“Burn it to the ground,” he bites out as he continues to watch his sister beat Janice bloody.
“I’ll call the boys.” Raider says, nodding. “What are you going to do about the girl?”
My phone lands on the table with a loud thump. “Fuck if I know.”
The three of us are still sitting there drinking beers an hour later when Felicity walks into the bar. She takes Raider’s beer and downs the rest of the half-full bottle before speaking. “Well, that was fun.”
“Where’s Raven?” I ask, hoping that she’s just taking her time and will walk in at any second.
“It’s Saturday,” Raider answers for her. “She’s doing the books for the Originals.”
“She’s doing Razor’s books right now.” Felicity informs me, peeling at the paper on the empty beer bottle. “Spider had a big back piece to start on so she just went with him.”
I stand, feeling restless and agitated. I don’t give a fuck what Raider says. Spider is definitely something I should worry about. “I think I need a new back piece,” I tell the three people still sitting at the booth, staring up at me as if I’m insane. Yeah, I probably am. “Raider, you handle the men. We will meet here at midnight and ride over.”
I don’t give him time to do more than nod before I walk toward the exit. My blood simmers the entire ride over to Razor’s Ink Shop. If I get there and his hands are on her, I will fucking gut that motherfucker!
There are two hogs parked in the parking lot. One I recognize as Spider’s, the other belongs to a newer Angel’s Halo member. I’m not even sure I remembered the guy’s name. There are thirty-seven active members in the club in Creswell Springs. I can’t be expected to remember everyone’s name.
I park my bike and walk inside. There’s a flat screen on the back wall in the front room. Rock videos play at a moderate volume which doesn’t drown out the buzzing of the tattoo gun as Spider works on the man’s bare back. I see that the ink piece was a brand. The guy’s putting his girl’s name on his skin. Obviously the chick is going to be his for life. Bikers don’t put just any female’s name on them.
The sound of the door slamming behind me has Spider lifting his hand and turning in his chair to see who has dared enter his domain unannounced. When he sees me his eyes darken. “Well, if it isn’t the big bad new president.” He turns his back and starts working on the ink again. “What do you want?”
“She here?”
“If by she you mean Raven, then yeah. She’s in the back handling the books.” He adds more color to the needle of the tattoo gun and continues with sure, deft strokes. “As you can see, boss man, I’m busy. No free time to damage the goods and all that bullshit that must be like a cancer eating up your sanity.”
I grit my teeth and move farther into the shop. When I’m a few feet away, I pull up a chair and flip it around. Straddling it, I watch my old friend work magic on the young biker’s back. “She come to you when I left?”
“None of your fucking business.”
“She fuck you?”
Spider’s hand lifts again. “You really want to get into this now, boss man? Because I don’t have a prob
lem making you eat a few teeth.”
The younger biker doesn’t even move as he listens to us. He knows better than to repeat anything he hears right now.
“Answer me, James.”
Spider’s eyes darken even more. No one calls him James anymore. It’s disrespectful and I know I’m being a bastard. Spider has helped me when I didn’t have anywhere else I could turn. He’s four years younger than me, but he’s always been the closest friend that I’ve ever had. I’m not sorry though. The image of Raven’s hands on Spider’s chest flash behind my eyes, and I’m ready to make him swallow a few teeth of his own.
“Did she touch you like she loves to touch me?” I demand in a voice that’s calm, completely deceptive of the rage boiling in my veins.
“You are such a bastard, man.” Spider stands, placing his tattoo gun aside carefully. He pulls his black, rubber gloves off and tosses them in a wastebasket beside the table that holds all of his equipment. As he slowly turns to face me, he pops his neck.
“Did she?”
“You want the truth?” he grits out in that gruff voice that sounds like he smokes five packs a day, but it’s really his natural tone. I slowly nod, not sure if I’m telling the truth or not. “She was a fucking mess. I saw it. I felt her pain. But she never let herself cry. Not one tear fell from those pretty eyes. One night she got so shitfaced she didn’t know what she was doing. She wanted human contact. Someone to tell her that she was good enough. That someone wasn’t you, so she came to me. Did I fuck her? No. But not because I didn’t want to. Because if there was one drop of what she feels for you in what she feels for me, I would’ve jumped on board faster than it took you to decide to break her heart.”
Relief rushes through me and my shoulders relax just a little. “So she would rather come to you than her brothers?”
“We’re friends. I was the shoulder she needed to lean on when the ones she wanted were off fucking her heart up.” He stands there, vibrating with anger. I can see it, know that he hates me just as much as I hate myself. I hadn’t just left him to deal with Raven’s broken heart. I’d left him without a backwards glance too.
But he’s wrong. I’ve glanced back a million times every day for the past year.
Chapter 10