Snake (Twisted Devils MC Book 6) Read online

  “They’re highlighting local artists. People from all over Southern California will display their work there. It’s a really big event.”

  Her chopping slows, she takes in a quick breath. “And?”

  “I’ve sent a few of my photographs to the organizer. They’ve agreed I can have a spot at the show, if I send them my submissions soon. I want to do it. I want to go. This is a big opportunity,” I say. My heart’s in my throat as I talk to her, so much so that it’s hard to even get the words out. I’ve been working on my photography for the last few years, and even more so lately, as life in the club has gotten crazier and I’ve found myself stuck more around home; it’s been one of my few outlets away from the club.

  And I’m good at it. Good enough to get placement at an event, at least.

  This is chance for me to make something of myself.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Addie,” she says.

  “Why? I’m twenty-one years old, it’s only Santa Monica, the worst person I could run into down there is a vegan. There’s nothing to worry about.”

  “With the way things are in the club right now, how dangerous things have been, I don’t think it’s a good idea. And if I don’t think it’s a good idea, you can guess how your father will feel about it.”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  “I know you can. But that doesn’t mean you should go putting yourself in danger. Besides, we’ll need you here around the clubhouse while the boys are gone.”

  “Do you know how much it hurts to see how everyone else in the club — everyone wearing a patch, the prospects, and even the other old ladies — can take off, go riding, and I have to stay here? All because it’s dangerous. I’m twenty-one years old. I know how to take a few sensible risks.”

  “Right. Sensible risks. Which means not doing something risky when your father and most of the club — the people who would bail you out if you got into trouble or someone tried to kill you — is on the other side of the country and tied up with business.”

  I open my mouth to say something I’m sure I’ll regret later — my insides are boiling with frustration; times like this — when I know I don’t have my family’s support for something so simple — hurt especially bad.

  What I want is a taste of the freedom I see everyone else enjoying, and to do it knowing that the people I love the most support me. I don’t just want to be at that photography show in Santa Monica; I want to do it knowing my family wants me to be there and wants me to succeed.

  Instead, my wants are pushed aside for club business.

  I take a deep breath. My voice shakes as it leaves my lips.

  “I’m going to go take a ride,” I say. And, as my mom gives me a sideways look, I add, “I’ll be back quick. I’m not going far. I just need to calm down.”

  Before she can say another word, I head for the door and step in to the chill air and orange glow of the setting sun.

  And run right into the chest of a man in a black suit.

  He’s tall, with short-cut black hair, ebony skin, and weathered features that give him a dignified look. I’d guess he’s maybe in his fifties, though he has an agelessly handsome face.

  “Oh, crap, I am so sorry,” I blurt out, holding out a hand. “I did not see you there at all.”

  He takes a step back. And the woman to his right — she’s much younger looking, broad-shouldered, with black hair and a complexion that hints she’s at least partially Latina — reaches into her jacket reflexively.

  “It was an accident,” I start. “Again, I am so sorry. I just — it’s been a rough day, and I wasn’t paying attention.”

  The man puts a hand on the woman’s arm.

  He smiles at me. His teeth are dazzlingly white. And his eyes shine with intensity.

  Now that my nerves have calmed a little, I can’t help but realize he’d make an excellent subject for a portrait. If his entire demeanor didn’t give me the creeps.

  All that, and I can feel his eyes linger on me. Feel me up and down with his gaze.

  He’s at least as old as my father, and he’s definitely checking me out.

  “Don’t worry about it, miss,” he says.

  With the way he says ‘miss’, I can’t tell if he’s trying to be calming or patronizing.

  Either way, I hate the term. Especially coming from a man I don’t know.

  I can shoot, I can ride, I can throw a punch, and I’ve spent my entire life around men who could beat the snot out of this man — who is he to talk to me like I’m some faint-hearted flower?

  I put my hands on my hips, suddenly caring a lot less about the fact that I nearly ran head-first into him. And taking a serious dislike for the menacing attitude this other woman is projecting.

