Troubled Son: Savage Sons MC Romance (8 page)

Moses

I
walked back inside to find Kitten ringing up a fortune in slutty shoes and underwear. I'd thought the stop at the lingerie shop would be a good way to see how Max handled being in an unfamiliar situation, and she'd been cool as a cucumber. I was the one who'd gotten so hot and bothered by the thought of the thongs and heels that I had to get some air. Even just hearing her bra size gave me half a hard on. I couldn't help thinking about what it would be like to watch her put on and then remove some of the things Kitten and I had picked out. Even the thought of Max in the dressing room made me unable to focus on anything except what her ass might look like in the red lace panties I'd picked out to match her shoes. I had to stop.

I paid for the stuff and realized that lace cost more per square inch than leather did. Kitten gave me a goodbye kiss and told Max to come back anytime she wanted to spice things up. Packages in hand, we headed back outside, and I could hear one of my phones ringing to let me know that I had a voicemail as we walked toward my bike. It was one of the prepaid phones, and the missed calls -- all three of them -- were from Bug. I shook my head and figured that my plans for an early night probably weren't gonna work out.

I asked Max to give me a minute and I walked to the other side of the parking lot before I listened to the first voicemail.

"It's Bug. Call me right away."

I deleted the first message to move to the second.

"Bug again. Call me goddammit."

I laughed at the second message. Typical Bug, making a big deal out of every little thing.

"Moses, it's Bug. Either you call me, or I'm gonna come find you, brother."

I rolled my eyes and called him back. He'd clearly been waiting for the call.

"Jesus Motherfucking Christ, Moses. Where the fuck have you been?"

"Out. What's up?" His drama was nothing new to me.

"Moses, you can't just blow me off. I'm the VP, and this is club business."

"Well, do you want to tell me about this important club business, or would you like to continue to whine like a little bitch?"

Bug's voice got even more frantic and high-pitched. "You better watch it. You..."

"Bug. What's up? I ain't got all night."

"Fuckin' Red didn't show up tonight. She had a couple of guys here looking for her."

"Did you call Krystal?"

"Of course I fucking called Krystal! I'm not an idiot. No answer. I left like four messages."

"I'm sure you did." I looked at one of my other phones to check the time. "I'll be there as soon as I can. In the meantime, just find another girl to make the guys happy. Give 'em a two-for-one special or something."

I hung up the phone and called Krystal. She answered just before the call would have gone to voicemail, and she sounded like she was out of breath.

"What's going on, sugar? You know where Red is?"

"Aw, Jesus, Moses. It's been a shitty night. Red must've found herself another dealer, and she ODed. I found her in a puddle of piss when I got home from the shop."

I inhaled and slowly blew out through my mouth, thinking. A lot of the girls who worked for the Sons were tweakers, but we did our best to keep 'em pretty level. We stepped pretty hard on the stuff we sold them, and they knew it, but they put up with it. Every now and then, though, one of the girls would get some crank from somewhere else, and that meant trouble, for a couple of reasons.

"What did you do with her?"

"I called 911. I hated to do it, but they already know her, and I searched her room before I called. The only crank in the house was in her purse."

"Good girl." Krystal sure had her faults, but she was clean, and she was smart -- rare qualities in the girls who spent time at the clubhouse.

"Fuckin' Bug has been calling me every five minutes, but I just now got the chance to step outside the ER. I guess I need to call him back."

I figured that the docs would fix up Red, and if they didn't, it was no one's fault but hers. "Well, sugar, the way you've been cozied up to Bug, you have to expect that he's gonna want to know where you are."

"I know. I'm just tired of being passed around, and Bug ain't got an old lady. Since you've gotten your new girl, you ain't been interested, and Bug sure is."

I tried not to get involved in business between my brothers and their old ladies, but I really did have a soft spot in my heart for Krystal. "You sure you wanna be Bug's old lady?" My history with Bug was rocky, to put it mildly, and everyone knew it. He was the VP, but he lived every second like he thought I was gonna try to take his position. Like I fucking wanted it.

"Bug's been good to me, Moses. And I ain't gonna be young and smoking' hot forever." Krystal laughed. "I'm gonna get off here and call him back. See you at the shop."

"Yeah. And Krystal?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for taking care of Red. Sorry you got stuck with it."

"Yeah. Me too."

Something didn't add up. I thought about what Bug had told me as I stood at the edge of the parking lot. I got that he'd been expecting Red at the clubhouse, but being one hooker short wasn't that unusual and shouldn't have caused any problems. I had a feeling that there was more to the story than Bug had told me over the phone and the only was to find out what was really going on was to go take a look for myself. I needed to get rid of Max and get to the clubhouse.

Mind made up, I headed back toward the bike. I could barely manage to shove my phones into the saddlebags with all the stuff we'd bought.

"Looks like we're full up." I knew that Tombley wouldn't want me to take Max to the clubhouse before she was more comfortable with her cover. "I'll run you home."

"Everything okay?"

I should have known better than to try to hide anything from an FBI agent. "Yeah. I have some troubles at the clubhouse that I need to go handle. No big deal."

"Well then let me go with you. You're not going to stay long are you?"

"I don't plan to, but I don't think you're ready for this, Max. The clubhouse isn't the kind of place you're used to." I handed her the helmet she'd set on the seat.

"I can handle it."

"Max, if something goes wrong, then the whole case is over. And that's the best case scenario."

She put her helmet on like she'd been doing it for years. "I got this. Let's roll, Moses."

