Faster (Stark Ink, #3) (12 page)

He ducked while still holding a dirty rag to his cheek. “Hey, don’t get all high and mighty with me! We needed another driver and you
owe
me, Ava!”

She gaped at him. “
Owe
you?
I don’t owe you shit!
Half that money was
mine,
Clint! I mapped out those canyons for you. I taught you how to drive on loose terrain like that.” She shot daggers at The Wolf standing just a few feet away. “I told you which assholes to watch out for. Your wins were
my
wins, Clint. I just didn’t have a bike to do it myself.”

Clint snorted. “So, you helped yourself to my fat stacks and bought your own. Typical of a low-rent bitch.”

Before she could stop herself, she shouted, “You helped yourself to a lot more than that!”

“Oh, boo-fucking-hoo. I popped your cherry and you got all pissy about it. Frankly, I was surprised it was your first time. I’d have figured a bunny like you got around a lot.”

She seethed at him. “I am
not
a bunny!”

“No, as of today, you’re the fourth driver on our team.”

“Team? Clint, this is not a fucking
team
. It’s a loose assemblage of complete douchebags! Drug runs? For an MC?
Are you insane?
What the fuck is going through your head?! They nearly killed you today! Maybe I should have let them.”

Clint rolled his eyes at her. “It wasn’t like that.”

Ava’s jaw tightened so hard she was giving herself a headache. “Look in a fucking mirror, Clint,” she bit out. “There’s blood on your shirt.”

Clint rolled his shoulders. “It doesn’t matter. They’re just testing us. To make sure we’re hard enough.” He glanced at the others and they nodded in agreement.

“Hard enough?” she asked, incredulous. “Hard enough for what, Clint? To be a drug mule? That’s crazy.”

“Hell no!” Clint cried, bristling. “This is just how it
starts
, Ava, how you get in. Like I said, they’re just testing us. We pay our dues and in a few months, they’ll patch us in.”

Ava shook her head, staring at him. She could barely process what he was saying. She took a deep, steadying breath and swallowed hard. She was wrong, apparently. Clint wasn’t a mule. He was a complete jackass. “Clint,” she said as calmly as she could, “I hate to be the one to point this out to you, but have you ever seen a Buzzard on anything but a Harley?”

Clint frowned at her. He hesitated, but only for a second, then shrugged. “So? With all the money we’ll be making, we’ll each get a Harley.”

A laugh bubbled up from Ava’s chest. She couldn’t help herself. She could more easily see Clint on a tricycle than on a Harley like Jonah’s. His scrawny ass probably wouldn’t be able to keep it upright. And the other two weren’t much better. Now that Ava had seen them with their helmets off, neither of them seemed to be particularly bright. It probably hadn’t been too difficult for Clint to convince them of this bullshit.

“You will never be Buzzards,” she told them.

Clint snorted again. “Well,
you
won’t. That’s for sure. They don’t patch in bitches,” he told her gleefully. “You can keep driving for us, though. You can even keep some of the money. Once you’ve earned back what you stole from me first.”

“She can be your bitch,” said The Wolf. He sneered at her.

“She can be
our
bitch,” Clint declared. “MCs share everything, right?”

The third asshole laughed like a hyena. “Damn right.”

Ava pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes. She wasn’t the least bit threatened by them, not the way she’d been when she was nose to nose with Hook. That was one scary sonofabitch. These were just amateurs who’d watched too much cable TV.

She shook her head at them. “Whatever. If you want to get yourselves killed, that’s your business. But I’m out. I’m not doing this. There’s no way.” She turned to head back outside.

Clint grabbed her by her hair and dragged her backward. One arm locked around her belly and he held her up against them.

As the tension in the space ratcheted up, the other two moved closer.

“There is no out, Ava,” Clint growled in her ear. “They know where you live and I do, too. I also know where that wetback you’ve been spreading for lives. We’ll pay him a visit.
He’ll
be the one in pieces.”

Ava didn’t struggle. With three of them, there wasn’t much she could do. She could take out Clint, but not before the other two got to her. And no matter the outcome, Emilio would be the next target of Clint’s wrath. Emilio might have better luck with these odds, unless Clint showed up with a few Buzzards in tow.

