Foolish Riot (Riot MC Book 5) Page 10

  “Good luck with that,” I replied, complete with a finger gun pointed his way.

  I spied Janie’s car coming into the parking lot from the back of the strip mall. She parked her vehicle but hadn’t realized I was here. I started walking toward her, and when her eyes fell on me she didn’t hide her wince.

  When I was within three feet of her, she said, “Okay, I know I hid that about as well as a fox in a henhouse. You’re getting an at-home visit from me.”

  “No, no,” I started, because Janie was high-class and no way she needed to slum it at my place. Plus, she sounded just like Monica when I went to the salon, which was to say, offering pity or charity.

  Shaking her head at me, she was busy with her phone. When she finally looked up at me, she smiled. “Even better. The evil asshole won’t be home until late. You’re comin’ to my place, baby!”

  Now I shook my head. “No, that really won’t be necessary. It’s all good. I can cover most of it with make-up, I just didn’t bother today and I should have. So, for that I apologize.”

  Janie didn’t hide the curl of her lips before she jerked her head to the left and back to me in outrage. “You’re apologizing to me? Shut the hell up. Let’s go eat. Is Abby here yet?”

  As if on cue, loud pipes rumbled and I turned to see Abby on the back of Blood’s bike as he rode into the lot. He brought his bike up to right where we were standing and I noticed a strange smile light on Janie’s face. The urge to laugh at her was overwhelming, but I managed to hold it in check. She wanted to get on the back of a bike. It was the first time I saw it clear as day on a newbie’s face. Now I understood what certain bikers were looking for when trolling at Bike Week. They were looking for the Janies who were out there, desperately wanting to ride and willing to do anything to make that ride happen.

  Then her expression changed to one of shock, which morphed into what looked like longing. I looked over my shoulder and realized Blood and Abby were kissing goodbye. Those two were damn near pornographic in their displays of affection; seeing as how Janie and I initially bonded over trying to get away from long-standing relationships, I knew all about her obvious sense of longing. Abby and Blood had something precious and were never afraid to express it, so girls like me and Janie were understandably envious.

  I was pulled from my thoughts when Blood shouted, “Trix! Stay safe, hear?”

  With a tight smile, I lifted my chin to him, then watched as Blood motored over to Rage on the other side of the parking lot.

  “Hey, y’all. I’m starved. Let’s go inside,” Abby suggested.

  So we did.

  ***

  Abby held a segment of crab leg aloft, the white-and-pink speckled meat ready to be dunked into the melted butter. “You’re kidding me? That’s been the big fuckin’ hold-up?”

  Needless to say, I had just told her and Janie about Roll’s sterility being the culprit for his lack of commitment to me. I felt a little guilty about sharing his issue with them, but this was definitely the time when a girl needed her girlfriends the most.

  I nodded, but before Abby could say anything, Janie spoke. “I get it.”

  Abby and I both gave her incredulous looks.

  “What? I do. I get it. He wouldn’t commit because he wanted you to find someone to have kiddos with.”

  While she dunked the crab meat in the butter, Abby’s chuckle was short and dubious. “Then why not tell her that then? Knowledge is power. If you would’ve known that, would you have tried to move on, Trix?”

  I opened my mouth to answer, but had to think better of it. It wasn’t a question I could answer with any honesty.

  “No, she wouldn’t have,” Janie said, as she popped a french fry into her mouth.

  Abby gave her a sidelong look while she chewed up the crab meat in her mouth. “You’ve known her what, six weeks or somethin’? I’ve known her close to ten years now. No way. She’d have moved on for sure.”

  Janie returned Abby’s sidelong glance. “Then you haven’t been paying attention to how she looks when she talks about him.”

  Abby’s jaw clenched and I feared I’d have a cat-fight on my hands, but Abby’s tone was cool and calm. “No, but I have seen her looking at him when she doesn’t think the rest of us are watching.”

  Oh, hell! I needed to intervene and quickly. As luck would have it, our waitress dropped by.

  “Another beer, ladies? Are you good with your wine?” she asked Janie.

