Raw Deal (Steel Veins Book 3), page 10
I couldn't suppress my half grin as my rusty, sluggish fingers contorted over the chords. Mrs. K, my music teacher, would've ribbed me for my lack of grace. I was irrationally glad that she wasn't in the store.
I thought on the song, humming it softly to myself. It'd been a long time since I'd even heard it played, let alone played it myself. The first few drags of the bow were slow, short, and too close. They cracked with the occasional honk of a mis-stroke. “I told you I was a bit rusty.”
Elisha said nothing, just smiled and watched.
I cleared my throat, adjusted my grips, and started over. Again, I started slow. With the first few strokes, I worked out the tinny sound from my stumbling, rigid fingers. It was when I closed my eyes and concentrated that I began to hear the song as it was supposed to be played.
It was like falling off a bicycle; once you learned, you never really forgot how.
As I relaxed and my confidence grew, the song went from recited half-memory to practiced art. I was never a natural at the tricky instrument, but I did enjoy playing it. The sound always calmed me down.
It felt good to just create something pleasant.
I'd reached the end of the song before I knew it and opened my eyes. Elisha looking back at me was what I saw first. She was clearly impressed and had the faint glow of a smitten fan. She lightly clapped and mouthed, “Wow.”
“Not too shabby, son.” Sam nodded with the cool reserve of an actual musician. “Careful, hon,” he addressed Elisha. “He's bound to break a few hearts, you let him keep practicing.”
Looking past him, I saw two bikers walk by. One stopped, cupping his eyes and pushing his face into the glass to get a good look inside. He was looking right at me. I froze, switching to a tight overhand grip on the violin like it was a baseball bat just in case they came in and I needed it as a weapon. The biker's vest slapped against the window when he leaned forward, and his patch was clearly visible.
They were Warlocks MC and were probably here for the festival. I breathed a little easier. They weren’t a rival or an ally. They were just another club. Totally neutral. They wouldn't know me. Without my vest, I was no different than any other scruffy asshole kicking around.
I breathed a sigh of relief. We were all right.
“She's got nothing to worry about,” I said, gently replacing the violin in its case and putting a hand on the man's shoulder. “I'll leave the heartbreaking to the professionals like you.”
The old man laughed with hearty abandon.
We thanked him and stepped back out onto the street. Elisha was hesitant at first, but I explained the situation. This was apparently Warlock country. As long as we kept a healthy distance from them, they wouldn't seek us out.
“How long have you been riding for?” Elisha asked after several minutes of aimless walking. It was still too early to call it a night, so we decided to enjoy the festival.
“I'd never ridden before joining up with the Broken Veins.” I could tell she had trouble believing me. “In fact,” I continued, “my first full year as a prospect was spent in a beat-down pickup truck.”
“What?” She laughed, a smile born of disbelief spread across her face.
“Yeah, it was perfect for hauling around members too drunk or fucked-up to drive. It was the club that gave me my first bike.”
“Wait a minute.” Her smile faded a bit. “So the FBI had you join a motorcycle club and didn't give you a motorcycle?”
“Our government at work.” I chuckled, remembering the original conversation. “I said the same thing to them when I started. The only things I ever got from the feds were audio recorders. Informants like me were found out constantly. It was staggering. Something like 80 percent of the time, informants were caught and killed. So I guess why waste the resources on a bike? I was—I am completely expendable, as Harris loves to remind me.”
“That's atrocious.” Elisha's lips tightened and her eyebrows scrunched. “It couldn't be that often.”
“Most of the time, it's not the cops that go undercover in these clubs. It's too dangerous.” I nodded. “That's why they were so quick to cut me a deal when I was busted. MCs like the Broken Veins excel at flushing out rats. That's why it takes so much time to get vetted and brought in as a full patch member.”
“Jesus….”
“Kind of ironic, actually. That’s why the Broken Veins originally formed from the Steel Veins.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard of them.” Elisha looked off into the distance, probably recalling old case files. “They had a terrible reputation until the new guy took over, right?”
“That was before my time, but yeah. Apparently this dude named Remy led a coup against the old guard leaders and kicked out all the new, untested members of the Steel Veins so they could start vetting members properly. The club was pretty corrupt by then, so that went over like a lead balloon. All the pissed-off members that got the axe and those who didn’t want anything to do with the Steel Veins going legit formed the Broken Veins. Now they vet the shit out of their members so no cops or rats get into the clubs.”
“Huh,” Elisha mused. “Yet here you are like a damn informant ninja.”
“When the feds have you by the balls, you gotta be on your toes.”
There was some silence between us for a while as we walked down the crowded street. I knew what she wanted to ask me. I wondered how long it would take for her to come out with it.
She was hesitant. Not because she was afraid to approach the subject; I figured it was because she didn't want to destroy whatever image she had of me in her head. What if I was a real scumbag, or a fucking monster like a kid killer, a cannibal, or someone who broke into nursing homes and fucked little old ladies?
“Go ahead.” I broke the tension. “You can ask me.”
“What did you do?” she immediately replied. “Most of your records were either redacted or missing.”
“I was a thief.”
