Snare: Road Kill MC (A Novel) (6 page)

Finally, he nods. “But Snare never gave me up. They removed me from the home, but they couldn't make dick stick. Without you ingrates backing the evidence, they had to let me go home.”

Snare wanted to protect the twins.
Me.

I cast a lustful glance at the door. Just when I think I've lost, and Riker will physically overpower me, I hear the sound of treads being slapped coming up the stairs.

Two cops appear at the landing. They see Riker and pull their weapons. I flatten against the wall, my heart trying to escape my rib cage.

“Stay where you are.”

Riker lifts his arms, and I notice for the first time that he's wearing neater clothes than I've ever seen on him. Hair fixed in a traditional braid. His new look is like a costume. Can't hide his evilness. Not from me.

One of the cops levels me with his gaze. “Miss, did you dial 9-1-1?”

So many thoughts swirl in my mind like snow, falling to the ground of my memories. No matter how lightly I tread, I can't use Snare again. I'll have to figure it out on my own.

I make a split decision. “I did. This guy scared me—he's not from my building—and I panicked, I guess.”

It kills me to lie. It hurts so much more than I thought it would. I bleed to not tell the truth to these cops that I called to protect me.

But Riker threatened me. And then where will Jaylin be? He's already said he'd get Snare involved, maybe mess up whatever life he's managed for himself. My eyes burn, and my vision goes blurry.

“Miss, hey now—calm down.”

I hear Riker, “Can I go now?”

“ID, please,” the other officer says.

“Where do you live, miss?”

I lift my finger toward my door. He walks me there, his strong arm around me and Jaylin.

His partner turns to Riker.

“Sure, officer. I must have got the wrong building.” Mr. Cooperation's eyes travel over me then away as he digs for his wallet. “Sorry about that,” Riker says to me.

I don't reply. Instead, I let myself be led to my apartment door with a mild chastisement about not using 9-1-1 for every strange man who appears.

“After all,” the officer continues, “if you're not being threatened in any way, it's a loss of resource.”

“Yes,” I agree easily and shut the door. I use every bolt I have and back away from the locked door.

I turn, walking a now-sleeping Jaylin straight to her bedroom. It's really just an oversized closet, my apartment being a one-bedroom plus “den.” In downtown Seattle, that's code for a closet and a smaller closet.

But I'm grateful.

I don't break down until my baby girl is all tucked in. Her favorite book is underneath her pillow, and the bunny I gave her for Easter is clutched in a hand just the old side of babyhood.

I move back to my dinky living room and lower slowly onto the couch. It's angled toward the door. I wait for Riker to break it down.

My eyelids get heavy, and my crying turns to the jerking of sleep's approach.

I dream of Snare.

When I wake in the morning, there's a piece of paper underneath the door.

A date has been written on it. A time. An address. I recognize the handwriting.

Riker has again decreed what I do.

Somehow.

Snare

“Want me to beg? Fuck, I'll do it,” Noose says, his head cranked back, one hand dangling from his knee, the other sucking on his cig.

“I can't
not
go see her, Noose,” I say, my eyes tracing the big dipper in the sky. We're waiting on a gun meet. Just me and Noose. Same place, different time. We switch out the meets about every third time.

Random is key.

I quit counting stars and glare at Noose instead. “If Rose was doing this? You'd what—wait until the timing was right?” My grunt is its own vocabulary. Basically that noise is
fuck no.

Noose flicks an ash, sears me with a hard stare, and runs his palm over the top of his long hair. “Fuck, if Rose was stripping, I think my IQ would drop a hundred points.”

I bark out a laugh.

“Shut up, fucker. Just because I don't have your gift of fucking gab doesn't mean I can't express myself.”

I think of Noose doing one of his knots. And what he can do with a string. He expresses himself when he wants to. My humor dies.

“True dat. But, and don't get me wrong, the sweet butts are great. Always good tail, always easy—no complications.”

A ghost of a smile graces Noose's mouth and is gone almost before I notice.

“But Sara—Gee-zus.” A breath I'm holding blasts out of me. “She's naked without my protection.”

Noose chuckles. “In more ways than one.”

“Fuccck offf,” I sing, raising two middle fingers in his direction.

He turns toward me, moonlight striping his face like blades carved from shadow and light. “Promise me you won't drag your dick downtown and sit in when she's doing her stuff. Believe me, you will kick some ass.”

“My dad is trying to go after her again. I have to move in—I have to—”

Noose shakes his head. “No. We move in together. If your dad is half as smart as you, and you've told me the history—we've already lost the element of surprise. Any male willing to beat the fuck outta his own kids and try to rape his stepdaughter…” Noose shrugs without finishing, lighting up another smoke. “I know the fucking type. Dealt with ʼem. They got a certain cunning to them.”

