Tarnished Steel (2 page)

“No,” Knight continued, and as he sat down he picked up his phone. “I got this. I’ll call Larry, Larry will do his Larry thing, and we’ll have Derrick back with us in no time at all. All Derrick has to do is sit tight for a couple of hours and keep his mouth shut. No worries.”

Hank’s hand
was
shaking when he picked back up his vest. “Thanks. Let me know what to do to cover Larry’s cost. Any job the club needs, consider it done.”

“Coming from you, that’s quite an offer, but one I accept. There
is
something, as a matter of fact. Sit down, let me call Larry and get Derrick taken care of, and then we’ll talk about it. Ben and I were just discussing who might take care of this problem for us.”

But Derrick didn’t sit tight, and he didn’t keep his mouth shut, and he did two years in Chino for robbery.

***

Knight was expanding the Rider’s distribution and connections network, and he used Hank as his rider. Hank rode to Texas, to Florida, down into Mexico, up to Seattle, and into Canada. He rode all across the Midwest. For the next three years, Hank rode with, met, drank with, and occasionally fought with bikers all over three different countries. With the Internet, he kept in touch with many of those he befriended along the way.

At the end of it, Knight had a resource network far greater than a club their size would be expected to have. He could move dope and stolen goods with effortless speed. Several times, through this network, he invested club funds into drug deals other clubs were investing in, allowing greater buy-ins with much greater profits.

Then Knight came to Hank with a real job, a job that would take all his skill, all of his observation talents, and some fucking amazing luck to accomplish without dying.

Hank accepted the job with a nod, took off his vest, and rode away for eight months.

CHAPTER TWO

Current Day

Cynthia "
Cyn" Palmer pulled her red Lowrider up to the club and scanned the bikes outside, recognizing several. She spotted Larry’s blue and white Heritage and slid in beside him. She liked Larry. For a lawyer, he was alright. Sure, he was old enough to almost be her father, but he was easy to talk to, funny, intelligent, and had great blue eyes that sparkled like sapphires. To top it off, even with his age he had a nice ass in his blue jeans.

So, yeah, a few too many drinks and Larry saying the right words, it could happen. Thinking about it, she wouldn’t mind it at all, and could easily play the scene all the way through. In the morning, they would likely be slightly embarrassed about the whole thing. For the next few chance meetings, they would give each other smiles and waves and keep on going. After a couple of weeks, though, they would settle back down into the comfortable friendship that they enjoyed together right now — and hell, then it could happen again.

She brought her Lowrider down on its stand, pulled off her helmet, and shook out her thick red hair, running her fingers through the mane to fluff it out a little. Then she got off and headed for the club door.

So far, Larry was the only one she thought
it
could happen with. There were plenty of good men in the Steel Riders MC, having over two hundred members in the San Diego area. She had met Ben the VP, James, of course, and Halo, and even Rick — and all of their beautiful wives and girlfriends.

Randy, a prospect, was more than a little cute, but he was a prospect still, and she got bad vibes from the way he looked at Daphne, her best friend. Daphne was with Derrick, and Derrick sponsored Randy in, so it seemed to Cyn that Daphne would be
way off-limits
for Randy — if he had any respect in him, but Cyn wasn’t sure he did.

That aside, it was honestly difficult to think of Derrick with respect. She just didn’t believe that Derrick would have her back when the chips went down. He talked a lot, too.

Most of what came out of Derrick’s mouth was mean, and normally about someone in the club. He just
said shit
, and it was constant. She had only been coming around here for two months and she had witnessed Derrick get the crap beat out of him three times for saying the wrong shit about the wrong person.

Derrick wasn’t that big of a guy. About six feet tall, yes, but he didn’t have a great build. His shoulders were alright; his body was more or less in shape. The muscles of his arms were defined by hard labor, not gym groomed. His shock of blond hair and those blue eyes of his were his best features, but they didn’t help much in a fight.

On top of that, the man couldn’t fight. She would have done better against the men who called him out. A lot better. Derrick took a beating each time. A hard beating.

It never stopped his mouth, though.

