Page 45 of Charger

“Knowing the Skulls, I wouldn’t doubt it.”

“What the fuck?” Heads turn when Chain comes barreling down to where Hush and I are standing in the doorway. Bullet isn’t far behind. I knew he would be pissed. “My office, now!” We follow him. He slams the door then thunder erupts. “These pricks serious? Because I can assure you his plan A will not be happening. And his threat, he can go fuck himself with it.”

“They got some fucking balls.” Bullet crosses his arms as he stands next to Chain’s desk.

“We know. I’ll be honest; they definitely caught us off guard.”

He starts pacing, his boots clunking with every giant step. “Fuck!” Resting his palms on his desk, he lets out a sigh. “So much for a quiet, relaxing evening.”

I raise my eyebrow. “I thought you two had important shit to take care of tonight?” He doesn’t miss the hint of accusation in my voice. He gives me a look. Bullet smirks, letting me know this was a test for us. But I get it—Hush and me being the two newest members besides the prospects.

“You two were tested tonight so congratulations, you both failed.”

“To be fair, grand theft auto didn’t exactly sound like a fun idea. We didn’t really know he was gonna blindside us with an ultimatum either.” I pause to study Chain. But he doesn’t say anything, so I continue, “Knowing Scorpion and his club, I wouldn’t say he’s one to bluff.”

The Steel Valley Skulls hold the record for a piss-poor reputation. Usually, they stay out of our way and we stay out of theirs. So, the fact that they reached out, wanted to partner up… well, it rubs us the wrong way—down to our cores.

“Agreed,” Chain exhales. “All right, we’ll figure this out, but until we do, we keep an eye on those pricks. Any funny business, any sign they’re doing shit we don’t like, they’re gonna have problems with us. And we keep extra close eyes on the girls. If Scorpion and his club even bat an eye at one of ours, I want to know about it. If he isn’t bluffing and he really is giving us an ultimatum, I don’t wanna take any chances.”

They will be signing their own death warrants if any one of them comes near our women, that’s for sure. Or any woman for that matter. My blood boils with the thought of someone coming near Jules. Jules or our daughter.

“Okay, I’m going home to make love to my woman. You two good?”

“Make love?” Hush’s low question has us turning slowly toward him.

“Yes, make love. Something you two don’t know the first thing about. Think about settling down, men.”

Settling down? There’s no woman I have ever thought about settling down with, except Jules. I would have gladly married her straight out of graduation. That’s how in love with her I was. Fuck, still am.

Hush releases a grunt as we both head out of Chain’s office.

There’re two things I can do to make this right: try to convince her I didn’t mean what I said, or take out my frustration in the pit tomorrow night. Her face flashes in my mind. I hated leaving her like that and I sure as fuck don’t want to see her hurt.

I decide to take the first option. Flipping through my contacts, I find her name, pretty girl. That’s a name I haven’t called her in six years. I hope it’s the same number. Her number was the first one I saved into my new phone, way back when. Never did find enough courage to actually call her.

Here goes nothing…

Jules

Settling for a glass of wine sounded fabulous right now, but I decide on a creamy pint of something tastier instead. Scooping my spoon into the delicious mint chocolate chip flavored ice cream, I moan when it hits my tongue. I’ve been saving this, in case of emergencies. And this was definitely an emergency.

I decided to skip out on work early tonight, which is rare. But considering Lucy was ten seconds away from pulling out her hair due to my bitchy-ass moodiness, it was probably better to just come back upstairs.

I snuggle up with my Sherpa blanket, fuzzy pj’s, and my favorite ice cream flavor. Priceless. Only the muffled sound of music fills my apartment.

I flick on Netflix, in hopes of finding something that’ll stop the ache in my chest. Zach’s words hit me hard. How could he blame me for everything? Like I didn’t feel bad enough, he had to bury me deeper. A tear slips down my cheek. Wiping it off, I inhale with confidence. As I get ready to spoon another huge scoop of ice cream, my phone buzzes.

Unknown: Jules, I’m sorry about everything. Please, we need to talk.

My pulse races. I stare at the words on my screen, obviously knowing it’s Zach. I hover my finger over my phone’s keyboard. When I finally manage to type out a response, it’s long and complicated. My leg bounces up and down as I contemplate if I should send it. He deserves to see his daughter and he will, but I just can’t right now.

I turn my phone over on the coffee table, ignoring it. Then I shovel in the scoop of ice cream that has practically melted off my spoon.

EIGHTEEN

Jules

The Fallen Star is packed again tonight. The dart board is being overtaken. The old arcade game, Pac Man, has the younger crowd entertained. And when I say younger crowd, I mean my crowd. Groups of young men hover around, watching. I was pretty excited when I won that at an auction—gives the bar a fun vibe.

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