I just look at him.

His eyes narrow, the irises like slits of silver. “Tell me I'm wrong.”

“My dad is a fuckinʼ drunk nate.”

“Huh?”

I hate this part. The part where I confirm a stereotype. “My dad, he's Native American. There's nothing he likes more than the booze.” I say the last two words like they should be in all capital letters.

Noose points at me. “Hey, pal, I'll let ya in on a little secret. Don't have to be a certain race to be a shitbag. Lots of them around, and with almost all of them, race doesn't seem to be a factor.” He lifts his shoulders, flicking his cig to the ground at the same time.

Noose dismounts, easing off his bike like water made of black leather. The man is smooth.

Everything I do, I do to protect the club. I have a black belt in judo, lift, run. I wouldn't touch a cigarette under threat of torture. But Noose's smoking doesn't seem to compromise him.

Just makes him meaner than fuck.

He gauges my expression. “Something I say funny?” His eyes scan the darkness, waiting for my answer.

I shake my head. “No, only thinking about how you get shit down to the brass tacks. There's no prettying anything up for you.”

“Nope.” Noose straightens, and I know he hears something. A heartbeat later, I do too.

Our guns are coming.

*

Noose's fingertips lovingly run over the cold metal barrels of the AK-47s.

“Nice.” That's his one word. As usual.

“Noose,” I say, “stop petting the guns.”

“Yep,” he replies with a wink, loading the last box into the utility van.

He jams a cig in his mouth and slides on the bike. I flick a hand in mock salute from the driver's side.

We roll out of the spot in the woods. A shit ton of collateral’s tied up in this deal. Nothing to bankroll after the fucking Ned situation got blown up. If Noose and I can run these guns, we can get a little desperation cash shored up for Road Kill, and all will be well.

We make for the warehouse. It's just how it sounds. A huge building like the one Chaos has that we rescued Rose from. But ours is hidden in the outskirts of the west hill of Kent, right up the ass of Federal Way. An armpit of a city that got the hind tit of zoning. There's pockets of unclaimed, unnamed parcels. People feud over zoning while we use it for our purposes.

My mind wanders on the ride over. Thinking about Sara, wondering what I can do.

Whatever it is, I got to make it fast. If Riker is trying to keep his ass out of prison, going after Sara doesn't make sense.

I should have never lied to keep that sack of shit in the house. But the twins needed food. Sara's mom needed something.

Hard not to blame the kid I was. Sometimes... I do anyway.

I can take the blame now, if I don't protect Sara. If I don't make her mine.

Fuck it if she says she's somebody else's. I won't accept that. I'll never accept that.

*

The warehouse door gives a metallic cough as I lock up, and Noose stomps his feet on the concrete stoop, trying to knock the dust off the treads of his boots. “Fucking mess inside. Gotta get a prospect in there to sweep up.”

“Remember Trainer when he fell asleep and had to clean up the puke and cum fest?” I laugh.

Noose roars, clutching his ribs. “Fucking hilarious.”

We nod. It was.
Fucking prospects.
They got to learn the ropes.

Suddenly, I get an awful idea. “You don't think that dumb fuck fell asleep now—on Sara?”

The laughter dies from Noose's lips, and he grips my arm. “Hey, man, stop fucking worrying. We'll get over there and approach her when she's not at her job—when daddy fucking dearest is least expecting us.”

“She got a man?” I ask in a low voice.

This is why I think Noose is a good human being. Not even a hint of jerking my chain. “Nope. Squeaky clean. Lots of broads who strip are gettinʼ the beef fuel injection”—I wince, and he smirks—“but your girl seems to play it straight. Pretty impressive, considering.”

I fold my arms, waiting to hear what fucking thing could ever be impressive about stripping.

He reads my look. “She's been working her way up for a few years. That first year after she took off is murky, can't get a bead on where she was or what she was doing then. But she started showing up at all the usuals a year after she ran. Sara just got this gig at The Crawl. Best club in town.”

I don't want Sara working at
any
club.

“Anyway, man”—Noose flips his hair back—“she's not some sweet butt type, spreading her legs for every swinging dick who crooks his finger.”

I dip my head to my chest. Fuck, fuckity,
fuck
.

“Don't like your silence, man. Seems you're thinking rash thoughts.”

I raise my chin, looking straight into his eyes. “You got that right.”

“You're such a pain in my ass. Vince was like, ʻDon't let Snare go off half-cocked—get his dumb ass in jail.ʼ” Noose raises his eyebrows.

I look away. I'm so planning to go straight to The Crawl and get ahold of Sara.

“Devil's advocate,” Noose says, interrupting my thoughts as he lifts his palms. “You run down to The Crawl, see your girl shaking her assets, and a bunch of guys with boners, shoving money in her G-string. What ya gonna do?”

