Chapter 6

Chapter Six

Saint

Well, fuck.

Those two words haunt my fucking dreams and my day.

The waiting room at LC Hastings, adjacent to Hastings Corp, is as natural a fit for me as a pink tutu would be. He’s making me wait because that’s the type of rich, entitled fuck he is.

But those words don’t have a thing to do about the soft, seafoam green leather chairs and sofa and the neutral-toned walls or the classical music of the washed-out and inoffensive kind. They don’t even have to do with the receptionist with perfect blonde hair and a high end labeled dress who’s looking at me like I murder with axes for a living.

No.

They’ve got everything to do with a buttoned-up women with red curls, baby bangs, and a smile that could both melt ice and make a dick hard.

And the fact she used to be engaged to Lance.

Mostly.

The rest of the well fuck’s reserved for the fact I went and not only ate off her plate, but I ate from her fingers. I sucked those fucking fingers like candy.

That shit isn’t what I fucking do.

If I want to stake a claim, I stake a fucking claim by feeling the woman up, bending her over, and fucking her hard.

That’s my world.

It’s what the women who hang around bikers want. They fucking pant for it.

If I want to fuck someone, claim someone, I’m betting there are more than enough biker babes in Sweetwood panting to fit that bill.

So why the fuck did I do that, and to her?

Belle fits the rich fuck with her sweet and conservative dress. The bangs and her ease in banter are little tells that there’s a whole world more to her. Talking to her, seeing the beat of her heart and the shine in her eyes for her crumbling, run-down damn apartment complex to the fucking cat tells me she’s out of this boring ass fuck’s realm.

Christ, I’m betting he’d wet himself in the face of the thuglings who attacked her. She was scared, yeah, but I think she would have handled herself. Or at least tried to.

But this man? I don’t think he’d appreciate her.

At all.

“Mister uh . . . Mister Saint? Mister Hastings will see you now.”

I rise and through the disappointment and disdain that rolls off the blonde, there’s also a reluctant lust that runs low in the room. Yeah, I’d never touch her type in a million years.

I follow her down the hall to the frosted glass doors, and we step into another waiting room. This one done up like a rich man’s living room, in rich woods with red and gold rugs, red wine leather fat sofas and chairs, and floor-to-ceiling bookshelf that looks to house the kind of books there for admiring as a concept piece, rather than to be taken down and read.

There’s a big wooden door at the other end, with a brass handle, and she knocks, then opens it and gestures me in.

She might want a ride on the biker to get a taste of sordid downtown fun, but I don’t think her escorted walk came from that or from manners.

More, it came from the fucking fact I’m a rough and tumble biker who, in the eyes of all here, I’m either a step up or step below a criminal.

A necessary evil.

Like I give a fuck.

“Nicholas.” Lance sits behind his desk, fingers steepled, leaning back in his black leather chair.

The desk gleams, and there are pieces of art everywhere. I really don’t know much about art, not my thing. I’m sure it all cost a fortune, but it’s fucking ugly.

He nods to an oil painting the color of money. Some kind of abstract shit. “Not Elvis on velvet, but it’s good, don’t you think?”

Lance is waiting for me to sit, but I don’t because I get the feeling that him not rising isn’t out of disrespect but because my height intimidates the life from him. Not that he respects me. Not that I care.

There’s a marble bust of . . . I think it’s him . . . sitting in an alcove on his shelves that has a light on it. I pick it up and examine it. “I prefer the 3-D Elvis in plexiglass. Though some of the moving picture ones are nice too.”

I’m fucking about, but I pretty much hold that kind of shit higher than the piece on the wall. At least the Elvis kitsch is honest. That’s a hamburger pretending to be Kobe beef.

“Please, put that down.”

The panic in his voice pleases me in ways it probably shouldn’t. I toss it up and catch it, then put it back in place.

“Nicholas—”

“Call me Mister Santiago or Saint,” I say pleasantly. “Mister Hastings.”

The man’s brows knit together. He insists I call him Mr. Hastings, so he can do the same fucking thing. I’m betting he won’t call me Saint.

“Mister Santiago.” He looks like he bit into something horrible, and I smile. “I don’t have a lot of time.”

“You called the meeting, Hastings.”

He sighs heavily as I sit on the edge of his table. I’m not usually so disrespectful. I’m in my fucking thirties. I don’t need to beat my chest to prove myself, but there’s something about this guy that rubs me the wrong way.

“I want to see if you’ve started?—”

“Haven’t been there very long.”

“It shouldn’t take long.”

It’s on the tip of my tongue to point out what Belle told me last night, but something stops me. I’m not sure what.

