Niner: Motorcycle Club Romance (Savage Saints MC Book 11) Page 2

  Chapter 1: Niner

  It was a Thursday afternoon, just a few hours before the end of my shift and our ensuing Savage Saints meeting.

  Despite Kyle’s warning, things had largely gone smoothly at Brooklyn Repairs. We’d had the occasional irate customer, but that wasn’t anything we weren’t used to. Dealing with ornery people was barely a challenge—as long as they didn’t start shooting at me, I was good.

  It was a clear day. Sweat beat down on my body, staining by Brooklyn Repairs uniform. Biggie worked across from me, while Marcel, in a walking boot, sat in the office, ready to take on anyone else who entered requesting service. We were just a few minutes away from closing time, though, so it seemed unlikely that we’d get anyone else.

  “Ah, shit,” Marcel said from the office.

  And that was something that reminded me of my time from the police force—whenever you least suspected it was when things were bound to go to shit. No one ever committed a crime with the police watching; it was always whenever eyes were averted, and everyone thought that things were going smoothly that trouble struck.

  At least I’d traded in my badge for a wrench. At least I’d traded in my shootouts for customers that wanted to keep us open a little bit later. Not that I had much of a choice.

  Marcel rose from his chair, limping as he walked out of the store.

  “He’s a slow healer, that bastard,” Biggie said with a laugh. “Man needs to man up and act presidential! Stand up straight! Look good for the cameras!”

  I gave a half-hearted smile. I liked Biggie. He was boisterous and loved to laugh, but he never tried to make me act as he did. He was the one that got me into the club.

  I thought Marcel was getting better in his role. He’d dive in headfirst without really thinking about the consequences—in some ways, it wasn’t Richard that had shot him in the foot, but himself—but he was gradually learning.

  Uncle was the reason this club had financial security, but I found him to be a bit crass and arrogant. I never trusted the banker types, and Uncle gave me little reason to change my mind. It didn’t help that he was hitting on girls half his age; I didn’t pretend like younger women didn’t turn me on, but I certainly hoped I didn’t turn into him in my forties.

  And Fitz? Well, at least Fitz wasn’t trying to be malicious. That was about the best I could say.

  “What the hell?”

  I followed Biggie’s eyes as the garage door opened. I gulped at what I saw. It was a car that needed work, alright.

  An NYPD car.

  There didn’t appear to be anything wrong with the exterior; it most likely just needed an oil change and a tire rotation. But the issue wasn’t the car itself; it was who might be inside. If it was anyone who had been in the service more than two years…

  “Appreciate it,” the cop in the driver’s seat said as he got out. “Call us when—holy shit. Bentley? Lane Bentley?”

  I folded my arms and stared dully at the man before me: Officer Williams. Officer Williams was someone I only knew tangentially, but he was the classic case of a young kid who had become a cop for power-trip purposes and abused the hell out of it. He liked to pull people over and then toy with them until he gave them the final punishment.

  “So, you went from disgraced cop to a disgraced mechanic, eh?” he said, laughing and turning to his partner, a cop I didn’t recognize. “Martinez! Take a look at Lane Bentley. He was once one of us. You might even say that he was a good cop. But he didn’t know how to be a cop when the going got bad, and now he’s here! Look at this—”

  “Do you need anything else, sir?” Biggie said, stepping between the two of us.

  I could no longer see Williams, but I could certainly imagine the shift in expression from bullying to shocked and back to bullying.

  “Are you threatening an officer?” Williams said. “You are aware that that is a felony, right? Is that something that you want to deal with? Do you want to be disgraced like him?”

  Biggie didn’t say a word. I could see Williams getting close to him, even appearing to poke him in the chest, but Biggie did not budge.

  “That’s what I thought,” Williams said. “Never forget, you work with that asshole behind you, you’re going to get fucked over in the end. Martinez! Let’s leave these assholes behind. You owe me some dinner, anyway.”