She was taken aback, her demeanor lightening. That's it? her form seemed to say as relief washed over her. She was too lawful to ever condone stealing, but I was sure it was much better than whatever other horrible things she’d imagined I did.
“What'd you steal?”
“Expensive cars at first. We'd chop them up and sell the pieces. That's where I learned how to make real money. Logistics. I had the connections and know-how to develop the whole infrastructure. By the time I was busted, I had been pulling in thousands of dollars a day in transportation and service cuts. All the carjackers in three states came to me. By the end, I was a fucking king of underground commerce.”
“That's why the bounty was so high….” It all began to click for Elisha.
“A king's ransom.” I spread my arms out and bowed slightly.
Elisha smirked and shook her head at the bad joke.
“And now you're one of the good guys?”
“Whatever keeps me out of jail.” I shrugged with resignation.
Elisha furrowed her eyebrows at that, obviously disappointed by my answer. Everything I'd gleaned from her painted her as a woman with uncompromising convictions and ideals.
I could only imagine what she saw when she looked at a criminal like me.
“This costume you see isn't who I really am.” I pointed to myself, not so much for the clothing I was currently wearing, but more for the lifestyle I’d had to adopt. “It's not who I wanted to be, at least. Growing up, I didn't have a lot of options. I could've just as easily slung drugs instead of stealing cars. One thing led to another, and before I knew it, I was swept up in this hurricane of undercover bullshit.”
I chuckled. It sounded like I was making excuses, and maybe I was. After all, to everyone else, I was just a devil in a stolen robe and halo.
“You may not believe me. Hell, I don't know if I even believe me, but I never wanted to hurt anyone. I was just looking to survive is all.”
“Bending with the direction of the wind just to survive as someone you don't like means killing the good person you could be.” Elisha looked at me thoughtfully.
“You'd make one hell of a fortune cookie writer.” I smiled weakly, trying to deflect the painful truths in her words. She flashed me an impatient smirk. “I'm doing the right thing now. Isn't that all that matters?”
“I don't know.” She shrugged. There was an earnest honesty in her voice. “What I do know is it can be incredibly rewarding to do the right things for the right reasons.”
Had anyone else said that to me, it would’ve been in a patronizing tone, and I would've brushed it off without a second thought, but not Elisha. She looked at me with concern. She was actually worried about me.
Having someone concerned about my well-being was a strange, alien sensation that made me uncomfortable. But I'd be lying if I said it wasn't nice to hear.
“What would you have done with the money?” I asked her, changing the subject. I'd worn so many masks for so long that I needed to get out of the spotlight. “If it was real?”
Elisha sighed, that sadness creeping back into her. She didn't strike me as the kind of girl who failed at the things she set her mind to. When it did happen, I bet she was extra hard on herself because of that.
“Honestly, I don't know anymore. I think I was more obsessed with getting it than I was with having it. I just needed a distraction. Everything had begun to unravel and I saw you—” She elbowed my arm playfully. “—or your bounty, rather, as a way to fix everything. If I just had enough money…. ”
Elisha frowned at the smug expression that crept across my face. I knew she thought I was making fun of her, but that wasn't it at all. I had just been in her shoes, and I knew all too well what that obsession was like.
“That's the trick of it,” I said, letting the knowing grin fade. I stopped on the sidewalk like a boulder in a rushing river of people. “Money doesn't fix problems. Not the real problems. Not the ones that matter.”
Elisha was bumped into me from behind by an apologizing tourist who was trying to get by. I caught her with ease and matched her gaze. My skin crackled everywhere she touched me. In the way she looked up at me, I could see she felt it too.
Her eyes told me I was the only person on that busy street.
“You don't get it.” A renewed cheer from a street performance forced her to lean in and yell in my ear just to be heard. “Without enough money for a lawyer, I can't fight Kenneth if things get really bad. Right now I am completely at his mercy.”
“What are you fighting for?” I asked with genuine curiosity, the roar from the crowd dying down in the background. She looked at me like I had three heads. “It's all just stuff. Does it even make you happy?”
She went for what was probably some canned reply, but the words failed her. The question might've struck her harder than I meant it. Elisha looked troubled and struggled to answer. I couldn't fully know the distress that clouded her mind and heart. All I saw was distant pain in her upturned, yet still stunning, rich brown eyes.
It was a simple question, but sometimes they held the hardest truths.
She frowned and looked away. I wasn't going to press her for it. The only person she owed an explanation to was herself.
It was too loud and crowded on the street. Knowing we'd both benefit from a little breathing room, I began to move us from the throng of people when some big bastard in a wide-brimmed ten-gallon hat shoved past us hard.
On instinct, I snapped a hand out and grabbed his shirt, jerking the rude prick back a step toward me. “Watch your fucking step. Apologize to the lady.”
“Mason….” Elisha grabbed my arm, shaking her head. Her body language told me it wasn't worth it.
I exhaled and let him go. She was right. I was the one to stop us in human traffic. We were bound to get bumped. It had been a really good night; why ruin that by getting blood all over our clothes?
“That's right,” the pasty-skinned tough guy snapped back at me. He was all piss and vinegar now that I’d let him go. It was clear that he thought the world owed him something. “Pussy whipped by a bitch.”
