TRIGGER: A Motorcycle Club Romance Novel Read online

  “Yeah,” I said. I was used to this by now. I could almost predict which group he was going to go after next. True to my prediction…

  “And shit, I’d give the fuckin’ spics a whole damn mansion to live in if it meant keeping the fuckin’ Haitians out of here! A colored is one thing, but them fuckers are just weird with their fuckin’ voo-doo shit, burning down houses, fuckin’ chicken feet everywhere…gives me the goddam creeps!”

  “Yeah, it’s weird,” I said, letting my mind drift off. I wondered if he knew I had some Irish in me. Some Italian, too. Half and half, to be exact, with some renegade Polish thrown in there, too. A little mutt, that’s me. It led to my good looks though, and I won’t ever complain about that. It got me laid plenty, and what more did a 19-year-old kid with a penchant for bad news want?

  I reached up and stroked my chin, the slight stubble there a matter of some pride for me. My jaw, thin and strong, wasn’t much for growing hair, so I made sure to always keep a five o’clock shadow. With long hair that you could call copper and green eyes, I was the spitting image of my brother.

  Except he’d had a beard so good a Viking would envy it. And a nice, fluffy mustache, to boot.

  I wished more than anything that I would grow up a little more and find out I could grow that, too. The other thing my brother had that I didn’t was sheer mass. My brother took up half the damn room when he walked into it. I was a little leaner.

  I reckon I was just as strong as he was at my age, but he sure as hell looked it, and I didn’t. Which sometimes put me at a funky advantage, when big guys thought I’d be easy to knock out. I was small enough to duck their big lugging punches, strong enough to deal a nice gut-buster on the way up.

  “…Dago bastards, haha! Get it! Ah, I crack myself up kid,” Steel said, suddenly leaning over to punch my shoulder amicably. I’d missed whatever train he’d been on, but I didn’t imagine it was very important. It rarely was. I yawned. I was hungover as fuck, and to be perfectly frank Steel was just getting on my nerves that day. Of course, I could never tell him to be quiet or keep his thoughts to himself. He was the damn President, and he’d taken me in like a damn son.

  “Good one, boss,” I said, forcing a smile. Dusty, murky sunlight filtered in through the painted-over windows. Dust motes drifted in the rare shafts of light. It smelled like sex and booze and cigarettes and pot and sadness and no hope and everything in the world spoiling all at once, rotting away…

  “Where is this cheap paddy bastard,” Steel said, his mood changing swiftly, as it often seemed to. I looked at my watch; it was half past eleven, and he was thirty minutes late. Poor sap was digging himself in so deep, soon enough he wouldn’t be able to see the top…

  Just as I was about to make a comment to that effect, the door swung open, letting in too-bright sunlight, more dust flying upwards, caught on the draft and lit by the day. When I was a kid, I’d thought that shit was beautiful. A large, swaying shape filled the doorframe. I stood up straight; Steel remained seated. We were at one of the tiny, rounded tables that made up half the bar, the other half occupied by a stage with poles.

  “’Bout time, you stupid fuck,” I said, wanting to impress Steel. He was an old, dirty, racist, hateful, violent bastard…but having him on my side was a damn good thing.

  “S’ry, so – s’ry, she wa’nt – hic – she…”

  “You’re drunk already, ain’t ya?” I said, genuinely disgusted by the wafting smell of whiskey as the man stumbled forward. As the door swung shut, I could see him better, and he was just the kind of Irish-American that Steel probably imagined when he thought of such men. Big, red-faced, red-haired, damn near slobbering with drink. To my shock and alarm, I realized there was someone trailing behind him.

  “Who the fuck is that?” I demanded, moving forward to block Steel. I couldn’t see, my eyes still re-adjusting to the dimness of the bar after the sudden flood of light, but the shape looked rather short, rather slight, rather…safe. Still, you never could tell. But then I saw our fine drunken friend was holding a rope, and that rope was…yeah, it was attached, somehow to the person who hid behind him, intentionally moving with his swaying motions, as though to keep himself from view.