  I rolled my eyes once Williams and his partner had turned their backs to me and exited. Biggie turned back to me, sighed, and apologized. Marcel, who had been looking at the car the whole time, looked at me in confusion.

  “The hell was that all about?”

  “Just let it be,” I said.

  They were instructions I didn’t follow very well.

  “I did what I had to, Chief,” I said.

  “You did what you wanted to, which is why we’re removing your badge.”

  “But sir—”

  “You know we are bound by the law in how we act, Bentley!” the chief said, slamming his fist on the table. “Give me your goddamn badge.”

  “Sir, the woman—”

  “One more word, Bentley, and you’re going to lose a whole lot more than the badge.”

  I didn’t say a word more. But the thought was clear as day in my mind. I knew I would rather lose the badge and have done the right thing than keep the badge and let him get away.

  Most of the time, in law enforcement, we did our job well. But sometimes, justice required going outside the law. Sometimes, we didn’t serve the law; we failed it.

  And if that meant losing my badge, so be it.

  “We can get this done tonight before the morning; that would be ideal,” Marcel said. “I don’t want those assholes coming in here waiting for their cruiser to be fixed, and I don’t think either of you want that either after their little stunts.”

  “Nope. Meeting’s at eight tonight, right?”

  “Yep,” Marcel said. “So do whatever you gotta do. Shit, eat, nap. Just make sure that when we open at nine, this car has its oil changed and tires rotated.”

  “You got it, bro,” Biggie said. “Niner, you—”

  “I’ll take care of the car,” I said. “You go eat.”

  “But—”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  Working on the car was something that I wanted to do. Maybe it was me trying to prove myself, but I tended to try and not overthink these things. Biggie always needed food; I could go days without it.

  “OK,” Biggie said. “I’ll be back in thirty, Niner, to help you finish.”

  “I won’t need it,” I said.

  I got to work on the car, ignoring Biggie and Marcel sharing a look with each other. I knew what that look was—one of “is he serious?” But I always was. I liked to work alone. I liked to be alone.

  It was something that my childhood had largely trained me to do.

  Only one person, besides my parents, had ever made me want to be around them. Only one person had made me truly feel welcome in a way that didn’t feel like a social or career obligation.

  Her. Carrie Griffith.

  I thought about how I’d seen her last Friday evening. It had most definitely been her, as insane as that was. She was supposed to be a childhood friend left behind in Georgia—no, that was giving it too much credit. She wasn’t a friend. She was just someone I wanted to call a friend.

  I thought about how I’d come outside ostentatiously to take care of the drunk prospect, but in reality so that I could see her. I thought about how I’d wanted to ask her if she remembered me but had been afraid to know the answer. I thought about her smile and how she seemed to hate the party as much as I did.

  I wasn’t one for wild imaginations or fantastical escapes, but with Carrie, I absolutely thought of what it would be like to spend time with her. I didn’t go crazy, and I didn’t really quite think of her in terms of sex, but she had a spot in my mind that no one else, not even asshole NYPD officers, had.

  And she was right here. Six days ago, she was here.

  Why t
he hell would she have come to a party like this? What brought her here?

  The questions kept me occupied as I worked in silence on the cruiser. I didn’t have the mental space to hate Officer Williams or anyone else in the NYPD. I treated the cruiser as I would an anonymous vehicle—something to work on, something to complete, and something to be checked off. I treated everything the same, from police cruisers to Honda Civics to taxi cabs to the rare luxury vehicles that we received.

  The work and the mental space occupied me until just before the meeting, when Marcel came up to me.

  “Done?” he asked.

  “Take care of the left rear tire, and yes.”

  “We’ll take care of that after the meeting. You’ve earned your night off. Come on.”

  Begrudgingly, hating to leave a task behind, I followed Marcel into the office, where the rest of the crew sat. Fitz nodded to me and smiled. I ignored him. Uncle stole a nervous glance at me that I also ignored.

