Queen of Clubs Read online

  Queen of Clubs

  Luna Maye

  Copyright © 2020 by Luna Maye

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  1

  Mina

  Mina Corsi’s whole body felt warm, tingly and loose. Her heavy, dark curls caressed the back of her neck gently in the cooling, early summer breeze, and she felt a little fuzzy, like everything around her was manufactured for some sun-soaked movie set and she was just a bystander.

  “Hold on just one freaking second.” Mina was never warm or fuzzy. Happiness was an achievement not an emotion, something she earned through blood and sweat, not a byproduct of summer breezes or fluffy feelings. “Isabel! What the hell did you put in this shit?”

  “Shelli said we were being ‘classy ladies’ tonight and handed me a recipe but we didn’t have half the stuff on it so I had to improvise.” An eye roll and some air quotes accompanied her classy ladies reference as Isabel yelled back from clear on the other end of the table. The heels of her black shit kickers were planted firmly on the table top and a lit cigarette dangled from two fingers, the rest wrapped precariously around the stem of a wine glass filled to the brim with sangria, the same sangria sloshing in Mina’s own glass. As she watched, the other woman proceeded to take an enormous bite of an overstuffed taco and attempt to talk around it, gulping down swallows of her drink as she went.

  “That Ina chick wanted all these fancy things like locally sourced pomegranate juice and cog-nack — everything was measured in weird spoonfuls.”

  “It’s freaking cone-yack Isabel, ugh!” Shelli had excellent hearing even from deep in her kitchen-cave. Mina wondered if it was from years of practice or if she was more in tune tonight because she knew someone was bound to ruin the elegant atmosphere she’d dreamt up for this party.

  “So, I just dumped a bottle of wine with some juice we had laying around and mixed it with a bottle of tequila, and wah-la,” Isabel continued, unfazed. She threw her hands up in the air, letting them thump heavily down on the table, a little of the strange concoction going flying, a few droplets settling on the stone patio under her feet. Oh well, at least they were outside.

  Normally Mina’s own poison of choice would be something a bit harder — straight tequila or a stout whiskey, but the half empty glass of sangria she was now dangling from her own fingers was definitely getting the job done, plus it was tastier, even if she didn’t want to admit it.

  She wasn’t going to feel the least bit guilty about her drink choice, table manners, pronunciations or loose lips, not when they were all together to celebrate an anniversary.

  Five years ago, Mina, Shelli and Isabel left their respective motorcycle clubs, packed up their few belongings and rode to what was then an abandoned adobe hacienda deep in the Chama river valley to start a new life and a new club, the Hellacious Honeys MC.

  Mina leaned back in her chair studying Isabel across the table. Tonight she looked at ease, still smoking like a freight train, but the empty, soulless look in her eyes had eased, bit-by-bit over the years. When the trio first arrived at their new home, Shelli’s body was broken, Isabel’s spirit was shattered and Mina was just bone-deep weary of the world. The other ten women lining the table tonight arrived in much the same shape over the years, as the Honeys gained a reputation for welcoming runaways, retiring club girls, trafficking survivors and anyone else who found themselves on the wrong side of a one percenter MC.

  Like any self-respecting New Mexican would, Mina had chosen to celebrate with a family style feast. Platters of tamales, al pastor tacos, chile rellenos and a mountain of side dishes were laid out along the long, worn outdoor dining table in the courtyard. Shelli insisted they fancy it up a bit with supplies from her catering business. The table settings, food and decorations were all delicate and professional, even if the attendees themselves were not.

  She slumped a little more, settling in her seat and kicking one of her legs over the side of her rattan chair pushed back from the head of the table. Head tipped back, her thick dark curls cushioning the curve of her neck against the chair, she looked up at the stars and sighed. It felt good to just relax for a minute.

  A flash of white speeding past her chair caught her gaze and she rolled her eyes — the poor woman just couldn’t sit still and enjoy herself like everybody else. She reached a hand out and gently snagged her wrist and she moved past, intent on getting her friend to take a break.

  “Shelli, you have got to relax and rejoin the party. It won’t kill any of these girls to grab their own refills from the kitchen — I thought you had hired servers tonight anyway.”

  Shelli turned with a smile and dropped heavily into her chair at Mina’s right side, popping the pitcher and chips onto the table on her way down. Her catering service was one of many small businesses operated by the Honeys and usually her calendar was booked solid either by the fancy hunting resort just outside of town or by one of the event venues in nearby Espanola. Tonight however, she cleared her schedule to make their celebratory feast.

  “I had servers, but one of the guys from town called in sick at the last minute. I swear that’s the last one I’ll hire, every time I make an exception for a local guy they end up flaking on me.”

