4
VIKTOR
Ithink this party had already been going on for hours when Teddy called me earlier. The room looks alive with kinetic energy as I walk in.
The bar makes up the entire entrance to the club, booths and tables along the side wall, a pool table in the center back of the room, and a long bar on the opposite wall where a good chunk of the bikers are gathered. There’s music playing from the jukebox in the corner. Nothing that I’m into. Teddy and most of the guys like varying degrees of Southern rock. On a night like tonight, the vibe is somewhere between that and country music.
At the moment, the crowd is in a nice groove. Some of the bikers are dancing with scantily clad women in leather skirts and tight T-shirts, their hands firmly gripping the asses of their partners. A couple more are loudly arguing over a pool game, and several are engaged in a poker game at a large table near the back of the room.
I spot Teddy among those at the table and make my way there. I can tell his bald head anywhere. He’s leaning over his cards withhis great shoulders hunched, a toothpick balanced in the side of his mouth. The scruffy, mostly gray beard that he’s had probably since he was born has been trimmed down since I last saw him. It was almost down the front of his barrel chest before. Guess he got tired of that look.
Along the way, I feel pats on my shoulder along with other greetings from the other bikers. This is my second family, a collection of brothers who ride motorcycles and live by a similar code, but somehow, I’ve always felt a little more connected with them. This was the place that Nikita called home on the nights when he couldn’t face Nikolai.
Teddy sees me and sets his cards down, nudging the nearest biker to him and telling him not to look at his hand. He walks over and gives me a hearty hug. “Comrade,” he says with a laugh. “It’s about damned time you got here. These fuckers have been ripping me off all night.”
We walk back to the table and everyone greets me warmly. “Hey, Vik!”
“It’s about time!”
“The party can really start now!”
Everybody except for Dodge, anyway. He’s sitting on Teddy’s opposite side, staring down at his cards. He’s got a thin face to match his thin, wiry frame and pointed nose. The most he gives me is a quick glance to acknowledge I’m there, then back to his cards, his mouth twisted up distastefully.
“Pull up a chair,” said Teddy. “Let’s make the game more interesting.”
“Maybe the next hand,” I say. “What I would really like is a drink. It’s been a long ass night.”
Teddy looks past me to the bartender, points at me, and nods. The bartender gives him a thumbs up and pulls a bottle of beer from behind the bar, handing it to one of the scantily clad women.
“So, how’s His Majesty King Nikolai doing?” Teddy says as he sits back down and picks up his cards. “All’s well in the region, I hope?”
I grab a nearby chair just as the pretty young thing from the bar hands me a cold beer. “All’s well,” I answer. I take a swig of the beer, and it tastes good. Bitter and sweet like juniper berries. I glance down at the label. It isn’t one that I recognize.
Teddy laughs. “A shipment of them fruity IPAs fell off a truck the other day,” he said. “It’s not usually our thing, but since champagne ain’t our style…” The others laugh at that. “We all thought tonight would be a good time to break into it. You know, just as a little something special. Not bad, eh?”
“Not bad at all. It’s definitely unexpected.”
“Say, if you’re not playing,” Dodge says, “can you shut the fuck up so the rest of us can concentrate?”
The collective reaction is immediate. The other bikers at the table either glare at him or look down at their hands with raised eyebrows. Teddy immediately jumps in.
“What’s the matter? That hamster getting tired of running on its wheel?”
Snickers and laughter sound all around the table. I’m not laughing. Dodge scowls and says, “I got serious money on this hand. I don’t need the distraction. Or the bad luck.”
“Then fold,” Teddy says. His tone’s still light, but everyone can hear the command in his words. “Pretty clear to me you’ve got a shit hand.”
Dodge doesn’t respond. He clears his throat and goes back to his cards.
I watch them play the hand as everyone jokes and drinks. In the end, Teddy wins the hand. He grabs the pile of cash and pulls it toward him, arranging it in neat stacks. “Deal me in,” I say.
We play and talk and for this moment, I forget my troubles, but I remember Nikita the most. This was where he could cut his teeth outside of the radius of his father’s spies.
“You know something?” Teddy says out of the blue. “Nicki would have loved this.”
I snicker. “Sure. He’d be in the back getting his dick sucked.”
“Might’ve been better off,” says Scam, one of the bikers with brown skin and a mohawk. Teddy’s right hand. “Ain’t had a good hand all night.”
