Hazard Page 3

  I take my place at an empty stool.

  Sam has a glass of whiskey — straight and smoky — on the table before my ass hits the wood.

  “It’s on the house. Now, tell me, what’s got you looking so glum, hun?” she says.

  I figure I owe her an explanation for bringing me a drink.

  “This whole charity thing. It’s the biggest fucking mistake in the world to put me on this.”

  “You know he’s doing it because he trusts you, right?”

  “He has a fucking strange way of showing it,” I say. For the sake of the free drink, I leave out the part about her husband mentioning that he thinks I just want to start shit.

  That part’s true, to a point.

  “Do you want him to fucking hug you and tell you you’re a big boy? That he believes in you? He’s not your fucking dad, he’s your fucking president. If you want some feel-good shit, go join the big brothers and big sisters program.”

  “Jesus Christ, Sam,” I say. “I’m going to do this thing. But don’t expect me to love it.”

  “I know, hun. Here’s a tip: most important things to have lined up for this gig are a venue and some food and booze. It’s the same for any party. Even if the rest of what you put together sucks, at least people can show up, have something to eat, and get drunk,” she says. “And another bit of free advice: Gunney and I went out for our anniversary to this new place in Tacoma called ‘The Bellhaven’. Real good food, and the chef runs his own catering business.”

  “Thanks, Sam.”

  “Don’t thank me, just get the job done and stop moping.”

  At least tonight can’t get any worse. I’ll get drunk, I’ll head somewhere and start a nice fight, and I’ll figure out the rest of my problems tomorrow.

  The first glass goes down easy and Sam’s got another for me before I even have to ask. She’s brilliant. Even though I hate his guts right now, I have to give thanks that Gunney brought such a great old lady into the club. She does most everything right.

  Glass number two goes down even easier than the first.

  “Can I buy you the next one?” a smoky, faintly-familiar voice whispers into my ear. It’s the kind of voice that drips with the promise of sweaty, primal sex — the kind of fucking so dirty you’ll be bragging about it to your friends for the rest of your life.

  Maybe tonight ain’t so bad.

  “Sit down, sweetheart,” I say.

  “Gladly, Jarrett,” that husky voice answers.

  I look up.

  Blonde hair, crooked smile, and sinfully wicked hips barely contained in a set of tight jeans and a set of tits that calls to me from a ripped Rancid tank top that’s barely up to the task of covering them.

  Trouble.

  The kind of trouble I thought I’d left in my past.

  Selena.

  She’s changed her hair, but I’d know that devil’s smile and those temptress eyes anywhere. Tempting, inviting, the kind of poison so sweet you won’t know it’s killing you until it’s too late, and even then you’ll go out with a smile on your face.

  She nearly killed me, once.

  My guns in my hands before I think about it and I don’t hesitate to put the barrel right to her forehead. The pommel is cold in my hands, and the dark voice inside my head urges me to pull the trigger and turn that cold barrel hot.

  “You keep your lying mouth shut. I don’t want to hear another word leave your whore mouth,” I growl. Every eye in the room is on us, now, and I turn to Ozzy, who’s sitting not far away. “Ozzy, get this bitch out of here before I blow her head off.”

  Selena doesn’t flinch. But then, I never would’ve expected her to. She’s always been fearless.

  She cocks her head to the side and smiles at me, her teeth like fangs in her viper’s mouth. My finger itches on the trigger and every part of me cries out to sate that itch.

  “Honey, is that any way to talk to your old lady?”

  Chapter Four

  Selena

  He doesn’t take the gun from my head, but I can see in his deep emerald eyes he’s wavering. Those eyes — tinged with pain and riven through with more anger than I can wrap my head around — nearly take me in again, nearly make me waver, the same way they got to me the last time I saw him.

  It’d be so easy to lean in and kiss him.

  Once our lips meet, he’ll forget all about that gun. The only thing on his mind will be taking every ounce of anger out on my body.

  It makes me tingle just thinking about it.

  It’s been too long since I’ve had a good fucking. Two years.