Cyn loved Daphne, however. She was a gorgeous blond, with laughing green eyes and a body she loved to show off. When Cyn first moved into Lakeside, she had no friends and knew of nowhere to go in the area. She and Daphne became friends, and Daphne was the one who brought her here to the club.

Cyn had tried the local tavern a few times, but there was just nothing to get into with the regulars there.

El Cajon was close, but it was filled with biker bars of the monstrous testosterone variety that she found more disturbing than alluring. And sure, she understood her place in the grand scheme of things, as a woman hanging around the men she chose to, and she felt good about it too. However, there was a line between
her place
and being a second-class citizen — a line that she wasn’t comfortable crossing, and certainly wasn’t going to cross by force or fright. A guy could lose his nuts trying to force her across that line. She didn’t carry the blade on her left hip for show. She’d use it if backed to a wall. Her father had taught her how to use that blade against stronger, taller, and more powerful adversaries. She was a quick study, too.

So, yes, she tried a few of the clubs in El Cajon, but she knew they weren’t going to work out, and a man who would get her fires burning wouldn’t spend much time in them either.

She had met Daphne in the laundry mat on a Sunday morning, and they had hit it off instantly. Daphne was fun and into the life. She had said her ol’man was a patch holder for the
Steel Riders
and that Cyn should ride back a patch into the rural background to look for a place called Knight’s. She wouldn’t miss it. It was two stories tall and long like a ranch house, painted white with blue trim, and there was a large sign out by the road. Daphne told her there were always bikes outside as well. On Fridays and Saturdays the bikes were parked three or four deep, making it hell to leave early.

“It is a nice country-style bar, but really it’s the club house. They’ve got over two hundred active members right now, with probably another hundred in various inactive states,” Daphne explained.

“Like moved out of the area, getting on in the age area —”

“Being down in the prison area,” Daphne cut in with a singsong tune in her voice, giving Cyn a light smile.

“So, are they all outlaws then?” Cyn asked.

“Not all. No, but none of them are angels or white on the inside. Even Larry has been known to dabble in drug trading and fencing, and he’s a lawyer.”

“What does Derrick, your ol’man, do?”

“Mostly a mechanic, and he’s a good one. He’s been wrenching for more than twenty years, to hear him say it, though he’s only thirty-two. His dad owned a shop near downtown, and Derrick started there. Not sure he started when he was twelve, but Derrick’s certain of it. He makes good money wrenching, but he’s always scheming and plotting something.”

“Sounds like a busy man,” Cyn offered.

“He’d be so busy I wouldn’t get the chance to suck him off between coming in and going out, if he did one-tenth of the heist jobs he came up with. So far, since he got out of Chino, he’s done nothing but wrench and talk. Which I don’t mind so much. I really didn’t enjoy him being down in the pen for two years.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t sound all that fun to me,” Cyn said.

“It’s not. The guys were good to me, though. Two or three would come by to visit sometimes. The girls would call and keep me up on things. Occasionally, one of the guys would take me on a club run, which was always fun. Knight, the president — and yeah, that’s really his name — he always asked how I was doing financially, and if I had the basics covered, which I did, after he let me waitress at the club during the weekends.”

So, Cyn agreed to meet up with Derrick and Daphne on a Wednesday evening, go to Knight’s tavern and grill, have dinner, and be introduced to Knight and probably Larry, Ben, and James as well. She liked what she saw and how she felt instantly.

Knight Walker, the president, was brown-eyed and gray-maned. His hair was full and wire thick. He looked like old Spaniard rancher mixed with Irish bootlegger. His smile didn’t always reach his eyes, but when it did, it made him a very attractive rogue. He talked with her for more than an hour about all kinds of things. She kept up for the most part, able to share knowledge if not experience.

Ben Tailor was a tall but stocky man with a brutish look and sharp hazel eyes Cyn didn’t believe missed much. He might have been forty, but she guess him to be closer to thirty-five — the brutishness gave him an older appearance. He didn’t talk much and didn’t smile often. He liked her tits and her long legs, even spent some time with her ass when she wasn’t using it to sit on the bar stool, but she didn’t get the feeling he liked
her
. Most likely it was her vocabulary, she decided. She possessed a large vocabulary, and she used it with thoughtless ease in conversation. Just to test this theory, she told the gathered group a seriously raunchy joke, using words like cunt and twat with the same ease she used more descriptive words, and Ben lightened up several notches.

