Fitz: Motorcycle Club Romance (Savage Saints MC Book 10) Read online

  He was also someone I knew very little about outside of work. He was someone that I certainly was curious to know more about.

  But just as the thought of going up to him to vent and talk life came to mind, Thomas closed his laptop, hummed to himself, and headed over to the elevators. Damn it.

  As he got on the elevator, though, his demeanor reminded me that I needed to get back to work. I could not focus on men.

  That was doubly true for men who made me curious. That was the kind of path that eventually led to romance, which eventually led to marriage, which eventually led to kids.

  In other words, the most toxic and fatal thing to a successful career.

  Chapter 1: Fitz

  It was six on a Thursday evening and employees at Rothenberg Banking had only just started to close up shop for the day.

  Outside, the sun was setting on New York City. Traffic was picking up; taxis were honking everywhere; people were complaining about the inevitable MTA delays.

  I was witness to precisely none of this. I was witness to very little in the city, actually. Even having worked in Rothenberg for fifteen years, I still didn’t get much in the way of free time. If I got free time, in any case, it was spent at Brooklyn Repairs.

  Right now, I was trying my hardest to get the hell out. I had to help create a pitch to lead the IPO of some new startup company dealing with automatic food ordering, and it was boring the shit out of me. I had no interest in helping this company, which was run by a bunch of kids who had dropped out of college. I just wanted to get to Brooklyn, sneak onto my bike, ride around for a bit, and have beers with the rest of the Savage Saints.

  I just needed to wrap up the last section, email it to my boss, an obese man in his forties named Gerald, and then get the hell out. Gerald would have comments that I couldn’t ignore, but at least I could be out of the office and breathing the Manhattan air soon enough. It was pretty telling that I was more eager to breathe the pollution-heavy Manhattan air than I was remaining in my cubicle.

  “In summary…” I said, reading the text as I wrote it on the screen. “We anticipate that we can carry Foodivery to a market cap of approximately two billion dollars.”

  I read it one more time through, forcing myself to pay attention as best as I could even with my apathy reaching all-time highs. Once I was satisfied that I didn’t have anything else to add, I hit send, stored my laptop, zipped up my bags, clicked my suitcase shut, and stood up.

  “Fitzgerald.”

  Goddamnit.

  “Can I see you in my office please?”

  Gerald’s voice, which was garbled by how overweight he was, was unmistakable. It was also the kind of thing that I couldn’t ignore, no matter how much I wanted to believe I could sneak out. Ignoring him was tantamount to resigning, and though I wanted a way out of this job, I wasn’t quite that ready to escape.

  “Yeah, coming now,” I said, ignoring the stares from the rest of my colleagues as I trudged over, suitcase in hand, to Gerald’s office.

  Two things were always predictable as soon as I entered Gerald’s office. One, there were bound to be leftover food containers somewhere. And two, the place always had a stench akin to someone having not showered for a week in there. The only reason I didn’t just assume it was Gerald was because the visual of my boss showering was not one that I wanted to have.

  And sure enough, when I entered, I saw a bag from Shake Shack, a box from Geno’s Pizza, and a stench that suggested that Gerald had, well, not showered in some time.

  “Have a seat,” Gerald said.

  I did as he requested, trying not to make my repulsed reaction to the smell obvious.

  “Thomas, we love you here at Rothenberg Banking, and we think you’re a wonderful employee.”

  Holy shit. It’s almost the end of the week, and my boss is giving me some spiel about how I’m a valued employee. He’s going to fire me.

  This…this might be kind of nice, actually. I’ll have the force compelling me to focus on the Savage Saints full-time. I can finally be me. Not like I don’t have money in the bank, either. I have plenty—

  “But we have noticed that you’ve been leaving work a little earlier than normal and are coming in looking a little disorganized.”

  OK, I could still get fired. I still have a chance of being let go here. It’s not out of the question.

  “We just want to make sure everything is OK and want to see if there is anything we can help you with.”