  I shake those thoughts away and widen my smile a bit. Sex — no matter how good — isn’t what I came here for.

  First and foremost, I need to get him to listen to me.

  I need him.

  “Jynx, what the hell is she talking about?” says some thickly-built and strangely-accented man to Jarrett’s left. He sounds like he’s from somewhere Down Under.

  “She’s lying,” he says. The whiskey wafting from his breath. He’s well into the bottle tonight. “That’s what she does. Ozzy, get her the hell out of her, or else I will put a bullet in her skull.”

  I don’t move. Don’t speak. I keep my eyes on him. It isn’t hard to do. Jarrett has this pull to him, this unmistakable look to his muscular body and chiseled jaw that hints that whatever creator crafted him picked a flawed stone to carve something so strong from. It’s magnetic.

  For all the strength in him — the abs, the biceps, the shoulders, all of it built through years of brutal training, hard fucking, and sheer physical work — anyone with eyes will notice there’s a crack in him. Something broken.

  It makes the rest of him so much more compelling to look at, knowing that, at any time, that crack could shatter him to pieces.

  All I need to do is be patient, play my cards right, and I’ll get what I came for.

  He’s got a gun to my head, but I’m the one in control.

  “Ozzy, get her out of here, will you, hun?” says a grizzled, older woman from behind the bar. I see her silently mouth the word ‘bitch’ while looking at me. “And Jynx, please take that gun away from her head. I really don’t feel like scrubbing blood out of the floor tonight.”

  At her word, the guy named Ozzy thuds a heavy hand on my shoulder and practically carries me outside.

  I go along willingly.

  He’s good-looking enough that I don’t mind him touching me, and I know I don’t need to cause any more of a scene right now.

  “You should probably get lost,” Ozzy says as he gives me a light shove out into the parking lot.

  It’s just the two of us and a whole lot of bikes out here.

  The air smells like pine and it’s heavy with moisture. A light fog billows and whips around the edges of the lot, snaking in smoky shapes under the light of the lot’s lone streetlamp.

  “Did you know that Jarrett had an old lady?” I say.

  The other guy shrugs. “No. But, to be fair, there’s a lot I don’t know.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “Better to be honest than a know-it-all. Know-it-alls usually wind up getting painful lessons,” he says. Then he gestures towards the road leading from the clubhouse. “If you walk up that way a few miles, you’ll get to the main road. Turn right. Then about ten more miles, you’ll get to Stony Shores. Course, now that I think about it, the road isn’t that lit that well and it might be dangerous. Do you have a ride?”

  “I’ll be fine,” I say. There’s something good-natured about this big guy that makes me lower my guard.

  He scans the lot. “I don’t see that you’ve got a vehicle here. I could give you a ride.”

  I smile at him. “Are you trying to pick me up?”

  Ozzy shakes his head. “No. I’ve got an old lady. Maria. She’d kick your ass if she heard you flirting with me. I’m just trying to look out for you; There’s a lot of trucks that take that forest road out there much faster than they should. It isn’t safe. A
nd I don’t think anyone except Jynx wants you ground up under an eighteen-wheeler.”

  “Why do you call Jarrett ‘Jynx’?” I say.

  “It’s a word that means bad luck. He ran into some bad luck in Reno a few years ago, so we started calling him that,” he says.

  “Can you not be so obtuse?”

  “I’m not working any angles here,” he says, matter-of-fact. “Besides, shouldn’t you know all about his bad luck? All the money he lost gambling in Reno? You said you’re his old lady.”

  My eyes narrow.

  Gambling? What the hell is he talking about?

  “Sure,” I answer, glib. “Can’t say I’m that fond of the name Jynx. I’d just wondered if there was more to the story; Jarrett’s had more than his share of tough times.”

  Ozzy shrugs, then gestures to the road. “Well, there’s the exit. It’s a long walk back into town, you sure you don’t want a ride?”

  I laugh. “I’ll be fine.”

  “Alright, well, take care and watch out for semis,” he says. “And I reckon it’d be a good idea for you to get moving. If Jynx catches you lingering out here, I doubt anyone could stop him from shooting you.”