Clint had never struck her as stupid but he did suffer from an overabundance of cockiness. His parents’ money had greased the wheels for Clint to get pretty much whatever he wanted and he’d gotten used to it.

“If you want money, Clint, just ask Mommy and Daddy.”

Clint didn’t respond, but he let go of her hair and pushed her away. She slammed into the worktable against the wall.

The other two backed away. Both looked disappointed.

“They cut me off,” Clint muttered darkly.

Ava ran a hand through her hair, massaging her throbbing scalp. “You mean you graduated and now they want you to get a fucking job. Jesus Christ, Clint, you’re
that
lazy?”

Clint glared at her. “I don’t take orders from them anymore! I’m a goddamn adult.”

She snorted. “So, you’re going to take orders from the Buzzards instead? They’re going to put you on a leash, like a dog.”

Clint shrugged. “I’ll get more booze, drugs, and pussy with them.”

“
We’ll
get more,” The Wolf interjected.

“Yeah,
we’ll
get more,” Clint amended as an afterthought. “We’re going to be Buzzards.”

As Ava searched Clint’s face, she wondered if the Buzzards had actually told them this or if Clint had just imagined that wearing a cut would be the natural result of going to work for the club. It was never going to happen, but there didn’t seem to be a way to convince him, or any of them.

“I don’t know who the bigger idiot is,” Ava finally replied. “You... or me for not seeing it. You’re going to get yourself killed. Probably them, too,” she said, waving at the Tweedles. What she didn’t say was that Clint and his ridiculous idea just might get her killed, too. Or raped. Or cut up. Or squashed like a bug between two large trucks.

There were a hundred ways this could all go sideways. Hell, maybe thousands. And, Ava was certain, there were ways she couldn’t even imagine yet. She could see it was useless to argue about it, though. Clint was convinced, and somehow he’d managed to spread the delusion to the other two.

She sighed and turned away from them, toward the door. “This is fucking crazy,” she muttered to herself.

Clint came up behind her again and grabbed her arm. She tightened her grip on her helmet and seriously considered swinging this time. “You’re in this now,” he growled into her ear. “You’re with me. You’re mine now.”

She jerked away from him and made for the door. “I am
not
with you!” she shouted over her shoulder. “And if you touch me again,
I’ll
cut pieces off you!”

For a moment, Clint looked as though he would argue the point, but he seemed to think better of it. “Keep fucking your spic boyfriend,” he finally told her. “I don’t give a shit. You just answer your fucking phone when I call you! And I
will
be calling, Ava!”

A
va had already called everyone in her family, making up stupid excuses for doing so, just to check on them, really. Everyone had seemed fine—happy, even. But she didn’t have Emilio’s cell number, and so she’d driven straight to the garage instead.

She got closer to the Burnout parking lot and her heart skipped a joyous beat as she spotted Emilio’s Interceptor off to the side, just like earlier. He was still there. He was still safe. She knew she should keep riding, just blaze on past now that she knew he was okay.

Her hands turned her front wheel, seemingly with a will of their own.

She pulled her Honda in next to his and stopped briefly to, once again, admire his ride. He had good taste. She popped her kickstand down and planted her boots on the gravel. The large bay doors were open in front of her. She could just make out the mechanics in the relative darkness beyond.

Once she hit the solid concrete flooring, the large blond turned and grinned at her. Next to him, the dark-haired Sioux kept his focus on the part in his large hands.

“She got a shiv?” he asked the blond man.

Tex’s eyes twinkled as he looked at her. “Ah, nope. She appears unarmed. Weak and soft as a tiny, little kitten.”

Hawk snorted. “That’s how they get you. You let your guard down. Then they pounce.”

Tex laughed. “Can’t help it that you’ve got a blind spot when it comes to pu—”

“She’s seventeen,” came a loud voice in the corner.

Ava startled and jerked her head in that direction. In the cool shadows, the not-as-large-as-Hawk-but-still-impressive figure of Chris Sullivan stood with a clipboard.

“I’m eighteen,” Ava argued instinctively.

Shooter shook his head. “Whatever age you are, you’re a kid to us. And you’re Adam and Dalton’s little sister. So, watch the language,” he said sharply to the two men.

Tex smirked. “Forgot she was a kid. The bike, the leather, all that Stark swagger.”