  Every Honeys member had complicated sentiments toward men and none more so than Shelli. Her club in Albuquerque had been rivals with Mina’s and the two women knew each other in passing, mostly secretly to protect themselves from club retaliation. But Shelli’s situation within her club was far different than Mina’s own. Where she had a mutually beneficial partnership with her guys in which she was given room, board and a receptionist job at a club business in exchange for being available for the brother’s sexual needs in the evening and early morning hours, Shelli had been delivered into her club as a part of a human trafficking ring and the members chose to keep her rather than moving her on to the next destination. The years of physical and mental abuse had nearly crushed her friend’s sweet, maternal spirit, at least until Mina became the owner of her property and convinced her battered friend to start a new life for women like them out in the valley, where they could finally have some peace.

  Shelli leaned back in her chair, sipping on one of her famous jalapeno peach margaritas and sighed. Her auburn hair was back in a thick braid and as usual when she was working she had on a white chef’s jacket, buttoned all the way up her neck. Mina knew that while Shelli swore she wore the jacket on the job to be professional, it was more of a security blanket to help her maintain her identity and cover up the small circular cigarette burns littering her arms.

  “You know, I think everything was just wonderful tonight, Mina, you should be proud of all of this,” Shelli said as she watched the other women joke and giggle, the sweet flowing drinks loosening their inhibitions for a little while.

  Mina was proud. She never dreamt herself capable of leading her own motorcycle club, much less operating as many successful businesses as the Honeys owned all along with maintaining the hundred acres that surrounded their little compound. But over the last few years, the building of the club was far from the peaceful utopia it was tonight. Most of the women Mina took in were either damaged beyond recognition or wild and spoiling for a fight, not to mention that each came with baggage. She had been forced to harden up, both with her girls and with other clubs. As her reputation for being cold and calculating grew, she gladly fueled the rumors run around by rival clubs — her proclivity for knives, her strict stance on illegal activity, her willingness to call in appropriate authorities — all became an effective barrier against the outside world. And while there was a speck of truth in every story told, she pushed her persona to greater heights hoping that one day, they could all be here, be safe and be themselves, exactly like tonight.

  Mina caught movement toward the edge of the courtyard and frowned. One of the newer girls, Tara, had been acting a little abnormal. She kept herself on the fringe of most of their gatherings and seemed to slip out as soon as things died down. Tonight she was in a hurry, her movements quick and furtive as she scampered back to the small two-room adobe she shared with Isabel. When she turned to enter the door, her eyes met Mina’s across the courtyard and she paled, shrinking under her president’s calculating gaze.

  Shelli saw Mina’s scrutiny on the girl and she sighed. “I don’t know what’s going on with her Mina, but I would keep an eye on it. She’s been off the last two weeks and I think she’s hiding something. A few of the other girls have seen her on the back of some guy’s bike around town but she never brings him out here.”

  “I just hope she isn’t using again,” Mina s
aid. She had a strict anti-drug policy and any woman hoping to join the Honeys had to maintain their sobriety for at least a year before she would even consider taking them on. Tara just barely passed the 365-day deadline when she was voted in officially a month ago.

  “I’ll be sure to keep an eye on her, but let me know if you hear anything else,” Mina said, giving her friend a smile as they stood and began to clear the table. With everyone pitching in, they made quick work of the chore and the women headed toward their various rooms and smaller houses scattered around the large courtyard.

  Mina surveyed the grounds as they left, checking the locking mechanisms on the four automated iron gates placed opposite each other in the thick adobe walls. Each of her girls had a different, unique access code embedded in a keycard in order for them to keep track of who came and went, and when. It was a necessary precaution, especially in the early days of the club. Lately, they had all been able to rest a bit easier.

  Her nightly survey of the grounds was a semi-silent walk unless she was accompanied by Shelli or Isabel, but it gave her a chance to evaluate the compound’s weaknesses and give each of her girls a few minutes where she focused on what she could do to make their lives a little bit better. At the main building she reminded herself to check on Sara, making sure that her ex-ol’ man was still safely behind bars and Stacy was nearing the anniversary of her sister’s death. She’d be sure to send flowers when that day came around in two weeks.

  When everyone was safely squared away, Mina finished her tour around the perimeter and trudged up the metal staircase to her apartment on the second story of the main building. Her unit was small but cozy, with a kitchenette, a large open bathroom, and a single bedroom with a wide balcony. It was definitely more spacious and more hers than anything she had ever had before. Moving in to the bedroom she let her hair out of the clip that held back a few of her curls and pulled off the denim cutoffs she wore to the party, leaving on her beat-up black concert t-shirt and slipping her bra out through one shirtsleeve.

  After a quick trip to the bathroom, she crawled up into her large canopied bed and settled quietly down into her fresh white sheets, her mind still rolling over the events of the evening frame by frame. She couldn’t shut off her concern for the other women, her need to ensure perfection, even when everything was going perfectly to plan.