  Oh.

  It probably said everything that my initial reaction to thinking I was going to get fired was one of suppressed joy. It probably said even more that, as far as Gerald was aware, I was just a polite, satisfied employee who didn’t realize he was making a mistake. I knew how to play the game well, and that was a trait that was probably not helping my cause in quitting the investment world.

  “Thank you for your concern, Gerald, but everything is quite alright in my life outside of work. I guess it was one of those things that I just didn’t realize was happening until someone mentioned it. I appreciate you bringing it to my attention.”

  The fuck are you doing, Fitz? You don’t even refer to yourself as Thomas. You go by your nickname. And yet you’re trying to suck up to this obese asshole?

  “Very good, Thomas,” he said. “We do recognize that you are one of the top performers here. Just acknowledge that many employees here look up to you, and if they see you leaving the workplace early, they may not be aware that you are continuing to produce at home. Please be cognizant of this, especially as you pursue management opportunities.”

  “Yes, sir, I am very aware of that, and I will attempt to be cognizant of that. Thank you.”

  “You are welcome.”

  God, it was all just one massive bullshit reality show, except even those weren’t as bad. Reality shows had conflicts. Gerald and I never talked badly to each other; we were the ultimate in corporate speak. Gerald probably went home and bitched about me to…I don’t know, his girlfriend? His hired escort? Whatever female company he had. I certainly bitched about him to Uncle. I would have bitched about him to the rest of the Savage Saints, but no one who worked as a mechanic wanted to hear how the poor banker had a bad boss.

  Maybe someday, when I quit and was on great terms with all of the Stones, things would be better. But until then…

  I guess you could say I had my biggest sign yet that I needed to shack off the golden handcuffs and live a life I actually enjoyed, not one where leaving at six was considered leaving early.

  After a quick nod to Gerald that was not reciprocated, I headed for the elevator, ignoring the fact that it probably would have looked better if I had stayed behind for another hour or two. If anyone questioned me, I would have just said that I assumed he was referring to ensuring days. And in any case, I couldn’t stay tonight—I had our weekly meeting with the rest of the Saints.

  I pressed the elevator button and silently waited for it, hoping and praying that Gerald wouldn’t suddenly realize I hadn’t returned to my desk and called for me to return. The doors opened. A young woman with a binder in her arm smiled at me. She had dark brown hair, a sweet smile, and ferociously intense eyes.

  I hadn’t interacted with the girl much before, but I immediately recognized her as Amelia Hughes.

  Everyone in the company—not an exaggeration—knew of Amelia Hughes. She was the girl who combined the grit of investing with the blunt attitude of a hardcore feminist. She produced results like almost no one else her age, and she wasn’t afraid to make her accomplishments and feelings known. She was just as likely to hold a knife to someone’s throat to get them to do what she wanted as she was to pat them on the back and congratulate them.

  And yet, through it all, I had never really had a bad interaction with Amelia. In fact, a part of me wondered if maybe she had a thing for me. She always smiled when she saw me, I frequently saw her staring at me in the employee cafeteria, and as soon as my name came up in the few meetings that we shared, s
he immediately clammed up and seemed to behave perfectly.

  To me, she was a wonderfully hard worker who seemed to be quite nice to me. To the rest of the company, she was either going to become CEO someday or drop dead from stress.

  And then, just before I could say hello, Amelia’s phone rang.

  “Amelia Hughes,” she said in her formal voice. “Yes, Josh, I can hear you loud and clear; how are you?”

  Not for long.

  “Yes, Josh, we are planning on looking into your P&L to determine the appropriate amount to invest. Yes, I know it’s stressful. I’m sorry? Hello? Josh?”

  She patted the phone as if that would somehow magically work.

  “Fucking phone, fucking elevator,” she growled.

  I did something then that most people would consider akin to poking a hungry lion with a freshly cooked piece of steak. I made a joke.

  “Guess Josh is going to drop us because you went into an elevator, huh?”

