Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 96612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
That thought brought me back into the present and I glanced around the room, not seeing Will anywhere.
“Where’s Will?” I asked Casper quietly as someone peppered Slider and Poet with questions.
“Haven’t seen him. Think he went back to his place after he got patched up earlier,” he replied.
“You find anything out?”
“Nope. Thought Grease was gonna fucking kill him when the kid wouldn’t stop mouthing off. Didn’t learn anything new, though.”
I nodded and sat back in my chair. I had to track down Will and get things straightened out before shit started happening. I needed him at my back—without a fucking knife.
“Just keep doin’ what you’ve been doin’,” Slider finally called out with a tired wave of his hand. “We’ll keep our ears to the ground, let ya know if we have any news.”
“This mean we still can’t have girls on the grounds?” some idiot called from the back of the room.
Slider glanced at Poet, then back at the room. “Gates are open again.”
A cheer went up from the guys and the crowd dispersed, heading to call their sidepieces and go back to work.
The garage we ran was a legitimate business that kept the police mostly off our backs, but running the business meant actually fixing cars. So that’s what we did—and we did it well. Most of the men that patched in with the Aces had started out as gear heads, their love of bikes bringing them to the club.
Our other businesses weren’t quite as aboveboard, and there were only a few of us who handled those. Poet and Slider, Grease, Dragon, Casper, Samson, an old-timer named Smokey that couldn’t do much anymore, me and pretty soon, Will, ran the not-so-legal side of the operation. A few others were muscle, stepping in whenever asked, but they knew very little. We kept our shit tight and our mouths shut, bringing in the other brothers if we needed them, but leaving them out when we didn’t. They all knew the score, they’d all been on runs when shit went down, but they rarely had to deal with the shadier side of the Aces.
They didn’t mind not getting their hands dirty, though they’d all been dirty at some point. It was a win-win. Those who wanted to be a part of shit usually were, and the others wouldn’t go looking for trouble, but were more than happy to step in if the need arose. The way it was organized meant there were very few that knew the intricacies of what we were doing, which left little room for error.
“Church,” Slider called as the room cleared out.
“I’m gonna head home,” I told Casper as we climbed to our feet.
“Home, huh?”
“That woman—” I couldn’t help but laugh uncomfortably and shake my head. Casper and I had talked about a lot of shit in the years since he’d taken me in, but I couldn’t talk to him about Trix. Shit with her seemed almost sacred, too important to tell anyone about it.
“Glad you’re happy, boy.” He gripped my shoulder tight, then turned and walked through the doors to the meeting room.
I wasn’t invited in there.
I may have been one of the few that knew exactly what was going on, but that didn’t mean I got into the inner sanctum.
I’d only been gone for a couple of hours, waiting for the rest of the men to show up before Slider made his announcements—and for the first time, I was anxious to get the fuck out of there.
* * *
“Trix?” I swung the front door open and stepped inside the apartment, surprised at the low murmur of voices coming from the kitchen.
“In here!” she called back cheerfully as I locked the door behind me.
When I got to the kitchen, I stopped abruptly, my neck heating as I took in the scene. Trix was at the table with some guy, leaning over a couple of textbooks. They weren’t touching—that’s the only reason the guy was still breathing.
“Hey,” Trix said cheerfully, standing up to greet me. “You’re back a lot earlier than I thought.”
“Clearly,” I said flatly, ignoring the way she’d wrapped her arms around my middle and leaned up for a kiss. “Who’s this?”
Trix’s neck snapped back in surprise, then turned toward the kid sitting at the table.
He was clean cut. T-shirt and jeans. Plain black converse. Short hair. Black framed hipster glasses. Five-nine on a good day. Not built, but not scrawny, either.
“Hey, man. I’m Steve,” he said, standing to shake my hand.
“Hulk,” I introduced myself, keeping my arms at my sides.
“Is that your real—” his eyes drifted down my chest and he grinned. “Biker name, huh? I get it.”
“Probably not,” I replied flatly.
“Cameron,” Trix warned lowly, stepping away from me.
“Since your boyfriend’s home, you wanna work on this tomorrow?” Little Steve asked, his eyes moving to Trix. He smiled and shrugged like he felt bad for her, and I wanted to knock his head off his narrow shoulders.