Own the Wind (38 page)

I glared at Hound, but even angry I took in the look in his eyes and knew I could throw a fit and not get my way. Anyway, they had shit to do, and I was no old lady if I kept them from that. Since I was Shy’s old lady and my behavior reflected on him, I backed down.

But, since I was Tabby and he was Hound, I didn’t do it gracefully.

“You’re off my Christmas card list,” I announced.

To which he replied immediately, “Didn’t know I was on it.”

My eyes narrowed. “You don’t open my Christmas cards?”

“Tab, you want me to stand here talkin’ about Christmas cards or do you want me to take care of business?” Hound fired back.

I kept glaring then I declared, “I need a drink.”

“Color me a bartender,” Elvira stated, hopped off her stool, aimed a look at Malik, who was still leaning casually into the bar, then she strutted her round ass covered in a designer dress around the bar.

“Lock her in Hound’s room and get Joker. Speck’s here to help out. You boys lock this place down and patrol Ride. You’ll get reinforcements soon,” Boz said to Rush. Rush jerked up his chin and led a pale-faced, silently weeping Natalie away.

I ignored my best friend’s emotion (which was hard) and hitched my behind up on a bar stool.

Malik slid close while Elvira poured coffee.

“Scared straight works, honey,” Malik said, and I looked at him. “Seen it time and again.”

“Not sure at this moment I care,” I replied.

“At this moment, no. I see that.” He leaned closer. “Get to that point though, girl. Your man might have shed blood but he’s breathing. You need to find forgiveness because you care about her. To get her out of a porn movie nurse’s outfit and on a healthy path, she’s going to need all the help she can get.”

“Not to be a bitch or anything, but what are you, a drug counselor?” I asked.

“No, I’m a vice cop,” he answered.

Well, that explained that.

I looked to Elvira. “You’re seein’ a cop?”

Elvira, done with the coffee, was now pouring shots of tequila. She glanced at Malik then looked at me. “I was.”

I turned to Malik to see him grinning at Elvira like he thought she was adorable.

I turned back to Elvira to see her slugging back a shot of tequila. She then chased this with a sip of coffee.

Only after that did she reply, “To get a badass I had a choice. Biker, commando, military, or cop. My clothes do not say back of a bike. Commando screams ‘messy’ and, trust me, I know this from experience. I do not wanna spend my days learning the different ways of getting blood out of cargo pants. And military men are deployed and I’m sure not takin’ out the trash for months and worryin’ myself sick while he’s off somewhere gettin’ shot at, even if it is to keep my people safe. So I got stuck with a cop. He gets shot at and keeps people safe, but at least he’s home to take out the trash.”

“I’m not sure you did that bad, Elvira. Just saying, breakfast in bed?” I pointed out and her eyebrows flew up.

“Girl, don’t tell me. I’ll remind you, you held a grudge for three days over crushed ice. You witnessed his transgressions. For that, I get at least a week and you know it.”

She was not wrong. He yelled at her in front of an audience. Shy would buy a freeze-out for that, definitely.

To communicate that, I sipped coffee.

“You go a week, baby, we got problems,” Malik said low.

Elvira rolled her eyes at me but didn’t reply.

“You talk to your girl any longer like I’m not standing right here, we also got problems,” Malik carried on.

Elvira transferred her eye roll to him.

“You roll your eyes one more time, you lose my mouth,” he warned.

Elvira glared at him.

What she didn’t do, I will note, was roll her eyes or talk about Malik like he wasn’t there.

I kept sipping coffee.

I watched Rush and Joker walk through the Compound giving Malik looks to which he gave an affirmative, nonverbal, macho man,
I got this
chin lift. I didn’t know what he had, but I was guessing what he had was his woman in a biker Compound, so even as a vice cop he was going to do his bit to make sure the Compound was safe.

Then I watched my brother and his brother walk out the front door.

Then I waited patiently for my man to get to me.

As any biker babe from birth would do.

* * *

“Babe, I’m fine.”

“Let me look at it.”

“Tabby, sugar,
I’m fine
.”

I leaned away from Shy and planted my hands on my hips, staring up at him. “And I’m a nurse, Shy Cage. I’m also your woman. And I’m gonna
look at it
.”

