Rider: An MC Club Alpha Male Romance (9 page)

Fatman and a few other Damned tumbled out of the clubhouse.

“What in fuck is going on out here, Fang?”

“That fucking Haitian kid ran off!”

“What?! How the fuck did he get loose?” Fatman screamed.

“Someone smashed a beer bottle over his head and he must have grabbed the shards of glass,” I said, pointing to the shattered glass surrounding the post where Henri had been imprisoned only minutes before. “Which one of you dumb fucks thought that was a good idea?”

All eyes settled on Fatman who scowled, his chins wobbling as he waddled off to his bike. But the kid was long gone, and it took the fat ass too long to get onto his chopper anyway. I couldn’t promise that the kid wouldn’t be caught later, wouldn’t die another day—but at least he wasn’t going to die here and now.

Of course, if he were caught and he told them how he’d gotten free… Then I’d kill him myself. If I didn’t get killed first.

I settled back down at the bar, listening to Fatman roar off. Dog tossed me a beer, which I caught effortlessly, cracking open against the edge of the bar counter.

“What a fucking idiot…” I muttered.

“The big man?” Dog asked.

“Who the fuck else?”

“He’s good at what he does, homes,” Manuel said with a shrug. Dog nodded.

“Ain’t none of us would be here if it weren’t for him.”
 

“Sure, sure,” I said, shaking my head. “He’s a fucking saint and plays checkers with retarded blind children on Sundays.”

“Ain’t nobody said that,” Dog replied. “But man… You got to be loyal. It’s all we got in this world.”

“Sure is, man,” Manuel agreed.

“I can get behind that,” I said with a shrug. “Loyalty. Yeah, that shit’s important.”

But there are some things that were more important, I wanted to tell them. I wanted to tell them that it matters who you’re loyal to.

It’s one thing to be loyal to a fat psychopath making a grab for power because of his small dick.

It’s another thing to be loyal to an old dead war buddy, to trying to make things right in your life while protecting his life.

Oh, I had chosen my loyalties all right. I knew exactly who I was going to be loyal to.

It just didn’t necessarily include the jokers sitting around me.

CLAIRE

The morning after I learned to ride Fang’s bike, we rode up to the little tattoo shop off the highway that Fang had been going to for years. It was called Gentleman Joel’s, after the owner and main artist.

I wasn’t sure who to expect but it definitely wasn’t who I saw: a tiny Asian kid, dressed like a hipster, who embraced Fang when he came in.

“You son of a bitch, Fang, I haven’t seen you in god knows how long!”

On closer inspection, Joel wasn’t a kid—he had to be in his mid or even late thirties, but he dressed like someone on his way to a music festival or a dance club—definitely not a tattoo artist.

But the photos and art on the walls of his hole-in-the-pavement shop attested to his skill: samurai, all but leaping off the page, dueled with dragons and demons and more. It was like stepping into an art museum or a high-end art gallery, except for the fact that there were signs on the windows warning customers to leave their guns in the car and wear shirts and shoes on the premises.

“So, who do I have the pleasure of…” Gentleman Joel started to say, turning to me. I took his hand.

“Claire. Claire Powell.”

I glanced at Fang, seeking affirmation that Joel was safe, and he nodded.

“Special Agent Claire Powell. FBI.”

“So, this is the one you were talking about on the phone…” Joel murmured, taking a step back and looking me up and down like an artist taking in the sight of a blank canvas. I had purposely worn very little clothing for the excursion: a pair very short running shorts that showed off my long, un-adorned legs, and a top that cut off at my belly, showing off my midriff. It was the perfect outfit for the hot southern Florida weather, and the perfect outfit to show Joel what I wanted done.

“That’s right. She needs to look less like a Fed and more like a biker chick, and quick.”

“You got any ideas for what you’d like?” he said, turning to me. “It sounds like I’m going to be doing a lot of work on you today but you’re the one who’s got to live with it.”

I bit my lip.