  “I’ll have another,” Janie and Abby said at the same time. They looked at one another and then broke into a laughing fit.

  My head shook with three short quick shakes. “Crisis averted. Thank God.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Woulda’s and coulda’s don’t matter right now, anyway. The real question here, is what are you going to do, now that you do know?” Abby asked.

  I pressed my lips together as I mulled that over. “That’s actually why I wanted you to come to lunch with us. Can it be fixed?”

  Abby’s eyes grew big and her head tilted back as dawning realization hit her. I didn’t like that as her first reaction, but I waited her out.

  She opened her mouth to speak, but then made a tsk sound. Her mouth closed again and finally she answered.

  “It depends. I don’t know the specifics, but there are cases where it can be repaired. What I can say is that if only one doc has told him of his diagnosis, he needs to go get another opinion. Seriously.”

  “It can be repaired?” Janie asked.

  Abby looked between us. “I didn’t say that. It definitely depends. There’s lots of differing factors that can lead to that diagnosis for a man. Part of me is more curious about how he came to find out he was infertile, but that’s not my business. There are so many options in terms of fertility these days. Quite honestly, that’s why I was so appalled at this being the crux of his hold-up with claiming you and all that. It’s lame.”

  “It’s not lame,” Janie said.

  There was something in her tone that told me we were inching toward some thin ice. I put my hand on top of hers on the table. “You’re right. It isn’t lame. He mentioned my passion for everyone else having babies. So, I know he’s aware that I want that for others. Men can be downright simple in their straight-forwardness. If I get excited about babies, then that means I want babies of my own. Frankly, even at the time I was being so gung-ho, I’m not so sure I would’ve agreed that I’d be good mommy-material.”

  “Bullshit,” Abby muttered.

  “Not bullshit,” I reprimanded. “My childhood was not an easy one, and I’m not so sure either of my parents were the best examples.”

  Abby and Janie were both giving me dirty looks, but only Abby spoke. “You’re one of the best people I know, Trixie. You’re brutal with your honesty, but what good is honesty if you’re gonna sugar-coat shit? No good at all, as far as I’m concerned. You’re loyal like nobody else I know. Seriously. Ten fucking years you’ve devoted to Roll, and he’s been holding back because of what may or may not be a low fuckin’ sperm count. He doesn’t deserve the goodness that is you.”

  At this point I saw the error of my ways. In telling these ladies my issues, I had set Roll up to be the bad guy, and he really wasn’t. “It’s not like that, Abs.”

  “The hell it isn’t,” she said, snapping a crab leg in two. “There need to be little versions of you in the world.”

  “Which is exactly why it isn’t lame,” Janie said.

  “They could’ve adopted,” Abby hissed.

  Janie gave her a long look. “Or he could hold her just loosely enough that when she found someone else, she’d be free to have babies with that person.”

  I braced my hands on the table. “Stop it. You both sound like the inside of my head and that’s not what I’m here for.”

  Abby’s voice was deceptively gentle. “He strung you along for ten years, Trix.”

  Janie gave me a look that said she agreed with that.

  I looked at them and realized Roll wasn’t bl
owing smoke at me last night. He did love me. In that moment, I knew it, because he was willing to let me go in order to give me what I desperately wanted: a chance at having babies. The fact that I never went had as much to do with me as it did with him.

  A sad smile twisted my lips. “He didn’t string me along. I love him, and he could’ve tried shoving me away and I wouldn’t have gone.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Trixie

  It was rare that I did anything half-assed. So at lunch today, I had gone whole-hog and ordered the surf and turf dinner. After I dropped my bombshell, we sat around the restaurant long enough for me to have three beers, and we ate all the buttery Captain’s Wafer crackers in order to polish off the delectable cream-cheese-based shrimp dip that had come before anyone even ordered their food. In deference to my high caloric intake at lunch, I fixed a Caesar salad for dinner, but by seven-thirty it didn’t feel like enough. I went into the kitchen and popped open a can of boiled peanuts. I dumped them into a dish so I could warm them up in the microwave. The snack always reminded me of afternoons coming back from St. Augustine beach with my parents. They would buy a paper sack full of peanuts from a roadside stand on our way home. Of course, that was before Uncle Derrick marred my innocence.