  “Go back to the bar, Ozzy. I’ll be fine. Though I appreciate your concern.”

  I watch and wait as he nods a ‘goodnight’ to me and heads back inside. Minutes pass, and still I wait, until the music is roiling and the sounds of drunken laughter spill out into the lot.

  Quietly, I stroll through the lot, going from bike to bike, looking for the unmistakable steel machine that belongs to Jarrett. It’s the fifth bike I look at, and I know the second I brush my fingers over its dark paint job and the chrome accents that it’s his. I pat the seat. This is where I rode behind him, all those nights in Reno, my legs wrapped around him, my cheek against his back, his scent in my nose and the roar of his bike vibrating between my legs — the heavy hum of steel and his intoxicating, violent sexuality sending me with full-throated enthusiasm into a toxic cocktail of love and lust.

  We rode this bike together. We fucked on this bike. Some nights, we’d go screaming on this bike out into the desert, until the only thing we could see was miles and miles of empty sand and rocks, lit by the endless stars above.

  Some rides, I’d wrap my legs and arms around him, and I’d let my hands drift low until I could feel his hard cock through his jeans. I’d play with him, rubbing, touching, teasing, just to see how long he could take it until he had to stop and bend me over his bike.

  I pull my knife out of my pocket.

  Bikes are easy to hotwire.

  They’re simple machines, for brutal, simple men. They’re meant for speed, without any of the complications or comforts. It’s simply you and the road whipping by you at sixty-plus miles an hour.

  I pry open the panel covering the wires connecting to the ignition and the battery. A few quick slices of my knife and I’ve stripped the wires I need to. A few twists of my wrist, and the battery runs some power to the ignition and the bike growls to life.

  Easy.

  I smile at my handiwork and, with my foot, I doodle in the loose gravel of the parking lot.

  I hop on the bike. It feels so strange being on here without him. Shutting my eyes, I toss my head back and enjoy the familiar feel of the vibrating steel between my legs and the heady memories the sensation brings back.

  Times with him.

  Times when there was an ‘us’.

  Then, with a twist of my wrist, the bike rolls forward and I head off into the night.

  Let’s see him ignore me now.

  Chapter Five

  Jarrett

  If I could drown myself in this whiskey glass, I would. Maybe I’ll buck my nickname and get lucky for once.

  “She’s gone, mate,” Ozzy says to my right. “She won’t be bothering you anymore. Well, in the physical sense. I suppose she could still bother you in the metaphysical, but I’m not really drunk enough to help with that.”

  “No, it’s fine, Ozzy,” I say, before downing another whiskey.

  He doesn’t take the hint to fuck off, pats me on the back, and chugs a half-full pint in a blink.

  “I could try getting that drunk, if you want. Though I might not be too useful. Last time I tried to get philosophical-drunk, I was pounding tequila. I blacked out and came to in an abandoned lot in Tacoma, surrounded by a flock of sheep.”

  “Tacoma’s a fucking city. How did you wind up there? And how the fuck did you wind up with a bunch of sheep?”

  “I don’t know. And the question’s haunted me ever since,” he says, looking wistfully into his beer. “I guess everyone has their tequila story though, right?”

  “Tequila stories aren’t like that,” I say, motioning for another round from Sam. I take a sip and then stare into the glass, trying to picture just how Ozzy conjured a flock of sheep from a bottle of tequila. It’s a welcome distraction. “Tequila stories are about waking up with a fucking tattoo you regret, or some ugly bitch in your bed. Not about becoming a shepherd.”

  “You got a tequila story, brother?”

  “I got a lifetime of ‘em. Drinking’s given me plenty of problems, and plenty of relief.”

  Ozzy’s quiet a minute.

  “Well, I don’t want to overstep things, brother, but you’re drinking like you’ve got a problem. Would it have anything to do with that woman you tried to kill earlier?”

  I laugh, put the drink to my lips and let the burning whiskey flow down my throat. “Man, you are just running on all cylinders tonight.”