Rage descends.

Noose nods. “That's about right.”

“Kill them.”

“Oh?” Noose asks, not without sympathy, “Then the cops come, bust your ass, and Sara is still”—he catches my eye—“unprotected.” His last word vibrates between us like a tuning fork.

Fuck.
“I got to see her.”

“Uh-huh.”

We look at each other.

“Nope,” Noose says in clipped response to my unspoken question. He doesn't light up. He sits on his bike, the rumble a purr of sound, overlaying the nighttime noises of small animals who live near the warehouse.

I hold my breath. It whooshes out of me. “Please.” My voice is quiet. Just the one word. The one hope.

“Fuck.” Noose stands.

I hop into the empty truck, and he taps on the window. “I'm going to kick your ass myself if you do something stupid.”

There's no doubt I'll do something stupid.

*

Noose and I travel side by side. Except when he needs to travel in “stealth,” he tells me. What that really means is I'm a bull in a china shop.

I knew that.

I'm no soldier. But I'm a fighter. I'm as steely as any of the Navy Seals that Noose comes from. Lariat, Wring, we're the same type of men. But I had a different path to take. I don't have the training they do.

Noose tells me I've got heart. Whatever that means. I'm thinking it's a certain level of thick-headed stubbornness.

We move through the night like black shadows, our rides hot and quaking between our thighs.

There's a certain peace to riding. If people don't ride, they don't know. It's not something you can explain to someone. They have to be on the bike, live to ride. Like we do now.

Even knowing I might see Sara soon—
See more of her than I thought possible
, I think with grim humor. I can still let the ride ease my frayed senses. I'm so raw right now I feel like I'll explode. Like a glass heated up to a point that it becomes as frail as crystal paper. Ready to be scattered by the tap of a fingernail.

We pull up to the Market then head past. The neon sign is lit, but the vendors and fish tossers have gone home. The murk of the city breeds darker at the perimeter, circling the outskirts of the pier and the low-lying buildings that frame the waterfront like black ink.

The Crawl comes up on our left. Parking sucks. But Noose has Trainer there. Prospect-secured parking. The poor sap.

We pull up to the steeply sloped parking lot stuffed between two high-rise buildings revamped in used brick for a hipster vibe. A metal box is covered with slots for stuffing dollar bills from years ago but now those slots have been replaced with credit card readers.

I pull the fake credit card out of my wallet and stuff it into the reader. The machine whirs, adding up the parking fee. I hear a ping and retract the plastic.

Noose and I glide inside.

We park in the same slot, stacked. We turn off the engines of our bikes, and they tick, cooling off. I lift my cell out of the back pocket of my jeans. It's too hot tonight for chaps. Soon it'll be too hot for them any night. I'll be glad to give them up. They're great in a crash but cook my nuts.

Trainer, me, and Noose head across the street to The Crawl. Looks like it's just what Noose said. A small upscale bar that expanded into the next building. My eyes travel upward, noticing apartment suites over the main bar like dark eyes overseeing the men coming to lust after women. My gaze moves to the sleek, all-glass front.

“McKenna's got another club too.” Noose appears to think about it, then snaps his fingers. “Black Rose or somethinʼ.”

“Been there,” Trainer comments, then licks his lips.

Makes me want to punch him. “You couldn't make the cover charge.”

He waggles his brows. “Saved up. High-class tail in that place.”

I whirl.

Trainer backs up. “Hey, man!”

“You fuck the dancers?” I ask, seething, my fists like ready hammers at my sides.

He shakes his head. “No. I'm just saying they
look
like high-class tail. They wouldn't have given me a glance. They can have richies, Snare. Only the golden cocks hang around there.”

Golden cocks.
My stomach churns.
What the hell do I have to offer Sara anyway?
I'm fucking charging into a place where she probably pulls down ten K a month and what? I'm going to improve on that haul? Can't. I do good in the club but not that good.

I keep moving my feet one after another. Five years of ignoring my feelings, and fucking everything with a vagina hasn't worked. Nothing can erase her. One thing I can offer Sara that the others can't: I love her. I want to protect her—be her man.

The rest just want to bang her.

I want to bang her too.
My balls ache with it. But Sara's more than tail.

Somehow I get to the front door of The Crawl. There's a short line, and I check the time. Straight up midnight on a Monday. Lots of people for this day of the week.

My stomach does a sort of lazy roll when I check out the headlining poster.

Sara has a sultry pout, and her large, midnight-blue eyes sparkle under the icy stage lights. Her tits are offered up by a barely there glitter of material like ripe fruit. Her pussy is covered by a scrap of the same material. High heels make her small body have the illusion of long legs. I know for a fact she's petite. Gorgeous.