“Excuse me?” I immediately regretted my decision to turn the other cheek.
Mr. Ten-Gallon Hat winked at her and blew her a kiss in response. My knuckles popped as my hands balled into fists. My skin was thick enough for insults aimed at me, but slights against Elisha?
That, I wouldn't tolerate.
Elisha beat me to it. My eyes shot wide as I watched her knee him in the balls. He bent forward, his face immediately contorting in pain and shock. Then Elisha smashed him in the nose for good measure, putting the grown man on his ass in front of everyone. Passersby slowed down for the spectacle, but only for a moment before continuing on. Those who'd heard the exchange smiled and nodded to Elisha. Some even congratulated her for standing up to him.
I smiled, lifting the hat from the defeated man’s head.
Elisha beamed at the crowd approval but quickly began to deflate and shrink into herself slightly. Was she embarrassed at all the attention?
She grabbed my hand, pulling me off the sidewalk and through the door of an empty shop that had closed for the night. She flashed her eyebrows at me and shrugged. Her rigid stance began to loosen and relax.
Maybe she stopped me earlier because she could fight her own battles. An excited thrill shot through my body at the thought. She never failed to impress me. Her coiled, tensed form was hot as hell. I could barely stand it. She didn't take shit from anyone. It was a heady turn-on.
“To the victor go the spoils.” I placed the hat on her head. “It's a good look on you.”
“The hat?” She eyed me skeptically. I'd never seen her in any headwear before, and my guess was she'd tell me she wasn't a hat kind of girl. I propped myself up with both arms pressed against the door on either side of her head. Like a reverse push-up, I bent my arms and erased the distance between us.
“I was talking about the fire in your eyes.” My lips hovered over hers, grazing against them as I spoke. Her lips pulled back in a sultry smile, revealing her pearly teeth that were just slightly crooked. Imperfections had their own alluring charm. “And the hat doesn't look terrible either.”
My teeth clicked against hers before they were overtaken by her plush dark maroon lips. I tasted her cherry-hinted lip balm first, then ran my tongue across her opening teeth. I’d never kissed anyone like I kissed Elisha. It was soft and sweet, wrapped in spikes of passion and dipped in lust.
Call me hardened, but with everyone else, it had been just the meaningless mashing of lips. But not her. In this small act, my soul was satiated. My body, on the other hand… it revved harder than the V2 four-stroke engine on my Harley.
The minutes sped by as the intensity of our passion grew. The hat had fallen away at some point, but neither of us paid it any mind.
Our slice of semiprivate heaven was only several feet from the main thoroughfare. When I felt her fingers dig into my waist, I knew we'd need a little more privacy.
I peeled back just enough to gingerly sink my teeth into her lower lip. “Let's get out of here.” My voice was a low growl over the street music, more vibration than sound.
She nodded devilishly.
“Yeah?” I asked, looking her over skeptically. After so many miles and so many half-truths between us it was hard to believe this was actually happening.
“Don't go spoiling the mood.” She gave me a knowing look. “You're not my bounty anymore. Hell, you're not even really an outlaw biker now either.”
“Always the professional,” I said in a low, close voice, pulling her into another kiss.
Our hotel was fifteen blocks away. Neither of us had that kind of patience.
Chapter Ten
Elisha
We hustled through the masses. The only pockets of space on that busy street were given to backflipping performers and a parked police cruiser. Other than that, people were everywhere. They became louder and more riotous as the night went on.
Mason barely noticed; he was a snowplow carving us a path through the crowd. I quick-stepped directly behind him, trying to keep up. One of my hands was in his, and the other was held up to protect against the occasional drunken flailing limb.
We entered a mostly vacant brick-and-concrete park. The sparse overhead spotlights cast the park's one lonely tree in a haunting bright yellow hue. Its long shadow engulfed a couple who lay on the cold stone fondling each other.
In the darkest areas with the least eyes on them, drunk, horny couples were going at it. Mostly soft-core stuff, like kissing and touching. I was envious. I was attracted to Mason the moment I saw him riding down the highway, but never in a million years would I have thought anything would happen between us. The more time I spent with him, these little nagging fantasies about what he would be like crept into my head. Now that all bets were truly off, I didn't know exactly what he had planned, but I could feel myself getting wetter as my thoughts were finally free to run wild.
Mason wrapped an arm around me as we walked out the rear entrance of the park and into an even dimmer parking lot. The music and the noise of the crowd were still booming even out here.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
He stopped abruptly a few seconds later, ignoring my question. Then Mason picked me up and slammed us against the side of a gray Hummer H2. It rocked from the impact of our bodies. The stubble of his beard lit my skin on fire and turned my brain to mush as his kisses started at my cheek then roamed hungrily. The music boomed and the crowd cheered almost as if it were meant just for us.
Everything about this—him and me in each other’s arms—was unbelievable. I meant that literally. Waves of incredulity washed over me, reminding me that it wasn’t long ago I was bringing Mason to justice as a fugitive. That was all gone now. Mason and I were just two people whose lives were changed irrevocably by forces beyond their control. For having such radically different backgrounds, we had a lot of things in common.
