BULLET: Lords of Carnage MC Page 3

  “I’ll be right back,” I growl at Tweak. “I’m thirsty as fuck.”

  I head over to the bar and bark at the prospect to set me up with a bottle and a couple of shot glasses. A couple minutes later, I’m back in Tweak’s command center. Straddling my chair again, I set the glasses down next to one of the monitors and pour us both shots of whiskey. I shoot one down my throat. Then another. I’m gonna need to take the edge off before I hear this. No pun intended.

  “Okay.” I finally slam my glass down on his desk. Turning toward Tweak, I lean back and set my jaw. “Tell me. Start from the beginning. And don’t leave out a single fucking detail.”

  4

  Bullet

  Tweak accepts his shot and tosses it back easily. Grunting in satisfaction as the liquor burns down his throat, he gives me a single nod. “Okay. So you want the long story. Here it is. But it’s gonna take a bit.”

  True to his word, he launches into an accounting of where he’s been looking, what he’s been looking for, and how he finally hit pay dirt. Tweak’s a Lord of Carnage, but he also lives part of his life in a virtual world of dark web shit — a world the rest of us don’t know a hell of a lot about. He’s a fucking genius getting information from various people he knows, anonymously or not, throughout the world.

  Even so, he says it’s been tougher than he thought to turn up anything on the man who used to be my stepfather.

  “I figured from everything you told me about him that he’s the kind of guy who wouldn’t venture that far outta the region, even if he was tryin’ to stay hid,” Tweak explains. He stretches back in his chair, cracking his neck. “So I’ve been lookin’ around Ohio for the most part, and into neighboring states. I’ve been pulling in some favors here and there, so I’ve had guys sniffing around, seeing what they could find. I figured based on what you told me about this asshole, once a meth head, always a meth head. So I had my guys looking for him in those circles.” Tweak curls his lip in disgust. “Eden had some suggestions for me, too. People she remembered from back in the day — people she figured were still around and doin’ the same fucked-up shit they were when she was using.”

  Eden is Lug Nut’s old lady. Lug Nut and I were patched into the Lords of Carnage at the same time, so we’re pretty tight. Eden’s also the sister of Gunner’s old lady, Alix. The two sisters are originally from Virginia. Eden and Alix ended up here in Tanner Springs after Eden was kidnapped by a dirtbag who pretended to be her boyfriend. He got her hooked on drugs with the plan of pimping her out to his other shitbag friends. Alix followed her out here to look for her, and she ended up meeting Gunner by chance at the Smiling Skull when she was there searching for Eden. The Lords ended up getting involved (long-ass story), and rescued Eden from the pieces of shit who were holding her. We brought her back here, and Gunner’s ma Lucy helped Eden detox. By the time it was all over, Gunner and Alix were together — and so were Eden and Lug Nut.

  “Eden end up giving you anything useful?” I ask.

  “Yeah. Turned out she did. She pointed me toward a guy who used to run with her ex. One of my guys went to see him, and he ended up giving us some actionable intel. He recognized Ellis from the photos. He was the one who told us the fucker goes by Edge now. Said he’d fucked off to Pittsburgh after one of the bigger dealers he was trying to take business away from ran him outta town.” Tweak grins. “That was the missing link we needed to locate him.”

  “So, you got an address for him?”

  Tweak’s grin fades. “Nah. That’s where we’re still falling flat. Those pics on my computer are from a security cam at a roadhouse outside of Pittsburgh. Taken a couple weeks ago. My contact gave the manager a hundred bucks for the footage. But the manager says Ellis, or Edge, ain’t been in there since that night. No one else he talked to at the place had seen him or knew where he was, either. Seems like he just faded into the background. But my contact says from what he’s heard, he doesn’t think the fucker could’ve gone far.”

  “Someone tipped the bastard off that people were looking for him,” I guess.

  Tweak grunts in approval. “That’s what I’m thinking, too.”

  “In which case, we bide our time. Wait for the snake to come out of his hole. Or figure out a way to get him to let his guard down. Lure him out in the open.”

  I chew over this thought.

