Page 49 of Virago

So he only rolled his eyes. “I’ve been riding this bike for longer than I’ve had the bottom rocker, bruh. Are you ever gonna just accept that electric is happening? Has happened?”

Dom laughed. “You’re gonna have to eventually, Tom. Someday these babies”—he gave his own Low Rider a loving pat—“are gonna be forced off the road.”

“Fuckin’ sucks.” Tommy grumbled petulantly. “Goddamn fascist assholes forcin’ their way on everybody.”

Equal parts irritated and amused, Zaxx grinned. Funny how people on every damn side of any political fight wanted to make people do things their way, but they all threw out the word ‘fascist’ to mean the other side wanting to make people do things their way. Humanity was a garbage fire.

“Did you call me out here to bitch about electric bikes?” Zaxx prodded, letting some irritation out—but not too much.

He was a patch, a fully vested member with a seat in the Keep, but he was the newest member, still the ‘little brother,’ and they hadn’t had a prospect since he’d gotten his rocker. He still got the ass end of club work and took shit the older patches would have aimed at a prospect.

It sucked, but the members didn’t want to expand the table right now, so they were not looking for a new prospect. They probably wouldn’t consider bringing in another until and unless one of the club sons decided he wanted the Flaming Mane.

That would be a while. Gia’s brother, Bo, was old enough, but not remotely interested. Loki, Joe, Ian, and Henry were all technically old enough—they were all around eighteen to twenty, Zaxx thought, and he knew Loki wanted it—but they were all in college, which probably meant they’d end up doing something else with their lives.

Hangarounds did most of the real grunt work, but there was shit a hangaround couldn’t be asked to do. Even in these days of staying out of big trouble, there was shit hangarounds couldn’t know.

That left Zaxx at the bottom of the club pile. He tried not to piss off anybody with power over him enough that they’d invent nasty shit for him to do.

Tommy sneered at him, but it was a typical ‘hate the world’ look, not a threat. “Talk to me about what happened with Zelda.”

Zaxx tossed a quick glance toward Dom, who knew the story and must have told Tommy already. Dom merely tipped his head toward their SAA.

So Zaxx told Tommy the story of Zelda and the Assaulting Cop. Tommy listened. He asked a couple clarifying questions but mostly just took it in, nodding his head occasionally either because it jived with what he knew or because he was trying to look wise.

“You know this guy?” Zaxx asked when he was done.

“Had one short run-in with him off the clock, but mostly I know of him. You remember Evie? Girl I was seein’ for a while couple years back?”

Zaxx nodded. He did remember Evie.

Tommy was determinedly unmarried. Swore he’d had one bad marriage and would never willingly wrap that shackle around his leg again. But a handful of times he’d liked a woman enough to get pretty serious for a while. They always ended, and Zaxx could conjecture as to why, but those few women who could be said to have been in a relationship Tommy Nickels were memorable.

Zaxx didn’t know Evie’s last name, but he remembered her as a pretty, shy redhead. Her personality didn’t stand out much, but Tommy’s entire inability to keep his hands off her did.

“She used to be married to Danvers. He was an abusive shithead, and he got worse when she left him. But you know how it is with cops—they cover their own, no matter what. She got a restraining order but couldn’t get anybody to enforce it. I’m the one fuckin’ enforced it, which is how I had my run-in with the guy. He left her alone after that.”

Zaxx nodded, but he didn’t see how that was useful to his purpose. “Dom said you had insight about him? I thought you had an idea how to back him off my sister and make him pay for touching her like that.”

Now Tommy grinned, and Zaxx knew that grin. Half wolf’s snarl, half demon’s maw, you did not want to be its target. “Two things. One, Billy Boy is scared to fuck and back of me. I dislocated both his knees and broke every finger of his right hand, and there wasn’t shit he could do about it because, two, Billy Boy’s got a fetish. He likes wearing ladies’ dainties. Evie told me he even wears ‘em under his uniform. She’s got pictures, and she gave ‘em to me back when I was helpin’ her out with him. I kept ‘em.”

Tommy leaned forward to rest on his handlebars. “What worked then’ll work now. What d’you think will happen if Billy Boy’s cop buddies find out he’s got a silky pink thong on under his gun belt? You want to get those bullshit charges off Zel’s back? That’s your ticket. You want to make him pay for puttin’ his filthy paws on her silky dainties and not get blowback from the cops? That’s also your ticket. He can’t do nothin’ but what we want. And I wager if he’d known Zelda was connected to the Horde when he pulled her over, he’d’ve been real polite from the start.”

Zaxx recalled trying to decide whether to wear colors when he went in to bail out his sister. He’d picked wrong.

He stared at Tommy, trying to comprehend the scope of the gift the SAA had just held out on a platter. Last night he’d drunk himself into a stupor over, among other things, his sister’s trouble, his responsibility to fix it, and his utter cluelessness as to how. Now, the answer was there, like he’d happened upon the key to the exam.

Dom leaned over and dropped a hand onto Zaxx’s shoulder. “So the question now is, how far do you want to go with this guy?”

Zaxx’s impulse was to say all the way, but he bit down on that and took a couple beats to consider. He didn’t want to kill the guy—well, he sort of did, but only as a matter of fantasy. He’d never killed anybody and wanted that streak to continue for the full length of his life. However, he had hurt people, people who’d hurt his family, in particular his sister, and he absolutely wanted this bastard hurt.

“Why’d you break his right hand?” Zaxx asked Tommy.

“Billy Boy’s right-handed. That’s the fist he used to knock Evie around. I made it so it’d be a good while before he could make a fist again.”

“That’s probably the hand he put up Zel’s skirt, then. Guess he needs another lesson.”

Tommy grinned—this was his usual wry enjoyment smirk, not his feral enforcer snarl. “Yeah, I guess he does.”

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