Page 44 of Forgiveness
“Don’t start with the mushy shit, dude.” Hawk cleared his throat. “It’s good to have you back.”
“Yeah,” Flux answered gruffly, his throat choked with emotion.
Neither man didn’t get to say anything else because Hawk terminated the call, and Flux stared at the small burner in his palm. His fingers clenched hard around it until the parts bit into his palms from the pressure, and he was forced to let it go or crush the thing into bits.
Not until that moment had he realized how much he missed his brothers and the club life. How the Insurgents were still his home.It’s been too long.The thought was sobering while he stood in the middle of the empty room blinking into space. Flux really thought he’d left all his good emotions behind after the murder of his family, and he never expected to feel this way about anything or anyone again. But without missing a beat, his heart yearned for his club. He wanted more than anything to hop on his bike and head over to Pinewood Springs. He chuckled thinking of the looks on the members’ faces when he strutted inside the clubhouse. There’d be a kickass party in his honor without a doubt, and Rosie would definitely make a beeline for him.But the only one I want wrapped around me is Duchess.Fuck, if he got any sappier, he’d have to sign up for a role in one of those Lifetime movies Maggie watched.
Flux rolled his shoulders and pocketed the phone. Now was the fun part. Playing it cool and acting like nothing was doing while not letting the rival MC get a whiff that he was sniffing around them. Plus, he still had a full rodeo set to work tonight. During the steer wrestling competition was as good a time as any to root things out and see if he could find out why the fucking Pistons were in Insurgents’ territory.
Flux shrugged off his cut and folded it carefully. For a while he had to be just one of the rodeo hands and not an Insurgent. He opened the door and strode down the hallway toward his locker.
* * *
An hour laterand Flux was finished setting up the area he was in charge of. He’d broken down and sent Maggie a text asking where the hell she was, and she sent back some smiley faces and told him she was running late but would be there in a few. Elation at seeing her again battled with anger at having contacted her first like some lovesick pussy. Before he could figure out what the hell was going on with him, he heard several sets of footfalls behind him. Without turning around, he stepped aside, and three Pistons shoved passed him.
“Stay outta the fuckin’ way, cowboy,” one of them snarled as they kept stalking toward the back of the fairgrounds.
Flux was amused for a split second that the fucker would mistake him for a cowboy. He waited until they disappeared before he followed their footsteps, which led him to the normally empty backrooms in the rodeo that some of the staff occasionally used to have illicit hookups. Each rodeo had rooms in the back for the performers to relax between shows or decompress before they had to go on, but more times than not, they were used to fuck buckle bunnies or carry out clandestine affairs. A few times, Flux had walked in on the married owners’ of various rodeos banging one of the secretaries or a sweet young thing.So why the hell are the Pistons in this part of the arena?He doubted that they came all this way for a quick fuck.
Flux quietly walked down the narrow, dimly lit, and abandoned hallway.The Pistons must’ve gone into one of the rooms.It was like some cop show or some shit. All he needed was freaky, stressful piano music. A majority of the doors were wide open, but the first closed one Flux came upon, he heard plenty of grunting and moaning so he knew what was going down in there.
The next closed door was still the slightest bit open, as if someone had closed it so quickly, it didn’t have time to latch. Without any hesitation, Flux saddled on up to it and put his ear to the slight space.
“… you would pay premium for this kind of juice anywhere else, but since you’re repeat customers, I’m willing to knock a little off.”
Flux’s entire body tightened as he listened to the same Piston’s voice who’d cursed him just a while before. The fucker kept extolling why he was peddling his shit at the rodeo, and Flux put two and two together all kinds of quick: they were juicing the damn bulls. No wonder the one that came after him in Tucson had Hulk tendencies. Bigger bulls meant better performances, which meant better shows, which meant more bets and, ultimately, more fucking cash in the riders’ and bull owners’ pockets. A little under-the-table deal or two didn’t hurt the damn profit margins.
White-hot anger shot through him and he willed himself to stay put and not barge into the room and beat the shit out of the three fuckers.Play it cool. Detach your emotions from what’s going on. You’re here to get info to give to the club.He inhaled and exhaled several times then focused back on what was going down in the room.
“Same stuff? No bullshit? It’ll make him grow even bigger?” Another, higher-pitched voice broke out, and Flux recognized it as Eddie’s—one of the owners of several top-rated bulls. It was one of his who practically gored Flux in Tucson.
The veins in Flux’s temples throbbed.Play it cool, dude!
A tall, built biker with long black hair moved to the side, and Flux could read the patch on the front of his cut: “Demon.”President.
“The fucker’ll look like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Vin Diesel combined. Should make you some serious money,” Demon said as he rocked back on the heels of his boots.
Flux moved away from the door since the asshole had stepped in his line of vision. He plastered his back against the wall behind him, his pulse pounding out of his skull as he fought to hear what else was going down in that room.
“Yeah, we want it to go down just like in Tucson, except I don’t want to be on the fucking bull. That would be ideal,” Chet drawled, his accent a little more nasal after getting his nose bashed in by Flux’s fists.
Flux wiped the corners of his mouth.Of course, that fucker’s a part of this scheme.What about this shitwasn’tup the asshole’s alley? Chet was a greedy, no-morals pussy who had to feed bulls steroids as a way to make himself feel like a man. Flux had heard the talk among the women staffers about Chet’s lack of prowess between the sheets. It had only reinforced what Flux had already thought about the lame ass excuse for a man.
“You got anything else that we talked about for my uh, performance?” Chet asked.
If the guy was buying Viagra, Flux was going to lose it and blow his entire cover.
“We got plenty of Adderall. No need to get the shakes on me. We’re delivering some premium grade shit to some of our customers, too, mostly meth, if that strikes your fancy, pretty boy,” Demon said, irritation creeping into his voice.
“No, the pills are fine,” Chet croaked.
“That’s right, I figured you weren’t one for the hard stuff.” The three Pistons laughed.
Flux blew out a long, silent breath and tried his best to contain the need to bust into the room and rearrange Chet’s face all over again. Clearly the bastard didn’t learn his lesson. He doubted a second beatdown would make things any simpler for him either. There was the unmistakable sound of footsteps in the distance, and Flux ducked into the nearest empty open room, shutting the door behind him.
As soon as the footfalls died away again, Flux made his way to Charlie’s office and told him he was sicker than hell and blamed it on the chili he’d eaten the night before. Since he’d never called off work before, Charlie believed him—hook, line, and sinker—and told him to take the night off.
Flux scanned the parking lot again, hoping to see Maggie’s truck, but it wasn’t there. There was no way he could wait for her to show up, club business took precedence, so he revved up his bike then hauled ass out of the parking lot and drove like a bat out of hell to Pinewood Springs. The shit that Satan’s Pistons were doing in Colorado was totally unacceptable, and it would change the entire underworld landscape of his club. As he put miles between the rodeo … and Maggie, there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that nothing was more important than the Insurgents.
