Biker’s Collar: Property of Scrap (Rebel Barbarians MC #6)

Chapter 6 – Scrap

Six

Scrap

Present Day

I glare down at the best sex of my life as she gives me a wide-eyed, terrified look. I wonder if she thinks I’m affiliated with the bastards who brought her here, or if she just remembers the night we had together – and how she fucked me up completely. Deacon notices the recognition between us. Even Abraham stares at her, even in a room of half-naked women, all our eyes are on hers.

Vickie.

Deacon gives me a look that says, “We’ll address this later,” and then he turns to Abraham with a cold, expressionless face. I can tell what he’s about to do, but Abraham seems ignorant of Deacon’s hand shuffling around in his pocket before producing his vice.

Deacon slams the entire baggie of powder against his chest. “Finish it.”

“That’s at least two days’ supply.”

“And it’s all yours,” Deacon says. “Don’t wander off too far.”

Dorn looks at him almost hopefully. His eyes are almost crystal clear, his pupils tiny fucking dots. “You won’t kill me?”

“No buddy. I won’t shoot you,” Deacon says. “Now go on somewhere and thank the Lord for all that he’s provided.”

I help Abraham out of the room and shut the door behind him. He won’t get far and if he does, he won’t be too hard to hunt down. Addicts are predictable. Vickie doesn’t take her eyes off me, but I don’t need to look at her right now. Deacon releases a sigh and glances around the room.

“Three of them look Indian. Oske will be happy,” Deacon says.

Three Indians, two white women, and two black women. The other black woman is a little smaller than Vickie – shorter and skinnier.

“Care to tell me where the fuck these women came from?” I ask Deacon, but really there’s only one woman I need answers about.

I look at Vickie again. This woman robbed me and ran off, so the last place I expected to see her ass was tied up in a fucking desert warehouse. That woman kicked me when I was down on one of the worst nights of my life. Just seeing her activates my darkest desires for revenge.

“Steel’s new wife had this ex-husband involved with buying and selling women to the Midnight SS biker gang… Southpaw wants us to put a bunch of them in the ground and interrupt this trade route. Once we get these women out of here, we wear their jackets and impersonate a few Nazis for a meetup tonight.”

Clearly, we don’t have to worry about these women ratting us out. They seem appropriately nervous that we’re talking so frankly in front of them. It would be smarter for me to take one of the white girls – the plump, excessively plain one who looks like a ‘Kelsey’ would be appropriately submissive. Shit, I could train her to respond to Kelsey like a dog if I wanted to. Doesn’t matter what her name is.

Unfortunately, I blew up my ability to think straight the first time I won big at a poker table. My dad gave me a five dollar poker chip when I was seventeen. I escaped the clubhouse with my older brother after the club meeting and that five dollars was just enough to sit at my first ever table.

I won $6,000. For a kid to win six grand off a five dollar bet does something to him. I got completely fucked up in the head from it, incapable of looking at a poker table without remembering how good it felt to win that big. Vickie reminds me of the only thing that feels just as good at winning big. The taboo rush of losing everything.

She looks away from me now pointedly, like she’s sure of who I am and thinks there’s a chance at hiding.

“Are we letting them go?”

“Southpaw didn’t mention what happens to them next,” Deacon says. “We give back the Indians, that much I know but… I don’t know about the rest. Why?”

“Doesn’t matter. We’ll do what my brother wants tonight. Get through this meetup… worry about it after that.”

“We’re not gonna sell them,” Deacon says. “So you have nothing to worry about ladies. Nothing to worry about at all.”

I don’t blame the women for not seeming completely comforted by Deacon’s reassurance. Times like this, Oske would be a good person to have around. I can’t believe I’m saying that, but it’s true. If Vickie is proof of anything, it’s proof that I’m no good with women.

Just because we’re not gonna sell them doesn’t mean moving eight women across the country is safe or legal. They don’t have documents as far as I know, unless the situation Deacon discussed about Ryder’s wife somehow led to us getting the documents.

I’m glad Deacon Hollingsworth takes the lead here. I’d rather be the muscle than the club mouthpiece and I’d rather be sitting at a poker table instead of doing any of that.

He explains to the women that they will soon experience their rights and freedoms, but he has to take care of the bastards that did this to them. He makes them swear to God that they won’t do anything stupid when we cut them loose. I work on freeing all of them from their binds with my knife, sawing away at the tight ropes and giving these young women — some of whom look like girls instead of women — relief.

I leave Vickie for last. She doesn’t look me in the eye as I cut her free and I don’t acknowledge that I know her or what happened between us. Currently, I have more important shit to worry about. But I’ll get to Vickie. Best she thinks of herself as scot-free for a while before I piss in her cornflakes.

Once they’re free, Deacon calls the Indian girls over. They all look around at each other. They still don’t trust us.

“Listen, do you see either of us tatted up in that weird Nazi shit?”

The tallest of the Indian girls glares at him. “What about that guy who brought you here?”

“If we’re lucky, he’ll be dead,” Deacon says. “Any more questions? Now, a woman named Oske went through a lot of trouble to get you free. If you want her to leave my balls intact… you’ll come with me.”