  As I cracked open my first peanut, Rage said from the kitchen entryway, “Are those hot?”

  I nearly jumped out of my skin and turned to him.

  “Christ Almighty! Are you trying to give me a damn heart attack? To answer your question, hot as in Cajun, no. Hot as in temperature, yes. Do you want some?”

  He prowled over to the counter and assessed the dish with an arched eyebrow. “Sure.”

  “Then help yourself, asshole.”

  “What? How am I an asshole? I’m keepin’ your ass safe.”

  I scoffed. “Yeah, now you are, but apparently you broke in here while I was getting my hair did, you jackass.”

  Rage chuckled around a mouthful of peanuts. “Typical. Doin’ a woman a favor and she sees it as a violation. This is why I won’t have an old lady, Trix. Have to be a hard-core biker bitch for me to start with, and even then, you’ve just proven that the will of the female always breaks through in the end.”

  I shoved at his solid shoulder. “Shut up, motherfucker. One damn day, you’re gonna go ass over teakettle. Christ, for a moment there you almost sounded like Cal, and look where he’s at now.”

  “Almost?”

  I jerked my chin up at him. “Yep. Cal always said he’d never have an old lady. You specified any old lady you might have would have to be a hard-core biker bitch.”

  Rage dropped a set of empty peanut shells in the bowl I had set up. “Roll didn’t tell me you were a hair-splitter.”

  “Meh. Why isn’t he able to be here tonight, again?”

  He opened another peanut shell, and chuckled. “Nice try there, Trix. He ain’t here and I am, that’s all you need to know and you know it.”

  ***

  “Copy that, Blood,” Rage growled as he came through my back door. He had gone out that way not ten minutes earlier to check the area around my building, but the tone of his voice made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

  After he pressed a button on his phone, I asked, “What’s wrong? What do you copy from Blood?”

  Thing was, many of the Riot MC guys might be former military, but some of them were not. I had noticed a long time ago that they only seemed to all revert to military lingo or say things like ‘copy that’ when shit was hitting the fan. It was a subtle nuance, but one I had picked up on.

  Rage’s eyes were angry, but I knew it wasn’t directed at me.

  “Roll and Volt have been arrested. You’re on my bike and we’re headed to the compound.”

  I absolutely was not on the back of his bike. “Drivin’ my car, man.”

  “Trixie—”

  “Rage. I just got the man of my dreams sayin’ he loves me. Ain’t no way in hell I’m shovin’ that in his face by puttin’ my own ass on the back of your bike. Whether it’s like that or not, I’m not gonna let anybody get the wrong fuckin’ idea. Comprende?”

  Rage tore his hand through his long brown hair with a heavy sigh. “Yeah. I get you, woman. And worst of all, you’re right. Hurry the fuck up. Grab a bag with your shit and let’s move it.”

  Roll

  “She ain’t comin’,” Volt said and sucked on his vape.

  Roll checked the time on his phone again, and it was still a quarter after noon. He, Volt, and Kim agreed to meet at a new Wawa gas station. She had agreed to helping them by giving them as much information about Heathen’s plans as possible. She had also offered to plant evidence if they had something like that for her. Roll approached Volt with this offer a couple of days after Trixie’s attack, and they gave Kim a gun used years ago in an unsolved murder. After she reported adding it to the gun safe in Heathen’s room at the Lancer compound, Roll knew they needed to leave it at that. In no way could Roll discuss this subject over the phone, so they were going to “run into each other” at the popular gas station that also served lunch.

  It was clear she wasn’t late, but was standing them up.

  Roll nodded at Volt and they sauntered out to the parking lot. Before they could swing their legs over their bikes, they were pinned in by two Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office squad cars parked at opposing angles.

  “Fuck,” Roll hissed. His gut clenched as he wondered if Kim was lucky to not be caught up in this shit or if she had been caught up in something far worse.