  “Who. The fuck. Is that,” I said again, thought my instinct told me we didn’t actually need to fear whoever it was. There was an aura of just…sadness, vulnerability, which penetrated the still-hidden person. But it didn’t mean that we didn’t have any right to know who it was. Behind me, Steel coughed.

  “I’d like to have a look myself, Trigger, if you don’t mind,” Steel said, his impatience showing. Hesitant, I stepped to the side, exposing my boss. My hand fingered the cold handle of my gun in my holster. I had a switchblade in my pocket, too.

  Now, the hulking man stood swaying just a few feet from us, and with a solid yank on the rope he held, the figure darted momentarily into view, only to disappear again behind him. I could see, now, it was a girl. I could also hear it was a girl from the yelp she gave out when he yanked on the rope. And, as we all stood there, Steel and I trying to figure out what the hell this guy was doing, I could hear what she was saying.

  And goddam, if it wasn’t the saddest damn thing I’d ever heard in my life.

  “Please, Pop, Daddy, please, just…I don’t…I feel sick…please, Pop,” the voice mewled from behind his back. Somehow, that voice sounded vaguely familiar. My eyes fell onto the man’s red face, saw it wasn’t just twisted with drunkenness; there was a torturous sadness, a sickness, a palpable regret in his scowl, tears in his eyes…

  “What’ve we got here, McMaddon?” Steel said, his voice cutting through the murky, dim heat of the room like his namesake.

  “I…I ain’t got y’r money,” the man slurred, straightening himself out. He was trying to look stoic, I could tell, but he couldn’t keep a tear from falling from his eye. I craned my neck, trying to get a look at the girl. Maybe she was some sort of half-wit, or something, and he couldn’t leave her at home? Maybe she was blind or something, so he needed to bring her around on a leash? I couldn’t see her too well from where I stood, she was huddled against him, a shivering frame. All I could see was the shine of what light there was against golden hair.

  “You…ain’t….got….my…money,” Steel said, each word rolling out of his smoky mouth like a perfect ball of spite. “Well, then, what do you have, McMaddon? A big ol’ pair of balls for me to cut off and feed to my dogs? A kidney? A whole bunch of apologies? What did you come here for, if you were just going to disappoint me? Well…I guess, you sure did save me the trouble of having to come find you and slit your throat in your bed.”

  “Please…I ain’t…I got…I got her,” the man said, gulping loud. He yanked again on the rope. The girl yelped again. “She good. She…she’ll do what – hic – she’ll do it.”

  “You got a girl?” Steel said, rocking his chair back on two legs and propping his legs up on the table. My stomach sank. There was no way…I was having a hard time believing that this guy thought we’d take a girl in place of money. Like a human being could just be traded like that. We weren’t in the goddam West Indies. This was Brooklyn, New York, in the United States of America. That shit didn’t happen. And what a sick bastard this guy must be to think…

  “What kinda girl?” Steel asked, and my neck nearly snapped as I spun my head to look at him. The way he’d said that…well, it almost sounded like he was interested. But he couldn’t possibly be. No way. Our hookers came to us willingly. He was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a human trafficker. Was he…?

  No, he’s just playing with the guy, I told myself with false confidence. He’s gonna rip the guy a new one.

  “M’girl,” the man said, another fat, oily tear running down his face. I coulda slapped that tear right off his cheek. “She good. She – hic – cook, clean, pot pie, she…she’ssa goo’ girl. She’s wor’ more than the money. She’s wor’ lot mo’ – hic!”

  This drunk bastard. My hands turned to fists. Blood pulse
d through me like a raging river. I was getting so angry I thought I might go blind. This was her father, from the looks of it.

  A man who wanted to sell his own damn daughter…

  Well, that was no man at all, was it?

  “Is that so, McMaddon? Don’t see how any blood of yours could be worth enough to pay for a drink at happy hour, but let’s see her, anyway.”