That statement leads me to believe Oske might have actually made a direct threat. The only thing that crazy Indian girl loves more than smoking weed is threatening to chop mens’ balls off.

“He won’t hurt you,” I add, hoping my words help. “We’re just trying to help.”

I swear Vickie makes a strange noise, but I don’t pay her any attention. I convince myself that I’m just imagining things. Vickie might not be convinced that we mean well, but when the tall girl stands next to Rage, also known as Deacon Hollingsworth, and the other two follow.

“Names,” Rage says. The Hollingsworth boys were raised to be businessmen – always smooth and calm, strangely reassuring, even when you suspect manipulation of some kind.

The tall woman says, “I’m Tayanita. That’s Yoki and Meli.”

He nods, mentally cataloging their names, although they aren’t very long, it’s hard to remember how the unusual syllables all fit together. Yoki. Meli. Hm. Rage gives it to the girls straight.

“We’ll take you to Oske first. I’ll send Scrap back with a truck for the rest of you. Stay put. It’s still 85 out there and you don’t have a drop of water or any ability to survive. You run… you’re dead.”

I look at Vickie, because if there’s one person in this room who I already know would ignore that warning, it’s her. But she’s still looking at the ground, like pretending she doesn’t recognize me will change her situation. No, ma’am. This is your worst goddamn nightmare. The man you fucked and robbed five years ago is back… and by the end of the tonight, he will have total control over every aspect of your life.

… As long as Southpaw agrees. And why wouldn’t he agree to what I want? I’ve done everything he has ever asked for the club and never asked for anything in return. He dangled me over the flames of our shared vice like it was nothing. The least he could do is give me some reward.

The Indian girls don’t talk as we leave the warehouse. They’re looking around like we are for signs of Abraham Dorn. We see him leaning against an oil drum outside the warehouse. Asleep. Dead. Or somewhere in between. The girls stare at him solemnly until Deacon opens the back of the truck and they pile in. I join him in the front seat.

“Mind telling me where the fuck we’re going?”

“Oske has a safe house ten miles from here.”

“She has a lot of fucking houses for a chick always asking for money.”

One of the girls’ in the back seat stifles a laugh, which most likely means she knows Oske and therefore knows exactly what the hell I’m talking about.

“Your brother gave it to her.”

“Southpaw…”

“Not that brother,” Deacon says. “The other one.”

“Is he fucking her?”

“Isn’t she your sister or something?”

“It’s Ethan. He would fuck a couch.”

Deacon laughs. “No, he’s not fucking her. She’s working for him on some private venture. Just our luck we have a place to stash these lovely ladies.”

The lovely ladies are paying close attention. Yoki whispers something to Tayanita and she pipes up, “When you bring us to Oske… how are we going to get back home?”

“All in good time,” Deacon says. “All in good time. But trust me ladies… we’ll be sending you home. Especially if you are anything like Oske.”

Deacon seems to know where the fuck we’re going. I’m surprised that I see Oske waiting outside when we get there. Whenever Oske does something predictable, she surprises me. She hops off the porch steps once she sees the truck and starts waving her hands like crazy. I wasn’t there when Deacon met Oske, but judging by his red face and instant tension, he at least finds her stressful to be around.

“Here comes trouble.”

Before Deacon pulls the truck to a complete stop, Yoki, Tayanita, and Meli jump out of the backseat and go running straight towards Oske with their arms outstretched. They screech so loudly that I swear these women nearly blow my eardrum out.

“HEY!” Deacon yells over the ladies’ greeting. “I need to send Scrap back out for the rest of the girls. We need the other truck keys so he can get the other women out of there. Hurry your ass up.”

Oske ignores him until she’s done planting kisses on cheeks. Deacon yells her name sharply and she reaches into her pocket for a set of keys and throws them at Deacon’s head. I know she can throw better than that. Deacon catches the keys despite Oske’s effort to get him right in the head.

“I’ll take them inside,” Oske says. “Text me when you need something.”

“I’ll need something later tonight when I’m done putting Midnight SS in the ground.”

Oske looks him up and down with a disgusted look on her face. “That had better not be something suggestive.”

“Christ, Oske. I wouldn’t be attracted to your manly ass if you were the last chick on earth. You know I mean pork ribs from that barbecue place. Just drive them over to my place and drop them in the fridge.”

“My name is Oske, not DoorDash.”

“Really? I thought DoorDash was your Indian name.”

“If you’re going to be racist, you should at least make an effort to be funny.”

“Will you just get the fucking pork ribs before they close and put them in my fridge?”

They argue over the pork ribs for five more minutes. My mind wanders back to Vickie. Back to the dead body. Back to all the shit we have to deal with.

“ENOUGH WITH THE RIBS.”

They both look at me. Stunned. Times like this I remember that I look just like my brothers and I’m only the so-called gentle giant because I choose to be. Because when I let go and give in to my dark urges, I turn into someone I hate. Someone worse than Wyatt and Ethan combined. Someone most people have never seen.

Oske looks at me like I have two heads.

“Damn. Is he into one of the women or something?”

“Shut up, Oske. Just tell me where the truck is so I can get this job done.”