Have Gun, Will Travel (The Bare Bones MC #5)(3)
She’d introduced me to patch holders in the club. I really liked the atmosphere, the camaraderie of hanging around the club. It made me feel part of a group again, like I was replacing my old family with a new one. It was Cassie’s entire life. She didn’t want to be a pass-around forever, either. She was one of dozens all vying to be The One for Harte Saxonberg. I had to admit he was adorable, manly, and charming as hell, but I was satisfied with the strict discipline of my own Sir. The club was my family, not my sex life.
“We’ll get that motherf*cker,” I told Cassie now. “He can’t just run around slashing up women like that.” But I wasn’t convinced we would get Tormenta, not with the reaction, or lack of, that I’d just witnessed.
At long last, a pair of male engineer boots came stomping down the hallway. Just one guy, by himself. But it was better than nothing.
He spoke to Brenda outside in the hall. Of course it was Harte, the only one with enough balls to defy Tormenta. “What the f*ck? I just got back from the building supply store and I see Tony Tormenta blazing out of here with blood all over his f*cking shirt. Navarro told me to come back here. What the hell happened?”
Not waiting for an answer, Harte pushed his way into the small, dark room. His hand hit the wall switch, but the bare fluorescent bulb above only made the scene look even gruesomer, if such a thing was possible. His adorable Cupid-shaped mouth was now an O, and fire flashed in his eyes when he looked at Cassie. Brenda squeaked past Harte and set the bowl of water down next to me.
His voice was aghast. “What…the…” Then he collected himself, and shouted. “What was Tormenta’s excuse for doing this?”
Rhetta made a lip fart. “She bit his winky dinky, apparently.”
“By accident,” added Brenda.
“Well, shit happens!” Harte cried, logically. “He gets this f*cking postal over a bitten dick? This is beyond f*cking outrageous! And no one came to your aid?” Wiping his face with his hand, he paced in circles.
“No one!” I snapped. As I patted the trickles of blood from Cassie’s face, I could see that luckily none of them were terribly deep. But she’d be horribly scarred for life if Madison Illuminati couldn’t come up with some sort of plastic surgery for her—which I was sure Maddy could. “What is wrong with you f*cking people? The bar is packed with patch holders, yet you’re the only ones with balls enough to come down the hallway?” I could afford to snap at a member of the MC. I wasn’t a sweetbutt. I had no stake in this. I just hated to see my friend injured.
“Not one person came to assist you? That’s it, man, that’s f*cking it.” Harte started back into the hallway, but he ran into another solid pillar of a man. I could only see the silhouette of the guy, but I could easily hear their pissed-off words.
Harte yelled, “What’s the f*cking meaning of this, Dad? You let that Tormenta * get away with something like this and don’t lift a f*cking finger? I don’t care if she bit his ding-dong clean off, there’s no f*cking excuse for this sort of shit!”
“Let me see,” Leo Saxonberg said gruffly, shoving past his hulk of a son.
Leo took a look at us crammed into the corner of the room. He blinked once, then returned to the hallway. Even he couldn’t look. His voice was lower now, mumbling. “Listen, Harte. You know how important my connection with Tormenta is. Let’s just keep this under the radar for now and not make a big f*cking stink about it. She’ll get better and forget all about it. Get her a gift certificate for a spa treatment or something down in Pure and Easy. Send her to some vortexes.”
“Vortices,” Harte said hotly, his jaw tight. “And her injuries aren’t going to be helped by any woo-woo spa treatment, Dad. That anusbrain cut her good. I can’t imagine a woman doing anything to warrant such f*cking treatment.”
Leo put his hands on Harte’s shoulders. “I know, I know, Harte. It’s inexcusable behavior and so on. But you gotta understand Tony. That’s the world he lives in, the circles he moves in. That’s the sort of shit they do. I’m sure you’ve heard the story of how they took Roman Serpico’s father’s face and plastered it onto a soccer ball.”
What? That was Roman Serpico’s father who was turned into a sporting good? Roman was the newest member of the Pure and Easy Red Rocks Original chapter, where it’d all started. He’d transferred there when the Tucson clubhouse had blown up. I could easily see the former rocker—and hitman-in-training—Roman go on the warpath against Tormenta once he heard about his latest stunt. But according to Missy, he was on his honeymoon with Gudrun McGill. Maybe Harte would take up our cause. He’d been known to go against his father. He wasn’t just a brainless, mindless robot following his father’s orders. That was yet another attractive thing about Harte. He was his own man.
“Of course I’ve f*cking heard that, and I f*cking believe it, Dad. That’s why we’ve got to put a stop to this *. He’s out of control. Can’t you keep your business arrangements with him but not let him near our f*cking clubhouse?”
Leo shook his head with certainty. “No. No. No, I can’t, Harte. You know how it goes. It’s the reaching out. It’s the courtesy between associates. It’s the common hospitality we show each other when we visit each other’s backyards. When I go down to Tucson on business, Tormenta hooks me up with a f*cking time I’ll never forget.”