Page 30 of Iron Hearts
I smiled, and I knew it held no humor. “Best place to work around here when it comes to the tips if not the actual wage. I need the money. Dad was the big earner and Mom and I are barely keeping up.”
“I see,” he murmured.
“You need to call an Uber or something?” I asked. “I can give you the address.”
He shook his head.
“No, I already got one of the guys on the way. Bikes have been impounded, so…”
“Gotcha,” I murmured.
“I’ll see you again,” he vowed, and I shrugged.
“Maybe I’ll see you around.”
I didn’t expect him to want to come around. My life was a hot mess.
He nodded, and I let him out through my bedroom door and led him around to the front door. He left with a little salute and I shut the door behind him, sighed, and locked up.
I had no idea what the rest of my day was going to look like, but I knew it started with getting the boys up and getting them breakfast.
CHAPTERTHIRTEEN
Striker…
Kash and Enigma had me up in the Uber they’d ordered. Kash’d been taken to the hospital for a chunk of glass he’d had stuck in his forearm from a bottle coming down on him. He’d blocked, so it could have been a lot worse. He reeked of tequila when I got into the back of the car with him and Niggy, and we were off to St. Augustine.
We needed to pick up the shop van we used to transport our shop guys who didn’t ride to bike shows to get the boys at the Ormond Beach jail and then head on over to the impound lot to get our bikes out.
Thatwas going to cost a pretty penny in towing and storage fees, but that was just the cost of doing business for something like this. Renegade and the Bishop were more than good for it.
Kash and Nig had been far more in the loop at the hospital than I’d been at Rarity’s place and filled me in.
Enigma had a concussion, but ain’t no worse than anything he’d had before. He wouldn’t be riding or driving, so we would have to figurethatout but that was easy enough. Switch wasstillin the hospital. He’d broken his hand so badly on a Scorpion’s face, they were talking surgery and waiting on an orthopedic surgeon to come look at it and make a final determination.
The Scorpions had five in the hospital, the rest in lockup, and one of their numbers was a goner – from friendly fire. One of the dipshits who’d started popping off had hit one of his buddies and taken him out.
Our lawyers were eating investigators for fuckin’ breakfast, and our boys were free to go now. Kash and Enigma were both saying how they’d had cops at their bedside all night and how they’d been cuffed to the bedrail until the word had trickled down that they were free to go.
“I tell you, the hospital was a lot more comfortable than lockup, brother, but I could have stitched this shit myself. I didn’t wanna go.”
“Yeah, but they would have been all sorts of up your ass in lockup. At least in the ER you had pretty nurses to look at,” Enigma said, his head laid back and eyes shut against the bright sun.
“I hear that,” I said, leaning back to show the butterfly bandages holding my own slash mark closed.
“Eh, what did that?” Kash asked.
“Knife.”
He nodded, but he was already thinking and hard.
The Jacksonville chapter had come up smelling like roses out of the lot of us. No injuries enough to go to the hospital, but all of them had been picked up.
The rest of the day was spent in a logistical nightmare of getting everyone where they needed to be and matched back up with their bikes.
Renegade and The Bishop were power teaming the impound lot, arguing with them about the jacked-up rates and the fuckin’ damage to several of the bikes from their careless handling.
The lot backed down pretty quick and gave the two presidents what they wanted by way of cut rates to pretend some of the damage didn’t happen. Our shop would take care of it, no problem, for the cost of parts. It was the least we could do.