I’m not looking to get involved and am interested even less in playing games. Something whispers to keep it to myself that I happen to know he can’t kick anyone out unless they fail to pay. And he also can’t raise rent.

Jesus, it must annoy the living fuck out of him.

“I know why you want me there?—”

“Do you?” He cuts me off. “Good.”

I ignore the sarcasm. “It seems like you want more than we agreed on.”

“Not all brawn,” he mutters, and I clamp down on the annoyance. Not at what he says, but the fact he’s trying to rile me. “I want you to bring a foot down, intimidate, break shit if you need to. Have wild parties.”

Straightening, I stand and hold a hand up to stop him talking.

Then I turn and plant both hands on the desk and lean in. He scoots his chair back. Just a smidge, but I see it.

“Let’s get one fucking thing straight, Hastings. I know what you want. The place emptied. We never agreed on that, just on making sure that I’m there to no doubt intimidate with my presence and collect rent and whatever other fees you have. To make sure things you have in place with your tenants happen.

“But I’m not fifteen, so I’m not about to have wild parties. And I’m not a brainless thug, so I’m not going to intimidate old ladies and single mothers. I’ll collect the fees and do what you want. Within the law. Within good fucking faith.

“If you don’t like that, I’ll leave. I know a contract’s a contract. And we have one. And it’s straightforward. I’m guessing because you wanted to have shady shit off the books.”

“Look, Santiago,” he says, his anger making his words tight and turning his face puce. “We discussed?—”

“We discussed taking things further. I will probably use the courtyard to fix bikes until I find a place.” I pause. “So that might please you.”

It does.

His eyes light up. “You mean your friends will bring their motorcycles?”

It’s like I just told him I’m opening a titty bar in the courtyard.

“Until I find a place.”

“You can stay there.”

I almost laugh, because there would have been a time I’d negotiate to do what he’s begging from me.

And this time?

I don’t want it.

I’ll do a pop-up, rent a space. Bikers and those who want a good mechanic will come to me. They always do. But a roof over my head as it gets colder is worth it. Plus, I’m too fucking old to play at it.

“Thing is, I’ll do what I fucking want when I want to. And I just let you know, as a courtesy I’ll be in the courtyard a few days. We done?” I don’t give him a chance to respond. “Good.”

And with that, I leave.

Gravel sits drinking a beer from the six-pack he brought with him as Nomad threads through his legs. The fuck—the man, not the cat—dragged a chair from my apartment outside, and he’s smoking a joint.

There are kids here, but it’s still too early for them to come from school, so I just let him be.

Besides, it’s not my job to tell him to quit it. We’re outside, and weed doesn’t bother me. Maybe it’s something that’ll help shift residents for Hastings.

Then again, maybe not.

Weed’s not exactly hardcore. Not anymore. It’s become a constant in schools, unfortunately. Walking down the halls you can smell it and know that the kids have either just smoked it or they’ve used a vape.

Never been my thing, but to each their own. I finish cleaning the engine and sliding in the upgrade Gravel wants. “You like this town?”

“It’s a good one,” he says with a shrug. “Besides, it’s where my ex-old lady and our daughter settled.”

I shoot him a look.

“The old lady got her bike upgraded, so to speak. Money, the quiet life, an upstanding husband. He bores the living shit out of me, but she seems to be fucking happy. Each to their own.”

I nod and start to reassemble. “Yeah.”

Did Belle upgrade her life for a while with Hastings? I can see them together. The pretty teacher, if I was a fucking cynical cunt, is a perfect foil to soften the edges of what I suspect is the hard-nosed and heartless SOB businessman hiding in him.

Not really sure hiding is the right word.

He is a businessman. One who makes no bones about ambition. But men like him like to be liked to get ahead. They like to soften the edges of their persona. They think they’ll get more for their buck that way.

I’ve seen it. How my mother’s family destroyed the club I grew up in. I’m not going to call them my family. As far as I’m fucking concerned, that starts and ends with my parents. But yeah, that lot were like Lance Hastings, nice enough with certain factions. Treated Mom sweetly. Dad and me? Like fucking shit.

Water under a long-lost bridge.

She might have upgraded for a while, but she ended it. There’s nothing telling me that apart from instinct, and I trust my instincts.

I stand and polish the bike.

“When I heard there was an affiliated brotherhood here, I joined. We don’t get into trouble, and we keep shit tidy on the edges.”

“Tidy?” I ask. “As in law in your own hands?”

He starts laughing, great guffaws that light up the early afternoon. “We make sure the cops are off our backs and the shit they deal with the small fry stuff. At least . . . you know . . .”