“Emilio’s not here,” Shooter told her abruptly.

Ava’s gut twisted and she fought down the sudden panic. “What do you mean? His bike is right there!” She jabbed at it with a finger, as though he’d somehow missed it. “How could he not be here?!”

Shooter and the others looked at her curiously. “He and Easy are on a parts-run on the other side of town.”

Relief flooded her and she felt almost lightheaded.

Shooter, though, looked a bit suspicious. Instead of asking her why she was here, he surprised her with, “How did you two meet, again?”

Ava’s mind raced. She didn’t know what Emilio had said. Given what little she knew about Chris Sullivan, things she’d heard from Adam and Dalton second-hand, she couldn’t see the man being all that open minded about illegal racing. Chances were, he didn’t know. Or if he did, Emilio hadn’t told him that she was involved.

She took a deep breath as her mind careened about, searching for the safest answer.

“We met through some mutual friends,” she told him. It wasn’t quite a lie, though calling Weasel a ‘friend’ left a bad taste in her mouth. “And he knows my brother Jonah,” she added for good measure.

The older man eyed her steadily. Ava tried not to flinch under his gaze. “Thought I knew all his friends,” Shooter finally replied.

Ava didn’t know what to say to that, and she’d prefer to get off this line of questioning entirely, before she got caught in an actual lie. “Um,” she stammered just a bit, “does... does he have a lot of girlfriends?”

Shooter grinned at her and Ava suddenly felt relieved. They’d moved on to safer territory. Perhaps.

“A few,” he said, and she could feel her momentary elation sinking fast. He studied her again, carefully. “But no one serious,” he amended. “None of them have ever come
here
.” He hesitated for a moment before adding, “And none of them were... like you.”

He said it so lightly and with such a smile on his face that Ava couldn’t even begin to be offended. He liked her. They all did. Even Hawk, she could tell.

Ava liked being different, or at least not being like every other girl. Sienna was nice, of course, but Ava couldn’t picture herself fretting over clothes, makeup, and hairstyles while secretly pining away (well, not so secretly, Ava supposed) for a guy who just wasn’t interested.

Ava was brash and she
liked
being brash. She liked saying whatever was on her mind, driving whatever she wanted,
doing
whatever she wanted.

And she liked that Emilio liked it.

“He’ll be good for you,” Shooter added, catching her off guard. “Hope you’ll be good for him.”

Ava pressed her lips together. She’d already failed in that endeavor, before she’d even gotten to know him. “Oh, I’m not... I mean, I’m not going there. With him. We’re...” She hesitated, not knowing what to say. She didn’t want to be
just friends
. But honestly, she shouldn’t even be that. Not with all this shit going on.

“We’re not anything,” she finally said.

Shooter stopped and looked up at her from the clipboard. He scrutinized her face again, this time so intently that she had to look away. “You sure about that?” he asked.

Ava bit her lip and nodded reluctantly.

Shooter seemed to be chewing his own lip. “Don’t think he’s going to go for that,” he said quietly.

Ava didn’t know how to feel about that. She gripped her keys in her hand and started to turn away. Emilio was fine. He was surrounded by people who could protect him. Nothing was going to happen to him.

“I’m going to go,” she said out loud, but she was mostly just talking to herself.

Shooter didn’t respond.

Her boots hit the crushed gravel but she didn’t get far. A truck pulled into the lot. Emilio was behind the wheel. He parked a few feet in front her, blocking her escape route.

Her body warred with itself. Her heart thudded, excited to see him again. Her belly twisted in knots because she knew she should just keep walking, skirt the truck, hop on the Honda, and leave him in her rear-view mirror. Other parts of her began to tingle and she ignored that shit altogether because this wasn’t the time or the place—and now, unfortunately, this wasn’t the right man.

Emilio swung out of the truck and slammed the driver’s side door shut, all in one fluid motion. Despite his muscled frame, he was lithe and quick. In two strides he had her around the waist, lips sweeping over her own.

Ava’s toes curled in her steel-toed boots.

His tongue danced off hers, but just for a second, just a hint of the sexual promised-land. They were, after all, in public. He finally stepped back but didn’t release her. He peered down at her. “I was going to call you when I got off work, since I hadn’t heard from you.”