was smart enough not to wear his colors, but it didn’t even matter. All Gray Dragons had a bright red dragon tattoo on their left hand. Never made any fucking sense to Zach, but it was a dead giveaway when trying to identify one of the bastards.

So, he’d dropped what he was doing—working on the class schedules for the gym he managed—and hightailed it to the shoe store.

Sure enough, Bones.

“Fuck you.”

Guy was getting a little mouthy in the absence of acute pain. Zach sighed. Why couldn’t it just be easy? Why couldn’t this little shit just open his mouth and rat out his gang?

Not that Zach didn’t respect the loyalty. He, himself, would die before turning on the club. But that wasn’t usually the case with these gang members. They were young, stupid, and selfish. Each and every one would crack with the right motivation.

And fear for their life was typically right on the money.

“Guess we’re going to do this the hard way.” He drew his sidearm from the small of his back at the same time he shoved Bones to his back with a kick. There wasn’t time to grab Louie after Jigsaw’s call, so a gun was the only weapon available to him.

Before Bones knew what had hit him, Zach was kneeling with one knee on Bones’s chest and his pistol jammed against Bones’s kneecap. “You the one who roughed up our girls?”