“I know.”

“You could join us. There’s another club,” he says, taking a drag as he pets the cat, then gets up to stub out the remnants of his blunt. “Don’t think they’ll take you.’

“Not looking.”

“Though, they might. Could be just what they’ll be looking for.”

I toss the rag at him and wipe my hands on the seat of my jeans. “A sisterhood?”

“Coulda been gay.”

“I don’t think I’m pretty enough for that.” I pause. “And I’m not looking.”

He does, though. Making a show of glancing around, like he’s seeing the courtyard and the apartment complex for the first time. “This Hastings own this, huh?”

“Something like that.”

“This is a gold mine.”

I look up at the four-story building and can’t help but see all the things that need repairing or cleaning up. The places where a coat of paint is needed. “Yeah, maybe, but I don’t think he’s going to sink cash into the place to do it up.”

In my apartment, some fixtures need fixing. I’ve already dealt with the leaking faucet, and I know the window frames don’t just need a lick of paint in there, they need replacing.

Hastings isn’t about to put money into that.

He wants them all out.

At first, I figured to jack up the rent, but now I don’t know. And it’s not my fucking business.

“The guy,” I say, “is a fucking asshole.”

“Smart, though.”

“Educated and privileged.” I pat the saddle, then turn the key in the ignition, and the smooth purr is music to my ears. “Those things up the intelligence quota.”

“You think he’s an idiot?”

“I think he’s a fool with money.” I step out of the way for Gravel. “Give her a spin, let me know.”

He climbs on and roars out, earning a low growl from Nomad—I mean the cat.

From one of the front apartments, a man’s voice thunders, and something smashes. A female voice rises, and soon it’s a fucking verbal free-for-all, one I shut out.

That is until something small barrels out the door and through into the street, disappearing from view.

The kid must be about six or seven, and a black streak takes off after the kid.

I’m not getting involved.

Nope, not getting involved.

When a shriek hits the air, I find myself storming through the building to the door, and pound on it.

“What the fuck do you want?”

The man’s fat, eyes bloodshot, and he’s wearing a grease-stained shirt.

It takes me one glance past him to the woman with the swollen lip to have him dangling by the neck against the door.

“Listen to me,” I say.

“Put—”

“Lots of fucking motorcycle clubs don’t hold with disrespect or talking back. Usually, it’s some misogynistic bullshit with an old lady. But you ain’t even in the fucking club, and you’re not what I’d call old lady material. So shut the fuck up, don’t interrupt, and listen.”

I wait.

“Nod if you understand.”

The man manages a nod.

“Good. Now, if you fucking ever lift your hand to your woman here, or your kid, I’ll come back and show you what a beating is. Got that?” The man’s eyes bug. “Neighbor?”

He whimpers, and I squeeze, making him turn an ugly shade of purple.

Then I let him go.

The asshole slides down the wall to the ground, and I look past him to the woman. She’s pretty. Dark haired. Tiny.

“I’m Saint,” I say to her. “Live just over there.” I nod in the direction. “Day or night, come and get me if you need it. I’m gonna go get your kid.”

Tears wet her face, and her shoulders shake.

I toe the ass on the ground. “You. Find somewhere else to be for the next few days, got me?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

With that I walk off and almost run into Belle and the kid. She looks past me and takes in the situation. “Saint?—”

“It’s fine.” I put my hand on the kid’s shoulder. The girl’s got the same dark hair as her mom, and looks scared, but as she looks up, she’s all in one piece.

It’s the only reason I don’t kill the guy.

As the guy gets up, he goes to take a step toward me, but his eyes bug again as he looks past me. Gravel must be back from his test ride.

“Mellie?” Belle goes to the woman, even as the child is torn between going with her and staying with me.

Not out of any devotion to bikers but because her father scares her.

I’m only half joking about killing him.

“Is everything okay?”

“Andrew’s just . . . I lost my job, and . . .”

Gravel suddenly speaks up. “Got a number?”

The woman stares at him as Andrew, the asshole, pushes into the apartment, skirting her. His muttered “bitch” isn’t lost on me, but I let it slide.

“Yes,” she says, “but . . .”

Gravel waves his phone. “Might know of a job.”

Andrew pushes past her. “Cunt.”

That I’m not going to let slide, but I’m also not going to touch him in front of his kid. I catch his eye, as does Gravel, and he runs out.

Gravel switches numbers with her, and she takes her kid in, pushing off all fussing attempts by Belle.

It’s just the three of us.

“Gravel, this is Belle.”

His smirk is annoying as fuck.

Just like his kissing of her hand.

Then he says, “Hungry?”