  A rising commotion and unfamiliar voices outside in the main room tells me the Death Devils have arrived. Raucous laughter reaches my ears, and a couple seconds later, the music on the sound system gets a fuck of a lot louder.

  “We may have caught a lucky break. If Edge” — I snort at the name — “really is where we think he is, he’d be in Death Devils territory, or just outside it. Which means Oz might know more about him. Or be willing to help us find out.”

  Tweak taps his forehead. “Great minds think alike.”

  “Speaking of which,” I say, rolling my shoulders, “let’s get out there, before Oz and his men drink up all our booze.”

  Tweak stays behind for a bit, to shut down his computer and secure everything. Not that the Death Devils ain’t trustworthy, but they ain’t Lords. I saunter down the hallway toward the noise, and run into Angel, our club president, just as he’s coming out of his own office.

  Angel lifts his chin at me. “Tweak talk to you already?”

  “Yeah. Just talked to him. He told me he located my stepfather.”

  Angel nods. He knows the story. At least enough of it for him to be okay with me putting Tweak on it in his spare time. “You know the club’s got your back on this, brother.”

  “Yeah. I know.” I pause. “Turns out he’s in Oz’s territory, Tweak says. How’s that for a fuckin’ coincidence?”

  “Could work out good for us. You talk to Oz about it?”

  “Not yet.” I smirk as we enter the main room of the clubhouse and I spy the Death Devils prez over by the bar. “He looks a little busy.”

  The club girls are all here, no doubt called on by Angel to provide a warm welcome to our guests. Three of them, Melanie, Bree, and Tammy, are hanging on Oz like he’s the second coming. Melanie, with her white-blond hair, Bree’s darker look, and redhead Tammy are like a fuckin’ sex catalog for him to pick from. But it doesn’t look like he’s planning on choosing just one.

  Angel barks out a laugh. “Let the fucker get his stress release. I ain’t ever seen him unclench like this before.”

  “Right?” I chuckle. I glance over to a table a few feet away from Oz, where Thorn and Isabel are talking to a couple of the other Death Devils. “You think Iz is enjoying her dad playing harem?”

  Angel snorts. “My guess is she’s used to it.”

  We wander over to the crowd and greet the Devils one by one. Angel steps aside to say a few words to Oz, and I wait for him to finish. Meantime, I say hello to Isabel, who’s wearing nurse’s scrubs and looks like she just came from work.

  “Hey, darlin’, you’re a sight for sore eyes,” I greet her. “Haven’t seen you around in a while.”

  “I’ve been taking on a few extra shifts at the hospital to help out one of the other nurses,” she smiles. She reaches up and pulls an elastic band from her hair, which falls around her face in a dark mane. “I figured I’d come say hi to Dad while he’s in town.” She scrunches her brow in an irritated look. “Do you know, Thorn had to tell me he was coming? He couldn’t even call his own daughter to let me know he’d be in Tanner Springs.”

  “Ah, he just knew I’d let ya know,” Thorn tells her in a soothing tone, catching her around the waist. “No harm done.”

  “He sure seems to be enjoying the local entertainment,” Isabel shoots back, rolling her eyes.

  “Well, now, not every man is lucky enough to have a good woman by his side,” Thorn teases her. “Those of us who do are blind to such lesser pleasures.”

  Isabel laughs, but gazes up adoringly at Thorn. “You flatterer.”

  “No flattery if it’s true, Sibéal,” he murmurs, kissing the t
op of her head.

  “Okay, that’s enough,” I bark in disgust. “Jesus, you two are even more of a spectacle than Oz with those club girls.”

  “We’re only getting started, brother,” Thorn tosses back, grabbing a high-top stool and pulling Isabel onto his lap.

  “That’s my cue,” I mutter, and address the two Death Devils next to them. “Save yourselves, while there’s still time.”

  I turn away from the table, Isabel’s laughter following me as I make my way over to Oz. Angel is just leaving, and I take advantage of the moment to get the Death Devils president’s attention.

  “Oz,” I nod to him as I stride up.