  The look that Amelia gave me was the kind of gaze that made me believe that someone could die from fright.

  But then, just as quickly as her gaze had seemed intent on preceding a knife to the chest, she just rolled her eyes.

  “It would be just the kind of thing that Ben would want to make happen so he doesn’t have to promote me. Might work out, though. Maybe you and I could start our own firm and burn this fucker to the ground.”

  My eyes went wide as I laughed. It wasn’t so much that Amelia’s words scared me; I didn’t get scared easily in the world of finance. We were a bunch of smart people trying to reach a high score for our respective accounts.

  It was more that she had cracked a joke instead of getting defensive at what I had said.

  “While that would certainly be ideal, Amelia, it might also be a headache,” I said.

  “Like we don’t deal with headaches here,” she said. “We should put Tylenol down as one of the company benefits.”

  I laughed at how utterly true that statement was.

  “And on top of that, I’d make my boss happy by actually staying past six.”

  “Wait, you’re leaving now?”

  She sounded, to my surprise, more disappointed than upset.

  “Yeah, I got things to do and a life outside of here,” I said, hoping she didn’t press me for further detail. Which she didn’t, but her question still surprised me.

  “What’s that like?”

  She wasn’t asking it as a rhetorical question. She was completely serious.

  “If I said out loud, Gerald would find out, and then he’d eliminate it.”

  “What, by eating it?”

  That made me laugh the hardest I had yet. She was whip-smart and funny as hell, with a sense of humor that the club would approve of. It was a damn shame she’d chosen to make her career finance and not...well, anything else that could have used a talented individual like herself.

  The elevator doors opened, but not to the bottom floor.

  “This is my stop,” Amelia said. “The coffee shop beckons for me. I don’t know how you manage to stay away from it, Thomas.”

  “Everything in my life is so perfectly scheduled that I have no choice but to follow it,” I said with an eye roll.

  That wasn’t quite true, but with the Savage Saints coming into my life, it was true that I had very little free time.

  “Well, lucky man,” she said. “See you later.”

  I nodded goodbye as the doors closed. She’s kind of cute. Too bad she’s actually dedicated to the job and someone I’ll probably never see when I quit.

  If I quit.

  But as soon as I got out of the lobby, I was no longer Thomas Fitzgerald, employee of Rothenberg Banking. I was Fitz, the secretary of the Savage Saints, Brooklyn chapter.

  God, that felt fucking amazing to say.

  * * *

  I got to the clubhouse just before the meeting started at seven. I looked obscenely out of place in my suit and tie, but at least we were still a relatively small club with pretty low membership. We’d added about six members since we had started, but that only meant we had eleven members, including the officers.

  Unfortunately for me, the other ten members, and especially the officers, seemed to delight in reminding me of my standing in the club.

  “Fitz!” Marcel said, standing up and extending his hand. “You know we’re going to have to put a ban on ties and suits because of you, right? Only at weddings and funerals?”

  “Well, you know, figured it was easiest to come directly here,” I said. “Didn’t want to hold up the meeting.”

  “The fuck do you think you are, Marcel?” Uncle cracked, laughing loudly. “It’s alright, Fitz, we’re just giving you shit. I showed up in a suit and tie too. I just took mine off. Wouldn’t want to show up as a loser!”

  The rest of the officers burst into laughter as I sheepishly took my seat. I laughed along with them, hoping that in short time, I’d get the chance to prove that they had nothing to laugh at me for.

  “Now then,” Marcel said, clearing his throat. “Let’s talk about something that’s actually relevant. I received an email this past Saturday from what I believe to be the presidents of the Savage Saints chapters on the West Coast. The letter essentially states that we will never be a Savage Saint chapter. I perceive it as a threat.”

  Uncle took a puff of his cigarette. Marcel and Biggie sat silently. Niner stared straight ahead, seemingly in his own world.