“It’s all good,” Shy replied. “Baldy knows what he’s doing.”

Dr. Baldwin, a man I’d known for years, did know what he was doing but he did it for cash and he didn’t come cheap. This meant that even though he owned a Harley, needed a haircut, had tattoos, and looked like a bruiser, he also had an extremely well-equipped clinic whose back door saw more action than the front.

Regardless of the knowledge that Baldy knew what he was doing, I took Shy in with a professional eye.

He’d returned about ten minutes before, which was about ten minutes after Malik performed a miracle, got Elvira to lose the attitude, and by the time Shy, Dad, and the rest of the boys strolled in, all seriously pissed off, Elvira was standing between his spread legs as he sat on his stool and they were bar-stool cuddling.

It was cute.

Now, Shy and I were in his room at the Compound. He looked like what he said he was except for a small, white bandage at his neck and discoloration on his black tee under the bandage which I knew as dried blood. His color was good. He didn’t appear lethargic, and he’d had stitches with only a local anesthetic.

Still, I wanted to see.

“Honey, sit on the bed and let me see,” I requested quietly.

He held my eyes for a few beats before sighing and sitting on the bed.

I got close, gently peeled back the tape and looked.

The boys told no lies. It was just a nick that took only a few stitches. My man was fine.

Thank God.

Carefully, I pressed the tape back and sat on the bed beside Shy.

“Happy?” he asked me.

“That my best friend is an idiot that led my man into a situation that included an exchange of bullets and the Club buying problems?” I asked back. “No.”

Shy moved, gathering me in his arms and hauling me onto the bed.

When he had us arranged, him on his back, me mostly on him, he slid his hand into my hair and informed me, “As much as I don’t wanna let anything slide with that bitch, Club’s been havin’ problems with Benito for a while. We got Chaos territory around Ride that’s drug and hooker free. This message is clear to everybody, but lately Benito’s been encroaching.” He held my eyes, took in a deep breath and stated, “You tell him, I won’t be happy, but this is why Rush was undecided about the Club.”

“I don’t get it,” I told him.

He rolled me to my back, pressing into me, hovering close. “Right, Tab, the people who keep Chaos territory clean are Chaos.”

“Okay,” I stated.

Shy studied me then explained, “The brothers, babe. Not the cops.”

I blinked then too little sleep, too much tequila mixed with too much coffee cleared away and it hit me.

“Are you saying you’re vigilantes?” I breathed.

Shy nodded. “Our territory, our rule, our law, all in our hands. Five-mile radius around the shop and garage.
All
the shops. All Chaos territory.”

Oh crap. I didn’t know this.

I mean, I wasn’t stupid, and I heard my mother and father fighting all the freaking time, so it wasn’t like I didn’t know the Club had a rocky history. Furthermore, it was a motorcycle club. That right there said a lot. Dad had plans from the start to get the Club clean. I’d been mostly shielded from what it took to get Chaos clean, but stuff was extreme when he went about doing it so it wasn’t like it was lost on me.

But Dad did it. He got the Club clean.

“Shy—”

His hand cupped the side of my head and his face got closer. “Baby, leave it be.”

“I’m not sure—”

His hand pressed gently into my head. “Not bein’ a dick, you know it, but still gotta say it. Sugar, you don’t get to be anything. This is Club business. Just know your dad is no fool. He has it goin’ on. But Rush is his father’s son. He didn’t live the nightmare your dad lived with the Club’s past history, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a mission. Tack pulled the Club through some serious shit, but he’s still Chaos and is used to doin’ it his way, takin’ care of Club business, lookin’ after what’s ours. Rush thinks Tack’s job is not done. He wants us to protect what’s ours and get our hands clean of all the dirt we gotta rub up against to keep our patch clean. Rush thinks that’s the job of the Denver Police Department and our job is to look after our own, not everything within a five-mile radius. My guess is, he talked with your dad about this, Tack knows that shit can encroach if you don’t keep a safe perimeter, and they didn’t see eye to eye. My other guess is, instead of keepin’ his distance and makin’ his statement by stayin’ out of the Club, he decided to take his chance at making change by joining us.”

This did not sound good.

Like,
at all
.

“You mean, overthrow Dad?” I asked, my voice shaky.