“Well, I like the idea of a koi sleeve…”

“Cool, I can jam out with that. What else?”

My eyes widened.

“What else?”

“You’ve got to have a lot to fit in.”

“This is what I’m thinking,” Joel said, grabbing a sharpie marker and uncapping it. “I’m thinking some sparrows here…”

He drew haphazard stars at the corners of my collar bone, just above my breasts.

“A tramp stamp…”

He turned me around and scribbled a long, warped squiggle along my lower back.

“The sleeve here…”

He laid scribbles into my left arm.

“Some lines of poetry along your ribs…”

He slid up my top just far enough to scribble in lines indicating that poetry would go there. Poetry. Poetry would go there—on my ribs, of all places. Who would ever see that?

“And then I’ll jam out on your other arm. And, hey, why not a ship or something nautical on your thigh? Those are popular these days.”

He drew a few swirls to indicate where the ship would go. I felt like a piece of meat, being carved up for dinner.

“How does that all sound?” Joel asked finally.

I shrugged.

“If this is what I have to do…”

“It’ll look good,” Fang cut in. “Joel’s one of the best in the business.”

“Aw, shucks, you’re making me blush, Fang, you bastard,” Joel said with a chuckle.

“And none of the tattoos will be in places that you can’t cover up.”

“That’s right. You’re not going to have the shit this joker has slathered all over his hands and face.”

Fang rolled his eyes.

“That’s right…” Joel murmured, looking me over. “This is going to be tasteful. Real tasteful.”

“It can’t be too tasteful,” Fang cut in. “It’s the Damned, after all. We’ve got a reputation for complete and utter lack of taste to maintain.”

“That’s right. Well, the tramp stamp will take care of that. Easy.”

With that, I stripped down and Joel began to wipe down my skin, disinfecting it and getting me ready for the work I was about to undergo. As the needle’s motor began to whir and Joel pressed the sharp point into my collar bone, I gasped. Mostly, it was from surprise—it didn’t hurt nearly as bad as I thought it would. If anything, it was strangely pleasant—a slight pinching. If the skin had been itchy, it would have been even better.

Fang sat by, watching silently while Joel worked. It took an hour for each sparrow on my chest and after that, I realized why Fang had been so serious and grim about the process—I was looking at hours and hours of further work.

“You need to keep your blood sugar high while he tattoos,” Fang commented after Joel began in on the sleeve. This was to be just a half sleeve, stopping right at my elbow. It wasn’t going to go any further than that, mostly because Joel didn’t imagine he could get it all done in the time we had.

“I’ll go and get you a candy bar.”

“Oh… Thank you…” I murmured, trying to ignore the fact that the pain was finally starting to build, finally starting to gnaw away at my resolve. The endorphins that my body had had in reserve must have been used up and now, I found myself closing my eyes and gritting my teeth as Joel carved my skin like a renaissance sculptor would have carved stone.

“He’s a good guy,” Joel said after Fang had left, all without looking up from his work, consummate professional that he was.

“Oh? Is he?” I asked, trying to seem as uninterested as possible in whatever Joel might have to say.

“He is. He doesn’t act like it and frankly, he doesn’t want anyone to know. But he is.”

“I find that hard to believe…” I murmured, closing my eyes and trying to forget the pain, trying to forget the needle digging into my tender, broken flesh.

“Sure, he just seems like an asshole. But really, hun. Heart of gold, that one. Tutors at schools.”

“Really?” I asked, my eyes shooting open.

A grin spread over Joel’s focused face.

“Yeah… That’s right. He would kill me if I ever told anyone. But he loves kids. Loves reading to them.”

So, that explained all the children’s books at his apartment.

“He goes down to St. Rosa’s a couple afternoons a week to work with the kids there. Sweet guy, you know. Doesn’t let the Damned know about it. He tells them that he’s out, I don’t know, dealing meth or cracking Puerto Rican kids over the head with a hammer and stealing their lunch money. It’s not really part of the biker lifestyle, reading to kids.”

