Page 17 of Iron Hearts
There was no way I could even pull inhalfof what my dad had when he was alive. Hell, I didn’t even think I pulled in a third of his salary between both my jobsandtips, but something was definitely better thannothing.
It was scary and frustrating, for sure, but what else was there to do? It was like wading through quicksand anymore.
I focused hard on keeping both Gemma and me behind the bar as much as possible. If these idiots didn’t throw down, it would make for a big fuckin’ mess to clean up later and would keep us here well past closing to do it. But this was definitely thesaferoption.
The cops didn’t really respond to bar fights here anymore – as long as things stayed to just fisticuffs. Thebikerssure as hell wouldn’t be the ones to call them in, and the staff didn’t if we didn’thave tobecause our employment depended on the bar remaining operational. Too much violence or too many calls into PD would get our liquor license suspended.
The only time we called the cops was if we had to call an ambulance, and even then, it was iffy on if we called the cops, too – generally preferring to white lie and say whatever altercation took placeoutsidethe bar behind the gas station up front and out at the road.
No, the cops didn’t come unless shots were fired, which was a very real possibility tonight with how the vibe felt. If one of these assholes fromeitherside started popping off, I wanted to bebehindthe bar ducking and covering behind the thick planks and steel refrigeration units back here.
I hadn’t had to deal with more than just fists being thrown. There was one night, a knife came out, and a dude got his arm slashed bad enough that the wee-woo wagon had to be called in. But that was because he couldn’t ride and our bouncer was holding his arm basically together and keeping the pressure on through three blood-soaked bar towels, and that was with an emergency tourniquet applied to his upper arm.
Had to hand it to the dude that got slashed, though.
None of us were really the wiser that anything was serious down on the ground where it’d happened. He didn’t scream, cry, or holler at all. He just sat patiently and waited while Big Dawg held his shit together, and he puffed on a cigarette, waiting to get taken away.
That was the wildest thing to go down, and that was in the thick of Bike Week and Spring Break. Not this past year, but the year before.
This was my third summer working the outdoor decks. I usually found seasonal retail and stock work in the winter months when they stripped back the employment around here to the main indoor bar space up front.
“We’re out of Jack!” Gemma called. “I have to go down!”
“Don’t!” I called back. “Radio down to the boys. They need to bring some up! Neither one of us is wading through that.” I jerked my head in the direction across the bar and to the thickening crowd up here.
She nodded and got on the radio.
The boys were generally runners and gophers anyway. Their main objective was to keep the trash chutes and garbage bins emptied, run liquor up here, or tap new kegs or new boxes of syrup for the soda machines when we ran dry. All of that was on the ground level and let us do what we were supposed to up here which was smile, flirt, and serve customers.
Neither of us was in a flirting mood up here today, though. Not with this crowd.
It was a tightwire act on agoodday, and today was definitelynota good fucking day.
The feeling was palpable and indescribably dark. The energy shifted from wary to a careful circling of two hissing and spitting wildcats. The verbal barbs were sharper, the hatred so thick, it oozed up between the cracks in the boards and rolled out underfoot, climbing up each and every one of the bikers in a miasma of negativity.
It was such a thing, it was almostphysically visibleto the naked eye.
The biker, who was older than me but still hot, caught my eye from where he stood in a knot of his brothers and gave me a serious look and a wink, dipping his chinjust soto let me know that this symphony of discord was about to hit its crescendo.
I nodded, imperceptibly enough, I hoped, and then it happened – a ruckus at the far end of the deck, between our bar and bar number three. It started with shouting, then devolved into shoving. I looked from the turbulence in the bodies to Striker. He made a hand gesture in my direction to get down, and I grabbed Gemma’s wrist and pulled her down with me.
“Oh, shit,” she said, and I nodded. We huddled small behind the bar and did the only thing we could - radioed downstairs to call in the cavalry… if they weren’t too chickenshit to get their asses up here and throw down.
I didn’t have high hopes for that. Clearly.
CHAPTERNINE
Striker…
It was on.
I looked over my shoulder to the bar and locked eyes with the barmaid. She looked a mix of angry and determined, but it all held a dash of caution and an edge of anxiety. I winked at her to hopefully give her a sense ofsomesecurity and pushed my hand down to signal her to take cover.
She disappeared down behind the bar and dragged her bar mate down with her.
Good fucking girl,I thought to myself, and then the wall of bodies scrapping in front of us undulated and crashed into our little knot of brothers, sweeping us into the fray.
It was a whirlwind of hands and fists flying in every direction. I looked for orange and grabbed hold of a fucker swinging on Feral, the treasurer for the Jacksonville chapter. He grinned at me, gave a nod, and started laying into the Scorpion I had a hold of who’d been trying to punch Feral’s lights out. Feral grinned with ferocity, his teeth coated in his own blood as he hooked his fist up and into the solar plexus of the fuckwit that I had a hold of. The guy sagged in my arms, winded and so much dead weight. I let him go as another one ofhisbrothers swung at my head.