  “By now, I assume you all know what came through last Friday,” Marcel began, getting right to the point. “Kyle sent over a message warning us that more was to come. The last time this happened, we had Uncle work out some back channels to prevent anything from happening. I am inclined to do the same, unless someone wants to advise me otherwise.”

  I’d seen plenty of family feuds like this in my time on the force. They started out with just playful bickering that one party didn’t find so playful. Then people would resort to political maneuvers—they’d exclude someone, they’d leave someone out of an invite list “by accident,” or they’d make friends with the rival’s enemy. Then they would escalate said political maneuvers to matters of money. That was where the Stones were right now.

  But there was another step, the one that forced the police to intervene. That was when family feuds became bloody. It didn’t matter who had what position or who had what prestige—when families got violent, all bets were off. And it was becoming rapidly apparent to me that the more Kyle’s attempts to undermine us politically got rebuffed, the closer to violence we were heading.

  But I assumed Marcel and Biggie knew that already. They’d have to be fools not to see it. And so I kept silent.

  Fortunately, for the sake of being aware of the possibility, Uncle did not.

  “I can do that, but I think we gotta keep an eye on him and what he does,” Uncle said. “I know how you boys grew up. You two would always use your fists to solve problems, much to the chagrin of your mother. Kyle would rely on the fists of others or traps. This talking around each other and trying to take land is only going to go so long before things get violent.”

  “Well,” Marcel said as if he had something to say in response, but his words seemed to fail him. Nothing came.

  “We’ll be ready if that’s the case,” Biggie said. “Niner can step in if need be, right?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  It wouldn’t be that simple. It depended on the violence, who was in range, and what level of force I needed to apply. But yes, in general, I was the front man for violence in the club.

  “For now, let’s take the backdoor approach of, ahem, taking care of the problem,” Marcel said, a phrase that wasn’t lost on anyone. “In the meantime, let’s talk prospect recruiting.”

  Marcel, Uncle, and Biggie took on the majority of the talking for the next fifteen minutes as we discussed everything from prospects to income streams. Aside from me saying “sure” to Biggie, I might have said a couple of other words, but otherwise, I just listened as much as I could.

  That’s something a lot of people misunderstood. A good SAA wasn’t good because he could intimidate people. A good SAA thrived by listening, knowing what to be aware of, and facing the issue before it could bloom into a real problem.

  Thus far, the only real problem we’d had was the Savage Saints of Las Vegas, but even they had approached us less as a threat and more as an entity to be negotiated with. But it was only a matter of time before copycat MCs showed up, wanting to take our turf, causing us trouble along the way. For now, though, I’d take the peace.

  “Alright, we’ll throw our party tomorrow,” Marcel said. “As far as Kyle goes, Uncle will go through the normal channels, but we’ll stay alert for any problems that may arise. You all are free to go home, except Biggie—stay with me to finish on that police cruiser.”

  I stood up as everyone else talked and headed out the door. With my job done for the day, there wasn’t a reason to stick around any longer than I had to. It was at this point that I began looking for food, but feeling a little adventurous, I decided to try something I hadn’t yet done before.

  I went for the BBQ joint a couple blocks away called “Southern Comfort.” I’d obviously grown up in Georgia and had plenty of exposure to good BBQ, but moving to NYC had made it a rare treat, and I had not had any at this location.

  It was only about twenty minutes to closing time, so I intended to get my food and get out. I opened the door, ignoring the ringing that it produced, and went to the register. No one was there, which wasn’t a surprise at this late an hour, so I waited.

  But I waited far longer than I had to.

  “Hello?” I said.

  No one answered. I turned around.

  And then I heard the door open behind me.

  “Sorry.”

  I recognized her voice at the same time she emerged from the back of the kitchen.

  Carrie Griffith.

  Chapter 2: Carrie

  The tension in my head felt like a wrench tightening with every new line of data read, with every new report, with every single second spent considering where this restaurant was headed.

  The grave.