“I had no idea.”

“That’s the point. You’re not supposed to know. No one is. He’d get his face smashed in if he showed any sort of weakness to the Damned.”

Here was more potential motivation for Fang to want to leave the club. He couldn’t do what he wanted, live the life he wanted, while he was in the club. He would be ostracized, even killed, if they knew about this tiny, tiny thing—this little bit of humanity that he was showing, that he was trying to improve the world in some small way.

Not only was it a matter of just trying to get out of the club… It was a matter of trying to live the life he wanted to live, trying to be the person he wanted to be.

I felt tears coming to my eyes. Joel glanced up, and saw my eyes turning glassy and dewy.

“Don’t go fainting on me now, kiddo,” he said, dabbing at the tattoo. He sprayed it down with soap, wiped away the blood and excess ink and jabbed a finger towards a can of Coca Cola he had set out for me. My throat hurt from the tears I was just barely holding in, so I grabbed the Coke, cracked it open, and began to slurp it down.

Fang found me like that, sipping at Coke while Joel worked. He peered at the unfinished tattoo, nodding seriously.

“That’s looking badass. You’re gonna’ have a badass tat when all is said and done!” he announced. I rolled my eyes.

“Yeah, that’s really my main concern here—how badass my arm is at the end of the night.”

“That’s what a biker gang’s old lady would be thinking about,” Joel cut in. “And you’d better get used to thinking about things like that.”

Damn. He was right. I had to get used to it, had to get ready to think about things in those terms—telling people about the wicked tats I had gotten on my arm, did all in one session.

Fang watched TV in the lobby of the studio while Joel worked. I zoned out, listening to music, eating my candy bar, drinking my soda, watching Fang watching TV—watching his face bear no reaction to the baseball game on ESPN.

Who the hell was this guy? Something… Something was strange about him. There was more to him than met the eye and I wanted to find out what it might be. I wanted to learn about him, to learn about his heart and his experiences.

That could be part of work, after all. That could be part of the operation.

But there was no room to fall in love with him.

“All right,” Joel announced after another few hours. “Let’s turn you over and hit that tramp stamp.”

He rolled me over on the table, my already tattooed spots aching something awful, practically throbbing. I felt like I was dripping sweat and blood. In fact, I probably was, but I was just too far gone to think about it.

Fang watched as Joel pulled down the back of my shorts, revealing the top of my ass.

“Don’t look,” I called back to him, shooting a death glare over my shoulder.

“You’re my old lady now. I get to look if I want to,” Fang said, teasing. I scowled, rolling my eyes.

Joel adapted a few sketches he already had into a full lower back piece for me, featuring roses and thorny vines. It was the kind of trashy thing that I had always looked down on but it was the biker gang look after all.

I whimpered as the needle dug into my flesh again. I was definitely getting tired of this whole tattooing thing. I didn’t know how much more I would be able to take today, but I knew I had no choice—I needed a full body’s worth of tattoos, and I needed them today.

“God, I feel like my skin’s on fire,” I said, shaking my head.

“Yeah, it’ll feel like a bad sunburn,” Joel offered. “But you won’t feel them after a week or two. Everyone heals differently. And this guy is going to have to pamper you and rub you down with ointment once I’m done. Three times a day, every day. You hear that, Fang?”

“I’ll see if I can find it in me,” he said gruffly.

“I bet I won’t even have to ask him,” I said, from over my shoulder. “He’ll do anything to get a look at my tits or ass.”

“Oh really? I feel like there’s a story here,” Joel said, laughing.

“Sure is. The first morning I was staying with him, he came in my room—“

“Which is my room, I should note,” tossed in Fang, rolling his eyes.

“—and tore off the covers so he could see my tits.”

“So you could make breakfast. So my woman could make breakfast for me.”

“I’m not your woman…” I said, feeling whoozy all of a sudden. I felt like I was sweating even more now, but instead of feeling warm, I felt cold—uncomfortably so. “I’m… I’m Fred’s woman…”