She supposed that particular joke, coming out of her mouth, was a shock for Larry “the Lawyer” Anderson. He lost a mouthful of beer and laughed so hard he had to leave the bar and go outside to cool down.

“Jesus, Larry, get a grip,” James Rath called after him with a laugh.

James Rath was dark. A tall, sweet dark: he had long dark hair that fell straight and even, dark brows, and dark — nearly black — irises. His eyes were just sunken enough under the heavy brow that in the right light, they were concealed in shadow completely in a very alluring way. Dark, weathered tan skin covered his face and powerful arms and chest. Dark body hair whispered on his forearms and his exposed chest, which was framed by his open leather vest. His exposed chest was chiseled muscle all the way down, drawing her eyes several times to his belt line. He was a powerful man, the club’s sergeant at arms, and a passionate man for sure, the way he held himself. Also a man deeply in love with, and completely devoted to, his wife, Sally.

Shit.

As soon as Sally bounced in, and took his arm, Cyn could see the connection he had with his wife. It was physical and spiritual. He gave her everything he had to offer and probably felt he was short changing her on top of it. So, Cyn quit with the eyes and stopped letting them fondle his belt line, and she paid more attention to her food and beer.

The really fucked up thing was that Sally turned out to be a genuinely good person, and despite Cyn’s raging jealously, Cyn liked her, and they became close friends in a short time.

Knight walked over to her from behind the bar and said, “You appear to be very interesting, with good depth. What is it that you do?”

“I’m an editor for several writers. Basically, I’m freelance, but I’ve been working with these five writers for so long, I haven’t sought out a new client in years. Mostly I work at home, but I have a small office paid up until the end of the year in Spring Valley.”

“What brought you out to Lakeside?” he asked.

“I’ve always visualized myself happy in a rural setting, far away from traffic and city activity; a little house, colorful trees outside, ducks and horses, that sort of thing. And when I saw this place for rent on a ride I was taking up to Julian, it looked perfect. At least a perfect place to try out the vision, to see if I really do enjoy the quiet, country life.”

“How goes the experiment?” Knight asked, looking very interested.

“Honestly? Better now,” she told him. “I wasn’t finding any social connection in the area. Now, it looks like I found a second country home.”

“Well, good. I look forward to seeing you more often. Welcome,” he told her, and she felt deeply welcome.

That was nearly two months ago, and she didn’t mind that most of the riders were already taken or not very interesting for one reason or another.

She came into the club, sat at the far corner of the bar with Larry, ordered a beer, and revisited the thoughts about how she wouldn’t mind Larry a little more. She was reaching the point that she just wanted a lover for a few nights.

And then a road god walked in the door.

She had never seen this man before. His dark hair was long and thickly curled into a full mane that came down just past his wide, thick, powerful shoulders. His long legs had a graceful but powerful stride that moved him into the room with purpose and roguish energy. She could see the glow of his green eyes from where she sat, and they were the eyes of a man who experienced a lot of miles and loved every adventure he found himself in. They were eyes filled with stories, and ones that saw everything — not like Ben’s eyes, which darted around noticing everything going on, but more like an eagle’s eyes, as if he saw everything at once.

Those eyes turned in her direction and she swore he saw her soul, and she experienced enough of
a moment
with him then to know she wanted a repeat session, often, and for hours.
Yes, please.

God, why isn’t Daphne here!

Daphne had the scoop on everyone, but she and Derrick were gone for another few days north to visit her mother.

Cyn could see this new man was obviously a patch holder, since it was currently on his back. The leather jacket and chaps weren’t new by a long shot, but they were well cared for. Several heads nodded in his direction and some eyes followed intently as he passed by, his strides bringing him closer to her and Larry. So, she ascertained, he was well known and had a measure of infamy with at least some of the Riders.