“I don’t know what it means,” Shy answered. “I do know your brother is no fool either. I can tell by the way he’s taking his shit as a recruit that the Club means somethin’ to him and, gotta say, Tab, that shocked the shit outta me. If I had this as my legacy, I turned eighteen, I’d be workin’ toward my cut. He jumped on board when he was twenty-five. But there’s no denyin’ he’s all in. Dog and Brick are in Grand Junction, Hop and me have Tack’s ear and he shares. Which is somethin’
you
don’t do. As far as you’re concerned, you don’t know this. You gotta watch it play out just like everybody. You don’t intervene. You don’t have words with either of them. They’re your dad and brother but bottom line, it’s Club business, Tabby, and you know what that means.”

I did.

I also knew not long after the business went down with Lee Nightingale and the boys had Shy’s back, Shy approached Dad to ask if his offer to be lieutenant was still open. Dad shared he was holding the position for Shy until he was ready for it, no one else was even a consideration. This meant Shy was in the inner sanctum, an elevated position within the Club and, at his age, that was huge.

Therefore, as his woman and with his position in the Club, I had to stand by his side.

This meant not getting into his face about Club business.

So I simply stated. “Shy, I don’t have a good feeling about this.”

“You wouldn’t ’cause you’re a daughter and a sister. What you aren’t is a son or a Chaos brother. They might not see eye to eye but your brother loves his father, he respects him and, when he earns his cut, they’ll add a different relationship to that. We all don’t get along all the time. There’s friction, differences of opinion, politics, even clashes. But there’s always the brotherhood and we all know it. That will never die.”

Well, at least there was that.

I backtracked, my eyes moving to his bandage then back to his face.

“How big is this problem with the porn guy?” I asked quietly, and I got what I expected.

“That’s not somethin’ you worry about.”

This was something, as his woman and him my man with a bandage on his neck, I had to get in his face about.

“Wrong, Shy,” I whispered.

He dipped his face close. “Your bitch is a mess. She hit bottom but, stuff she’s into, that won’t mean a thing. She might be shaken up and get her shit sorted but she might not. It isn’t cool she called you, dragged you and, because of you, Chaos into her mess, but this was going to happen, it just came sooner. You were dragged in, now you know. But that’s all you know and you don’t worry.”

“That’s impossible,” I informed him.

“If you think this Club hasn’t weathered worse storms than this guy, you’re wrong.”

This was not welcome information.

“Shy, you got shot and you’re okay but—”

His head moved, his mouth touched mine and when he lifted his head, his thumb slid to my lips. “Tab, baby, after what you lost, do you think for a second I’d do anything, your father would do anything, to make you lose me?”

This made me feel slightly better, because I didn’t think that, not for a second, but that didn’t mean I didn’t repeat, even with his thumb still on my lips, “Shy, darlin’, you got shot.”

“A nick,” he clarified.

“But—”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“But, Shy—”

His thumb pressed against my lips lightly.

“Tabitha, I’m not leaving you.”

I held my silence and his eyes.

Then I lifted a hand, curled it around his wrist, pulled his hand away and whispered, “You better not.”

He grinned and whispered back, “You’re stuck with me.”

God, I hoped so.

I took in an unsteady breath.

Then I told him, “Sorry my ex–best friend got you nicked by a bullet.”

His grin turned into a smile. “Shit happens.”

It was kind of forced but I grinned back.

He pulled against my hold so his hand could come back, his thumb gliding along my lips as his eyes watched. His smile was gone when his gaze again met mine.

“Always and forever, baby, you’re stuck with me.”

I drew in a deep breath that miraculously was calming and I nodded.

Shy studied me then dipped his head, brushed his lips against mine, and then rolled to his back, taking me with him, tucking me to his side.

“Wiped, sugar,” he muttered. “Rest with me.”

“Okay,” I muttered back, snuggling closer, knowing, after as much caffeine as I consumed, all that had happened and all that I’d learned, I wouldn’t sleep a wink.

I was right. I felt Shy relax under me, his breath even out, his arm around my waist going heavy.

I stared at his tee, the pendants resting at his throat, my mind bouncing from thought to thought, not any of them happy.

Then it bounced and landed on,
You’re stuck with me.