Page 5 of Plum

I reach for my wallet, but before I can get the cash, Eric ducks out of the room. The girl’s eyes meet mine. Time freezes. She’s standing in the glow from a red sconce on the wall, fists balled, teeth bared. Her tits are heaving. The sight should make me hard—it does—but the feeling tightening my chest isn’t lust. Not quite. It’s more like when I’m at the game, and a receiver breaks free, making a wild dash for the end zone. That impulse that has you screamingrun, run, run.

She widens her eyes. She’s not pissed. Not beat down. Not beseeching.

She’s righteouslyfurious.

She reminds me of nothing else but a hawk who’s caught sight of prey. Locked and loaded and about to tear some shit apart. She’s fuckingmagnificent.

And then she’s gone, racing after him, one shoe flopping loose, screeching loud enough to bring the bouncers, who are—fuck my life—patched-in brothers of the Steel Bones Motorcycle Club.

The notoriously no-longer-outlaw, but still widely feared and respected, Steel Bones MC.

I rush after, but there’s no stopping what happens next.

The girl grabs for Eric’s arm. He jerks, way harder than he’d ever need to. She loses her balance. She tightens her grip. He slams his elbow back, and it lands in her tiny belly, knocking the wind out of her.

She tumbles, and I lunge to catch her, but there’s suddenly all these bodies around. She doesn’t go down. She swipes off that unbuckled shoe and nails Eric in the side of his head.

He bellows with rage. Eric’s still the type who can’t take a punch. The pain pisses him off, and he expends all that rage in one, wild, unthinking swing. I launch myself in front of the girl, but a bouncer already has her by the arms, pulling her back. He’s trying to protect her, swing her away, but she’s fighting him, and momentum is on her side.

Another guy almost has his arms around Eric. Almost.

Eric swings, and the little fighter’s hands are pinned behind her by her own guy. Eric lands an open-handed blow to her face. Her head snaps back on her thin neck.

There’s four of us guys in the mix now, and for a millisecond, there’s total silence.

“Youfucker! Give me my money!”

Her shriek has the effect of a starting pistol. I go for Eric, but a seriously angry dude with a buzz cut and a SBMC vest beats me to him.

A guy yells, “Nickel, wait!” He doesn’t. Nickel drags Eric through the club, whacking him into tables and chairs, using his head to fling open the front doors.

The bouncer who restrained the girl and an older, bald man called Cue follow, trailed by the wobbly dancer who’s trying to walk and strap on her shoe at the same time. I bring up the rear.

A crowd forms in the parking lot, and although it’s been no longer than a minute or two, Eric’s done. He’s weaving on his feet, and then he slams to his knees. I’m expecting Nickel to ease off, but it’s like this guy’s in a ‘roid rage. The limper Eric goes, the harder he hits.

“Oh, shit. Get Forty,” the bald man orders one of the other dancers who’s come outside to gawk. “He’s gonna kill him.”

This is crazy.

This isallcrazy. I’m standing in a strip club parking lot, watching my stepbrother get murdered by bikers. The guy who took the blame when Thomas found my Marlboros in the toolshed in eighth grade. Who beat Kyle Reed’s ass with me as a message for Kyle’s mom to back the fuck off our father. My business partner. My brother.

Shit.

I jump in, and my dumb ass forgets to take my glasses off.

I land a haymaker to the side of Nickel’s head, and he swings to face me, grinning, his teeth bloody. His face is a death mask.

I take a few shots, land them all. He doesn’t even have his fists up. He’s toying with me, dragging this out. Like the older kid who lets you dunk a few baskets before he schools you.

I crack my knuckles. It should be dread prickling the back of my neck, but that’s not what’s getting me hard, way harder than I was back in the champagne room. It’s anticipation.

This is going to bereal.

Back on Gilson Avenue, you learned how to fight the day your mom let you go outside alone. You won, or you stayed the fuck inside. At Mountchassen Prep, there were rules, unspoken, none of which had shit to do with winning. Eric’s been getting me into brawls for almost twenty years, and almost always, they’re unsatisfying as fuck.

But this…Nickel comes at me in a whirl of fury, blows raining down, the impact forcing me to feel.

Yes. This is real.

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