  The whole celebration had gone off well. At times it felt like the last few years were just a series of unfortunate events. Just one foe to fend off, one girl to save after another. While she hoped five years marked the turning point for the Honeys, she couldn’t be sure.

  She tried to settle in and breathed deeply of the lavender plants resting in their pots out on her balcony, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that something big was coming. Call it intuition or déjà vu, but she just knew with sinking certainty, that change was on the horizon.

  2

  Victor

  As his truck sped over the horizon, Victor Gomez recognized that he had officially hit the road trip wall. His tolerance for speeding kept creeping exponentially higher, his contentment with a singular radio station was flagging and if he hadn’t known it was medically impossible, he would have sworn he had a cramp in his left nut.

  It was probably just a combination of his stationary position in the driver’s seat and the too-tight jeans a buddy had loaned him to flesh out his nearly non-existent civilian wardrobe. He breathed a sigh of relief as he caught sight of the county line sign marking him one step closer to his destination.

  Honestly, he was only 70 percent sure that was the right county line sign anyway. Even with his near-military grade satellite GPS, property lines in this valley were hard to pin down. He just hoped he made it to his destination without pissing off any of the locals and that it actually existed —buying a desert air strip on craigslist had been a gut decision. The same kind of risky, soul deep knowing that had led all his squadmates to christen him Geronimo after a difficult jump during their first mission, later in his career landed his shrapnel pierced body in an Iranian hospital and eventually led him to the poufy behemoth in his back seat.

  He chuckled a little, raising his eyes to watch his furry companion in the rearview mirror. Andy helped himself to more than his fair share of space, propping his head on Victor’s lone duffle bag and leaving the rest of his fluffy white body elevated off the seat on top of a mountain of plush dog toys.

  “You’re excited about our next adventure, aren’t you buddy? Anything with a little more room to run and you’ll be happy.”

  Victor recognized he had a weakness for the hairy critter, who had been his first purchase once he got back stateside. Without a job or his squad he felt a little listless, so much so that when his roommate came home from a late shift and found him devouring a half gallon of ice cream at midnight, he suggested he find a new hobby or a pet.

  When Victor stepped out of his truck at the animal shelter, he saw the plush outline of Andy, pacing in his cage, and he just knew, immediately, he was the dog for him. His mom and five sisters had always called that “knowing” women’s intuition but that moniker was a poor fit for his stocky over-six-foot frame, so he had always referred to it as his gut instinct, and those gut-deep feelings had never, ever led him astray.

  Victor grunted as he was jostled almost out of his seat by the rutted gravel road. The last 40 miles of his journey had been gravel and the next ten leading up to his destination would be dirt. The rock-crawler style suspension he’d installed on his truck served him well thus far, but the enclosed trailer he hauled behind it wasn’t as well equipped for the rocky terrain. Plus, it was carrying precious cargo — his small white and yellow Cessna made the journey with him as the first in what he hoped would become a small fleet of planes at this new airstrip.

  His exit from the Air Force had been sudden and swift, one minute he had greater purpose and the next, he had a six-inch long scar along his spine and a one-way ticket back to civilian life. The first week on his own was the most isolated experience of his life, it was difficult to find the willpower to get out of bed in the morning, much less accomplish anything productive. When he found Andy, he knew he needed a bigger, better home for the giant dog, one where he could have room to roam. The airstrip in the Chama Valley had come up for sale at just the right time. Victor enjoyed his time in pararescue training at Kirtland, in Albuquerque and he needed a change of scenery from the base town in Georgia, so he’d made a deal, put the funds in escrow and begun the great American road trip.

  As he came over the final rise, he was pleasantly surprised to see his new property stretching out in front of him, exactly like the pictures. A tall chain link fence surrounded the house, a small hangar and the airstrip, with about 100 more acres of red dirt and bushy sagebrush around it. The landing strip was bumpy and patchy even from a distance, but the hangar looked stable and strong. The house was a small three-bedroom adobe with a little courtyard out back. If the overgrown and cracked planters out back were any indication, it hadn’t seen a human occupant in some time.

  When he pulled into the lot and parked, Andy perked up in the backseat, suddenly wide awake and ready for action.

  “Just hold on a second buddy, I’ve gotta check the fence first.”

  Victor climbed out of the truck, skipping the step as he hopped straight down to the ground, shutting the door quickly behind him. He hitched his jeans back down to a reasonable crotch level and stretched his back out before walking the perimeter fence, shutting the gates across the runway at either end and opening the bay doors on the hangar so he could get his baby settled in for the night.

  Victor returned to the truck and let Andy out to wander, cautioning him about the cactus littering the yard and knowing it would do no good. The poor dog had never seen a cactus before, so he was sure he’d be picking spines out of him before the night was over.