  “I don’t think this is something that we need to pursue aggressively,” Marcel said. “They are on the other side of the country, and even if they want to come here and cause trouble, it would be an awful lot of effort for them to.”

  “Don’t underestimate pride,” Niner said without elaborating.

  “Legally speaking, we’re in something of a fucking pickle,” Uncle said. “It would be one thing if we were Savage Saints in, say, the punk t-shirt industry, but the fact that we are the Savage Saints, motorcycle club, means that we ripped off our identity right from them. We may have an argument that we are only local, but I’m not a lawyer, I have a soul, so I have no idea if that’s something that’s going to come back and bite us in the ass.”

  “So you think we should just ignore it?”

  “No.”

  Everyone turned their eyes to me. Admittedly, I had a stake in that I wanted to see the club take action so I could be a part of it. But even then, even if this led to nothing but some nasty emails, I didn’t think it was a good idea to just sit idly by.

  “Part of being an MC is that you show strength when it is called for,” I said. “You demonstrate you're capable of fighting. If we don’t say anything, we’re saying we will cower at the first sign of trouble. I know that’s not the case for this club.”

  Marcel stroked his chin.

  “Didn’t think Fitzy would be the one to say that, but he does make a good point. Us being so new, we have to be able to stand up for ourselves. Still, if we do so, I don’t think we need to expend a ton of resources or time on it.”

  “Oh, agreed there,” I said. “Not like we’re going to war with them.”

  “No, of course not,” Uncle said. “But Fitz is right. We should respond in a way that makes it clear we heard them, and we’re not afraid of them.”

  “OK,” Marcel said. “I think we’re all on the same page there. Does anyone think they could cause trouble, though? Maybe the Las Vegas chapter, given how they have money.”

  “They have money, but do they have ‘fly everyone over and raise hell’ money?” Uncle said with a snort. “Even if they have eight figures, that’s a shitload of time they’d need to take away from their club just to make some noise over here. No one’s ever going to confuse Brooklyn Repairs for a fucking rich haven of strippers and dancers. At most, they’ll send a delegate. We’ll play nice, we’ll tell them we’ll consider whatever they have to say, and then we’ll leave it at that.”

  “All works for me,” Marcel said. “Does anyone else have anything to say
on the matter?”

  No one did.

  “I will email them back and wait to hear their response. I won’t be inflammatory, but I won’t cower, either. Now then. I mentioned last week that we needed some new revenue streams. Does anyone have any thoughts?”

  This was my area of expertise. Finally—

  “You could get into guns and drugs and make fucking bank,” Uncle said. “Trust me, kid, we got money and we got connections. You’d be amazed what sort of shit you can get away with when you have more than seven numbers attached to your bank account.”

  Well, so much for that. The funny thing was, though I didn’t have an eight-figure net worth, I probably came very close to what Uncle had in terms of money. I certainly had more money than the other three combined.

  But that didn’t mean I had carte blanche just to do whatever I wanted. On the contrary, that seemed like an excellent way to guarantee that Kyle would have multiple options to throw us under the bus.

  “Really,” Marcel said, “I’m not interested in going back to jail, you know. My little girl—”

  “Oh, you’re so naive,” Uncle said as he took another puff of his cigarette. “Do you really think if we get busted, we’re going to put your ass back in jail? Fuck no! We let some of the prospects take the fall.”

  And if they aren’t big enough pieces, someone else in this room takes a fall. Me or Niner.

  “I’m just saying, we don’t have to decide upon it today. But you’d be well-fucking served to do it soon.”

  “I’ll think on it,” Marcel said. “But don’t count on me thinking it’s a good plan. Anyone else?”

  Defeated by Uncle and his aggressive approach to black-hat tactics, I declined to say a word. I was also just worn out and beaten down.

  “Very well. Party tomorrow; everyone come. Fitz, throw on a t-shirt. You’re not allowed to be overdressed.”

  I smiled as everyone else got up from the table. I had survived the meeting relatively unscathed.