After a moment of considering how in the dark I was when it came to this biker club, I just wrote a big question mark on the page.
My main priority was sorting out the Trey business and getting Olivia the proof she needed.
But I wasn’t going to ignore the Outlaw Souls. They might be a good mystery for a rainy day.
Five
Pin
I woke up feeling groggy. It wasn’t a hangover. It wasn’t even that I hadn’t slept well. I got home from Blue Dog Saloon well before midnight, and it was just past eight when I got out of bed. If anything, I hadn’t slept so soundly in a long while.
It was something about the night. I had gone in expecting the usual: a few beers with my brothers, small talk about the club, maybe some light tension over whatever our rival club, Las Balas, were up to.
Instead, it had turned into one of the more dramatic nights I had ever lived through. Although, that wasn’t strictly true. I had endured plenty of more action-packed evenings (it came with the biker territory).
But for some reason, the evening before had felt monumental.
I tried to shake off my melodramatic musings as I hopped into a scalding shower. Nothing had actuallyhappened. Yeah, it turned out Kim’s new boyfriend was a prick, and the cute blonde Moves dragged over being a freaking PI was an interesting plot twist, but none of that involved me.
But it involved Claire, I thought.And maybesheinvolves me.
I frowned and stared through the steam at the white tiles in my shower. No way. This was not a good path to go down. She wasn’t even interested. She had been pretending for her job. I was just a means to get closer to Kim.
I didn’t blame her for that. She clearly was a skilled PI, and I appreciated how she had been upfront with Kim in the end.
But she had still been using me.
Which meant every little smile, each wide-eyed question, every time we had made eye contact, that all meant nothing. Which was fine.
I reminded myself for the umpteenth time that I hadn’t been looking to pick up anyone the night before, and if I had, I certainly would not have chosen Claire. She was way too complicated for my tastes.
I stepped out of the shower and grabbed a towel, drying myself down. I needed to stop talking myself in circles. I had other things to think about today. I was due to meet a few of the brothers to go over some numbers and discuss a few jobs we had in the works.
Things had been tense with the Las Balas. We had been staying out of their territory and they were avoiding us, but we all knew the fragile peace could never last. It was like the calm before a storm, when the very air seems to crackle with electric tension, sharp enough to sting.
It was all because Balas guys were the worst of the worst. Every negative stereotype about bikers was because of scum like Las Balas. Drugs, sex trafficking, kidnapping. They had their irons in all the worst fires.
I pulled on my clothes and started to throw everything I would need for the day into my backpack. It’s not like a club needed to deal with drugs or create prostitution rings to stay afloat. Outlaw Souls was proof of that. We had steady jobs, sometimes even more than we could handle, working security or doing surveillance.
Plus there was the auto shop a few of the older brothers owned and half the club worked at. Everyone in La Playa knew it was the shop to go to if you wanted quality work from mechanics who wouldn’t cheat you. At the end of the day, we probably had more profits than Las Balas. And a lot less blood on our hands.
Even so, there were always guys who wanted the easy way out. Who thought dipping a finger in the cocaine pot was the ticket to a better life. I had plenty of experience with guys like that before I even joined Outlaw Souls.
Half of the guys my mom dated when I was growing up were shady as hell. A few of them even got my mother involved which drove me crazy. Especially when I was a kid and couldn’t do anything about it.
And the ones that weren’t breaking the law were just plain lazy. They would sit around on our couch, watching TV and expecting my mom, who worked two jobs her whole life, to wait on them hand and foot.
I sighed and banished the unpleasant memories. Things weren’t like that anymore. As soon as I graduated from my accounting program, I’d started doing freelance CPA work. Between that and the club, I was able to get my mom her own apartment. I didn’t necessarily respect her choices, but I did love her.
I surveyed my clean apartment one last time before heading out. It wasn’t much, but it was mine and I had earned it the honest way.
I hopped on my bike and steered it towards the auto shop where the meeting was. After that, I needed to finish up some tax work for a company I was freelancing for.
I frowned beneath my helmet. As the colorful signs blurred by, I felt a twinge of guilt. I hadn’t visited my mom in a while. I knew I should try and find time to swing by for dinner, but it would just mean more irritating memories.
Whenever I visited my mom, I felt about fifteen again. Fifteen and frustrated with her and furious at her boyfriends.
Although when I was fifteen, I had handled it all wrong. I had gone out and done the stupidest thing I’ve ever done: I got a girlfriend.