  Through his dark, salt and pepper beard, he actually gives me something in the neighborhood of a smile. I’m so surprised my jaw almost drops. I ain’t ever seen Oz smile before, for any reason. Guess our club girls are doing their job.

  “Bullet,” he greets me, as Bree glides a red-nailed hand over his chest and giggles. “I almost didn’t recognize you without the cue ball look,” he observes.

  I run a hand over my head. “Bald was cold, man. Especially in winter. Decided to grow it back out.” I nod toward the women surrounding him. “Looks like you got your hands full,” I remark.

  “Not yet,” he deadpans. “But soon.”

  That gets a chuckle out of me. “You got a couple minutes to talk?”

  For a second, Oz is silent. Then he cuts his eyes at Bree. “Leave,” he says to her and the others. “But keep your engines running.”

  Melanie and Tammy give him a little scowl of discontent, but slide away without a word and go over to the low couches in the corner. Bree leans over and whispers something in Oz’s ear, then does the same, sashaying away for maximum effect.

  “Well?” Oz asks mildly, signaling to the prospect behind the bar for another drink. Always a man of few words, is Oz.

  “I don’t know if Angel talked to you about this, but I could use your help on something. I’m looking for a man named Ellis Strickland. Apparently, he goes by Edge now. Tweak’s been doing some sniffing around for me, and sources are saying he’s been sighted around Pittsburgh recently.”

  One of Oz’s brow raises just a millimeter. “I don’t know the name. What’s he doing in Pittsburgh?”

  “Not sure. I’m guessing drug dealing. Last time I saw him, he was cooking meth. If so, he’s probably dealing it in your territory.” My stomach sours at the memory. I pull out my phone and show Oz the one photo I have of Ellis. It’s a snapshot that was taken with my mom about a year before she died. “He’s about forty-five, forty-six. This picture of him is old, but he looks about the same now, just grayer hair. Tweak can give you something more recent — security cam footage from a roadhouse outside the ‘Burgh.”

  “Why are you searching for this man?” Oz’s brow creases.

  It’s on the tip of my tongue to say, none of your business. But this is the president of the Death Devils. Our allies. He doesn’t command the immediate respect from me that my own club’s president does, but he isn’t someone I want to piss off. And I’m asking him for a favor, to boot.

  “He used to be married to my mother. He got her hooked on junk. She died of an overdose, because of him.”

  I don’t tell him the details, and skirt over the actual reason she died. I leave out the meth fire. How she had to be identified by dental records. My chest squeezes, and I fight back the familiar rage that wells in my veins every time I think about the hell my mother’s last few minutes of life must have been. Nausea mixes with rage deep in my gut as I fight to keep my emotions off my face.

  Oz’s eyes are locked on mine, inscrutable. “Is your mother the woman in the picture?” he asks, nodding toward the phone.

  “Yes.”

  He blinks. Then, with a slight frown, he mutters, “Have Tweak send me photos, and everything he knows.”

  “Thank you,” I say. Then I pause.

  “I want my face to be the last one he sees,” I tell Oz. I assume my meaning is clear.

  He nods. “Understood.”

  Turning, I nod toward the club girls, who immediately jump up and swarm back toward Oz. I make my way to the other end of the bar, and bark at the prospect to bring me a beer and a shot. I should be feeling good — after all, I’m finally close to knowing where my mother’s murderer is, after all these years. But instead, all the hatred I’ve been stuffing deep inside me has come boiling back to the surface. All the anger and darkness I’ve pushed down. All the dreams of hearing Ellis Strickland scream for mercy at my hands. All the times I’ve lusted to be the one to see the final light of life drain from his eyes.

  I toss back the shot that appears in front of me. And then, suddenly, through the haze of blood lust that threatens to consume me, a face appears.

  Not my mother’s face. But Six’s.

  The guarded look in her dark, kohl-rimmed eyes. The mass of sexy blond hair that frames her face. The twine of tattoos around her lithe, feminine arms. She seems as though she comes from another world. One that still holds some beauty. And a shred of innocence.

  Six is the only thing that keeps my mind from losing itself completely in thoughts of blood and pain as I pile on one shot after another throughout the evening. Seeing her tomorrow is the sole event on my horizon that anchors me to a world that promises more sunlight than darkness.

