Page 16 of Hendrix

“Marney wasn’t your ol’ lady.”

“Nope,” Ice agreed, popping the P as he spoke. His voice reverted back to his natural Southern drawl as he added, “But he still went to a place where no brother should go, which means imma fuck that boy up.”

I couldn’t help grinning at my bud. “Don’t hurt him too bad.”

Ice chuckled. “A couple of days in bed will do him some good. He can rest and relax, catch up on some reading.”

“Jake,” I said, warning in my tone. “We’ve got missions comin’ out of our assholes. I need all the men I can get, and whatever you think about Fletch, you gotta admit, he’s good at his job.”

“It’s the only reason I’m not gonna break his kneecaps,” Ice muttered, turning on his heel.

“Have fun,” I called after him, shaking my head.

Ice turned to face me, walking backward. “You not comin’ to watch?” He waggled his eyebrows. “I’ll give him an extra junk punch just for you.”

A grin flashed across my face. “Nah. I need a beer and to get my head straight from my own fight. I got my brain rattled a couple’a times.”

Ice gave me a loose one-finger salute before turning back around and disappearing into the clubhouse.

Still smiling, I followed my brother’s steps, making my way toward the beautiful art deco-style hotel that we now used as our headquarters and clubhouse.

My Aunt Ellen, God rest her soul, left the place to my dad—her brother—when she passed away a few years ago. Our family was from Fredericksburg, that was where my dad and Ellen were raised. Pop went into the military at eighteen, and Ellen met her husband and moved to Arrowhead Point to help run his family hotel, The Lincoln.

They weren’t blessed with children, so when Ellen passed away, there was nobody to leave the hotel to other than me and Pop. The place was run down, so with the blessing of my old mentor, John Stone, we repurposed it into our new clubhouse and HQ and opened a new chapter of the Speed Demons MC along with a new security firm, SDSS, Speed Demons Security Services.

Moving away from Wyoming wasn’t planned. My dad had been sick and needed an operation on his heart, so I came back to care for him and was persuaded to make the move home permanent. He sold his old house, and we moved in here, using the money he made on the sale of his place to refurbish The Lincoln and turn it into something special.

I was VP of the Wyoming chapter, but I always knew the presidency would eventually go to John Stone’s son, Cash. I would’ve stayed Veep forever if I hadn’t made the move here.

Leading came naturally to me. I’d been the one in charge for most of my life and the thought of Cash Stone giving me orders wasn’t something I relished. For my own sanity, I started the new chapter and pulled in an old friend of mine from the military to be my VP. Then shit happened, and he left under a cloud, taking all the contracts I’d worked to secure along with half my men, and started up a new security firm in direct competition with us.

Approaching The Lincoln, I looked up at the building, admiring its grand stature and the beauty in the art deco architecture that always took my breath away. The hotel was a special place, and I never took for granted how lucky we were to have it.

The huge communal rooms on the ground floor consisted of a ballroom, which we’d turned into our club’s bar. We also had a comms room, a meeting room for Church, and a large kitchen with a utility at the back of it, which led to a garden. There was a gym in the basement along with a small indoor pool we used for hydrotherapy for the men like our VP, Blade, who had to manage war injuries and benefitted from utilizing the water for rehabilitation and pain relief.

The Lincoln’s upper floors provided close to one hundred rooms over five stories, which housed most of the men. We even had some left over for the club to grow into as more members joined us, though some of the guys who had families opted to live offsite and closer to town where they could access the stores and schools.

Stepping over the threshold, my eyes were automatically pulled toward the polished dark wood of the reception desk, situated next to the wide sweeping staircase that led to the first floor. Every time I entered The Lincoln, it was like being transported back a hundred years. I could almost hear the jazz in the air, along with the clink of glasses and the buzz of carefree laughter that I imagined filled the lobby back during the sultry, hedonistic nights of the roaring twenties.

Time may have dulled the richness of the furnishings, and the years may have brought changes to the décor, but the very fabric of the hotel’s history enveloped me, filling my soul with a sense of responsibility to act as caretaker of my own little slice of the past.

I’d never had much and had never owned anything of significance or value. My early years were spent in the military, where my life was transient at best, and then later at the Speed Demons’ clubhouse, where I didn’t have the space for much. All I owned was my clothes, my bike, and, of course, my old pickup truck, but even that was a hand-me-down from my grandpa.

I was into restoration in a big way and loved to breathe life back into old things. What others saw as junk, I saw as treasure, which was just as well, seeing as I lived in a hundred-year-old hotel that always needed something fixing up.

Turning left, I automatically headed for the ballroom with the intent of checking in and grabbing a beer before heading to bed. Usually, after a fight, I was wired, but something in the air was seeping inside my bones and making me weary, and my bed seemed to be calling.

Immediately, I caught a pair of smiling, sparkling blue eyes, and I raised my hand in a greeting, which was reciprocated by a welcoming smile and nod.

Ciara was our resident bartender slash ballbuster. Two days after Dad and I arrived, she’d turned up and told us we were gonna give her a job, and weirdly, her easy confidence and air of capability had me agreeing with her on the spot.

She was a good-looking woman in her fifties who took everyone under her wing but still had no problem grabbing the scruff of a man’s shirt and banging his head off the bar if he needed some sense knocking into him. Her ability to kick ass, paired with the Glock 43X that she kept behind the counter, made her a force to be reckoned with.

She was perfect for this place. The men treated her like their momma, confidante, and conscience, and they respected the shit out of her.

“Hey, handsome,” she called over. “I hear you’re still undefeated.” She grabbed a cold one from the fridge, popped the top off it, and placed it on the bar in front of my usual seat.

I walked over and slid onto the stool, immediately propping my head in one hand while I picked up my beer with the other. Taking a long pull, I placed the bottle back onto the countertop. “It wasn’t exactly a challenge. They never are.”

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