  “Can I help you?” I say, very much in a ‘get the hell away from me’ tone.

  Indifferent to my attitude, he nods and reaches in to his jacket and draws out a black wallet which he unfolds with a well-practiced flick of his wrist.

  “I’m Agent Jordan Jones, the woman to my right is Agent Megan Perez. We’re with the FBI. Why don’t you take us inside so we can have a little chat?”

  Chapter Two

  Snake

  The second Adella comes back in through that door, the hair stands up on the back of my neck. Somethings wrong. Even before I catch sight of the two suited people behind her — one man, one woman, both walking with the practiced rigidity that comes with being law enforcement — I’m halfway out of my seat and ready to deal out some severe punishment to the bastards who have put such a spook into her.

  “Easy, Snakey boy,” Mack says in a low, whispery rumble. “Tomorrow’s a big day, so don’t go spoiling that by turning this into a shitshow, you hear me?”

  Uneasy, I sit back down.

  And keep my eyes focused square on Adella and the two suits looming right over her. Questioning her. They menace her for a minute before intimidating her into leading them over to Tricia.

  Those two might not be able to tell how scared Adella is — as kind and caring as she is, she’s still got a backbone made of steel and won’t show she’s spooked — but I know. I can see the defensive jut of her shapely hips, the way she’s got her delicate hands almost balled into fists, the way she subtly gnaws on her lower lip.

  Out of anyone in the club they could target, these bastards had to pick the one woman who means the most to me; the one woman that ache to get close to, yet have to stay away from — because there’s not a chance in hell Stone would approve of his only daughter dating anyone in the MC.

  “I don’t give a fuck who they are,” I murmur. “They fuck with her, they’re going to regret it.”

  My hand drifts to where I keep my knife around my ankle — the same combat knife that I’ve carried since my days as a Ranger — and, in my head, I’m counting the steps it’ll take to get to those two suits by the bar. Sixteen steps. Twelve if I really push it.

  There’s a good chance I could kill at least one of them before they even react.

  I’d take out the tall bastard first, then bull-rush the woman.

  “Calm, Snake,” Mack cautions.

  I shake my head.

  “Either of them touches her — especially that tall son of a bitch — and I’m making a move.”

  “You got the shakes from missing action? How long has it been since Carbon Ridge?” Mack says, low.

  “Too long,” I say. And even if it hasn’t, just watching Adella go through an intense interrogation at the hands of the tall bastard who’s obviously in charge — while his colleague in whatever law enforcement branch they work for interrogates Tricia — is enough to make me itch with the urge. “Way too long.”

  This clubhouse is sacred. It shelters my family, my friends, the people who took me in when I came home from the military, broken and wondering just what the hell I was going to do with my life, or if I should just end it.

  They helped piece me back together.

  And, though I’m still br
oken, I wouldn’t be where I am without them.

  I’ll kill anyone who threatens them. Including these fucking feds.

  “Suppress your murderous urges,” Mack says. “That’s a fucking order, brother.”

  That one word — order — snaps me back to focus. I’m a soldier at heart. Even though it’s been years since I’ve worn my uniform.

  I settle in and watch.

  Watch as Tricia and Adella both, in their own unique way, handle their aggressors with skill. Tricia with a smile, a deflection, and every bit of grace under pressure that comes from being the wife of an MC President for over twenty years. And Adella with nervous laughter, a smile, a flirty touch that disarms the suited asshole questioning her.

  I know she’s just flirting because she has to, but watching her carry on with another man has me reaching for my knife again.

  “Snake,” Mack says, slow.

  “I’m all right, Mack,” I say, letting out a slow breath.

  Eventually, the interrogation ends with the female officer coldly turning away from Tricia — who stares daggers into her back — and the male officer handing a business card over to Adella, while giving her a way-too-fucking-familiar smile.

  That smile on its own nearly has me shoving a knife into the gangly motherfucker.

