Page 46 of Pain

He gestured toward the bike in front of us. “Make sure Knight sees the bike when he gets back. He was concerned about it running, and I want him to know that he doesn’t need to worry.”

Show Knight. Yeah, I could do that. In fact...

“Let’s take it around to the back,” I told him quietly. “That way I’ll be able to take him out there without anyone else getting in the way. He’ll be able to see it without any distraction.”

Tinker nodded like this made sense to him and brought the bike down from the lift. Moments later, he was pushing it back toward the space behind the garage, and I was following, going through the plan I’d just come up with.

Yeah, Knight would be able to admire it without any distraction back here.

But I had a debt to pay and questions to be answered, and it would be a whole lot easier without anyone around.

I needed Knight to myself. And showing him his newly restored bike seemed like it might just be the perfect opportunity.

CHAPTER 21

KNIGHT

By the time I got home, it was nearly evening, and though I hadn’t expected a simple trip to run errands to take that long, it had been one thing after another once I got out on the road. I’d run into a friend at the market, and that had led to lunch, and then while I was at lunch, I’d seen several of Tinker’s clients—many of whom were counting on me to make sure he continued to be available for work—and started talking about how brilliant the man was. His clients loved him like he was part of their own family, for the most part, and that was no big surprise. His work was always very, very good and he had a way of pulling anyone in the area into his sphere and teaching them what he was doing and why.

He’d talked more than one kid into going into autobody work and mechanics, and several of our prospects were prospects simply because he’d trained them and then personally recruited them.

I hadn’t had a lot of time to sit around talking to people, given how much planning I needed to do, but the truth was, when someone wanted to talk about Tinker, I generally made the time. The man was a second father to me and had been with me right from the start, and if I had a chance to increase his client base or keep his existing clients happy, I was going to take it.

The sun was just going down behind the clubhouse when I pulled the truck into one of the parking places and started unloading it, but the place was... weirdly quiet. Brock was gone, I knew, having planned to go to his own apartment in the city for the night, but where was everyone else? It was only—I checked my phone—six in the evening. The place should have been humming with activity.

Instead, it looked like everyone had gone to a party and forgotten to invite me.

I grabbed the bags and bags of food and walked into the clubhouse, feeling slightly put out at the idea and wondering whether they’d left anyone to keep an eye on the place. It was one thing for everyone to have plans—which they hadn’t told me about—and another to leave the clubhouse completely unprotected. This was our base of operations, our home, and held not only the club’s records but any cash we had on hand.

Our weapons were also in the basement under the clubhouse. I didn’t think anyone aside from us knew about that basement, but keeping them in the same place would make them easy pickings to anyone who wanted to come looking. We always kept a guard posted, just in case.

I didn’t like that everyone else seemed to have forgotten about that.

I stalked into the kitchen, getting angrier the more I thought about it, and jerked the door to the fridge open. The fridge didn’t look any different, but that didn’t mean anything. It wasn’t like they were going to leave a message for me in there, telling me where the hell they’d gone. I made quick work of unloading everything that needed the cold environment, and then went to the pantry to finish unpacking the things that didn’t need refrigeration. I hadn’t bought this stuff with any real plan, as I wasn’t the cook here and almost never had anything to do with meal planning.

But when I realized that we needed more food in the place, I’d known right away that I wasn’t going to let anyone else go into town for it. Going shopping made you a sitting duck, and no matter what Gemini thought of the idea of me getting shot, it was my job to take those sorts of risks so my guys didn’t have to.

Or at least... Well, it was my interpretation of my job. I knew a lot of other presidents who didn’t think like me, but that didn’t make them right. I’d always treated my men like family, and that meant protecting them as often as I possibly could.

No matter how much danger I put myself in doing it.

Once I was finished unloading the food, I shoved the fifteen million plastic bags into the cabinet where we kept them—for reasons I didn’t think any of us knew—and went to my room. I paused outside of Gem’s door, wondering if he’d gone wherever everyone else had gone, even when I’d asked him to stay home to recover.

Two sets of snores behind the door, though, told me that Gem and Mandy were evidently both asleep. That was also weird, so early in the evening, but if it meant Gem was in his room rather than out risking his stupid life, I was happy with that.

It also meant that my VP and his old lady were here watching the place, and that meant a whole lot to me. Sure, they were sleeping, but Gem slept lighter than anyone I’d ever met. If something had suddenly come up, he would have been on his feet and defending the place in a hot second, no matter how much it hurt his shoulder.

I progressed to my own room feeling at least a little bit better about the whole thing and thinking that I’d find out where everyone was when Gem and Mandy woke up.

Unless Saraya was still in my room where I’d left her, in which case I’d find out from her.

My heart jumped at the thought that she might still be in my room, and though I gave myself a very firm lecture about getting too excited about a girl who wasn’t actually mine, my heart didn’t seem to want to listen. Neither did my stomach, which felt like it was filled with an entire flock of butterflies.

Neither did my cock, which was immediately hard and yearning for the girl I’d just remembered.

No, that was wrong. I hadn’t just remembered her. I’d been thinking about her all day, her presence a constant echo in the back of my mind. She’d been a tickle under my skin all day, an echo that I couldn’t stop hearing. And she’d been shoving her way into my thoughts at every opportunity. While I was in the middle of a conversation with one of Tinker’s clients. When my friend had asked how the club was and what we were up to.

When I was at the market shopping and had thought that the grapes were the exact color of her eyes.