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“Hey now. Better watch where you're going. Who are you with?” The man standing over me is huge. Just as big as Thunder and Lightning. He's wearing a black tank top, revealing massive arms covered in dark tattoos. His hair's cropped short and he's looking down at me with questions in his brown eyes.
“What? I—” What do you even say to that?
“Us,” Shadow answers, patting him on the shoulder in greeting. “Badass. All good?”
Badass grins and pats him back with whacks that'd knock a lesser man over. “Damn it’s good to see you back. We heard about the trouble. Shoulda known you’d bring back a souvenir. She for sharing?”
Lightning laughs. “'Fraid not, not that you fucking care. Natalie would have your balls.”
They laugh together and Badass nods. “And fucking rightly so. Nah, those days are behind me and I’m a better man for it. But if she ain't a slut, then what’s her deal?”
“You must not have heard all the news. She got into some trouble of her own out in Vegas and got dragged into ours. We’re getting her sorted out,” Shadow explains.
An athletic biker with sandy blond hair and piercing blue eyes joins us. “Watch out. That's how it starts,” he says with an almost boyish grin. “Outlaw! Fucking hell, man. Have you seen Doc yet? Heard you caught a bullet out there. Hurts like a motherfucker, don't it?”
“Can’t say I’d recommend it, but it’ll take more than that to take me down.” Outlaw's been quiet, but he seems friendly with the new guy. “I’ll go get it looked at once we’re settled in.”
“Quickshot.” Shadow pats him on the shoulder. “Good to see ya, but we've got to go report to Prez. You know how much he loves waiting.”
Badass winks at me. “Welcome to the club.”
That was weird. “Must be nice to have so many friends,” I say as we round the corner.
“Not just friends.” Shadow puts a hand to the small of my back and guides me deeper into the clubhouse. “Brothers. Blooded and sworn. I trust these rowdy assholes with my life. They’re my fucking family.” He nods in the direction of Thunder, Lightning and Outlaw. “These are just the three I dislike the least.”
I thought I might have started to find my family, but look how that turned out. On the other hand, without it, I never would've met these guys, so…
We come out into a large common room, most of it two full stories tall. There's a long bar along one side that looks as stocked as any I've ever been to, open space for mingling or dancing in the middle, pool tables further down, booths like a diner's but with leather seats on the wall opposite, and towards the back there's a massive big screen TV and a collection of couches and easy chairs. The walls are painted black, and on one of them is a huge gold version of the Screaming Eagles logo, flanked by American flags.
Okay, so it's a little bit like a frat house, I guess.
That is, if you traded dunk college boys out with fully grown men with dark, watchful eyes. They look fairly relaxed, wearing bike leathers and jeans, patch covered vests, bandannas and T-shirts. Most are playing pool, watching a football game on the TV or just having beers at the bar. Just about any exposed skin is covered in tattoos and scars, and a lot of them have pistol grips sticking out of their belts. If I wasn’t flanked by men that I trust, I’d probably turn tail and run right back out.
“Well, look who's back,” yells the guy manning the bar. He's wearing a leather vest over his T-shirt and the sides of his head are shaved to reveal an intricate dragon tattoo wrapped around and down to his neck. “Lose it all in the slots?”
A grizzled biker with a big gray beard laughs. “Looks like they brought some winnings back, if you ask me.”
Are they… Do they mean me?
As we stand there, two girls about my age, but wearing half as much clothing pass by. Pretty sure when the one's oversized T-shirt flips up, all I see is her bare ass. They're quickly swept up into the laps of two of the bikers at the bar, who aren’t shy about where they put their hands.
Lightning laughs. “Come on. Pick your jaw up off the floor. We can play later, if you want. Eagle-eye's waiting.” He leads the way to a staircase that leads up along the wall to what looks like some sort of office over the bar with a full view of the common room through big, covered windows. If this was a corporation, it's where I'd imagine the CEO would sit.
He knocks, and a deep, gravelly voice from inside says, “Come in.”
Shadow opens the door, and the first thing I see is the most intimidating men I've met in my life. Eagle-eye is tall, his torso a barrel of muscle, and bare, muscular arms covered in tattoos. His thick hair and bushy mustache are a silvery gray. He’s not looking at us, his entire focus on a pretty woman with a few grays of her own. His hand is resting on her stomach, where a baby bump is clearly showing. He kisses her fiercely before she runs her fingers through his beard and leaves, giving us a brief nod. The whole thing took less than a minute, but it was such an intimate moment that it almost makes me feel more shocked than what happened with the girls downstairs.