  The numbers just weren’t working. The novelty of some southern food in Brooklyn had worn off, and now we’d just become one of many niche restaurants in the area that all the hipsters had wanted to try but had quickly forgotten when they went back to their usual ways. It was too Southern for a place full of Yankees and hipsters.

  It was my fault but taking ownership of it didn’t make it any easier from a stress perspective. It still hurt like hell to know that this restaurant was going to fail. It still pained me to know I was going to put quite a few people out of work in the next couple of weeks.

  The thought of returning to Georgia had some minor appeal to it. I’d get to be with my parents again while I got back on my feet, and I’d feel at home once more in the slower environment. I wouldn’t have to smell sewers, cover my ears at blaring taxis, and struggle with the downtown light flooding into my apartment.

  But still. I’d be going home as a failure.

  “Hello?”

  That voice sounds familiar. Though that was true, it didn’t compel me to get up. If anything, my immediate reaction was just to pretend I wasn’t there.

  Just pretend that this whole restaurant wasn’t a smoldering pile of failure. Just pretend that an employee had left early that I could blame this whole mess on. Just pretend that I was back in Georgia.

  No, don’t do that. You’re better than that, Carrie. If you’re going to have to close the restaurant, at least close it out being professional and honest.

  I stood up with a sigh, summoning what little strength I had under the barrage of stress.

  “Sorry,” I called out as I turned the corner.

  I stopped when I saw him. The same man who stood outside the repair shop from Friday night. The same man who looked like he wanted to say something to me…the man that I thought I knew from somewhere.

  “Hi,” I said, sounding like a nervous teenager.

  “Hi,” he said back.

  He didn’t look mad, but he didn’t look like he appreciated having to wait any longer for his order.

  “Um, welcome to SoCo,” I said. “What can I get you?”

  “SoCo,” he repeated. “Nice.”

  He gets it.

  Maybe I knew him from Georgia?

  “Let me get some beef brisket with a side of mac n cheese, collard gree
ns, and Brussel sprouts.”

  “OK, OK,” I said, struggling to find a piece of paper to write it down. “Beef brisket, mac n cheese, coleslaw, and Brussel—”

  “No, collard greens, not coleslaw.”

  “Oh,” I said. I didn’t realize that I could feel even more flustered, but that was certainly happening. My cheeks flushed red, and my hands turned to jelly. “Beef brisket with mac n cheese, collard greens, and Brussel sprouts.”

  “Yes.”

  “OK. Give me a few minutes and I’ll bring it out to you.”

  The man nodded and stood at the counter for a second as if he had something more to say. I looked at him in confusion and then looked back at…

  The register.

  Small wonder you’re struggling financially. You can’t even ring up customers when they order food!

  “Oh, sorry, one second,” I said as I headed over and typed up his order on my iPad. “It’ll be fourteen dollars.”

  The man silently produced a credit card and swiped it as we both waited for the order to go through. I wanted to ask him if I knew him and he knew me. I wanted to know why we both wanted to say so much to the other, yet had said so little.

  But my mind felt like a chaotic hurricane right now, and the best course of action was just to keep my mouth shut as best as I could. I feared that opening it and revealing myself to be the mess I was would do no one any favors and ruin whatever chance of wanting to be around the other. Why are you thinking like that?

  I turned the iPad to him to let him leave a tip. I tried not to react when I saw that he had left a tip of twenty-five percent.

  “Thank you for that,” I said, a dramatic understatement. No, an extra three dollars and fifty cents was not going to change the store. Nor was it going to my pocket, as any money I made in tips went straight to the restaurant’s bottom line. I think it was more just shock that something good had happened. “I’ll have it right out.”

  I hurried back to the kitchen and started preparing the food. The beef brisket I cooked fresh, but the mac n’ cheese and the Brussel sprouts were pulled from pre-cooked stores. It wasn’t what we usually strived to do, but at this point, just keeping the store open was a miracle.