Fucking Max. I guess I could have refused to take her with me, but I guess I just figured that if she screwed things up, it was on her. I had enough money stashed that if I had to leave, I could probably get far enough away that the Sons wouldn't be able to find me, but I'd know that they'd continue with all of the evil stuff that I wanted to put a stop to. I wanted this case as much as she did. But if she thought she could pull off meeting the Sons tonight, who was I to tell her any different?

"Fine. Tombley's your problem, though. Anything goes wrong, it's on your head."

She grinned at me and all I could think about was that smile and the underwear in the saddle bags. I could picture her in nothing but a smile and sexy high heels. Goddamn, I had a problem. She climbed on the back of the bike and we set off for the clubhouse.

By the time we got there, I was ready for a drink, and I was ready for something to take my mind off of Max's ass. I rolled into the lot and found more cars than I'd expected.

"Goddammit, Bug," I muttered as I parked and waved to the prospect who sat on a stool at the corner of the lot, charged with keeping an eye on everything.

The Savage Sons were an outlaw gang, but we were smart -- well, most of us were. We had so much shit going on that it was a constant struggle to bring in money and try to stay off the cops' radar. Our clubhouse was a low, long cinderblock building divided into two halves. When Dad and Joker had built the clubhouse, before I was born, it was in the middle of nowhere, southeast of Denver. Everything had gotten built up around us, but fortunately we had a bunch of businesses nearby who knew to keep their noses where they belonged.

Half of the building was our bar. We had a private club license that let us sell liquor to members only, and that let us make the rules -- we didn't have to let anyone in we didn't want to. The other half of the sprawling structure was private clubhouse for the Savage Sons only. Most of the boys who sat at our bar night after night had no idea that the wall between the halves was reinforced steel, and cameras throughout the place let our guys keep tabs on everything that happened inside those walls.

We had to be careful, though. We ran the club pretty legit except for the hookers-- didn't sell much in the way of dope, and most of the girls used the private rooms for sex. We tried to keep a low profile. Well, most of us did. Bug kept wanting to push it, and I didn't think it was a good idea. He wanted to have things like fight nights -- bring in MMA guys and take bets on how long regular guys could stay on their feet. I had warned Joker that we couldn't afford to bring that kind of crowd onto our lot. Bug also didn't see anything wrong with running a little crank through the club, and I'd had to work hard to get the rest of the club to vote his plan down.

The way it was, we were making more money than we knew what to do with anyway, and if the cops got wind of meth coming out of the club, they'd be all over us. If they happened to walk in and find girls hard at work sucking dick for money, we'd be in even more trouble.

I knew -- based on the number of cars and bikes in the lot, that Bug had something going on. The way I figured it, the only benefit to the fact that we had a lot full of cars and bikes on a random Tuesday night was that the extra people -- whoever they were -- would be a buffer for Max. We needed to talk before we went in though. Max climbed down from the bike, and I put a hand on her arm.

"Quick conference."

She took off her helmet and nodded.

"I don't know exactly what we're walking into here. There shouldn't be this many cars here, which means that Bug is up to something." I thought for a minute. "Have you read the bios on the Sons?"

"Of course."

"So you know things are sometimes tense between Bug and me." I waited for her nod. "You have to stay right with me. Do what I say -- both because the guys will expect it, and because you won't be able to read the room like I will."

"Got it."

"It shouldn't take long. Ready?"

Max actually looked excited, and she took my hand and got as close to me as she could "Let's go."

We started off across the parking lot. I took a deep breath and nodded to Butch through the glass of the locked front door. When the buzzer sounded, I opened the door and let the two of us in.

"What's up brother?" I bumped his fist with mine. "Lotta cars on the lot."

Butch gave me an evil smile. "You're gonna have to see it for yourself, man." He pointed to the second door.

I could hear whistles and cheers through the heavy wooden door specifically designed to prevent anyone outside the building from seeing inside.

"Joker here?" I asked before I turned the knob.

"He's next door. Hasn't been home since last night when Sable blew outta here like a she-devil."

I nodded and opened the door, figuring that Max was about to get a trial by fire.

Chapter 11

Max

A
s Moses and I crossed the parking lot, I realized that neither of us had a wire on. I nearly pulled back on his hand, but I figured that there was nothing to do about it at this point. It was probably unnecessary to worry about the Savage Sons spilling their illegal secrets to me the very first time I met them. As we got closer to the door, I was a little nervous. I didn't want to screw up, and I didn't want Moses to think I was an idiot.

We walked up to a door and Moses waved to the guy inside. A buzzer sounded, and Moses opened the door to a little vestibule occupied by an enormous man sitting a chair in front of a row of security monitors. The man wore a vest -- a "cut" -- that matched the one Moses wore, and had a long goatee that was braided and reached nearly to his chest. The rest of his hair was cut short and partially covered by a dingy blue bandanna. He and Moses greeted one another, and I was a little surprised that Moses didn't introduce me. I realized that the manners I was used to at Washington DC functions may not apply in a biker bar.

Moses opened the door, grabbed my hand again and preceded me into the noisy, smoky club. Apparently the laws prohibiting smoking inside didn't apply to the Savage Sons.

Before I could get inside, Moses turned around, fixed me with a very serious stare, and pulled me right up against his chest. "This scene may be ugly, and I may do things that you don't like. Stay close."

I just nodded, too overwhelmed to say anything as we walked into the room.

Something was clearly going on in the center of the room, but I couldn't see much except for the backs of the men gathered around and cheering. Moses paused and looked around the room before heading toward the bar, pulling me along with him.