  I shot Steel another look. He glanced up at me, his eyes unreadable. Jesus, please let him just be stringing this fuck along, I’ll be happy to be the one to shoot the bastard, I thought. Up to then, I’d never actually put a guy down before. I’d aided and abetted, for sure, but as for actually being the one to end a life…I’d been spared that gnarly honor thus far. Strange, considering my nickname. But if this was gonna be the first time I did it, I’d be happy as a pig in shit.

  Steel looked back at the hulking, swaying man, who tugged at the rope again. This time, he tugged hard enough that the figure crouched behind him fell to the side, onto her knees, long flaxen hair falling into her face, covering it.

  “Pop, you can’t…Jennie…” she said, her voice high but thick, full of sobbing and sorrow. Damn, I almost shot the guy right then and there. I instinctively moved forward, meaning to help the poor thing to her feet, but Steel clicked his tongue, and I drew back, unsettled. This whole scene was unfolding in just about the worst way I could possibly imagine.

  And then it got a little bit worse.

  The girl turned her head, falling over slightly so that one hip rested on the ground. Her hair fell away from her face.

  “Cass,” I said, my voice leaden with surprise. I recognized her immediately; of course I did. How could I ever forget those sweet blue eyes, those blushing cheeks? Her eyes drifted up to me, watery and wet and older than her body by a thousand years. She made a soft moaning sound, a pathetic “oh”, and then dropped her face back down to the floor in surrender.

  “You fucking bastard,” I said, now lunging forward, unable to be reigned back by Steel’s clicking tongue. The man dropped the rope, swayed backwards, stumbling against another table. My fist hit his jaw with a satisfying pop.

  “That’ll do, Trig,” Steel said behind me, and I heard the sound of a switchblade opening. It was the only thing that could have held me back at that point, and I paced backwards, simmering and seething. “You know this girl?”

  I looked back at Steel, his face cold, inhuman. I nodded.

  “She went to school with me,” I said, thickly. Steel nodded, pointed to the girl with the blade.

  “Why don’t you help the poor thing up, then, buddy?”

  Oh, thank God, Steel has a fuckin’ heart, I thought, and rushing forward I grabbed a hold of Cass’ elbow. She yanked it back, terrified.

  “It’ll be okay, Cass, I won’t let them hurt you,” I said.

  Her face turned up to mine again. She looked pale, sickly, out of sorts. I wondered what her father could have done to her to give her lively, colorful face this drawn, ailing look. She looked too thin, too; I’d always thought the girl was best described as voluptuous, even though I knew most of the girls in our school just called her fat. But most of the girls in our school were moronic, waif-thin, rich bitches. Cass was different. I’d known that from the first moment we’d sat down together. Her smile…it was just…

  Well, that smile was gone now. She looked at me for a long moment, not moving.

  “I promise, I won’t let them,” I said again. It didn’t even register to me, what I’d just said. I’d promised.

  And I always kept my promises.

  Slowly, she let me pull her up, swaying on her feet. She was wearing a white dress, something so light and ethereal as to seem like some angel’s robe, even though it showed plenty of flesh. I wondered if her sicko father had dressed her up like that, and the thought made me want to vomit. I stroked, softly, the flesh of her arm as she stood before Steel, eyes lowered, hair running across her face.

  “Look up, little girl,” Steel said in a soft, cooing sort of voice that I’d never heard him use before. She sniffled and obeyed, raising her chin. Steel smiled.

  But it wasn’t any sort of smile that could put a girl at ease, that’s for sure.

  And it didn’t put me at ease, either.

  I promise, the memory of my own words rang in my head. My blood turned cold. Behind us, her father was kneeled over and blubbering. Steel extended his arm forward, and beckoned her closer. I didn’t know what to do; I let her go. She dragged herself towards him, her body almost like a zombie. When she got close to the table where he sat, he rose up and moved around it, taking hold of her arm, her flesh so pale against his weathered old skin. He stroked it; she shuddered and pulled away.

