Grey (Storm's Soldiers MC Book 2) (10 page)
“I do. The saying here is money talks, yes?” He spat on the rock. “We are the ones with the money. Take what we let you have and go on home, little boy. Hand over your toys and go play with your little bikes. You are dealing with men.”
He stared down Calix and time slowed to a crawl. Meagan’s face crawled across my mind and kept me from doing anything nuts.
Calix opened the car trunk and heaved out the parcel of gear. I stayed ready, but he hauled it over and dropped it in the earth. One of the men took it and went back.
The boss turned around and walked back to the passenger seat. The three men got in, and they drove back up the dusty road, leaving us to our bags of Mexican money.
I stalked up and pored through a bag. The bills were all crisp, and they smelled real enough, but it would be a fucking pain in the ass to get it converted.
Calix stood in his spot, smoking another cigarette and looking up the way the Mexicans had left.
“Should we go after them?” I asked.
“No. Not now.”
Asher’s voice crackled through the radio. “I can take out a tire or something.”
“No.”
Calix grabbed a sack and tossed it into the car. Leonidas and I followed his prompt. He got in without another word and started back up our side of the road. We were headed home. It had barely been ten minutes. Then again, this was far from over.
We got back to the bar and Calix went straight for the liquor. I pressed up at his side watching and waiting for orders. He went through two glasses without a word. I tried to stay shut, but the stress ground me down.
“What’s the plan, hoss?” I asked.
“There’s not one yet,” Calix said. He glared at me. “I know you got other shit on your mind, so just get out and leave me be.”
“I’m here for you.”
“You ain’t. You’re on call, but you’re not here.”
He signaled for another glass. I watched a bit longer, but he had no more words.
“Fuck it,” I said. “Fine, then. You sulk. Call me before you do anything.”
“Yes, sir,” my brother sneered.
Asher and Leonidas were seated at stools nearby, and I had to see them as I pushed off. They’d heard the same words. They probably thought the same thoughts.
My mind boiled with anger. Raw, ruthless rage. Was it justified? No. They had my number right, better than I even knew myself.
What had I become?
My watch clicked as it rounded to four. Fuck, needed in two places at once. I’d always be needed in two places at once.
I roared out to the city. Viper thrummed with the anger I poured into it. Why was shit so messed up? Even letting go of my dilemma, what was Calix thinking arguing with the Cartel? They weren’t fucking Walmart to negotiate terms and shit.
My phone buzzed in my pocket and I pulled it out.
Where are you???
- Meagan
It just made me more stressed. Why was she meeting with that fucker of a boyfriend anyway? He had done some shit to her, and she knew it better than me. Was she pining for some shit in her past? Was that what it boiled down to?
The sky was dark by the time I rolled into Little Five. The place was all foaming with light and drunk people, just milling around on a Friday night.
Friday fucking night and I was here to see my girl talking to her ex. Fuck me.
I parked in some gravel lot that warned me my ride would be towed if I didn’t visit their shitty little cupcake stores. Let them try.
The café Meagan had texted about was quiet. My colors stood out stark against the sweaters and polos of the kids working in here, but I didn’t give a shit. I got a coffee plain with buckshot and spotted Meagan outside about the same time she spotted me.
Her face glowed amber in the outdoor lighting and her ruby lips looked plump, but it wasn’t enough to still my mind. She didn’t look to be all that calm either. Much of her was hidden by the back of another guy, broad, with slick dark hair over a striped grey sweater. Her eyes returned to him. I knew it was so he wouldn’t look back for me, but I didn’t like it anyway.
I eased out the side door and took an empty seat facing away from the two of them. I sipped at my diesel and listened in.
“Ok,” Meagan was saying.
“Good. Great. I’m so happy to hear that.”
“I mean I’ll talk to the registrar.”
“Ok, good, and, uh…”
“Rico, that’s it. What the hell else are you expecting from me?”
“Nothing, nothing.”
His voice was so full of shit. And he had this accent that pissed me off too, real faint, real girly.
Rico. Sounded Spanish.
“Uh uh,” Meagan said. “Don’t pull that shit. You promised me that this was about making amends.”
“Sure, yes. But you make amends to move forward.”
“Yeah, move forward
separately
.”