  “Just who is she then, that’s got you so upset? I’ve never seen a woman get you worked up like that.”

  “Selena is just some cunt from Reno that I never should’ve put my cock in.” The less I say about her the better — even those words make my cock hard and my blood boil in anger. With any luck, she’s taken the hint and left town. “It got pretty intense between us… until it didn’t. But, she’s not why I’m pissed, man. She’s just the icing on the cake. I shouldn’t be on this charity duty. I should be running security on this weapons convoy.”

  As a soldier, being sidelined from combat duty is the ultimate ‘fuck you’. As our president, as a former Marine, Gunney knows that. And did it anyway.

  I need this action.

  I can’t just settle into some fucking homemaker role, I can’t live a quiet life with some lawyer wife and a bunch of fucking kids. Years of my life went into the service, years of my life on deployment to blood-soaked sandy hellscapes. I need that purpose in my life.

  “I reckon it’ll work out fine, Jynx,” Ozzy says. “I’m not too happy about finding out about all this, but as crazy as it sounds, I trust Gunney. We were in a tight spot, and he’s doing his best for us. Plus, payment at the end of all this wouldn’t be unwelcome. It’s been a while since I’d put a good contribution to my retirement account.”

  Rog, sitting a few stools away, lets out a guffaw. “You’ve got a retirement account, Ozzy?”

  As our treasurer, I’m not surprised that caught Rog’s attention.

  “Yeah, it’s called a KiwiSaver account. Most New Zealanders have one. It’s government supported. Retirement isn’t a joke. It’s the rest of your life that you’re talking about… once you get past the first two-thirds of your life. So it’s a smaller portion of your life, now that I think about it. But you’re old and feeble then, so you need to take care of yourself.”

  “God damn, dude.”

  “Amen to retiring well,” Rog says, raising his glass. “And, trust me, brothers, once this is all over, that goal will be a lot more real.”

  “How much?” I say.

  “Let me put it this way: you won’t be eating fucking caviar every day, but you’ll be pretty well set,” he says. “Especially if this shipment to the Triads works out and leads to some more business from them.”

  Hearing that doesn’t make me feel any better. Knowing how important this shipment is — and that I’m deliberately being kept from it —
gnaws at me.

  “Word’s going to get out that we’re supplying the Triads. And you’re not worried about any blowback from the Jackals?”

  “The Jackals have their hands full with the Triads. We can’t stop word getting out about us selling — hell, that’s how we get some of our business — but all we’re doing is a little arms-dealing to some guys already in conflict. People have been doing that since the dawn of time.”

  “Since this is so fucking important, why don’t you talk to Gunney and get me reassigned? Except for Bear, there’s no one here with anything close to my record: three fucking tours in fucking Kandahar. I’ve been shot, I’ve had IED’s tear apart my Humvee and rip my fucking friends to pieces. If you want this done right, you need me on it.”

  Rog sighs. “We all know your record, Jynx. But this isn’t fucking Afghanistan. This kind of job needs a delicate touch. It’s a business deal as much as anything else. Go home. Sleep this off, ok? We can talk about it some other time, maybe once we’ve all cooled off.”

  “You mean once I’ve cooled off.”

  “No, I mean once everyone has cooled off. We need to get past this in-fighting or we’ll find ourselves in rough fucking waters.”

  I bite my tongue. Arguing any more with him isn’t going to help my case — he’s made up his mind. The more I fight this, the more certain it is that I’ll be stuck with party planning.

  Mumbling ‘good night’ to them both, I pat Ozzy and Rog on the back and head to the door.

  The night air is refreshing and the cold is a sobering slap in the face. Exactly what I need before a ride. Sucking the cool air into my lungs and letting the air chill the whiskey burning in my blood, I head for the edge of the parking lot. Finding a spot by a big pine, I take a piss.

  I’ll figure this problem out. One way or another, I’ll get off of this bullshit detail and into the thick of it where I belong.

  Zipping up, I turn back around to face the lot, squinting to focus bleary eyes in the dim light.

  Where the fuck is my bike?

  I cross the lot to where my bike should be.