  “Please,” I heard her whisper. “I want to go home. My sister…”

  “You can go home,” Steel said. Somehow, though, I knew that there’d be a catch. I knew from the way he was looking at her. He must have seen the same beauty I always had, because he was looking at her the way the witch in the gingerbread house must have looked at Hansel and Gretel. Like some delicious, sweet treat had just walked right into his arms.

  “I want…thank you…please…” she murmured, not seeing what I was seeing, not knowing Steel the way I knew Steel. My stomach was churning up a violent storm, a seasick anger flushing through me.

  “We’ll just pay off Daddy’s debt and…” Steel said, raising his hand to caress a lock of her hair. She shuddered, turned her cheek, tried to walk away, but he grabbed the front of her dress and yanked her forward, his hands moving to the little spaghetti straps that held up the flimsy garment.

  “No! Please!” Cass yelled as the dress fell to the floor, and I stepped forward, unable to control myself anymore. I wasn’t about to watch anyone force this poor girl to do anything – not Steel, not anyone. As I moved forward, his mouth fell over hers, silencing her cry, and his hands cupped her chest roughly. All I could think was how bad he smelled, how much he smoked, his dirty hands…

  “Fuck off her, Steel,” I growled as I approached. He pulled away and looked at me, eyes sparkling. He almost cackled as he responded.

  “Oh, c’mon, Trig, you know I’ll let you have your chance, too. But there’s a pecking order, you know, especially with these sorts of things,” as he spoke, his hands fell to her ass, covered only in thin white panties, and clutched her forward.

  He was leaning against the table, and spread his knees so that she moved in between them, tears streaming down her face. As though finally getting some strength back, she pushed against his chest, flailing her arms and beating her little fists against him. He only held her tighter, his hands kneading now, his hungry eyes looking up at her, a rotten smile on his face.

  “I’m not fucking around, Steel, get off her, she doesn’t want it, it’s not right,” I said, laying my hand on his shoulder. I was so close to her now, her exposed breasts so close I could have reached out and touched them, but I wanted nothing less in the world.

  She was beautiful, and I’d had my share of dreams about that body of hers, but not like this. Never, ever like this. My hand was firm on Steel’s bicep. He felt it, looked over at me, his gaze all cold, no longer pretending affection for me, no longer playing the role of doting mentor. That sunken eye of his was suddenly all the more gruesome.

  “I’m not fucking around either, kid,” he snarled. He brought one hand around to the front of his jeans, vulgarly grabbing his crotch through the denim. “I gotta stiffie here that needs servicing, and I think she’s gonna be the one to service it. What’s fair is fair, and I gotta get paid. Now you back the fuck off, or I’m gonna have to do something I’ll regret.”

  She was shivering, wailing now, head thrown back, arms beating uselessly, snot running down her face. Steel reached up, grabbed a fistful of her hair, and shook her hard.

  “Stop makin’ such a big fuckin’ deal of it, you little paddy whore,” he growled.

  That was it. I wasn’t going to let him do this – any of it. Before
I could even think of what I was doing, my fist was slamming into Steel’s nose, bright red blood erupting in a cruel blossom between us.

  “Fuck!” Steel screamed, releasing his grip on Cass. Stunned, she just stood there, tears rolling, body quaking. Steel stumbled back against the tables and chairs, finally falling into one of chairs with a heavy thud. His good eye was venomous as it turned up towards me.

  “Fuckin’ idiot kid,” he screeched. “Fuckin’ broke my fuckin’ nose!”

  Beside me, Cass was hurriedly getting dressed, her body still shivering like a leaf.

  “I told you to stop,” I said, my own voice lower than I could ever remember it. I sounded like my brother. I sounded like a man. “It’s not right. You’re fucked if you think that was right.”

  “I’m fucked? I’M FUCKED? I’ll tell ya what’s fucked, sonny boy, it’s takin’ in a little shit-eating nobody like YOU and treatin’ him like the goddam king of Siam and then he goes and fuckin’ sucker-punches you right in the fucking face!” Steel yelled, his hands still clamped around his bloody nose.