Page 70 of Taking What's Ours

“No, sir. He’s runnin’ a tab.”

“What’s it up to?” I ask.

“Thirty-eight dollars.”

I lean and yank this dude’s wallet out of his back pocket and find a couple of credit cards and about a hundred bucks in twenties. I slap them on the bar. “Keep the change.” Then I grab this guy by the collar and march him down the hall and out the back door. I fling him into the metal garbage dumpster and toss his wallet in with him.

“I ever see you again, you’ll need an ambulance.”

Then I stalk inside and am met by a round of applause from the people at the bar.

The bartender holds out a bottle of beer to me. “Thanks, man. That guy is a real asshole. Wish I’d had the balls to do that a long time ago.”

“Here, here,” the crowd yells out.

When I get to the table, Rock’s taken care of mine and Elaina’s check, and everyone is standing, gathering their jackets.

“Let’s roll,” Rock says.

I down the beer and wrap an arm around Elaina. “Sorry that had to ruin our day. I won’t stand for a man treating you that way.”

She’s looking at me anew. “You’re a badass when you want to be, aren’t you?”

“If I have to be, absolutely.” I kiss her forehead, and we follow the others out to our bikes.

An hour later, we’re at the clubhouse, and we all park our bikes in a line in front. I back mine up to the porch at the far end, and Elaina and I climb off.

“God, I love riding,” she says with a big smile.

The other girls hear her and laugh.

“She’s hooked,” Trez says.

We all trudge up the steps and inside.

Rosie comes running, and Elaina bends to pet her. “Hey, girl. How’s my baby?”

I’m standing, smiling down at her, when the whine of ninja bikes roar up the road outside. I—and every other man in the place—freeze, and in a split second, we hear rapid fire, and the windows explode.

It sounds like fully automatic weapons, and I dive over Elaina and Rosie, pushing them to the floor. Every man does the same thing, and some are already pulling their weapons and moving to the windows to return fire.

Thank God the clubhouse is made of thick logs that absorb and deflect many of the shots, but we can hear our bikes taking hellfire.

Utah and Memphis scramble behind the bar and start tossing AR15s from the wooden box we keep under there. I grab one and lean to Elaina.

“Stay down.”

She nods, and I move off to one of the windows. We barely get in a couple of rounds before the bikes roar off, and it’s over as quickly as it started.

Rock stands. “Everyone okay? Check those around you.”

We do a check, and other than some cuts from flying glass, no one is hit.

“Those motherfuckers are dead,” Rock roars. “I want their heads!”

CHAPTER TWENTY

Elaina—

---