What if I did project good sex into something deeper? The way she is trying not to make eye contact with me says I did.
“You should get some sleep. I’ll reach out to my old connections. If I find anything, I’ll call.”
I turn and walk away without another word, not even pausing to cover up the Buick. Which says a lot about how this is hitting me.
All I really want to do is be alone but for the first time in a long time, I don’t let that voice inside my head win out. Casper isn’t behind the bar tonight, it’s one of the club girls and she licks her lips seductively when I ask her for a shot of vodka. Some of the brothers come over to chat, giving me shit about being in here late, or asking me about the run with the Stroudsburg chapter.
When the girl from behind the bar comes over and starts chatting, the guys are even more rowdy. Spurred on by them, she leans into my side,her hand moving up my back so she can play with my hair. I don’t move her away but equally I don’t reciprocate.
Eventually she gets the picture and is distracted by someone else, who pulls her away and shoves his face into her cleavage making her laugh, but her eyes are on me as he pulls down her top and sucks a nipple into his mouth. It does nothing for me.
The only woman I want looking at me like that just told me, point blank, she can’t give me what I want. Or won’t. Until she lets down that wall. Disinterested in what my brothers get up to, I look away and ask the prospect who is now behind the bar for another shot of vodka.
When they pass me on their way to the annex where there are rooms for the girls, I turn away and down the shot.
After a while I notice King standing at the end of the bar, watching me. He doesn’t speak and doesn’t need to. Everything we need to say passes between us silently.
Something is going on that involves me and Cassie now. I’m not going to be able to get away from it. He nods and heads back down the hallway that leads to his office, and I pretend to pay attention to a conversation Wraith and Shady have started about bikes, all the while wondering if Cassie thinks I’m the biggest fucking idiot she’s ever met.
Chapter Fifteen
Dominic (Mace)
“I’m glad you could make it,” Megyn says when I enter her office.
It’s been years since I set foot in here and now I’ve been here twice in as many weeks. It can’t be put off any longer. Zelda needs to know what happened to her family. Fucking insane to think this is a reprieve from the shit going on in my life right now.
“Her therapists believe it will help,” Megyn says as we take our seats facing one another again. “It will be difficult for her to hear but she needs to know why her brothers haven’t been in touch.”
I could say a lot of things about those assholes, but they gave a shit about her. Not enough to get her help when she really needed it, in fact they added to her problems when she still lived with the MC. In the end, she was spared the kind of life that would have eventually got her killed because I intervened.
“Things have been better since my last visit?”
“Her medication was changed, and she has more one-on-one sessions. They have helped her. I appreciate you have come here to be the one to do it. Seeing a familiar face might make breaking the news easier.”
Doubt that but I’ll take on the responsibility. I always had to do the hard stuff during my years as VP for the Kingsmen.
As we walk through the main corridor to the common room, I avoid eye contact with anyone. It would be best to do this in private, but Megyn thinks Zelda is more comfortable in this setting, and she explains as we walk that orderlies are on hand if there are any issues. That doesn’t fill me with confidence.
This is the last place I want to be right now, Talon is meeting with Singer. As far as he is concerned, the movement of the cargo from his previous client went smoothly. He doesn’t know the shit I had to deal with while making the run. He’s getting paid a lot of money and if all goes well, he’s set to make even more from us.
We enter the common area which is a mixture of a welcoming sitting room style and medical facility, a fact it can’t get away from. There are bars on the windows, reminding me there are people with some serious issues, dangerous ones.
Zelda is sitting on a couch by herself, her hands clutched in her lap. She’s wearing the pale blue scrub style top all the patients wear but has jeans and sneakers on, instead of pajamas, like some of the other patients.
Her head lifts when I walk into the room behind Megyn, her eyes widening in surprise, then a smile grows. As I get nearer, her gaze drops to my cut and her smile freezes in place. I probably shouldn’t have worn this, but I’ve never been one to hide away.
Megyn leaves us alone and I take a seat opposite Zelda. There are a few patients, reading, or playing board games. The only people watching us are Megyn, who is pretending to be busy with one of the nurses, and an orderly in a white uniform. His expression is hard as he watches me, then Zelda.
Can’t say I blame the fucker, Zelda is beautiful, she always has been. There is a sickness inside her that she will never be free off. I didn’t see it when we were younger. Even when she started getting with the club members, partly to make me jealous but mostly because she could get drugs.
Which was when the dark side of her took root, came out more often and more violent.
We never went beyond friendship, even though Zelda wanted more. Something always stopped me. I wanted to help her when I saw how bad it was getting, when she started breaking the law, petty stuff at the start, then me getting the cops to back off and let her go if she got picked up.
“There must be something wrong for you to have come here. And I don’t think it’s because Miss Strait-laced over there called to tell you there was an incident.”
“Good to see you too, Zel.”