  The second the door closes behind them, I’m out of my seat and racing to Adella’s side.

  I put a hand on her arm.

  She’s shaking.

  “You OK?”

  Two simple words, but they burn with rage and promise — say the word, and I will go hunt them down.

  “I’m fine, Snake. Just shaken, that’s all.”

  “What did they want?”

  Tricia answers from the other side of the bar, where she’s already pouring up a line of four highball whiskey glasses.

  “That was the FBI. They wanted to talk to my husband.”

  “Oh, fuck me up the ass with some barbed wire, Stone is not going to fucking like hearing that. We will have to delay the fucking gun shipment,” Mack says.

  Tricia finishes pouring, slides three of the glasses across the bar to Adella, Mack, and me, and then downs hers in a gulp.

  “That’s for my husband to decide, but they weren’t here to talk to him about club business.”

  “What do you mean? Why the fuck else would they come in here?” Mack says.

  Adella takes her glass, sips it, then finishes the rest in one gulp.

  She makes a face as she sets the glass down.

  “They wanted to know if my dad had heard from some fugitive they were looking for. That guy wanted my number, too.”

  “He told you nothing else?” I say.

  Adella shrugs her slight shoulders and worries her plump upper lip between her teeth. Her hands shake a little as she drums a nervous rhythm on the bartop.

  My heart clenches with need just watching her. How can a woman as off-limits as her be so tempting?

  “No. He was real vague. I think he also has an idea about some of the stuff you boys do for the club, so maybe he’s looking for a reason to come back.”

  “The bitch that was with him definitely wouldn’t mind coming back and putting cuffs on any of you boys,” Tricia adds. “You could build a cabin with all the sticks that surly bitch has got up her ass.”

  Mack nods. He hasn’t touched his whiskey, and he’s got a thoughtful look on his face.

  “We need to get to Stone, fill him in. And, like it or not, we might have to reschedule the delivery. What fucking timing,” he says, then he turns to me. “Come on, we need to ride. You ladies going to be good here?”

  I hardly see Tricia nod, I’ve only got eyes for Adella; the thought of another man hitting on her gnaws at my bones and fills me with burning anger.

  “We’ll be fine,” Tricia says. “Go tell my husband what happened.”

  Mack and I leave, getting on our bikes and heading across Lone Mesa to an old trucking warehouse halfway on the way to Torreon. It’s part of a small complex that’s all but abandoned, a crumbling brick relic of the decades deep in Lone Mesa’s past, when this area was an industrial powerhouse in Southern California. There’s even the derelict wreckage of a refinery, a memento to the oil and gas history that’s woven in to so much of the fabric of California’s industrial past and present.

  We navigate our bikes down narrow alleys between forlorn warehouses until we get to the building that Stone purchased for the club. It’s an off-the-books operation, the building bought in cash and registered to a shell corporation. It’s the site where sensitive cargo is brought in, broken down, and redistributed to our customers.

  Mack and I guide our bikes past a broken-down late 80s Honda Civic that sits just outside the warehouse entrance — a fresh addition to the neighborhood; probably the product of some kid’s joyriding, I think. And we slide open the rusty rolling doors to bring our bikes inside.

  The small warehouse smells like dust, rust, and old motor oil.

  On the inside it looks like those are the only things holding it together.

  In the center of the warehouse, underneath a cargo truck up on lifts, is Stone. He’s got a wrench in hand, he’s covered in grease, and deep into working on the engine.

  Goldie and Rusty are standing off to the side; Rusty’s doing his best to look alert on guard duty, and Goldie’s managing about as good as expected from a prospect. He’s sitting in the corner, in an old folding chair, half asleep.

  “Goldie, I’ve been here not two fucking seconds and already I feel the need to smack you senseless, boy,” Mack shouts. “I’ve seen fucking blind chihuahuas that make fiercer guards than you.”

  Goldie practically jumps. “Sorry, Mack.”

  “What the hell brings you two out here?” Rusty says, grinning and walking toward us.