“If you want to start off that way, sure, yes, but we’re going to be back on the same campus. We will be right next to each other. “
Meagan snorted, and I could hear the smoke coming out. “You really think that I am ever gonna give a man who beat me up another chance? We are never going to be together. Get that through your head.”
The guy must have said something, but I didn’t hear it. I knew this guy was a piece of shit, hell, maybe he had even slapped her. But the idea of this Mexican prick, beating the shit out of my girl…
My hands pulled into fists. Hot coffee boiled over my skin, and I didn’t flinch. It was all I could do to stay rooted to my metal chair.
“Well, thanks for putting in a good word for me, Rico,” Meagan was saying. “I do appreciate it.”
A chair scuffled away, and I heard her purse rattle as she took it.
“Meagan, wait,” the guy murmured, his voice suddenly serious.
“I’ll see you round.”
Her footsteps scuffled my way, and I waited for that glorious sight to slip into my view, draw me into its magnetic pull. She lived right around the corner and I needed to let some serious steam off.
Metal scrapped back along concrete, and then suddenly Meagan yelped. “Hey!”
I bolted up. Rico was tugging her back towards the table. His dark face was calm but his eyes were filled with anger.
“Hey, hombre,” I said, pulling up to them. “Get your hands off her.”
His beady eyes turned on me, surprised. I walked right into him, and wrested Meagan’s wrist free.
“The fuck is your problem?” the guy asked.
I chuckled even as my vision went brick red. “My problem? I’m not the prick grabbing women.”
“I just wanted to talk,” he said, speaking very slowly and trying to edge around me.
“The lady’s done talking.” I blocked his view. The patio was mostly empty in the cold, but a couple passing people were enjoying the show
“Meagan.” His arm reached out under me.
This fucker. He thought the world was his. That he could get everything he wanted just cause he was rich. Well, not today.
I grabbed his wrist and shoved him back. He went staggering into his chair.
“Go fuck yourself, you spic,” I said.
The air seemed to spin around me. His face went wide.
Behind I heard someone gasp. There was no one near me though.
No one but Meagan.
Oh, shit.
Rico stayed stunned, as if I had socked his face.
“So this,” he said slowly. “This is the guy you’ve chosen to be with?”
“It…is.”
Meagan’s words came out solid, but there was an edge to them that unnerved me. I looked back at her and saw her eyes wide, rounded, like she were seeing something new. It was like I was something other than the man who had her heart. Something not much different than this other man who had beat her up.
She was looking at me like I was a monster.
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******
Black and White (Storm’s Soldiers MC)
MEAGAN:
I knew that boy was trouble the moment I laid eyes on him: shaved head, leather jacket, tattoos leaking out onto his neck like warpaint.
I've just now left behind the storms of my past, and he is no fluffy white cloud to land on.
But one wicked smile from him, and I'm shivering, longing for something I should never want
Maybe just one night. Yeah, one rough night to shake me free.
That's all this was supposed to be...
VAUGHN:
The girl had my attention from the moment her dark eyes found mine. She shouldn't have been my type, not by a long shot. But opportunity presented itself, and I gave in to weakness.
Only one woman ever had my heart and she was ripped from this world not long after giving birth to me. This girl though, she won't leave my goddamn mind. I can't keep myself away from her lush embrace.
This goes on, the truth will find us - burn me to the ground. Cause my family and I run with the Storm's Soldiers - the roughest bunch of white separatists south of the Mason-Dixon.
And this girl's a lot of things, but she sure ain't white...
******
Uncaged
GEORGIA:
I just wanted to escape my past. Instead, I was kidnapped and sold to a monster in Mexico. The creep wants me to give myself to him willingly, and his methods are
working
. But then, he takes me to an underground arena and I see a man who knows what it means to fight back.
They call him deadly, but to me, he looks like life.
Those muscles could set me free in more ways than I dare dream.
If only I could reach him.
ANDRE:
In this town, I reign supreme. Even Cartel kingpins fear my strength. They drown me in riches to see it on display.
I know the truth. I'm nothing more than a mutt rolling around for treats, chained here by the weight of my past.
Then I met her - the broken pixie who saw me as a man to trust.
I thought freeing her would mean my redemption.
She might just turn out to be my salvation.
******
Break Me Open (Desert Wraiths MC)