  5

  Bullet

  The next night, I pick Six up from Rebel Ink on my bike at the end of her shift. She’s wearing a hot little skirt with black boots, and a plain white T-shirt, under a leather jacket that’s two sizes too big. The look says innocent girl and hot, sassy woman all in one. Her blond hair flows wild and loose around her shoulders. Jesus Christ, Six always looks good. But tonight she looks literally good enough to eat.

  And I’m hopin’ that by the time the night is over, that’s just what I’m gonna do.

  “You gonna be okay riding a bike in that skirt?” I ask, noticing my voice sounds a little hoarse. She just smiles and lifts a shy shoulder.

  “I’ll be fine,” she tells me, one corner of her mouth lifting, too. “If I can ride a bicycle in a skirt and tights, I’m pretty sure I can manage to sit on a Harley.”

  I’m not sure how comfortable she is with motorcycles, but when I hand her the helmet I brought for her, she takes it from me and straps it on wordlessly. I note with satisfaction she’s not one of those chicks who fights wearing it because she’s worried about her hair or some bullshit like that.

  Six asks me where we’re going as I fire up the bike, but I tell her it’s a surprise. The Smiling Skull is a little ways away, a couple towns over, and I don’t want her to balk and ask me to take her somewhere closer. It’s a nice fuckin’ evening out, and I’m in the mood for the open road.

  I’m also in the mood to feel her tits snuggled up against my back for a while.

  Ever since the first time I met Six, I’ve known she had a thing for me. God knows she’s hot as fuck, and I’d hit that in a heartbeat. But like I said, she puts out this closed-off vibe — a guardedness that comes off her almost like a force field. I could tell coming at her straight-on would never get me where I wanted to go. So at first, whenever I went into the tattoo parlor, I’d just play it cool. To get the lay of the land, so to speak.

  Little by little, she started letting her guard down with me — just a moment at a time, here and there. I started to flirt with her a little, to try to loosen her up. A couple times, I pushed a touch too hard, and she’d close up again like a flower at night. So, I’d back off and try again later. Eventually, I got her to the point that she’d even start to banter with me a little.

  Sometimes I’d even manage to make her laugh. The first time I heard it, the low, sexy rasp in her throat went straight the fuck to my dick. Her honey-blond hair would fall back away from her face as she threw back her head, and I’d get a full-on view of how goddamn gorgeous she was.

  And somewhere along the line, I made it my personal mission to get this girl into
my bed.

  Six never mentioned a boyfriend — or a girlfriend — and once or twice she said something about living alone. So I figured I had a good shot, with the right mixture of persistence and knowing when to give her some space to breathe.

  I gotta be honest, though. Even though I’ve asked her to come out with me each of the last three times I’ve been in the shop, it took me by surprise when she finally did say yes. I figured I had at least a month or so to go before she let down her defenses and gave in. But yesterday when she was doing my new tattoo, something must’ve shifted inside that head of hers. ‘Cause after she was done, she got all quiet and pensive and shit. And then when I asked her out — more out of habit than anything — she finally said yes.

  And I am not the kind of man to waste a golden fuckin’ opportunity when it presents itself.

  Six gets on the bike behind me and puts her feet on the pegs without being told. When she wraps her arms around me, though, she does it with hesitation — like maybe she hadn’t thought this part through all the way. But in the end, she settles in. I goose the engine just a little bit, so she’ll have to cling onto me a little tighter for balance. My cock stirs as I feel her breasts press against my back.

  I can’t stop the chuckle that escapes my throat as she does. Fuck yeah.

  As we ride out of town, I can feel how tense her body is behind me, and how hard she’s trying not to get any closer than she has to. But after about five minutes, she starts to relax. I can tell by the way her body moves that she’s starting to look around at the scenery as we fly down the highway.

  Experiencing the road on a motorcycle gives you a feeling of freedom like nothing else. I can feel Six’s breathing deepen as we ride along — like she’s trying to pull all the sights, sounds, and scents into her and hold onto them.

  I get it, little girl.