  “You know the drill,” Volt said from beside him. At the flat sound of the words, Roll knew Volt’s lips hadn’t moved.

  “Henry Adler, a.k.a. Volt?” a female officer asked.

  Roll saw Volt nod in his peripheral vision.

  A male officer swaggered toward Roll and every instinct told him this guy was bad news. “Homer Rolland, a.k.a. Roll?” he asked emphasizing ‘Homer’ with overt satisfaction.

  Roll nodded as he took in the officer’s name on his lapel. Officer D. Cavanaugh.

  “You’re both under arrest for the assault of Jonathan Rice, Paul Driver, and James Stanfelder. Mr. Rolland, you’re also under arrest for the assault and battery of Kim Norwell.”

  They were read their rights and escorted downtown in Officer Cavanaugh’s car.

  Roll hadn’t seen the inside of the Duval County jail in well over eleven years. He couldn’t believe he and Volt had been set up, and no two ways about it, this was a set-up of elaborate proportions.

  This was what his gut had been trying to tell him weeks ago when he was forced to claim Trixie, but he hadn’t been able to put his finger on it. By making Trixie his woman, it escalated things to a club issue. Taking this shit to a club issue forced more of his brothers into this situation, and Roll never wanted that to happen.

  Their bond had been posted just after three in the afternoon, but when they say the wheels of justice move slowly they failed to mention those wheels were lubed with molasses. He and Volt might not leave the jail until nighttime. One thing Heathen’s set-up had going for it was the timing. Getting Volt and Roll picked up on a Saturday afternoon should’ve ensured the two men stayed in lock-up until Monday. It had been a while since Riot needed to lean on their lawyers, so the Devil Lancers didn’t know Bernstein and Logan were on retainer for the club. The firm was one of the best at criminal defense in the entire north Florida area. The lawyers had put up the bail and knew the system in order to expedite things.

  As Roll sat at a metal table in the general cell block, he contemplated Heathen’s strategy. It made his blood boil that the man had beaten Kim, again. He knew Heathen was abusive, but that was well before he knew Kim was actually his sister. He never agreed with hitting women, which was one of the many reasons why Roll never hung with the Devil Lancers very often. Why pin Kim’s most recent beating on Roll? What stumped Roll most, was what would Heathen get out of having Volt and Roll sitting in jail?

  Trixie’s safety came to Roll’s mind fir
st, and apparently Volt was of the same mindset. He had ordered Blood to have Rage get Trixie to the compound. He had also insisted Cal follow Jackie to the compound.

  Roll fought a grin as he wondered how brothers like Yak and Beast would deal with Volt and Jackie’s infant, Simone, being in the building. The walls were thin and he had no doubt her cries would be heard down the entire hallway. Then a vision of Trixie helping Jackie care for that bundle of joy flashed in his mind and his heart seized.

  He was being so selfish. The thought of her taking the fists and kicks of other bikers because of his actions made his stomach turn. Maybe he shouldn’t have claimed her after all. His stomach twisted as he thought about forcing her away from him for good so she could have a baby of her own.

  A body sat down opposite him, and Roll looked up to see Volt. They had kept their distance from one another as an act of caution, until they knew they would be getting out.

  “What are you thinkin’ about, brother? You went from almost-smiling to practically seething. I’m surprised there isn’t steam comin’ outta your ears.”

  Roll shook his head and debated how honest he should be.

  “Don’t blame yourself for this shit, man,” Volt said.

  “I don’t. I just don’t think I should’ve claimed Trixie.”

  Volt’s eyes narrowed at him, and the itchy orange inmate scrubs felt even scratchier under his President’s harsh gaze. “The fuck? Shut your mouth, asshole. You pullin’ your head outta your ass is the only good thing to come from Trixie’s ordeal. Not that it should’ve taken somethin’ so damn drastic, but it’s the only damn bright side to this bullshit.”

  Roll closed his eyes and decided to hell with it. He might as well lay it out for someone besides Trixie. Maybe his president would have some sage advice.

  “I shoot blanks. Trixie will never get what she really wants from me.”