  Mack ignores him. Raises his voice so Stone can hear.

  “Stone, you’ll want to get out here for this.”

  “This better be fucking important, I’ve spent nearly an hour under here with this wrench working on these stuck nuts and I’m just about to get them off. If this ruins my progress, I’m sure as hell going to be pissed at you, Mack.”

  “This is more important than getting your nuts off, brother,” Mack answers.

  “Besides, if you need help with that, well, that’s why we’ve got the prospect,” Rusty adds.

  “I am not getting Stone’s nuts off,” Goldie starts.

  I glare at him.

  As does everyone else, including Stone.

  “What did you say?” I growl.

  “Did I really hear you right?” Rusty says, looking equally menacing.

  “Oh fuck, lad, there’s no fucking helping you now,” Mack says.

  “What’d I say?”

  Goldie looks from me, to Mack, to Rusty, and finally to Stone, paralyzed in confusion.

  Stone leaves his place under the truck and advances on Goldie with a glowering look on his face.

  “If I tell you to get my fucking nuts off, you’ll get my fucking nuts off, prospect,” Stone says. “You’ll do the work, you’ll enjoy it, and you’ll thank me for the privilege when you’re done.”

  “I’m sorry, Stone, I’ll do it,” he stammers. “It’s just, I don’t understand. Do you want me to work on the truck or is this a sexual thing?”

  “What do you think, lad?” Mack says, sharply. “Did you not just hear your president?”

  “I really don’t know, and it’s really fucking distressing me,” Goldie blurts out.

  Stone takes a final step forward, until he’s right in Goldie’s face.

  “Goldie, brother, it all comes down to how far you’re willing to go to earn your patch,” he says, and he pauses for a heated moment while the prospect shakes like a leaf in the wind. “But if you think for one second that I’d want anything sexual from you, when I have a wife that’s as fucking hot as Tricia, you’re out of your damn mind. Go get under the truck, finish up with those bolts and, when you’re done, put fresh ones bac
k on. And don’t fucking touch the torque setting on the wrench. If I find even one stripped thread, I’ll send you walking back to the clubhouse without your clothes.”

  “He’ll do it, too,” Rusty says. “He pulled that same shit on Razor and me back in the day. I think I’ve got a permanent sunburn on my ass from it. It still hurts some days.”

  Goldie runs to get under the truck and finish Stone’s work, while Stone wipes his hands clean on a chamois cloth he pulls from the waist of his jeans.

  “What brings you two here? Is it important, or are you just itching to get in some time under the hood on that truck?”

  Mack and I trade a look; Stone’s in a pleasant mood, the prospect of a hefty payday for the club is right on the horizon, and neither of us wants to be the bearer of bad news.

  But someone has to.

  Finally, I break the silence.

  “The FBI came by the clubhouse earlier. Put some light interrogation on Trish and Addie.”

  “They fucking threatened my wife and daughter?” Stone says.

  There’s rage and murder in his voice. Stone usually keeps his emotions in check — it’s why he’s been a successful leader for our club for all these years — but there’s a whole ‘nother side of him that comes out whenever someone or something threatens his family.

  And that side is capable of a lot of violence.

  “They were looking for you,” Mack says.

  “Jesus fucking Christ, what the fuck for?”

  “Trish doesn’t think they know what’s going on with our business. She said they wanted to see if anyone’s reached out to you. Apparently there’s a fugitive in town and he might try to seek sanctuary.”

  Stone shakes his head, calming down, returning to his typical methodical self.

  “It’s probably a cover. You want to know why I settled down in Lone Mesa all those years ago? Why I still enjoy living here? Because it’s quiet. It’s out of the way. Because the idiots that wind up on the FBI’s list don’t come here.”

  “Well, apparently someone has,” I say.

  “On the day before we’re due to get a weapons delivery? And this supposed fugitive’s arrival also coincides with the arrival of the FBI? Does this pass the smell test to any of you?”