Page 4 of Death's Deal

I haven’t told my sister her hospital bills are mounting. Some of the guys know, but not everyone does. The Army’s clubhouse repairs are stacked higher than banded hundreds, and the bike shop, even though it’s doing well, is not making enough to support all of the members who we need to. I had to take out a personal loan that I didn’t tell the boys about, just to inject cash back into the club.

The club is barely holding itself together. The consequences of this will cause repercussions for years to come if I can’t find a way to get through this while keeping the Hades Army intact. Knowing I won’t be going to see Jaz, I blew out a heavy breath and sighed. “Do me a favor. Take these.” I hand him two white envelopes with cash. “Tell her it’s the final pay for Ratchet and Kelvin. N’ give our sister a kiss for me. Then give her shit if she isn’t eating.”

“Got it, Boss man.” Taking the envelopes, he asks, “Anything else?”

Stepping to my bike, I straddle, sit, and think for a second. “Yeah. Don’t get us into anything else. I can’t take much more shit right now.”

As I start up and his laugh is bouncing around in my head, I turn for the highway toward Humble.

I’d swore I’d never see her again. That she was someone I’d left in my past, a past that’s about to rear its ugly head.

I need a drink and someone with a clearer head to look at this.

Chapter 3

Riding to Humble, holdingthat heavy folder tightly in my cut, I carry with me our future. It will be either our demise or our redemption. Or...at least mine.

Striding in, the subdued music is dull and not its usual bombastic tone. It’s early in the day and the clientele is not as boisterous, nor are they looking to be seen. At eleven in the morning, most of them are hiding from their Bosses, jobs they hate, and wives who nag. Sure, they want the tits and glitz of a high-end strip joint, but they’re not in for the flashy outfits and loud tunes like they are when they’re here to entertain clientele of their own. Right now, they’re only here to forget why they left their homes in the first place.

Humble Gentleman’s Club is the prestigious establishment in the heart of Anaheim’s financial district. We are discreet in an area of town that requires it. It’s three floors of lick, suck, fuck, and occasionally, legal dancing. After all, we’re a motorcycle club running a strip bar, not nuns holding mass.

As I wandered directly to the bar, taking a seat beside Curse, the two of us watched the surroundings without saying a word to one another. Conversations will come about when needed, but first thing’s first, I need a goddamn drink.

Garnering the attention of the bartender, Vivian, a woman who’s nothing special behind the bar, but who can make what’s needed when it’s required, she struts over. “Make me something fucking stiff, V.”

Wiggling her cherry-red eyebrows, she rolls her eyes a touch. I don’t usually drink in the daytime, so for me to ask, she knows it’s already been a hard day.

Piping up, at six foot nine, nearly three hundred pounds, Curse is a daunting man. Unusually tall for a Korean man, and as thick as a hundred-year-old oak, he is someone I turn to for legal advice. After all, his parents had him finish his legal degree before he could “fuck off to waste his life” with the MC. “What mayhem should I expect from you today, Boss?”

Noticing he didn’t turn my way as he asked this absently, I can tell his concentration is fully zoned in on the drink in his hand. With one of Obi’s wildly made concoctions on the bar before him, it sends a pang of guilt through my soul. The aqua-blue tinge with floating tapioca balls is his half-finished cup of Blue Balls. Shoving the little gummy bear textured masses around his glass, he sucks them through a wide-mouthed straw to chew on.

“Here, Death,” V states as she places my drink before me. A twisted gremlin nipple, I’d know that anywhere. The white liquor cream coats the sides of the martini glass, while pale pink ribbons of raspberry float throughout. What makes it what it is sits proudly in the middle, laying softly. A bright-red gummy tit we specifically have made just for this drink. It’s full of orange and mango liquor, and when you poke it with the straw it changes the drink to taste like a crisp green apple.

Even the thought of puncturing the gummy boob sends a painful stab of guilt washing over me. I do though, as a nod to the woman she was.

As a girl straight out of college, out of work, out of options, and looking for a place to work short term, Oubliette became integral to this club’s success. A chemist by trade, she turned Humble into the hottest place in Anaheim. Her drinks made the men smile, the girls tipsy, and the bar a ton of cash. V makes the same drinks, but the on the fly creations Obi would toss at you on a whim are gone.

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