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“And who is our? The Hellrazors?”
“Oh, girly, you poor thing. I was serious when I said I saw a feistiness in you—sorta like me when I was younger—but you ain’t that smart. I’ve got shit else to do with the Hellrazors. I want them gone too!”
“So then who are you working with?”
She does nothing but consider me under her shrewd gaze and blow ringlets of smoke. Suddenly, everything about her churns my stomach—her box-dye beehive hairdo, the subtle smoker’s lines that have formed on her face and the way she clutches her cigarette like it’s a weapon.
The haze it casts in the air can be—I choke on the second-hand smoke that’s clouding the small motel room. If she refuses to leave, then I will.
Velma still hasn’t made it clear why she’s even here in the first place. The deep roll of nerves in my stomach warns me it can’t be anything good. Though she hasn’t explained what’s going on, or who she means when she saysour, I’m not so sure I want to find out.
I don’t answer her. I simply turn away and make for the door.
“No you don’t!” she screeches. She flicks the butt of her cigarette to the ground and squashes it with the heel of her leather boot. “You go and try to leave out that door, you’re gonna be in a world of hurt at what’s waiting for you. Don’t you get it? I’m here to collect you. But go on and try—Mace told me you’re too stubborn for your own good. Stuck on stupid is more like it.”
I call Velma’s bluff ’til I make it within a few steps of the door and spot the silhouettes through the curtain fabric. Several men are congregating on the walkway outside my motel room. Men that look wide and burly even in silhouette. They’re intimidating and dangerous without ever seeing their faces.
I back off, my heart racing in alarm. “Who’s out there?”
“Never mind that. You’re gonna do what I told you to do first. Sit the fuck down in this chair. You ready to listen?”
I shoot Velma a dirty look from over my shoulder. “Do I have any other fucking choice?”
“Not really.” She selects another cigarette from her half full pack, flipping open her American flag lighter at the same time. She waits for me to take the seat opposite hers before she goes on. “Almost everything you know about me has been bogus. In some way or another.”
“I’ve already figured that out.”
“I did come to the Kings bloodied and bruised. But it wasn’t ’cuz of some battered wife sob story I gave. I was beat up, alright. For betraying the oath I took. I got trapped by my own stupidity and naivety. You remember I told you I used to own a bike shop way back when? I might’ve cut costs here and there, found some loopholes with my taxes, and started pocketing what I shouldn’t’ve.
“Unsurprising when it caught up to me. The IRS came knocking on my door. They were gonna collect. I owed almost two million in back taxes. For a relatively small-town bike shop owner, it’s like a death sentence. I couldn’t pay that back and I didn’t wanna go to jail. Either way, I’d bekaput. So I made a deal.”
“You made a deal with the feds to rat someone out?”
She nods. “I’m scrappy, but I ain’t cut out for prison. I’m too pretty. I had to save myself. They were forcing my hand. But I had betrayed my oath—I ruined all the good things in my life just to save my behind.”
“You’re from Portales. The Road Reapers,” I say with sinking dread. “Youwere the reason their prez went away.”
“That’s right. I sold out the club. I was young then… I didn’t realize what I was doing. I thought the club wouldn’t find out.”
“But you were caught,” I supply.
A cloud of smoke obscures her face as she blows and nods. “Not at first. Not for several years. Rollins went on a killing spree. He thought it was his closest ally, the vice prez Hawk. He just so happened to be trying to leave the club at the time. So he offed him. But then he thought it was somebody outside the club—so he began targeting them too. See, back in those days, the MCs were all good with each other. Heidi Cutler suffered a bad fate.”
I gasp in horror. “Mace’s mom? The Reaper prez killed Mason’s mom?”
“He sure did. He wanted to know who dimed him out. If it was a King. In response, the Kings killed Rollins’ brother, Jeff. Then Rollins went away for what he did. Don’t think the Hellrazors—your Pop was innocent—he killed some Reapers too in revenge. That’s why he went away to prison.”
All this news is making my head hurt. So much history, so much bloodshed, a tragedy vaguely linking me and Mason together. Pop was murdered in revenge, and so was Mason's mother.
“Anyway,” Velma goes on. “Rollins didn’t realize it was me for many years. When I was found out, I didn’t get off easy like you. I was beat black and blue for my treachery. My shop was burned to the ground. The MC would’ve killed me if Rollins hadn’t realized I could have a second use.”
“Undercover,” I say. “You showed up at the Steel Saloon to earn the King’s trust.”
“And do to Tom what had happened to Rollins.”
“You’re the reason Tom’s locked up.”
“Tom’s the reason Tom’s locked up. Let’s get that straight right now. It’s not my fault he’s a dumb, cocky criminal that was easy to rat out to the authorities. But I’ll do anything to win the favor back of my real club. My real family.”
