Page 69 of Wanting More
"Damn, this looks cozy, and without the boxes, you can really see how big the room is," she noted wistfully.
It made Sapphire think of Joel's room below. She had only ever seen glimpses into his room but knew it was identical to this one in layout. She wondered how he used the space. If she relented, she could just ask him, and knowing him, he would more than happily open his door and let her traipse around his room. The thought made the heavy feeling of guilt in her chest twist like a knife.
Grabbing one of the forgotten boxes, she began to pick it up when the box flexed in her grip. "Whoa!"
Reflexively Finn reached out to help her just as the contents of the box began to slip through the open side of the cardboard beneath. A mound of cool soft leather hit their hands as they tried to catch the material before it hit the ground. Sinking to her knees, Sapphire clutched the pile of leather as she eyed the damaged box. Worn and simply folded at the bottom and never taped, the box had seen better days.
"These are their jackets," Finn whispered. Her tone was almost reverent as she held one of the leather jackets up to the fading sunlight.
Sapphire let the pile fall into her lap and looked at them again, wondering why jackets could ever cause such a reaction. There were two of them in her lap, and Finn held up the third. Turning the material over, Sapphire frowned at the black patches sewn into the soft leather. Unlike the normal patches she had seen on jackets, the soft carpet-like pile of the patches were completely black, nearly disappearing against the black leather.
"They weren't always blacked out," Finn said, reading her mind. "The badges used to be in color, but they blacked them out once they turned on the LeBlancs." Sapphire's heart stuttered at this, and she looked closer at the patches. Clicking on the newly plugged-in lamp, Finn scooted across the floor until her folded knees were touching hers. For some reason, it made Sapphire think of late-night slumber parties, and secrets whispered into the night.
"Okay, you see this?" Finn said, pointing to the arched shape patch at the top of the jacket's back. "That is the top rocker, which says, LeBlanc. The big middle one is their fleur de lis logo and-"
"I take it this little MC patch means motorcycle club?" Sapphire offered, holding the tinier patch up to the light.
It was hard to make out all the details. It was as if they dyed the patches in pure black ink and rubbed it with charcoal for good measure. She could hardly make out the patches from the black leather.
"Yeah, and the bottom rocker should say Texas for the location, though I can hardly read it."
"What does this little diamond patch stand for?" she asked, pointing to the little diamond-shaped patch on the front right side of the jacket.
Finn seemingly didn't even need to look at that patch to know that one. She gave Sapphire a grave look. "It says one percent. It means they are outlaws. It tells the world they aren't just a group of wannabe hard-asses riding bikes together. It says they are the real deal."
Sapphire thought of Joel's sweet smile she had been missing earlier and Hayden's watchful gaze every time he passed her by. She couldn't imagine them as criminals. Sometimes, sure, they seemed a bit rough around the edges. She could certainly imagine them getting mad enough to inflict pain on someone if they felt pushed. But actual criminal stuff?
As if reading her thoughts, Finn leaned back against the wall underneath the window and gave her a long look. "I know they seem different now, and they are, but you should know they weren't always."
"I know that," she replied a little defensively. "They told me they used to hang around in this gang. I know they probably did some fucked up stuff."
Finn gave her a slow, slanting glance from beneath her lashes. "Yeah, they did. I was coming home from school when I saw Hayden and Vic drag Dan Snider out of his house and beat him unconscious in the street."
Sapphire held her breath.
"Granted," Finn said with a tilt of her head, looking back down at the pile of black leather between them. "I heard Dan was the worst kind of asshole. Heard he used to whore out his wife and stepdaughter. Got them hooked on oxy and other shit so that they were high as shit when he invited his friends over forpoker." She put air quotes around the word, and all of the fear Sapphire had previously felt for the unknown man Hayden attacked vanished. "People around here suspected his little operation pissed of Bastien LeBlanc, since he ran a similar and much bigger operation down in his mansion in the woods, and that's why he sent down his two best hitters to put a stop to it."
Hitters? The word made her blood run cold.
"And the rumors about the motel?" Sapphire forced herself to ask. A part of her cowered at the possible answer, but she knew she also needed to know.
Finn looked at her. Her eyes boring deeply into her as if judging just how badly the information was affecting her. After a few seconds, she shifted to the floor and continued. "The motel wasn't that bad," she began before quickly adding. "I mean, it was. It really did have women working in and out of it, but it was solely there for the gang. It was like a big party spot for them to drink and show off their bikes and…you know, have girls in the rooms. But the girls were willing, not like Dan Snider's family. These were girls that worked in the mansion and wanted to hang around the club members."
Sapphire's mind was spinning with all the info. Images of the seedy-looking hotel and Herman's gruff face sprang up and mutated. She imagined women dressed in hardly nothing, maybe wearing their own biker leathers and studded boots hanging outside the motel's doors or hanging off various bikers parked in the dirt parking lot laughing and kicking up noise in general gang revelry. It was just so believable. She felt bad for thinking it, but it was true, wasn't it?
Trying to push back her guilty thoughts of the hotel's past, Sapphire focused on the mansion Finn mentioned. "Was this mansion some sort of brothel?"
Finn nodded hesitantly. Over the past few days of getting to know the other girl Sapphire had confessed about her initial living situation and how she had come to like Herman and Blanche. "That, and a huge gambling den that supposedly hosted criminals far and wide, and probably much more. It burned down to the ground in the raid, thank God. Nothing there but a charred piece of foundation, now."
Sapphire sat back against the leg of the wingback, absorbing all the information. She couldn't speak.
Finn reached out and cupped her shoulder. "Hey, please don't take this the wrong way. Joel and Hayden are still great guys, even Vic."
Sapphire let out a nervous laugh. She thought of Joel's granite expression earlier that day as his hard azure eyes scanned her with diminishing hope. "How can they be great after what you just said?" she said, her voice a little wooden.
"Trust me." Finn suddenly sat up straight and gave her a level look. "You have no idea what some of the LeBlanc members did around town. They did shit that…I couldn't even repeat. But everyone knew Hayden and his brothers were different. Joel once stopped a fellow club member from hurting a girl after he had snatched her up on the way to school. They're countless little stories here and there of those three trying to help, trying to protect normal people from the full brutality of the gang. And when the new sheriffs arrived, they did the most dangerous thing—they turned on their own club. And now they pretty much run Holter." Finn shook her head in disbelief. "Look, I only told you this because I don't want anyone else blindsiding you with it later. The only reason the rumors about you are going around is because you're beautiful, and you have a straight-up awful personality," she said with a grin.
Sapphire scrunched her face in a spiteful scowl and punched Finn on the arm.
